Happiest of them all may be Beasts of Burden: Neighborhood Watch (Dorkin/ Thompson), three short stories about a team of cats and dogs working together to protect the people of their town from things that go bump in the night.
Jill Thompson’s art is simply adorable, even when it depicts creatures and acts that chill the reader to their bones. Evan Dorkin’s stories don’t end completely happily, but wrongs are set right, everyone gets home mostly okay, and we’re all a bit richer for the experience.
Matt Fraction and David Aja take their method from Iron Fist and use it in Hawkeye 1: they take the essential parts of the main character, polish them, make each shine, and then show why the whole is so much more.
Clint Barton is used to running around with superhuman legends. It gets rough when he gets thrown off a building and, while said legends might get right back up, he has to spend over a month in traction. But because he’s Clint Barton, as soon as he’s physically able, he’s back out and finding trouble, which conveniently has arrived where he lives. He wins in a few ways, and ultimately this’ll cause him more trouble as the series goes on.What I enjoy about the more normal supers is that, when they’re written well, they treat the reader to the fun side of being pragmatic. Heroes like Superman and Captain America worry about the conditions of the fight, like whether or not the opponent has enough chances to consider their actions, and how their friends would react if they their behavior. They can afford to because most of the time they don’t need to worry about whether or not they’ll win. Hawkeye, fresh out of the hospital, is going to use every advantage he can find to get out of a jam alive, regardless of how other people might feel about his methods, and he’ll sleep fine that night. If he can do it being the upstanding citizen and card-carrying Avenger, he will. If he has to threaten violence that would make a circus freak cringe, he’ll do that too.
Avengers vs X-Men 9 (Aaron/ Kubert) continues the Marvel mega event that pits the Avengers against the Phoenix force inhabiting a small number of X-Men. They say there are no new stories, and this series has been reaffirming that so far - SPOILER ALERT: it turns out power corrupts.
This chapter of the story features Spider-Man being the only person in the room with a grasp of what power is and how to use it, something in short supply no matter what continuity you follow. While the basic story is nothing new, the details are very pretty. Andy Kubert delivers every moment with his usual intensity, and Jason Aaron brings some much needed subtlety to an otherwise brutish slugfest.
iZombie 28 (Roberson/ Allred) is the end of the series, so those that want to read it all in one go have their chance now. It’s the end of the world, and everyone faces it the way they want to face the end of the world. Oddly enough, every person has their own reaction when faced with global annihilation.
The series ends on a touching, positive note, in about the best way anyone could handle loss. iZombie tells us it cannot stay here, and we can’t follow it to wherever it’s going, but it had a great time and would like us to have fun without it.
First X-Men 1 (Adams/ Gage)... So, you know how fun Wolverine and the X-Men is right now? With Logan protecting children, throwing money around, and turning enemies into friends? Now imagine if someone took all those elements, tossed the fun away, and claimed the idea was their own retroactively by setting it in what appears to be the 1970’s. That’s about what this is.
Mr. Adams, your contribution to the medium of comics is incredible. One of the signature voices in the Silver Age, you brought new life to Batman, Deadman, and The Brave and the Bold, just to name a few. You were one of the few artists to successfully work at both Marvel and DC at the same time, and played a significant role promoting creator rights in an industry that had steadfastly resisted them. No one could ask any more of you, and if this is the kind of work you’re making nowadays, no one WILL ask any more of you.
Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe 1 (Bunn/ Talajic) is blatant false advertising! Twenty-two pages and I only saw eleven corpses, and I... wait... limited series? Several more issues to go? Okay, yeah, Deadpool might just pull it off.
Deadpool’s insanity finally ticks off enough people that they check him into an asylum. Little do they know the asylum is really a brainwashing/ recruiting facility, and Deadpool fits their criteria perfectly. As most of you are surely aware, Deadpool’s not the type to react predictably to things, and the treatments instead remove the only parts of his mind that could be called sane. All that remains is an engine of death modified for maximum efficiency.
There are a few elements that take classic Deadpool tropes and compare them to other things we know about the Marvel universe, drawing some parallels I haven’t seen before. They’re kind of impressive. The art is a blend of cartoonish and gruesome that works here, but I don’t know that it’d work many other places. This is worth picking up.Think Tank 1 (Hawkins/ Ekedal) follows Dr. David Loren, an amalgam of Tony Stark and Alex Skarsgard, as he tries to invent himself a conscience. Albert Einstein stopped brainstorming weapons after the atomic bomb dropped, appalled at the destruction he’d helped create. In response, the government thanked him for his service and let him go. In this series, the government “learned from its mistake” and by the present era presses the country’s best minds into friendly servitude. If you produce results and don’t make a fuss, everything’s fine, but slack in either respect and things get rougher.
There are some things everyone should be aware of before going in. First, this is a black & white comic. The art is strong and I caught myself studying the linework, but if you’re addicted to full-color, this won’t give you your fix. Second, while the book is full of brilliant and respectable people, I didn’t find myself liking any of them. I’m not saying every story needs to focus on a likable figure, but if there’s no one around that’s endearing, it brings the story down. A few plot bumps aside, this is a fun update of the premise behind Real Genius. It doesn’t go far beyond that, but it could. I’d give it a look.
Avenging Spider-Man 10 (DeConnick/ Dodson/ Dodson) made me do a double take. At first I thought “Wait, they undid Spider-Man’s marriage, so how is Mary Jane on the cover and back to squeezing the life out of him?” Then my manager took me into the back and made me watch a video on why such comments are considered unacceptable in the workplace. You see, it’s not Mary Jane on the cover, it’s just a teenage girl that a corporation believes is their property, which is fine. (CC Note: Ryan, we’re going to have to schedule another appointment...)
I am leaving out details like a bioengineering program, trust and boundary issues in relationships, and the definition of sentience. This issue plays with such issues more than the art would imply. From the panels (which the Dodsons make shine brightly), this is a pretty straightforward beat-em-up leading to a misunderstanding and from there to a slightly different round of beat-em-up. The dialogue adds more depth than you may be used to from a Spider-Man book - it’s good depth, but it may be above younger heads.
As a jaded internet personality, I have to wonder what it is with Spider-Man attracting coppertop jailbait these days. I was all ready to come in and let them have it over this, but then they ruined my plans by making a touching story about connecting with others in ways you don’t expect. So I can’t hate on it. Those jerks.
Thief of Thieves 7 (Kirkman/ Spencer/ Martinbrough) wraps up the first arc of the series with a lot of resolution. This arc felt a lot like the pilot episode to a tv show, something that gives you a complete story that defines the series, and hints that there’s much more to do. Essentially, it takes the thief wanting to retire, and rather than try to bag one last score either for the money or pride, he’s pulled in for personal, (mostly) selfless reasons. And the cost of doing one last job is high. Fans of shows like Leverage should be picking this up.
There’s not as much campy interplay, but there’s a similar sense of honor among thieves and games-mastery that flows well. This is the last issue where Nick Spencer is in charge of the script, and while he leaves on a high enough note, no preview of the next issue gives me pause. If you haven’t been picking this title up already, I’d say wait for the trade and read it all in one go, then decide if future issues are for you.
Alright, even I’m tired of reading myself think at this point. See you next week!
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