Reviews of Comics from Wednesday 3/4

Descender #1
Story: Jeff Lemire
Art: Dustin Nguyen

Oh, Image Comics, you are going to break my bank. Descender is the new series from Image from Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen, a sci-fi series set out on non-Earth worlds, and this first issue is a sterling start. The series opens on Niyata, the hubworld of the United Galactic Council (UGC), as a giant robot appears in space. A robot that dwarfs the planet. Dr. Jin Quin, the leading expert on robotics, is called to investigate, just before the robot attacks. Flashforward ten years, and we are on the moon Dirishu-6, as a young boy wakes up. He wanders the seemingly abandoned moon, looking for his mom and Andy, and finds his robot dog, Bandit, at which time we learn that Tim-21 is, in fact, a robot child. We spend the issue with Tim learning about what happened when the Harvesters, the giant robots, attacked the various worlds of the UGC. We also return to Niyata, where Dr. Quin has fallen from the height of society to the dregs when he is contacted by Captain Telsa of the UGC. It seems analysis has shown that the Tim robots are the progenitors of the Harvesters, and while it was thought all the Tim's were destroyed in the anti-robot purges after the Harvester attacks, Tim-21 went on-line to search for his lost family, they now know he's out there. Lemire does a great job of getting the reader immediately on Tim's side. The appearance of a child, and the quest to find his family, makes him a sympathetic character, and since he's been shut down for a decade, it gives the reader a way to learn what happened with the Harvester attack without it seeming like awkward, out of place exposition. But what made me snag this book initially was the stunning art from Dustin Nguyen. Having commented last week on how his art in Batman #39 was so strikingly different from his Li'l Gotham art, this issue is yet another departure. He draws three distinct science fiction worlds, the desolated Dirishu-6, the upper crust Niyata from before the harvester attack, and the more run down Niyata of the post-Harvester attack. He draws various aliens, giving them distinct designs. I'm curious to see each of the other eight prime planets of the UGC and what those worlds look like. Add in ther gorgeous water colors that Nguyen works with over his own line work, and you have the best looking comic of the week. Descender #1 is a strong start to a series that has the potential to rank with Saga as one of Image's strong sci-fi titles, one that explores the nature of humanity as much as the galaxy.

Hero Cats #4
Stroy: Kyle Puttkammer
Art: Marcus Williams

Action Lab has some of the best all ages titles out there. with Princeless and Fight Like a Girl, and while Hero Cats skews younger than those two books, it's still an enjoyable read for all. Hero Cats features six cats, each with a special ability, who help protect Stellar City from all sorts of robots, monsters, and crooks. This issue sees the cats entering a mysterious sinkhole and finding an underground civilization beneath the streets they protect. The team splits up, and we spend time with Cassiopeia, the team's newest recruit and our point of view cat for the series, learning about some team history from Rocket, the super fast cat who claims to be an alien. It's a good jumping on point for new readers, as we get to learn how team leader Ace met Midnight, the Batman to Ace's Superman, and how they brought Belle, the telepathic cat, out of a life of crime. The action of the issue sees the Hero Cats meet Eastly the Brave, a member of the culture that lives in the city beneath Stellar City, and aid him in defeating the Coaliod warriors that have conquered his city. Belle is the cat who gets to take center stage, since it's her telepathy that allows the cats to communicate with the underdwellers. It's a story with a lot of great action pieces, and some wonderful subterranean designs by artist Marcus Williams, both the general look of the tunnels and the various creatures that inhabit the world. I'm a cat lover (although, God bless her, my cat Bess could never be a Hero Cat; it would require way more effort than she has ever done and she's actually afraid of mice, so I don't know what she'd do about a monster) and a lover of all ages comics, so Hero Cats is right up my alley, and is a book I love sharing with my niece, so it's a winner all around.

