52 #26 (DC Comics) The weekly series has been firing on all cylinders for the last few issues, and this one is no exception: It’s another busy week, and we check in with plenty of the key players, and are introduced to little-seen old ones and never-before-seen new ones. The Black Marvels drop The Question and Montoya off in the Himalayas not far from Nanda Parbat and in the care of Richard Dragon (Are beards in fashion during DC’s missing year or what?), Steel and Nat appear on Jack Ryder’s You Are Wrong! to discuss the Everyman Project, the Black Marvels sit down with the Sivanas for dinner and Veronica Cale joins the island of lost scientists. There are almost too many fun little cameos and moments to count this issue—Waverider!—but I think the highlight was the Black Marvels seemingly acquiring their version of Tawky Tawny. The writing staff of 52 continues to do a fantastic job of restoring the Marvel franchise to heights it hasn’t seen since C.C. Beck was drawing them. Makes one wonder why DC is even bothering with the strange Judd Winick/Howard Porter reboot of the characters in Trials of Shazam (Unless all the Black Marvels die by the end of 52…?). The back-up this week is the origin of Hawkman and Hawkgirl, probably the hardest origin to distill into a handful of panels. I’m not so sure that Mark Waid succeeds this time—things get a bit muddy in the middle—but he does a pretty decent job, considering the obstacles. The art on the back-up, by Joe Bennett and Ruy Jose, is top-notch, but I still sort of wish it was Rags Morales doing the honors (No one draws those hawk eyes as cool as Morales does!). Confidential to Venus Sivana: I don’t think you can use the term “butter face” to describe a boy, as the pun doesn’t work with the male pronoun (And I don’t think you should use it to describe female relatives, either). Confidential to DC editorial: Get back on the ball and crack that whip; you’re letting Montoya slip into first-person narration and screwing up the point-of-view of the overall series again.
Agents of Atlas #4 (Marvel Comics) She may lack the fearsome widow’s peak of her male counterpart, but I really dig Namora, the latest recruit into Jimmy Woo’s oddball team of heroes. With this issue, Jeff Parker and Leonard Kirk reach the two-thirds completed mark, and things are drawing to a close much too soon for my liking. Other than the return of Namora, this issue’s developments include the Yellow Claw getting a more PC name, some M-11 related comedy and Parker’s clever conspiracy theory as to why there are so many businesses named “Atlas” in the phone book (a gag expanded upon on the last page, in a prose piece attributed to Gorilla Man). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Make it an ongoing, Marvel. Please.
The All-New Atom #5 (DC) Lots of funny bits in this issue, including a look at The Waiting’s grammar-mangled militarism (Their Uncle Sam-style recruitment poster reads “Praetor Have Want You!”), Panda and Ryan’s defeat of a giant, floating Waiting head and writer Gail Simone’s cheeky “Insert Brave New World preview here…” box in the last panel. Of course, that brings up an unfortunate point about this still-promising monthly. The first few issues (and the BNW preview) were pencilled by John Byrne, but the last two were drawn by Eddy Barrows, so should this book get a trade paperback collection in the future (which seems rather certain, given Simone’s current popularity), does that mean we’ll see 66 pages of Byrne art, 44 pages of Barrows art, a few more pages of Byrne art, and then back to Barrows art? Talk about aesthetic whiplash—it should make for one ugly trade (Which isn’t a slight on Barrows or even Byrne’s abilities, but rather a concern over the dramatic shifts in style sinking an otherwise enjoyable script). Oh, and Simone hasn’t given up on her abuse of the asterisk, which I suppose I must continue to complain about every issue.
The Irredeemable Ant-Man #2 (Marvel) How great is it to be able to read two books about shrinking superheroes back-to-back this week? In the All-New Atom vs. Irredeemable Ant-Man battle, I’ve to give this one to the Marvel hero, as writer Robert Kirkman gives us as many fun moments as Simone manages, but without misusing any conventions of puctuation, and artists Phil Hester and Ande Parks are doing some of the best work of their careers here. Plus, like all Marvel books, Ant-Man has a few built-in advantages over DC books: One, Marvel books don’t have those stupid gag text blurbs on their covers (See Atom’s “M’Nagalah Mouths Off!” befouling an otherwise beautiful and clever Ladronn image) and, two, Marvel books contain letters pages, as all monthly superhero comic books should.
