This Week In Panels

Let's try out a new (old?) feature and see if it's got some legs. Introducing the almost-certainly sporadic series "This Week in Panels," in which I choose panels or pages from comics that have come out that week. We've got three this time round, all Marvel-based:

Hawkeye 11:

Matt Fraction and David Aja. Aja's been drawing the hell out of this series for a while now, but this issue takes the cake. It's from the point of view of Hawkeye's Dog, Lucky, and I think it really sells the animal-based POV. Basically, it does so through three ways, all of which are present in the page above:
1. The dog (and thus the reader) only understands a very limited vocabulary, which means that--like an animal--we have to get most of the conversations from body language and tone.
2. The panels are, for the most part, wordless--a simple technique, but a useful one, as it foregrounds the importance of the images.
3. You've got the schematic-like, abstract depiction of the human characters following their first appearance, which represents a combination of the dog's scent association, and its memory. I'm not sure I agree with the notion that dogs think in so schematic a fashion, but I do like the idea that they conceive of the world in simpler, more iconic ways, and that it's all about associations. If nothing else, it really sells the notion we're seeing a nonhuman interpretation.

By Mark Waid and Chris Samnee. This is another series that has really been pushing the visual aspect of storytelling, although the more interesting stuff has generally been drawn by Paolo Riveria. Daredevil gives a unique challenge for an artist, because they need to convey the visual experience of someone whose defining trait is that he can't see. This panel isn't really showing that at all, though. I highlighted it mostly because it's the culmination of Mark Waid's run up to this point. For at least the past decade prior to Waid starting on the title, Daredevil's defining trait has been that his life is depressing as hell--his secret identity was ruined, his wife was driven insane by his enemies, and everyone he cared about ended up abandoning him or dying. Waid opened with a simple premise: Matt Murdock can either choose to enjoy what he has, or go mad. And he toyed with both extremes. The last few issues had Daredevil's enemies once again closing in on him, but this single page shows how he's overcome them, by refusing to be brought low. The size of the page--the single panel image--is also much more open than the rest of the comic, with a lot more open space, again symbolizing his reclaimed freedom (although that is a ridiculously long staff).

Young Avengers 6

By Keiron Gillen and  Kate Brown.  This is yet another young Marvel series that's really been pushing the envelope in terms of the visuals. Usually, though, Keiron Gillen's partner in crime is Jamie McKelvie; check out this feature at Comics Alliance.  My favorite is Marvel Boy's 2 page spread, numbered fight, though the panel-breaking Loki is also a highlight. But Kate Brown's proven she's up to filling McKelvie's shoes, and providing her own style. There's a number of pages that I could have picked for this one, but I went with the two page spread showing the speedster's perception of time when he's moving at high speeds. Time is a tricky thing to show in comics, because the images are, by the nature of images, static. And yet without the passing of time, nothing in a comic can happen. There's a number of ways to convey time; Scott McCloud devotes a whole chapter to them in Understanding Comics. Brown uses a few different ones here. If you look close at the images, his hands are slightly blurred, which is a pretty common device. She also uses the size of the panels--the smaller panels suggest not only speed, but fine detail, performing fragmented close-ups, contrasted with the larger panels that show "normal" time. And the whole page is laid out in a way vaguely reminiscent of a microchip, reinforcing the assembly that our speedster's performing. I also like her use of expressions: even without the word bubbles, Tommy's arrogance shines through, from his facial expressions to how he flings around the cup of coffee. David, the onlooker, in contrast doesn't say a word, but still conveys a mix of skepticism and slightly unsettled. I wasn't familiar with Brown before this issue, but I'll be keeping an eye out for her from now on.

I love that this sort of play with the comic form is happening at Marvel, in superhero comics, a genre of comics that tends to be rather traditional. Granted, it's all in decidedly "B-list" titles, but I think it's a good sign of the industry's creative health, if not financial health.

Will this feature ever return? Why not COMMENT AND LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK?

Later Days.

Bibliophile: The Proud, the Lofty U of T

Like the green sprout peeking out from the pavement crack,

This is Bibliophile.

Friday Quotations: Supergods

"Lee's vision of the sentinel of the spaceways was more Suffer than Surfer, and the character was given to endless gnarled-hand outbursts that questioned his very being or expressed his infinite agony in the form of one more claw-fingered gesture in the direction of a mute and merciless firmament.  Every issue saw him hurling himself vainly at one insurmountable barrier after another before fizzling back to Earth, limp and futile, but just in time for one more miserable monologue on a lonely mountaintop far from cruel nonsilver bastards.  I suspect the yearning warble of Stan Lee's own tortured teenage soul.  Somewhere behind the reassuring huckster image of Smilin' Stan lay this sobbing mask of chrome, but readers found the hand-wringing lyricism uncomfortable.  The Silver Surfer series lasted eighteen issues before it was put to death with the same ruthless efficiency as Jesus himself."
--Grant Morrison, Supergods.

