Comic Picks By The Glick

Two volumes in and I’m still waiting for mangaka Tsutomu Nihei to shake up the storytelling here.  It’s all so familiar as vol. 2 begins with Etherow and Titania arriving in an Imperial town only to get thrown into jail after the former is suspected of suffering from Frame Disease.  This only puts him right where he wants to be in order to take out the town’s leaders, which he does with the help of another Regular Frame named Keisha. They bicker a bit as they travel and find an Imperial ship whose manifest contains a surprise.  It turns out that there was a survivor from the massacre of Etherow’s hometown and the Empire has her. Even though this could be a trap, Etherow is still convinced that this needs investigating.

That this does turn out to be a trap shouldn’t surprise anyone who read the first volume.  While I appreciated the fact that the calm and resourceful Etherow turned out to be the protagonist, vol. 1 of “Aposimz” didn’t really deviate from the shonen action playbook.  This is in spite of its sci-fi setting and action, and occasional glimpses of gory violence. These are present here as well, with the action being competently handled but otherwise unspectacular.  We do get some potentially interesting hints of worldbuilding, such as a religious organization set up around Frames, of which Titania is apparently a key figure in its orthodoxy. I’d like to see something like that given focus for the next volume, instead of the latest Frame vs. Frame fight set up at the end of this one.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

“Deadpool” miniseries have been so prolific over the past few years…  Hey, wait a minute! We’ve been here fairly recently.  “Secret Agent Deadpool” manages to clear my threshold for buying a deadpool miniseries by coming from “The Adventures of Doctor McNinja” writer/artist and “Gwenpool” writer Christopher Hastings and artist Salva Espin.  Its hook is pretty straightforward and still pretty nutty for a Deadpool miniseries:  After his latest gig, which involved rescuing a little horse named Cloppers, is ruined by a guy with half a statue for a face, the Merc With a Mouth finds himself in need of some quick cash.  So he accepts a contract to kill a scumbag secret agent by the name of Jace Burns who works for the Risk Management Agency. Unfortunately Jace turns out to be a little more competent than Deadpool was expecting and what was supposed to be a simple hit turns into a casino-destroying conflagration.  Which turns out to be something of a mixed blessing for the Regeneratin’ Degenerate, because when his Always-Looks-Like-a-Burn-Victim body is pulled from the rubble the people at the RMA think that their man Jace has survived.

So we get a “What if Deadpool was James Bond in the Marvel Universe?” story that’s about as wacky as you’d expect.  It’s got an all-new secret criminal organization, a pill that turns into a jetski, the introduction of Paradox Space which contains the Protolith, Deadpool regenerating petrified limbs, and even a pseudo-cameo from the One Above All.  I thought it was a fun romp with Hastings making the disparate plot elements come together surprisingly well by the end and Espin providing some suitably lively art. My main reservation, and this is probably more specific to me than you, is that things never got quite as crazy as I’ve come to expect from the writer of “Doctor McNinja.”  I realize that Hastings has to work within the limits of the Marvel Universe, but he’s writing Deadpool of all characters. That should’ve been a license for him to take the story to crazytown and beyond! Still, this is likely going to be something that bothers me more than it does most other readers, who should still find the story to be as entertaining as it is strange.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

This latest adaptation of stories and poems from Neil Gaiman is mostly just alright.  P. Craig Russell, who has worked with Gaiman on multiple comics projects, handles the art and adaptation work for most of what’s featured here.  He’s also responsible for the superior “Neil Gaiman Library” entry “Murder Mysteries,” which is more worthy of a space on your shelf than this one is.  That’s because the title story is a rumination on age and morality as it relates to “The Chronicles of Narnia” that never really takes off. Rather than something the reader feels immersed in, I never stopped feeling like I was being told something at arm’s length by this tale.  “Locks,” which follows, amusingly relates the story of “Goldilocks” to parenthood while “The Day the Saucers Came,” is a fun end-of-volume chaser with great art from Paul Chadwick.

The one exception here is the Russell-adapted, Scott Hampton-illustrated “October in the Chair.”  It starts off with one of Gaiman’s favorite storytelling gimmicks: People telling stories to each other.  This time, the people are actually representations of the months of the year. While there are some nice lead-ins, October gets to tell the main story about the smallest of three sons.  He’s unaffectionately nicknamed “Runt” by his brothers and classmates, relentlessly teased by them as well, and apparently receives little affection from his parents as well. Which is why it should come as no surprise that he decides to run away one day.

