Tales of Gods and Spacemen: FUNNYBOOKSINREVIEWAREGO!!

Two weeks' worth of funnybooks to cover here, one with a decidedly mythological tone, the other with a decidedly science fictiony one. I have no deep point to make with that statement, mind you; I just think it's interesting that those two seemingly disparate approaches hit in such great numbers in such a short period of time, especially considering that the vast majority of the books I'll be talking about here are super hero books. Just goes to show what a weird genre mish-mash super heroes really are, I guess. At any rate... Without further ado... FUNNYBOOKSINREVIEWAREGO!!
Fear Itself #7 (of 7)
by Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen

I'll most likely do a more in-depth look at Fear Itself a bit later, once I've had a chance to sit down and re-read the whole thing. Matt Fraction had a lot of balls in the air here, and this issue was his last chance to catch them all before this whole super-porn juggling act came crashing to its end. I think he managed to snag most of them, if not all, but time will tell. In the meantime, though, I can comment on the merits of this final issue in and of itself...

This series has suffered from an unfortunate lack of emotional immediacy along the way. In fact, I often missed the intended emotional impact of some of the big shocking events in previous issues until I went back over them for review. This final issue alleviates that somewhat, mostly thanks to Captain America. He reaches his point of apotheosis this issue, and it's the emotional tipping point of the series, Marvel's greatest hero rejuvenated by the bravery of his allies, and I'm a big enough sap that I was right there with him. It's a great super hero moment, aided by having this as the exclamation point at the end:

Super-Porn and Other Distractions: Funnybooksinreviewarego!!

Catch-up reviews part two, coming up... now!

Fear Itself #6 (of 7)
by Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen

Most of these big crossover series are, essentially, super hero porn. They're all money shots, big super-fights removed from their normal context of story, of anything with actual emotional resonance. That's why only a few of them in the genre's history really stand up in the long term. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two, in fact: Civil War and Final Crisis. And now, though it's too early to make the call for sure, Fear Itself seems to be shaping up as a third.

Like all super-porn, it's about death and destruction on a grand scale. But unlike most, it's also delivering on the character side. I've discussed the on-going Asgardian family saga before, Odin's grumpy kingly bluster and Thor's noble rage in response. And it's nice to have my reading of Odin confirmed: he's willing to burn a world to the ground just to save his only son from death, but in this issue, Odin's asshole front dissolves in the face of the badly-wounded Thor being brought home for healing. He's still gonna kill us all to stop the Serpent, mind you. But at least he finally explains himself to Thor before the end.

Of course, before that breakdown of kingly resolve happens, we see a chink in the armor. Captain America gets all up in his grill, and Odin (if only for a moment) blinks. Seriously, check this shit out:

Reboot Shmeboot! Funnybooksinreviewarego!!

Alright. Now it's time to start talking about funnybooks we actually like again.

Not that we didn't enjoy our two-month look at the DC Reboot. That's exciting, heady stuff for fans of super hero fiction, and they even managed to make as much as 10% of the line good enough to spend money on. But while we were focused on the shiny new thing, all kinds of amazing-ass funnybooks hit the stands, and it's time to turn our attention back to those. It'll take a few posts to work through it all, so I figured we might as well start with something current. Something really fantastic and not related at all to the Reboot. Something like... oh, shit...

Action Comics #2
by Grant Morrison and Rags Morales

Okay, so this book pretty much defines the Reboot as far as I'm concerned. Sue me.

I really will get to other stuff tonight. I'll be talking about my three favorite books of the week, and this is the only one that comes from DC. But it's also the only Grant Morrison we're getting right now, so I really can't help but lead with it. Plus, look at this cover:

　

That kills, man! That fucking kills! Has there EVER been a picture of Superman that bad-ass? If that cover doesn't make you want to read this comic, you hate everything good.

(Remember this over-statement. It'll come back again, and there will be a test.)

Bats, Gods, and Other Assorted Freaks: FUNNYBOOKSINREVIEWAREGO!!!

Lots of really fascinating comics material has come out in the last little bit: Grant Morrison's Supergods, Ray Fawkes' One Soul, Dave McKean's Celluloid, Jim Woodring's Congress of the Animals, the new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen... All great books deserving of in-depth reviews. But honestly? I'm a little too tired from my day job right now to discuss them with the sort of intelligence they deserve. So instead, I think I'll just engage in something we haven't seen too much of around the nerd farm lately: straight-up reviews. That's right. It's that time again: FUNNYBOOKSINREVIEWAREGO!!!

