Comic Picks By The Glick

With this, we’ve finally caught up to Viz’s original release of the series.  That arc, “Stardust Crusaders,” showed “Jojo’s” finally hitting its stride and cast a shadow over the deluxe edition releases of the first two parts of this title.  “Battle Tendency” has been on an upward trajectory over the course of its four volumes, and with this fourth volume it’s easy to see how mangaka Hirohiko Araki was able to kick things into high gear for what came after.  I mean, this is the kind of story where Joseph Joestar has to take down evil vampire Wamuu in a chariot race, but needs to grab the sledgehammer hanging from a pillar in order to have the edge in the fight.  He’s able to do that after pulling one of his dirty tricks at the start, but this doesn’t faze the vampire.  No, Wamuu just grabs THE PILLAR instead!  This isn’t even the craziest thing that happens in their battle.  At one point, Wamuu realizes that he was a fool to rely on his sight because he could see, and then…  Well, it’s probably best that you read this volume to get the full effect.

Though the battle with Wamuu is great stuff, things get a little shakier in the final showdown between Joseph and Kars with the life of the former’s trainer/secret mother Lisa Lisa on the line.  Joseph displays some real cleverness in his tactics as he fights this superior foe, but it all drags on after a while.  Particularly when Kars keeps displaying new “final forms” to come back for one more round after our protagonist keeps taking him down.  Toss in the fact that Lisa Lisa is both made out to be someone who can handle herself and a victim in need of saving, and having Stroheim and his Nazi buddies show up to help turn the tide and the series is on some very wobbly legs as it manages to stick the landing in spite of itself.  Making “Jojo’s” into a generational saga was probably the smartest move Araki made in his development of the series.  He was able to move past these issues in one chapter as the volume closes out on Joseph heading off to Japan to kick off “Stardust Crusaders.”  I’m honestly tempted to go back and re-read it after all this.  I mean, I’ve got to do something until Viz gets around to releasing “Part 4:  Diamond is Unbreakable” in print.

Right now, “Injection” artist Declan Shalvey is busy doing back-up stories for “All-Star Batman” and a “Nick Fury” serial for the “Civil War:  Choosing Sides” miniseries.  I mention this because, while they’re raising his profile, they’re keeping the artist from working on the next volume of this series.  While Warren Ellis has said that Shalvey will be starting in on the third volume later this year, THIS IS STILL TERRIBLE NEWS!  Vol. 1 of “Injection” was good.  Vol. 2 shows that its quality wasn’t a fluke.  It manages to do this while narrowing the focus to tell a specific story while not neglecting the uber-plot about the adaptive intelligence five scientists unleashed on our world.

Abe’s ongoing series hasn’t been the brightest spot in the Mignolaverse, creatively speaking.  Actually, let’s not mince words:  For the majority of its run, “Abe Sapien” has embodied some of the worst characteristics you can find in Mike Mignola’s writing.  There have been plenty of vaguely cryptic hints about the title character’s role in the end of the world, low-energy stories that can’t generate excitement even when the monster-punching starts, lots of characters speaking in cthonic-sounding tongues, and a desire to treat this story with a seriousness that it doesn’t earn.  John Arcudi’s knack for strong characterization and witty, self-deflating dialogue has effectively blunted these tendencies over in “B.P.R.D.” over the years, but “Abe” co-writer Scott Allie has failed to have a similar effect here.  Also, the artistic duo of the Fiumara brothers has been decidedly uneven, both can do monsters and supernatural menaces very well, but Max’s humans have a tendency to wind up looking creepier that his creatures.  Sebastian’s efforts have been uniformly good throughout the series, though the less said about his efforts to emulate early Mignola in this volume the better.

“The Secret Fire” does at least one thing right:  We’re finally told why Abe is so important to the ongoing apocalypse and his role in the next age of man.  It’s a relief to have this payoff if nothing else.  The problem with it is that Abe, and the reader, find this out through a lengthy explanation as a mother translates for her daughter speaking in those aforementioned cthonic tongues.  It effectively amounts to one long scene where we’re told why the character is important to the plot without any appreciable demonstration of it.  Granted, it’s implied that Abe’s importance will manifest itself after the end of the world which makes it kind of hard to show off.  This is a “Mignolaverse” book, however, and letting something like the ongoing apocalypse get in the way of the story being told shouldn’t be such an obvious dealbreaker.

