Comic Picks By The Glick

This latest volume in the series has a lot of the things that have made it a terrifically entertaining read so far.  You’ve got amazing art from Jamie McKelvie in full-blown spectacle mode as two factions of the Pantheon repeatedly face off against each other here.  While his character work is as good as you’d expect, here he brings the action with several intense, fast-paced, multiple-viewpoint fight scenes whose high point comes when Persephone uses her green tentacle -- er, tendril powers to take on Woden’s giant neon Valkyrie/Voltron amalgamation monstrosity.  We also get lots of clever, funny, and insightful dialogue from Kieron Gillen while the fighting is going on.  Even when his characters ramble on about “higher frequency geek” it’s still entertaining to read what they have to say.  While the nature of the conflict in this volume does lend itself to lots of pithy one-liners, there’s also a substantial amount of advancements and twists to the plot.  Seeing what really went down when Ananke did her head-popping thing with Laura/Persephone was certainly a surprising retcon, while the status quo we get at the end of the volume has a nice air of ominousness to go along with the freedom it promises.

All of this makes “Rising Action” another worthy addition to this particular canon.  Which makes its one major narrative failing that much more annoying.  I’ll admit that part of this is down to my own set of expectations regarding the writer.  Gillen is usually very good about subverting existing cliches and tropes, or at least displaying enough self-awareness to make them come off as less annoying.  Which is why it’s so disappointing to have Pantheon ringleader Ananke fall right into the role of the antagonist who does awful things for reasons that she believes are perfectly valid but declines to provide any explanations for.  Yes, the fact that there’s this thing known as the Great Darkness that needs to be kept at bay sure sounds important, but aside from providing no explanation as to what it is, we get no explanation regarding why exploding the heads of teenage deities is necessary to stave it off.  Aside from Ananke’s declaration that “HELL IS YOU CHILDREN FOREVER!” I mean.

My frustration with this opaque plotting on Gillen’s part will remain until we get some kind of explanation that causes the entire cast to realize their elderly overseer was right and that they need to do something about it.  At which time the writer will (Likely?  Hopefully?) make a hard left from my expectations in showing us what the cast does.  Until then, I think I’ll be able to make do with seeing the cast continue to party as hard as they have been.

Hey, guess what I forgot to post on Monday...

Makoto Okazaki has it rough.  Now, I’m not talking about how he has to deal with the bullies who have made him into their gopher, or how he has to deal with all of his pent-up adolescent sexual urges by himself.  I’m saying he has it rough because he’s the male protagonist in a new manga from Shuzo Oshimi, who gave us “The Flowers of Evil,” and it looks like her thing is putting these guys through hell at the hands strange women.  In Okazaki’s case, at least he’s not at the mercy of a potential psychotic.  He just winds up getting bitten by a female vampire on his way to return a rented video one night.  Now Okazaki has to deal with the wearying effects of the sun, abnormal strength and a thirst he doesn’t know how to quench just yet.

Oshimi’s looks to be more interested in vampirism’s transformative effect on normal life than as a springboard to supernatural action.  Those of you expecting something along the lines of “Twilight” or “30 Days of Night” will likely come away disappointed.  A better comparison would be Park Chan-Wook’s “Thirst,” where an ordinary man was infected, then went on to infect his wife and watch his life unravel form there.  The same thing happens to Okazaki, as he’s thrown completely off-balance by his new reaction to sunlight and his reaction to the blood he can now sense from his female classmates.  Even though he’s able to finally stand up to those bullies, it brings him no satisfaction.  All of this just takes him further away from the person he was, and that’s the most unsettling part of this business for him.

It’s because of this approach that I can forgive Oshimi for playing loose with one of the key aspects of vampire myth.  Also, we’d have no story if Okazaki was burnt into ash the minute he stepped out the door on his first day back to school.  I’m also curious to see how long he’ll be able to go denying his thirst as it has already led to one problematic scene where a girl he near-assaults turns out to be remarkably forgiving of his circumstances.  Oshimi also demonstrates some real growth as an artist as we see her build on the nightmarish psychedelic approach she demonstrated in the final chapter of “The Flowers of Evil.”  Compared to that title, “Happiness” is off to a much stronger start by making its protagonist’s fears credible and exploring some less-well-trod ground in the vampire story genre along the way.

The classic strips from Berkeley Breathed's comic in the 80's are the best way to relive the decade, but as for its current revival...

