Let me be frank: There is no real critical point to this weekly endeavor, other than my own amusement. Comparing comic books to one another because they were released in the same week is arbitrary, and my tastes are so arcane and capricious that not only is objectivity impossible, but the possibility of me being consistent in my subjectivity beggars reason as well. That’s life for you: Confounding, arbitrary, maddening and endlessly entertaining in its unpredictability.

But believe me when I tell you that this week more than any other the dice were loaded, the deck was cut falsely, there was a magnet under the roulette table and that man standing behind you was a telepath reading your cards and projecting images to me of the most mathematically probable hands you could play before you played them. Which is to say, there’s no way in any incarnation of the Multiverse that anything other than Century: 1969, the new chapter of Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, was going to be the best thing I read this week. I’ve waited a long time (has it been two years?) for this book to come out, and every one of my expectations was trumped. Alan Moore is the Black Monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey, popping up when you least expect it and altering everyone’s perception of reality, and then disappearing back to wherever it is legitimate geniuses go when they’re not breaking our brains open like Easter eggs.

This issue tackles England in 1969, and in true Alan Moore fashion, he exalts the hippies and their free drugs and freer love attitudes even as he shows how their utopian ideal was filtered through the uglier side of human nature. Briefly (looks up at the preceding, shakes head in exasperation), Mina Harker, Allan Quatermain and Orlando exit the Burning World and enter a hedonistic perversion of Swinging London, where notorious British gangsters the Kray Brothers hang out with Basil Thomas (this world’s Brian Jones, original Rolling Stone) while Oliver Haddo (Somerset Maugham’s fictionalized version of Aleister Crowley) is attempting to birth a new moon calf (host body for his spirit) so that he can continue his long-reaching plan to hatch the Anti-Christ. The Purple Orchestra (Rolling Stones) concert in Hyde Park commemorating the death of Basil/Brian will be the culmination of the ritual, and it’s up to our trio to puzzle that all out and then stop it.

But that’s not all, because this is a Moore and O’Neill production. Dozens upon dozens of sly verbal and visual references, call-backs to earlier stories and sight gags cram every inch of art and leak out of the dialogue. Century: 1969 is a palimpsest, with multiple stories happening underneath and behind our main tale. Look for Marty Feldman, Michael Moorcock, Michael Moorcock’s creation Jerry Cornelius, daleks, and characters from Victorian fairy tales; pay attention to the references to Monty Python, Jack Parsons, Rosemary’s Baby, the Boris Karloff film “The Black Cat” and many other familiar-yet-not-quite-placeable pieces of pop culture ephemera. If I had to guess, I’d say I caught about 30% of what Moore and O’Neill hid in plain sight. There are things I recognized immediately, like Andy Capp in a crowd shot, but I didn’t quite understand why they were there. Good ol’ Andy was in the last volume of the book, which was set in 1910. Is his repeat appearance supposed to be a commentary on the timelessness of the Northern British working class, or does O’Neill just like drawing him in crowds? Either way, it matters.

And I have a theory about why the Mick Jagger stand-in here is called “Terner;” Mick released a single called “Memo from Turner” — actually he released two versions of it, one with Brian Jones and one without. “Memo from Turner” is about a psychopathically violent man reveling in the senseless carnage of his lifestyle, but there also seems to be some mockery of the lifestyle as well. So, a song with two meanings exists in two versions — very Alan Moore — and both feature Mick wearing another persona. Is the character in Century: 1969 named Terner as a nod to this dual single, or is he supposed to embody a further perversion of the fictional character, Turner? Again, in a work as layered with meaning as this, interpretation is everything. How you make sense of just one detail such as this will shape how you read the story.

These treats are not strewn about for fancy’s sake — they’re puzzle pieces you have to fit together to see the bigger picture of Century’s arc, they enhance the story’s sense of place, and they presage what’s to come in the next installment, whenever it shows up. Honestly, I don’t care when it shows up — if it takes Moore and O’Neill years to make something like this, give them years. It’s absolutely and entirely worth the wait. They’re making art, a seamless union of facts and fictions that reflects a truth about humanity and society, and that truth is this: The people with the most ambition are the people you’d least want to succeed in their ambitions. No, wait; the truth is that there’s always a little nugget of rot inside every good thing. No, that’s not entirely it either; the rot is systemic, but people make the systems so people can fight the rot and succeed where the system fails. The more I look, the more I find — and then there’s the whole modern magick element of the story that leaks into the real world; as I typed “the more I look, the more I find,” Rory Gallagher’s “Wheels Within Wheels” came on the stereo. This moment of synchronicity was foreseen by Alan Moore decades ago; at least I think it was. And that’s what the Century story does to you. You begin connecting it to points in your own life, trying to use it as a lens to make clear sense of this arbitrary, mundane and magical world we all inhabit.

