Reviews of Comics from Wednesday 5/25

DC Universe: Rebirth #1
Story: Geoff Johns
Art: Gary Frank, Ethan Van Sciver, Ivan Reis, Phil Jiminez, Brad Anderson and Jason Wright, Joe Prado, Hi-Fi Colors, Gabe Eltaeb, & Matt Santorelli

Last week, the internet broke in half twice, and I'm here to tell you about the time that filled me with joy and hope. DC Universe: Rebirth begins a new phase in the history of DC Comics, linking the old with the new, and done through one of my favorite characters of all time, Wally West, the pre-Flashpoint version. I'm not even going to try to avoid spoilers here, since everything was spoiled on the internet days before the comic came out. The book is framed around Wally trying to make his way out of the Speed Force, where he has been trapped since the events of Flashpoint. Through Wally's tour of the DC Universe as it stands, we see hints of the existence of the Justice Society and the Legion of Super-Heroes, we see the return of the idea of legacy, as Ted Kord and Jaime Reyes meet, Ryan Choi has to take up a size changing belt to aid Ray Palmer, and Wally himself sees his cousin, the Wally West of the New 52, and feels his own legacy is in good hands. We get a heart breaking scene as Wally reaches out to Linda Park, his true love and anchor, who can not remember him, and a moment of triumph as Barry Allen does. What Wally talks about, as he tries to break through, is that there is a secret threat, one that has not only stolen a decade from the lives of the DC Universe, but has also stolen love and hope. This is some intense meta-commentary about the state of DC Comics, some that has come through more and more of late (the pre-Flashpoint Superman, who has been living in secret for years and who appears here as well, has commented repeatedly in his recent mini-series how much more cynical this new world is then his own), but coming from Johns himself, it's more palpable, as he is the man who wrote Flashpoint, who wrote the flagship title of the New 52, Justice League, and who has been a driving creative force behind DC Comics for over a decade now. And the use of the characters from Watchmen, while something that will/has polarized fans, is to me a very smart move, as it is the real life story that brought that sense of cynicism to comics, for good or ill. I loved this comic more than any event comic I've read in many many years. The idea of hope and legacy coming back to DC Comics is something I've been hoping for, and this is a huge step in that direction. It's got beautiful art, and engaging story, and the return of a character I love. I could not be more excited to see where DC takes their universe next.

Munchkin #17
Story: Sam Sikes & John Kovalic
Art: Mike Lucas and Meg Casey & John Kovalic

I've talked about my love of games before, and while I have enjoyed playing Munchkin, the game where you rob tombs, kill monsters, and stab your buddies in the back, it's not a game that I play a lot. However, the comic that the game has spawned is a delight, It's a simple, fun comic that is funny and each issue features a couple of bizarre and quirky stories. I've always meant to review it, because it's fun, but never got around to it. Until today. As always, this issue features two different stories. The first one, "My Faire Munchkin" has one of the series two major Munchkins at a faire in his medieval world, attempting to win the PRINCESS (not the capitalization) in the tournament. For those of you who don't know the term, in this case munchkin means a player who plays a non-competitive game aggressively, usually to the detriment of those around him or her. Spyke initially gets trounced, and then spends the rest of the story, well, cheating. Munchkin isn't a series that rewards good behavior, but it doesn't reward bad behavior either; Spyke is a lousy little jerk, and when he wins by cheating, well, the princess he meets is not the PRINCESS he anticipated. The story that made me decide to review the issue, though, was the second, "Munchkin Fu Mikado." Written and drawn by Dork Tower creator, and original Munchkin artist, John Kovalic, this story features Spyke meeting up with a monster and fighting him, before they're both tricked out of their swag by Flower, the series other principle Munchkin. Again, pretty simple story, but what made me love this was most of the dialogue is set to the tune of songs from Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado. There are notes to what song you can YouTube or Spotify to read along with, but I know most of that music, and it totally works. It is singularly ridiculous, and that just completely sells me on this issue. If you want to read a comic that just gives you a laugh, this is a perfect issue.

Secret Six #14
Story: Gail Simone
Art: Tom Derenick & Jason Wright and Rex Lokus

And once again, we reach the end. The second volume of Secret Six reaches its end as the team raids the League of Assassins stronghold to rescue their lost comrade, Strix, from Lady Shiva. As they face down the guards of the League, we get a bit of narrative from each of them. We see the theme that has been central to not just this volume of Secret Six, but the original as well, that of family. It's a violent, bloody, and bizarre family, but a family nonetheless. It's a big, crazy, issue, with all the blood and guts, and all the humor, that is the trademark of Secret Six, but each of these  people, Black Alice, Elongated Man, Catman, Strix, and Porcelain, as well as the Female Furies, as Knockout calls herself and Scandal, Jeanette, Ragdoll, are a mess, and together they have made something akin to a family. Despite them all being killers, and most of them completely mad, you feel not just sympathy, but genuine affection for these characters because they are all so clearly trying to make something better of themselves. I don't use that in the respect of, "They're trying to go straight and become productive members of society." No. They're trying to become something fuller than what they are by becoming something greater together. And it's heartwarming. But there's a character I didn't mention above, and that is the Ventriloquist, and her dummy Ferdie. And that's because not everyone is wired to be like this Secret Six. Having the Ventriloquist be treacherous and selfish not only makes perfect sense for her character, and also fits well with the history of the Six, as they've had their share of traitors, but because family doesn't save everyone. Some people are just too broken. Although you have to wonder, since the part of her that was Ferdie did really and truly want to help the others, if maybe there's some kernel of light in her dark soul. The final pages are just a smile inducing scene of the team enjoying the backyard of Ralph and Sue Dibny (and they're together and happy! Thanks, Gail!), and Strix, who has been lonely and lost since she first escaped the Court of Owls some time ago, now living in a big treehouse in Ralph's back yard, ends the series with this, "I am Strix. I have a weird family. And that is enough," And I think if that was enough for everyone, we'd be in a better place. So that ends the new volume of Secret Six. As far as I know, there are no plans for a return to these characters any time soon, but I can only hope that we'll meet again.

Star Wars #19
Story: Jason Aaron
Art: Lenil Franic Yu, Gerry Alanguilan, & Sunny Gho and Java Tartaglia

"Rebel Jail," the current arc on the Star Wars ongoing, wrapped up this past week, and it ends on a strong note. Leia, Dr. Aphra, and Sana have arrived at the hanger bay, only to find Luke and Han having just arrived and been captured by the armored mystery man who attacked the titular rebel jail, Sunspot Prison. And he's going to blow them up if Leia doesn't kill Aphra, to show to him that she's willing to make what he views as the hard choices. It's a war of ideals, and when the man takes off his helmet, it becomes all the harder. The man in the armor has been Eneb Ray,the Rebel spy from Star Wars Annual #1, so broken by the failure of the assassination of the Emperor that he has become this cold killer. And while things are dicey, Leia is clever enough to find a way to stop him. I love that it's the Princess who saves the men who rescued her at the Death Star this time, but not without Sana and Aphra getting their licks in. Sana and Aphra are the best human characters that have been introduced in the new Star Wars series (I say human because Triple-Zero and BeeTee-One, the evil Threepio and Artoo, are my favorites period), and adding a complicated backstory between them is a nice touch, giving them depth and not depending on their relationship to movie characters to define them. And while Leia walks out of the story with her idealism intact, offering hope and a hand to both Aphra and Ray, the parties hunting the rebels are all the closer, and this seems to be far from the last we've seen of Eneb Ray. I hope to see more of all these characters, and maybe it's time to have a spotlight mini-series for some of these new characters; we've seen plenty for movie characters, but the spotlight on new characters has always been something I've loved in Star Wars fiction. Star Wars often works best when the good guys are on the run and surviving by wits and the skin of their teeth, which is why the period between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back is such a fertile ground for stories, and it looks like the classic characters are in for it as tis series continues.

