1. "Flash Comics" by Karl Kerschl and Brenden Fletcher. "Flash Comics" has always been close to the best comics, but I don't think it's ever been as good as it is this week. In fact, it might get my vote for best individual strip out of the 135 or so I've read so far. Kerschl breaks open the whole MO of the Sunday comic strip by telling the story of Barry and Iris' relationship through appropriations of other famous cartoons. So we get little Barry Allen as Charlie Brown, and then the art style switches to "Modesty Blaise" and then (perhaps most awkwardly) we get a version of Barry and Iris as Blondie and Dagwood. There does seem to be a whiff here of Kerschl and Fletcher trying to make their best case for "hey, we're reinventing the wheel" but that doesn't stop me from enjoying how dynamic and fun to read these pages often are. It also suggests that, unlike many of the other comics, "Flash Comics" is not simply a monthly reduced to newspaper form, but is itself dependent on the standards and laws of Sunday strips, even the lamer ones. The whole thing is just ridiculously cool to look at, and Kerschl does a good job appropriating these other art styles (if nothing else, Kerschl as cemented a reputation as Wednesday Comics' most able chameleon). It's so good, in fact, that you'll hardly notice that this is the third straight week of the Flash being terrified that people are turning into monkeys. So in a way it doesn't follow any better than "Teen Titans" seems to, but the difference here is obviously the beautiful and novel risks taken here.
2. "Hawkman" by Kyle Baker. I incorrectly predicted that last issue was setting up a big battle with a T-Rex. In fact, it was only setting up further setup for the inevitable Hawkman/T-Rex confrontation, but boy am I looking forward to it now. The last shot of Katar running head on at the dinosaur is among the coolest panels I have seen yet from Baker. Hawkman's dialogue with a sassy passenger is also fun ("Listen, I know something about a T-Rex. I'm a museum curator." "I'm a superhero! And I say run!"). It's funny, because in the situation Hawkman is probably wrong. But he who has the mace gets to dictate the rules, I guess. For the second time, Aquaman is a no-show.
3. "Batman" by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso. We get something that has become more and more rare--a dynamic action scene, plus a few clear shots of Batman doing his thing. No explanation as to how Batman managed to find Luna only moments after being yelled at by Commissioner Gordon, but since this is Batman we are talking about, all is accepted. Risso's art continues to look better and better, and really shines in particular during a well-lit scene like this. The plot is otherwise pretty dispensable, and I have been waiting for several weeks now to see an interesting twist of some note. I suppose I'll have to wait even longer. Maybe Luna turns out to be less crazy than we imagine her to be. As far as filler goes, this is tops.
4. "Wonder Woman" by Ben Cadlwell. More good-looking filler along these lines here. Etta Candy returns, Wonder Woman uses her newfound lasso to attack some more henchmen, and it seems like at least some of the pieces are starting to come together. I suppose it's no coincidence that the colors seem to be getting more and more vivid as the strip progresses, and finally "Wonder Woman"" looks like it properly belongs in newsprint. Caldwell also has some good shots of a poor destitute nun, and a great horizontal panel in which Wonder Woman decides to not even bother dealing with Dr. Poison's henchmen, and just floats above them. Here as in elsewhere, we're just biding time until the end, but at least it's consistent and it looks better than almost anything else here.
5. "Deadman" by Dave Bullock and Vinton Heuck. It seems now that Bullock and Heuck have a lot of story to cover and not much time to do so. That doesn't stop us from getting the money shot that I was so looking forward to last time: Boston Brand jump-kicking the fiery axe-wielding Kalak in the face. Kalak hasn't really come across as a very interesting or provocative bad guy yet, despite his proclivities for killing and mutilating prostitutes, but he's invested with such a great look that its almost like he is an ideal villain for something like Wednesday Comics. Even his chant is great. Bullock is still the master of dynamic action sequences, the last thing one would expect from a Deadman book. Unfortunately this strip isn't as good as many of the others in part because it seems to be setting up more of what we have already seen before. As much as I occasionally like acrobatic Boston Brand battling winged demons, I'd rather the story progressed toward a conclusion. Also, Boston makes mention of a portal that would lead him to freedom, but we don't see it yet. Not Bullock's best storytelling.
