My gut tells me this isn't too great: Graeme gets space-age patriotic, 7/11

Since it was announced, I've been somewhat nervous of reading STEPHEN COLBERT'S TEK JANSEN #1. Nervous for all the right reasons, mind you; I really like all of the creators involved, and also find myself fairly fond of The Colbert Report as well (Although I still prefer The Daily Show, especially since Johns Hodgeman and Oliver joined the crew), but there just seemed either an optimism or the kind of ego that Colbert normally parodies to base a spin-off series on what was essentially a one joke idea ("The self-important news anchor secretly writes shitty sci-fi - but he's completely unaware of how shitty it actually is!").

Sure enough, the first issue struggles against the limits of the pretty limited joke; the writers do their best to expand the Tek Jansen universe with new characters and situations, but the problem is that doing so sacrifices the humor that Colbert specializes in (political and social satire) for something both more broad and narrow at the same time. There are political allusions in both of the stories - and in the first strip, also some Colbert Report injokes - but stripped of the real world context, they come across as weak and toothless.

The sad thing is, the writers are probably doing the best that they can with the core concept of the series, and the stories are fun enough (They're also attractively drawn; I just realized that I hadn't said anything about Scott Chandler and Robbi Rodriguez so far, even though both do a pretty good job juggling the likeness with the cartoony) - It's just that I think that the reality of a Tek Jansen comic is pretty much fated to just be Okay at best, always going to be less valuable in reality than in name-dropping theory.

The death of a party came as no surprise: Graeme starts the week off with an end, 7/11.

Given the, um, individual charms of Frank Miller's writing on All-Star Batman these days, I'm not sure it'll come as a massive surprise to anyone if I say that I'm not sure that MARTHA WASHINGTON DIES is worth the price of admission. But what was surprising - to me, at least - was that the story in this oneshot was clearly never meant to be anything other than the epilogue to next year's collection of all of Miller and Dave Gibbons' Martha Washington stories (Give Me Liberty from the 1980s - which I remember being disappointed by as a teenager, reading it and thinking "There's no there there. Is this really meant to be great? Am I missing something?" - and Martha Washington Goes To War from, I think, the early '90s). The strip in this issue offers no real story at all, other than fulfilling the promise/threat of the title, but also offers no context for anyone who hasn't read any of the earlier works. What it does offer is the chance to make cheap analysis into Miller's state of mind - the narration talks of an America under attack by "barbarians" who seek an "armageddon we'll never let them have" and chant, even though they've tried to destroy religion ("Back when there were churches. Back before the barbarians won their awful victory..."). Has this story now become all about Miller's 9/11 epiphany...? What else could it mean when Martha seems to become fireworks exploding in the skies above New York City, after all?

To call this "light" would be polite - It's 17 pages long, and of that, there are four double-page spreads and an additional four splash pages - and as nicely as Gibbons and colorist Angus McKie can make things, there's still a feeling of being somewhat cheated by the presentation of this as a full-priced comic as opposed to some kind of budget teaser for the complete book advertised on the inside back cover here. There may be some extra value for completists in the five page original synopsis by Miller for the opening of Give Me Liberty - although a cynic like me looks at it more as the only way they could make this book more than 20 pages long - but overall, this was a pretty disappointingly empty Awful.

At an alarming pace, running away from his face: Graeme finishes out 7/5, bald-head style.

So, Zuda Comics, huh? Why'd they go with that name, I wonder? Although I have to admit that I found Newsarama's interview with Paul Levitz about it curiously honest - Did he really admit that DC should be the last place you look to for innovation these days, or was I reading too much between the lines...?

While pondering that, let's look at the dying world of print:

ACTION COMICS #851: Pretty much an issue of filler with the exception of the last few pages - and that really wasn't where I thought the Luthor subplot from the Annual was going, thankfully enough - but when filler comes with a pair of 3D glasses, I'm pretty much sold. Okay, but I do feel sorry for those who looked at this without rose-colored (well, and blue) glasses.

ALL-STAR SUPERMAN #8: Surprisingly, not so great, and I'm not entirely sure why not. Normally I'm a sucker for both Morrison and Quitely and also Bizarro World stories, but this felt incredibly light and lacking on new ideas or surprises, for a change. Technically, it's still head and shoulders above almost every other superhero book released this week and still Very Good but I really expected more from this.

BLACK CANARY #1: Paulo Siqueira proves rather adept at the kid-centric portions of this somewhat unnecessary miniseries (Admittedly, I say that partially because Gail Simone isn't writing it; I loved her take on Dinah in Birds of Prey, and even though Tony Bedard follows it closely here, it's still not enough, dammit), but ultimately it still feels like retcons are being used to manufacture fake drama instead of trying to make an interesting story about Dinah herself. Okay, but it could've and should've been better.

COUNTDOWN #43: Hibbs told me as he rings me up for this week that he's suddenly realized how badly this is going to read in trade, considering that this week's issue is all about the death of the Flash, which happened in another series altogether and wasn't even referenced in this book before last week. And he's not wrong, but that portion of the book was still more interesting than almost all of the actual Countdown-centric scenes that we got this issue. That said, everything is starting to pick up slightly, and I wonder if that's just because we're two months in and Dini et al always intended to start slow and speed up, or if it's down to the presence of new co-editor Mike Carlin, who joined the book with this issue. Either way, still Eh.

FAKER #1: I think I liked this, but to be honest, it all kind of rushed by without making too much of an impression - I feel as if I need to read the next issue (which will take me a third of the way into the series) before I could honestly say whether or not I thought it was worth my time, which leaves me somewhat ambivalent about the experience. Nonetheless, it's more proof that Mike Carey is a surprisingly versatile writer (Again, compare and contrast this to his X-Men, Re-Gifters or any other things released that he's worked on in the last month) and Jock is an engaging, if left-hand-biased, artist. Okay, I guess?

NEW WARRIORS #2: You know it's a bad sign when the thing that catches your attention most about a book like this isn't that - gasp! - the New Warriors are depowered mutants with new superpowers but that the book namedrops and uses the logos of MSN, Yahoo and Google. Between that and the Old Spice logo usage in recent books, it looks like Marvel has dived straight into the world of product placement with no fear whatsoever. Ah, this brave new world, etc. etc. As for the story itself, Eh; pretty much as you'd expect.

