As the movie commercials and cross-over events dominate the racks at the same time, it seems like a lot of one-shots and smaller limited series are also popping up. I’m not sure about you, but I like the one-offs and the small runs of non-continuity stuff — a lot of it just seems more fun than the constant “end of the world/this changes everything” style of storytelling that dominates the art form. And summer comics should be fun — autumn, winter and spring comics should be fun, too.
In the spirit of no-fun, let it be known that I will not be seeing the Captain America movie. Just the sight of that idiotic helmet/body armor thing they’ve worked up for him to wear makes me nauseous with rage. However, if you give me a deluxe reprint collection of Silver Age Captain America comics by the pillars of my consciousness, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, well, I’ma buy that. Captain America: Rebirth is a one-shot reprinting five Cap stories from 1965, and it includes Cap’s origin, Bucky’s origin, Red Skull’s origin and a crazy story about a ray that makes things disappear. This is meant as enticement/primer for people who don’t read comics but are interested in the movie. It’s interesting that 46 years later, the best promotion for an overblown movie remains the original comics, isn’t it? Kinda speaks to the timelessness of what Kirby & Lee created as opposed to the transient nature of film. Here’s a prediction: No one will care about the movie in 46 months let alone 46 years, but these comics will still be sought after. They’re action-packed, tension-fraught stories that are enhanced by the idiosyncrasies of the most bombastic of writers and the most dynamic of artists. Remember when Cap used to have to maintain his secret identity by pretending to be the most sad-sackest buck private in the U.S. Army? Good times, folks.
FF 5, once again by Jonathan Hickman and guest penciler Barry Kitson, suffers a bit by comparison to the work of the great architects of the Marvel Universe. Hickman has a tendency to create excitement via deep characterization and slow-burning plots that reveal their implications through dialogue and dropped clues; Lee & Kirby relied a lot more on kicks to the face, desperate chances grasped with two hands and solid — and frequent — right crosses to move their stories along. Don’t let my $10 words deceive you; I’m a big fan of a tightly plotted book with sharply-rendered characters, but FF could really do with a lot more boots caving in faces. Here we get Sue, Spidey and Alex Power heading off to Old Atlantis to stop an alternate-timeline Reed and present-day Moleman from destroying the whole area. There’s a smidgen of action in which Alex Power finally reminds us that he does indeed have superpowers — where were you and your walls ‘n’ rifts generating powers when Johnny Storm was getting murderized, son? –and Spidey shoots some webs, but come ON. The cover implies a major fracas between the FF and a certain strong and silent hero whose name rhymes with “Schlack Scholt” — don’t get your hopes up, because no FF’er so much as farts in his general direction and vice versa. On the plus side, Ben Grimm has tea with Alicia Masters and engages in grown-up talk about their relationship, which was recently consummated; Ben’s guilty because his non-rockiness (but he was rock-hard at the time, eh? High five!) enabled him to be physical with Alicia but cost Johnny his life. If he could have had this conversation and then punched somebody across Manhattan, I would have loved this book. As it is, we’ve spent a lot of time with Ben moping about Johnny and doing very little of what he does best, which is “Aunt Petunia, idol of millions, Yancy Street CLOBBERIN’ TIME.” You’ll notice that his signature catch phrase is not “Trenchant Insight!”
Butcher Baker the Righteous Maker 4 has a lot — a lot — of fisticuffs in it, which is a nice change of pace from the previous three issues, which were mainly slightly warmed up Smokey and the Bandit leftovers. Butcher fights three super villains in a Times Square-stand in, and it’s quite beautiful. Mike Huddleston’s handing art and colors on this series, and he makes gorgeous backgrounds — look at the top of page six if you don’t believe me. I still get a Marshall Law vibe off this book, but I think this is the best issue of the bunch so far. I don’t think it’s as epoch-shattering as Joe Casey’s increasingly indulgent afterwards would have you believe, but it’s improving.
As far as I’m concerned, there’s very little that could be done to improve Mike Harvey’s See You Next Wednesday comics. This week’s installment brutalizes the industry practice of killing off characters to increase sales. Once again, Mike sets up his pins and knocks them all down as beloved hero Cap’n Mac — he’s a guy with a computer monitor on his head who’s devoted to saving only the hot ladies of the world — takes a shot to a very sensitive portion of his anatomy and heads for the big Blue Screen of Death in the sky. Relentlessly silly, and with no six month wait required to see if Cap’n Mac is really dead — c’mon, if you’ve been reading comics for longer than six months, you know he’s not dead. Awesome, funny, good-time comic books, right here every week — every week — for a dollar.
