Meanwhile...

I've got two reviews at places that aren't Every Day Is Like Wednesday this week.

First, I have a short review of Kean Soo's first Jellaby graphic novel, which has just been republished with a new cover and a few other changes (like a new sub-title) for instance. That's at Good Comics For Kids.

And secondly, I have a kinda sorta review of DC's Trinity of Sin: Pandora Vol. 1: The Curse, maybe the first trade paperback collection I've ever read where, if you listen very hard, you can actually hear echoes of the editorial meetings in which the direction of the title and the character were changed emanating from the pages. That's at Robot 6.

And that's all I got for you tonight. I've read and/or received a whole bunch of comics in the last few days, though, including Earth 2 Vol. 3, Gingerbread Girl, Jellaby: Monster in the City, Sam Henderson's Scene But Not Heard, Solomon Kane Vol. 2: Death's Black Riders, the next two volumes of Jason Aaron and company's Wolverine and The X-Men, an Uncanny X-Force trade and UQ Holder!, so I should have a lot of reviews for you here soon.

Comic shop comics: March 12-19

Batman '66 #9 (DC Comics) The Jeff Parker-written cover story pits Batman and Robin against Zelda the Great, the escape artist who puts them in death traps and watches them escape, in order to add the traps and escapes to her repetoire. That story is drawn by Craig Rousseau, one the several artists to contribute to this series so far whose work I would have had a hard time imagining being used to adapt the television show into a comic book...until I actually saw how well it turned out (Tony Avina's colors go a long way toward giving Rosseau's art a sort of pale, light, almost washed-out look).

The back-up story by Tom Peyer and Chris Sprouse was actually my favorite though; Alfred's identical cousin Egbert—a devious, English slang-spouting criminal—konks Alf on the head and attempts to take his place in order to rob Bruce Wayne. It ends as so few Batman comics ever do—with Alfred throwing a punch.


Classic Popeye #20 (IDW) The lead story in this issue features maybe the most wildly offensive portrayal of Native Americans I can remember seeing in a comic book, as Popeye takes a vacation in the desert and is taken captive by a tribe of cannibal Indians that speak in strings of syllables like "Ugh-Glub-Slub-Yub Gub Nub."

Our white man hero is saved from the stew pot (sorta; Popeye's invincibility means he can't be cooked in boiling water or set aflame) when the chief's beautiful daughter wants to marry him. He's going along with it, until Olive Oyl finds him through the power of her jealousy.

"How do you expect to find him in this wilderness?" Wimpy asks Olive when she drives them out to the desert in search of Popeye. "That's easy-- my jealousy will be my compass! I'll show you! When I face this way, I feel nothing! But when I face this way, I get mad!! So I knowhe's in this direction! I'll follow my anger to him!"

Dames. Are they horrible or what? Why, they're almost as bad as those uncivilized, savage Indians, who are always trying to eat white people...

Hawkeye #17 (Marvel Entertainment) With this issue, I get the sense that writer Matt Fraction is trying to push the boundaries with this book, which he has already split into two unrrelated narratives featuring two different characters named Hawkeye, and done a done-in-one issue told from the point-of-view of a dog. Here, I think he's found his limit, having pushed too far.

Aside from the the one page of David Aja art that opens the book and the one page that closes it, the entire contents of this issue consist of a cartoon special Clint Barton fell asleep while watching many, many issues ago (last year's Hawkeye #6, according to the recap page). I'm assuming the story is influenced by Clint's dreaming as well, as after a few pages the content of the cartoon start to reflect the events of the ongoing Hawkeye story, only with dog versions of the characters all appearing, their names seemingly chosen at random.

There are only really two jokes in the story, and if they're funny at all, they don't stay funny for the length of 18 pages. It does allow regular Hawkeye letterer Chris Eliopoulos to draw 18 pages of Hawkeye, in the Calvin and Hobbes-inspired style of his Franklin Richards comics, and it's nice to see his art here. Just as it's nice to see Fraction, Hawkeye and Marvel so willing to try to do new and different things.

Even when they don't really work.


SpongeBob Comics #30 (United Plankton Pictures) This is a remarkably straight issue of the series, which I can't believe is already up to 30 issues. The first two stories are so on-model and so on-par with the cartoon show that they seem a little pedestrian compared to some of the wilder takes this book has often hosted.

David DeGrand's story, and a two-page gag strip drawn by Mark Martin are a little more like it in terms of idiosyncratic weirdness and personalized style; there's also another page of James Kochalka, a Travis Nichols "fill-in comic" which asks young readers to draw some characters into the final panel, and some pretty neat page-flip animation drawn by Bob Flynn.

Not my favorite issue so far, but still one of my favorite comics.

The Superior Foes of Spider-Man #9-#10 (Marvel) Sometimes it seems like Marvel needs a guidance counselor to sit the publisher down and talk to it; ask it how it's feeling, if anything's bothering it, if it realizes it's been acting in a way that is confusing and upsetting some of its friends and family.

I know they've been double-shipping and, occasionally, crazy-shipping certain titles for the last few years, which has the positive effect, for the publisher, of allowing them to sell more comics more often and, for the reader, giving them more of what they want more often. The downside is it necessitates a lot of fill-in art, one side-effect of which has been few titles have been able to maintain a unique visual identity, and those that have haven't allowed a single artist to take ownership of a title or run in the same way that the writers of those books have been able to.

The comics they usually double-, triple- or crazy-ship are generally the very popular ones, though, so, for the life of me, I can't figure out why the shipped issues of Superior Foes on two consecutive Wednesdays.

The book has been in "troubled, likely to be canceled at any minute" status almost immediately since it launched, despite the fact that it is a really smart, really funny, really great-looking book. I'm not in sales or comics, but I don't see what Marvel has to benefit by shipping issues literally on top of one another (I would have missed one if it weren't in my pull-list, and I'm about as engaged in the shipping of new comics as I can be without actually owning a shop), and there doesn't seem to be a creative or story reason for shipping two issues this month (let alone this fortnight). The second issue is a fill-in one, by writer James Asmus (who does a nice job of aping the style and tone of regular writer Nick Spencer's scripts) and a handful of different artists.

Anyway, Foes #9 (look for bootleg Snoopy on the cover!) finds Boomerang fighting Bullseye (or is he?!) and pitting The Owl against The Chameleon to save his own skin; meanwhile another foe of Spider-Man entering the picture. Maybe he'll eventually join the gang, and the Sinister Six will have six members for the first time since this book launched...? That one is by the regular creative team of Spencer and artist Steve Lieber, with Rich Ellis earning an "additional art" credit.

Foes #10 kicks off with what is essentially a three-page recap page, two-thirds of which is illustrated by Gerardo Sandoval and Andres Mossa. From there, guest writer Asmus does a sort of mini-Canterbury Tales featuring The Beetle, Speed Demon and Overdrive, as they sit around a bar, each telling stories of times they triumphed over superheroes. Nuno Plati, Siya Oum and Pepe Larraz are among the artist drawing these pages, and Hercules and Daredevil are rather prominently featured, although there are cameos by still more characters.

UQ Holder! Vol. 1 (Kodansha Comics) I haven't read any of this beyond what's written on the back cover yet, but am including it here simply because I purchased it today (I'll likely review it elsewhere in the near future). This is apparently a new series by Ken Akamatsu, creator of Love Hina, which I kind of love, and Negima!, which I started and got pretty lost on, as it is a very, very long series, with a confusingly, gigantic cast and sort of diffuse premise. I'm looking forward to sitting down with this soon.

