Five Comics Worth Reading: June 2012

EARTH 2
I’ve been really getting into “world building” series lately, i.e. books that may focus on a set cast but really are telling the story of an entire society and moving the camera around a lot to do so; I feel like Paul Levitz’ first Legion of Super-Heroes run was the template for these in modern super hero comics and some really good ones have cropped up lately, from Age of Apocalypse to the current volume of Ultimates to Earth 2 by James Robinson and Nicola Scott. It’s not surprising that this type of storytelling falls in Robinson’s wheelhouse, as his Starman featured a vast array of characters beyond Jack Knight who could easily carry their own stories at any given moment (and the setting itself was as much a star as any of them). The idea of alternate realities featuring familiar characters is a tried and true one I’m a big fan of, and with the New 52 basically making the entire DC Universe one of these to begin with, I somehow find the concept of Earth 2 almost refreshing and particularly palatable for an older fan like me; this is another new take, but one rooted in a tradition dating back decades (if that makes sense). Really it’s the characters that sell it, though, in particular Robinson’s new version of Jay Garrick as The Flash, an everyman dreamer who stumbles across destiny he never figured within his grasp and now has to cope with a battle way over his head; that’s my favorite kind of hero. There’s also coolness to seeing guys like Garrick or Alan Scott not as the grizzled warhorses we’ve come to know them as, but fresh faced rookies who still possess the intangibles of the characters I’ve dug. So between the cross-reality scope, the likable protagonists, the “you know them but you don’t” twists with guys like Mr. Terrific and Nicola Scott’s classic, colorful, oh-so comic book art, this new series has become a quick favorite of mine.

FAIREST
Speaking of world building, Fables is another title that typifies that expression, as Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham and company have spent over a decade now creating and letting flourish their vast storytelling tapestry across genres and through dozens of stories. While they still do a nice job over in that book of putting the characters first and foremost, there’s no denying they have to top the last arc a lot—and that’s a tall order—so Fairest is a nice spin-off in that it goes somewhat “old school” with more self-contained stories set across Fables continuity but specific focus on smaller adventures. I’m loving the first arc, where Willingham has gone back to the well on one of the things that has helped Fables endure and taken an “origin story”—in this case Sleeping Beauty’s—and found a quirky ground that’s more hardcore than the cartoons we’ve seen, more lighthearted than the gory original “fairy tales,” and with the kind of wit and high adventure that makes a comic book. It’s an escapist delight to follow familiar characters like Ali Baba with a thoroughly modern edge plus get more insight into established Fables folk like the Snow Queen. If I may toot a pal’s horn though, my friend Phil Jimenez’s art on this book is gorgeous on a jaw-dropping scale; he was born to draw the lush landscapes, intricate palaces and beautiful people of Fables. It’s a visual feast nicely abetted by the inks of another amigo, Andy Lanning, plus knockout colors by Andrew Dalhouse.

INCREDIBLE HULK
When I was growing up reading Incredible Hulk, it was in the midst of Peter David’s reign as writer, and while it was also action-packed, psychological and often pretty dark, it was a funny book, with The Hulk as a witty lead operating a monstrous physical entity. Jason Aaron’s current run on Hulk is also very action-packed, also fairly psychological and quite dark, but while it’s not always funny—it frequently is—it’s damn sure demonstrating that some stuff I don’t typically think of as “fun” quite well can be. The current “Stay Angry” arc has at its core a clever premise that both subverts the “typical” Hulk hierarchy and provides brilliant set-ups for any number of stories: Bruce Banner is now the deranged side of the equation and is up to some crazy—and as yet unrevealed—scheme that has him spending his time “at the wheel” positioning himself into crazy situations then getting pissed off enough to become The Hulk, who has to deal with said situation, hoping not to inadvertently do exactly what Banner wanted, and thus far failing each and every time. Hulk also has to (wait for it) stay angry or else he’ll revert to Banner, who will either screw him over further or get them both killed. It’s an elaborate yet elegant framework that Aaron jumps off and then kicks to 11 by cramming the craziest things he can think of into the stories; so far we’ve had Hulk teaming up with The Punisher to take down a Mexican drug lord who was either a dog mutated into a man or a man who mutated himself to be part dog—to put the cherry on top, Hulk has Punished shoot him in the face several times when he’s in danger of calming down—and Hulk under the sea fending off a horde of Atlanteans and sea monsters inebriated by seaweed juice and thinking they’re pirates. It’s the kind of off-the-wall stuff you’d expect to find in a book like, say, Preacher or something, but that perhaps works even better here because The Hulk is such a resilient force you can throw into nearly anything and have him believably survive as well as make a bigger mess of things. I applaud Aaron for thinking big on this story and for creating a new take on Hulk himself: an astutely rational but annoyed monster that has to clean up the messes he himself created for years being perpetrated by the unfettered alter ego who has had to endure the brunt of that action. Inspired art choices like Steve Dillon and Pasqual Ferry only make things better. And this week, Tom Raney draws Hulk fighting Russian bears in outer space!

