Visionary novels of a future yet to be written!
Before we begin: I'd like to apologize for not doing the newsletter last week. You know it's hard for me to run this operation on my own. You know how, if anything gets in the way, there's no one else to carry the load. You realize that I've missed all of THREE WEEKS in almost NINE MONTHS of doing this, and you might find yourself thinking that I earned SOME time off, but the Work is neverending, and I will not retire until this industry has been re-shaped by my wrath. That's the basic stuff, the contract you and I have committed to week in and week out, and as such I feel you were owed an apology. That's the bad news out of the way, here's the good: I've been working on my novel! As you know, my plans for this newsletter do include a long-lost manuscript that is only to be found years after my death, whenever that occurs. It's a speculative science-fiction novel about the near-future, and like all the greats, it's going to be called "eerily accurate". I blend ripped from the headlines thrills with in-depth research about history and politics, and you're going to get TERRIFIED when you see the events I describe happen in the real world. So far I have not figured out which group of people I'm going to be needlessly prejudiced against, but do trust that the final manuscript will be crammed top to bottom with paranoid racist fantasies.
For your reading enjoyment, I present to you now an extract from "THE VERY BAD PEOPLE"
Richard Steele finally woke up, feeling every single one of the bruises the raiders had left on his body the night before. His body ached, and the soreness in his joints had noticeably slowed him down. The mattress he was sitting on had to have been there for ten years or more, he thought to himself, considering its state of disrepair. Waking up in strange new rooms was nothing new for him, of course; this was his life, wandering the Wastes, fighting where you could, and taking what you needed. So, out of habit, he didn't really care much about the places he had to shelter in. But the acrid smell of stagnant water in the room overwhelmed him, so he tried dragging his carcass to one of the exits, one step at a time.
"Sorry about the scratches", said a voice, so suddenly it put Richard on edge. "Had to drag you in before the acid rain took you," the voice continued. The friendly tone, as well as the concern for the survival of another human being, made him realize there was no hostility there. Richard, as one of the few men on Earth still left that remembered the Times Before, was always wary when people claimed responsibility for others, especially when great power was involved.
It all seemed so simple, back then, before the Wars and their deadly aftermath, before the collapse of the American economy, before the Walt Disney Corporation lost the Spider-Man copyright to the estate of Steve Ditko, and everything that had been taken for granted by an ungrateful society suddenly disappeared. The comics were the first to go, obviously, but then it was the films, the toys, the expensive and unsatisfying augmented reality based theme park rides, until there was nothing left. The hoarding began. The fighting followed shortly after, and soon society was torn asunder. The Ditko estate had taken Spider-Man away from the people, and all the billions in Disney's coffers were clearly not enough to get it back. This is an accurate summary of the economics of the situation and I know what I am talking about which is why I, the person writing this, am pledging my undying loyalty to the Walt Disney Corporation, right here and right now, so that a future as bleak as this one might be averted.
HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE COMICS: HEY FUTURE INVADERS, IF YOU'RE GOING TO DIG AN UNDERGROUND TUNNEL TO MY HOUSE, PLEASE BRING SOUR PATCH KIDS
PROGRAMMING NOTE: Due to the worldwide supply chain problems everyone is experiencing everywhere, I missed out on a couple of releases that were supposed to drop in shops this week. I don't read digital because of near-lethal levels of hipsterism and so I may have missed out on some releases, which might appear in next week's newsletter or beyond, I don't know how this is supposed to work out. Point is: I know that this week's final issue of Batman/Superman is supposed to be a mind-blower, but here we are.
When you pick up a book that Garth Ennis has written, there is always a fear lodged in the back of your mind that things are going to get needlessly grotesque. That, for the sake of provocation, he's going to fall into the bad habits and the ugliness without purpose that made works like The Boys and Crossed so extremely tedious. That's what he does, sometimes, instead of the beautifully principled comics about the absurd and pointless brutalities of war and imperialism. I'm telling you this so I can arrive at my point, which is that Batman: Reptilian #4 is a return to Garth Ennis' bullshit that I did not care for in any way.
I think you may disagree with me here, because the series, anchored by Liam Sharp's incredibly moody painted expressionism, has always dealt in grimy caricatures of the theatrics inherent to a Batman story, which are then contrasted against some of the harder realities of crime and poverty. It's inescapable, and it worked, in a grand-guignol sort of way. But the big twist of this issue, which is essentially the big twist of the series itself, is that the very same chemicals that caused the mutations Killer Croc had from birth also changed him on a hormonal level such that he was able to carry an offspring to term, and said offspring is the massive terrifying beast that has torn through Gotham's underworld.
Now, I've tried to be really careful and considerate with the language I've chosen in order to describe this. Garth Ennis didn't, and in an issue that revels in that sort of gross out stuff (see also the anecdote Batman tells Croc right before the big reveal, which I'm not repeating here), it reads less as horrifying commentary on the things we do to the poorest in America and everywhere else, and more as a very laddish, very jocular "WOULDN'T IT BE GROSS AND FUCKED UP AND GROSS IF YOU, A DUDE, WAS TURNED INTO A WOMAN? BY CHEMICALS? EWWWWW". Considering his past track record, I don't think Ennis has earned the benefit of the doubt. Maybe this is fine to you. Maybe you think the book is beautiful enough, or interesting enough, that you can let it slide. Me? This is where I get off.
If there's a big lesson to be drawn from comics in two thousand and twenty-one, it's probably this: sometimes it really is that simple. For all the great experiments we've seen with comics this year, the most satisfied I've been coming back from the shops was reading a pure raw thrills balls-out action comic. And as it turns out, Joshua Williamson has done one of those. For the second time this year. Deathstroke Inc. #1 is maybe a touch more conventional than his work on Robin, but it is just as relentless in its pursuit of capital-C Cool, and that's really my idea of fun. The key is Howard Porter, delivering some of the most dynamic action you'll see in a comic this year on every page, and making the quieter moments of character introspection land through very slick layout work. There are promises of intrigue there, of greater connections to Williamson's other DCU work, and that's pretty cool, if you're into that sort of thing, but I'm here to see cool people mow down through an army of bee-people, and I think that's cooler.
And that's it for the week! Thank you very much for reading! Please keep doing that! Please subscribe! Please tell your friends about this! Sorry there isn't more but I'm trying to take it easy! Feels like I'm forgetting something! Hey, Magneto from this week's Inferno #1 can you tell them what's up please?
Yeah what he said! See ya!