Rocket Raccoon #9

Story: Skottie Young

Art: Jake Parker

Rocket Raccoon is a comic that finds a good balance between fun action and some darker places, but it's at it's core a comic about the friendship between it's title character and his best tree pal, Groot. And no issue has shown that better than this one. The issue opens in what seems to be a future where a Kaiju-sized Groot is menacing Earth and the Avengers seem unable to stop him. The only hope that they have is to send out and Iron Man drone to find the one being who they think can get through to Groot: his old pal, Rocket. When Iron man contacts a grizzled, older Rocket, he gets the brush off, but under everything else, Rocket is still Groot's friend, and so he heads off to Earth for the big confrontation that, well doesn't go as anyone expects. I won't ruin the ending, but what initially seems to be a tragic ending comes back to being a much more hopeful one. Young does a great job of establishing exactly why Groot is on Earth, why he has become the giant monster that he has, and why Rocket isn't with him. Artist Jake Parker does a great job of working in a style similar to that of writer and series initial artist Skottie Young without aping his style, and so the book feels seamless to what has come before. He draws some incredible spreads, really showing the scale of the monster Groot and draws an awesome giant Rocket mech (yeah you read that right. Giant. Rocket. Mech). While we see the deaths of the Avengers, and we see friend fighting friend, the conflict isn't gratuitous, and setting it in a future like this would allow younger readers to still know everything will work out ok in the here and now. As the Guardians of the Galaxy have expanded to take up their own family of titles in the Marvel Universe, each book has taken up it's own flavor. Rocket Raccoon is a high action, high octane, buddy comedy. But between the last two parter and this issue, it's clear that the "buddy" part of the equation is the most important aspect of the title.

Star Wars: Princess Leia #1

Story: Mark Waid

Art: Terry & Rachel Dodson

The third title in Marvel's new Star Wars initiative features Princess Leia, adding to Marvel's growing number of female led titles. While  it remains set in that era in  between the original Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back, as the other two titles do, this one feels like it needs to be in that particular pocket, and for a reason that makes a lot of sense. In the original film, Alderaan, Leia's homeworld, is destroyed. In the remaining two films, Leia never really mentions that nearly everyone she knew and loved were wiped out in one fell swoop by the Empire. And while some EU writers dealt with Leia's grief, like Brian Wood in his monthly for Dark Horse and Martha Wells in her Leia-centric novel Razor's Edge, what should have been a central part of Leia's character arc is usually left alone. But in an issue that picks up right where the first film ends, Mark Waid is taking this front and center. With the Rebellion fleeing Yavin-4, Leia is at ends. Everyone is handling her with kid gloves, and General Dodanna tells her flat out that he's protecting her because the Empire has a massive bounty on her head so she will be guarded at all times. Meanwhile, we meet Evaan, a female Rebel pilot who is also from Alderaan, and is dealing with the loss of her world in her own way. Soon, the two women are running away from the Rebel fleet so Leia can do what she feels she must; gathering the diaspora that has been left behind by Alderaan's destruction. It's a strong mission statement for the book and the character, and it's important to note the book is called Princess Leia, not "Leia" or "Senator Organa." The nature of Leia as a princess of Alderaan is the defining aspect of her character for the plot of this story. Waid has captured the voices of all the movie characters well, and wins extra points for adding in two of my favorite movie characters, Admiral Ackbar and Wedge Antilles. I understand in a post-EU world there's a need to establish new characters and new settings, but the movies give writers plenty of small characters who can be used, and Waid gets this; he is a writer long used to working in shared universes and it shows. While both Star Wars and Darth Vader have been big action comics, it seems Princess Leia will be more character-centric, despite there being a really well drawn spacecraft chase scene drawn by the Dodsons, who do their usual great job on this issue. Now with all three titles up and running, I can safely say that Marvel is handling the Star Wars license well, and I look forward to seeing where it will grow.

