Weekly Comics: May 8, 2013

3 New Stories (Fantagraphics) - Pamphlet-format comics from indie publishers are pretty rare these days, with most smaller publishers having migrated towards the bookstore market and "graphic novels." So it's nice when something like this comes along, an actual floppy comic with three stories by Dash Shaw. I suspect the demise of Fantagraphics' anthology MOME may have something to do with this release, as these little experiments are exactly the kind of thing that Shaw would've published in those pages. With no regular outlet for these kinds of short stories, which have always formed a significant portion of his artistic output, he's assembled a few of them here. The middle story is a very short "adaptation" of a Girls Gone Wild segment, similar in form to the dating-show adaptations Shaw did in MOME, though not as substantial — he doesn't manage to burrow into the emotional core of this shallow video product the way he had with his earlier TV/video adaptations. "Object Lesson" is a pointed surrealist piece about the current economic situation, a barbed satire in which an out-of-work detective is sent back to high school due to a clerical error, while his family starves and resorts to eating the dog, his wife encouraging him to, "Lower your standards. Abolish your goals. Cower. Give up. Please." Throughout the comic, Shaw's drawings are overlaid on collages of paintings and photographs, full of symbols — Spider-Man, gold coins, a desert vista — that comment on the action and also serve as backgrounds and coloring. It's a potent, ambiguous portrait of a society where standards, goals, and morality have been rendered obsolete, where education is a bad joke, where making money means resigning oneself to serving a ridiculous system. Similarly, the final story depicts a children's prison where kids have been jailed for petty offenses, prevented from deviating in even the smallest ways from a restrictive series of laws and orders. On the chillingly nonchalant final page, the relentlessly upbeat heroine shrugs off the violence she's seen, a sign of how this kind of system encourages detachment and dehumanization. This is undoubtedly a bleak little comic, but as usual with Shaw, it's also formally inventive and unforgettably potent, communicating some very strong emotional and political truths through its blunt symbolism.

Astonishing X-Men #62 (Marvel) - I wasn't reading this title before its recent involvement in the conclusion of David Lapham's Age of Apocalypse, but I figured I'd check in on this follow-up issue in the hopes that some surviving AOA characters might still be hanging around. No such luck, but this issue is a decent enough, low-key character piece. I'm not sure if the book is always like this, but Marjorie Liu does a good job, in the complete absence of action, of providing quiet character beats and relationship dramas. Very simple stuff, as basic as Kitty Pryde leaning her head on Wolverine's shoulder, after getting shuffled to the side by her boyfriend Iceman during an earlier awkward moment. Artist Gabriel Hernandez Walta's elegant, expressive art is perfectly suited to this kind of understated drama; it's all in the body language, the subtle facial expressions, the careful staging of the characters within the frame. I have a feeling things are bound to head into more conventional mutant action soon enough, but I would happily read a quiet little book like this on a regular basis.

Avengers #11 (Marvel) - Jonathan Hickman's dual run on this title and New Avengers continues to sprawl; while New Avengers has been almost unrelentingly dark and grim and single-minded, the adjectiveless title is looser, epic in scope, leaping around from one thing to the next like a careening pinball, crashing from one shard of plot to another. Here, a group of Avengers attempt to infiltrate an A.I.M.-sponsored weapons deal, posing as gambling fun-seekers while they try to suss out clues. With Mike Deodato's glossy art giving the whole thing an Ocean's Eleven heist movie glow, this issue has a lighter tone than most of Hickman's work on these titles so far. It doesn't always work, and some stabs at humor over Black Widow's plan to take violent shortcuts feel very forced, but most of the issue is quite fun. The highlight is Cannonball and Sunspot convincing a couple of A.I.M. agents to skip the obligatory fight scene and have a fun weekend of boozing and partying instead, a sequence that wouldn't be tonally out of place in Matt Fraction's Hawkeye. Meanwhile, to satisfy those seeking some action, a Shang Chi fight scene is threaded through the whole issue. This is a pretty minor piece of the overall puzzle, probably the weakest single issue of Hickman's Avengers yet, and only at the end is an important piece of information delivered. This will be a mere blip in the eventual omnibus (which is the perfect format for these epic Hickman runs) but as a single issue it's just on a slightly lower level than the rest of the series has been.

Avengers Assemble #15AU (Marvel) - Big surprise, but while Age of Ultron itself has been very good, most of these AU tie-in issues are very unnecessary. This one's set in the early hours of Ultron's takeover, and has Captains Marvel and Britain going up against Ultron with the help of some very whimsical British heroes who, if I'm not mistaken, were invented especially for the occasion. Al Ewing guests for regular writer Kelly Sue DeConnick, and Butch Guice is excellent as ever, but it's all pretty much pointless, because what can any of these tie-ins show besides variations on heroes failing to beat Ultron? Ewing indulges in some fun-enough Britophilia, and there are some nice but all-too-brief sequences when the video-game-infiltrating hero Computer Graham matches pixels with Ultron, but otherwise this is pretty forgettable.