Reviews of Comics from Wednesday 3/23

Batman #50
Story: Scott Snyder
Art: Greg Capullo, Danny Miki, and FCO Plascencia & Yanick Paquette and Nathan Fairbairn

While next issue will be a one off epilogue issue, Batman #50 wraps up most of the threads that Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo have been weaving throughout not just the current arc, "Superheavy," but their entire fifty issue run. Bruce Wayne is back as Batman, and he and Jim Gordon team up to stop Mister Bloom and the people he has infected with his seeds. It's a double-sized issue, and deservedly so, because there is a lot going on. Bruce is fighting Bloom while Gordon is heading to the Powers building to shut down the the collider under the building that is generating a "strange star" which will obliterate much of Gotham at least. And if that weren't enough, Duke Thomas has discovered the person responsible for Bloom and is headed to confront him.

The thing that Snyder spends the issue really talking about, when it comes to theme and more than a bit of dialogue, is about Batman as hope and an idea. About how the person behind Bloom wanted to e power the people of Gotham, to allow them to be their own Batman. Bloom continues to spout his usual brand if nihilistic, every man for himself, philosophy. And Jim Gordon, the Batman who should never have been, gets the big speech as he saves the day. He gets in the speech about how the world needs heroes, not super heroes. How Batman is there because he, "fights our nightmares to teach us to fight the real terrors by light of day." It's a big, climactic scene, and while Batman's return inspires the hope that people need to remove their seeds and weaken Bloom, it's great to see Jim, who has always been a hero, get the final win on this one. The epilogue to the issue has Gordon, recovering from grave wounds, thinking about the first time he saw Gotham, and talking to Batman about it, and so it brings the series full circle; issue one had narration about what Gotham was to the people of the city, and it ends the same way.

For his big finale, Capullo pulls out all the stops, drawing legions of Bloom's freaks and different generations of Bat armor. The final big fight, between a giant Bloom and a giant Bat-Mech is a sight to behold, Capullo also debuted a new Batman costume, a slight variation on the classic theme, that is a nice final touch, a little something to remember him by.

With the announcement of the changes in creative teams coming with Rebirth, Batman #50 is a perfect coda to everything that Scott Snyder has had to say about Batman. It talks about hope and people, and while there's plenty to mill over about the nature of heroism and superheroism, there's still a ton of things going boom. This issue finds the right balance between destruction and thought, like the best blockbusters. I'm looking forward to what Snyder has planned for All-Star Batman, but he's got a tough act to follow after this.

Birthright #15
Story: Joshua Williamson
Art: Andrei Bressan & Adriano Lucas

Like all of Joshua Williamson's series, Birthright has a strong mix of character, action, and big surprises that makes it a rewarding read, and this issue, the end of the series' third arc, is a perfect example of this. Two confrontations of very different kind take place in this issue. While Wendy, mother of our leads, and winger-warrior Ryo are trapped in a cage by Mastema, one of the mages barbarian Mikey is hunting, Mikey and Brennan are surrounded by a SWAT team and Agent Kylen, secretly another of the mages. The two scenarios play to all Williamson and Bressan's strengths. The scene with Wendy and Ryo discusses the nature of prophecy, exactly what Mikey's journey was like in the fantasy world of Terrenos, and Wendy coming to terms with what her son now is. A spread over two pages shows Mikey growing up, and it's very cool to see the intermediate steps between the young boy we see in his origin flashbacks and the looming barbarian he is now. And Wendy's journey to truly believing that all this is real has finally reached the place where she's ready to embrace Mikey as her son, which makes me hope for a reunion soon.. Mikey's fight with the SWAT team is short and brutal, and it's in the reactions and expressions of his brother, Brennan, and his father, Aaron, manipulated by Kylen into leading him to Mikey, that really carries the scenes impact. That and the smugly satisfied look on Kylen's face. But that expression leaves when Sameal, the final sorcerer appears, and instead of fighting with Kylen's men, quickly dispatches them. The "spirit smoke" he uses moves across the pages, undulating and terrifying, as the ninja-like Sameal picks off the SWAT team one by one (and boy howdy, if these pages don't say Bressan should do Batman at some point in the future, I don't know what would). I will also admit I did not see the big last page reveal of Sameal's identity coming, and when I saw it, I realized how much sense it makes, and how much it's going to change things for Aaron especially. There's a two month break before arc four begins, so that's plenty of time for everyone out there to get the first two trades, and volume three when it hits, and be caught up when Birthright returns, so what are you waiting for?

The Death-Defying Dr. Mirage: Second Lives #4
Story: Jen Van Meter
Art: Roberto De La Torre, Al Barrionuevo, & David Baron

The second mini-series starring Valiant's supernatural heroes Drs. Shan and Hwen Mirage ends with an exciting ghost battle and some amazing visuals. The showdown with the ghost of evil sorcerer Denis De Walt is on the horizon, and so Hwen, himself a ghost, enters into the magic scroll known as the Vita Secunda to learn what it will take to stop De Walt. The pages with Hwen inside the scroll are stunning, some of Roberto De La Torre's most impressive, reflecting a strange world at first beautiful and then corrupted by the abuse of the primal magic. It's trippy in that classic Ditko Dr. Strange way, and aided by David Baron's colors. The thing that really sets this comic above and beyond and that drives not only the story engine but the readers interest is the wonderful relationship between the living Shan and the ghostly Hwen, and so as the two set their plan in motion to stop De Walt, the palpable sense of dread that Hwen might have to sacrifice himself to win makes the book all the more tense. The final battle is won more through cleverness than brute strength, something Shan excels at, and it's nice to get a comic with a happy ending. That final battle is again really benefited by Baron's colors, both in the way that he makes the ghosts look, each one of the important ones a slightly different color to help easily remind the reader who's who and who's dead. Also, as Hwen and De Walt cast spells at each other, their word balloons stop having words but instead symbols and colors, which I think is a fascinating representation of magic, being more feelings than actual words, and I wonder if that was handled by the artists or the letterer; one way or the other, I hope it's used again when we get another Doctor Mirage tale. The final pages, as Shan starts up the old TV show she and Hwen had before he died with actor Alex standing in for Hwen has a couple teases;  Hwen's expanding powers and the ramifications of Alex's brief possession by De Walt, setting up a third mini-series in the not too distant future. Each Valiant title has a very different feel, and I like that the supernatural adventure and romance of Death-Defying Doctor Mirage makes it a fairly unique series on the racks, and one that I enjoy each time a new issue comes out.

Secret Six #12
Story: Gail Simone
Art: Dale Eaglesham, Tom Derenick, & Jason Wright

I'm putting this review last so you can stop if you're shy about spoilers and don't want to know about the end of this issue. So HERE THERE BE SPOILERS...

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Writing about the new issue is Secret Six is tricky. Not because it is at any point lacking in the usual brand of off kilter friendship as any other issue, or lacks in brutal action. But because at the end of the issue, a reunion between two characters happens, and it made me, a grown man, squeal with joy. There are certain characters in comics that you just love. And for me, among those characters are Ralph and Sue Dibny. I wrote in the review above about how I love the relationship between Shan and Hwen Mirage. That goes triple for Ralph and Sue. They are characters that belong together. Ralph might be a pliable and hilarious detective on his own, and Sue might be a whip-smart globe trotting socialite, but through their fifty plus years in comics, they have been the best couple; they make each other better, like the best couple do in real life. They have inside jokes and tolerate each other's foibles (although most of those foibles are Ralph's). So the end of this issue, when Ralph comes home and finds Sue back, her memory restored, and they embrace? God, my heart grew three sizes. Gail Simone, congratulations on making me smile so hard my face hurt.