Batman Incorporated #7
by Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham

You knew I had to start with Batman, right?

With all the over-arching plot and mysteries in this book, surrounding not only the evil bad guys' schemes but also Batman's own, it's easy to forget that, really, Batman Incorporated is all about Grant Morrison having fun with some of the goofier aspects of the Bat-Myth. Nowhere is that more clear than in this issue, which is a low-rent re-working of RIP, on the rez, starring Chief Man-of-Bats. It's touching and funny, and embraces the ridiculousness of the character...

Riding. A. Buffalo.

...while still acknowledging the very real problems facing the Native American population. I came away from the issue feeling like Man-of-Bats, for all his limitations, might just help more people on a real, personal level than Batman himself ever has. As Bats himself says, "It doesn't have to take millions... The idea just works."

Grade: A-

Detective Comics # 879
by Scott Snyder and Francesco Francavilla

Decided to give Snyder's Detective run another try, and was impressed. The story, about Jim Gordon looking into the supposed rehabilitation of his son, James Jr, was a tense, low-key little mystery story with a sad and kind of terrifying ending. I did spend much of the story kind of confused, since I was under the impression that James Jr was dead, when he's instead, apparently, a psychopath. The Wikipedia didn't entirely clear things up for me, either; it confirmed his not-deadness, but said nothing about him being crazy. Of course, the same entry (for Commissioner Gordon himself) also fed me some kind of convoluted bullshit about Barbara Gordon not being the Commissioner's biological daughter, which made me want to take this whole weird Gordon family history and chuck it out a window from a very great height. 

Funnybook Battle: Fear Itself vs Final Crisis

Haven't done one of these in a while...

While we gazed ever more deeply into the as-yet-insubstantial navel of the DC Reboot, lots of other stuff was going on in the funnybook world, too. For instance, across the street at Marvel, Matt Fraction has very quietly turned their big event crossover series Fear Itself into something transcendent.

Not transcendent in the way Grant Morrison's Final Crisis was transcendent, understand. That book took the tropes of these big crossover event comics and raised them up, transforming them into something that was at once literary, and mythic on a grand scale. It sent many of its readers into paroxysms of impotent on-line anger in its obstinate insistence on being difficult, and is either the very apex of “event comics” storytelling... or a complete piece of unreadable crap, depending on your point of view.

What Fraction's doing in Fear Itself is neither that ambitious, nor that divisive, in spite of the two series' many surface similarities. He's playing with the same tropes as Morrison, the same end-of-the-world grandeur, and the same mix of myth and literary ambition. He's even using the same exhausting, never-stop-to-take-a-breath “super-compressed” storytelling style (and, frankly, improving upon it by exercising a bit more clarity). But he's doing all that to very different ends.

Back in the Saddle: Funnybooksinreviewarego!!

So it's been a busy coupla weeks 'round here on the nerd farm, and I'm not gonna lie to you: it's still pretty damn busy. But not so busy that I can't strap in for some quick reviews this week...

Invincible Iron Man #503
by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca

Fraction delivers a really nice wrap-up to his battle of wills between Tony Stark and Otto Octavius this time around, with Stark finally giving in and begging Doc Ock to stop the timer on the nuclear device he's holding over New York's head. Which, as it turns out, isn't acually a bomb at all. Ock lied, and Stark fell for it. But in a situation eerily similar to the dark future we saw in issue 500, Stark caved. He caved, and called Octavius "master" to save lives. Which is, of course, the real difference between Stark and the other arrogant geniuses Fraction's compared and contrasted him with over his long tenure on the title. He may have sat back and laughed at the ignorant masses with Madame Masque in his younger days, but when the chips are down, Stark will do anything, including debase himself, to save them.

On the flip side, Fraction does cheat on the conclusion of his Pepper vs Electro and Sandman battle, allowing the bad guys to slip away without any real explanation to make room for a few pages of "Fear Itself" crossover. But the character work that precedes that spandex plot cop-out far outweighs any disappointment I might have felt. This was good work, made better in light of the long-term writing. Or, in other words, it's exactly what I look for in franchise work-for-hire super hero comics.

