Best Comic of the Week:
Deep Cuts #4 – This comic is very late – I think it was supposed to come out in the spring or early summer – but it was very much worth the wait. Deep Cuts is a series of one-off prestige format comics about jazz, co-written by Kyle Higgins and Joe Clark. Each issue has featured the work of a different artist, with this issue made by the incredible Ramón K. Peréz. It uses the framing of oral history interviews taking place decades after the scenes depicted, telling the story of Dorian Emmaus, a stupendously talented trumpet player, and the guys he would play with. Dorian was special, both in terms of his talent and his odd personal traits, and as the story unfolds, we learn a lot about Dorian’s life, his incarceration, and his attempt to pull things back together once he was free. The different narrators show us different takes on the same moments, and slowly the reader gets to piece everything together. Peréz uses a couple of different styles in telling this story, which helps separate time periods, and generally reminds us that he’s one of the best character-driven artists in the business. I like that one of the characters from the last issue turns up in this one, and am so happy to see this book back on the stands. I love that it brings together two things I love very much, comics and jazz, and gives me the opportunity to think about both differently, while portraying the jazz world without resorting to easy stereotypes or tropes. The next issue is drawn by Juni Ba, and that has me pretty excited. I hope it’s not months before it comes out.
Quick Takes:
Abbott 1979 #3 – I’m really enjoying this latest Abbott miniseries, which shows Elena starting to make moves against the Umbra, the dark forces that are perhaps partially responsible for the ongoing collapse of Detroit. I love how writer Saladin Ahmed ties the supernatural into historical events, and shows the city as a character in the story. It’s surprising to me that Sami Kivelä is not getting more attention, as his art is really exceptional; he makes Elena feel like a real person.
Antarctica #7 – I’m still not too clear on what’s happening in this second arc of Antarctica. Hannah, our main character (and, with so many realities, our consistent antagonist too) appears to be a young girl, brought to the Antarctic research station by her father and made to live in a simulacrum of her life, although in this issue she escapes. What’s not clear is if this is something that happened in Hannah Prime’s past, or if this is currently happening in an alternate world. I feel like the next issue will explain things, so I don’t mind the mystery lasting a little while longer.
Avengers #9 – It’s an all-action issue, as the Avengers fight these Twilight Court villains, who are not at all interesting. This is the second team of pretty generically weird antagonists Jed MacKay has had the team go up against, and if I’m being honest, they aren’t all that interesting. MacKey keeps the action moving, and guest artist Francisco Mortarino keeps up very well, but I want a little more to this series. I’m surprised, given how much I’m enjoying MacKay on Moon Knight and Doctor Strange…
Batman and Robin #5 – Damian has enrolled in high school, mostly because he believes his former instructor is the new villain Shush, and that she’s the principal of the school. It gives Joshua Williamson another chance to explore Damian’s personality and how he interacts with other kids his age (which is what I enjoyed most about Williamson’s recent Robin series). The story is kind of light, but enjoyable, especially since the other Bat-books are so dark right now. The art, by Nikola Čižmešija, is pretty nice, and fits with the look Simone Di Meo established for the title.
Captain Marvel #4 – Carol and Yuna make an attempt to steal a magic box from a fortress in the Negative Zone, with the idea that it might help them get free of one another, but along the way, they run into some resistance. I’m liking what Alyssa Wong is doing with this book, but like her Doctor Aphra run that I ended up loving, this is starting a little slowly for me, and I haven’t really connected with her take on Carol yet. I’m hoping it comes soon.
Fishflies #4 – Jeff Lemire’s rural take on Kafka’s Metamorphosis gets more serious this issue, as Francis and her insect friend go on the run, we learn that the cop in charge of the town might lose his job, the hurt kid’s mother starts to learn how the flies are related to everything, and some guy with a hook for a hand gets involved. Lemire has more happening in this series than it looked like at the beginning, and I’m interested in seeing what his plans are.
Giant-Size Spider-Man #1 – This was a giant-size disappointment. When I read the solicitations, I was going to skip this one-shot that has Miles fighting Venom because of my symbiote-disdain, but then decided that I should grab it, because it’s written by Cody Ziglar, Miles’s regular writer, and has art by Iban Coello, whose work on Fantastic Four is impressing me. But then, when I read this, I learned that the story is being used to set up the Gang War stuff that has already been running for a couple of issues, and that the Giant-Size story is really only twenty pages (so a regular-size comic), with the rest of the issue being a reprint of an old Bendis/Pichelli Ultimate story. So I basically paid three extra dollars for a comic I already have, which, if I’m being brutally honest, just reminded me that I’m not liking Miles’s book as much now as I did back in the day. I’m going to be keeping away from any of these other scheduled Giant-Size one offs if this is the model for them all.