What did the rest of you think, anyway?

I'm tho Thor, I can hardly...: Graeme looks at a Mighty return.

It's not exaggerating to say that all of my positive feelings about THOR #1 come from Olivier Copiel's artwork. Which, considering I finished the issue and thought to myself, "Well, I might pick up the next issue to see where they go with this after all," is saying more than you may think.

J. Michael Straczynski's resetting of the Lee/Kirby dynamic here is the kind of thing that doesn't really make that much sense if you spend too much time thinking about it - I didn't read the last issues of the last run of Thor's title, but it seems from this issue that Thor didn't die after all, but just ended up in some kind of ideological limbo that was also inhabited by Donald Blake, who was (years ago) unmade by Odin, but that unmaking was then itself undone by the death of Odin, which somehow undid all of Odin's magic except for the bits of Odin's magic that are necessary for the series to work. I have no idea if any of this will be explained in future issues, or if it's just the kind of doublespeak that readers are expected to just accept as the necessary evil in order to get Thor back and move on, but I chose to go for the latter option and look at the pretty pictures instead. And what pretty pictures...!

Copiel's choice of making Thor larger - or, at least, broader - than life manages to both differentiate him from Donald Blake and also give him the physique that makes you believe that he really could stand up to Ice Gods or whatever other Asgardian monstrosities come his way; I particularly liked his out of control eyebrows and broad nose, for some strange reason. The same cartoony impulse reappears towards the end of the book, with Donald Blake's new landlady, whose happy panel wearing glasses was a wonderfully welcome moment of visual comedy in a scene that could otherwise have been bogged down in too-clever dialogue. Copiel obviously likes drawing people instead of just superpeople, if you can understand the distinction; his body language and comfort with clothing (He understands how clothes hang on people, unlike so many superhero artists) are the signs of a smart artist who's looking to do something more than just whatever happens to be popular or hot right now, and his panel layout on the second-last page of this book - almost entirely silent - is something that makes me want to see what else he could get up to when paired with a writer who wants to challenge him a little more. I've been a fan of Copiel since his Legion work, but this book really makes me want to see him on something out of the mainstream so that he can show just how good he really is.

It's interesting; I know that I should give this book an Eh because, really, the story's not up to much at all and the dialogue borders on the pretentious and ridiculous. But the artwork is so good that I've kind of got to say that you owe it to yourself to at least take a look and decide for yourself whether this is as Okay as I ended thinking it was...

Sure, it may be not Ratatouille, but still: Graeme gets less than meets the eye.

NEW AVENGERS/TRANSFORMERS #1: The cross-marketing platform that Marvel have been waiting for rolls out - I'm sorry - into stores, in time to make everyone who reads it realize that, well, it's pretty Awful. There's something about this book that really makes you feel as if this is a half-assed attempt by Marvel to try and cash in on what they hoped would be a successful movie. It's a shame, really; the sheer nostalgic power of picking up a Transformers comic with that lo-fi version of the logo (Just like the old Marvel UK version of the comic when I was a kid!) managed to make me relatively hopeful that this could be something enjoyable and full of throwaway pop thrills, but it's clear that pop magic isn't what those involved were looking for - There's a self-conscious seriousness to the narration ("The engines of war. Sometimes they grind so loud in your brain - - They drown out everything else" ponders Captain America towards the end of the issue) that kind of ruins whatever dumb fun points the admittedly goofy plot (Megatron is increasing humanity's aggression so that the Avengers are fighting each other! Only the Autobots can save them from themselves!) has earned so far. More depressingly, Tyler Kirkham's artwork is so dull - it just sits on the page and does the job without any style or joy or anything, which is entirely the opposite of what was needed here. With a comic that brings superheroes and giant robots that turn into cars together, what I really want to see is some absurdist excitement about the whole thing, something that pulls me into the story and distracts me from the ridiculousness of the whole thing, and this attempt - while well-meaning (at least in the initial plot) - completely misses the mark.

Doesn't stop me wanting to see the Transformers movie itself, though.

Folks, you better stop and think: Graeme deals with Acceptance, 7/5.

You know, I really thought that Jeph Loeb was building to something with the whole FALLEN SON: THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA thing. I don't really know why, to be honest; I'd been through Superman/Batman and watched as those 25 issues resolutely failed to have any real sense of resolution. I'd put that down to everything else that was happening in his life at the time, and kept this vague hope that - despite all the usual claims and complaints about Loeb's writing - he really could finish a story after all.

And it seemed as if Fallen Son was building to something, you know? The way that the characters followed through the individual issues, with Wolverine seeming to act as some kind of guide through the whole shebang... I honestly thought that there was going to be some kind of emotional payoff, at least, in the final issue. And with the rumors of spoilers and big events that should get retailers ordering extra copies, and of news coverage of this issue, I thought: Okay. We're building to something after all.

Except we're not.

It's not that the final issue is bad, per se. John Cassaday's art is fine enough - As much as I recognize how technically good he is, I really don't get why everyone loves his work as much as they do - and I appreciate the weird, Sinatra-esque take on Rick Jones (complete with apparently-receding hair, which amused me greatly for some reason), but there's no there there. I appreciate that Loeb (and, presumably, Marvel) felt that Captain America's funeral was enough of an event to finish the series with a bang (or dull thud of a coffin going into the ground, perhaps) but there's still no proper closure. Lots of flashbacks and lots of dramatic speechifyin', sure, but nothing else. Maybe that's to be expected - it is just a spin-off cash-in to the central plot from Captain America's own book, after all - but logically knowing that doesn't stop this from being a letdown that makes you go Eh.

And I need to be redeemed to the one I sinned against: Graeme finally gets around to thinking about criminals and diamonds.

In some weird, bizarro world somewhere in this fine multiverse, there is someone who knows what I’m talking about when I say that, for me, CRIMINAL #7 and THE BLACK DIAMOND #2 are distant relatives in some strange sense.