Aside from that, the issue also spotlights the thing that makes Secret Six such an interesting comic: no matter the version of it, these characters are a family more than a team. They're all broken in some way, and in many ways completely insane, but they care for each other. Facing down Lady Shiva, a character who has been used sparingly since Flashpoint, it would have been easy to make the issue a wall-to-wall fight, but Strix, who Shiva is seeking, won't let that happen. Because these people are her friends and family, and she won't let them enter a battle that she knows will get them killed. And so we get a sad farewell between the conscious members of the Six and Batgirl for Strix, and then she's off with Shiva. And while Ralph gets his happy reunion, the others think about what to do next. The growth these characters have gone through in twelve issues, from the disparate band of loonies into this family us never clearer. It's great how these characters, who mostly exist just on the verge of doing something monstrous, can also tug at the heart strings. I'm going to miss Secret Six when it bows out soon, but until then, I'm going to enjoy this crazy ride for as long as I can.

Reviews of Comics from Wednesday 3/16

This week' we'll be starting off with Dan Grote's review of the first issue of the new series starring everyone's favorite drunken immortal and naive assassin, Archer and Armstrong. Welcome to the Valiant fold, my friend...

A&A: The Adventures of Archer and Armstrong #1

Story by Rafer Roberts

Art by David LaFuente, Ryan Winn and Brian Reber

Sometimes you pick up a comic and you wonder why you waited so long to make it a part of your life.

Matt’s written pretty consistently about Archer and Armstrong, always making it a point to note the book’s humor. As somebody whose favorite comics include Deadpool and Chew, it’s always sounded right up my alley yet somehow just out of reach. Fortunately, this relaunch is extremely new-reader friendly.

There’s not much you need to know going in. Armstrong, aka Aram Anni-Padda, is a millennia-old, bear-sized immortal with a hunger for adventure and a thirst for booze. Obadiah Archer is a teenager trained from birth in every form of combat but is so pure of heart that he substitutes swearing for phrases like “mumble-fudgers” and “Son of a lady dog!” And his sister, Mary-Maria, leads a cult of ninja nuns and is mostly evil.

Pretty darned accessible for characters that have been around since 1992.

In this latest iteration of the title, Armstrong has gotten himself stuck in his bottomless satchel (think Mary Poppins’ carpetbag, but cooler) trying to retrieve a bottle of 1907 Lagavulin whiskey he stole from some Mafia guys in 1953. Because the satchel is left open (Armstrong is tethered to the bed in his motel room by a length of rope), the monsters that dwell inside are free to escape. Archer, who was out making a vending machine run, returns to the room to subdue the monsters and make them watch Maury Povich. He then has the plot explained to him by another creature that escaped the bag, a talking mackerel named Davey who dresses like an old gumshoe.

(It was about this point I decided I was on board.)

Archer dives into the satchel to find his partner, but not before begging Mary-Maria to watch the bag, and not steal it.

Inside the satchel is a giant library out of an M.C. Escher painting, run by goblins of indeterminate gender. Deeper inside is Bacchus, the half-human, half-goat god of wine and merriment, whom Armstrong apparently stuck in the bag thousands of years ago but doesn’t remember, much to Bacchus’ disappointment.

“Whatever, I don’t care. It’s not like I’ve been planning this moment for 3,000 years or anything,” he says when he confronts a reunited Archer and Armstrong.

Nevertheless, he sets his trash golems upon the pair, who now must rely on Mary-Maria to save them. Except she’s already decided to cut the rope and steal the satchel, so whoopsadoodle on trusting her.

The book opens with a flashback showing Armstrong and an old friend punching Mafioso and stealing the plot-driving booze. Mission accomplished, the two rest a spell on a park bench and toast to a job well done.

“Here’s to the successful end of another stupid and poorly planned adventure,” Armstrong says. May all A&A’s adventures be this stupid and poorly planned.

Clean Room #6
Story: Gail Simone
Art: Jon Davis-Hunt & Quinton Winter

I've enjoyed a lot of the recent Vertigo launches, but of them,Gail Simone and Jon Davis-Hunt's Clean Room has been the strongest. This issue, the final part of the first arc, gives us some answers... and asks a whole bunch of questions based on those answers. The past couple issue's plot of Astrid Mueller, self hope guru and knower of mysteries, trapped in a locked room with one of the demons may have ended last issue, but this issue places out series's main character, journalist in just as tenuous a place. The demon, Spark, who possessed one of her neighbors gives Chloe an insight into the suicide of her fiancee, the thing that set her on the quest to find out about Mueller and her cult, but then it... tries to save her from another demon-possessed man, this one called The Surgeon, and when Mueller finds out, she does everything  she can to save Chloe, including revealing her secret plans. We find out what Mueller was doing with the strange Dr. Hagen from a couple issues back, and while I remembered Hagen the minute he was mentioned, I hadn't thought about him since the one scene that introduced him. Simone is a clever writer who knows how to seed hints and backstory so that when it becomes relevant, the reader slaps their forehead and smiles because it all makes sense now. But even with these answers, there are now more questions: are there factions in these possessing creatures? What exactly is their physical home? How did Astird find out about Chloe's ability to communicate with the dead? And what does The Surgeon's final cryptic line mean? The balance between mystery and reveal is hard to keep in a suspense/horror comic, but Simone has it down pat. But on top of this, the emotional life of Chloe is so rich, and her reactions left me feeling deeply for her. And Astrid Mueller remains a mystery to me; even though we got some insight into what she's doing, and why, she moves from reacting with what seems like passion to cold calculation so quickly I'm still not sure how much Chloe, and the reader, can trust her. And Jon Davis-Hunt's art is some of the top notch creepiest I've seen in a while. His distorted, monstrous faces of the possessed make your skin crawl because they balance what should be with what most assuredly not. Clean Room is a great horror comic, and one I'm glad is published by Vertigo: Vertigo started as a horror imprint, after all, and Clean Room belongs in the long line of skin crawling horror that traces back to Sandman and Hellblazer.

Kanan #12
Story: Greg Weisman
Art: Andrea Broccardo & David Curiel

A year's worth of origins story comes to a conclusion in the final issue of Marvel's Star Wars: Rebels tie-in series, Kanan. The animated series has been a great success, getting better with each episode, and this series has been enjoyable; telling the stories of how Jedi Padawam Caleb Dume became rogue Kanan Jarrus feels like the book that embodies the transition from The Clone Wars to Rebels. This issue, set entirely in the present of the series, meaning during the Rebellion era, wraps up all the threads from the series, bringing in the characters that Caleb met as a Padawan and that he met when he first changed his name to Kanan to hide from the Empire, and now having them meet Kanan as an adult, and a master in his own right. Much of the issue has Kanan and his Padawan, Ezra going to save one of those long ago friends. The issue also has a cameo from one of the animated series big bads and features an appearance from an Imperial character from the first new continuity novel, A New Dawn, which was the story of how Kanan met Hera, another of the leads of Rebels. I've always liked when the comics and the novels tie together nicely, and with the new Lucasfilm Story Group overseeing all other media to make one streamlined continuity, I've been hoping for this kind of tight tie-in before, and it's the first time I've seen that kind of tie-in. But most important the little one off issue gives you everything that is good in a Star Wars story: action, aliens, strange worlds, Stormtroopers, and Jedi. I like that even thought this features characters introduced over eleven issues and a novel, the issue stands alone, making an exciting Star Wars adventure.