DC's June previews reviewed

Well, I'm either getting worse and worse at counting, or DC's getting less and less interested in tying the name of their line—"The New 52"—to the number of ongoing monthlies they're publishing. This month, I counted only 40; if you subtract the two limited series—Batman Eternal and Future's End—then it's down to 38.

You can check my math here; the biggest development I noticed overall was the launch of the Geoff Johns/John Romita Jr. Superman comic. As far as common threads, I see "DC Collectibles Bombshells variant cover by ANT LUCIA" appearing in a lot of the solicits.

The DC Collectibles Bobmshells are a line of those goofy, super-expensive statuettes/paperweights that the merchandising arms of various publishers release. The idea is casting various DC heroines as 1940s-style pin-ups, of the sort that might be on a calendar hanging in the barracks or painted on the side of an airplane. I'll be curious to see how they turn out, just to see how closely they're related to the comics they're covering. The site i09 has a few examples, as well as a list of all the books participating; some of those titles seem hard to "bombshell"-ize (Batman/Superman, Batman and Ra's al Ghul, Flash...Justice League United does have a female in the cast, but it's teenager Stargirl, and I'm not sure they'd wanna pose her in lingerie).

ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #14
Written by MAX LANDIS and FABIAN NICIEZA
Art by JOCK, PHIL HESTER and ERIC GAPSTUR
Cover by JOCK
On sale JUNE 25 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T • DIGITAL FIRST
The Joker’s in town...and he wants to meet Superman! Find out what happens next in this one-of-a-kind story from Chronicle writer Max Landis and legendary artist Jock (GREEN ARROW: YEAR ONE)! Plus, don’t miss Clark Kent’s babysitting adventures as he looks after none other than Sugar and Spike!

Huh. I woulda put money on a Showcase Presents showcase of Sugar and Spike before they appeared in a comic book, and Phil Hester isn't one of the first artists that I would have thought of having draw Sugar and Spike. I'm interested to see the results.

Superman vs. The Joker stories can sometimes be pretty fun, too.

BATMAN: A CELEBRATION OF 75 YEARS HC
Written by BILL FINGER, EDMOND HAMILTON, JOHN BROOME, DENNIS O’NEIL, ARCHIE GOODWIN, STEVE ENGLEHART, MIKE W. BARR, DOUG MOENCH, GREG RUCKA, CHUCK DIXON, PAUL DINI, SCOTT SNYDER and others
Art by BOB KANE, DICK SPRANG, CARMINE INFANTINO, NEAL ADAMS, ALEX TOTH, MARSHALL ROGERS, FRANK MILLER, MICHAEL GOLDEN, ALAN DAVIS, JIM APARO, J.H. WILLIAMS III, GREG CAPULLO and others
Cover by JIM LEE and SCOTT WILLIAMS
Retrosolicit • On sale JULY 16 • 384 pg, FC, $39.99 US
This amazing Batman best-of collection includes stories from DETECTIVE COMICS #27, 83, 211, 216, 327, 359, 395, 442, 474, 574, 633, 711, 757 and 821, BATMAN #1, 49, 181, 497, BATMAN #2 (THE NEW 52), WORLD’S FINEST COMICS #94, DC SPECIAL SERIES #21 and BATMAN SPECIAL #1!

THE JOKER: A CELEBRATION OF 75 YEARS HC
Written by BILL FINGER, DENNIS O’NEIL, STEVE ENGLEHART, JOHN BYRNE, J.M. DeMATTEIS, CHUCK DIXON, GREG RUCKA, PAUL DINI, TONY S. DANIELS, SCOTT SNYDER and others
Art by BOB KANE, JERRY ROBINSON, JACK BURNLEY, DICK SPRANG, NEAL ADAMS, MARSHALL ROGERS, JOHN BYRNE, JIM APARO, JOE STATON, BRIAN STELFREEZE, TONY S. DANIEL, GREG CAPULLO and others
Cover by BRIAN BOLLAND
Retrosolicit • On sale JULY 16 • 384 pg, FC, $39.99 US
It’s the best of the Clown Prince of Crime in this new title featuring stories from BATMAN #1, 5, 25, 32, 85, 163, 251, 427, BATMAN #15 (THE NEW 52), DETECTIVE COMICS #64, 168, 180, 475, 476, 726, 741, 826, DETECTIVE COMICS #1 (THE NEW 52), WORLD’S FINEST COMICS #61, SUPERMAN #9 and BATMAN: LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #66.

DC released similar projects featuring Superman and his long-time love interest-turned wife-turned friend Lois Lane. Given Greg Hunter's recent reading of Batman: Death of the Family for The Comics Journal, I found it amusing that, looked at one way, these books suggest that The Joker is to Batman as Lois Lane is to Superman.

For the Joker cover, they're reusing Bolland's cover for an issue of the not terribly well regarded 2001 crossover Joker: Last Laugh which, as noted in my recent-ish review of a the most recent collection I could find, DC has changed the object in Joker's hand previously to reflect their changing logos. Now they've replaced the short-lived swooshing-bullet with...I don't know what that is. A black orb with a Bat-symbol, I guess...?

Kinda surprised they didn't go with the Bolland cover from The Killing Joke, or even from the sixth issue of Last Laugh:

BATMAN AND RA’S AL GHUL #32
Written by PETER J. TOMASI
Art and cover by PATRICK GLEASON and MICK GRAY
...
On sale JUNE 18 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
...
“The Hunt for Robin” concludes! Batman has caught up to Ra’s al Ghul, and the battle for the bodies of Talia and Damian begins!

So, based on he cover, it looks like Ra's wants to toss Damian into a Lazarus Pit to resurrect him, and Batman's not down with that...?

The "rules" of the pits have changed quite a bit over the years, and I'm actually not at all sure how they work in the New 52. But if Damian's just recently died—and I'm not sure how much time is meant to have passed between his death and the events in this particular storyline, as Batman inter-book continuity tends to be messy, and easier to figure out once ongoing arcs like this have concluded—and the Pit can bring him back, only slightly crazier, well, is that really such a bad thing...?

Grown in some sort of robot womb and apparently artificially aged (He was ten-years-old during the New 52's "Year Five," and Batman couldn't possibly have met any al Ghuls any earlier than "Year One"), Damian's conception, gestation, birth and childhood were already pretty unnatural—would un-doing his death violate the laws of nature much more? (Particularly in the eyes of his grieving father?)

Also, if I'm remembering the conclusion of Batman Inc correctly, Batman and Alfred were the ones who buried Damian and his mom in the backyard. Where do you think they got that crazy child-sized coffin, and why did they pick that design?

BATMAN ETERNAL #9
Written by SCOTT SNYDER, JAMES TYNION IV, RAY FAWKES, JOHN LAYMAN and TIM SEELEY
Art and cover by GUILLEM MARCH
On sale JUNE 4 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
As the weekly Batman epic continues, the questions continue to mount. In this issue, find out why Batman is in Hong Kong teaming up with Mr. Unknown!

The first of June's four issues features a member of Batman, Inc, wearing the costume from the Batman, Inc special. I had hoped that just because Batman, Inc dissolved and/or Bruce Wayne withdrew his funding, that most of those heroes would keep on hero-ing in their hometowns.

Hong Kong actualy had it's own version of Batman who, like many of the eventual members of Batman, Inc, actually predate Batman, Inc: The Dragon, from 2003 original graphic novel Batman: Hong Kong, by Doug Moench and Tony Wong.

Although wasn't Hong Kong the assigned territory of The Black Bat, aka Cassandra "Batgirl" Cain, pre-New 52...?

