1. "Wonder Woman" by Ben Caldwell. I've had it with the naysayers of this comic, those who say that it's "too hard to read" or hard to get through. When was the last time you had a good old-fashioned challenge reading a comic book? When was the last time you picked up something like Finnegan's Wake solely for the challenge of it, to immerse yourself in something lofty and experimental at the expense of your own sanity? Not that I am necessarily prepared to compare Caldwell to Joyce, but who knows? He's a young man. As far as I know, Caldwell is seriously breaking the mold here by separating one of the sequences here through redirecting the reader's eye leftward as opposed to the way cartoonists have done it for 100 years. For a little bit, I couldn't tell what was going on. Then I did, and boy was I impressed. Comics have tried all sorts of experiments, but a Western comic that asks you to redirect your eyes in the middle of the page? Fairly unique. Additionally, the colors seem to get better on this comic, everything looking less washed out, and the negative space showing up more clearly than ever. Think of how much this comic tries to cram, and notice how it does it so well: over the course of a page, Wonder Woman visits the underworld, fights some "black dragon goons" (we never get a good look at them, which I suppose is a Caldwell trick at this point), gets zapped by some beams of light, and this time seems to be seriously lost in sleep, suggesting that there is a linear point to WW waking up at the end of each issue (by the way, for those complaining that not enough of these are self-contained, this is probably as close as one will get). I hope Caldwell gets more respect in the future, and I encourage him to go further micro, as history will vindicate him as a new kind of talent in the future.
2. "Hawkman" by Kyle Baker. It seems like it would be difficult to pull off a Justice League strip within these pages, but it is inevitable at some point, so kudos for Kyle Baker for integrating the rest of the DC universe into Hawkman's comic in a way that makes me feel excited about a Hawkman/JLA team-up. We see Batman and Hawkgirl in silhouette, as well as a brilliant Baker rendition of the watchtower, zipping along and battling Makkorthite ships like something out of Star Trek, only better. Meanwhile, Hawkman fights the alien monster that has grown considerably since last week, and Baker's artistry really nails the beast and also illustrates how a regular-sized guy like Hawkman could take him down: through the carefully-placed application of sound effects of course. We end with a cliffhanger, with Katar having to chase down a plane falling to its death, finally having a purpose due to the fact that no other flying superheroes around (that's what I like to think Hawkman adds to the team, anyway: he flies better than most superheroes). I also must add that I am pumped that Aquaman was mentioned and I hope that he shows to back Katar up. Please let this happen.
3. "Deadman" by Dave Bullock and Vinton Heuck. For the fourth time, Bullock comes up with a page that looks beautiful and frameable in a way that most of these pages are not: dividing the comic halfway between a splash page of Kalak attempting to slice Boston Brand, and the right side of the page, which advances the action a bit and allows Boston to show off his acrobat moves, which he rarely gets a chance to use. A lot of the stories in Wednesday Comics have divised good ways of drawing issues devoted entirely to fights that don't seem like cheating for those who are looking for discrete elements of plot to be revealed each issue: I think, in terms of this, Bullock and Heuck are ahead of the pack. I think these guys should be working on a Deadman animated series, which of course would never happen, but why not? Boston is, I believe, a novel take on the tragic, conflicted yet laconic hero, and he still looks very cool.
4. "Strange Adventures" by Paul Pope. In which we finally get to see Alanna, whom I've maintained is probably getting her best treatment in a long time, show her warrior side, and Pope gets to get out the implied grotesquerie. I will once again give Pope the award for best single panel, the circle on the botoom that shows Alanna riding on some sort of rooster dog across an endless expanse of grayish space. Full disclosure: I think this comic will continue being in the top five simply for the way in which Pope draws those Mandrillus Sphynx Monkeys. Have they showed up elsewhere? I was never the biggest Adam Strange fan. Pope is also very funny (the guard who finds Alanna to be disgusting due to her lack of hair) and knows how to imply bloody retribution without actually showing it. The best thing about this comic, however, isn't the characters but rather the whirling landscapes that make me think that this is the comic to read on acid (if there's one comic you don't want to read tripping, I would suggest "Supergirl").
