Comic Reviews

This week a bunch of my favourite series came out including a new one. On with the motley...

Patsy Walker, A.K.A. Hellcat! #16

America Chavez checking out Jubilee. Its only a little moment but it was rather sweet.

Anyway, I finally get around to talking about one of my favourite ongoing series and it ends with a note saying this is the last issue of the regular storyline and the next will be the end of the series. Bugger. Still, this has been a hell of ride, speaking of which...

Sadly, this issue's cover is 100% misleading. There is no pajama party, no playdate for Shojo Lee and Dani Cage, no Luke and Jessica, no Ian. Instead, we get group therapy in a hell dimension. This is the big idea the series plays out on. Mad but brilliant and a great way to deal with the issues between Patsy and low-rent series antagonist Hedy Wolfe.

I bloody love this series. Kate Leth has assembled such a sweet cast of characters that I just love spending time with. Most of all I'm going to miss Jubilee as a working single mum vampire. This is the best angle the character has had in years and I don't think losing that is a price I want to pay for a new Generation X. Oh, and Attaché, sweet little henchgirl that she is will be sorely missed.

I just hope that Kate Leth gets to return to the Marvel Universe some day soon.

U.S.Avengers #4

Surprisingly, not a Monsters Unleashed tie-in. Could have been. Wasn't. Its a done-in-one that's all about the title fight: the new Red Hulk versus the American Kaiju, an odd creation from when this Red Hulk was a villain in the previous incarnation of this series.

Its all done in this campy style with bite-size chapters like those “complete in one issue” stories in sixties comics. Deadpool's there for very little reason but he's used as a vehicle for some nice little meta jokes so that's okay. The issue continues Ewing's obsession with the mad scientist side of the MCU which, frankly, is what I love most about this series.

And just when it seems like this is just a nice little bit of fluff between story arcs, Steve Rogers turns up in Roberto DaCosta's office and he is pissed. Now that's a hook, even if the face off between the two top dog superspies of the Avengers franchise is bound to be a little tainted by the whole secret Nazi thing.

Guardians of the Galaxy #18

So, yes, a week of my favourite things and then there's this...

At the end of the issue it turns out that Grounded might actually have a point. Right at the end of the issue, in a way completely irrelevant to the rest of the arc and even this issue itself. Oh, and Bendis takes a quick moment to just dismantle the romantic happy ending Angela got at the end of her solo series for no good reason.

As I've said before, maybe I'm just getting old but Bendis' waffling is just getting on my nerves these days.

Batman #19

I Am Bane part 4

But if we want to talk about writing an issue to ratchet up tension on the way to final confrontation, right here is a perfect example. While Guardians had a pretty irrelevant mini-adventure for Angela leading to a revelation about a big bad coming their way, this issue is all about the big bad marching towards Batman and the anticipation for the big fight.

The entire issue follows Bane as he walks through the corridors of Arkham Asylum searching for Batman and the Psycho Pirate. To delay him, Batman has freed and armed the rogues gallery and so we get a series of vignettes with Bane confronting villain after villain after villain. Some of them are just one panel, one punch cameos but there are some with some real meat to them that I hope are quietly setting up coming events in the series.

King turns in a particularly nice twist on the Scarecrow, with good old Doctor Crane waiting behind a locked door for Bane to come charging through, scared witless and reciting the fears he's feeling as he feels them. He writes a good Riddler, as well, confident to the point of suicidal in the face of Bane's threats. I have no damn clue what's going on with Maxi Zeus but I hope we get to find out in greater detail later.

Every confrontation, every time Bane almost effortlessly bests one of the more classic rogues, serves to build up his threat level and the tension for the inevitable confrontation with Batman.

Which is how its meant to work, frankly.

Batwoman #1

The Many Arms of Death part 1

Bennett and Tynion bring back Julia Pennyworth, because between Maggie Sawyer, Harper Row and Renee Montoya I didn't ship Kate Kane with enough people, clearly.

Seriously, this issue sees Kate travelling with Julia on a yacht in search of black market Monster Venom. Its a black ops mission, as befits our ex-army vigilante and her special forces operator, and the two characters make great super spies. The issue is mainly setting up their operation but there's another tantalising flashback to Kate's “Lost Year”, the site of which they end up visiting in the present.

Sadly, there's not much more to say plotwise except that everything this issue sets up has me salivating in anticipation of where this is all going and I can't imagine I'm the only one. This is one of the fortnightly series, right?