Grade: A-

Fables #104
by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, and Steve Leialoha

Oy. My happiness with the current Super Team arc lessens with each passing issue. Any time this book goes "meta" and starts discussing the fictional underpinnings of the magic that connects the Fable Homelands with the Mundy World, my eyes glaze over. So this continual discussion of super hero tropes, and how they have to balance the team correctly to make the magic work properly, just makes me want to stop reading. And that's not even mentioning how much I despise fucking Brock Blueheart, the talking animal Boy Blue cultist that also makes me want to stop reading, every time he walks on-screen. It's all far too cute for my taste, and the promise of it being followed by another saccharine story about Bufkin the talking monkey in Oz does very little to make me want to keep buying.

Super-Spies, Thunder Gods and Gender Benders: FUNNYBOOKSINREVIEWAREGO!!

So here we are, another week older, another week wiser, another week heavier with new funnybooks to discuss…

Journey Into Mystery #622
by Kieron Gillen, Dougie Braithwaite, and Ulises Arreola

I have to like Marvel’s marketing strategy here. They’re giving Thor a new number one to better-capitalize on the upcoming movie (which I don’t think ever works, but whatever). But rather than completely abandon the original numbering they just returned to less than two years ago, they’re treating the new Thor as a separate series and restoring this series to its original title: Journey Into Mystery. Which is one of the better monster/suspense series titles ever, and one I‘m finding myself surprisingly happy to have back on the racks.

Series writer Kieron Gillen is embracing his title in earnest, too. It’s still a Thor comic, of course, but more of a Thor spin-off starring the young Loki, recently reborn and as-yet-unformed. Gillen is sending his young god of mischief off on a literal “journey into mystery,” a quest that will decide exactly what sort of Loki he will be. I’m finding it pretty compelling so far. Gillen’s Loki is clever and sharp-tongued, and driven by a refreshing mix of curiosity and enlightened self-interest. This first issue plays a little like a children’s fantasy novel, with Our Hero following a trail of bread crumbs left behind by his former self and realizing that it’s part of a larger scheme that he’s going to walk into anyway, if he wants to be his own man.

It’s a nice take on the character, and one more in line with how he was often depicted in the myths. “God of Mischief” too often morphs over into “God of Evil” in modern depictions of the Norse gods, but he’s a much more complex figure than that. There’s every indication that the Vikings admired Loki’s cleverness, even though it was of a type they also believed you couldn’t entirely trust. He exists in a queasy sort of grey area, one that I hope Gillen exploits to the fullest.

On the artistic side of things, the book is apparently being colored and reproduced directly from Dougie Braithwaite’s pencils, which gives the work an illustrative texture that’s difficult to attain with ink. I wouldn’t call the artwork beautiful or anything, but I like the feel of it. It suits the book, I think, and that’s what’s really important in the end.

Grade: B+

Casanova: Gula IV
by Matt Fraction, Fabio Moon, and Gabriel Ba

The reprints of Gula wrap up this issue, and the cat’s out of the bag on what I still consider the best twist ending ever. I have to admit, though, that I’d forgotten how Fraction cheats on it a little here at the end. [SPOILER] The way I remembered it, Seychelle’s artificial life tech had been behind the transformation of Casanova into Zephyr, but he’s just as shocked as the rest of Our Heroes to realize the truth. Which means that Fraction doesn’t actually explain how they did it at all. I’m okay with it, don’t get me wrong; in a world of weird-ass super-science and Life Model Decoys, a little gender-bending DNA manipulation is far from outside the realm of possibility. But an explanation, even one as glib and incomplete as the one I just tossed out there, would have been nice. [/SPOILER]

He makes up for that, though, with the fascinating manifestation of guilt we get from Cas. Faced with Newman Xeno’s choice to fire the gun or re-write history and die, Casanova chooses to go back to his own timeline and die, leaving his friends and family where they were if he’d never made the dimensional jump that started the series. Of course, he’s not really making that choice out of altruism; he thinks he’s really messed things up, and would rather die than face the guilt. Fortunately for us, though, the decision to fire the gun’s really not up to him, and so we get to watch the juicy aftermath. Speaking of which…

The Big Round-Up: FUNNYBOOKSINREVIEWAREGO!!!

So we just can’t seem to keep the funnybooks cleared out here on the Dork Forty. Every time we make some headway into the storehouse, somethin’ comes along and keeps us from reviewin’ everything the way we oughtta. Well, that ends now. We’re drawin’ a line in the freakin’ sand, and today I’m gettin’ this mess cleared out one way or another. Which, of course, means that it’s time for a whole mess of quickies…

Osborn #4 (of 5)
by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Emma Rios

A few pacing problems surface this issue. As the story nears its conclusion, there’s still a good number of plot points to cover, and DeConnick is dutifully cramming them in. Unfortunately, there’s so much ground to cover that a major character reveal toward the end of the issue isn’t afforded the visual space needed to give it the proper impact. But Emma Rios continues to knock it out of the park on the art front, with the dynamic storytelling and convincing character acting that have distinguished her in my mind as an artist to watch.

