New Comic-book Night - 5/29/13

It's that time of the week again - and although it's the "5th Wednesday," which often is an extra week that doesn't ship one's typical pull list items, two items that are on my "potential pull list" came out this week.  By "potential pull list," I mean that I am doing what my comic-shop owner calls "sampling." I have not committed to these titles, but have adopted a wait-and-see attitude.  This means either (1) it is simply too early to tell whether the series is good enough to get into long term (this is always true before I've read at least 3 issues, but lasted for 12 full issues with Superman recently), or (2) the series had been too mediocre to be sure I will like it long-term (but is either good enough to keep going on a month-by-month basis, or else something else is compelling me to keep giving it a chance).  The two titles that fell into these categories were +DC Comics'  Justice League of America, which just came out with #4 this month, and thus was "too early to tell," and +Marvel Entertainment's Captain America, which I started collecting because Cap is my favorite Marvel character, but which has been too strange and just plain too poorly written for me to put it on the pull list yet.

Along with these titles, I grabbed another issue of the third Supergirl series -- this was the second of two "New Krypton" crossovers for this series.  These issues appear in the 4-volume TPB Superman: New Krypton, but I have no interest in that story arc, and am only getting the Supergirl issues for completeness.  It was cheaper to just buy the two S-girl issues than to try and get the TPBs, especially since my comic shop doesn't have them (so now I'd have to pay for shipping on top of the TPB cost).

I haven't read Supergirl yet, but I have read JLA and Cap, and I've made a final "pull list decision" about one of them.

Justice League of America #4 - This series has been decent for four months, but also is slightly worrisome because it has been slowly backsliding.  I rated the first issue a 9/10, issues 2-3 8/10, and I only give this one a 7/10.  The art has deteriorated slightly, and the story is becoming tiresome.  The ending, which is supposed to be a cliffhanger, is ridiculous, because it seemingly depicts the death of a major character. This would have perhaps been suspenseful or dramatic, if not for the niggling little detail that the character depicted as dying has a series of his or her own, which is still ongoing.  Obviously this character cannot actually be dead or dying. So why am I supposed to be in suspense about this? The only question I have is how the character can look this "dead" but not actually be.  Also, again in terms of the art, the action sequences are really lame. There is no sense of kineticism or motion in the action panels. They all look like the characters paused in mid-action to pose for the camera.  Also, people's bodies are in very strange, ungainly positions.  So, this comic is staying on the "potential pull list." It hasn't been good enough, long enough, for me to commit to it.

Captain America NOW! #7 - This Marvel NOW! run of Captain America is perhaps the most disappointing series I have ever read in my life.  Captain America is the greatest superhero in the Marvel Universe.  He is one of the greatest superheroes in any universe.  He has always been one of the "weakest" in terms of power level, but that has never stopped him.  And for many years I was a huge fan of his comic, when the late, great Mark Gruenwald was writing it.  This series, however, is nothing like that wonderful run. It is without a significant supporting cast.  The plot is convoluted and strange.  Captain America is brutal and violent, and acts more like Wolverine than like Steve Rogers   His "12 year old" adopted son looks and acts like he's seven.  And the kid is so annoying that threats to him do not affect me, because I would honestly kind of prefer if this kid just died. I'd like it even better if they just retconned this whole psychedelic plot that reads like writer Rick Remender has been smoking some pretty intense hallucinogens before sitting down at his word processor.  I won't even mention the vomit-inducing art of John Romita, Jr., who has been such a horrible penciller for so many decades I cannot understand how the man still gets hired.  I rate this issue 3/10, and that's being generous.

And so with that issue, I have given up on Captain America.  Sorry, Cap. I tried. I really did.  I thought I could stick with it through this story arc and see where Remender is going. I gave it seven issues. But there's no end in sight for this thing, and I am not going to keep giving Marvel Comics money for a story that is so bad I wouldn't line a cat's litter box with it.  Perhaps the most bewildering thing is all the people writing in to say how much they love it.  I can only shake my head.  I can't imagine anyone liking this garbage. But as for me, at least, I'm definitely done.

