Comic Picks By The Glick

John Lynch travelling across America to warn the subjects of genetic experiments performed on them while he was director of International Operation.  That was the general gist of the solicitations for the issues collected in these volumes. Anyone familiar with the Wildstorm Universe who read them, however, could easily see that this was going to be how Warren Ellis integrated “Gen 13” into “The Wild Storm.”  Except… it really isn’t. The first five issues follow Lynch as he visits these survivors only to find out that they’ve changed. Mostly for the bad -- like, serial killer levels of bad for some of them here. It’s all very stylish and creepy thanks to Jon Davis-Hunt’s detailed art and even though these encounters all follow a basic formula all of them play out quite differently from each other.  I thought that all this wound up being entertaining on its own terms, though anyone actually expecting to see the “Gen 13” kids, let alone see them in action, may come away disappointed.

The biggest surprise about this volume for me was that Lynch’s cross-country trip wasn’t its sole focus.  I was expecting Ellis to spend an issue on each visit, but he devotes roughly half of each to the old man’s exploits.  The rest of each issue is spent on keeping the title’s various plot threads ticking over in the meantime. So you get to see the formerly cold war between IO and Skywatch turn hot, the Daemonites and the Kherans pull even more strings behind the scenes, what Jack Hawksmoor is and what happens when he meets Jenny Sparks and Li-Min Shen, and whose side Angela Spica eventually joins.  There’s even a fun cameo from two of Wildstorm’s most famous characters that should make it abundantly clear (if it wasn’t already) that the end goal for the series involves The Authority. Vol. 3 has a lot of interesting stuff happening alongside the setup and it gives me the feeling that vol. 4 is going to offer a very satisfying payoff for it all when it arrives in a few months.

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So I looked at the titles in my “to review” stack and realized that some of them have been there for quite some time.  In fact, it’s been over a month since I made a bulk order of new comics. Time to fix that, but what to do about the stuff I’ve been wanting to review?  Hey, it looks like a good chunk of them are Image titles that I can bundle together in one go like I’ve done in the past! So brace yourself for brief reviews of “Isola,” “Regression,” “Sunstone,” “Seven to Eternity” and “Rumble.”

I look at the late, great manga writer's non-terrible and actually good collaborations with Ryoichi Ikegami.

Anyone looking to make a drinking game out of this episode is advised to take a shot each time I mention "female wish fulfillment" when talking about "Crying Freeman."  It really wasn't something I was expecting to engage with before re-reading it...

This is a volume of two halves, one of which is considerably more problematic than the other.  The first half introduces us to another group of survivors living out of an office building and led by the implausibly charismatic Asada.  He’s set up his own cult of personality called Asada-ism which he wants to spread to the rest of the world. While the majority of the building’s inhabitants have subscribed to his doctrine, there is a minority who dislike the way he’s been running things.  Their plan is to get behind former mangaka Korori Nakata and have him run things instead.

The series that ranked as my “Best of 2018” comes around for its latest volume and things couldn’t be better, right?  Not quite. Things start off promisingly enough with a flashback to better, but still very murderous, days for Kretchmeyer back home and in Baltimore before segueing into the team-up from hell.  That’d be the one between him and Beth’s mother, Annie. Sure, both of them could’ve used another month in the hospital to recover from her stroke and nerve damage to his left arm, but revenge and suitcases filled with cash and cocaine wait for no person.  Especially when the people in possession of these items are blazing a trail of crime and debauchery through the midwest. That might sound like fun but the fractures are starting to show in the relationship between Beth, Nina, and Derek… I mean Orson. About that:  Orson is still maintaining his ex-porn-star alter ego and while it’s giving him the confidence to do some crazy and disgusting things, the question remains as to whether these crazy and disgusting things are actually worth doing.

What this volume made me realize is that the three previous volumes of “Sunshine & Roses” all benefited from a strong sense of focus on the plot at hand.  Whether it was reintroducing the world and characters, robbing the Cock’s Crow, or hiding out in Palm Court, the focus on these things kept the narrative focused while the craziness nipped around at its fringes.  Here, it feels like creator David Lapham let things get away from him as Kretch and Annie’s adventures tackle a lot of different things and only tangentially intersect with everyone else’s. Meanwhile, Beth, Nina, and Orson feel like they’re spinning their wheels as they realize that stealing all this money and drugs hasn’t given them the freedom they’d hoped.  What’s here isn’t truly bad and a lot of the individual issues, like the one involving Orson’s return to Baltimore, are quite good. I’m just left wishing that Lapham had picked one particular plot thread to focus on and stuck to that. Had he done that this would’ve been a worthy follow-up to the previous three instead of the very readable speed bump that it is.

