Comic shop comics: March 13-20

Daredevil #24 (Marvel Entertainment) I don't generally like meeting comics creators in person, for the same reason I don't like meeting anyone in person—I don't really like...oh, what's the word...people? Yeah, people. I don't like 'em.

I'd kinda like to meet Chris Samnee, though, just so I could give him a nice firm handshake and say, "Good job on Daredevil, Chris Samnee. That's some damn fine comic book drawing." Like, as soon as I finished reading this issue, I wanted to just set it down, stand up and shake Chris Samnee's hand.

There's a fine cover image (although the logo and the red strip at the bottom kind of clutter it up), a wonderful sequence with Hank Pym changing size while working in his lab and talking on his cell phone, another one where Matt Murdock shows off his leaping-about facility on a gym's rock climbing wall and the regular masterful illustrations of people, like, having conversations or fighting rabid, mutated dogs and what not.

Damn fine comic book drawing...

Saga #11 (Image Comics) The good news is that Lying Cat does not die, so thank God for that. Someone else does die though, and props to Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples for making me care enough about this cast of characters, even the relatively new additions to it, that I actually worried about the fate of Lying Cat and felt kind of bummed when the character who died dies.

This issue opens with a NSFEDILW sex scene, which demonstrates the evolutionary purpose of Marko's people's horns (In a word? Handles.)

It was kind of weird—a good kind of weird—reading an issue of this on the same Wednesday evening as an issue of Star Wars.

Saucer Country #13 (DC Comics) That last-page cliffhanger? I did not see that coming, nor could I have ever imagined that was a possibility for a cliffhanger. So bravo to writer Paul Cornell for that. (Say, can people with jowls use the term "cray-cray"...?)

Star Wars #3 (Dark Horse Comics) There's some heavy flirting between Luke and a female X-Wing pilot in this issue, which kinda messes with my life-long understanding that these characters are all a bunch of virgins, and Leia seems jealous of the girl making time with her brother who is totally in love with her. I know they don't know it yet, but we know it and, Shakespearean or not, it can be a bit icky.

I've been reading the old Marvel Star Wars comics that are set between the movies in the first trilogy, the same time period these comics are set in, and it's striking how the Marvel comics pretty much drop any romantic sub-plotting, with Leia, Luke and Han all thinking of one another as friends, and only once in a while getting kind of confused about their feelings. If writer Brian Wood is playing up the conflict, well, that's an interesting choice.

Another thing I thought too much about while reading this issue is Chewbacca's laser crossbow. What's the bow part of it for, really? I'm sure there's a Wikipedia article on it somewhere. Basically it's just a laser blaster in the shape of a crossbow though, right?

Wonder Woman #18 (DC) Wonder Woman and the Olympians are still fighting over that goddam baby, as they have been for the last year and a half. In this issue, it's War vs. Harvest, Poseidon vs. The First Born and Wonder Woman vs. Hermes, with a an assist from Orion, who explains why he slapped her ass in that issue (it was apparently to get DNA from her...? Which doesn't sound right, unless there was a pretty invasive groping attached to that ass-slap).

The comic remains a pretty good one, but it does feel like I read the same issue once a month. Maybe it reads better in trade?

The Cliff Chiang and Tony Akins art relay team takes on new hands with this issue, with Chiang drawing three pages, Akins and Dan Green seven pages and Goran Sudzuka drawing ten pages. Remarkably, it all holds together pretty well and I think it's worth noting that even with this obviously rather fucked-up and parceled-out method of making a monthly comic book, Wonder Woman is still head and shoulders above the vast bulk of the New 52 books in terms of visual quality.

I laughed when I turned the last page to find a five-page house ad for the "new creative team coming this April!" to Action Comics: Andy Diggle, Tony S. Daniel, Matt Banning and Tomeu Morey. That new creative team apparently lasts exactly one issue, before writer Andy Diggle's run ends (due to creative differences) and artist Daniel becomes a last-minute replacement, serving as the new writer/artist for Action Comics as he's done on various Batman comics in the past (His first Batman comic as writer and artist was Battle for the Cowl, which Judd Winick was writing for a while until the editors decided they wanted it to go in a different direction, and Daniels stepped up to fill-in).

Between the time I first heard that Andy Diggle's run on Action Comics was ending a month after it began this afternoon and the time I saw that five-page advertisement later this same afternoon, it also came out that Joshua Fialkov was off of the two Green Lantern books he was announced as the new writer for...before his run even started.

It's weird that DC is a comics publisher whose behind-the-scenes personnel decisions are infinitely more exciting to read about then the comic books featuring superheroes and supervillains they publish are, isn't it?