Wednesday Comics #5

In which it seems that most of these comics get better each issue, some are seemingly on a plateau (for better or worse), and a few, just a few will probably turn out to be bad ideas.

1. "Metamorpho, The Element Man" by Neil Gaiman and Mike Allred. What a comeback! This resembles the kind of offbeat modernist take on one of the hoariest of silver age concepts that Gaiman seemed to have been promising in the first issue, before being sidetracked by massive splash pages and cutesy reader inquiries. My continuing quest to detect Gaiman's authorial "voice" within this story may be a fruitless one, as this story is constructed almost deliberately to lack the weight and density of a normal Gaiman story, but I will make do with vaguely British dialogue and the continuing presence of Urania Blackwell. In this issue, it turns out for some reason that Simon Stagg brings along a catering crew to his many adventures, but unfortunately the French cuisine is almost spoiled when someone unseen unleashes deadly poison chlorine gas. Rex and Urania, using their 8th grade chemistry skills, figure that using their powers to combine sodium and chlorine will create a rain of table salt. The French chef complains in a stereotypical way, and really all of this is over the top, but of course with Allred at the helm it's all meant to look arch and pop and we expect this sort of ridiculousness. I wonder if Gaiman will have this go deadly serious at some point, however, given what we know of Urania. I wouldn't put it past him to backtrack on all this nouveau-pop stuff and attempt some of his old meta-tricks. My personal favorite touch: Java snacking on his buffalo, unaware of the deadly chlorine gas killing everyone else.

2. "Batman" by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso. This comic also gets points for improving drastically this week, in part because we finally get to see the title character in action, doing one of the things I love seeing him do the most--chilling in the batcave, mulling over clues, and getting harassed by Alfred. It's also the best-looking strip I think Risso has done so far, due to a seriously odd take on Alfred that certainly brings out some of the butler's dormant Semitic features (I kid, maybe?). Risso's big-lipped take on Wayne is also, as far as I can tell, highly novel, as most artists still tend to draw him as a broad-shouldered, blandly handsome rich guy whose haircut never changes (come on, at least Superman had a mullet for a little bit). Azzarello has Alfred do one of the things he always does best, which is make vague comments about Bruce's sex life, which always makes Bruce uncomfortable. As for how this fits into the larger story, I'd say that Azzarello would be taking the easy way out if he were to have Bruce being set up by the femme fatale of the last issue. I expect a lot of double-crosses in the next seven weeks, but surely Batman has handled far harder cases. Still, this issue shows more promise than the last several.

3. "Deadman" by Dave Bullock and Vinton Heuck. The perennial underdog continues its story with aplomb as we continue with the increasingly desperate adventures of Boston Brand, the depowered Deadman who is now forced once again to use his acrobat skills. As one would imagine, being dead for as long as Brand has has made him pretty rusty. Bullock is good at crafting forward-momentum in this fight scene and it all looks so great, particularly the money shot at the end (I think Bullock should get more points than he does for investing at least one panel each with the kind of compositional pizazz that could take decades to perfect). It is here we pause, because it seems that the demons have succeeded in killing Brand, so where does he go now? Is he dead for serious? Will he just come back again? It's possibly the single most engrossing narrative in Wednesday Comics, as well as the most consistently good. If you get Bullock and Heuck on a monthly Deadman book, I will buy it.

4. "Strange Adventures" by Paul Pope. We continue the adventures of the newly-escaped Alanna, hiding under a gnarly tree with the rooster-dog of last issue. No Mandrillus sphynx monkeys this time, unfortunately, which will cost Pope a few points, but seriously: Pope has managed to corner the market on old-school sci-fi visuals that are like amphetamine-driven versions of pulps past. Pope's evocation of Strange's zeta beam makes a brief comeback, but more important, I can look at the middle panel of Alanna in shelter, with its mangy trees and bizarre stalactites, forever. I'm curious to see what Adam is up to now but I wouldn't really mind if Pope kept up the story of Alanna indefinitely.