Here's your monthly reminder that Mike Allred is awesome.

BATMAN ‘66 MEETS GREEN HORNET #1
Written by KEVIN SMITH and RALPH GARMAN
Art by TY TEMPLETON
Cover by ALEX ROSS
...
On sale JUNE 4 • 32 pg, FC, 1 of 6, $2.99 US • RATED E • Digital first
...
In 1967, television history was made when two masked crime fighters met in a historic crossover. Now, superstar filmmaker Kevin Smith and actor/comedian Ralph Garman join forces with artist Ty Templeton (BATMAN ’66) to bring these two iconic characters and their famous partners together again. Set in the continuity of that earlier team-up, Batman, The Green Hornet, Robin and Kato must go up against a very different General (formerly Colonel) Gumm. What crime could be so deadly as to force these rivals to put aside their differences and join forces again? And what surprise does Gumm have up his sticky sleeve?

Co-published with Dynamite Entertainment.

Huh. I have no idea who Ralph Garman is (although "actor/comedian" doesn't recommend him the way that, say, "comic book writer" might), and I can't imagine Smith's writing matching up with that of another co-writer all that well. Smith's Green Hornet writing was among the best, non-Clerks comics writing of his I had read, but, on the other hand, I can't imagine a Kevin Smith version of the TV Batman, so...I don't. Color me curious.

I'll be reading this issue for the Ty Templeton art, and will hopefully read the following five issues, provided the writing isn't so bad that I can't stand it (Like that of, say, Batman: The Widening Gyre).

I'm glad the book is being priced like a DC Comic ($2.99), rather than a Dynamite comic ($3.99).

BATWOMAN #32
Written by MARC ANDREYKO
Cover by RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE
DC Collectibles Bombshells variant cover by ANT LUCIA
On sale JUNE 18 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+
...
At last, Nocturna makes her presence in The New 52 known! And Batwoman must face her past when her former girlfriend from West Point comes to town!

I like the way the solicit starts with "At last," as if people have been waiting on pins and needles for Nocturna to make her New 52 debut.

Curious to see that Batwoman will have a "Bombshells" variant, as aside from her latex sheathe of a costume, DC has generally shied away from portraying this female character in a super-sexualized way (Although maybe that had more to do with the creators on the title than anything else).

BRIGHTEST DAY OMNIBUS HC
Written by GEOFF JOHNS and PETER J. TOMASI
Art by IVAN REIS, PATRICK GLEASON, ARDIAN SYAF, SCOTT CLARK, JOE PRADO and others
Cover by DAVID FINCH and SCOTT WILLIAMS
On sale AUGUST 20 • 696 pg, FC, 7.25” x 10.875”, $75.00 US
In this follow-up to BLACKEST NIGHT, twelve heroes and villains were resurrected by a white light expelled deep within the center of the earth. Now, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, Firestorm, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Deadman, Jade, Osiris, Hawk, Captain Boomerang and Zoom must discover the mysterious reason behind their return and uncover the secret that binds them all in this massive hardcover collecting issues #0-24 of the hit series!

Hey, DC Comics fans! Want to drop $75 on a 700-page hardcover in which superstar writer Geoff Johns, Peter Tomasi and a handful of artists reinvent a half-dozen of your favorite character, setting up new directions for new titles, introduce Swamp Thing and John Constantine back in to the DCU and set up new directions that will impact the DC Universe for years to come...only to be immediately kneecapped by the New 52 relaunch, which rendered almost every single aspect of this comic irrelevant and out-of-continuity?

I like the cover for this month's issue of Constantine.

HARLEY QUINN #0 DIRECTOR’S CUT
Written by AMANDA CONNER, JIMMY PALMIOTTI and others
Art by AMANDA CONNER, JIM LEE, TONY S. DANIEL, WALTER SIMONSON, CHARLIE ADLARD, BRUCE TIMM, ADAM HUGHES, ART BALTAZAR, DARWYN COOKE, CHAD HARDIN, JEREMY ROBERTS and others
Cover by AMANDA CONNER
On sale JUNE 4 • 56 pg, FC, $4.99 US • RATED T
The sold-out, four-wall breaking issue that jump-started Harley’s bestselling new series is back! This special issue features a new cover by Amanda Conner, commentary by the writers and many of the superstar artists, plus unpublished material, top entries from the talent search, sketch material and more!

There are few things I find more annoying than the application of the phrase "Director's Cut" applied to a comic book, which doesn't have a director, and isn't "cut"/edited in the style that movies are.

Why, even the use of the expression "four-wall breaking" instead of "fourth-wall breaking" doesn't annoy me as much!

INFINITY MAN AND THE FOREVER PEOPLE #1
Written by DAN DIDIO and KEITH GIFFEN
Art and cover by KEITH GIFFEN and SCOTT KOBLISH
...
On sale JUNE 11 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
...
Four of the best students from New Genesis arrive on Earth to study and aid in the advancement of humanity – but they soon discover a darker purpose to their mission: a threat so great that it may bring the multiverse itself to its knees! The only thing that stands between them and total destruction is the mysterious entity known as the Infinity Man!

Don’t miss the start of this new series by Dan DiDio and Keith Giffen, the team that brought you the over-the-top adventures of O.M.A.C.!

Oof. I don't even know what direction to go in with my response to this, there's so many possible directions.

#1: It's nice to see that everything at DC Comics is going so great that co-publisher Dan DiDio can take some time off to write an ongoing series.

#2: This is another piece of Jack Kirby's Fourth World mythology, which has been cut-up into a bunch of little pieces and passed out to various creators on various, unrelated titles throughout the publisher's New 52 line.

And so now we've had Geoff Johns and Jim Lee handle Darkseid, The Parademons and Boom Tubes in Justice League; Brian Azzarello, Cliff Chiang and company handling Orion and Highfather in Wonder Woman; James Robinson, Nicola Scott, Tom Taylor and others handle Mister Miracle, Big Barda and Steppenwolf in Earth 2, Paul Levitz and Yildiray Cinar Desaad in Earth 2 #15.1 (which was an issue of Levitz's Worlds' Finest in all but name) and now The Forever People in their own, sure to be swiftly canceled book by Dan DiDio and Keith Giffen.

That can't possibly be a good way to handle Kirby's characters and their stories.

#3: If a definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, then doesn't that make DiDio assigning himself a new book, knowing ahead of time that it's going to ship pre-canceled by issue #8; #12 if DC's lucky?

Not counting his participation in anthologies where he is hardly the main event, everything DiDio's written for DC has sold extremely poorly and ended up being canceled, from The Outsiders (a title which, to be fair, he was like the 15th writer on) to the critically-acclaimed but market-poison O.M.A.C. (among the very first New 52 titles to be canceled, making it only eight issues) to DC Universe Presents (DiDio wrote issues #6-#8 before the book featuring rotating creative teams on different characters was canceled with issue #19).

A title featuring those characters has about as much of a chance of survival in the current market as, say, The Green Team or The Movement...only it also has the handicap of having the one creator that every DC Comics reader with an Internet connection has agreed they are not too fond of attached to it.

With failure guaranteed, I have to assume this is simply an act of trademark renewal, but even then, why not assign this Fourth World-related book to one of the other teams already working on other elements of Kirby's Fourth Wolrd...?

In Justice League United, The Savage Hawkman dukes it out with a Lobo—but which of the three Lobos that DC has introduced into The New 52 is it? Apparently, the little one with glowing splotches that I think are supposed to be space tattoos...? I don't really remember his Villain's Month special issue, as it wasn't that great.


