365 Comics...31: Higher Earth vol.1 tpb (2012)

This is unfortunately one of those books I came at too late, a book I should have loved and championed from the outset, only to discover it when it's already been cancelled.

Higher Earth is a grandiose science fiction epic, one that overreaches on occasion, sure. but any crazy sci-fi worth its salt should.  It start off small in scale but epic in scope on a planet of trash, an Earth with many moons in its sky from which garbage seems to perpetually fall.  A man one day falls from on of the moons, a most dangerous man named Rex, in search of a girl.  As we soon learn, the "moons" are not really moons, but dimensional portals, and this version of Earth is just one of many which serve the multi-dimensional Empire as landfill planets.   Other planets serve as population displacement projects, or as resource planets, or as elite territory, or as military and scientific centers.  The empire has conquered hundreds of dimensions and will continue to conquer hundreds more.  But Rex has the key, this girl from the trash planet, she can undo it all.  Theoretically speaking at lest.

Sam Humphries is still relatively young in his professional comics writing career -- having made his biggest splash with the futuristic sci-fi romance/bestiality one-shot Our Love Is Real -- so he's got no shortage of ideas.  Higher Earth, particularly, puts on display a dizzying array of SF concepts (my favourite are the utterly bizarre animal/cyborg exo-skeletons), rarely calling attention to them, just keeping them as part of the atmosphere.  His accomplices in this are penciler Francesco Biagini and  inker Manuel Bracchi, who quite ably bring all these concepts to the page.  Biagini and Bracchi work in a looser style than I prefer for my science fiction (I like tight pencils to show off the intricacies of the environments) so it took some acclimatizing on my part, but by the time Morning Glories' Joe Eisma adeptly fills in on the fifth chapter, I actually found I was missing Biagini's consistency on the characters.  This is a book populated with dozens of characters, but most are different iterations of the same two or three, so they need to be boldly designed so that they're readily identified as an analog, but also changed in design to distinguish each iteration.  Biagini and Bracchi resolve this exceptionally well.

 If there's a flaw with Higher Earth it's that it's a little to rapid paced for my liking.  I want to spend more time in each environment, and have a bit more insight into the effects of the Empire on its people in those environments (though, given the fact that the series was cancelled and he would have to compress his end game anyway, it's probably for the best it's this briskly handled).  At the same time, when things do slow down, particularly the fifth-chapter interlude detailing the creation of the Empire, it interferes quite a bit with the pacing.  Still, it's a testament to how rich and stimulating both the concept and execution of the concept are that I crave more. Maybe Humphries should continue it as a novel?

This trade paperback is exceptionally cinematic in its feel, and I think Higher Earth could be adapted into an exceptional A-list feature largely as-is (or a less impressive B-list movie with a smaller budget and few key set pieces).  I only mention it because any kind of mainstream exposure would probably allow Humphries and co to do more.

365 Comics... 30: Fringe: Tales From The Fringe tpb (2011)

12 pages is not enough to tell one satisfying Fringe story, never mind twelve.  There is not one satisfying story in this collection.  Vignettes, asides, and set-ups a-plenty but nothing integral to the show.  The story that gets the closest to being necessary is the Nina-centric "Plan B" in which a young Nina has to choose between her unborn child and her cybernetic arm. Unfortunately, the story sets up a plot/character arc that never came to fruition in the show.  Overall the collection is irrelevant to the show and the myth building is hoaky.  Bleh, what a waste of potential.

365 Comics...29: Action Comics #586 (1987)

One of my favourite comic book series of all time is DC Comics Presents, a 97-issue, 4-annual series that starred Superman and one other guest star each issue.  As a kid, before Who's Who came along, it exposed me to a vast number of different characters in the DCU pantheon and I loved it for it.  I loved it so much I've filled the gaps in my collection as recently as 2 years ago, though I haven't yet gone back and read them all.  I'm saving that bit of special something for retirement.  After completing my hunt for all things DCCP, I felt a little... wanting, or in need of some new sort of treasure hunt, so I thought I would extend myself past that and pick up the logical continuation of DCCP, John Byrne's run on Action Comics from about issue 580 - 599.

I actually bought many of these on their original issuance to the newsstands, but in the intervening years some have gone missing and others I never had, so I made a list and promptly forgot about it, until today, when I came across a handful of that 20-issue Action Comics run.  Unfortunately the only one there I knew I didn't have was this one, in which Superman teams up with the New Gods.

Okay, he teams up with Darkseid.

But not really.