Grade: B

The Sixth Gun #9 & 10
by Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt

I missed a couple of issues of this book between the first trade and the monthly, but the handy-dandy inside-cover plot synopsis has gotten me up to date: Our Heroes are laying low in New Orleans, and have (of course) attracted the attention of the local supernatural community, as well as that of foreign powers who know more about the guns than they do. So it’s voodoo and swamp ghosts and a posse of gun slinging Italian priests for the weird western this time around. Bunn’s started fleshing out Becky Montcrief a bit, as well; she’s still the innocent in all of this, but she’s not so innocent that she won’t take a lover and keep it from her jealous partner. This book still isn’t great, but the pulpy mix of voodoo, Vatican hit squads, and compromised morality are enough to keep me happy for now.

Grade: B

Taking Marvel by Fractions: FUNNYBOOKSINREVIEWAREGO!!

You read the title! FUNNYBOOKS are, indeed, once again GO!! So let’s get on with it…


Thor #620
by Matt Fraction and Pascual Ferry

So how bad-ass is Matt Fraction’s Thor run? Well, this issue, Odin makes it RAIN FREAKING BLOOD! There’s also the beginning of the final battle with the World Eaters, and that’s pretty bad-ass, too. But, man.

RAIN.
OF.
BLOOD.

Honestly… ‘Nuff said.

Grade: A

And, as long as we’re talking about Matt Fraction…

Iron Man #501 & 502
by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca

In kind of a refreshing change from this book’s on-going corporate soap opera format, these issues see Iron Man dealing with an honest-to-goodness super villain threat. But, true to form, series writer Matt Fraction doesn’t resort to a simple slugfest. Instead, he delivers a battle of wits and wills that reveals character. Which is not to say that this story isn’t fun, because I had a blast reading it. The plot and dialogue both are snappy in a way that this book often isn’t. And the villain is one of my all-time favorites, too: Dr. Otto Octavius, aka Spider-Man arch-foe Doctor Octopus. Doc Ock captures Tony Stark, holding New York hostage with a nuclear device in an attempt to make Stark admit that he’s incapable of fixing the degenerative brain damage that’s killing Octavius.

Yes, you read that right. Ock doesn’t want Stark to fix him. Not really. I mean, if he can, great. But what he really wants is for Stark to try to fix him, and have to admit defeat. He feels such simmering hatred for Our Hero that he’s willing to hold a nuke over New York’s head just to humiliate him. You’d think he’d reserve such extreme actions for, say, Spider-Man. But it seems that dear Otto is trying to settle old scores before he dies, and he hates Stark dating back to before either of them were in the super powers game. Now, I have no idea if this is an invention of Fraction’s, or if he’s just expanding on something from a previous Iron Man / Doc Ock encounter, but either way it’s good stuff.

Wrong Sex and Other Distractions: FUNNYBOOKSINREVIEWAREGO!!!

So tonight we’ve got another twist to our review run-down: a long-form piece of the type we said we weren’t going to do. But you know how it is. We started typing, one thing lead to another… And the next thing we knew, our critical clothes were on the floor and we found ourselves four pages deep in some hot dork-on-funnybook action…

Casanova: Gula II & III
by Matt Fraction and Fabio Moon

The second volume of Matt Fraction’s resurrected spy-fi masterpiece rumbles on in these two issues, as Zephyr Quinn fucks and kills her way through XSM’s hit list. Or, rather, Newman Xeno’s hit list. Which raises the question I haven‘t thought to ask on either read-through: why does he want these particular people dead in the first place?

This is Casanova’s best trick, and the trick that far too much genre writing (and fiction writing in general, for that matter) forgets. It distracts and subverts reader questions and expectations by virtue of just being so damned entertaining. The ride’s so good that you forget all about the destination til it rears up and smacks you in the face. So why does Newman Xeno want everyone who knows about the H Element dead? Eh, I dunno. He’s Big Mr. Evilfuck, ain’t he? That’s enough motivation, right? I mean, look at those bandages he’s wrapped in! Rendered so beautifully by Fabio Moon, every strip of cloth delineated as a separate piece, with actual thought given as to how you‘d wrap a man‘s head completely in bandages rather than the usual flat profile with lines drawn across it… What was I saying?

