Why Won't This Work? Outsiders

Looking over the 52 books DC will be rolling out this September—and August technically—as part of their massive publishing overhaul, you’ll see a lot of diversity. There are the traditional heavy hitter super hero books, some out-of-left-field revivals, genre-stretchers in fields like western and horror as well as new takes on classic characters and concepts.

One thing you won’t see—aside from a Justice Society, which is really another discussion—is a series starring any incarnation of the Outsiders.

This will mark the first time in eight years DC will be without an Outsiders ongoing series (I don’t count the new Red Hood book as a replacement). The most recent series—set to end this month at issue #40—began in 2007 as the second incarnation of Batman & the Outsiders before dropping the first part with issue #15 and became the fourth volume of Outsiders; it continued directly from the previous series that launched in 2003 alongside Teen Titans.

On the one hand, I’m a bit surprised there will—apparently—be no more Outsiders come September if only because they’ve been a DCU fixture for quite some time now; the current eight year run surpasses previous five and two year stints outside of limbo. On the other hand, it doesn’t come as a shock as DC seems to be lining up characters and concepts with a strong brand identity or hook, and as I’ve discussed with my blog-mates here on a few occasions, I’ve never seen Outsiders as fitting those particular bills.

The Outsiders were introduced in Brave and the Bold #200 in 1983 and then moved quickly into their own Batman & the Outsiders regular book. The initial roster included Metamorpho, Black Lightning, Katana, Geo-Force and Halo, but as I touched on recently, the group’s primary identity was as Batman and the guys who would help him out on missions the Justice League didn’t want to touch. That’s not a knock on those characters—Black Lightning and Metamorpho in particular I would consider DCU cornerstones and particularly resilient players—but when one guy’s name is “above the fold,” there’s really no questions whose show it is.

“Outsiders” is a cool name and conjures up images of a group that doesn’t fit in or operates far outside the law, but while both those concepts did play somewhat into the series’ initial incarnation, it really was more “these are the guys we’re having back up Batman because he’s cool enough to have a team book he doesn’t need to share with Superman and Wonder Woman.”

Batman left the book in 1985 and it became just Outsiders. I don’t know sales history well enough to speak too authoritatively—maybe somebody in the comments can clarify—but given that it lasted a few more years, I’d guess at least initially the established momentum of the book and the fact that readers had formed an attachment with these non-Batman characters—it should be noted that the series was supported by a trio of hugely talented creators in writer Mike W. Barr and artists Jim Aparo and Alan Davis, so the stories were going to read and look good regardless of the high concept behind them—sustained some success before it tapered out gradually.

Why don’t I think Outsiders continued past 1988 while the Justice League, Teen Titans and Legion of Super-Heroes marched on? Because it really had nothing to distinguish itself, and with team books that’s even more important I’d argue than series starring solo characters.

The Justice League is the A-list of DC heroes. The Teen Titans are the next generation. The Legion of Super-Heroes lives in the future. Across the street, the Avengers are Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. The X-Men protect a world that hates and fears them (honestly, they’re comics’ true outsiders). The Thunderbolts are bad guys trying to become better.

Dig deeper and you’ve got some other teams that may not be published consistently, but get lots of chances because they’ve got something unique at the heart. The Suicide Squad is villains being pressed into heroism against their will. The Defenders are powerhouses who don’t really get along but put aside their differences for the greater good. The Doom Patrol is a team of freaks (again, they’re closer to outsiders than the Outsiders). Even Alpha Flight and Excalibur have different settings to their advantage.

Then you’ve got that long list of teams who outlived their premise but the names are recognizable so you’ll see new books featuring them every now and again and sometimes if you get lucky with the right creative team or new spin, they land. Infinity, Inc. was the Teen Titans of Earth-2, but then there was no more Earth-2. The Champions were the west coast super heroes but then the Avengers got a west coast branch.

X-Factor is kind of a unique case (appropriate given the name): they started out as the original X-Men, but once those characters left the book morphed into a government-sponsored mutant team and later a mutant detective agency. Perhaps no team has proven as adaptable over the years as X-Factor, with the recognizable name remaining, but mission statements sliding in and out as necessity demanded.

At times, Outsiders has come close to being DC’s X-Factor, but more often than not it’s been another Champions or Infinity, Inc.

In fact, I’d say the book’s initial cancellation in 1988 came about at least in part because of the last part of that statement. The Outsiders even without Batman had something of their own identity as the official super hero team of Los Angles, but following Crisis On Infinite Earths, Infinity, Inc. also made their home in L.A. That’s not to say the City of Angels isn’t big enough for two teams—Marvel’s New York has at least half a dozen at any given time—but that there were two books about super hero teams set in L.A. in 1988 without anything to really distinguish either probably spoke somewhat to their redundancy, and neither lasted to 1989.

