October 31, 2013

In-between bouts of sugar shock thanks to early Halloween binges, publishers managed to ship comics to us this week. Despite my own blood threatening to vibrate out of my body (damn you, delicious Charleston Chews!), I’ve managed to read and review a few of them. Let’s get right to it, shall we?

Bad Houses GN (Ryan/ McNeil): We who work with and enjoy comics have gotten used to the idea that comics aren’t as… classy… as other media. It’s an idea that’s slowly but surely being corrected, but it’s also been earned. For every piece of sequential art that truly puts the medium to work and tells something complex and wonderful, there are dozens, maybe hundreds of pieces that would get laughed out of the library. The comic medium has one more piece of high literature under its belt - Bad Houses.

Anne and Lewis find themselves in similar situations. They’re both under the thumbs of their mothers, living in ways they wouldn’t want for anyone. Neither can think of a way out of Failin, their tiny home town. Neither has a father figure in their lives. When they connect, they get under each other’s skin, find they both like things better that way, and start a relationship that brings out more revelations than most of the people in Failin can handle.

The above is probably as simple an explanation for what this story entails as anyone could manage. Anne’s mother is a professional caregiver suffering from a compulsive disorder. Lewis’s mother is a control freak that makes a living selling off what the dead couldn’t take with them. Their histories impact their children so hard that insurance premiums go up. History is forgotten, repeated, avoided. Some come out of their shells, others start building their own.

This isn’t a long book, it’s just shy of two hundred pages. In that time, the reader gets to know, really know, perhaps a dozen different people in ways most people only know longtime friends. These characters interact, grow together and apart, surprise and disappoint, in ways that will take the reader by surprise not because they’re shocking, but because as comic readers we’re just not used to this level of connection with characters. I predict you’ll feel more for Anne sitting at the bedside than you did when Peter Parker passed away, and we’ve followed him for decades.

This is not for every reader. It’s complex, demands careful reading, and it’s not action-oriented. Years from now, though, when comics share space with Chaucer in college classrooms, this will be one of the texts professors teach courses around.

X-Men Battle of the Atom 2 (Aaron et al): The battle is over. Those who walk away carry those who can’t. Lines once crossed are redrawn. And a kitty plays with its new pet baby.

The Brotherhood of Future Mutants’ final gambit is to reveal to the X-Men that S.H.I.E.L.D. has its own stockpile of Sentinels, complete with upgrades, ballistic deployment capabilities, and badges. Yep, badges. What mutants survive don’t stick around long enough to hear Director Maria Hill threaten them over the sound of post-explosive ringing. Those who were hoping for closure are going to be pleased - this thing has four epilogues. I don’t think Return of the King had that many endings.

As jaded as I am about crossovers, I do have to give this one credit. It’s disrupted the status quo into something new, and despite all the time travel pratfalls this issue indulges in, the changes come pretty naturally. I’m even going to break character and claim that this used time travel well… in very tiny bits. The bits where characters meet themselves or their relatives take the opportunity to explore relationships in unusual-yet-revealing ways, ways that I have to admit couldn’t happen without time travel. Well played, horrible narrative device.

S.H.I.E.L.D., the nicest Big Brother Orwell might’ve imagined, developing anti-mutant giant robots isn’t something that should be a one-off threat, and from the promos for upcoming issues, it won’t be. So not only are rosters changing, but now they have something else to do, and that’s what you’re supposed to expect from these kinds of crossovers.

The last issue of Battle of the Atom succeeds in tying up the series, setting the stage for the future of its companion titles, and not ignoring what the characters were doing and feeling throughout. It works.

Damian Son of Batman 1 (Andy Kubert): By now just about everyone interested knows that Damian, the son of Bruce Wayne and Talia al’Ghul, is dead, and that death came at a time when a lot of the audience had started to like the Dark Jerkwad. It naturally got people asking what it would’ve been like if he hadn’t died. Andy Kubert is here to answer your questions.