Batman #20 (DC) - The conclusion of Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's Clayface two-parter is just OK, which compared to some of what's gone on in this title, is a minor triumph. Compared to the ridiculous revelations that capped the Owls storyline or the sputtering non-event of the Joker story, a straightforward Clayface battle that ends with the villain viciously imitating the recently dead Damien Wayne is definitely a step up. There are still some rather head-scratching moments, like Batman pretending to wear a DNA mask taken from Bruce Wayne, but for the most part this is decent if unexciting. It's also odd how out-of-step the relatively well-balanced Bruce seen here is with the grief-stricken lunatic Peter Tomasi is depicting in Batman and Robin, one of the problems with there being something like ten Batman-related titles coming out every month. Unfortunately, there's still no sign of Snyder getting back to the tight noirish detective stories of his pre-New 52 Batman work, and since he's now gearing up for what promises to be a full year's worth of excruciatingly boring origin stories, this ship probably isn't going to be righted anytime soon.

Batman & Red Hood #20 (DC) - In the wake of Damien Wayne's death in Grant Morrison's Batman Incorporated, Peter Tomasi's Batman and Robin is being retitled a few times to co-star first Red Robin and now Red Hood, with other Batman sidekicks and friends set to appear in the title in coming months. Other than Morrison himself, Tomasi seems to be the main Bat-writer dealing with the fallout of Damien's death, and specifically its effect on Bruce, as seen most memorably so far in #18, a silent issue in which Patrick Gleason's brooding art captured the grieving father's rage and despair over the loss of his son and crimefighting partner. Now Tomasi and Gleason have Batman working through the five stages of grief with help from his friends, and it's been heartbreaking and really well-done, a very powerful companion piece to Morrison's work — while Morrison barrels forward towards the likely epic conclusion of his years-long run, Tomasi pauses in the shadows, dealing with the emotional meltdown that follows Bruce's personal tragedy. In this issue, Batman is especially brutal, both with the assassins who he and Red Hood bust up (Batman purposefully deadens the nerves in their hands so they'll never be able to shoot a gun, or feed themselves, again) and in his dealings with Jason Todd, the man under the Red Hood mask and once a Robin himself. The issue's climax is really powerful, both in what it says about Batman's grief over Damien, and in the hurt reaction of Jason, who feels like he deserves better than this cruel manipulation. As in the last issue, where Batman tried to recruit Frankenstein to help him bring Damien back to life, Tomasi is dealing with the messy, ugly, awkward reality of grief, and the raw, ferocious emotions spilling across these pages are really compelling.

Chin Music #1 (Image) - A new horror/supernatural series from Steve Niles (of 30 Days of Night fame) and artist Tony Harris. I was anticipating some good gritty horror, but I didn't think much of this virtually impenetrable first issue, which doles out very little text or dialogue or actual plot — for an introductory issue, there's surprisingly little to hold onto here. Some kind of supernaturally powered guy (a google search tells me he's named Shaw, though the issue isn't so informative) is attacked in what seems to be pre-Twentieth Century Egypt. He's burned and stripped down to a skeleton, which somehow still lives, and flees (or is sent) through time to Prohibition-era Chicago, where he quickly comes into contact with Elliot Ness (who barely reacts to the spectacle of an Arabic-speaking living skeleton) and Al Capone. There's just not much here, and the time travel stuff seems very cutesy, the kind of time travel story where a fight between supernatural beings is used as an explanation for the Sphinx losing its nose, and where the main character will immediately meet any famous historical figures who happen to be in his time. The history-changing ending isn't enough of a hook to bring me back for more, nor is Tony Harris' art, which is nice and moody but can't distract from the essential slightness of this issue.

Constantine #3 (DC) - Yeah, so Peter Milligan's run on Hellblazer wasn't the most exciting or greatest in the title's history, but it was good, and I can't stop thinking about it when reading the new tales of Constantine in the mainstream DC universe. Everything Milligan (and many other writers in Hellblazer's storied history) did well has been jettisoned. The supporting cast is anemic and poorly developed, with characters showing up out of nowhere and heading back there as soon as their plot function has been fulfilled. The book is relentlessly plot-driven, with none of the downtime or weird diversions that always made Hellblazer so fun. And most importantly, Constatine's essential aimlessness has been sacrificed. One of the best things about Constantine was always that he wasn't a hero, that he almost never set out to do big quests for their own sake, but now not only does he have a mission, it's a mission that's explicitly spelled out in the intro box that appears on each issue's title page. It's just totally the wrong approach: Jeff Lemire and Ray Fawkes throw in all the superficial signifiers, the cigarettes and British lingo, but the soul, the attitude, the warped and wild aesthetic, is lost in translation.

Fearless Defenders #4 (Marvel) - Cullen Bunn's had a pretty disappointing career at Marvel so far, and this is the first book he's done for them that really has something to recommend it. It's a goofy, pulpy B-movie kind of book, with an all-female cast, and it has a breezy quality to its action and its banter. Will Sliney's art is slick and his women are undoubtedly sexy, but the book thankfully doesn't resort to outright cheesecake. It's pretty much the definition of a fun, lightweight action comic that's easy to read but not necessarily essential.