I mean, sure, when you read both back to back, you may not have any idea what I’m thinking, considering the very different executions of each book. Criminal, for those who haven’t been picking up the series to date, is pretty much the crime book out there to beat these days, and this issue – the second chapter of the second story of the series – demonstrates why perfectly. Over a plot of revenge and good people in bad situations (although, I have to admit, I have no idea if Tracy is really a good person or not; I just like the idea that he has some sense of honor as opposed to just being in this for revenge. But let’s face it, Brubaker trades in moral ambiguity in books like Captain America, so why should his crime noir book be any cleaner?), Ed Brubaker delivers a tight, tense script that doesn’t so much explain itself as hints at what’s happening and who to trust and leaves the rest to the reader. It’s writing that works through dialogue without being overly chatty, which puts it entirely at odds with Larry Young’s script for Black Diamond, also in the second chapter of its story (or third, if you could the preview released a couple of years back) and also featuring good people in bad situations.

Young’s script for Black Diamond is all about the dialogue, and I mean that in the best way. More than really being plot-driven (as I’d suggest Criminal is), this issue of Black Diamond is three different conversations that rejoice in language and digressions and little bits of information that aren’t important to the core plot but tell you about the characters nonetheless. It’s an incredibly chatty book, but done in such a way that you forgive the metatextuality of characters referring to themselves as literary devices, or the bigger-picture expositionary download of the middle conversation, because… well, it’s just plain enjoyable to read language being used like that (See also: Sorkin, Tarantino, Bendis, etc. Yes, I get that people don’t really talk like that, but I don’t see why that should affect my enjoyment of fiction).

It’s good that Young’s script is so strong, because Lee Proctor’s visuals are kind of… not. Actually, that’s not fair; the book is visually stunning, but that’s because of Proctor’s amazing coloring and his sense of page design – his linework itself is pretty static and infuriatingly inconsistent (Mostly in his female characters, who change hairstyles depending on which photoref he seems to be using, panel-to-panel), to such an extent that it snaps you out of the story every now and again, when you have to stop and wonder whether that’s a new character who’s just appeared, or a new look for the same character as the last panel. Criminal, meanwhile, has no such issue; Sean Phillips does work on this that should be used as masterclass fodder for artists wanting to see how to get emotion onto the page without it being melodrama, and how to tell a story effectively without the art overwhelming the story (Val Staples’ coloring is also to be pointed out as understated but entirely effective). That, in fact, may be the core difference between the two books – Criminal is a comic that works because the creators involved put the story first and submerge themselves in the work, whereas Black Diamond is enjoyable because of the creators being present throughout the book. If that makes sense to anyone that isn’t me.

Nonetheless, both books are well worth your time. Black Diamond is Good fun, Larry Young showing off his chops with Jon Proctor backing him up, and Criminal is Very Good, Brubaker and Phillips both perfectly in synch with each other and focusing on getting the job done, which seems fitting for a crime book (For those who liked Sleeper and, for some reason, haven’t picked up Criminal yet – You really should. As good as that book was, this is much better). Mama Crime Genre can feel happy that her children may not look much like each other, but they’re both doing just fine, thank you very much.

Everybody knows, everybody knows, everybody knows: Graeme only lives a day from the 6/27

Happy Independence Day, Americans. Congratulations on getting rid of all those British bastards, other than those of us who came back years later because we, too, were sick of Britain. Do you mind if I take advantage of the day-later-new-comic-shipping to finish up with this week's books?

DAREDEVIL #98: Hey, look! She's not dead after all! Brubaker and team follow up on the advertised peril for Matt's wife Milla with a tense one-issue take on the "a hero pushed to the edge" theme that works because it is only one issue, and because it doesn't end the way you might expect. Good, but - and this is nitpicking - that cover was kind of generic and off-putting after some of the great ones we've seen lately, wasn't it?

FANTASTIC FOUR #547: Dwayne McDuffie, you are to be congratulated for taking a book like the FF, bringing it back to its old school roots and making it work - Finishing this issue with the explosion of... well, something, alongside a caption from the Wizard (of all people) proclaiming "the end of the Fantastic Four!" was a wonderfully welcome piece of cheese that capped off a pretty Good issue overall. McDuffie manages to convey the idea that the FF are an extended family rather than traditional teammates without having someone come out and tell the audience as usually happens, and the mix of comedy and drama here - ably handled by the equally old-school Paul Pelletier - feels more in tune with the series (and the Marvel Universe in general) than all of the police state nonsense happening elsewhere. I'm dreading what happens after this team leaves, though.

THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST #6: Really, remarkably Excellent; I can't get my head around the fact that this book has become one of my favorite titles out there right now, but this final chapter of "book one" (according to the last panel of the issue) is a perfect example of the mix of action, humor and fast-moving mysticism that keeps me coming back issue after issue. The fact that David Aja's art is really something special (and keeps getting better) doesn't hurt either.

SHE-HULK #19: So, wait, this all happens after World War Hulk? Doesn't explicitly stating that a couple of times, kind of... I don't know... suck a lot of tension out of WWH, considering that the Earth seems to be pretty much the same as it did before the Hulk invaded, and Iron Man's definitely not dead and all? Not that I expected anything else, but it seems somewhat self-defeating to have one of your books come out and outright state those things before the second issue of your massive event comic has even come out. That said, I see why that swerve had to be done; it'd be hard to leave the series on the same comedic tone as you started within the current MU framework... Shame that the results are so Eh, however.

SILVER SURFER: REQUIEM #2: You don't need to read this (beautifully-painted, but essentially boring) comic; I'll summarize it thusly: "So, Spider-Man: Would you like to ride my surfboard?" "No thanks, but I'm sure my wife would." "...Okay then." "Awesome!" That's pretty much all there is. It's very pretty, but Eh on every other scale, cosmic or otherwise.

SUPERGIRL AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #31: New writer Tony Bedard may think that he's tying up some loose ends from Mark Waid's run, but "where is Cosmic Boy" really isn't one of them - What happened to him in Waid's last issue was one of the best things about that issue, and it's depressing to see it discarded so quickly, especially in favor of what looks to be a pretty Eh new status quo.

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS #1: The problem with this book isn't the execution - Jeff Parker's script is very cute, and Roger Cruz's art has some really nice touches (Remember when he was a Jim Lee clone? He's a million miles from that now, thankfully) - but with the lethargy about the concept in the first place. Monthly retro tales from when the series wasn't popular at all? How do you sell that to the legions of readers out there who would rather read about Wolverine's mohawked son? It's a shame, because this is a fun little book that deserves a wider audience than it'll probably receive, thanks to the crowded X-franchise and the not-especially-outstanding Eric Nguyen cover. For some reason, I think that digest collections will be where this series will prosper; charming one-offs seem more weighty in anthologies, if you ask me. Good, if light.

