Comic Reviews: Brave New(ish) Worlds

So, its a week of relaunches as the X-Men, Inhumans and Superman books give us our first taste of what their new directions are going to give us.

Superman #20

Contrary to my expectations, Hamilton County continues to be a thing. About the only thing that seems to have changed, status quo wise, is the Kents are now living under their real names. I don't expect this to last but its good that DC have commited to a slow filtering out of information on the new status quo rather than trying to infodump the whole thing in one go.

Anyway, story wise, Batman and Damian turn up to be paranoid, not eat pie (Batman, we are told, does not eat pie) and make some oblique references to events in Super Sons. Batman also, in a fit of paranoia, examines a prize winning dairy cow, which is the sort of left field weird I've come to expect from the Tomasi/Gleason dream team. Plus, Lois calmly puncturing Batman's dark and brrody act is a joy to watch.

Royals #1

I decided to buy this issue based purely on how much I loved Marvel Boy in Keiron Gillen's Young Avengers. As I've said, the Inhumans aren't character I care much about one way or another and I've only really encountered them in passing when they intersect with something else I like. Ultimately, they were a big and complicated and very densely populated corner of the Marvel Universe I didn't really feel like I had the time to get to know.

However, this series comes along with a lead character I really love (Marvel Boy) and a small cast of Inhumans joining him on a quest to somehow regain the secret of Terrigen and kickstart the birth of new Inhumans. Some I know of old like Medusa and Gorgon whilst others, like Flint and Swain, are new to me. I especially like Swain, who is a space pilot dressed like some sort of Regency buccanneer.

The only part of this issue I didn't like was that it had one of those “thousands of years in the future” portentous prologues that foreshadows that someone on the crew is going to die and you just know... you just know that somehow that future isn't actually going to happen. Not in the sense that the next creative team will ignore it but in the sense that you just know the current creative team has a way to wriggle out of it all planned. I could be wrong but, well, its not like this hasn't happened a lot of times.

Still and all, I think I might finally be getting into the Inhumans books.

All-New Wolverine #19

Like Superman, this is a pretty soft reboot of the “X-23 as Wolverine” concept. She has a new costume, her clone sister Gabby has graduated to being her proper sidekick and we get a lot of guest stars turning up to remind us that the X-books are properly part of the central Marvel Universe again.

Add to that the fact that this story has an angle on Wolverine that I don't think has been used as a hook before, not with either incarnation of the character: viral immunity. An virus is released on Roosevelt Island by a dying alien child whose last words are Laura's name and our All-New Wolverine is sent in to investigate as she's the only lead SHIELD has. Oh, and Ironheart is trapped on the island so maybe we get to see Laura and Riri team up next issue. Please?

X-Men Gold #1

This is such a damn good start. Look, I'm not going to lie, X-Men comics are what got me into this medium and watching the franchise lurch through the last couple of years in Fox-spiting exile from the grand sweep of the MCU hurt me deep in my soul. Hell, at this point I was even looking forward to an arc called “Back To Basics” with all the paint-by-numbers fan service that implied.

However, I was pleasantly surprised by the end product. Yes, there's a lot of nostalgia here with all sorts of call backs to X-Men runs of the past and brief appearances by characters who haven't been seen in a terrible long count of years like Rockslide and Armor. However, writer Marc Guggenheim is careful to cut it all a commendable amount of new. The Xavier Institute is now an outreach centre located in Central Park, Rachel Grey finally has a superhero identity of her own instead of a hand me down from her mother, and most off all Kitty Pryde is now the boss. I mentioned with X-Men Prime that I loved having the Kitty Pryde I remembered from the later years of Excalibur back. She's older here, more confident and assured and we get a pretty good example early on in the issue of how much more experienced and powerful she is than the barely legal ingenue she's been portrayed as since about the Whedon run.

I genuinely expected this to be the part of the relaunch that would dissappoint me but I'm really impressed and can't wait to see what's in store for the Blue team.