So they CAN still make comics like they used to...

The last time I seriously collected a comic-book put out by +Marvel Entertainment was way back in 1991, when they were still called "Marvel Comics."  I had slowly given up on my Marvel comics, and switched one by one to DC.  The last hold-out, in 1991, was Captain America.  After I stopped buying that title, for 22 years, I did not touch a Marvel comic-book.

Then, a few months ago, having loved the Avengers movie, and just gotten back into collecting comics, I tried Avengers Assemble. It was terrible, and after four issues I gave up.  A couple of weeks ago, having heard good things about some of the Marvel NOW! titles, and having gotten rather fed up with most of the sewage being passed off as "comic-books" by +DC Comics, I decided I would go ahead and try Marvel again.  I started with Captain America #1-6, about which I'm ambivalent. The story is odd, and the choice of having Cap age 12 years between issues 2 and 3 is going to be trouble in the long run.  I usually know after 6 issues whether I want to put a comic on my pull list or not, but I'm still reserving judgment on Captain America.  I'm leaning toward not putting it on, and it's going to have to get dramatically better by the end of this first story-line to prevent that.

I thought that might be the end of a very brief, probably misguided, attempt at re-acquainting myself with the Marvel Universe.  Two attempted series, one a dud, the other highly questionable. I decided to give Marvel one more try, this time with the Marvel NOW! version of Thor -- Thor, God of Thunder.  I'd heard good things about it from several people, and I've always liked Thor.  The comic shop had all 8 issues still out on the "current" shelves, so I didn't have to pay inflated "back issue" prices for it.  Picked it up on Wednesday, and started reading it... and could not stop. Within 24 hours I had devoured all 8 issues.  What a gem this title is.

By any metric of measurement, Thor, God of Thunder is sequential story-telling at its best.  The story-line is broad and sweeping, yet still delves deeply into character.  The dialogue rings true -- a difficult task with the normally stilted, old-fashioned speech patterns of Thor.  The art, although stylized, is exceptionally good and appropriate to the story-line -- moody, but with a surrealist quality to it.  The panels look almost like oil paintings rather than pencil-and-ink drawings.  As I say, just these characteristics alone would make Thor, God of Thunder a good read.

However, what struck me the most as I was reading these eight first issues of Thor, God of Thunder was just how much this sweeping, epic story-line reminds me of another great Thor story-line -- the one by Walt Simonson back in the 1980s.  Like Simonson before him, Aaron has delved deeply into the mythology of the Marvel Universe, creating new elements to it that feel like they have been there forever, while simultaneously drawing on older material that has been around since Marvel's inception.  Beyond this, the series has remained, at least for the first eight books, almost completely independent of the Marvel Universe (other than a brief cameo by Iron Man, you wouldn't even know this title shares that universe).  It can be read completely on its own.

One really important feature that reminds me of the old days, however, is not the story nor the art, but rather, the fact that this series (and apparently all Marvel titles) still has a letter column!  For regular readers of this blog, you know that I have complained vociferously about the lack of a lettercol in current DC titles.  Well, Marvel still prints letters in the back of their comics (well, e-mails... but it's the same thing), and they answer the letters as well.  How refreshing it's been to read those letters.  And how connected it makes me feel to the other comic-book fans -- much more so than the so-called "social media" do.  I'm not sure why that is, but it does.  In each issue there's a letter by someone like me, who hasn't been reading comics, or Marvel, for years (or maybe ever), and decided, for one reason or another, to pick up Thor, God of Thunder and give it a try.

What I love about the lettercols is that they allow writer Jason Aaron to respond directly to readers, and tell us what is on his mind.  He explains what he is thinking, hints at what he is planning.  And best of all, in issue 5, when a reader complained briefly about the Iron Man cameo and said he doesn't want a bunch of guest-stars and crossovers in this title, Aaron responded as follows:

That shared universe is one of the hallmarks of the House of Ideas. But I also want Thor to be a series you can continue to read and enjoy even if you're not following the overall thread of the Marvel U, though at the same time feeling big enough to be relevant to that universe as a whole. In other words, I wanna do big, epic Thor stories that anyone can enjoy.

