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Advance Review: DC VERTIGO 2015 PREVIEW
CAPTAIN AMERICA: WHITE #1
TOKYO GHOST #1
Marvel’s SECRET WARS BATTLE WORLD Travel Guide Part XVII!
DC VERTIGO 2015 PREVIEW
Writers: ManyArtists: Ditto
Publisher: DC Vertigo
Reviewer: Rob Patey (Optimous Douche if you’re nasty)
OK, I’m a dick. I do this ‘review” with my tongue more than implanted in cheek, but surgically grafted by the same master that adhered Caitlyn’s tits to the man we once knew as Bruce. How could I not? After thirty-six years of TRULY reading, imbibing and copiously cataloging comic book continuity into my cerebellum, cynicism is now a mission imperative. I do these reviews and weekly Podcast not for ego, but in an earnest endeavor to correct ships I see going astray. While Vertigo 2015 Preview may not be the most scintillating story on the shelves this week, it’s probably the most important piece to hit my doorstep this week.
At age 41. I have crested the mark of comparison judgements that plagued my haughty thirties. While I never seek to directly balance against what has come before with what we have today, amputating nostalgia isn’t as easy as a limb. The permutations of my 90s wonder years come wafting back deep within my sense memory. When Karen Berger showed me what comics could truly be under a mature adult charge so many Milli Vanilli years ago, I became forever tainted and ultimately jaded by a comic industry and market dynamic we will not see again. Again, I do not lament what simply is. I merely offer perspective to anyone who is old as fuck like moi, and looking at the Autumnal resets across all comics as a catalyst to rise from ashes to a new comic collecting phoenix.
(/Sermon Off) Let’s look at what NYCC press will unleash on our pull lists in 2015 and beyond:
TWILIGHT CHILDREN
Writer: Gilbert Hernandez
Artist: Darwyn Cook
After NEW FRONTIER, I would read any book by Darwyn Cook, even if it was just Lucille Ball shitting in a box and Ricky Ricardo developed a new bongo babaloo about the event. Darwyn gets nostalgic imagery, and that’s what the made NEW FRONTIER so unforetable and possibly a nasty hurdle as he tries to transcend to stories set in contemporary times.
I wish the story of TWILIGHT CHILDREN has left me as titillated Cooke’s ability to innocently capture our current societal angst towards…well…everything with his juxtaposed imagery. The pictures are cute, but also hella sad as we all sit and patiently wait for second comings, or silly answers from our supposed “leaders.” An orb serves as salvation to the children of a small South American town in the throws of global economic meltdown . Jesus is now an orb, as opposed to a corn-fed white boy from then mid-west. Salvation is now equipped with a great rack and a greater rack of mystery surrounding her. Neither of which were exposed enough in these five preview pages to make us middle-age white males give any resounding round of fucks about the book’s existence. If I didn’t do a ton of trave in South America this book would have had zero impact on me as a person. Tread cautiously fellow followers of the comic book flock.
UNFOLLOW
Writer: Rob Williams
Artist: Mike Dowling
I’ve had a man-crush on Rob Williams ability to blend societal woes into the fantastical, I went so far as to sign my first intellectual property to the same label where Rob started. My deal shit the bed, but Rob used his CLA$$WAR indie catalyst to stand before judge, jury and executioner with this second big-leagues book, ROYALS.
Part of me is wafting vapors of Ernest Cline’s “Ready Player One” in virtual-reality haptic ham fisting when I red the abstract for this book. The preview pages though presented a different paradigm from the PR. This book is me; if I was allowed by HR to methodically hunt down and kill all my employees who skunked their attempts at social media over the years. In the future, the incompetent can atomize the stupid or unfit.
I like what I see in the 3 preview ages of UNFOLLOW for its social reflection. I LOVE what I see for the promise of a more democratized and self-served tomorrow. I don’t really understand a damn word going on though.