Uncanny Avengers #22

… and, comics being comics, a little unfinished business remains from before the big relaunch. Its actually a rather bittersweet affair as the whole Red Skull and Xavier's brain finds some closure. There's a lot of emotional moments for Rogue in this one, not least of which her telling Steve Rogers to shove off, which at the moment is a really cathartic thing.

And the cliffhanger promises to dust off one last piece of unfinished business that has been lingering since the run before the run before this. Now that's either long form storytelling or someone literally forgot about that whole damn plot. I ain't taking bets either way.

Spider-Man #15

Now, this feels like things are getting back on track, this is the Brian Michael Bendis I like spending money on. The issue is largely an epilogue to the Kissin' in a Tree crossover with Spider-Gwen (including an absolutely pointless reprise of that arc's linking device) with Miles and his dad talking over things, first with each other and then with Miles'mother Rio. Its got a nice emotional through line, some fun bits and some high emotional bits all of which guest artist Szymon Kudranski draws the hell out of. It rather reminded me of some of the Matt and Foggy two-handers from Bendis' Daredevil run, as much as I hate comparing a writer's work with something they put out over a decade ago (just seems mean...).

Batman #20

Once again, a master class in structuring each issue of a comic as a single episode with a consistent theme and its own flavour. Most of this issue is literally just a fist fight between Batman and Bane but Tom King writes an internal monologue for Bruce that goes to some very interesting psychological places.

King is definitely not one of those “Batman is the real identity, Bruce Wayne is the disguise” types, is all I'll say. 

This Week's Comics

Unstoppable Wasp #2

This series is just so charming, its wonderful. After last issue's manifesto, Nadia Pym has started recruiting for her girl genius operation. As the cover suggests this involves fellow young lady genius superhero Moon Girl but writer Jeremy Whitley makes the smart decision not to lead with her.

Instead we meet Puerto Rican New Yorker and robotics genius Taina Miranda and her sister Alexis. Now, I like Moon Girl as much as the next guy but I think its better this series establish its own supporting cast over an attention grabbing guest star. If every member of Nadia operation offers dynamics as interesting as Taina and Alexis do then we're in for even more of a treat with this series than its already delivering. Plus, being a Puerto Rican woman with mobility issues means that just by existing Taina will be irritating to all the right people which is always a bonus.

On the subject of supporting cast, Edwin Jarvis turns up in his role as slightly grumpy surrogate father figure just as he was in All-New All-Different Avengers. Nadia is definitely a character who benefits from a straight man and they don't get much straighter than a button up butler.

Anyway, moving on to the “title fight” as it were. If nothing else Jeremy Whitley knows how to provide a study in contrasts. Nadia has a wide-eyed enthusiasm about everything whilst Lunella has a huge cynicism born of never being listened to. Whether this team-up is going to last is up in the air but I for one would like to see them bounce off each other at length based on this issue.

Old Man Logan #17

Return to the Wastelands part II

Well, this got to the point admirably fast. Shan't spoil but after a second issue of chopping back and forth between a one story of Logan fighting Brood on the International Space Station and another of him back in his home time, Jeff Lemire has the decency to tell us what's going on. Now, I like the device at this length but I'm sure after more than maybe another issue of it the whole thing would have started to try the patience.

(That having been said I could look at Andrea Sorrentino and Marcelo Maiolo's art all day).

And the cliffhanger does what good cliffhangers do: not provide you with a fake moment of suspense but an intriguing new piece of the puzzle to wonder about and try to fit into your understanding of the story.

Batman #16

I Am Bane part one

Tom King continues his run of being the best Batman writer in years with an amazing war council between Bruce and the extant Robins in a burger joint. Now, I love me some Nightwing being sassy and Damian being rude and aloof but, for once, I even liked Jason. I've never really clicked with the Red Hood incarnation of Jason and I think I much prefer this version, the one that can sit down civilly with the family in times of need, to the grouchy outsider I'm usually presented with.

