At Home For Takesgiving
You know what? I'm done making plans. I genuinely thought that nothing much would happen on the week of American Thanksgiving, because everyone was so busy celebrating eating and/or several centuries of genocide. The week was going to be light in news, and I was going to have plenty of space to catch up on all the reviews I meant to write had it not been for a Supplypocalypse. But then Marvel Comics had to go and cancel a new Luke Cage comic book filled with ripped from the headlines thrills mere weeks before it was to go on sale. The book had been solicited, several issues had been in the final stages of production, and some editor, on the kind of whim that only power can give, tried to pull the plug thinking no one was looking. But you know what? Anything I could say about this has been said better and smarter three years ago, when this exact scenario played out with The Vision by Chelsea Cain and Aud Koch. It is fucked up, and there is probably something worth talking about when put alongside Marvel turning Miles Morales into an empty signifier they can slap on any old story without any care for the fact that he was made to be Spider-Man, but that's another piece, from another, way better, and way less me, kind of writer. So instead of doing that, I'm just going to do the thing I'm the best in the world at, and no one can stop me.
HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE COMICS: LETTING THE LEFTOVERS MATURE BEFORE PUTTING THEM IN A SANDWICH
I don't know what to make of Hulk #1, Marvel's attempt at following up a beloved landmark 50-issue run of award-winning comics with something that is not that in any way. I think I liked it, but if I did like it, it is most likely for the exact reasons most people will end up hating it. I'm going to try to make a case for it, and I'm going to try and do so without going into the exact nature of the comic's big idea, which is bold enough and ludicrous enough that it is, in my opinion, worth experiencing on its own terms. It has absolutely nothing to do with The Immortal Hulk, but how much exactly did The Immortal Hulk have to do with the Hulk comics that came before it, and which were bad? Not a whole lot. Hulk wasn't a comic about graphic body horror as a mean to discuss the greater points of Jewish theology, the horrors of capitalist imperialism, and all that good good shit, until one day it was. The concept of Hulk is so brilliant and so simple that it can be used as a vehicle for absolutely anything. The best way you could honor a book like The Immortal Hulk is to swing just as big as that book did. And even if you end up being one of those many detractors I've heard so much about, there is no arguing the basic fact that this book SWINGS.
There will be ample time for debating the merits of Donny Cates' big ideas, and the many big dumb idiot sentences used to express said big ideas. But, and this is often the case in these situations, none of these would land as well as they do without the stellar artwork of Ryan By God Ottley, finally returning to the mode of storytelling that has SOMEHOW made Invincible a household name. It's that big loud hyperviolence, that hardcore facepunching that renders everything it touches into blood and rubble. It is pure booming spectacle, from the hyperkinetic fight scenes to the larger-than-life vistas. The character stuff is big and overwrought, so expressive it could read just as well without a line of text, and the book's many haters will say it would have been better for it. I really don't want to spoil it, if that caught your fancy, so all I'm going to say is that I'm willing to see the couple of flashbacks that are going to justify the turn things have taken. But in the mean while, I will say that Hulk is at least as much capital-C capital-B Comic Books as The Immortal Hulk was.
Hey guess what? Apparently Superman is bisexual now! I know, I know, that sounds just as kooky to you as it does to me. But what was once the stuff of fan-fiction has become fan-fact, through the applied magic of Superman: Son of Kal-El #5! If bisexuals are a novelty to you, I can see how this would be a great comic. Through a plot contrivance pulled straight out of every third post-All Star Superman story, Jon Kent finds himself supercharged on solar energy and literally running through the checklist of "Superman moments". There's natural disasters, hostage crises in faraway lands, rescuing people from everyday dangers, and yes, at the end of it all, Superman totally makes out with a dude on the mouth. Maybe there's tongue, even, but don't quote me on that. The point is: if you needed convincing that this is the real-deal actual for-real Superman, and that he's bisexual, and that neither part of the sentence conflicts with the other, it does that.
On the other hand, if you've been bisexual for a while, you might find the issue kind of lacking. It's a weird interlude that doesn't really advance the story in any way, and it mostly exists to justify a full-page splash you've seen everywhere twice over when the comic was announced. (And it still is pretty hilarious that they had to give the colors a once-over because the original colorist was too bigoted!) Besides that, there's no new idea, there's no drama, and the only real danger is that Superman might be too good at this. Part of me wants to call this comic absolutely worthless, but then again, part of me thinks that comic might get some kid to go through what I went through rereading Young Avengers #9 shortly after coming out, and then I feel pretty stupid about calling it mediocre and uninspired.
I've been trying to figure out just how many lies there are in "Batman Secret Files: The Gardener". Not the comic, mind you, but just the title. It's barely a Batman comic, it's not secret at all (I bought it in a shop!), it's a comic and not a file, and also: it's not really about the Gardener, an ex of Poison Ivy that Jorge Jimenez and James Tynion IV introduced during their soon to be concluded run on the main Batman ongoing. She's the point of view character, that much is certain, but it is really about Poison Ivy, re-engineering her post-Crisis origin story (Secret Origins #36, story by Buckingham and Gaiman!) to make it gayer and therefore better and more interesting; before running through a couple of highlights and landing a couple of days before Everyone Loves Ivy. And indeed, there is a very R.I.P.: The Missing Chapter vibe to it all, which you should know I am all about. However! That is another lie. I told you at the start that it's not a Batman comic. You know why? BECAUSE IT'S A SWAMP THING COMIC.