5. "Wonder Woman" by Ben Caldwell. Caldwell continues his rejiggering of the Wonder Woman mythos by having Diana come into contact with Priscilla Rich, who in the regular DC universe is known as Wonder Woman's arch-nemesis Cheetah. At this point I think Diana is getting the idea that these aren't particularly normal dreams, and this gradual realization is partially why I can handle how repetitive each self-contained story seems to be, especially as we realize that Diana is gradually finding all the tools she needs, this issue the quest being for the tiara of the Sakyamunis. If DC wanted to do some sort of "ultimate" take on the character, they would be wise to use this as the blueprint. As usual, people are leveling claims to the effect that there's too much going on in each issue, as if that's ever an issue, and as I keep saying, it's still a lot easier for me to follow than something like, say, "Teen Titans." Especially, with having a recognizable villain like Ms. Rich, I think the way "Wonder Woman" is set up encourages new readers to absorb this strip as discrete episodes that could or could not be part of a larger narrative. Caldwell's choice of layouts, splitting linear panels into horizontal and vertical strips packed with detail, is unmatched here or elsewhere. This man needs more respect, and less discouragement from people who think this comic does too much.

6. "Hawkman" by Kyle Baker. Not much happens this issue, and both the aliens and the Justice League are nowhere to be found, leaving Katar alone to deal with a plane that seems to be heading for its doom. The funny thing here is that it seems like Hawkman fails, only managing to steer the plane into an island where we can only presume no one is going to make it out alive. And yet that would seem like a bummer for anyone who has been reading and enjoying Hawkman as much as I have, leading me to believe that maybe (just maybe) Aquaman is going to come to the rescue now that they are, at the very least, on land. Baker is good here at mixing Hawkman's fruitless attempts to steer the plane using nth metal technology and showing brief snapshots of hapless passengers, a few of which we have seen before, as they prepare for the worst. It does seem uncommonly horrible and serious for a comic like this, particularly given America's recent track record with plane crashes. Still, Baker's photorealistic yet expressive style makes this a comic that is always fun to watch even when very little actually happens. I think I read somewhere that Baker was already able to finish all his comics months before deadline, which is even more astonishing given how much detail seems to be already present.

7. "Kamandi: The Last Boy On Earth!" by Dave Gibbons and Ryan Sook. Speaking of money shots, Sook puts his at the beginning of the comic as opposed to the end, and it's quite a good one: from left to right, we have Prince Tuftan attacking a rifle-bearing ape with a sword, and knocking said ape off his motorcycle; in the middle, we have Kamandi tackling another ape, this one holding a bazooka; and to the right, in the background, we have the smoldering crater of what was once Dr. Canus' blimp. This is the stuff great films are made of. The rest of the comic, speciesism aside (Kamandi crying, "we are not animals, we are human!" before roundhouse-kicking the ape leader, which as you know is both true and false), is quality art as well, and the writing lags only slightly. Working in this particular style, it is easy to tell that Gibbons is no great prose stylist, and much of the description here is unnecessary given what we can tell of the action. Wednesday Comics was conceived at the outset as a project where art was supposed to be as or more important than the writing talent, and that is never more obvious than in this beautiful-looking but slightly vacant piece of work.

8. "Flash Comics" by Karl Kerschl and Brendan Fletcher. It is getting more and more difficult to tell what is happening with this comic. I know, it's time travel, and that in itself is supposed to be sufficient reason to not ask too many questions, but what exactly is the relationship between the Flash and Iris strips, at this point? Are there three Flashes running around? Is the one from the future the one that's consorting with Iris? Perhaps they were unrelated all this time. Seriously, though, without the Flash comic to back it up, "Iris West" is completely pedestrian, so I hope the links are made more clear as the comic continues. Similarly, I can't really tell what's going on with either Flash in the other comic, other than one is floating in space, mabe, and one is frozen in a block of ice. Or maybe one of them went through time, and the other managed to escape the block of ice and is now floating in space. I dig Kerschl's take on Gorilla Grodd, a villain who tends to be overused. I just hope that Kerschl and Fletcher go the "hey it's old-school Flash, so therefore, here's time travel" route, and really work on integrating time travel elements in new and interesting ways.

9. "Sgt. Rock and Easy Co." by Adam Kubert and Joe Kubert. This strip continues to get the award for looking great even as virtually nothing continues to happen. This time, we are almost, almost on the verge of Sgt. Rock being capped after several weeks of torture and critical beatdowns at the hands of Nazis, and of course the very idea of the Nazis successfully shooting Rock in the face gives me chills. Fortunately, that doesn't happen, but for a stupid reason: the guns is jammed. Seems like the sort of convenient and hoary excuse utilized by first-time writers, if you'll forgive my impetuousness. Still, how can I fault this comic when it looks as good as it does? Damn, it is vibrant. All the detail here is in this faces and hardware, and backgrounds are virtually non-existent, a true nod to the silver age and further, to the era of episodic strips. I do wish that the plot would advance a little bit (we don't even get anything interesting from the side adventure with easy company), but maybe next time...