And here's another #1 written by Jeff Lemire, reviewed by Dan Grote

All-New Hawkeye #1

Story: Jeff Lemire

Art: Ramon Perez and Ian Herring

The previous volume of Hawkeye, by Matt Fraction, David Aja et al, was easily one of Marvel’s best titles of the past five years and had a distinct voice and vision. Put more bluntly, I loved every damn page of it, from the tracksuit draculas to Lucky the Pizza Dog to dear, departed Grills.

But it’s time to move on.

All-New Hawkeye starts with a beautifully painted, swirling purple flashback to young Clint Barton and his brother, Barney, catching frogs and escaping their abusive foster father. That, paired with the cover, hammers home to the reader that they’re picking up a different book from what had gone before.

Or is it? By the sixth page of story, we’re back to good-old #hawkguy Clint Barton and Kate Bishop, sniping at each other and shooting arrows at Hydra goons in a situation that, just a few months ago, would have started with a purple narration box that says, “OK, this looks bad.” Ramon Perez’s style on the present-day pages even mirrors Aja’s, which is nothing if not comforting.

The past and present narratives switch back and forth faster and faster as the issue progresses, becoming more and more intertwined. Clint and Barney get separated upon their return home to their foster father. Clint and Kate get separated by a sliding door at the Hydra base. Barney takes a beating from the old man – and gives him one right back. Kate ignores orders to retreat and keeps ripping through goons till she finds what Team Hawkeye has been tasked with uncovering. The silhouette of a Hydra agent serves as a flashback panel. Finally, in a splash page drawn like a face playing card, young Clint and Barney stand in wide-eyed awe of their future, while Kate discovers what Hydra’s been hiding and is made ill by the sight.

My only teeny, tiny nitpick is I’m kind of over new Marvel series opening with raids on Hydra bases and ending with reveals of what Hydra is hiding. All-New Captain America #1 used the exact same plot device just a few months ago. Maybe it’s a concentrated effort on the part of editorial, something to do with Secret Wars or whatever, but there’s lots more villains to punch in the 616 than the boys in the green-and-yellow tunics and bug-eye masks.

Recommended Reading for 3/29: Hawkeye

If you had told me last year that I would be writing a recommendation for a book featuring Hawkeye, Marvel Comics avenging archer, I would have given you an incredulous look. Sure, Brian Michael Bendis had done some decent things with him in New Avengers, but my first and main exposure to Hawkeye was during the period when he was with Mockingbird a lot, and to a DC fan felt like a poor man's Green Arrow (who is often a poor man's Batman). But I had heard such good things about this series, and the last time Matt Fraction and David Aja worked together they had done an amazing job on Immortal Iron Fist, so I thought I'd try it out. And boy am I glad I did.

Hawkeye isn't a traditional superhero comic. Like Immortal Iron Fist was really a martial arts comic, Hawkeye is a crime comic. Sure, there are supervillains, but they seem to be street level villains, or at least non-powered ones, and Hawkeye is fighting them on his terms. The first issue is a street story, where Hawkeye is trying to get a bunch of Russian crooks to stop trying to force the people in a building they have bought, one where Hawkeye keeps an apartment, out on the street. Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor really don't fight a bunch of Russian mobsters in track suits who call them, "Bro," throughout the story.

Matt Fraction's writing has a wicked sense of humor. Clint Barton, Hawkeye, is the kind of guy who has a wiseass comment for every situation. He disarms his foes and his friends with them. There's a long line of heroes who do this, from Marvel's own Spider-Man, to wizard-for-hire Harry Dresden, to Vlad Taltos, Steven Brust's wizard/assassin. The stories are narrated by Barton, so it helps being in the heroes head to really get his irreverance.

