Comic Picks By The Glick

For around half of its length “Rome West” presents a fascinating alternate history of North America courtesy of co-writers Justin Giampaoli and Brian Wood, and artist Andrea Mutti.  It starts with a just likely enough to be believable development when a Roman fleet is caught in a storm and its survivors wind up landing on the isle of Manhattan circa 323 A.D. There, they manage to broker peace and trade with the natives with full assimilation occurring over the next few centuries.  What makes this story compelling is that it’s easy to see how history has changed and benefited the Native Americans, who now make up the republic of Rome West. It climaxes in a satisfying encounter with Christopher Columbus as they let him know exactly who he’s dealing with and let him enrich their culture this time around.

A few chapters after that, once the story jumps to the 1800’s, it becomes harder to see how the landing of that Roman fleet has led to the changes the story shows to us.  The stories we get become less about the world and more about the people in them. That wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing if they weren’t standard-issue tales about a young woman trying to find her place in the world, a cop going undercover to stop some racially-motivated killings, and a spy story about getting maglev secrets from Russia.  Giampaoli and Wood try to tie it all together in a final story that directly acknowledges the event that kicked things off, but are only partially successful. It ultimately leaves you feeling that this series, which was originally published in installments on the digital comics platform Stela, would’ve been better if it had maintained a clearer focus in its second half.  At least “Rome West” winds up being a great showcase for Mutti’s talents as he showcases the technological and architectural advances of this civilization for over 1500 years in a convincing manner.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

Leonardo Watch is about to face his biggest challenge yet as a member of Libra.  It starts off with his sister breaking the news that not only is she getting married, she’s coming to visit him in Hellsalem’s Lot with her fiancee in tow.  The good news is that said fiancee, Toby McLachlan, looks to be a stand-up guy who has Michella’s best interests at heart. The bad news is that his body is currently acting as a host for an extra-dimensional entity who calls himself Dr. Gamimoz.  In addition to having the same “Eyes of the Gods” that Leo has, the doctor is also obsessed with finding out their secrets and sees Libra’s most ordinary member as the perfect vehicle with which to do so. He’s also not above murdering a few individuals or threatening Michella’s life to force Leo’s cooperation.  Even worse is the fact that Leo is the only one who can actually see Dr. Gamimoz as he’s invisible to the general populace and the other members of Libra. So now it’s all up to Leo to find a way to stop this psycho by himself.

Vol. 10 is honestly the best finale I could’ve hoped for from this series.  So much of “Blood Blockade Battlefront” has felt like an excuse for mangaka Yasuhiro Nightow to draw whatever he’s interested in without regards for how it hangs together as a story.  Sometimes it’s fun, other times it’s confusing and/or boring. This storyline, titled “Hallucinatory Journey Through Magical Eyes,” has a great deal of the style that has defined the series but actually manages to fully engage the reader on an emotional level as well.  Nightow really sells Leo’s isolation and fear in this situation but never lets the character give up hope at the same time. As a result of this mix the story maintains its high level of drama throughout its run without it ever becoming an oppressive grind. Yeah, the finale is wholly predictable but the resolution feels entirely earned -- and Klaus’ handling of the situation was wholly badass.  Even if Dark Horse doesn’t wind up bringing us the sequel series “Blood Blockade Battlefront: Back 2 Back” this is still a great note for the series to go out on. If I’m being completely honest, it’s the rare kind of finale that leaves you feeling better about the series as a whole.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

At the end of vol. 1, Adrian Padilla looked like he had been freed of the demonic presence that had haunted his past life as cultist Gregory Sutter thanks to a hypnotherapist who knew what she was doing.  Then, before he could turn himself in and let the cops sort things out, he was kidnapped by some unknown individuals and thrown into the back of a van. When we meet Adrian at the beginning of vol. 2, he’s naked in a cell with a flashing light to keep him awake and being questioned occasionally by people in creepy masks.  We eventually find out that these people are members of the Valgeroti, an insect-worshipping demonic cult that wants to re-awaken Sutter’s presence in Adrian’s body. Meanwhile, Adrian’s friend Molly and Detective Graymercy are pursuing their own investigation into the Valgeroti and find out that maybe the answers to the problems they face in the present lie in their past lives.

My biggest problem with the first volume was how writer Cullen Bunn set up Adrian’s dire situation in a way that felt forced and lacked any subtlety.  Vol. 2 is a little more subtle in that it’s not trying to force Adrian’s mental issues and slasher movie theatrics on the reader. “Disciples” is more concerned with exploring the operations of the Valgeroti in the past, present, and even future if some of the scenes in the final issue are to be believed.  It’s interesting stuff, as is the business with Molly and Graymercy’s exploration of their past lives, even if it’s still not very scary. Working in the volume’s favor is how Bunn throws enough new plot developments to hold my interest and the very impressive art of Danny Luckert. He gets a wider variety of things to draw this time around and makes the scenes in the past featuring murder and demon worship appreciatively creepy and gruesome.  It’s Luckert’s work that’s keeping me the most interested here, enough so that I’ll stick around for what I believe is the concluding volume of this series.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

It’s been great to see Miles Morales become a significant part of the Spider-mythos over the years.  Not only has he been embraced by fans, but he’s also found his way into mainstream culture as well -- he’s appearing in the “Spider-Man” game coming out next week and has the lead role in the “Into the Spider-Verse” film hitting theaters later this year.  While I’ve generally enjoyed the adventures his creator, Brian Michael Bendis, has put him through over the years, I don’t think he’s done the character any favors by putting him through many of the same stories that Peter Parker has been through as Spider-Man himself in the past.  As Bendis bids farewell to Miles, he doesn’t do it by delivering a definitive “Miles Morales as Spider-Man” story, but a fun crime caper involving an ersatz “Sinister Six.”