Infinity - Free Comic Book Day (Marvel) - Despite not going to a comic shop on Saturday, I did snag a couple of FCBD books at my local shop, including this one. This is a teaser for Jonathan Hickman's upcoming Infinity miniseries, a summer event involving Thanos coming to Earth. As expected, it's all set-up to establish a sense of encroaching doom, but it's beautifully illustrated by Jim Cheung, who turns in some of the best work I've ever seen from him. The alien creatures who serve Thanos are just seething with menace. I'm looking forward to this event, which will probably play like a brief, violent outgrowth from Hickman's larger Avengers run. Also included here is a brief and not bad Thanos/Destroyer fight story from 1977, written by Scott Edelman and drawn by Mike Zeck. Plus a very short excerpt of Warren Ellis' upcoming Avengers graphic novel, way too brief to get any idea of what it'll be like, though the back-and-forth patter between Captain America and a few other Avengers has some nice spark to it.

The Private Eye #2 (Panel Syndicate) - This is Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin's new self-published, digital-only, pay-what-you-want comic, which so far is great for reasons well beyond its attention-getting distribution method. It's set in a future where the era of Internet over-sharing backfired in such a spectacular fashion that now everyone is obsessed with privacy, with most people hiding their names and identities behind masks and role-playing constructs of various degrees of complexity, shedding skins whenever they feel like it. It's a fascinating idea and a wonderfully realized world: one of Vaughan's strengths has always been taking fantasy or sci-fi concepts and building very real-feeling worlds around them, and this one is no exception. Martin's gorgeous art (with a big help from colorist Muntsa Vicente) renders this world vibrant and exciting, stuffed with people hiding behind all sorts of masks, as the underground private eye Patrick Immelmann finds that his client has been murdered. Martin lends a noirish neon-lit vibe to the many night scenes here, particularly a haunting trip to a fringe area where abandoned trains and sewer tunnels have been converted into makeshift homes for masked drug users and dealers.

Prophet #35 (Image) - Brandon Graham's revival of Rob Liefeld's Prophet is one of the most ambitious mainstream comics out, a wild and at times barely coherent sci-fi epic that has taken its time showing its hand with regards to what the hell is going on. The picture is a bit clearer now, with an ancient empire starting to re-emerge while rebels gather their forces to resist, and this issue alternates between the two stories, while also alternating between artists, since Graham has gathered a small staple of artists and associated each one with a different set of characters. Simon Roy handles the perspective of the "New-Father" Prophet who serves the empire, while Giannis Milonogiannis draws the "Old Man" Prophet and his group of anti-empire rebels. Graham exploits the contrast between Roy's thick lines and lumpy forms and Milonogiannis' comparatively thin, minimalist work (which is much closer aesthetically to Graham's own art) to delineate the two groups and their stories, which at this point are still very separate but seem fated to unite eventually. As always, there's lots to love here on a sheer conceptual level, from the way Graham treats a battle scene like a video game or a diagram, with little icons representing the gradually depleting forces on each side, to the Old Man's poignant confrontation with an artifact from his past. Also, the previous issue's backup story by Matt Sheean and Malachi Ward continues here, more evidence of Graham's great taste in showcasing indie auteurs doing great sci-fi work. This serial is nicely creepy and ambiguous, concerning a man sacrificed to a giant monster and methodically going to work in the creature's insides.

Suicide Squad #20 (DC) - The first issue of a new run on this title by Image writer Ales Kot. I haven't checked in on this book since its brainless first issue (by Adam Glass), and Kot is certainly a big improvement over that inauspicious debut. It's all setup, but so far it seems like Kot is planning on introducing some interesting plots, and he's got a good handle on the kind of damaged psychologies that made John Ostrander and Kim Yale's Suicide Squad one of the best series of the '80s. I'm still thrown off by the new skinny, sexy Amanda Waller, which remains a bizarre character design choice, but otherwise this is setting up exactly the kinds of frayed minds and bitter tension that should drive this book. Telling a confirmed death-wish case like Deadshot that he now essentially will not be allowed to die is a great start, and Waller, together with her shadowy associate, seems to be pushing all of her inmates to the breaking point in similar ways. Of course, the revelation of Waller's partner in this at the end of the issue is just icing on the bloody cake, since this particular character has been begging for someone to pick up his story since before the New 52 started. A good start, and it's nice for once to be adding a New 52 title back onto my list rather than dropping one.

Thor: God of Thunder #8 (Marvel) - This is great comics. Jason Aaron hasn't exactly been rushing this introductory God Butcher storyline, but the deliberate pacing has allowed Esad Ribic to deliver countless great images along the way, and it's been great fun to watch the story's three versions of Thor struggling against the implacable Gorr. This issue is where it all starts to come to a head, with the young Viking Thor's story finally intersecting with that of the modern Thor and the old Odin-esque one-eyed Thor. Aaron introduces Thor's granddaughters, the future goddesses of thunder — one of whom confesses to "impure thoughts" about her hunky young grandfather — and delivers a kick-ass final page that promises much more adrenaline-fueled action to come.

Ultimate Comics: Ultimates #24 (Marvel) - The President Cap storyline comes to a rather inauspicious end, with Sam Humphries basically shrugging away the one cool idea of his run so far, not that he did too much to really explore Cap as President in the past few issues. Making Captain America the President for the long run would have been bold and provided plenty of potential stories, so it's a shame that Humphries doesn't seem interested in following through on that possibility. Other than that, there's not much here, though it's funny that between this issue and Uncanny Avengers, this week has two separate comics where Thor must destroy falling space debris before it lays waste to a city.

