Comic Picks By The Glick

The original series is a justified classic, while its long-delayed sequel manages a few redeeming qualities.

There’s a scene early on in this volume where Thorfinn recounts to the family he left behind what he’s been up to for the past sixteen years.  Mangaka Makoto Yukimura doesn’t have his protagonist go into specifics, only showing Thorfinn calmly narrating, the shocked looks of those around him, montages of panels from chapters past, and captions which convey the emotional weight of the events in question.  It ends with the captions noting that the man’s story has left all who heard it speechless.  Rather than coming off as self-congratulatory, it’s a pretty effective encapsulation of how good the series has been up until now.  Vol. 8 continues that tradition even as it takes a swerve regarding where I was expecting “Vinland Saga” to go next.

I’m honestly surprised it has taken this long for us to get a Han Solo miniseries in comics.  Yes, he was a featured player in several comics from the Dark Horse era, but even Marvel held off for over a year after re-acquiring the rights to “Star Wars” before giving Solo his own solo vehicle *rimshot* courtesy of Marjorie Liu and Mark Brooks.  It comes with a great setup:  Han is laying low from the smuggling life and the Rebellion until he’s pulled back in by a request from Princess Leia.  It turns out that a network of Rebel informants needs to be extracted and they need Han to do it.  Why?  Because they’re going to be using the infamous starship race known as the Dragon’s Void as cover for the extraction.  This is a race that Han has dreamed of entering (and winning) ever since he became a pilot.  He doesn’t need to win the race in order to make sure the informants are extracted, but will Han be able to keep his competitive impulses in check in order to make sure everyone makes it out alive?

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen interiors from Brooks and he doesn’t disappoint.  He clearly put a lot of effort into this as each page is crammed with detail that’s worth pouring over.  The “Star Wars” look is captured quite well here (as is young Harrison Ford’s likeness) and I can see why George Lucas wanted all of the original art for this mini.  Liu’s script isn’t bad, but it does falter when trying to find an emotional arc for Han in this race.  Said arc involves the scoundrel getting to know a legendary racer and finding out what it means to be a real pilot.  It’s overly sentimental and I can’t quite buy the idea that the Han coming off of “A New Hope” would be selfless enough to go along with it.  Still, Liu captures Han’s sarcastic voice perfectly along with his resourceful nature.  This isn’t the best possible “Han Solo” miniseries we could’ve wound up with, but it’s also better than most of the other “Star Wars” minis Marvel has put out so far.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

Sometimes progress in a series is not always in a straight line.  There are times when creators will forego the steady forward progression of the plot to focus on the characters in a story.  Mind you, the idea is not to forego progress entirely.  If this approach is done right then the reader is rewarded with a deeper understanding of the cast as a whole while also seeing the plot advance in a meaningful way by the end of the volume.  Jason Aaron has done this really well twice now with the second and third volumes of “Scalped” and “Southern Bastards,” respectively.  Now we have Jeff Lemire trying his hand at it with this volume of “Descender” and the results aren’t nearly as impressive.

This volume of “Worldwide” is all about setting up the next big Spider-event as the title of the arc collected here, “Before Dead No More,” indicates.  Vol. 3 left off with the cliffhanger of Jay Jameson, father to Jonah, wife to Peter’s Aunt May, collapsing suddenly.  He’s in the hospital and things aren’t looking good.  But wait!  Along comes New U Technologies with some revolutionary medical techniques that will save Jay.  Before they can do that, an explosion goes off at a Parker Industries plant and Spider-Man springs into action to save its employees.  One of them winds up on the brink of death and Peter requests that New U use their techniques to save him.  That they do and the man is as good as new afterwards, save for the fact that now his very presence sets off Parker’s spider-sense like nothing else.

While the reason for that isn’t given here, it’s likely to have something to do with the fact that New U is being run by one Miles Warren, A.K.A. The Jackal, who has a history of clone-related shenanigans with Spider-Man.  Though this makes it look like he’s the bad guy here, he has yet to do anything truly villainous.  Even his gathering of a rogues’ gallery of Spider-Man villains has yet to blow up in his face.  Granted, Warren’s constant proclamations that he’s not the bad guy here are a sure sign that he’s exactly that, but writer Dan Slott has some good fun playing them for self-aware laughs here.

