Comic Picks By The Glick

Image’s 25th Anniversary celebration rolls on with these solicitations.  So what can we look forward to along those lines in May?  Well, the issue of “Saga” which kicks off its next arc will only set you back 25 cents.  For those of you who are nostalgic for the time when Todd McFarlane actually drew “Spawn,” there’s a “Director’s Cut” edition of that title’s first issue and a “Vault” edition of the first seven issues which will present them in their original artboard form.  That last one will set you back $175, but there’s also a chance you could wind up with a one-of-a-kind sketch from McFarlane as they’re being randomly inserted into these editions.  If that kind of chance interests you but you’re not that big of a McFarlane fan, then maybe the Image Blind Box is for you.  1,992 of these boxes will be produced and they contain 25 copies of the 17 (so far) new Image launches for this year.  Don’t worry about the overlap, as there will be an assortment of variant, B&W, sketch, and blank covers for each of these titles.  Including lots of variants is certainly an appropriate way to celebrate Image’s anniversary, though not really a good one in my opinion.  Better to remind readers about all the good comics being published by the company today than the variant-fueled speculator madness the company spawned *rimshot* back in the 90’s and which almost sank the industry.

Fans of “The Walking Dead” should also be aware that 500 of these boxes will contain “Here’s Negan” #1 which collects the first half of the comics detailing the origin of the character from “Image+”.  This is billed as the ONLY collection of said strips, but I’m going to hold out for some kind of complete edition down the line.  Also, the Blind Box will set you back $125.  With all that said, are there any takers?

Last year brought a big revamp for DC’s licensed Hanna-Barbera comics and characters and now the Looney Tunes characters are getting the same treatment.  Coming out of ComicsPro is word of four “Vs.” titles that will see familiar DC characters pitted against specific Looney Tunes.  One of them is genuinely inspired:  Lobo vs. the Road Runner.  I think the idea is that Wile E. Coyote is hiring the intergalactic bounty hunter to succeed where he has failed so many times before.  Lobo works best when he’s either pitted against someone more unlikeable than he is, or getting his comeuppance as a bully.  This would seem to fall into the latter category and I can only hope that whoever’s involved will give The Main Man’s regenerative factor a real workout as we (will undoubtedly) get the most violent Road Runner story ever.

As for the rest, Martian Manhunter vs. Marvin the Martian sounds fine if more than a little obvious.  Jonah Hex vs. Yosemite Sam does stand a good chance of working since pitting the gnarled bounty hunter against a short man with a temper and a long red beard certainly wouldn’t be the strangest encounter Hex has had in his long history.  Then you have Batman vs. Elmer Fudd which falls squarely into the “Why!?!?” category as there appears to be no discernable reason for these two to be paired off.  Save for the fact that not involving Batman in any event has DC feeling that they’re leaving money on the table.

The school restaurant fair showdown between Classes E & A turns out not to be the main story for this volume.  It’s dealt with pretty early on as the resourcefulness of Class E shows that they can at least go the distance against Class A even when the odds are so thoroughly stacked against them.  We also get some follow-up to a couple previous plot threads as Nagisa has a second encounter with the rich boy from the tropical island who thought the student was a girl, and mangaka Yusei Matsui makes another effort to have Nagisa’s mom come off as an actual person instead of a manic collection of impulses.  However, this conflict does segue seamlessly into the next arc as final exams begin.  While we’ve been down this test road before, the catch here is that Principal Asano is going to handle the test prep for Class A.  So the battle this time is going to be a real clash of ideologies between the principal and Koro-sensei.

Asano gets a lot of the focus for the latter half of this volume, and that turns out to be a very good thing.  He’s been used quite well as the Lex Luthor to Koro-sensei’s Superman in this series, as a villain who is to all outward appearances a well-functioning and successful member of society to the point that he can’t be dealt with by being punched into submission for his villainy.  So it comes down to seeing whether or not Asano’s teaching skills and his ability to fan the flames of hate in his charges will triumph over Koro-sensei’s more compassionate methods.

That I probably don’t have to tell you how that turns out is certainly a flaw, but Matsui at least provides a good explanation for why it happens in this situation, and it’s always a joy to see his action-filled gonzo interpretations of how the students conquer their tests.  This sets us up for a final showdown between Asano and Koro-sensei which also looks to reveal the principal’s history and show us how he developed his ruthless methods.  I have a feeling that his status as the “Luthor” of this series won’t be applicable after we’re done here, yet I’m fine with that.  As long as their development is handled well there’s no reason that characters in mega-popular series should be able to change as the story goes on.  Well, except for Luthor himself, you know.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

There has been a not-insignificant talent exodus within Marvel over the past few years.  After the likes of Jonathan Hickman, Rick Remender, Matt Fraction, Kelly Sue DeConnick, and more have told the stories they wanted and achieved a certain amount of fame for doing so, they’ve departed for Image to pursue creator-owned work.  I believe this is as it should be.  Having creators work on corporate-owned characters in order to achieve a sizable fanbase so that they can tell their own stories is a very workable system.  We get stories from creators that will hopefully push the medium forward as they pursue subjects aside from superheroes, and Marvel gets to have lots of new spins on their characters from creators looking to make their name in the industry.

Still, there is something to be said for the appeal of having a familiar big-name creator returning to the company in order to tackle the one character they didn’t get to before they struck out on their own.  Rumor has it that Marvel is lining up some big-name talent for a return to the company in 2018.  The idea of having someone like Hickman take on “Iron Man” or Remender finally tackling the “X-Men” proper does sound kind of cool.  It does, however, make you wonder how they’re going to get through 2017 before they can finally reveal these surprise returns.