Unfortunately, unlike DC Comics Presents, which did a great job at making fun comics out of big superhero team up spectacle, Byrne's taking this stuff way too seriously and this is the third part of a three-part story that crossed over from Superman #3 and Adventures of Superman #426 along with being a Legends tie-in (Chapter 19... those "Chapter Indicators" back then were such bullshit, since there was no logical story flow from one chapter to the next for the most part.  The only way they really connected was through the main Event comic itself, but I digress).  As well it seems, even with 25 years between me and the comic, that Kirby had just put the New Gods to bed and with this and Legends Byrne is throwing stones at their window and stomping his feet to wake them up again.  They needed their rest.

There is some absolutely terrible exposition bogging down the first 10 pages of this book.  Deathly dry and dull, particularly as Amazing Grace and Darkseid mince on and on about the grand scheme that's taking place in Legends. Snore!

The crux of this issue is Superman has been brainwashed by Darkseid into thinking that he is his son, and when Orion and Lightray come knocking, he's sent out to challenge them.  Meanwhile Lightray resists the temptations of the comely Amazing Grace, because, really, we all know that Lightray is totally Sam Wise jonesing for Orion's Mr. Frodo.

In the end Orion uses wits instead of brawn to defeat his amnesiac foe, and has Mother Box apply a mental remedy so that Supes is all normal-like again (but minus the memory that he slaughtered hundreds of Darkseid's servants during a quelled uprising.  Because, as Orion explains, that's not something a champion should worry about, and that he's something special (methinks that Orion is perhaps Sam Wise-ing for Superman's Mr. Frodo).

365 Comics...28: Deadpool Killustrated#1 (2013)

I'm not squeamish when items to violence or gore.  What tends to repulse me is stupidity, and the psychopathic id that is Deadpool is the definition of the word. He's a one-note character whose murderous antics become very tiresome to me very quickly.   I've largely avoided the character knowing quite firmly that he wasn't for me, and yet I keep getting suckered into picking up his books: the random issue of his backwards-numbered Deadpool Team-Up or the Kyle Baker-illustrated Deadpool Max, or comic Brian Posehn writing the Marvel Now Deadpool series.  I never last more than 2 issues though before the mind-numbing sets in.  

Deadpool Killustrated suckered me back in with its rather glorious cover as well as Cullen Bunn on writing chores.  This is a ridiculous comic but one that is so clever and so smart it is baffling to me that a conceit this ingenious is used merely to service the rampant death-dealing and mayhem of comics first officially retarded character.  And I do mean that literally.  He's a really, really dumb guy with serious mental challenges.

I'm in awe of Bunn's metatextual extremes here.  He's hitting Morrison levels of inspiration, but its so wasted on a character that is barely a character.  Are Deadpool's die hard fans constantly high? It's about the only way his popularity makes sense to me. 

I suppose there's something Looney Toons about him, a bloodthirsty Bugs Bunny, but even with my tolerance toward  bloodshed I just can't seem to like him. But I do like this invading Classic literature as well as the multidimensional angle Bunn is taking it so I'm torn about whether to pick up issue two.  Bunn is close to transcending the character, but all to often the conceit of Deadpool drags it down.

This series particularly brings Deadpool very close to Ambush Bug territory for me, the kind of character fully aware of his place in the world, both fictional and real.  But instead of the Bug's style of pranking and pestering the characters in the fictional universe and its creators, Deadpool is solely out to kill them all.  Sigh.

365 Comics...27: Avengers Arena #3 (2013)

Picked this one up in order to do a massive review (for Thor's Comic Column) of the most dangerous game retreads (see also Threshold from DC and Deathmatch from BOOM!).  Here's a snippet of what's in the works, subject to change:

While I haven't read the first two issues, diving within the pages I cannot escape the Battle Royale or Hunger Games comparisons. But then, you're not supposed to. Most tellingly, the Avengers Arena's logo is a flagrant copy of the Battle Royale shield, while the Greg Horn cover to issue 3 is a brazen pastiche of the flaming Mockingjay symbol from The Hunger Games. Marvel isn't even trying to hide the fact that it's just doing it all over again.

365 Comics... 26: Malaria

This may be a bit of a cheat but I'm just so damn impressed.  This is a new style of comic books, motion comics, animation and cinema. It's a new form of visual storytelling.  It's like shadow puppetry and sequential arts had a baby.  I don't see there being a revolution towards this type of story presentation but it certainly feels innovative and artistic, fresh and different.  It's a slight story but certainly captivating in its uniqueness.