LUCIFER
Writer: Holly Black
Artist: Lee Garbett
Lee, you draw a pretty picture. An even bigger testament to your talent than on first blush, because your backdrop was the most uninteresting city in America, Los Angeles.
Then there’s the story. Ms. Black did well given a fucktarded editorial mandate to dovetail this book into the show coming out. Simply by making this book a murder case they lost all the power of Mike Carey’s ten volume run that explored all of our eternal questions on the human existence.
God is dead. First time around he just abandoned us, leaving the winged assholes in charge of humanity’s fate. Last round with LUCIFER we followed the peaks and perils of him trying to create a side-step universe BETTER than what God did with this one. Deep shit that makes you think. Here, God is somehow dead and Lucifer is accused. See the difference? How the old material left the door open for other questions to be explored? See, how in this case that God was murdered and now Lucifer solves murders? Irony or lazy, you judge because I am done. Also, instead of a psycho hose- beast as his sidekick he now has a cat in a tux, so that makes me hate him simply by his staffing choices.
This marks the end of preview pages for titles, but there are more books on the docket. Some look decent, but I thought the above calvacade held more promise than what was delivered.
I suggest Vertigo rethink their strategy at this point to be way more Avatar in nature. Placate your big guns with an almost fully creator-owned deal on finite miniseries. The true glue of Vertigo back in the day was that our favorite DC heroes could be slathered in darkness by their deconstruction kin. Today’s DC Universe doesn’t have enough cohesion in and of it self because of the WBs prostitution principles in selling media to the highest bidding producer. You can’t build a house without a foundation. You also can’t go home again, time to rename it all folks to preserve history and propel new thinking beyond simply adding a new suit to an old suitor.
When Optimous isn't reviewing comics he is making the IT words chortle and groan with marketing for MaaS360, Enterprise Mobility Management. He also has a comic coming out sometime soon, for updates head to robpatey.com.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: WHITE #1
Writer: Jeph LoebArtist: Tim Sale
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: Masked Man
Well it's been a while, so long that it wouldn't have been too surprising if Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale never got around to ever finishing their third Marvel Comic color series CAPTAIN AMERICA: WHITE. Loeb and Sale first came to fame working together on the Batman Halloween specials (this was after a short lived CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN series), which spun out into the LONG HALLOWEEN and DARK VICTORY. After which, they moved over to Marvel to do DAREDEVIL: YELLOW, SPIDER-MAN: BLUE, and HULK: GRAY. They then announced CAPTAIN AMERICA: WHITE in 2008, but as years when by, nothing. In the meantime, Sale got even more famous creating the on-screen art for the TV series HEROES, and Jeph Loeb became the Grand Poobah of TV superheroes. Mostly in the realm of Disney XD cartoons and Netflix series these days. So you could see how neither might not be able to find the time to finish CAPTAIN AMERICA: WHITE- but here we are.
If you haven't read YELLOW, BLUE, or GRAY (to which I say get off you butts and pick them up now!), WHITE is following in the same pattern, with one twist. All four of these stories deal with a formative year of the respective hero, and their feelings of, arguably the most important women in their lives, who they would later lose. Although with Captain America, Loeb is going with Bucky Barners (Captain's old partner) instead of a woman (reminds me of an old Justice League of America panel, where the heroes are all worried about their girlfriend's safety, and Batman is worried about Robin- it's father thing, I get, still funny though).
Getting into the plot (and spoilers), the story, taking place in WWII, has Captain America and Bucky sent North Africa, to hook up with Sgt. Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos (who would later form S.H.I.E.L.D. in the 60's. In shades of the recent Captain America movie, Fury sees Captain America as a joke, opposed to a real soldier. He's also not that impressed with Corporal Steve Rogers either. After paying some serious homage to old Lee and Kirby Captain America war stories, Loeb sends everyone out on their first joint mission. One that quickly goes very very wrong- i.e. cliffhanger time.