After four issues, I feel like I’m finally getting a handle on Xombi. It’s your standard science-fiction/horror comic that deals with issues of theology and super-science by means of unusual and distinct characters and copious amounts of wordplay. You know — the usual. John Rozum and Frazer Irving give us a whole lot of exposition and background in this issue, for which I thank them. Despite this issue being mostly one character explaining who/what/where/when and why about her life thus far, this is a compelling and entertaining book. It’s a tough book to explain to someone who’s never read it, but man is it worth reading. It feels like I’m still playing catch-up on this book, and that doesn’t even bother me. Every issue thus far as ended with me itching to see what happens next, and this one is no exception. If you’re not reading this series, I bet you could start with this one and be engrossed by the end of next issue –maybe. I may be biased because this issue retroactively made the three previous issues much more coherent and fascinating. That’s the word I’d use to describe Xombi to someone who hadn’t read it. This is a fascinating, non-conventional comic that just happens to be a DC book — that’s the weirdest thing about it.
Amazing Spider-Man has been the best superhero book on the stands for at least the past year. I know, I’m still kinda surprised myself — Spidey’s not even my third-favorite Marvel character, and yet Dan Slott has made me care about Peter Parker and about what happens in Spidey’s neck of NYC. Issue 664 features Spider-Man helpless at the hands of Anti-Venom (no bones about it, one of the dumbest characters in Spider-Man lore) while A-V and the Wraith attempt to bring down the evil gang lord Mr. Negative independently of one another. One of the finest characteristics Slott has as a scripter is that he doesn’t let things dangle; this issue features the resolution to two ongoing plots. Namely, we find out who’s behind that Wraith mask, and we see Mr. Negative and his operation crippled by the good guys. So much has happened in Amazing in the past six months — the rise of Peter Parker, the death of Marla Jameson, the return of several classic villains, the growing friendship between Peter and Mary Jane, Peter’s deepening relationship with new girlfriend Carlie Cooper — and yet the plot keeps developing. The book retains its light-hearted feel, but serious and important stuff is constantly happening. Slott’s work rate is phenomenal, and the result is a book that’s thrilling, surprising, uplifting, touching and absolutely worth the cover price.
And yet it’s not the best thing I read this week. I know, right? Read on, there’s more.
The Iron Age Featuring Captain Britain 1 is the sort of comic I habitually ignore. I don’t regularly read any of the Iron Man books and I had no idea what this series is about, but I couldn’t resist a Captain Britain story. I’m a sucker for him, and boy am I glad about that now. Christos Gage and Lee Weeks present a tale of time-travelin’ Tony Stark as he attempts to stop a doomsday machine from being unleashed in his present (our future) by heading back to the 80s continuity. Guess which comic reviewer loves that idea? You’re damn right I do. Tony encounters drunk Tony, has to make amends with an emotionally-fragile Hank Pym who’s recently been released from prison and is still known mostly as a wife-beater, and is once again reminded of his own failings during the Civil War event. It is fantastic to see what I consider to be the classic Iron Man armor once again, and Lee Weeks’ pencils are positively Neal Adams-esque on certain pages. And Captain Britain doesn’t even play a role in this until the second half of the story, but I’m not bothered; this issue is quite a joyride through the Avengers comics of my youth. I don’t know how that plays with you younger people, but I’m gonna have to buy the rest of this series — classic Power Man and Iron Fist show up next issue, and that’s mandatory as far as I’m concerned.
2011 is awful late to do a Watchmen parody. The movie came out two summers ago and the actual comic came out 20-something years ago, which means any sort of extended joke better be pretty good. Patric M. Verrone and Tone Rodriguez come through huge in the Simpsons Super Spectacular 13, of all places. The Splotchmen melds the show’s continuity with a highly-detailed parody of the Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons comic to great effect. The Springfield/Shelbyville Bi-City Bake-Off threatens to destroy both towns, but a mysterious set of super heroes (Pie Man and Cupcake Boy, guess who?) step in to protect the innocent and end up uncovering a super hero war from the old days. It would have been easy to superficially skewer the film and call it a day, but Verrone nails all the right notes in this. Dr. Frink becomes Dr. New Haven and Krusty is the Komedian obviously, but it’s the little stuff that makes this so great. The chapter breaks are perfect right down to the font and layout, there are random ridiculous quotes sprinkled throughout the book, Comic Book Guy and Milhouse play the roles of the news stand operator and the boy reading the Black Ship comic (here a Radioactive Man comic), Dr. Hibbert stands in for Rorschach’s psychologist — there are so many glorious details that pay tribute to the comic while the true spirit of the Simpsons shines through. It’s rare that a parody satisfies as both humor and as a story, and rarer still is the parody that cuts so finely it makes you want to re-read the original material in search of other jokes, but the Simpsons Super Spectacular is just such a book. And to think I bought this only so I could give it to the nephews. From out of nowhere, the Simpsons Super Spectacular is the best thing I read this week.
-Paul
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