The other thing that hit upon rereading them all (and, at long last, the point of this post) was how many of them I’m still happy with. Like most people who do anything creative, I hate the vast majority of what I write upon rereading, seeing only typos, overused tics, bungled attempts to be more clever than I am, and a dozen other reasons why I should pack it all in and never lay fingers to keys again. And while there’s plenty of that spread over the dozen or so columns I managed, I’m ultimately pleased with how much I managed to get right. With that in mind, and to keep them from disappearing in to the ether like so many other things I’ve written for web sites over the years, I’ve gathered all of Comics Are Expensive here on my blog-thing. Each are timestamped with the day they first went live, as the Dead Milkman did that once with a tour diary from the eighties and I thought it was clever. You can find them by clicking on the Comics Are Expensive tab in the column on the left, or by clicking on the links I’ve handily included below.

1. Teen Titans #55, Avengers: The Initiative #9, Suburban Glamour #3, Captain America #34, Northlanders #3
2. Fantastic Four #554, Tiny Titans #1, Nova Annual #1, Uncanny X-Men #495
3. Umbrella Academy #6, Immortal Iron Fist, Crossing Midnight Vol. 2
4. Rasl #1, Kick Ass #1, Action Philosophers Vol. 3
5. Atomic Robo #4-5, Buffy the Vampire Slayer #12, PS238 #29, Casanova #12
6. Comic Book Comics #1 and Maintenance #9
7. Incredible Hercules #115, Fear Agent #19, The Boy Who Made Silence #1
8. Transhuman #1 and Proof #6
9. Echo #1-2, Resurrection #1-4, Criminal Vol 2. #1-2
10. The Damned: Prodigal Sons #1, Scarlet Traces Vol. 1
11. Invincible Iron Man #1
12. Minx Special
13. Superman Beyond #1

And now, on with the show.

As it turns out, all manner of places. Since around the time of, oh, say, the One Year Later jump following Infinite Crisis, DC have come to realize that maybe it would be a good idea to treat one of the most recognizable and beloved characters of the last century with a bit of care. Placed in the steady hands of Kurt Busiek, Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, and now James Robinson (among others), the last few years have been some of the best of the characters existence. For the first time since I started reading comics, Superman feels fresh and new, an important, vital character worth caring about rather than the stuff-shirted Boy Scout or angsty, occasionally living impaired bore of old. It’s a nice feeling to be excited by the arrival of new Superman comics, as if something has been set right that was wrong for a very long time.

If you haven’t sussed out where this is all going yet, this week’s column – and maybe the next couple of columns, for that matter – is a look at what makes Superman tick. I want to spend some time taking apart three recent titles starring the last son of Krypton, namely Final Crisis: Superman Beyond 3D, Superman and the Legion of Superheroes, and the final issue of All-Star Superman. While I’m aware that two of those books are from the same writer, I think each manages to explore a different facet of the character that, when combined with the others, helps flush out what it is about him that works so well in spite of all the challenges inherent to his nature. Besides, I think I’ve done a rather good job of restraining my desperate want to gush about Morrison at you, and I deserve a break. So there.

Spoilers, as is their wont, potentially lurk ahead.

FINAL CRISIS: SUPERMAN BEYOND 3D
WRITER: Grant Morrison
ARTIST: Doug Mahnke

Of all the great and many things Finalizing and Crisising during DC’s Final Crisis event, one of the more notable aspects of this latest universe-wide rejiggering is how its spin-offs are handled. Using mini-series to fill in certain gaps in the main story or give side characters more time on the stage is a time-honored tradition of epic events in comics, as is the tendency of publishers to field out the job of cranking them out to creators who aren’t nearly up to the task. Not so with Final Crisis – with Greg Rucka on Revelations, Geoff Johns on Legion of Three Worlds and Rogue’s Revenge, and Morrison handling Superman Beyond and the forthcoming Submit in addition to the core book, DC seem to be going to the necessary lengths to ensure each major component of their big event maintains a certain level of quality. While there’s no telling how long the ramifications of this latest bout of Things Never Being The Same will last in the DCU, here’s hoping this idea sticks around for a while.

What makes Superman Beyond stand out from the others, however, is more than just it coming with neat 3D glasses – while the other mini-series tend to wear their purpose on their sleeves (Revelations looks to be about defining Crispus Allen in his new role as the Spectre, Legion is here to provide yet another reboot for the main book and introduce the future to Superboy Prime’s impression of message board trolls, etc.), Beyond is a bit more cagey with its intentions. Is it a chance to bring the Bleed – and with it, the Wildstorm universe – in to the DCU proper? Is it an exploration of the origin of the Monitors? With the sheer level of insanity stirred up in just the first issue, the answer could be any number of things – and really, that’s just fine. With so many of the other minis broadcasting their purpose from the start, Beyond opens with the most traditional scene imaginable – Lois is in trouble, and Superman has to save her – and in so doing lays the groundwork for a story that can go anywhere. Cue adventures.

And lord, what adventures. Boarding a ship looking like the Beatles’ own yellow submarine and setting off through the multiverse with a crew made up of the Supermen of other worlds, I think it’s safe to say this is the last thing anybody expected to come out of Final Crisis. And yet, when you really think about it, it’s right at home. While the main Final Crisis book is Morrison retooling his usual style into a sparser, more layered approach that feels reminiscent of The Wire, Beyond arrives with all the mad, tightly packed joy of his usual work, cramming each page with dozens of little details demanding your attention. Both are shot through the same filter of creeping dread, giving each story the sense that something somewhere just isn’t quite right for our heroes, but here it feels so much more immediate and tangible, like the moment in Alien just before it turned out to be a horror movie all along. When it works, it works wonderfully. The manic, pace, the rapid fire of moments both goofy (“4D vision upgrade”) and beautiful (Superman wrestling the Destroyer through the skies of parallel worlds over the course of four pages), the sheer sense of scale as the Monitor’s ship breaks through the arterial wall of one universe en route to another – it all adds up to create the sort of dazzling and berserk situation that Superman shines in.

After years of being strictly a Marvel reader, it was a friend of mine loaning me a couple of trades of the early part of Morrison’s JLA run that started to pull me in. What won me over the most, beyond even the League having legitimate, world-ending threats to face each arc and Batman beating up Professor Stephen Hawking (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) was his portray of Superman as completely unflappable, a steady presence to inspire those around him no matter what the situation. It’s something Morrison has talked about in at least one or two interviews as the cornerstone of his take on the character: when it’s nearly impossible for you to be killed or hurt in any way, what on Earth would you have to worry about? Here, with the multiverse crumbling around him, his wife a heartbeat away from dying on the other side of existence, and trapped in Limbo with a man in a jester’s costume, that same cool confidence positions him as the perfect counterpoint to the surrounding madness. While he may have started the book at the edge of helplessness over Lois’ condition, all it takes is the suggestion of a solution to put him back in the game. He’s Superman. This is what he does. Reality will just have to kark it some other day.

Of course, it doesn’t always work. The story and 3D fanciness found on about a third of the pages often trip over each other, making a confusing muddle out of the gorgeous Doug Mahnke art, and that just shouldn’t be allowed. This can be especially problematic considering how dense the book is – like much of Morrison’s work, you’ll probably need to read it at least twice to work out even most of what’s going on, something that the cardboard glasses included don’t exactly help with. Between the sheer number of characters involved both new and old and the mad piling up of one event on top of another, Beyond can very quickly overwhelm even the most dedicated reader, causing the book to feel less like a series of beats and more like a drum roll. It’s a shame, really – while not exactly failing at its intended goal, the mash up of sights to see and ideas to wrap your head around presented here never quite gels in the way Morrison is typically known for, leaving a work that, while rewarding for those willing to come along for the ride, will most likely bounce of more casual readers.

It’s hard to shake the feeling that, once all is said and done, Superman Beyond will be considered the weakest of Final Crisis’ minis. In terms of structure and fitting comfortably with the overall tone of the series, they’ll probably be right. Personally, however, I’m just happy it exists, and will happily take its gimmicky glasses and occasionally messy din of a story over a more traditional tale any day, especially when it features Superman casually doing the impossible at the frequency he does here. The DC Universe might be an increasingly dark place to live, and evil may very well have won before the good guys ever got out of bed, but how bad can it be? Superman’s here, and we’re lucky enough to get to watch.

Apologies for the long absence – summer tends to be completely insane at my day job of making videogames, what with publishers wanting things out the door in time for Christmas, and mine was swallowed whole by work this year. But things have calmed down a bit and I’m back now, filled to bursting with a backlog of large words about comics just desperate for an audience to assault. You lucky devil, you.

For the uninitiated, a quick explanation of what’s going on: Comics Are Expensive is (ostensibly) a weekly column where in I take apart my recent purchases to see if they’re worth my hard-earned dollars. This first installment back is a bit of a cheat, as the books in question aren’t out yet, but as one arrives later this month and the other at the beginning of October, and I plan on buying them both once I’m able, I figure we can let it slide. Both titles are from Minx, DC’s line of graphic novels aimed at teenage girls, which after just over a year of existence is still one of the better ideas anybody in comics has had in a good long while. Next week should see the return of things I’ve already swapped money for, honest.

Potential spoilers ahead. And maybe dragons.