Steven Universe and the Crystal Gems #1
Story: Josceline Fenton
Art: Chrystin Garland & Leigh Luna

I came late to the Steven Universe party; I only started watching the series a few months ago, deep into the animated series' second season, but fell quickly in love with the deep characterization and the message at the heart of the series, that love is universal and that it brings us together and makes us better than we are alone. And so a new mini-series featuring Steven and his fellow Crystal Gems seemed like a good issue to pick up. For those who don't know the show, Steven Universe is an eternally optimistic half human/half alien boy who spends his time having adventures with the Crystal Gems, aliens who served with his mother to defend Earth from their homeworld that planned to conquer it: confident Garnet, fussy Pearl, and prankster Amethyst. One word adjective descriptors don't do any of these characters justice, as they are all remarkably deep characters. One of the things that makes the series fun is that the Gems, despite being thousands of years old, don't really get the whole human thing, and Steven often tries to explain these things to them, things like birthdays and slumber parties. This mini-series starts with Steven having another of these adventures, this time taking the Gems on a camping trip. The fish out of water aspect as the Gems try to do normal camping things makes for great comedy: Pearl (my favorite character on the show) putting up a tent to be aesthetically pleasing and using all the parts, not realizing there were instructions to make it functional, is the kind of thing that makes for great comedy. The centerpiece of the issue is the highlight of a camping trip for Steven, the telling of scary stories around the fire. Steven's story, a riff on the classic "The call's coming from inside the house!" urban legend falls flat as the Gems overthink the scare. But then Pearl decides to tell the story she and Garnet used to keep Amethyst, the youngest gem, from wandering off when she was younger, the story of the Glass Ghost. The scary stories are colored differently from the main story, and differently from each other, and the muted color palette helps give them a spooky vibe. The issue is well structured, mixing it's scares with its jokes, and a moment with Steven finding broken glass when he went to look for firewood means the story of the Glass Ghost is obviously going to be tied into the real world; I don't think it's a real spoiler to reveal Steven sees a Glass Ghost at issue's end, and it's design is phenomenal. Chrystin Garland perfectly captures the characters looks and designs, and the art is as vibrant as the animation on the cartoon. Steven Universe and the Crystal Gems #1 is a great issue for fans of the cartoon, but works just as well as an introduction to Steven and his friends.

Wrath of the Eternal Warrior #5
Story: Robert Venditti
Art: Juan Jose Ryp & Jordie Bellaire

The first arc of Wrath of the Eternal Warrior took place in the afterlife, and followed Gilad Anni-Padda (younger brother of Armstrong from Archer and Armstrong. Of course, younger is a relative term when they're both over six thousand years old) as he left the paradise where the family he has built over his long life dwells on his quest back to life. This issue is actually a flashback to a time millenia ago, in ancient Mesopotamia. One of the great things about having a long lived protagonist is that you can do this kind of story, a tale of their past that illuminates something about what they are currently going through or will go through soon. Gilad is out hunting when a raiding party finds the village that he is living in and massacres everyone and takes his son. Upon returning home, he finds the wreck of the village and goes to hunt down those who perpetrated the atrocity. During the hunt, the panels have three color schemes: full color for the present of Gilad's hunt, yellow for what he's able to determine of those who killed Janna, his wife, and took Kalam, his son, and red for flashbacks to Gilad and Janna during the time that led up to this. It makes what happened all the more tragic as you understand the choices that Gilad made to lead to having a child with a woman he knew he would outlive, a child he knew he would also outlive. Gilad is the fist and steel of Earth, the guardian of the planet and the Geomancers, the world's guardians, and so it's not often that he is presented as emotional. This series has been building a fuller, more three dimensional Gilad, a tragic hero; here we see Gilad make a decision that there might be more than just that life for him, and we see what comes of it. It's cool to watch him use his skills as a tracker and hunter to find his way to the city of the men who took Kalam, a character we saw in the afterlife, and I think we'll learn more of why Kalam resented Gilad in that world. The art on this issue is decidedly different from the previous arc; Juan Jose Ryp made his bones working with Warren Ellis over at Avatar Press, and his style is informed by those origins: his art is hyper detailed and he draws carnage like few others. His Gilad is a muscled barbarian, befitting the time and setting, and the look on his face as he sees what has been done to those he loves and the cold determination to save his son and revenge himself are chilling. I'm looking forward to see what Gilad does next issue, and I hope that these flashback stories with different artists become a staple of this title. Gilad was my favorite character from the classic Valiant universe, and every issue of this series makes me glad to see him get the series he has deserved since his reintroduction.

Thursdays with (Wade?) Jack: The Final (?) Chapter Of Joe Kelly's Deadpool Revisited

Today’s reading: Deadpool #30-33, July-October 1999

Story by Joe Kelly

Art by Pete Woods (#30-32), Walden Wong (#31) and David Brewer (#31-33)

And now, the retcon you’ve all been waiting for ...

T-Ray is Wade Wilson. Deadpool is some guy named Jack. But not Jack Hammer. That’s Weasel, whom we haven’t seen since issue #14. None of this may be true, but also all of it may be.

Confused? Good. Let’s begin.

Issue #30 takes us back to that old den of mercenaries and plot setups, the Hellhouse, where Wade’s current boss, Alestaire Grunch, has come seeking aid from his former partner, Patch, the merc den mother of diminutive frame and demonstrative mustache. Alestaire is wracked with guilt after setting up Deadpool to take the Atlanta job arranged by T-Ray in issue #28, the one that reunited him with his dead wife, Mercedes.

Things have changed at the Hellhouse since T-Ray declared himself boss at the end of the “Drowning Man” story in issues #12 and 13. Most of the mercs have sided with the mystical albino, while the last two loyal to Deadpool – C.F. and Fenway – have gotten a lot meaner-looking to compensate.

Meanwhile, Deadpool has finally opened up to Mercedes – and the readers – about the night she died: Once upon a time in Maine, Wade and Mercedes Wilson were in love. They had a nice, cozy, secluded little place, where they spent a lot of time listening to Patsy Cline records and reading. One day, the two went down to the river for water when they came upon a frozen, hulking behemoth with a bandage on his nose. They took the man in and nursed him back to health, until one day, in the middle of a blizzard, the man killed Mercedes and left Wade for dead.

One big thing to note in Deadpool’s flashback: Wade Wilson has long, brown hair and a full beard. In nearly all previous drawings of pre-cancer Wade to date, he is depicted as having short, wavy blond hair and a little bit of scruff. It’s actually one of his go-to image inducer disguises.

Post-flashback, Wade is summoned to the Hellhouse, which works out as his next stop was tracking down Alestaire anyway. But to quote my favorite Star Wars character, it’s a trap. The T-Ray-aligned mercs are ready for Wade, and so he must stab, shoot and kick his way through a gauntlet of Street Fighter knockoffs, with the help of Patch, C.F. and Fenway.

The four of them manage to subdue the rest of the mercs, but the issue ends with Alestaire seized upon by a horde of possessed cats in a fit of karmic retribution, and Monty strung up in the Hellhouse by Deadpool’s old teleportation belt, having appeared there in a burst of green flame.

His friend in desperate need of medical attention, issue #31 opens with Deadpool taking Monty to the only place that might know how to treat him: Landau Luckman & Lake.

Except their old pal Zoe Culloden isn’t the same determined cheerleader she was in the run-up to “Dead Reckoning.” She’s an overboss now, and despite ordering Monty decommissioned for “experiencing unauthorized emotions” (aka kissing her), she’s decided Monty is LL&L property again and reclaims him. As for Deadpool, she incapacitates him and throws him in a cell, along with Mercedes and pilot Ilaney Bruckner, who were along for the ride.

Fortunately, Wade always keeps explosives wrapped in latex in his stomach for just such an occasion. A little boomsy-boom later, the three are taking up arms – even Mercedes, who by now is starting to grow accustomed to her husband’s hyperviolent lifestyle – against a squad of LL&L stormtroopers.

Meanwhile, Zoe, who has been tending to the unconscious Monty, begins to feel pangs of guilt. Finally, his brain starts to register activity again, and she sees what he’s dreaming about – him and Zoe on a date, Monty walking and rocking a pretty sweet purple deep V-neck sweater. This gives Zoe the push to take out her own men and aid Deadpool and company in their escape, and also quit LL&L.

Zoe and Monty teleport off into the sunset, but before they go, Monty offers one final prediction:

“Through that doorway sits your last opportunity at a normal life with the woman you love. If you take it, go somewhere T-Ray can’t find you. I promise you, you’ll live happily ever after.”

Wade, Mercedes and Ilaney step through the LL&L portal and wind up in Maine, at the house the Wilsons once shared, where T-Ray lies in wait. Seriously, Monty was never that good of a precog.

