Comic Picks By The Glick

This wraps up the main story with the fourth volume “Exhibition” set to contain… I dunno, maybe side stories set before, after, or even during the events of the previous three volumes.  Anywhoo, vol. 3 wraps things up in better fashion than what I was expecting after vol. 2.  It’s nothing fantastic by any stretch of the imagination, but if you were hoping to see Maria get a happy ending that involves her finding happiness for herself, then you’re likely to be satisfied.  I felt that the plot mechanics, as orchestrated by mangaka Masayuki Ishikawa, were pre-ordained to deliver this kind of conclusion.  So while it’s nice to see the title character achieve the “mega-happy ending,” it didn’t really feel earned so much as dictated.  At least the yammering about God’s role in humanity’s existence is dialed back a bit for this volume.

I will give credit to the mangaka for the parts of this volume that didn’t feel forced.  Maria’s ecstatic joy at finally getting a boyfriend was fun, Ezekiel’s moral dilemmas and ultimate fate were handled quite well, and the witch Edwina’s role in the story was constantly amusing.  In Edwina’s case, she comes off as a witch who just wants to go about her business as always, but has to deal with the consequences of witches like Maria and Viv who do not.  Her exasperation at their actions was genuinely funny as she was the one person who didn’t want to cause any fuss, yet wound up in a personal dispute between Heaven and Man that she had no real stake in.  Honestly, I’d much rather see another volume about her life than Maria’s since Edwina’s has much greater potential for comedy and entertainment at this point.

Based on the story told over these three volumes, “Maria the Virgin Witch” isn’t a bad series.  It just hasn’t shown itself to be anything more than agreeable fluff.  I can only hope that my patience in buying it has convinced Kodansha that there’s an audience for Ishikawa’s work to the point that they’ll license-rescue “Moyasimon.”  (Not that I’ll be holding my breath at this point.)

Well, the new trailer for “Batman vs. Superman” at least did a better job of putting the title conflict into perspective.  Still not completely sold on Zack Snyder’s ultra-serious approach to the DC Universe.  I’m more optimistic about the new “Batman” film coming from Ben Affleck, and supposedly co-written by him and Geoff Johns.  Now there’s a writer who knows his way around the DCU, though I’ve been more partial to his take on the Man of Steel as opposed to the Caped Crusader.  The “Suicide Squad” teaser did a good job of making the film seem like it’d be true to the source material and a good action movie.  Not completely sold on Jared Leto’s Joker, but I only have to go on the ten seconds or so that we actually saw of him.  A friend did tell me about a crazy fan theory involving the Joker writing on the Robin costume in the “BvS” trailer that has this iteration of the character actually having an origin that borrows a lot from “Batman Beyond:  Return of the Joker.”

Not a bad showing overall from Warner Bros./DC on the film side of things from Comic-Con.  As for the comics?  Well, the announcements from that will be trickling through these solicitations over the next few months.  (I will say that I am not onboard with the idea of a new “Lucifer” series without the involvement of Mike Carey.)

Among the news coming out of Comic-Con last week included Greg Rucka bringing “Tevinter’s Boba Fett” to a “Dragon Age” miniseries, Joss Whedon answering the question of “Why isn’t there a female Victorian steampunk Batman?” in his new series “Twist,” Paolo Rivera and Chris Roberson contributing to the Mignolaverse, and Larry Hama doing a “Call of Duty” miniseries to tie into “Black Ops III.”  Coming in way under the radar was the announcement that “Blade of the Immortal” will be getting the omnibus treatment starting next year.  So if you haven’t checked out this brilliant series before -- say it with me -- “Now you have no excuse!”

While I hope these omnibus editions bring the series to a new audience, it does seem like the move was prompted not only by the title’s recent conclusion but the fact that a good portion of the early volumes are now out of print.  Most of those volumes are now selling for well above cover price on Amazon.  So the sooner these omnibi arrive, the better.  It’s kind of annoying that they’ve gone out of print in the first place, though it regrettably offers additional evidence in regards to the company’s lower profile compared to other manga publishers.

