A Little More than a Week in the New DC Universe

As mentioned earlier, DC decided to reboot/revamp ("reboot" being what the fans call it and "revamp" being what DC calls it) by resetting their universe so that everything we think we know from over 75 years of continuity may or may not be true any longer. Starting on 31 August, other than one title, all their comics would go back to issue #1. DC promised big change and stellar writer/artist pairings in a tidal wave of hype that lasted for a good two months. In the meantime, store owners were troubled by how to order these new comics—do you base your orders off the numbers of whatever titles were restarting (and if so what do you do with brand new titles?) or do you just go with your gut? More difficult was planning for the second issue—how do you predict what titles were going to do well and which weren't…and how do you compare that to initial orders that you were making based on hope and a prayer?

On some levels, DC's restart was a tremendous success—the interwebs were abuzz with theory conjecture and, yes, more hype. Even mainstream media bought into it as articles sprang up on USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, and the New York Times. May of this year was the first month since probably the 40s when no single comic book, from any company, sold more than 100,000 copies, and yet one of DC's titles had over 200,000 preorders and several more were over 100,000. At the same time though, attention was being turned away from the existing comics—new readers weren't going to pick up series that were about to end and long-time readers were being pushed to focus on the new stories as well. And for the final few weeks, the stories really suffered, making long-time readers wonder why they even bothered: Justice League of America featured single-page synopses of story arcs that would have taken place had the comic continued in its original path. Teen Titans featured a special 100^th issue—a major milestone for most comics—that cost more than "regular" issues did but wrapped up the ongoing story arc in slap-dash and hasty fashion while padding the rest of the issue with single-page pieces of art showcasing someone's love of the Titans.

And so the great experiment began on 31 August, and DC had to balance attracting new customers with keeping returning customers happy. How'd they do? (I should note here I am only reviewing the titles I bought, so there was a little weeding out prior to my purchases. There were some titles that I just could not be convinced to buy.)

31 August

Flashpoint #5 – The last comic book from the "old" DC Universe. Like almost every other recent big event from DC, this was written by Geoff Johns and featured a lot of action, some average dialogue, and a "meh" ending. How exactly the Flash caused the universe we have long read to be completely be replaced by another, of which we have had pretty much no indication, remains unresolved. And there was the expected hard yank on the emotions as Bruce Wayne gets a letter from his father-surrogate from another timeline. We even get to see the Batman weep as he reads his not-father's heartfelt words. Average storytelling at best, and the only real value lay in it being a portal to the New DC Universe. At least Andy Kubert's art had some nice cameos.

Justice League #1 – Here it is--the new universe itself! With a cover featuring Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and Cyborg in their newly redesigned new universe costumes. Unfortunately, only four of those characters appear in the issue itself, one of whom isn't even the hero he appears to be on the cover, and the biggest sell, Superman, only appears in the last panel. This story probably means far more to ongoing readers than new ones; Batman and Green Lantern, the two characters in the focus, are extreme examples of how they have long been portrayed in their own titles. Batman is totally by himself and when the police and military see him, they try to shoot him down. Green Lantern is a gung-ho hothead, convinced he can do anything with his magic ring. He is also cocky beyond belief, even when Batman continually shows him up. Early on, we are told this story takes place "five years ago" so we must assume these are younger versions of the heroes that will eventually be involved in the stories. New readers are very likely to be confused by the characters' differences from their reputations and perhaps also a little dismayed by the lack of other characters and very little Superman. But then, this mirrors the Marvel deconstructed story, a concept those same new readers probably have very little knowledge of. Jim Lee's art is pretty, but again, the story rates a "meh."

7 September

Action Comics #1 – A relatively young Superman/Clark Kent tries to make his way in Metropolis as a hero and reporter. Again, new readers are likely to be disturbed by the movement away from what they think they know about Superman: he is wearing jeans, Lois Lane doesn't know who Clark Kent is, and they even work for different newspapers. This story by Grant Morrison is also actually set in the past of the new DC continuity, but there is actually nothing in the comic itself to indicate that. And while ongoing fans probably know this from the numerous stories about it on various comic news sites, the new reader is just going to be lost. A little introduction would go a long way to make those readers happier. For long-time readers, this is actually some quite good Grant Morrison. His writing is crisp and connected, as opposed to the evil Grant Morrison who writes with gaping plot holes that the reader is supposed to somehow fill in with guess work. And as always, the artwork of Rags Morales is just splendid. This one gets a thumb's-up, especially in the depiction of the new Luthor and his twisted plots, but I worry that it will not do a good job keeping new readers.

Batgirl #1 – I will read anything that Gail Simone writes; she has won me over with tight scripting and dazzling storytelling for years now. And she does not disappoint with Batgirl either. There is a major bump in the road for long-time readers, since Barbara Gordon has been crippled for decades in the old continuity. Simone has a couple of choices, devoting a lot of a first issue to how she got better or finessing it, and she chooses the latter, making a smoother story, if not one that satisfies the fanboys. Barbara Gordon has just started her secret life as Batgirl, and she makes rookie errors in this issue. But Simone has never written flawless heroes; what makes her characters excel is their humanity and their ability to overcome their flaws. Batgirl is vibrant and filled with life, just fun to read despite the continuity passover. And Ardian Syaf's art is pleasant. This one also gets a thumb's-up.

Detective Comics #1 – Wow. Just wow. This one is the pick of the week. Batman is apparently still pretty new in his hero's role, he has to deal with the character that was his arch-nemesis in the old continuity, the Joker. Joker is written a little closer to the character in Christopher Nolan's epic The Dark Knight but writer and artist Tony Daniel still give the Joker some psychopathic wackiness that the always-serious movie version lacked. Batman is completely outclassed by the Joker and realizes it, and yet is so new at his job that he doesn't realize that the Joker's capture was far too easy. The last three pages of this issue could be used to teach graphic story-telling, especially the last panel, a full page, that turns both the expectations of the old-time reader and the new reader completely on their ear. This one is a keeper and one to share with people who are unsure about reading comics.

Hawk and Dove #1 – And then there's the stinker of the week. My caveat—I love Hawk and Dove. I have every issue of every comic that is about them, going back to their first appearance in the 60s. The series in the 80s is still a favorite, one that a good example of solid storytelling that remained fun, until it got blown away by poor decisions in DC editorial. This series harkens back to that earlier series both by circumstance—Hank Hall has been Hawk for a while and has just lost his brother Don, the original Dove, replaced by Dawn Granger—and by creative team. The original artist in that 80s series was one Rob Liefeld, who performs art duties here too. And that's where it all ends. Liefeld has become a horrible artist, a parody of himself with no real sense of proportion and grace. He tries to restrain himself through this issue but the moments when he fails are so excessive that it makes the entire comic really painful to read. Sterling Gates's writing is okay, though there were overarching decisions I just do not understand—why are they the avatars of War and Peace rather than Order and Chaos? Unfortunately, the entire issue is a lot of build-up, that might have been better handled by an artist who appeared to give a damn, leading to a big splash page at the end that doesn't reveal and surprise so much as confound. I SO want this series to succeed, and I'll give it a few more issues, but this is just not a good start.

(If you are unfamiliar with the egregious nature of Liefeld's art, I delightfully point you to http://www.progressiveboink.com/archive/robliefeld.html.)

Justice League International #1 – Between veteran writer Dan Jurgen's clean storytelling and Aaron Lopresti's lovely art, this is a fine primer for people new to comics reading. JLI is the best at merging old expectations with newcomers' explanations and it does so the genre of storytelling that works best most often in comics—the team book. Several disparate characters are introduced and brought together. They squabble as they try to find chemistry and they go fight. Most of the characters in this story will be complete blanks to newcomers and so don't have to carry the weight of mainstream expectation. There are also subplots galore, along with humorous moments, especially those between Rocket Red and August General in Iron. Newcomers may be excused if they keep expecting "One punch!" and who knows?—maybe this title will give us that extra-special moment in comics. This one is definitely a keeper.

Stormwatch #1 – This was a terrific comic, but again I fear that readers new to comics will be completely lost. The original Stormwatch series was a sort of third generation comic, building on the storytelling shorthand of the golden and silver ages to bring modern sensibility and thoughtfulness to over-the-top adventure. This version of Stormwatch does this also, making it treacherous for newcomers. At least the characters in JLI might be a little familiar; I'm pretty sure that most of America has never heard of Jack Hawksmoor, Jenny Quantum, Apollo, or The Engineer. The characters all know each other and so the story has to assume that we know them too; there is no reader-friendly set piece where everyone gets introduced. It's no help that one of the main characters is a shapeshifter as well. But for fans of good comics, and especially fans of the original series, this is darned good stuff. Writer Paul Cornell has gotten the flavor of those original stories down, even though he's changing up the characters a bit. And while artist Miguel Sepulveda's panels can be cluttered at times, most of the issue's art is a throwback to that original series. This issue even has an editorial note referring the reader to an event in a comic that has not been released yet. Even long-time readers will read this one slowly and enjoy it, and I just have to recommend new readers hang on if this ends being anything like the original series.