Five years later in 1993, Outsiders returned, maybe in part because there was a strong pitch—Mike W. Barr was again writing, this time with a young Paul Pelletier on art—but more likely because it was the 90’s and a lot of books were getting green lit. I was only 11 at the time, but I didn’t really have any nostalgia to see Geo-Force or Looker again—Black Lightning and Metamorpho were otherwise engaged at the time, so their spots went to fairly forgettable newcomers like Wylde and Technorat, though we did get the pretty cool Faust out of the deal as well—and didn’t get the sense anybody else did either. The book did play somewhat on the name as Geo-Force was framed for murder and he as well as his allies become fugitives, but it would only run 24 issues before being cancelled in 1995.

In 2003, while Young Justice gave way to a new Teen Titans, a fresh take on Outsiders rose from the ashes of the previous Titans book. Name aside, this was a fairly fresh take on the old brand, with former Titans Nightwing and Arsenal putting together a group to replace their former one. Judd Winick was the writer—Tom Raney started out as the artist but subbed out for Matthew Clark—and I thought came up with justification for why the Outsiders existed beyond there just being another super team; at the outset, he utilized my least favorite comic book cliché of “these are pro-active heroes,” but that seemed more window dressing for the heart of the book. What was really going on—in my eyes at least—was that Nightwing no longer wanted to work with other heroes because the death of Donna Troy burnt him out on being a Titan, but his buddy Arsenal didn’t want him to become like Batman—in demeanor—so he convinced him to found this new crew on the basis that they wouldn’t be friends, like the Titans, but strictly professionals with limited emotional attachment.

It also helped that Winick filled out the roster with a combination of less overt ties to the original Outsiders—Black Lightning’s daughter, Thunder, as well as pseudo-Metamorpho clone Shift—and actual misfits who wouldn’t fit in on the Justice League—uncouth female bruiser Grace and “reformed” killer robot Indigo. Jade—ironically formerly of Infinity, Inc.—filled the final spot to give another known quantity and it made for an interesting dynamic. Winick even had a nice moment at the close of the first arc where Nightwing informed Batman he’d be leading this new team and that they’d be called the Outsiders, with both men exchanging a smirk.

I was a big fan of Judd Winick’s Outsiders. I thought the writing was good and the characters were fun, but perhaps more than anything I was impressed that he located a niche in a universe that already had the JSA, JLA, Teen Titans and more for the Outsiders to fill. I actually became an even bigger fan following the One Year Later jump as Winick pulled an X-Factor move and changed the game.

One of the threads that ran prior to Infinite Crisis was that as more traditional heroes like Captain Marvel Jr. and Nightwing’s former fiancée Starfire joined up, it became more and more difficult for them to remain a “strictly business” operation. Ties began to be formed and Dick Grayson didn’t like where things were headed. After Jade was killed, Starfire was lost in space and Captain Marvel Jr. became involved in the Marvel Family upheaval, Nightwing took the opportunity to revamp the operation. He faked the deaths of everybody but himself and Arsenal—kicking Roy Harper out of the group because he had a daughter and couldn’t do the things required that were coming—and turned the Outsiders into a completely off-the-grid black ops squad doing dirty deeds in the post-Infinite Crisis DC Universe. Grace and Thunder stuck around, Shift reverted to Metamorpho, Katana returned and the villainous new Captain Boomerang joined hoping for redemption.

For awhile, I touted Outsiders as my favorite One Year Later DC title around the Wizard offices. It had elements of the sneaky stuff and moral handwringing I loved in the original Suicide Squad, but it was even more complex with genuinely good people crossing lines to get things done. There was a great scene in the first arc where Superman came close to shutting the team down, but Nightwing “bluffed” him off their scent with a piece of Kryptonite in a lead-lined box, and then we find out he wasn’t bluffing. Winick’s writing was smart, Clark’s art was slick, and for awhile, the book was gold.

Like so many good things, though, this incarnation of Outsiders had to come to an end. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be terribly long-term—you can’t really keep a character as prominent as Nightwing as a true outsider for long and the idea worked in large part because of him—but it got a good 18 issues before ending in a crossover with the also excellent Checkmate by Greg Rucka where control of the group returned to Batman.

Things came full circle to an extent as Batman & the Outsiders returned in 2007 with Chuck Dixon writing. I didn’t stick around for the re-launch, but from what I understand the first year or so were pretty standard super hero adventures—that’s not a knock on their quality as, again, I didn’t read them and thus can’t judge—with Batman and Outsiders vets Katana, Metamorpho, Grace and Thunder being joined by a rotating assortment of members including Martian Manhunter, Catwoman, Green Arrow and Batgirl. Geo-Force and Black Lightning would eventually rejoin and then the series name reverted to simply Outsiders with issue #15 as Batman seemingly died during Final Crisis.