Uncanny Avengers #8 (Marvel) - When Rick Remender brought his epic Uncanny X-Force to a close, I thought that was it, that he'd said all he had to say, but instead the current arc of his new series seems to be just picking up where he left off. It's a credit to Remender that he's been able to tell this many stories about various versions of Apocalypse without it getting a stale, but somehow it's still thrilling to see these threads being picked up yet again, the contagious evil of Apocalypse passed on to yet more new avatars, here with Kang and Red Skull thrown into the mix. Most of the characters from Remender's X-Force aren't here, and the Avengers have been added to the mix, but this still feels like Uncanny X-Force, a sustained study of evil, nature and nurture, the moral implications of violence, and guilt and responsibility.

The Walking Dead #110 (Image) - One of those talky issues where nothing much happens, besides Robert Kirkman backing away a bit from his introduction of a black self-styled "king" who kept a pet tiger, a character who verged on racist caricature when first introduced. Making him a zookeeper who basically feeds off of other people's legends about him redeems the character somewhat, as does acknowledging that he's kind of a male version of fan-favorite Michonne, who self-styled herself as a badass urban samurai with a sword that she's apparently not as well-trained with as she pretends to be (not that that's stopped her from being an actual badass with it all through the series). Anyway, this plot is still crawling towards the eventual big confrontation with the villainous Negan, perhaps a little too slowly even by Kirkman's usual patient standards.

Wolverine #3 (Marvel) - After the frenzied one-two punch of this series' first two issues, Paul Cornell slows things down a bit for this one, as Wolverine teams up with Nick Fury Jr. (yep, still a ridiculous character) to track down some aliens. The slower pace reveals that this maybe isn't as good or fun as it initially seemed to be. Wolverine's new supporting cast seems to be made up of pub-crawling cast-offs from Hellblazer, and their introduction is really awkward, and then there's lots of fighting for very unclear reasons, and by the end it seems as though the only reason to stick around at all is Alan Davis' still-brilliant cartoony art.

Weekly Comics: November 9, 2011

Batman and Robin #3 (DC) - This is becoming a slow-burning surprise favorite for me out of DC's New 52, getting better with each issue. This is especially true because Peter Tomasi is increasingly focusing on the "and Robin" part of the title, making this a book about Damien Wayne's struggles with the way he was raised versus the noble ideal offered up by his father Bruce and his mentor/peer Dick Grayson. Damien's interactions with the stolid, unshakeable Alfred are a lot of fun, and this issue opens with a chess match between the butler and the boy wonder, drolly funny and sharply written. Tomasi has a good feel for the uneasy relationship between Bruce and Damien: the boy looking up to his father but also straining against the bonds of this relationship, while Bruce, long used to being the chilly loner despite his succession of sidekicks, is a much cooler and more distant father to his troubled son than Dick Grayson was during his stint as Batman. Damien takes typical preteen rebellion and gives it a sinister twist because he's not only resisting parental guidance, he's straining against Bruce's strict no-killing code and insistence on self-control and restraint. But there's also a real joyous side to Damien when he's allowed to break free, which tempers the darker aspects of his character; it's hard to stifle a smile when he tells a crook, "I'm sure you didn't leave your hole tonight thinking you'd get your ass kicked by a ten-year-old!"

Batwoman #3 (DC) - This is the best issue of this series that J.H. Williams has done since going solo after his run on the character with Greg Rucka in Detective Comics. Williams is continuing to build on the foundation built during that earlier story, here opening with Kate Kane sucked under water by a vengeful spirit who summons the spectre of Kate's dead sister, trying to prompt the hero to let go of it all, to give in to despair. The result is a gorgeous, evocative few pages where the image of Kate as Batwoman is replaced by the image of her sister, a visual evocation of Kate's unarticulated, subconscious desire to join her sister in death. Of course she breaks free, and the next few pages are given over to a wonderful few pages where Batwoman fights with Agent Chase, who's investigating her and trying to figure out her secret identity. Williams' fight scenes, spread over the jaw-dropping double-page layouts that have come to be expected from his work, have a stuttery kinetic quality that suggest events happening in flashbulb bursts of motion, each pose frozen and cordoned off by the lines that zigzag across the page to indicate different intersections of time and space. This is also the issue where Williams' delineation of different styles for Kate's civilian life and her nocturnal adventures as Batwoman really pays off in a big way. When Kate returns to her apartment from her ordeal, dripping wet, in full costume but without her mask, her presence seems like an intrusion, a violation of the scrupulous separation between bright, colorful ordinary life and the dark, shadowed world of the costumed hero. That's the point, as Kate tells her cousin Bette, who she's been training to be a hero as well, that Bette should quit and go back to her normal life. Kate wants to keep these worlds separate, to banish her cousin from the darkness and danger of the superhero's life, to protect her from the fate of her own mad, corrupted sister. Then there's a wonderful silent page where, on the left half, Kate undresses and takes a shower, stripping back into her civilian identity, while on the other half of the page, surrounded by a deep black border, Bette puts on her costume and prepares to go out into the night. There's an acute sense in this series of identity as a costume one takes on and off, switching roles with clothing, existing in two different spheres that are represented by entirely different aesthetics.