JANES IN LOVE
Writer: Cecil Castellucci
Artist: Jim Rugg

A year and change ago, The Plain Janes was Minx’s opening salvo on comic shops and bookstores. And it was good. Better than good, actually – The Plain Janes managed to push past my inherent cynicism over anything specifically geared towards a younger audience to find and lift up the thin shred of hope I had that DC actually knew what they were doing. It was a fun, mature work, complete with a believable and engaging cast that I wanted to know more about from page one. If there was a problem with the book, it was the lack of a “Volume 1? or something like it on the spine to let readers know that the somewhat abrupt end of the story wasn’t, in fact, the end. Hardly the most annoying thing in the world, and given the books position as the first step of a fledgling comics brand into the wider world, an understandable one. Not much sense in promising a second volume when you don’t know if anybody’s going to buy the first one, yeah?

Happily, The Plain Janes – along with the Minx line overall – appears to be doing rather well for itself. It’s not that surprising, considering author Cecil Castellucci’s background: she’s an award-winning YA author with a reputation for crafting realistic characters and putting them in stories that refuse to talk down to their audience. When it’s reaching the point where I can’t even get my regular dose of Boing-Boing’s Cory Doctrow declaring anything with gears glued to it to be Steampunk without seeing a new article praising her talents, it’s safe to say she’s on to something. The Plain Janes was my first exposure to YA fiction not involving magical British kids in ages, and was a complete breath of fresh air compared to the books I remember being told were “just for me!” at that age. The story of four girls bound together by a common name and the need to somehow express themselves in their safer-than- safe slice of suburbia, it tapped into the teenage need for individuality, that impulse to do something, anything special to fight against the heard in a way that I would have killed for at fifteen. That it was all drawn by Jim Rugg, half of the creative team behind yesterday’s indie darling Street Angel was just icing – lovely, graceful icing full of little detail and moments that made the story just shine.

Janes In Love, the first sequel to The Plain Janes (and of any Minx book, actually) picks up the story nearly a year after our last bittersweet encounter with the Janes, and wastes no time getting back in to it. The regular attacks of public art they pull under the name P.L.A.I.N (People Loving Art In Neighborhoods, ‘natch) are just starting up again after the last one ended in the arrest of Damon, not-so-secret crush of P.LA.I.N. leader Jane Beckles. As before, their actions amuse and impress some in the community and enrage others, most notably Officer Sanchez of the local police. This, year, however, there’s a new force working against P.L.A.I.N’s late night artistry – a Sadie Hawkins-style dance is coming up, and one by one each of the girls become kinda-sorta obsessed with taking just the right boy along. Because boys ruin everything.

As the story progresses, Castellucci delves further in to the realities P.L.A.I.N’s particular style of artistic expression brings with it – namely, art is expensive, and civil disobedience can get you arrested just as fast as its less noble cousins. The answer to both problems comes in the form of an empty lot in just begging to be transformed and the Metro City Museum of Modern Art Contest, where the lucky winner receives a healthy chunk of funding for their proposed art project. It’s a great continuation of the previous volume’s themes, building off the “see, anybody can do this” message of the first one by adding “and here’s a first step you can take towards something bigger”. The result is an important message for readers of any age, showing what regular people can do when committed to an idea while staying mostly grounded in the reality that it won’t be easy. I say “mostly” only because of the climax – while The Plain Janes managed to end on a romantic but real note, the resolution to Janes In Love’s dilemmas feels a bit too neat. It’s a teen movie, “and they all lived happily ever after” ending, and seeing how at its heart this is a teen movie in comic form, that’s good enough. Still, though, it can’t help but nag.

For all its merit, though, the main plot of P.L.A.I.N. trying to realize their goal of reinventing their community through art is merely the backdrop for some fantastic character pieces. Jane’s mother takes the next step from her role of frightened, over protective parent in the first volume to blossom in to a full blown agoraphobic after a friend of hers back in the city is killed in a terrorist attack, becoming a quiet shell that Jane and her father keep trying to breathe life back in to. Sure, trying to reconnect her with the world provides a handy reason for Jane to keep fighting to see her project realized, but its best work is as an elegant reflection on Jane herself, and how she handles herself when reality becomes too much to bear. Elsewhere, trouble brewing amongst the ranks of P.L.A.I.N. provides one of the more realistic looks at life after high school I’ve seen in a good long while as the first signs of the fault lines along which the group of friends will inevitably split make their first appearance. I’m doing my best not to spoil either here, so suffice to say that the first is one of the more empowering scenes I’ve seen in so-called YA fiction, while the other is certainly one of the most bittersweet.

While it doesn’t quite hit as hard as The Plain Janes, Janes In Love still leaves an impression as a more than worthy sequel. Taken as a whole, Castellucci and Rugg’s work practically justifies the existence of the Minx line all on its own. While this latest volume could easily work as the end of the story, it’d be a genuine shame if this were the last comics work we get from the team. There’s always room for more optimism with its feet firmly on the ground, after all.

EMIKO SUPERSTAR
Writer: Mariko Tamaki
Artist: Steve Rolston

Where to start with Emiko Superstar? The back-of-the-book tagline (”Not often, but every once in a while – amazing stuff happens to former geeks”) didn’t exactly inspire confidence, despite the promise of art from Steve Rolston, he who has been scientifically proven to be incapable of doing wrong. I had no idea who Mariko Tamaki is, outside of her short bio proclaiming her to be a writer, performer, and playwright. By now I trusted the people in charge of Minx to recruit writers from outside or on the fringes of comics who knew what they were doing, but still. In a choice between the sequel to a book I really enjoyed and a new effort from an unknown, well, it wasn’t much of a choice.

Happily, I now know exactly who Mariko Tamaki is. She’s somebody who understands.

Emiko Superstar is the story of a high school girl named – wait for it – Emiko, and the long, strange summer bridging the gap between who she was and who she should be. Painfully awkward and more than a little bit boring at the start, Emiko is a failed coffee shop employee turned babysitter doing whatever she can to get through the dead, friendless months between one school year and the next with her head down. All is going according to plan until a chance encounter with Poppy, a regular feature at a Warhol-inspired performance space called The Factory. What starts with a flyer from a girl in face paint and dreadlocks quickly snowballs in to a secret life for Emiko, the sort that, if you’re very careful, eventually takes the place of your boring real one.

It’s a coming-of-age story, obviously. And while the same can be said of much of the Minx line up, Emiko Superstar is easily one of the most touching, realistic, and ultimately important ones around. While DC’s Little Graphic Novel Line That Could has produced all manner of stories I’ve enjoyed, this is the first to hit me square between the eyes with something I could relate to beyond the usual teenage drama. And not just because I am in fact a teenage girl myself, oh no – it’s because if there’s one thing Tamaki understands, it’s the long, grueling process of establishing your own creative voice.

Sometime after being introduced to the Freak Show, the weekly variety night at The Factory, and being bitten by the idea of becoming one of its performers, Emiko discovers the diary of the mom she babysits for. Rather than the bored tale of suburban angst one might expect, the diary is a litany of regrets, a growing hatred of her husband, and longing for the person she’d rather be with. Realizing the potential power of what she’s stumbled on to, Emiko copies as much of it as she can and turns it into fodder for a series of monologues at the Freak Show, becoming an instant hit and ascending to the ranks of its most popular regulars.

It’s a shitty thing to do, taking somebody’s innermost secrets and turning them in to fodder for a performance piece. It’s also one of the most honest portrayals of the first fumbling steps most people take towards creating their own artistic identity. Far too many stories about creative types have their protagonist as either some fount of inspiration and beauty just waiting for the world to notice or as an everyday person just waiting for that special mentor figure to unlock their true potential. This is all well and good for them, but when you’re young and first trying to pick out your own way, there’s nothing more frustrating than reading a book or seeing a movie where unique perspectives worth listening to are handed out as toys with the kid’s meal. The truth tends to go more like this: you start out as a really bad cover band of somebody else’s style, and then star layering other somebody elses on top of that. Eventually, if you’re really lucky, you’re able to cast off the bits that don’t work and pound the ones that do in to something that’s distinctly yours. So yes, Emiko’s actions are selfish and cruel and more than a little heartless, but they’re also not too far from the (sometimes) passable Warren Ellis impression I was doing at eighteen when I decided to get more serious about writing. Either way there’s more than a little theft going on (albeit some more overt than others), and to have a book actually own up to it makes me wish I had a time machine to chuck it in to for the benefit of my past self.

Almost as important is the other lovely examination of one of more critical steps of growing up: discovering your first social scene. The Factory and its owner, the otherwise unnamed Curator, form the center of the counter-culture scene in Emiko’s little town, drawing all sorts of people with different colored hair and interesting bits of metal wedged in their faces. Emiko’s early reaction to it all – that is to say, fleeing in terror – is all too painfully familiar to my own (ahem) first interactions with what passed for scenes in my own small town, and I imagine a lot of people will find themselves wincing sympathetically. Tamaki and Rolston do a fantastic job of capturing the inevitable arc of that first encounter with something so new and different – the early fascination with it all (complete with the initial desperate need to belong), the more-than-human stars everybody else orbits around, and the eventual disillusionment. It’s as neat a dissection of scenes and their gatekeepers as you could hope for, laying out the good and bad with the precision of some one who’s clearly been there. The world of The Factory isn’t all good, and (as with all scenes, inevitably) it’s slowly being torn apart by its own drama. As Emiko Superstar makes clear, however, it’s all worth it for the chance to see what you could be when you grow up.

