Comic Picks By The Glick

Myron is back again to help dissect this generally decent "Venom"-centric event.

Let me tell you a bit about how I arrange the manga side of my comics collection.  There’s one series of shelves where everything is laid out front-to-back like you’d see in a bookstore.  Another series of shelves has the volumes double-stacked: You can see half of the volumes on the shelf while the other half is behind them against the wall.  Whenever a series reaches four volumes I move it from the former series of shelves to the latter.

Above-the-Board Recommendation:

East of West vol. 10

Jonathan Hickman and Nick Dragotta’s epic sci-fi western reaches the end of its road.  The story of how Death, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, fell in love, had a kid, and paid dearly for these things.  Oh, and he did it according to some religious scripture which has also prophesized the actual end of the world. So there’s that to consider too.  It’s a series that aimed for “mythic” and largely hit its mark each time thanks to Hickman’s always dramatic dialogue and Dragotta’s stylish and expressive art.  While I’ve been able to enjoy each volume on their own terms as they’ve become smaller and released farther apart, I’m very much looking forward to seeing how it all reads from front-to-back given the rigorous planning Hickman invests into his projects.  As if it was part of the Message, you know?

Above-the-Board Recommendation:

Doctor Strange:  Surgeon Supreme vol. 1 -- Under the Knife

When I heard that Mark Waid’s run on “Doctor Strange” was getting a relaunch, I was just glad to hear that he’d still be writing this series.  Sure the “Surgeon Supreme” subtitle sounded a little goofy, but he was a surgeon at one point, so I didn’t think much of it. Then I read the most recent volume of the series and found out that there’s a very good reason for this subtitle.  Waid has gone and undone one of the title character’s defining traits, and done it in a way that actually creates more complications for him rather than less.  I’m definitely curious to see how the writer handles a character who is confident and arrogant enough to think that he can handle commitments from two different callings at once and not have either of them suffer.  “Under the Knife” is likely going to present a rude awakening for the doctor, but one that should look fantastic with “Doctor Aphra,” “Black Panther,” and “Spider-Man” artist Kev Walker providing the art.

Above-the-Board Recommendation:

Harrow County Omnibus vol. 1

I was always curious about this series as I saw new issues and volumes offered month after month in these solicitations.  While Cullen Bunn is a decent writer and Tyler Crook is a great artist, the series never quite captured enough of my attention to pick it up.  That Dark Horse was selling each four-issue collection for $15 didn’t really help things either.

Now the series has arrived in omnibus format and we’re getting the first half of the series (16 issues) for $30.  That’s enough to convince me to finally give this series a shot. While I like the creative team, the fact that it’s an ongoing Dark Horse title that actually ran to completion suggests that they were doing something right.  As for what “Harrow County” is about, the solicitation text tells me that it involves a young woman who lives out in the monster-infested woods and finds out about her connection to said monsters. Should be interesting to see if this was worth waiting for once July rolls around.

Above-the-Board Recommendation:

Generation One (One-Shot)

Guess what?  The DCU is getting rebooted again.  Well, maybe reboot is too strong a word.  “Continued” may be a better one based on what I’ve heard is planned for it.  Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and a lot of other current heroes are either getting aged up, retired, or both to make way for a new generation of heroes.  If that sounds like a rather extreme thing to do, then consider the fact that DC has been losing ground to Marvel ever since “Rebirth” and they just haven’t found a sustainable way to keep the growth they manage with all previous relaunches.  So it’s time to do something REALLY different.

And it looks to have started with the firing of DC co-publisher Dan Didio.  He was at DC for close to two decades, been running things for a little more than half that, and had fans braying for his blood for just a little longer.  I’m not one of those and kicking out Didio as abruptly and unceremoniously as DC did seems like a mistake. If they’re going to try and make a major change like “Generation Five” is supposed to be, it would make sense to have someone who knows the business inside and out like him on hand to make sure it goes smoothly.  At least Didio can sit back and play the “Don’t Blame Me” card if this latest stunt goes over like “New Coke” did.