As far as setup for the main event goes, this volume of “Worldwide” does its job pretty well.  In addition to introducing the main big bad, a number of other notable plot threads are teased here as well.  From the compromising of Hobie “The Prowler” Brown, to a surprise resurrection, and the return of the one true Doc Ock, there’s a lot of promising stuff on the table here.  Most interesting for me is the involvement of the Kingpin, which is expertly set up in two connected shorts at the beginning and end of the volume.  It’s not all success, as the drama involving Jay’s condition reaches a familiar-for-Spider-Man fever pitch near the end that feels more manipulative than anything else.  That aside, this volume works well enough to get me sufficiently enthused for the main event.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

Image Comics launched 25 years ago this month.  If you told me back then that they wouldn’t have lasted this long, I probably would’ve believed you.  That said, if you had told me that they’d be leading the vanguard of creator-owned comics that were actually worth reading, I certainly would’ve laughed my ass off.  While holdovers like “Spawn” and “The Savage Dragon” are still hanging around, Image’s output is vastly different and better than the adolescent-fueled superhero comics that drove the company back in the day.  It may have taken them a while to reach this point, but it has been absolutely worth it in the end.  Here’s to them maintaining their creative dominance for the next 25 years, and establishing sales dominance as well!

Why haven’t I talked about this series in a while?  That’s because it really hasn’t risen above the harmless the first volume offered.  I went into this series, based on a concept from Masamune Shirow but with the manga actually by “Excel Saga’s” Rikudou Koshi, fully expecting a trainwreck and didn’t get that.  Instead, “Pandora” has been a light action comedy following the hijinks that full-body prosthetic cyborg Nene and her android compainon Nene get up to on the high-tech island of Centacle.  What makes it interesting to write about now is that things look to be building towards a climax.

While the massive mining machine known as Buer was successfully deactivated by Nene and Clarion back in vol. 2, Col. Kurtz (no, really) of the American Empire has been steadily and stealthily working to re-activate it and bring it under his control.  He believes that having such a weapon will allow him to impose the order and control needed to bring stability to the world.  Though Kurtz has the Empire’s massive resources to draw on, including a burly combat android named Fear (because the A.E. isn’t big on subtlety, y’know), they’ll still have to go through Clarion if they want to re-activate Buer.  If they do manage that, then it’s a good thing Nene, without any combat enhancements, is on her way to the action to save her friend.  Right?

Even with the raising of stakes, there’s still plenty of goofy lighthearted fun to be had in this volume.  Among other things:  Perpetually doomed reporter Vlind makes nice with some robots, Nene does her best malfunctioning advertising robot impression, and we get some cute videogame homages as she infiltrates cyberspace.  The most impressive parts of this volume, however, are the fight scenes between Clarion and Fear.  Comedy may be Koushi’s calling, but he stages some really impressive action between these two which helps bring the drama as things look to be wrapping up.  While “Pandora” can’t really hold a candle to Koushi and Shirow’s best-known series, it’s still well-executed fluff that anyone who likes cute girls, androids, and cute girl androids would enjoy if they decided to check it out.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

There’s not really much to say about the company’s business above the board this month.  Unless you’re interested to know that they’ll be publishing an omnibus of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer:  Season Eight” later this year.  So it’s time to come back to my favorite talking point with the company:  manga.  I’m bringing it up once again because “Wave, Listen to Me!”, the latest series from Hiroaki Samura (creator of “Blade of the Immortal”) came out last Tuesday.  It’s about a waitress at a curry shop whose heartbroken drunken rambling at a bar leads to her getting a talk show on a local radio station.  The first volume is an energetic read, best appreciated by those familiar with Samura’s quirky and referential humor.

What it isn’t is published by Dark Horse.  Kodansha Comics released this digitally and it’s their second title from Samura after “Die Wergelder” came out back at the end of 2015.  While “Blade of the Immortal,” “Ohikkoshi,” and “Emerald” are likely not leaving Dark Horse, it would appear that Kodansha has secured Samura’s future output for themselves.  I’ve said before that without titles from new artists, all Dark Horse has to rely on going forward are license rescues, media tie-ins, and titles from creators they’ve already published.  With the publication of “Wave,” along with Kosuke Fujishima’s “Paradise Residence” and “Toppu GP,” it would appear that seeing more from that last category is looking increasingly unlikely.