Top of the Pile 5/18/16

The book that made it to the top of my pile isn’t necessarily one I would normally pick up. I would have picked Civil War II #0, since that’s going to be the big bad Marvel summer storyline. But instead I read Future Quest #1. I did this because I’m giving it to a colleague here at work (she’s a big Hanna Barbera fan).

Future Quest is a new comic where DC plays around with old Hanna Barbera properties. In this book, Johnny Quest and his crew meet up with Space Ghost, Birdman, The Herculoids, and other cartoon classic adventure characters from back in the day. This first issue, written by Jeff Parker, is setting everything up. Something is breaking through to Earth and Dr. Quest is determined to find out what’s happening before his nemesis Dr. Zinn does. And of course, it’s all the super, outer space type characters that are popping into Johnny’s world. So far, it has potential. But like many stories that has tons of characters, we’ll see how Parker is able to enhance the story without getting too bogged down.

The artwork is done by Evan “Doc” Shaner and Steve “The Dude” Rude and keeps with the style of the old cartoons. I actually think Steve Rude has been practicing drawing Space Ghost for almost his entire life. But they make use of all the great designs from the cartoons, as well as a sad timely shoutout to Darwyn Cooke, who I guess helped with some of the designs.

So I’ll check back and see if my colleague wants me to continue picking up these books for her. If so, I’ll more than likely give them a read before handing them over. Otherwise, I don’t know if I would add this to my regular comic purchases.

Other books this wee:

Civil War II #0

Snow Fall #4

Wonder Woman #52

All-New Wolverine #8

Old Man Logan #6

Top of the Pile - 4/13/2016

It’s kind of a thing in literature these days to have unreliable narrators. Books like Girl on the Train tells the story through the eyes of a character who is completely within her own world. So the cool part is finding out what “really” happens in the story, because you can’t trust the person telling it to you. The one main character in the Marvel Universe that this happens to is Moon Knight. That’s why this book was my first read this week.

I have mentioned my fondness for the writing of Jeff Lemire, and he now is taking up the insane world of Marc Spector, the Moon Knight. In this book, Marc is in a hospital getting beat up by orderlies. Marc then learns from his doctor that he’s been in the same hospital since he was 12 and Moon Knight is just a delusion. He doesn’t remember anything and still hears the voice of the Egyptian god Khonshu, guiding him to fight his way free from his captivity. So, what is “really” happening? Since it’s a comic, we assume that there really is a god and that Manhattan is being overrun with flying dog headed warriors. But that would be crazy. Right?

The artwork by Greg Smallwood with colors by Jordie Bellaire is pretty cool. During the flashback sequences, Greg uses a colored pencil style where the lines are not smooth and inked. (Kind of like Gene Colan back in the day) And even plays with the panels. There is one page where Marc is going through electroshock and the panels form a large exclamation point. One thing to note is that reading this through Comixology, I didn’t see this element. But on looking through the print book, it was very obvious and made the page more dramatic.

So I will definitely continue picking up Moon Knight. The character is bat shit crazy, and I’m looking forward to seeing how Jeff Lemire tells his story.

Top of the Pile - 4/6/2016

The book that landed the top of the pile this week is Black Panther #1. Not because of the character or his place in the whole Marvel Universe, but because of the writer, Ta-Nehisi Coates. He is not a comic book writer, but rather a poet and journalist who is best known for writing the best selling Between the World and Me.

This book raises some interesting questions. What does it mean to be a king today? How does one rule over people when they have absolute power? What responsibilities does the Black Panther have with his country?

Though the first issue was really cool, it is just the setup for what hopefully will be a good story arc. Ta-Nehisi, for his first try at comic book writing, is pretty good. Often when a non-comic writer first starts writing for comics, they tend to be much too wordy not letting the pictures add to the narrative. But with this book, a good portion of the story is conveyed wonderfully by Brian Stelfreeze.

Interestingly, this book was pulled automatically by my local comic shop because the last time Black Panther was in his own book, it was penned by the best selling novelist David Liss. And with this new book, another famous non-comic world writer is making his mark.

Top of the Pile 3/9/2016

The All-New Wolverine wound its way up to the top of my pile this week. With the cover by Bengal having a Charlie’s Angels vibe, that was the main reason for me to read this book first.

This is issue number 6 in the All-New Wolverine title. Logan isn’t Wolverine anymore. Instead its Laura Kinney, also known as X-23, who has taken up the mantle of Wolverine in the post Secret Wars world. And this is the conclusion of a pretty good, but very derivative story. In this story line, it turns out there is another secret science group making clones of clones as assassins. And coincidentally, the clones happen to be of the new Wolverine. And in this book, Wolverine and her sister-clones take their vengeance out on the scientists and security who created them.

The writing by Tom Taylor is, again, ok. Nothing too over the top. But nothing horrible either. The plotline gets wrapped up tightly. But the one good thing is that he isn’t too wordy. He allows the artist, David Lopez, to carry some of the storytelling.

So I don’t know if this was the best book I picked up this week, but it was the first one I read.