That said, it’d be interesting if this does succeed and we wind up getting a lot of new superheroes and creatives into the industry.  DC is even said to be recruiting outside the normal comic channels for this. I’d like nothing more than to see the company succeed in what they’re doing here and find some lasting success as a result.  I also think I’ll be fine with losing the current versions of the characters as well because they’ve already had so many great stories written with them that I could probably spend the next decade just catching up on them all.

The problem facing this relaunch is an expectation as to why it should be any different than the previous ones.  The New 52 and Rebirth started out strong before sales settled back down to normal levels, and while the existing fanbase is likely going to be curious regarding these new changes a good portion is also likely to be pissed off by them as well.  I applaud DC for swinging for the fences on this. I just hope they don’t wind up smacking themselves in the face and knocking themselves out in the process.

Before this happens, however, you can look forward to...

The three issues actually written by Waid in this volume are arguably the best he’s offered up on his run so far.  “Strange, Visitor” has the Doctor barging into a home in Kansas to stop a demonic invasion while the parents inside try to keep up with him and his arrogance.  It’s a fast-paced tale that showcases Strange’s arrogance and kindness while serving up a solution that’s both logical and magical at the same time. Then comes the title story which has the Doctor needing to perform a life-or-death surgical procedure that requires the full use of his damaged hands.  So what does he do? He makes a deal with a demon and a bet on some magical odds, which will no doubt come back to haunt him later on. The last issue, “The Secret of the Ancient One” follows up on the immediate fallout from that decision while drawing a line under this part of Waid’s run.

Had these issues come out back in the 90’s, or even the 00’s, there would’ve been a lot more talk about what the writer does to the character here.  Waid effectively undoes one of Strange’s defining characteristics in the space of a single issue and it’s hard not to feel a little bit of story-based whiplash from that.  As we find out in the following issue, however, there are consequences for it and the Doctor is going to have to do some work in order to get back. It’s a good spot for the doctor to be in, from a storytelling perspective, and these issues make a good case for following what Waid will be doing on “Doctor Strange:  Surgeon Supreme.”

That series will have Kev Walker providing the art, and he’ll make for a worthy follow up to the efforts from Jesus Saiz and Javier Pina here.  The former really kills it in the two issues he illustrates here, giving the volume its most shocking sight in a full-page splash from “The Choice.”  Andy MacDonald and Lalit Kumar Sharma also provide decent art in the stories they illustrate from Tini Howard and Pornsak Pichetshote in the Annual collected here.  The creators’ work in the Annual is fine for what it is, but it’s not quite enough to escape the feeling that Marvel just ginned up some filler with it to pad out this otherwise good collection.

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What happens when the woman who can remember everything that’s happened in this world loses her memory?  That’s the premise for this volume as the title character emerges out of the woods of Southern Japan in late ‘73 with no memory of who she is.  Fortunately she meets up with Ryozo, a young researcher who takes her to a nearby hospital. Even though her memory stubbornly refuses to return, she’s plagued by dreams of Earth’s past that only serve to traumatize her.  Good thing that Ryozo’s such a nice guy as he takes her in and they start a life together. Eventually they tie the knot and have a kid together. Which brings on a new kind of tragedy as the woman Ryozo loved becomes a shell of herself while their kid becomes the new Emanon.

I’ll admit that development prompted another slight uptick in my interest for this series.  Mainly because the previous volume’s revelation that the current Emanon’s memories pass into her child’s, leaving her a shell of her former self, created a plot hole when you consider that we saw her mom walking around just fine in the first volume.  Writer Shinji Kaijo looks to be digging into that towards the end of the volume and it provides a decent plot hook for the next volume. Maybe it’ll even tie into the mystery of Emanon’s brother and why he can blow stuff up with his mind.

Before we get to that point, it’s more of the same languid “Emanon” business of the title character hanging out with a guy her age, talking about stuff, and generally being propped up by Kenji Tsuruta’s lovely art.  Even now that the plot has acquired some direction, Tsuruta’s art remains this volume’s main selling point. Which this series has been doing, apparently. Editor Carl Horn explains in his afterword that Dark Horse is pursuing the fourth volume of this series, which hadn’t come out when they licensed these first three volumes.  It makes me wonder why there wasn’t an “...and all future volumes” clause included when this series was licensed, but I’m glad that it looks like we won’t have another Dark Horse manga fading into an indefinite hiatus.

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