Given how he’s such a pivotal character in the “Hellboy” mythos, you’d think that we’d have received a miniseries spotlighting Rasputin long before now.  Well, despite what this volume says on the cover “The Voice of the Dragon” isn’t really a story about him. Rasputin’s in it, but co-writers Mike Mignola and Chris Roberson should’ve titled this adventure “Rasputin:  The Voice of the Dragon, Starring Trevor Bruttenholm.” That’s because the focus is squarely on Hellboy’s father and founder of the B.P.R.D. as he toils at Bletchley Park during WWII sorting through all of the military intelligence to find out what the Germans are up to.  Eventually, Bruttenholm comes upon some documents mentioning an “Operation Geist” and his pursuit of what they refer to leads him into the path of a spirit stuck in another man’s corpse, the Heliopic Brotherhood of Ra, a monster guarding its master’s knowledge, and eventually deep into Nazi-held France.  It’s there that Bruttenholm will confront Rasputin’s plans, if not the man himself, as he seeks to hear the Ogdru Jahad speak to him once more.

If you’re looking to find out more about Rasputin’s character beyond him being an occultish boogeyman then you’re not going to get that here.  “The Voice of the Dragon” is really about Bruttenholm’s first brush with the supernatural and the people that seek to control it for their own ends.  From that perspective the story’s not bad even if most of the information we get doesn’t feel like it adds a whole lot to the character. Also, the miniseries contains a dizzying amount of references to other characters and events in the Mignolaverse, which is fun to see at first until you start to remember that you’ve read better stories involving them.

That includes “The Rise of the Black Flame” from the same creative team.  Artist Christopher Mitten turns in better work here with his art offering more definition than seen in that previous miniseries.  Its improved clarity recalls that of series creator Mignola, but doesn’t feel slavishly devoted to his style. Even with the improved art, “The Voice of the Dragon” still feels like a largely inessential story that will only be of interest to Mignolaverse completists.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

It's "The War of the Worlds" by way of "The Wind in the Willows" and exactly as fun as that sounds.

If you were hoping that the lesbian psychodrama which provided the high point of the previous volume would continue in some way here, then you’re going to be disappointed.  The good news is that the sexy shenanigans of this volume are some of the best this series has offered up in recent memory.  It starts off with a mortally depressed Kiyoshi engaging in some bra-spotting betting with Shingo and Joe and scaring them off with his ridiculously confident (and just plain ridiculous) predictions.  Then Kiyoshi realizes that he and Hana switched underwear after their golden encounter and now she has to run a race with his boxer shorts. But she’s not used to them and the only way for Hana to get her groove back is for her and Kiyoshi to swap back -- in the middle of the race!  The craziness isn’t confined to the school campus, as the Chairman’s amnesiac adventures continue as he stumbles from facing a public indecency charge, to finding himself with a short-shorted woman with a familiar butt, and plunging right into a conspiracy-driven action movie all while still in his bikini briefs.

Yes, there’s still plenty of greatness to be found in this volume.  What drags it down is the ongoing business with Meiko. The Vice-President of the Shadow Student Council’s personality has been regressed for a very long time now and the description on the back of this volume gave me hope that we’d finally see her old personality return.  That… doesn’t quite happen here. There are some good bits to be had, involving the groping of the Shadow Council President’s chest *rimshot*, but very little progress is made towards restoring Meiko to her original self here. Worse still is that the small amount of progression that’s made doesn’t have much to do with anything resembling logic.  Anyone who is still reading this series after ten (twenty, really) volumes should realize that the humor in “Prison School” only works as well as it does because there’s an absurd logic underpinning everyone’s actions here. To see it abandoned in this latest business with Meiko is a major disappointment.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

Ever since the final pages of the first volume teased that we’d be getting a racially-charged gender-swapped revisionist take on the “one man cleans up a crooked town” storyline, I’ve been waiting for this series to make good on it.  Volumes one and two did a good job laying the groundwork, but while the individual stories in vol. 3 continued to build on that they did so at the expense of my patience.  That’s something vol. 4 continues to do even as it features the female African-American army veteran who’s set to clean up the town, Roberta Tubb, more prominently than in the previous volumes.  While I figured that role would eventually turn her into the ostensible protagonist in this series, “Gut Check” really makes it clear that this is Coach Euless Boss’ story more than anyone else’s.

After the Runnin’ Rebs devastating loss at their homecoming things don’t get any better for Coach Boss.  Everyone around him is sensing weakness and that his time is finally over. From the shifty politicians in town, to the other criminal organizations in nearby counties, everyone’s putting the screws to him.  To the point where Euless starts thinking that it’s a good idea to go and take out another team’s star player personally in order to get his team winning again. Then you’ve got Roberta who finally has all the information she needs to make a move against the man who killed her father.

While we get to know more about Roberta than in previous volumes, thanks to a well-done issue written by regular artist Jason Latour and illustrated by Chris Brunner, she’s still basically a supporting character in the overall narrative.  Coach Boss has been the focus of the series up to this point and all of the action here is focused around his struggle to hold onto what he has. I think that he makes for a fascinating lead character as he is clearly amoral and ruthless yet not without his own twisted sense of honor.  It’s just going to take a little getting used to, realizing that he’s the actual protagonist when Roberta has been teased for that role since the beginning. Then again, I’ll probably have all the time I need since vol. 5 is described as “Coming Sooner or Later” at the end of the volume…

jason@glickscomicpicks.com