PICK OF THE WEEK is Iron Fist, and even if the whole comic hadn't been awesome, Misty's line about loving "that crazy white girl so much I could holler" would've probably gained the crown alone. PICK OF THE WEAK is Return To Wonderland, because, well, ick. TRADE OF THE WEEK for me is tough, because I've been working through Green Apple purchases, so for me it's probably been the Comics Journal Library Vol. 1: Jack Kirby collection of essays and interviews, because you can never have too much Kirby. Tomorrow: The New Comics Mainstream. Or something.

That's why I persist while others can resist temptation: Graeme continues to Countdown, despite his best intentions.

So, really, now that we're at #44, can we start to think about what's wrong with COUNTDOWN? Eight issues in, and there's only one plot that really working for me - Jimmy Olsen discovering his crazy superpowers and not being all angst-ridden about the whole thing. Which, considering all the other plots that are also in the book at this point (Mary Marvel gets her powers from Black Adam, the Flash villains do... um... something, Holly from Catwoman also does something, and there's lots of multiverse things going on that are somewhat unclear), isn't a really good sign. Maybe not so coincidentally, Jimmy's story is also the only one in the series that doesn't rely on you reading another comic to understand it - Even if you didn't know who Jimmy was, you could still understand the basic "someone seems to get magic powers when they least expect it" sequence of events. Everything else in the book fails to hold onto your interest because it's not about anything other than other comic books, and in order for that old trick to work, it takes more skill and humor that this book offers.

That's what's so depressing about this comic, I think; that so much of it feels as if it's the comic equivalent of a circle jerk. When more than half of the comic reads as though you have to have read other comics to understand it and read plenty more to understand what's going to happen - And with at least three spin-offs with "Countdown" in the title due to appear in the next few weeks, there's definitely the feeling that you'll be needing plenty more than the next 44 issues of this series in order to get the whole story, which seems more than slightly overwhelming at this stage of the game, considering how offputting and insider the story itself seems. The idea of keeping up with this series just in terms of what's happening, never mind being sympathetic to any characters or whatever, is exhausting in and of itself in a way that 52 never was. This was something that I seem to remember Dan DiDio using as a selling point for Countdown, pre-launch; that it would be able to interact with the rest of the DC Universe instead of staying in its own missing-year "bubble". The only problem with that is that what should be used as an occasional easter egg and/or gag seems to have become the entire purpose of the whole enterprise, replacing things like "plot" or "characterization."

(Also, am I the only person who's surprised at the way that Countdown seems to be so devoid of either of those, considering the writers involved? Sure, Tony Bedard, Sean McKeever, Adam Beechen et al may not be Grant Morrison, Mark Waid or the other 52 writers, but they're still not exactly talentless - Even allowing for the group voice model, I'm surprised that we've not seen flashes of each writer's personality come through at any point yet.)

I ended up buying the first issue of Countdown (much to Hibbs' amusement, given my review of it), thinking that it was something that I'd want to reread down the line in bigger batches. The second issue put paid to that notion, but at this stage, two months in, I kind of wish I'd kept up with it and could read the first eight issues all at once to see if the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts. Despite everything, I want to like the book, partially because of my continued 52-related goodwill. It's just that, with every Awful issue, I feel as if that gets harder and harder.

Don't just succumb to the wishes of your brothers: A quick look at Wonder Woman #10.

WONDER WOMAN #10: Poor Jodi Picoult. I know that her run hasn't been met with anything resembling critical acclaim, but holy crap, was she given a pretty shitty set of circumstances to work in. First off, she ends up having two fill-in artists within her five issue run, and then a crossover comes in midway through her run completely derailing anything close to whatever coherent story she was attempting to write - The fact that her final issue on the book offers no sense of resolution (and, in fact, ends with a cliffhanger that I honestly have no idea in which book it'll be followed up on - Here or Amazons Attack? Or neither?) just kind of offers a perfectly scale model of why Picoult was pretty much screwed on this gig no matter how great her writing was. Way to go, DC. Your first female writer on Wonder Woman's solo book, and you made sure that she had a completely unsuccessful run that you're still putting out as an expensive hardcover collection with her name in big letters on the cover to try and convince people to buy it nonetheless. "Sigh," as they say.

This issue is pretty much Crap, for multiple reasons, almost none of which have anything to do with the talents of any of the creators involved. Because of what the editorial powers-that-be at DC want, pretty much nothing actually happens in this issue, with the one plot development managing to be undone in the issue of Amazons Attack! that also shipped this week (which, to be complete, is Eh, and equal filler. But at least it's the middle of a run), and the feeling of "who cares?" pretty much dominates the entire experience (DC definitely doesn't seem to).

Poor Jodi Picoult. Gail Simone, I hope you get better treatment.

Stable as a castle made of sand: Graeme meets a book that he really dislikes...

GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES: RETURN TO WONDERLAND #1: There's something about this comic that makes me feel guilty in a way that not even the ridiculous breastage of Madame Mirage managed. I was amused to read the Newsarama review of the book and see the reviewers address, and then apologize for the gratuitousness of the book: "I just think the outfit and look of Calie on the cover screams SuicideGirls. That's what I thought when I saw it, and call me "horndog" if you must, but it caught my attention, and it appealed to me. The interior art had one questionable moment with the thong in question, but, I will say it was preceding actual sex, not a peek-a-boo as Calie was getting ready for school, or some such. I can guarantee that girls her age, in her shoes, wouldn't be wearing granny panties."

So maybe it's just me that thinks that it's kind of... offputting... to see the shot of the teenage girl half-naked, her ass on show to the audience, taking up half of the page by the second page of the story. Or, you know, the upskirt shot of the teenage girl a few pages later (which apparently isn't questionable, according to the reviewer above). Or perhaps it's all the cleavage shots of the teenage girl - including the shot from above, peering down into her cleavage - and the way that the artist continually accentuates her breasts even when it's a shot from behind the character (but when you show her from behind, then you get to show her thong peeking up from her low-riding jeans! "Bonus!"). Maybe I'm not thinking SuicideGirls enough, when I wonder what the all the T&A actually adds to the story, and all, but still. Dude. It's cheap thrills from a fictional high school girl's breasts and ass for no reason other than cheap thrills. Is it so wrong of me to feel like that's kind of... wrong?

