Comic Picks By The Glick

It’s the end of an era.  This is the final volume of “Star Wars”... in the post-”A New Hope” era.  The next series will transition to the post-”Empire Strikes Back” period as Charles Soule and Jesus Saiz take over from the time-marking team of Greg Pak and Phil Noto.  As I mentioned last time, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the three separate-yet-related stories they were telling.  Each had their own twist as Han and Leia wound up running into Leia’s ex, Luke fell in with a conwoman who claimed to know something about the Force, and C-3P0 and Chewbacca found that their supposedly uninhabited planet was home to a race of sentient rock people.  As a further twist on that last thread, none other than Darth Vader shows up on that planet looking to secure an alliance with said rock people.

While the charms of Pak and Noto’s storytelling are still present in these concluding issues, their attempt at going big for the storyline’s finish isn’t wholly satisfying.  Though the way in which all of these storylines come together feels organic enough, the actual climax is kind of a mess. There’s an awkwardly heroic charge against Vader, the Sith Lord tries to reverse the effects of an EMP, we find out that the planet has an… er, crunchy center to it.  Pak and Noto clearly had ambitions with their finale, but they wound up in “reach exceeds grasp” territory instead. It even lacks the simple dumb pleasure of the full-page shot of Chewbacca hitting Vader over the head with a big rock from earlier in the volume.

This isn’t the actual end of the volume, however.  Vol. 13 also includes the “Empire Ascendant” one-shot that offers three glimpses of the next “Star Wars” era and one epilogue.  They’re all generally fine as Soule and Luke Ross give us some Dameron family fanservice, Pak and Roland Boschi show us what Vader looks for in a droid striketeam, and Ethan Sacks and Paolo Villanelli do their best to make Beilert Valance seem like less of a try-hard.  That Sacks and Villanelli manage to make that happen is certainly an achievement in itself.  Still, the best of these one-shots is Simon Spurrier and Caspar Wijngaard’s epilogue to “Doctor Aphra,” though I’ll certainly confess to being a little biased in that regard.

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Guess what?  I did sell my copies of James Tynion IV’s run on “Detective Comics” and picked up this volume on a digital sale.  I’m only reviewing it now because morbid curiosity and $4 will only get you a place in my digital library.  If you want me to actually read the concluding volume of a run I had followed up to its penultimate chapter, that requires a special set of circumstances.  Such as, I dunno… having a global pandemic cause the majority of the comics industry to cease publication and then get me to look through my Kindle to see what new thing I can write about.  On Monday, “Batmen Eternal’s” number finally came up.

There's a reason it took me so long to get around to talking about this...

Edit:  Whoops!  Here's the actual podcast in addition to its post.

What about vol. 12?  It was notable for the trip Meguru takes with members of his and several other gyms to the Tohoku region to help with cleanup from the (then recent) earthquake and for some friendly competition.  It’s a nice diversion that also sees the series at its goofiest and most slapsticky. While Maki’s crush on Meguru gives mangaka Hiroki Endo plenty of license to engage in a variety of romantic, comedic, and fanservice-y tropes, it isn’t until the dinner that things go distractingly over-the-top between the men and the women.  Fortunately there’s some decent fighting, and even a bit of sparring between Meguru and his (former?) friend Takashi in the back half to bring things back down to Earth.

It also leaves off with Meguru meeting up with someone who has been completely MIA in the series up to this point:  His dad. We find out why in vol. 13. Not only is he the black sheep of the family, he’s also kind of an awful person too.  While Meguru spells it out for us in his internal monologue as he and his dad meet up with his sister and grandmother to visit his mother’s grave, it takes a turn as we get a full-on flashback to the title character’s junior high days.  We learn about how circumstances involving his sister led him to the door of Fighter’s Brew and shooto in general. This is backstory that’s unspooled well enough, and something that arguably should’ve been delivered sooner in this title’s run.

Endo then shifts gears to focus on Meguru’s training for and entry into the All-Japan Amateur Shooto Championship.  Really, it’s a little of the former and lot of the latter as his first match is against a fighter who is light on his feet and able to stay out of the protagonist’s reach.  It’s a solid fight by the title’s standards, even if the story beats of the fight are quite familiar at this point -- right down to the volume-ending cliffhanger. Still, that this is a “championship” tournament, and this could mean that “Meguru” heading into the final arc of its 19-volume run.  Six volumes may seem like a lot for one tournament, but there’s sports-manga precedent for that.  Best of luck to Endo if he’s trying to top that particular bar.

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Here we have a volume that feels more focused on the struggles of the supporting cast as opposed to its main duo.  Which isn’t a bad thing as that means we get to learn more about some of the newer characters. Like Philomena, who was caught spying on everyone at the end of the previous volume.  While that, along with her aloof demeanor, may have given her an initially unlikable disposition, what we learn about her here will likely flip a lot of readers’ feelings towards her on their heads.  There’s also a lot going on between Alice and Renfield here as well. She wants to be able to protect this man who has sacrificed so much for her, while he still sees her as the daughter he never had.  It’s interesting to see these characters try to hash out these adult feelings and (thankfully) not have a hint of romance about them.

