Monthly archives: September, 2006

On a whim, I picked up X-Men #190 this week along with the usual stuff, which included Uncanny X-Men #478. I thought it’d be fun to compare the series, since they’re both heading in new directions after several mostly dull years.

Uncanny X-Men has been enjoyable as a very different kind of book from Ed Brubaker, whose other books have a main central character. This is also far more into the realm of sci fi than his other stuff, but if there’s anything predictable about Brubaker’s stuff is that it’s all unique. So far, I’ve enjoyed his run. It’s a very different team, which limits things (would Astonishing be nearly as good with such a star-less cast?). But it’s fast-paced, weird and intriguing. Plus, it harks back to the Shi’ar epics from when I was just starting to read Uncanny. It doesn’t hurt that Billy Tan’s pencils are some of the most detailed in comics.

If Uncanny has a strange team, X-Men is just bizarre. I hadn’t picked up any of the previous years, so it was kind of a series of surprises with the characters jumping into the action. Speaking of the action, it’s a pretty simple story if you don’t worry too much about details: some new villain is trying to kill the team. One of the main reasons I bought the book was because I hadn’t seen Chris Baccalo’s work for quite awhile. I’d really enjoyed him back in the day on Generation X (yeah, I liked that book, okay?). His work is really uneven here, with some strange layouts and inconsistent inks (perhaps this somehow relates to SIX people combining on the job. Perhaps).

Verdict: While X-Men was a lot of fun, I don’t see myself picking up anymore of this run. Especially since the last pages featured Cable and Sabretooth nearly making out.

Agents of Atlas #2

After a slow intro, the book gets back into the fun yet serious mystery. It’s like a spoof on retro comics that actually is a cool retro comic. I’ll buy it.

Jonah Hex #11

El Diablo, circus freaks, hanging, whiskey, a saloon, guns, whips, flames of justice. Mmm, yes. That does top last months redneck gator issue.

Nightwing #124

Talk about an impulse buy. I’ve just been pretty interested with how terribly Nightwing had been botched by DC since the Crisis, so I thought I’d check in and see if things were still remarkably awful on the eve of Marv Wolfman’s return. Yes and no. For the most part, this issue was just a fun, action-filled romp through New York. But any time Dick quit fighting, he would have to talk. And any time he talked, his huge D-bag personality would come out in full force. Case in point – when he bangs his designer girlfriend and then tells her to shut up and start sewing up his costume. I’m wondering when the issue of 52 will come out that has Dick taking a vacation to masochist summer camp.

Justice #7

Slow as tar! Delayed as Amtrac! But still damn fine classic DC action, so I’ll keep buying.

The Trials of Shazam! #1

I liked this, but I’m going to have to step back a little from my compatriot’s Hyperbole Train. This is not my favorite series. It’s fun and weird and a much better look into the new status quo of magic in the DC Universe than, say, Shadowpact. But it’s not a wheel made out of sliced bread.

Uncle Sam & the Freedom Fighters #2

I wonder if Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray agreed to write someone having their chest exploded into every issue. To answer that question and because this is just a kick-ass book, I’ll be around for #3.

The Escapists #1 and 2

I like Brian K. Vaughn, which is enough even though I haven’t yet read Kavalier and Clay. Yes, I’m going to. I know, I need to read it, okay? This is pretty much the only meta-comic book that I’ve enjoyed. It’s just a good yarn without laying on the inside jokes. A complaint? It took to the end of the second issue for any excitement. A praise? One buck for the first issue. Well worth it.

X-Factor #10

Kind of a slow issue, though the pay off at the end is more than worth the wait. Wha-huh? Also, Layla Miller is priceless as written by Peter David. It’s almost worth having suffered through House of M just to have her in Peter David’s hands. Um, did that sound dirty?

I just this afternoon received a review copy of the compilation of Robert Venditti’s The Surrogates ($19.99, Top Shelf), a mash-up of sci fi, crime noir and social commentary. If you want the blurb version of my thoughts, I read it straight through as soon as I had the chance, then took a little extra time to flip through it again.

In case you missed the individual issues like I did, The Surrogates takes place in Atlanta in 2054. The world is surprisingly similar – at the very least, Venditti doesn’t overwhelm with “futurisms” – aside from the creation of Surrogates. These are essentially androids that a person buys and uses to conduct his or her daily life. So while the owner sits in his or her apartment wearing pajamas, their surrogate is out enjoying life and bearing the risks that come with it. The people get stimulation by “linking” through a headset, allowing them to feel everything their surrogate goes through.

The message is similar to that of The Matrix series, but a wise update. (There’s even a not-so-subtle barb at The Matrix in the book) Computers have not overtaken and enslaved us. We have enslaved ourselves. And, especially for those whose predominant form of social interaction comes through MySpace or Facebook, this is a fitting enough concept.

What’s a comic book without a little action, though? That side of things come into play with a mysterious figure that runs around at night, swinging between rooftops (a la Batman) and zapping the surrogates, commanding their owners to “live.” The main characters are detectives, hunting down this creature who’s tearing down the new establishment. Things get fairly “Blade Runner” from there.

But while the book has obvious influences, it offers a good amount of originality, especially considering it’s Venditti’s first book. (He started in the mail room at Top Shelf and has moved onto writing and doing PR for the publisher, which is how I came to know him.) The Surrogates is a strong debut, one that promises much more to come.

A quick mention on the art: I hadn’t seen anything of Brett Weldele before reading this, but he has obvious talent. He does fairly simplistic inking, then uses photoshop for shading, which lends the pages depth. He also uses actual photos for backgrounds or details, and it almost always works well. In a few spots the depth disappears completely, and sometimes the clarity of photos is jarring. But by and large, it’s interesting and fits the material well.

The TPB also has a massive amount of extra material in the back, including “script to finished page” examples and a deleted scene, as well as some great pin-ups by various artists.

Did you purchase the first issue of “The Trials of Shazam!” this week? It’s written by Judd Winick, pencilled by Howard Porter, and probably the coolest thing I’ve seen in months. I hated “Brave New World” and all of the spin-offs from it, but, if all of that nonsense was necessary for me to get my hands on this single issue, I consider it a fair trade-off. If you didn’t buy it, go to the store and do so immediately. After you’ve read it, come back and read this spoilery post. Don’t worry, I’ll wait for you.

Ok, now, wasn’t that awesome? I read an interview the other day with Winick, and it turns out that his explanation for what happened there at the end is that Billy Batson is now the only possessor of the power of Shazam. As we all saw in “Day of Vengeance,” the Wizard is dead, killed at the hands of that jerk-off the Spectre, and, as we saw in “Brave New World,” the rest of the Marvel family is depowered. Unfortunately, that doesn’t bode well for the fate of everyone’s favorite resident badass of “52,” Black Adam, but, then again, I haven’t been holding out much hope for any main characters from that series coming out of it alive.

So, Captain Marvel is no longer “Captain” Marvel. He’s simply Marvel, and he’s totally cooler than anything that actual company has done in a long time. One point to take note of is how, at the beginning of this issue, he calls down the power of Shazam, and the result is a single lightning bolt, which he comments is, “brought down hard.” At the end, when he tries to switch back by calling on the power again, the result is a lightning bolt the size of a house. Marvel’s powers are going to be through the roof. He could very well wind up being the most powerful being in all of the DCU.

I’m glad they’re making this miniseries only twelve issues long. Think about how cool it’s going to be five years from now, when a big crossover mega-event is going down, and we haven’t seen from Marvel in a long, long time, and he shows up on the final page of a big issue, with warnings of imminent doom.

Isn’t that gonna be sweet?