Green Lantern #7 – Because I haven’t read much Green Lantern since the Geoff Johns days, I didn’t realize that the whole quarantine of Sector 2814 was a recent development. With this issue, Jeremy Adams backs up a bit and shows us just how Hal got kicked out of the Corps, and explains Kilowog’s fate. It’s helpful to get some of this stuff filled in, but I still have the same issues with this title that I did before (i.e., I don’t like Hal very much). It’s cool to see Amancay Nahuelpan’s art here – I’ve been following his career since he started out at Black Mask.
Kaya #14 – Kaya and Jin are in a town that’s been rocked by regime change and rebel resistance, searching for a girl so her uncle will take them where they want to go. They find a lot happening here – anti-human sentiment, and Atrian robot advisors to the king they installed. This issue has a lot of action, and Wes Craig uses it to further suggest that there are big problems with Jin’s new magic powers. This series remains a delight – excellent character development, interesting settings, and fantastic art. I really like it.
Miles Morales: Spider-Man #15 – Miles continues his fight with Hobgoblin, gathering a small team, and learning what his uncle is doing in the traditional Prowler costume. I am not reading any other Gang War books, so appreciate that this is mostly self-contained. I’m not disliking Cody Ziglar’s time on this book, but I do often find the art hard to follow, and in a few places, kind of hard to see, as the colours are pretty muddy. I’m about ready for the tie-ins to run their course and the book to get back to focusing on Miles’s life.
Outsiders #3 – I’m starting to really dig this Outsiders series. Writers Lanzing and Kelly are channeling the old Planetary series through a Bat-lens, as Kate and Luke go investigate a meta-narrative world, or something of the like, and find a manor full of alternate Batmen and Batwomen. The story seems to be poking fun at how much DC relies on Batman stories, while also being one, but it also helps further develop some of the mysteries of this series. Robert Carey’s art fits the darkness of the title well, and I enjoyed the various alternate hero designs. I definitely want to know more about this book, and am liking it a lot more than anything else Lanzing and Kelly have written lately.
Rise of the Powers of X #1 – As we move towards the end of the Krakoan era, Kieron Gillen has this series as a space to both mirror the way Jonathan Hickman kicked things off, and to address some of the big plotlines of his work, namely the clones of Nathaniel Essex, and their desire to achieve Dominion status as an AI god-like being. This issue is not something that could be handed to a new reader, but it’s pretty interesting. We see, ten years from now, the final stand of an X-team trying to stop Orchis’s plans, but we also learn what a couple of key characters are doing outside of time and space to achieve their own ends. It’s a complicated book, but it has my attention. I will go on record saying that I hope they don’t just reset the timeline to erase the Krakoan era at the end of all of this. I hate cop-out endings, and expect better from Gillen, Gerry Duggan, and the rest of the crew (especially given the consequences that would have on all other Marvel titles).
The Sacrificers #6 – As Rick Remender and Max Fiumara end their first story arc, they hit us with a few big surprises or twists. The pigeon finally meets Soluna, the daughter of the sun and moon, rescuing her from her torturer, but things shift fast on them. This book has been wildly creative and could, perhaps, be read as a metaphor for the upcoming American election, with its likely battle between two very old men. It’s a really great story that is going on hiatus for a few months, which should give new readers the chance to get caught up. I recommend it.
Speed Force #3 – I’ll admit that I’m getting older, and might be losing touch with youth culture, but I’m struggling with this series, and I don’t think it’s because I’m not the target audience. I feel like a lot of the writing in this book is cringey (to use a word that’s fallen out of favour) and a little too forced. Wallace and Avery continue to try to figure out what’s going on with a new music app, although they still haven’t really caught on that it’s the problem. I’m not sure why this is called Speed Force when so many younger (and formerly younger) DC characters wander through the pages. The story is kind of messy, and having four artists on this issue alone doesn’t help. I like a lot of these characters a great deal, and it’s great to see so many of the Teen Titans Academy students get used again, if only for a panel, but this book is kind of broken.
Star Wars #42 – Luke returns to see his friend Gretta, and to explore the idea of ‘healing’ a red kyber crystal of the influence of the Sith within it. I guess as the story gets closer to the point where Return of the Jedi begins, Charles Soule has to get Luke trained and ready in a hurry, and this does seem like a good way to do that. It’s a decent issue, although I was looking forward to see Lando Calrissian’s trial.
