Comic Picks By The Glick

“The Legend of Zelda:  Hyrule Historia” has been the biggest-selling project to come out of Dark Horse in recent memory.  Two years after its release, it still makes the list of bestselling comic-related books on Diamond’s charts.  The problem is that despite all of its success, it’s still a book that originally came from Nintendo, and subsequently licensed and localized by Dark Horse.  It’s not like Dark Horse could actually go out and make a sequel themselves.  I’m also sure that Nintendo would’ve shrugged off any requests on the company’s part as they were busy dealing with the struggling Wii U and their own precarious place in the games market.

It took some time, but that sequel is on its way.  “The Legend of Zelda:  Art and Artifacts” is a four-hundred page showcase of artwork for the series.  From the pixel-based style of the original to the fully-painted works that have been produced for the upcoming “Breath of the Wild.”  Speaking of the latest “Zelda” game, there is said to be plenty of art for that entry and the volume’s arrival in February will be well-timed to catch the wave of hype for the heavily anticipated game as it is (theoretically) expected to arrive with the Nintendo NX around the end of the first quarter of 2017.

This is an easy buy for me because it’s all about something from the series we can all appreciate:  the art.  As opposed to the eye-rolling contortions displayed in the “Hyrule Historia” to bring all of the previous “Zelda” games into a single, branching timeline.

Digital Manga utilized the crowdfunding platform to bring us a very uneven selection of works from the God of Manga.

Vol. 7 wastes no time in picking up where the peasant army left off in their siege of the castle of Schwyz.  If you’ve enjoyed mangaka Mitsuhisa Kuji’s depiction of medieval siege weaponry and tactics, then she has a lot more to offer up here.  We get to see the peasant army, led by the supremely capable Heinz, fight tooth-and-nail to overcome all of the boiling oil, heavily fortified doorways, and entrenched guards to take the castle.  That turns out to be the easy part of their job as Duke Leopold returns with an army and siege weapons of his own.  I’ll admit that Kuji is able to mine a great deal of tension from how she keeps us guessing as to whether or not the peasants will be able to hold off their attackers.  That alone makes this volume a tense and engaging read.

I wouldn’t say that we’re all the way up to “compelling” yet.  My concern that the series would lose its drive after Bailiff Wolfram was killed in the previous volume is pretty much borne out here.  All of the action here is good for what it is, but it’s lacking the extra level of excitement which came from knowing that everything being done in the series was bringing us one step closer to the bailiff’s demise.  Yes, there is an effort to make Leopold the new big bad here.  It doesn’t really work as his antics here make him come off as more of a dick than a genuine villain.  I’ll keep reading “Wolfsmund” because Kuji displays some good storytelling chops with the desperate peasant struggle in this volume.  However, it still leaves me with the feeling that this title’s best days are behind it.

While the overall quality of their licensed comics has tended to be generally quite good over the years, it’s still somewhat rare to see a “name” creator on one of them at Dark Horse.  So when it was announced that Greg Rucka would be writing the “Magekiller” miniseries set in BioWare’s “Dragon Age” universe, it was practically a given that I’d get around to picking it up at some point.  That it was also advertised as taking place in a heretofore unseen part of the land of Thedas -- the once-mighty Tevinter Imperium -- only added to its desirability.  With all this going for it, I’m ultimately a little disappointed that “Magekiller” winds up being only a serviceable addition to the “Dragon Age” canon.

Stop me if this sounds familiar to you:  A blowhard businessman decides to run for president and wins the hearts of millions with his straight talk while offending even more with his rhetoric and poor temperament.  That’s the setup for “Citizen Jack,” but its protagonist, Jack Northworthy, has one thing in his corner that Trump doesn’t.  At least, I don’t think that Trump has a demon egging him on and manipulating those around him.  Even if that were true, I don’t think that kind of revelation could make this current race any crazier.  That happens to be this title’s biggest problem.

While “Citizen Jack” wants to be an outrageous satire that one-ups reality in an even more outrageous fashion, writer Sam Humphries’ ambitions fall short here.  That’s because for all of his supposed “outrageousness” Jack never comes across as more crazy or unhinged than his real-life counterpart.  Even when he starts to self-sabotage his campaign and declares a “War on Children” to round them up and put them in camps it still feels like a weak grab for satire.  The fact that he has a demon, Marlinspike, backing him also turns out to be a fairly underwhelming plot twist.  Granted, the revelation that his relative uselessness is actually somewhat intentional is a halfway clever conceit.  That’s about as good as this series gets, however.

“Citizen Jack” does start off with some strong art from Tommy Patterson who invests the early days of Jack’s campaign with an impressive level of detail.  He’s not able to keep that up as the issues go on, and by the final issue he’s clearly straining against the deadlines.  Humphries also packs the final issue with a ton of plot developments to let you know that he has some definite ideas about where this series will go in its second arc.  If they turn out to be worthwhile, you’ll have to let me know.  “Citizen Jack” was aiming to be an of-the-moment skewering of our political process.  Regrettably, it wound up being skewered by real life instead.

For the freshman finals at King’s Dominion Atelier of the Deadly Arts, all of the rats must die.  This includes series protagonist Marcus, his goth girlfriend Petra, and former friend turned current ally Billy.  Their race to survive all the teen assassins coming for their heads stands as some of the most thrilling storytelling that this series has delivered yet.  As you’d expect, the many action scenes are breathless in their pacing and brutal in their outcomes and give you a rush that most comics just can’t offer.  It doesn’t lose a step when things calm down.  That’s when Rick Remender takes the knife out and starts to twist as Marcus, his friends, and his enemies realize that not only are things not going to plan, they really can’t trust anyone else.  I’ve made a point before about how Remender likes to grind down his characters for dramatic effect, yet “Deadly Class” remains the exception to how wearying that approach can be.  Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, suffers in this black-humored teen drama and that makes it a lot easier to take.  None of this would matter, however, without the always-stunning work of artist Wes Craig who is right there with the writer in knowing just how crazy to pitch things on the page.

