Comic Picks By The Glick

My initial thought regarding this volume was that Kieron Gillen had decided to do away with the delicate balance of terror that has defined his series so far.  Much of the drama from “Uber” has come from seeing both sides take shots at each other, with neither ever quite gaining the upper hand.  That changes here as Hitler’s “Great Burn” plan is enacted and the German Uber forces march across Europe, leaving nothing but warped and charred ruins in their wake.  It’s due to this that the British forces finally decide to send their monstrous Battleship-class Uber, the H.M.H. Churchill, into combat.  Though she appears to be neigh well indestructible, this woman has had little experience in actual combat.  She’s also afraid of heights.  Meanwhile, the Russians are trying to find ways to create their own Battleship so they can finally be done with the obstinate Mariya, the Japanese make their last stand at Okinawa, and the Americans continue to train their own Battleships.  Which is good for them because the war is coming their way whether they want it to or not.

To say that things go badly for the British here is something of an understatement.  The delicate balance of  terror is done away with here as the volume ends with the momentum firmly on the side of the Germans.  I was disappointed to see this, until I realized what this meant for the overall narrative.  Unless Gillen pulls out a twist for the next volume, we’re heading into the endgame now.  So it’s only natural that things will have reached their lowest ebb for the Allied forces.  Which will lead them to turn things around, but not without some pain, and eventually put an end to the German threat.  Personally, I’m hoping that either Vernon or Freddie, the two African-American Battleships, give that smug racist Siegfried the ass-whipping he has deserved since the start of the series.  This is what I’m expecting from the next volume, but Gillen doesn’t really deal in predictability with his stories.  I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next, even if I’m not sure I’m actually going to like it.

In case anyone was keeping track from last week’s “Image Previews Picks,” a re-read has confirmed that this is the best thing Warren Ellis has done in quite a while.  This isn’t a complete break from what the writer has been doing.  It’s more like a re-focusing of his strengths which helps remind longtime readers like me what he’s capable of.  “Trees” was a step in the right direction, but this is the real deal.  Complete with art from Declan Shalvey that perfectly complements the story.  Which happens to be about five specialists who decide to combine science and the supernatural to make the future more interesting.

I only lasted one volume on “Low.”  “Black Science” is starting to wear out its welcome.  I’m not sure if I’ll be giving “Tokyo Ghost” and “Devolution” a chance when they’re collected in trades.  Yet I think “Deadly Class” may wind up being the one creator-owned project from Rick Remender that I wind up sticking with for the long haul.  Yes, a whole lot of bad things happen to protagonist Marcus Lopez and his friends, to the point where it could start to come off like a depressing grind.  The difference here is that it happens to be so damn much fun at the same time.  Like the way this volume hits the ground running from the cliffhanger we left off on as Marcus and maybe-still-kinda-girlfriend Maria outrun vengeful cartel killers through explosions and fire on the streets of San Francisco.  It’s a bravura two-issue action sequence illustrated by Wes Craig that fires at full tilt through the very end and is amped up even further by the emotions Remender has his characters pour into it.  Teen melodrama is far more entertaining to behold when it involves a girl in skull-face makeup setting her opponents on fire and lopping their heads off with a well-placed strike of her fan.

After that, the story shifts back to Kings Dominion and Marcus and his crew start dealing with the fallout from their nighttime raid in their own ways.  That is to say, the story doesn’t slow down -- it just gets crazy in a whole new way.  With two deaths on his conscience, Marcus slinks into a drug-fueled haze that only serves to alienate his other friends.  Which is an even worse thing than it sounds as his paranoia and opportunistic classmates start to get the better of him.  There may be a lot of talking heads here, but it doesn’t stop Craig from investing the school scenes with the same delirious energy -- and a healthy dose of psychedelics in one stretch -- he brought to the opening arc.  While these scenes also find Remender up to his old tricks of grinding his protagonist down, the difference here is that Marcus brings most of these problems upon himself and is just unlikeable enough to be interesting.  So it’s a lot of fun to see him suffer, and wonder if he’ll eventually recognize his self-destructive tendencies and change before he winds up dead because of them.  “Deadly Class” ultimately proves that teenage angst is at its most entertaining when the kids are allowed to play out their desires to their fullest tilt (see also, “Battle Royale”).  It’s also a thrilling dose of over-the-top fun that leaves me anticipating the next volume -- unlike Remender’s other above-mentioned projects.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

For those of you keeping track at home, another character’s “mutant” status has now been retconned away.  It started with Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch revealed not to be Magneto’s children or mutants in the pages of “Axis” and “Uncanny Avengers.”  Now it turns out that Squirrel Girl has never been a mutant either!  WHERE WILL THE MADNESS STOP?  Only when Marvel has re-appropriated all of the mutants they can for their film and TV projects from Fox.  Interestingly, Fox hasn’t batted an eye at Marvel’s actions here, which indicates that they couldn’t care less about these retcons.  After all, they still have Wolverine.  And Deadpool.  And Magneto.  And Professor X.  And I could go on here, but I think you get the picture.