You see? Century: 1969 is so densely constructed and richly detailed that you can keep finding meanings behind each meaning you find. It is a work of graphic literature that appears in comic book format because this is the only way this story could be told. There is nothing else out there in the wide worlds like it, and for that I’m grateful. The most fantastic element about it is it took me the better part of an hour to read it, and as soon as I was done I had a driving urge to read the entire series straight through to this issue again so I could see what I gleaned on the journey this time.

-Paul

Being a comic book fan is a strange and contrary pursuit. Every week, you look forward to buying your books and maybe picking up something new or interesting while you’re in the shop. Then you get ‘em home, read ‘em and wonder why you bought this, or continue to read that. And yet as soon as you’re done with the stack you remember that more comics are just a week away, and which ones you’re most eager to read. As I said, a strange and contrary pursuit; you’re simultaneously remorseful and eager, except when you’re actually reading the comics.

Which is the long way of saying, “I bought Conan: The Mask of Acheron this week and it made me question not only my sanity, but that of the people at Conan Properties and Dark Horse.” The cover blurb says “Based on the new hit film!,” which is your first clue as to quality, because that movie hasn’t been released yet. Although that blurb is a public service, because if this is what the movie is going to be like, I just saved $8 by buying this. There are some errors that annoy the REH scholar in me, such as the superstitious and magic-loathing Cimmerians keeping a shard of an evil artifact hidden in the heart of their village and while we’re at it, let’s mention that it was the Hyborians, not the Cimmerians, who crushed the evil empire of Acheron, but these things, while telling, are not the major source of my butthurt. No, the fact that Conan disappears for huge stretches of time in his own comic/movie is troublesome. We see him as a kid (*SPOILER ALERT* Once again, Conan will have dead daddy issues), then he sorta shows up in time to kidnap a princess who’s pursued by our evil warlord (how did he know to nab her? No explanation is forthcoming), then he fights the warlord in some sort of temple, magically appearing from off-panel just when we need him. The problem is this whole story is told from the bad guy’s point of view, so Conan is nothing more than a periodic intruder in this guy’s life story. Nobody’s paying to see the life story of the bad guy — we’re paying to see Conan *end the bad guy’s life.* If the filmmakers don’t understand that, they don’t understand Conan and they don’t understand Conan fans. Also, a bad guy who walks around waving a dried up starfish mask is no more threatening than every little kid who walks around the beach waving a dried up starfish. That’s science.

Legion of Super-Heroes 15 is also fraught with science, but in a good way. Paul Levitz and Yildiray Cinar continue their epic battle of Legion of Super-Heroes vs. Legion of Super-Villains, with the LSH finally getting an edge on the villains. Tracking them to their hidden other dimension, the LSH fights back and seemingly turns the tide — plus we get another chapter of the long-running Ranzz v. Ranzz battle, as Ayla (yay!) takes it to her big brother Mekt (boo!). Ordinarily, I’d be very excited about next issue, which is the last issue in the series before DC unplugs their universe, counts three and then fires it back up. However, in their incessant promotional push for stuff that happens in three months, DC has already revealed that a good chunk of the LSH dies and the survivors band together to rebuild. If you bother to look at the cover art for September issues, you can pretty much figure out who dies, who reconstructs and who gets thrown back in time to our era to fight zzzzzzzz … Sorry, dozed off there. The idea of a book written by Fabian Nicieza forces my brain to shut down for self defense. This right here is the huge flaw with universe-wide architectural remodeling. You have a writer as talented and careful as Paul Levitz, and then you ties his hands, blindfold him, spin him around, rearrange all the furniture and then tell him to work around it.