While reading this volume for the first time, I was absorbed to the point where “one of the best things I’ve read all year” kept reverberating through my mind.  Then I got to the last couple of pages…

It’s not that they betray the drama of what has come before or represent an unrealistic outcome to the events of the finals.  The problem is that we’ve been down this road before with Remender.  The first volume of “Black Science” as a matter of fact.  I was all for that particular twist then, until he undid it in the second volume and destroyed a potentially fascinating story thread in the process.  It could be that he’s actually going to make good on this particular development in the pages of “Deadly Class.”  I’m more inclined to believe that we’ll see the character thought to be killed here with their chest thoroughly bandaged and in some kind of makeshift hospital bed recovering from their injuries in the next volume.  Or vol. 6 if Remender really wants to draw things out.  The good news is that even if this development does turn out the way I’m expecting it to, there’s still plenty of things going on with the (surviving) members of the cast to keep me riveted to the page.  This one development, though, still feels pretty disingenuous next to what the creators accomplished with the rest of vol. 4

The best part about the first two volumes (we’re not counting “Vader Down” here) of Kieron Gillen and Salvador Larroca’s “Darth Vader” title is how it presents the title character in a diminished state with a struggle before him, and still presents this Dark Lord of the Sith as an uncompromising badass who is not to be trifled with.  For “The Shu-Torun War,” Gillen dispenses with the struggle of the previous volumes and gives us a full volume of Vader steamrolling over every threat that crosses his path.  Which is particularly impressive given that this war is essentially the result of his own unique brand of diplomacy.  Shu-Torun is a mining world that supplies the Empire with many of the rare minerals and ores it needs for all of its projects.  In the opening story, Vader heads to the world to meet with its king and deliver a message of compliance regarding the increased quotas.  It… doesn’t go well for the king, but the new ruler is unable to properly pacify the rebelling ore barons and so the Emperor sends Vader back to end this war.  However, the scale of this operation is so great that the Emperor also sends Doctor Cylo and his proteges (who, lest we forget, are also competing for Vader’s job) along as well.

As Vader demonstrates here, such challenges are nothing before the Dark Side of the Force.  I won’t lie:  It’s actually pretty satisfying to see Vader in full dominance here.  Whether it’s destroying a mining citadel by covering it in molten rock, explaining to Shu-Torun’s queen that the nature of their deal is simply how things will be, or showing us all why Sith lords make for terrible dance partners, Vader is in fantastic form here as he’s portrayed here as less of a man and more of a force of nature.  I am implying that there’s less depth to his portrayal here than in previous volumes, but a single volume of the title character showing us why he’s the best there is at what he does still makes for a nice diversion.  Gillen also gets some great moments of (dark) comedy relief from the antics of Triple-Zero and BT, and manages to give Shu-Torun’s new queen a nice little character arc as she gets a crash course in the necessary evils of leadership.  The volume also looks fantastic as usual thanks to the work of Lenil Yu on the opening story, Salvador Larroca on the regular issues.  I will confess that I’m more partial to the former’s work here, as he thrives on tackling big and imaginative setpieces.

Vol. 3 is lacking the nuanced portrayal of the title character that has defined its previous volumes.  The good news there is that Gillen lets us know at the very end that we’ll be seeing Vader struggle a little more in the upcoming fourth and final volume of the series.  While the power of the Dark Side of the Force can easily win wars, it does tend to struggle a bit when put up against a really clever inspector.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

It becomes clearer to me with each passing volume that there is nothing more to be done with the concept of sequential art as a medium after this.  Yes, all writers can stop writing, artists can stop drawing, and all inkers, assistants, colorists, and letterers can lay down their tools in the face of the godlike phallic monolith of raw un-festering genius that is “Prison School.”  Having one of its protagonists crap himself in the middle of class to obtain genuine sounds of gastrointestinal distress was only the tip of the iceberg of the magnificence demonstrated by mangaka Akira Hiramoto.  Vol. 4 not only has such sights to behold as burly and buxom Shadow Student Council member Meiko being flustered by an abnormally long nipple hair during an arm-wrestling match, but also the greatest challenge faced by Kiyoshi yet!  With the postponement of his and his friends’ expulsion on the line, can this avowed minion of the mammaries explain to the ass-loving Chairman why butts are better than boobs?  Such incredible drama is wrought from this most demanding test of his character!  Surely we have reached the pinnacle of the medium, standing so high that it causes all other works to weep in despair that their flaccid attempts cannot measure up to the massive girth of achievement demonstrated here.

Or maybe it’s just that “Prison School” is just superior garbage.

Rather than simply write something that appeals to fifteen-year-olds on their own, Hiramoto has managed to create something that does a better job of speaking to people in touch with their inner fifteen-year-old.  While Meiko alone covers all the bases (ALL OF THEM!) necessary to attract actual teenagers, the mangaka has consistently found ways to push the envelope of sexual titillation in entertaining ways.  Granted, this is only true if female boobs, butts, or… “Medusas” are relevant to your interests.  Then you’ve also got the issue of sexual assault and how its determination of “Who’s the victim here?” becomes downright ouroboros-like when Kiyoshi and Hana find themselves alone in the infirmary late in this volume.  “Prison School” has never been “for everyone,” but the relentless imagination it displays in its obvious goals of fanservice is second to none in my book.