Weekly Haul: July 26th

52 #12 (DC Comics) I’m on record as saying DC’s weekly series about a year in the life of their universe is the most ambitious and ballsy project ever embarked upon by a comic book company before, right? Given the insane schedule (four times more frequent than the average comic book) and non-existent margin of error (a book can’t ship late. Period), the book certainly deserves to be cut some slack. And I’ve cut it. I’ve heard kvetching about the interior art being not up to snuff, but didn’t mind as long as it was readable. I’ve heard bitching about the time delay—Ralph Dibney cornering Wonder Girl, and then twiddling his thumbs for three weeks, for example—but didn’t worry about it much. But this is the week that will tax your slack-cutting like never before. This is the first time that the lettering in a DC book has really jumped out at me as particularly bad. Also, a whole sentence of dialogue gets repeated twice verbatim in two different bubbles in two different panels. And Captain Marvel slips in and out of Khandaqi, apparently, judging from the appearing and disappearing brackets around his dialogue (I know he’s acting nutty, but why’s he yelling at the Seven Deadly Sins in Khandaqi?). Despite the poor quality control, the story remains quite interesting, as Black Adam and a clearly ape-shit insane Captain Marvel welcome a new superheroine into the Marvel Family, The Question and Montoya pack their bags for Khandaq, and Wonder Girl converts Ralph to her cause. This week’s back-up is the first of the origin stories that will run for the next 40 weeks, this one featuring Wonder Woman, with art by Adam Hughes. It’s just 8 panels long, and doesn’t answer a single question about the now very confused history of Wonder Woman, other than the fact that her powers and birth haven’t changed due to Infinite Crisis. Long-time Wonder Woman cover artist Adam Hughes provides the art. I’ve never cared for the way he draws her costume—her breasts look like they may pop out and hit her in the eye at any moment—but his Diana is as close to the definitive one as you can get. Nitpick: Under “Essential Storylines,” pre-Crisis stories form the first four volumes of the WW Archives (um, none of which are canon) are included, as is George Perez collectionWonder Woman: Gods and Mortals, which also doesn’t count in the current continuity, according to Infinite Crisis and JLoA #0.

Action Comics #841 (DC) Kurt Busiek, Fabian Nicienza and Pete Woods warm-up the title for the incoming creative team of Richard Donner, Geoff Johns and Adam Kubert, and they do a fine job of it. Burned once by Superman’s return, the DCU is a bit skeptical this time around. Superman fights robots (a classic motif…) bent on auctioning off pieces of the earth on some sort of alien eBay (…significantly updated). Guest-stars galore: Nightwing, Firestorm II and the Teen Titans. I can’t remember the last time the Superman monthly titles were this super.

The American Way #6 (WildStorm/DC) Now this is a superhero civil war, complete with North vs. South and racial issues.

Batman #655 (DC) A year ago, this particular creative team on this particular title would have been impossible to imagine: Visionary writer/Big Idea factory Grant Morrison scripting and longtime Marvel artist Andy Kubert drawing. The result is every bit as awesome as that team on that character sounds. Keeping with DC’s new trend in “hyper-compression,” Morrison packs this ish with quite a bit of stuff—the Joker, a second Batman, Commissioner Gordon, Robin, Bruce Wayne and Alfred going on vacation to England, Kirk Langstrom, Talia and the League of Assassins…Whew! I can’t remember the last time a Batman comic book was actually at the very top of my Wednesday to-read pile, nor can I remember the last time I was so excited about the next issue of a Batman comic book. Wait, yes I can— it was Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle’s Shadow of the Bat #1, over ten years ago.

Big Bang Presents #1 (Big Bang Comics) Gary Carlson’s Big Bang Comics seem to hover uncomfortably between homage and rip-off at times, but the more time you spend with them, the easier it is to see that he and his collaborators all have the best of intentions. Fans of Will Eisner’s Spirit or Jack Cole’s Plastic Man should particularly like this issue, consisting of three stories. The first recasts Batman-esque Knight Watchman as a Spirit-esque crimefighter, in an Eisner pastiche so perfectly executed you’d think Eisner himself had drawn it. That’s followed by a Protoplasman story that reads like the off-brand Cole Plastic Man that it is, and a short intro to Super Frankenstein, a heroic version of the monster who apparently borrowed one of Green Arrow’s tunics.

Birds of Prey #96 (DC) The Birds go to breakfast, we get a nice four page eulogy for Ted Kord as the gang visits his gravesite, the Society takes an interest in Black Alice (I’m all for more panel time for Ohio superheroines), and a three-page epilogue featuring a chick in a Batgirl costume fighting crime in Gotham City (Please be Cassie, please be Cassie, please be Cassie). Gail Simone’s script is as solid as ever (“she-peeps” aside), but penciller Paulo Sequeira really needs to tone down the cheescake factor. Why does every single woman have to have a tiny dress on in every single scene? It would be nice if the world worked that way, but, sadly, it doesn’t, and the art should better reflect our world than it does here.