Most of this issue is character moments, ramping up tension for when Bane makes his move. Its smart, a quieter first chapter than the other two I Am stories which goes to show that King is a good enough writer not to trap himself in a formula just because it works.

Between Catwoman in Rooftops and the Robins in this I hope that King has a long and extravagantly sprawling run on this series. 

The Comics Ramble rings in the New Year

First comics of the year and I would love to say I started off with a bunch of the new titles that came out this week but... okay, Wolverines was good and we'll discuss that in a moment but Ant-Man and The Unbeatable Squirrel-Girl just failed to grab me at all.

Green Lantern #38

An issue like this has been a long time coming. The GL titles have been through Lights Out, Uprising and Godhead over the last year or so. It has been practically non-stop action and crossover and danger since Geoff Johns left the title (not that it was exactly sedate back then, but...) and I feel both we and Hal need a quiet one to reflect on things.

It's also good to see Venditti stretching his character-writing muscles on something more human than the usual, here the simple frustration of trying to have a quiet drink and your friends just won't leave you the hell alone!

So we get Hal on forced leave on Earth trying to drink quietly but first Guy and then Barry wander in and insist on telling him all the horrible things that have happened on Earth in his absence. I love how Hal just sits there as they talk on and on, downing his pint. And of course it ends in a bar fight. This would be a good issue in itself: a little action, a little character, a little philosophy and a look under the hood of a character who has been all-business for a long time.

Then Carol Ferris turns up and we get a moment of real development for the two characters: an actual adult conversation about their relationship and why it never seemed to work. The last time a conversation like this happened in Green Lantern on this subject I strongly suspect it was between Hal and Sinestro.

Though, good grief, do I wish we could have had a short back-up or something telling us what the night was like for Guy and Barry after they wander off arm in arm.

Wolverines #1

The question I have to ask myself is this: as good as this issue was, do I think its good enough to pick up on a weekly basis? Because as a monthly this more than passes the test: interesting sequel to an interesting mini-series, characters I like from multiple titles I used to read and enjoy before their too-soon cancellation.

But each and every week?

We've got Mystique, Lady Deathstrike, post-Axis good guy Sabretooth, Daken and X-23 plus some cyborg guys who don't so much interest me but seem interesting enough. They get into a tussle with the Wrecking Crew, which is an unusual match-up for an X-Men comic. Their employer was less surprising but since I bloody love that character I'll take it. Art's good, too, being mainly by Wolverine and the X-Men alumni Nick Bradshaw, though obviously as a weekly that's not going to be a constant.

We'll see in a week whether I've made a decision, I suppose.

X-Men #23

The all-girl X-Men get another new writer in the form of Ms.Marvel's G. Willow Wilson, a writer I've been meaning to sample more work from because that series is fantastic. Of course, there can be a world of distance between a writer's work on their own characters and with existing ones. For instance, I found an unassailable gulf of quality between Bill Willingham's Fables and his Robin run.

Too early really to tell whether this will quite live up to Ms. Marvel but it was very cool, nonetheless. This issue focusses on Storm and the next promises to be focussed on Psylocke. This is certainly an approach I can get behind, sucker for character focussed storytelling that I am.

As to the larger arc there's weird whether at a music festival in Utah where Gambit is trying to seduce women because he's Gambit. A sinkhole opens up and massive electrical storm hit so he calls Storm and her team. We get a lot of narration from Storm concerning the physics of the weather she's working with as well as some philosophy showing us how she views her actions. Interesting as that is Storm is one of the better explored X-Men so I'm looking forward to seeing what Wilson does with one of the characters with fewer miles on the clock like M or Omega Sentinel (who I don't remember if she's still on the team or not, now I think about it).

On the art side it must be said the issue is poorly served by the Dodsons' cover. I like the Dodsons but their smooth, curved style doesn't work at all with the jagged, slightly caricatured look Roland Boschi brings to the interiors.