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

So, according to a certain “newspaper” I read the other day, our friendly neighborhood Spider-man recently saved our equally friendly neighborhood Star Clipper.

Now, normally I’m pretty oblivious to current events, but this one was hard to miss. The only part that really bothers me about the whole thing is that I was actually there working that day, yet I have no recollection of seeing Spider-man or the danger that he supposedly saved us from. Still, he must have done a pretty good job because by the time I arrived the collateral damage was non-existent. Heck, if I didn’t know better I would have sworn that nothing had happened at all.

Still, as entertaining as seeing Spider-man would have been, I briefly met Firestar (who surprisingly was a little late to the party), and even got to pose for a picture to go in the Daily Bugle, decked out in my Multiple Man t-shirt no less.

All in all, it wasn’t that bad of a day, and it seriously helped mend some fences as far as Spider-man and I are concerned. I’ll be honest, he’s never been my favorite superhero. It’s not like Superman, who I sometimes dislike because he always comes off a little two perfect. If anything, Spider-man one of the most human characters in the Marvel Universe. He is a character defined by his past and his flaws, as all good characters should be.

The reason I have never been fond of Spider-man is because despite all of his great power and responsibility, his decision making skills have never been quite up to par. If anything, his life has been a series of poor choices, which so far have cost him his uncle, his first girlfriend, nearly his aunt on several occasions, and most recently his smoking hot supermodel wife and his future child.

I may be missing a few, but I think you get my point. That being said, Spider-man saving Star Clipper has done a lot to raise my opinion of everyone’s favorite web slinger. In fact, from what I’ve been hearing, there’s a lot Spidey’s been doing to turn his life around. Ever since the start of Big Time, he’s gotten a new job, a new girl, and a brand new bag of gadgets. All of this and more have finally been collected into a trade paperback that’s supposed to be released the first week of August, and I for one I’m looking forward to picking up a copy. After all, he saved my favorite store, the least I can do is read some of his more recent exploits. Who knows, maybe Spider-man is finally maturing. Crazier things have happened in the Marvel Universe.

Until next time.

-Brent

Since in my last blog I talked about Empowered, this week I’ve decided to talk about another series that is equally sexy, but of a decidedly different tone.

Sky Doll is an exquisitely crafted science fiction epic originally printed by Soleil Productions in Europe and brought to the States by Marvel. It has everything that mature comic lovers can hope for; it’s dark, sexy, and full of surprising insights. The story is set in a world originally divided by two priestesses of opposing philosophies, one representing the spiritual side of love, called Agape, and the other representing physical love, named Lodovica. However, eventually the balance of power tipped, and all hell broke loose.

When the dust cleared, one power stood instead of two. The world became overtaken with vice and carnal desire, and anyone who worshipped the priestess Agape became reviled as a heretic. Best personifying this brand new regime are creations known as sky dolls, life-like androids without rights, resembling a young female, who exists only to serve the state’s desires. Noa, the main character of this odyssey, is one of these sky dolls, although she has qualities that make her a bit…different, including strange flashes of memories, sudden bursts of power, as well as a personality and desires of her own. With the help of two “missionaries,” Noa travels the universe in search of some greater reason for her existence.

The story progresses from there, taking some interesting twists and turns along the way, none of which you’ll hear from me (I’ve given away enough as it is). What I will say is that you would be hard pressed to find a fictional realm like this one. In the world of Sky Doll, religion, consumerism, and science function as a single entity, and differences in spiritual philosophies can determine the shape of entire worlds.

However, appearances can be deceiving, and the more you learn about the world Noa lives in, the more difficult it becomes to distinguish the white hats from the black, and the tormentors from the victims.

Personally, I like a story that keeps me guessing. If you feel the same way this is definitely a series worth checking out.

-Brent

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