Comic Picks By The Glick

A strain of bitter cynicism flows through all of Warren Ellis’ work for Marvel.  Usually this manifests as characters openly mocking superhero conventions while expressing their friendly contempt for their comrades-in-tights.  When done right, this can enliven familiar setups as seen in “Nextwave:  Agents of H.A.T.E.”  Applied incorrectly and you get a strained superhero bitch-fest like “Avengers:  Endless Wartime" that makes you wonder how these people can function as a team at all.  Ellis “Karnak” miniseries is probably the first time this bitter cynicism has been the whole point of the exercise.  We’re introduced to the Inhuman who trained himself to see the flaw in all things contemplating a stone cube and telling his students at the Tower of Wisdom that they are no better than these stones before he’s whisked off to a S.H.I.E.L.D. outpost in the North Atlantic.  It turns out that a teenager who has recently undergone terrigenesis was kidnapped by an A.I.M. splinter group.  Karnak agrees to get the kid back for a million-dollar fee from S.H.I.E.L.D. and, from the parents, the single thing which allows them to believe that the universe is a kind and wonderful place.

That should give you a pretty good idea of the kind of person we’re dealing with here.  Ellis paints a picture of a man who was born without any gifts, denied the chance to change through terrigenesis, and then spent the rest of his life learning how to break things and bring everyone down to his level.  Make no mistake, this is a vicious and mean-spirited book to read but that actually makes it feel somewhat refreshing compared to most other Marvel comics.  It works because that approach fits with the character of Karnak as established here and isn’t just doing these things for the sake of doing them.  The writer’s approach is also distractingly on-the-nose at some points, though his random bits of nastiness don’t feel as out-of-place as they have in his previous Marvel work.  Gerardo Zaffino and Roland Boschi provide some effectively warped artwork that further makes this not a book for everyone, but one that I found to be an interesting portrait of a person who exploits the flaws in others because he doesn’t want a better life for himself than that.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

I went into this volume with high hopes regarding the promised origin of Principal Gakuho Asano.  What turned this once-caring educator into the ruthless victory-at-any-cost authoritarian that we’ve come to know in this series?  As it turns out, the reason why is pretty straightforward:  He felt responsible for the death of a student and changed his methods in the hope of preventing it from happening again.  This is all explained in the first chapter so Asano’s origin doesn’t wind up being as epic or exciting as I was expecting.  The wrap-up of the current arc in the next chapter is also free of surprises, though I did appreciate seeing how Koro-sensei manages to connect with the principal using his compassion.  Superman would definitely approve, even if this doesn’t necessarily take Asano off the board as an antagonist.  If anything, I expect we’ll see him back in another volume or two ready to beat the tentacled teacher on his own terms.  Maybe even without the dirty tricks.

While the opening to vol. 15 was something of a letdown, the rest of it is anything but.  mangaka Yusei Matsui kicks the narrative into high gear with a series of surprise revelations.  It turns out that one of the students has been a secret assassin since the very start of the series!  This revelation does threaten to run up against one’s suspension of disbelief, particularly when you consider that this student has always been one of the more well-adjusted and upbeat ones.  What saves is that Matsui commits to it fully by further revealing that not only does this student have a very personal connection to the (deceased) teacher that started Koro-sensei on his career, but they have a special and familiar weapon at their disposal to help take him out.

The fight that ensues is as crazy as anything the series has done, only with some gripping emotional stakes thrown in as well.  Even if it all ends for the best -- if you’re expecting otherwise, why are you reading a Jump manga -- the stage is set for the reveal of the title’s most important origin of all:  Koro-sensei’s!  Though the lead-in does kind of ruin my ongoing analogy of this series being a really good “Superman” story, it still promises to be everything that Asano’s was not.  At least, it had better be consider how key Koro-sensei’s origin is going to wind up being to the series as a whole!