I could go on about how bad the story is, and how unoriginal the entire story is, but it's really not worth the effort - We've all read multiple "dark takes" on Wonderland before, and we've also read the stereotypical troubled teen dealing with disaffected youth and uncaring parents thing, as well. The only thing that's worth mentioning is how unconvincing the whole thing is, and how little the writing attempts to make any of the characters sympathetic or even three-dimensional. It's entirely lazy and convinced of its own genius even as it lacks any shred of same. Add that kind of writing to such generic but exploitative art, and you're left with a book that's completely self-satisfiedly Ass.

It's not easy being green: Graeme crosses over from 6/27

WORLD WAR HULK: FRONTLINE #1 and WORLD WAR HULK: X-MEN #1: Yeah, and see, this is where the event starts to fall apart. You see, I can buy (and, for that matter, can enjoy) the whole “Hulk comes back to Earth and tears shit up” idea from what I’ve seen in the core book and the Iron Man and Incredible Hulk crossover issues, because it all ties together relatively well – the Hulk lands back on Earth with his alien buddies, and they’re all pretty pissed. They give the world 24 hours of warning, and then it’s on, including Iron Man getting beaten to crap. Fine. That makes sense.

But the idea that the Hulk has time for a side trip to Xavier’s School for Wacky Mutant Children and Adults, because he wants to ask Xavier whether he would’ve voted with the Illuminati members who sent him off the island… Yeah, that doesn’t really work for me. And it doesn’t work for multiple reasons – When did he decide to do this? How does he know that Xavier was part of the Illuminati in the first place (I thought he just knew that the four characters were responsible for sending him off-planet, not that they were four members of a secret society for which he knew the entire line-up)? Why does it matter whether Xavier would’ve voted with the other members or not (If Xavier says “No,” then is the Hulk going to say “Yeah, okay. Thanks,” and then leave?) – Doesn’t it seem a bit calculated to think of doing this in the first place, therefore cutting down on the “He’s mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!” pitch of the event? That’s really the main problem of the X-Men spin-off; that it feels like an add-on, as opposed to something that’s part of the main event, and an add-on that doesn’t really care about story logic or consistency as much as it cares about shoe-horning another X-Men series into the sales projections for the year. Awful

That said, the Frontline series is even worse. After a reasonably suspenseful opening – I like the paranoia of wondering where the pigeons have gone – the book that loses focus entirely. The aliens are giving people their guns in exchange for beer? Manhattan doesn’t get entirely evacuated after all (Wasn’t that a plot point in both World War Hulk #1 and the Iron Man tie-in, that it was completely evacuated)? Or, weirder still, the police department is working with the alien invaders after someone steals something from one of the invaders? What the Hell is that? And, maybe more to the point, if Paul Jenkins didn’t have anything resembling a coherent plot for this series, then why is he the one writing it? Very, very Crap, and more proof that it never pays to be optimistic about the possibilities of Marvel not managing to run an enjoyable crossover into the ground with unnecessary and badly done spin-off series.

Where Have All The Good Times Gone?: Graeme gets Silent, 6/27

SILENT WAR #6: I admit, I picked this up in the store the other day by mistake. I’d managed to almost entirely forget that this series existed, having been relatively underwhelmed by the first issue’s story – That Frazer Irving art sure was nice, though – so the fact that this final issue was a relatively taut status-quo changer for the characters (while, in a weird way, protecting the overall status quo for the series; the plot ends as it began, with the Inhumans poised to declare war on humanity, albeit a different kind of war) that made me want to check out the earlier issues to see what I’d missed came as a surprise.

Part of what worked for me about the issue was that it’s easily the most beautiful-looking Marvel book in a long time – Irving’s art is, maybe more than any other artist handling the entire package around these days, made by his intelligent and atmospheric color choices, which manage to make the linework seem more detailed and evocative than it arguably is, and his work in this series manages to entirely convey the alien, off-kilter, claustrophobic tone needed for what turns out to be a political and psychological thriller rather than a rock’em sock’em action book. It’s that tone that piqued by interest in terms of the story of the book; not that I was expecting all out punchin’ hawtness in a book with “Silent” in the title, but there’s an expectation for a book that also contains “War” in its title that was reinforced (for me, at least) by the terrorists-exploding angle of the first issue. It came as a pleasant surprise, in that case, to see that the war in the title really was much quieter than my expectations, and on a much smaller scale – Some more familial and intimate, despite the (these days, almost obligatory) “massive changes” that will inevitably result from it.

Something that stuck with me once I’d finished the issue – and something almost separate to the issue itself, as Good as it was – was the way in which the Marvel Universe these days is all about fear. You could, and I’m sure that Joe Quesada and others will if pressed, argue that that’s almost traditional for the publisher and the characters, but right now, any sense of wonder or awe has been replaced by a sense of terror and threat: We have Atlantis launching sleeper cell terrorist attacks, we have the Inhumans declaring war on humanity and wanting to take over the world, we have mutantkind facing extinction and infighting, America becoming a police state because superheroes might accidentally blow up a school full of kids, and by the way, your best friend or anyone you know might be an alien invader undercover. There’s an incredible and depressing lack of openness to “the other” in Marvel’s books, these days; nothing is seen as new or different or unusual in a good sense, because everything that isn’t “us” is a threat (as opposed to even being a potential threat). Whatever happened to the days of The Impossible Man appearing and aliens being goofy nuisances? Or Spider-Man being misunderstood and really a good guy, not a public menace, you know? There used to be a time where it was awesome (in both senses of the world) that there was a race of superhumans living on the moon, instead of it being another band of people who want to kill us. Yes, there are a few exceptions (Iron Fist and Fantastic Four come to mind), but overall: Is it really post-9/11, post-Afghanistan invasion and post-Iraq civil war insularism informing what the Marvel writers are coming up with, or something else? And, either way, is there any way that optimism and, well, good fun could come back to these characters again?

Just couldn't cut it no more, you were the law: Graeme goes down memory lane.

After reading the Endangered Species one-shot last week and then this week's X-MEN #200, I've come to the following obvious conclusions: Mike Carey writes really good mid-80s Chris Claremont stories. It's up to you whether you feel that that's an insult or a complement, however.