LARFLEEZE #12
Written by KEITH GIFFEN and J.M. DeMATTEIS
Art by SCOTT KOLINS
Cover by TYLER KIRKHAM
On sale JUNE 25 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T • FINAL ISSUE
With “help” from the Wanderer and G’nort, Larfleeze sets out to destroy the Council of Ten!

I'm no good at determining batting averages, as doing so combines my two worst subjects—sports and math—but as poorly as DiDio's writing might be received in the direct market, Keith Giffen ain't exactly batting a thousand either. This is a title that kinda sorta spun out of the Giffen-written Threshold series, after that was canceled with issue #8, and now it too is canceled.

I wonder if Larfleeze's death means that DC has found the upper threshold of how many Green Lantern books their fans will support. This was the fifth Lantern book, following Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: New Guardians and Red Lanterns. I guess to find out though, we'll have to wait another six months or so, and see if any more Lantern books get cancelled, since DC is launching a Sinestro title, which will keep the Green Lantern franchise at a robust six books even without Larfleeze.

Uh-oh. I'm leery about New 52—Future's End in general, but the cover for issue #5 looks particularly troubling—Marvel's Cable is in it!

NIGHTWING VOL. 4: SECOND CITY TP
Written by KYLE HIGGINS
Art by BRETT BOOTH, NORM RAPMUND and WILL CONRAD
Cover by BRETT BOOTH and NORM RAPMUND
On sale JULY 9 • 144 pg, FC, $14.99 US
After The Joker’s attack on the Bat-family, Nightwing finds himself in a new city with an unlikely ally, The Prankster. Together they are hunted by the mysterious Mask Killer while Dick tries to find the man who killed his parents, Tony Zullo. Collects NIGHTWING #19-24.

This trade chronicles Nightwing's time with the famed Chicago-based improvisational comedy troupe, I imagine.

SECRET ORIGINS #3
Written by ROBERT VENDITTI, MARC ANDREYKO and SCOTT LOBDELL
Art by MARTIN COCOLLO, TREVOR MCCARTHY and TYLER KIRKHAM
Cover by LEE BERMEJO
On sale JUNE 25 • 48 pg, FC, $4.99 US • RATED T
Green Lantern takes center stage this month in a tale by Robert Venditti and Martin Cocollo! And don’t miss the origin of Batwoman by Jeremy Haun and Trevor McCarthy, and Red Robin’s origin, courtesy of Scott Lobdell and Tyler Kirkham!

Hmmm...They really seem to be erring on the side of having the most popular characters covered in this book, which makes a certain amount of sense, but, again, these are characters whose origins don't really need retold. Green Lantern Hal Jordan and Batwoman are among the only characters whose origins were completely unaffected by the New 52 reboot (In fact, the first story arc or so of New 52 Batwoman was already in the can before the relaunch), and while Red Robin Tim Drake's origin changed incredibly significantly due to the reboot, his origin has also already been told during DC's 2012 "Zero Month."

SUPERMAN #32
Written by GEOFF JOHNS
Art and wraparound cover by JOHN ROMITA, JR. and KLAUS JANSON
...
On sale JUNE 25 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T
Combo pack edition: $4.99 US
...
“THE MAN OF TOMORROW” chapter 1! A NEW ERA for SUPERMAN begins as Geoff Johns takes the reigns – and he’s joined by the legendary super-talent of John Romita, Jr. in his first-ever work for DC Comics as they introduce Ulysses, the Man of Tomorrow, into the Man of Steel’s life. This strange visitor shares many of Kal-El’s experiences, including having been rocketed from a world with no future. Prepare yourself for a run full of new heroes, new villains and new mysteries! Plus, Perry White offers Clark a chance to return to The Daily Planet!

I'm really bummed that this is a $4 comic, as I was really rather looking forward to it.

I'm very excited that Romita's at DC, even if it turns out to only be for a relatively short while, and I'm frankly a little surprised to see him drawing Superman instead of Batman, or Justice League, where he'd get a chance to draw more DC heroes. Romita's been in the field so long, and not drawing DC comics for so long, that I have to imagine there are a lot of people like me who can't wait to see him draw Aquaman and Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern and The Scarecrow and so on for the first time.

So here's hoping Johns fills his scripts with DCU guest stars...

Now if they'd only let JRJR do something about that costume...

TINY TITANS: RETURN TO THE TREEHOUSE #1
Written by ART BALTAZAR and FRANCO
Art and cover by ART BALTAZAR
On sale JUNE 4 • 32 pg, FC, 1 of 6, $2.99 US • RATED E
The Eisner Award-winning series is back for an all-new six-issue miniseries! Superboy and Supergirl return to the treehouse to discover…IT’S MISSING! Or is it just…really small? Who could have done such a thing?! Find out as all your favorite Tiny Titans search for answers!

I really missed this comic book when it was cancelled...right up until Baltazar and Franco launched Superman Family Adventures, anyway.

I'm glad it has come back, but I'm also glad it's going to be a miniseries: I'd like to see Baltazar and Franco work their magic on other characters throughout the DC catalog. I sure would love a Batman Family Adventures or Justice League Adventures or Legion of Super-Pets....

Review: Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters Vol. 1

This is the third trade collection of an IDW Godzilla series I've tried, and, like the others I've tried, it has an extremely interesting, "Hey, I'd like to see what those guys would do with Godzilla and friends!" creative team involved, and it featured not just the title character, but several other Toho Studios monsters (In this volume, we see Anguirus, Rodan and Battra, with Mothra foreshadowed—and appearing on a variant cover. Kumonga and King Ghidorah also make variant cover-only appearances).

I think that speaks quite well to the fact that IDW was pursuing a smart strategy of putting together strong creative teams by creators who weren't the most obvious of choices of giant monster comics, and it speaks to how aggressively—too aggressively?—the publisher was seeking to exploit the license. This title, for example, is completely unrelated to the other two I read (Godzilla: The Half-Century War and just plain Godzilla). It's so different, in both its look and conception, I think its existence is justified, but it does make coming to the franchise a little late (even just wait-for-the-trade late) difficult.

The team on this particular book, which Wikipedia reminds me was IDW's original Godzilla offering and was a 12-issue series that has since been completely collected, consists of co-writer Eric Powell, best-known as the writer/artist for his Dark Horse series The Goon (and, now that I think of it, some pretty swell Marvel monster comics), pencil artist Phil Hester, probably best known for his collaborations with writer Kevin Smith (Green Arrow for DC, Clerks: The Lost Scene for Oni) or the short-lived Marvel series The Irredeemable Ant-Man. Powell's co-writer is Tracy March, and Hester is inked by a Bruce McCorkindale (And while Powell's just writing this series, he does provide some of the many covers as well, for Powell fans who want to see how the writer-who-is-also-an-artist draws Godzilla and some of his frenemies; we'll look at some covers near the bottom of this post).

This story is set in modern times, and, unlike the Swierczynski series, in which Godzilla has been a fact of life for a while, this is apparently the first appearance of any giant monsters on Earth. The big guy appears in a weird opening scene in which two little Japanese kids play on a beach, when they suddenly notice the gigantic tail of a diving...something. Godzilla appears next on a two page spread, SKREEEEE-ONK-ing as he eats the children in a huge mouthful of sand, like some sort of gigantic organic steam shovel surfacing through the beach itself.

The Japanese try to missile the monster to death to no effect...

...and when he gets out to sea, the U.S. tries a sub-launched nuclear missile, which only has the result of making Godzilla grow larger and start breathing his blue radioactive fire (not the traditional orange fire that Alex Ross has him breathing on the cover there).

