Comic Picks By The Glick

Aaron has been working within the Marvel Universe for long enough that seeing him finally get the chance to write the “Avengers” feels right.  The good news is that his willingness to embrace the casual craziness of this particular universe serves this opening story well. What does it involve?  Nothing less than the extermination of the Earth by a pissed-off host of Celestials. You see, a million years ago a group of superpowered individuals -- consisting of Odin, Phoenix, Agamotto, and a Hulked-out Starbrand just to name a few -- killed a Celestial themselves in what they believed to be self-defense.  Now its descendants are here to finish the job with a little help from the guy who, among other things, loves to bring Avengers teams together.

This leads to a first issue that has Celestials dropping out of the sky, Doctor Strange and Black Panther confronting a horde of mysterious eggs underneath the Earth, and Ghost Rider fighting the spawn of said eggs even before the Final Host show up in the last few pages.  It’s certainly an attention-getting opening and one that largely works because of Aaron’s solid grasp of the characters (save one) and his indulgence in spectacle. Said spectacle works because Ed McGuinness fully embrace the “go big or go home” challenge of the story he’s been asked to draw.  His work is glorious action-heavy spectacle throughout these issues and ably backed up by Paco Diaz’s equally energetic contributions from issue #3 onward.

Where the story falters is in its climax, which is essentially one of those “all those heroes come together as one to blast the bad guys with their powers of specialness” deals.  It also doesn’t give the impression that Aaron has any grand plans to his run beyond some next-to-last-page musings by Odin about the Avengers never finding out the rest of his team’s secrets.  Then there’s the new characterization of Jennifer Walters as more Hulk than lawyer, which was likely started in her solo title, that just rubs me the wrong way even though I realize the writer is just playing the hand that he’s been dealt.  Not a perfectly enthralling start to this new age of “Avengers,” but one that should improve now that Aaron has worked the attention-getting stuff out of his system and settles down to show us what his real plans are for this run.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

The cover to this volume is best appreciated by looking at the version of it on the color insert on the first page.  That’s because the contrast that glossy version affords allows you to see how creepy it really is. Not that Teacher means any ill will towards Shiva in this volume.  Not intentionally, as we see the fallout from what happened to the girl’s aunt in short order here. It turns out that all Outsiders are fated to become trees at one point, with those who have had souls like Shiva’s Aunt succumbing to that fate much sooner.  Unfortunately when Shiva finds out that Teacher was keeping her aunt’s memory loss from her the two of them have an argument that ends with the Outsider barred from the girl’s room. When he goes back to the Outsider who keeps losing his head for more information about their fate, Teacher finds out that the rulers of the Inside have sent some special soldiers to bring Shiva back to them.  Very special soldiers indeed…

As with any volume of “The Girl From the Other Side,” there are more questions raised about the nature of the Outsiders and Shiva.  We do get some answers along the way, which is nice. Yet as I’ve mentioned before the real reason to keep reading this series is the way it depicts the relationship between Teacher and Shiva, which enters a rough patch early on in this volume.  It’s a little painful to see it play out because the series has invested so much in building up the relationship between the two of them to this point. Mangaka Nagabe doesn’t play this up for cheap drama, as it’s easy to understand why Teacher acted the way he did and why a little girl like Shiva would be so angry about it.  While a little part of me will be disappointed if all of the mysteries regarding the Outsiders aren’t addressed by the end of the series, it’s something I can live with. As long as the relationship between Teacher and Shiva is treated with the same honesty we see in this volume I’ll be satisfied.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

“Deadpool” miniseries have been so prolific over the past few years that you could probably walk into a comic shop and hit one simply by swinging a dead dog around.  Now would be the perfect place for me to ask a rhetorical question like, “How do you know what one to read?” except that the answer is obvious: Read the one with a creator you like.  Which is how I came to add “You Are Deadpool” to my library as it’s written by Al Ewing. Though it’s been disappointing to see excellent series he’s written like “Loki: Agent of Asgard” and “New Avengers:  A.I.M.”/”U.S.Avengers” languish in sales, I know that I can always count on him for an entertaining read. That holds true here even though this wasn’t what I was expecting.

With a title like “You Are Deadpool” I was expecting some meta-take that tried to actually place the reader in the title character’s tights.  What I got instead was a choose-your-own-adventure story with some light pen-and-paper RPG elements. The story is just some nonsense about Deadpool being asked to steal a time-traveling helmet which is just a plot device to allow Ewing to have fun skewering Marvel’s swingin’ 60’s, the supernatural 70’s, and gritty 80’s via the irreverance of the Regeneratin’ Degenerate.  He’s helped along with some fun and energetic art from Salva Espin and Paco Diaz who deserve some kind of award for making the choose-your-own-adventure aspect play out as clearly as it does on the page. Most importantly, the comic is a lot of fun to experience whether or not you actually “play” it or just cheat your way through.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

(And if I’m being completely honest, this comic is worth reading alone for Kieron Gillen’s cameo and the “combat roll” pun he brings along with him.)