In addition, we learn a bit more about the scions of the various houses that are attending the college, see more of its teachers, and get to see Chise head off with her classmates on a camping trip to Scotland.  That they encounter some kind of monster there should not surprise anyone -- though good luck guessing what it actually is. Chise also has a special familiar accompanying her on this trip: A portion of Elias. Now that the Magus knows what the concept of loneliness is, he’s become awfully clingy and having this part of him come with Chise on her trip is something of a compromise.  So while they might not be front-and-center here, vol. 12 does still have some interesting things to say about the couple’s constantly evolving relationship. It just does it while lifting up the characters around them at the same time.

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Vol. 13 has more of an overarching story to it than is usual for this series.  That’s because Hachiken, Mikage and the rest of their horse riding club are trying to make their way to the national championship at Gotemba.  Expect to see mind games played on and by the team, a horse who loves glasses, the real reason why two of the club members stayed members after a rough start, and Hachiken trying his damnedest to just. not. screw. up. when his time to ride comes.  Of course, if the club does make it to Gotemba, it comes with a bonus for Hachiken and Ookawa’s pig-raising start-up: The chance to taste Jinhua pork, the basis for one of the best hams in the world. It’s a big deal for them, but before that they’ve got another plan:  To set up the ultimate German pizza tasting party. While it may look like just another chance to eat some good food at Ezo Ag, it’s actually research for the kind of pizza Hachiken and Ookawa will be selling at an upcoming Ban’ei horse racing event.

One might be tempted to say that, “Everything’s coming up Hachiken!” after reading that summary.  Longtime readers will know that if there’s one thing mangaka Hiromu Arakawa loves doing in this series, it’s finding new and inventive ways to torment her protagonist.  Sometimes these ways involve genuine drama, and in other times it’s done for comedic effect. It’s the latter version that takes precedence here, though it’s not all that funny since the mistake Hachiken makes while riding feels all too relatable.  That aside, Arakawa is burning through Hachiken’s final year at Ezo Ag at a surprisingly rapid clip. While I miss the deep focus on all of the aspects of school life that made up the first two-thirds of this series, the events here feel like she’s got a plan and is executing it at full steam.  So it’s not really hard to get caught up in her charge to the end because of that.

Now that we’re past the Great Translation Consternation of 2019, where does this series stand?  In a pretty good place, actually.  Even if this volume is almost entirely setup for the Shuchiin School Festival that will be happening in the next one.  That leaves Kaguya modeling outfits for the welcoming party in an attempt to put pressure on Miyuki, only for the president to completely turn the tables on her.  Meanwhile, Fujiwara is busy living down the trauma of her last few teaching sessions with Miyuki when it looks like he’s about to call on her skills one more time.  Then there’s Ishigami and Ino who, are working with the festival committee both to help the event and further their own goals: Shutting down the jerks who’re trying to impress festival head Tsubame and to have a bonfire as part of the festival, respectively.

The comedy is as solid as you’d expect, with mangaka Aka Akasaka still finding clever ways to subvert your expectations after thirteen volumes.  Most notable in that regard is the shift in Miyuki and Kaguya’s romantic approaches. The former has decided to finally get serious about things (now that he’s on a deadline) and the latter is finally starting to own up to her own feelings.  It’s some actual dramatic movement on the romance front, and is underscored well by the final chapter in the volume. Which provides some straightforward backstory about what Miyuki and Kaguya were like back when they were first-years at Shuchiin.  It’s quality stuff all around, made even more appealing by the fact that I know we’ll be taking a trip to the fireworks factory in the next volume.

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(Definitely taking a trip to the factory.  Not sure about whether or not we’ll be setting them off.  My memory’s hazy on that part…)

In this volume, Saitama does a near dine-and-dash!  He forgot his wallet after ordering a meal at a restaurant, and when Blizzard comes to talk to him about a potential partnership, he runs off to take on another dine-and-dasher and sticks her with the bill.  After he takes care of the other dine-and-dasher, Saitama returns to his apartment only to realize that he left the Napa cabbage bought for the hot pot back at the restaurant. It’s okay, though, because Blizzard has tracked him back to his apartment and brought the cabbage with her.  Before she can chew him out, Genos warns them that someone is approaching their apartment at high speed… and it turns out to be his mentor/creator Dr. Kuseno. Saitama’s about to throw the doctor out after he won’t stop running his mouth, but when the Doctor offers him some premium beef as a gift for helping Genos, the Caped Baldy happily accepts because it’ll make for an awesome hot pot!

The above is all that we get regarding the title character.  As the last few volumes have made clear, the real character driving this story is the other dine-and-dasher:  Garo. Vol. 19 continues his transformation into a proper anti-hero after he’s tasked by the Monster Association to go out and kill a hero as a show of loyalty.  While he’s got every intention of doing that, a chance encounter with that one kid who looks up to him changes everything. Does it make for compelling reading? Kind of.  Creators ONE and Yusuke Murata have enough style to coast on, which they do throughout the volume’s length. So while this volume doesn’t have any major problems, it winds up being another that just serves to set up what will hopefully be more interesting action down the road.

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(Oh yeah, and we finally get an explanation as to where Saitama’s godlike power comes from.  If this is something that you’ve been waiting to find out after all this point, you’ll want to adjust your expectations.  Given the completely offhand nature that it’s delivered with, that is. There’s also a chance that you may have been reading “One-Punch Man” for the wrong reasons if you’ve been waiting for this particular plot point to be resolved…)