Hey all! Sam here.
Familiar news, I’m afraid. This week’s comic will be delayed until this Saturday. It WILL come this Saturday, however, as my last day of work at this life-consuming job is finished as of Friday. I tried to get this week’s page done today, but I spent most of the day trying to unwind from some stress by reading comics on my balcony, and time just slipped by me.
In the mean time, here’s some info on some of the comic books I picked up the other day. I kind of had a spurge and I bought a bunch of stuff (and got some more for Christmas) that I’ve either read and just wanted to own or stuff I’ve heard about and wanted to check out. For people who read comics, they’re going to roll their eyes and think I’m really far behind on some of this, but they can jump in a lake.
Older Stuff I’m Catching Up on (or Collecting)
Superman: Red Son
I read this a long while back, but I realized I didn’t own it and that’s a crime. Let’s get this out of the way: I don’t like mainstream superhero books. It’s a rare day I’ll ever pick one up, even out of sheer curiosity. And when it comes to superheroes, Superman is by far my least favorite. Which is why I love the hell out of Superman Red Son, the only Superman book I’ve ever enjoyed. I enjoy it because it throws everything you know about Superman and the DC comics universe out the window and re-writes it, throwing Superman into a world where he lands in Soviet Russia, not Kansas, and how this impacts the world. Russia uses Superman as a tool of propaganda and power, their own living breathing nuclear weapon in the arms race. It starts kind of clunky, but once it finds its pace, the story Mark Miller has come up with here is the only brilliant or even remotely interesting story I’ve ever seen anyone weave from the man of steel.
Fables: Deluxe Edition – Volume 1
Fables is just the best comic book ever made. Period. And they’re very slowly releasing it into deluxe hardcover editions, one edition a year. Each one only holds about ten issues. Currently, Fables is an on-going story, with issues coming out every month, and that’s been going on for years. So… yeah, I’ve got a long time to wait to get all of it collected. If you don’t know, Fables deals with every fictional fairy tale you’ve ever heard of getting booted from their homeland and sent packing to New York City where they try their best to fit in and live among the rest of us. The Big Bad Wolf is their personal sheriff and Snow White runs their small neighborhood government in place of King Cole. I would have never picked it up based on those words alone, but trust me, it’s the greatest thing ever.
Ex Machina- Vol 1
I’m a big Brian K. Vaughan fan. His other series, Y the Last Man, is one of the best things I’ve ever read (and I need to collect that too… someday). Ex Machina was the first series to launch him to my attention, and I remember seeing that iconic, weird looking superhero suit years and years ago and thinking it just looked like another dumb superhero book. Whoa, I was wrong. I picked this up and I’m loving the hell out of it. Now I have to catch up with the rest of it. It totally does the whole “what if a superhero existed in the real world” thing, and does it brilliantly. It’s also set around 9/11 and deals heavily with politics, so that gives you the idea that this isn’t just a guy in tights smashing other guys in tights.
Daredevil- The Man Without Fear Collection by Frank Miller
Speaking of those dumb superheroes, Daredevil is the only superhero I can honestly stomach. I’m not sure why, but I totally buy into him, and the way Frank Miller wrote him is totally perfect. I’m not a Frank Miller fan whatsoever, but he was a perfect match for the man without fear. This collection concerns Daredevil’s origins as a kid, how he got blind, and how he gets into the devil suit. You only even see him in the devil suit in the last panel of the last page.
Rex Mundi: Vol 1
I picked this up based on a recommendation, and while it’s a slow start, WOW, it’s an awesome book. I hate it took me this long to discover this awesome noir-ish story in an alternate history france where the Catholic church rules all and where the American Civil War ended in a draw. Fun stuff.
NEW STUFF!!!
Umbrella Academy: Vol 2.
I loved the first volume of this comic, and the second does not disappoint whatsoever. This may be some of the best comic stuff floating around, and it’s only just beginning.
The Unwritten – Vol 1.
Also picked up on a recommend, this book follows a kid who’s dad wrote a Harry Potter-like book and cast his son as the Potter. Well, after the series has ended and his father gone missing, a bunch of weird stuff starts happening to the main character that makes him believe that those books might not be fictional. It’s very well written if a bit loopy, and I can tell they’re building something cool here, so I’ll keep reading.
DMZ – Vol 7 – War Powers
DMZ is, very honestly, Pulitzer Prize worthy. It’s some of the best written stuff I’ve ever laid eyes on. Brian Wood is a complete genius and this is his opus. It’s the Wire of comic books, if the Wire was about New York torn between a new American Civil War. And it keeps getting better and better.
Fight for Tomorrow
Brian Wood wrote this one-off story about a boy who grows up in an underground fighting ring, and I picked it up pretty much just because he wrote it. It’s pretty good, if a little underwhelming at the end. The art is fantastic, and I could see it making a pretty great movie.
Wolverine Noir
So, Marvel did this “noir” alternate stories about some of their biggest characters, and I asked for some of them for Christmas because the idea intrigued me. Wolverine here, was my least favorite. They totally run with the noir parts of the story, but in the end, this just didn’t feel enough like Wolverine. He’s not a mutant, he’s stripped of his powers, and his claws are literally knives. I’m not a fan-boy purist or anything, but this just wasn’t enough of a Wolverine story to slap the name “Wolverine” on it.
Daredevil Noir
Daredevil here has the opposite problem. It’s too much of a Daredevil story, and not noir enough. The art sure is, but the story just felt like every other Daredevil story I’ve ever read. I guess that’s fitting, since Daredevil is a character very suited for noir (he runs a law firm, so that’s how he gets “cases”, there’s always a lot of inner monologue, and he fights mafia thugs). So, it’s not bad, but I don’t think they really had enough fun with the noir setting.
Spider-Man Noir
Now, THIS is how you do it. Spider-Man Noir balances just the right pose between hitting the right beats of the source material (it feels like Spider-Man), while making it a totally noir story, and having a lot of fun with the setting. Funny enough, I liked the art the least in this book between the three I got. So I just can’t win here, Marvel. Get it together, guys.