See how that happens? I don’t care about the motivation of the man behind the story’s entire fucking plot because he’s drawn so well! And I also don’t care about it because he’s Zephyr’s completely soul-destroying ex, who she’s doing the bidding of even while trying to distance herself from him. In fact, isn’t that his motivation? No, wait. He didn’t even know she was alive, much less working for XSM, when he hired the Benday family to kill these people. And, oh yeah, there’s that whole SPOILERY thing I’ll be discussing below, which makes this entire character sub-plot irrelevant anyway, so…

GODDAMMIT IT HAPPENED AGAIN!!

And I haven’t even gotten to the simple surface distractions the book employs so well: the sex and the violence and the cooler-than-cool set-pieces. I think it’s safe to say that the action in this book is as sleek and stylish as ever. So when Kubark pops the porcelain guns out the sleeves of his tux and shoots the casino bouncers, I’m wowed. And a few panels later, when Zephyr (after a decadent lesbian tryst) cradles the naked body of casino owner and target Suki Boutique as the front wall of the place blows out over the cliff below… It’s no wonder I’m not worrying about why all this is happening. It’s enough that it is happening, and that I am entertained.

But of course, this being a Fraction book, there actually IS an underlying reason for it all, and the reveal of it presents Zephyr with yet another monumental moral decision to make. A decision made even more complicated in light of that SPOILERY thing I’m not talking about yet. But, hey! This is as good a moment as any to get to that, so enter into the SPOILER-REALM for more gushing praise of Matt Fraction’s genius, and all that wrong sex I promised you in the title…

Fraction Does Spandex: FUNNYBOOKSINREVIEWAREGO!!!

So I’ve been spending an awful lot of time reading and writing about the Comics Code here lately, to the exclusion of the funnybook reviews that have been the… manure… that the Dork Forty’s… fertilized its fields with… from… day… one… Okay, forget that metaphor. What I’m saying is, I feel the need to flex my snootified reviewer’s muscles once more. But I’m still in “long-form” writing mode, so… Rather than do my usual capsule review catch-up, I’m gonna look more in-depth at a few things that have come out in the last month.

And I think I’ll start with the Marvel work of my favorite writer in that company’s stable, Mr. Matthew Fraction. His Casanova series is one of my favorite books of the past decade, of course, but for my money, Fraction’s also doing the best corporate spandex work Marvel’s putting out these days, and some of the best super hero work on the market in general, corporate or not. Seriously, the only guy who’s beating him is Grant Morrison, and that’s not an embarrassing battle to lose at all. Fraction’s work features nuanced, understated characterization and long-term plotting on a level you don’t often see on work-for-hire books. His Thor series with Pascual Ferry is especially nice, so let’s start with that…

Thor #619
by Matt Fraction and Pascual Ferry

Fraction’s been slowly moving the status quo on this book into a shape more to his liking, bringing back Loki and more than hinting that Asgard needs to go back atop the World Tree. But my favorite change, by far, is the return of Odin. He’s all sullen and bitchy about having been brought back from his glorious, carefree afterlife, and Pascual Ferry’s rendering him as a round-bellied old bear, massive and grumpy and proud:

click to see Odin in all his embiggened glory

Ferry’s really bringing it on this book, his character designs simultaneously nodding to Kirby and looking entirely like his own work. That’s most evident with Odin, but also with the World Eaters, the villainous invaders from the Void (about whom more in a bit).

At any rate. Odin is not at all happy with Thor for bringing him back, and is even less happy with the way Thor’s brought back his little brother…

Don't risk Odin's wrath... Click to embiggen!

Pardon our seams and staples, by the way. All the god scenes in this book are laid out in two-page spreads, and Ferry’s making the most of them, going for full wide-screen bleeds and unrelentingly placing the action right smack-dab in the center. It’s going to be a bitch to read in trade, where the far more severe binding will make the lack of inside gutters difficult at best. Which is kind of fitting, in a way. While Fraction is doing his usual nuanced character development and long-term storytelling, Thor is still very much comic book comics. It’s about lusty Viking gods, their enormous passions, and their even more enormous melancholy. It’s BIG, above all else, and BIG is something that comics has always done very, very well. There’s a part of me that really likes the idea that this book can’t be contained by the tight-assed binding of the trade paperback or the narrow confines of the digital reader screen. It needs the wide open spaces of flat staple-binding to be experienced to best effect.

The SPOILERS begin... after the jump!