Mariko Tamaki understands, and has created a story that went from something I wasn’t sure about to one of the best Minx has produced so far. With the perfect partner in the form of Rolston, who packs each page with so much detail and life that you’d swear the characters move if you aren’t watching them closely, they’ve produced an incredibly honest look at what it takes to reinvent yourself that should be required reading for any one remotely interested in pursuing the arts in any way. Please oh please, let them do another.

And that’s it for this week. As always, if there’s anything you think I should check out, feel free to drop a line to chrislamb@gmail.com and let me know all about it. See you next time, yeah?

I managed to get out for under ten dollars, though, so I suppose that’s something. Next week I should be back to picking up new things again, which will satisfy the maddening itch that inevitably takes over the back of my brain every Wednesday. In the meantime, it’s a bit of a short one this week, with just the one book to talk about. I’ll try to be back to my usual level of verbosity next time. Potential spoilers lurk ahead, as usual.

INVINCIBLE IRON MAN
Writer: Matt Fraction
Artist: Salvador Larroca

Opening up Invincible Iron Man on the walk through Madison Square Park back to work, a realization hit me: this is the first Iron Man comic I’ve ever bought. Oh, I’ve read plenty of them – friends have tossed me runs of “Demon in a Bottle” and “The Armor Wars” over the years, both of which were great. I’ve just never felt moved to pick up any of the character’s solo stories myself. To be honest, I probably would have left this on the shelf if not for the helpful confluence of a couple of things: enjoying the hell out of the Iron Man movie last week, and Matt Fraction’s name on the cover.

The Iron Man movie succeeded on a number of levels – its cast was excellent, the story was remarkably tight, getting through the obligatory origin and first villain fight with hardly any fat, and the pacing ensured even the quieter bits never slowed things down too much. It was the sort of movie-going experience that left me wanting more the moment the house lights came up, creating a near-desperate need for something as clever and fun as the movie to maintain the happy momentum I was buzzing with all through dinner afterwards and on the way home. I’d never considered myself a big Iron Man fan (at least, not outside the old Avengers arcade game), but for a version of the character more like Downey Jr’s take and less That-Guy-Getting-Deservedly-Punched-In-She-Hulk-This Month, I was wholeheartedly ready to sign up.

Which makes Invincible Iron Man just about the perfect thing to find on the shelves the Wednesday after seeing the movie. The history of comics trying to align themselves with versions of the characters seen in their movies is one of botched attempts and missed opportunities, with companies either hijacking the long-term plans and storylines of their creative teams in the name of potential new readers or going the other way and completely ignoring the chance to appeal to them. Marvel deserve a lot of credit then for hitting upon a solution that works better than any in recent memory – rather than toss out all the continuity of the last few years that has positioned Tony Stark as arguably the most important character in the Marvel Universe, launch a new series that streamlines it all, presenting the character as both superhero and director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and written to feel more like the character so many came out of the theater in love with.

The result is the best take on Tony Stark I’ve seen in years – he’s funny, arrogant (but deservedly so), brilliant to a fault, and so completely convinced that what he’s doing at any given moment is the right thing that it’s hard to doubt him. The weight of what the character has been through in the last few years seems less apparent here, and while it’s just the first issue I can’t help but feel that it won’t be showing up any time soon. It’s part of why Invincible Iron Man is such a good idea – if you want to see Stark continue to wrestle with the aftermath of the Civil War or fight Skrulls or whatever, there’s the other on-going Iron Man title (and much of the rest of Marvel’s output, frankly). Invincible Iron Man looks to be (and with any luck, will turn out to be) an event-free zone. It’s the solo adventures of Iron Man doing what he does best – finding problems and applying his big brain to solving them.

The first problem of the series appears in the form of Ezekiel Stane, son of the late Obidiah and genius mass-murdering psycho. Whatever his plan is, it’s clear he’s been working on it for a while – Ezekiel’s body has been modified to take advantage of its excess energy in rather nasty ways, and he’s been creating human bombs out of what looks all too much like Iron Man tech. He’s clearly being positioned as a younger, faster counter to Stark’s entrenched ways of doing things, and the inevitable confrontation is all but guaranteed to end in a mess. Ezekiel is a smart choice for an opening villain, tying not only into the villain from the movie but also echoing the theme of the son overcoming the father from both the comics and the screen. You’re an old-school Iron Man fan? Great, here’s something for you. Your only exposure to the character is two hours in a dark room with Robert Downey, Jr? Then hey, here’s something for you, too.

As mentioned earlier, Matt Fraction’s involvement was another draw for picking up the book, and he doesn’t disappoint. Fraction’s grasp of the characters is immediate and extremely satisfying, from the back and forth between Tony and Pepper in the elevator to Tony’s inability to stop thinking of new things to add to the suit even when being shot at and beyond. I can’t say how much of it rings true with the how the characters have been written recently, but honestly, I don’t really care. It’s smart, it’s believable, and most importantly, it’s exactly what I wanted. While Larroca’s art varies from beautiful in places to a bit muddy in others, it’s nice to see him producing work again that’s not photo-referenced to the point of distraction. Between the two of them, this arc stands to be something truly lovely, and I really can’t wait to see it continue.

Perhaps most important of all, though, is this is the first Marvel comic in a while that I’ve immediately wanted to start pushing on people. While no movie is going to send a million people into the shops like Burton’s first Batman did, Marvel’s approach to creating a friendly point of entry here has produced a book that can be handed off to pretty much anybody without an afternoon spent explaining why the character here isn’t like what they saw on the screen. And maybe that’s the way to hook those interested in more of the character but put off by the years and years of continuity: put out a version of the character that can be easily passed from comics readers to their uninitiated friends that’s both easy to get in to and doesn’t throw the current status quo into utter disarray. If Invincible Iron Man can continue with the same strength and grace it’s opening with, then comics may have found the recipe for the perfect gateway drug.

BUY STATUS: Very much in for the foreseeable future. I was still a bit bummed over Brubaker and Fraction leaving Iron Fist, but this could very well take its place as my favorite Marvel book.

And that’s it for this week. Again, apologies for the extremely short installment, and for the every-other-week nature of the column recently – the day job making videogames is taking up more and more of my time and energy as things get busier, so I’m afraid it might be the norm for a while. Thanks for your patience with me, and with any luck things should eventually return to normal. In the meantime, if there’s anything I should be reading or talking about, drop a suggestion in the comments thread or via email to chrislamb@gmail.com. See you next time.

I know, okay? I know. Before the con, and even up to standing in the corral waiting for the doors to open Saturday, it sounded like a great idea. The (ha ha) thinking behind this was something like Hey, I live in New York, where there is a fairly healthy number of comic shops. Instead of blowing my comics budget for the next several weeks on things I can probably get another time, why not pick up stuff I can’t get anywhere else? Like original art for the apartment, Chaotic starter sets (it’sforworkiswear), and funnel cake? A bit optimistic, sure, but as goals go not necessarily a bad one.

You can probably see where this is going. Within minutes of the doors opening I’d already picked up two books from Tokypop and was eyeing the Dark Horse tables for more than their giant yellow bags. While there were panels to keep me away from all the shiny things on Saturday, all bets were off Sunday, with the show floor swallowing me up and spitting me out with a bag full of treasure and a considerably lighter wallet. It’s hard to be disappointed in myself – really, could it have ended any other way?

So the bad news is that, between the art and books and everything, I can’t really afford new comics for the next couple of weeks or so. The good news, however, is that I have enough new things to easily fill the gap between now and then. It helps a little to think this was my master plan all along, but self-deluding only goes so far with bank statements.

Potential spoilers ahead, as always. Here there be plot points.

THE DAMNED #1
Writer: Cullen Bunn
Artist: Brian Hurtt

When the first limited series of The Damned appeared on my radar last year, it wasn’t until the very end – I started reading one issue before the end, which was helpful in terms of not having to deal with the monthly wait between installments but a little disappointing in that there wasn’t going to be a regular flow of it. It was the sort of book that grabbed me immediately, blending a number of my favorite things – noir, stories that drop you into the middle of things, the supernatural, and the nagging feeling of reading a Tom Waits song – into a nicely twisting story backed by some very lovely artwork. By the time I’d put down the first issue, I was already putting together a mental list of people who very much needed to read it.

For those of you other there who haven’t had the book forcibly shoved on them by me, the short version: The Damned is the story of Eddie, a guy floating somewhere between “two-bit hood” and “lowlife” with an interesting twist – he can’t stay dead. Oh, he can die easily enough, and does so on a regular basis, but all it takes is something alive touching him to bring him back (at the cost of whoever did the touching, naturally). Eddie’s world is a nasty one, made up of a nameless town during the prohibition era where the underworld isn’t just a fancy word for the criminal element. Demons live amongst us, controlling organized crime and never letting the cowering populous forget who’s boss. Over the course of the original series, Eddie found himself stuck between a rock and a number of hard places, including a war between demon gangs, the strange gray place he visits every time he dies, and an ultimate power play that would have seen the demons replaced with something possibly worse. When last we saw him, he was running a club under one of the most powerful families around and looking to finally enjoy life a little.