Damian is well into his teens, and the Joker’s escapades have escalated a few steps. His latest installation piece at the docks involves fish and sailors, all dead and deformed. During their standard investigation, a bomb goes off that Batman takes the worst of. Suddenly lacking a father figure, he turns to his only remaining family, the League of Assassins, who give him the kind of support we’d expect: they cut him off and tell him to take his father’s legacy if he misses him so much. Before doing that, he decides he’s going to avenge his dad’s murder in a way his mom would be proud of.

I wasn’t the biggest Damian fan while he lived, but I understood why other people were. Surrounded by characters defined by tragedy and an insatiable need for revenge, Damian gave Bruce and the other Robins a way to express familial affection without threatening their tough-guy acts. Damian beat up Jason Todd and used his mask as a hood ornament, put Tim Drake down constantly, and made endless fun of Dick Grayson’s costume. They all got him back in their own ways, and as a result they connected. It was far from what we’d call healthy, but it brought them out of their shells, something few other characters can claim to have done. Very little of that comes through here.

Instead, we get some explosions, a montage of fights, and a series of people answering Damian’s questions, but because he doesn’t like any of the answers, he ignores everyone. So far, Kubert has highlighted all of Damian’s worst qualities very accurately. If he can make time for the better ones, I’ll get interested.

The Son of Batman has a way to go before he’s ready for the big boy cowl, in many respects.

The Sandman Overture 1 (Gaiman/ Williams III): We’ll end this week reviewing another title many consider literature. For 75 issues and a few spin-off series, the story of Morpheus the Endless unfolded before our eyes and opened new facets of readers’ minds in the process. The trades have been kept in print constantly these past 25 years (if you want to feel old), and we all got sort of used to the idea that we had whole story. While it ended most definitively, there’s part of the story’s beginning that we've apparently missed.

The story opens with Dream administrating the subconscious of an alien race of carnivorous plants. He’s about to deal with an delinquent subordinate when he’s called away by an outside force. This isn’t normal - he’s one of the Endless, gods pray to the Endless - and it takes all his efforts to gear up before he’s pulled into an arena where he’s confronted by… himselves. It doesn’t make much sense to him, either.

I haven’t read Sandman in years, but in picking this up I got brought back up to speed right away. The issue reintroduces the characters, themes, and a number of plot threads without clunky exposition or a recap page. It starts right in and carries the reader from world to world easily, and that’s thanks to Neil Gaiman being one of the best writers working today. Those worlds are so different yet so plausible, and Morpheus is recognizable in all his various forms despite so many transitions, because J.H. Williams III is one of the best artists working today.

What I’m saying is that for once, the creator of a widely popular franchise has made a prequel, and it DOESN’T threaten to ruin said franchise yet. Jaded as that sounds, I’m very pleased by it. I think you’ll be too.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

October 16, 2013

Things sneak up on the most wary of people. Dates, bills, burglars, weight gain, we all suffer from things we don’t notice until it’s too late to prevent. At that point, the only thing we can do to cope is deal with it. Some things, like an empty gas tank, are simply inconvenient, while things like hatchet-wielding maniacs call for more focused action. And panicking. Some flailing is allowed.

This week is all about the titles that slipped under my radar, either completely or long enough that they might as well be fresh titles to me. Let’s see if, now that they’re noticed, they’re worth reading.

Skyward 3 /6 (Jeremy Dale): Fantasy quest stories have been around for at least a century as we know them, longer if one fiddles with the definition a bit (I would count Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but that’s me). It’s hard for new ones to find a unique hook, and while I can’t say if a quest for a questor has ever been done before, this does draw the reader in.

Quinn lost his parents a while back. It would appear that at the end of the last issue, he also lost the ground. It’s coming to meet him at 32-feet-per-second-squared, and will turn him into a pancake soon. Meanwhile, Abigail and her merry band of easily-persuaded warriors are trying to track the boy down. Somebody finds him in non-pancake form, but may not have had his best intentions in mind. There’s also an army that someone should look into at some point.