The first issue/chapter ends with President Obama seeing the news, and reacting the same way his Japanese counterpart did upon learning that the nuke only made Godzilla stronger and gave him a new weapon.

"You have to be @%$#ing kidding me" is to Kingdom of Monsters as "I've got a bad feeling about this" is to Star Wars, apparently.

Meanwhile, weird shit is happening all around the world, like cattle, crows and swarms of cicadas suddenly dropping dead out of the world. Second monster Anguirus emerging from the ground in Texas, and running, jumping and rolling its way toward the U.S. border. In Russia, a little boy nicks a museum piece during an earthquake, and out of it hatches a baby pterodactyl, which grows into Rodan in the space of a bout a day.

Meanwhile, an enormous Mothra-like egg is discovered in France, and two mute but enormously powerful psychic school girls find it, and control the monstrous larva that emerges, whom they name Battra.

The worst news of all, however, is that when Godzilla's through with Japan, he heads to the U.S., and he and Anguirus or on a collision course in Los Angeles.

What's different about this book is the focus on the human characters, and the fact that there are so many human characters, all around the world. Many look and sound familiar, while many more are introduced just to die. There's the aforementioned President Obama, who we first meet talking to an advisor named David who looks an awful lot like Obama's advisor David Axlerod; it's not until near the end of the second issue that he's referred to as President Ogden. Similarly, we're introduced to a pop singer known for wearing outrageous get-ups, like this one, for example...

...who is called "Girly Yaya" (Get it?). There's a very popular TV show about vapid young people from New Jersey, and the cast appear a few times throughout; the name of that show is Jerseyfied (GET IT?!).

There's the father of the two kids eaten in the opening scene; a coupe of red neck stereotypes that plan on teaching Anguirus no to mess with Texas (not unlike the gun nuts who appear in Swiercyznski's first issue, actually); the Governor of Texas who believes his anti-immigrant wall can keep Angie from crossing the border; the little Russian boy who hatches Rodan, and so on.

Likely, non-monster protagonists seem to be Sergeant Steven Woods, recent recipient of the presidential medal of honor, and/or maybe the psychic twins controlling Battra's larva...at least, these are the fictional, non-parody characters original to the series.

For the most part, Powell and Marsh seem to deploy these characters either to emphasize how small and insignificant single human lives can be in relation to the titanic monsters (a point made ultra-clear when one tries to suicide-bomb Godzilla in revenge, and does nothing more than briefly confuse the King of the Monsters by popping like a bubble on his snout. They also seem to be making some rather broad statements about the shallowness of American culture—both political and entertainment culture—but the targets are so easy, and the criticism so broad and unfocused, it's hard to guess what they're saying exactly. Maybe something along the lines of if atomic age originally ushered in these monsters via film, they are now being summoned by a nihilistic and destructive culture...? I don't know.

Some of it's funny, I guess, but it seems to lack a point...or, if there is a point, its so dull that it barely pokes, let alone pierces and draws blood.

The President "Ogden" business grates, too. I've always been irritated by such half-measures of using analogues in comics, particularly ones that are completely obvious and completely unnecessary. I suppose Lady Gaga and the cast of The Jersey Shore (which I have to assume was still a relevant target when this series launched three years ago then it it is today) might have their images or names trademarked or copyrighted or could make arguments that their likenesses and names are their means of financial gain, and thus this little, barely-read Godzilla book (surely even it it outsold every other book in the direct market, its audience would still be practically molecular to that of Lady Gaga and the folks from that dumb TV show were garnering at the time). But President Obama? Public figures don't get more public than him, and there's hardly any way to use Obama's name and likeness that wouldn't be considered fair use. (Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer appear too, but; they're only partially named, kinda like David Axelrod is in his appearance).

I've always been of the opinion that if you have something to say, just say it, rather than hiding behind passive-aggressive, half-ass, it's-a-parody-but-not-really name-changing. Jersified's "The Predicament" is The Jersey Shore's "The Situation," and you're not fooling anyone, guys.

My favorite of Hester's Godzillas is the one that appears on the variant cover for the second issue, which appears unencumbered by text in the "gallery" section at the back of this book:

Note the elongated snout, that makes his Godzilla look like a slightly more realistic creature—ditto the longer, thinner arms and the fact that you can't see whether his legs are a pile of fat rubber folding in on itself or not. Hester's Godzilla, especially in that image, looks like he could whirl in any direction and take off at a run at any second, rather than simply trudging and plodding.

Hester's interior Godzilla never looks quite that elongated, but he's definitely a slimmer, more muscular, less fat and unwieldy-looking monster than the man in the suit...or, come to think of it, the ultra-faithful Alex Ross version on the cover of the trade collection. In general, he and/or McCorkindale seem to use fewer lines in their creation of Godzilla's scales, and on his fellow monsters Anguirus and Rodan. The over-all effect is that the monsters look a little less carved and a lot more drawn. The design is still tight, but the texture is smoother and more polished. They all reminded me a bit more of large, living gargoyles than articulated toys and costumes, like Hester was losing some of the detail of the suits in order to achieve something more appropriate for a comic.

Of the three series, this is probably the weakest, but it is maybe also harder to judge simply by the first volume than the Godzilla series was, as its premise isn't so quickly and throughly defined.

Here's one of the Powell covers, featuring three of the monsters:

There are three additional Powell covers in this collection, plus a fold-out, three-page image featuring monsters from these issues and several monsters who have yet to appear in the series.

Matt Frank's art is also represented by several covers; I like his Mothra one best:

The remainder of the covers come from Jeff Zornow and Paul Hanley. There's only a single image by Hanley, so it's hard to judge his skill at drawing giant monsters, but Zornow, whose variants are attached to some of the other Godzilla comics as well, is pretty great at it.

Meanwhile, at Robot 6...

I have a post reviewing two pretty excellent Drawn and Quarterly books at Robot 6 today. The books are:

1.) Diane Obomsawin's On Loving Women

2.) Brecht Vandenbroucke's White Cube

While you're at Robot 6, you may also like to stop by Tom Bondurant's "Grumpy Old Fan" column, in which takes a look at "Earth-August," the DC Universe as it existed in August of 2011, before the New 52 initiative. He nails a few of the things that so discombobulated me about The New 52: DC had spent the better part of a year doing things like having their most popular writer revamp and revitalize a handful of former Justice Leaguer characters that could have benefited from a shot of Vitamin Johns in Brightest Day, setting up a new JLI book, introducing Vertigo characters Swamp Thing and Constantine back into the DCU, and then the New 52 just came along and knee-capped all that hard work.

The result? Fantastic sales—for a few months.

I don't think there's any reason to believe that Geoff Johns and Jim Lee on Justice League #1 featuring the characters from before the reboot (in their less appalling costumes) or Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis on Aquaman wouldn't have sold just as well, regardless of the continuity. Many books certainly couldn't have done any worse than their New 52 counterparts (Teen Titans vs. Teen Titans, for example, or the promised JLI vs. The New 52 JLI, etc).

The Justice League books were the ones that really rankled at the time, as I was interested in and, yes, even cared about characters like Aquaman and Martian Manhunter. But I completely forgot just how much rebooting DC did in 2010...right before they re-rebooted many characters and book (Like The Flash and Birds of Prey, for example).

Review: Godzilla Vol. 1

When Legendary Pictures released the first trailer for this summer's Hollywood Godzilla reboot a while back, the idea was—obviously—to get people excited about the upcoming film. As a survivor of the 1998 Godzilla, I'm afraid I can't muster any stronger emotion than "cautious" or "curious" when it comes to the new film, but the trailer did remind me of the big guy, and set me on two different paths of catching up with him.