I followed the 10-issue post-Final Crisis run written by Peter Tomasi—I’m a Tomasi fan—and there were some decent stories, as he had the conceit of Batman leaving behind in the event of his death a plan for the Outsiders to continue with the original team plus The Creeper and a new Owlman, whom together he felt all possessed a skill or talent needed to basically create a composite replacement Batman. While that was a neat starting point, though, more and more once again without Batman or the true outsider status Winick created, it felt like just another super hero team with no real reason to exist.

That brings us up to the present day, the current volume’s cancellation and no announced plans for a new series during the Fall re-launch.

I guess the moral of the story—if there is one; there rarely is in my ramblings—is that some team books in comics have characters or names or basic ideas so strong and iconic they can exist just on that. There will always be a Justice League series, an Avengers series, a Teen Titans series, an X-Men series. Once you go beyond that top tier, you need to work to make sure your team book has a reason for being (not that you shouldn’t even on one of those titles). Sure there are fans out there whose nostalgia for Mike W. Barr’s work or seeing Geo-Force paired with Katana will make them pick up any Outsiders series, but I don’t believe it’s a huge group. Likewise, Batman is a character who is too in demand to base an entire team around; odds are he’s going to be needed elsewhere at some point, and you need a back-up plan.

Judd Winick took the idea of Outsiders and really gave it some thought; kicked kudos to the guys who came before and the fans who loved that work, but also found a particular way to approach the franchise that had legs. I hope that when the next Outsiders re-launch comes around—and it will come around—whoever gets the chance to shepherd it will do the same.

The Best of 2010 Comics Gift-Getting Guide

While plenty of places will provide you with lists of what gifts to get for comics-loving friends and family prior to the holidays, it’s my tradition here on the Cool Kids Table to wait until after y’all have gotten all those nice gift certificates and store credits and then let you know what to spend them on.

There were a bunch of great comics this year, and while I’ve singled out 22 collections here I think deserving of your dime, I also encourage you to check out my Comics Worth Reading archives for some I may have overlooked.

AVENGERS ACADEMY: PERMANENT RECORD
Using a very specific story structure over the first almost year of Avengers Academy—the first person narration shifting from one cast member to the next each issue—I think Christos Gage has pulled off the ever-challenging task of introducing half a dozen really intriguing new characters who I’m already invested in. The series has yet to have one true overarching multi-issue story, which I kind of dig, as it gives the book a different feel and sets it apart with the emphasis really being on character and relationships over big action (though the fights are still well-done, don’t worry). This first volume provides a wonderful introduction to a unique and entertaining series with superb art by Mike McKone and others plus some fun guest stars to boot.

BATMAN AND ROBIN: BATMAN MUST DIE!
As I so often do with Grant Morrison’s work, I couldn’t fully appreciate it until all the pieces were on the table. Am I too impatient or just not smart enough to get it earlier in the game? Quite possibly both, but I still credit Morrison with being able to ratchet up the satisfaction level when it comes to that crucial “A-ha!” moment. Speaking of satisfaction, there’s a great deal involved when a story really feels like it has been building up for some time as this one has—it’s what makes good long-form television a success—not to mention when a truly great bad guy finally gets what’s coming to him, and we have both here. I also like that everybody from Dick Grayson to Damien to Commissioner Gordon to the freaking Joker—Frazer Irving’s Joker is so creepy!—and of course Bruce Wayne gets a nice spotlight without it feeling overloaded. Honestly, I feel like if you haven’t been reading Batman the past couple years, you’ll get a nice filling adventure here and if you want to sample the rest, it’s there for you, plus the set-up to the next intriguing age.

BATMAN BEYOND: HUSH BEYOND
Of all the comics I was expecting to dig in 2010, I can certainly say Batman Beyond was not high on that list, but here we are. I never watched the cartoon regularly, but the Return of the Joker movie and the characters being featured on Justice League Unlimited a couple times was enough to endear them to me. Adam Beechen did a nice job with this series of immersing you immediately in the odd but familiar world of future Gotham and mining the Bruce Wayne-Terry McGinnis dynamic for its inherent strengths. I found myself caught up in the Hush mystery—though a bit let down by the “big reveal”—and enjoying the new additions to the Beyond canon like aged Dick Grayson and Catwoman Beyond; good primer for what I hope will be a nice ongoing.

