Comic Reviews

This week the Joker gets his head straight, his ex and her ladyfriend take a holiday to Riverdale, reality TV brings nostalgia to the mutant masses and Kate Bishop has some surprisingly non-sapphic catharsis coming her way.

Batman: White Knight #1

This looks like its going to be an interesting take. I mean, I'm a little iffy about the (apparent) intention to have Joker and Harley as a happy domestic couple down the line (and on the cover) but given some of the plot points introduced here there's a tiny chance it could work. More likely it won't and that'll be problematic but since Harley hasn't appeared yet aside from a flashback cameo, I'll give Sean Murphy time to get there.

So, we have the big idea pitch: Batman is steadily going off the rails with his brutality and the hero/villain dynamic between him and the Joker gets flipped. Its interesting that what Murphy has Batman do in this issue to show how crazy brutal Batman has become is actually not anywhere near as extreme as what some recent movie versions have him do as an ostensible good guy. I'm one of those people who bangs on about how Batman of the comics is a very different, very much more human character than the mainstream version (and, no, the comics are no longer the version mainstream, blame the direct market) and this just throws that into sharp relief. In fact, the story doesn't even portray Bruce in an entirely negative light for the things he does giving his breakdown some sympathetic motivation.

So we have the beginnings of a heroic version of the Joker which even riffs on The LEGO Batman Movie of all things as its starting point. Murphy draws the hell out of every panel, not least of which the big confrontation between Batman and the Joker. What little we see of “Mister Napier” in the first few pages of the issue before we flash back to his origins suggests more of a gentleman consultant to the GCPD which, if true, would be a nice rebuke to Bruce's approach in putting forward the idea that he might have been able to do more as Bruce Wayne (again, more of a criticism of the way the character is in film than how he's been portrayed in comics for decades now).

Anyway, a really promising start but I do worry that the Joker being “cured” is just going to be used as an excuse not to address his past treatment of Harley before they settle into unquestioned domestic bliss.

Harley and Ivy meet Betty and Veronica #1

You know what really cheesed my onions last week? The Suicide Squad issue of Gotham Resistance. They had Stjepan Sejic, a man known for his acclaimed wlw romance series Sunstone, drawing an issue with Harley and Ivy in it somehow written by the only writer on the payroll who still thinks those two girls are straight. That is a wasted opportunity right there.

So now we have a crossover where Harley and Ivy meet another two female characters whose straightness has famously been up for debate. If nothing else, it can't be worse than the time the Punisher turned up in Riverdale.

So the set-up is simple: Mister Lodge has purchased an area of local wetland to develop into “Lodge University” (at least the guys at Archie are getting some useful mileage out of the Trump administration) and Ivy is not happy so she and Harley come out of hiding to try and “persuade” Hiram Lodge not to go through with it. Meanwhile, the Riverdale kids are preparing for a Heroes & Villains costume party Lodge is hosting and that they've been conscripted to help out at.

Betty and Veronica are in full on enemies mode at this stage, by the way, whilst Harley and Ivy are in one of those domestic “we're hiding from the law, that's why there's only one bed” arrangements they fall into from time to time. Its actually nice to see both sides of the crossover being as slice of life as each other, albeit with one side more comfortable with murder. Oh, and Kevin Keller and Sabrina Spellman are besties which is either new or something I didn't know before but I hope they continue to appear in the series.

X-Men Gold #13

I bloody love Mojo as a villain. I love the idea of an interdimensional dictator who is also a reality TV producer who provokes fights with the X-Men for ratings. I love how bizarre it is. I love how it allows the X-books to go in a different political direction from the usual race and sexuality based commentary (which are both good angles but variety is the spice of life and all that). It's always nice to see the awful, capitalistic little scrote and now he's the focus of this era of X-books' first crossover.

This is the X-books' Legacy storyline and, as such, there are references to a bunch of old storylines, “the greatest hits” as Mojo describes them. Funnily enough, on the same page, Logan describes it as trying to kill the X-Men with nostalgia, which... oh dear.