First, I decided I'd start watching and/or re-watching the Godzilla and Toho kaiju movies in an organized fashion (if that's an area of interest for you, I discussed Godzilla Raids Again and Frankenstein Conquers The World in the last "EVERYTHING ELSE" post; the next such post will cover Rodan, Mothra and War of the Gargantuas...at the very least).

Second, it reminded me that I had yet to read James Stokoe's Godzilla: The Half-Century War, which I was trade-waiting. I got right on that and, given how excellent that particular IDW Godzilla comic turned out to be, I started looking for all the other IDW Godzilla books I could find through Ohio libraries (Sadly, they're not as easy to find in libraries as virtually any Marvel, DC or manga collection, so I may have to invest some money if I want to find out how some of these stories turn out—and I do!).

The first I found was the sub-title-less Godzilla, which I believe is the series that showed up on Diamond's shipping lists as "GODZILLA ONGOING" (As with many of IDW's licensed comics, the publisher immediately exploded it into a franchise with multiple books with different, event dueling continuities, making it hard to keep up or catch up. In addition to Godzilla (Ongoing?) and the aforementioned Half-Century War, they've also published/are publishing Godzilla Legends, Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters, Godzilla: Gangsters & Goliaths and Godzilla: Rulers of The Earth).

This is the series written by Duane Swierczynski, one of the handful of prose crime fiction writers who found a side gig in writing comics. In his case, they've mostly been for Marvel (Cable, Immortal Iron Fist, some stuff featuring The Punisher, Moon Knight and Deadpool), and he also launched the New 52 Birds of Prey for DC* and is currently writing for Dark Horse and Valiant.

Of greater interest (to me personally, anyway), is the artist on the creative team for this particular comic: Simon Gane. Particularly expert at drawing cute girls, cool fashion and detailed urban areas, he's probably best known for his Vertigo work, the major focus of which was the art on the shortlived Vinyl Underground series. He's not an artist I would have thought would either be game or be good for a giant monster comic, but that is because I am dumb—turns out he actually already had a giant monster comic (of a sort) on his resume.

So what have these creators I primarily know of for scripting street-level superheros and sketching pretty girls online come up with?

A super-solid premise for a giant monster comic, one that I haven't seen or heard before (certainly not in relation to Godzilla), one that includes a large swathe of the Toho monster menagerie, and one that that sounds like it could potentially be the basis of a kick-ass action movie...were it not for the fact that there is so much action, destruction, monster mayhem and kick-assery, it would probably be too expensive to actually commit to celluloid (Hollywood's still working on getting one kaiju on the big screen; they can't possibly be ready for a half-dozen or more).

So giant monsters are arising and wreaking havoc all over the world. Giant spider Kumonga in Mexico, Rodan in Brazil, Battra in South Korea, and Godzilla himself in the good old US of A. Retired soldier Boxer, who has had dealings with Godzilla in the past, is currently serving as the body guard of a young Japanese girl in Washington D.C., when who should attack the very skyscraper they're in then the King of Monsters himself.

Boxer, who Gane has fan-cast as Jason Statham**, gets the girl to safety, only to lose her to the stupidity of others. With more reason ever to have a grudge against Godzilla, and with his life suddenly needing new direction, he comes up with a great idea—for a comic book, if not a career. He gathers a band of acquaintances and former allies who have similarly lost something to giant monsters: Demolitions expert Urv, driver Harrison and army scientist Claire Plangman, inventer of a "headache gun" that can't exactly slay the dragons, but can prod, push and otherwise annoy them.

When Anguirus attacks Edinburgh in the second issue, Boxer takes his team in...but not before first asking for a seven billion-pound bounty. He gets it, and they get Anguirus. And then they're in the business of bounty-hunting Toho kaiju, seven billion a head ("Eh, that's a buck for every living person on Earth," he tells an television reporter sticking a microphone in his face. "A bargain, really."

Before the first volume is over, they'll go on to tackle Battra, Kumonga and, in the climactic issue, Rodan and Titanosaurus...simultaneously.

As many monsters as they take down, and as rich as they're getting, they still haven't challenged Godzilla yet, and sinister, human forces are moving against Boxer.

Like I said, I liked the premise, and the way it offers engaging characters with passably relatable conflicts and goals; sure, the characters aren't any deeper than those in any action movie, but they're deep enough to act as an axis around which to rotate the various man vs. monster action scenes and more occasional monster-on-monster violence.

Gane's artwork is pretty incredible, and I'm tempted to say that it's almost as good as Stokoe's, but there takes are so different it's difficult to compare them, and Gane is working as an artist in collaboration with a writer, where as Stokoe was creating almost every aspect of his Godzilla project, giving him a bit of advantage in terms of creating a more personalized version of a Godzilla storyline.

Like Stokoe, Gane finds the perfect balance between making the monsters look like "themselves" (that is, rubber suits) and looking realistic. Godzilla, Rodan and Titanosaurus all have an authentic, unnatural look about the way they stand, pose and move, while Anguirus, Kumonga and Battra look much more natural, like things that could conceivably exist in nature, things that could survive outside of a Japanese monster movie.

He's better still at the human characters, all of whom are slightly exaggerated and extremely distinct in design, and Gane is aces when it comes to drawing buildings...and then wrecking them. It seems as if every panel of the book includes a cloud of broken glass, clouds of smoke and storms of rubble.

It's an all-around pretty great Godzilla comic, which disappointed me a little, as it mean now I have to buy the next two volumes, if I want to find out what happens next, and how it all ends. (It's my understanding that the Swierczynski/Gane "ongoing" lasted about 18 months or so, as my local comic shop had three volumes on the shelf, and the last page of the third volume said "The End" on it.)

*********************

Now let's look at some covers. There were, obviously, lots of covers for the comics in this collection—13 covers for just four issues, if I counted correctly.

I understand that the vagaries of comic shop retailing somewhat necessitates that publishers who aren't DC or Marvel publish lots of variant covers, but, as a consumer, the practice is generally just a further incentive to trade-wait, as if the trade collections generally include all the covers (In this trade, for example, covers appear between the issues, and then there's an "Art Gallery" in the back, containing all of the variant covers that weren't previously shown in the collection, each unencumbered by text.

There were four covers for the first issue; two of them were by excellent monster artist and Guy Who Previously Drew Godzilla For Dark Horse Arthur Adams. This is one of 'em:

The other Adams cover was just a black and white version of that. I really like Adams' Godzilla on that cover. No, it doesn't really look like Godzilla, but it does look like Godzilla might look were he a real theropod dinosaur of some kind. It's weird how Adams draws the face and head so realistically, but the tail is still segmented.

Of the other artists that contribute covers (Ryan Kelly, Tony Harris, Zach Howard), Matt Frank draws the versions of the monsters that are furthest divorced from their rubber suit-and-puppet origins.

Check out his Rodan and Titanosaurus:

Very cool-looking, although there's no way I would have guessed that monster on the right was meant to be Rodan, had I not read the comic that appeared under that cover. I like the way Frank makes the monsters his own, adhering to the basics of the design, but not bothering to adhere to the real-world, live-action limitations that defined them. That said, I also like the way Gane and Stokoe drew them, incorporating the limitations-inspired design into their drawings. I'm honestly not sure what the best approach is, as both have their virtues. So I'm glad IDW had Frank do these covers, as his approach differs so greatly from the interior artists I've seen so far (Gane, Stokoe and Phil Hester, whose Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters Vol. 1 I'll discuss this weekend).