NEW MUTANTS
Speaking of that Lanning guy—and I was back in the Fairest write-up—he also writes, and along with Dan Abnett, he’s penning one of our consistent favorites on the This Week in Marvel podcast, New Mutants. This series occupies a very unique place in not just the Marvel Universe, but really all of comics, there has always been the problem of what to do with teenage characters when they kind of grow up—or rather are replaced by a younger generation—but can’t fully because they’re not going to supplant the adult characters already in place. The peak members of the New Teen Titans cast were—and really still are for the most part—victims of this grey area and the original New Mutants seemed doomed to a similar fate after their X-Force run came to an end and teams like Generation X or the young students of New X-Men and Generation Hope took their place, but Zeb Wells started up a new series that played on their connection to one another being what made them truly compelling, and now DnA have carved their niche out even further. Beyond having a very specific mission statement of mopping up the X-Men’s “unfinished business” (locating mutants who have fallen through the cracks or hunting down bad guys that eluded capture), the New Mutants are comics’ quintessential twenty-somethings: no longer in school, but still unsure of their long-term goals and therefore clinging to one another for support and safety. They fight Asgardian death maidens—as seen in the excellent “Exiled” crossover with Journey Into Mystery—but they also live in an apartment together, trying to get jobs at the local diner so they don’t have to ask Cyclops for cash. Two of the very best recent issues of New Mutants have been ones with little to no action—namely Magma’s date with Mephisto and when Blink dragged the team out for a night on the town—but then you’ve also got creepy horror stories like the Ani-Mator trilogy or their Fear Itself sojourn into the depths of Hel; New Mutants can do it all. The cast is endearing, relatable and quirky; the soap opera is suitably complex without being overwhelming; the humor is both dry and cute. Also, the art on the book fits its one-of-a-kind nature well, whether it’s David Lopez depicting evil death metal bands or Leandro Fernandez imagining a techno-organic freakshow. I love Dani, Roberto, Amara, Doug, Warlock and Nate like they’re my pals, and this book is among the best anywhere right now.

SAGA
Yep, Brian K. Vaughan’s new comic book is awesome—I’m as shocked as anybody else. Seriously, BKV has a near flawless track record, and Saga has done nothing to harm that reputation. Going back one more time to that old world building theme that seems to have encompassed this post, I love that just as with Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina and even Runaways (though obviously that last one wasn’t as self-contained as the first two), Vaughan began demonstrating immediately via newborn baby Hazel being the narrator that he has the long game in mind for this one, and I really enjoy the little teases in that narration when we meet a new character hinting at events far down the line, as a creator being in for the long haul certainly encourages me to feel the same way. It’s not hard to invest in this series right from the start, as every character from foulmouthed star-crossed lovers Alana and Marko to bounty hunter The Will already have hidden depths I’m keen to discover, and the mash-up of romance and humor against a big ol’ sci-fi background is a tasty genre smorgasbord. Only a few issues in there have already been eye-grabbing visuals like people with television heads having sex and pre-pubescent ghosts missing their lower halves that Fiona Staples absolutely nails; she can do the beautiful and the epic as well as she does the gross and the laugh out loud, so that’s pretty darn swell. As a bonus, BKV is hilarious on the letters page which featured in one instance thus far fan art from none other than Rickey Purdin himself!