The tally? A decidedly mixed bag. I think one severe weakness is that the issues are a victim of their own hype. It was hard not to be disappointed with a summer-long promise of "everything changes" even though I knew that it would be just about as valid as it is every time a comic company says it. But DC actually seemed to be going through with the motions by restarting every title and so I believed. By and large, it mostly felt like I had picked up a week's worth of independent comics, featuring writers and artists I know and characters I was only slightly familiar with. The whole experiment may go very well, but DC has to resist the urge to give winks to the old continuity and treat every story as if it is a new one. I'll be fascinated to see in December and January what titles will get axed first. And the sales numbers of month 2 are going to be fascinating.

After the Purge….

If you follow my blog at all, you'll note that I pretty much gave up on a weekly comic review, mostly because the things I was reading weren't making me happy. Every now and again, they'd raise a grin or I'd be pleased with some deft writing touches, but for the most part, it was all very meh. What you don't know is that I kept my huge subscription list, hoping against hope that they would get better, that someone would see the light and good storytelling would make its way back. This is not to say that there weren't good stories. I'll tell you right now that Jonah Hex may be the best comic that the big two are putting out right now, and anything that Paul Dini writes is worth looking at. The same can be generally said of Kurt Busiek as well.

Now rational-minded people would suggest that I needed to get beyond the Big Two, and I do have some titles that fall outside Marvel and DC, but not many. To me, it is very hard work to discover good independent titles as they come out, and I'm not sure if that is a worse indictment of me or the whole comics industry. And even the independents are doing some odd stuff of late—IDW and Dark Horse, once bastions of creator-owned comics and groundbreaking storytelling are both becoming primarily publishers of franchises, like Star Wars for Dark Horse and Transformers and Ghostbusters for IDW. So, combined with not being able to figure out what looks good as it launches, I have to dig through the franchise madness that appears to be moving from book publishing to comics.

As a result, a couple of weeks ago, I did the nearly unthinkable: I cut two-thirds of my subscription list. My local store owner, a long-time friend, was concerned I was having financial issues. And I explained to him that in some ways I was—I was tired of spending good money on drek. He didn't like it, but he accepted it. I also recognize, bless his soul, that I was perhaps one of his biggest customers and he was fighting not to lose money. And honestly, that played into my thinking about what I ultimately did, but I can't be responsible for propping up a store by myself.

I didn't go to the store this past week because of a cold. But I went today and got my stuff. Maybe it's having fewer books to read, and maybe I have a limited quantity of pleasure a week to devote to comics, so that happiness with individual issues was lower when I had so many titles to spread it across. Or, as seems more likely, the gods smiled down at me and comics did some really amazing things over the past two weeks.

First, Marvel's Ultimate Spiderman 150, a special issue to recognize the milestone. It's an above-average title, perhaps the best thing that Bendis regularly writes. And this story has its maudlin saccharine moments, as one might expect for a special issue of a comic built in large measure around teen angst. But that's not what got me. Towards the end of the issue, guest artists have supplied two-page spreads to accompany the narration of an oral report being delivered by Peter Parker in class; again, you expect this sort of thing in what used to be known as "key issues." But I turned the page and ran smack into a two-page spread of the Fantastic Four, drawn and inked and perhaps even colored by Dave Gibbons. If you don't know Dave Gibbons, he is the co-creator of Watchmen, the man tasked with trying to fulfill artistically the vision Alan Moore had. Critics recognize that Gibbons had nearly as much to do with the brilliant storytelling of Watchmen as did Moore. Since then, Gibbons's art is often used in the more science-fictiony titles. But this particular piece made my mouth hang open, by far his best art that I've seen since Watchmen and the best Fantastic Four since Jack Kirby let them out of his control (and honestly, probably surpasses a lot of the Kirby art as well). I have searched and searched the Interwebs for this image, but I cannot find it anywhere. If it were possible, I would buy the original art and frame it—it is really a stunning statement about the power and tradition of comic art. I cannot recommend going to your comic store enough to find this image.

Second, DC's Brightest Day 14. Brightest Day is a mini-series follow-up to Blackest Night, and so far it has been pretty meh too. DC really needs to think about what they want to accomplish with these full-year maxi-series, because they never seem to come together very well despite the best intentions. Perhaps they read better when they are collected, but reading them as they come out can be pretty painful. Once again DC has too many plot-threads dangling, so each issue either flits about between a cast of more than ten characters or it's devoted to a single character and so the other plot-threads hang in the balance for weeks. And to be honest, the story in this issue is not exceptional: it follows the cliché of a hero having a near-death experience and rediscovering just why he's a hero. There is some irony that the hero in question is Deadman, but that's about the most nuanced bit of storytelling in the issue. But some combination of writer Geoff Johns and artist Ivan Reis caused an amazing thing to happen on pages two and three of the issue, another two-page spread. Reis drew the pages in question, obviously; I just have no idea how much of what was drawn was at Johns's direction and how much of it came from Reis himself. But the result is perhaps the most glorious homage to Neal Adams when he was at the top of his form that I have ever seen. And fortunately, these images are available…I just wish you could see them side by side, as they are in the comic.

Page 2--http://dcu.blog.dccomics.com/files/2010/11/bday_14_dylux-2-copy.jpg

Page 3--http://dcu.blog.dccomics.com/files/2010/11/bday_14_dylux-3-copy.jpg

I'm pretty sure this image is based on the first appearance of Deadman in Strange Adventures; unfortunately my issues are in storage so I can't find the one I am thinking of for sure. But this first cover is some good evidence: http://www.comics.org/issue/21336/cover/4/?style=default.

And once again I saw the power that comics can convey, given writers and artists who excel. It is really a spectacular image and if you are any kind of fan of Neal Adams, a splendid homage, down to the lines in Deadman's face and the placement of the word balloon. If you wander down to the local store to see the Ultimate Spiderman, you might take some time to check this out as well.

Finally, issue 0 of the new Batwoman, written and illustrated by uber-talented JH Williams. Fortunately, again, I can share some art, http://dcu.blog.dccomics.com/2010/11/24/who-is-batwoman/. There is no other storyteller like JH Williams, who combines a new and arguably radical idea of page composition with some of the most striking art you'll ever see. The good news is that this is the beginning of a new ongoing series for DC. The bad news is that if Williams ever leaves it, its readership is going to fall off by 95%. If you don't read comics and want to get in on the ground floor of a stunning piece of work that may well be the next big thing, run out to your store and start checking out Batwoman.

So for the first time in a long while, my comics made me smile, made me stop and stare and the art, made me want to share the really awesome things I'd seen first with my wife and now with you. I'd insert something sappy here about tomorrow being Thanksgiving, but I won't. I just hope for more nights like these.

Blackest Night: A Post Mortem

DC just finished their massive eight-part crossover event, Blackest Night, which actually felt like it ran much longer due to all the build-up that went into it. Now that it is done, let's take a look back at what went wrong and what went right.

On the positive side, the events leading up to Blackest Night and the event itself was some of the best story-telling DC has put forth in a while. Final Crisis was supposed to be a bigger and more important event, looking back as it did at the entire history of the DC universe, but its main title was written with a different type of enjoyment in mind, that of looking back at DC history and making connections that required fairly esoteric knowledge of DC history. Between that and the disturbing pattern of having a lot of important action take place between the panels so that the reader had to guess what was going on in a lot of cases, Final Crisis was difficult and not very accessible to a casual reader. And since part of the premise of the big crossover events is to pull in the more casual readers, in some ways Final Crisis was a failure. On the other hand, Blackest Night did not really require a lot of background, and what background was needed was not very esoteric. The important beats were highlighted early in the series, such as the invention of a new spectrum of lanterns, and the rest flowed fairly easily from there.

Blackest Night also had the advantage that its primary series was written by the current Green Lantern writer, Geoff Johns, so that the build-up over time was fairly gradual. And its tie-in to the Green Lantern series and the companion book, Green Lantern Corps was tight. It's a difficult game that the publisher must play—if it's a big event, how much crossing over is required, or from the readers' perspective, how many other books will they have to buy? DC did a good job of keeping the story contained in those three titles, and it could be argued that Green Lantern Corps wasn't really necessary for the primary plot.

But these considerations are secondary to what's most important—Blackest Night was a really fun concept and made for good reading. The dead of the DC universe, good, bad, and ancillary, are rising up and devouring the hearts of every living thing they can encounter. The revenants appear to have all the memories and emotions of the former living, which makes some of them pitiful and some horribly conniving. From the revenant Terra pleading with those who loved her to kill her again to put her out of her misery to the horror of Donna Troy's infant son attacking her, there were a number of fascinating character moments. That the overall rationale for these stories was a little lacking paled when compared to the "cool factor" of seeing resurrected enemies and friends.

And the art through the major titles was particularly gorgeous. Ivan Reis did wonderful work in Blackest Night and Doug Mahnke handled the art chores in Green Lantern really well. The story flowed between cosmic and personal, and the art captured the nuances of both easily.