While being a celebrated writer, Loeb is also known for being ham fisted at time. But when his overly emotional and thoughtful narratives connects with characters worthy of such a treatment, it's brilliant work. As it is here, with Captain America narrating the tale. He's waxes on about the war and his involvement with the 'doomed' Bucky Barnes. This first issues starts out just as great as YELLOW, BLUE and GRAY. Giving great insight into the characters, amidst their earliest exploits.
As for Tim Sale, I must say I wasn't fond of the cover, but looking at the first few pages, he's just as great, if not better, as always (should I nitpick on how the hell Giant Man fit in that room?). His dark, moody, dynamic and elegant artwork is always a pleasure to see. He has a great way of delivering story, as well as great panel drawings. Changing up styles, between flashbacks and present (I assume) works really well and looks great too. With the flashbacks being more painterly. The page in the old movie theater, with Cap lite up on the silver screen, is just awesome.
This issue also reprints the earlier released issue #0 (from years back) and a nice little interview with Loeb and Sale. But best of all, it seems they haven't lost their touch in working together. CAPTAIN AMERICA: WHITE seems destine to be another classic outing.
TOKYO GHOST #1
Writer: Rick RemenderArtist: Sean Murphy
Publisher: Image Comics
Reviewer: Humphrey Lee
Something like six weeks ago it felt like that as far as the Internet comic book community goes and is wont to do, there was a new crusade a brewing as far as the matter of Artist credit and merit goes when acknowledging a comic work. A lot of it came to a head because of the wind down on the “Matt Fraction HAWKEYE run” which of course featured a lead design and goddamn glorious layouts from master craftsman David Aja for roughly half the run and people were feeling he, and artists in general, were getting short shrift when even a critical darling of a book such as that gets referenced as the writer’s. More or less it sparked a debate about the importance of the visual style and storytelling to a comic and how it may be getting taken for granted and a bunch of other viewpoints that I mostly agree with to varying degrees and should probably discuss in greater detail at some point, AICN content overlords approval pending. But I’m willing to invoke this “debate” here for a bit of subterfuge in regard to discussing the new Rick Remender and Sean Murphy joint, TOKYO GHOST, because quite frankly I’m not quite sure what the fuck I read here, but I’ll gladly dive in again just to soak up some of that amazing Sean Murphy design.
TOKYO GHOST and Sean Murphy go together like Mohawk and leather jackets do your average Rancid concertgoer because, if anything, this book is a heavy dose of Millennial Cyberpunk Future Theater. The world has turned chrome and shiny on the surface but acidic and toxic in the waters below, and every one is jacked in and distracted pretty much all of the time by explosions and mindless violence. You can tell by the caption boxes and what passes for dialogue in the book that Remender was going for life in this near future as a reflection of gaming and tech culture come to full fruition with TOKYO GHOST. Everyone is fervorous for fervor’s sake, nothing is private or quiet, empathy is dead and the next rush is all that matters. Meanwhile, Constables and book protagonists Debbie Decay and Led Dent have sacrificed a bunch to try and leave it all behind, and here they are in this debut putting a little bit more on the line to get somewhere where the constant buzzing is silenced.
I think this book could have used a little bit more of that tranquility.
Something kept feeling off to me as I was going through the pages of TOKYO GHOST even though I was digging the visual feast that was cooked up in every single panel. Everything being presented felt excessive for the sake of being excessive, and even I know that’s the point of the book I feel like maybe it was being rammed home to often to make that point. I’m not joking when I say that TOKYO GHOST is pretty much a Red Bull overdosed, video game binge rendition of the future and the book goes to literal lengths to depict this for us. The brain implant hacking, homicidal cutout of a villain known as Davey Trauma that is the main focus of Debbie and Led’s attention comes complete with optical implants that render everything into a gaming Heads-Up Display, has a cybernetic arm styled like a Nintendo Power Glove, and loves to talk about how much Pwning he’s doing and mentioning “the feels” over and over. He’s representative of some of our more base urges and trends of our online culture and is the perfect metaphor for the society that is the setting of TOKYO GHOST and it gets kind of wearisome after a handful of pages, even if the chaos he is instigating looks absolutely gorgeous underneath Sean Murphy’s pencil tip.