Five Comics Worth Reading - April 2010

Every now and again I read a comic and am just like “Wow, this book is sick,” but don’t always have more than a few sentences to say about it, let alone a whole post. To that end, with no ambitions whatsoever of any sort of regular schedule, I use this recurring feature babble about books I’m really digging.

Books like these.

THE BOYS
From Preacher to Hitman to Punisher, Garth Ennis does his best work when he uses over-the-top violence, gore, and crude trappings to mask the fact that he’s actually telling a story with a lot of heart. Yeah, his stuff is funny and gross and often ridiculous, but his characters are some of the most sincere you’ll find and the guy can write dialogue that will well up your eyes when he wants to.

Back when The Boys first started, I thought it might be Ennis taking a break from the serious stuff to go full-bore in surface mode, telling the nastiest super hero parody he could, and truth be told I would have been ok with that; it was still a good monthly laugh and Darick Robertson’s art is just gorgeous. But over time after some growing pains, The Boys has revealed itself as being—surprise surprise—a book with a lot of heart about characters with tremendous depth and an intriguing world in which everybody is playing everybody…with a healthy dose of super-powered sex jokes padding the panels.

The recent run of one-off “origin” issues for the oft-neglected characters of Mother’s Milk, The Frenchman and The Female was great, ballsy stuff, with Ennis going to the well and coming up with back-stories rooted in classic tropes yet spinning in entirely new directions. The latest arc, in which Butcher has come to suspect something’s up with Hughie—for my money one of comics’ most likable characters with a fantastically Ennis romance—and sends him to do recon on a socially-stunted Legion of Super-Heroes pastiche is shaping up to be more of the goodness.

And seriously: Darick Robertson is amazing.

HOUSE OF MYSTERY
Rickey and I have talked up House of Mystery quite a bit in private over the past couple years, though I’m not sure how often we’ve plugged it here on the blog—well, better late than never I suppose.

It’s a really cool book for many reasons, not the least of which is that it pays off on the potential for a format I and many of my fellows have often seen in an underexploited genre, that being the anthology book. No, it’s not a traditional multi-story anthology and there’s a pretty heady main plot threading through the series, but the idea that every month you can get a cool short horror-tinged story by the likes of Sam Kieth or Farel Dalrymple (to name a couple recent contributors) is just a neat and special thing. The conceit of these stories coming out of the book’s set-up wherein patrons at the bar around which it’s centered must pay their tab in tales is also quite an ingenious one if I do say so (I do).

But the short story icing aside, Matt Sturges has really weaved a delicious cake of—wait for it—mystery in the main narrative. The recent direction semi-change of rotation in and out of certain cast members really shook things up in the right way, as the old guard are not forgotten nor are their unanswered questions, but we’ve also got new faces and conundrums creeping up, headed up by heroine fig’s creepy and possibly homicidal brother Strawberry. It’s a smart book as you’d expect from its pedigree, but certainly not too dense for any old joe to dive right in.

JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA
Like many others, I was a bit concerned when Geoff Johns ended his landmark run on JSA and fearful that whoever took over would not be able to nail that elusive formula that makes a book centered around 70-year old characters and certainly lacking a certain sexiness still work in this age of super hero comics. I think it took Bill Willingham awhile to ease his way in, but he seems to be hitting on the right cylinders now.

Halving the book’s cast was a good move, since fifty percent of the JSA is still bigger than pretty much any other team excepting the Legion, and Willingham wisely assembled a team consisting primarily of characters whose voices he can nail. Whether it’s the stoicism of Alan Scott, the gruffness of Wildcat, the perkiness of Liberty Belle or that in-over-my-head terror Doctor Fate exudes, Willingham knows his players and their quirks and how the group dynamic should work.

The story arc with Mordru was a nice bit of fun, and now the current multi-parter in which the team is fighting across two eras to prevent new age Nazis from taking over the world is shaping up as quite the sizable epic. The peril feels quite real and the action is well-choreographed. With the focus more on Mister Terrific with a dash of folks like Doctor Mid-Nite and Lightning thrown in, Willingham is also moving the camera around nicely, which is a necessity on a book like this.