Now, on the one hand there's nothing here that actually annoys me other than the fact we get the briefest Xaviers' baseball game ever. Seriously, guys, those are remembered as the series iconic character piece scenes because they tend to actually feature character work. Here we have the Gold team not even reacting to the fact the Blues turn up with a vampire version of Storm. Aside from that its all good: villain I like, nice set up, even a good bit of progress for Rachel's character arc.

And at no point did it need big visual callbacks to Inferno, Days of Futures Past and The Asgardian Wars. That's just fan service for the sake of fan service or so it seems right now. Hopefully as we get further into this story the choices for callbacks will have some relevance to the characters but for the moment its just a bunch of alternate costumes for longtime fans to get a brief feeling of satisfaction for recognising and nothing else.

Hawkeye #11

Kelly Thompson's version of Kate and Madame Masque is a lot less... sapphic than Fraction and Aja's was. I mean, its still there if you want to look at it and there's even a rare occasion here of a “we're not so dissimilar, you and I” conversation that isn't complete bollocks in this issue that sort of feeds into that but its a lot more of a straight forward hero/villain relationship now.

This issue actually felt like a rather low key conclusion to the storyline that been running, in the background at least, since the first issue if it actually is the end. The business with Kate's father rather suggests we're moving into a new phase of the story as Kate's family issue and family history come to the fore. That said, as quick as Madame Masque#s part in the plot is dispatched it does leave room for some good character progression with Kate and her friends. There's a lot of catharsis for Kate, not just in things she says to her friends and her father but in a couple of good, dynamic fistfights she gets into and there are few characters in comics who need catharsis more than Kate right now.

Plus, next issue there's an All-New Wolverine appearance before we move on to the triumphant return of Hawkguy! So there's that to look forward to. 

Comic Reviews

So, this week the Nazi stupidity is (almost) over. Secret Empire is over, Captain Charlottesville is Captain America again and with only an epilogue issue yet to go (because apparently this idea needs another issue before it is allowed to die) I am unlikely to be confronted with any more sudden Nazi stupidity in my reading.

Bombshells United #1

American Soil part 1

Funny that DC should relaunch their WWII AU series the same week Secret Empire ends, isn't it? If it was deliberate then more power to the Distinguished Competition, I say. Anyway, the single best series DC has published in years is now back with a fresh coat of paint and a three year time jump. After London, the Berlin Ghetto and Moscow, I wondered what theatre Marguerite Bennett was going to send her Bombshells to next.

I was not expecting “the United States” to be the answer. I don't want to harp on the Secret Empire parallels too much but its sort of inevitable that just as Marvel finishes a series that posits the Nazis could have won (they really, really couldn't have), DC has Wonder Woman in a Rosie the Rivetter costume fighting US soldiers to prevent the Japanese internments.

Oh, and Donna Troy and Cassie Sandsmark are introduced to the Bombshells universe. Its been a long time but its nice to see a Cassie that I can at least vaguely recognise as the same girl from Peter David's Young Justice as opposed to kleptomaniac that was introduced during the New 52.

Gotham City Garage #2

Start With Hope

And then there's this other gem being hidden in the digital side of DC. Seriously, for a company obsessed with its own multiverse you'd think they'd do more to promote these AU-style series.

Anyway, the titular garage finally appears as well as some small background on how the world outside the rotten paradise of the Garden functions. Natasha Irons, always a nice face to see, turns up to be aggressive at Kara. We get a few answers on who this fascist-even-by-Batman-standards version of Batman is (and, boy, is that interesting). Like you'd expect its a whole lot of answers leading to a whole lot more questions and I absolutely adore it. I cannot wait to see where this is going and to see what other DC heroes get the Mad Max treatment.

Most of all, though, I want to know why Kara recognises Harley's name. Theory: given the psychological programming we know is going on in the Garden, what if Doctor Quinzel was one of the people who did the groundwork on that?

