Intro/Wednesday Comics #1

Hi. This is kind of an experiment/challenge to see if I can write some sort of semi-regular feature on a weekly basis. Wednesday Comics is a weekly, limited 12-issue series published by DC Comics, which you may have heard of due to the not undeserved amount of positive hype and press it received, particularly in how it shows that DC, one of the biggest comic publishers out there and probably, of the "big two," the most conservative in terms of orientation and approach (being that the continued success of DC Comics largely banks on a half-dozen characters created prior or during World War II, a good dozen during the late 50s/early 60s, and a handful of other concepts since, and their readership seems to prefer it that way) is not incapable of trying something new and, given the restrictions of the medium, somewhat radical. Wednesday Comics is not structured in the style of your typical, linear 20-something page comic book adventure format, printed on sheets double the length of 6 1/2" x 10 1/8" (I should add that there is nothing wrong with this, and that plenty of great writers have been able to plenty of radical stuff within this format [and there's plenty of examples of that you can find elsewhere, and if you can't, I'll be happy to give you a few pointers]). Wednesday Comics can, by contrast, be folded out to 14" x 20" and is printed on newspaper-type paper, deliberately meant to evoke the glossy linears of today but rather the Sunday comic strips of yore (let's forget that these strips still exist today and are, for the most part, embarrassing).

DC managed to pull together quite a package for this one, and it's partially why the hype is so deserved. Altogether, there are 15 different comics present, each a page long, each starring a different established DC property. Each of the 15 different creative teams, nearly all masters of their field, were given carte blanche to devise a self-contained story sans any continuity save what they wished to impose--the result is that, at the end, we should have 15 twelve-page long oversized stories filled with gorgeous art that will at the very least seem like an appealing throwback to the more self-contained days of comics' golden and silver age days. What's more, these stories are all diverse enough properties, and utilize such an odd variety of writers and artists, that it seems very unlikely that one would pick it up and find nothing one would like, or reread incessantly.

I should say that part of why I was so interested in this comic is because of the extreme pedigree that comes along with it. You have Neil Gaiman, well-known for Sandman as well as recent literary and film endeavors, working with Mike Allred, an artist known for his subversive appropriation of pop-style art in indie books like Madman. There's quite an indie presence here in general, actually. Some of my favorites include Paul Pope, who I like most for Heavy Liquid; Kyle Baker, who did Birth of A Nation with Aaron McGruder; and Brian Azzarello, who has done a lot of stuff including 100 Bullets (drawn by Eduardo Risso, who collaborates here as well). There are also a fair amount of mainstream creators here, no less renowned for their brilliant works using established superhero properties. Simply put, I was extremely curious.

What I will attempt to do in this blog is provide a running counter of how I feel about the whole project. I assume, simply from Issue 1 alone, that I will mostly be pleased. I feel it is necessary to state that it feels hard to judge the stories' intrinsic worth based on one page alone (and a crucial reason, I would imagine, why DC probably feels it is taking a huge gamble with this story). I don't make any claim to say that this is anything other than my own opinion, and that it will at any given time probably change severely as these stories progress. With that in mind, I will provide a weekly ranking, from 1 to 15, of which stories I think are most successful, story and art-wise, and which aren't. Since I'm much more of a writing guy than an art guy, this review may be disproportionately focused on content--I'm truly sorry if that angers anyone (really, should it, though?), but I am making an honest attempt to work through these obvious issues on my part. Anyway, I hope my commentary is enlightening, even if at first it will probably be pretty slight. I'm working on one damn page, each, so, you know...

1. "Strange Adventures" by Paul Pope. Even right out of the gate it is incredibly difficult to choose, but I have a feeling my decision will turn out to be more righteous than I thought, 11 weeks down the line. The art here is just staggering in its fluidity and its offbeat nature, and I can't help but pore through this page multiple times in a row, even as I write this. In fact, I would nominate the panel of the horrifyingly blue baboon-like "Mandrillus Sphynx Monkeys" raining down on our heroes' Escher-esque stair and bridgescape as the best individual panel in the whole package. Pope is obviously trying to bring the Adam Strange character back to the old-school pulp it could never quite inhabit in the shared DC universe, so that's why you get Alanna's whacky costume and facepaint as well as the aforementioned death rain of monkeys. Also, "Strange Adventures" gets further points for Pope's lettering style, deliberately eschewing the clean typeface more or less made standard in the last 70 years. I'm excited for what's going to happen, too...what, really, can even Adam Strange do, flying with his jet pack armed with his pistol to attack an entire invading army? It's just beautiful, and Adam and Alanna's conversations are touching in their brevity.