The negative side seems to be made of editorial decisions that I just can't fathom. The biggest blunder was a skip month after the first six issues, which seems to have been planned for by the insertion of secondary titles in the vacuum (more on them below). Blackest Night had a ton of momentum after its sixth issue—the reader has finally been introduced to the main villain and he has expressed his power by turning some of the DC heroes who had died and come back into Black Lanterns. And then nothing for two months, nothing but one-shots of cancelled series being restarted to bring back dead characters. No movement on the big plot, so that when Blackest Night restarted with issue seven, it really did feel like a restart. Momentum was gone, and the formerly fun beats felt more like audience manipulation. No doubt it will work much better in collected trade paperbacks, for those of us reading as the issues came out, it was a horrible anti-climax and made it difficult to get excited about the conclusion.

And there were a lot of tie-ins to Blackest Night: there were several mini-series, like Blackest Night: JSA that focused on a specific character or characters' response to what was happening around them. There were the restarts of cancelled series that brought back old characters so we could get their reactions to those they cared for being reborn. And there were the special Blackest Night issues of ongoing stories, usually two parts, performing much the same function as the mini-series. Most of these had very little to do with what was going on in the main story arc and felt like some sort of filler. Particularly egregious to me was the JSA mini-series, where Mr. Terrific figures out how to defeat the regenerative revenants, and in the process clears out New York City of every undead. But in nearly the last two panels he explains that the process required parts that cannot be duplicated and so the weapon cannot be rebuilt. It's a fairly standard cop-out and an example of lazy story-telling, but it does lead to the question of why, if he knew he could only make one such weapon, didn't he take it to the heart of the revenant uprising in Coast City? The tie-in stories in existing series felt like everyone marching in place, especially as they all took nearly exactly the same format: one issue to remind the reader who the revenants are and then they attack, and the second issue to find some miraculous way to overcome them, a method which was never reproduced in the main storyline. Some of them are ingenious—freezing the revenants, for example—but if the methodology is never returned to the main story, it really serves no purpose. There were some potential "oh cool" moments in the tie-ins, like for example the idea of Dick Grayson and Tim Drake meeting their respective deceased parents, who by the way want to eat their hearts. But the potential of those moments is not fulfilled, again, as they never seem to have any relation to what's happening elsewhere.

There were also some strange moments that remain inexplicable to me. For instance, the highlight of the first issue of Blackest Night is the resurrection of Martian Manhunter and Ralph and Sue Dibny. In fact, their undead appearance was perhaps the most scary (after Donna Troy's dead son) and showed the potential of what the revenants could do. But after their splash page appearance in that first issue, we never see them again. And also in that first appearance, Hawkman and Hawkgirl are killed and then made undead, but we never see them again either. In several of the tie-ins, we discover that heroes that are light-based are better able to deal with the revenants, but that information doesn't seem to make it over to the main story.

And somehow, despite having eight issues and numerous tie-ins, the last bits of the story still felt particularly rushed. I'm still not terribly sure what the main villain's plan actually was and how it involved his allowing dead heroes to be resurrected in the past few years. I have no idea why there was a White Lantern Corps that lasted for all of an eye-pleasing panel before the story swept past them and those members were returned to their normal costumes. And the biggest mystery of all, why twelve formerly deceased characters were resurrected, is not even told in Blackest Night but left as a cliffhanger to be resolved in the ubiquitous follow-up series, Brightest Day.

Finally, there were some unfortunate pile-ups in the editorial office as far as scheduling went, as different aspects of the many series collided with each other. For instance, in Blackest Night #4, the hero Damage is gruesomely killed and his heart ripped from his body. And yet in his "home" title, JSA, life goes on and Damage fights alongside his teammates, even taking part in the splitting of the JSA team and appearing in the new title JSA All-Stars. Every other title in the DC universe is in the crossover, but apparently the JSA titles are not…and there is no indication anywhere on the pages that they aren't. Such a complaint may seem nit-picky, but it was (And still is) a stumbling block and impairs the impact of killing the character elsewhere if he still goes on in his own title. Worse was two other big DC events that collided with Blackest Night blunting their impacts a well. For a long while, DC had been building up the return of the most famous Flash of all, Barry Allen, in Flash: Rebirth. In that series, the newly reborn Flash deals with perhaps his worst arch-nemesis, Reverse-Flash, who has somehow returned from the dead. Supposedly, this was going to be a nice lead-in to Blackest Night, except that the Flash series got bogged down and didn't finish before Blackest Night. So in one series, Flash is wandering about trying to understand how his dead nemesis could possibly have come back, and in another series, coming out at the same time, he has no such concerns about lots of dead people coming back.

Similarly, some fairly ground-breaking things happened in another mini-series, Justice League: Cry for Justice, where there was some interesting contemplation of how justice works in the comics world. But its conclusion ran smack dab into the conclusion of Blackest Night, and its somewhat powerful conclusion, which opens the door to all sorts of interesting and thought-provoking questions, is muted by the return of twelve characters from the dead and the death of many many others in the pages of Blackest Night.

The result is that Blackest Night shows the potential of a thoughtfully planned event at DC. The story generally was good and fun to read, and I am excited by the return of a few characters. At the same time, however, it shows the weakness of such an event, dealing as it does with a lot of working parts that all have to remain in synch for the best, most dramatic impact. There were some hiccups that served as momentary distractions from what DC hoped to accomplish with Blackest Night, and that's unfortunate. Blackest Night really is the best event that they have had in some time and should serve as a signpost for how to do similar things in the future. Only, let's not do them too near in the future—event fatigue has set in and I'd like to see time spent on the repercussions of all that just happened.

Wednesday Comics

Let the grand experiment begin!

When I first learned of Wednesday Comics, DC's weekly anthology series printed in newspaper format on newsprint, I was dubious. DC's last two weekly series started n a high note and completely collapsed, ending up feeling like a complete waste of a year's time and money. However, Wednesday Comics is intended to run for only 12 weeks, so perhaps a limited lifespan would encourage cleaner storytelling. Also, each page of the 16 would have its own story, with its own character (or characters), writer, and artist. So if one story was not to my taste, there would be plenty of other opportunities for storytelling goodness.

Issue #1 came out this past week, and while Wednesday Comics is not a smashing success, it is not a failure by any means. In fact, the issue has really excited me from what had been the doldrums for the last couple of years, epitomized by how much I couldn't care less about the poorly handled death of Bruce Wayne or the universe-shattering implications of Final Crisis. Other than the few things I was really enjoying—Green Lantern and pretty much anything Paul Dini was writing—everything felt like it had been treading water and my pull list at the local store was getting smaller and smaller as titles either got cancelled or I dropped them. But I had seen the names associated with Wednesday Comics and had some interest in the characters, so I decided to give it a try…even though my well-founded cynicism had caused to me have a few doubts.

The first thing that leaps out at you as you open Wednesday Comics is how big the art is. Expecting something like the size of the newspaper Sunday funnies section, I was startled to find that each page does contain exactly one story, and so the artist has to work with about four times as much space as a regular comic page. That large a canvas gives the good artists a brilliant opportunity to show their craft, but it also gives the poor artists more rope to hang themselves with. I actually took far longer to read this comic than any I have read in a long time (allowing for sheer confusion like in the case of some of Morrison's work). Details jump out at you, and even the amateur critical eye (such as mine) has plenty of art to work with. But along with the art, this large format puts a premium on page layout. With this much space, artists can do some fascinating things with the pages or just make brutal fatal mistakes. As you unfold the comic, the first image that leaps out at you is a pair of eyes, taking a large chunk of the space above the fold, looking up and reflecting the Bat-signal. It is striking and stops the reader's movement, drawing them to investigate further. IT is a really strong beginning.

The Batman story, written by Brian Azzarello, represents some of the risk-taking the writers can take as well. Most of the page is a conversation between Batman and Commissioner Gordon, with the real "Action" only taking place in the last four panels along the last row. And even then, the action consists of the point-of-view moving closer and closer to the subject, a pair of fingers moving, and a pair of eyes closing, all without any dialogue. And yet those images are some of the most evocative I have seen a very long time. Between Azzarello's scripting and the art of Eduardo Robins and Patricia Mulvihill, I found myself going over that single page a number of times, trying to drink in what is not at all a complex story. What a fantastic start.

The second page, a Kamandi story of all things, is another fine achievement, but this one is a paean to the old Sunday comics days, filled with extraordinarily clean lines and vibrant color. Dave Gibbons' script is a quick retelling of the origin of Kamandi, because a lot of contemporary comics readers probably have no idea who he is (and if this pulls in new readers as it should, they will never recognize the name). The story is workmanlike, but Ryan Sook's art just leaps off the page. For me, that art is the very best in the whole book, showing strong craftsmanship while rejoicing in the tradition that the story takes part in.

The Deadman story by Dave Bullock and Vinton Heuck mixes in the origin story with the beginning of an adventure that calls for Deadman's unique talents. While the individual panels owe a great to Darwyn Cooke, their layout is delightful, with the head and shoulders of Deadman leaping out of the center of the page. Paul Pope's "Strange Adventures" also is a masterful use of layout. While the art is rough in some stretches and someone else should have done the lettering, the layout looks like a reproduction of a Williamson Flash Gordon page, dripping with a sort of art deco retro-futurity that hearkens back to the golden age of comic strips. The work of Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Kevin Nowlan, and Trish Mulvihill on the Metal Men is also fine, especially clean and crisp and recalling the pop art of the 60s, the era from which the Metal Men arose. Also compelling is Joe Kubert's return to Sgt. Rock.