Matt Fraction's Blue World

Casanova: Gula #1
by Matt Fraction and Fabio Moon

The full-color reprints of the second Casanova series start here, and are just as gorgeous as the first. Granted, it’s hard to get around that shocking cobalt blue monotone the original was done in, and this is still a very (VERY!) blue book. But colorist Cris Peter handles the challenge well, complementing the blue with some very nice yellows and pinks. Like the “Luxuria” remasters, the book somehow looks much like it did on original publication, only moreso. Particularly nice is some of the shading Peter gives to Fabio Moon’s artwork. Fabio’s work is less angular and more organic than what his brother (Gabriel Ba) turned in on the first series, and in places the colors really bring that quality out.

But I was most looking forward to re-reading “Gula.” [SPOILER] This storyline has, hands down, the best twist ending I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been dying to re-read it so I could look for any clues Fraction may have planted along the way. This ending is so good, and I so don’t want to ruin it, that I am, as you can see, even spoiler-texting the fact that it HAS a twist ending. So if you haven’t read all of “Gula” before, and you’re still reading this right now, do yourself a favor and stop. [/SPOILER]

Seriously. If you haven’t read all of “Gula” before, and think there’s any chance that you might, do not look at the spoilered text below, whatever you do. And this isn’t some “Monster at the End of This Book” enticement to keep reading. You will ruin the story for yourself if you read the next few paragraphs. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Return of the Verbose Bastard: FUNNYBOOKSINREVIEWAREGO!!!

So now it’s time to start running my mouth again. As I mentioned somewhere a few posts back, my day job’s been keeping me off the nerd farm the last couple of weeks, but now I‘ve finally had a day off and feel much more like sitting in front of a keyboard writing about the funnybooks. I hope you enjoyed the “Why Kirby Was King” feature in the interim; I certainly enjoyed posting up all that gorgeous pop-comics genius. There’s plenty more good reasons why Kirby was the King of Comics out there, too, so I‘m sure you‘ll see it again someday.

But for now... I’ve got a nice little pile of comics I haven’t talked about yet, and I need to plow through them. Later, I’ll do some long-form reviews of select titles. But for today, it’s bulk reviewing, fast and dirty. Because, as I’ve said before… Everybody loves a Quickie.

Uncanny X-Men #531

by Matt Fraction, Kieron Gillen, and Greg Land

I dropped Fraction’s X-Men book a while back, tired of the actual storylines being delayed and diverted by all the crossovers and such. I was reading it for Fraction, quite frankly, and could give a rat’s ass about the larger X-Universe. But I decided to try an issue on a whim, just to see how Kieron Gillen’s co-writing gig was going, and was shocked and delighted to find a story dealing with… the very plotlines I was enjoying back when I decided to stop reading the title! I didn’t even feel like I’d missed very much, to be honest. Kitty Pryde’s back, and I still don’t care, but otherwise…? All the important stuff’s right where I left it.

The plot, other than the on-going “mutant flu” storyline, deals with Lobe (love that name!), a hyper-intelligent villain who’s selling designer drugs that give the user mutant powers for the duration of the high. Awesome. There’s also some nice stuff about Emma Frost trying to deal with the captured Sebastian Shaw that I liked quite a bit. I like Fraction’s take on Emma as a not-very-good person trying to be better and not always succeeding. Some of her dialogue here feels a bit too “nobody really talks like that,” but I like the character work nonetheless.

Will I keep buying after this? Probably not. This was a fun diversion, but not fun enough to pay four bucks a pop for it. I didn’t miss the book when I wasn’t reading it, and probably won’t miss it in the future, either. I might pick up a trade or something, if I can find one that‘s not rendered incomprehensible by crossover crap. But if not… ah well.

Grade: B-

Byrne Victims and Other Dorks of Note: Funnybooksinreviewarego!!

So the funnybook reviews have also fallen prey to my December work and holiday schedule, to the point that the nerd wranglers here on the Dork 40 are starting to give me crap about it. Which means that it must be time once again for some Quickies. But first, a slightly more in-depth look at a book I almost didn't buy...

Next Men #1
by John Byrne

I tried this book in spite of the fact that I've liked exactly nothing John Byrne's written in the last decade. But I remember the series fondly from its 90s heyday, and thought (after debating for a week) that I'd give it a try. Much to my surprise, it's actually pretty good. This first issue is mostly recap, but in this case that might be a good thing. I haven't read Next Men in 15 years, and so the refresher was most welcome.

