Comic Picks By The Glick

Well, that was quick.

The first volume of Alita’s latest series had me expecting that it’d be a while before we caught up to her present-day post-”Last Order” exploits.  Vol. 2 of “Mars Chronicle” starts out by immediately going “nope” to my expectations and starts off with Alita and Erica meeting at the site of the orphanage from the first volume and set about catching up/settling their grievances through the Martian martial art of Panzer Kunst.  From there, the volume sets about reintroducing familiar characters like the vampire Caerula Sanguis, Martian Queen Limeria, her bodyguard Zazie, a certain character from the previous volume, and the latest version of one of Alita’s oldest foes. This is in addition to introducing us to new threats such as the special forces squad known as the Einherjar, which includes Erica as well as her and Alita’s Panzer Kunst teacher, and the mysterious organization known as Dasein which is pulling everyone’s strings.

While it’s good to see a lot of these characters again, this second volume suffers from the fact that the threat posed by Dasein feels like a gimmick at this point.  It’s hard to get invested in them as a threat when most of what we know about the organization is exposition from Caerula. Mangaka Yukito Kishiro would’ve been better served by focusing our attention on the Erica and the other Einherjar before revealing that their strings were being pulled by something bigger.  That’s something easy to grasp and it looks as if Kishiro will be heading in that direction if the last chapter is any indication. In the meantime it’s easy enough to see Alita mix it up with the new and returning cast and appreciate the mangaka’s quick and intense fight scenes as he takes his time getting the story in order.  My patience regarding that hasn’t run out yet.

Vol. 2 also includes a bonus story “Mukai:  World of Mist” an adaptation of a Seiun Award-winning (the Japanese equivalent of the Hugo) story written by Hirotaka Tobi and illustrated by Kishiro.  It’s about a boy living in a world made up of everything that has been sucked into a sea of mist from our world and the girl he encounters there. While there’s some good chemistry between the boy and the girl, and the weirdness of the world itself allows Kishiro to cut loose with some impressively crazy visuals, the haphazard nature of the worldbuilding from Tobi’s script really drags it down.  “Mukai” is ultimately okay, but I’d have rather had another chapter of “Mars Chronicle” to round out the volume instead.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

With this, Scott Snyder’s “Batman” victory lap comes to a close.  The first two volumes were pretty enjoyable even if they weren’t swinging for the fences in the way that the writer’s work with Greg Capullo on the main series did.  For this third volume, Snyder teams with his “American Vampire” partner Rafael Albuquerque for a story that looks to add some not-insignificant details to the backstory of Alfred Pennyworth.  Do these details wind up making one of the most pivotal characters of the Bat-mythos more interesting? While his previous work had me hoping that things would work out in the end, Snyder’s efforts wind up amounting to a long walk off of a short plank.

If you’ve been following this series in trade paperback form like I have then there’s no denying that “Uber” has returned to a time where its subject matter does it no favors.  Kieron Gillen and confirmed regular artist Daniel Gete’s story of how the Nazis discovered the technology to make supermen and turned the tide at the end of WWII is going to be a hard sell for those who lament the fact that we’re living in a time when people are whining online about how unfairly Hitler’s followers are being treated.  This is even before we get to the actual content of this volume, which is easily some of the most difficult that the series has offered up so far. Even though this may seem like a really high barrier for entry for this particular volume, all of this is presented in a way that makes vol. 6 the most compelling one in the series to date.

There’s always going to be tech problems at any con.  Between mechanical and human errors it’s always a matter of “when” things are going to go wrong rather than “if.”  For the first couple of days at this year’s Fanime it seemed like every panel that involved a laptop was hamstrung by some kind of issue.  The lowest point, for John and a lot of other people, was how Saturday’s Anime Music Video competition was cancelled partway through the drama category (but not before John got to see an awesome AMV of the “Magnetic Rose” segment from “Memories” set to a horror-movie version of Beethoven’s “Fur Elise”).  Fortunately from Sunday onward things smoothed out and the AMV contest re-do went off without a hitch, but with an apology from the staff for the problems.

