Comic Picks By The Glick

This volume is a little closer to what I want to see in a “Superman” story as co-writers Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason attempt something few writers do these days:  Follow up on a concept laid down by Grant Morrison.  In this case, that would be his epic “Multiversity” series as Superman teams up with the Justice League Incarnate to take down a threat that is specifically targeting Supermen from across the multiverse.  Tomasi and Gleason manage to craft a serviceable mini-epic out of this three-issue arc that makes decent use of Morrison’s concepts and nails the title character’s ability to inspire when everything seems at its worst.  Working against the story is it’s antagonist Prophecy, who is every bit as generic as his name implies, and the fact that five(!) different artists were required to deliver these three issues.  Even though I liked how the previous volume focused on short two-part arcs, “Multiplicity” is one that probably should’ve been given another issue to properly set up its villain.

The title arc is also bookended by two one-offs that only required one artist each to deliver.  Jorge Jimenez illustrates “Tangled up in Green” where Superman encounters Swamp Thing during a drought in Smallville.  While it’s usually interesting to see these two vastly different superheroes interact, this story comes off as more of an excuse to see them throw down over complications from Superman’s other-dimensional status.  Jimenez makes the fighting lively, but the end result is just more handwaving to validate this Superman as the proper one in this universe.  If you’re like me and have already accepted this Superman, then this is largely going to feel pointless.

“Dark Harvest” is the final story in this collection and it spotlights Jon Kent and his friend Kathy as they go out into the swamp one night to look for her missing cow.  The art is from Sebastian Fiumara and he gives it a great horror-infused edge even at its most surrealistic moments.  Said surrealistic moments -- including parts where it looks like the two kids are shrinking and later swimming in a sea of milk in a haunted house -- do make the story feel somewhat nonsensical and by the end I was wondering what the point of it all was.  There’s nothing wrong with Tomasi and Gleason taking a spooky little diversion like this, except that it’s likely only going to be memorably scary to readers of Jon and Kathy’s age.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

There is tremendous skill and craft underpinning this incredibly, but not completely, depressing work.

It’s been three years and five months since we last saw a volume of “Drifters” on these shores.  The only reason we’re getting a new volume now is because the series had a popular anime adaptation last year.  I just want to let that sink in for a bit.  The reason the “Drifters” manga -- and by extension “Blood Blockade Battlefront’s” return in December -- is coming out again is all down to its successful anime adaptation.  Not because of any extraordinary effort on Dark Horse’s part, but because of the anime.  So while I’ll continue to ask along with everyone else about the status of titles like “The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service” and “Eden:  It’s An Endless World!” it helps to remember that there’s really only one thing that moves the needle when it comes to getting Dark Horse to bring a series back from hiatus.

...well, unless you manage to convince three thousand of your closest friends to pick up a copy of the above-mentioned titles’ most recent volumes.  I don’t have that many, but do any of you?

Anyway, the good news is that “Drifters” returns in good form with the members of the title group working to stage a swift takeover of Worlina, Capitol of the Orte Empire.  While this would appear to be an impossible task in the best of circumstances, there’s just enough crazy between its leaders -- samurai Shimazu Toyohisa and military genius Oda Nobunaga -- to pull it off.  The battle that follows is a genuine struggle between the good guys (Drifters) and the bad guys (Ends) that actually had me anxious as to how it was all going to turn out.  Even if the civilization-building aspect of the series that I like best about it was mostly sidelined here, the drama of that struggle and the balls-out action on show from mangaka Kohta Hirano still make this volume a thrilling read.  If you liked the anime and still haven’t picked up a copy of the manga do yourself a favor and start reading this now.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

This wraps up the main story for Greg Rucka’s run on the title and he does bring the narrative into much sharper focus here.  Even though Diana of Themyscira is struggling with a mental breakdown for the first half, she overcomes it through her own strength and with a little help from some of her friends.  We also get an explanation in regards to the first volume’s most confusing assertion that the title character has never been back to her home island.  This is in spite of the fact that she did this multiple times during the great Azzarello/Chiang run.

On that note, the explanation we get winds up confirming my biggest fear for this series.  Rucka effectively wipes out the entire “New 52” run of the series in telling us the real reason why Diana has been deceived.  You could argue that these events still technically happened to the title character, but only in the sense that it was a mass delusion shared by everyone around her.  It also means that Diana’s “Pre-52” origin is canonical again, just in time to be ignored by the movie.