However, there are a few clunkers in here as well. Sean Galloway's art on the Teen Titans is a sort of Westernized anime, one I would not say is carried off very well. In addition the colors are washed out and the panels cluttered, making for a difficult and not very enjoyable read. The writing in Kyle Baker's Hawkman really thuds; while the art is somewhat compelling, the narration is overblown and hyperbolic, making me grateful that the strip is only five panels long. But by worst, by far, is Ben Caldwell's Wonder Woman. Not only are the panels cluttered, there are far too many of them, cluttering the page itself. The art is difficult to follow, making the action in each panel, let alone throughout the panels, a puzzle. And the layout is a nightmare: there are panels the size of my thumb with art and three word balloons as well as a caption…it's just impossible to figure out what's happening. And the drawings themselves verge on childish, adding to the difficulty of sorting out what is going on.

And yet, despite these failures, I applaud every co-creator for taking the risk. Wednesday Comics #1 is a breath of fresh air, shining light both on the history of the medium and potential for its future. What these storytellers are doing is exciting, and I look forward to the next issue very much. Based on this first issue alone, I'd push DC to consider making this an ongoing rather than a mini-series…so long as they can keep up the high standards they have set for themselves with #1.

Blazing Combat

Fantagraphics Books has reprinted the four-issue run of Warren Publishing's Blazing Combat, some of the best black and white art from some of the finest artists of the 60s and 70s. I barely knew about the run of magazines—though I remember sneaking peeks at Creepy and Eerie when I was a child; Blazing Combat ran from October of 1965 to June of 1966. Included in the new book is every story published by the magazine and two semi-informative interviews with publisher James Warren and writer Archie Goodwin. The interviews are fairly interesting, describing the birth and rapid death of the magazine in the face of protests from patriotic distribution companies who disliked the magazine's apparent anti-war stance as the Vietnam War was kicking into gear. However, the description of the events of the magazine's demise, while compelling, are terribly one-sided and based on conjecture. It's hard to say how much of the story Warren tells is what was actually going on in the minds of the distributors, and the interviewer never really gets a good answer from Goodwin regarding the rationale for the magazine's end.

But truly, you shouldn't be coming to Blazing Combat for the interesting historical sidelight; this book is about some great story-telling. What first captures the eye are the splendid black-and-white panels by such artists as Reed Crandall, Al Williamson, Gene Colan, Grey Morrow, Alex Toth, and many others. The stories scan a wide range of human history, from the battle at Thermopylae to future combat in a post-apocalyptic landscape. Sometimes the art is not terribly historically accurate, but it is always compelling and worth taking some time to examine every page. The reproduction of the art is so fine that in many ways this book could be used as a primer for artists interesting in learning or refining the skill of black-and-white art. And of course, good reproduction doesn't really matter if the reproduced subject matter is bland, but it seems clear that other than those historical inaccuracies, the artists were near the top of their form in every case.

Balanced with the fine art is impressive writing from one of comic's great writers, Archie Goodwin. Given pretty much free reign by publisher Warren, Goodwin wrote masterful stories about the condition of war and how it affects the human spirit. Goodwin holds very little back, noting that even when the "good" side wins, there is a tremendous cost to battle in both people and emotion. War is indeed hell, no matter the circumstances, and the stories and art emphasize the horror at every turn. This is not to say that the book is a gore-fest; in fact, the art seems delicate in that regard—people obviously die, but it is not horrific. It is the settings and scenarios that Goodwin's writing sets out, which the art fulfills, that carry the tone of the book.

The biggest regret I have about the book is that the tremendous covers by Frank Frazetta are pretty much left out. There is only one picture of each, and they are thumbnail size, not enough to being to explore the detail and intricacy of war art by Frazetta. I get the feeling there was some difficulty about being allowed to reproduce the original covers, because it really is a gaping hole in the collection. Otherwise, this is a fantastic piece of comic history, a must-have for anyone interested in the literary capabilities of comics or who just enjoys fine black and white art.

Comics for 14 May

There was enough interesting stuff last week that I’m going to write about a weeks’ worth of comics. I feel very tentative about this for some reason, as though I’ve fallen out of practice.

Spoilers ho!

Batman 676 – R.I.P. begins with this issue, and typical of Morrison, we’re introduced to a grand spate of characters that are unfamiliar, calling themselves the Black Glove and led by Doctor Hurt. I don’t know that any of them have appeared in any of Morrison’s stories to this point, but they are setting up what they call the Dance of Death for Batman. The writing is generally quite good, spending time with Batman and Robin in pursuit of another failed costumed villain before returning home. We find that Bruce Wayne and Jezebel Jet are an item now, and that she knows his secret identity and appears willing to accept it, even talking to him about the time when Batman’s mission is complete, including his ability to recognize it being done. At the same time, Robin and Alfred have a very discerning conversation about the emotional roller coaster Batman appears to be on, and the state of the Batman family. It’s actually fairly touching to see something like a familial moment here, and Alfred is written particularly well—stalwart and compassionate at the same time.

But when the Joker gets introduced to the mix in what feels in some ways like a four-page coda to the main story, things get all garbled up. I’ve read those four pages probably twenty times trying to figure out what is going on and where we are, and while I have some ideas, there is nothing to firmly answer my questions. Perhaps more will be revealed in the next issues—and solicitations make it clear that Joker plays a vital part in this story—but my experience with Morrison and the unanswered questions awaiting responses is that they really get answered. It’s no help that Tony Daniel’s art, strong throughout the issue, is especially compelling in these pages, but it doesn’t help to answer the questions that he pages raise.

It’s a strong start to what is supposed to be the most important storyline in years for Batman (this time everything changes!), but I admit to being a little pessimistic, both in the successful completion of this story and its place in the Batman canon at large.

Titans 2 – If you’re going to bring back the Titans, there really is no better way to do it than by bringing Trigon back as well. Writer Judd Winick is weaving an interesting story of revenge, as Trigon aims to settle the score with the Titans. Raven returns to her home dimension to suss who is attacking the Titans, while the rest of the team at first rescues another captured titan and then waits for the results of Raven’s sussing—results which arrive fairly explosively and with a big reveal. The story has potential, a lot of it actually, especially for true Titans fans.

Unfortunately, there are two glaring weaknesses. First, the art is horrible. I don’t recall any art specifically from Joe Benitez anywhere else—which I consider a good thing; while not good enough to stand out, it also wasn’t bad enough to stand out. But this is really bad stuff; all of the characters look like Stretch Armstrong caricatures, all drawn out and thin. I swear the model for Flash is Plastic Man, especially when we first see him with a jaunty pose Wally has never affected before. But as bad as the men are, the women are far far worse, with wide expanses of forehead leading to tight faces taking up very little space on the front of the head. It’s just not enjoyable to look at.

Secondly, Winick is failing massively at finding the voice of the Titans. They are more than friends; they are family, each with their own voice but with all sorts of embedded connections. What Winick has, written, however seems like a loose confederation of allies coming together to fight a common cause. Especially telling is the portrayal of Gar Logan, Beast Boy, as some sort of comic prop. In the past, he has been the comic figure, but he has grown past that in recent years and stories. Winick writes him as if he was 12 years old again and generally stupider than he actually was at that age. It’s grating and distracting from what could be a cool story.

I’m going to keep reading this for a bit, just because it is the Titans, but these two issues are enough to make me drop the title soon if they don’t get fixed, no matter the potential of a good Titans story. (And this morning, having seen the cover for Titans 5, I’m not optimistic…).

Wonder Woman 20 – I think I have made no bones about how much I like Gail Simone. And now she has gone something unexpected, reaching back into DC’s fantasy past, bringing back characters that I have found to be filled with unrealized potential from the DC implosion. With this issue, Wonder Woman meets Stalker and Beowulf, with hints that we are going to see Claw as well. Simone’s characterization of the implosion characters feels dead on, and she uses them to insert Wonder Woman in a fantasy world with gods and magic, which to be honest often feels like it is where she should be most often. I’m delighted with this first part of the story and looking forward to how it plays out. And Aaron Lopresti turns in some really strong art work to go with the story, especially in close-ups of characters’ faces.

And some related Gail Simone news--convention reports indicate she will be doing an ongoing Secret Six series, with art by one of my favorites, Nicola Scott. Huzzah!

Countdown

I was bagging my comics this morning and of course came up exactly three bags short. So I drove to my favorite comic book and supply store, the place I worked at when I was in graduate school and where I have been a customer for 20 years now. I was startled to find the owner was actually working today, since it is a Sunday, but it turns out there was a Heroclix tournament going on and the other clerks were busy playing. The store owner has a great sense of humor, and even when he is being dry, he gets this gleam in his eye so I can tell when he is not being serious. With that particular glint, he ask, "Have you heard that our long national nightmare is over?"