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

The previous volume was my pick for best comic of 2016 for these reasons:  It took a storyline that I wasn’t quite sure about -- Negan escaping and falling in with the Whisperers -- and managed to get some quality material out of it.  Then it served up a final-page twist that I did not see coming and still made perfect sense given what had come before.  Following up something like that is a tall order by any standard.  Then you toss in the fact that this is the first major “War” storyline to come after the epic two-volume “All-Out War” arc and the expectations become even higher.  Oh, and there’s that nagging feeling that after Rick and company came out ahead in the last war they’re due for a loss here.  That’s a lot of baggage to deal with.  Fortunately for us, Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard are well aware of all this and try their damndest to mix things up as best they can here.

For the first major Bat-crossover of the “Rebirth” era the creators involved are going all Kaiju Big Battle on us.  While the entire Bat-team is getting ready to provide emergency assistance to Gotham as a hurricane bears down on the city things take a turn for the crazy when a giant monster starts barrelling down the streets.  It turns out not to be the only one and the team’s efforts are now split between fighting the monster menace and evacuating the citizens in their way.  Things get worse when the monsters are revealed to have regenerative/mutative properties and be just the tiniest bit contagious, while a lichen in the evacuation cave starts to cause everyone inside to riot.  Taken together all of this starts to come off as more than a little… Strange?

“Night of the Monster Men” is a propulsive event that barrels through its six issues at a breakneck pace.  It’s mainly the work of writer Steve Orlando, who scripted the event and co-plotted it with regular “Batman,” “Detective Comics,” and “Nightwing” writers Tom King, James Tynion IV, and Tim Seeley.  That this is mainly coming from one writer is probably the main reason it reads so cohesively and is able to keep up its momentum to the end.  Even so, Batman and company vs. Giant Monsters isn’t exactly a new idea and the story is so focused on the action that it doesn’t have time for any memorable character moments.  There is an interesting idea about how the monsters represent the main antagonist’s diagnosis of Batman’s personality which manages to save the story from being a completely mindless thrill ride.

The art, from Riley Rossmo, Roge Antonio, and Andy MacDonald is generally solid with all three showing that they can deliver some impressive-looking monsters.  Rossmo is the standout as his wiry style is appreciatively unconventional next to the other two artists here.  This event also isn’t quite stand-alone as it involves certain characters and references specific events from the most recent volumes of “Batman” and “Detective Comics.”  So if you’re like me and reading both of those titles then this one is basically a necessary read.  It’s not a bad one, but I can’t say it has much appeal for anyone who isn’t already involved.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

Greg Rucka’s consistently entertaining, consistently overpriced shaggy-dog P.I. reaches its fourth volume.  This time around, Dexedrine Parios’ life takes a turn for the absurd but not ridiculous.  She’s hired by Mr. Weeks, a rich coffee enthusiast and maker, to deliver the first pound of his inaugural batch of Wild Thai Civet coffee to him after it’s flown into town.  Why Dex?  Because she has a rep for being able to get the job done and Mr. Weeks doesn’t want to attract too much attention to his coffee.  This pound of coffee has a street value of $25K after all.  Of course, since this is Dex we’re talking about the complications soon start to pile up.  Whether it’s the oddly quiet and formal henchman of Mr. Weeks’ main rival who offers to pay Dex in gold for a sample of this coffee, or members of the Barista Mafia who want in on the action themselves, or the arrival of Fuji, Dex’s ne’er-do-well sister, in town, this simple job of being a coffee delivery person may wind up being more trouble than she asked for.

Some might think that all this fuss over coffee makes for a story that’s too ridiculous to take seriously, but Rucka and artist Justin Greenwood make it work.  The absurdity is tackled head-on in the opening scenes as Mr. Weeks explains why all this is important to him and Dex acts as the reader’s stand-in to put his desires in perspective.  Her reaction upon finding out how Wild Thai Civet coffee is made is priceless and a high point of the volume.  While this all keeps threatening to tip over into farce, it never quite does because everyone in the story -- even the Barista Mafia -- is operating from well-grounded and established desires.  Pun intended.  The fact that this story, and series, is set in Portland also helps with the suspension of disbelief in this regard too.