Deathstroke #3 (DC) - Kyle Higgins has quickly proven in these three issues that he has a very limited set of ideas for this series, so he's just going to keep repeating them over and over in the hopes that it will be seen as thematic consistency instead of redundancy. This is the issue where Deathstroke's repeated insistence that he just wants respect, that he's worried that people think he's lost his touch, becomes particularly wearisome. The end of the issue throws in a few new wrinkles, tying back into the first issue and establishing that the Harmory characters in that issue weren't just a disposable punchline but were setting up something bigger. But it's not quite enough to keep me interested or make me want to continue reading what's turning out to be virtually the same book every month: Deathstroke gets a job, decapitates a bunch of people, easily dispatches everyone he encounters, and then goes all Rodney Dangerfield and complains that he gets no respect. Joe Bennett and Art Thibert give the book an attractive, unshowy art style that makes all the gore seem very matter-of-fact, but their contributions aren't reason enough to keep reading either.

Green Lantern #3 (DC) - Geoff Johns continues to do a good job of balancing the dichotomy of his central characters Sinestro and Hal Jordan: the one-time villain who's now been restored to the role of an unlikely hero, and the hero who's actually kind of a stubborn, arrogant asshole. Their interactions form the core of this book, as they define themselves against and in relation to one another, each convinced that the other is evil or idiotic or in the wrong. This is an interesting dynamic and the bitter repartee between these two old adversaries, each of them totally locked into their respective worldviews, totally drives this comic and especially this issue. The actual action, in which Sinestro and Jordan confront Sinestro's former corps for the first time, is just a quick burst at the end of the book that leads to a cliffhanger that only someone who's never read comics before could really believe is actually a cause for concern. Nevertheless, I'm definitely interested to see where this series is going, and I'm enjoying Johns' approach to these two rather unlikeable heroes/anti-heroes.

The Incredible Hulk #2 (Marvel) - I haven't been following the Hulk's comics before this new series, so I'm not sure exactly what happened to split up the Hulk and Bruce Banner, but this issue's examination of Banner's obsession with his missing other half is compelling anyway. Jason Aaron casts Banner as a deranged mad scientist in contrast to the serene, isolated Hulk, who just wants to be left alone, hidden away under the earth with his Moloid friends. This issue is all about setting up the obvious conflict between Hulk and Banner that will be coming in future issues. In the meantime, Aaron delivers the crowd-pleasing diversion of the Hulk battling some killer sharks, because hey, why not? I'm not sure how I feel about the gang of monster-hunters who are heading after Banner, though, what with the leader continually repeating that she's not related to Dr. Doom despite a shared last name, and the lame meta jokes like having a hunchbacked former mad scientist sidekick named Mr. Gor. Marc Silvestri's art is scratchy and densely hatched, and it's nice even though he seems to have an army of collaborators helping out. I don't think I've ever seen this many artistic credits on a single issue; between pencils, ink, finishes and "pencil assists," there are 11 credited artists on this comic. The result is sometimes a little inconsistent in terms of the level of detail, but not as bad as you'd think from that array of artists.

PunisherMAX #19 (Marvel) - This latest arc of Jason Aaron's PunisherMAX is at least as much about the Kingpin as it is about the Punisher himself. While this issue mostly focuses on Frank Castle's bleak internal monologue, the battle-weary drone of an old man accustomed to blood and pain, it's also about the Kingpin's gradual process of toughening himself to fill the larger-than-life role he's taken on, to really become the iconic villain he's meant to be. Interestingly, Aaron's Wilson Fisk has thus far been very passive and melancholy, a man drawn up inside of himself, having done atrocious things to achieve a position of power only to realize that he barely cares about the power. Now he's finally drawing out of that self-imposed shell, even as his adversary the Punisher cruelly antagonizes Fisk by disinterring the Kingpin's dead son. Steve Dillon's art is blunt and effective, powerfully depicting all the routine violence that surrounds these haunted, angry men, and also the ways in which all this horror has been written on their faces and in their bodies. Aaron is very much following in the footsteps of Garth Ennis on this series, and he doesn't depart too far from that model, but there's something about the combination of Aaron's writing and Dillon's art that makes this Punisher an even more tragic, sad, eerily empty character than ever.

Rachel Rising #3 (Abstract Studio) - Wow, this issue really ups the ante for the freakiness of this great series. Here, the newly resurrected Rachel seems to be getting flashes of portent about the violent deaths of other women, all of which seem to be linked by the mysterious blonde woman who's wandering through town, igniting feelings of misogyny and rage that lead to murder. Violence against women is the common thread, an ancient evil that exploits latent feelings of distrust, jealousy and self-doubt. Terry Moore's clean, bold art, with its copious white space and elegantly minimal faces, is just breathtaking, and creates an especially powerful atmosphere in the silent scenes (like the opening sequence in a jazz bar). Rachel herself is depicted with strangely shaded eyes that, together with her gothy makeup and the rope burns around her neck, make her an increasingly eerie central character. The highlight is the scene where she finds herself inexplicably compelled to confront a woman in a bar bathroom, telling her, "Your wedding bed will be a shallow grave... your lungs full of mud. Something old will violate you and you will feel it... making its home in you." This is a shivery, fascinating horror story, one of my favorite new series and already a worthy successor to Moore's Echo.

