THE ALL-REVIEW SPECIAL I: WELCOME TO THE BIRTHDAY ZONE
As someone who's just been through it, I can say with some level of authority that turning twenty-nine absolutely fucking blows. The particular circumstances don't help: despite all the injunctions from the powers that be to return to normality, we're still in the throes of a hellplague that no amount of denial can make go away, and that's kept me from the world and from my friends for a second year running. But I don't think that any amount of friends or libations could make the particular indignities of launching the countdown to turning thirty sting any less. That's just time's manifold cruelty at work, crushing all in its path beneath its unyielding wheels.
That said, the perk of getting total omnipotence, in the form of a single birthday wish that has to come true no matter what, like in the classic 1997 movie Liar Liar, is actually pretty cool. This year, I thought I'd try and do something for the greater good, for once, and I so I wished for one full week of peace in the comic book industry. No discourse, no shenanigans, no nothing. And through birthday magic, I got it! You're welcome, comic book industry.
Of course, this leaves us without anything to talk about in the critically-acknowledged "news roundup" part of HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE COMICS. It's a sacrifice I'll make gladly, first because that's what a hero does in a situation of need, and second because it gives us more space to discuss more comics, in the first of what is to be A Straight-Up All Review Special. Ready or not, here it comes.
HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE COMICS: BRINGING CHILD-SAFE SCISSORS TO THE OPERATING ROOM
Jonathan Hickman's tenue on the main X-Men book was defined by its many idiosyncrasies. With rare exceptions, every issue was a self-contained 22-page story that slowly and carefully laid out a machinery of characters and plot beats waiting to be put in motion in events years down the line. Most importantly, it wasn't an X-Men book. It had teams of mutants fighting problems all across the Marvel universe, but, very consciously, none of them were called "X-Men". These observations are very obvious, I'm only making them in order to make sure that the next part lands.
Gerry Duggan and Pepe Larraz's X-Men #1 is, very deliberately, everything that Hickman's X-Men wasn't. It's an oversized comic, it calls itself "chapter one" and introduces several immediate threats for our heroes to deal with, and it stars the X-Men, functionally AND nominally. More than that, it stars the X-Men in the world, which, as far as Marvel Comics is concerned, means that they have set up a new base of operations in the middle of New York City, where they can enjoy such illustrious neighbors as the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, or beat reporter Ben Urich, from the Daily Bugle.
If you've read my review of Planet-Size X-Men, you probably know how the rest goes from there: there's big superhero action, fun character moments, and Pepe Larraz takes it to the next level once more. If you haven't: go catch up! I'm not about to spoil the insanely cool setpiece in this, nor the insanely cool way in which it is resolved! It's too good for that! What I'm going to discuss instead is the fact that, despite the change in focus, inevitable when you replace a writer as singularly driven by some key obsessions as Hickman, X-Men is a book that is still interested in asking the big questions. This first issue ponders what mutants being able to come back to life looks like to the rest of humanity, and how the rest of the Marvel cosmos is reacting to their claim over Mars and the Solar system.
That's a lot and a half, and as such, unlike a lot of oversized issues released in the past couple of years, this is a comic that fully justifies its extra pages and what they add to the asking price. There's a lot to like about it, because there's a lot of it. It does just about everything right, and it's made me more excited about the future of the line more than the past few months of announcement ever did. Good job all!
One of the defining qualities of Ram V's run on Swamp Thing has been its willingness to lay its cards on the table when it comes to its influences. Being an adventure co-starring John Constantine, the names that will come up in discussing The Swamp Thing #5 should be expected if you know your history. There's Alan Moore, always and obviously. Then there's Jamie Delano, whose foundational work on Hellblazer set the template for the kind of socially conscious fable of contemporary magick that the issue is putting forward. You add a little bit of Garth Ennis edge to the mix, channeled through the pencils of his longtime collaborator John McCrea, that's a recipe for a grand old time.
But most surprising of all is the fact that, combined together, these elements serve a central thesis that is incredibly Grant Morrison, on a fundamental level. Ram V's Swamp Thing has been about the interplay between memory, ideas, and places since the very beginning, but directly borrowing the dialectic of the hero and the bomb, and having the bomb exist as an idea so powerful it literally toxifies reality is giving the game away wholesale. I don't mind, first because these are ideas worth exploring by any writer, and second because channeling them into a tribute to Vertigo's golden age is just about the quickest way to my heart. It's a really cool comic, and I hesitate to say any more about it. There you go.
All of this might be colored by the fact that an open bigot worked on it, but man, I really didn't care for The Immortal Hulk #48, and I'm still actively trying to put together why that might be. In theory, a heart-to-heart between Joe Fixit and the Harpy, which is really a heart-to-heart between Bruce Banner and Betty Ross, going over their history with one another, pulling an interesting nugget to build a thesis around in that way only Al Ewing can do, should be interesting. Instead, what we have is a very belabored talking heads comic that is about taking its characters from point A to a very nearby point B. No action, no horror, just characters talking themselves into heading for the run's final dénouement.
To me, it's a boring comic. That would be disappointing enough from any other series, but, from The Immortal Hulk? So close to the finish line? It feels outright insulting. This is a waste of my time, and if the final argument you have for Hulk to go and confront the Leader and The One Below All is so thin, maybe it isn't worth it to spend 22 pages to try and explain it. And it is where I return to the question I asked at the beginning of this: is it just me finding Joe Bennett's bigotry unsanctionable, or did The Immortal Hulk really lose most of its shine over the past couple of issues? Whatever the case may be, I'm worried about how this will all end, and that's not something I ever expected to say. It's a bummer!
For several years now, Frank Cho has been deploring the state of the comic book industry in a really passive-aggressive way. Mostly it's been juvenile potshots in the form of tributes to an unfortunate Milo Manara Spider-Woman variant cover, only worth paying attention to because of Cho's persistence in doing them over and over and over again. I'm not sure what the subtext was with these things, I don't know if there even was a point, but I know this: if what Frank Cho wants from comics is anything like Fight Girls #1, the first issue of his new creator-owned series at Bill Jemas and Alex Alonso's AWA Studios, he should probably stop talking trash.
This is a book brimming with unearned self-confidence, thinking that its core elements (there's hot babes, jungle beasts, violence and very vaguely defined galactic intrigue) are compelling enough on their own that it can dispense itself from having characters or a hook. Fundamentally, that's wrong: you can't play it this close to the vest in a first issue if you've got nothing else going on, and this book has nothing else going on. Worse still: for a book that stars ten women in nothing but athletic wear, it is surprisingly neutered when it comes to the sex or the violence. This jungle is full of dangers, but they feel cartoony and they end up mostly bloodless. Sabertooth tigers get thrown around in one graceful judo move, while giant alligators just deal with their opposition in one giant impactless chomp.
If you leave the intrigue to a minimum to make room for your jungle action, you gotta give me the jungle action, you know? This is a book that is wholly unsatisfying, and while Frank Cho is obviously a capable artist, here he's just coasting on his name in a way that feels lazy. On a base level, I have nothing against sex and violence comics, I just wish this had been one of those.
Wow this one was a struggle! Sorry for the friday drop! This was a motherfucker of a week to get through, to the point where I'm willing to admit that the stuff up top is BARELY a bit! Next week should be a bit cooler! Hopefully! I feel like shit! I'm sorry! HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE COMICS!