(The interesting thing was reading this after reading Carey's Re-Gifters, and also starting his "The Devil You Know" novel - Carey's clearly a very gifted writer, and looking at the different voices in each project makes it clear that the Claremontisms in his X-Men work are intentional choices, as opposed to just the way he writes in general. The question may be whether it's intentional for them to be so similar to Chris Claremont's work, or whether the way that Carey feels the characters should be written just coincidentally seems so strongly Claremonty.)

Reading Carey's special anniversary take on Marvel's Merry Mutants - and when was the last time they were called that, I wonder - really is very much like stepping back in time to Claremont in his prime. All of the themes are there - the X-Men as a family, the X-Men as outcasts, the X-Men as tortured individuals (Poor Rogue, now more tortured than ever), and interpersonal conflicts and betrayals. It's all in this story, but to such an extent (The X-Men get betrayed by three of their members, and - speaking of conjuring up Claremontisms - all of them are women) that it seems somewhat more ridiculous than you remembered it. Was this really what it was like, back then, or do the plot twists seems more over-the-top because the comic landscape was different (and more melodramatic) in those days? Maybe I was just younger and more forgiving back then.

The thing is, this is a perfectly Good comic, despite it feeling twenty years old. Everything hits all of the right soap operatic points, even down to the dramatic return of fan favorites and unfortunate hook-ups, but moves along fast enough to gloss over the weaknesses in plot or execution. Humberto Ramos and Chris Bachalo prove a good pairing of pencillers, with their individual quirks complimenting each other without there being a massive break in visual continuity. It's weird to think of the X-Men books being old-school nostalgiafests in a sea of otherwise uncomfortable Marvel books, but this issue really gives that impression. Mike Carey, you've got a lot to answer for, if I end up reading this series again on a regular basis...

Thing ring do your thing!: Graeme looks at a blackest night.

GREEN LANTERN: SINESTRO CORPS #1: Wow. Between this and last week's exit for Bart Allen, it's looking as if the stereotypical "Dan Didio must hate characters from [enter fan-favorite era here]" meme is going to be able to add Zero Hour-era DC to its quiver. Poor Kyle, never before has a turn for the worse seemed so random or so much a set-up for being undone at a later date.

For all of the similarities (Double-size oneshot opener for a crossover event set in outer space and all), this book is in many ways the opposite of last week's Annihilation: Conquest Prologue... Where that one was all about starting something from relative scratch and quickly ramping up the tension by hook, by crook or by expositionary dialogue, this issue sets up what's to come as the culmination of long-running and unfinished plots all the way back to, it seems, Green Lantern: Rebirth (adding in threads from the regular Green Lantern book and Infinite Crisis along the way, as well as Crisis on Infinite Earths, if that ending was to be believed). Unlike most DC books recently, however, it doesn't make you feel as if those books were all required reading before you even get to the first page of this one, which is a nice change. For all the shit that gets thrown at Geoff Johns, he can be a good writer at times, and at least he knows that the basics exist, such as reminding your audience who Superboy Prime was before he gets the double-page spread of danger at the end of the book (And, no, that's not me ruining the surprise). He also has the Morrisonesque ability to suggest a scope and danger beyond what's visible on the page, which comes in handy here - Concentrating an attack on the entire Green Lantern Corps by showing us only a few characters watching the rings of dead Lanterns flying past, looking for replacements, for example - in quickly building the idea in your head that something important is happening here and making you want to pick up whatever comes next.

That isn't to say that everything is clear - or even sensible - in the book (How does the whole "feeling fear" thing work, anyway? Why does it take a lot to make Kyle fear anything, when Rebirth seemed to say that he was the greatest Green Lantern EVAR because he knew fear normally?), but at least there's a sense of momentum and of there being a story beyond just continuity rearrangement. Ethan Van Sciver, meanwhile, gets to channel his 1990s mojo in what, surprisingly, seems fitting for the story being told; if you're going to do a story that is, in a way, a shout out to "Emerald Twilight," then why not have the sideways double-page spread at some point? I still think that he over-renders everything and uses that to hide some dodgy anatomy, but it's still more appealing than Michael Turner, Ed Benes or anyone on Countdown.

In the summer of big story burn-out - Marvel feels like Event Central right now, what with World War Hulk, Back In Black, Fallen Son, Initiative/Skrull World, Annihilation Conquest and Endangered Species, but DC is getting there with their Flash storyline/JLA-JSA crossover, Amazons Attack, Countdown and now this - it's a sad thing to admit that even a Good comic like this feels unusual and a happy surprise. Even though this storyline will inevitably not end but just lead into the next big DC Universe-changing miniseries, the goodwill this book has earned by merely not sucking means that I'm almost looking forward to the next installment. And somehow, that still feels like a win.

Comics Prose

Because comics are "hot", I guess it isn't any real surprise that there's more and more "proper" books about comics, or by comics people. Not like I even have enough time to read comics, dang it!

But, I plowed through two books in this spectrum this last week, and here's my report for you:

SOON I WILL BE INVINCIBLE: is kind of an odd duck -- it's straight prose doing Marvel-style superheroes. Its not that there hasn't been superhero-prose before -- I'm a pretty big fan of the WILD CARDS series of books for instance -- but, usually, those try to set their superheroes in the "real" world. This novel is pretty unapologetically a story set in a "superhero" world, where the logic of the superhero comic is presented at face value.

There's two main threads of story here, one that focuses on the villain, Dr. Impossible (no, not from JLA), as he battles his foes in The Champions (no, not from Marvel.... or Heroic, either for that matter); and one that does the hero team-POV from a new cyborg member, Fatale.

Its reasonably effective at what it does, though one has to question why the reader wouldn't just read CIVIL WAR instead -- there are JLA or Avengers-style analogues on display here, and the prose is zippy enough, but its not like it breaks any new ground, or adds anything to the genre that the actual comics cover. Its a fast read, and highly OK, but there was a pretty large sense of "just do the real ones" to this reader.

THE DEVIL YOU KNOW: is Mike Carey's first novel. It is going to be inevitable to compare the protagonist here to John Constantine, Hellblazer -- and it would be just as inevitable had not Carey had a successful run on HELLBLAZER. There's certainly differences -- Felix Castor isn't a mirthless bastard for instance; and the world-building going on points to a very different world than JC's London -- here the set up is that for some unexplained reason, the dead have been reappearing en masse (as ghosts, or zombies, or loup-garou [explained as animal spirits rewriting the flesh of their hosts]), so there's a whole class of exorcists who are there to put those spirits down -- but, other than that, yeah, this could have easily fit into JCs world just fine.

