Hey, does anyone else remember when summertime meant annuals? I realized today whilst perusing the racks that I can’t recall seeing an annual in I don’t know when. All right, so The Chronicles of Conan 21, a huge chunk of which is given over to a Conan annual, prodded my memory, but the point stands. Up until Eclipso summer — the second worst summer since calypso summer — annuals gave a book’s creative team the chance to play with a longer, not necessarily continuity-driven story that almost always was worth the price of admission. Who else fondly remembers that Avengers annual that pitted the Avengers against the Defenders (Silver Surfer, Valkyrie, Gargoyle and I believe Dr. Strange. EDIT: Nope, it was Beast), with the extra pages taken up by an honest-to-Jarvis copy of the Avengers charter and by-laws in their entirety? That issue was worth its weight in gold to a young nerdlinger such as myself, what with the points of procedure, and the sub-sections and the clauses. Now we get multi-title crossovers and Retro-Active specials to remind us of what’s been lost.
Speaking of crossovers, after what seems like three months of build-up, Spider Island finally gets underway with Amazing Spider-Man 667. It’s a testament to my belief in Dan Slott that I bought this book, and it’s a greater testament to his abilities for me to say that I li — I li-li-lik– I l-liked it. Now a huge chunk of Manhattan has the proportionate strength and agility of a spider, including a bunch of petty thugs and Peter Parker’s girlfriend, Carlie Cooper. Slott being Slott — a.k.a., a genius — he figures out a plausible reason to get everybody into a Spider-man costume, any Spider-man costume. Seriously, the last page features every version of the Spidey-suit since the 1960s, which kinda made me tear up a little. What can I say, the guy’s had some crap outfits over the years. Anywho, it’s a fun and chaotic story, and I can only wonder what I’m going to miss by not buying any related issues whatsoever — it’s ASM or nothing for me. Also, I am compelled by a slowly-awakening maturity to request that Humberto Ramos, an otherwise fine artist, cool it when rendering Carlie’s bosoms. She’s supposed to be (and other Spider-artists render her as) a normally-proportioned, cute girl. There’s no need to give her the jutting upper deck that literally every woman in comics outside of Aunt May has to lug around. The non-stop double-D warheads are not an enticement, they’re an embarrassment.
And on the topic of the Retro-Active series (it’s mentioned somewhere up there, honest), Green Lantern Retro-Active 80s is exactly the kind of comic book I miss. Len Wein and Joe Staton — JOE STATON! — deliver a John Stewart — JOHN STEWART! — story that’s about John’s relationship with Tawny Young. Sure, Sonar — really? Yeah, why not? SONAR! — shows up to make with some havoc, but the story is really about John Stewart’s principles and what it takes to trust another person. John Stewart is easily my favorite Green Lantern (then Kilowog, Hal, G’Nort, Ch’p, Guy Gardner and every other GL in all known space except for Kyle Rayner, who is a total bottom-burp), so I’m predisposed to enjoy this, but it really is a nice piece of character-driven — and character-revealing — storytelling. And that’s the frustrating thing about all these Retro-Active books; this is DC not only saying goodbye to the continuity and characterizations of my youth, it’s DC saying goodbye to this sort of storytelling completely. Everybody’s going to be younger, hipper, cooler and more likely to be an unattached single come September. Those sorts of two-dimensional characters don’t really inspire writers to take a closer look at their internal life or beliefs. How do you go deeper into the shallow puddle of “I’m totally awesome to the exxxtreme/no wife/no kids/no parents/nothing but enemies and come at me, bro!”? So, um, thanks (?) DC, for giving us all one last visit with your old characters before they become market-driving brand identities that skew well with the 18-to-25 demographic who aren’t currently buying comics. I guess. I’d kinda prefer something more like these sorts of brand-new stories that guys like Len Wein write, but you’ve got other plans.