Not that any of it was meant to last, of course. Before catching up with how Eddie’s been, though, the new issue first flashbacks to introduce us to his family, hinting at a much happier time of his life and the dark dealings between his father and a particularly nasty bunch of demons. It’s a nice moment, setting up not only an issue dealing more with Eddie’s estranged brother than Eddie himself but establishing that the whole thing with the demons running things behind the scenes has gone on for a good long while. It’s a simple but effective scene, building nicely on top of what we saw of how the world works in the first series. Only in a world abandoned by god and given over to the monsters could a guy like Eddie be the hero, and this briefest of looks at what he grew up with provides just enough fodder for your imagination to have you sympathizing with him by the end.

The rest of the book deals with Eddie reconnecting with his aforementioned brother Morgan as part of a frankly insane plan involving what might be the current location of their dead mother’s soul. There’s some serious history between the two (which will no doubt be delved deeper into over the next two issues), including a connection between the curse keeping Eddie alive and the strange tattoos covering most of Morgan’s skin. Perhaps even better than the requisite weirdness, though, is how well their scenes are written – Bunn establishes their relationship so quickly and firmly that everything past the first few panels of their meeting in a bar is just gravy. Their troubled relationship might not offer anything that hasn’t been seen before, but the skill with which its fleshed out packs more grace and subtlety than I’ve seen a comic manage for quite some time. It also provides a welcome change in perspective on the ordinarily cool and collected Eddie, which is always fun.

While any one who read the original series will feel right at home, things may be a bit rougher on new readers. With only three issues for the story there’s not a lot of time for playing catch up, and the weight of some scenes will most likely be lost without the context of the original series. That said, the broad strokes of what got us here are present throughout the issue, providing just enough detail to fill in new readers (and whet their appetites for the convenient trade of the original series, a mere $14.95 from Oni) without ruining the good bits, of which there are plenty. The Damned was a fantastic work, creating a world both eerily familiar and strangely horrifying at the same time. While it might only be three issues, “Prodigal Sons” appears to be picking up where it left off without missing a beat.

BUY STATUS: In for the duration, and secretly hoping this shortened series means we’ll be getting another one before the year’s out. The Damned is pure fun through and through.

SCARLET TRACES VOL. 1
Writer: Ian Edginton
Artist: D’Israeli

Scarlet Traces is the sort of thing that makes me wonder if I have some sort of deep-rooted psychological trouble that’s caused me to blank out at any time during the last few years, as it’s the only real way to explain how I haven’t heard of it before seeing it at the Dark Horse booth. An unofficial sequel to War of the Worlds, dealing not only with what England did with all the Martian technology lying around at the end of the invasion but her plans for an offensive against the red planet? Clearly some sort of Durden-esque double life is the only way to explain how I could have missed a book so clearly written just for me. I suppose spending my lost time looking like Brad Pitt and sleeping with Helen Bonham Carter makes up for it, though. Maybe.

As touched on above, Scarlet Traces takes place in a post-Martian invasion England, a land transformed by the salvaged technology of the would-be conquerors into a steampunk (minus the steam) slice of the future where cars walk on insect legs, homes are warmed by modified versions of the deadly heat ray, and the country has isolated itself from the rest of the world, resentful over their lack of help during the war and hording all the treasure for themselves. It’s a cold place, for all its advancements, feeling very much like a child pretending to be an adult. While London rejoices in her Martian makeover, one doesn’t have to look too far to see the bad that came along with the good of the country’s great leap forward. More and more factories in the rural areas are becoming automated, with families so desperate for work that anything – including an ad looking for young women to work as housemaids in the big city – is worth jumping on if it means putting food on the table.

The central mystery of the book is built around one such want ad, pulling war veterans Robert Autumn and Archie Currie out of semi-retirement in the name of tracking down Currie’s seemingly missing niece. The plot naturally thickens along the way, with the trail to the lost girl becoming littered with buildings blown up to hide evidence, thugs packing pocket heat rays, and a homeless Sergeant finding and his pet dog finding emaciated bodies along the muddy banks of the Thames. All of this leads somewhat inevitably to a larger conspiracy, and while its revelation towards the end isn’t exactly a surprise, the scope and potential of the plan make it more than worth the wait.

Which is both a good and bad thing. In building up to the story’s turning point, Edginton and D’Israeli seem almost restless with their more mundane detective story, eager to just get through it and finally embrace the more fantastic elements. It doesn’t hurt things too much – the larger story of Autumn and Currie getting closer and closer to the madness lurking behind England’s brave new world is still a good read, but compared to the twists and turns things take from the start of chapter four on it can’t help but come off lacking. It’s a slow boil beginning that’s just ever so slightly off to such a minor degree that you might not even notice till you’ve finished the entire thing. Not a huge thing, but as I’m running out of ways to say “it’s really, really good” I thought I might gripe a bit to inflate my word count.

And it is really, really good. D’Israelli’s art is completely on throughout, creating machines and buildings both incredible to look at and slightly horrifying to consider. Edginton’s script drives home at every turn how little people have changed despite their wonderful new toys, creating a cast of characters ranging from tragically noble to the sort of disgusting that only comes with being sure you’re doing the right thing. Scarlet Traces is a thrill to read, a genuine new world built on the remains of the old and just the sort of thing comics were built for. For all the comics I read, few of them manage to stay with me after the fact. Yet even now, days after gobbling it up after getting home from NYCC, I keep getting distracted imagining the clatter of a traffic jam made of six-legged cars on cobblestone streets. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

BUY STATUS: Sorely tempted to throw sense to the wind (yet again) and grab the second volume immediately, but remaining strong. First thing on the list once I’m back in a cash-having way, though.

So far, so good. Next week will see more Con purchases, and maybe the week after that, but don’t let that stop you from recommending anything coming out in the meantime via the comments or an email to chrislamb@gmail.com. I’ll be keeping a list of what I’m missing at the shops for when I can pick things up again, and may even be checking it twice. See you then.

Still, new comics. Onwards.

ECHO #1 & 2
Writer & Artist: Terry Moore

Ah, Terry Moore. Much like Jeff Smith, Moore’s creator-owned Strangers in Paradise was an important book to me growing up. Unlike Bone, however, which remained the only comic I read for years after getting fed up with Marvel and DC of the time, SiP was more instrumental in helping defining my tastes and tolerances – specifically, my tolerances for contrived, meandering storytelling pulling in everything from the mafia to deadly gangs of female assassins to keep it’s “will they or won’t they” hook dangling for as long as possible. While the first three trades of the series still stand up fairly well, everything past that sees the characters stuck in arrested development, making the same decisions and giving in to the same waffling till the very end, when everybody not named David magically gets a happy ending before the curtain comes down. Moore deserves a lot of credit for his work on SiP, but the extreme jump off the rails the series took and never recovered from should also serve as a cautionary tale to all would-be writers about the importance of being brave enough to kill your darlings.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s move on to Echo, his newest self-published book. While only two issues in, the series is already off on a stronger foot than SiP plot-wise, largely because it has one. While the early days of Katchoo and Francine involved a lot of Moore trying to figure out what he wanted to do with them, Echo’s Julie appears to moving in a definite direction, complete with a proper major event to push her in it. While taking pictures in the Californian desert, a lady in a special metal suit and jet pack explodes several thousand feet over her head. The resulting debris rains down on her, polka-dotting her and her truck with drops liquid metal that refuse to come off. Upon getting home, a larger piece of metal found in her truck bed causes all the dots to merge into one, creating a sort of breast plate with a weird logo in the center that tingles when threatened and shocks jerk doctors. All in all, there are worse freak accidents.

Along the way, we get bits and pieces of Julie’s life, such as it is. She lives alone in a cabin with her dog and a stack of unpaid bills. Old divorce papers decorate her kitchen table, and she’s still wearing both her engagement and wedding rings despite the regular messages from her ex telling her it’s time to move on. She has family in Seattle she never sees, and all signs point to her being pretty much withdrawn from the world at large and quite probably a good chunk of reality. I’m curious to see what such a character does with a suit capable of what we saw it doing before its previous owner was all atomized, particularly as both its owners and the military are moving to get it back. Issue #2 ends with a standard issue Moore Tough-As-Nails-But-With-A-Sensitive-Side Girl showing up to do just that, setting up a meeting that probably isn’t going to go well for at least one of them.

There’s a lot of potential here. Terry Moore has obviously grown as a writer both over the course of SiP and since then, and his art is as strong as ever. I’ve always admired his ear for dialogue, whether its coming out in melodramatic monologues or as a funny exchange between characters, and despite Julie’s isolation there’s still a nice portion of that across these two issues. Still, I don’t think I’ll be quite comfortable with the series until a few more issues in, once it’s a bit clearer if Moore has learned the difference between telling a story and talking to himself. It’s an interesting premise, and one ripe to be spun in a number of different directions, so here’s hoping.

BUY STATUS: #3 should decide whether I keep following this one by issues or wait for the trade. In the meantime, it’s worth picking up at least the first one to see if Moore’s new slow boil of a story piques your interest.

RESURRECTION #1-4
Writer: Marc Guggenheim
Artist: David Dumeer

As premises go, I can’t think one seemingly built to dive deep into the heart of my raccoon-like brain and win it over that tops the one behind Resurrection – suppose aliens had spent the last ten years hammering our planet into utter ruin, wiping out large chunks of the population in the process and driving the few straggling survivors underground, and suddenly, as of this morning, they’re all gone. What happens next?