5. "Metamorpho, The Element Man" by Neil Gaiman and Mike Allred. Thank you Gaiman and Allred, for doing something slightly satisfying. This is by far the best issue of "Metamorpho" yet, which so far has been extremely uneven, although I must say my reaction has something to do with the return of Urania Blackwell, inevitable as I know it must have seemed for some ever since hearing about the project. You may remember her from an early issue of Gaiman's Sandman where she was extremely depressed but unable to kill herself due to her elemental powers. I wonder if that will be hinted at here. In any case, this doesn't really sound like the Gaiman I imagine, but then again I wonder if my conception of Gaimanism has relied too much on Sandman and not enough on his ability to tell tense adventure stories when he needs to. Gaiman injects a little throwback sexism (to remind readers that this is retro, of course), and a mystery silhouette (not Dr. Stagg?) explains what the Star of Atlantis is. I hope this is another comic that leads to an Aquaman cameo. I hope that's where every single comic goes from here, seguing into an Aquaman cameo. Of course, Gaiman's retroisms are ably assisted by Allred, who does this sort of stuff all the time. I daresay it's the best-looking thing he has ever done.
6. "Kamandi: The Last Boy On Earth!" by Dave Gibbons and Ryan Sook. This is also, I think, the best issue of "Kamandi" yet, with the style seeming more relaxed than before and Sook really letting loose with the Kirby craziness (a talking tiger brandishing a sword and gun jumping in the way of Kamandi and a bunch of ape soldiers), and he makes it look good. There is also, I presume, a bit of an homage to the whole Hindenberg dust-up (or maybe Gibbons is just referencing The Rocketeer). Compared to the other stuff Kirby was capable of, Kamandi was never the most original of creations (come on, Planet of the Apes), but it did provide Kirby the opportunity to make some awesome pictures. Also, I liked the way parts of the Kamandi-verse were integrated into Final Crisis last year. This is a comic that could easily go downhill, but for now I think it is getting better. Will the girl serve a purpose?
7. "Superman" by John Arcudi and Lee Bermejo. I'm surprised by the amount of bad reviews this comic keeps getting, mainly I think for the Superman/Batman dialogue that seemed uncharacteristic for some but at least for me illustrating something that would make sense in their relationship: that is, that there's a lot of stuff that Clark can't talk about without being berated. And a man can only hurt so much before he has to go home. Arcudi nails Ma and Pa Kent, really in the way I described last week, and there's a sort of pathos here that one doesn't see in other, more madcap strips. Leave it to critics to charge Arcudi with failing just because he is trying some character as opposed to plot-based. Nevertheless, this is pretty basic stuff, and I can't imagine even Arcudi can squeeze a convincing emotional arc out of this in five issues. Bermejo is great as well, really excelling in these sorts of statuesque arrangements, his evocation of a state fair Norman Rockwell-esque to merit its conclusion (although we could always see more). I hope Arcudi doesn't break down and start doing plot stuff just because that's what people expect. Just leave the alien from the first issue alone, and concentrate on Clark and his occasional depressive bouts. That makes for good reading.
8. "Sgit. Rock and Easy Co." by Adam Kubert and Joe Kubert. I'm putting this on here mainly because it looks cool, as the plot is still paper-thin, although I don't know if that is pretty normal by Sgt. Rock standards. Certainly, watching Mr. Rock get his ass beat for four consecutive issues doesn't have nearly the effect on me it probably would if I actually knew much about the property. Still, he's in there for diversity's sake (war comics being an underrated property for too long) and plus this is Joe Kubert. The funny thing about Kubert is that for a guy with such old-school credentials, the level of detail he puts into each panel is startlingly modern. The welts on Rock's face look shockingly brutal, and the Russian lady doesn't look like a nondescript woman but rather someone who has gone through what one would bet she would have had to go through. There's only so much more I can take of this, however, until it becomes Saw or something similarly brutal/voyeuristic. Hopefully the Kuberts don't go the route of laying massive amounts of retributive pain on Nazis to make us feel better (which seems to be what Quentin Tarantino's new picture is more or less trying to do). This is a consistent comic with beautiful art. While not exactly advancing at the pace I'd like, it is far from unsatisfying.
9. "Flash Comics" by Karl Kerschl and Brendan Fletcher. Unfortunately, I have had to take this once-brilliant comic down a peg as the central conceit seems to not allow for the storytelling opportunities I imagined at the beginning of the series: I hope this is a minor setback. There seems to be less of a relationship between "The Flash" and "Iris West," as I know one doesn't necessarily follow the other, but with time travel being a basic plot point, I thought that wouldn't matter. Maybe the better thing to do would be to read all the Iris strips in order once they are all collected, and then all the Flash strips, but again, I thought Kerschl was going to have them refer to each other in unexpected and offbeat ways. You might also notice that, aside from Caldwell, Kerschl is cramming as much in the page as anyone, and for this reason alone I continue to trust him. He's very good at detail, and he manages to integrate disparate figures like the Flash and Gorilla Grodd into the panel in ways that look almost (but not quite) non-ridiculous. If I had to guess, I would say I enjoy the Iris strip more than the superhero one.