The funny thing is, sacrilegious statements aside, Morrison is spot on with the Silver Surfer.  Even his 90s TV series is one of the most introspective, emo experiences ever to hit children's cartoons.  But the way Morrison expresses it... well, you either hate the overtop approach, or embrace it.  And since the whole book is like this, I have embraced it.  Excelsior.

Later Days.

Church & State Unfair: A Reading of Comic Book Series Rex Mundi

I should probably be writing up my lesson plan for my class tomorrow. Or finishing my proposal for the CGSA conference in June that's due tomorrow. Or, you know, be working on that dissertation thing (This week: Genesis manuals! Golden Axe! Sonic! And... those other Genesis games!). But I feel like I haven't done a "pure" blogpost in a while (ie. not school related), so it's time for something different. Comic books!

Specifically, I just read the first volume of Arvid Nelson's Rex Mundi, as well as the introduction of the second, and I feel the need to wax rhapsodic. Here's a link to an article with some pictures for the book. (Why, yes, I am too lazy to post my own images.) The high concept of the series is that it is set in an alternate Europe, during the 19th century or so (it's a little hard to date exactly--the newspaper is prevalent, but the church and monarchy are still firmly in control). It differs from our history in two significant ways: there never was a French Revolution (hence the continuing control of the church and state) and magic is an accepted reality, though only practiced openly by a small and persecuted minority. More specifically, the first volume of Rex Mundi stars Julien Sauniere, a Parisian doctor plunged into a sea of intrigue and mystery after agreeing to help his priest friend track down a stolen forbidden manuscript. There are two chief things I found worth talking about here: the conspiracy theme, and the art.

We'll do art first. Volume 1 of the book (and volume 2, I understand; the foreword suggests the pair went their separate ways after those two or so) has the art duties performed by Eric J. Generally speaking, I'm not a very visual person. I tend to skip long descriptive passages in literature, and even in comics, a medium whose biggest selling point is its visual aspect, I often don't notice the pretty pictures unless it's a work that departs from the realist style very clearly. So when I do notice the art, that's a sign of something really notable going on. Eric J doesn't depart from a realist style, particularly. And while his art is distinct, the individual panels aren't really that noticeable. What's remarkable about his work is his use of silent, sequential patterns to illustrate motion. Most of my comic reading is superhero stuff, which means a lot of fighting. And yet, it's surprisingly rare that I read something that really conveys the motion and flow of action. Eric J does that. There's a scene of Sauniere running through the Paris sewers, and I could actually see, in my mind's eye, how the pursuit went. It's rare that I've seen anything that so thoroughly takes advantage of comic books not just as a visual medium but as a sequential visual medium.

So that's the art. The conspiracy angle is another issue entirely. I don't want to go into too much detail on the specifics, because in such a story, the plot is a large part of the point of reading, but the first volume's foreword compares it favorably to both Da Vinci's Code and Foucault's Pendulum. And the foreword of the second volume (which I still haven't read beyond the foreword, mind you) furthers the point. I'm tempted to retype the whole thing here, but I'll give you an abridged version (which is still very long):

"I say Foucault's Pendulum wasn't necessarily a great work of literature because it was more intellectualism than art, [a distinction, incidentally, that gets at the heart of what I was talking about re: my problems with constrained writing] more about characters sitting around and talking--and talking and talking and talking--in an impersonal way, tearing down the preconceptions of European Christian culture. it was an intellectual exercise of sorts--and people loved it.
Rex Mundi sprang from the same creative font and has gripped its readers in the same way. and why? Why are some of us so eager to see our histories rewritten before our eyes, our beliefs questioned and our faith disproved?
...
Rex Mundi asks those questions, and in its answers it makes the kind of leaps that reward readers. It offers possibilities that strike bold chords. It says something in the way that the best kind of fiction should, elevating a page-turner into something more by displaying ideas from which readers may discover whatever meanings ring truest to them.
Rex Mundi is a fantasy--Arvid declares that, more clearly than some of his peers in this literary vein, by setting his story in a past which is clearly not our own. But his colorful recreation of early twentieth-century Europe shouldn't distract you from his own honest examination of what it means to be a Westerner, the way some of us are driven to conquer and some to seek, and what sorts of secrets we might find in our own past."

Still here? Good. What Scott Allie is getting at, if I may grossly oversimplify prose that I wish I'd written myself, is the genre of the conspiracy theory, and, more significantly, works that both apply it and question its existence. It's a very prevalent genre-type, one that transcends media--it's in literature and film, obviously, but it's also a common videogame trope. Deus Ex and Assassin's Creed come to mind as two of the more successful examples. I've always liked conspiracy plots in videogames, because they always work on a meta level. Of course there's a conspiracy--every single person you meet in the game exists solely to affect you.