On the opposite end of the spectrum, here are the same monsters fighting as drawn by Jeff Zornow, who accentuates the goofy, guy-in-suit nature of their designs:

That image cracks me up.

Here's another Zornow cover, which is a nice portrait type cover of Anguirus...

...even if the image lacks the slap stick of one monster bonking another on the head with some form of mass transit.


*Like a lot of creators since the relaunch, Swierczynski didn't stick around all that long—almost a year and a half—but I don't recall any particularly angry interviews or accusations of editorial interferences, so I'm assuming he left BOP under amicable circumstances...? Or was I just not paying attention, having had no interest at all in a Birds of Prey comic that departed from the central premise of concept, former Batgirl Barbara "Oracle" Gordon teaming with former Justice Leaguer Black Canary to fight crime on their own terms...?

**Although there's a bit of Bruce Willis in him too, I think...or maybe that's just the fact that he spends much of the first issue imperiled in a skyscraper making me think that? Matt Frank's variant cover for the second issue is even more Bruce Willis-y. Like, a Moonlighting-era Willis

Review: Uncanny X-Force Vol. 2: Deathlok Nation

Simone Bianchi's cover to Uncanny X-Force #5.1

When someone descends into a confusing, chaotic realm in which they are temporarily divorced from their everyday, normal lives and are instead faced with difficult, arcane or even just very particular minutiae, you'll often here them talk about having gone "down the rabbit hole." When it comes to Marvel's X-Men, I prefer the metaphor of the labyrinth: There are many different paths to take, they branch off and rejoin one another constantly, its easy to get lost and one could spend the rest of one's life wandering, without ever having covered all of the ground. Also, eventually you'll be killed and eaten by a half-human, half-animal monster. I'm guessing.

For example, over two years ago I read a Uncanny X-Force: The Apocalypse Solution, which collected the start of the Rick Remender reboot of the previously rebooted X-Force title, which was a reboot of a few other reboots of the series (and which has since been rebooted at least two or three more times, splitting into two different comics with similar names as part of the "Marvel NOW!" initiative, and then re-combining into a new, single comic as part of the "All-New Marvel NOW!" initiative).

I rather liked it, and had every intention of reading the next collection, but apparently forgot about it at some point, and never picked up the next collection.

Having recently started reading the Brian Michael Bendis-written X-Men comics (All-New X-Men and Uncanny X-Men) and discovering that they were actually pretty good (far better than his Avengers comics were) and taking the occasion of Jason Aaron's long-running Wolverine and The X-Men run wrapping up to start catching up on that book, I found myself reading a lot of X-Men trades all of a sudden, and encountering plot points I didn't understand, like original X-Men Angel not being the grim, blue-faced, metal-winged character he was the last time I saw him in Apocalypse Solution, but instead being a younger, happier, more naive and angelic-looking version of himself. And a kid named "Genesis" who looked an awful lot like the kid who got shot to death at the end of Apocalypse Solution being enrolled at the Jean Grey School (That's the X-Men school that Wolverine founded to replace the Xavier School, if you're an even less frequent visitor to the labyrinth of X-Men continuity than I am).

Wondering aloud (well, "a-blog," I suppose would be a more accurate term) about this, a few of you mentioned the Angel changes and the origins of this Genesis kid could be found in Remender's Uncanny X-Force, which I quit reading and forgot about.

So I thought maybe I'd get back to it where I left off, a few years ago.

And that's a half-dozen paragraphs basically just saying what the title of this post says, but I did want to take a moment to detail something curious about the X-books, and the curious way their plots feed in and out of one another, often changing hands from writer to writer and title to title and premise to premise in ways I don't think any other Big Two super-franchises do at the moment (For all their faults, for example, the Green Lantern, Batman and Justice League franchises at DC are a little more streamlined; I suppose Marvel's Avengers gets pretty messy, but because that line expansion is so recent, as opposed to the X-Men line, which has had a mess of books since at least the '90s, it's not as big a maze to navigate).

So when we (and by "we" I mean "I") last saw this version of the Uncanny X-Force, they had just completed their first mission. Assembled as the black-ops/wetworks squad of X-people doing mutantkind's dirty work while Cyclops and the less kill-crazy X-Men continued to present a handsome, happy face to mankind, the team consisted of financier and kinda sorta leader Warren Worthing III, aka Angel, aka Archangel, his girlfriend Psyclocke, other kinda sorta leader Wolverine, Grant Morrison-created Fantomas-homage Fantomex, Fantomex sentient mutant UFO EVA and mutant mercenary Deadpool. They all hung out in a secret cave headquarters with matching unifroms—basically just black and gray versions of their regular costumes—and killed people together.

But their first mission hit a snag when they found out that the next incarnation of Apocalypse was still just a kid, and while they were pretty sure he was gonna grow up to be a mutant super-Hitler, they weren't real keen on having to kill a kid, whether he was destined to be mutant super-Hitler or not.

All except Fantomex, anyway, who went ahead and shot the still innocent kid in the head and killed him.

This continues to way heavily on Fantomex's teammates as the second volume opens, with the supposedly amoral characters like Deadpool and Wolverine seeming especially upset and angry, and the supposedly more virtuous characters like Archangel and Psylocke worrying that they aren't more upset about angry, at that and about killing people in general.

That accounts for much of the inter-personal character conflict and a major sub-plot running through this volume, although I suppose I've already spoiled it by mentioning "Genesis" at all: Turns out that while Fantomex technically did kill the Apocalypse kid, he also took some DNA and then started growing a clone of him in The World, a sentient super-soldier factory that was in part responsible for cranking out various "Weapon Plus" mutants like Wolverine, Deadpool and Fantomex (I believe Morrison created it; it featured prominently in his New X-Men run, and was one of the many concepts that later writers continued to play with, even as much of Morrison's run and its innovations were discarded).

So is Fantomex more evil and heartless than all the assassins he hangs out with? Not really; he'll shoot a kid in the head, sure, but he'll also bring him back to life. He killed Hitler as a baby, but then cloned Hitler and tried to raise him right...? I guess that's the way Fantomex answers the whole time-travel, Hitler baby killing dilemma?

As for the A-plot, it mostly involves Deathloks, as the sub-title no doubt alerted you. The collection opens with Uncanny X-Force #5.1 (which, defying numerical norms, is placed before Uncanny X-Force #5. Why? Because Marvel, that's why).

This original round of ".1" issues were meant as good jumping-on points, but here it's basically just a done-in-one that introduces the characters (not that they really need it; Fantomex is the most obscure member of the cast, and Wolverine and Deadpool are among the best-known Marvel characters), and their mission: Secretly killing people.

The plot? Wolverine's enemy Lady Deathstrike has assembled a new group of Reavers (mutant-hating cyborgs) and they are planning to strike the X-Men's homeland, Utopia. X-Force preemptively strikes. Violence ensues.

Albuquerque

That story is drawn by Rafael Albuquerque who does a damn fine job. Unfortunately, he does not redesign Deathstrike at all, and she still looks like she did in the 1990s and in that dumb cartoon. Albuquerque draws her nicely and all, but I just don't understand what she's wearing. Or her head. What is on her head?!

Albuquerque

(By the way, how do her powers work? She must have the strongest fingers in the world).

With that out of the way, the rest of the collection is devoted to the three-issue "Deathlok Nation" story arc, which is simplicity itself. Deathloks from the future, made from superheroes with robot parts attached to 'em instead of just regular old soldier corpses with robot bits attached to 'em, attack Fantomex in order to get at The World and kill the clone of the kid that everyone thinks Fantomex already killed.

