Comic Picks By The Glick

Seeing the Spartan arrive at the Rig in the final pages of the previous volume was a clear indication that things were going to hit the fan in vol. 9.  That’s exactly what happens here with some pretty spectacular and morally ambiguous action.  We see things mainly through the eyes of the civilians caught in the crossfire between the Federation and Nanyang forces.  Just about all of these individuals have had some of their limbs replaced with robotic parts and they use them to save everyone they can.  Thanks to his powers as a Newtype, Sojo Levan Fu is aware of their efforts and guides them, along with sympathetic Zeon officer Fisher, to an underground section where they’ll be able to escape in a sub with mobile suit escort.  They’ll just have to get past the Federation blockade along with its Gundam if they want to survive.

Mangaka Yasuo Ohtagaki really goes all-out with the action in the volume’s first half as he makes the assault on and escape from the Rig a thrilling experience.  His focus on the human efforts of the escape and the ingenuity behind them makes it easy for the reader to sympathize with and get involved with their efforts. The same goes for the sub’s efforts to escape the blockade, which delivers the volume’s requisite dose of mecha action with aplomb.  However, things start to become murky when you realize that the people attacking these civilians are those we’ve been asked to sympathize with since the start of this arc. They’ve got good reasons for doing so -- the individuals on the subs will likely become the new pilots for Nanyang’s Psycho Zakus -- but the perspective of this volume has them coming off as the bad guys.  It’s an interesting experience more than a distracting one since no one in the Federation is acting out of character. The best “Gundam” stories get you to question the morality of all sides in a conflict and this volume is a particularly good example of that.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

Man, what a run!  After starting as part of the “Brand New Day” writers team in 2008, Dan Slott took over writing “Amazing Spider-Man” solo in 2010 and kept writing it until late last year.  That’s an impressive, almost unimaginable, run by modern superhero comic standards and what makes it even more remarkable is that the writer never lost his momentum. He kept finding new challenges for the character to face and *ahem* and spun many memorable events in the process.  (One of which provided the name and premise for a really good movie you should go see while it’s still in theaters.) I only came in towards the back half of his run, when things got “Superior,” but even with its occasional miss Slott’s run has been one of the most consistently enjoyable things to come out of Marvel in recent years.  Which is why it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the writer sticks the landing in his final volume.

Who is the Queen of Palm Court and why is she in this volume’s subtitle?  That would be one Annie Chesswick, the “cool mom” of this suburban community who is dedicated to looking as good as she can and isn’t averse to helping the mall cops deal some weed on the side for some extra cash.  She’s definitely not out of place in the world of “Stray Bullets,” but it isn’t until the second issue of this collection that her connection to the misbegotten criminal posse of Beth, Orson, and Nina (with Joey in tow) becomes clear.  Really, once you find out her history seeing Annie in action becomes one of those “This explains so much…” things with regards to one member of the main cast. It’s because of that history that our crew is able to hunker down in Palm Court while Orson recovers from his injuries.  The problem is that this wasn’t really a good place to hide, just the best bad one. That’s because after Annie finds out about the money and drugs our protagonists have been carrying around, she’s going to do everything she can to make them hers.

If this third volume of “Sunshine and Roses” has any weakness, it’s that there’s a bit of wheel-spinning to the overall story.  Circumstances have forced Beth, Orson, and Nina to stick around in Palm Court rather than continue their getaway. If only all instances of narrative wheel-spinning could be as fun as this one.  Annie’s a great character because even though she’s brazenly unlikeable on the surface, everything she does is driven by sadness and desperation. So it becomes impossible to truly hate Annie, particularly at her story’s end when Spanish Scott inflicts the cruelest punishment he can on her.  There’s also plenty of fractures in the relationship between our core trio -- particularly once “Derek” shows up -- which is sad in its own way, but thoroughly believable given the circumstances. Top it all off with an “Amy Racecar” issue that actually has bearing on the plot in addition to its usual insanity, and you’ve got another great volume of “Stray Bullets” even if it doesn’t advance the plot all that much.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

Donny Cates has certainly proved his worth working on fill-in arcs at Marvel.  “Thanos Wins” and “Doctor Strange:  God of Magic” could’ve come off as dull cash-grabs as the titles marked their time towards cancellation and relaunch, respectively.  Instead, Cates decided to use the fact that neither of his runs were expected to matter in the long run and threw in all the craziness he could to great effect.  That catapulted him to the big leagues at Marvel with this new “Venom” series and the upcoming “Guardians of the Galaxy” relaunch. The catch here is that now he can’t go as crazy as he did in those previous runs because he’ll be on those titles for the long haul.  Which doesn’t seem to be as big a problem as I feared if this first volume of “Venom” is any indication.