An original graphic novella from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips?  Yes, please take my money! This is a thing that I absolutely want to read.  I’ve said it time and time again (quite recently, in fact) that these two are one of the best creative teams in comics and it’s honestly a relief that between the end of “Kill or be Killed,” this novella, and the upcoming “Criminal” miniseries that they’re still putting out new comics even as Brubaker is working on “Too Old to Die Young” for Amazon.  However, there’s another detail about this novella that hasn’t been advertised as much which will make it even more desirable to fans of creators. That little detail is on the title page indicating that this is “a ‘Criminal’ novella.”

It has its faults, but this series is still a captivating, magical take on the "Beauty and the Beast" setup.

(What, no podcast tonight?  The past week turned out to be unexpectedly busy for me, so we’re running behind a bit right now.  Expect it to go up on Friday or over the weekend at the latest.)

This volume of the series should’ve been a real heartbreaker to read.  For several reasons, which I’ll concede are mostly external to the series, it doesn’t wind up having quite that effect.  You can tell that creators Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples are winding up for big things when reporters Doff and Upsher pitch the idea of publishing Marko, Alanna, and Hazel’s story with the promise of getting them new bodies and an end to their life on the run.  The happy couple turns them down, but Prince Robot IV has some information of his own that proves just as appealing to the reporters. So he, Petrichor, and Squire may get their happy ending, assuming that the vengeful Ianthe who still has The Will under her thumb doesn’t track down the whole group and leave everyone dead in the process.

I think the main reason vol. 9 didn’t land with the expected impact for me is because after this many volumes I don’t think I’ll ever like “Saga” as much as everyone else on the internet does.  There are lots of things I do like about it, but nothing that I truly love and it’s hard for me to pick out a volume and say “That’s my favorite!” I can say that the previous volume was the weakest in the series since it addressed a major social issue in a way that just didn’t work.  Now that I think about it, “Saga’s” willingness to filter real-world politics through its sci-fi/fantasy aesthetic is probably what’s really kept me from getting completely onboard with it.  I can’t lose myself in its world if it keeps bringing up plainly obvious reminders of my own at every step.

So while there are many deaths in this volume, I only felt a little sad about most of them.  Including the one on the last page, which I had a feeling was coming based on the headlines I was reading about the issue when it came out.  They weren’t the most interesting things about this volume, with Robot’s character arc and accompanying “visual flashes,” Marko and Alanna’s “squirting” good time, and The Will’s tragic/forced descent into villainy all proving to be quite memorable.  Yet they all contribute to make this volume just a good one, much like the series overall in my opinion.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

Between “Delicious in Dungeon,” “Kaguya-sama,” “Silver Spoon,” and now this, just about all of the manga I’ve been reading in scanlated form have now received proper English releases.  (I’ll keep holding out hope for “Dagashi Kashi,” but if it hasn’t been picked up following the two anime series that it’s received…) “Tomo-chan” is the least of them because it’s a romantic comedy with a fairly conventional hook.  You see, Tomo Aizawa is such a tomboy that her best friend Jun didn’t realize it until they started going to middle school and he finally saw her in a girl’s uniform. Then when she confessed to him at the start of high school his response was, “I love you too, bro.”  While Tomo really wants to take her relationship with Jun to the next level, her lack of anything resembling femininity or even a basic understanding of romance is a major stumbling block. What’s an adorable tomboy to do?

If you think that the answers to Tomo’s problems will play out in a series of wacky coincidences, misunderstandings, and (bone-crunching) slapstick common to the genre, then you’re not wrong.  Fortunately the cast is charming enough to overcome the inherent predictability of the situations they find themselves in. From Tomo’s abundant energy, to Jun’s well-meaning cluelessness, we also have their mutual friend/fiend Misaki’s no-nonsense sarcasm balanced by her steadfast friendship, and the adorable guilelessness of Carol (or “Blonde Osaka” as I like to call her).  Even the bit characters like average high school loudmouth Tanabe and the two girls who make the mistake of picking on Tomo have some appeal to them, and that really goes a long way to holding your attention with each storyline. It’s also worth mentioning that “Tomo-chan” is a 4-panel comic that was serialized on a daily basis (with breaks between arcs) on Twitter, so each page is a self-contained story beat in and of itself.  Though it may not be up to the comic heights of similar series like “Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun,” this series is still diverting fun for what it is.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

It’s a comic about a killer shark with a harpoon stuck in its jaw, and it’s based on a British comic from the 70’s that was notorious enough to be banned from newsstands.  While that information alone may be enough for a reader to determine if “Hookjaw” is for them, it’s also worth mentioning that this is written by Simon Spurrier. Veteran of “X-Men:  Legacy,” “X-Force,” current writer of “Star Wars:  Doctor Aphra,” and “The Dreaming,” with several memorable creator-owned projects under his belt like “The Spire” and “Angelic,” he’s very much not the type to deliver a straightforward killer shark tale.