Uncanny X-Force #17 (Marvel) - Rick Remender's epic "Dark Angel Saga" hurtles on towards its conclusion next month, and this penultimate issue is a great example of Remender's virtuosic control of this kind of fast-paced storytelling. This issue expertly balances visceral action with the intense psychodrama at the core of the saga, the corruption of Archangel by Apocalypse's evil influence and the struggles of Archangel's lover Psylocke to prevent the world-devastating plans of her love without destroying him in the process. Several scenes in this issue take place in memory, on the psychic plane, and here Jerome Opena's woodcut-like hash marks are especially beautiful. As Psylocke attempts to break free of her corrupted lover's control, her mind returns to the memory of their first meeting: the dialogue is witty and urbane, a verbal dance of seduction, but Opena's shaded faces and the muted color palette (by Dean White, an unsung star on this book) suggest the heartbreak to come from this blossoming romance. The action continues to be strong, too, as characters from the alternate reality Age of Apocalypse join in both on the side of X-Force and as the allies of Archangel. This is just a great series, encompassing all the epic drama and intense stakes that characterize the best superhero comics.

Wolverine #18 (Marvel) - Well this is pretty ridiculous. And writer Jason Aaron seems to know it. He's relishing telling a deliberately campy, over-the-top story here, with a villainess who leads back directly to the Dragon Lady from legendary comic strip Terry and the Pirates. This drug kingpin's lavish, outlandish daily rituals — bathing her feet in the blood of any woman who claims to be more beautiful than her, dining on delicacies like "butterfly brains," refilling her pillows nightly with the feathers of a 1000 doves — definitively establish that this is a camp movie serial villain, an exaggeratedly evil adversary who'd twirl her moustache if she had one to twirl. Equally silly is Wolverine's new ally, Fat Cobra, a big tattooed sumo type who just wants to make a meal of a dragon. This is a quirky comic that climaxes with Wolverine and his allies riding towards their enemies in the bellies of a trio of dragons, and Aaron maintains an appropriately irreverent tone as he weaves a collage of kung fu clichés with imaginative conceits like the villains' underground poppy field or the concept of using dragons as drug mules.

Weekly Comics: October 19, 2011

Batman #2 (DC) - I love how deeply engrained Scott Snyder's Batman is in the history of Gotham City, its legends and the ancestors of the characters who define its present. The opening of this issue, with its emphasis on Wayne Tower, recalls the Snyder-overseen miniseries Gates of Gotham, which explored the secrets behind the construction of that tower. Snyder is signalling that the past is once again going to reach forward into the present. This issue also explores another of Snyder's running themes in his Batman work: the ways in which the city of Gotham shapes those who live in it, and vice versa. His Detective Comics run, with Dick Grayson as Batman, focused on Dick's fears that Gotham would transform him, would unleash the darkness that so often threatens to consume Bruce Wayne. But as in that series, Snyder's new Batman seems to be confirming that things mostly work in the other direction: each man sees his own Gotham, shaped or warped by his own experiences and how he's chosen to react to them.

Bruce's conversation with would-be politician Lincoln March underlines this theme. March is a man with a past similar to Bruce's, having lost his parents at a very young age; his story about his mother's heart pin is an eerie echo of Bruce's fixation on his own mother's pearls. March says that Gotham itself helped him past his trauma, giving him a sense of purpose, and in a strange way this is also true for Bruce, though not in the same sense as March's idealistic political fervor. Both men see themselves as shaped by the city, changed by their traumatic pasts, but they take very different trajectories and see Gotham in very different ways. It's great how Snyder is weaving these undercurrents into his story from the very beginning, slowly developing these themes as Bruce, confident in his knowledge of Gotham and of his own relationship with the city, prepares to face yet another threat from the city's past, a threat to the city that he sees as integral to his identity as Batman. Snyder's storytelling is patient, obviously working towards a bigger arc, but not at all decompressed — this issue is well-paced with action, some displays of Batman CSI tech and detective work, and the moments that develop Snyder's big picture themes.

The Boys: Butcher Baker Candlestickmaker #4 (Dynamite) - Well, I called what was going to happen in this issue. Not that it was hard to predict. The problem with this miniseries is that it was always so obvious just where it was going to be heading, the only place it possibly could be heading. It's a familiar Garth Ennis formula, especially in this series, which revels in brutality and horrible things happening to decent people. So when the future leader of the Boys, Billy Butcher, met a beautiful redhead and married her, the only question was in what horrible and grotesque way the Homelander was going to kill her so that Butcher could be pushed onto the unceasing quest for vengeance that drives him over in the main series. That question has now been answered, and the final pages of this book, as drawn by Darick Robertson, are appropriately harrowing and horrifying — suffice it to say that Ennis' warped imagination has concocted some really nasty images here, images that owe a bit to Alan Moore's Miracleman and offer up a grisly, cynical twist on one of the pivotal events of that series. But there are no surprises here, and there's no real depth to Ennis' revelation of Butcher's back story. It was always obvious from the main series that superheroes — and specifically the Homelander — had been responsible for something awful in Butcher's past, that they'd probably killed someone he loved. Now that the details have been revealed, it doesn't really change his character very much, or reveal much about him that wasn't already apparent. It's just another opportunity for Ennis to wallow in the terrible things that superpowered beings do in this series, another opportunity to show that people with real power almost invariably use it to hurt, use and screw over others. The political applications of that idea are made especially clear in this issue's discussions about Thatcherite England, but even so this whole miniseries just feels so redunant and unnecessary.