On the other side of the Big Two divide, Marvel’s crossover d’jour “Fear! It’s Elf!” continues apace or whatever, and I dip my toes in it once or twice a month by buying Alpha Flight (and Herc). I don’t know how far Alpha Flight 3 progresses that story superstructure, nor will I ever know, but as the third part of a now eight-issue series (wasn’t this billed as a five-parter last month? I’m cornfused.) it seems to move things along nicely. Mac “Guardian” Hudson rallies his few troops to rescue the other members of the team from the evil Canadian government — that’s such an odd sentence to write, and I love it — while his wife, Heather “Vindicator” Hudson, sides with the corrupt government because she feels that because they stole her baby they’re her best chance to get the baby back (uncertain, citation needed). Puck’s back, Walter’s having trouble transforming into Sasquatch, Shaman is being preternaturally cool while helping to bust everyone out of government superprison, Snowbird goes totally sickhouse on some Canadian army men (just like Ann Murray would do!), and Aurora/Jeanne-Marie argues with herself while flying and ends up going full-on emo cutter. I dunno, I just like the characters and their interactions sometimes. Alpha Flight has always been such a weird, off-brand team of superheroes, all Canadian and removed from Marvel mainstream that I can’t help but fall in love with them all over again. I can’t give you a better or more rational answer than that.
Batman the Brave and the Bold 10 has an unusual point of view for a Batman book. Instead of giving us the usual Batman and superhero guest star delight, Sholly Fisch and Rick Burchett show us what life’s like for a professional henchman in the DC Kids universe, which is my preferred DC Universe at this point. Hapless lunk Joe runs from city to city, signing on with various costumed supervillains, and trying to stay ahead of Batman and the tax man. Fisch’s story is an economically current one, as Joe is doing cartoonishly criminal things to feed his wife and child because he can’t find a regular job. Fisch depicts working for Toyman and the Clock King as depressing as you’d think it would be, with Joe trying and failing to escape a life of crime. I’m not going to give away the end, but it’s about as satisfying and life-affirming a Batman story as Batman can have since all the comic book tough guys have taken over writing him. Sholly Fisch understands two vital elements of the Batman myth: The guy is compassionate, and he believes in doing the right thing. This story reaffirms that somehow, even in 2011, Batman as a hero is still a viable premise for a comic book.
Which brings us to Hellboy: The Fury 3 of 3. I lost interest in Hellboy a few years ago because all of Mignola’s stories were beginning to feel formulaic, but these past two years have revitalized my interest. The Fury has been promised for quite some time as the series that will force huge changes in Hellboy’s life and the whole Mignolaverse. I’m pleased to say that issue 3 does indeed usher in those changes, and it does so in an exciting and satisfying manner. And in three issues, no less. Not 29 (Spider Island), or 52 (DC’s Crisis in Finite September) or 300 (Fear Itself, I’m assuming), but three. Hellboy fights the Dragon, Ogdru Jahad, while all of England shakes under Ragna Rok, which means all of earth will be burnt and then re-sown. Hellboy is not fighting to save humanity as we know it, but fighting to establish a strong spirit for whatever humans emerge after the destruction of this world to follow and emulate. Mike Mignola and Duncan Fegredo deliver on pretty much every promise ever made in Hellboy. Hellboy behaves heroically, he remains true to his core beliefs (and those of Trevor Bruttenholm), and he refuses to give up on all that is best in humanity.
It’s disconcerting to see London being destroyed in a comic even as the real world London is being burnt up by protestors, but Fegredo brings an otherworldly quality to his images of carnage that allows for separation of facts and fiction. Also, this issue does not end quite how I envisioned it; my belief in the formulaic qualities of Mignola’s writing are completely destroyed by the end of this book, and instead flourishes anew the belief that he’ll do whatever is necessary to tell his story to the best of his abilities.
So even though this series finally answers questions first raised in that initial Hellboy limited series all those many years ago, that’s not why it’s the best thing I read this week. No, Hellboy: The Fury is the best thing I read this week because it told its tale quickly, with emotion and drama, and with real consequences evident for its titular hero, and I legitimately cared about what happened.
-Paul
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