But what Allie and Nelson are doing is much more specific. This isn't a conspiracy theory where your government is lying to you, or your boss, or your some aliens. For a Westerner, when you start talking about massive conspiracies perpetuated by churches and monarchies, what you're saying is that your past is lying to you. The history of the world, of your world, as you know it, is a lie. That narrative of your country's place in the world and your place in it is wrong, because it's foundation is rotten. The flip side of the conspiracy theory genre is that (unless you're dealing with postmodern deconstructionist conspiracy theory--I'm looking at you, Pynchon) once the lie is exposed, it's almost inevitably about the resulting search for truth. Yes, someone has taken advantage of me, but now I have the knowledge, and I won't be deceived again. I don't want to get all Campbell/Hero's Journey here, but it's obviously a theme that resonates on a number of levels, personal and political. Rex Mundi is playing with the conspiracy theory, and what this search for truth means. I don't know what Nelson's agenda is for this play, but I'm going to find out.

Later Days.

Book Reviews: Let's Pretend We Can Keep This Short, Shall We? Part II

The Finder Library Vol. 1 by Carla Speed McNeil. "He is arrogant... He is shameless, immoral, anti-social, irresponsible. He's too slick. He's so charming, but he's callous. Cunning, and too self-assured. He is dangerous." "If a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing badly." I've long passed the point where I can still justifiably be surprised that there's some award-winning graphic novel that I've never heard of. But here we are, with The Finder Library, winner of the 2009 Eisner award in the webcomic category, a series I've never even heard of before now.

I hesitate to describe the premise, since I'm not sure I've got it right. But from what I gather, it all takes place in a future sci-fi setting where the world has been divided into various castes and tribes. Jaeger, the title character, is a half-breed, and in a very strict caste world, he doesn't really fit in. He took on the only role available to him: sin-eater, someone who takes on the punishments and sins of other people who can't bear them all themselves. His dedication to this role in his youth gave him a second title: Finder, one who is given special tasks of exploration and aid to others.

The story is divided up into three main parts: the first and longest describes Jaeger caught up in a domestic situation, and a very complex one. A male from a paternalistic, military tribe broke clan rules and married a female from a tribe where the gender roles are extremely feminized (in a traditional Western, and biological sense)--the males have breasts, and penises that are tucked into them when not in use. The man is Jaeger's military commander, and he undergoes a mental breakdown, and barricades his family from the world until he's hospitalized/arrested. Jaeger looks after the family in his absence--and starts an affair with the wife, who exists primarily in her own fantasy world. And that's without counting the children:the oldest, who's attempting to bed Jaeger, the son, who as you might imagine, is very confused (what with the breasts and all), and the youngest daughter, who is attracted to her mother's fantasy world. Jaeger feels responsibility for everyone involved, and a guilt that he's gotten so involved to begin with.

As you can imagine, it's hardly a typical sci-fi superhero story, though Jaeger certainly has the superhero background. And while I felt for the characters, I really didn't like Jaeger. He's too... well, perfect. He's the rugged individual who plays by his own rules. He's the the tormented artist searching for his muse. He's the sensitive, caring individual who also happens to be a virile and caring lover. He's great with kids, but you can't chain him down, man. He's a female fantasy, and while I don't have any problem with female fantasies (see as credentials Gossip Girl, My Little Pony, Being Erica), this particular one is a little smug for my tastes.

And yet, I still liked the story, and cared for the characters (although my dislike for Jaeger probably gave me a bit too much sympathy for the cuckolded/clinically insane and emotionally dangerous father character). But I preferred the second story, which is Jaeger trying to prevent a tribal war in the middle of the future equivalent of Disney Land (providing a clever satire on war and consumerism), and the last story, which uses the memory of Jaeger--the youngest daughter of the aforementioned family grows up, struggling to find an outlet for her own creativity. (I can certainly relate to that sentiment.) The first and third stories especially are things you'd never find in mainstream, male-oriented comics, and it's interesting that McNeil found a space to tell them using a character who's basically a more sensitive version of Wolverine. McNeil's art progresses nicely through this 22-issue volume, and the final few bits have some really great facial expressions. It's a good read, and it would probably be even better read for an early teenage female comic book reader--if you could find such a creature.

The sad thing is, this still counts as a short book review, by this blog's standards.

Later Days.

Book Review: Do The Gods Wear Capes? by Ben Saunders

"This phenomenal development of a national comics addiction puzzles professional educators and leaves the literary critics gasping. Comics scorn finesse, thereby incurring the wrath of linguistic adepts. They defy the limits of accepted fact and convention, thus amortizing to apoplexy the ossified arteries of routine thought. But by these very tokens the picture-story fantasy cuts loose the hampering debris of art and artifice and touches the tender spots of universal human desires and aspirations, hidden customarily beneath long accumulated protective coverings of indirection or disguise. Comics speak, without qualm or sophistication, to the innermost ears of the wishful self." --William Moulton Marston, creator of Wonder Woman, circa 1940s, quoted in Ben Saunder's Do The Gods Wear Capes?.

I know, two book reviews in a 24 hour period. It's been a long day. Hopefully, this one will be a little abridged.