Red Hood and the Outlaws Annual #1

Big Tent, Bigger Dreams

You know, I've actually become rather fond of this series since it came back and this is a perfect done-in-one example of why. We join our Outlaws undercover in a circus that is a cover for the Russian mob and Jason has called Nightwing in to give them as hand. Its a pretty good set-up and there's a classic Batman baddie knocking around but the meat of the issue is examining the relationship between Jason and Dick. In fact, at certain points, I rather thought I was reading the beginning of a smutty fanfic since artist Tyler Kirkman spends a good few panels having Jason looking coyly to one side like a lovesick schoolgirl as he thinks about how much he admired Dick's circus performances when he was younger.

Most of the issue is just Jason, Dick, Artemis and Bizarro hanging out and talking and its sweet. Its not a particularly flashy story but it spends the extra page space of an annual wisely and I look forward to any other encounters Lobdell has planned between the Outlaws and the rest of the Bat-family (I think there's a Batwoman appearance on the slate, if I recall correctly?).

Generations: Hawkeye and Hawkeye one-shot

The Archers

This was a bit less consequential than most of the other Generations one-shots but it was fun. Its interesting to see Kate interacting with Clint back when Clint was, let's be honest, still a fairly serious character. They're both on an island filled with other archery and otherwise weapon themed characters who have been summoned for a game to see who is the greatest marksman.

Somehow this involves Boomerang but just go with it...

Anyway, the order of the day is meditating on mentors as Kate meets a younger Clint as he encounters his own mentor, the Swordsman, on this island. There's a lot more worry with Kate over the ethics and effects of time travel which seems like a bit of a drag on the story but, admittedly, is probably natural since she's more likely to think in those terms than most of the other characters we've seen drawn back into time. There's nothing as Earth-shattering revealed here as the whole “Odin banged the Phoenix” business from the Thors issue buts its a nice prelude to the modern Clint and Kate promised on the last page.

As Kate remarks at one points, its nice to be reminded how well these two characters bounce off each other even if the Hawkeye here bears little resemblence to the walking hot mess the guy's been since Matt Fraction got his hands on him.

Doctor Who: The Lost Dimension Alpha one-shot

The Lost Dimension part one

Um...

Seriously, I have no idea what's going on with this. You've got all the regular Doctors who have ongoing series, cameos by the Fifth and Third Doctors, UNIT and a certain guest star who shall remain nameless because spoilers (no, it isn't River). There's all sorts of shenanigans with time and space and, well, this is a whole big Moffat-esque puzzle box that's going to be spread over eight issues and multiple Doctors so don't go getting your hopes up for things to make any sort of sense at this stage, okay?

That having been said its plenty intriguing, the surprise guest star is a character I never thought to see again and I'm interested to see what the murderer's row of writers on this crossover have decided she's been up to since... well, that would be telling.

Oh, and Bill and Nardole make their Titans Comics debut which is nice since given time constraints we probably won't see much of the Season Ten era cast in the pages of the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip. Not that these comics will ever compete in my affections with the DWM comic strip, I'm just saying its nice Bill and Nardole will get some extra time in the limelight, is all. 

Kate Bishop IS Hawkeye

The next run of Hawkeye is going to be a Kate Bishop solo series!

There are few characters in comics I adore more than Kate Bishop. I always liked her, right back to her first appearance in Young Avengers. She had an interesting personality, she bounced well off the other members of the team (especially Eli), and I loved her design. Over the last couple of years, though, the character has really come into her own.

Mostly this can be credited to Matt Fraction and David Aja's Hawkeye run, which cast her first as Clint's long-suffering straight woman and then spun her off into her own storyline working solo in LA. Not to forget the maturing of the character in Kieron Gillen's Young Avengers which introduced her relationships with Noh Varr and America Chavez.