Seeing as I am old and crotchety and wish that you would vacate my lawn, I am the target demographic for DC’s Retrospective one-shots. Sadly, a few of them were shorted in today’s delivery, so all I could get is Len Wein and Tom Mandrake’s Batman 1970s. (Note: all issues should hopefully be on the racks by the time you read this.) Wein’s Batman is a clever detective battling (and losing to) a new Terrible Trio while wondering about the business motives of Gregorian Falstaff, the corporate raider eyeing Wayne Industries. I really miss this sort of Batman story — you know, the kind where he’s not a mondo-dismo maniac — so I appreciate DC throwing all us old-timers a few bones with the Retroactive books. Of course, their interest in the hard-core, long-term fan extends no further than these stop-gap books because someone in marketing had a great idea about Wayne Casino brand poker chips, and that’s what they’re going to put their collective energy into this summer (I wish I was kidding about this; check the last page of any DC book). Story editor Ian Sattler notes, “I was disappointed to learn that [the poker chips] aren’t legal tender.” That’s funny, I was disappointed to learn that DC was going to lean on more gimmicks rather than concentrate on original storytelling. It’s a disappointing summer all ’round, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, over at Marvel, the Fear Itself cross-over deal continues. I may hate the company-wide storylines, but at least they’re predicated on the idea of a *story*. The Greg Pak/Fred VanLente/Neil Edwards book Herc further develops that plot (I guess — I’m buying so few of the installments) as Herc battles Hecate and Ares’ son, Kyknos (the Greek God of Affordable Copies), in a Brooklyn that’s overrun with monsters. I feel like I’m getting my money’s worth with this book. Hercules is a winning character, the action is plentiful, the dialogue is entertaining, I like Edwards’ pencils and there’s a sense of humor about the whole thing. I guess when you have Man-Bull as a supporting character and you burn off his hesher hair, I’m going to be pleased. See how easy it is?

Skaar: King of the Savage Land 5 finishes off the mini series in some fashion. This whole series read like there was relevant stuff happening in another title — one I wasn’t reading — so I never quite latched on to this. Also, if you have Skaar as a character and you do very little with him other than have him brood in an uninteresting fashion for all five issues, you’re really not using the “barbarian son of Hulk” plot element to its fullest potential. Sure, it was nice to see Kid Colt, Devil Dinosaur and Moon Boy in a comic again, but their magnitude of interest far outstrips that of Skaar. He could be a great and fun character, but not if he spends his time moping about where he belongs. You were born on another planet, dude, and it blew up — earth’s not going to feel like home. That, again, is science.

Tiny Titans 42 is a special issue devoted to the love of Bizarro Superman for Bizarro Supergirl. It’s fun, like all Tiny Titans stories seem to be, but what makes it great is the running gag of Terra beaning a love-sick Beastboy with rocks every three seconds. I don’t want to build a Three Stooges tower of comedy greatness, but if I did throwing rocks would be at both the base and near the pinnacle. You can’t overestimate the comedic value of a well-timed rock.

Warlord of Mars 8 is the penultimate chapter in this story, with John Carter finally finding out what he has to do to win Dejah Thoris’ hand. It requires nothing more than escaping from an armed fortress, raising an army of Tharks and arranging for someone else to kill her politically-expedient betrothed so John Carter can wed her with a clean conscience when the guy’s dead. Arvid Nelson has done a bang-up job with this series, introducing characters and alien concepts in a clear, concise fashion, while staying true to the series’ pulp roots and Lui Antonio brings the world of Barsoom to life with beauty and a sense of grandeur. This entire series has been a solid, entertaining read month after month.

Conan: Island of No Return 2, by Ron Marz and Bart Sears, is also very solid comic book. These shorter stories are much better for Conan comics, because they’re true to the character’s episodic pulp fiction roots. Marz gives us the simplest of plots — two beautiful sisters, Brenn and Venya, hire Conan to help them recover a treasure from a remote island, but another adventuring party is working toward the same goal — and that’s it. No daddy vengeance stuff, no end-of-the-world threats, no massive pyrotechnics, no starfish; just treacherous women, ruthless rivals and an exotic locale. Throw in a creepy abomination of a guardian monster and point Conan at it and you have a quality adventure. Bart Sears’ artwork has taken some knocks in the forums for making Conan look rather ugly, but that doesn’t bother me at all. His Conesy is rather brutally featured, but it suits him, and his action sequences — and there are action sequences, thank Crom — are well-rendered and vibrant. And the conclusion is suitably REH in its simplicity and characterization. I’ve never rated Ron Marz very highly as a writer, but this changed my mind; This is the sort of Conan book I could get behind on a monthly basis.