About a year ago now, I was pressing a friend for his opinion on a trio of superhero comics we'd both read. He was somewhat reluctant to voice said opinion, but under further pressure, he finally blurted out that he hated them. Not only did they raise his ire, but they reminded him of everything that he was sick of about the genre: overblown, oversimplistic morality, downright misogynist portrayals of women, and a celebration of violence and carnage. I was, as you might imagine, somewhat surprised. The worst part was that I could tell this wasn't a conclusion he'd come to casually. He was a bigger comic fan than I was (if you can imagine such a thing), and he wouldn't willingly dismiss any part of its history, capes or no capes, unless he felt he had very little choice. And the hell of it was, I couldn't really marshal an argument in favor of the current crop of spandex-sporters. A lot of the time they ARE depicting the adventures of misogynistic, hyperviolent hypocrites. And the hell of it was, I'd probably keep on reading them anyway.

Saunders' book, Do The Gods Wear Capes?: Spirituality, Fantasy, and Superheroes, isn't exactly the answer I was looking for, though that's mostly because of its era of focus--it's stretching the whole of superhero comics history, from pre-WWII onwards, but there's not much about the current era; the closest it gets is some Warren Ellis-penned stuff in the early 2000s. Each chapter looks at a different comic book superhero and the seminal work on him or her to argue for the philosophical representations each one conveys. Chapter 1, for example, is on Superman. Supremely powered, Superman's story isn't about power, but about pursuing moral goodness. The catch is, this goodness is constantly being reinterpreted--Siegel and Shuster saw him as a rebel figure, best typified in an early issue where he tears up a car manufacturer's factory for producing unsafe vehicles, then kidnaps the mayor to get him to promise stricter guidelines. Later, he becomes a bastion of public order, and later still, something more ambiguous. Spiritually, Saunders connects him to the difficulty of pursuing goodness, as its definition proves elusive.

But it's chapter two where things really get interesting. Saunders here looks at the inception of Wonder Woman, by psychiatrist turned comic book writer William Moulton Marston. Marston's predilection for bondage scenes is well-known, but what's less known is that this bondage was based on a very complex system of beliefs. Marston thought that, using some questionable biological arguments, that women were naturally dominant, and men submissive, and that much of the evils of world persisted because both sexes had forgotten the pleasure of being in bondage. As Marston put it, "The only hope for peace is to teach people who are full of pep and unbound force to enjoy being bound." It's a very weird idea, but a pretty interesting one--especially when juxtaposed with Bernard Wolfe's Limbo. Limbo, as I'm sure you'll all remember from the book review I never wrote, had the premise that in the future, men disavowed themselves from aggression by voluntarily removing their limbs. The endeavor failed because they were just as aggressive as ever--they replaced the limbs with constructed limbs that they built in competition, trading a nuclear arms race for a literal arms race (and with Wolfe, the pun is always intended). At the same time, their sexuality all but vanished--the world was fun of women desperate for male attention and men who ignored them. Perhaps Marston's bondage is a way of channeling that aggression into pleasure?
Saunders' own contribution of the argument is that the value Marston favors--submission--is an original Christian value, but one that's fallen out of favor. He suggests that Wonder Woman, as a character, presents a utopian model combining submission to a higher power with the ecstasy of the flesh, seeing that combining sex and spirituality has been a problem at least since the Songs of Solomon.

Chapter 3 is Spider-Man, and in this figure, Saunders sees a merger of Freudian trauma theory--Spider-Man's constant return to the death of his uncle and Gwen Stacey--to the existential philosophy of Kierkegaard. Specifically, Kierkegaard argues that we pass from a state of no moral order, to some system of moral order, to a realization of that no moral order is capable of encompassing all experience, and that rationality is always limited. Those three stages are represented in Spider-Man by his original moral-free acceptance of his powers, his "great power comes great responsibility" shift with the death of Uncle Ben, and the unpreventable death of his girlfriend, Gwen Stacey. (There's also a brief section on Gwen's role, as the innocent woman sacrificed so Peter can reach this enlightenment.) One wonders, given this analysis, what Saunders makes of Peter's recent deal with Satan to his aunt's life, at the cost of his memory of his marriage. Yeah, that happened. Comics!

The final chapter is on Iron Man. Here, Saunders argues that Tony Stark's reliance on technology is similar to his reliance on alcohol, that in both cases, it's about control, and it's through the lenses of alcoholism that the series portrays the follies of overreliance on technology. Saunders weaves this interpretation with a discussion of the posthuman, represented by Stark's merging of man and machine. The spiritual issue touched on here is one of acceptance of the limitations of the individual, as in the form of the AA program. A coda follows, in which Saunders cautions against comic book studies creating a divide between super hero comics and the more auteur-based indie books. Preach it, sir.

Saunders' interest here is not in showing how these superheroes function as springboards for philosophical discussions, but to argue that these philosophical issues have always been built into these characters to begin with. Thus, the value of superhero comics aren't escapism or wish fulfillment, but the way they address, intrinsically, the same values and questions that have driven philosophy for centuries. And while Saunders does get a little preachy at times, for the most part, he does exactly that. It's probably a testament to his writing that I was left wondering what could be done with other superhero characters. If Gwen was a sacrifice, then what do we make of Jean Grey, a woman who died not just once but twice, the second time explicitly so her husband could progress as a person? Batman is notoriously missing in Saunders' analysis, save for a reference that his morality is not so much complex as contradictory, but surely there's something to be made out of a man who dedicated his life to vengeance and wound up with a family? And then there's the Fantastic Four. If Tony Stark represents faith in technology, then Reed Richards is the poster boy for rationalism and modern science. And Ben Grimm is essentially the archetype of "bad things happening to good people." Ah, the endless possibilities. Comics!