We also get some more insight into Dex’s history and family life through her sister.  Fuji may be family, but it was refreshing to see our protagonist call her sister out on all the crap she pulls here.  Particularly in regards to Ansel as we find out exactly why Dex is her brother’s keeper.  The volume is rounded out with a mostly silent surveillance story that has a neat twist at the end.  It’s a great showcase for Greenwood’s storytelling skills as he effectively conveys the necessary information clearly and with a sense of fun too.  While it’s impressive that his loose style works as well as it does on a sci-fi series like “The Fuse,” “Stumptown” is a more natural fit for his talents.  Though this series is still horrifically overpriced at $30 for each hardcover volume, it still provides a quality read for those willing to take the plunge (or patient enough to pick it up at a deep discount).

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

The latest Spider-event isn't bad, but never feels as epic as advertised.

Honestly, I was worried that the direction of this new arc meant that this title’s best days were behind it.  Flipping the premise to put the Shadow Student Council in prison and the boys on the outside felt too obvious a way to mix things up for “Prison School” going forward.  The good news is that mangaka Akira Hiramoto has managed to find some clever ways to mix up this setup.  He hides it well at first, though, after the volume gets past the flashback to Meiko and Mari’s grade-school years we see current student council president Kate scheming to fracture the bond between her adversaries.  She does this through the skillful application of logic and cookies with Hana and then proceeds to set Meiko up for a fall so savage that it breaks her sadistic mind into a submissive one.  None of this stuff is fun or possessed of the creative perversity that this series thrives on.  In fact, Kate is the biggest problem with the series now as all of her scenes are incredibly mean-spirited.  This wouldn’t be so much of a problem if we saw how she struggles to achieve her goals, or were witness to any of her faults, but neither of those are in the cards here.

What I’ve described above isn’t a huge part of this volume, however.  Amidst the struggles of the Shadow Student Council, we see Andre’s masochism plans (“Andrenomics”) modestly rise and then come to a surprising and well-deserved fall.  More surprising is the relationship he develops with Risa, the eybrowless enforcer of the student council, as she displays some unexpected vulnerability in learning the ways of being a proper dominatrix.  Meanwhile, Gackt finds out about Mitsuko’s BL hobby and does his best to try and understand it with Joe’s help in a way that actually makes it past gay panic.  Best of all is Kiyoshi who consistently, brilliantly manages to screw things up for everyone despite the best of intentions.  Whether it’s instructing Shingo on the right way to (not) get a kiss, enduring the strange direction his relationship with Hana takes when word of that gets back to her, trying to keep Meiko from fainting at the sight of his penis, or the snakes in a bathroom venom-sucking position he finds himself in at the end of the volume, he bravely hoists the standard for gloriously perverse idiocy and carries it high for all to see.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

I’ve mentioned before that the best thing Rob Liefeld has done as a comic creator is to let other talented individuals like Brandon Graham and Alan Moore play around with the characters he’s made.  However, he’s also responsible for giving a lot of creators and industry people their big break when he co-founded Image back in the 90’s.  One of these people is Eric Stephenson, a fact which I was reminded about when I saw the solicitation for Bloodstrike #1 Remastered Edition for which he did the scripting duties back in ‘93.  While I don’t think anyone should be paying money for a remastered edition of an old Liefeld comic, even one that was done at the height of his popularity, it’s certainly worth noting that Stephenson has gone on to much bigger and better things.  Like having been the publisher of Image comics since 2008 and a key player in “Image Central” prior to that.

What I’m getting at is that there’s a decent chance that Image today may have looked very different, and produced much less noteworthy comics, had Liefeld not hired Stephenson to work on his terrible 90’s superhero comics.  Funny how things work out sometimes in this industry, isn’t it?