Comic Picks By The Glick

Luiza Bora has only one real desire in life:  To be part of the police.  Unfortunately her personality type is a 57B -- someone with an emotionally subnormal response to violence and no aversion to killing.  So she’s out of luck working for law enforcement on Earth.  Not on Mercury, however.  In the far-future world of “Mercury Heat,” the planet closest to the sun is basically a sci-fi version of the Old West.  Which is perfect for someone with Luiza’s personality.  That becomes even more clear when an attempt on her life is made while she’s investigating the death of a technician who may have been murdered.  Things aren’t all right on Mercury, and Luiza is prepared to crack as many skulls as necessary in order to get to the bottom of it.

Why did I pick this up?  Because it’s a new series from Kieron Gillen.  He’s still batting a thousand in my book, but I don’t see “Mercury Heat” as something to be embraced by the fans of his witty, fun-loving, and occasionally heartbreaking work on titles like “Phonogram,” “The Wicked + The Divine,” and “Young Avengers.”  This is a straight-up action/sci-fi story about a woman who doesn’t fit into everyday life and is still determined to make the most of it on her terms.  Luiza is a compelling protagonist because of this tension, and the fact that we see her to be quite resourceful and capable of handling everything that comes her way.  It’d be nice if any of the other characters she encounters in this volume were as interesting as her, so that’s something Gillen can work on for vol. 2.

Omar Francia is the artist for the first half of this volume and the one responsible for most of the design work for this world, as revealed in the supplemental material in this volume.  He’s good at giving this series a distinctive look with a lot of detail, but his characters are stiff and the flow of storytelling in the action sequences tends to get jumbled.  Nahuel Lopez has a somewhat brighter, less-busy style to show off in the volume’s second half, though his work also suffers from the same issues.  Lopez will be onboard for the next arc -- which has Luiza taking on the Crossed, of all things -- so I’ll be hoping for some improvement in the art.  As it is, “Mercury Heat” will probably be best appreciated by established fans of Gillen’s work who have an interest in seeing the writer try new things.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

After Vertical showed that there was a significant audience for “Gundam” manga with the consistently entertaining “The Origin” series, it was inevitable that we’d get more manga based off of this venerable mecha franchise released out here.  Unfortunately, the first volume of “Thunderbolt” is a disappointingly generic entry that lacks any kind of distinctive storytelling or visual style to make it stand out.  The story takes place shortly before the battle of A Baoa Qu during the One-Year War as a Federation fleet works to clear out the Thunderbolt sector.  Not only is this sector key to Zeon’s supply lines, it’s filled with the debris from the Side 4 Moore Colony.  Most of the members of this fleet, including hotshot pilot Io Fleming, were from Moore so this operation is personal for them.  Standing in their way are the members of the Living Dead Division, a group of snipers made up of Zeon soldiers who have all lost a limb or two in combat and their ace Daryl Lorenz.

The duel of aces looks to be the driving force behind the narrative for “Thunderbolt,” and a relatively weak one at that.  Io comes off as nothing more than your standard-issue cocky mech pilot with his love of jazz serving as the man’s only distinguishing feature.  Also, the less said about the quasi-romance he has with his petulant crybaby captain the better.  Daryl is a bit more interesting thanks to his disability, to the point where I wish more had been done with it and his squad in general.  There are nods to depth on both sides of the conflict here, as the members of the Federation are shown to have scheming sides to them while the Zeon forces are given a measure of humanity and even a bit of self-awareness about the side they’re fighting for in this conflict.  I’d expect nothing less from “Gundam” and mangaka Yasuo Ohtagaki also obliges with some decent action scenes as Io shows what he’s capable of with and without a Gundam.  Still, the mangaka’s style is serviceable to the point of genericness much like everything else here.  Things may very well improve in subsequent volumes, but the only way I can recommend “Thunderbolt” now is that buying it may give Viz or Vertical the idea to release more (and better) “Gundam” manga in the future.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

Marvel has been trying to put out a successful “Black Widow” ongoing series for years now.  I’ve been immune to their efforts because, prior to this, they had yet to give this series to creators I liked.  So when it was announced that the “Daredevil” team of writer Mark Waid and artist Chris Samnee were going to chronicle this latest round of Natasha Romanov’s solo adventures, there was no question that I was going to pick it up.  As expected, I was onboard with their approach from the very first page which has the title character running through a S.H.I.E.L.D. office while being declared an enemy of the organization.  Things only get more intense as her one-woman escape effort succeeds and we find out exactly why she’s now wanted by one of the most powerful organizations in the Marvel Universe.  Natasha is being blackmailed by a crime boss known as the Weeping Lion who wants her to find out some information on a new Russian program designed to create more assassins just like her.

For most of its length, “S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Most Wanted” is a propulsive action story that takes the Black Widow on a worldwide tour of treachery and betrayal.  Samnee, in particular, turns in some utterly thrilling work with the action scenes in this volume.  Whether she’s escaping from an in-flight S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier or silently taking out assassins stalking a secret graveyard, seeing Natasha at work is tense and exciting.  As good as the action is, even I’ll admit that I had my fill by the end of the volume.  Much as I like getting six issues in a collection, Waid and Samnee probably could’ve trimmed this story down to five and not lost all that much.  The main story in the volume is also a little light with the Weeping Lion himself coming off as a fairly generic villain even with the final-act twist.  While the flashbacks to Natasha’s childhood training are interesting, it’s centered around plot points that will undoubtedly come back into play in a subsequent volume.  Which I’ll be picking up.  Even with these issues, Waid and Samnee have delivered a  “Black Widow” ongoing that I’m actually interested in following.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

