We begin this week’s installment in a state of emergency.
Mike Harvey, creator of the weekly See You Next Wednesday minicomic that’s near and dear to my heart, claims that this week’s issue is “the worst comic I ever made.” He also states in his introduction that he fears he’s running out of ideas. Mike — walk it off. “Detective Gumshoe: The Cereal Killer” is not the worst thing you’ve done. I’m a fan of puns, and of sugary breakfast cereals, and jingles as well, so I may be the target audience for a comic about an inept detective who wades into a world of breakfast cereal-themed puns while attempting to solve a murder. Maybe other people won’t enjoy the puns and the goofiness, but that’s ok. I respect your desire to maintain a high standard of work, but to start doubting yourself now would be fatal. Trust me: You’re funny, your comics are entertaining, and you’re always going to be the harshest judge of your own work. I’ve bought every issue, and you’re making some of your best work right now. You wanna see a terrible comic? Join me in the next paragraph where I discuss Thor 621.
Thor 621 is awful. If we dismiss all the poorly interpreted mythology Matt Fraction cobbles together about Yggdrasil — the World Tree for those playing along at home — and discard the cruddy science of beings “existing outside time and space” and thereby not being subject to the physical laws of this universe (except for the stuff they are subject to, like gravity and they retain the ability to cast shadows, and disturb air with their vocal chords in order to speak) and then further ignore the absolutely crap botany of the World Tree “healing itself” and thereby flushing out all impurities and also cleansing all the Asgardians — well, if you junk all that stuff, all you have left is about one page of this comic. And that one page makes no sense anyway. I really liked Matt Fraction’s work on Iron Fist a few years ago, but his run here has been maddeningly bad. Thank Odin Marvel’s killing this book and relaunching it as two new titles next month, eh? Except that Fraction’s writing one of those. And Marvel snuffed out a perfectly brilliant Thor the Mighty Avenger title for some reason — still bitter, I am.
Also snuffed out recently? Johnny Storm. I’ve griped at length about how that’s been handled by Jonathan Hickman in the FF book; chief among those gripes was how no one in the FF reacted to it at the time or really in the aftermath. One week after Spider-Man joins the Fantastic Three in the newly re-numbered FF 1, we see how that all came about in Amazing Spider-Man 657. Honestly, the worst thing about this is the unfortunately out-of-sequence timing of its arrival. Dan Slott writes a satisfying wake for Johnny in which Pete, Ben, Sue and Reed all reminisce about shared adventures and the finer qualities of the late Johnny Storm. It’s good; it’s actually pretty great. Slott hits all the right notes in terms of how these four different people related to Johnny, and how they each feel guilty that it was him and not them, and he gives the world the immortal line “He’s got Kraven’s panties!” This issue goes a long way to cooling my ire about how mishandled and exploitative the death of Johnny has been. I really don’t understand why Hickman couldn’t write something like this in FF — I suppose I should be grateful that Dan Slott is here to do the heavy lifting for us. And I am.
I’m a long-time fan of Tank Girl, so I’m well aware of the Tank Girl fugue. This is the phenomenon in which things get so crazy and hectic that you lose your bearings as to what’s happening, and why, and who’s doing what, even though you’ve read all the preceding issues. Bad Wind Rising 3 is that issue for me. Booga’s on the run from the Mod kangaroo mob, Jet Girl’s disguised as Tank Girl in order to infiltrate a scientific facility, Tank Girl is hiding out in a cave with a hippie dandy who’s been shot in the bollocks and now she’s about to discover how Time ends thanks to a trippy Aborigine. It’s … it’s an awful lot to digest and keep straight. It’s a credit to Alan Martin that he’s able to baffle so entertainingly, but lest we forget, Rufus Dayglo’s art is a huge part of that bafflement. His borderless panels and excessive marginalia are essential to the loosey-goosey feel of the plot, and even he claims to be losing his marbles in this issue. I’m not worried — it’ll all make sense in the next issue. It always does, and that’s why Tank Girl is such a good time. If your brain didn’t shut down for its own protection at some point every story, you wouldn’t get to enjoy having your brain kickstarted by Martin in the following issue.
King Conan 2 is eminently more straightforward in its plot and execution. Imprisoned in the Scarlet Citadel of Koth by King Strabonus and the evil wizard Tsotha-Lanti, Conan embarks on a classic dungeon crawl through this subterranean prison. He encounters sadistic guardsmen, strange extra-dimensional creatures and giant snakes while looking for an escape route. This is meat and potatoes fantasy storytelling, and Tim Truman and Tomas Giorello are doing a bang-up job of it. Giorello depicts the creatures with suitable creepiness, and he throws in some nice details that flesh out the story — check out the guard spinning the keys on his finger, and Conan’s pop-eyed look when the guard mentions castration. It’s a fine comic, but it’s definitely a “get from point B to point C by the end of the issue” installment; when it was over I felt like something more should have happened. If you show me a big snake in the early going, I pretty much expect Conan to kill that thing by the end of the book.
So, where does that leave us? I’m tempted to name Tank Girl as the best thing if only because it so completely overwhelmed my feeble mind, but I know the next issue is really going to be a corker. I do believe that Amazing Spider-Man and it’s long delayed wrapping up of Fantastic Four’s loose ends was the best thing I read this week. It certainly did scratch an itch I had resigned myself to suffering — sometimes, the comic that soothes the most is the best.
-Paul
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