By issue #32, T-Ray is using more magic than he has ever been shown using before. He’s interfering in teleportation matrices, changing his appearance, casting illusions and trapping Wade, Mercedes and Ilaney in their own nightmares.

Being an ancillary character, T-Ray gives Ilaney an out, telling her she can go back home and let the main cast settle its business. But the former Alpine hermit has become a thrill junkie who feels indebted to Wade for pulling her back into the world:

“Before I meet Deadpool, my life is nothing. Loneliness. Thinking of suicide. Just guilt and pain. But that maniac thought enough of me to save my life. My worthless, pathetic life. I will never forget that debt. So you can take your cowardly offer, Herr T-Ray, and SHOVE IT!”

T-Ray responds to Ilaney’s bravado by calling her a piggie (seriously with the fat-shaming, you guys!) and having her eaten alive by little green bat-demons that transport her into an illusion in which she is forced to relive over and over the plane crash that drove her into hermitage. Among the passengers inserted into the illusion are Mercedes’ parents … whom Deadpool does not recognize.

Also unrecognizable to DP, the Hawaii beach where Wade and Mercedes spent their honeymoon. And the spot at their Calgary college where the Wilsons first met. And the fact that today is their anniversary.

Issue #32 closes with another visit to the scene where Wade and Mercedes rescue their frozen future killer. Except things are different this time. Their guest has a mustache instead of a nose bandage and is wearing familiar red-and-black pants.

Next issue, T-Ray tells Mercedes what we’re all meant to believe at this point: “I am Wade Wilson. Your husband. Happy anniversary, angel.” Honey, if that’s true, you married a real creep.

Amid more flashbacks, T-Ray tells the story of a mercenary named Jack who had long, brown hair, a mustache and wore a maskless version of Deadpool’s suit. He had failed a mission in Canada and ran across the border seeking to disappear. There, he was rescued by the Wilsons. He planned to kill Wade – drawn by artist David Brewer looking more like the pre-cancer Wade we’ve seen before – and steal his identity. Instead, Jack killed Mercedes. He thought he had killed Wade, too, but Wade was rescued by the people seeking to kill Jack. They trained him to become a mercenary as well, and he studied further in Japan to learn sorcery.

Jack, in the meantime, had snapped and believed he truly was Wade Wilson (If this is true, this is only the first time he’d lose his grip on sanity, the second being after the Weapon X cancer treatments that turned him into Deadpool, as shown in the Deadpool/Death ’98 annual).

To twist the knife further, T-Ray gives Mercedes a portion of his magic, turning her into a leather-lady version of the Goblin Queen from Inferno. He then shows Wade everyone he’s ever killed, from Ajax to the Executive Elite from his very first miniseries. (The “here’s everyone you’ve ever killed” schtick will resurface in the Deadpool vs. Thanos mini.)

At this point, T-Ray believes he has won and truly crushed Deadpool’s spirit. That’s when DP starts to laugh. He gives a long speech, but here’s the good bits:

“You ever see that old cartoon with the squirrel who’s trying to eat a coconut? Chuck Jones, I think. This squirrel finds a coconut and thinks that he’s hit the giant acorn motherlode, only he can’t crack the nut. It’s too hard. So he gets a jackhammer, he throws it downstairs, runs it over with a truck, nothing. Finally, he pushes this monster up a gazillion stairs all the way to the top of the Empire State Building and heaves it. Crack. Slowly, the shell peels back. And you know what’s inside? Another coconut shell. That squirrel is in cartoon hell. That squirrel is me. … But just like that squirrel, in another month or so, the cartoon reruns, and I try again.”

He talks about how he doesn’t regret trying to do the right thing, in spite of all the terrible things he’s done. He apologizes to Mercedes for everything. Then, he confronts his other victims:

“As for the rest of you – ahem – I wouldn’t apologize to you if you threatened to consign me to spend all eternity smothered in chocolate sauce and trapped in a Roseanne Barr/Star Jones sandwich! I’m glad you’re dead! If I could, I’d kill you again! Then I’d go back in time, impregnate each of your mothers to make sure you were born, and I’d kill you again! So if you want me to turn into some sort of bleeding heart and weep out an apology, you’re gonna have to rip it out of me!”

Now that’s the Deadpool I know and love.

DP gets in a few last licks on T-Ray, but Mercedes uses magic to teleport herself and T-Ray away and free Ilaney from her nightmare, effectively ending the battle. Deadpool, meanwhile, is left to fight his victims, which sends him, for the first time in a while, to the place between life and Death, where he can meet up with an old flame … for at least the next 30 days.

So there you have it, 33 issues of comedy, violence, self-loathing and guys named Jack. The “Who is the real Wade Wilson?” mystery is revisited by subsequent writers. Both Deadpool and T-Ray are proved to be unreliable narrators, and the rotating cast of artists and inkers over the past few issues has kept things so inconsistent as to render either view plausible.

From here, Christopher Priest takes over writing duties and does things like make Deadpool realize he’s a character in a comic book and induct him into a new Frightful Four alongside his old nonbuddy Taskmaster. The series will run through issue #69, to be resurrected as a Gail Simone-Udon Studios body-swapping book called Agent X. This is followed by the Fabian Nicieza-penned team-up book Cable & Deadpool, then a solo series by Daniel Way, and finally the modern creative team of Gerry Duggan, Mike Hawthorne, et al.

As for Kelly, he would go on to write Action Comics and JLA for DC and the soon-to-be-a-movie I Kill Giants series for Image, and co-found Man of Action Studios, responsible for cartoons such as Ben 10 and Ultimate Spider-Man. He and artist Ed McGuinness also recently returned to our favorite mercenary in the new series Spider-Man/Deadpool. So he’s doing alright.

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this deep dive down memory lane, and hopefully we all enjoy the Deadpool movie, which bows tomorrow. I won’t say this is the last Thursdays with Wade post – if this series proves anything, I’ll always have something to say about the man in the red-and-black pajamas – but it’s the last for a while. So until next time, may your katana always find its mark, and may your chimichangas be thoroughly microwaved.

In addition to writing for The Matt Signal, Dan Grote is now the official comics blogger for The Press of Atlantic City. New posts appear Wednesday mornings at PressofAC.com/Life. His new novel, Magic Pier, is available however you get your books online. He and Matt have been friends since the days when Onslaught was just a glimmer in Charles Xavier's eye. Follow @danielpgrote on Twitter.

Reviews of Comics from Wednesday 1/13

Abe Sapien #30
Story: Mike Mignola & Scott Allie
Art: Santiago Caruso & Dave Stewart

Abe Sapien is the darkest of the Mignolaverse titles. While BPRD has a lot of adventure to it, Lobster Johnson is a pulp action book, and even Hellboy in Hell has a spooky, supernatural vibe, Abe Sapien is a soul searching story of one man who doesn't know his place in the world. But occasionally, the series has these interesting one off issues that take us away from Abe in the present and let us see some of his past. This issue is one of those, and it is a sight to behold. Back in 1983, Abe is spending the night talking to Professor Bruttenholm, the father figure of the various B.P.R.D. agents, and Abe stumbles across a book of spells and magic by a mage named Gustav Strubl who lived in the nineteenth century and has since returned from the dead and, unbeknownst to Abe, been on his trail and in his orbit for some time in the present. Bruttenholm brushes it off and heads to bed, but a Dr. Malloy comes in and tells Abe the story of Strubl, a story of dark schools, witches, trips to Hell, and prophecy. It's a delightfully classic horror story, Strubl being a Doctor Faustus-esque figure who wanders the world trying to gain a position in the world to come when Hell rises. And the story ends with a classic end of horror movie/story disappearing act. The pleasure of what Mignola and his various collaborators do when telling these kind of stories is that they take tropes and twist them into a slightly new formation, often with the help of an able artist. This issue's artist is an artist new to the Mignolaverse and to American comics: Santiago Caruso, whose art is absolutely astounding. His art has a very European style, which makes sense being he;s a European artist, with soft lines and inks that make for eerie shadows. His devils and demons have proportions that are large and just a bit off, adding to their sense of the unnatural. And his version of Hellboy is excellent: I'd love to see him do a Hellboy short at some point in the future. Generally, there's an almost Hieronymous Bosch vibe to the issue that really adds to the horror of the issue. If you're looking for a fun, one off horror story, this issue of Abe Sapien is a great choice.