Rick and I often have political discussions, as well as discussions about books and movies. Without a context, I was unsure what he was talking about. I guess I looked dumbfounded, because he followed up fairly quickly with "...now that the final Countdown has come out?" I grinned, in part at the memory in the same store on Wednesday picking up the week's book and serenading the employees and customers with a decidedly Southern and more off-key version of Europe's 80s rock hit, "The Final Countdown." But before I could respond, the poor customer who was trapped in our verbal volley asked if it was that bad. Rick responded, and I was taken aback: "Well, financially, we still have 97% of the sales from issue 1, so I liked it. But it was a horrible story and DC should be embarrassed." What was so astounding about this was not just that Rick was so honest about an issue of a comic he was still trying to sell, and that in fact this customer had in his hands, but that he was still selling 97% of his initial sales on a weekly basis!

I've been pretty frank about my opinions of recent writing at DC. I think their pinning a years' worth of stories on something that was apparently so poorly planned out was shameful. I've stopped doing comic reviews for a while because otherwise I would end up blogging on a weekly basis about the same crop of books all the time: Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps, and Detective. What is so odd is that as much as I am enjoying Detective, its writer--Paul Dini--was supposed to be the architect of Countdown. And the potential and success of those two series are completely opposite: Detective is exciting and refreshing while Countdown appears to spent a year marching steadily in place.

I recognize that it is incumbent on a critic to explain the reasons why he doesn't like something, probably moreso than why he likes something. And part of my problem is that I can't remember details about Countdown, which simultaneously points out one of its biggest flaws. I've been reading the book for 52 weeks and yet I can barely remember any details from it--was that really DC's goal? The best I can do is catalog the differences in the DC Universe from the beginning of Countdown to its end.

1. Jimmy Olsen had all the powers of the New Gods, then lost them, so that by the end of the series, nothing has changed for him except that he has fond memories.

2. Speaking of which, all the New Gods aer apparently dead, except for the "spirit" of Orion, who helps defeat Darkseid but is voiceless and ghostlike, and a new Forager, a character we have never seen before and doesn't offer a whole lot of promise for the future.

3. There is a new group "Monitoring the monitors" made up of Donna Troy, Kyle Raynor, Ray Palmer and the aforementioned new Forager. Expect most of the work for this group to be performed by Ray and Forager, since Donna and Kyle have their own books to be a part of.

4. Mary Marvel went evil, then good, then evil again. Now she is challenging Black Adam. And all during this yearlong period of angst for her, Billy Batson and Captain Marvel are nowhere to be found.

5. Jean Loring is not Eclipso any longer; the mantle has gone back to Bruce Gordon.

6. And Monarch has put together a pan-universal army that includes the Extremists. Just why we have no idea, but we spent a total of 10 issues of side series getting to that point.

So some things have happened, but a lot of each of these could have been handled in their own mini-series, instead of dragging readers along for 52 weeks. In terms of sweeping changes to the DC Universe, promised changes to the status quo, there is nothing. I can't think of a darned thing that is different, other than the reading has become that much more tedious in almost all the series.

But to go back to Rick's statement, the amazing thing is that he kept the vast majority of his sales over the course of the year. Why didn't anyone give up the series....why didn't I give up the series? For myself, I know I am a completist--once I start a series, it takes a lot to make me stop reading it; I am DC's dream customer. But I have been saying for a while now that I wanted to stop reading, so why didn't I quit the series? And as silly as the answer sounds, it is exactly this: I bought the hype, that something important was going to happen in the course of the 52 weeks. If you had told me before the series started that the New Gods would be wiped out, I would have thought that was a huge event, but there have been no repercussions, and apparently most of the DC Universe doesn't even know it yet. And I am already hearing rumors that Darkseid is going to show up in the next major event, Final Crisis, so it would appear that I did wisely by holding on to my emotional energy. As best I can tell from reading numerous boards, including DC's own, very few people are very happy with Countdown but most of them read the whole dang thing. So, no matter how poorly it was handled, it has to be a success in DC's eyes, and there is no reason for them not to do something like this again.

I've been resistant to the whole idea of waiting for a story arc to come out in graphic novel format, but I now see one huge advantage to it--I would only be buying things that have been reviewed and vetted, and thus saving money both because the graphic novels are cheaper than the per-issue cost and because I would be buying fewer comics altogether. I don't want to think like this, as I enjoy the serial nature of buying comic books on a weekly or monthly basis, but the strains of the Who are drifting in my mind, "I won't be fooled again." I'll give it one last shot, but if I get burned even a little bit, I'm seriously going to reconsider how and why I buy comics.

Comics for 6 February

It was another short list this week. And fortunately, a couple of the things I talked about last week had their counterparts come out this week, offering the opportunity to dig a little more.

Spoilers ho!

Detective 841 - Paul Dini offers up a one-and-done Mad Hatter story, complete with beginning, middle, and end. While I recognize it is the nature of serialized publishing to have stories that extend over a period of time, good story-tellers can advance an overall arc while telling self-contained episodes in the arc, completing a story and leaving some threads to be advanced in the ongoing stories. Dini does this with the Mad Hatter, giving us a new situation, developing that situation, coming to a crisis (in the literary sense, not in the DC Universe sense), and then giving a solid denouement. And once again we see the detective facet of Batman in the forefront of the story--using his skills to unravel the mystery at hand.

Contrast this to the most recent issue of Batman which was a series of nearly hallucinogenic flashbacks, revealing very little new about the character, offering perhaps some insights into the current incarnation, bit not advancing what appears to be a major story-arc, Batman suffering from a heart attack while in the clutches of a sadistic new nemesis. Again, this is not to say that wherever Batman ends up is not interesting, but the getting there feels rather tedious. Detective remains sharp and crisp, each story pulling the reader in and delivering, with almost every issue. Dustin Nguyen's art takes some getting used to, but it is serviceable and does not get in the way of the story, which is the very least we can expect from an artist.

A note for the future of these two series: this weekend Dan Didio announced at the annual retailers' meeting that the upcoming "Batman R.I.P." arc in Batman will not be crossing over into the Detective series (the actual quote from http://newsarama.com: "you’ll have “Batman: R.I.P." in Batman, along with another major and separate storyline in Detective"). This announcement comes in the middle of a discussion about the continuity all coming together for Final Crisis in 2008. Seeing that the assumed death of Batman is to be balanced by an important story-line having nothing to do with the death of Batman actually makes me feel worse even less optimistic about the continuity actually coming together. I guess we'll find out in about three months.

Fables 69 - Last week, I talked about the disappointment I feel for Jack of Fables, especially balanced against its companion title. And this issue of Fables just highlights the strengths of this title. Chapter Nine of "The Good Prince" brings the resolution of a stroy-arc that has run for most of a year, and it does it triumphantly. Flycatcher has gone from being the amnesiac janitor in Fabletown city hall to the savior of all the fables, when he defeats the primary army of the opposition. And to its credit, I doubt many readers could see this conclusion coming, given the end of the last issue, wwhere it appeared that all hope was gone.

Along these lines this is the first issue in the story-line where the effects of the events in Fabletown were not revealed, but Flycatcher deserved the lion's share of the pages. And the events of this issue are so big, the full impact could not be adequately covered anyway, leaving the repercussions to be worked out in future issues of Fables. The few reactions we get to see are crucial to the ongoing story of Flycatcher and offer a Kay-esque promise of stories that continue long after the scenes that held the reader's attention have passed.

While often light-hearted and even whimsical in tone, Fables perfectly balances the worlds-spanning importance of events while reminding the reader that these characters are based on whimsy. In fact, it is the background of whimsy that makes the serious events that much more poignant. Meanwhile, Jack of Fables uses whimsy as the background for just being mean-spirited. At any rate, this story arc deserves mention for the Eisners come July. Given the minimal interaction I have had with Bill Willingham in San Diego (he graciously accepted my thanks for using characters from The Faeire Queene in his story-telling, actually carrying on a short conversation about the beauty of those stories rather than rolling his eyes at the geek boy nature of my praise) and given the care he appears to put into the stories, according to his panels, I admire his talent and skill immensely. And he seems like just a good guy. How much fun would it be to sit in on a story session with him and artist Mark Buckingham?

Along with Detective and Booster Gold, this has become a destination comic each month from DC.

Justice Society of America 12 - Perhaps freakishly, I am thrilled as much by the Golden Age characters in the DC Universe as I am by the more modern ones. The Justice Society and it sister titles have long been a favorite of mine, probably because the 80-page giants I used to read had back-up reprints of those really cool stories. The stories of the Seven Soldiers of Victory and Justice Society somehow resonated with me for the sense of family among the characters that often felt missing from the Justice League stories also carried in those giants. In later years, All-Star Squadron carried that tradition further. So imagine my delight to see the cover of this issue of Justice Society, complete with an African-American man in green and yellow.

Yes, there is a new Amazing Man, complete with fascinating back-story and historical perspective. In some ways, I wish some stories could be told of the history that the original Amazing Man, grandfather of this new one, and the place he took in the society around him. According to the flashbacks, he used his powers for social justicve, becoming a companion to Martin Luther King, a role this new Amazing Man continues. Storylines of the original's struggles, handled tastefully as this introduction was, could be fascinating and powerful story-telling.