To be honest, my one disappointment is that there's a startling lack of Doctor Victoria October given her prominence in the Batwoman Begins two-parter and the fact this series is continuing the Monster Venom storyline, but that's just my own personal gripe and no reflection on the quality of the finished product. 

Comic Reviews

In which nostalgia turns up in some of the oddest places and I, mostly, get the explanations I've been demanding.

Batwoman: Rebirth one-shot

Fair warning, there's not much new in this issue. This isn't entirely surprising: Kate Kane doesn't have the decades and decades of history and half a dozen reboots that Rebirth one-shots usually have to untangle and rationalise so what we get here is a more or less straight “story so far” of her childhood kidnapping, military training and cashiering with a few new notes about her going travelling during her directionless years and a new take on her relationship with Renee Montoya.

Beyond that, the tease of the future direction of the series isn't much we couldn't infer from the Batwoman Begins arc in Detective Comics the last couple of issues.

Nevertheless, I liked it. Steve Epting remains as amazing an artist as he was on Captain America back in the day and Bennett and Tynion have already proved their skills with this character. This issue might not be “for me” per se but I don't resent its existence and I'm sure someone new to the character would find it a fantastic primer.

U.S.Avengers #3

$kullocracy part three

Oh, this isn't even subtle now! The Golden Skull just is Donald Trump writ large and in a solid gold Iron Man suit (I am not kidding!).

Anyway, my favourite series of the moment ends its first arc with an appropriate level of violence and satire. Every line the Golden Skull utters is a glorious stab at egotistical businessmen and con men. Toni Ho gets some surprisingly nice moments barking orders at the rest of the team, which was fun to see. I've always liked the concept and design of the characters but she didn't get an awful lot to do when this series was New Avengers and I look forward to seeing more of her now she's “front line” superheroing.

And Danielle Cage. Now there's another character I want to see more of. I think she's going to make more appearances over in Jessica Jones and I hope she turns up again here, especially after Ewing reminded me of the potential mentor role Squirrel Girl could fill for her. I mean, Doreen was her babysitter.

Mother Panic #3

A Work in Progress part 3

There's something about this series that makes me nostalgic, which is strange for a series about a new character by an author I've never read before guest starring the (to me) still new Batwoman. A cursory look at artist Tommy Lee Edwards' Wikipedia page tells me I haven't read much of his work but there's something that very much reminds me of comics from my youth in how he draws. All those jagged lines, harsh angles and charcoal-esque grading remind me of early Vertigo stuff.

Anyway, of the Young Animals titles this is the one that has kept my interest the longest, mainly because it doesn't seem to be in the weirdness for weirdness' sake business. Yes, it might be the most “traditional” superhero series under the brand but it still has that air of conscious mystery the its stable mates has but it seems less intrusive. Doom Patrol seems at times to just indulge in weirdness for weirdness' sake and I'm honestly not sure what to make of Shade the Changing Girl half the time.

Maybe I'm just getting conservative in my old age? I don't know but this issue gives us information on our hero Violet Paige whilst throwing out more interesting questions, not least of which how she did so well in a fight against Batwoman. The fight itself is brief but an impressive display of how Edwards' style lends itself to both atmosphere and action.

Daredevil #17

Purple part 1

Oh, a big picture of the Golden Gate Bridge on the cover, this looks promising! Okay, okay, so I knew this was the start of the arc that would explain how Matt Murdoch put the genie back in the bottle and ended up in the position we found him in #1 but stepping back into the world of the last Daredevil series felt refreshingly nostalgic after the last sixteen issues of “Matt Murdoch, Prosecuting Attorney Who No One Knows Is Daredevil”.

And, funnily enough, the whole story does flow quite well from where the last series left off before Secret Wars and the relaunch. We get to see Matt leaping through San Francisco in that ridiculous red tailored suit and doing domestic with Kirsten McDuffie, we see Foggy in full recovery after his cancer treatment and Matt living large on the advance he got for his autobiography.

And then it all starts to fall apart in the most Matt Murdoch way possible. After a villain intrudes on his San Francisco life he comes back to visit New York, the city where he isn't a local hero but a disbarred lawyer with an alter ego known for horrible violence. He tries to be the hero he was there and ends up in hot water with the law who no longer see Matt Murdoch as credible now they know he's Daredevil.

Its all set-up and we're far from seeing the “solution” he comes up with, I'm even convinced the cliffhanger is a red herring because its too neat but, as with last issue, Charles Soule writes another compelling character study of Matt with the pieces all just falling into place to finally get us from the character we knew to the character we've been presented with the last sixteen issues. 