Jesus Merino has come into his own as well, still clearly influenced by his years of inking Carlos Pacheco but not shackled by it; he draws real pretty.

WOLVERINE: WEAPON X
When Jason Aaron is on his game with Wolverine, I’m not sure I’ve seen more than one or two other writers who make the character more enjoyable to follow.

I was re-reading the recent standalone issue about Logan’s love life a few nights ago and found myself smirking with every page at how fun Aaron makes this guy who has been a perennially put-upon and tortured character for so long and so often. Yeah, the angst is certainly still there in Weapon X, but this Wolverine is more a guy with some crazy war stories to tell but whose charisma and wit draws you to him, as opposed to the depressing guy wallowing in the corner of the bar.

Aaron also helps his case by never taking Wolverine too seriously, or letting the character do so either. Self-conscious sequences of the writer poking fun at how his charge seems to be a dozen places at once or scenes where Logan is getting a sex talk from Jubilee and especially Wolvie asking to hold Luke Cage and Jessica Jones’ baby make the crazy ass battle sequences where this guy is tearing people apart with his claws so much more effective via contrast.

But the current arc with an army of Deathloks coming back from the future to hunt down a master list of super heroes so they can rule their own time period Terminator style is just a whole other step beyond.

It’s hard to really encapsulate what makes this story so darn fantastic, but it illustrates that Jason Aaron is perhaps without peer when it comes to visualizing the craziest big picture concepts ever and then actually following through with them. He did it on Ghost Rider with stuff like Johnny Blaze storming the gates of heaven on a motorcycle and challenging the baddest angel in the land an issue or two after fighting a possessed steam shovel and he does it here with an army of cyborg killing machines coming back in time to kill people we’ve never heard of because their kid will grow up to be a legendary hero. The time jumps, the continuity winks, and the way he handles new and old characters just so darn well in the midst of unparalleled craziness is just a masterful thing and a joy to see unfold.

X-FACTOR FOREVER
As somebody who never had any emotional attachment to Louise Simonson’s run on X-Factor from when I was like eight and no particular fondness for the original X-Men outside of a tough-to-quantify fandom for Iceman, this was the last book I was expecting to get into.

But it’s really a good read.

My hat is off (or it would be if I were wearing one) to Ms. Simonson for being able to analyze her work of two decades ago and re-imagine it for a modern day audience without it feeling stagnant or at the other extreme dragging it kicking and screaming on a forced migration into the 21st century just by sticking iPods in the characters’ hands. She has instead pulled off perfectly the act of balancing nostalgia with a knowing awareness of how storytelling conventions have evolved and created a comic that reads like a fun super hero book from a simpler time without coming off stale or pedantic; this I imagine can’t be an easy thing to do.

As an X-Men junkie, I love the feel of the story wherein Apocalypse has grand designs involving destiny and whatnot we’re only getting the tip of, but I’d imagine somebody picking the book up cold could also just appreciate the idea of characters with neat costumes and cool powers fighting a giant robot across New York City. The book has thus far succeeded in both servicing those of us looking for a trip back to the elaborate X-Men mythos of yesteryear while also being new reader-friendly.

Simonson also just writes a great Apocalypse, and her re-imagining his full history in the back-up is a great bonus.

Dan Panosian really brought his A-game as well, and has clearly worked to keep growing his craft from his Image days back in the 90’s. His design skill for the aforementioned costumes is spot-on and the guy can do a fight scene like wow.

Comics' Future "A-Listers"

For the past several days, some buddies and me have been having an interesting ongoing discussion about what comics writers we think could and would like to see inherit spots on the "A-List" from the current guard. Now we're using "A-List" (and I'm putting it in quotes) not just to mean successful, acclaimed writers managing one or two major titles, but the dudes who put out four to five top sellers a month (that also have to be top notch reads) and sit in rooms with the other big wigs at their company and plot the future of their comics universe.