Clearly Rucka had issues with how Wonder Woman was handled in her previous run and wanted to set them right.  The problem here is that he had to effectively kick out a run that I really liked in order to do that.  If you did have a problem with the Azzarello/Chiang run, or the Meredith Finch-written run that followed, or both then you’re probably going to appreciate what Rucka does here.  To be entirely fair, the actual storytelling here is very solid.  Diana gets plenty of changes to show off her strength (both physical and character), the actual way in which she was deceived is quite interesting along with the consequences should she ever find out, there are some clever callbacks to the “Year One” arc, and Liam Sharp’s art is quite good when he’s not rushing up against a deadline.  It’s the kind of quality work I’ve come to expect from Rucka, except that it’s all in pursuit of trashing something I liked.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

When I opened up this volume to its first story page and saw one of its protagonists being smacked in the head by some rotten fruit, my first thought was, “Which one is she again?”  Reading further in I was reminded that she was KJ, the paper girl who was sent to a different time than her friends were in the previous volume.  She’s further differentiated as the volume goes on as the girl who gets the jump boots and has visions of the future after touching a tentacled-pyramid-thing.  You’ll notice I didn’t include any description of her personality traits as I’m still trying to suss out any distinguishing ones on her part, as well as Erin and Tiffany.  Not in MacKenzie’s case; however, at this point “bitchy redhead” is kind of its own trope.

Even if the main characters are lacking in interesting personality traits at this point, they’re still able to drive the plot forward.  This leads to vol. 3 being a decently interesting women-vs-nature story as they meet up with a girl their age (and her kid) to survive the dangers of this period and the three men who want her baby back for their own unknown purposes.  It’s fine for what it is, but does it make the time-travel driven overall narrative of “Paper Girls” any more interesting?  Not really, and that’s even with the addition of another time-traveler to the mix in this volume.

If vol. 3 achieves anything it’s in giving me a firm belief that we’re going to have to wait to the end of the series to find out if all of this is going to be worth it.  I can’t say that’s a good place for any series to be in, but I have more faith that Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang will at least make it to the finish line than the “Morning Glories” team of Nick Spencer and Joe Eisma will at this point.  I’m not about to drop “Paper Girls” yet, though everyone else who hasn’t jumped on yet should just continue to wait and see if it delivers in the end.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

“Mother Panic” co-creator Gerard Way says in his afterword that the idea for this series was basically what would Bruce Wayne, and by extension Batman, be like if he grew up in today’s celebrity-obsessed environment.  Way also states that the series started as a creator-owned title before he got the chance to bring its protagonist, damaged and violent debutante Violet Page, and her titular alter ego to Gotham.  I don’t think basing the series out of DC’s most infamous Bat-infested cesspool adds as much as Way thinks it does, but there’s a lot of stuff in this first volume that justifies its subtitle.

This second volume of Brubaker and Phillips’ vigilante contains two more issues than the first one.  More does not always mean better, but in this case it does as it means we see more of its protagonist’s, Dylan’s, struggles as killing starts to get a lot more complicated for him.  It starts when some cops walk in on him in a diner bathroom after he’s shotgunned a financier to death.  While Dylan is able to extract himself from that situation with an appropriate show of force it’s on the beginning of his troubles.

While I admire a lot of things about this series its best trait may be how economical its storytelling is.  What I mean is that in comparison to other (very) long-running Shonen Jump titles, mangaka Yusei Matsui rarely feels the need to drag arcs of this series out over multiple volumes.  For example:  Last volume ended with a split between Class E’s students over whether to save Koro-sensei or fulfill their original mission to establish him.  It’s a good setup with both sides having credible reasons for saving or killing their teacher and also something I could see having a long-term impact on the overall storyline.

Matsui clearly didn’t think so as he wraps the conflict all up in this one volume.  After Koro-sensei recommends that both sides settle their dispute with a forest paintball match we get a surprisingly tense and methodical battle where just about everyone gets a chance to show what they can do.  The mangaka also manages to set up an effective rivalry between respective group leaders Nagisa and Karma and flesh out their relationship backstory in a way that doesn’t feel too tacked on.  Even though Matsui could’ve milked this conflict for a couple volumes he still delivers a satisfying result before this one is wrapped up.

So where do things go from here?  This being “Assassination Classroom” it probably wouldn’t surprise you to learn that the answer is “kinda crazy.”  That’s because the newly re-unified Class E is gearing up for a heist -- aboard the International Space Station!  It’s the right kind of crazy as this plan is just within the title’s realm of logic to push against it rather than break it.  While I’m sure that heist will succeed, it’s the how that’s going to happen which has me anticipating vol. 18.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com