Comic Picks By The Glick

Kodansha Comics should be applauded for bringing an old-school (read:  originally published in the 70’s) manga to our shores.  Ditto for the fact that it’s coming from mangaka Leiji Matsumoto, who is probably better known for the anime spun off of his works out here than the manga they’re based on.  The art is also generally pretty appealing with its varied sci-fi landscapes and quirky character designs.  That’s where my praise for this title ends as the actual storytelling being done here is pretty terrible.  Most of the stories here concern an orphan boy named Hiroshi Umino and his efforts to travel the sea of stars.  He does this by building his own ships, which only seem to last him long enough to get to the next planet, where he scrapes by doing odd jobs until he can build his next ship.  It’s during one of these stints that he meets the legendary pirate Emeraldas who happens to take an interest in the boy and goes about helping him through the galaxy in her own stoic way.

If you’re wondering why most of the stories in this volume are about Hiroshi rather than its title character then congratulations!  You’ve recognized the biggest problem with “Queen Emeraldas.”  Even though Emeraldas has presence, a cool scar, and is less hesitant to gun down fools who get in her way than a pre-”Special Edition” Han Solo, this isn’t really her story.  I might have been able to get past that if Hiroshi was a compelling protagonist in his own right, but that is so not the case here.  He’s kind of a whiner who has almost everything in the story handed to him by Emeraldas or guys who identify with his spirit.  There’s also plenty of talk about what it means to be a man journeying through space, so if you’re allergic to that kind of stuff then consider yourself warned.  As for the stories themselves, they’re straightforward affairs that offer no real surprises.

I should note that this volume is a hardcover edition with glossy paper stock collecting over 400 pages of manga for $25.  I’ll admit to that being a pretty decent value for your money.  However, the experience of reading it was such that after ordering this from Amazon at a nearly 60% discount I still felt ripped off afterwards.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

I don’t think that Garth Ennis has written a war comic that I haven’t enjoyed reading on some level.  However, the more enjoyable ones tend to be where he tells us an actual story as opposed to explaining a specific aspect of combat or history.  “The Hurricane” easily falls into the former category as it’s another story about “Johnny Red,” a famous character in the pantheon of British war comics.  While his full name is Jonathan Redburn, “Jonny Red” works particularly well for him as a nickname because he’s a British pilot who has wound up fighting alongside the Russians during WWII.  He’s helped turn a ragtag fighter group into the fiercest bunch of pilots on the Stalingrad front, a fact which has not gone unnoticed by the higher-ups in Moscow.  So when two senior officials of the N.K.V.D. show up and announce that they’re going to be taking over to lead a special operation to be conducted by Russian personnel only, that sets off a lot of unrest in the ranks.  While it seems that this operation is going to be a simple milk run, Johnny soon finds out that it’s actually taking his comrades three hundred miles behind enemy lines.

The reason they’ve been sent so far behind enemy lines is a good one and actually quite believable given Russia’s fortunes at this stage of the war.  It also leads to a cameo from a prominent historical figure that should by all rights break your immersion in the story, but Ennis manages to make it work.  The overall story is an entertaining wartime adventure tale that uses just enough historical detail to make the fiction more enjoyable.  Granted, I could’ve done without the present-day sequences involving a tech billionaire restoring Johnny’s Hurricane fighter and getting his story in the process and the character’s longtime nemesis is worked into the story in a way that’s more awkward than anything else.  “The Hurricane” also boasts excellent art from Keith Burns as he shows us why he’s one of the best there is at depicting wartime aircraft in action.  I don’t know if Ennis plans to do more “Johnny Red” stories, though this one is good enough to make me want to check out the collections of the character’s original adventures.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

I wasn’t really keen on picking up this title when it was announced.  At the time, Rick Remender had burned a lot of his goodwill with me with the relentlessly depressing “Low” and the unimaginative downward spiral of “Black Science.”  Then he turned things around on “Black Science” and “Deadly Class” got even better, and now I’m checking out the first volume of his latest creator-owned series to see what flavor of Remender we get here.

Having a miniseries prelude to a big comics crossover event isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  In the case of “Death of X” it allows for people who haven’t been keeping up with one side (such as myself with the Inhumans) to get on the same page with those who have so that they’re properly invested for the showdown.  Having read through this, do I feel properly invested?  No, not really.  I’ll be picking up “Inhumans vs. X-Men” mainly because I’m invested in the overall direction of the “X-Men” titles.  All “Death of X” does is suggest that investment is going to bite me in the ass when it comes to reading the event itself.