Last time in “Star Wars” Jason Aaron introduced a promising idea -- that of a jail run by the Rebellion -- only to drown it under conventional, predictable storytelling and see it written out of the series by the end of the arc.  It would be hard for him to do worse after that and I’m happy to say that’s not the case here.  “The Last Flight of the Harbinger” introduces us to the Special Commando Advanced Recon (SCAR) stormtrooper squad and makes it quite clear from their introductory issue that these troopers are some of the best they have to offer.  So while SCAR squad is quickly establishing themselves as a credible threat by swiftly dismantling a rebel cell, our protagonists in the Rebellion are working on pulling off one of their craziest schemes yet.  Tureen VII, one of the worlds sympathetic to the Rebellion’s cause, is currently being blockaded by the Empire with all attempts to break through it having failed quite spectacularly.  If they’re going to break through it, then they’re going to need to use something big.  Something “Star Destroyer” big.

It’s hard not to like the idea of Luke, Han, Leia, and co. setting up a plan to steal a Star Destroyer and use it against the Empire.  Granted, the ease with which they pull it off does kind of make you wonder why they don’t try to steal every Star Destroyer, and I’m wondering just how many people they were able to get on hand after we were told that they wouldn’t have nealy enough to meet the minimum 2,000 crew members needed to pilot it.  If you can get past those gaps in logic, then this volume does offer an entertaining ride.  Particularly when the SCAR troopers show up to complicate things with their deadly set of skills.  Even if they were set up to be defeated by the good guys, we do learn an important thing about this squad by the end of the volume:  They never leave empty handed, and that’s going to cause some long-term problems for our heroes.

Art for the main arc is provided by Jorge Molina who has improved considerably since his very busy work on “Wolverine and the X-Men” and “X-Men:  Legacy.”  Here, he adopts a style that’s closer to Stuart Immonen’s which does give the arc a lot of energy even if it serves to remind you that the latter is one of the best there is.  Mike Mayhew returns to provide art for the “From the Journals of Old Ben Kenobi” interlude and it’s another reminder that he can do incredible work when given enough time.  The story itself is fairly “meh” as these Kenobi flashbacks have been, though seeing the old Jedi take on Black Krssantan does perk things up a bit.  It also appears to offer a bit of closure for these flashbacks, so maybe we’ll see Aaron try something more interesting whenever he needs to slot a single-issue story into his run.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

Karen Berger is back!  The big news coming out of the ComicsPro conference for Dark Horse is that the company will be publishing a new line of comics from the legendary editor.  For those of you who might not know who she is, Berger rose to fame at DC in the late 80’s where she edited numerous titles with offbeat and mature sensibilities.  These included “The Sandman,” “Doom Patrol,” “Shade the Changing Man,” and “Animal Man.”  Several years later, Berger established the Vertigo imprint under DC for titles that shared those sensibilities and didn’t fit neatly into the DC Universe.  The rest was history until she retired from the company in December 2012.  People have been speculating that Berger was going to start her own line of comics after that, and now we have it.

While Berger is currently editing “Surgeon X” over at Image, Dark Horse seems like a better fit for her.  The company may be more corporate than the creator-owned free-for-all that is Image, but I think that makes them better positioned to support a line that is editor-curated.  Plus, they’ve got a long history of respecting creator rights as well.  While we shouldn’t expect lightning to strike twice with Berger’s new line, I’m sure they’re going to be worth checking out.  Plus, I hear she’s really tight with that Neil Gaiman guy too!

John Layman and Rob Guillory's great, demented series comes to an end and I try to find out if the series was well-planned enough to make its ending work.

Longtime readers have probably picked up on the fact that I’ve got a kind of weakness for manga that tackle foreign places and time periods.  So it probably shouldn’t surprise anyone that I picked up the first volume of mangaka Kazuhiro Fujita’s “The Black Museum.”  This is actually the second arc in the series, but it’s completely self-contained so far as the title place and its curator serve as a framing device for the stories that Fujita wants to tell.  In this case, it’s about a ghost known as The Man in Gray and his association with none other than Florence Nightingale.  Before she rose to fame as a nurse who pioneered many lifesaving medical standards and practices, Florence was tormented by her own eidolon.  You see, in the world of “The Black Museum” all humans have these supernatural parasites of the soul which are in constant conflict with each other.  Except in the case of Florence as her own eidolon is bent on attacking its host.  Unable to bear the pain of these attacks, she seeks out Gray in the hope that this ghost will be able to take her life and end her suffering.

Of course, that doesn’t happen and the narrative then goes on to chart Florence’s history with Gray at her side.  While the ghost, who has a love of the theater and all things theatric, has promised to take the woman’s life when she finally succumbs to despair circumstances just keep conspiring to prevent that from happening.  Though there’s plenty of fun repartee between the two, Gray’s fixation on this subject quickly becomes tiresome because it’s obvious it’ll never come to be.  So that leaves the story of Florence’s life -- now with extra supernatural battles -- to pick up the slack.  As someone who had only heard of the nurse’s reputation prior to reading this, Fujita’s interpretation is engaging enough.  I know not to take it as gospel, but there are plenty of handy footnotes on hand to keep things grounded in fact.

Fujita’s stylized art is also generally nice to look at.  He possesses a thin, wiry style that works best when illustrating Gray and the eidolon battles.  It’s less effective in portraying human drama as Fujita’s style is keyed up to a high energy level which sends most dramatic scenes straight into histrionics.  While I can appreciate the mangaka’s ambition here in telling a story that is decidedly out of the manga mainstream, the overall quality of this first book leads me to diagnose it with a case of “reach exceeding grasp.”

jason@glickscomicpicks.com