This is what comics used to be like.  The shared universe was a backdrop, years ago, not an excuse to try and force people to buy every title in the line.

Another thing that seems readily apparent from both the way the story unfolds and the answers Aaron gives in the lettercol, is that, on Thor, God of Thunder, the writer is in control of the plot. Although I'm sure the editor has a say in the book's direction, there is no doubt who is in charge here.  Marvel seems willing to let Aaron, and presumably its other writers, do what they're supposed to -- write stories.

Between the sweeping, high-quality story, solid artwork, lettercols in every issue, and the writer's ability to control the story-line, I really felt, reading these eight first issues of Thor, God of Thunder, as if I'd gone back in time 25 years, to the days when comics were truly great, and high quality was the rule in both major comics companies, rather than the exception it's become today.  Since coming back to comics, with a few rare exceptions (Red Sonja, Batgirl), I had been wondering if they could even make comics like they used to.  Here, we have the answer... yes, they still can.  Thor, God of Thunder, is one such book.

Now, don't get me wrong.  The actual specific story is not like one would have read in the 1980s... it would have been far too violent and bloody, and the old Comics Code Authority would never have allowed it.  However, although the plot is modern and far more adult than the stories in those days, it is executed like they did back in the day -- executed the way the greats like Simonson, Perez, Wolfman, Mantlo, and Levitz used to do it all those years ago.

Kudos to the creative team.  Thor, God of Thunder is the first Marvel comic to officially make it onto my long-term pull list in 22 years.

Why it is important for writers to earn their readers' trust

The year was 2005, and I had just closed the book on the final chapter of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling (don't worry -- this topic will be about comics, just hang in there).  I'd been a fan of the series for five years, and had read and re-read the first five books so many times I'd lost count.  I loved everything about the series. Over the years I had given a special place in my heart to Headmaster Albus Dumbledore; I had come to believe Snape was truly one of the good guys; and I had come to love returning with Harry and his friends to the Hogwarts school each book.  In one fell swoop, during the climax and denouement of the story, author Rowling seemed to have taken all three away from me.  She had Snape kill Dumbledore -- actually kill him, not just pretend -- which wiped out one of my favorite characters and proved me wrong about Snape in one page.  And then at the end, Harry had declared he was not returning to Hogwarts to complete his seventh year.

Needless to say, I could have been very worried about what was going to happen in the final book of my favorite novel series.  Rowling, to all appearances, had made choices that could potentially have destroyed my enjoyment of the final book.  After all, a Harry Potter book without Dumbledore?  Snape being really evil after so many times seeming so and then being proven good (or at least neutral)?  And worst of all, no Hogwarts classes to read about, no studying for exams, no going with Hermione to the library?  What could book seven possibly have to replace all that?

I certainly would not have predicted most of what happened in the final novel, but as I put down Half-blood Prince, I was not worried.  Over 5 years and across six novels spanning thousands of pages of text, J.K. Rowling had earned something very important: my trust.  I knew that, whatever she chose to do in the final book, whatever new directions she might have charted, it would be good, and I would enjoy it.  She had proven herself capable of writing tales I enjoyed for six novels.  I would stay with her until the end.

Much the same phenomenon has happened to me a few times in comic-books.  On this blog, I have praised Walt Simonson's Thor run (337-382) many times as being perhaps the greatest comics of all time.  Certainly they are up there.  Quite a few times during that 45-issue stint, Uncle Walt seemed to have written himself into a corner, to have done things that were at best ill-advised with Thor, only to surprise me with an elegant plot resolution.  After enough of these, I started to be comfortable putting myself in his hands. Wherever Uncle Walt wanted to go, I would follow, because I trusted that, in the end, he would write a story that was both enjoyable and satisfying.

