Not-Very-New Comics: The November 21 Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Astonishing X-Men #17:  This issue is a mess.  But, I appreciated what Rosenberg was trying to do here, as he explained it in his concluding letter.  He wanted to tell a story about the heroes who don’t always get it right.  It's a good goal, the type of story we don't see told enough.  I'd say that he largely accomplished that goal, messy though the road to that goal was.  After all, the characterization was...dodgy.  Alex seemed like a combination of Bobby Drake with the bad jokes, Quentin Quire with his easy disillusionment, and Tony Stark with the weary drinking.  Allison made weird comments about the Beast’s weight.  But, Rosenberg was getting Alex to a place where I liked him.  It was a more interesting iteration of him.  I mean, it's been a while since we had a consistent characterization of him, so I was really just happy for Rosenberg to have a specific vision of him.  But, the progress Rosenberg was making ends here with the advent of “Uncanny X-Men.”  After all, I’m still not really sure what the Reavers were doing or planning, but I guess it doesn’t matter at this point.  Unfortunately, this series appears to be part of the trend over the last few years of all the X-books being disposable.  Just when the authors seem to get somewhere interesting, the series is canceled due to yet another line-wide “relaunch” and the team is disassembled.  [Sigh.]  It’s bad when you’re pining for a series you didn’t even like all that much, just because you want some stability.

Batman #59:  This story would be great if it weren’t a “Batman” story.  I’m fine believing Bane is only pretending to be semi-comatose while actually running Arkham and, by extension, Gotham.  (I mean, that connection is kind of a stretch, but whatever.)  I’m also fine with Penguin confessing this information to Batman as part of his revenge against Bane for killing his Penny.  King has Penguin make it clear the strikes against Bruce — Dick, Alfred, etc. — came from Bane.  But, I don’t buy Bruce’s actions.  King seems to subscribe to Snyder’s belief that Bruce is incompetent.  After all, Bruce doesn’t really figure out anything here.  Sure, he realizes Penguin was the one actually to kill the women who Freeze allegedly killed, but it also seems like Penguin wasn’t really hiding his tracks all that well.  But, King goes ones step further as Bruce isn’t just incompetent but also psychotic.  Rather than tricking Bane into revealing the truth, he just simply beats him to a pulp, as if Bane — the man whose “powers” come essentially from surviving Santa Prisca — would crack under the torment.  Gordon tries to get him to stop and he punches Gordon.  Gordon dismisses him, saying he’s sick of him, and I couldn’t agree with him more.  A Red Hood story?  That makes sense.  A Batman story?  Nope.

Infinity Wars:  Sleepwalker #3:  I mean, this issue and series are just the effing worst.  Nothing makes sense.  Like, I couldn’t even pretend to tell you what story Bowers and Sims are actually trying to tell here.  I can’t believe I got suckered into buying it because Darkhawk was in it.

Mr. and Mrs. X #5:  Honestly, y'all, I just fucking love this series so much.  It's romantic, it's suspenseful, it's funny.  Thompson gets these characters in an intuitive way, and it shows in every panel.  Also, Bazaldua and D'Armata are an excellent team.  "Astonishing X-Men" and "Uncanny X-Men" suffered from such consistently disappointing art, the great art here just really underscores what a wonderful book this series is.  Also, cats!

The New World #5:  Kot ends this series by leaning into the idea of the wall as a metaphor.  Thanks to Stella’s A.I. successfully hacking into border security’s systems, Kirby and Stella reveal to the country that the wall is merely a hologram, a prison of their own making due to their faith in, and fear of, their institutions.  Kot could’ve left it there and scored a point against our Trumpian reality.  But, he goes one step further.  Kirby knows the revelation will result in chaos, so he wants to stay and make the United States a better place.  But, Stella has done enough, and they part.  By adding this exchange, Kot exposes the sort of disagreements many people opposed to any agenda have in this era.  Stella is exhausted and just wants living her life with her love serving as the best revenge, whereas Kirby wants a more direct approach to right the wrongs he sees.  They’re both valid options, and they may not be as incompatible as they seem in this moment.  To that point, as Stella summons up her courage to take that step through the wall, Kirby is there with her.  Kot leaves us there:  we don’t know what they ultimately do; we just know they’re in love, hand in hand, for right now.  It’s a great ending to this trippy series, a reminder how much Kot and Moore really accomplished with just five issues.

