Comic Picks By The Glick

Magic in the Marvel Universe is on the mend after the Empirikul’s crusade in the previous volume, which leaves us with a greatly diminished Doctor Strange.  This is a fact which has not gone unnoticed by his rogues gallery who have descended to make his current week a living hell.  As well as an actual Hell thanks to the presence of Satanna the Devil’s Daughter.  In addition to her, Strange has to face off against foes both old, new, and the Orb.  Why him?  Well, Jason Aaron is still writing this title and there’s no way he wasn’t going to use his most favorite pet villain in the Marvel Universe and follow up on his new vocation as the Watcher (Who Likes to Interfere).

Though the good Doctor may not have the kind of magic he’s used to relying on to face these threats, that just means he has to get more creative about how he deals with these villains.  Which is generally good news for us as we get to see Aaron come up with some deviously, and in one case disgustingly, clever ways for his hero to get out of the situations he finds himself in.  The majority of these triumphs are pulled off well with Strange’s triumph against the Hell Bacon (yes, that’s a thing here) being a high point.  Unfortunately this cleverness isn’t quite sustained through the end of the volume with the final face-off being more of a brute-force showdown leading into a cliffhanger ending.

Former “Doctor Strange” artist Kevin Nowlan drops by to illustrate half an issue, a flashback tale to the time when Strange was just starting out on his journey into magic.  It’s great work as you’d expect from the man, but the most impressive thing about the issue is how its other artist, Leonardo Romero, actually comes off pretty well in comparison as he handles the present day sequences.  Chris Bachalo illustrates the majority of this volume and as usual he’s perfectly suited to the craziness that Aaron has him draw.  Also as usual, Bachalo is accompanied by his usual army of inkers and I’m only bringing this up because his work here is one of those times where it looks a little less consistent than usual within each issue.  We’ll see if he can pull it together for the next volume to close out what has been an entertaining run chronicling Strange’s adventures so far.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

Marvel’s first “Star Wars” crossover was a no brainer between the ongoing series of the same name and “Darth Vader.”  It certainly had its moments and great art, but it didn’t really accomplish much besides shuffling the cast around between the two titles.  This time around “Star Wars” is crossing over with the lower-profile “Doctor Aphra” series and it’s clear that there’s less pressure to deliver a major blockbuster event here.  That works in the story’s favor as “Screaming Citadel” delivers a much weirder and more satisfying reading experience.

Seven volumes in and Kore Yamazaki’s “The Ancient Magus’ Bride” remains one of the most entertaining titles I read.  It’s mix of excellent characterization, meticulous worldbuilding, and imaginative storytelling is something I continue to look forward to with each volume.  While you would think that the mangaka would have her hands full with this title alone, Yamazaki has also found the time to deliver another at the same time.  Her work ethic is commendable to be sure, but the main thing about these first two volumes of “Frau Faust” is how they show that B-grade Yamazaki still has its charms.

It feels like damning with faint praise to say that writer James Tynion IV has turned in a better volume of “Detective Comics” this time around by simply not attacking the underpinnings of the superhero genre.  Tynion instead delivers a story that, as you’d probably expect given the volume’s title, pays off on all the setup regarding the League of Shadows buildup over the past two volumes.  For years Batman has dismissed the existence of the League as a ghost story -- something Ra’s Al Ghul told his men to keep them in line.  Batwoman’s father, Jacob Kane, believed differently and created an entire military-trained organization to fight it.  Now the League is finally ready to make its move and someone far worse than the Demon’s Head is leading the charge.  Her name is Lady Shiva and she’s come for two reasons:  To burn Gotham to the ground, and to see if her daughter is worthy of her attention.

Tynion is nothing if not a capable writer and the results of his efforts here are entertaining enough.  He does a good job of making each member of the rather large cast gets a moment to shine, with Orphan making the most of her time in the spotlight here.  The main issue I have with his story is one of familiarity.  Once things get going it’s pretty easy to see the scope and direction of the plot and there aren’t any surprises along the way.  Well, save for the reason why Batman was ready to dismiss the League as a myth all this time.  The explanation behind that was pretty clever and delivered with relish by one of his oldest villains.

Marcio Takara and Christian Duce handle the majority of the art for this volume and they both turn in capable but unexceptional work.  They certainly tell the story well enough, though the only real difference between their styles is how Takara really likes to dial up the shadows in his work.  I just expect better art from a mainline “Batman” book in the end.  That sentiment can probably be applied to the quality of the writing as well, but it’s still nice to see Tynion put some effort into making you care about this fairly straightforward story.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

Readers with long memories (or the ability to click on this link) may recall that I’ve had my eye on this series ever since it was first solicited.  It’s got a setup that’s just wrong enough to get me interested:  Edwyn used to be a serial killer.  He retired after he met Virginia online as she helped to calm his “urges.”  They’ve had a great decade together, and then Virginia gets kidnapped by a Louisiana billionaire who figures he can use her as leverage to get Edwyn to take care of a problem of his.  Edwyn agrees because he’d do anything for Virginia, the love of his life.

Netflix bought Millarworld last month and the “Kick-Ass” comics are coming to Image until the streaming company figures out this whole “publishing comics” thing.  There’s going to be a new “Kick-Ass” series featuring an African-American mother of two who is also a veteran of the Afghanistan war.  While having a minority protagonist for the next iteration of this commercially successful series would normally be a good thing, I have one reservation.  That would be the fact that Millar is such a cynic that he’s doing this only because he wants the progressive plaudits and can turn them into sales along the way.  “But Jason,” I hear you say, “We know you really don’t like Millar’s work so aren’t you just reaching for another reason to hate on him with this?”  I’ll admit that might be true.  Except even when Millar is trying to be progressive in his work, he can still find a way to spoil it with his trademark crassness.  So we’ll see if anyone cheering the new announcement about the protagonist for this new “Kick-Ass” series is doing so after its first arc is over.

The "Justice League" movie got you down?  Here's a take on the team that does it justice and is positively overflowing with ideas -- to its benefit and detriment.

After vol. 17 spent its last couple of chapters setting things up for Nagisa and Karma to pull a heist on the International Space Station, I was expecting some slam-bang action to be in the offing.  That’s… not what happens here.  The two middle-school-kids get the drop on the astronauts and after some posturing and exposition some mutual respect develops and everyone comes away from the encounter happy.  Especially the kids because they’re able to fix things so that Koro-Sensei now has less than a one-percent chance of exploding and destroying the Earth in the process.  That’s great!  At least, it would be if it didn’t read to me like the time Spider Jerusalem learned that only one percent of the people with the same kind of degenerative brain disease he had didn’t turn into drooling vegetables.  And we all know how that turned out.  (Because everyone here has read “Trasnsmetropolitan,” right?)  This basically winds up being an opening that I was expecting much better things from given the series’ history.

At least things pick up in the rest of the volume as it’s mostly a lot of feel-good filler as “Assassination Classroom” starts to ramp things up for the finale.  We get to see how Koro-sensei is trying to help the kids with their highschool entrance exams and it’s as full of wacky hijinks as you’d expect.  Particularly when everyone in the class has to dance around how some of them aren’t doing as well as others.  The craziness gets knocked up a notch when Valentine’s Day rolls around and the exchanging of chocolates begins.  There’s plenty of (comedic) drama involved in seeing how the girls go about giving chocolates to the guys they like, with a special focus shown to two supporting characters as one of them finds out how wrong things can go when you combine romance with trying to assassinate Koro-sensei.  It’s good times all around after the opening chapter is done with, which is good because it looks like the bad guys are starting to get their act together.  Which is a good time for that as we’ve only got four volumes left in the series.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com