10. "Metal Men" by Dan Didio, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Kevin Nowlan. I also have no idea why this strip isn't geting more respect, considering that it is trying to do humor and does it I think more respectfully than Supergirl. This time however, the strip ends on a semi-serious note, with one of the robbers threatening to suicide-bomb the entire bank. Didio allows for some good observations (why is Mercury colored that way?), and works in an uncomfortable romantic subplot between Platinum and Doc Magnus. Didio is surely covering a lot of territory and making use of every panel he has, and the art is even more game, illustrating the slight seriousness of the situation in spite of the goofy antics of the Metal Men. Didio's idea seems to be to have the Metal Men do something goofy and put more people at danger as a result: it's a new play on the superheroes-doing-more-harm-than-good archetype. Or maybe it's meant to be straight-up silly. Nevertheless, I give Didio points for the dialogue here.
11. "The Demon & Catwoman" by Walt Simonson and Brian Stelfreeze. Here is an example of a comic that seems exciting and well-done but leaves very little impression. While the vibe here is very new-school decompressed storytelling, the two leads seem to lack much in the way of personality, which I understand is easy enough to do with Etrigan and Catwoman (Jason Blood was always the more interesting guy, anyway). Also, I don't really get how Etrigan sometimes rhymes and sometimes doesn't (unless there's a sonnet scheme that I'm not really detecting, the kind of thing Alan Moore did in Swamp Thing). The comic also ends on an odd note, with the Catwoman creature sort of stuck in mid-air, Etrigan having taken her out easily, and we wonder if perhaps decompression is the wrong word to use. I just worry that a lot of this action won't be followed upon, but perhaps with Etrigan on his way to fight evil, things might either pick up or slow down. Either way, I'm fine.
12. "Batman" by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso. This is not Batman's best week. The noir vibe will only go so far when the hapless hero and femme fatale seem incapable of anything other than cliches. Surely, this wouldn't seem too far out of place in "Rex Morgan," if the silhouettes were creepier. I have alarmingly little to say about this edition of Batman. This is some sort of strained comic book idea of what constitutes flirting for rich people, and it's disconcerting not because we believe Bruce Wayne isn't capable of this but because Azzarello is treading on such worn material. Risso's art is good at suggesting that there are things already at work that I am not perceiving (playing with bat shadows and casual could-be-symbols). Azzarello is basically setting this up like 100 Bullets, so I can only imagine there will be some mindfuck five or six issues down the line. I'm sure, when it happens, I will realize how stupid I was.
13. "Teen Titans" by Eddie Berganza and Sean Galloway. Galloway's style, as confusing as ever, is at least not impenetrable like last time. I am able to tell now, for instance, that Triton managed to do some damage against the Titans ambulance ship, or whatever it is. Yet new confusions arise. How did Triton get back up there? Was he there in the first place? Where is everyone now? I gather that they are in some sort of water at the end. Were they near an ocean? Was I supposed to recognize this before. I blame my own severe ignorance. Triton is not a villain I'm very excited about, to be honest, as he seems to be very much part of that quasi-badass villain mode that was so popular in the 90s. Still, there is some intrigue here. What did the Titans do that was so horrible, as to not deserve any honor? Perhaps the unmasking of this boring villain will explain something. I suppose that is what will happen. Maybe it will be time travel. Whatever.
14. "Green Lantern" by Kurt Busiek and Joe Quinones. I have to make clear that I am preternaturally biased against Hal Jordan, if I hadn't acknowledged that already, and this comic didn't help change my conception of Jordan as an essentially smug, overbearing, callous asshole. Even the Human Torch has an iota of self-doubt. Meanwhile, Busiek basically writes Jordan for what he is, a prick, talking to some other prick we saw change into an alien last issue. In all, this strip is moving at a snail's pace, and Busiek isn't doing the best job at having some sort of hook to draw us in each issue. All we see here are two douchebag white guys talking shit to each other. At least Jordan's inexplicable Eskimo sidekick isn't around this time...
15. "Supergirl" by Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner. I can't write about this strip without sounding like a dick. I know it will probably get better. Conner's facial expressions on Streaky are priceless. Nevertheless, this is by far the most inconsequential seeming comic included here, and nothing really happens that didn't happen last issue as well. It seems Palmiotti can only go so far with this idea (pets gone rogue!) and it is really starting to show. Beyond that, I don't want to say anything that will only make me sound stupider once I have read it in its entirety.
Hi...it's Juell. I like this blog, even though I don't know very much about comics. I have always liked the fact that you are very good at teaching me about things that I don't know much about.
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