Carey is a strong writer, and the prose drips with Britishisms like "All Mouth and Trousers", and what I liked the most about the book is that it ends up in a place that JC probably never would have. That is to say: I'd very much like to read a second book with these same characters and to see what it goes from here.

It is solidly GOOD work, but I think you're going to have a really hard time, like I did, separating out FC from JC. If you've never read a JC story before, this might work even better.

SOON I WILL BE INVINCIBLE is available now; THE DEVIL YOU KNOW I read in galley form -- the front cover says "Hardcover publication July 2007", so I guess it will be out real soon.

Not that you've probably read either of these, but if so, what did YOU think?

-B

So damn easy to cave in: Graeme rounds out the week faster.

Lightning round! Unlike Bart Allen, I'm still alive, and the fastest reviewer from the 31st Century there is! 3X2(9YZ)4A and awaaaaaayyyyyy!

THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #4: For some reason, I'd become convinced that this book had dropped off the face of the earth recently - Maybe this issue is late, or maybe my sense of time has just become horribly distorted, but either way, this is worth a wait either real or imaginary. Mark Waid's sense of pacing and characterization, mixed with his ability to juggle tones, continues to make this book a fun and exciting joy each time 'round. Very Good.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #27: Now deeply entrenched in the moral ambiguity that made his Catwoman and Sleeper books so good, Brubaker has managed to make Captain America's series much more interesting without its star. As good as the book used to be, pre-murder, spreading the storylines around the supporting cast has raised the level in a way that I wouldn't have expected. You really don't miss Cap here at all, because his death manages to keep him an active presence, even as everything spirals out of control for everyone involved. Very Good, and enough to make you hope that Cap never comes back...

COUNTDOWN #45: Donna Troy with a machine gun. When you're trying to make that work seriously, as opposed to on a campy level, then that's your problem right there. Awful.

EX MACHINA #29: For all the hints about there being some kind of larger plot point happening behind the scenes, this issue - and all of the current storyline, actually - has felt curious unfocused, and the resolution reads as if working on Lost has given Brian K. Vaughan their inability to resolve a plot without a frustrating question that suggests that he doesn't have a direction. Disappointingly Eh.

THE HIGHWAYMEN #1: Mailed to me by the good folk at DC, for which I'm very grateful... Especially since this opener about some kind of retired special op agents being reactivated by the legacy of now-dead Bill Clinton is a surprising amount of fun. It's not likely to inspire anyone to change the world, but as a summer movie-type romp, it's a high Okay.

MADAME MIRAGE #1: Pretty much a disappointment; while Kenneth Rocafort's art is actually more attractive than the T&A images released may suggest (It's highly stylized, and the men actually get a similar over-the-top treatment - if less sexualized - to the women), it's the lack of clarity in Paul Dini's script that lets the book down hard. Awful, especially to fans of Dini's other work.

THE SPIRIT #7: While Darwyn Cooke's only involvement with this issue is the cute cover, the quality stays pretty high as the fill-in gets split between three different creative teams. Walt Simonson and Chris Sprouse play it the most straight, and to be honest, come off worst as a result, as light and amusing as their story is. Hitting a fine middle-ground is Jimmy Palmiotti, with a story that's very Eisner-esque in scope and humanity and paired with wonderful artwork by Jordi Bernet. Best of all is the Sin City parody by Kyle Baker, another example where he decided to play it broad and it works despite itself. Overall, Very Good.

For old times' sake, I'm going to give PICK OF THE WEEK to Captain America, because I feel as if it's defying the odds by not being bogged down by all of the hype around its central storyline, and that's an extra achievement outside of just being a good book in and of itself. PICK OF THE WEAK is Countdown because it's almost becoming depressing to read it each week at this point. But what did the rest of you think...?

Certainly I know I'm not about to: Graeme goes to space.

There are times that I just have to say that I'm wrong. Like, for example, when I said that I didn't really see what that whole Annihilation thing had to offer after reading the Annihilation Saga oneshot. I mean, sure, I wasn't really wrong about that - There was nothing special about that recap that would make you want to read any further into Marvel's particular brand of new space operatics. What I was wrong about was assuming that the whole Annihilation thing in general wasn't worth my time or attention. Thanks, then, to ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST PROLOGUE for showing me the error of my ways.

(And, no, I'm not being sarcastic.)

Interestingly enough, the thrills and spills in the issue come from just plain old solid good work - There're no showboating creators here, no out-of-character quips or overblown splash pages or plot twists that rely on the reader having read about these characters for the last twenty years. Everything that you need to know about the book to get it is in the book itself, and it still manages to be enjoyable. The tension builds because of the events of the book itself (although the old-school writing skills of Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning manage to work in some classic, enjoyably goofy, moments just to underscore moments; when Starlord says "Annihilus and his das't wave was a one-in-a-gazillion situation," it's a wink to the audience, the writers saying "Yeah, we're going to do it again. And bigger"), and the threat is understandable and familiar through pop-cultural memery - It's the Borg but moreso.

Mike Perkins is a strange choice for the book; his down-to-earth style initially at odds with a science-fiction book like this. But it works, because of that discrepancy; the alien eyes seem that much stranger and disturbing, and his ability to sell emotion gives the story the punch that it needs to be sold to the reader. Of course, the novelty aspect helps, as well - because you don't expect to see art like this on a book like this, it's a welcome surprise that endears you to the book that he's here.

It's a strong and intriguing start for (yet another) event book, and the ball could be dropped in the follow-up series. But for now, it's a Good story that makes me curious to see what happens next.

They say, Spider, come back soon again: Graeme reads the arachnids from 6/20.

You have to wonder where Marvel's traffic co-ordinators are these days. This week saw the release of five books starring Spider-Man. Now, I know he's got that whole movie thing going on and everything, but that's just ridiculous. I completely ignored Sensational Spider-Man because, well, it's about to be cancelled very soon anyway, but of the remaining four books, one thing became very clear very quickly - the only regular book of the bunch was the one that bore least relation to the Spider-Man I know and love.