“Next” is the bit Guggenheim and Dumeer hope to answer with the series, hopping around between different groups of survivors while sprinkling flashbacks of life amongst the aliens throughout as both a tease for the huge story that happened just before issue #1 and a handy way of providing us with looks at our characters before they got where they are now. It’s a nice device, and a perfect fit for this sort of story (see also the incredibly fun novel World War Z by Max Brooks for more fiction from a post-disaster, “where do we go from here?” perspective), providing the wider view this sort of story requires. While all the current characters are in America (and for the most part, the same part of America), there’s promise for things to expand outward as things move along. If done right, this is the sort of idea the creators could spend stories out of for ages.

Of course, that’s also the big unknown here – are Guggenheim and Dumeer up to the task? While off to a good start, these first four issues are running largely on the strength of the premise – the characters introduced so far are more the sum of their actions rather than people with any real depth, producing reactions to events without any known motivation behind them. The most fleshed out so far is probably rich super genius Norman Tulley, and he’s spent most of the time since being introduced aboard a crashed alien ship with some sort of techno virus burrowing into his head. Dumeer’s art starts nice and solid but gets shakier with each issue, going from a great scene between some poor experimented bastard and survivor Sara on the road at the start to a genuinely confusing couple of bits with the current president where your best hope of telling one person from another is trying to tell their remarkably similar haircuts apart. There’s every chance these are just growing pains, and with a few more issues under their belts the creators will find their track and stick with it. Time will tell.

I’m hoping for great things from Resurrection, if only because the idea behind it is so different from pretty much anything else comics are doing at the moment (or for the last several moments) that I want the rest to measure up. Despite my grumblings above its largely very good work, already showing how much thought has been put into how the world tries to pick itself up before the first issue was put together. If Guggenheim and Dumeer can prove capable of realizing even most of the potential inherent in their wonderful idea, then they just might have something truly special on their hands.

BUY STATUS: I’m in for the next few issues at the very least. This first story arc should be enough to get a feel for where the rest of the story goes after, so we’ll see then. Thanks for the recommendation, Mike.

CRIMINAL VOL. 2 #1-2
Writer: Ed Brubaker
Artist: Sean Phillips

Because it just isn’t a Comics Are Expensive without a Brubaker book, y’know? Despite having already talked about the start of the latest Criminal series ever-so-briefly a while back, the new issue out this week left me wanting to look at the thing a little harder. Brubaker and Phillips have always worked well together – their run on Wildstorm’s Sleeper a few universe reboots back is still one of my favorite filters for looking at superheroes, and the first couple of stories to come out of Criminal showed it to be one of the few comics around to understand the difference between crime fiction and proper Noir. Talking about the first few issues of the new series also created a nice little theme for the week, feeding into my feeding neatly into my twisted sense of OCD. So bonus points there.

The funny thing about Noir is that, by its very nature, you pretty much already know how the story ends. Noir at its most basic principles is about putting somebody up against a corrupt system, giving them a reason to fight it, and then watching that system break them down into little pieces and swallow them whole. Criminal understands this with every panel of every page, presenting a nameless town full of thieves, murderers, thugs, addicts, and all other sorts of human wreckage just teetering on the brink. Sooner or later one of them starts looking for a way up or out from their current situation, and that flash of ambition, that little bit of hope is all it takes for the city to turn on them. It took me a while to realize it, but there are no “regular” people in Criminal – they’re background, trimming, as much a part of the story as an unassuming crate or trash can. Less even, as those are the sorts of objects characters often find themselves getting beaten with. It’s not a book about regular people, but one about all the rest who couldn’t quite cut it.

The second volume of the series is already off to a much different start than the “Coward” and “Lawless” storylines preceding it. Not only does it delve into the city’s sordid past, taking place in the rise of the second generation of organized crime to run things, it appears to be leaping between different characters instead of sticking with a single protagonist like before. While the first issue introduced us to Jake Brown, boxer and childhood friend of Sebastian Hyde, current boss of the Hyde family, this week’s installment follows Teeg Lawless, Vietnam Vet, generally awful human being, and father to a character we met last time around. While both stories complement each other, filling in details around the other, each can stand alone as its own creature, every bit as powerful and occasionally heartbreaking even without the extra background.

It’s a great approach I’d love to see go a bit farther with the current arc, making each issue a jumping on point to an otherwise dense and twisting narrative. At this point its far too early to see where thing are going – while the other series weren’t fast-paced by any means, a lot of thought and time is being introduced to setting the stage and putting the characters in places. Like I said before, though, being a Noir, there’s only so many ways it can end. Like the best Noir pieces, though, Criminal is every bit as much (if not more so) about the trip as it is the destination.

What else? Each issue has a bit of back matter at the end, featuring a piece by Brubaker and a discussion of older Noir films and stories by a fellow crime writer. Often very good and at the very least informative, the two here are an appreciation of David Goodis’ The Burglar by Duane Swierczynski (who’s doing all superhero books at the moment, but is already a successful crime novelist) and a look at some of the better cops (and at least one criminal) to come out of the genre by Scalped’s own Jason Aaron. The pieces add to Criminal’s overall feeling of being a love letter to crime fiction and Noir, a book that so enjoys what it is that its creators’ thrill over getting to tell these stories spills out of every issue. For a book where the end is often inevitable from the first page, it’s hard to think of a comic that offers more twists and turns on the way there.

BUY STATUS: Hopelessly addicted, I’m afraid, though finally talking about the thing has made me realize I foolishly don’t have the first two trades. Something to fix with tomorrow’s paycheck, then.

Which brings us neatly to the end. Probably no B-sides this week, I’m afraid, as work is even busier than last week. The short version is that Suburban Glamour ended as nicely as it began, Fantastic Four stumbled a good bit with some questionable snow graphics and muddy art, Green Lantern Corps went back to being interesting and Nova continues to be pretty ace. Recommendations for books to read are always welcome, either via email to chrislamb@gmail.com or in the comments thread. See you next time.

But seriously, read All Star Superman #10. It’s just lovely.

TRANSHUMAN #1
Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Artist: Jim Ringuet

The most impressive thing about Jonathan Hickman is perhaps his apparent inability to sit still. Rather than resting on his laurels after appearing on the scene with last year’s successful Nightly News, he almost immediately dove into Pax Romana, a story involving time travel, the Roman Empire, and Vatican-inspired dickery with promises of more to come once this initial four-issue mini-series wraps up. New book Transhuman makes three, and already looks to explore themes similar to Hickman’s other work, namely the tendency of greed to run rampant and ruin everything it touches.

And it’s here we come to something else to be impressed by: Hickman’s storytelling is already showing signs of maturing past his first work, with a presentation and approach more subtle and sophisticated than I’ve seen from him before. Nightly News was a good book, if slightly weighed down by a predictable ending and a need to attempt to shock in all ways possible rather than just the right ones. Transhuman, on the other hand, already has a calmer, more careful feel to it (despite still not being able to resist breaking character a bit, even if for one of the better jokes to be found here), one that allows information to be dolled out at just the right pace to keep you hooked. The idea of framing the book as a documentary of the events that shaped this future world is a great one, allowing the use of an approach to storytelling I don’t really remember seeing in comics before (though I’m sure it’s popped up somewhere else): the oral history.

Which brings us, rather handily, to what it’s all about. Transhuman is the story of the next great step in humanity’s evolution, the people who got us there, and what was in it for them. While just the first issue, all signs point to Hickman taking the road less traveled here, opting not to focus on the global effects of genetically engineered super-people becoming common place, but the commercial ones. Right from the start it appears we did okay by the advent of genetic tomfoolery, though some dark secret no doubt lurks at the heart of it all: the average human lifespan is on the rise, it’s an age of renewed human ambition, etc. For all the sunshine and roses of the far-flung future, however, it appears the road there was somewhat less than smooth. We meet the founders of two companies racing to be the first to make the great leap forward (and claim the unspeakable fortune waiting on the other side) and get a taste for the animosity fueling their less-than-friendly competition. Early failures involving monkeys and a messy group of early human volunteers hint at the sort of disasters a marketing war over the fate of humanity itself is sure to create, and I’m looking forward to seeing what else might have gone wrong under the not exactly stable hands of the people we meet here.

Mostly, though, I’m just looking forward to more. Transhuman shows great promise, establishing a firm foundation by providing just enough information to hook you in and give a sense of where things might go while leaving the field wide open. All kinds of questions abound – what is the world like, now that we all have access to superpowers? Is genetic engineering the norm now, or did cybernetics win out? How far is the fight between Janice DeAugustino and ex-husband Dave Apple going to go, and how long before the line between personal and business is completely lost? Hickman and Ringuet have three more issues to lay out the answers, and while they may not all be what I want to hear, I can’t imagine they’ll disappoint.

BUY STATUS: Unless things take somehow take an unthinkable turn for the horrible next issue, I’m in for the whole mini-series. I should also get around to finally reading Pax Romana as well.

PROOF #6
Writer: Alex Grecian
Artist: Riley Rossmo

As a rule, there are worse ways to be introduced to a new comic than a first page splash of a family of dinosaurs peacefully grazing in a modern African jungle just moments before having their own “don’t go in to the meadow” moment. The same applies to main characters – sure, anybody can do a book about the secret life and adventures of Bigfoot, but to put him in a button up shirt, tie, and sweater vest just says something about you as a creator. There’s class, and then there’s class, yeah?