6. "Strange Adventures" by Paul Pope. Pope's work is always great, but again it seems like he's drawing stuff he did before to no better effect, and the return of Adam Strange is kind of underwhelming, ignoring many of the interesting questions Pope put forth forward about the veracity of Strange's space adventures. At least a zeta beam battle is hinted at the end of this strip, which may allow for all sorts of amusing interstellar battles between Strange and Korgo, the leader of the evil Mandrillus Sphynx Monkeys. I love Pope's Escher-esque landscapes, so it's really too bad you don't get a good look at anything other than a bunch of stairs. Still, this is all nitpicking. By any other standard, "Strange Adventures" always looks great and has the kind of style and storytelling panache that the other strips can only somewhat attempt on their best weeks. If they were to do another series of Wednesday Comics, I would suggest they put Pope on something like the Justice League, and really allow him to stretch out his style and his character models.
7. "Metal Men" by Dan DiDio, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Kevin Nowlan. Doc Magnus' new oddly metrosexual antagonist Dr. Pretorius remains supremely unhelpful in this ish, but more cheery than he has been otherwise. Platinum continues to be the most worthless Metal (wo)Man, it seems that Tin might actually be dead (I love the fact that Garcia-Lopez shows him covered with rust), and Chemo is outside leaking all over the place, on the verge of a chemical reaction. All the pieces are set in place for what should be a very interesting conclusion. And DiDio seems to understand the pace of this series better than most: the last panel really suggests that we are entering the denouement, and that the Metal Men are finally going to start acting like superheroes under the tutelage of their mentor. I love how DiDio never bothers to explain why or how exactly Pretorious and Chemo came to be in league; looking back on the last eight issues, it seems that Pretorius hired a bunch of goons to hold up a bank where Doc Magnus happened to be, and then when that was foiled Pretorius threatened to blow himself up, and when that didn't work, he somehow found a way to have Chemo rip off the roof on cue. Pure, silly delight. I also like how strangely non-threatening Garcia-Lopez makes Chemo act, in contrast to how much damage he's capable of doing. Does anyone else notice that this seems to be the only strip that is more or less unfolding in real time?
8. "Sgt. Rock and Easy Co." by Adam Kubert and Joe Kubert. Like the Kuberts, I am nothing if not consistent. The only big shakeups we see this time are a) Joe deviated if ever so slightly from the nine-panel grid, and b) Sgt. Rock actually shoots someone. But then the heroic Nazi Gustav is murdered, and Rock gets clubbed in the head with a rifle, so it looks like we're back where we started. Meanwhile, we learn via caption that the group Easy Co. is hanging with is called the Partisans, only one panel before one of the members finally introduces themselves. Another member of Easy Co. (I don't know any of their names) gets the line of the week: "Yeah. Ain't nothin' easy in easy." There's some sort of poetry about that, considering just how much of a beating Sgt. Rock seems to take on an hourly basis. Beautiful pictures, pedestrian dialogue, and a plot that moves at a snail's pace: this is what we have come to expect from the Kuberts at this point. File this under "reads better collected." Although it may turn out to read better collected than a lot of the other strips that I ranked higher.
9. "Supergirl" by Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner. There are many nice touches here, and Palmiotti certainly shows a greater command of what makes Dr. Mid-Nite cool than he did of Aquaman. The explanation for Krypto and Streaky's behavior is about as silly as can be: it has something to do with solar flares, except the superpets aren't normally affected by solar flares, but this was before there was an alien spaceship in the sun! Why Dr. Mid-Nite, who I think is supposed to be a surgeon, would be on top of this, I don' know. I like that he is wearing a band-aid after last issue's scuffle. He got off surprisingly easy, though. Continually while I read this strip I keep thinking of a slightly altered one in which Krypto and Streaky reign senseless carnage Kid Miracleman-style, with dead mutilated bodies and buildings in ruin. Instead, Dr. Mid-Nite's poor owl seems to have been the most unlucky.