2. "Flash Comics" by Karl Kerschl and Brenden Fletcher. Kerschl and Fletcher really surprised me by playing further with the oversized format: dividing their section into two sections, the first being a solid adventure strip, "The Flash," in which Barry Allen engages in some witty repartee with Gorilla Grodd and then foils his evil bomb plot, only to remember that in his rush for justice, he has forgotten about his wife Iris. Flash forward to "Iris West," a comic deliberately meant to evoke old romance comics via the often-used-to-convey-staid-50s-values artistic canard of benday dots (kind of like pointillism, with the dots grouped so close together they looked filled in, unless you blew up the picture or looked very closely). "Iris West" deliberately follows upon the Flash's adventures by showing a furious Iris West, stood up at dinner yet again, prepared to leave Barry forever. Except she realizes (rationally) that it would be horrible to end their marriage simply by leaving a note for Barry saying she was leaving forever, but when she tries to talk to him, he has already vibrated elsewhere (the Flash can vibrate, leave it at that). I love the parallel storylines here--I hope Kerschl and Fletcher find new and interesting ways of intertwining these stories in the future.

3. "Deadman" by Dave Bullock and Vinton Heuck. One of the great things about Wednesday Comics is that it allows DC comics to make marquee names out of characters that probably couldn't carry a successful book. Take Deadman, a sort of brilliant concept, a conflicted quasi-hero who is literally dead, in the sense that he was shot and now roams around all day as a spirit that no one can see or touch. The difference between Deadman and other, uh, dead people is that Deadman can inhabit the bodies of living people and make them do his bidding (half the time in comics where Deadman appears, he has to spend a long time convincing people that yes it is Deadman, and no he isn't fucking with them, and I always thought there should be some comic where someone like Green Arrow tries to get out of monitor duty by claiming to be actually Deadman, and he has to go do something important). Anyway, what I most appreciated about this strip, despite its slight and slightly derivative nature, is the extremely helpful way it encapsulates Deadman's origin, which is hard enough to do in a regular comic book but even harder to do in a one-page spread, but Bullock and Heuck pull it off well. It also ends on an improbable high note--Deadman has found the killer already? What is he going to do for the next 11 issues? Also, beautiful art, slightly reminiscent of the Batman and Superman animated series of the 90s.

4. "Hawkman" by Kyle Baker. More absolutely mind-blowing art, particularly the middle spread, the exceptionally awesome looking Hawkman with mace in tow, being flanked by hundreds of killer looking birds. While the means behind this story is somewhat suspect (I was not aware that Hawkman had any affinity with birds, the same way that Aquaman does with fish), I like that it takes the point of view of the birds surrounding Hawkman, leaving us to guess what the hero's intention is. Even tough we assume it's probably to somehow board a plane being held hostage by murderous, unshaven, white (!) terrorists.

5. "Kamandi: The Last Boy On Earth!" by Dave Gibbons and Ryan Sook. You may remember Dave Gibbons as the artist of Watchmen, if you are the sort of extreme layman who will only pay attention to this post if I mention Watchmen, which was made into a movie, don'tcha know! Kamandi is one of Jack Kirby's coolest and most underused creations in my book (although Grant Morrison utilized both Kamandi as well as the Command D bunker in Final Crisis, to my everlasting delight), and Gibbons does well to encapsulate the feelings of the Last Boy On Earth by employing the sometimes tired trope of integrated prose rather than word or thought balloons--it works here well, especially in contrast to the majority of other comics that are not so narration-oriented. Gibbons isn't exactly pushing new territory with Kamandi yet, and it's basically a textbook example of how to set up all the obvious stuff so you can get to something meatier, but Kirby's concept alone more than makes up for it: Kamandi navigating by raft through decaying flooded New York City, with buildings half underwater, finally making it to his Command D bunker (where the last of his kind hid away from radiation poisoning after the Great Disaster). He is the Last Boy On Earth, in case you didn't know, until bam! Wait until next issue.