I’ve been eagerly anticipating the arrival of Sergio Aragonés Funnies not only because I love his rococo cartooning, but because he’s a natural storyteller. This first issue did not disappoint. We get a couple of his pantomime one-page jokes, two challenging “spot the difference” puzzles and an extended anecdote about his college years in Mexico, when he helped his father’s movie studio round up extras for a Davy Crocket film. Again, nothing complicated here, other than his crowd shots. Aragonés is a singular talent, and there’s a timeless quality to his work. You could pick this book up in 30 years and the jokes will still be funny, the art will still be fascinating and you’ll still think, “This Aragonés guy is certainly the most charming guy in the business.” Sergio Aragonés Funnies is easily the best thing I read this week, because it’s pure entertainment from start to finish.

-Paul

Welcome back to Event-mania. in 2011 we’ve seen the conclusion to Brightest Day, War of the Green Lanterns, The Iron Age, Fear Itself, Flashpoint, Infestation, Reign of Doomsday, Age of X, The Death of (Ultimate) Spider-Man, Spider-Island (soon… very soon), DCnU (starting in September) and so on. So its very likely that you’re tired of all the crossovers and events, but if you think you can handle one more, maybe it should be X-Men: Schism.

The great debate that takes place in my mind about the X-Men always comes down to this: Who is the best there ever was? Cyclops or Wolverine? For anyone who knows me, they know that the answer will always be Cyclops. That’s just the way it is. No offense to Wolverine fans, but eye beams are cooler than claws. Final. Answer. But that isn’t really what Schism is all about. You see, over the years, we’ve always known that Cyclops and Wolverine almost never saw eye-to-eye about anything except for maybe Jean Grey, and even then, she was always grounds for a fight. But as time went on, Wolverine and Cyclops slowly came to respect each other, and one could even say that they’re friends now. Xavier’s Dream. But it looks like the unity of the Nation of X is coming to an end with this X-Event. But what’s the catalyst?

It would seem that the future division of the X-Men will ultimately come down to a difference in approach to the problem at hand. During the events of the first issue, we learn through a terrorist attack by the newly released Quentin Quire, during a UN meeting in which Cyclops is speaking on behalf of mutant-kind for the nation of Utopia, that just about every nation of the UN has been stockpiling Sentinels for years. After the embarrassment caused by Quire to the world leaders, the world shows it hand in hatred and fear as it unites to potentially wipe Utopia and all mutants off the face of the Earth. And it would seem that all of this stems from a gamble from the new Black King of the Hellfire Club. And that’s just the main bit of story. We also see Wolverine take on a new female sidekick while his is worn down from all his other duties as being a member of the Avengers, New Avengers, and X-Force. We’ve also got Hope Summers’ team working towards becoming respected members of Nation X and a bit more that escapes me at the moment. But do you see what I’ve just written?

Do you see how much content was contained in the first issue of this 5 issue series? It’s a hell of a lot more than some of the current events going on, and it isn’t dicking around either. It’s not a jumbo cluster-fuck of things happening without things actually happening. Everything that I just told you about was easy to follow and understand and without it holding your hand through the process. Jason Aaron (writer) is taking the X-Men to a level that they’ve never been to before, and it makes me excited for the future of the franchise. So if you haven’t given Schism a shot yet, do it soon before it’s too late. And be sure to check out the Prelude to Schism mini-series as well. It gives you loads of history and important information about the key players in the X-Universe and its also just a fun read by Paul Jenkins. And when the series is over and done, you’re going to have to make a decision. The X-Men are going to split into two teams. Essentially they are Team Cyclops and Team Wolverine. As a result, there will be two primary X-Men team comics. “Uncanny X-Men” and “Wolverine and the X-Men,” and both are going to be starting at #1. This blows choosing between Cap and Iron Man out of the water. So, that’s definitely something to look forward to.

-Fleet

It’s unseemly to brag, but I bought some great comics this week. Every few months a couple of key titles overlap on their publishing schedules, and the next thing you know I’m at home reading fantastic comic after fantastic comic. Those are the best weeks — this is those week, if you see what I’m saying.