Significantly, however, both Rowling and Simonson had to earn my trust. I didn't give it to them at the outset.  They had to work at it, by producing high quality stuff, and always resolving plot elements to my satisfaction. They never took the cheap way out. They never retconned earlier parts of their stories, told me major hunks of narrative were "just a dream" after the fact. They never actually painted themselves into a corner and then invoked some kind of lame Deus Ex Machina to get out of it.  After enough time, I came to trust they would always play honest and fair with me as a reader, and that they would always produce good stories.  Then they had me, and I was willing to go with them wherever they went.

Over the years, only a handful of writers have earned my trust the way Rowling and Simonson did.  Barbara and Karl Kesel did, in their Hawk and Dove run.  Peter David did, in his 80-issue stint on the third Supergirl series.  A few, like Robert Jordan with his Wheel of Time series of novels, earned it but then lost it by violating that trust in later work.  My scorn for them is perhaps even stronger than it is for those who never earned it in the first place (like Grant Morrison and Scott Lobdell).

I bring up the matter of trust because, in the six months since I've returned to the comic-book collecting scene, there aren't many writers who have been able to earn my trust.  This isn't because the authors don't write well. Rather, it's because they writing questionable scenes in their stories -- scenes that make me wonder what the writer and editor are thinking.  And so, in many cases, when I see a cliffhanger, I don't enjoy it the way I used to. Instead, I worry... that it's not just a plot device but that it will lead to bad writing that will do even more to undermine a character I had previously liked, or even more to make me question the title's place on my pull list.

A good example of someone who may be a decent writer, but who has failed to earn my trust, is Rick Remender with his Captain America series.  Cap has been restarted (it's not a reboot) and is on issue 6.  So far we are still in the first "story arc" which began on issue 1. Cap was transported into the "Dimension of Z" (Arnim Zola) in issue 1 and has been there since.  That in itself is not a problem.  But as part of the story, twelve years have passed for him in six issues, and some major character-changing events have happened.  I'm not sure how we will ever get a "normal," regular Captain America after these events, and I haven't read anything by Remender before, so I'm worried.  I don't trust him to bring this story to a satisfying resolution.  I'm concerned that when the resolution happens, it will destroy the whole concept of what I like about Cap.  In fact I suspect that the more likely scenario is that he will ruin Cap for me.

But it's not just Remender.  I'm not sure I trust most of the creative teams to treat my favorite characters with respect at this point.  Crossovers like H'el on Earth have seen to that.  In fact, of the writers currently active in comics, the only one I trust implicitly at this point, is Gail Simone.  When Gail puts a nice juicy cliffhanger into a Batgirl issue, I savor it -- I trust that, whenever the resolution comes about, whether it's next issue or 10 months down the road, I will be satisfied.  And I trust that she will not do anything to destroy the fundamentals of Batgirl, the character.  The plot will be resolved in a satisfying way that provides a sense of closure and completeness.  There will be no Deus Ex Machina, no cheap shots, no claims that the last five issues were "all just a dream."

I wish I could say that more of today's comic-book authors had earned my trust, but they just haven't.  Too many of them take a cynical approach toward their characters, treating them as plot devices or sales mechanisms instead.

Trust is important. Trust keeps me buying the next issue when something seemingly ill-advised happens (from a story/plot perspective).  Trust makes me come along for the ride.  Without that trust, there's no guarantee I will bother looking for the comic next month.  Which, incidentally, is very likely to happen with this strange Captain America storyline Remender is doing.  Don't get me wrong, the story-line itself is not horrible (though it is not great, either).  But before writing something like this, Remender should have done an arc or two to earn my trust.  Without that, it's very hard to keep me along for the ride.

New Comic-book Night 4/24 - and some older ones too

For this week's NCN, I knew that Katana 3 was finally coming out (I've grumbled about that for the last two weeks, since it was supposed to come out much earlier this month).  There is still no sign of JLA 3, which should have come out last week.  This is the last week of April comics, and I had some money left in my "entertainment" budget, so I decided to pick up some back-issues while I was in the shop.