Later Days.

Thousand Years Reich? Try 3.5 Million.

In performing the research for my 20-page postcolonial paper (due exacatly 7 days and 2 hours from now), I've been reading my way through John Reider's "Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction." It's a great book, and it'll prove very useful to the paper--I'll probably do a full review of it at some point. For now, it's enough to know that Reider believes he sees, in sf tropes such as time travel and aliens, an attempt to engage colonial views and challenge perceptions of race. I'm pretty sure this is exactly what he means:

TYRANNOSAURUS REICH.

Thanks to Ye Olde Comick Booke blogge, for introducing me to this wonderful example of the most versatile of mediums. This has been such a better use of my time than any silly paper.

Later Days.

Buying the Book: Sask Trip Part IV

We're still in the midst of the "shopping" story portion of the Sask trip home. According to de Certeau, shopping is one of the every day activities through which consumers express their independent paths through state spaces. Of course, it also demonstrates that we're all stuck in state spaces. For today's act of shopping, I went to buy a ball glove. Long, long story short, and 16km later, I've got a ball glove. Despite everything I've said about my baseballian aptitude, I still maintain it's an investment in the future. I'll probably play again at some point, right?

The reason I bring this up now (besides the fact that it happened about three hours ago) is that, in a sense, part of the value people associate with things is how difficult they were to come by--although it's not a straightforward relationship. If it takes you a few seconds find a prized item you've been searching for, all fine and good, but a truly epic hunting makes a much better story. And if the trip to the local grocery store to buy milk takes several hours because you forgot to wear socks, you may get a good story out of it, but you're not going to feel too happy about that milk afterwards. This glove took the better half of a day and a very long bike trip, so it was slightly more difficult than I expected. Will that translate into a greater appreciation of it? Well, no; in the case of something like a ball glove, the difficulty of procurement in terms of calculating overall value is overshadowed by utility: if it works well in the ball game on Friday, that's much more important than any other measure I can think of.

Still with me? Good. The third part of my shopping trip on Thursday, June 5th, was to buy a book for my middle brother as a belated birthday present. How does gift giving fit into the discussion above? Well, the story of how you got the gift is largely unimportant; if you tell it, you run the risk of making it more about yourself than about the person you're giving it to, which slants the gift-giving towards personal indulgence over actual giving. (And yes, I realise that that's exactly what I'm doing now.) A wise man once noted the other peril in giving a book:"buying a book as a gift can become an overthinker's nightmare--you have to consider not only what the intended receiver means to you, but what you mean to them, what the book means to you, and what the book will potentially mean to them." Well, I said that. Right here. Still true though. So, as far as shopping for gifts go, you're in a double-bind. On the one hand, you want to limit the amount of time spent getting the gift as much as possible. But on the other hand, you want something that is meaningful and expressive. My brother asked specifically for a book because he wanted something to read during his big cross-country trip at the end of the month, and, supposedly, I know books.

My first choice was George Packer's "Village of Waiting." It came up in my postcolonial class; essentially, it's Packer's account of his time in Togo in the 80s, working as an English teacher for an African school. I thought (and still think) my brother would like it; it's thought-provoking, humorous, and just contentious enough that you can have fun picking apart Packer's arguments. But I couldn't give him my copy, since I needed it for the class, and assumed I could easily find a copy in Someplace Else.

I assumed wrong.

My other brother and I searched two separate bookstores, and came up blank. So we searched for a new book. I wanted something nonfiction and with a political edge. Of course, since I don't read a lot of that type, it was hard sluffing. We finally found a book (or at least my little brother did) called... I honestly don't remember. I remember it was hardcover, which I approved of, since it made it closer to the amount I spent on the younger brother's last birthday present, and that it was signed, which the middle brother would approve of, since it meant the book had value beyond being, you know, a book. So, with absolutely no ceremony, I handed him the book. He thanked me, but not without a wince that he quickly covered up. It was at that point that it hit me. Someone going on a long cross-country trip was looking for one primary factor in a book: that it didn't take up a lot of space. So the hardcover? Bad choice.

Moral: Gift-giving is best left to professionals.

This turned out to be much longer than I thought. There's probably a metaphor to be drawn between the post and the discussion regarding ease in shopping, but I'll let you decide whether it's worth the effort to retrieve it.

Later Days.

Comic Book Wednesday: Brand New Dismay

Comics, comics, comics!