Getting the series' entire story laid out all at once like this reveals some serious creative missteps along the way, but it also reminds me of something far more important: John Byrne's penchant for applying serious science fiction concepts to his super hero fiction. This was what I liked most about the man's work in the 80s: it often felt like a true updating of the Lee/Kirby/Ditko creative aesthetic, applying a touch of logic and a slightly more adult sensibility to things while still delivering on the high imagination of the originals. It was work that refreshed some already-great characters and polished them up for a new generation of readers. You could see it in his contributions to X-Men, his back-to-basics approach to Fantastic Four, and even his often-forgotten work on Namor. The same aesthetic powers his revamp of Superman, though that is in some ways his weakest work of the period, feeling almost hamstrung by a slightly more kid-friendly approach to the writing.

Batwomen, Demons, and Thunder Gods: Funnybooksinreviewarego!!!

So I thought I might do something a little different tonight, and review some week-old funnybooks. You know, just for a change of pace…

Batwoman #0
by JH Williams III, W. Hayden Blackman, and Amy Reeder

When the Greg Rucka / JH Williams Batwoman strip in Detective Comics ended earlier this year, both creators sounded pretty pessimistic about continuing with the character. Which made me sad, because that book was one of the best pieces of corporate spandex to come down the pike in a good long while, fairly standard modern super-heroics in some ways, but given layers of added depth by Williams’ visuals. But Rucka had a hand in planning that visual depth, so when the Batwoman on-going was announced, with Williams but not Rucka at the helm, I wondered how the new series would stack up.

Pretty well, it turns out. This zero issue is just an introduction to the character for new readers, and a chance for Williams and co-artist Amy Reeder to strut their stuff, but they do a nice job of it by and large. Williams and co-writer Blackman do take the shortcut of showing us Batwoman through the eyes of the recently-returned Batman, and on some level I feel like that’s a mistake. Having Batman express his admiration is a cheap way to establish the new character’s credibility. Rucka avoided that, generally preferring to let Kate Kane stand as her own character, inspired by Batman but not in need of his approval.

But Williams and Hayden still make it work for them. The way they’ve framed it, the story’s less about Kate seeking the Bat-Seal of Approval, and more about Batman’s obsessive need to know who this new cape is, and if she’s worthy of infringing on his gimmick. Also, by showing Kate to us through Batman’s eyes, they’re able to fill us in on her methods and backstory, and even her on-going plotlines, without it all seeming like rote exposition. Even though that’s pretty much what this entire issue actually is.

And artistically, of course, the book is just top-notch. Williams illustrates the sequences where Batwoman’s in costume, while Amy Reeder handles the Kate Kane scenes. They’re mostly working in two-page spreads, with Williams handling the top half while Reeder takes the bottom, or vice-versa as the script demands. Williams seems to have designed the layout on many of these pages; his jagged panel borders and diagonal page divides stand out from Reeder’s more traditional layout. In fact, I’m afraid that Reeder can’t quite hold her own with him in general. Her work is very nice, don’t get me wrong. She’s good with expressions, her staging shows some pizzazz, and her linework is some of the better traditional comics art out there right now. But next to Williams, it looks more than a little bland. Granted, about 95% of all funnybook art would. “Not as good as JH Williams” isn’t really much of a criticism.

So overall, I was pleased with this zero issue. It doesn’t promise a series as good as what came before it, but it still sets the bar pretty high. Looking forward to reading it for a good long while.

Grade: A-

Batman and Robin #17
by Paul Cornell and Scott McDaniel

It’s the first post-Morrison issue of Batman and Robin! And it’s… pretty okay! Cornell captures the glib façade of the Morrison run well, and Scott McDaniel’s a perfect sort of artist for something with that tone. His stuff is light and breezy and fun to look at, if not terribly… deep. And therein lies the problem with the book as a whole: it lacks depth.

Last Week's Comics Today!

Scarlet #3 by Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev

So sometimes I feel like a tool when I review the latest issue of a book I like and essentially say, “Another triumph!” But, man… Scarlet #3 really is another triumph for the Bendis/Maleev team. Scarlet continues her manipulation of the audience, which is still my favorite aspect of the book. I don’t know how I feel about all the things Scarlet’s up to, and she only confuses the matter, implicating me in her actions by virtue of the entertainment I gain reading about them. She also puts those same skills to use for the first time in-story, on her dead boyfriend Gabriel’s best friend, who she recruits to film the first public step in the revolution: [SPOILER] taking a sniper rifle and putting a bullet through the head of the Chief of Police. This isn’t a random killing, mind you. The Chief is the uncle of the cop who killed Gabriel, and the man responsible for putting that cop back on the street in spite of his drug habit. [/SPOILER]

She’s slowly expanding the ring of responsibility for Gabriel’s death. The question, then, is how far out can she expand that ring before she goes too far? I can’t answer that question just yet, but I’m really looking forward to seeing where I wind up drawing the line.