There has been one consistently good thing about this series:  The ongoing quest of Gustav Strobl.  He’s been trying to secure the best place for himself in the new world, and he finally figures out how to do that in this volume.  What makes his journey so interesting is that in contrast to all other antagonists in the Mignolaverse, and nearly all other bad guys I’ve read about in fiction, it’s pitched overtly towards his self-destruction.  Strobl has knowledge, but he wields it in a reckless manner while his arrogance keeps him from noticing all of the literal and metaphorical warnings to turn back and save himself here.  This time, it just costs him his nose.  It’s obvious that Strobl will wind up being just clever enough to get himself killed in some unspeakably horrible manner and then tortured for the rest of his existence in Hell.  That makes me feel just the tiniest bit of sympathy for the man, and a genuine desire to see how it all works out for him in the next (final?) volume.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

Between this “Extraordinary X-Men,” and “All-New Wolverine,” it seems that the direction for the franchise in the wake of Bendis’ run has been to embrace the familiar and return to what has worked before.  That means lots of character-driven drama between teams with defined members and actual fights against established members of their rogues’ gallery.  While the previous two titles were good examples of this trend, I wasn’t expecting as much from this title given that its writer, Dennis Hopeless, has yet to have a truly breakout superhero or creator-owned title to his credit.  I’m happy to report that this title may be it.

You could split this volume into two arcs as the team -- made up of the still time-displaced Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, and Angel, along with Wolverine, Kid Apocalypse, and Oya -- faces off against a group of wannabe mutant revolutionaries who have taken after Cyclops the Older, and a more refined version of the Blob as he terrorizes Parisian restauranteurs.  Standard issue stuff, to be sure, but it’s fun seeing the kids out to fight the good fight.  Particularly when you’ve got someone like Mark Bagley illustrating these issues as he excels at drawing superhero action and young characters.

What impressed me the most about this volume, however, was Hopeless’ grasp of his cast and how he manages things so that (almost) everyone gets some time to establish themselves here.  Cyclops has his issues with how he turns out in the future, Bobby has difficulty learning how to successfully flirt with guys, Hank is worried that he’s behind the curve in the future, Idie still has her issues with Christianity, and Warren and Laura have their unique relationship issues to work out.  Some of this stuff can be on the nose and more than a little melodramatic.  It still manages to come from a place of honesty regarding the characters, and I have to admit that Wolverine and Angel as a couple makes more sense after seeing how they act together here.  Evan “Kid Apocalypse” is the only one who gets the short end of the stick here as he’s mainly defined by how he responds to the actions of the rest of the cast.  Given that the next volume collects the “Apocalypse Wars” tie-in issues, that’s likely to be remedied.  Though there doesn’t seem to be a long-term plan here and the idea of the time-displaced X-Men ever going back to the past isn’t even addressed here, I still got plenty of enjoyment out of this volume just from seeing them hang out and then go fight the bad guys.

David Walker and Ramon Villalobos’ “Nighthawk” series was cancelled this week.  There was a bit of an uproar about this as it was apparently a well-liked series that dealt with white-hot social issues as the title character headed to Chicago to confront its gang violence problem.  Unfortunately, while the people who want their superhero comics to feature storylines reflecting current political and social issues are certainly a vocal bunch, there really aren’t that many of them.  Less than 16K according to the sales numbers on the latest issue of “Nighthawk.”  I’m part of the problem here because even though Walker is a rising star in the comics world (and the writer of the excellent “Shaft” miniseries from last year) I honestly couldn’t be bothered to care about a series featuring the “Not-Batman” member of the “Squadron Supreme.”  While it won’t do anything for the current state of the series, people are being asked to show their support for it by pre-ordering the collection of its six issues.  That, I can do.  Maybe when it arrives in January I’ll see how good it was and retroactively castigate myself for not supporting it sooner.

Meanwhile (to show you where my priorities really lie), it’s been revealed Kieron Gillen isn’t quite done with the company yet!  He teased five new comics projects, one of which is a new ongoing title for the House of Ideas.  Granted, this could be a new “Star Wars” project to follow the soon-to-be-concluded “Darth Vader” series as opposed to something set in the Marvel Universe.  I’d be perfectly happy with either outcome, honestly.

The aftermath of the American Civil War isn’t the last place I’d expect to see as the setting for a manga, but it’s pretty close.  “Sacred Beasts” kicks right off with its high concept:  In the face of losing the war, the Northern States resorted to using “forbidden arts” to create unstoppable soldiers based on the creatures of myth and legend.  They won the war, but now these creatures -- Incarnates -- struggle to fit in as their bestial natures start to overwhelm their human aspects.  It’s the personal responsibility of Hank, the captain of the Incarnate platoon and one himself, to track down the Incarnates who have lost themselves and put an end to the danger they pose.  Even when it means incurring the wrath of their loved ones, like one Nancy Schaal Bancroft who tries to take him out with an elephant gun the first time she sees him.  It should naturally follow from that violent first encounter that the young girl accompanies Hank on his job after she learns that it isn’t as cut-and-dried as it appeared to her.  I mean, that’s how these stories work, right?