Anyway, the issue at hand is the issue of Ant-Man at hand. An, um, talking ant brings us up to speed, reminding us that the story jumps back and forth from the present, in which Eric is exploiting the rescue of a beautiful woman to get both a free dinner and a shot at getting in her pants, and the past (during Wolverine: Enemy of the State, to be exact), in which Eric’s friend Chris is stuck in the new Ant-Man suit at ant-size, wandering the SHIELD Helicarrier. Both sequences are handled well, and are chockfull of story (Check out page two—16 panels! On one page! Woo hoo!). Eric proves to live up to his title of “the world’s most unlikable super hero,” but despite the fact that he’s a coward and a cad, I still enjoy reading about him. Just as I don’t like the character Geoff Johns has turned Hal Jordan into at all, it’s still admirable that a writer can create a fictional character so realistic that he can make you intensely dislike him.
Detective Comics #825 (DC) Noooo! Guess I should have read the title credits before picking this book up off the shelf this week. Not only is the “regular” artist J.H. Williams III (who only managed one issue before taking an extended break) not on board for this issue, but neither is the regular writer Paul Dini; had I known this ish was Dini-less, I would have passed, but I didn’t crack it open and see the name “Royal McGraw” (awesome name, by the way) under “writer” until I got home. So, as far as I can figure it, the only member of the “regular” creative team involved with this issue is cover artist Simone Bianchi. Ah well, what’s a wasted $2.99 added on to a $40.00 comics purchase, really? McGraw does give us a done-in-one tale, just as Dini has been doing, and while it’s generally fine, striking notes one would expect from Dini (or at least from Batman: The Animated Series), it undoes the status quo of Dr. Phosphorus, last seen dying in Starman. In general, I’m fairly prejudiced against bad, mediocre or even simply not-great stories that undo the status quo of a better story (Don’t get me started on Chuck Dixon bringing Killer Croc back to Gotham after Doug Moench and Kelley Jones handed the green guy off to Swamp Thing!). Particularly when there doesn’t seem to be any compelling reason for it. If McGraw really wanted to use a villain made up of living flame, would it have been that hard to come up with a new name and a new motivation, instead of pulling a tired Batman villain out of retirement to try, try again at the old revenge-against-those-who-wronged-me M.O.?
Justice League of America #3 (DC) Let me just get this out of the way first: I’m tremendously excited about this title, the most excited I’ve been about the Justice League since Morrison, Porter and Dell wrapped up their run, and so excited, in fact, that this is the first week in recent memory during which 52 wasn’t the first thing I read. That doesn’t mean I can’t be cynical, though! The cover, by Michael Turner, wasted a neat idea by exaggerating (there’s only about a dozen Tornado clones inside; not a thousand), and had an extremely goofy blurb on it (“Tornado Outbreak!”). Inside, Brad Meltzer and company make a lot of little chump mistakes, from what I assume are mis-colorations of text boxes to losing track of what piece of dialogue should be in what-colored box (It didn’t make the read confusing, just irritating). The pace is another matter; I sort of wish Meltzer would have simply penned an original graphic novel, and then DC would have let some version of the 52 or Justice writing team handle the monthly adventures, as the Trinity have now been going over photos for about four months now. I almost cheered when Jefferson Pierce and Hawkgirl crash the Batcave with an unconscious villain in tow, as it at least meant Batman and company would have to get involved in the greater plot now. The highlight is the action scene involving Black Canary, Arsenal and Green Lantern Hal Jordan versus the Rainbow Tornados, as it gives each of them a nice spotlight moment. Two classic JLA villains are revealed to be part of the plot, and both are equally disappointing for their over-usage in JLA stories (and one, in particular, for being so damn predictable). Hopefully Meltzer has a trick up his sleeve in regards a fresh angle for these two.
Justice League Unlimited #27 (DC) Like the idea of Black Lightning on the JLA roster, but sick of waiting for Meltzer and Ed Benes to get him in costume and superhero-ing? Then this month’s issue of the DC’s comic-based-on-a-cartoon-based-on-a-comic is right up your alley. A decent done-in-one from Adam (grumble grumble ruined Batgirl grumble) Beechen and Carlo Barberi focuses on B.L. as he leads a League tussle against the Parasite and mentors one of his students. The “message” portion of the book is sort of clumsy (a reminder that this book is for readers much younger than myself), but it’s otherwise a nice Black Lightning story that fulfills this title’s secondary raison d’etre, providing DC fans like me a place to see dead heroes like Firestorm the First, Aztek and Vibe in action once again. Confidential to Benes: See, Jeff looks good with hair. What’s say we have him grow it out a bit in JLoA, huh?