That said, I can’t claim this particular issue blew me away. It is indeed the start of a new story arc, just as the front cover claims, and is clearly intended to serve as a jumping on point, but I’m going to need at least another issue or two to know for sure if this is just a furry riff on Hellboy or something more. The main characters don’t really do anything beyond hang out and talk about the last storyline’s adventure, none of which gives me a feel for who they are or where they’re coming from. The villain, Colonel Werner Dachshund, is rather interesting – I can’t remember the last time a bad guy’s master plan was to eat the hero, and I’m curious to see where that goes. All in all though, I’m left feeling like I would have enjoyed this more if I’d been reading since the beginning, which is not the sign of a good jumping on point.

Let’s be clear: Proof is not a bad book. There’s clear potential for this to be a lot of fun – the dialogue moves at a nice clip, always-fun internal team drama brews under the surface, and, as mentioned before, the main character is a nattily dressed Bigfoot. While this issue on its own might under whelm, there’s enough here for me to want to see what the story is capable of once its done setting up. If it can deliver on the promise of its ideas, then Proof could be something really special.

BUY STATUS: In for the next two issues, as is standard operating procedure, and expecting to enjoy myself more once things get rolling. Thanks for the recommendation cleverly disguised as adamant demands, Rich.

And that should do us. I had intended to cover Flight Explorer, the first attempt by beloved anthology series Flight at an all ages book in depth, but time and general not feeling great conspired against me. Suffice to say you’d be hard pressed to find a better use for ten dollars this week, particularly if you’re in need of a gift for any one interested in comics and old enough to have a pulse. As is apparently now custom, you can find this week’s other books at Expertologist. No idea what the plan is for next week’s column just yet, but if you’ve any recommendations then by all means mention them in the comments or drop a line to chrislamb@gmail.com. See you next time.

THE INCREDIBLE HERCULES #115
Writers: Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente
Artist: Khoi Pham

In my defense, I had no way of knowing this was going to be good. World War Hulk had just ended, remember, bringing its overall fun story to a sort of okay conclusion, and the stuff coming next didn’t exactly look promising: a red Hulk by Jeph Loeb of all people in on title, and the continuing adventures of Hercules and Amadeus Cho, boy genius. Hercules was an unknown quality to me – the sum total of my knowledge of the character could be summed up as “Thor with less clothes, no hammer, and Greek. Also, kind of dim.” All in all, I think I can be forgiven for not realizing that him taking over Hulk’s book while he spends the time from now till the inevitable movie-triggered reset to status quo being unreadable would turn out to be a good thing.

And it is. Despite not having read the last however many issues since the torch passing, the story is remarkably easy to jump into – Cho is continuing his personal vendetta against S.H.I.E.L.D. with Herc in tow, currently following a plan straight out of nu-Battlestar that sees the entire fleet of Helicarriers knocked out of commission (completely with a lovely visual hat-tip in the form of the Behemoth’s design). Of course, it’s going anything but smoothly, with our heroes getting into an argument over how far is too far just as the Avenger Ares and a battery of anti-being-dicked-with missiles courtesy of a very pissed off espionage organization show up on their doorstep. This rather naturally culminates in a fantastic fight scene befitting two immortal guys, with lots of hitting, explosions, and a whole bag of WWH’s glorious sound effects dropped in for good measure. I’m sure there are more practical ways of stopping incoming missiles, but I can’t think of any nearly as fun.

Now don’t get the wrong idea – Incredible Hercules isn’t all hitting, all the time. After a good long while of Cho’s obsession with hurting S.H.I.E.L.D. for their treatment of the Hulk, his time with Herc seems to be paying off in the form of him actually growing up and learning to let go. It’s a nice reminder that, for all his smarts and adventures of late, he’s still a child, an orphan who’s greatest role model is an uncontrollable monster, his only friends are a Greek god with an unpleasant past and a wounded coyote puppy. As moments go, it’s a nice bit of balance to the massive fight scene that precedes it, creating a solid and fulfilling read that hits each mark it tries for with room to spare.

It also makes for another reminder of what a weird place the Marvel Universe is to hang out in these days. On one hand, you have books like this and Iron Fist and Nova, great titles taking characters nobody’s really thought about in a while and making them shine. On the other, you have editorially-mandated retcons and a constant stream of massive events threatening to “change everything” just as everything was getting good. A character smoking is such a horror that it can never be shown in a book, but Faustian marriage annulments are not only okay but something to be excited over.

And of course, you have ideas that shouldn’t work, like a big, sorta dumb guy who means well and a smart kid wandering around and getting into trouble becoming must reads while former sure-things like The Ultimates are turned into the comics equivalent of a thalidomide baby. That House of Ideas has felt pretty schizophrenic for the last few years, appearing from the outside as if they’re trying to please everyone – including their own inner fanboys – at once. It’s led to a lot of unfortunate decisions across the board, and caused me to question more than a few times why I bother keeping up with them at all. Of course, every time I start asking, that same process seems to produce an unexpected gem like Incredible Hercules to remind me.

BUY STATUS: Yeah, okay, I’m in. I can only assume the oncoming war mentioned at the end has to do with the Skrulls, and while I can’t help but feel I’m going to get my heart broken, I’ll at least be there for it to happen.

FEAR AGENT #19
Writer: Rick Remender
Artist: Jerome Opeña

Well, this was different. The inevitable danger of picking up a handful of new books based on word-of-mouth, an interesting cover, or random whim was leaping into the middle of a series with no idea of what was happening. Fear Agent is very much that series, and this, the third issue in its third story arc, manages to confuse and entertain in equal measures. What do I know? People are in SPACE. They are having ADVENTURES. There are also BAD GUYS. Oh, and something about the Earth probably being destroyed in an intergalactic war against little ball things riding around in person-sized suits and the crazy lady who appears to lead them. Easy enough to follow, right?

There’s not a lot of apparent main character guy Heath Huston this issue – we see him at the start, getting insulted by some aliens riding rather awesome flying fish monsters, and then he pops up again at the end for a heroic rescue. Elsewhere, Mara, who I’m guessing is at least one of Heath’s love interests, is stranded on a dead planet with the last survivors of her scouting party, a guy named Scott and a walking cliché who dies just as I was about to propose a moratorium on Latino characters exclaiming “Santa Maria!” or “Madre Dios!” whenever they’re surprised. Creepy imagery abounds as certain parts of the planet prove to be less dead than originally thought, with art that swings between genuinely lovely and early-90’s Image levels of ink splatters and scratchiness. It’s a fun ride, if suffering from a bit of disjointed writing and art from time to time, and manages to make the decisions made by the characters have an impact on me despite not knowing who they are or where they’re coming from.

And there’s the real question: Do I want to know who these people are? Y’know, I think I do. Remender says in the letters page (which wears thin pretty quick) that Fear Agents is structured like an HBO series – the sort of thing you can’t really jump into the middle of a season and know what’s happening. And I can appreciate that. There’s enough big dumb ideas and mad science here to make me want to know how it all started, so I imagine I’ll pick up the first trade rather than venturing further into unknown territory with the next two issues to see how I feel about the book as a whole. If nothing else, maybe they’ll explain why everybody’s space suits have spurs on them.

BUY STATUS: Hunting down the first trade in the next week or so, and then I’ll let you know.

THE BOY WHO MADE SILENCE #1
Writer & Artist: Joshua Hagler

Now this is an odd one: according to the internet, this book originally appeared as the first issue of a twelve-part series in 2007 after creator Joshua Hagler won the Xeric Grant in 2006. So what’s it doing back on the stands here in far-flung 2008, appearing again in single issues rather than a nice trade? I suppose it doesn’t really matter – whatever the reason, it’s another chance for Hagler’s work to get some attention, and I have a lovely first issue of a potentially interesting series to read.

Before getting into the comic’s actual content, it’s worth noting the ad in the back for a gallery show made up of work related to the series. Hagler’s roots as a serious artist (thanks again, internet!) are readily apparent, and it lends his work here a rare beauty in comics – there are any number of panels and full pages from this first issue I would gladly having hanging on my or anybody else’s wall. There’s real power to his art, with scenes capturing not only the isolation main character Nestor’s sudden deafness has foisted upon him but the similar effect it’s having on his mother as the challenges ahead begin to down on her. There’s more to comics than still images, of course, and luckily Hagler comes through again, linking scenes together with an eye for storytelling that shows a lot of promise. The quotes on the back from David Mack and Sam Keith couldn’t be more apt – throw in a Dave McKean and you’d have the hat trick of artistic influences nailed. For all their fingerprints, however, you rarely feel as if anything you’re seeing is less than unique.

And the story? There’s not a lot to say right now – this first issue opens with Nestor in the hospital, having been pulled out of the river by a little girl named Esme after accidentally falling in. The story here deals with him waking up to spending the rest of his life deaf, his hearing lost in the accident, and the first steps he takes at becoming reacquainted with the world around him. It’s a thoughtful, sad series of pages, though not completely without hope – while faced with a tremendous amount of growing up that needs to happen very quickly, Nestor seems able to accept and for the most part roll with what has happened to him. It’s around here that the weirdness kicks in – while robbing him of his hearing and ability to speak properly, whatever happened to him in the river left him with something else instead, something that seems to stop the people around them in their tracks and cause them to see the world the way he’s learning to. Which, y’know, is pretty handy.

It’s hard to say where things will go from here, but the groundwork is in place for things to move in a number of interesting directions. As long as Hagler continues to prove he can write as well as he paints, I’m willing to stick around to see what happens next.