Captain Atom #2 (DC) - This is just a really cool-looking terrible comic. The linework of penciller Freddie Williams II isn't anything special; it's mostly pretty minimal and crude, and when it isn't there are some ugly, distorted faces on the pages where Williams lays down the ink thicker. Colorist Jose Villarrubia does most of the heavy lifting here, giving the series' title character a pale blue sheen that makes him stand out boldly from the world around him. It's very striking, especially on the pages where the atomic hero is overwhelmed by the electronic signals of the Internet and text messages flowing through the air around him, spectral information as ghostly and colorful as the hero himself. If only it were a good comic with this kind of distinctive style, but JT Krul's writing and plotting are just boring — when they're not outright silly, as in the volcano that abruptly popped up in the middle of New York at the end of last issue, a threat that Captain Atom seems to have neutralized between issues, leaving the volcano inert but still sticking out of a Manhattan street. I wish this comic was good, because I do like looking at it, but unfortunately it has little to offer beyond its admittedly pretty colors.

Catwoman #2 (DC) - I've gotta give it to Judd Winick: he pissed off a whole lot of people by ending the gloriously sleazy first issue of this comic with a fetishy, campy Batman/Catwoman sex scene that apparently offended everyone but me. (That's an exaggeration, but not by much.) And instead of moving on from there, he decides to open the second issue with the sex scene still in progress, giving us not only a splash page of a post-coital smiling couple but a panel of Batman adjusting his belt as he pulls his costume back into order. Never thought I'd see that. And I have to say, I'm still digging this ridiculous comic. Guillem March draws a very sexy, curvy Catwoman whose face expressively projects her playful delight in manipulating her opponents. She'll get her revenge for some dark things from her past, and she'll have a lot of fun doing it. The end of the comic goes very dark, very suddenly, but before that it's just so much fun to see Catwoman flirting with Bruce Wayne, unaware of who he is but feeling a strange attraction to him anyway, and then cleverly manipulating some rival mobsters into a shootout to get her revenge. This is pulpy stuff that very deliberately leaps across the line separating good taste from bad, and I can't help but admire it for that. It's trashy, and Winick and March undoubtedly know it, and the result is kind of a grindhouse Catwoman comic, delving into extremes of flashy sexploitation and over-the-top violence. I'm sure this comic will continue pissing people off, and I'm equally sure that it's going to be hard to look away from its garish trainwreck wildness for as long as it continues in this vein.

Green Lantern Corps #2 (DC) - After the first issue of this series, I thought I was onboard for what seemed like it was going to be some mindless cosmic action. Now I'm starting to think it's a bit too mindless after all. Not much has changed from the first issue, I admit, except that now the focus is irrevocably off characterization, so that Lanterns John Stewart, Guy Gardner and the squad of alien Lanterns they lead are all pretty generic. At least the first issue gave some character beats to the two human members of the team. The threat they're facing, which was just an unseen terror killing Lanterns last issue, has now been revealed as a bunch of generic guys in black armor, so that's a letdown too. Basically, it feels like this isn't going to be the great action series I was hoping for, and the alien Lanterns are going to continue to be mere fodder for limb-hacking and grisly deaths, and I'm not sure that there's any reason to keep reading.

Journey Into Mystery #629 (Marvel) - Since it seems like Marvel's Fear Itself event is quite simply never going to end, I guess this potentially enjoyable book is going to remain trapped in a crossover swamp for the forseeable future. Kieron Gillen's writing is a weird mix of formal prose and flippantly delivered dialogue, with the latter being much more palatable than Gillen's attempts at Asgardian portent. As usual, Loki's breezy manner is the main appeal of this comic and this character. His delivery of tossed-off battle orders — "Dark Asgard flies on engines powered by raw fear-stuff and similar... let's blow them up" — suggests his childlike enthusiasm and casual approach to prophecy and war. This is contrasted against the stiff, often awkward writing of the narrative caption boxes, which overpower the much more lively dialogue. But the real problem continues to be that Journey Into Mystery so far has just been a peripheral part of Fear Itself when it should be a fun, slightly goofy book about the adventures of kid Loki. It's a waste of this character that his showcase comic mainly summarizes events in other series (apparently Thor's dead over in Fear Itself — yeah, that'll last) and adds a little ancillary action.