While the setting may be novel, the story being told within it is anything but.  If you go into “Sacred Beasts” expecting to be wowed by its imaginative plotting, then you’re going to come away very disappointed.  Those of you who enter with low expectations, or (perhaps more ideal) haven’t already read too many mismatched protagonists take down mythical monsters stories will probably be more engaged by its modest charms.  MAYBE, the two-person mangaka team behind this title, invests the title with some gritty, detailed art that makes the setting appear as haunting as it needs to be while also standing out from other manga titles.  The stories themselves are also competently executed with some token nods towards the moral ambiguity of Hank’s job and fleshing out his and Schaal’s characters beyond their initial appearances.

If you were being particularly generous, it’s possible to interpret the Incarnates as a metaphor for wartime post-traumatic stress disorder.  Here are these soldiers who gave their all for their side in the war, and came back irrevocably changed by their experience and unable to fit back into society or properly relate to those around them.  Unfortunately, the metaphor falls apart (or reflects a very grim perspective on mental illness) when all of the encounters with other Incarnates wind up having the same outcome.  Probably best not to think to hard on the idea of “Sacred Beasts” having any real depth beyond its monster-of-the-week-killing goals and approach it as a kind of supernatural action/fantasy/horror comfort food.

Robert Kirkman has joked in the past that his dream with “Invincible” was to hand it over to other creators at some point and have it live on in much the same way that Marvel and DC titles do.  That one day he would pick up the latest issue of the title, from younger creators he didn’t know, and hurl it across the room in a fit of rage as he screams, “This isn’t ‘Invincible!’”  Well, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen now as “Invincible” kicks off its final arc, a twelve-issue epic entitled “The End of All Things,” in these solicitations.  This is happening for two reasons:  The first is that Kirkman felt that the issues he was plotting out were building to a conclusion for the adventures of Mark Grayson and family, friends, and frenemies.  The second is that longtime artist Ryan Ottley was also feeling the same way, in regards to the monthly grind of putting the book out for the past decade-plus.  If both of the creators that have defined this series want to call it a day, that’s fine with me.  “Invincible” has been consistently great for the majority of its run, and I’m sure they’ll come up with a worthy finale as they’re still firing on all cylinders.

That said, this being “Invincible” after all, it’s probably time to start a death pool to see who’s going to make it out alive.  Given the way this series has rolled after all this time, we’re going to see a lot of good and bad people meeting their ends before the end comes in issue #144.

There will be no review of Garth Ennis’ and John McCrea’s “All-Star Section 8” here.  I was planning to do one, and it would’ve focused on how it was pretty much what you’d expect:   Ennis bringing in DC’s heroes for one more kicking with as much bathroom humor as he could get away with in a non-mature readers title.  This time around, it has the added kick in the teeth of showing that not even Superman was exempt from the writer’s contempt as he has been in the past.  Instead of making everything right again, he keeps the vicious cycle that Sixpack is stuck in going so that he and the rest of the DCU can continue to exist.  It makes his neck-snapping of Zod in “Man of Steel” look almost saint-like in comparison.

Then I read Charlotte Finn’s review/analysis of the series over at Comics Alliance and realized that I had missed the point of the series entirely.  While it’s ostensibly a revival of the worst superteam ever from “Hitman,” Finn makes a great case for “ASS8” being a metaphor for the perils of addiction.  Sixpack may be a terrible hero, but it’s his love of these characters and their universe that keeps him from realizing that he’s really a drunk freezing to death in an alley who has dreamed the whole thing into being.  From that perspective, Superman’s offer of a whiskey bottle at the end of his life-affirming speech makes perfect blackly comic sense.

I want to thank Finn for taking the time to dig deeper into something that I had written off as something for Ennis completists.  It’s more than that, and I’ll have to keep it in mind when I get around to reading Ennis’ follow-up, now with artist Russ Braun, “Hard Travelin’ Heroz.”  For all of “ASS8’s” ridiculousness, though, I do hope that the writer’s beatboxing take on the Phantom Stranger becomes the default take on the character.  Much in the same way that Warren Ellis’ “My robot brain needs beer!” interpretation of Machine Man has over at Marvel.