365 Comics...25: Batwoman #16 (2013)

The title of this third story arc in the Batwoman series, "World's Finest", is a reference to the classic Batman/Superman team-up series of the same name.  Often, when a Bat-family member meets up with a Super-family contemporary, they use the "World's Finest" moniker for such a meeting (Superboy/Robin, Supergirl/Batgirl, that sort of thing).  But that to me seems like a dilution of the phrase.  If Batman and Superman are truly the "world's finest" then it kind of stands to reason that gender-alternates and junior versions are more like copies of the world's finest.  But here, with Batwoman pairing with Wonder Woman, it feels truly appropriate, not analogous.  Batwoman, more than any other member of the Bat-family, does not feel like just a member of the Bat-family, but a truly autonomous hero.  Greg Rucka, and J.H. Williams III, ensured that Batwoman's origin and development wasn't at all dependent on Batman or Bruce Wayne.  Keeping her independent of Bruce Wayne's Batman, Inc. initiative (likely Morrison's nod of respect to his "52" co-creator) served to further increase her distance, and the bulk of Batwoman's stories -- in Detective Comics prior to Rucka's departure, and the lengthy wait for Batwoman's return with the New 52 -- she's been defined as her own character, never measured up to her counterpart.  To me, she's the most interesting character in the DCU, and has been since her inception.  A thoroughly complex character, written by Rucka and continued by Willams and W Haden Blackman as exceptionally grounded, fallibly human.  There's been little trace of myth building that typically accompanies superheroes.

So it's definitely a wonderful dichotomy to put the most grounded of heroes beside one of the most infamous and powerful, and have her face down an ever expanding roster of monstrous enemies, leading to this issue where Medusa and her cadre of freaks lead a full fledged assault on Gotham, upping the stakes dramatically with a hydra... sorry, THE Hydra.  Williams, the genius illustrator that he is, along with Dave Stewart, the brilliant colorist that he is, fade the Hydra into the background, like looking at a mountain across a vast distance.  It's true enormity a mere concept, but still incomprehensible.  It's wrecking the city, and having destroyed Batwoman's home and headquarters, she feels the effect of this monstrous invasion intimately.  The fight she's in isn't just a job, this isn't like being in the military, this isn't following orders, this is something she's committed to, the motivation coming from within.

Williams and Blackman construct this issue as a hybrid comic and illustrated prose.  Each two-page spread wavers between a look inside the thoughts of the books players -- Batwoman, Wonder Woman, Maggie Sawyer, Medusa, Chase, Flamebird (in her particularly triumphant return) -- in prose, with an elaborate mural illustrated by Williams, and more conventional word-balloons sequential art.  Williams is ever pushing the comics medium in visual storytelling also seems to be doing so in his scripting with Blackman.  

I was just commenting on how Brian Azzarello is slowly laying out Diana's character in the pages of Wonder Woman, building her myth by making her largely a character of action and intelligence, with hints at her compassion.  In the pages of Batwoman, Williams and Blackman provide some of the humanity Azzarello has willfully restrained from showing, and yet equally maintaining her image as a woman-of-action, intelligence and compassion.  We're in a Wonder Woman renaissance, with these three writers.  I've been ignoring Justice League since the first are, and Wonder Woman made little to no impression on me during that time (characterization doesn't seem to be a focal point of that series), but I've heard tell that Geoff Johns doesn't quite adhere to the same template.  If so, it's a shame, because she's better than she ever has been right now in Azzarello, Williams and Blackman's hands.

The Thor's Comic Column gang had an email discussion today about why DC seems to be floundering and Marvel succeeding.  One of the points Adam made was that in his opinion "DC's universe is the one that's set up to emphasize standalones and relegate continuity to the backburner, plus it's more obviously kid-friendly, and yet Marvel's the one that's acting the way I think DC ought to be acting."  I heartily agree with him, but these two books are the rare and strongest exceptions in the New 52.  With Azzarello and Cliff Chiang (and alternate artist Tony Akins) on Wonder Woman and Willams/Blackman here on Batwoman, DC is doing what they should be doing, giving premiere creators largely free-reign to tell their own stories and not worry so much about what the larger picture of the New DCU is supposed to be or care so much about continuity.  I *could* ask whether Wonder Woman's appearance in Batwoman predates her receipt of her gauntlet-swords (a gift from Hephaestus) or not... but it doesn't really matter and is irrelevant to the story at hand.  Continuity itself does not make good storytelling and DC editorial in grand sweeps seems intent on cramming it down its writers throats as if it were all its readers demand.  I'm glad to see these Marvel-like oases in their lineup.