The war between the Federation and Zeon continues apace in this volume, with Amuro and Char playing their parts either on the battlefield or behind closed doors.  Yet their struggles, and those of the supporting cast, aren’t the most interesting part of this volume.  The Siege of Solomon is Dozle Zabi’s story and even if you know exactly how it’s going to unfold, the results are equal parts compelling and affecting.

Would you believe me if I said that this series about kids uncovering the history of Gotham’s most prestigious school involved no creepy weirdness, paranormal activity, or Batman?  Didn’t think so.  It all centers around Olive Silverlock, a student who is beginning her second year with a host of issues.  Not only does she wind up being “nanny” to Maps, the little sister of her sort-of ex-boyfriend, but there’s a big part of her summer vacation that’s just a blank to her.  Toss in the rumors of a ghost haunting the campus, a secret group exploring the dark arts, an escapee from Arkham Asylum, and the fact that the hole in Olive’s memory could best be described as “Batman-shaped” and there’s enough drama here to last the girl through the rest of her time at the Academy.  Even though I’m making it sound piled-on, co-writers Becky Cloonan and Brenden Fletcher do a good job of spreading everything out over the course of this volume to keep you interested in the various goings-on.  This must’ve made for an interesting experience to whoever read this in single-issue form because it reads like it was meant to be a (series of) graphic novel(s).  It would’ve been nice, however, for them to wrap things up with some kind of closure rather than leaping towards the next leg of the story.

I will be back for the second volume, that much is certain.  While the storytelling works well enough, it’s the characters that really make the book stand out.  Even if she is bearing the weight of the world on her shoulders, Olive doesn’t let herself be crushed by it.  She’s got a fierce determination to see things through to the end, and stand up for what she believes in -- even if she needs the occasional reminder to not leave her friends behind.  Supporting characters like campus “Mean Girl” Pomeline and her boyfriend Heathcliff make an impression by not turning out to be as one-dimensional as they appear, while the squirmy Colton is memorable simply due to his sweaty and ill-at-ease appearance.  The breakout character here is Maps, with her infectious nerd glee that energizes every panel that she’s in.  It’s a testament to how good Cloonan and Fletcher are with their characterizations that when they depart from how the escapee from Arkham Asylum is depicted (usually as a violent brute with occasional cannibalistic tendencies) that it still makes sense within the context of the story.

The art from Karl Kerschl is also extremely well-suited to this kind of story.  He’s great with the character designs and how they act in every panel, with the animation-style coloring making things look extra-vibrant.  No, the story being told here isn’t complete, but I’m excited to see where it goes.  Wait, scratch that.  I’m only interested to see where it goes.  “Excited” describes how I’m looking forward to seeing the cast deal with the entrance of one Damian Wayne to the Academy.  Right now it is inconceivable in my mind that seeing him interact with Maps (and the rest of the cast) won’t be entertaining!

“Fullmetal Alchemist’s” Hiromu Arakawa takes on a new kind of fantasy with her adaptation of the “Heroic Legend of Arslan” novels by Yoshiki Tanaka.  We’re introduced to the title character as the Prince of Ecbatana, the capital of the Kingdom of Pars.  Arslan is a kind and gentle sort, a far cry from his imposing father who has never lost a battle during his time as king.  Yet as the king’s son, he’s destined to go into battle and rides with his warrior dad into combat against the neighboring Kingdom of Lusitania.  If you think that things go very badly for the Ecbatanian forces, then you get a gold star.  Based on this first volume, “Arslan” isn’t the kind of story that you’ll keep reading for its originality.  There’s betrayal, old grudges coming to the fore, an unconventional military leader about to get his shot at redemption, and a young prince being placed on the first bloody steps of the Hero’s Journey.  We’ve all seen these things before.  It’s the execution that gives me the impression this series is going to be worth reading.