10. "The Demon and Catwoman" by Walt Simonson and Brian Stelfreeze. There are some things that I really like about this comic: the character of Jason Blood being among them. Unfortunately neither he nor his alter ego Etrigan have really done much of note other than listen to Morgaine Le Fay prattle on about her plans to be eternally young (and use Blood as a concubine of sorts). Finally, we get something of a reason for why Catwoman is there, although I'm not sure if her and Le Fay are switching bodies or if Le Fay is simply stealing her youth. A nice touch: Blood calling the form of Etrigan by speaking Latin, which is slightly shorter. And really, when an aging, sagging Le Fay says "Etrigan! I should have killed you centuries ago!" I wonder why she didn't think of that during the several hours when Jason Blood was right there for her to kill. Stelfreeze's art is sometimes a mixed bag but I think he draws Etrigan better than most.
11. "Kamandi: The Last Boy On Earth!" by Dave Gibbons and Ryan Sook. Sook's normally imperishable art seems to look more rushed than usual, with even the decayed ruins of the U.S. capitol not packing the sort of visual punch one would imagine. This strip has suffered from pacing problems since the beginning, and that is never more apparent than now, as it seems Kamandi and the lion clan have already made the trek to save their clan only moments after the Last Boy convinced them to come to his side. Some of the dialogue is better than usual ("'We care not, monkey,' roars great Caesar. 'We die as we lived--noble tigers.'"), but this is still hardly gripping prose, either by Grendel or by Prince Valiant standards. At the very least, we may get some beautiful monkey-lion fighting shots next issue. I hope this project isn't wearing Sook down, as he is one of the single best things about Wednesday Comics.
12. "Green Lantern" by Kurt Busiek and Joe Quinones. I guess the best thing I have seen yet in "Green Lantern" so far is the naked Joe Dillon falling to his death. Still, though, if it's taken us nine issues to get to the actual alien invasion, I find it hard to believe that Busiek has a very impressive invasion to show us. Exactly how does Hal Jordan's ring burn off the alien spore, or whatever it was, and how did he know it was a fungus? I know I'm not supposed to be asking questions like this of deliberately retro comics, but it all seems so...charmless. As if Busiek is under the mistaken impression that Hal can carry a book by his charisma alone. He is wrong. It almost makes me wish that we would return to the rest of Jordan's pilot crew, even though I hated them in the first issue. I'm only somewhat psyched about this impending invasion (if it even happens), but I doubt it will be as cool as the twist in "Hawkman."
13. "Superman" by John Arcudi and Lee Bermejo. Speaking of hoary concepts that sink upon any further recollection, we finally find out that aliens are responsible for Clark feeling sullen and lonely and homesick. As if Superman isn't perfectly capable of having these feelings on his own. Bermejo continues his streak of massive spreads in which nothing dynamic really happens, but it looks pretty nonetheless. I have no reason to hate this comic--indeed, at the beginning, I liked it a lot--but at the pace its going it seems to have no chance of offering any sort of insight on Superman's misgivings, nor does it offer much of a chance to see much of a brawl, at least nothing that we haven't seen before. If "Superman" isn't the most disappointing strip here, it is at least the one that could probably benefit from several more issues of reasoned exposition.
14. "Teen Titans" by Eddie Berganza and Sean Galloway. So last week I thought Robin and Trident were about to be locked in a death-duel, but apparently that didn't happen. Or the perspective changed, or something. One might be under the impression reading this that Galloway is using Robin and Nightwing interchangeably, as they both seem to be going after Blue Beetle but are never shown in the same shot. Was the Trident that fought before an illusion? I guess so. Why even bother tying himself up and turning into Blue Beetle? This is just a mess, storytelling, composition, and art-wise. Perhaps the least noble failure in Wednesday Comics.
15. "Metamorpho, the Element Man" by Neil Gaiman and Mike Allred. As I predicted, more of the same. Horrid, endless puns that cross the line from being knowing to simply obnoxious. Java and Stagg become more unlikeable with every issue. Urania Blackwell is seemingly dead, and Rex seems sure to follow, but we have long gone past the point where I feel as if I should care about the characters. No more of this, Gaiman. I like these sorts of ideas as much as the next person but what we have here is a lot of space and dialogue wasted, in a strip that is in need of a new and interesting concept.
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