Hey, Northlanders. When last we met, I was underwhelmed for the first time in your entire run. That was a one-time occurrence, though, I’m sure of it. Issue 42 here is the first installment of a triple trilogy — the Icelandic Saga will be three arcs, each composed of three issues, making it the longest and most sweeping story Brian Wood has yet attempted with the title. Part one here begins with Val Hauker bringing his wife and son to Iceland in search of a better life, one that’s far away from the political upheaval of their home in Norway. Of course, this being Northlanders, a little bit of home shortly arrives in the form of the Belgarssons, another expatriate family who want the newly-claimed Hauker lands. Thus begins the history of Iceland, as two families bring their troubles with them to their new homeland, engaging in small-scale nation-building and treaty-making and generally making miserable everybody drifting along in their wakes, despite not officially being “vikings” in the proper sense. If you can’t tell, I’m very keen on this one. This issue feels like the beginning of a storyline that’s going to make “The Siege of Paris” and the recently-collected “Metal” — a.k.a., the Best Comic Book in the History of Everything — seem like an Archie comic. Yes, I’m excited. At least I was until I began image searching for this little review, and discovered that DC/Vertigo cancelled the book. This is the last arc, and the book ends with #50.

I know, Crazy Eyes Viking. I’m sharpening my knives right after I finish writing the rest of this.

FF 6 is a strange one. Jonathan Hickman and Greg Tocchini forgot one small detail this month, and it’s the sort of niggling little error that irritates me as much as getting a popcorn hull stuck between my teeth. Last issue ended with Spider-Man, Sue and Alex Power fighting an evil Reed and the Moleman plus a cast of thousands, when all of a sudden Black Bolt appears on the scene. This issue picks up with Black Bolt and, well, just keeps running with Black Bolt’s backstory for the rest of the comic. It’s kinda interesting, don’t get me wrong, because I think Black Bolt is a criminally underused character, but all this stuff seems like it belonged in the War of Kings miniseries (any of ‘em) more than it does filling up an issue of FF. I know Hickman is a big proponent of the slowly-developing plot that slowly expands to fill your entire field of vision over time, but this is getting a little ridiculous. Ever since Johnny Storm went gently into that good night, this title has moved one step forward and two steps to the side. At this point, I just want an FF story that sets up with a beginning, continues directly to a middle and then proceeds to some sort of end — something linear, efficient and forward moving that unfolds without deviation, tangent, flashback or a one-hour coffee break would be a right treat.

Alpha Flight 2 is kinda the diametric opposite of FF. The Fred VanLente/Greg Pak writing team begins this one with a tidy flashback to the recent past, than plows forward into their plot with aplomb. Actually, the duo crams quite a bit of development — character and plot — into this. We see that Mac and Heather Hudson had their baby taken away by the Canadian courts, we learn why Heather was pounding on Mac at the end of last issue, we discover that she really is a traitor to all Mac believes in, we see the rest of Alpha Flight taken into custody through various means (except for one member, that is), and we get the much-anticipated return of *SPOILER ALERT* Puck. Oh, how I’ve missed him, lo these many years. Despite being a Fear Itself tie-in, this is a great comic. One complaint: We’re not seeing much of certain members of the team, namely Shaman, Snowbird, Sasquatch and Marina. I know Mr. and Mrs. Hudson are kinda the Scott Summers/Jean Grey of the team, but I need more Sasquatch in my life. Ah well — at the rapid rate this story is proceeding, I’ll probably be sick of ‘Squatch by the end of this series. (Note: My love for Sasquatch will never wane nor flag.)

A couple of months ago I opined that Mike Mignola’s Hellboy stories had taken on an urgency and inventiveness that had been missing for a few years. Take that statement to the tenth power, multiply it by “What the?!” and carry the “Holy Schnikey!!” and you have Hellboy: The Fury number 2 (of 3). Mignola and Duncan Fegredo give us a meat-grinder of a story as HB fights the Dragon while the Apocalypse — you know the one that John the Baptist foresaw in Revelations? Yeah, that little thing — ravages earth. Seriously: This comic launches the Apocalypse as its B-storyline. I don’t know how this one’s going to end, and I’m extremely grateful for that. I became a fan of Hellboy because it seemed like anything could happen, at least in the early days. Now *everything* is happening in Hellboy, and it’s all bad. And it’s happening without 17 creative teams trying to knit together a ridiculous storyline across 49 books — three terrifying and nerve-wracking issues and we’ll have a lot of answers about who Hellboy (the character) is and what Hellboy (the book) is really all about. Sometimes comic books really are as simple as telling one story to the best of your abilities.