Runt decides to go to the seaside because he’s never been there, but before he arrives he encounters a dead boy named Dearly.  They have a great time playing together. So much so that Runt decides he wants to stay here forever. If you think that sounds kind of dark then good luck trying to make it to the end of the story.  “October,” appropriately for the month, runs right up against horror at the end in a way that recalls “Closing Time” and wiped away my impressions of the stories which preceded it.  Is this collection worth picking up just for this story alone? Not for the $18 cover price, even if “October” stands among the very best that the “Neil Gaiman Library” has to offer.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

So “The Wedding” didn’t go as planned and Batman is still a confirmed bachelor.  Which is fine because that means his marriage to Queen Watevera Wa’nabi in “The Lego Movie 2” is now canon.  Right? Wait… It isn’t? Awwwww…

Anyhow, Bruce’s attempted marriage to Selina also represented his big grab at happiness in the life he chose for himself.  As it didn’t work out, where does that leave him? According to Bane at the end of the previous volume, the answer is broken.  Current writer Tom King obviously agrees with this sentiment and makes his case for Batman’s new status quo while throwing in some all-new tragedy for the character to experience along the way.

Will I say something problematic or insightful about this pair of graphic novels featuring an African-American reporter going undercover as a white man in the 1920's?

Should I have talked about this latest volume in the most recent podcast?  Nope.  That was all about discussing the “Alita”-related stories that I hadn’t had a chance to talk about yet, and were also representative of its Shueisha-era heyday.  Five volumes in and it’s clear that “Mars Chronicle” is a much different beast in terms of story and feel from the original series and the majority of “Last Order.”  What I thought was originally going to be a follow-up to how Alita’s story left off in the previous series has turned into a deep dive into the backstory of her former comrade-in-arms Erica, as well as her mentor Baron Muster.  By focusing on them, mangaka Yukito Kishiro is digging into the nature of characters who initially appear to be villains and whether they actually qualify as such once their histories and motivations become clear.

Has he been successful with this?  Kind of. Kishiro’s storytelling has been somewhat scattershot as it feels like he’s jumping from scene to scene early on in this volume as he tells us the story of Itall, the man who would become Baron Muster.  A lot of this feels rushed, as if the mangaka was in a real hurry to get through all this, but the ideas underpinning Muster’s transformation are sound. The revelation he has as to why he’s had to suffer all this time is especially interesting in that it’s a new take on this kind of thing.  We do get back to focusing on Erica in the last two chapters, and even Yoko shows up again, as she tries to take control of her destiny. It’s obviously not going to work, but watching her struggle against it does provide some decent drama. All of this is entertaining on its own terms, even though I’m still left waiting for the series to get back to focusing on Alita herself.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

Much of this first volume went about as I’d expect from the writer.  Which means that it read like a solidly crafted superhero adventure from someone who knows the genre inside and out.  Not an exceptional one, mind you, as it started off by showing us a Doctor Strange who has lost his connection to magic.  I don’t think we needed another “loss of magic” story so soon after Jason Aaron did kind of the same thing in his run, but Waid does give us a fresh spin on it.  He has Strange head off into space to recover his magical mojo and get into all sorts of trouble along the way. Said trouble includes being imprisoned on an alien planet, teaming up with a feisty arcanologist named Kanna, facing off against a Skrull sorcerer and the Super Skrull, and trying to rescue a Nidavellirian dwarf from potential world-conqueror with designs on Earth.

All of this looks great thanks to the excellent art from Jesus Saiz.  All of the cosmic scenery has an appealingly slick look to it, with his art having this wonderful texture to it that’s accented by Saiz’s own coloring.  It’s absorbing to look at and elevates the stories early on. I wouldn’t say Waid is running on autopilot here, but the early stories follow a certain formula to them that will be familiar to anyone who has experience with sci-fi or superhero storytelling.  Credit where credit is due, shunting Strange off into space does put an appealing gloss on the formula.

It isn’t until the next-to-last issue that Waid hits upon something genuinely new regarding the character.  I won’t spoil it here, but it’s the kind of blindingly obvious thing that I’m honestly surprised no one has thought to do with the character yet.  This development is made even more interesting by the last-page-reveal of who back in his Greenwich Village home. It’s a revelation that puts a whole new spin on the story you’ve just read and one that made me go, “Oh god Stephen, what did you do THIS TIME?!”  This volume may be kind of a slow starter, but it’s one that promises very good things for the character and the reader by its end.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

Above-the-Board Recommendation:

Die vol. 1:  Fantasy Heartbreaker

It’s the first volume of a new Kieron Gillen-written series.  How could I not give it this spot? “Die” has the writer teaming up with artist Stephanie Hans to give us what’s been described as “Goth Jumanji.”  It’s essentially about a group of kids who were into roleplaying games and wound up getting sucked into one, barely managing to escape with their lives in the process.  They did their best to put that traumatic experience behind them and get on with their lives. Now these kids are adults and they’re about to find out that their fantasy adventure wasn’t as done as they thought it was.  When Gillen calls this “Goth Jumanji,” it’s safe to assume that he’s referring to the “Regarded as a classic by some” first film and not the “How did this make $400 million domestic?” sequel. Imagine a series that focuses on the horror underlying Robin Williams’ character from the first movie and I think you’ll have a pretty good idea what to expect.  If that sounds good to you, then check this out.