This issue also serves as the introduction of a new character in the DC Universe, Lance, who turns out to be a descendant of FDR. This one is less promising, although having a character currently serving in the military could open up some story-telling possibilities as well. There is also the introduction of the villain for this arc, Gog, whom I should have suspected all along given the presence of the Kingdom Come Superman. Things are building up nicely for some huge stories, but then, Geoff Johns has always been skilled at the build-up, including his personal touchstone, a single-panel final page with a twist in the story-telling. And I have written before of my findness for the action-filled clean lines of Dale Eaglesham's art.

The only concern I have for this title is the cast approaching the size of the roster of the Legion of Super-heroes. Eighteen menbers are included in the roll call, and four new characters are introduced in the pages of this title. And they all have such fascinating back-stories, I have no idea how any of them are going to get any build-up over time. But it promises to be a fun ride for a while.

All-New Atom 20 - The last issue written by Gail Simone feels a little rushed, as the villain behind the events of the last 19 issues is revealed, fought, andthen defeated. Given Simone's apparent love of the DC Universe, the revelatoin that Chronos is the bad guy makes perfect sense. But the time it takes to defeat his plot feels disproportionate to the build-up to get to this point.

There are also a couple of miscues concerning the Black Mercy plant used against the Atom. For instance, the dean wears a Black Mercy as a boutoniere but is unaffected by it. Meanwhile, the Atom not only knows he is under its influence but is able to fight it off. I like the new Atom, but I find it very hard to believe he has the willpower of Batman, and more than Superman, just because "everything he wants" is already in his grasp. That's a romantic notion but not likely to be true, given the history of human happiness.

But I understand the need to have the great storyline wrapped up by the writer who originated it. And I loved finding out that Head and friends actually have their own bodies. All the threads of the story were pulled together nicely in this conclusion. I don't know Rick Remender's work, but I do know I'll miss Gail SImone's work.

Note

The Permanent Damage link over on the left navbar has a really good entry on one of the traditions of comic history, the thought balloon and how it has been abused and is being gently redeemed in current comic story-telling. In fact, Grant talks about a few other comic traditions as well, and I find it is a refreshing introduction to some of the details of the craft of writing comics that newcomers may not know and oldsters take for granted. Good good stuff.

Comics for 30 January

A sad week in a way--the last issue of Y the Last Man came out. I have to admit I like the idea of a series knowing where it intends to go in a limited run and then actually making it. But then Y has had superior story-tellign and art throughout its run, with only a few miscues. My only gripe with this issue is that I wish soa badly it had come out a month after the last issue, so it didn't feel so much like an after-thought for the rest of the series.

It was a good run, and Brian Vaughan has pretty much guarantted anything else he writes I'll at least take a look at. Thank you for the good work and all the heart.

Now as for the rest of this week's comments....

Spoilers ho!

Jack of Fables 19 - You know in the movies,where they have to convey a lot of action in a little space, so they do short little montages that give just the gist of what the characters do in that space, usually with little snips of humor and expedited character development? That's what this issue is, as Jack and the gang go travelling through Americana, the land of American fables. And the montage effect does such short shrift to the overwhelmingly cool concept of Americana that I just hated this issue.

I think I could understand the montage thing if the series had somewhere to go, a scene to be at by a certain issue. And maybe it does, but thus far, this single issue sums up my bad feelings about the series--a whole lot of picaresque wandering that has very little to do with the ongoing plotlines also taking place in this work, in Fables. In Bill Willingham's hands, I imagine Americana could be its own title, and a darned good one, but the concept here is hurried, with only minor tastes of the potential inherent in the idea. I honestly have no idea where the story is in a hurry to get to.

The art, as always, is quite good. Russ Braun's pencils and Andrew Pepoy's inks are excellent story-telling tools, and the colors by Daniel Vozzo are clean and crisp and a powerful addition to the story-telling stew. It really is the story that is the weak point, and that is surprising to me. I'm likely to give this just a few more issues to see if the whole thing can find a direction, but if something doesn't happen soon, I'm dropping it from my list.

Batman 673 - Say what? An entire issue of flashbacks and hallucinations as the result of Batman having a heart attack? Clearly this issue is setting us up for something down the road, but it just doesn't feel right. That is, the flashbacks are okay and no horrible retcons, but it just doesn't make sense for Batman to have a heart attack without warning. Yes, I'm sure it happens to other people, but Batman is in such peak physical condition that it seems unlikely that he wouldn't have any symptoms he might suspect. And I recognize that it is possible that this new villain, the Third Man, may have caused the heart attack by using some drug with his attack, but we've never even really heard of this guy before. Why wouldn't Hugo Strange use a heart attack inducing drug?

It just sort of feels random, which has been my concern with Batman of late, especially since the Joker prose issue. I think I'm a pretty close reader, but I'm not finding any clue these things are coming up. And you know that would be okay too, I think, if the impact unexpected plot movements can have were used to do something artistic. But nothing seems to happen as a result of these almost arbitrary directions. And Morrison's writing in Batman is definitely hurt by the inevitable comparison to Dini's Detective where there seems to be a goal with the story-telling.

Morrison is writing the blockbuster storyline later this year "RIP Batman," but I can't decide if that is gong to be a gimmick or a real storyline. This also has to do with my recent comments on DC's overall direction. Maybe if the idea of Batman's heart attack propagated though some other titles, like Justice League, I'll more easily accept what's going on here. Right now, however, I'm not really optimistic.

Black Adam 6 - Well, we finally find out what the magic word is, and it turns out Captain Marvel is right. Adam would never have guessed it if he hadn't stumbled over it. And by the end of this issue Isis is alive again, with no memory and very little self-control...and Adam thinks she is dead, and because of his own mistakes to boot.

While a little cliche in comic circles, the series ends in a good space for more Black Adam stories. His character has been extremely well developed in the last few years, first in the paes of JSA and then in 52. He is a character capable of so much good and yet so much evil, and usually those characters always land on the light side. Peter Tomasi does a fine job adding story elements to this saga, and I hope that we will get to see it continued somewhere.

Death of the New Gods 5 - Two things really jumped out at me with this issue. First, the retcon of the origin of the Source is delightful, in part because of the narrator being the Source itself. It also helps the bizarre history of Kirby's Fourth World fits much better with human history as we know it as a result of this retcon. And I have to admit, once I read that the Source had been weakened by being split from its darker half, I knew immediately what that darker half was better known as. No wonder Mr. Miracle has so much trouble controlling himself. I did find it pretty hokey, however, to continue to hide the identity of the Godkiller with a silhouette colored by a huge question mark. With all the build-up, it betterbe a huge reveal, or else this is just becoming a nuisance.

The other thing I noticed is the tremendous unevenness of the art. The pencils are being done by writer Jim Starlin himself, with Matt Banning and Art Thibert splitting inking duties. There are panels where the artwork is exquisite--powerful and delicate all at once. And then there are panels that are hideous, with ham-handed inking resulted in lop-sided faces and features. I would guess the inker for the good stuff is Art Thibert, but that is only based on his reputatoin as an artist, and I admit to not knowing Matt Banning at all. But I could be wrong. Whoever is doing the lop-sided stuff needs to stop though.

Comics for 23 January

The list this week was bigger than last, but there are fewer things that stand out to me from the stack. Countdown seems to be dragging nearly everything down, and that title itself has become more or less distracted from its multiple storylines, instead relying on associated titles to do some of the heavy lifting. More about that below.

Spoilers ho!

Countdown to Mystery 5 - Something like an anthology series, this title is supposed to introduce the new Dr. Fate and continue the story for Eclipso. But up to now, the stories have been plodding and somewhat uninteresting. There is the mystery of how Dr. Fate's helmet has ended up in the hands of a Dr. Kent Nelson, who it has been revealed is distantly related to the original Dr. Fate's Kent Nelson. And there hsa some interesting bits about Fate learning some of the arcane powers of the helmet. But before this issue came out, there were only four more issues left, and what I would suspect a lot of ground to cover. This issue, Dr. Nelson reads the comic written by a victim of his own inexperience, a young woman named Inza, and the majority of the story takes place in the pages of that comic, entitled Killhead. Every now and again, the story draws back out of that comic as Nelson tries to use his psychiatric skills to learn something about Inza through her craft, but the comic-within-a-comic is more interesting than those attempts. The problem is that it doesn't really advance the story very much, and now we have three issues to ...do what, I'm not sure.

My expectation was that we would at least see the new Dr. Fate in costume and attempting to do good by the end of this series, but I don't believe that is possible at this slow rate. He might just get to resolve his first case, avenging (reversing?) the death of Inza, but that would be somewhat unappealing, if only for the epxectations set up by the publicity of what this was going to be. Meanwhile, the art for his story is lovely, a combination of the work of Tom Derenick and Wayne Faucher. But it doesn't assuage the slow pace of a story in an antholgy with a limited run that is much more suited to an ongoing series. Perhaps that ultimately is the goal--to try out the idea for a new Fate series, but ifit is, the target audience is going to be a small one, with tremendous patience. It would feel more like a Vertigo title than mainstream DC, and thus be forced to the smaller audience and dividing line between "mainstream" and Vertigo DC work.