Still, one does have to wonder about what Marvel has in mind for Squirrel Girl for them to make this kind of move.  Probably to be the Avengers’ ace-in-the-hole when it comes to taking down Thanos in the “Infinity War” movies.  She does have a history of taking down the Mad Titan in the comics after all.

This “Second Season” of “Genshiken” is going to end up not being as enjoyable as the first.  I don’t know how many more volumes of it mangaka Shimoku Kio has in store for us now, but no amount of effort is likely to reverse that fact.  I’m saying this now because I’ve come to the realization that the one plot thread that has powered these past couple of volumes -- Madarame’s Harem -- is fatally flawed.  I thought that the idea of seeing a dating sim/hentai game play out in a setting trying to approximate real life is a good one.  Except it all breaks down when you start to wonder exactly what the four members of his harem exactly see in this guy.

What to do about lateness?  It’s something that has dogged Image ever since it was founded and continues to be a nagging issue to this day.  Publisher Eric Stephenson rightly acknowledges the short attention span of today’s audiences in that whenever a book misses it shipping date, it makes it easier for the audience to shift its attention to something else.  When this happens consistently, it erodes consumer faith in the product and the series will die a slow, ignoble death.  (See Also:  Bendis’ creator-owned titles.)  Stephenson cites “Saga” as a series that manages to sidestep this issue by taking planned breaks between each arc, something that other titles are taking a cue from.  New series are also required to have three full issues in the can before they can be solicited, reducing the risk that they’ll hit delays early on.  Still, simply being a responsible creator who knows how to manage his or her time well -- like “Saga’s” Vaughan and Staples -- is the best way I can see to combat this issue.  Lateness will never go away, but knowing your limits and working within them will make it less of a problem.

(This was going to be the intro to the January edition of “Image Previews Picks,” but it ran a bit long and things got a bit late.  Sooooooooo…)

A little over 13 million people tuned in live to see Glenn get ripped apart by zombies in the latest episode of “The Walking Dead” last Sunday.  At least that’s what the people who make the show really want you to think.  I think it’s likely that about a hundred thousand of those viewers went, “Hey, that’s not how it happened in the comics!” and noticed that Nick fell on top of Glenn.  Thus providing an insular buffet of blood and guts for the zombies that will likely save Glenn’s life.  While also showing that Nick turned out to be far more useful in death than he ever was in life on this show.

It’s interesting.  My main concern with the first volume was that the intimate, character-driven horror story was going to clash with the biblical, potentially “end of the world” plot that Robert Kirkman and Paul Azaceta were setting up.  With this second volume, it’s clear that the main plot is on a slow burn and is going to be built up over what appears to be quite some time.  I feel better about it now, but this comes at the pace of this story.  The efforts of Kyle Barnes and Reverend Anderson to find out more about the former’s abilities, how many demons are out there, and just what an Outcast is proceed at a snail’s pace here.  That’s not to say nothing happens here.  We see the fallout from Sidney’s encounter with the Reverend, Kyle and his partner visit other suspected cases of demonic possession and track down a missing girl in the process, and Kyle deals with family matters both mundane and otherworldly.

Despite all this, it feels like very little progress was made by the end of the volume.  Kyle and the Reverend are still very much in the dark about how to properly exorcise these demons and what the consequences of these acts may be.  Fortunately “A Vast and Unending Ruin” has other virtues that lead me to believe that sticking around will be worth it in the end.  Azaceta’s art continues to be extremely effective at delivering a creepy mood just perfect for the story and allowing the characters to express themselves in ways that draw you in.  Main plot aside, Kirkman has set up some compelling story threads with his characters here.  Reverend Anderson’s crisis of faith is haunting to watch unfold, as he tries to push Kyle to use his powers for good even as he’s coming undone after his encounter with who he believes to be the devil himself.  Kyle is slowly starting to warm up to his responsibility, but he also has a lot of family drama to work.  This drama is rendered in heartbreaking fashion as Kyle visits his ex-wife and daughter and things slingshot between good and bad times.  That’s the kind of thing that’s drawing me in right now.  Maybe next time I’ll have a good reason to be enthused about what role Kyle’s abilities will play in this story.