Do not be fooled by the fact that Alec Holland's name doesn't really get anything other than a passing mention very early on, and do not thing I only made this observation because of the pivotal role Jason Woodrue plays in the tale being told. It's a Swamp Thing comic in the stylistic sense; the gorgeous scenes of life, plants and humans alike, and the immaculate geometry underpinning each beautifully designed layout; a willingness to see the beauty and the horror that we visit upon one another. It's very pretty and very heartbreaking, which is tonally perfect. Really, I could have told you at the start that Christian Ward did this comic, and made the rest redundant. I didn't because I'm bad at this. It's a fucking amazing and beautiful comic. That's the real point here.
Joy Operations #1 is a book that I respect more than I like. For the relaunch of the Jinxworld imprint, this time at Dark Horse, Brian Michael Bendis and Stephen Byrne have decided to jump head-first into the world of European high-concept action science-fiction. The fighting is appropriately graceful, the urban landscapes are suitably impossible and neon-soaked, and there are at least a half-dozen references to people, political organizations and general jargon that feel completely impenetrable because of a general lack of context. If you look past that obfuscation, the story ends up pretty simple: it's about a woman named Joy, she's an executioner/enforcer for the head of a massive corporation-slash-city-state, and her loyalties get challenged when she discovers that her boss is up to some highly unethical shit. There is a fun twist, that plays with the dialogue-heavy format of what you expect a Brian Michael Bendis comic to be, there is a fight with a big floaty blob monster, and that's pretty much it.
If this seems a little light to you, well, it did for me too. There are strengths to Bendis' way of plotting, to the way his single issues linger on the interiorities of his characters via plentiful narrative captions and almost overbearing amounts of rapid-fire dialogue. It's a format that has given ample space to showcase the work of some of the best illustrators in the world, and it works really well for his usual neo-noir crime books and superhero soap-operas. This comic, on the other hand, feels really underdeveloped. There is a lot of talking, but it doesn't really coalesce into characters or takes on an idea. I like what's there well enough, but I wish it had been refined into something. When this thing gets turned into a television show, I'm sure it will.
I didn't really expect to become a World of Darkness fiend a couple of years back, but, as long-time readers of this newsletter will know, my interests in role-playing games and being just a little too extra made it an inevitability. Ever since, I've been having a great time thinking about vampires and the many problems they would have, in a Vampire: the Masquerade campaign that I may never even run. That's a long story, and it would be too indulgent to tell in in this newsletter. Anyway: I told you before that I really liked Winter's Teeth, the newest comic book series about the many struggles of the Camarilla that Vault Comics have been publishing for a hot minute. It was imaginative, it was tense, and it had a lot of fucked-up emotional horror. Well, the follow-up to that series is here, and in World of Darkness: Crimson Thaw #2, we get to know the pack of werewolves that just showed up to tear shit up all over the Twin Cities. If you were wondering how many heads it would take to devise the most clear and concise introduction to the particular dynamics of Werewolf: The Apocalypse in a package that's at once a very enjoyable thriller AND filled to the brim with ready-to-use ideas for players to take and remix in their own games, it's five. Blake Howard, Tini Howard, Danny Lore, Tim Seeley and Jim Zub all get story credits, but the script is all Jim Zub.
The take, which I'm sure is informed in one way or another by the forthcoming fifth edition of Werewolf, has all the staples long-time fans have come to expect. It's caerns, the Wyrm, packs, the Litany, and the everlasting rage at an Apocalypse that feels like it's been here and getting comfortable for a hot while. Tasked with drawing those hulking wolfmen doing violence at themselves and other under the moonlight, Julius Ohta does a wonderful job, and the expressivity of his art admirably keeps up with the wild emotions at play as even the vampires being falling prey to Beasts of their own. For the rest, well, I'm not going to give you a recap. I want you to read this. I want you to join me in this fandom because it's lonely and I do need a group to run my Vampire campaign. NOT SORRY!
And finally, since this newsletter is running long enough as is: hey, check out The Rush #1. It's about greed and despair in the last years of the Gold Rush, it's about grief, and it's also about a fucked up spider-monster. What is there not to love? It's heartbreaking and it's violent, like most great things. You'll enjoy it. Trust me.
Well, I don't know about you, but I think cramming several weeks of reviews into one single newsletter has left me a tired mess! Let us hope this NEVER happens ever again! (it will happen again) In the mean time, I'm going to sleep and play video games for a bit. I'D SAY I'VE MORE THAN EARNED IT AT THIS POINT. We'll be back next week, don't you worry, but until then, now that you're done feasting (if indeed you did feast), take a moment, subscribe if you haven't, tell your friends if you have, and HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE COMICS!