THE BOYS: THE INNOCENTS
Tough choice between this one and The Self-Preservation Society in terms of my Boys pick for 2010, as the latter had some rad standalone origin stories, but the actual action arc didn’t do so much for me, whereas both arcs contained in The Innocents are just wrenching. The story the book is named for sees Hughie going undercover in a Legion of Substitute Heroes pastiche and the way Garth Ennis handles bonafide good guys who want to be super heroes in the horribly corrupt world of The Boys is both a little heartwarming and massively heartbreaking, plus Butcher gets a kick ass moment in the midst of being a prick. The second story, Believe, is a heartbreaker, as Hughie finally learns the truth about Annie and amidst the jokes and violence is the moment we’ve been anticipating/dreading played with almost depressingly real emotion and heart. Definitely missing Darick Robertson’s art, but Russ Braun has stepped up admirably. If you think The Boys is just about shock storytelling, I’ll say as I do every year that you’re missing out.

DAYTRIPPER
I’ve said so much about how incredible I think Daytripper is this past year and I stand by all of it, so I’ll save me and you some time by linking to those thoughts and just reiterating that this is one of the most gorgeous, moving and poignant stories I’ve read in some time that I’d recommend to anybody, comics fan or no.

DOOMWAR
Jonathan Maberry and Scot Eaton’s Black Panther(s and friends) versus Doctor Doom mini-epic hit a sweet spot in my fan nerve that craves unfettered, old-fashioned “good guys fighting bad guys” stories with a dash of social relevance, but more importantly a heaping helping of outlandish action and the kinds of crazy chess moves you don’t see anywhere else but comics. Maberry wrote one of my favorite takes on Doom in years, doing justice to one of Marvel’s most complex and powerful villains while not cheaping out on the megalomaniacal speeches and insane plans. On the flipside, the T’Challa of this story is great in his role as the good guy who’s not so much a hero but rather a politician and master strategist, willing to engage Doom in a way few others have and go way outside the box. Eaton’s art is a perfect fit for the type of fun you get when you pit the X-Men, Fantastic Four, Deadpool, War Machine, etc. against an army of Vibranium-enhanced Doombots.

EX MACHINA: TERM LIMITS
It may have taken a little while to get there, but the conclusion of Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris’ multi-years mash-up of politics and super-heroics was worth the wait—not too surprising since BKV is one of the strongest finishers in comics. The final multi-part story was smart, harsh and unrelenting, with a great mix of intelligent social commentary and science fiction action with an added element of unworldly unease; in short, it was a good snapshot of everything that made Ex Machina what it was. The final issue, however, was really something, from the pay-offs to the shocking moments to the lengths BKV didn’t mind going to with Mitchell Hundred’s character right down to the ending I did not see coming but smiled and nodded “of course” to as soon as I turned that last page.

FABLES: ROSE RED
I love when Fables flashes back to tales of the Homelands, breaking away from the ongoing narrative and allowing Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham to switch up storytelling styles, and this year’s “secret origin” of Rose Red was a fun, impactful story that made nice use of the concept’s central conceit—fairy tales twisted and refined with modern conventions and humor—to catapult a great character towards her next phase. That aside, this collection also contains the momentous 100-page 100th issue of the book, a true triumph for the creators with an awesome flat-out fight with Mister Dark—one of the creepiest villains in all of comics right now for my money—and the culmination of several simmering plots even as new ones begin. I’ll be interested to see how many of #100’s extras make the trade, but even just the main stuff alone is gold.

THE FLASH: THE DASTARDLY DEATH OF THE ROGUES
Geoff Johns and Francis Manapul’s first arc on the “reborn” Flash accomplished something I thought nigh-impossible: It made this diehard Wally West fanatic at least warm up to the idea of stories starring Barry Allen as the Fastest Man Alive. Don’t get me wrong, I still have my hang-ups as far as Barry being a bit bland and believe Wally has way more of an upside, but Johns the exaggerated Silver Age nobility of his lead and makes it work with a tale that takes the best characteristics of that era of storytelling—the boundless enthusiasm, that no concept is too over-the-top—and marries them to his modern bag of characterization and pacing tricks for a satisfying ride. The metaphors about speed or timeliness would usually make me groan—and they still do sometimes—but they work here as they would nowhere else. Johns also still writes the Rogues as among the best villains/supporting cast around and Manapul’s energy is palpable.

FRAGGLE ROCK VOLUME 1
Just as The Muppet Show did last year, Archaia’s anthology of stories inspired by Jim Henson’s Fraggle Rock took hold of a beloved memory from my childhood and pulled it into the present in a way I fully enjoyed as an adult. No question Fraggle Rock is perhaps the weirdest of Henson’s weird concepts—Dark Crystal aside—but the creators who worked on this book were able to grasp this quirkiness and use the mythology to build neat tableaus to entertain readers of all ages that showcased all the unique characters and settings available; great fun, hoping for more.