Black Harvest #6 (Devil’s Due Publishing) Writer/artist Josh Howard is one of the greatest cute girl artist’s working in American comics today—Bruce Timm may be the only one who can touch him—but his writing skills are much less impressive. This story of a weird desert town, a UFOlogist researcher/writer and a mysterious girl with strange powers and bleeding word-shaped wounds started rather promising, but it was too convoluted by half, and the pay-off in this last issue was hardly worth the wait. Cute girls, though…

Black Panther #18 (Marvel Comics) I’ve been reading this title rather sporadically, having a hard time getting into it on account of the wonky continuity, the willy-nilly retconning and the inconstant art teams. But whenever I do read an issue, I’m almost always impressed by Reginald Hudlin’s skills with the title character and the way he nteracts with his world (Even if Hudlin clearly needs a more iron-fisted editor). I was pretty skeptical about the wedding between the Black Panther and Storm, as it seems more contrived than natural, and the timing is less than ideal—Marvel’s right in the middle of a huge event with their “Civil War,” and both the Avengers and X-Men are in disarray, so why build a bridge between the two franchises now of all time? Well, my skepticism was proved unfounded. This is an all around great comic book, from Frank Cho’s wonderful cover (Check out Namor’s eyes, and Bishop’s tears…Ha!) to Hudlin’s script to Scot Eaton and Klaus Janson’s art to Kaare Andrews wonderfully illustrated spirit world interlude. The guest-list is hilarious, Spider-Man and Man-Ape’s conversation is great, Hudlin revisits the idea of a “Black Avengers” team (Do it Marvel, do it!) and Hudlin even manages to work Iron Man and Captain America’s recent “Civil War” differences into the story rather naturally. Nitpicks: Why is Wolverine wearing that to a wedding? And Luke Cage says the exact opposite about fighting the Registration Act here that he says over in New Avengers.

Civil War: Frontline #4 (Marvel) In “Embedded,” Sally sees the fall of Typeface and his league of losers, while Ben Urich gets an unwelcome visit. In “The Accused,” Speedball finally gets to kick a little butt, and writer Paul Jenkins shows how sarcastic fight chatter can make a hero seem pretty cool and yet an asshole at the same time. I'm still not sure to make of “Sleeper Cell,” and what it might have to do with the war at this point, but I’m quite sure the fourth story should never have been conceived, approved, written or drawn. Confidential to Marvel: Your superhero line crossover is absolutely nothing like the Vietnam War.

Civil War: Young Avengers & Runaways #1 (Marvel) Despite having the ugliest comic book cover of the week (What is that? Kelly green? Seriously?), this special miniseries teaming Marvel’s two newest and greatest teen teams was a blast. YA’s creator/writer Allan Heinberg and Runaways' writer Brian K. Vaughan leave the writing up to Zeb Wells here, and he handles both teams very well—other than the weird Runaways-isms Vaughan peppers his team’s dialogue with, there’s no real discernable difference in the writing on either team. When ultra-Leftist super-person Flag Smasher causes some trouble in front of the Runaways, they come to the rescue, drawing SHIELD “cape-killers” and the Young Avengers’ attention. In classic Marvel style, when the Avengers approach the Runaways about joining their anti-Registration team, the heroes end up fighting each other. Wells writes a classic Molly moment, her best since punching out Wolverine, and artist Stefano Caselli draws the hell out of everything. If either team’s regular title ever needs a fill-in artist, let’s hope Marvel’s got Caselli on speed-dial now.

JLA: Classified #25 (DC) At long last, Steve Englehart’s story arc about the Detroit League doing battle with two warring Royal Flush Gangs comes to an end. I’ve been conflicted about this arc, as for everything I liked about it, there was something I hated just as much, so I’m rather relieved it’s over. Still, it was nice to see the title revisit a past era of League history, and here’s hoping they continue to do so in future arcs (I’m hoping to see attempts to redeem some of the strange line-ups that occurred between the end of Giffen and DeMatteis’ historic run and the debut of Grant Morrison’s Big Seven version of the League).

JSA: Classified #14 (DC) Sad to see the current Detroit League vs. Royal Flush Gang arc of JLA:C end? Don’t be. The entire creative team—right down to Mike Zeck and Jerry Ordway on covers—picks up with a modern day story in the other Classified title. The Wizard, the Sportsman, Gambler and Amos Fortune (who must not have died in the Villains United IC tie-in after all), get together for a high-stakes poker game and end up having a team-up of sorts. I’m not sure exactly what’s happening yet, but they seem to have stolen a page from Roulette’s playbook and abducted and brainwashed the JSA to pit against each other in hero versus hero brawls for the amusement of others. To the rescue come Stargirl, Vixen and Gypsy, a teaming as strange as the random groupoing of villains they’re up against. It’s too early to say if this arc will be a bust or not, but the first issue was rather mediocre, and left me with a lot of questions, most of them concerning writer Steve Englehart’s plot and lack of logic rather than anything having to do with suspense.

New Avengers #22 (Marvel) We’ve known for a while now that Luke Cage takes Captain America’s side against the Superhero Registration Act in the pages of Civil War, but this is the issue of New Avengerswhere we find out the why and the how. Iron Man and Ms. Marvel try to pressure Cage and his family into supporting the Act, and as soon as it gets passed, SHIELD arrives, only to get a couch to the face. Lots of fighting follows. Brian Michael Bendis turns out a great single issue about Cage, and Leinil Yu’s art is great. If there are any gripes to be made about the book, they’re on a larger, background level beyond what happens between the covers (like Bendis spending 20 issues just to assemble this Avengers line-up, and they’re already being broken up).

Shark-Man #1 (Thrill-House Comics) Artist Steve Pugh, apparently working with Gary Leach and some computers, provides gorgeous art to this rather straightforward superhero tale. Shark-Man seems like a Batman-type of character in a futuristic, sci-fi city called New Venice. He has a cool costume, a cool cave, a cool means of locomotion and some cool shark-themed gadgets, but don’t get too attached—he dies in this first issue. Luckily, he has a son t carry on the family name. The story, by Pugh and a trio of writers, is nothing special thus far, but the art and designs are well worth paying attention to.