That we currently have two ongoing series from Warren Ellis after years of miniseries and other short projects from the writer is kind of remarkable.  Unfortunately, it’s clear with this second volume of “Trees” that “Injection” is clearly the stronger of the two.  Fourteen issues into this series and it still has yet to fully click in a way that has me anticipating the (promised) third volume.  As the title implies, there are two main threads in this volume:  The first has biologist Jo Creasy, the sole survivor of the events in the Arctic from vol. 1, being recruited by the British government to investigate the Tree in the Orkney Isles and find out if they have anything to fear from it.  As for the other, it involves the new mayor-elect of New York City, identified only as Vince, and his efforts to get some justice done regarding the police who opened fire on unarmed civilians as they tried to secure the downtown city waterfront the day the Trees came down.  That, and deal with the increasing demands of the “constituency” who helped him get elected.

Dark Horse’s publication of videogame related artbooks continues apace in this month’s solicitations with The Art of Mass Effect:  Andromeda.  “Andromeda” is the first game in the series after the original trilogy and will take the player out of the known universe to set up a colony in the Andromeda system.  While I’ll definitely be picking up the game, I’ll probably be giving a pass on the artbook.  However, I am grateful for its existence as the original solicitation text for this book mentioned that it’ll be published simultaneously with the game on March 21, 2017.  That bit of text has since been removed, but given that the game was delayed to the first quarter of 2017 this date still seems pretty likely.  So to whoever screwed up there, thanks!

Also in “Mass Effect”-related comics solicitations:  The series jumps on the current adult coloring book craze with one of its own.  I’m even less interested in this than the artbook.  That said, I have to give the person who wrote the solicitation text credit for invoking one of the more (in)famous lines from the series with, “I’M COMMANDER SHEPARD, AND THIS IS MY FAVORITE COLORING BOOK ON THE CITADEL!”  Well said, sir.

This is what happens when have a creator who clearly loves “Conan” but doesn’t want to actually do an official story featuring the character.  Instead, creator Andrew MacLean gives us a burly, irascible, white-bearded master swordsman who carries around the severed head of Agatha the Blue Witch, and bears the nickname “Head Lopper” for his done-in-one fighting style.  He prefers to be called Norgal, thank you very much.  If the fact that he carries around the severed -- and very conversational -- head of a blue witch didn’t clue you in to the fact that he has led a colorful and adventurous life, the story from this volume will drive that home for you.  Here, Norgal announces his arrival in the island realm of Barra by cutting off the head of the sea serpent that guards the port of its biggest city.  This attracts the attention of numerous parties, including the island’s queen who asks that he kill the Sorcerer of the Black Bog who is responsible for the plague of beasts upon the island.  Norgal agrees and soon finds that he is in for a great deal more trouble than he initially signed on for.

Brian Wood wrote seven volumes about vikings, Norsemen, and other denizens of Northern Europe in “Northlanders” with only one real dud among them.  (That would be the misguided supernatural fantasy of “Metal.”)  Even if it’s not an official continuation, fans of that series can essentially think of this series as vol. 8.  All of the hallmarks of that series are here:  A gruff lone wolf protagonist forced to interact with a society he doesn’t understand/trust, an increasing Christian presence as they convert these pagan lands, and literal gut-wrenching violence.  The protagonist this time out is one Magnus the Black.  He’s a veteran warrior who lost his wife in an attack on his village years ago and now makes his way from town to town acting as a guide, sword for hire, or both for whoever has the coin.  This time around, it’s the Vatican who want him to escort a cardinal up the title road.  The journey starts off easy enough, but Magnus soon finds out that a very powerful man wants this cardinal dead.  It also turns out that the man of the cloth is also harboring a secret himself:  a guardian angel who is willing to go to the ends of the Earth to see his will carried out.

This volume, and I assume the rest of the series, carries the subtitle “A Magnus the Black” mystery.  I don’t know if it was Wood, artist Garry Brown, or someone at Image who came up with it, but I’d suggest any potential reader just disregard that.  It sets up some expectations that the title doesn’t really live up to.  While there is a mystery involving just what an exiled bishop is up to in these parts, Magnus isn’t really much of a detective.  He’s an interesting protagonist in how he tempers his brutality with street smarts, though not much of a detective.  Particularly in the way that he finds himself at least one step behind everyone else in this story.  Still, even if the mystery part of this story isn’t all that solid, Wood still manages to deliver an engaging story of people carving their own way though the harsh and unforgiving climate of the north.  Brown does a lot of the heavy lifting there as his rough and jagged art really helps to sell the struggle of these characters.  The story is incomplete with this volume, but in addition to fans of “Northlanders” I’d recommend this to anyone looking for a good viking story in comics, or fans of “Vinland Saga” to keep them occupied while waiting for vol. 8 in December.

The fact that the previous volume of this series happened to be a disappointing read was bad enough.  It stung even more when you consider that new volumes of “A Bride’s Story” only come out on an annual basis.  So I’ve basically spent most of the last ten months worrying that this great series had lost the thread and would only continue to disappoint from here on out.  Vol. 8 is certainly a step back in the right direction, but we’ve got to deal with a bit of a hangover first.