Amazing Spider-Man 591. By Dan Slott & Barry Kitson, Jesse Delpergang, and Dale Eaglesham. Man, Bendis really cut this one off at the kneecaps, huh? Plot: Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four save the day in the Macroverse, after accidentally disrupting the day to begin with. But it's the subplots that are the pride and joy here. The main one is Johnny Storm's attempts to get Spider-Man to come clean with his secret identity. The other is that, due to some questionable time ratios, months pass in New York while the heroes are in the Macroverse--that means we get months of subplots advancing for Peter Parker's supporting cast, while he's missing in action. Basically, everyone's story gets pushed along--including Jonah's, in a big way.

But the elephant in the room: the dramatic impetus of the story is supposed to be that Spider-Man is addressing his secret identity for the first time. The problem is, Bendis already did that in the last issue of New Avengers--and in such a manner that it directly contradicts all the resistance and excuses that Spider-Man is making here. Luckily, Slott has enough over things going on--the supporting cast scenes and the wonderfully scripted banter between the FF and Spidey--that it's easy enough to just squint up the eyes and pretend nothing's wrong. But, editorially: something's a little wrong.

Captain America 49. By Ed Brubaker and Luke Ross. There was a lot of buzz a while back when the original Captain America, Steve Rogers, was killed off. He's been gone for a while now, and it's entirely thanks to Brubaker that, in terms of great story, he has not been missed. In this issue, Sharon Carter, the woman brainwashed into doing the deed, deals with some of the fall-out of her unintended actions and gets a step closer to finding out the secret behind the new erhatz Captain America that's shown up. (Not Bucky; another erhatz Captain America.) The art is great--it's got a semi-realistic style that fits well with the tone of the stories Brubaker is telling. And the story itself is very solid. The only fault I've got with the issue is the fault I currently have with the series as a whole--it's not that accessible. I mean, this issue will make sense if you haven't read the previous ones, but you will be left with the lingering sense that you're missing the bigger story. I still feel that way, and I've read the last dozen issues. It's great that Brubaker is creating something on such an epic scale, but if a new reader asked whether this was worth buying, I'd steer him or her towards the trade paperbacks first.

Fables 83. Bill Willingham, Matt Sturges, and Mark Buckingham. Here starts the Great Fables Crossover. (No, really, that's what it's called.) It's something of an anticlimatic start, as, well, it doesn't actually start at all. Jack phones up the Fables and tells them trouble's coming; the Fables send Snow and Big after the Literals. End. (And if you want the explanation for just who and what the Literals are, you should have been reading the last issue of Jack of Fables. which, even though it is more about the crossover than this is, is not part of the crossover at all.) Other than that, it seems like business as usual. Luckily for us, business as usual for the Fables is pretty awesome. A religion springs up over Blue's passing, the uncharacteristic fight that ended last issue is resolved in such a manner that ties it nicely to the destruction of Fabletown, and in New York, Mr Dark consolidates his hold as the murder rate skyrockets. I'm hoping he figures into the crossover--and not in some cheap manner in which he's sacrificed quickly to show how uber the Literals are. Time will tell, I suppose.

Later Days.

Comic Book Wednesday: X-Men, X-Men, and more Mutants

Uncanny X-Men Annual 2. By Matt Fraction & Mitch Breitweiser and Daniel Acuna. Emma Frost takes center stage, as she tries to convince fellow Dark Illuminati member Namor that they should make a private deal. The word "retcon" (rewriting past continuity) generally gets a bad wrap, but in the best case scenario, it makes a contriubtion to the story at hand without detracting from the past in any manner. This is a retcon of Frost's past, to include a romantic liason with another big Marvel character during her Hellfire Club days. The story slides back and forth between that story, and the present day. Each artist illustrates a different era, although to be honest, they're similar enough that I occasionally got confused as to which period I was looking at. Overall, Fraction and the artists deliver a compelling story and a telling character piece that adds some depth to the dynamics of Dark Reign.