BUY STATUS: I could most likely track down back issues from the last time this series graced the stands, but I’d rather watch it play out fresh. Hopefully the next two issues can keep up the level of quality established here.

And so ends the first test flight of the Great New Comics Experiment. I can easily see this becoming a regular thing, as I’m always looking for some outside force to drag me away from my comfort zones. If you have any such potential forces to recommend, leave a note in the comments or drop a line to chrislamb@gmail.com. If you find yourself just dying to know what else I picked up this week, I’ve included the rest as quick paragraph reviews at my personal site Expertologist. They should be up a few minutes after this goes live.

Fortunately, a few quick calculations revealed I was nowhere near the budgetary red line (funny how math works, huh?). Oh, sure, the occasional big week here or there might push it a bit, but for the most part I’ve got all kinds of room to play with. While some titles are still getting the boot to trades-only (farewell, Angel – your story’s interesting and all, but spending four bucks a month for the dubious pleasure of picking it out of that mud you call art just isn’t worth it any more), I should be able to keep up with the ones I want to follow monthly and try out new books without breaking a sweat.

The current plan (depending on the looks of the shipping list) is to spend next week’s column talking about all new books – or at least, books that are new to me. Any suggestions of things to keep an eye out for would be much appreciated. In the meantime, this week’s column is a bit on the thin side, as the only money I had for comics (or much of anything else) was twenty bucks in store credit at Cosmic Comics. Despite not getting everything I intended (Tiny Titans and Thunderbolts were both left behind for next time), I think I managed to do all right.

Onwards, shall we?

COMIC BOOK COMICS #1
Writer: Fred Van Lente
Artist: Ryan Dunlavey

So what comes next after running rampant through the big names of philosophy? What do you turn your talents to next in order to satisfy a steadily growing audience clamoring for a comic exploring new territory beyond escapism or illustrating somebody’s diary? If you’re Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey of Action Philosophers fame, you look to comics themselves for inspiration – specifically, the rich history of the medium from the first appearance of the Yellow Kid onwards. And you do it with the same accessible humor and love of the material as last time, just for good measure.

Of course, there’s more to Comic Book Comics than just applying a tried and true formula to a new topic. Where Action Philosophers often jumped all over history within a single issue, linking its subjects through such diverse threads as schools of though, countries of origin, or the chance to make an easy joke, Comic Book Comics takes a linear approach to history, taking great care to lay out the players and events shaping those early days and the links tying everything together.

It’s fascinating stuff, taking time out of its journey to explain the importance of things like Outcault’s tremendous storytelling innovation and the effects of the cartoon wars that marked the birth of animation between the Fleisher brothers and Walt Disney and the effect they had on a bunch of young guys named Siegel, Shuster, and Krutzberg (or as he’d later be known, Kirby). No matter how much you know or have heard about the birth of comics, odds are Van Lente and Dunlavey have found room for some fact in here you’ve never heard before.

For all the information being thrown your way, the book never feels too crowded or rushed. The creative team have refined the conservancy of space from Action Philosophers into a science here, establishing a steady pace from the get-go and keeping it throughout without the feeling that anything has slipped through the cracks. Best of all, it never feels like a lecture – the complex and interwoven narrative that is the history of comics comes across with all the casual ease of talking with friends over drinks (only Van Lente and Dunlavey are probably smarter and funnier than most of your friends, so hey, double win).

This is exactly the sort of thing comics need – an easy to grasp, fun to read history of the medium that flouts its achievements while explaining where they came from in the first place. It’s such a painfully obvious idea that I can’t believe nobody’s tried it sooner; but then, I can’t really think of anybody in comics who gets the same thrill out of both the subject matter and the chance to share it with others. That clear sense of joy from the creative team combined with the potential to be one of the more important books since Understanding Comics makes it a good book; the way it reminds me why I love comics so much in the first place makes it a great one.

BUY STATUS: $3.95 would ordinarily be a bit steep for a single issue, but the amount of content here makes it well worth the price of admission. Despite already knowing how it all turns out, I can’t wait to see where the story goes next.

MAINTENANCE #9
Writer: Jim Massey
Artist: Robbi Rodriguez

Okay, look: I can’t really explain the talking shark. Or the zombie cat. Or the caveman scientist. What I can tell you is that they’ve all come along with Doug and Manny, two maintenance workers for the world’s leading supplier of evil mad science-y stuff, Terrormax Inc., on a secret mission to save receptionist Mendy from an evil alien trying to build his dream girl out of bits and pieces taken from other girls. Does that help any? No? Huh. Well, you can’t say I didn’t try.

This issue of Maintenance is the third part of a story arc that probably/maybe wraps up next issue, and as such is a horrible jumping on point. With that in mind, you could do worse than to hunt down at least issues #7 and #8 to get a better appreciation for what’s going on. Better yet, you could grab the last few issues and the first trade (titled “It’s a Dirty Job…” and out now), which should catch you up on just about everything. The adventurous among you could even throw caution to the wind and dive in right here, trusting that Maintenance is consistently one of the funniest comics around.

This particular storyline is actually promising for a series as whole in that, while earlier issues were mostly one-off adventures involving the horrors of working clean-up for a bunch of mad scientists with nearly limitless resources and a lot of time (and other things) to kill, it’s proof that Doug and Manny are strong enough characters things both rolling and funny over longer narratives. Not that the talking shark doesn’t help, of course.

A large part of that is down to Massey and Rodriguez being genuinely good at milking each and every situation for every ounce of humor lying within. For example, this issue’s running gag with the invisible spaceship parked in an apparent high traffic area is just great, as is the constant bickering amongst the would-be rescuers and improvised action music for when they finally spring into action.

It’s an easy appeal found in every issue so far – no matter what the current plot happening around them is, so much of the fun comes from listening to the characters talk and watching them bounce off each other that they could do quite literally anything and it would still be worth showing up for each month. Comparing it to impov comedy doesn’t feel quite right, this being a comic and all, but that’s the closest I can get to nailing down the feel of any given issue – Massey isn’t just filling the characters mouths with words to spit out and calling it a day, he’s giving them the pace to riff off each other and anything else that stumbles in to their line of sight.

If there’s a problem with the book, it’s the lack of easy access I mentioned from the start. While less of a bother earlier in the series, when each issue was usually a story unto itself, the lack of any sort of recap page or exposition can cheat you out of a lot of the good stuff if it’s your first time with the guys. Doug and Manny are great characters, funny in their own right while still able to sever as straight men to the insanity of their every day lives, and they deserve a proper introduction to the new readers they more than deserve.

BUY STATUS: Maintenance continues to get better with each issue, and I can’t imagine bailing out now. If nothing else, I might miss it when zombie cat finally makes his move.

And that’s it for this week, except to say that both Fantastic Four #555 and Atomic Robo #6 were loads of big fun that I’m very much looking forward to see more of. Recommendations are, as always, appreciated via the comments thread or email to chrislamb@gmail.com. See you next time for a bunch of brand new things to talk about.

Potential spoilers ahead, despite me actually making an effort to beat around a number of bushes this week. Proceed with caution.

ATOMIC ROBO #4 & 5
Writer: Brian Clevinger
Artist: Scott Wegener

So it turns out yes, Virginia, there is an Atomic Robo. Apparently the reason it was so hard to track down had less to do with the book’s mythical nature and more with everybody in the New York area snapping up the issues as soon as they hit the stand. Due the kindness of strangers I’ve now read all five issues, but as #4 and 5 were I could track down and buy (and are still available in super limited quantities at Midtown Comics at 7th Ave. and 40th St. – thanks for the tip, Rich!) for myself, that’s what I’m talking about this week. Going a buck and change over my self-imposed spending limit is one thing, but I’m not yet ready to violate the sanctity of the faulty premise this column is built upon by talking up things I haven’t actually swapped money for. Fickle convictions are still convictions, after all, just with better hours.

With so many aspects of this book that could be talked about, why not start at the beginning? The first thing to strike me about Atomic Robo is its self-contained nature – while #4 is the second part of a two-issue story and #5 looks to be kicking off another, each can be enjoyed as it’s own thing without any prior knowledge. Everything you need to know is right there on the inside cover of each issue – Atomic Robo was built by Tesla in the 20’s and went on to become a robot science adventurer who had many great and strange robot science adventures over the next few decades. Now he and a bunch of fellow (human) science adventurers have become sort of Ghostbusters to the world, putting down the weird and horrific where ever it may lurk for fun and occasional profit. In issue #4 it’s rogue pyramids, in issue #5 it’s hordes of Nazi cyborgs and a brain that would very much like you to behold the end of Atomic Robo. I read #4 without any clue of what had come before, and it worked just fine. Science heroes are fighting a sort of pyramid tank thing. What’s to explain?

Peppered through the series are flashback to previous adventures, such as Robo going to Mars for a bit of landscaping and wearing questionable outfits in the seventies and eighties. They’re a great device, used to fill in plot details and character points in much the same way Lost does, only without the creeping dread that sooner or later you’re going to have to sit through a Kate episode. Their appearance here creates one of my favorite storytelling tricks in science fiction-y type works – pulling the reader into a world already formed with the promise to explain along the way. Sure, I want to know about Robo’s early years with Tesla and dealing with that jerk Edison, but in the meantime there are Nazi-bots and mummies to fight, so maybe it’s best to just roll with your surreal settings for the time being. Personally, I’m more than happy to be patient.