The art is slick, the character designs nice, and Arakawa lets the narrative unfold at a good enough pace to hold our interest while setting up the world and its characters.  Arslan makes for an interesting protagonist, even if the title of this series is a spoiler of sorts.  No, he’s not much of a warrior and spends most of the first chapter as a hostage of a Lusitanian child soldier.  The thing is that he’s shown to be capable of defending himself, possessed of a far more even temperament than his father, and a willingness to better himself through hard work.  So I can believe in the potential for his eventual greatness through Arslan’s own actions rather than the dictates of the plot.  It also helps that the supporting cast is interesting as well.  Arslan’s friend/retainer Daryun makes a strong impression via his loyalty and battle-readiness, while his “contrary” friend Narsus makes an impression in the last few pages.  It’s clear that Arakawa has no intention of reinventing the wheel when it comes to the kind of story being told here.  Her work on this first volume at least shows that kind of thinking is unnecessary for now.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

This year’s con was a huge improvement over the previous one.  If only for the fact that I didn’t lose my badge on Saturday.  Then again, I was only there for two days, so the window for things to go wrong was just that much smaller.  Aside from the always enjoyable (and usually fruitful) searches through the half-off bins, I attended a few panels as well.  One of them was great, even though a key panelist didn’t show up.  The others weren’t bad by any stretch of the imagination.  Even so, I still had plenty of time to go out for dinner with Steve (and John on Friday) and play videogames at his place during the evening.  Did you know that you can rescue Hideo Kojima in “Metal Gear Solid V:  Ground Zeroes?”  It’s like he knew what was going to happen to him once “The Phantom Pain” was completed!

Wait, where was I?  Oh right, the panels:

What the hell did I just read?

The only thing I’ve enjoyed about Rob Liefeld’s comics career is his willingness to let other creators like Alan Moore and Brandon Graham play around with the characters he’s created over the years.  Now Warren Ellis, with artist Tula Lotay, joins their ranks with this esoteric take on “Supreme,” Liefeld’s take on “Superman” with the serial numbers filed off.  Reporter Diana Dane is broke and desperate for a job, so she’s more than willing to accept the offer from mogul Darius Dax to investigate the plane crash in the town of Littlehaven from a few months back.  Only it wasn’t a plane crash.  It was something from outside reality crashing into this one and wreaking havoc with its latest revision.  All Diana knows, from the weird dreams she’s been having where a young man in a wheelchair explains life, the universe, and everything to her, is that in order to solve this mystery she needs to find the man at the heart of it all:  Ethan Crane.

Because I’ve read Alan Moore’s “Supreme” comics -- and they’re quite good, allowing him to cleverly riff on “Superman” without having to deal with any interference from DC -- I can tell you that the reason Ethan Crane is so important is because he’s actually Supreme.  In fact, without some kind of familiarity with the key characters of that title I imagine most readers will feel utterly lost in Ellis’ twisty narrative.  Me?  I just felt like I was being led around by the nose for most of the seven issues of this story.  Even though Diana’s investigation is meant to provide a convenient entry point for the story, the writer has his characters expositing on so many weird tangents and gives Lotay a lot of surrealist imagery to put on the page that most of this just feels confusing.  It looks quite nice, courtesy of Lotay’s stencil-esque style, even though I didn’t care much for the random scrawlings over each page.  Was it meant to suggest the unreality of the comic’s reality?  Who knows.

It does come together in the end, as a kind of meta-joke about the nature of reboots in comics and what happens when one of them goes wrong.  The problem is that it feels half-baked.  As if Ellis had this idea and a lot of things he wanted to do with the characters, but didn’t think things through enough.  Frankly, I would’ve liked to have seen things get even weirder.  One plot thread involves a character moving certain cast members to the year 2800 when the timeline stabilized.  What was life like for them there?  We never find out.  I can’t fault Ellis for trying to do something different with these characters and the “Supreme” concept, but I certainly hope this isn’t an indication of what we can expect from his next collaboration with Lotay, “Heartless,” which is due out next year.