Astonishing X-Men 28. Warren Ellis and Simone Bianchi. I think the "previously" for this issue told me more on what's going on than actually reading the previous issues. The X-Men travel to a China base to investigate a possible war between artificial mutants and parallel world mutants. Once there, they split up and are attacked by both sides--and both sides are looking for an old friend of theirs... First the art: Bianchi's X-Men look good, but the action scenes seem disjointed--there's little flow between scenes. Storywise, Ellis seems to be going strong: the X-Men's voices are all distinctly their own, and he's quite impressively weaving the recent X-Men mythos into his own alternate world story. For example, Beast theorizes that M-Day wiped out most mutants in multiple realities, but with the birth of the mutant baby in Messiah Complex, realities full of mutants are coming back into being. (This doesn't match at all with what's been happening in the reality-hopping Exiles series, but it sounds so good, I want to believe it.)
Unfortunately, the exposition is a little clumsy. The identity of the "old friend" is choreographed fairly early, when two split parties of X-Men both start discussing him, for reasons that arise naturally, but just come off as blatant when taken together. It's not as bad as, say, the Human Torch announcing that they are safe from everything but an attack by Doctor Doom, and then the Doctor shows up on the next page, but if it's close enough that the comparison can even be made, it's too close. Ellis may have a good explanation for this in a later issue, but at the moment, it just seemed a little clumsier than I'd expect from him. But I'm overstating this--it was really a good issue, and it shows that Ellis can do good things with the X-Men and keep his own flair.
X-Men Legacy 220. By Mike Carey and Scot Eaton. Xavier convinces Gambit to follow him to Rogue, as Xavier wants to make up to her that whole "lying about being to help her in order to trick her into joining the X-Men" thing. Only thing is, someone else with a grudge against Xavier got to her first... Add a rogue Shi'ar salvage crew, and you got yourself a party---next issue. This issue is more about setting things up. And speaking of tying things in to the larger mythos, Carey continues doing his thing, this time taking elements from the recent Skrull Invasion and the events of Astonishing to tell his latest story--and for longtime fans, he even uses the old X-Men base in Australia as Rogue's hideaway.
It's extremely well-written, as per usual for this title-the only thing that really bothered me was the characters. In theory, I don't have anything wrong with Rogue, and I'd like to see her power issue get resolved, which this storyline is teasing us with. And I don't mind Gambit, in small doses. But it's been a long time since I've read either of them, and I've forgotten how annoying their respective verbal tics are. And I know her Southern drawl and his cajun meanderings are established character traits, but... mon cher dieux, they gets on the nerves.

That's it for now. Man, I can't believe I made it through reviewing three X-Men comics without mentioning Wolver--aw, shucks.

Later Days.

Comic Book Wednesdays: Once Upon A Time...

I discovered over the weekend that my parents read my blog. I have spent the days since trying to pretend that I didn't discover that. More on this exciting news as it develops. But for now what you've all (well, some) have been waiting for.

Fables 77. Well, that's more like it. My major complaint with the Fables series over the last year or so was the pacing: the Frog Prince story dragged too long, and the Big War felt rushed. Now we're back on even-footing, examining what happens after the war. There's major uprisings in the Homelands, Little Boy Blue seems even further from his happily ever after than before the war, and Mowgli and Bagheera start an expedition back to the Jungle Book world. All that, and a mild cliffhanger ending promising a new big character next issue. At this point, Willingham and Buckingham are at the top of their game. Willingham is deftly juggling dozens of plot points, while still maintaining the distinct voice of his huge cast, and Buckingham's framing continues to make it feel like you're immersed not just in a comic book world, but a lengendary Fable one. A great starting point for new readers and a great issue for old ones.

Fables. Given the minor review, the choice for the major review seemed obvious. The original impetus of Fables is simple: Characters from various fables and fairy tales fled their homelands to avoid submitting to the rule of the Adversary, and settled in New York. Half the fun of the series is seeing the juxtaposition of the fairy tale creatures; how the Fly Prince gets along with Pinnochio, how Old King Cole deals with his rival Prince Charming, and, the key relationship for much of the series, how Bigby Wolf won the heart of Snow White. The other half is in Willingham's writing. These characters aren't just static retreads of the originals, but 3 dimensional figures that grow and change. While Bigby and Snow were the central characters for the early passages, Fly Prince, Prince Charming, and Little Boy Blue have all had their starring roles, and all grown from them.
The best place to start the series is from the beginning. The first story arc recalls the origin of the Fables, and introduces Bigby as the lead detective in a murder mystery. Next, the animal fables that can't pass for humans revolt, in a story arc called (what else?) Animal Farm. By the the fourth arc, when things really get interesting, Fabletown is attacked by the Adversary's private army of Wooden Soldiers--they don't need food, they don't get hurt, and they're armed with machine guns. It's honestly one of the best comic book battles I've ever seen.
For me, the appeal of Fables, and its spinoff title, Jack of Fables (wherein Jack stars as literature's greatest trickster), comes from the fresh perspective of all the characters I read about growing up. I mean, look at this cover:

This is the Adversary's war council. Among others, we see Hansel the Witch Hunter in the background, the Snow Queen holding the severed head, and, on the right, we see the little creature that was a super villain before super villainry was cool, the Nome King.
That's right. When you're going for awesome yet ridiculously obscure literary villains, you can't do much better than the Nome King. Hell, even he forgets who he is half the time.
Anyway, the early Fables issues are chocked full of literary goodness, and after a disappointing war to end all war, the new issues seem to be back on track. So if you want to see Frau Totenkinder (the gingerbread house witch) battle Baba Yaga, read Fables. If you want to know what Babe the Blue Ox does on his off time, read Fables. If you want to get to know the real Goldilocks, the gun-toting anarchist, read Fables. If you want amazing art on the inside (via Mark Buckingham) and the outside (cover artist James Jean wins awards for the Fables covers just about every year), read Fables.

If you want good story and good characters, read Fables.

Later Days.