The Amazing Spider-Man 665 offers a bit of a breather before the Spider Island storyline begins with a one-off story about Betty Brant getting savagely mugged. Honestly, I’m not very excited about the prospect of Spider Island, but I trust Dan Slott to do the right thing. When it comes to comics, the “right thing” is always, always, always telling a good story. And I trust Slott because of evidence like this issue of ASM. Once again Slott reaches way back into the Spider-Man mythology to take an element — Peter Parker and Betty Brant’s long friendship — and then uses it to craft a powerful and moving story that demonstrates who every major character is, what they believe and how they relate to one another. If you haven’t read a Spider-Man book in a decade, this issue will make sense to you; if you have any familiarity with the characters, this book will make you fall in love with Peter and May Parker all over again. I’ve mentioned this before about Slott, but it bears repeating because it happens far too infrequently in superhero comics: Dan Slott understands that the costumes represent abstract ideals about justice, fairness and power, but the people who wear them embody those ideals. Slott never forgets that the people wear the costumes, and not the other way around. Also, I’ve been down on May Parker as a character since, oh, the 70s; Slott has transformed her into someone interesting, worthwhile, complex and worthy of being aunt and de facto mother to a fantastic human being. Wait, scratch that. Peter’s worthy of Aunt May’s love in Slott’s hands — that’s how great Slott has made this book in just about a year.

Last but by no means least this week is Batman The Brave and the Bold 9, which has finally lost it’s “The All-New” prefix. I’ve mentioned before that I think Hawkman is a top-three DC character (the other two being Wildcat and Ambush Bug), so a Batman/Hawkman team-up is exactly the sort of comic that makes me do the dance of joy when I see that cover. Sholly Fisch and Rick Burchett pit Bats and Hawky against Hawkman’s old nemesis, Byth. The two crime fighters quickly beat him (like, on page 3), and then have to transport the shape changer back to Thanagar for trial. Along the way, Batman and Hawkman discuss their lives, police procedure on their respective home planets and other bits of shop talk. Bats also engages in a some quiet, non-broody admiration for Hawkman and Hawkgirl’s deathless love for one another; this being a kids comic, their love is altered to be a very sweet “mom & dad are best friends” kind of relationship, which is refreshing. Batman: TBATB is one of my favorite ongoing titles, and stories like this one only increase my warm feelings for the book. In a perfect world, I’d be giving this book to the nephews at the end of the month, but I can’t bear to part with ‘em. No, wait — in a perfect world, I’d be buying two of these every month and giving the extra to the boys. If you have comic-hungry kids in your life, I strongly recommend Batman the Brave and the Bold for ‘em. It’s age appropriate and entertaining every month.

So, which one of these books is the best thing I read this week? My gut tells me Northlanders, because I can feel this story unfolding with terrible and gory results, and I’m giddy with anticipation — also, the whole cancellation thing makes me want to laud Northlanders as long as it exists. But if I eliminate anticipation (and unbridled fury) and rate ‘em solely on the merits of the issue in-hand, I’m gonna have to go with Amazing Spider-Man. This issue is flat-out fantastic as a stand-alone story and as part of a larger whole, and Dan Slott proves that if you focus on what’s important — who these people are and how they behave — there’s never any need for a soft reboot, relaunch or do-over because the stories are eternally fresh and vibrant.

-Paul

What the lull? The week of America’s birthday and all I get is three comics? I don’t want to get on a high horse (puts on chaps, dons tiny bedazzled cowboy hat), but I think the week we commemorate 235 years of red, white and blue should come chock-full of books about super heroes who fight for truth, justice and the American way. Also, why don’t more super heroes wear tiny bedazzled cowboy hats?

