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.

Byron McFall covers Punisher 6

Original cover by Mike Mignola and Kevin Nowlan; Marvel 1988. Byron McFall's does not currently have a website.

Five Comics Worth Reading - Feb. 2010

In the nascent days of this blog, I used to do a weekly feature called Five Comics Worth Reading, where I picked out some books I enjoyed and gave little capsule reviews. It wasn’t long for this world because I’m really not great at reviews and didn’t like having that mandate hanging over my head every week, taking away a bit from the pure joy of just reading my comics (kudos to those who can do it; you’re better than me).

However, 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 am gonna bring back 5CWR periodically to babbly about books I’m really digging.

Books like these.

DAYTRIPPER
I read the first issue of this series just because Ryan said so and was pretty well blown away not even knowing what the high concept was, just digging the writing and art. The twin brother team of Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon deliver a pretty standard “day-in-the-life” story about an average thirty-something going about his day, but I mean “standard” only in the sense that the events of the issue were (until the end) ostensibly mundane; however, despite the average nature of what’s going on, Ba and Moon have a way with their words of investing you in this man’s life and making the end of the issue all the more poignant.

I apologize for the vagueness here as I know it must be more than a bit frustrating, but I had no idea what this book was about going in, and that totally helped me enjoy it all the more, so if there is anybody out there who’s in the position I was, I want you to take a leap of faith and have a similar experience. The ending is key to what the whole series is about, and to give it away would be to spoil issues two and three as well, both of which also have that same quality of being beautiful in their take on the ordinary, but also begin bringing in a more sweeping sense of romance and grandeur.

The art—also a collaboration between the brothers—is gorgeous, with every person and every scene bursting with detail and unconventional beauty, as anybody who has followed their work on Umbrella Academy or Casanova would expect.

I wanna say more, but seriously, just trust me on this one and go find the first three issues.

IRREDEEMABLE
Yes, the whole “What if Superman went bad?” motif has been done to death a zillion times since the dawn of time, but for whatever reason, I’m totally into Irredeemable in a way I wasn’t with all those others.

It may be because Mark Waid is such a fan of Superman and the whole heroic ideal that he really takes care when toying with it; there’s no sadistic glee you find in most of those pastiches (ok, maybe a little), but rather a great deal of care taken and a sense of “yeah, that’s how it would happen,” that comes from knowing Waid has absolutely thought this through. The motivations and fallout are meticulously thought out and add up (to the degree such things can in a book about super-powered demigods in spandex).

Peter Krause’s art has a sorta Dan Jurgens vibe going for it that fits the story well. He infuses the really horrific stuff Waid is putting out there with a sense of innocence gone horribly awry that twists your stomach in the right ways.

Beyond the initial shock factor of seeing the world’s greatest hero annihilating continents with his heat vision, there are also mysteries and tangential threads being laid out like mines by Waid and I enjoy seeing them go off with the precision he intended while I struggle to figure out who I’m supposed to be rooting for; good stuff here.

THE PUNISHER
I’m sure there were plenty of folks out there who didn’t think turning The Punisher into a Frankenstein monster and having him hang out with Morbius and Werewolf By Night was a good idea (probably right here on this very Internet).

They were right; it was not a good idea.

It was a great idea!

Punisher is such a hugely entertaining comic right now it’s insane, and this is coming from somebody who has never been able to get into the character. Rick Remender has done a complete 360 in that he took a concept so wonderfully entertaining in its utter ridiculousness and then brought it full circle into a story that is completely compelling and perfectly fitting for the character.

I love that Remender is doing all this crazy shit but at the end of the day, in the context it is put in, IT MAKES TOTAL SENSE! Yes, if The Punisher went up against an entire team of ruthless super villains with the kind of power and carte blanche the Dark Avengers have, the son of Wolverine would totally end him. And yes, because he lives in a world where radiation doesn’t kill you but gives you fantastic or horrible powers and giant guys in purple suits try to eat or planet, it is not inconceivable in the least that a group of monsters would patch him up and turn him into a Frankenstein because they need a strategic mind to save their asses.

The latest issue—in which Dan Brereton illustrated the hell out of a flashback sequence telling the origin of Hellsgaard—was another quantum leap of awesome as we realize the bad guy Punisher is going after is basically him but replacing the figurative monsters who killed Frank Castle’s family with literal monsters who killed his own. The fact that this doesn’t even faze Frank as he prepares to go to war is a juicy little morsel that I’m interested to see get picked up down the road either as an Achilles heel or further evidence that The Punisher is so far gone a parallel like that means jack to him.

It’s also worth noting that Tony Moore draws not only the best vampires and werewolves in comics, but also does crazy fight scenes like nobody’s business. I love the liberties he’s not afraid to take with established characters and really hope he gets to draw more of them.

