Comic Picks By The Glick

Here’s the second half of Matthew Rosenberg’s story and it doesn’t quite nail the same entertainingly downbeat vibe that the first one had.  That’s mainly because the story goes off in a lot of different directions in vol. 2. From funerals for friends, to finding out what Emma Frost has been scheming, to fighting forgotten also-rans like Fabian Cortez and Shinobi Shaw, and to dealing with Gen. Callahan as he marshalls the forces of the Office of National Emergency against the remaining mutants.  It lacks the enchanting feeling that things were winding down for the X-Men that I liked in vol. 1, mainly because Rosenberg feels the need to throw in more stuff as he ramps things up for the finish.

That finish does come with one big hitch, however.  Emma pulls off a pretty impressive trick at the end of the penultimate issue that saves all the mutants’ bacon, but at a cost that not everyone thinks is worth it.  I’ll admit that what she does here is pretty ballsy from a narrative perspective and it sets up a question that’s pretty relevant to the X-Men’s ideals: Is it better to hide and survive or reveal yourself and be at war for the rest of your life?  Sadly, the question is a complete non-starter coming as late in the game as it does. We all know what the answer is going to be (what with the relaunch just around the corner…)

Rosenberg would’ve been better off posing this setup and the question it asks at the start of his run since he would’ve had more time to delve into its implications.  As it is, we’re left with a mostly decent filler storyline with mostly decent art. Salvador Larroca (and David Messina) only does the back half while Carloses Gomez and Villa (and Bob Quinn) handle the first half.  The art’s fine for what it is, though you can tell the accelerated serialization of this arc was wearing everyone down. It all adds up to a storyline that’s probably a little better than something that’s for completists only, except they’re the ones who’ll get the most out of dissecting its quirks and weird nods to dusty old continuity.

comicpicksbytheglick@gmail.com

...write about the comic that it got me to buy.  I wasn’t planning on buying any of the other “Age of X-Man” series since “Marvelous X-Men” made for a pretty self-contained spine of the story.  It’s just that seeing Apocalypse in the role of someone who wants to let love live is so utterly bizarre that I had to see how a series devoted to this take on the character would work.

Out of the ashes of “Uncanny X-Men:  Disassembled” comes… something really strange.  By either regular “X-Men” standards or even their alternate universe stories.  “The Marvelous X-Men” collection makes up the spine of the “Age of X-Man” event as it collects the title miniseries, as well as the “Alpha” and “Omega” issues that kick it off and wrap it up, respectively.  What’s unique about “The Age of X-Man” is that it doesn’t involve the X-Men fighting against some threat to their very existence. No, it merely seeks to show what happens when they’re given what they want and then poses this question to them, “Are you happy with it?”

With “Invincible” and “The Walking Dead” no longer with us, the chances of me winding up with two Robert Kirkman-written books on my shelf to review is going to be an increasingly rare occurrence.  It’ll become even more so when one of the series I’m writing about here wraps up with its next volume. So with that in mind, let’s talk about how the latest volumes of “Outcast” and “Oblivion Song” have turned out.

“The Man of Steel” was a decent enough start to Bendis’ run on “Superman” and “Action Comics.”  It showed he had a good handle on the character, even if the stories being set up didn’t really grab me.  “Phantom Earth,” however, is a big step in the right direction. It’s got a great setup for a crisis worthy of Superman and offers further evidence that the writer knows what he’s doing with the character.  Even if some of the larger details of his run seem a bit fuzzy at this point.

I wasn’t expecting to see Smith back with Talas after the two parted, or rather “were parted,” way back in vol. 3, but it’s nice that it happened nonetheless.  There’s a part of me that wishes it led to some more engaging storytelling here, however. Things start off with a chapter of glorified and glorious filler as we get a series of one and two full-page vignettes about Amir, Karluk and their family during the wintertime.  It all feels like an assemblage of plot beats that mangaka Kaoru Mori wasn’t able to fit in elsewhere, but she delivers such a convincing sense of place and humanity with each one that I’m glad she took the time to show them to us. With regards to our new couple, we’re first treated to finding out what happened to Talas after she last saw Smith and wound up being married to the most understanding man on the Silk Road.  From there, we get to see the preparations they make for Smith’s journey to Ankara.

This part of the volume is filled with lots of interesting details about the era and the place, with the standout being a chapter devoted entirely to showing us how photographs were made back then.  There’s also an amusing diversion as we learn about what happened to Smith’s old pocketwatch and the regal bearing it has acquired since he parted ways with it. It’s all nice enough, and looks amazing as always courtesy of Mori’s draftsmanship, even if it doesn’t feel like there’s anything pushing the story forward right now.  We’ve got the vague threat of the Russians in the background, and that might provide some drama if and or when they show up. 

In the here and now, however, I’m reminded of how the most recent volume of “The Ancient Magus’ Bride” managed to have its cake and eat it too in this regard.  It provided a lot of interesting worldbuilding as this volume did, but also delivered some equally engaging foreshadowing and genuinely compelling character development.  Vol. 11 is a nice enough diversion although it left me wanting more substantial storytelling next time around.

comicpicksbytheglick@gmail.com

It’s a lovely, dense volume of the series we have here.  While the cliffhanger from the previous volume is dispatched quickly enough, it immediately segues into telling us all about Father Simon’s genuinely tragic backstory.  (As well as the various factions which exist in the church, which I’m sure will become relevant later…) Then we see what happens when some characters who haven’t met before finally do as Chise catches Rahab up on how Elias has been doing, while Stella makes a pact with Ashen Eye.  After that, it’s back to the College -- via a secret path shown to them by their centaur mailman -- as Chise gets to know more about its students. Including one in particular. That would be Zoe, a surly green-haired boy who has a major unexplained grudge against the young mage . He also has some sweet noise-cancelling earmuffs and when they’re taken away we find out that he was wearing them for a very good reason.

There’s a lot of world-building going on in this volume, more so than we’ve seen in the series for a while.  It goes down extra-smooth, though, because mangaka Kore Yamazaki does a great job of tying each instance to a member of this title’s expansive cast.  It’s exceptionally well-handled in the case of hearing about Zoe’s backstory as his origins and struggles are easy to understand and relate to. Even with the snakes.  There’s also lots of interesting foreshadowing here: from the stuff about the church, to the “Berserk”-looking monsters occupying the shortcut Chise takes, and the various houses behind the College, it all feels like Yamazaki is laying the groundwork to make this arc bigger and badder than the previous one.  It may be a little hard to see exactly where she’s headed with it at this point, yet the details she’s providing along the way make this a great volume of the series even by its normally high standards.

comicpicksbytheglick@gmail.com

It’s a new volume of “Berserk.”  What’s there to say about it besides, “It’s still really good,” and “I wish Kentaro Miura world get these out faster?”  A lot, actually. This is a momentous volume of the series as it makes a fundamental change to its status quo -- one that’s been in place for OVER TWO DECADES.  Those of you who’ve been reading the series up to this point shouldn’t have too much trouble guessing what happens here. For everyone else, consider yourself warned because there are full spoilers for vol. 40 after the break.