What it feels to me Fraction is doing is really taking Hawkeye and turning him into a classic hardluck pulp hero when he's no with the Avengers. The series opens with Hawkeye taking a plunge out of a window and breaking enough bones to leave him in the hospital for six weeks. Over the course of the first trade's worth of issues, Hawkeye is mugged, shot, hit on the head with a bottle, and knocked out. Sure, superheroes usually take a beating, but rarely as constantly, and in such an embarrassing manner for them. The narrative of each issue actually has the repeated phrase, "Okay... This looks bad." This is not the heroic mantra of a hero; it's nobody's, "With great power comes great responsibility." This is something you'd expect to hear from Sam Spade, or a similar character in a noir as the mobster he's been tailing leads him down a blind alley and is waiting with a gun to rub him out for good. It's humanizing, and makes Hawkeye a more endearing character than simply the archer who never misses and makes smartmouth comments at Captain America.

So far, the supporting cast for Hawkeye seems to be made up of one character: Marvel's other Hawkeye, Young Avenger Kate Bishop. And let me say, that while she may be a member of the Avengers junior team, she sure doesn't act like it; she's a full fledged superhero, and woe unto Clint Barton if he should forget it. Kate is nobody's sidekick, but she is willing to be Clint's partner and be mentored by him. It's clear right from the get go that Clint respects Kate, both her mind and her skill with a bow. And she saves Clint as much (if not a little more) than he does her. The strength of their relationship is part of what drives the book, and giving someone Clint can trade zingers with one to one is an excellent choice by Fraction. Clint is still the senior partner, though, and Kate is still learning, but Clint is never the overbearing mentor, like Batman is to Robin. He tries to get Kate to learn, and doesn't scold when she disobeys orders, mostly because he knows in her place he would have done the same thing.

Fraction's particular use of Marvel's established supervillains is something I enjoyed a lot in the first volume of the series. Over the course of five issues, Hawkeye finds a way to royally tick off both the Kingpin and Madame Masque, neither of whom are people you want to be on the wrong side of. But its issue two that really impressed me, where Hawkeye runs afoul of the Ringmaster and the Circus of Crime. Evil circus is kind of an old trope, and there have been attempts to make Ringmaster and his crew edgy and modern before, and they usually fall flat. Fraction doesn't try to change the Circus, but first he plays with the modern circus atmosphere by cleverly changing the Ringmaster's schtick into a more Cirque du Soliel thing,and then he ties in Hawkeye's own background: Hawkeye was raised in a circus, trained by the man who would become the villain Swordsman. And with one of Swordsman's other students in Ringmaster's crew, the adventure had a more personal twist to it. Fraction finds a way to make what could have been the same old Ringmaster story much more interesting with just a couple nice additions.

David Aja's art perfectly suits the kind of stories that Fraction is telling in this book. His style falls in that same gritty family as guys like Michael Lark, Steve Epting, and Butch Guice, all artists who have worked on some of Marvel's more non-traditional superhero books in recent years. It has a gritty look, very much at home on the streets of New York or Madripoor. And while the idea of both being clean and gritty seems oxymoronic, Aja's style is. His line work is distinct and his continuity if marvelous, while still maintaining the street feel of the book. It seems like in between each Aja drawn arc, there will be one drawn by another artist, and that line up is equally impressive. The first two parter was by Javier Pulido, known for his beautiful work on Human Target and Daredevil, and the forthcoming arc is by Francesco Francavilla, whose Black Beetle is the best pure neo-pulp on the stands right now.

Hawkeye was definitely the sleeper hit of last year, and I'm glad it was a hit. A strong, character driven half super hero/half crime title is something that speaks to me. After only one trade, I've come to appreciate both Hawkeyes on an entirely new level, and I'm looking forward to reading more with them. I also think that this would be a great book to crossover with James Asmus's equally crime flavored Gambit. I can see a Gambit and Howkeye in the Big Easy story, where the run across ladies and thieves. Two more unlikely titles I can't think of, but there's something about it that I think wold work. Fortunately, for all his problems in the book, things don't look bad for the future of Hawkeye.

The first trade of Hawkeye, My Life as a Weapon, was released two weeks ago, containing issues 1-5 and an issue of Young Avengers Presents where the two Hawkeyes first met. The books is released monthly through Marvel, with its second trade to be released in May.