Comic Book Wednesday: The Other Pilgrim's Way

I was really debating whether to keep this "theme" post going or not. On the one hand, there's the argument that there's about as much exploration of self in a comic book review as there is in this semicolon; on the other hand, the last entry was popular enough to constitute about 90% of the traffic to my blog in the last week. And since doing whatever it takes to pander to my own incipient narcissism IS an exploration of self, I guess that means it stays, for now.
Marvel Zombie 3: #1. I think the cover is a good indicator of whether someone would be interested in this or not.
If you can name the movie this cover is paying homage to AND the two Marvel characters on the cover and still feel enthusiastic for the project, then you should not only buy this comic, you probably already have. Plot: Zombie Deadpool spearheads an invasion into the Marvel Universe Proper. He is repelled, and a counterforce, consisting of Machine Man and Jocasta, are sent to put an end to the zombie menace. There's also the Nexus of All Realities and a Man-Thing appearance, if that's what floats your boat. There's some cute ideas and action scenes present in this comic, but it's not a great jump-on point if you haven't read the previous Zombie series and maybe not worth getting into if you're not fond of the post-Ellis Machine Man. The art is gritty, which works well for the swamp zombie scenes, but less well for the ultra-high-tech ARMOR base. Bottom line: if you like Zombies and some of the more obscure Marvel characters, read on. Otherwise, it's probably not worth it.
The Scott Pilgrim series. This, on the other hand, is entirely worth it. The Scott Pilgrim series, written and drawn by Canadian born Bryan Lee O'Malley. And I want it to be clear from the start I've only read the first three volumes (Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life, Scott Pilgrim vs the World, and Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness), so nobody say anything about Volume 4, 'kay? Anyway, the main plot of the series is that in order to go out with literally the girl of his dreams (they met when she traveled through them as part of an interdimensional shortcut for her courier job) Ramona Flowers, he must defeat in battle all seven members of her League of Evil Ex-Boyfriends. And if that sounds surreal, it really, really is. The best thing about O'Malley's story is how perfectly he blends these surreal elements (like the Vegan Police in volume 3, or the drawn-out Street-Fighteresque knife fight in volume 2 between Ramona and Scott's ex-girlfriend) with Scott's huge supporting cast of down-to-earth and entirely likeable friends and family.
And it's good they're likeable, because Scott? He's kind of a dick.
He mooches off his friends, he leads on said ex-girlfriend (who's all of sixteen when the series starts, to his 22), and he's entirely unemployed except for his three member band. Hopefully, he'll go through some bildungromans as the series go on, but for now... kind of a dick. It's a testement to O'Malley that the series is so good and fun when the lead isn't really that likeable.
The art, as you can see below, is the sort of wide-eyed non-realistic type that often leads O'Malley to be classified for manga. Normally, I hate this style, but here... it totally works.
My attachment to this series stems basically from two things: my geeky love for the sheer random inventedness and my admiration for O'Malley's ability to create complete, three-dimensional characters with a handful of lines and snippets of dialogue.
But Person, you say, I'm still not convinced. What makes you think I will like this book? What does it have to offer me? Well, Volume 1's got advice on how to break up with a girl (don't do what Scott do), in volume 2, all the characters stop what they're doing to give a detailed recipe of a vegan pot pie that I'm sure will be of interest, and in volume 3....
*UPDATE: yeah, this picture ain't coming without a scanner. So... look for that tomorrow, 'cause it'll be... super cool. I'm sure.

Comic Book Wednesdays

I want to move towards at least one "themed day" per week, for a number of different reasons. I think it'll add some structure and direction to the blog thing, and allow a sense of progress beyond "here's some random stuff that popped into my head." And I'm going with comic books because there's already a *huge* comic book blog community, so maybe I'll be able to snipe a reader or two at the same time.
Wednesday is also a good day to pick for a comic book theme, because as the comic-prolific know, Wednesday is the day that the new comics ship to stores across North America. And the fact that I know this still gives only the slightest inkling of the depths of comicbookery.
I've been reading comic books (I'm defining "reading" here as actually going out of my way to get the latest issue in a series; "collecting" might have conveyed this better, but it has its own connotations that I'd rather avoid.) for... God, for fourteen years now, which represents more than half my life. And I think at this point, I'm pretty much stuck with them. The appeal of comics, to me, is that there is so much about them, in combination, that you just can't get in any form of story-telling. There's the ongoing nature, a unity across a series and sometimes across dozens of series, that makes it feel like you're reading something that's unfolding in front of you. There's the simple combination of static graphic and text. There's the trope of the superhero, and its evolution and permutations. Even the current debate questioning whether the monthly titles will be replaced by graphic novels that collect a half-dozen issues in one fell swoop focuses the attention on what makes both forms different from each other. I don't think you could name another form of narrative that allows so readily for comparison between different interpretations of a classic character. John Bryne's Superman is not Geoff Johns' Superman is not Jeph Loeb's Superman--and yet, they all are, because it's the same character who appears in the same comics. When the author changes on a regular basis, what allows us to say that it's still the same work?
Comic books aren't the only place where these aspects appear, but they do form a nexus where all these issues meet and remeet in endless permutation. And that's the thing about comics: you start buying them, and suddenly you have a front row seat to watch a universe change.
Plus, there's all those people hitting each other. 'S cool.

Later Days.