However, comics being in a pretty good place right now creatively also means that it's harder than ever to break into that elite group, simply because there are plenty of qualified bodies already filling those spots and this current crop doesn't look to be going anywhere anytime soon (which is a good thing). But that doesn't mean new talent isn't emerging all the time and finding success, even if it may not quite be on that lofty "A-List" level. There are plenty of guys on my personal "A-List" who may not be not be defining the larger landscape right now, but I'd certainly like to see them doing so in the future (if that's what they want, of course).

Here are just five writers that are on the cusp of something really special (or already there in some cases) and deserve your attention, respect and hard-earned dollars...

Jason Aaron
When I was first introduced to Jason Aaron via Scalped from Vertigo, I admit that I was not a fan. I found his characters too unlikable, his moral landscape too murky and everything to be just too dark. However, I gave him a second look when he came aboard Ghost Rider and was honestly amazed by how much a book about a character I was never interested in written by a writer I thought I didn't care for suddenly became one of my must-reads (it sits near the top of my pile whenever it comes out). Jason's GR is this crazy, surreal mix of horror, action and over-the-top nuttiness that feels more like a grindhouse flick then a comic sometimes. That previous sentence doesn't necessarily sound like it's a describing a formula for a quality comic I would love, but Jason makes it work! It's honestly like nothing else on the market today, and with each arc he's working in more and more actual continuity and comic book-y flourishes that only make it better. However, I'll once again come to the confessional and say I thought it highly possible that Jason's work on Ghost Rider was a glitch and I only liked it because it was unique. Wrong. He absolutely killed it on the "Get Mystique" arc of Wolverine, combining a period piece with balls out action and super hero stuff, then did great work recently on Black Panther, encapsulating nicely the coolness of T'Challa and creating possibly my favorite Super Skrull of the Secret Invasion. Heck, I even gave that first issue of Scalped another read, and I think my initial judgment may have been hasty. Jason Aaron is great at going in directions you don't expect, working outside the box and infusing traditional characters with genres they're not known for playing it, but where they fit nicely; I'd love to see him get a long run on a top flight book very soon.

Paul Cornell
Captain Britain and MI13 has unquestionably been the pleasant surprise breakout hit of Marvel over the past few months, and to say the writing of Paul Cornell hasn't been a huge factor in that is lunacy. Now I don't mean to shortchange Leonard Kirk, who is a brilliantly talented artist and doing beautiful work, but Secret Invasion tie-ins or no, a book starring the likes of Spitfire and the Black Knight doesn't catch the kind of critical fire MI13 has unless it's got a helluva writer steering the ship. What I love about Paul's approach is that he was a British writer handed a book full of British super heroes but was smart enough to know it would never sell as "the British book" (in the same way Alpha Flight will never sell as just "the Canadian book"...but that's another blog entry) and instead found a way to give it a niche beyond that rather limited premise in making it the book that deals with magic in the Marvel Universe. It's a very specified but intriguing mission statement that gives the book direction and then lets Paul's knack for character work do the rest. He does infuse his cast with a certain vaguely alien quality that reminds you they're not from the same country as seemingly 95% of the Marvel Universe, but he doesn't beat you over the head with it. More than that, Paul makes the principals of MI13 likable not so much in the way Captain America seems like a guy you'd love to get an autograph from, but in a way where you'd like to share a beer with them and maybe have Pete Wisdom as a weird neighbor. And of course in addition to the rock solid characterization, Paul also isn't above throwing in twists like having Blade ram a wooden stake through the heart of a core team member on the last page of an issue. Paul's work on MI13 as well as the trippy and fun Fantastic Four: True Story demonstrates an intelligence and willingness to take risks that we need more of in comics.