Spider-geddon #4:  Gage does a solid job of keeping all the plates spinning at this point.  This series has had some problems with tie-in coordination, like we see here with Jessica Drew arriving after the events of the so-far unpublished "Spider-Force" #3.  But, it's not too much of an issue.  Gage cleverly ups the stakes by having the Web-Warriors expel an unhelpful Norma Osborn.  As revenge, he destroys the Web of Life and Destiny, severing the Web-Warriors' ability to travel between dimensions and thus stranding everyone else on Earth-616 with the Inheritors.  I'd say that sets up the final conflict pretty nicely.  This series lacks the overarching brilliance of "Spider-Verse," but as a sequel to a previous event it's doing really well.

Uncanny X-Men #2:  This issue is marginally better than the first one, in that at least it makes sense on the face of it.  Storm leads a team to Kansas when a veritable horde of Madri suddenly appears and Jean decides (for reasons that remain unclear) that Storm is best suited to handle it.  Meanwhile, Jean leads a team to Montana to stop a group of rampaging dinosaurs, part of a worldwide phenomenon of long extinct animals suddenly coming to life.  Hank posits all these events — including the mysterious development of a lake in Africa that he and Storm investigated last issue as well as the disappearances of Senator Ashton and Kitty — are all connected.  But, instead of doing more research on that connection, he goes to recover the mutant “vaccine” from the pharmaceutical factory the X-Men destroyed when they accidentally crashed a Blackbird into it last issue.  Just when I had hope it was going to start getting better, Legion appears on the last page to “save the day,” which means it’s all going to get worse.

Also Read:  Nightwing #53; Spider-Force #2; Star Wars #57; West Coast Avengers #4

Not-Very-New Comics: The September 12 Everyone-but-Marvel Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

The New World #3:  I don't have a ton to say about this series at this point, other than it's a trippy combination of art and words that seems to be telling a larger story than the art and words imply.  I don't know how it is, but it is.  On the face of it, it's about Stella trying to flee her oppressive grandfather and his use of her to advance the police state he rules, but she won't flee without her cat.  Her priorities are in the right place, I say.

Oblivion Song #7:  I am not a fan of stories where the author drags out "the secret" as long as s/he possibly can, so I'm thrilled Kirkman gets right to the heart of the matter here.  Nathan confirms what we already mostly know or suspect.  He and a team of researchers and scientist at a think tank activated a device that caused the Transference.  All but one of the team is killed in the first few moments.  While Katherine (the other surviving member) works on a way to reactivate the device, Nathan gathers batteries.  Katherine sacrifices herself to turn on the device, but it only has enough juice -- as originally should've been the case -- to send back Nathan.  He explains why it became his life's work to correct his wrong.  Although disgusted, Director Ward keeps Nathan in prison partly to save him and partly because he wants to provide the device to the Defense Department to use as a weapon.  Meanwhile, Heather tells Nathan he's right when he says to her that he should've told her sooner, because she understands now just how much of a hero she is.  She gives him two darts:  one to send him to Oblivion and one for him to return.  Kirkman does a great job of building the suspense throughout the issue as we watch a still-stranded Ed try to grapple with his new reality.  I can't imagine Ed's wife is going to be thrilled to see Nathan return without Ed.  At this stage, the only mystery on the books is why the energy field on the other side of the dimensional door amplified the device the way it did, but I have confidence Kirkman will get there sooner rather than later.

The Wild Storm:  Michael Cray #11:  Honestly, I've kind of lost the thread here.  I keep confusing Dion with Diana Prince, and I'm not really sure why Constantine and Diana "need" Cray at this point.  If Constantine just needs access Diana's energy grid to summon whatever demon he wants to summon, can't he get that access without Cray?  Hill seems to be writing for the trade at this point.  Ellis has done an amazing job somehow keeping us in touch with the overarching story with each new issue of "The Wild Storm."  Hill seems to have given up trying to do so, and it's a shame.  I don't really get why we deviated so much from the series' original premise of Cray hunting down this Earth's versions of DC's heroes with his untrusty band of sidekicks.  Instead Hill has killed off his supporting cast and we're mired in a story that Hill seems unlikely to conclude nicely in his one remaining issue.  I guess we'll see.