JUSTICE LEAGUE: GENERATION LOST VOL. 1
The DC Universe’s true outsiders finally found a place I think they’ll be comfortable for some time to come, and I think Judd Winick is doing some of his best writing in years in the process. I’ve said this before, but it’s always seemed a shame that while the Justice League International characters are likable and well-realized, they haven’t worked beyond humor and nostalgia guest shots in awhile; by putting a chip on their shoulder without hardening them too much and giving them a legitimate threat only they can stop in Maxwell Lord, Winick has done wonders and created an intriguing little mystery that’s funny and really explores the characters. Add in solid artwork from pros like Aaron Lopresti and Joe Bennett and this was my pleasant surprise of the year.

SCOTT PILGRIM’S FINEST HOUR
Certainly Bryan Lee O’Malley had a self-imposed series of hard acts to follow in crafting the finale to his Scott Pilgrim opus not to mention a high exposure movie to run up against, but I was really satisfied with Finest Hour and think the man deserves a hearty “job well done” both for this volume and the larger work he created. Perhaps better than any other chapter of the Scott Pilgrim story, Finest Hour gives equal service to the underpinning emotional coming of age story and the crazy video game action world, with the first portions of the book feeling about as real as it gets in terms of Scott coming to grips with his own past actions and then the finale being the most balls crazy final fight you could ask for. I don’t want to get too far into analyzing the nitty gritty as finer minds than mine have already done so, but I closed this book feeling satisfied and look forward to cracking it back open in the future.

SPIDER-MAN: THE GAUNTLET – LIZARD
I’m certainly not the first person to say Zeb Wells and Chris Bachalo realized a horrifying potential never before reached in perennial Spider-Man nemesis The Lizard with their story “Shed,” but I won’t disagree with it. The Lizard has always been an interesting character as far as the tried and true but evergreen trope of his alter ego Curt Conners being the unwitting vessel for a monster not to mention one of Peter Parker’s few loyal allies, but Wells didn’t fall back on that as a crutch, instead really tossing the human to the wind and embracing what a primal tale of terror you can tell with an antagonist who is nothing but animal savagery unleashed. “Shed” is frankly uncomfortable to read, but that’s what sets it apart and gives Lizard new life as a bad guy whose appearance is cause for genuine unease. Bachalo—aided by Emma Rios—is the perfect choice to lose himself in depicting a world completely off balance with the evolutionary scale tipped way out of whack.

SPIDER-MAN: GRIM HUNT
For the better part of a year, the creators and editors responsible for Amazing Spider-Man have been setting up the dominoes of juicing up Spidey’s villains while simultaneously weaving a larger story in the background involving the Kraven family. Joe Kelly had the tough task of knocking those dominoes down while also crafting a story that would overturn part of Kraven’s Last Hunt, one of the best Spider-Man stories ever—so no small task, but as he generally does, this writer rose to the occasion in my opinion. The tone of Grim Hunt shifts organically from Spider-Man going about his business in that usual cavalier manner to our hero experiencing anxiety and rage the likes of which he perhaps hadn’t since his last encounter with Kraven, and in that mood shift, Kelly really does something neat while also placing this arc right in line with Last Hunt and earning the connection. It’s a full-on saga that features a full range of heroes and villains as well as seemingly multiple incarnations of Spider-Man, a tricky return for a great character that works, a heavy emotional payload and perfectly gritty art by Michael Lark that just looks pretty.

MARVEL ADVENTURES BLACK WIDOW AND THE AVENGERS
I love Paul Tobin’s Marvel Adventures Super Heroes for the fun, funny, well-crafted stories featured month in and out in wonderfully bite-size portions, but also because it has honestly one of the coolest Avengers line-ups you’ll find anywhere: Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, The Invisible Woman, The Black Widow, The Vision, and, of course, Nova. Tobin is a master at meshing these disparate personalities for maximum entertainment as he cues up action and adventure for his artists to bring to life. This volume features the birth of the new team plus battles against such oddball foes as Diablo, Plant Man and The Silver Surfer; it’s extremely different from just about anything else out there today and if you’re looking for a consistent monthly smile, you can’t do much better, beginning here.

RETURN OF THE DAPPER MEN
No favoritism necessary for me to proclaim my buddy Jim McCann’s amazing original graphic novel from Archaia to be one of the best things I’ve read this year, because the work quite frankly backs it up. Jim imagines one of the kookiest and most intriguing new worlds I’ve had the pleasure to explore in years with his land of children and robots lacking in adults and the conventions they bring until the descent of the Dapper Men from the title. But as good as Jim’s story is—and it’s really good—I know he’d agree this would not have been the same without the sensational artwork of Janet Lee, whose eye-catching work blew my mind not to mention impressed the heck out of my mother, a full-time watercolor artist, showing how transcendent it is. I don’t feel it’s any exaggeration to say Jim and Janet have created a fairy tale for the modern age destined to be a classic.