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I talked about the first volume of this series in the “On Horror” podcast.  The short version is that while this horror-infused “Hulk” title isn’t scary, writer Al Ewing and artist Joe Bennett are still doing great, creative work best evidenced by one of its key revelations towards the end.  That would be the fact that some evil Gamma-related force has it in for the Hulk and Bruce Banner, and it’s doing it with the face of Banner’s abusive father. What does it want? Banner isn’t sure yet, but he does have an idea of where to go next:  home to where the Hulk was born. The problem is that there are lots of people who want to see the Green Goliath either in custody for his own protection or in custody for their own purposes. It’s a list that includes the Avengers, the new Gamma Flight team, and the Shadow Base team of military men, scientists, Bushwhacker, and Absorbing Man.

Does this mean that there’s a lot of fighting going on in this volume?  Yes it does and it really allows Bennett to show how he can really deliver some impressive carnage.  The Avengers brawl is first among equals here and it’s a satisfying rumble not just for the action, but for the way this new Hulk gets into the heads of his former teammates.  Especially in the case of Jennifer Walters as his encounter with her represents the first worthwhile thing I’ve seen done with her new “savage” She-Hulk persona. The setup involving Gamma Flight isn’t that interesting, so it’s a good thing that the business involving Shadow Base makes up for it.  From their unique method of Hulk containment, to how the character crosses a line in his escape, to the brief history of Absorbing Man and his horrific and tragic transformation, it’s clear that these antagonists are as interesting as they are worthy. Then you’ve got the business with the Green Door which closes out the volume and sets up a promisingly creepy storyline for the next volume -- in Hell.

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As the latest volume in Tom King’s “Batman” run, there’s not a whole lot of the title character written by the writer in it.  Three issues from the main series and a four-page short from the “Secret Files.” That’s it. In fact, this is the first volume where a writer other than King, Tom Taylor, has been credited on the cover.  This probably sounds like I’m making a big fuss over nothing -- especially when the previous “Batman” run had two volumes credited to Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo where they contributed a minority of the actual content to them.  The reason I’m bringing it up is because “The Tyrant Wing” represents a triumph by DC to pad out a collection with additional material rather than put its main story where it belongs.

Kelly Thompson writing both Hawkeyes again with Gwenpool, Quentin Quire, and America Chavez in tow, and Stefano Caselli providing the art!  SOLD!

...aaand it’s gone.  That’s right, this latest incarnation of “West Coast Avengers” is a lame duck with its first volume after having been given the axe with issue #10.  Which is TERRIBLE since this first volume was so much fun. Thompson has such a great handle on the core cast and writes such good banter between them that it’s fun to see a complete newbie like Fuse, Kate Bishop’s boyfriend who can change his body mass to whatever substance he touches, mix it up along with them.  There are also plenty of fun, irreverent touches throughout the volume, starting with the recurring documentary crew interviews, the landshark attack, the appearance of angry mind-controlled 50-foot Tigra, and of course B.R.O.D.O.K.

That would be Bio-Robotic Organism Designed Overwhelmingly for Kissing and yes, he is a drastically and ridiculously revamped version of the M.O.D.O.K. that we all know and love.  There’s a message in his arc about how outer change is no substitute for inner change, but it takes second banana to the absurdity of the main plot which culminates in Kate going big *rimshot* in order to stop the 50-foot Tigra and the other similarly-sized monsters which have joined her.  Between Thompson’s winning dialogue and Caselli’s detailed artwork “Best Coast” is so much fun that its “cancelled” status doesn’t feel warranted at all.

Marvel has shown a willingness to give certain titles that sell well in collected form a miniseries reprieve -- looking in your direction “Iceman” and “Domino” -- so everyone should go out and buy this right away so “West Coast Avengers” can joint their ranks.  Yes, this volume is padded out with the first issue of “The Unbelievable Gwenpool” and the Kate Bishop issue of “Young Avengers Presents.” They’re good issues in their own right, but they do feel a little out of place with the style and tone of what precedes them.

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