Gotham Academy #14
Story (Framing Sequence): Brenden Fletcher
Art (Framing Sequence): Adam Archer & Sandra Hope

After Olive Silverlock's encounters with Hugo Strange and her family history, and the Robin War, Gotham Academy takes a break from the more serious plots for a light-hearted anthology arc, "Yearbook." When Maps Mizoguchi is turned down to join the yearbook at Gotham Academy, her best friend Olive gives her a scrapbook to make her own yearbook, and so Maps begins making yearbook pages around some of the wilder adventures of the year we haven't seen yet. In "Animal Science 101" (Story: Derek Fridolfs. Art: Dustin Nguyen), Colton, the school's second story man, breaks into the  science lab during prank week only to find that Dr. Langstrom's experiments aren't so easily taken; "Queen Glee" (Story & Art: Katie Cook), sees Olive and Maps trying to find out why Dyllin, head of the Glee Club, has suddenly made the Glee Club more popular than ever; and "Scottie Dog" (Story: Hope Larson. Art: Kris Mukai) follows an adventure of history teahcer Professor MacPherson when she was a student at Gotham Academy, and her meeting with another student with a special power. The stories are charming and fun; each with a slightly different flavor. The first, from Fridolfs & Nguyen, has an action tone, with Colton and his friend Eric being chased by a genetically altered goat. Katie Cook's is a mystery with a high school vibe and cute cat videos, and if there's something Kate Cook draws better than anyone, it's cute cats. Hope Larson and Kris Mukai's story is one of teen angst and accepting yourself for what you are and not letting other's opinions matter. They each hit a different genre, but all feel perfectly in line with what we've seen in Gotham Academy. A gem of the current Batman line, Gotham Academy works in so many different ways, and it looks like the Yearbook arc with spotlight many of them. I'm curious to see whether the stories will remain whimsical, or take on a more serious edge as the arc continues.

Leaving Megalopolis: Surviving Megalopolis #1
Story: Gail Simone
Art: Jim Calafiore & Jason Wright

After Gail Simone and Jim Calafiore's dark super hero graphic novel, Leaving Megalopolis, was published beyond it's Kickstarter backers by Dark Horse, I reviewed it; it's a great, dark superhero story that doesn't deconstruct the genre but embraces its darkest aspects. Now, in Surviving Megalopolis, a new story that opens a month after the original series ended, things have not improved in the city of Megaloplis, which remains in the control of the superheroes who have been turned into monsters. But while we do spend time with the still evil heroes as they retrieve the body of Overlord, the hero who turned on the rest at the end of Leaving Megalopolis, and see just how depraved they are, the focus of the story is again on the normal people who live in the world around them. Mina Gutierrez, the chief protagonist of the original graphic novel, has spent the month getting ready to make her move against the evil heroes, as she remains in Megalopolis. We get more of her backstory, and meet another hero through her flashback, the Crimson Shadow, this world's Batman analogue, and she confronts the current Crimson Shadow with a surprising revelation if his identity. Harold Lamb, who Mina helped escape, is tracked down by a man who is working for a wealthy sponsor seeking to make a trip into Megalopolis to find her missing husband and needs a guide. As with any Gail Simone project, this issue nicely blends action with character. Mina and Harold are both great, layered characters, and Bennet Tanner, Harold's handler and new love interest, is one of those men of seemingly casual violence, who claims to not like violence but easily takes out two large men. And I am very curious about the origins of this new Crimson Shadow and how his background ties with Mina's. And credit goes Calafiore for his excellent designs; Crimson Shadow and Amphibonaut, who is an underwater hero, have these designs that are both fresh and still hearken back to classic superhero aesthetics. If you haven't read Leaving Megalopolis, that's fine; Surviving Megalopolis gives you everything you need to understand the world, and provides a superhero story tinged with horror and great characters.

Reviews of Comics from Wednesday 10/21

Black Canary #5
Story: Brenden Fletcher
Art: Pia Guerra, Sandy Jarrell, & Lee Loughridge

As Black Canary (both the character and the band that she gave her superhero name to) gets near the end of their tour, the plot threads of the first arc of the most rock n' roll comic on the stands start to pull together. Dinah has begun to put the pieces together, and now wonders exactly how the record company happened to put both her and Ditto, both with mysterious powers and ties to the shadow government, on the same band, and realizes that probably isn't a coincidence. But Dinah doesn't have time to really sort this out, as the last stop on the tour is the hometown of original band members Lord Byron and Paloma Terrific. And at a signing at the local record store, we get to see a little more about Byron and Paloma's past, and it explains a lot about their personalities. Byron's mom, Judith, and sister, Shelley, show up decked out in Lord Byron fan club t-shirts and are clearly her number one fans, while Paloma's family doesn't even appear, and she doesn't seem to expect them to. No wonder Paloma is so sour and distrusting. But it wouldn't be an appearance by Black Canary if something wild didn't happen, and after a speaker flies through the record store window, the band finds a group of disgruntled bands waiting outside, ready to challenge them to a battle of the bands. And Heathcliff, road manager and former Gotham Academy student, tells Dinah, who's already itching for a different sort of battle, that this is something they have to do. Naturally, with the way things have been going for her,  Dinah has already had a battle that issue, with the mysterious white clad ninja who has ben following the band, who stole a vial of Dinah's blood for still more mysterious purposes. Aside from all this, we continue to see Kurt Lance, Dinah,s ex-husband who had his memories erased so he doesn't remember their life together, continuing to try to reach out to Dinah while travelling with the band, and continuing to be more interesting in three issues here than he's been in the entire post-Flashpoint DCU to this point, more a character than a plot point. Arriving at the battle of the bands, the generally bad feeling about the whole thing prove prescient, as another band is playing in the battle: Bo M, the new band of Bo Maeve, former member of Dinah's band and her sworn enemy (at least in Maeve's mind). Dinah gets to se Maeve begin her performance, and seeing the way Maeve dances on stage opens Dinah's mind to something about her own performance in a nice character moment before Maeve opens up with her new powers, and it looks like a big fight is on for next issue. While I miss Annie Wu's kinetic art style on this book, I'm excited to see Pia Guerra on this (and last) issue. I haven't seen much from her since the end of Y: The Last Man, but her style works well here; it's not as loose and wild as Wu's, but it has excellent flow in the fight scene, and her Ditto is too adorable for words. Black Canary has been one of the strongest new titles out of DC in its newest wave, and it's ramping up for an exciting finale to its inaugural arc.

Clean Room #1
Story: Gail Simone
Art: Jon Davis-Hunt

Gail Simon is known for being a writer who does strong characterization, strong female characters, and zany plots. But it's often forgotten just how dark her work can be. For instance, Secret Six, for all its very funny and heartfelt moments, is a book about truly broken people often doing terrible things. And those darker inclinations are the source for hew new Vertigo title, Clean Room. I'm not anywhere near sure exactly what is going on in the background of this new horror/thriller comic, but one of the great things about horror is that sense of being off-kilter. The issue starts with a family walking to church, a scene that quickly devolves into terror as a disgruntled truck driver hits the young girl in the family, and then backs over her to make sure he got her. Somehow the girl survives, but something is different. The action then moves to a woman preparing to commit suicide. This woman, Chloe Pierce, is our point of view character for most of the issue a reporter who lost her fiancée, and after being saved from suicide, now wants to find out why and what the writings of new age/self help guru Astrid Mueller had to do with the suicide. After tracking down Mikey, another man who was exposed to Astrid's cult/organization that seems to straddle the line between any self help cult and Scientology who is an addict who now wants to use but just can't bring himself to, Chloe arrives at the shining palace that is Astrid's headquarters. Meeting with an Amazonian official, Chloe strong arms her way to a meeting with Astrid, and the reveal of who Astrid is makes the beginning of the issue and the end connect. Oh, and did I mention that throughout the issue there are these truly disturbing images of monsters and horrors? The tuck bearing down on the little girl, Chloe's dead fiancé with his face half blown off visiting her in the hospital, and a demon hanging from the shoulders of the woman Chloe meets before Astrid. Jon Davis-Hunt is a new name to me, and I'm hoping I'll be seeing a lot more of his work. His people are striking, but those monsters? Brrrr... The detail work throughout the issue is stunning and perfect for what Simone is doing. Vertigo is trying to get back to the forefront of edgy, dark comics, and I've been happy with what I've read this month from their new offerings, but Clean Room jumps out at me as the flagship of their new titles: creepy, deep, and already capturing the darker parts of the imagination.