SECRET WARRIORS: LAST RIDE OF THE HOWLING COMMANDOS
I often overlook when a new issue of Secret Warriors is coming out as it’s a real under the radar book for me, though I do tend to enjoy it; I think part of that is that Jonathan Hickman has made no bones that he’s laying out a finite tapestry here, so it’s designed more to be read as a complete work down the line rather than having standout single stories. That said, Last Ride of the Howling Commandos was a real neat little arc dropped into the middle of this year, with a bit of a break from the byzantine big picture to focus in on Nick Fury’s war-time buddies in a split story between a sentimental little guest spot from Steve Rogers and a blistering climactic campaign from the old warhorses. With character depth and considerable scope, this was Secret Warriors at its best.

THE THANOS IMPERATIVE
Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning brought their chronicles of the Marvel cosmic universe to a major head this year, paying off the Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy ongoings with a suitably epic event that returned one of the best villains around in Thanos to prominence, provided memorable geek out moments like the rise of the “Cosmic Avengers,” and featured major sacrifices to really hammer home what a big deal this all was. Nobody does this stuff quite like DnA, and it will come as no surprise to anybody who knows me and my proclivities that I enjoyed the heck out of this and saw it as a worthy bookend to Keith Giffen’s Annihilation, which it referenced more than once. Up against a neat and imaginative threat like the “Cancerverse” and its corrupt champions, the cosmic heroes shined as DnA along with Miguel Sepulveda showed why the best good guys in the galaxy don’t necessarily live on Earth.

THOR: THE MIGHTY AVENGER: THE GOD WHO FELL TO EARTH
I think me and the rest of the Internet have said about all we can say at this point about how great Thor: The Mighty Avenger is, but if by some chance you still haven’t given it a shot, well, you’re nuts. Whether you know Thor or don’t, whether you even like comics or not, this is a book that can show you why both are great and why we have a really neat way of telling stories over here, Roger Langridge’s tale of a man struggling to rediscover his home and finding a new one along the way is one that can resonate to anybody and Chris Samnee’s heartfelt and playful art only sweetens the pot. Grab this first volume and you will for sure be back for more.

ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN: CHAMELEONS
Probably my favorite ongoing super hero comic of them all right now, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man had another strong year as Brian Michael Bendis continued to mine the brilliant idea of Aunt May having a “super hero halfway house” where Spider-Man, The Human Torch, Iceman and Gwen Stacy live while Kitty Pryde and Mary Jane show up to hang out for all its worth and then some. No book does soap opera better, and devotee of teen drama that I am, I eat this up like it’s ice cream laced with crack. There was also actual action aplenty, be it the boys trying to train the wildly out of control Rick Jones—who may or may not be Ultimate Nova—to use his powers of the Chameleon siblings taking over Peter Parker’s life, but the real meat is the quiet emotional stuff, be it the fears of a teenager who now has the power of a god or how a nasty shapeshifter can really ruin your life if they don’t care. This series seemingly doesn’t know how to lose momentum and I applaud Bendis and his talented artists for constantly reinventing it to ensure it never will.

Five Comics Worth Reading - August 2010

INCREDIBLE HULK
By the nature of the character and his history, it’s not uncommon for most writers to just do big smash-‘em-up action stories when it comes to The Hulk, and a lot of them are pretty fun, but I love when folks go outside the framework and cast him in sagas with uncharacteristic depths. I’ve made no secret that Peter David’s Hulk run is one of my favorite extended comic works by virtue of the psychological edge he brought and the use of humor. Over the last several years, Greg Pak has brought his own unique take to the Hulk mythos while also providing no shortage of epic fights from Planet Hulk to World War Hulk. Since the creation of Bruce Banner’s son, Skaar, Pak has introduced a new element not really explored in Hulk history: the notion of family. With Incredible Hulk #611, the wrap to Pak’s end of World War Hulks as well as a major climax for the Skaar saga, he really stepped it up a notch further with an issue packed with both an amazing battle between gamma goliaths as well as an emotional punch provided by the mining of Banner’s own childhood and how it has affected him even more than we knew. It’s smart, it’s raw and it balances intensity and fun with intellectualism; it’s great work from a great writer not to mention possibly career-best stuff from artist Paul Pelletier, who has had a heck of a career, so I don’t put that lightly. I’ve been fortunate enough to scan the first issue of this book’s new incarnation, Incredible Hulks (yes, plural) and the hits are going to keep coming in a “team” book that fills a niche I don’t think we’ve fully seen.