This Horrible, Horrible Week's Comics

Oh, its been a hell of a week, hasn't it? Never have I been so grateful for my comics to arrive than this week, the chance for either some escapism or to get really, really angry and I didn't care which I just wanted to not think about Trump for a hour or so.

So, let's look away from the blackened maw of death for a while and throw some opinions out into the aether, shall we?

The Kamandi Challenge #1

I have been waiting for year for DC to do something with this property. I loved the Kamandi feature in Wednesday Comics waaaay back in 2009 but there hasn't been much done with the Last Boy On Earth since. He turned up for a bit in Multiversity and some crossover spots here and there but nothing really extended. Now we have a twelve part maxi-series (do we still call them that?) with an all-star creative team.

Multiple all-star creative teams. I like the idea of this round robin series format, even if the second half of this issue makes me wish that Dale Eaglesham could be drawing the whole thing. I love Eaglesham's art style and in spite of Keith Giffen and Scott Koblish doing a more “faithful” rendition of Jack Kirby's style, Eaglesham's somehow seems more in the spirit of it.

Story wise, this is pretty much a complete reboot but its DC so who's honestly surprised? This company has never met a wheel it didn't want to reinvent. That said, its not like this is story people are anywhere near as familiar with as Batman's origins so it is probably sensible.

Giffen and Koblish's first half handles the origin pretty well, setting us up the mystery of who Kamandi is and how he ended up in that bunker whilst Abnett and Eaglesham do the heavy lifting on world building the Tiger Empire. Both episodes move at a good pace and the art teams cram them with visual information to the point at which you sort of come to resent the more drawn out pace of other comics.

Detective Comics #949

Batwoman Begins finale

As a prologue to the new Batwoman series this was great, though I am rather confused about why we're getting a Rebirth one-shot before the series proper as this two-parter delivered a pretty compelling manifesto all on its own. Saying what that manifesto is would be spoiling too much but the whole issue is about the difference between Bruce's methods and mission and Kate's.

On a related note, Kate has a wonderful moment of just not caring about Bruce's disapproval when she uses a gun and it is glorious. One way to make me love a Bat-family character is to have them just not care about Bruce's moaning (see also Jason Todd and Tim Drake).

Very much looking forward to the Batwoman ongoing but more looking forward to the next Detective storyline which promises me the League Of Shadows, which hopefully means their little prisoner is going to be making his comeback.

Daredevil #16

The Seventh Day part two

This was a nice character piece, which I wasn't expecting. When a Daredevil writer brings in Bullseye you sort of expect them to go for the epic confrontation between Daredevil and his worst, greatest foe. This.,. went a completely different direction. Bullseye's presence is pretty much ignored, His effect on Matt is explored, what Bullseye means in the grand scheme of things, but there's no big fight, the two characters barely interact.

That could be disappointing but instead we get to dive deep into Matt's state of mind. Next issue promises, after more than a year, to tell us how and why Matt erased knowledge of his secret identity from the world and this issue tells us where Matt is as a person as a consequence.

Plus, this story gave us a new priest character for Matt to bounce off: Father Jordan, a funny sort of Catholic priest. Not in the sense of his personality but in the sense that Marvel might be playing with the history of the Catholic faith in ways I don't think they have before.

Before this story my interest in the series was flagging but I'm more than willing to reserve judgement now I've seen this creative team show me more of the character they want to convey in Murdoch and with the promise of long-withheld answers.

Infamous Iron Man #4

Aside from that awful Bendis habit of only getting to what the cover promises on the last page, this was a very nice issue.

Now, even though I read comics to years beforehand what made me a fan was Bendis, Maleev and Hollingsworth's Daredevil run and the nostalgic glow this issue gave me to those days was immense. The first half of the issue is a lovingly rendered sit down chat between SHIELD director Maria Hill and Victor Von Doom, our Infamous Iron Man. The dialogue sings, chipping along with a great back and forth rhythm between the two whilst the art sells every inflection of the dialogue through facial expressions and posture.

Elsewhere in the issue we get to see that his face turn hasn't robbed Doom of his steel as he confronts the general he left in charge of Latveria for his failures. One thing I have always liked about Doom in most incarnations is that no matter how horrible he is to the Fantastic Four or whatever other heroes he fights he genuinely does care about his people. Now, this isn't true in every version but my favourites have always been the ones where Latveria is pretty well off as dictatorships go, perhaps not a country you'd want to live in but you can see how Doom thinks he's doing the right thing.

I just look forward to next month and getting to see the scene the front cover and last issue's cliffhanger promised me, is all.