Oh, I do hope we get to see more of America Chavez in this ongoing. As much as I like her as the Ultimates' heavy hitter there's something delightful about how she bounces off Kate's... slightly reserved poshness.

Yes, I'm hoping for pay-off on the whole “Princess, you're not that straight” thing. Can you blame me? They're adorable together.

I am very much looking forward to this. 

Hawkeye, hearing loss and handwaves

(I apologise in advance if I make any mistakes in the language relating to deafness and hearing loss in this post. I do my best to use the most appropriate language as I understand it to work, if that understanding is imperfect please comment and I will edit the post accordingly. Thank you.)

I want to be clear before we begin: this is me giving Jeff Lemire the benefit of the doubt. I am not pre-emptively calling the guy out on something he hasn't done yet and for all I know may not even be planning on doing.

I just read All-New Hawkeye #1, which was a pretty good comic all told even if Jeff Lemire is going more for a more arc-based, trade-friendly structure than the single issue focus I so liked with Fraction. There was one moment, though, which was either a good sign of things to come or a disappointing handwave and only time will tell.

Short version: towards the end of the (still not concluded) previous run of Hawkeye, Clint was deafened. Clint has actually been deaf before and we got a couple of flashbacks about how he dealt with it as a child and how his brother Barney helped him cope. There's actually a similar flashback in this issue where kiddie Clint mishears Barney and Barney has to repeat himself, neatly mirrored in the present day section by the same thing happening between Clint and Kate.

Then the worrying thing happens: Clint drops a little exposition about his new Stark Tech hearing aids. This is not necessarily inconsistent with Fraction, who wrote Clint's returned hearing loss as total but potentially temporary, but it would seem to mean one of two things.

Potential meaning the first: Lemire intends to continue exploring Clint's hearing loss and how he deals with it, though in a different context to Fraction. Evidence for this is the fact Lemire brings attention to it not just with the mention of the hearing aids but by having a flashback that mirrors that very scene. He's stressing, as Fraction did, that this is a continuing issue for Clint and he has strategies for dealing with it. So why alter Clint's level of hearing loss in this way?

It could be a case of Lemire wanting to convey a differing deaf experience to the one Fraction focusses on. Fraction's two issues so far focussing on a deaf Clint have dealt to various degrees with sign language, lip reading, interpretation and emotional coping mechanisms, especially family support. Perhaps Lemire intends to focus on the interaction between person and technology? The fact he portrays the technology as imperfect would seem to point towards this, Hawkeye has not magically regained perfect hearing through the application of science-fiction tech (which anything with the Stark brand pretty much is by default).

Yes, it would be better if these two distinct deaf plotlines could be dealt with using separate characters but having both stories out there, if done well, could be positive enough to excuse the inconsistency. That's the sort of decision best left up to the individual reader.

Then there's the other possibility...

Potential meaning the second: the Stark Tech hearing aids are a handwave, the flashback pays lip service to the previous creative team and little or nothing will be heard of Clint's hearing loss again. Having some hearing return to Clint, enough to make hearing aids effective, could simply be a reaction to Marvel's past history with the profoundly deaf Echo which spawned no end of (entirely justifiable) controversy. Echo's level of speech comprehension was almost constantly shifting, sometimes specifically focused on and sometimes forgotten to the point that she somehow understood Spider-Man talking to her through a full-face mask. Some of this was shoddy writing (as with the Spider-Man example) though at times it was simply a matter of poor positioning of the character in a panel. Sad to relate, the resulting poor reception might have led some writers to be gun shy on the issue.

I want to stress that I hope, and express confidence, in the idea that Lemire is going with Option One and we will continue to see a real engagement with Clint's deafness in the new series. Even if it has a different form from Fraction's engagement with the same issue and even if it is of a lesser presence in the narrative I think much that's positive can come from this angle.

It is tempting to sign off on a jocular note about how “He can't possibly do worse with this than Bendis did with Echo” but, if comics have taught me one thing, its that there's ALWAYS a worse way to handle an issue.