JUSTICE LEAGUE: GENERATION LOST
Justice League International was a seminal work and a wholly unique one for the time it came out in, casting super hero teams—indeed THE super hero team—in a more down-to-earth and humorous light. Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis did an incredible job sustaining what could have been a quick burnout concept for years and elevating characters like Booster Gold, Fire and Ice to places they never would have been. Unfortunately, once the title did run its course, the characters seemed to flounder and lose their place save for the occasional fun reunion mini; they were a group people had a lot of affection for, but that seemed to have had a definitive expiration date. Kudos then to Judd Winick—the the initial aid of Giffen—for finally bringing the old crew back together and making them work in a more serious context that doesn’t chuck the fun wholesale and incorporates all the characters’ continuity. Generation Lost has been a neat ride thus far that has some weight to it with the threat posed by Max Lord feeling large in scale and a cool underdog vibe to how the JLI crew is viewed both by others and themselves. I like the way Winick has cast Booster and company as underachievers determined to prove the world wrong but not entirely confident they can; it feels organic. I’m also amazed I didn’t see the Kingdom Come connection coming, so more props for that.

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA
I’ll admit that, particularly as a Roy Harper fan, Justice League: Cry For Justice was a tough sell for me, but I’ve also got to say I’ve really been digging what James Robinson has been doing with Justice League of America since taking over in earnest and getting his first few issues out of the way. I like that he has made it the one-stop-shop for all DC characters and continuity; a nexus of the DC Universe with dozens of cameos and allusions to past stories every issue. In some ways it feels like if Starman was a love letter to a certain type of fiction and era of nostalgia, Robinson’s JLA is that on a grander scale to DC as a whole, and I can dig that. I’m still not 100% sold on Congorilla—I don’t subscribe to the “he’s cool because he’s a talking gorilla” deal that I know is enough for some people—or Supergirl in the big leagues, but I like Robinson’s take on Dick Grayson-as-Batman and he seems to have a decent shot at figuring out the formula for ciphers like Donna Troy and Jade. Seeing Mark Bagley get to draw so many characters is a nice perk and the current crossover with Justice Society of America is popcorn action done pretty entertainingly, so no complaints here.

MARVEL UNIVERSE VS. THE PUNISHER
Jonathan Maberry has very quickly and suddenly emerged as a promising new voice in the Marvel stable of writers. I found his DoomWar event to be a well-plotted, well-paced story with plenty of action and an old school super hero dynamic that didn’t feel dated; Maberry is a successful novelist who clearly has an excellent grasp of his tools as a writer and a comic book fan who has been able to translate his skills to this medium. Marvel Universe Vs. The Punisher allows Maberry to flex different muscles in a post-apocalyptic tale that resembles I Am Legend done Marvel-style but also stands on its own just fine. Frank Castle fits nicely into the role of archetypal of the grumpy, jaded loner looking to stay alive and refusing to acknowledge his own heroism. Maberry’s take on Marvel characters seized by a 28 Days Later-like rage virus is both scary and fun, with little jokes and flourishes only a guy who knows his stuff could make. Goran Parlov is really clever with his art as well, incorporating in gags like bird-themed characters being among the first scavengers to pick apart a homeless shelter (apparently I have a more twisted sense of humor than I thought). This is only a four-issue limited series that’s already half-way done, so I urge you to get your hands on it ASAP.

THOR: THE MIGHTY AVENGER
I let the first two issues of this series sit at the bottom of my pile of comps from Marvel for weeks and am now very much regretting it. It’s real cool the way Roger Langridge is completely re-imagining the Thor saga as a total “stranger in a strange land” story; the characters of Thor, Jane Foster, et al. feel familiar yet new and you’re really not sure what’s going to happen next. Thus far Langridge has done a great job of capturing what it would feel like if a world as fantastic as Thor’s subtly infringed on our relatively mundane one, a story I’ve seen before but rarely done so well. I also like the way the layers are being slowly peeled back to introduce teases of Asgard and the super heroic into Jane’s life and we get to see it through her eyes; I’m on the edge of my seat thinking how rad it’s going to be when we actually see Odin and the rest, so I hope it continues to be built to a little bit at a time. In addition to a great new take on Jane that casts her as more than just a Silver Age love interest, Langridge really explores some intriguing sides of Thor, not just focusing on the proud warrior but also the homesick traveler and perhaps most engaging the lost orphan missing his family and chasing their love. Chris Samnee is one of comics’ best kept secrets and he’s really breaking out here. Can’t wait to see where this goes and if the goal is to get people psyched for the movie, I daresay this book should be a nice success.