Mind you, I don’t think this is a generational weariness, I’m a first wave millennial who grew up on this cacophony, I just think it’s more a case of going a little repetitive to drive your setting and themes home. I understand it’s a first issue and that’s key to setting the tone but there’s also a balance between that and the true heart of the book that should be struck, and I think the latter gets some short shrift here. Because at its core TOKYO GHOST is a love story between our two eclectic, tank-motorcycle cruising leads. The reason Debbie and Led cruise these futuristic Los Angeles streets doing what they do is so they can get away from all this noise and calamity and into a scenery where the tech is dialed back and people are in a “simpler” state. This jacked in and enhanced framework has left Led a shell of a functioning brain in order to obtain the hulking but distracted piece of muscle he has become and Debbie wants to get them away from it all and hopes to pull back out the man she loves from that massive shell. We know this because Debbie kind of interjects this information occasionally into the narrative boxes as TOKYO GHOST until going on into full exposition mode on everything I just described over the last handful of pages after they take down Davey Trauma and she, y’know, takes off her shorts and mounts Led in order to bring him out of his chemical haze. Romance isn’t dead in this future it seems.
And I guess that’s my real issue and why I didn’t complete buy into this Remender/Murphy debut, so far at least, outside of the art; it’s a distracted book about a distracted society and I don’t completely buy that is was ALL on purpose. I think the themes are apparent from the get go, and it’s a fine conceit and send up considering the way our culture seems to be shaping out, but it takes everything to eleven not just because that’s a funny joke about how excessive everything has become, but because it’s a joke and also HOLY SHIT BALLS LOOK HOW RAMPED UP EVERYTHING IS GUYS!!! Even to the point where the actual emotional clasp to this book ends with an awkward, over-sexualized “cliffhanger” about how the struggle to save their relationship may be over before they’ve even had a chance to make it to their own “promised land.”
I think that there’s a point where you maybe buy too much into your own over-the-topness when creating something as unfettered as what TOKYO GHOST presents us, for good and for bad, and too much time of this premiere is spent in that zone. I understand wanting to grab your audience by the ears and primal scream into their face that shit done be fucked up but you need to also let up from time to time to catch a breath and to catch an emotional hook to really keep them coming back. TOKYO GHOST kind of only really did that for it’s last two pages and then it kind of did it with a base and empty gesture. Again, I guess that’s the world they live in and could be what Remender is going for with the scripting, but with that style of execution so far I have not really been sold on anything other than this world done be fucked up and Sean Murphy’s art alone made the price of admission worth it and is what keeps me hopeful to try out the rest of the first arc so I can see what else this book shapes out to be, if anything. This could just be it, this could be TOKYO GHOST distilled given some of the places Remender’s nihilistic tendencies tend to take his writing, but like we’re supposed to believe in these two crazy kids, Debbie and Led, making it in this world gone mad, I’ve read enough Remender books to believe that there’s emotional depth here that he’s just getting started on plumbing.
Humphrey Lee has been an avid comic book reader going on fifteen years now and a contributor to Ain't It Cool comics for quite a few as well. In fact, reading comics is about all he does in his free time and where all the money from his day job wages goes to - funding his comic book habit so he can talk about them to you, our loyal readers (lucky you). He's a bit of a social networking whore, so you can find him all over the Interwebs on sites like Twitter, The MySpaces, Facebookand a blog where he also mostly talks about comics with his free time because he hasn't the slightest semblance of a life. Sad but true, and he gladly encourages you to add, read, and comment as you will.
SECRET WARS BATTLEWORLD TRAVEL GUIDE Part XVII
orDoes it technically count as “murder” if it’s an intergalactic blue warrior woman? The written law is a little fuzzyish about that.