Princeless: Raven- The Pirate Princess #4
Story: Jeremy Whitley
Art: Rosy Higgins & Ted Brandt

A pirate's life for Raven and her crew is at hand, as long as they can get past those pesky villagers with pitchforks and torches. Having recruited her crew last issue, Raven, the daughter of the pirate king who is on a quest to reclaim her birthright from her usurping brothers, arrives back at the inn owned by her friend Cookie and his daughter to find it besieged by townsfolk who believe Jayla, Cookie's daughter, is a witch and want to burn her alive. It's some quick thinking from Ximena, Raven's former best friend and the freshly recruited navigator of her ship, that saves Jayla in a scene comically reminiscent of Carrie, which is a sentence I didn't think it was possible to write. With the guards and the mob driven off, Raven finds Jayla, angry a her father's protective nature, ready to head off on Raven's all female pirate ship. Left alone with Raven, Cookie makes a speech that is beautiful, asking Raven to take care of his daughter and make sure she never comes back to the one horse town they live in, because Jayla's too good for it and deserves better. Cookie is a fascinating counterpoint to all the other fathers in the Princeless universe: Raven's own father was taken in by his sons and locked Raven away. King Ash, father of main Princeless series heroine Adrienne, did something like that to all his daughters, and is at best condescending if not a full on misogynist. And Adrienne's best friend Bedelia's father is a drunkard whose work Bedelia had to do to keep the two of them afloat (although the cause if his alcoholism remains unknown, so there might be more story there). Cookie not only unabashedly loves his daughter, but is willing to let her go so she can have a better life because she's smart. Not only that, but as Raven prepares to set off, Cookie gives her some sage advice about the life of a pirate. Let's be frank: Cookie is a father figure up there with Alfred and Uncle Ben in the pantheon of great comic book pseudo-dads. We also do get to spend some more time with the core of Raven's crew, Katie, her first mate, and Sunshine, who Raven befriended at Cookie's, and he final page of the issue has the two of them, along with Ximena, Jayla, and Raven (the core cast of the series) standing on board of Raven's ship preparing for the adventures to come. The mix of action, comedy, and character has been one of the hallmarks of Raven- The Pirate Princess, and with the whole cast now gathered, I'm looking forward to getting to know each of these very fun and different characters and how they relate to each other as they sail the high seas.


Dan Grote checks out the first issue of Warren Ellis's new Marvel series, Karnak...

Karnak #1

Story by Warren Ellis

Art by Gerardo Zaffino and Dan Brown

Of course Karnak, the member of the Inhuman royal family who sees the flaw in everything, is a good fit for Warren Ellis – he’s an aloof jerk with hand-to-hand combat skills.

 

That’s right, from the guy who brought you Pete Wisdom, Spider Jerusalem, and Moon Knight, it’s Karnak.

But Dan, don’t you have some kind of thing about the Inhumans that you mention every time you review an issue of Ms. Marvel?

 

Oh sure, but Karnak isn’t so much about Marvel’s new-favorite race as it is about how Karnak thinks he’s better than everyone and can generally back it up, the sort of arrogant-jerk fantasy shared by perhaps one too many comics readers.

 

These days, Karnak has broken ties with the Inhuman royals and lives as the hermetic philosopher-king of the Tower of Wisdom. He occasionally comes out of hiding to run extralegal missions for SHIELD, in exchange for more money for the tower and the ability to mess with people.

 

Guest starring in this issue are screen-to-page SHIELD transplants Phil Coulson and Gemma Simmons, who enlist special K’s aid retrieving a fellow Inhuman from an AIM splinter cell that has infiltrated SHIELD (and Captain America just finished scrubbing the place of Hydra).

 

“Is there anyone left at SHIELD who actually only works for SHIELD?” K (and the reader) asks Coulson (and Marvel editorial).

 

In exchange for his services, Karnak tells Coulson and the parents of the missing Inhuman boy that the boy must become a disciple at the Tower of Wisdom, to be released back into society at a time of Karnak’s choosing. The parents also must give him “the single thing that allows you to believe that the universe is a kind and beautiful place,” because, per Karnak, “humans are no more important than objects, and both humans and objects are meaningless.” Oh, and $1 million. He also gets that.

 

Finally, let’s peep the art. David Aja covers are always welcome, especially in this post-Hawkguy era. Dan Brown’s muted green color palette also has me missing a previous Aja joint, the Immortal Iron Fist. A panel drawn by Gerardo Zaffino in which K chops a bullet in half has me just as misty.

 

Oh, and apropos of nothing, Karnak has a Zack Morris-style cellphone. There, I think I just sold you this book.

The Players on the Other Side: A Guide to Your Anti-Bats

Years and years of reading Batman comics have shown me something very interesting: writers love the idea of the anti-Bat. I'm not talking an opposite; The Joker is the opposite of Batman. Joker is chaos to Batman's order. I'm talking that villain who is the cracked mirror version of Batman. Most superheroes have one villain like that, but with Batman it seems like they could form a club. So I was thinking, as something fun for this Friday, to run down the anti-Bats, and end with a mention of a character who isn't a DC character who is, in my opinion, the ultimate dark version of Batman. I won't be drawing in any of the other characters from outside DC who are takes on Batman, so fans of Nighthawk of the Squadron Supreme or Darkwing of the Guardians of the Globe (or Darkwing Duck, for that matter), I understand your love, and there might be s piece someday about alternate takes on Batman. But today, let's bring on the bad guys.

Killer Moth
First Appearance: Batman (Vol.1) #63

Killer Moth is looked on a kind of a joke character now. I think the striped leggings don't help much in that respect, to be honest. But when he was introduced, he set himself up as the Batman of the criminal set. He had a Mothcave and a Mothmobile, and criminals would hire him to help them escape the police and Batman. This goes about as well as you might expect, with Batman shutting him down repeatedly. When he first appeared, he even had a millionaire secret identity, as Cameron Van Cleer (who sounds like the jerk rich boyfriend in a 80s movie). Over time, he became more of a generic 60s villain, performing all sorts of heists and capers. He's probably best remembered as the first villain who fought Barbara Gordon as Batgirl. He would pop up occasionally throughout the 70s and 80s, and in the 90s, he got one really great story, "The Misfits", in Shadow of the Bat, a new secret identity, Drury Walker, and was one of the villains who got a serious Underworld Unleashed treatment, transformed into a giant moth monster called Charaxes in Robin. As opposed to a lot of the villains from that crossover, this change stuck, and he remained Charaxes until he was killed in Infinite Crisis. While there was another Killer Moth briefly after Charaxes's death, and one who has appeared in the New 52, he has mostly returned to obscurity. For a villain who hasn't been a major threat, well, pretty much ever, Killer Moth has a pretty interesting career in other media. He never made Batman '66 (although there was a test short of Batgirl with him as the villain), or Batman: The Animated Series. However, he did make The Batman, both in his Killer Moth costume and his Charaxes form, and pops up a couple times in Batman: The Brave and the Bold. He is also a recurring villain on Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go!, where his form is closer to Charaxes than Killer Moth. Starfire's pet grub, Silkie, is a product of Killer Moth's experiments. I list him as the first anti-Bat, though I will admit that Deadshot, who pre-dates him by a year, did start out as something of an anti-Bat as well.