Underrated/Overlooked: Exiles: A World Apart

Judd Winick has spent so many years now as exclusively a DC talent focused primarily on characters like Batman and Green Arrow that it's kinda nuts to think that a decade ago (wow) he was across the street at Marvel writing, in a somewhat roundabout way, one of the least street level franchises of them all in the X-Men. Honestly, most of the Winick work I've been reading of late is his earlier moody/quirky cartoon stuff like Pedro and Me and Barry Ween, so it seems like a million years ago to me that he was penning the adventures of a reality-hopping team of mutants working their way through the pivotal moments in X-Men history.

But once upon a time, that's just what Judd Winick did when he launched Exiles, and it was excellent.

Exiles launched in 2001 right as I was getting back into comics and it was one of the first books I start picking up regularly. There was something magic about what Winick and artist Mike McKone were doing; it felt like a gateway to the imposing, towering mythology that was the X-Men but one that was easily accesible. I could relate to the characters because on some level they were like me: they had a cursory understanding of the worlds and situations they found themselves on or in (as did I as a lapsed fan), but they needed some clarification in order to fully function (again, ditto). While I wasn't at a place as a reader that I could really appreciate the heady stuff Grant Morrison and Joe Casey were doing over in the primary X-Men titles just then, Winick and McKone (plus frequent fill-in artist Jim Calafiore) served me up a monthly helping of mutant adventure that was easy to jump into and also of high quality.

While Winick's run on Exiles had its ups and downs (he lasted over 30 issues, albeit with a hiatus during which time Chuck Austen wrote an arc), I'd say a lot of the really good stuff came quite early on, with the first year being particularly excellent. There was a real energy and sense of fun as you could definitely tell Winick and his artistic collaborators were enjoying the freedom they had to delve into the X-Men Universe in a way few others did. However, when I pluck early issues of Exiles from the longboxes sitting back in my house in Newton, the one story I can read over and over is "A World Apart," which unfolded over the course of three issues from #8-#10.

The story starts with a cold open on Mimic in chains, fighting in some gladitorial arena as a raucus crowd cheers him on. Mimic wins his match and is escorted back to his cell where his teammate, Thunderbird, is being prepped to fight. In fitting with his optimistic tone at this point in the series, Mimic tries to give T-Bird a pep talk and gets a glare. We learn quickly that our heroes are captives of the Skrulls, who have conquered Earth, and that they've been prisoners for some time now.

Elsewhere, Blink and Morph have eluded the Skrull captors and are searching for mankind's last hope: Reed Richards. It's not spoiling much to say that they find him, but as is usually the case with Exiles, he's not what they (or we) expect.

The first half of the storyline focuses on this situation and Winick effectively and masterfully paints for us the picture of a fully-realized universe we've never seen before in the course of an issue and a half. He builds on character dynamics only hinted at in the series' half dozen prior issues, such as the somber romance between the flirtatious Nocturne and moody Thunderbird. He begins his dissection of Mimic, setting him on a lengthy journey that will force him to question everything he believes in and test him as never before. Along the way, we get some great fight scenes between the Exiles and other-dimensional versions of Marvel mainstays all decked out in exotic new costumes, something a design master like McKone excels at. McKone is also great at choreographing fight scenes on a cinematic scale, be it the "Gladiator" type brawls we start with or the "Braveheart" style war to come.

And that war comes because halfway into the story, Winick blows up everything he's been doing and brings Galactus to Earth. The Skrulls flee, the heroes are freed, and the Exiles are stuck with like a day to train the champions they've looked up to all their lives but who have been muddling along as slaves to fight a god.

It's fucking sweet.

You get to see pretty much every hero and villain in the Marvel Universe learning on the job as they try and fend off a hungry Galactus and his herald, Terrax the Tamer. It's the underdog story you could never really do in the Marvel U proper since the Fantastic Four and friends were all already pretty experienced when the Big G first showed up, and Winick works the beats perfectly; you'll cheer for the small victories and you'll cry (or at least frown) at the major sacrifice (and it's a big one). Mike McKone opens up like he's George Perez drawing Crisis On Infinite Earths and treats these three issues like the biggest event crossover ever. Actually, that was one of the cool things about those early days of Exiles: every storyline basically was a huge event crossover told in a few issues from a very specific point of view.

There's an epilogue/coda in issue #16 called "Nocturne and Evensong" that I don't want to spoil because this is a story you really should hunt down (and it's pretty readily available) and it really is one of the more beautiful little stories Judd Winick has ever written.

Though Exiles remains a fun vehicle to this day, given the core concept it was inevitable that it would eventually become a little bogged down by continuity and explanation, so there's a real fun and innocence to these early issues where it was just a bunch of confused mutants jumping through alternate worlds with no need to get bogged down in the details. Good stuff, check it out.

You can purchase A World Apart on its own or as part of the first Exiles Ultimate Collection.