I could go into how the dialog and characters misstep into cliche, or how the art tries too hard in places and highlights its own inconsistencies. Some might argue that I just did that, but I really don’t want to - it would be like yelling at a puppy. There is so much love and enthusiasm that comes through this book it practically drips off the page. Rather than pool and stain, it tries to sweep the reader up in the excitement of being published and shared, and as jaded as I am, it’s hard to resist.

For another thing, the offenses are minor at best. They don’t take away from the story, they just prevent it from being better. The stereotypes and common fantasy tropes (a magical sword, bumbling henchmen, a wayward adventurous daughter, even a faithful animal companion) act like training wheels. Dale relies on them, and it’s hard to be impressed by anything knowing he’s using them, yet he’s telling a story that makes the reader want to see more.

This is a good book for little readers wanting fresh fantasy, training for when they get into stories with a bit more challenge to them. This may also a book for someone that wants “before they were great” artifacts - if and when Dale takes his training wheels off, the dude might just fly.

Strain: The Fall 4 (Lapham/ Huddleston): From the title alone, one could guess what this is about: muscle spasms suffered after an unscheduled trip to the ground. Would it offend if instead this was a vampire story set in Manhattan?

Zephram “Eph” Goodweather is a doctor that was dropped into a hot zone that first looked to be some blood-borne pathogen, but turned out instead to be a viral form of vampirism. Its victims lose skin color, genitalia, mortality, and free will, becoming obedient pawns of those who sired them, ultimately to one Master. That patient has some powerful backers that want a taste of living forever, and is exercising that power to turn the world into its own all-it-can-eat buffet. It’s been planning for centuries, and all it has to deal with are a few hooligans and disavowed doctors.

I’ve read the first few prose books this series is based on. It’s a bold take on the vampire mythos, but it treats its own quirks like nuclear launch codes and doesn’t give them up without a lot of pain and suffering. This makes it very hard to follow, even if the reader’s read it before. The artwork favors style over detail as well, but in this case it works; a more photo-realistic style would have killed this concept.

The Strain is a unique story no matter what medium you read it in, but take heed: if you don’t start from the beginning, you’ll find nothing to hold on to and no reason to read more.

X-Files Season 10 5 (Carter & Harris/ Walsh [no relation]): Do you own so many tin foil hats that your home interferes with cell signal? Does the Bigfoot Society not return your calls anymore? Are there not enough conspiracy theories for you and you know who’s behind the cover-up? Or did you just like The X-Files on tv? If any of those answers are yes, give this a look.

Mulder and Scully had gone above and beyond the call of duty as FBI agents. They saved lives, protected their country, and revealed truths that would otherwise stay hidden. They deserved a break. Not everyone agreed, so they tracked the couple down and brought them to Yellowstone National Park to be sacrificed and offered to heavenly beings. Things didn’t work out so well for those guys.

This feels just like the tv show. No surprise, Chris Carter being directly involved and all. Dana Scully is still a stoic analyst right up to the point where the people she loves are threatened, at which point she’s an angel of death. Fox Mulder is still driven to the point of obsessive and would be insane if he weren’t right all the time. Awkward after-action reports, the Cigarette Smoking Man, and figures even more shadowy are all here in just the proper proportions.

This also has what I didn’t like about the show. It’s very, obviously, excruciatingly plot-driven. Plans make sense until they get in the way of where the series needs to be, then they’re thrown out, regardless of how much merit they may still have. This was determined to get the main characters back into the FBI, heedless of the events that drove them away before. Reading it may cause scratching of the head at things that get in the way of the fun bits.

This book flows seamlessly from where the tv show ended, regardless of whether you liked the last season or not. Let that determine whether this is a title for you or not.

And just to sneak one up on you…

S.H.O.O.T. First 1 (Aclin/ Selma): There are some topics in popular culture that aren’t necessarily taboo, but don’t get much time because they are so controversial. Religious violence, accuracy in faith, things like that. It takes a very careful, deft approach to explore these topics delicately. S.H.O.O.T. First may have a lot of guns, explosions, and censored language, but it avoids the pitfalls and comes out being a very readable book.