Subgenre #3 – I’d noticed when this series began, that it was referencing a number of Matt Kindt’s previous series at Dark Horse, but with this issue, it’s laid bare just how interconnected all of his work has been, going back to Revolver! and The Perfect Spy. Kindt loves to play with genre, and with this issue, we see that V, the main character of this series, is able to jump between worlds, with sometimes terrible results that he’s not always aware of. I love when writers construct their own interconnected universes – this is what comics were made for – and Kindt’s done a great job of laying out clues over the years. This issue, with great Wilfredo Torres art, is pretty cool.
Transformers #4 – As Daniel Warren Johnson puts more and more personality into the various Transformers, I find myself getting more and more interested in their story. I like that there are so few of them currently active, and that their lack of Energon makes the prospect of reviving more of them impossible. Johnson’s art was the draw to this series for me, but his writing is as good here as it has been in his other series. My lack of Transformer knowledge has not hampered my enjoyment of this book, and I like that I’m starting to relate to the characters more.
Ultimate Spider-Man #1 – I am immediately taken by the idea of Peter Parker getting his abilities as an already grown man, and like how much this makes the current revitalization/revamping of the Ultimate line into the opposite of the original. When Marvel first launched Ultimate comics, it was with a young Peter Parker, and now, Jonathan Hickman and Marco Checchetto are instead giving us a world where heroes that were supposed to exist never actually did (this is not a spoiler if you read Ultimate Invasion and the subsequent one-shot, Ultimate Universe). This issue shows us a Peter who never became a hero, and instead got to grow up with his aunt and uncle. I don’t want to give away any of the things that Hickman has done, but it does make this take more interesting to me than a fourth (if I count Miles Morales) round of watching a teen become a spider-hero. Checchetto is, of course, incredible in this book, giving the everyday scenes a real sense of groundedness, while hinting at more that could come later. Hickman is not always the best at making writers care about his characters, but there’s enough familiar mixed in with the new that you feel a kinship to Peter from the very beginning. I especially like the way Ben Parker and J. Jonah Jameson are portrayed in this issue. I was kind of hoping I could skip the Ultimate line, but am already pretty intrigued by this book and am likely to stick around (at least as long as Hickman will, which, based on what happened to the X-Men…).
Wolverine #41 – I never read the Sabretooth miniseries that came out over the last couple of years, so was a little surprised to learn that he’s now joined up with a bunch of multiversal counterparts (many of whom don’t appear to have heads – that is something that will need to be explained). The story takes place after the next few issues of X-Force, but before Fall of the House of X, and belies the high level of coordination we’ve grown accustomed to across the X-books the last few years. Still, I guess it’s cool to see Sabretooth go after Wolverine again? At least there’s no acknowledgement of Jeph Loeb’s terrible wolf story. Anyway, this all seems pretty brutal, and like it’s winnowing away a few more characters. I’m not sure why the issue has two artists, but Geoff Shaw’s work is incredible, and I like Cory Smith’s stuff too.
Zorro: Man of the Dead #1 – I love that there is a consistent flow of new Sean Gordon Murphy comics coming from Massive. This is the start of his modernization of the Zorro character, set in a cartel-controlled village in Mexico. Zorro is believed to be a mythical figure in the community, one whom they commemorate every year, until the local boss kills the man playing the role. Now, twenty years later, that man’s daughter works as the drug lord’s driver, without him knowing who she is, and her brother lives in seclusion, training with a sword. When the brother and sister cross paths again, things get a little weird, and we are left wondering if Zorro really is a myth, or if he’s more like Matt Wagner’s Grendel. Murphy is a fantastic artist and very good writer, and this feels like a new take. I did wonder if there wasn’t a bit of appropriation going on, given that Murphy is maybe not the best person to tell this story, but it’s still a compelling story that looks very cool.
The Week In Music:
Carlos Niño & Friends – (I’m Just) Chillin’, On Fire – Carlos Niño had an exceptional year in 2023, as his name started popping up all over the place, largely due to his involvement in Andre 3000’s beautiful flute album, New Blue Sun. Niño has been at the centre of the Los Angeles ambient jazz world for a long time, and it’s nice to see him and his friends get more recognition and more flowers this year. In addition to working with Andre, he put out a beautiful album with South African pianist Thandi Ntuli, and before that, this gorgeous double album, which has taken a long time to get into my hands. The tracks on here are various ambient constructions that have various instruments and sometimes voices floating in and out, while Niño largely twinkles chimes, shakes things, or bangs gently on stuff. His genius is in letting his friends (which include such favourites of mine as Kamasi Washington, Jamael Dean, Thundercat, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Nate Mercereau, Deantoni Parks, Laraaji, and Lionmilk) do their thing. He often chops up their work after the fact to make these constructions, and it’s something I haven’t gotten tired of in the ten plus years I’ve been listening to him. This album is one of his most cohesive though, and makes a fantastic backdrop to whatever you’ve got going on.