6. "Metamorpho, The Element Man" by Neil Gaiman and Mike Allred. Gaiman's deliberately old-school riff on the classically maladjusted DC icon doesn't really contain much of Gaiman's voice (in that there's scarcely any talk of myths, or other worlds, or Shakespeare, or Elizabethan Nick Fury), and it seems that Gaiman's Metamorpho and the world he inhabits is firmly rooted in the 60s, which were far simpler times comics-wise, they always tell me. Because of this, though, Allred's art is all too perfect at evoking Gaiman's pastoral (see previous note on benday dots) retroisms. It seems like Gaiman is setting up the story nicely, in any case, as well as the characters. Rex Mason, otherwise known as Metamorpho, the Element Man (although people still mostly call him Mason) lives with Simon Stagg, a billionaire adventurer who employs Mason on his crazy explorations. Also along for the ride is Java, Simon's man-child muscle, and Sapphire Stagg, the beautiful daughter who Rex pines for (and doesn't really do much to hide it) but can never have because of his freakish nature. If you recall the Gaiman Sandman story with Element Girl (and if you do I want to be your friend), you should know that this doesn't resemble that story in any way.

7. "Batman" by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso. This is supposed to be the big selling point of Wednesday Comics--not only does it feature the most famous hero of all, but it is done by the team of Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso, fresh off the 100 issues of success that was 100 Bullets. Is this as successful? I'm not sure. The art is pretty great, although I'm not sure if Risso's facial expressions are meant to suggest what they do--Batman looks pretty pained in one panel when one would think that he would be stone-faced as usual, but hey, this is artistic liberty being taken and it's about time someone tried it. I have no idea why Commissioner Gordon wouldn't call Batman in a bit sooner, also. Of all the comics here, this seems like the one that would have the least difficulty transitioning into a regular linear comic, although as stated before, I reserve the right to be completely wrong about that. It's nothing we haven't read before, but Batman and Gordon's dialogue at the beginning is tops, and knowing Azzarello, it will probably be apropos by the end of Batman's short journey.

8. "Sgt. Rock and Easy Co." by Adam Kubert and Joe Kubert. It's an incredible-looking comic, with art that looks pleasingly retro in a non-intentional sense (what I mean is that Joe Kubert isn't trying to imitate a style, he is that style). All that's really present throughout the whole comic is Sgt. Rock's increasingly bloodied and broken face, as he gets punched by Nazis. The main Nazi looks suitably sinister, and what's up with the dude taking pictures? A novel storytelling technique, naturally. This one shows major promise even if it does seem slight on first reading.

9. "Superman" by John Arcudi and Lee Bermejo. This is, of course, DC's other flagship character, and of all the comics present it is the only one being published in an actual newspaper, USA Today. The issue of a comic taking up more space in a newspaper already notorious for its lack of content aside, "Superman" stands on its own due to a quasi-interesting (if done plenty elsewhere, I'm sure) cliffhanger and the art of Lee Bermejo, which is beautifully detailed and makes great use of white space. The alien that Superman is fighting seems far from threatening, and we don't really know yet why Superman is complaining about having to fight him when it seems like he started it, but Bermejo really nails Superman's expression in that last panel. Don't know much about Arcudi, but I will keep the faith for now.

10. "Metal Men" by Dan Didio, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Kevin Nowlan. This might end up being Wednesday Comics' closest thing to a self-contained, punchline-centered funny that we would expect from a Sunday paper. It's also legitimately amusing, I think, but you probably won't think so if you don't know anything about the Metal Men, their different personalities, or why they are hanging out with a scientist whose only visual accessory is a tobaco pipe. Judging from the fashions, I assume this is supposed to take place during the 60s, but I can't tell really what style Didio is trying to ape or why. Still, Gold's comment is funny at the end, as are the rest of the Metal Men's costumes. I hope "Metal Men" ends up being the goto punchline-oriented comic of the bunch, if only so it will cause a renaissance of Metal Men-related comics in the future.