In the realm of single issues the X-Men are getting off to their latest relaunch in the wake of the “Inhumans vs. X-Men” event.  (Though not without some controversy, sadly.)  The idea this time is a back-to-basics approach that emphasizes the characters superhero escapades more than anything else.  Actually, it’s more of a back-to-the-90’s approach given that the titles of the two core series, “Blue” and “Gold,” are meant to harken back to the best-selling days of the Jim Lee-illustrated “X-Men #1.”  For those of us like me who follow the franchise in collected form, we’ve still got the entirety of the event to go.  As the latest volumes of “Uncanny X-Men,” “Extraordinary X-Men,” and “All-New X-Men” show, this new approach will be welcome in the hopes that it can get the quality level up to something better than “okay.”

Longtime readers will know that I’ve been very passionate about seeing the rest of Hiroki Endo’s excellent “Eden:  It’s An Endless World!” published in English.  Sadly, we’re coming up on the third anniversary of vol. 14’s publication and there’s been no word as to when (or even if) we’ll see vols. 15-18 in print.  Until Dark Horse says it’s not going to happen, then I won’t give up hope.  In the meantime, Kodansha Comics has decided to pick up the slack when it comes to releasing new manga from Endo in English.  It’s quite telling that this series is being released digitally as opposed to print, but the fact that we’re getting it at all is something to be appreciated.

Now I’m really starting to think that this series should have wrapped up with vol. 4.  What was once a fun comic about pulling off elaborate crimes and sticking it to those who deserved it is quickly turning into a smug and predictable affair.  Things start out fine enough with a typically flashy heist from Conrad “Redmond” Paulson and his partner Celia only for them to be scouted by two Russian oligarch brothers for an exceptionally difficult job.  The item they want is a computer program called “Gold Rush” which was designed to crash the U.S.A. stock market and is currently in the hands of a Russian general in a very secure bunker.  However, there’s a catch.  The brothers have also hired two other A-list thieves, Fausto Delgado and Sally Pike, with the intent of letting the three of them compete to get the program and also determine who is the real thief of thieves.

Vol. 6’s biggest problem is the feeling that the events are basically being driven by Conrad’s ego at this point.  While he initially rejects the oligarchs’ offer, saying he has nothing to prove, he comes right back in to get the scoop on the heist after Fausto steals his keys.  That kind of pettiness gets him in all sorts of trouble throughout the volume and it’s not all that fun to read about.  Writer Andy Diggle also shows that while he’s delivered some of the best twists in this series prior to this volume, he’s starting to run out of tricks as clever readers will be able to realize what Conrad is planning before it’s revealed.  Also, the heist itself feels like it comes off too easily -- even with the expected chaos afterward -- with the bunker being set up as an impregnable fortress that needs the combined efforts of all three thieves to crack and only a third of the story winds up being spent on this.

If you shut your brain off then it’s possible that the book’s always stylish art from Shawn Martinbrough will be able to carry you through its length.  You’ll be in for a rude awakening at the end, as things wrap up with the title’s biggest cliffhanger yet.  Though this development is meant to be exciting, I can only hope that vol. 7 brings “Thief of Thieves” to a proper end before my patience and goodwill towards it are completely extinguished.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

Greg Rucka had a notable run chronicling the adventures of Themiscra’s Favorite Daughter -- which I missed the first time around (but will see about rectifying before the movie comes out).  I decided to not make that mistake again with the writer’s return to the character for the “Rebirth” era.  While I’d love to pat myself on the back for this, the over-arching story Rucka is looking to tell here leaves me somewhat cold.  You see, “The Lies” starts off with an acknowledgement that the character’s origin can be considered “multiple choice.”  Is she the clay daughter of the Amazon Queen brought to life by the Spirit of Truth?  Or the result of the queen’s tryst with Zeus?  Rucka raises more questions directly linked to her current status as the God of War, eventually leading Wonder Woman to realize -- by use of her own golden lasso -- that she has been deceived.

Her quest for the truth begins with tracking down one of her oldest foes, the Cheetah.  Or, Dr. Barbara Ann Minerva as Diana keeps reminding her.  Trapped in a humanoid form resembling her namesake, she agrees to help the Amazon in exchange for lifting her curse.  Said curse was inflicted by the god Urzkartaga, who happens to be backing a warlord that one Steve Trevor and his group of special forces soldiers are looking to take out.

The business with Urzkartaga is the strongest part of this volume as he provides a suitably nasty force for everyone to fight against while also doubling as a metaphor for toxic masculinity.  Rucka also does some great work in making the Cheetah-- Er, Barbara Ann compelling to read about as a strong-willed woman cursed by a god’s pettiness.  The art provided by Liam Sharp is also wonderfully gritty and detailed, but even it can’t overcome the fact that the nature of the threat facing Wonder Woman’s identity feels vague and undefined at this point.  It seems as if Rucka is calling everything about her history into question so that he can provide a new unified origin down the line.  That may work, except it also appears he might be kicking the excellent Azzarello/Chiang run on the character out of continuity in the process.  We’ll see if some answers regarding that are in store as the narrative goes back to the future for “Year One” in the next volume.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com