Even with the tech glitches, John and I still had a lot of fun for the time we were at the con.  Most of the panels we attended were entertaining, even with the tech issues, there was lots of cool merch to be found in the Dealer’s Hall and Artist’s Alley, plenty of good food to be had both in the convention center and in the area around it, and plenty of good cosplay to be seen at any moment in the convention center.  Still a win overall, and you can find my thoughts on what panels worked -- and which ones didn’t -- below.

Follows on from this, and this.  I kept digging for more and this is what I found.

Inio Asano has had enough works translated into English that his tics have become readily apparent at this point.  The characters who speak with arch know-it-all sensibilities, his love of magical realism or outright surrealism, and stories that mix everyday whimsy with crushing despair.  It’s to the point where I’d imagine that you’re either onboard with what the mangaka has to offer or have decided that his style is not for you. In that regard I have to say that it’s a little bit disappointing that his latest series feels like “one for the converted.”  As someone who has liked his previous works I enjoyed it well enough even as it shows that his style is starting to coalesce into a formula.

I really want to say that this is one more reason that collecting comics in the hope that they’ll become valuable one day is for suckers, but…

The story goes that after “The Walking Dead” launched back in 2004 a “Museum Edition” (read:  oversized hardcover) of the first issue was created as part of a promotion for the Fear Fest Horror Con the same year.  Unfortunately, due to low ticket pre-sales, the con never happened and these Museum Editions were put into storage where they remained for a decade later.  Only one hundred were produced and they’ve since become one of the rarest “The Walking Dead” collectibles around.

Except that they’re really just high grade fakes.  Or, at best, unofficial reproductions of the first issue of the comic.  Robert Kirkman’s production company Skybound and Image weren’t involved in the production of this comic.  Which likely explains why, if you actually look at this Museum Edition, it comes off as impressively half-assed compared to actual hardcover editions of notable comics.

Still, a copy of this comic did sell for upwards $3500 on Ebay after it was graded by PGX.  Bleeding Cool’s Rich Johnston wrote an article about all this and included how he let PGX know how they were essentially selling a counterfeit comic.  PGX’s response? They thanked him for the heads-up and continued to grade the comic, noting that it was a “counterfeit edition” on the bag. If you did pay for this then consider yourself a superfan of “The Walking Dead” comic, or something.  Whatever helps you sleep at night.

The company may have lost the “Star Wars” and “Conan” licenses to Marvel, but they’ve been getting plenty of Disney licenses to help balance things out.  Last month’s solicitations had the debut of an “Incredibles” miniseries while this month has the first issue of Frozen:  Breaking Boundaries which is described as the first multi-issue comics tale for the franchise.  There’s also Jasmine’s New Pet which tells the story of how the princess from “Aladdin” got her pet tiger.  Things get even better later this year when Dark Horse will publish Zootopia:  Friends to the Rescue, a 48-page comic spotlighting stories from the movie’s protagonists Judy and Nick’s childhood.

The existence of these comics Dark Horse does raise an interesting question as to why Disney isn’t publishing “Zootopia” comics through Marvel.  Then again, it’s not like this is the first title they’ve licensed out to other publishers to make comics about. IDW has the licenses for “Big Hero 6,” “Ducktales,” “Tangled,” and all-ages “Star Wars” comics.  Yen Press has also published manga based on “Big Hero 6” and will be doing so soon for “Star Wars.” It’s almost as if the company has realized that Marvel has its own dedicated comics-buying audience and is incapable of expanding beyond that to reach younger readers.  Or maybe there’s lots of inter-company politics, such as the never-less-than-strained relationship between Disney CEO Bob Iger and Marvel President Ike Perlmutter, are what’s causing these licenses to be licensed out.

Whatever the reason is the main takeaway from this is that Dark Horse is getting a potentially very lucrative license out of it.  That’s their win! Maybe it’ll also pave the way to getting other Disney licenses… especially if the Fox merger goes through and the “Aliens,” “Predator,” and “Buffy” licenses wind up in Marvel’s hands.