I could go on, (and on, and on, and still further on), but it’s better for you to find out on your own. Atomic Robo is one of the most pleasant surprises I’ve had from comics in years, a seamless blend of hilarious moments and tense action scenes with great art capable of accommodating both without breaking a sweat. There’s absolutely no reason everybody shouldn’t be reading this, provided every other jerk out there hasn’t snatched up all the issues.

BUY STATUS: Now that I know where to find the damn things, I’ll happily keep reading. A trade should be along after this first series wraps with issue #6 for anybody else late to the party, and should be considered required reading any one interested in robots, science, adventures, or joy. Many thanks to all who recommended it.

So I guess it’s safe to say the big event happening in issue #12 had nothing to do with Oz maybe showing up again, huh? If you haven’t read the newest installment of Buffy’s ink and paper season 8 and were wondering what that sound was last Wednesday, it just might have been the sound of thousands of Buffy crying out at once as they all hit page four. Whether out of delight or horror is not for me to tell, though some say that on quiet nights, when the moon is full, you can hear the click-clacking of a keyboard echo across the hills and know that another fanfic born out of this issue has just reached its dread end.

As character moments go, however, I think it works. Drew Goddard (writer of several episodes for both Buffy and Angel’s last seasons, as well that Cloverfield movie and a producer on Lost) takes over the book with this issue, kicking off new arc “Wolves at the Gate” with more than a few bangs. While the first of these is sure to generate the most talk, with cries ranging all over the spectrum between “great” and “worst thing ever”, it’s the immediate aftermath that stuck the landing for me – a quiet moment interrupted by first Xander and then pretty much all the rest of the main and supporting cast, escalating into a hilarious car crash of awkward at the same moment the newest threat to Buffy and her slayer army shows up? That’ll do nicely, thanks.

And it’s all down to Goddard being really, really good at this. As much as I like Whedon’s work, his comics writing has always lagged behind his television and movie work – there’s something about the pacing in comics he can’t seem to get down, and it sucks a lot of the rhythmic quality out of his dialogue that’s so key to it working. Goddard doesn’t seem to have such a problem, crafting conversations that feel immediately more true to the characters and their nature (the Buffy stuff is funny in the sort of comedy of errors stuff all her relationships seem to open with; the Xander and Renee things is genuinely sweet) than nearly anything else we’ve seen since the series started. I’ve yet to flat-out dislike an issue, and I really liked Brian K. Vaughn’s Faith arc a few months ago, but this is the first time I’ve so completely enjoyed the book that I was compelled to go back and read it again. It finally reads like not just a continuance of the show, but of the show’s better moments.

And last but not least, there are vampires. It feels like ages since the titular bad guys were any sort of real threat, but these guys seem to have what it takes: storming the castle in force, stealing Buffy’s favorite toy, and exhibiting some new but strangely familiar powers. It’s a nice return to form for characters that were reduced to little more than cannon fodder over the years, and I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes. Love it, hate it, or meh it, Buffy #12 is the best Whedon’s pride and joy has been in a long time.

BUY STATUS: I was strongly considering moving to trades on this one, but I’ll stick around for the duration of Goddard’s arc. Then we’ll see.

PS238 #29
Writer & Artist: Aaron Williams

The word you want here is “charming”. From one end to the other, from socks that play music and light up to “Jinx. You owe me a coke”, PS238 is just completely, utterly charming. Remember a few weeks ago, when I said I’d be all over a book like Tiny Titans if there were more to it than super cute art? I strongly suspect this is what I was talking about, only before I actually knew it existed – the adventures of kids with powers and the special school built to hold them, complete with all the adventures and infrequent super villain shenanigans implied. I’m brilliant that way, sometimes.

The world of PS238 – or at least as much of it as I can see here – feels built from the ground up to answer one simple question : how great would having superpowers be? Every scene is a playground waiting to happen, providing plenty of opportunities for the rather great Flea to change into his costume or shadowy corners for bad guys to come flying out of. It’s the sort of world one might create after years of reading comics where crowds cheer on Superman when he’s fighting the bad guy and school kids wave at Spider-man as he swings past – a place where heroes are not just oddities flying overhead but an embraced part of the culture. Powers are just something people have, whether they’re cops or schoolteachers or casino owners with visible crystal skulls. And I really, really like that. It’s the sort of mood DC usually excel at when they’re not in the middle of Crisising and that Marvel seem to be actively throwing away with both hands in favor of a world where everybody hates and mistrusts everybody else. Williams has created a place where amazing things happen on a pretty regular basis, and the people living there seem to feel they’re better for it.

(I could be wrong, of course. It could be that just Las Vegas, the setting for this month’s issue, is this awesome, and everywhere else sees the kids fighting to protect a world that hates and fears them. I doubt it, though – when the cop talking to Ms. Kyle mentions a team up they had back in their respective hero days and flies off, all without a speech about “doing more good with a badge instead of a mask” or some such heavy-handed nonsense, I knew this was a world with its act together)

At first glance the book may appear to risk being too cute for its own good, but there’s always a joke, a subtle reference, or a more adult overtone lurking around the corner to keep things aimed squarely at readers of every age. Whether it’s Julie’s feelings of inadequacy as a hero, Polly Mer’s blowing bubbles without gum or explaining where her name comes from, or something simple like ending the book with a letters page, there’s truly something here for everyone. Don’t think Disney; this is Pixar, with the same quality approach to storytelling and unique, memorable characters. If you have kids, this is a book for them. If you don’t, it’s just as likely to be for you. Just charming, really.

BUY STATUS: I have no idea what’s going on with the current storyline, but I don’t think that’ll be much of a stumbling block. I’m in, and there’s several people I need to mail copies to or at least get this on their radar. Thanks very much, Patrick, for pointing it out.

CASANOVA #12
Writer: Matt Fraction
Artist: Fabio Moon

For a book riddled with more plot twists and turns than I’d care to count and a title character who’s been missing for the last five issues or so, Casanova is pretty damn unbeatable. If there’s a triumph of the “slimline” format of sixteen pages of comics plus backmatter for $1.99, it’s certainly this – while Ellis’ Fell, with its tales of a crumbling detective in city-as-suicide victim are great little stories, Fraction’s super spy with a heart of rot and spiders trying to make good revels in its format, filling every inch of its reduced page count with enough style and sex appeal to set my brain a-buzzing till the next one arrives. Most importantly, it never feels like just sixteen pages – paired with the masterful art of Gabriel Ba, the storytelling her does funny things to well-established ideas like space and time, bending both around its little finger in the name of one last perfectly thrown pose or chance to sweep you off your feet.

Speaking of story, where are we this month? If last arc “Luxuria” was about Casanova Quinn finding himself in a parallel universe with the chance to make up for a least a few of his many, many bad decisions, “Gula” is the story of his sister Zephyr giving into (or maybe just embracing) the demons she can’t quite escape. Either way, issue #12 sees her life-long private war against her father Cornelius becoming very public as she and boyfriend Kubark Benday attack the moon base of E.M.P.I.R.E. (the secret intelligence organization run by daddy, don’t ya know) with devastating effect. It’s an issue full of tremendous moments, abandoning the careful dance of #11 in favor of the sort of unbridled destruction not yet seen in the series. Which is not to say the book’s excellent sense of pacing is gone, oh no – the perfect rhythm ticking behind the scenes is still here, still filling in character moments around and throughout the action scenes in subtle, often tragic ways. One particular scene with Ruby and Katio stands up as an example of so much of what works so well in this series, managing to be as sweet, shocking, and goddamn tragic as anything Fraction has produced to date. The jerk.

If there’s a message to Casanova’s madness, it’s that even super spies have to deal with the responsibility of their actions when they eventually come calling. For all the coolness of a world full of bandaged arch-villains, flying casinos and multi-armed girlfriends from the future, the horror of what the sort of lives the main characters lead and the effect it has on those caught up in their wake is never far out of reach. While Moon’s artwork turns Zephyr into exactly the sort of curvaceous, heartless assassin she no doubt sees herself as, he also perfectly captures the weight she caries around on top of it all, the awareness of how precious little of herself she can still call human. As cool as she and Benday look together in their best action figure outfits, everything about their relationship reeks of bad sex and worse decisions, of reaching out for somebody else if only to drag them down as well. Mommas, don’t let your babies grow up to be space cowboys, ‘cos there’s only one way it can end.

There’s still no clues to be found that might help unravel the greatest mystery of all – When is Casanova Quinn? But that’s okay, really; seeing Cass’ world burn in his absence is nearly as much fun as watching him tear it down himself.

BUY STATUS: This much awesome for two dollars is not to be missed, but for those of you in need of playing a little catch-up, the paperback version of the first trade collecting issues #1-7 for a mere twelve dollars. While it lacks the awesome back matter of the singles, it’s well worth the price of admission.

As you may have noticed, I’ve reached the inevitable point with this thing where the books I pick up are starting to loop. I think (but can’t guarantee) that next week’s installment is going to be a hard look at everything I’m currently reading – between the comics I’ve been exposed since starting this thing and the ones I was already grabbing on a monthly basis, there isn’t a lot of room left for the new blood my hobbled attention span requires on a daily basis. In the meantime, while I try to decide what to keep reading in singles and what can wait for the trades, recommendations are always appreciated in the comments thread or via email to chrislamb@gmail.com. See you next week.