The other half of the title belongs to Eclipso and her turning of the Creeper, Plastic Man and Dove into eclipsoid villains before Jean Loring loses the Eclipso power. The turned heroes are an interesting story but they are decidedly in the background and I fear the resolution for them will be less than rewarding. Meanwhile, off in another title, Jean Loring has lost the Eclipso power and it has returned to its original owner, Bruce Gordon. He doesn't want it, but the new Spectre attempts to guide him its use so it will not take him over, with mixed results. Of more interest is Gordon's decision not to be a super-hero, but to be a physicist with the power to study his subjecxts that much more closely. His giddy exposition as he circles around a black hole may be worth the price of the comic alone.

Unfortunately, the art for this half of the story is very uneven, and I believe the story is already on its third artist. But it is faster moving and there will appear to be some sort of resolution by the end, somehow placing Eclipso in the pantheon either of heroes or of villains. But this one doesn't feel like it has the potential to be an ongoing story, if the intent is to measure that possibility.

Wonder Woman 16 - Gail Simone's first story arc with the Amazon explores her distant past and the resolution of the changes to Themyscira with interwoven stories. For the past, she asks a very interesting question--if the Amazons were not allowed to reproduce, did all of them celebrate when Hippolyta was allowed to create Diana? The answer is an unmistakable negative, and this story follows the most unhapy of the Amazons'--known as the Circle--as they act on their unhappiness. Currently, however, Themyscira has been invaded by neo-Nazis searching for advanced Amazonian technology and weapons, who unwittingly free the Circle from their prison.

Simone also appears to be working on redemming Hippolyta following the recent ridiculous Amazon invasion. It's unfortunate that such redemption is required, but that mini-series so badly characterized Hippolyta that the repair work going on here and in Countdown should do something to bring Hippolyta back. Simone, as usual, does fine work of interweaving different plot threads, leaving the reader in something like suspense even though you know all of the threasd are going to come together somehow.

It's a fine first story, taking small steps as Simone gets used to the characters in her new playpen. And even though the focus is not clearly on Diana through most of the issue, it does bode well for the future of the series.

Dan Dare 3 - I have to admit I know nothing about this long-running English series, though I am told that Dan Dare is to the Brits what Captain America is to Americans. But I can say that Garth Ennis is writing a rousing space opera, sure to pull in modern audiences. Dan has been called back into service as the dreaded Mekon--a sort of Venusian overlord and long-time arch-nemesis--appears headed to EArth with an invasion fleet from beyond the solar system.

However, the story is taking a long time to build, as the last two issues have been spent on a sidetrack, a planet under attack by other forces that Dan runs into as he leads the Earth fleet out to meet the Mekon's forces. The last issue and Dan'srescue attempts in the face of an invading fleet were enough to convince me this is a real hero--seeing the details in the midst of the big picture. And this issue, where Dan's rescue attempt continues, does give a good opportunity to provide exposition and back-story to the Mekon threat. But we've now spent two issues dealing with a tangential issue to the thrust of the story, and we're going to have spend at least part of another issue. And meanwhile, when there isn't exposition, Dan's forces actually fighting the aliens on the threatened planet are doing nothing new, using tactics from the Roman phalanx and the American Revolution.

Like Countdown to Mystery, if this were an ongoing story, paying an homage to the serialized nature of comic strips, this would be well and good. But this is supposedly a nine-issue mini-series and we're going to be about halfway into it before the supposedly main plot is taken up.

Meanwhile, the art by Gary Erskine is better than average, evincing a nostalgic feel without getting in the way of the story-telling. His lines are clean and compact, and the panels nicely rendered, propelling the story on its way. I really am enjoying this, just mindful of its slow pace and hoping it doesn't interfere with concluding the story as nearly as a serial story can be. Here's hoping for more of Dan Dare, either as more mini-series or as an ongoing.

Comics for 16 January

The pull-list was short this week, so the selection is a little smaller....

Spoilers ho!

Checkmate 22 - This issue completes the origin of Mademoiselle Marie, with a nice movement back and forth from past to present. The writign is excellent, and Marie is a much more interesting character now that her backstory has been filled in. The idea of a national French heroine who is a member of a secret organization made of only two people at a time is ingenious, adn this issue nicely fills out the 20th-century portion of her origin. At the same time, the current Mademoiselle Marie works to end a hostage crisis in the Mideast, and we get to see what the character is capable of. There are personal touches throughout, adn the portrayal of the "swearing in" ceremony is very nicely paced and drawn.

As a side story, we see who may become the newest White Queen's Knight. We haven't seen enough of Rocket Red in the last few years, and if I had put some thought into it, his inclusion in the international family of Checkmate would have been obvious.

Birds of Prey 114 - I have to admit I was nervous about anyone but Gail Simone writing this title, and I knew very little about Sean McKeever. But so far, his run has been good, not yet living up to the standards Simone set. This issue concentrates on an old villain coming back to harrass Lady Blackhawk, and she appears to be rapidly taking over the focus of the series. Oracle is reeling from the lecture she received from Superman between issues, taking it out both on her operatives and Misfit, who she begins to train.

The segments written from Misfit's point-of-view are the best, accurately catching the emotional turmoil of a teen, especially a teen superhero being trained by an unhappy taskmaster. And while the reader has some idea of why Oracle is acting the way she is, watching the distress it puts Misfit through from Misfit's eyes is some nice characterization. The last page promises the return of a recurring character thatprobably should have been a member a long time ago, but this issue points out that there may not be a female hero in the DC Universe who has not been recruited by Oracle. Even some female not-quite-heroes.

The one constant is Nicola Scott's continuing strong pencils. At this point, I think I can safely say the comic's appearance and voice rely a great deal on her solid talents. If she ever gets away, the continuity will be lost and what small changes McKeever makes in the characters will become magnified. Right now, it feels like a fairly smooth changing of the guard with a minor change in emphasis. Birds of Prey remains one of the best reads in the DC Universe.

Booster Gold 6 - Speaking of which. After the last issue, Rip Hunter thinks he has taught Booster that most of the past is immutable, except where it is broken. That is, until three Blue Beetles show up at his doorstep ahd demand Booster's help in rescuing Ted Kord. Of course, this is what Booster has claimed he wanted all along if he had time travel powers.

The writers, Geoff Johns and Jeff Katz, create a nice synergy between Blue Beetles past, present, and future, and of course, since we know so very little about future Blue Beetle, something about him seems more than a little sinister. But by the end of the issue, Ted Kord is safely alive and teamed up with Booster; together they will fight to correct the timestream and no one will know of their heroism. The pay-off is a little blah given its build-up; they don't tell Ted Kord that he actually died in another timestream. And Booster seems very calm in the face of achieving his personal goal. Of course, Rip is put out and summons Booster's ancestor to try to help fix things, so even though this is the last issue in the story arc, it is not at all clear that the story of Beetle and Booster is over.

Also of note is the solicitation for the next issue, as the team goes back to Zero Hour, and the issue will actually be #0. As good as this comic generally is, I don't think that they can fix the horror associated with Zero Hour (that is, horror from the readers...). But I look forward to the attempt.

Robin 170 - He's baaaaack. Chuck Dixon returns as writer to the series he wrote for so very long. And you know what? It feels right. I didn't notice how strained the storytelling was in past issues until Dixon took over and it's not so strained any more. With him, Dixon brings back recurring background character Ives, so that there is more tying TIm's old life to his new life. Somewhere along the way Tim and Zo got things worked out and there seems to be a relationship forming there. Zo is forgiving, much in the way Lois Lane was before she found out Clark Kent's secret--her boyfriend is a bit of a space cadet, but the times that he is attentive are very good times indeed.

Dixon also brings a new character with him, a woman con artist, robbing from villains before the money can be dispersed. She dresses in purple, which of course puts Tim in mind of Spoiler/Stephanie Brown. So when he fights her, as he must even if they become some sort of partners eventually, he is often a little behind. It is no help that she appears to be a formidable opponent in her own right. This looks promising, and welcome back Chuck Dixon--thanks for levelling out the keel. Just please please don't make this character a Stephanie Brown from an alternate timestream or another Earth....

Comics for 9 January

I was travelling to see the in-laws last weekend, so I didn't get to pick up the comics for the first week of January until this week. I'm not sure which week some of these titles were supposed to come out with (one of them has DC's Thanksgiving editorial in the back), so I'm just treating them all as if they came out this week.

Spoilers ho!

Green Arrow and Black Canary 3 -- So, last month Connor gets shot while the Arrow family is trying to leave Themiscyra. This issue begins with the efforts to get him help. Ollie invokes the name of "Clark" and Superman comes flying in to carry Connor off to a hospital. The rest of the issue is centered on the waiting room, as Ollie goes back and forth between begging his friends for help and berating them for not helping fast enough. His venom is especially sharp for Hal Jordan. In some ways this feels real: this is how a man reacts when his child has been injured. And of course, Ollie soon begins a monologue about how he was a such a bad father in the first place, ending up as these scenes usually do, with someone pointing out that Connor knew about Ollie's faults and loves him anyway. This is all fairly routine stuff.

But them Hal comes out of the surgery to tell Ollie that first, all of Connor's injuries have been healed, but secondly that the bullet was laced with toxin and Connor is brain-dead. Of course, Ollie goes to be at his son's side in an emotion-filled scene we don't usually get from him.