Not-Very-New Comics: The July 25 Everyone-but-Marvel Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Detective Comics #985:  This series increasingly feels like they asked someone who's never read a "Batman" comic to tell a "Batman" story.  It turns out "Karma" is a "gun-runner" who was operating in Markovia "years ago."  He was also apparently a torturer, even though a gun runner, by definition, is the person selling the illegal weapons and generally not the one using them.  But, whatever.  Karma was a gun runner and torturer who Batman exposed to Scarecrow's gas for his crimes.  Surprised Batman would punish someone with Scarecrow's fear gas?  Yeah, me, too.  Wondering why Bruce was in Markovia in the first place?  OMG, me, too!  (In the flashback, Bruce says the people of Markovia needed freedom, but is he really a freedom fighter now?)  Anyway, Batman "accidentally" creates Karma when, shocker, Scarecrow's gas fractured his mind.  All that said, it's still not clear why Karma wants to purge Bruce of his "weakness," i.e. the Bat-family.  But, do I care?  No.  No, I really don't.  Hill seems unaware that he's just repeating the plot from the much better (but not actually good) "Death of the Family."  He also seems unaware that Barbara isn't a child like Cassandra and Duke.  I'll give it one more issue, but this series is officially on notice.

Doomsday Clock #6:  Not much actually happens in this issue, but I'm not complaining.  Snyder continues to tell character-driven stories here, as we get the sad origin of Marionette and the Mime:  crooked cops murdered their store-owning parents for not paying protection money.  Story-wise, the Riddler tries to convene a League of Villainy to decide whether or not the super-villains (presumably of the United States) should band together in the wake of the Superman Theory hysteria or take up Black Adam's offer of sanctuary in Khandaq.  The Joker brings along a still-paralyzed Batman in a wheelchair, though the group is unexpectedly underwhelmed.  (Only Scarecrow seems to want to look under the mask.)  The group scatters when the Comedian suddenly starts assassinating people in his search for Ozymandias.  Marionette realizes the Comedian probably knows where Dr. Manhattan is, and the Joker is likely to join them in the search because he's (not really all that surprisingly) taken a shine to the two of them.  But, perhaps the most interesting twist here has nothing to do with the narrative but with the costumes.  It seems pretty clear we're dealing with the pre-DCnU versions of these characters based on what they're wearing, and it seems like we have to conclude the DCnU is progressing at least in part alongside the DCU.  I have no idea how Snyder is going to resolve that, but it seems likely it's where this entire endeavor is going at this point.

The New World #1:  I like Ales Kot a lot, not just for his amazing run on "Secret Avengers" but also for his Tumblr feed.  I'm a pretty buttoned up guy and he...isn't, and he makes his kink (for lack of a better word) accessible to me in a way it wouldn't normally be.  This issue is another aspect of that accessibility.  In fact, one of Kot's great skills as a writer is the ability to present a narrative that seems, on the face of it, disconnected but intuitively feels coherent.  Here, Stella the guardian has sex with Kirby the hacker at a club only to learn she has to arrest and possibly kill him the next day.  It's all more complicated than that, obviously.  Her grandfather happens to be the president of New California, one of the successor states to emerge from the dissolution of the United States after five nuclear warheads exploded without explanation over five cities.  At some point, her parents tried to flee to Mexico, but the Great Wall prevented them from doing so.  (The art team makes New Los Angeles seem so colorful you wonder why anyone would want to leave it, accentuating the realization that the reality must be dark indeed.)  It seems like she was raised in her grandfather's care, and she's now one of the top three "guardians" of a popular reality TV show where they hunt down criminals.  If she doesn't get to Kirby, her colleagues (including the one who doesn't share her aversion to following the crowd's wishes to see the perps killed) will.  It's that ability to bottom line it while hinting at the larger dynamic that makes me glad to see Kot back.  

The Realm #8:  Haun and Peck create a creepy as fuck vibe here as Molly and her crew get caught in a series of traps:  they go through a door that closes and locks behind them, the stairs go flat so they tumble into the goblins' lair, and then even that door disappears, leaving only a goblin-sized exit that only Zack can enter.  Along the way, David displays even more magical ability, summoning (possibly unconsciously) a barrier when a goblin leaps at him.  Meanwhile, Will is having dreams of becoming a full-fledged demon, awakening to find himself suspended on a wall in the weird webbing the goblins apparently can produce.  Elsewhere, we learn "the Queen" needs to find the party because the artifact they're carrying is key to re-opening "the portal."  (I assume she means the larger portal that allowed the mass invasion and not whatever means she seems to have -- I think -- to move between the dimensions.)  But, the artifact is hiding itself (and the party) from her.  Good times for the gang, I'm sure.  Basically, it all feels like a "Dungeons & Dragons" session come to life, and I can't think of higher praise than that.

Also Read:  Dungeons & Dragons:  Evil at Baldur's Gate #3; Pathfinder:  Spiral of Bones #5