RED ROBIN
I forget sometimes how much I like the character of Tim Drake because a lot of the time he just gets written as “Robin” with folks forgetting that behind the mask he is so far removed from Dick Grayson, Jason Todd and particularly Bruce Wayne. He’ll never be the fighter that Bruce or Dick were, but he makes up for that with his brains and the fact that he’s probably the best natural detective out of the bunch. He’s also the happy medium between Dick’s carefree swashbuckler and Bruce’s grim and hopeless creature of the night.

Chris Yost totally understands this and is making me remember more and more in every issue of Red Robin why this character rocks.

As Red Robin, Tim is refreshingly human, making mistakes but working through them and being driven by faith in his own inherent belief more than any sacred vow or thirst for vengeance. He wears his emotions on his sleeve and it bites him in the ass more than a couple times, but he has an incredible skill set and ability to think on his feet that Yost is extremely apt at showcasing.

I’m also quite a fan thus far of Yost’s new potential love interest for Tim, Tam Fox, as she’s got a good bit of her own capability but also enough damsel in distress in her to keep things interesting; her being Lucius Fox’s daughter is a neat and clever spin as well.

But I honestly realized how much I am getting out of this comic in the latest issue where Tim has both an awesome fight with Killer Moth and then a great emotional hugging scene with Superboy where he breaks down in tears of joy over his best friend being alive that felt so sincere; Yost is so good not just at writing convincing young adults, but also at positioning action and emotion in perfect harmony with one another.

X-FACTOR
I know there’s a school of thought that Peter David’s writing on ongoing series tends to be too dense for new readers to navigate in easily, and maybe it’s true, but at the same time if you invest the time in his stories, you’re pretty much always guaranteed one helluva return.

I really respect how long PAD sticks around on books, be it a decade on Incredible Hulk, five uninterrupted years on Young Justice, or so forth. I love that he lays out long-term plans, commits to them, changes on the fly if necessary, but generally tries to stay the course on the big characters arcs he’s mapped out and epic stories he’s lad the tracks for. I enjoy the in jokes rewarding folks who have read the book for awhile and the pay-offs that are a long time coming but worth it.

Such is the case with X-Factor, where David has been hard at work for five years, building an impressive cast, imbuing them with great personalities, weaving a tangled web of interpersonal dynamics, and just having a good time.

He just wrapped a year-long time travel story he’d been building for some time before that, and now we’ve got the incredible eclectic cast of Jamie Madrox, Strong Guy, Siryn, Rictor, Monet, Darwin, Longshot, Shatterstar and Layla Miller going in a bunch of different directions that include diffusing an international incident, trying to locate the missing Invisible Woman, and moping in Ireland.

Honestly, the incredible mix of 80’s, 90’s and today B and C-listers I just rifled off as a team roster should have piqued your curiosity enough, but if you come for that, stay for the wit, the well-spun mysteries, the crazy twists, the heartfelt dysfunctional family, etc.

Comic Shop Stop: What I Bought This Week

Sometimes it's new stuff. Sometimes it's old stuff. Sometimes it'll be back issues or the same ol' thing I got 4 weeks ago. Whatever the case is, here's what I got at the shop this week (lemme know if you wanna borrow anything):



PUNISHER MAX #3 - Dave Johnson coverrrrrrrrrrr!



FEARLESS DAWN #2 - I remember Steve Mannion's pulpy, pin-up art style first catching my eye with The Bomb a long while back, so I've happily snapped up this Nazi-bashing cheesecake series for issues #1 and (today) #2. The main character faces off with her Nazi, monster doppelganger! Fun Eric Powell-esque mayhem!



THE MUPPET SHOW #1 - The first issue of the ongoing series from Roger Langridge! At 28 story pages, it feels so light, but the $2.99 price tag is justified with plenty of gags and fun.



ED HANNIGAN: COVERED - You may not recognize the name, but you definitely know Ed Hannigan's work. I knew him best for this iconic cover and this 1985 Marvel Universe poster that used to hang in a Wizard office hallway, but the guy's stuff ranges further and wider than you'd expect. That's why this special from the HERO Initiative spanning his career with quotes from him and his peers is such a rad read! The guy knew how to compose a fucking cover and it's neat to hear ideas about how to attract readers from a design-genius like him. Nowadays, Multiple Sclerosis has Ed in a rough spot, so good on Hero Initiative for putting this together. You'd be surprised how many covers in here you took for granted as another artist's work (like I did with this beaut), so grab this, help a good cause, and get your learnin' on!

How about you guys? Get anything good?

(Quick disclaimer: I borrow a LOT of stuff from Ben each week from Marvel, so I don't always buy single issues of the Marvel books. And I get everything from DC, WildStorm, Vertigo, and Zuda for free, so I never really buy anything from them unless I'm picking up for somebody else. So don't take my exclusion of DC stuff as a sign that the books aren't good enough to buy. They are. So there.)

Max Clotfelter covers Punisher War Journal 7

Original cover by Jim Lee and Carl Potts; Marvel 1989. Max Clotfelter's website is here.