Jeff Katz
Of the guys on this list, Jeff Katz has done arguably the least to warrant being on it, but yet I didn't hesitate to write his name. To date, Jeff really only has to his credit in the world of big ticket comics 12 issues of Booster Gold, and those he co-wrote with unquestionable A-lister Geoff Johns. Thanks to having spoken to Geoff as he was launching the book and having seen some of the early scripts, I have an idea of what role Jeff played at least in those first issues, but nonetheless, with him being the junior partner in that creative dynamic, you have to wonder how much hand-holding was really done and how well he'd do flying solo. Well, I'd like to learn the answer to that second question sooner rather than later, because despite his reasonably slim bibliography to date, there's something about Jeff Katz that just makes me feel like he's a star waiting to be fully born. Maybe it's the way he carries himself in interviews, as he's affable as well as unquetionably enthuiastic and knowledgable about just about every comic out there. He projects an understanding for why and how properties work (or should work) that inspires confidence. There's also the fact that Booster Gold read different from just about any other Geoff Johns book (in a good way), and while I credit Geoff for being versatile, I also figure at least some of that has to be Jeff's doing. It's a bit of a leap of faith, but I really do think if Jeff Katz committed more time and focus to comics (which he may or may not ever do), he could be a major player. And I'd like to see that.

John Rogers
For a substantial period during the last few years, Blue Beetle wasn't just a book I was raving about month in and month out, more often than not it was indeed probably my very favorite ongoing super hero title from DC or Marvel. When Keith Giffen left the book only a few issues in, people assumed meltdown and cancellatio would be iminent, but his co-writer John Rogers proved to not only be competent, he absolutely blasted Blue Beetle into the stratosphere of quality. Here was a book that took the concept of the awkward teenage super hero originated with Spider-Man over 40 years ago and reinvented it not just for a new generation, but for a whole new cross section of readers. John made Jaime Reyes and his friends seem cool, smart, funny and just impossibly appealing month in and month out, but never like they couldn't also be the kids you went to high school with. John ran with the idea of Jaime not having the cliche of parents he had to keep his secret from, but rather embraced him having an extended family (including his friends) that not only knew about his double life, but offered him the support and guidance he could not do his job without. Jaime struggled and screwed up, but he was always growing, and John made sure you were along for every step of the ride. John also adeptly handled guest stars from Superman and Batman to Guy Gardner and Booster Gold and often cut to their core better and gave thema shinier polish than they received in their own books. But perhaps most impressively from a writing standpoint, John was able to tell engaging and satisfying one or two-part stories that gave you maximum bang for your buck while also never shortchanging those of us in it for the long haul because he never lost sight of his larger 25-issue super story and guided it to an eminently delicious conclusion. John has since departed Blue Beetle for yet-to-be-named other projects and I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for them to be announced, because I think this guy could take just about anything and make it shine.

Fred Van Lente
It wasn't that long ago that Fred Van Lente seemed to be merely the sidekick to Greg Pak's superstar on the Incredible Hercules writing team, but of late, FVL finally seems to be receiving the attention and acclaim he deserves. Before he landed on Herc, in addition to his indy work (which I really need to track down) and work in the Marvel All Ages playground, Fred penned the chuckle-a-minute Super-Villain Team-Up: M.O.D.O.K.'s 11, which had as much heart as it did humor. He and Pak have scored big with Herc, which, as I've mentioned here before, may be my favorite book currently being published (y'know, because John Rogers left Blue Beetle, remember?). No other book out there so deftly utilizes classic mythological structure and tropes as well as buddy cop movie dynamics and plenty of good ol' fashioner super hero punching. Heck, I'm actually not sure if any other comic has featured that particular delectable formula...ever. But then also from solo FVL, you've got Wolverine: First Class, a book that is supposedly for all ages, but I feel was designed specifically for 26-year old males who love dry wit and touching life lessons all wrapped in one (or really anybody who just like good, fun comics). W: FC actually encapsulates what I think makes Fred rock quite well: he excels at humor and a sense of fun, but he doesn't use it as his fallback or his one trick, he uses it as a tool in his storytelling arsenal that compliments the serious stuff instead of overwhelming it. Just last week, FVL launched his latest (and perhaps most high profile) endeavor with Marvel Zombies 3, and showed that he can do horror and gore just as well as Greek god goofiness or classic mutant mayhem. And again: he made it fun, but he also made it smart. Fred's a man with a solid plan who (like everybody on this list) brings something different from the norm to the table and given the opportunity could do some universe building on a grand scale I think any fan of quality would stand to benefit from.