John and I talk about the winter's BEST superhero movie while I go on about the comics that inspired it.

This volume starts off in a way that suggests, for the first time in a very long while, we’re going to get a dose of “Ooku” that doesn’t have any depressing drama.  We’re introduced to a man from the land of Satsuma who is given the name of Taneatsu and sent to the capital to become the new consort to Emperor Iesada. The catch being that the samurai who run Satsuma have their own agenda and have given Taneatsu the mission of influencing Iesada to name a successor favorable to them.  While Taneatsu knows his mission and has his own apprehensions about the empress, having only heard about her through rumor and hearsay, he actually finds her to be quite pleasant upon actually meeting Iesada. Though she doesn’t think much of him at first, Iesada finds him to be a worthy conversational partner and gradually begins opening up to Taneatsu over time.  She even begins to take his advice regarding diet and exercise, which in turn gives her a new energy to tackle matters of state. Which is a good thing since foreign powers are banging on Japan’s door and the country is divided on whether to let them in or keep them out.

The “foreign powers” issue is nothing if not timely and the source of most of the drama in the book’s latter half.  It’s good stuff, but I was most taken with seeing the relationship between Iesada and Taneatsu develop over the course of the volume.  After vol. 13 spotlighted the awful upbringing the empress was subjected to, it was honestly great to see someone like Taneatsu come into her life and brighten it up.  I was looking forward to feeling these good vibes for the rest of the volume… until mangaka Fumi Yoshinaga threw up a bit of explicit foreshadowing indicating that things were going to get very bad in the inner chambers a generation down the line.  Couple that with some political setbacks and it looks as if “Ooku” is heading back to the days of being an involving read in spite of how depressing it got. Then Yoshinaga whips out a next-to-last-page surprise which leads me to believe that the story’s focus isn’t going to be focused as much on the politics next time around.  Iesada and Taneatsu’s world is going to get a lot more difficult, but in a way that’s more hopeful than anything else.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

I was at the Comic-Con panel where writer Scott Snyder enthusiastically hyped up (and spoiled parts of) his upcoming run on this series.  It was hard not to get a little excited about it given how he was telling us how this would be the biggest, baddest, and maddest superhero spectacle he had cooked up yet.  Snyder’s “hype mode” went a long way towards getting me to check out this series, particularly in light of his recent track record at DC. While he and Greg Capullo are responsible for one of the all-time great “Batman” runs, his follow-up “All-Star Batman” was fun but not in the same league, “Metal” wasn’t as good as its hype and reviews had led me to believe, and whatever he contributed to “Justice League:  No Justice” was drowned out in noisy spectacle. That said, I’m glad to report that this first volume of “Justice League” is a bit of a return to form for the writer, so long as you can get past its more annoying qualities.

Simon Spurrier loves his high concepts.  Which is why his new Vertigo miniseries isn’t just about mother and daughter bounty hunters working out their tortured history while on a job.  No, it’s about mother and daughter bounty hunters working out their tortured history while on a job in a futuristic world where people can easily travel through multiple realities with ease.  Oh, and the mother in this story happened to be the most famous bounty hunter in the multiverse at one time after her exploits were chronicled on a reality TV show. Our protagonist, Tabitha Tubach, hated growing up with a mother whose main concern was how everything played to the cameras, yet she still followed in her footsteps to become (charitably speaking) a B-list hunter.  That may change after the hunter community gets some new info on the most wanted fugitive in the multiverse and Tabitha’s mom, Sylvie, winds up being the one person she can turn to in order to bring this person in. Why? That’s because the leader of the Scab Pickers, Bubba, happens to be Sylvie’s son and Tabitha’s brother.

“Motherlands” boasts strong art from Rachel Stott, with Stephen Byrne and Pete Woods pitching in on an issue apice, as she’s clearly onboard with the multiversal craziness that Spurrier is throwing out here.  If only the multiverse concept actually felt necessary to this story as there’s no reason it couldn’t have taken place in the far future. That’s my main issue with the story, though I can see others being put off by the torturedness of Tabitha and Sylvie’s relationship.  Spurrier’s portrayal of it is very much a “warts and all, heavy on the warts” look at what showbusiness can do to a woman. So while the antagonism between mother and daughter feels genuine, I can understand how some people would find it to be unpleasant to the point of putting them off the whole miniseries.  Even with all the negativity generated by that relationship I was still surprised to see “Motherlands” deliver an ending whose uplift actually feels earned and worthwhile. It’s not the best work that Spurrier has delivered this year (more on that towards the end of the month) but it’s still one that’s still worth picking up if you’re a fan of his work.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com