There are multiple problems with AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #541, and the whole "Back In Black" storyline in general. One of them is that we already know the ending to one of the main plot threads, because we've been told that this story takes place prior to Brubaker's last Daredevil arc, where the Kingpin was alive and well, and released from prison... which kind of removes any tension over that whole "Will Spider-Man go too far and kill the Kingpin?" thing. Another is that that whole question existing in the first place shows how wrong-headed the storyline is: Of course Spider-Man's not going to kill the Kingpin; that's not who the character is. But then, he's also not the kind of character who says things like "Tell everyone... Tell the people you work with... Tell everyone in the whole wide world... that my family is off-limits. That nobody - - nobody - - touches them. For any reason. Ever. Tell them. Make them understand - - that anyone who tries moves to the bottom of the food chain... and becomes prey. And down here, in this food chain, the rats aren't the predators. The men with guns aren't the predators. I am." without it being a bluff, and yet we get pages of him being the "man pushed too far" here played entirely straight. I get that Peter's been pushed too far here, but I just don't buy his reactions at all. To me, he should get angry and then get over it, quickly, and end up questioning himself and wallowing in self-pity, making references to "The ol' Parker luck" or something.

...Which may be why FALLEN SON: THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA - SPIDER-MAN worked so well for me. Sure, David Finch's art has never been my thing, but Jeph Loeb gets Spider-Man in a way that J. Michael Straczynski doesn't. This Spider-Man gets angry and over-reacts, but does so in character, and realizes it, ending up all doubtful and feeling sorry for himself (and remembering Gwen Stacey, which is something that surprises me about "Back In Black" - Shouldn't he be thinking about Gwen a lot more? You know, the first person who died because he was Spider-Man? And no, I don't count Uncle Ben in that list, before Matt Craig suggests it - I'll get to that next). The character is recognizable as the same one that's been around since the sixties, and because of that, the reader is more involved and invested in what's going on. That's what makes Fallen Son a Good comic, while Amazing is pretty Eh.

MYTHOS: SPIDER-MAN, meanwhile, has Paul Jenkins and Paolo Rivera doing their painted origin thing for Peter Parker, and it works very well. It helps that Spider-Man's origin is so simple (and originally so short) that you can do it all in one issue and still make it work as a story as opposed to a recap, but there's a nice attitude to the writing, and even nicer artwork, behind this Good, if unnecessary, issue that shows that Peter Parker only really became Spider-Man (as opposed to a guy with some powers in a suit) when he started dealing with his responsibilities (Which is, to get back to my earlier thing, why I didn't include Uncle Ben on the list of people killed because of Peter being Spider-Man. To me, Ben died because Peter wasn't Spider-Man yet).

Meanwhile, over in SPIDER-MAN/FANTASTIC FOUR #3, Jeff Parker proves that old math formula (Anything) + Doctor Doom = Fun. The late stage addition of the good Doctor to this miniseries gives it a kick of the familiar that's been missing so far, and even though I'm not so drawn to the overall storyline, this particular issue was Good fun. Parker has a good handle on all of the familiar characters even if his big plot doesn't work for me (I'm secretly hoping that he's one of Steve Wacker's new Spider-writing team for when Amazing gets relaunched as the thrice-monthly Spider-book), and Mike Wieringo is just one of the best superhero artists out there, period. Cautiously recommended, I guess.

Mean Green Mother From Outer Space: Graeme watches the skies for 6/20

Wow, we're in the second week proper (After the odd "one month early" branding of the two prologue books) of World War Hulk, and it really does seem to be shaping up to be the little crossover that could, judging by the two crossovers that I read. Of course, this doesn't mean that the Heroes For Hire issue and Ghost Rider issues aren't crap but, I mean, come on. Ghost Rider's never been that good in the first place.

(And now I wait for the angry comments from Dan Way, even though I'm joking...)

INCREDIBLE HULK #107: Here's something I am slowly coming around to in this crossover - and it's almost entirely down to Greg Pak's writing in both this and the main event book, as opposed to anywhere else: The idea that the Hulk is a monster. Not in the traditional, misunderstood tragic, sense, but in the "He's just a bastard who is going to attack his friends who come in peace just because" sense. I knew that things weren't going to go well when Amadeus Cho (who I'm also warming to very quickly, as well; he's a very Marvel character, if that makes sense - Someone who still has to learn that whole great power = great responsibility thing, but who's extremely likable nonetheless), but for some reason, the way the scene plays out surprised me in the way that the Hulk comes across. The unpleasantness of the central character is offset by the new (and, sadly, probably only temporary) supporting cast, who are so much more enjoyable than they've been in a long time - the Angel is a likable character all of a sudden! Hercules is played for laughs without undermining the character! - that I kind of wish that the new not-Champions series had starred a reunion of the original team and been handled by Greg Pak and his artist of choice. Also managing to both undermine the current status of Hulk as "other" and keep the book interesting is the introduction of those who want to see the Hulk win for their various reasons; Pak's definitely taking the rough concept of the event and moving it into some more interesting areas in this particular book, leaving us with something Very Good, happily enough, and also something that almost makes me want to go back and check out Planet Hulk after all.

But I definitely want an Amadeus Cho series, if he comes out of this alive.

IRON MAN #19: Even though this issue is clearly marking time - allowing for the main World War Hulk series to conclude the "Hey, Tony's been beaten to shit!" cliffhanger from #1 of that book - Christos Gage manages to make lemonade with his first fill-in tie-in, helped substantially by Jackson Guice's artwork (the coloring? Not so much of a help - It seems very murky in places), showing both the events of WWH #1 from another perspective, but also a Tony Stark who comes across as less of a dick than he's been portrayed elsewhere but also less idealized than he normally comes across in this series. It's not enough to make me enjoy where Iron Man is these days, but it's definitely a Good step in the right direction.

(Also, the internal narration in this issue will make it really hard for Marvel to say that Tony's a skrull, if they end up going down that route - Gage clearly is writing this assuming that this is the same Tony Stark we've always known, and perhaps more importantly, manages to make the reader think the same thing. We haven't seen that in quite some time.)

It's still early in the whole thing, of course, and we haven't seen such unpromising series as World War Hulk: Gamma Corps and World War Hulk: Frontline yet, so there's still time for this whole thing to go south, but right now, I'm weirdly optimistic about this...