When someone preys on blind faith for profit, we call that fraud. They are punished when caught. When that someone happens to be from another species with the ability to look and act like something out of ancient religious texts, their punishment gets a bit trickier. S.H.O.O.T., the Secular Human Occult Obliteration Taskforce, proves it’s not impossible. They’re not always able to prevent bad things from happening, but they make sure those responsible can’t profit from it. The team’s made up of members from various races and former creeds so diverse they could have been test-marketed, but at least one has a pretty big secret.

The big question you probably want answered before giving this a shot: is this a propaganda piece for atheism? Answer: no. Religion itself is not the bad guy, and is itself a victim. While many of the characters have crises of faith, it does explain that they have not proven the non-existence of God, they’ve just proven that at least two kinds of alien beings use the ideas behind religions to benefit themselves at the expense of human lives. It does suggest God doesn’t exist, but that suggestion comes from a character with a concussion and a few dozen doses of adrenaline holding him up, so it doesn’t carry much stock. I’m sure somebody will argue that this actually is propaganda against religion, (there are several points where it almost sells itself as one), but they’re not reading it close enough.

This does something that I didn’t expect, something I’m not sure they even intended, but I truly enjoyed. It suggests a world that’s going through the same violent, oppressing, depressing stages of humanity that we are, full of religious extremism turning toward horrible acts of violence, and saying it’s not any person’s fault. It postulates that our fellow man is, at heart, not capable of this kind of monstrous behavior, and that only because of malevolent outside forces could we believe otherwise. It’s a naive concept, but it’s one I could get lost in.

The writing is a bit dense, the art’s a bit hard to follow at times, and the concept’s a bitter pill, but put it all together and you’ve got a neat little book.

And like a ghost, I’m gone! See you next week!

October 3, 2013

Ever get a craving for something crappy? For example, I don’t fully understand the appeal of tenderloin sandwiches - they’re pork pounded so flat the flavor is spatter on some wall, and it's fried so that whoever made it hopes no one notices - and yet every now and then I just have to order one from someplace. It doesn’t make sense, but maybe that’s part of the appeal.

This week is dedicated to that phenomenon. This week is devoted to the comics that don’t make you think, or challenge any of your beliefs. They’re the kind of comics you make a big bowl of buttery popcorn for, then remember that butter will damage the pages so you put the popcorn away, then read the comic and hope it’s so decadently bad that it makes you forget you could be eating buttery popcorn.

(CC Note: Sorry about this. Next week we’ll be sure he’s eaten before he writes, we promise.)

Grindhouse - Bee Vixens from Mars 1 (di Campi/ Peterson): Grindhouse fiction, perfect example! No icky substance to get in the way of explosions, blood, and physical exploitation. At best, it promotes counting because you’ll be tempted to invent some drinking game for it. 
There is a little town out in the middle of nowhere. Everyone knows everyone, and usually the only thing cops have to do is remind everyone to not be a jerk, that is until a Breaking Bad reject is found without heads. (Not a typo.) Officers Jimmy and Garcia share a six-pack of cheap beer and racial insults before investigating the scene when a vicious bee attack cuts Jimmy open in multiple vital parts of the body, leaving him barely able to drive himself home buzzed. He expects to find his wife and her girlfriend waiting for him, but instead finds a few honey stains and untimely death. Then things get weird.

This is not for children. It’s not as racy or targeted as, say, Sex Criminals, but it doesn’t leave a whole lot open to interpretation. There is gore, drugs, alcohol, vigilantism, and sex in this book, and occasionally they team up in single panels. That said, this isn’t mature, either. The mature thing would be to question a person’s expectations when blatantly neglecting his partner’s needs. Such things don’t come up. They don’t get a chance. No one involved is interested. And for what it is, it does that very well.

If you need a break from superheroes or anything high-concept, this is your break. Unless you’re allergic to honey products.

Robocop Last Stand 3/ 8 (Miller/ Grant & Oztekin): If there’s one franchise that’s determined to never die AND exploit any tool to attract viewership no matter how many other viewers it pushes away, it’s Robocop! Let’s see how the comic format is doing…

You want a summary? Watch Robocop 3. A few things are mixed up, but the changes are, at most, cosmetic. Right now we’re at the part where OCP is calling in its Asian partners to wipe out the less affluent parts of Detroit with their humanoid superweapon. They added another sociopathic cyberneticist with a huge rack of brain cells to try and get inside Robo’s head at the same time, because that worked so well in Robocop 2.