So it's kinda like Terminator, except instead of Arnold Schwarzenegger, it's cyborg Marvel heroes, including Deathlok-ed versions of the Uncanny X-Forcers. Also, the "real" Deathlok, calling himself "Deathlok Prime," shows up to team-up with X-Force. They fight in Fantomex's house, they fight in the Alps and, ultimately, they fight in The World, where the various members of X-Force break up into teams to further their emotional conflicts while fighting Deathloks.

The artwork, penciled by Esad Ribic and inked by John Lucas, is superb throughout. They're given all kinds of crazy shit to draw, but they manage to make The World and it's craziness look realistic and threatening, but also airy and roomy. Additionally, they do really great work with good old-fashioned motion lines, denoting action.

Ribic and Lucas

Ribic and Lucas again

I forgot how much I like the X-Force costumes the characterss wear, too. Deadpool especially looks much better in the muted gray costume than the red one he usually wears. And I like how this version of Fantomex basically just ooks like G.I. Joe bad guy Firefly with a trench coat on.

Now hopefully I can continue to follow this storyline through the end of Remender's run on this title, without getting lost or side-tracked into a reboot...

Jimmy Gownley's Cerebus

In Jimmy Gownley's The Dumbest Idea Ever, a new memoir comic in which the Amelia Rules cartoonist recounts how he first became a comic book creator, Gownley recounts his first trip to a comic book store. It's a pretty great sequence that should ring true to any comics lover of a certain age who remembers the first time they discovered there were these places where they sold nothing but comics. Most of the titles and covers featured in the scene are made-up ones, with the exception of Dave Sim and Gerhard's Cerebus. You know, the super weird comic about a donkey.

Cerebus makes an encore appearance later in the book as well, when young Jimmy Gownley is feeling a little lost and, late one night, he realizes what the existence of Cerebus signifies.

You know, that you can make, publish and sell your own comic books. (By the way, I have a review of Dumbest Idea Ever here).

Review: Wolverine and The X-Men Vol. 4

Wow, I guess the 12-issue Avengers Vs. X-Men series must have lasted a lot longer than I expected, given that the this five-issue collection is the second straight collection of this title tying directly into the line-wide crossover story.

As with Vol. 3, the Avengers Vs. X-Men series plot more-or-less takes over the book, with the issues collected herein consisting mostly of done-in-one stories that take place in and around plot beats from AvX, with writer Jason Aaron striving valiantly to move his own sub-plots forward (and sometimes succeeding quite admirably). There are three art teams involved in these issues, with pencil artist Jorge Molina and inker Norman Lee handling three issues, pencil artist Chris Bachalo and a trio of inkers handling a single issue, and Michael Allred coming aboard for a single issue in order to draw the collection's highlight, a story featuring his co-creation Doop.

In the first issue, one of the Molina issue, the Phoenix-possessed Colossus arrives at the Jean Grey School in order to ask headmistress Kitty Pryde, who has been mostly sitting out the conflict in order to keep the school going and the kids safe, out on a date. She complies, in order to try and talk her old friend (and old boyfriend) out of the mad god/cosmic supervillain territory he and the rest of the "Phoenix Five" are quickly edging into (At this point in the main storyline, they've started imprisoning defeated Avengers in an infernal prison camp, and many of the other X-Men are starting to have serious doubts about siding with Cyclops over the Avengers, here dramatized by series regular Iceman walking out on on the crazy mutants). I like the way Molina draws Iceman...he's still a spiky, but not as spikey, and he's not wearing those cargo shorts.

The date doesn't go well, and Colossus is ready to destroy Kitty's school, when its few feeble defenders—Kitty, Deathlok, Lockheed, Husk, Toad, Doop and Krakoa—convince Colossus to leave them alone for now via their apparently willingness to die for the school. Colossus is sad.

Molina draws the second issue as well, a pause-before-the-storm one in which the remaining teens from Utopia enroll at the school, Avengers Iron Man and Iron Fist consult with Beast and Broo about how to deal with the Phoenix Force, Charles Xavier shows up to look over the grounds and briefly deal with Quentin Quire, and then Xavier, Angel, Beast, Wolverine, Rachel Grey and Iceman go off for their final battle with the be-Phoneixed Cyclops and company.

Bachalo then shows up to draw a Hellfire Kids issue, which basically shows what they've been up to now that mutants are ruling their world with their nearly omnipotent powers. While their leader Kade Kilgore tells the readers the story of how he took over the Hellfire Club and went into the business of building and selling Sentinels, Cyclops and company show up, have some words with Kilgore and throw the kids into an adult prison, where they wait out the current status quo, and actually fare much better than one might expect a handful of little kids to.

That's followed by the Allred issue. Entitled "Wolverine's Secret Weapon," it's the story of how Wolverine convinced Doop to join the teaching staff at the school—a three-page sequence in which Doop has Wolverine to try and keep up with him. When Wolvie complies with all of his requests, no matter how difficult and/or embarassing, Doop takes on the position of the Jean Grey shcool's fixer. Doop, it turns out, is the best there is and what he does, and what he doesn't not only isn't very pretty, it's incredibly weird.

So Doop violently deals with hate groups and monsters, seduces local city council officials—male and female—to change their votes, has scary-rough sex with Warbird, out-metals Satan in a "Devil to Georgia"-like guitar duel, competes on the Avengers roller derby team (on his hands, if you're wondering where he puts his skates), baseball bats the laptops of bloggers bad mouthing the school, time-travelling to safeguard Charles Xavier's ancestors, and so on.

It's the kind of craziness Aaron excels at—"We're trapped in a cave in Dimension ZZZ, surrounded by hordes of bloodthirsty robo-barbarians, with nothing between us but a broken sword, a rubber chicken with nails in it, and a gun that shoots bees"—without even the porous filter of a semi-serious X-Men comic tamping down on any of it. Allred is, of course, game for anything, and this issue, in which every panel or four switches to a different scene of madness, gives hima whole bunch of crazy shit to draw...and a pretty big chunk of the Marvel Universe, actually. In addition to the Wolverine and The X-Men cast, he also gets to draw such unexpected characters as Howard The Duck, Tigra, She-Hulk, Gambit, Man-Thing, Deadpool, Sabretooth and more.

It's pretty much the best thing ever. (And a welcome break from the increasingly serious events of Avengers Vs. X-Men.)

The final book returns to the AVX plot, and to Molina and Lee and artists. Aaron jumps back and forth between the final battle between the Cyclops and Pretty Much Everyone Else, the one that ultimately ends with (spoiler!) Cyclops killing Xavier and the Phoenix Force being diffused to restart the mutant race, just as Cyclops had hoped it would, and between the events at the school. These include Husk leaving the teaching staff, Idie acting strangely, and Broo trying to get to the bottom of Idie's strange behavior, which exposes a new and weird plot by those Hellfire kids. In a particularly affecting scene, the Stepford Cuckoos, monitoring the battle via Cerebra, see so many new lights appearing, as the Phoenix Force starts making new mutants again, that no one notices that one light goes out.

As with the previous collection of the series, I'm curious how this reads to someone not following Avengers Vs. X-Men, as so much of it is written as direct reactions (The Doop issue aside, which is the only issue that doesn't refer to AVX at all). Aaron does a pretty good job of writing a long string of tie-ins without completely surrendering his own plotting in service to what it's tie-ing in to, however. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that Aaron co-plotted AVX and wrote portions of it, and thus knew it inside and outside well enough to intertwine it with the events of his own book.