By Henry Higgins is My Homeboy
Previously, on Secret Wars… hahahahahahahahaha Red Skull thought he was gonna beat GodKingDoom hahahahahahaha
ARMOR WARS #5 (James Robinson & Marcio Takara)You would think that, in a world controlled by a megalomaniacal Tony Stark, that there would be more Pacific Rim mechas running around. But no, it turns out that those are the brilliant innovations of two girls working in a small lab underground, and Tony was in no way prepared for that. I would have expected to see one mech buster, at least. Alas, Tony doesn’t think far enough ahead, and gets caught monologuing CONSTANTLY, and that’s why there’s a new number one in robot city.
SPIDER-VERSE #5 (Mike Costa & Andre Araujo)While our band of merry Spider-people (and pigs) try to contend with a really confused Thor, Peter Parker is up on the George Washington Bridge, calling out Norman Osborn because Peter Parker is the fucking best. Even powerless, he’s pumped to ruin that dickhole’s day. Norman learns a thing or two about how durable cartoon pigs are, especially when they also happen to be Peter Parker. I mean, he would have, if his brain hadn’t gotten melted.
AGE OF APOCALYPSE #4 (Fabian Nicieza & Iban Coello)Fucking Apocalypse, you’re useless. You unleash a variant of the Legacy Virus (ugh) that causes power overloads in mutants, and then you have the gall to complain when you start to get the sniffles? Asshole. I mean, okay, he was exploding at the time, so he was otherwise occupied, but still. But now that he’s gone, the true villain stands revealed as… Dr. Nemesis?!? YES. YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES.
GUARDIANS OF KNOW-WHERE #4 (Brian Michael Bendis & Mike Deodato)Look, things on Knowhere have been confusing this whole time, with that one guy who showed up and got merc’d, and then theology debates, and then Drax being the voice of reason. But all of that confusin can be simplified when you cut through the bullshit, like the random blue Kree lady does. Literally. She shows up, screams a lot, and stabs people. In her defense, that does just jump us straight into an actual plot, I guess, but also, maybe reconsider your options when plan A is stabstabstabstab.
HOUSE OF M #3 (Dennis Hopeless & Cullen Bunn)Pietro and Namor (are they screwing? I actually think it would be a nice touch if they were screwing) have officially won the war against Magneto within a few minutes, and the reign of King Pietro has begun. The thing is, he still sorta has to deal with Wanda. And her kids. And Lorna. And Magneto. And also Hawkeye I guess, which is just funny. But now humans are being rounded up at an absurd rate, and the fate of the world may lay in the hands of Deathlockette, because this is the best event ever.
Come on.
Magneto has to team up with a half cyborg teenage girl to go blow up giant robots.
Come on. THAT’S THE KIND OF SENTENCE THAT PROVES WHY WE READ SUPER HERO COMICS.
SPIDER-ISLAND #4 (Christos Gage & Paco Diaz)OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE PETER, THE FUCK. Look. Your morality is awesome. It is. It’s the best part about you. But, there are limits. And your no killing policy is really nice when all of New York hasn’t been mutated into giant spider people with super powers. Spider Iron Fist has six arms! That’s a problem! And if the cure to that problem is maybe killing the ancient magical demon witch, then you kill the ancient magical demon witch. Man, Flash!Venom had the right idea and should have just shot her with his Venom gun.
INFINITY GAUNTLET #4 (Dustin Weaver & Gerry Duggan)Sooooooooo. Okay. This world has Adam Warlock in it, and if I try to explain who that is, we’ll be here all day, so I’m going to give you some bullet points about this sector.
Point one: There is a dog who has super powers in this world.
Point two. That’s adorable.
Point three: Thanos just OBLITERATES people in this world.
Point four: That’s less adorable.
Battle-World Travel Trip!
Spider-Man’s morality is great, but do NOT let him the lead the heroes during the apocalypse, because he’s an IDIOT.
Proofs, co-edits & common sense provided by Sleazy G
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