I didn’t know that I needed to see Laura “Wolverine” Kinney team up with Squirrel Girl.  Or, to take on one of Marvel’s more noteworthy giant monsters.  That’s what makes the first half of this latest volume a ton of fun.  To start things off, it turns out that Wolverine’s plan to ditch her pursuers at one point in the last volume by attaching the tracker they were following to a squirrel was not without repercussions.  She finds this out when Squirrel Girl shows up at her apartment to let her know that the squirrel had a family who would love to see him back.  Yes, it’s a silly premise and all the more effective in how writer Tom Taylor has Laura play it completely straight.  As well as how it eventually ties into officially making Laura’s young clone ward Gabby a part of the cast.  This is followed up by an even more ridiculous and action-packed story that has Wolverine being recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D. to find out what the substance in a mysterious box is and how it’s connected to the disappearance of Old Man Logan.  A helicarrier, a giant monster, Iron Man, Captain Marvel, digestive juices, pheromones, and jetpacks all play significant roles in this story.  Maybe this isn’t what you’re expecting from a “Wolverine” story, but that’s a good thing in this case.

The second half of this volume, the “Civil War II” tie-in arc, is a bit more typical in that regard.  Ulysses -- the precognitive Inhuman whose abilities are at the heart of the crossover -- gets a vision which implies that Old Man Logan is going to kill Gabby.  So S.H.I.E.L.D. sends Captain America and a bunch of agents over to make sure that doesn’t happen.  While the story falls into the trap of the self-fulfilling prophecy, Taylor does some decent work with the fallout to move the narrative away from that cliche.  It’s also just a little bit tragic as it was fun seeing Old Man Logan interact with Laura and Gabby in the first half of this arc, and we’re likely not going to get any more scenes like that given how this story ends.  Ig Guara’s art for this arc is decent enough, though it feels overly busy and detailed in ways that don’t add much to the story.  Comparatively, Marcio Takara’s art on the first half of the volume is clean and straightforward, though I still miss David Lopez’s confident work from the first volume.  Overall, it’s very entertaining work which has me looking forward to Taylor’s take on “Enemy of the State” in the next volume.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

In light of our recent election I really had no choice but to revisit Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson's eerily prescient and essential series.

I found out recently that “Genshiken:  Second Season” wrapped up its serialization in Japan.  My friend Steve has been keeping up with the scanlations and he let me know that the series has also been fully translated at this point as well.  He also dropped the cryptic hint that Saki -- the non-otaku member of the group who was one of the main characters in the first “season” -- was revealed to be the true protagonist in these final chapters.  Anticipating only two volumes left in the series to be released over here I was fully prepared to wait until (what would likely be around) this time next year in order to find out how things ended with the release of the final volume in America.  Courtesy of its official release from Kodansha Comics.

The title character only makes a brief one-page appearance in this volume as the focus shifts onto the now-fugitive Hiro.  He’s currently hiding out with Shion, the girl who confessed to him and was brutally shot down in the previous volume, and it’s not nearly as awkward as I was fearing from the previous volume.  Shion, and her grandmother, seem perfectly willing to accept that Hiro has run away from home and needs a place to stay for the immediate future.  We know better, however, and find out in short order that the drama surrounding the boy’s outing as a serial killer has a dire effect on the person closest to him.  This sends Hiro off on another rampage as he takes out those who he believes to be at fault here before finally confessing to Shion about his situation and the fact that he’s no longer human.

What does an old, grizzled, time-displaced version of Wolverine do when he realizes that the version of history he’s in isn’t going to lead to the awful future he came from?  “Bordertown” has him going to check on the little girl that eventually grew up to become his wife and making sure that she’s all right.  This turns out to be an extraordinarily bad idea when Lady Deathstrike and the Reavers show up, looking to extract some measure of payback against this version of Wolverine. If you think that setup sounds formulaic as hell, then you’d be right..  Still, writer Jeff Lemire continues to do a good job fleshing out Old Man Logan’s character (and the future he came from) while also doing the necessary work to make sure we care about the people we need to in this small town.  Even more effective is Andrea Sorrentino’s striking art which has this predictable story playing out in imaginative ways on the page.  While the issue that follows this arc may be overly sentimental, we at least get a decent direction for future adventures involving the character.  I’ll still be onboard for them.

A welcome surprise to this volume is the extra issue they included to round out its page count.  While reprinting old issues in collections of modern issues has annoyed me in the past, that’s not the case here as the one we get is both relevant to the story in this volume and a really good one at that.  They story in question is “Wounded Wolf” from “Uncanny X-Men” #205, featuring the first appearance of Lady Deathstrike after she’s been remade in the Body Shoppe by Spiral.  After that introduction, the story picks up with Katie Power (of the Power Pack) running into a severely wounded Wolverine.  Logan has been driven into a near feral state by Deathstrike and her mercs, and his only chance of survival hangs on this five-year-old superhero getting him to safety.

For a Marvel comic that’s over three decades old at this point, it has held up remarkably well.  Even if you know that all the named characters are going to survive this, it’s still just a little bit unsettling to see an innocent like Katie thrust into such a violent situation.  Less so, but still effective is seeing Wolverine beaten up so badly that he can’t even talk.  Legendary X-writer Chris Claremont also builds an effective rapport between the two as they help each other out the best they can while keeping the pace relentlessly tense until the end.  Barry Windsor-Smith is also on hand to provide some incredibly detailed art that helps sell this tension, while providing Deathstrike with a memorable character design that has endured to this day.  If you needed a reminder as to why “Uncanny X-Men” was the superhero comic to read in the 80’s, then this is it.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com