Others I picked up:

Descender #11

Detective Comics #50

Doctor Strange #6

The Mighty Thor #5

Spider-Man/Deadpool #3

Old Man Logan #3

Deadpool #8

Legend of Wonder Woman #3

Uncanny X-Men #4

A-force #3

Top of the Pile 2/10/2016

This was a large week where I picked up some issues that I missed last week. (Though I didn’t review it, last weeks first read was Mirror #1 by Emma Ríos and Hwei Lim.) And this week was another Image book, Descender #10 by Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen.

Descender is a comic set in the far future, where aliens and artificial intelligence are normal. And interplanetary travel is common. There is an A.I. in the form of a boy named Tim-21, and he seems to be the key to the survival of all life in the galaxy.

There are many aspects of the book that I like. After 10 issues, you begin to have a feeling of the motivations of all the characters. And as Jeff Lemire does with his much of his writing, relationships are the driving motivator for almost all the story actions. Tim-21 was left abandoned on a mining colony and only had a digging robot and a mechanical dog as companions. After decades of being alone, Tim-21 is found by two humans, Tesla and Quon (Mom and Dad?). Both of which have family backstory that affect their attitude and actions. Tim-21 also has an older “brother”, Andy, who is a grown man and is searching for his “little brother”. And Lemire ties this all this relationship mess together in a galaxy threatening story.

And the art by Dustin Nguyen is, in my mind, almost the exact opposite in style for a hard science fiction story like this. He uses watercolor and pastels. With almost minimal background details, and wonderful character designs.

For these reasons, Descender made the top of my very large stack this month.

Other titles I picked up this week:

Velvet #13

Batman #49

James Bond #4

Manhattan Project: The Sun Beyond the Stars #4

A-Force #2

Injection #7

All-New Wolverine #5

Detective Comics #49

Uncanny X-Men #3

Deadpool #7

The Legend of Wonder Woman #2

Spider-Man/Deadpool #2

Top of the Pile 1/27/2016

The comic that made it to the top of my pile this week was Old Man Logan #1. Marvel is doing the “All-New All-Different” thing after the extended Secret Wars shakeup. And with Old Man Logan, what was a stand alone story by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven now becomes a regular Marvel series.

Written by one of my favorite storytellers, Jeff Lemire, Old Man Logan is lifted from the Mark Millar world of desolation into the contemporary Marvel world. This makes it seem to be Logan’s past, since the people in the Millar world who are dead are still alive in the Marvel world. And events that destroyed the civilizations in the Millar world haven’t happened in the Marvel world. Confused? Yeah, me too.

But I trust Jeff Lemire. He is great at telling time travel stories. (Check out his book Trillium) And he doesn’t skimp on the wild nature of Logan. Indeed, the title of this story is “Berserker”. Old Man Logan, once he believes he is in his past and can correct the future, immediately makes a list of people to kill to ensure that his bleak future doesn’t come to pass.

The artwork is by Andrea Sorrentino and it is really good. Not a typical “Marvel” style, he uses softer colors and a lot more shadows. We don’t really see Logan’s full face with it mostly concealed in darkness. The fight sequences are highlighted with sound effects, which makes them feel more kinetic. And though his expressions are subtle in a realistic style, his figures are really nice and substantive.

I’ll tell my comic shop owner to add Old Man Logan to my sub and when it get collected into a trade, I’ll let our teen librarian know it’s something we might want to pick up for the library.

Otherwise, it was a large week for me.
Batman #48
Deadpool #6
Wonder Woman #48
Angela: Queen of Hel #4
Black Magick #4
Chew #54
Monstress #3
The Legend of Wonder Woman #1
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #3

Saga #33

Top of the Pile 1/13/2016

Top of the pile this week is the final issue of the Secret Wars mini-series from Marvel. With delays and extensions, we finally read the conclusion of the multi universe altering storyline from Jonathan Hickman, Esad Ribic and Ive Scorcina. With this being the last book in the series, my explanation will have some spoilers. But I’ll try and keep them not too blatant.

I’ve always like the work of Jonathan Hickman. It’s almost always really out there in its scope. He takes huge, horrible, existential situations and boils the solutions down to individual choices and actions. And in Secret Wars, after destroying all the different universes with in the Marvel continuum, he stages a fist fight between Reed Richards and Dr. Doom for the fate of everything, That’s pretty cool.

The artwork, by Esad Ribic with color by Ive Scorcina is interesting. Certainly not the classic Marvel/Kirby style. Esad uses softer lines and the colors Ive selected are more subtle. The draughtsmanship is excellent with characters displaying strong emotions both in their facial expressions as well as their body language. But it does lack some of the kinetic feel of Marvel books. But for this story, the action pack fist fighting isn’t necessary.

I’ll ask out teen librarian to pick up the collected volume of Secret Wars for our collection since it’s the latest in the re-defining of the Marvel Universe. And I suspect it would be a popular book among our teen readers here.

Other books I picked up this week:
All-New Wolverine #4
Injection #6
Descender #9
Paper Girls #4