10. "Metal Men" by Dan DiDio, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Kevin Nowlan. This strip isn't as enjoyable here as it has been in recent weeks, and the entire contents herein, where Magnus has a conversation with a fellow scientist who plans to kill himself out of jealousy, seems redundant and silly. DiDio was getting a few good cracks here and there before but this issue is almost as deadly serious as it is implausible, which is always a bad combination. Still, even without the yuks of the Metal Men, the comic looks great and seems to be building itself towards a spectacular scientist beatdown in week 7 or so. "I resemble that remark" is corny, though, and should have been excised, I don't care if it is silver age-ish or what. Not much else to say about this comic, so deliberately middling week after week.

11. "Supergirl" by Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner. Conner gets major points here for the last panel, which shows an exasperated Supergirl threatening to take a newly calm Krypto and Streaky to the supervet, or whatever. Unfortunately, Baker's "Hawkman" covers more or less the same territory this week (seriously, it's been a bad time to do plane crash stories for a while now) and Baker does a better job coming up with a finish that leaves me expecting more. I have to admit that Conner's Supergirl does look great, though, more like a teenager than we have come to expect. Everything else is inconsequential by comparison, and I am surprised by how much more good press this is getting than something like "Deadman."

12. "The Demon and Catwoman" by Walter Simonson and Brian Stelfreeze. I'm not sure why this couldn't have just been a Demon comic with Catwoman as the occasional guest star, as Selina has been running around in cat form for several issues running and hasn't really done a damn thing as a result. I also can't figure out Etrigan's rhyme scheme for the most part. It occurs to me that I haven't talked about Stelfreeze's art yet, for the simple reason that nothing about it really jumps out at you, although it's not like he makes anything hard to follow. This comic does seem like it isn't really utilizing the larger page to its full effect, as all the panels here are big enough to shrink down to normal size without losing much of the flavor (kind of like "Sgt. Rock" except in that case one can enjoy the pock marks on Sgt.'s face in better view). I love a Demon story as much as anyone else, but this comic hasn't even begun to delve into the Kirby-inspired wackiness that great writers have been able to utilize. Maybe if we see some more action, I will change my mind.

13. "Superman" by John Arcudi and Lee Bermejo. I've been on record as saying that I have been enjoying this Superman strip more than a lot of people, but even at this point I think it's beginning to lose me. It looks great, really, particularly in how Bermejo splits the page evenly between Kryptonian and earth-related happenings (often without even separating panels), and Krypton's red landscape is particularly brilliant. Still, this is all stuff we've seen so many times already, and we are already in the fifth issue. A bit of intrigue is allowable in the last panel, but not much. Great storyboards for a video game? Maybe. A gateway strip for an innovative new serialized comic? Not really. Pathos will only get you so far, even with a character like Superman.

14. "Teen Titans" by Eddie Berganza and Sean Galloway. I am still unable to tell if everyone is on an ocean or what exactly is going on. There is something new and odd here that could work in succeeding issues--telling the story from the position of medical caretakers who can't stand the ways in which superheroes so brazenly risk lives and the lives of others. But of course, this doesn't go too far, as we are witness to superheroes acting truly and selflessly to save Blue Beetle, who apparently doesn't make it. Is this supposed to be a strip about the unintended consequences of collateral damage caused by superhero fights? Or is it merely trying to sound like something that novel when in actuality the idea isn't really there, and instead we have a hodge-podge of random Teen Titans interacting in ways that really don't make sense? It depends on what Berganza and Galloway are planning in the future.

15. "Green Lantern" by Kurt Busiek and Joe Quinones. In this issue, Hal Jordan flashes back to the time when he knew someone who was almost as much of a prick as he is. That man was Joe Dillon, who you remember turning into an alien earlier. If you think "hotheadedness" is a great and original character trait that hasn't been beaten to death by comics already, you'll probably love the interaction between these two douchebags as they try to compete for the opportunity to go into space. As usual, Jordan is unsympathetic and really quite loathsome when it comes down to it; similarly, this comic has very little else going for it. This is probably the worst work I have ever seen from Busiek, a usually brilliant guy. Oh well, we can't always be 15 for 15.