Instead of superheroes, Marvel comics rolls out its prestige series about insidious Nazi Red Skull. Red Skull: Incarnate 1 (of 5) is a Greg Pak and Mirko Colak journey into 1920s Germany and the origins of the Red Skull. And not origins in the classic comic book sense — e.g., radioactive spiders, laboratory explosions or cosmic ray bombardment — but a grim and well-researched exploration of what makes a man embrace evile, murder and mayhem. If you’ve read anything about serial killers — or perhaps seen any of those profiler/crime scene investigator shows that are so popular — you’re not going to find anything too shocking in this. And that’s a problem. Seeing, once again, a character who has no parental love turn to killing animals and fighting authority by making himself into a vicious blackguard is one of the great storytelling clichés of the modern age. It’s prosaic, and yes, at its core, all true evil is prosaic; there’s nothing remarkable or noteworthy about it other than its complete rejection of the common weal. In the medium of superhero comic books, such verisimilitude is deadly. Once we accept that Johann Schmidt has been warped by poverty, cruelty and neglect into a savage killer, how do we rectify those real-world issues with a guy who drank a magic one-time-only potion that turned him into a two-fisted, flag-wearing super soldier who punches out Hitler but never tears out his throat? The Silver Age (and Bronze Age) Red Skull is one of Marvel’s most iconic villains because he’s a comic book character. Trying to make him human and believable makes his arch-nemesis Captain America less credible. Jack Kirby — a Jewish WW II vet who actually fought against Hitler, it should be noted — always kept the Skull and his boss in the key of melodrama and cartoon menace for a reason. If you give him any real weight, there goes all the fun of watching Cap beat him up; Instead, you want Cap to kill the Red Skull out of hand and dump the corpse in the Indian Ocean, and then were are we? Right there in Fascism’s backyard. Let’s keep our comic book super villains in the realm of comic book characters, for everyone’s sake.

A writer who understands maintaining the game of comic book super villainy is Jim Shooter. The antagonist in Doctor Solar 7 continues to be the truly comic-book-evil Tanek Nuro, a power- and money-hungry CEO whose grasping need for more of everything indirectly created Doctor Solar; now he wants to end the good Doctor’s career of superheroing by any means necessary. That means recreating Doc’s powers through technology and using them to transform prisoners into super soldiers. Shooter continues to throw a lot of science into his dialogue — this is one book where having the hero thought-bubble his way through a fight actually adds to the story, as we see how Doctor Solar analyzes his foes and works out how to beat them via hard physics. Sadly, the rumors are that none of Shooter’s Gold Key revival books are long for this world, which is a shame. I greatly enjoy the punching and robot destruction of Magnus, but I think Doctor Solar is the best of the bunch. It’s a well-plotted, entertaining book that packs a lot of story into every issue, and the character of Doctor Philip Solar is likable and quirky. He’s an intellectual hero in the Reed Richards vein, but without the confidence — kinda classic 1960s Marvel super hero in many ways.

Michael Moorcock’s great anti-hero, Elric, is a conscious perversion of the super-hero ideals. Elric kills those who get too close to him, he’s physically weak and he’s willfully bonded himself to a demon to gain more power. He’s also one of my favorite fictional characters — hell, Michael Moorcock is one of my favorite writers — so I’m going to be exceptionally critical of any non-Moorcock adaptation, in any format. I’ve been hesitantly anticipating Boom Studios’ comic version of the character since the Free Comic Book Day teaser, and after reading issue 1 of Elric: The Balance Lost, I give it a relieved thumbs up. Chris Roberson has taken the ambitious route with his plot, which weaves together the many incarnations of Moorcock’s Eternal Champion rather than just going for a straight sword & sorcery adaptation of the early Elric stories; I grudgingly agree with this decision. I would have loved a dark fantasy Elric comic, but this is more true to Moorcock’s writings of the past 20 years. Here we get dumped into the life of game designer Eric Beck, an albino who dreams of being the great sorcerer-king, Elric (also albino), and fighting the forces of Chaos. In the real world, he’s the twin brother of a right-wing nutso who’s trying to restore the rule of Law to a politically divided America — long-time fans of Moorcock have no doubt spotted several familiar tropes. We also get appearances by other incarnations of the Eternal Champion, namely Dorian Hawkmoon from the Runestaff cycle and Prince Corum Jhaelen Irsei from the Swords cycle. I love the way Francesco Biagini captures the visual flair of Corum’s reality, and I hate to be that guy

but Corum’s left hand should have six fingers, because it’s the hand of the god, Kwll. In fact, we see Kwll in one panel in this book, and he has six fingers on each of his four hands. And yet Corum only has five on his alien hand — son, I am disappointed. Also, Elric looks kinda buff for a guy who’s always on death’s door without his restorative herbs and the soul-eating powers of his black rune blade, Stormbringer. Corum’s finger population is a total nerd complaint, but Elric should definitely look more sickly and frail than he does here.

Despite those utterly Comic Book Guy complaints, Elric is the best thing I read this week. I expected quite a bit from this comic, and it delivered almost everything I expected and then some, minus a finger. Feel free to give me a finger in the comments if you so desire.

-Paul