The results of the shooting feel like a cop-out to me. Writer Judd Winick couldn't decide to keep Connor alive or not, so he postponed the decision and thus used the most cliche of all the soap opera tropes. Now, at any point the writers want, Connor can awaken in some sort of deus ex machina scene. It also clumsily sets up all sorts of possible directions, and the writer will always have the trump card of bringing Connor back without much repercussion. At least in stories like the recent "One More Day" in Spider-man, the creative team took a position in their story-telling. It may not be a well-received position, but they commited themselves and the characters to it, at least for a little while. But Winick didn't even do that and the rest of the series hangs in limbo as a result.

Cliff Chiang's art was pretty good, but it couldn't save this issue from the trap it laid for itself.

Detective 840 -- After the resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul, the newly reborn would-be world conqueror has decided to set up his base of operations in Gotham, because he has decided that Batman should no longer be treated with benign neglect. Because Batman thwarted Al Ghul's original plan, Al Ghul has decided to take the battle to Batman on his home turf. It seems, however, that Al Ghul did not count on the newly re-energized Batman, who now feels as if he has a family that he will defend at nearly any cost.

The bulk of this issue is the fairly standard bluster between the two of Batman and Ra's Al Ghul, but it is where the comic ends up that takes the title to places we've not seen before. After Batman defeats him, he manages to get Al Ghul a new identity and then commited to Gotham, where Batman has further arranged a prescription that "guarantees slurred speech and next to zero mobility." In other words, Batman has trapped Ra's in his own mind, in Arkham, with apparently no ability to get free. However, it leads to some fascinating questions, such as why the same prescription couldn't be given to the Joker? And given the reaction of his friends to his past machinations, what would they, especially Superman, think of this?

I'll ride along on this because Paul Dini is writing it, and I'm pretty sure he's got a plan, but it's pretty clear this situation is not tenable. A lot of time was spent to bring Ra's back from the dead, and it seems really unlikely that he was brought back just so he could be incarcerated permanently. This issue stretches my credulity a good bit, but I'll hang in with Dini....

Wonder Girl 5 -- Cassie and her friends take on the Female Furies and Hercules. The whole issue is one long fight, with a little interesting repartee between former members of Young Justice Empress and Arrowette. That's nearly all there is of interest, except at the very end, the God Killer, the person responsible for the deaths of the New Gods, shows up to pick off the Female Furies while they are distracted. There is only one issue of this mini-series left, and unless the identity of the God Killer is revealed in 52 or Death of the New Gods, that last issue will reveal a major player in the last 9 months of DC continuity. That's the way to bury an important piece in an otherwise totallyt forgettable mini-series....

The Spirit 12 -- This is the last of Darwyn Cooke's issues. In the past I have complained about how I didn't feel this title was reaching its potential, but it appears that Cooke was saving the best for last. In short, he nails it, crafting a brilliant noir story that actually uses The Spirit as the narrator and protagonist, rather than the run of issues where he is either a witness or a victim.

The issue reveals the backstory between Denny Colt and Sand Saref, his lost love in some deftly handled flashback, while The Spirit rushes to stop or save Sand. The emotional impact of their shared childhood and forced separation, and the causes for that separation are wonderfully handled. And at last, I feel some of the winsome grief that underlies a lot of the dark humor of the original Spirit. There is that dark humor here as well, though not much of it, as Cooke seems to have gone to the opposite extreme from the issues that are almost all goofiness.

This is what The Spirit should have always been, and it saddens me that it is the last we'll see of Cooke's work. If you can only read one of his issues. this is the one to pick up.

Simon Dark 4 -- Steve Niles and Scott Hampton continue to do brilliant work on this series. It still has much more of a Vertigo feel than DC, and I pray that we don't have any huge crossovers with "mainstream" DC. In this issue, the cast of support characters begin interacting more, alternately pulling back the sheets on some things that need revealing and creating solid relationships between those characters. The main character himsef, Simon, only appears in the background of a few panels of this issue, as those that know him or know of him begin to share their feelings and theories about him. Simon does take center stage in the last panel, in a heart-rendingly sad scene that just deepends the mystery about him.

Hampton's art is fantastic as well. His painting is nuanced and doesn't appear remotely hurried. Faces show character and emotion that complement the ongoing story and overall this is someof the best aret going in a book anywhere right now.

Here's hoping that this book finds an audience because it needs to have a long life. I anticipate this book every month and it has yet to let me down.

Comic Musings for 6 September

Yeah, last week was Labor Day and books got in late. That's no excuse for me missing a week of review, but I was dead beat last week. Work was an absolute bear, as deadlines loom and the management chain panics, and us anchorly types have to be all...anchorly. And to be honest, nothing from the week before really got me going. I wanted to write something about Amazon Attacks, but it was an unmitigated disaster (the book, not my writing).

And my vaunted Wolfpack is playing as I feared rather than as I hoped.

But at least there are comics to keep me going, and last week was a lovely treat. I could even do a whole entry on non-DC comics, which I won't do. But I will talk about some of them things and pray you'll find them as interesting as I do.

Spoilers ho!

Infinity Inc. 1 - A little deception never hurt anyone.

You look at the cover, and you see bright shining faces, blue skies, and lots of optimism. But when you read the book, it's bleak bordering on morose. But it works for this title which asks what happens to normal people who volunteer to get super-powers because they are unhappy with their lives, then lose those powers and are forced to return to the lives they didn't like in the first place. I don't think it's just coincidence that all the former Everyman project members that we meet are undergoing some sort of councilling. But what Peter Milligan gives us is a fine introduction to the characters and a lot of intrigue about what may happen in the series. I was ready for a rip-off of the old Infinity Inc., which was a title I really loved, but this one doesn't appear to be going anywhere near that direction. And the direction it's taking is a good one so far.

I'm also enjoying Max Fiumara's art, which is nicely realistic with some shadowplay, reminding a good bit of the art in X-Factor. This is a very promising start.

Black Canary Wedding Planner - What in the world. Thanks for the shots of the Justice LEague hotties (minus Kendra) in their lingerie, I guess. I don't know what the point of this book was and I'm embarrassed to say that I bought it. Black Canary hasn't properly planned her wedding to Ollie, and so he jumps in to help, interspersing conversations about the wedding with taking down the bad guys. Really, though, it's just silly, with some incredibly simplistic art. Nothing happens of any note. Just avoid this one if you can possibly help it. I hope this doesn't bode ill for the wedding this week, even though big things are being hinted at elsewhere in the DC Universe.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer 5 - For a little while, one of the best things about the Buffy TV show was the new slayer on the block, Faith. And guest writer Brian K. Vaughn has arrived with the comic story that offer FAith even more redemption than she received in the Angel series. It seems that, now that there are thousands of slayers rather than the one there is supposed to be, not all of them can be vouched for. And if we tought Faith was a bad girl, there is one apparently even worse, one that the Watchers thinks must die before she can realize her evil potential. And if Faith pulls it off, not only will she not be turned in for her prison escape, but she will also be given a valid passport. Unfortunately, to pull it off, Faith must act as an upper crust English society girl.

Such a set-up simply drips with the the potential for Faith/Giles badinage, and we get it. And there is a single different thread, as Buffy and Zander do a little dance; nothing much happens there, but it is not the first hint we've gotten in this series that more is to come, so I think we can expect something there.

Georges Jeanty's art is just splendid, and this issue 5 is a good place to jump on if you've not jumped on already.

Y the Last Man 58 - Issue 57 contained a huge twist that was entirely logical but unexpected, at least for me. Brian K. Vaughn (yeah that guy again) twists even more in this issue, again taking the reader to a succession of obvious places before ripping the rug right out from under the reader. This series has been an exquisitely fun ride, and I regret that it is coming to a close, since Vaughn and artist Pia Guerra are pulling out all the stops.

The Incredible Hulk 110 - Another fine chapter in World War Hulk. I have no idea how this crossover event is going to end, and that's okay. Another wonderfully fun ride that I wouldn't mind continuing for some time.

Recently, the thrust of the crossovers is that Hulk is a monster, but Amadeus Cho's actions in this issue call that into question and then push the storytelling a little bit further. I've mentioned earlier that I find the Hulk's rage to be righteous: no matter how justified they were, the events that have plagued Hulk in the past year or so are incredibly unfair and unjust. But what I didn't consider, and what Greg Pak throws out there so delightfully, is the distinct possibility that the Illuminati were completely and totally wrong. Given that possibility, and the knowledge that one of the Illuminati is a Skrull, it's just not looking real good for our boy Tony Stark.

Notes

Not much to say here, except that DC is throwing out more books than a baby throws out of its crib. I don't think there was really a pressing need for a new Vigilante series, even if it is going to wedge another stake into the DC Universe...a hero has gone to the other side. We probably should have seen this one coming, and perhaps someone did. I don't think I want to read the issues, but I am morbidly curious about the traitor.

And Sergio Aragones is taking over Spirit. I'm really mixed about this. I've made no bones that I am not enjoying Darwin Cooke's run so far, but I can't wrap my head around Aragones doing it. And Jim Shooter coming back to the Legion? Maybe they'll get Mike Grell to draw it! And a Bat Lash mini as well? REally? I guess Jonah Hex is doing much better than expected....