Justice League #2 (DC) - Geoff Johns' flagship DC book continues to move at a deliberate pace, slowly introducing the major players and having them size each other up with pattering dialogue and the obligatory superhero-misunderstanding-fight-scenes. Last issue focused on Green Lantern and Batman, with Superman showing up at the very end, while this issue throws the Flash into the mix and moves forward with the origin of Cyborg. Johns' punchy dialogue prevents the decompressed pace from being frustrating, and it helps that it's inherently fun to see these famous heroes meeting each other for the first time, cracking jokes as they try to figure out the origin of the mother boxes that Darkseid is planting in various US cities. Jim Lee's bold art is another pleasure here, and he's at his best in depicting a fight scene between Superman and the Flash, with the speedster dancing in circles around the Kryptonian before Superman finally catches him and sends him flying with a playful flick of his finger. The layouts of fight scenes like this are simple and elegant, breaking down the action into small gestures that lead into the massive, explosive pin-up panels that are Lee's forte. When he tries for a more complex layout, as he does on a page where Green Lantern calls the Flash for help, the page starts to look crowded and cluttered, with word balloons and layered panels creating visual confusion. That's just one page, though, and the rest of the issue tends to play to Lee's strengths much more clearly, with simple, iconic depictions of fight scenes and superhero posing. The introduction of more heroes in this issue gives the impression that things are speeding up and spreading out, gathering momentum as the Justice League of the title begins to take shape. When Wonder Woman and, presumably, Aquaman show up next issue, the pacing should get even more frenetic, the action more frenzied.

Nightwing #2 (DC) - I like Dick Grayson as a character, especially since his recent stint as Batman, but I have to say, the prospect of "Nightwing solves a circus mystery" as the driving plot of this first arc is really not exciting me on any level. The same thing goes for the assassin who's stalking Dick, a generic costumed guy with claws called Saiko, which not only provides the awful pun of the cover text but allows Dick to make a similarly terrible sorta-pun inside the actual comic. This just isn't really that interesting, from the generic love interest to the weirdness of Dick inheriting a circus to the off-kilter pacing. Eddy Barrows' fight scenes are interestingly laid out — as in the first issue, he seems to be taking more than a few page design cues from JH Williams III — but his faces are really goofy looking, and the presence of two inkers suggests that this is yet another New 52 issue affected by deadline pressure.

Supergirl #2 (DC) - The very decompressed storytelling in this series is already starting to get annoying. The first issue was basically just an extended fight scene between Kara and a bunch of armored soldiers as she tries to figure out what's going on. The second issue is... basically just an extended fight between Kara and Superman as she tries to figure out what's going on. While I enjoyed the first issue well enough, Michael Green and Mike Johnson are certainly taking their time building up to anything more substantial. Here, the two Kryptonians duke it out because Kara refuses to believe that Superman is actually her cousin, mainly because in her memory he's still a baby, which raises questions about where (and when) she's actually from and how she got here. But the whole thing feels contrived because after brawling all issue, Kara abruptly decides to stop by the end, and suddenly trusts her cousin after refusing to listen to him at first. This series needs to quickly do something besides staging 20-page fight scenes, even though Mahmud Asrar is undeniably good at drawing them: his figures in motion have a nice sense of energy, and he's great at depicting the paths of destruction that the hurtling superbeings leave in their wake.

Wolverine #17 (Marvel) - Jason Aaron has been doing some fine work on Wolverine lately, quite literally sending the man with the claws to hell and bringing him back only to tear him down even further. Then, just last issue, Aaron offered up a surprisingly touching and even funny reminder that Wolverine stories can and should be about more than just suffering and killing. This issue picks up that thread and serves as a placeholder in the aftermath of Aaron's Schism miniseries, which somewhat artificially concocted an excuse for Wolverine and Cyclops to fight and split up the X-Men into two teams. Now Wolverine's preparing to restart the Xavier school, so this issue is pretty much just filler before that storyline starts in earnest over in Aaron's new Wolverine and the X-Men series. As filler, it's not bad, and Aaron's feel for humorous dialogue is especially sharp here, as Wolverine goes hunting through San Francisco's Chinatown underworld for some drug dealers who have managed to subjugate a pair of dragons. Yes, really. It's knowingly a bit goofy, especially when Wolverine's throwdown with Gorilla Man is interrupted by the meta commentary of a pair of onlookers whose banter reflects the stupidity of the superhero comic convention that every time two heroes meet, they must fight. Considering all the angst and poignancy of Aaron's recent Wolverine arcs, this kind of low-key, light-hearted issue was probably needed to provide a breather before the aftermath of Schism really starts to play out.

Wonder Woman #2 (DC) - Damn I love this comic. This issue isn't as rapidly paced as the action-packed first one, but it has the same energy and vitality. Brian Azzarello's writing is crisp and efficient: he tells Diana's origin story in just two pages and caps it off with a casually jokey exchange. He packs a lot into this issue, as Wonder Woman takes Zola — the woman carrying Zeus' latest bastard child — back to the Amazons' home. Azzarello's dialogue is crackling and sharp, very different from his usual hardboiled style but with his characteristic wit intact. Zola's conversation with Hermes is great, as she wonders which of the men she's slept with lately could have been Zeus in disguise. It's not only funny but sex-positive and non-judgmental, especially remarkable considering some of the depictions of women in other New 52 series. It helps that Cliff Chiang's cartoony, expressive faces give his characters, particularly all the women in this story, vibrant personalities. The design of the villainous Strife, Hera's daughter and apparently Diana's sister, is especially effective, appearing as a willowy, pale blue gothy figure in a shredded cocktail dress.