Knowing I had the trade paperback Supergirl: Identity on order (along with some Supergirl/LSH and LSH trades), my first impulse was to pick up some more Girl of Steel literature.  I already have (and have read) the first two trades from Supergirl series 3 ("Power," which covers issues 0-5, and "Candor," which covers issues 6-9 plus other stuff).  Identity covers issues 10-19.  Next on the TPB list is Beyond Good and Evil, which covers issues 23-27.   Sharp-eyed readers will notice this leaves a gap -- issues 20, 21, and 22 do not seem to be reprinted in any TPB that I could discover.  Therefore, I needed to buy those issues individually. The shop had all three for a slightly unreasonable price, but I bought them anyway. I could easily beat the $3.50 price per issue by shopping online, at a place like Lone Star Comics, but the shipping would eat up any savings.  So I picked those up.  Once I get Identity, I will have all the Supergirl series 3 stories from issue 0 through issue 22 (which is about 1/3 of the 67-issue series).  I will also have all 20 or so issues of LSH in which Supergirl appeared, and the Superman/Batman trade paperback that rebooted her.  Not bad for a few months' work.

I still had more than enough money to buy Beyond Good and Evil, but instead, I surprised myself by going in a totally different direction. The comic shop still had out in the "current" area (i.e., not bagged up as back-issues), the previous 5 issues of the Marvel Now! version of Captain America, and issue 6 was on the "last week" shelf.  Other than trying, and quickly discarding, Avengers Assemble after reading the first four, badly written, issues back in December, I have not touched a Marvel comic in probably 20 years.  I gave up on Marvel in the early 1990s after getting utterly fed up with the whole "mutant thing" (which is a topic for another day).  But I've always had a special place in my heart for Cap, who is my favorite Marvel character and is second only to Supergirl on my all-time favorites list.

As I say, it's been a long time, and I have no idea what has been happening with Captain America.  Well, that's not completely true. I've heard some things -- like he was killed, and then came back.  (I am so shocked at that!)  I toyed with this series when it first came out (I believe issue 1 came out right around the time I returned to collecting comics) but in addition to being a Marvel title, I was hesitant to buy anything penciled by John Romita. I have never liked his work since I first saw it way back in the 170s of the original X-Men series.

On the other hand, I've read plenty of other comics with good stories and poor (or even hideous) art.  Recent examples include the New 52 Wonder Woman (Chiang is good but Akins is horrible), and Supergirl (As I noted in my first article about that series, Asrar's art has its moments but is really not my cup of tea).  And perhaps the best example of all time is the Daring New Adventures of Supergirl, which for 22 of 23 issues was nauseatingly drawn by Carmine Infantino, who in several panels each issue managed the seemingly-impossible task of making Kara Zor-El look ugly.  If I could put up with all that on behalf of other characters I love, I suppose I can stomach Romita's art if it's the price of reading good Cap stories.

Of course, whether these stories are any good or not remains to be seen. I haven't read them yet.  I'll certainly be reporting on them in the future.

A couple of things I have already noticed, however.  I like DC's cover and inside paper better than Marvel's (DC's is smoother and shinier looking).  On the other hand, I absolutely love that I get full access to the digital version of the comic by buying the paper version -- at no extra charge! DC wants to charge me an extra buck for that. No thanks. I really like that Marvel doesn't force me to choose formats. I buy the comic, and it gets me the right to both formats.  That is as it should be.  It's a nice little "thank you" to the fans for our support, and I have to give that one to Marvel.  The other thing I noticed (though I haven't read them yet) is that Captain America has a letter column! This is what I've been telling DC to do for months.  I'm looking forward to being able to read the letters.

A couple of final notes:  There are some brand new "New 52" versions of DC Covergirl statues coming out for Batgirl and Supergirl!

Batgirl:

Supergirl:

These gorgeous 10" statues are due out in Sept/Oct of this year, so reserve your copy today!

Finally, if you like Gail Simone, her Red Sonja series is due out in July.  My comic shop is already letting people add it to their pull list, so if you want a copy of issue #1, reserve it today at your local shop!