Midnighter #1 (DC/WildStorm) The Authority got off to the slowest start of any comic book in, like, ever. WildCats seems dead in the water, with at least five months between issue #1 and #2. Gen 13 was a complete flop. The WildStorm universe’s re-launch under the “World Storm” banner thus far has been less than successful, despite all the A-List talent involved. Would Garth Ennis and Chris Sprouse’s launch of a solo series featuring The Authority’s most marketable member similarly fail? I was braced for just that, and found myself remarkably surprised. Ennis’ ubiquity on the comics shelves at the moment (see The Boys, Punisher, Battler Britton, A Man Called Kev and 7 Brothers) didn’t exactly fill me with confidence, particularly since the character is simply a Batman clone with a Punisher attitude. Things do get off to a rather slow start, with M. door-ing down to a random hot spot to kill some bad guys, and then finding himself captured by some mysterious types who perform some radical surgery on him (removing a power and his secondary heart, adding a bomb) before pressganging him into killing someone for them. I won’t ruin the last-page surprise, but it was one that had me laughing out loud. This, at least, is a “World Storm” book to keep reading. Given the recent media attention granted to Batwoman’s coming out party (of which I confess I was a part of) and Marvel’s PR problem regarding gay characters (a short, silly story that ends with Freedom Ring, the company’s example of a gay hero headlining a title, being brutally murdered) it’s probably worth noting here that Midnighter is a gay male superhero starring in his own comic book series.
Nightwing #126 (DC) Okay, I have no idea who this agoraphobic J.J. character is, and there’s a panel in here that’s completely unintelligible to me (page four, panel four—did the mysterious assassin destroy a magazine rack that was in the back of his stretch hummer limo for some reason, or…?), but congratulations Marv Wolfman, Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapund, you’ve got me reading Nightwing again.
She-Hulk #13 (Marvel) Wow, if there was only some way for Rick Burchett to go back in time and have always been the penciller on She-Hulk—he’s that good and that perfect for the title. Writer Dan Slott wraps up the Starfox/Thanos plot—well, except for the fall-out between Shulkie and Man-Wolf—and sends Shulkie into the big purple guy’s memories, revisiting some classic confrontations with the Avengers. Nice to see a Thor that talks like a Renaissance Fair goofball and an Iron Man who’s not a total dick again.
Superman Confidential #1 (DC) I’m not crazy about this title, which sounds like it should be a gushy peek inside Superman’s diary to read about his boyfriends or something, but you can’t complain about the creative team of Darwyn Cooke (writing, not drawing) and Tim Sale (drawing). The pair are the first creative team on a new title that is apparently intended to give the Superman franchise the Legends of the Dark Knight/Legends of the DC Universe treatment (Wonder Woman fans please note: Superman is now back up to three monthlies of his own, plus a team-up book with Batman; your girl gets one tri-monthly book). The first arc supposedly deals with Superman’s discovery of kryptonite, and the story gets off to a very wonky start, what with a chunk of kryptonite acting as narrator, but things get much better when we move to Metropolis, and get inside Superman’s head regarding his impression of his invincibility. And get an eyeful of Sale’s re-design of the (a?) Royal Flush Gang. Now, what’s up with Sale’s cover? Does Superman have to pee really bad or what?
What If? Featuring The Avengers Disassembled #1 (Marvel) Man, could they have come up with a more awkward title for this special? Just as the last round of What Ifs, the ones focusing on particular characters, didn’t quite adhere to the correct What If? formula, this story, like the rest of its fellow 2006 What Ifs isn’t presented as an easy-to-phrase-and-stick-on-the-cover question (Like, “What If Venom Had Bonded With Aunt May Instead of Eddie Brock?” or “What If Ghost Rider Still Had a Horse Instead of a Motorcyle?”). That aside, Marvel’s hit upon an interesting idea for this year’s offerings—revisiting recent history. This particular issue revisits one of the company’s most controversial stories in memory, Brian Michael Bendis’ swan song for the Avengers. At the helm is Jeff Parker, who has done superb work on the Marvel Adventures version of this team, and he does a fine job here, re-telling the events of a four-part story arc, while still making room for the “What If?” angle (The question within is awkwardly phrased, in part because to phrase it properly would give away the surprise: “What If the Scarlet Witch Hadn’t Acted Alone?”). In it, Hank “Beast” McCoy is combing through the rubble of Avengers mansion to make sure they got the right gal during “Avengers Disassembled,” with Ms. Marvel doing the heavy rubble lifting for him. Along the way, he questions players (including Spider-Man, Quicksilver, Dr. Strange and Iron Man) before it’s revealed that Scarlet Witch has a few unlikely allies in her corner. Parker fills Beast’s dialogue with sharp quips, and manages a few inspired gags (like the “Dt’kho” hand-positioning in spell-casting), but the story shares a problem with all but the very best alternate universe/What If?/Elseworlds style stories: What’s the point? It’s a problem I’m afraid will face all of this round of stories, as the originals they’re riffing on aren’t terribly important stories. Confidential to Marvel: You’re doing five What If? specials this year, and you’ve done about that many the last two years. Why not just start numbering them in order and publishing them monthly or bi-monthly and making What If? and ongoing again?
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