Comic Picks By The Glick

Follows on from this.  Myron's back to help figure out if this latest Spider-event is any good or if you should just watch "Into the Spider-Verse" again.

I was under the assumption that seaplane-faring deliveryperson Mikuru Amelia’s quest for the titular island would prove to be as elusive as the next volume in this series.  So it’s only fitting that she discovers it shortly into this second volume. Now that she’s finally found it, everything’s great. Right? Well, not only is she greeted by cannonfire from the island on her approach, which manages to damage her seaplane, but the island’s inhabitants are a grouchy, secretive bunch that would rather she leave as soon as she can.  Mikuru has invested too much in her search to do that, except that there’s only so much she can do in the face of near-united indifference from these people.

If I was being generous, I’d say that this volume of “Wandering Island” is a fine illustration of how sometimes a great journey can end in a very disappointing way.  Even though Mikuru invested so much in finding the island, there was no guarantee that she’d get any satisfaction once she found it. The thing is, that’s about all of the plot that can be scraped from this volume which is mostly made up of wordless stretches detailing Mikuru’s exploration of the island.  It all looks great thanks to mangaka Kenji Tsuruta’s art and he gives his protagonist enough personality to allow the reader to empathize with her plight. If only there was more going on than a final-page cliffhanger to allow the reader to become invested in the story itself.

Anyone who does get to that final page is not advised to hold their breath for vol. 3.  As editor Carl Horn mentions in his afterword, the installments in this volume were published over a five-year span in Japan.  So I wouldn’t expect vol. 3 before sometime in 2024. Given a potential wait like that, along with the thin content of this volume, it’s hard for me to recommend you invest in this series at all.  Where a title like “Die Wergelder” can sustain my interest due to its omnibus release and a storyline crammed with plot,  we don’t get those things here. I can only justify supporting a title like “Wandering Island” because I’d like to see more titles like it -- ones that target an older audience that’s interested in adventure stories that don’t revolve around schoolchildren -- as opposed to more volumes of the series itself.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

Above-the-Board Recommendation:

Heavy Liquid

There are a few reasons I’m completely in the tank for any major project from Paul Pope.  This is one of them. “Heavy Liquid” was originally a five-issue prestige format miniseries from DC/Vertigo in the late 90’s.  It’s about a man known only as S who is hooked on the title substance. While this Heavy Liquid is a helluva drug, it can also function as an artistic medium.  Something his ex-girlfriend was exceptionally skilled at working in. Which is why S has been recruited to find his ex by a very wealthy benefactor who has promised him enough money to wipe out all of his debts.  Debts which are being actively and murderously collected upon by some masked gangsters.

Pope has a kinetic style that moves unlike any other artist’s in comics.  It’s easy to see here from the effortlessly breakneck action scenes he choreographs.  What really makes this worthy of a place in your library is that the story actually hangs together pretty well too.  Some of it may be a little minimalist and confusing, but Pope spins a pretty engaging tale about art and addiction to go along with his incredible art.  While this new edition doesn’t promise any extras that will make me replace the one I already own, anyone who doesn’t already own this should absolutely pick it up.

Above-the-Board Recommendation:

Miles Morales:  Spider-Man vol. 1 -- Straight Out of Brooklyn

While Miles Morales has been written by other people in the past, his solo adventures were exclusively handled by co-creator Brian Michael Bendis prior to his departure from Marvel to DC.  This volume represents the first time another creator will be writing Miles’ solo adventures. So who’s the lucky person who gets to follow in Bendis’ footsteps? That’d be Saladin Ahmed, who’s best known for writing the “Black Bolt” solo series that got axed last year.  While writing an “Inhumans” spinoff might not seem like the greatest recommendation, “Black Bolt” was a title that was beloved by critics -- it even managed to score an Eisner nomination -- and the fans that actually read it. This is encouraging even if the individual stories described in this collection, which involve the Rhino and his minions, Tombstone, and “Miles’ Day Off,” don’t sound immediately compelling.  Also encouraging is that Javier Garron is providing the art as his work on “Spider-Man” and “IvX” showed that he’s got some serious artistic chops.

One thing working in Ahmed’s favor is that while Bendis did a great job establishing Miles as a character, he did this mainly by putting him through familiar “Spider-Man” stories.  There’s yet to be a definitive “Miles Morales” story in comics to really set him apart from the other Spider-People in the Marvel Universe. If Ahmed can deliver that, then we all win.

Above-the-Board Recommendation:

Snow, Glass, Apples HC

This is the latest entry in “The Neil Gaiman Library” from the company.  Coming back for her second tour of duty on this kind of project is Colleen Doran, best known for her epic creator-owned series “A Distant Star.”  She’s also worked with Gaiman directly on a couple of issues of “Sandman” and previously adapted his “Troll Bridge” story for the “Library.”

“Snow, Glass, Apples” has a simple high concept that makes it sound like a lot of fun.  Assuming your definition of “fun” aligns with Gaiman’s. In this case, fun is flipping the script on “Snow White.”  Instead of the evil stepmother trying to get rid of her stepdaughter, it’s the other way around and the queen is trying to do this for the benefit of her kingdom.