The Wrath
First Appearance: Batman Special #1

Created by Mike W. Barr in one of his numerous excellent Batman stories, The Wrath is one of two villains on this list whose origins directly mirror Batman's. In his one appearance in the one-shot, "The Player on the Other Side," (from which I drew this piece's title), Barr and artist Michael Golden created the Wrath as a criminal whose parents were shot by police in Gotham, and who trained around the world as a hitman. He comes back to Gotham on a contract, and plans to take out the officer who killed his parents, namely Jim Gordon. This is an excellent issue, and it's been collected a couple of times, but only in recent years. The Wrath never popped up again after his death in this issue, but an apprentice of his appeared as a new Wrath in a Batman Confidential arc by Tony Bedard and Rags Morales, and Jonathan Layman and Jay Fabok introduced a New 52 Wrath during their run on Detective Comics. Interestingly, the Wrath also appeared on an episode of The Batman, along with a Robin-like sidekick called Scorn. This was towards the end of that series, when it was firing on all its cylinders and was pretty solid.

Bane
First Appearance: Batman: Vengeance of Bane #1

Right before The Dark Knight Rises, I wrote a long piece about Bane's history, so I'll just give a quick rundown here and you can go and read that of you want to read more about probably the most infamous of the anti-Bats. Created by Chuck Dixon, Doug Moench, and Graham Nolan, Bane was a child raised in an island prison, paying for the crime of his father. There, he trained his mind and body to perfection, escaped, and went to Gotham to prove himself by defeating Batman. While Bane isn't as much a direct visual counterpart to Batman as Killer Moth or Wrath, he is the self-made man, the man who pushed himself harder than anyone else to become the pinnacle of human achievement. His use of the super-steroid Venom also makes an interesting parallel, as Batman was addicted to the drug during its first appearance in Legends of the Dark Knight, but kicked the habit. And as Bane grew, he also spent time as the chosen heir of Ra's al Ghul. The great thing about Bane (at least before the New 52 reset him to being similar to his original incarnation) was that Bane grew out of his role as an anti-Bat and became a fascinating character in his own rights, mostly thanks to Gail Simone's tremendous work with the character in Secret Six. Bane is a solid part of the Batman mythos now, entering that highest echelon of Batman villains, He has appeared in all modern animated forms of Batman, as well as in both movie series, and had a prominent role in the Arkham video games series.

Prometheus
First Appearance: New Year's Evil: Prometheus #1

Prometheus is a character created by Grant Morrison, so you know you're in for a trip right off the bat. Prometheus's basic origin is the same as the Wrath: criminal parents killed by the police. But while the Wrath's parents were petty crooks, Prometheus's were like the couple from Natural Born Killers. And instead of training with the best people the mob could find, Prometheus trained with evil monks and the like, and got his Batcave as a house in a void dimension. So, yeah, totally Morrison there. He decided that if he was going to make an impact, he had to kill superheroes, and set his sights on the Justice League. He also had a helmet that enabled him to download the fighting styles of anyone, so it's interesting to note that, as much of a parallel to Batman he might be, he cheated to do it. And when Batman finally defeated him in Morrison's final JLA arc, it was by exploiting the helmet. When Prometheus next appeared, he had inexplicably gone from a guy who could face down the whole Justice League to a henchman for another villain (more on him later) who Green Arrow took out handily. It was eventually revealed that the Promethus from those stories was in fact the apprentice of the original Prometheus, who the original killed when he recovered from his defeat by Batman. Prometheus was the main villain in the much derided Justice League: Cry For Justice mini-series, where he exacted vicious revenge on any superhero who crossed his path, and was killed by Green Arrow. He has not appeared since.

Hush
First Appearance: Batman (vol.1) #608

Hush is a tricky character. Created to be the mastermind villain of a mega-arc in the ongoing Batman title, Hush was Tommy Elliot, a childhood friend of Bruce Wayne who came from a privileged background. But as opposed to the loving Waynes as parents, the Elliots were terrible people, and so young Tommy tried to kill them. He would have succeeded, if Thomas Wayne hadn't saved his mother's life, and so years of slow planning began for Tommy to get his revenge on Bruce. When he was pulled into a conspiracy with Jason Todd, Riddler, and Scarecrow, Tommy took on the identity Hush, and became a criminal mastermind.I think a lot of the problems people have with Hush comes from the fact that he came from out of nowhere, was an obvious suspect, and there were various structural issues with the story, and that the next stories featuring the characters were an awkward series of stories in Batman: Gotham Knights where he and Prometheus teamed-up with Prometheus as the lesser partner (see, I said there'd be more on this later). Paul Dini did a great job rehabilitating the character in his run on Detective Comics and Streets of Gotham, making him a fully formed character, and even making him more of an anti-Bruce Wayne by Hush having surgery to look like Bruce and try to take his place. Hush popped up recently in Batman: Eternal as one of the suspects for mastermind of that conspiracy, but has not been seen since that series wrapped.

Owlman
First Appearance: Justice League of America (Vol.1) #29

Owlman is a little bit of a cheat for this list, as he is simply a version of Batman from another universe, specifically Earth-3, the Earth where good guys are evil and bad guys are good. However there are some wrinkles that made me want to call him out. One is that he has interacted wit the "real" Batman in various battles between the Justice League and their evil opposite numbers, the Crime Syndicate. Also, he's an interesting character in his own right; in his various origins, Thomas Wayne Jr. either killed his parents or watched his brother, Bruce, and mother killed, and decided to become a criminal. Grant Morrison reintroduced the Crime Syndicate in his excellent JLA: Earth 2 graphic novel, and the Syndicate popped up a few times after that. Since the DC reboot, there have actually been two Owlmans. One is this version, the alternate Thomas, who is still lurking out in the DCU after the events of Forever Evil. The other is Lincoln March, the ally of the Court of Owls, who claims to be Thomas Wayne Jr. of Earth Prime. He was a centerpiece of the "Court of Owls" storyline, and appeared at the end of Batman: Eternal, where he was recaptured by the Court. What will happen to him next remains a mystery.

Grendel (Hunter Rose)
First Appearance: Comico Primer #2

OK, here's my pick as the greatest anti-Bat in comics, and he wasn't even created to be one! The assassin/mobster/bon vivant Hunter Rose, better known as the first Grendel in Matt Wagner's epic cycle, shares many of the same cultural roots as Batman, with the pulps as the backdrop (although I have to imagine Batman factors in somewhere in that cultural DNA as well). Hunter is a self-made man, who as opposed to Batman didn't have everything laid out in front of him. He pulled himself up, as an exceptional person in a world of ordinary people. And while Batman had legions of good influences (Alfred, Leslie Thompkins, etc.), Hunter was only noticed by Jocasta Rose, a woman who became his lover and confidant at an impressionable age. With her loss, Hunter decided that he would never be mundane, he took the flashy name of Hunter Rose, he became an internationally best selling novelist, and when that wasn't enough, he took over the New York mobs. Hunter is as cool, as calculating, and as brilliant as Batman, but everything he does is for himself. Except for one thing. He has a young ward, Stacy Palumbo, who he took in after he killed her uncle and saved her from a child pornography ring. But, in another inversion, instead of this being the thing that saves them both (as I feel Bruce Wayne taking in Dick Grayson kept Bruce in touch with his humanity), when Stacy discovered that Hunter was in fact Grendel, she manipulated events that led to his death, and her own eventual slide into madness. Hunter is a phenomenal character on his own, with no Batman necessary, but Wagner's Batman/Grendel is an excellent showcase of the two characters and how they relate. Seriously, it's the best batman related intercompany crossover ever, and should be in the collection of any Batman fan.