11. "Wonder Woman" by Ben Caldwell. Caldwell gets points for trying to cram the most material into his page, although on second reading it doesn't seem as if Wonder Woman's interaction with the birds really matter to the degree that he couldn't have spread it out a little. But that's never what Wednesday Comics is about, anyway. I appreciate Caldwell's novel technique of utilizing all available space, confining small moments and gestures to tiny panels within panels that still, for the most part, seem to follow very well. While I am sick of the whole "it was just a dream, except it obviously isn't" technique as much as anyone else is, it's worth it to see a semi-serious and semi-new iteration of the Wonder Woman character, one that seems closer to her mythic roots and eschews most of the superhero stuff since.

12. "Green Lantern" by Kurt Busiek and Joe Quinones. Like "Metal Men" and "Metamorpho," this comic is deliberately retro, perhaps an attempt by Busiek to rejigger the Gil Kane-era Lantern in a self-conscious, "remember the Cold War?" sort of way. Except Hal Jordan doesn't appear until the last panel, and he doesn't do anything particular interesting in that panel. The rest of it is devoted to Green Lantern's supporting cast, which for my money was never the most interesting support group out there--Pie is a low-rent Jimmy Olsen type sidekick that no civic-minded writer dares to use anymore, and Carol Ferris is this completely implausible character who is stunningly beautiful, runs the test pilot site where Jordan works, and occasional has superpowers but is villainous, for some reason. I never will be as big a Hal Jordan fan as some people, I guess--his self-absorption, his ease with the ladies, his conservative ideals, even the merit-based reasons by which he gains his superpowers, kind of make him the anti-Spider-Man. Forget Superman, he's the least relatable guy out there. So far, Busiek hasn't really sown the seeds of anything to look forward to.

13. "The Demon and Catwoman" by Walter Simonson and Brian Stelfreeze. I have no idea why these characters were lumped together, but there is promise here. My main issue is that Simonson is basically making Catwoman out to be a harpy for no reason, attempting to use her feminine abilities to have her way with Jason Blood, which doesn't work of course because Jason Blood is far too important for that sort of thing. Whatever. This characterization of Catwoman is too easy and needs to be stopped. Is Catwoman really supposed to be so stunning and beguiling that she basically only steals as an afterthought, in between bouts of sleeping with random men? And is Simonson making it so that Selina can talk to cats like Hawkman can now talk to birds? Also, Blood seems remarkably off his guard. Why would he even entertain a woman like this, when he would rather spend his days practicing magicks? Still, I have a feeling this will improve, as a confrontation between Catwoman and Etrigan has to happen, and I would love to see Catwoman get incinerated, or at least get her ass kicked, for her foolish and self-absorbed behavior.

14. "Supergirl" by Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner. Cutesy, with not a lot going on. I'm not sure which Supergirl this is supposed to be, but assuming that the bulk of this will involve her chasing around Streaky the Supercat and Krypto the Superdog, I'm sure this will get tedious. Some concepts were best left un-revamped forever--this is one of them. Perhaps there may be some intrigue involving why exactly Streaky and Krypto are acting like such assholes. It better be a downright interesting reason, I have to say. The art is also kind of generic, but at the very least Amanda Conner draws a respectable, non-jailbait Supergirl, which of course means we should all give her extreme props, if only for that. I just don't see this story going anywhere. Prove me wrong, please.

15. "Teen Titans" by Eddie Berganza and Sean Galloway. Berganza should have taken his cue from "Deadman" in figuring out how to incorporate an origin in such a small space. As it stands, this seems like the biggest failure of the bunch. A bad guy calling himself Trident wants to be known as the first bad guy named Trident to really matter, and muses on all the different iterations of the Teen Titans before impaling some Martian Manhunter lady (who the fuck is that, by the way?). Since I am not emotionally invested in the Martian Manhunter lady and I know that if she is anything like the actual Martian Manhunter that there's no way being impaled could kill her (right?), there's not much for me to go on. Also, the art is sort of faux-cartoony and faux-eastern in a way that made me hate the Teen Titans cartoon back in the day. Also, it's hard to tell where everything is or why this is happening. Improve yourself!

Overall, though, this is a fantastic concept. I know at this point I'm only nitpicking, and I bet many of these series will only get better in the next few weeks. I will remain a loyal customer, and will continue ranking these series as each becomes more substantial. Until next week...