Frank Miller wrote Robocop 2 & 3. They’re not the best movies in the world, but they’re consistent with the source material, at least. Miller knows how to progress a Robocop story, but instead he’s rehashed two. He fell back on what had worked (to some extent) in the past. That leaves the art team to carry the book. The color palette’s dark in too many places and the linework is dicey, but there is a lot of fire, bullets fly everywhere, and every opportunity is taken to show of Dr. Fazz’s chest.

If you’ve successfully avoided the Robocop movies but want to know what you’re talking about when the new movie comes out in 2014, grab this book. That’s kind of a narrow margin of readers, but hey, we work with what we have.

Shadow Now 1 (Liss/ Worley): Wait wait, stop, please, Marvel NOW is NOT spreading to other publishers. This is about Lamont Cranston, having defied aging for the past few decades, fighting for a safer New York in the current era. Yes, it’s another reboot, but at least this is of a concept that dates back before most of us were born so, you know, let it go.

A city under seige. An information network crippled. A name stolen: Khan. Nope, it’s not the Star Trek/ Shadow crossover no one asked for, but it should sound a bit familiar. The big bad in the movie starring Alec Baldwin was Shiwan Khan, peer to Cranston in mental power and ferocity. In this book, he’s aged while Cranston has not, and has apparently given up his fight, leaving Cranston to struggle forever. A zen form of revenge, though not exactly “living well” either, and no matter how you look at it, Cranston seemingly has no stone left to turn over. Which sucks when his base of operations gets infiltrated and he gets shot.

This was supposed to be a noir-ish Punisher type of story. Guy in black melts out of shadows and kills hooligans, and an hour later retreats to a club full of classy femmes and cocktails, or in this day and age, co-eds and kegs. Instead, there’s domestic terrorism, teammates unable to trust one another, and an apparent immortal thinking very hard about whether or not he wants to pursue some creepy could-have-been-cest. 

People, I went in hoping for fluff, but while I wasn’t paying attention somebody put something weird in there.

Fantomex Max 1 (Hope/ Crystal): What’s just as guilty a pleasure as watching sexually-charged aliens eat condiments? Not much, but a superpowered thief that romances his pursuers and donates to worthwhile charities is pretty good too.
Fantomex has a lot going for him. He’s in peak physical condition, he has a sentient ship that’s in lust with him, and he can make millions of dollars in his sleep. He keeps himself busy and supplements his income by stealing ridiculously valuable things from naughty organizations. Still, he steals, so Special Agent Rhona Flemyng (again, not a typo) is determined to bring him in, as her oath to law enforcement demands. Fantomex just loves that about her, and so does Grover Lane, director of a special task force assigned to bring Fantomex to justice. Or are they?????

This is trying to evoke a lot of themes from the classic Bond movies - tricky gadgets, exotic weapons, scantily-clad ladies - which is all well and good, but it’s not clear which character is supposed to be Bond. Seems as though they split the role up among a couple of characters. The AI on the space shift never lets an opportunity for fan service or a double entendre go by, and the artist is careful to follow through on the fan-service aspect of things.

Fantomex Max doesn’t worry about continuity or character development. It worries only about how long it’s been since you, the reader, have seen cleavage or a bad pun. And it wants to make sure it hasn’t been long at all. This is fun reading.

This update is late enough as it is, but before I go I need to remind you about the CBLDF Liberty Annual 2013 edition. Comics’ best creators come together once a year to promote the main organization that fights for your rights to read and buy whatever you want in stores like ours. It’s a great-looking book, and if you find the $5 cover price too high, just leave a little something in the CBLDF jar we have by the register. We really can’t support this organization enough.

See you next week!

Looking for older Variant Coverage Blogs by Ryan Walsh for Comic Carnival?  They're here: Variant Coverage Blog Back Issues