Grade: A

The Boys #48
by Garth Ennis and Russ Braun

As the action of Hughie and Annie’s oh-so-painful split moves over to the pages of Hughie’s spin-off mini Highland Laddie, The Boys series proper moves on to the new story arc “Proper Preparation and Planning.” We’re heading into the third and final act of the series now, and this arc seems to be about Butcher and the Homelander getting their pieces in place for whatever ultimate play each of them is going to make. And as worrisome as Homelander’s increasingly sociopathic behaviour is, it’s Butcher that’s really got me worried.

FUNNYBOOKSINREVIEWAREGO!!

So it's been awhile, I notice, since I last discussed my weekly funnybook haulings. Which can only mean that, once again...

FUNNYBOOKSINREVIEWAREGO!!!!

Joe the Barbarian #7 (of 8)
by Grant Morrison and Sean Murphy

As many have noted in the past, Grant Morrison tends to deal with similar (or, okay, identical) themes across several works, often at the same time. Thus, ten years ago, Invisibles and JLA both wound up being about humanity transcending into a higher state of being. Now, having gotten his millennial jones out of the way, Morrison's dealing with the death of his father. We got a preview of it in All-Star Superman, where humanity had to cope with the imminent demise of everybody's dad, Superman. But now, in both Joe and Morrison's Batman work, we're dealing with the aftermath. Not the mourning so much, but the effort of the sons to honor their fathers while still moving forward in their own way. And in that, they're both stories about finding yourself, discovering your own personal mythology and using it to shape yourself into something better: an adult in your own right.

Just, you know. With a lot of kicking.

Grade: A

GOD LOVES BATMAN!

So Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist group are planning to protest at the San Diego Comicon this weekend. What their problem with funnybooks is, I don't know. But comics writers Matt Fraction and Kelly Sue DeConnick are planning to donate 50 bucks to AIDS research if they show up, and an additional 10 dollars an hour for every hour they stay. The good Family Fraction are urging others to follow suit, as detailed on Kelly Sue's blog: http://kellysue.com/2010/07/19/lemons-and-lemonade/

And what are they calling their little peaceful counter-protest? God Loves Batman!

You're damn right He does! And so do I! We don't cotton to hate-mongerin' bastards out here on the Dork Forty. Especially not hate-mongerin' bastards who declare their hate in the name of a god that teaches love for your fellow man. This is the best, most positive "F-You" to Phelps I can imagine, and I think I'll be pledging my money out next week, too.

It's what Batman would want.

And any god I'd want to worship, for that matter.

FUNNYBOOKSINREVIEWAREGO!!

So I’ve fallen behind on my comics reviews of late. My apologies. After a ferocious week of new books for the week of July 4th, I became totally obsessed with Grant Morrison’s Batman & Robin, and have spent most of my “blog” time re-reading and making notes on that amazingly complex series. An in-depth write-up will be coming soon. But in the meantime, I really feel like I should play a little catch-up. And what better place to start than the two books that made that July 4th comics week so very spectacular…

FUNNYBOOKSINREVIEWAREGO!!

 Stale funnybooks! Got some outta-date reviews here! They ain't fresh, but they're cheap!


Joe the Barbarian #6 (of 8)
by Grant Morrison and Sean Murphy

So an interesting layer gets added to the story this issue: Joe makes it to Hearth Castle, home of the resistance to King Death, and discovers that it’s not so much the last bastion of hope as it is a comfortable tomb for it. And so we see that the story’s not about Joe rescuing his childhood at all. It’s about how his childhood helps him escape the emotional gravity well that is his father’s death. Which is a truer, if sadder, story, and one that I think I like a little better. It also makes this a thematic sequel to All-Star Superman, perhaps a brother title to Batman and Robin, and another incidence of Morrison mythologizing his own father‘s recent passing. I always like seeing him work through these sort of life-altering changes from all these different angles (how many times did he cover the Katmandu incident?), so I'm happy with this. It'll make the re-reading that much more interesting.

Grade: A