“Troll Bridge” was one of the more overlooked entries in the “Library”...  In the sense that a few months had passed before I found out it existed and finally got around to ordering and reading it for myself.  It’s a melancholy, sad tale about the potential and pitfalls of growing up and making the most offered to you by life. An actual troll is involved, of course.  It’s worth checking out if you’ve overlooked it for longer than I did and a good reason to not sleep on “Snow, Glass, Apples” when it comes out.

Above-the-Board Recommendation:

The Green Lantern vol. 1:  Intergalactic Lawman

I never planned to keep reading “Green Lantern” after Geoff Johns left.  He redefined and expanded the character’s mythos in a way that’s rarely seen in superhero comics.  It was the kind of high water mark that left you feeling sorry for the writer who was going to follow Johns because how could they match this?  I do remember thinking something along the lines of, “Well, maybe I’d consider reading it if they got Grant Morrison…”

Flash-forward to today and Morrison has teamed up for a twelve-issue run on “The Green Lantern” with artist Liam Sharp.  The writer’s aim for the series was to take Hal Jordan fully into the role of “space cop” with his run essentially being a sci-fi police procedural.  It’s the kind of simple yet brilliant high concept that Morrison has pulled off time and again in his superhero comics and I’m trusting him to deliver the goods here as well.  So much so that I’ve got no problem picking up his first volume in hardcover when it arrives.

Oh, and as for the writer who did follow Johns’ run, Robert Venditti, he wound up delivering an 80+ issue stint on “Green Lantern.”  Not only is that almost as long as the run Johns had, but the simple fact is that you don’t have a run that long on any superhero comic in this era or the ones past without doing something right.  What I’m trying to say is that I may have been a little premature in deciding not to check out what Venditti had to offer. So I’m planning to rectify that… as soon as the start offering the first deluxe/omnibus/compendium edition of his run.

After “The Flowers of Evil” and “Happiness” this is Shuzo Oshimi’s third series about a girl who takes a boy down a path in life that he couldn’t have imagined.  Like the latter series, there’s a supernatural aspect to this story about college dropout and social recluse Isao. He spends his days jerking off and playing videogames while also making the daily trip to a local convenience store.  Not for anything the store sells, but to see the girl who he considers to be its “angel.” This description of the story may seem like it’s headed into stalker territory, except that the actual beginning of the volume has Isao waking up in this girl’s, Mari’s, body.

That’s right, “Inside Mari” is a body switch story where a twenty-something loser winds up in the body of a pretty, popular high school girl.  We get the expected gags about how he has difficulty acclimating himself to being in a girl’s body and her school social life presented in a pretty straightforward fashion.  In fact, much of this first volume plays out exactly as you’d expect this kind of story to. That Oshimi takes his time in establishing Isao’s new life doesn’t work in the story’s favor either.

It isn’t until the volume is two-thirds over that the mangaka starts to deviate from expectations.  When Isao makes a visit to the convenience store he frequents, he sees a very familiar face that happens to throw the central premise of the series into question.  Then one of his classmates, Yori, sees through his attempts to fake Mari’s life and becomes quite insistent about getting the right girl back in the right body. That her interest in Mari appears to be more than personal is also interesting to consider.  While these things do suggest that Oshimi has a plan for where to take this series, my interest in it mainly comes from the fact that “The Flowers of Evil” overcame a similarly slow start to be a great read in the end.  That makes this first volume of “Inside Mari” one best enjoyed by established fans of the mangaka.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

I was honestly surprised with how much I liked this story by the time it was over.  This is in spite of the fact that Tom King and Mitch Gerads’ take on the New God who is also the universe’s foremost escape artist starts off in a very depressing place:  A depiction of self-harm that will likely make this a no-go for anyone who is sensitive to that kind of thing. While Scott Free is able to come back from that in a physical sense, it’s clear that his mental state is as fragile as ever.  Though he’s supported by his wife Barda, they’re both immediately drafted into the latest war between the forces of Apokolips and New Genesis. It’s all handled in a dreamlike and occasionally hallucinatory way that causes you to wonder if the events of this story are actually happening at all.  Which I was kind of hoping they weren’t because the tone of the early issues is set to “low-key bummer” and there’s no deviation from it. It’s due to this that the story of Scott Free’s sad, depressing superhero life almost comes off like a parody of how a serious adult superhero comic is supposed to be.

And yet…

Halfway through the series, something happens.  It’s not that Scott suddenly finds a way to overcome his depression -- in fact, the story’s acknowledgement that impairment isn’t something to be defeated but to find a way to live with is one of its more impressive aspects.  No, something happens that changes the tone and the nature of the series itself as Scott now has a whole new set of issues to contend with. Issues that are easily recognizable and connect directly back to his own problems with the father who gave him up for the sake of peace between worlds.  It also leads to some quality absurdist humor as we get to see the (frankly crazy) inhabitants of Apokolips trying to interact in ostensibly normal settings. The series also manages to be consistently interesting on a purely visual level as its rigorous adherence to a nine-panel-grid layout for 99.9% of its length forces an economy of storytelling and even some innovation.  “Mister Miracle” is definitely not an easy read, but it turned out to be a rewarding one that surpassed my expectations.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com