Reviews of Comics from Wednesday 4/28

All Star Western #30
Story: Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray
Art: Staz Johnson/ Jose Garcia-Lopez

It's not good to be a love interest for Jonah Hex. After burying the girl who he brought back from his brief sojourn to the 21st century, Jonah heads to town to find a room and finds Tallulah Black. For those of you not in the know, or who have only experienced that character through the unfortunate Jonah Hex film, Tallulah is a female bounty hunter Jonah trained initially to hunt those who killed her family, and became his recurring love interest and partner throughout the initial Palmiotti & Gray run on Jonah Hex. This issue is a good jumping on point if you're not familiar with either character, since Jonah has to establish his identity because his historically scarred face was fixed in his time in the future. You see that they are both coldblooded killers with little regard for pretty much anyone else. You see the fireworks between them, the perfect chemistry, and the final page of their story sets up what looks to be a bloody beginning to the next issue. This issue is also the first issue of All Star Western in a while to have a back-up story, something that was a regular feature when it debuted, and this issue features the New 52 introduction of Madame .44. A more obscure old DC western character, the origin is slightly altered, but still features most of the original aspect: father who was a miner, seeks revenge on those who wronged him, but it also adds a supernatural aspect that wasn't there originally. The extra big draw on that back-up is art by living legend Jose Garcia-Lopez, who hasn't lost a step in portraying the old west.

Duffman Adventures #1
Story: Max Davison/ Ian Bootby
Art: John Delaney/ Jacob Chabot

OH, YEAH! Bingo's Simpsons comics are consistently fun, but I have gotten a real kick out of these "One Shot Wonders," single issues focusing on single characters. This issue clearly focuses on Duffman, the pitchman for Homer's favorite beverage, Duff Beer. The issue features two stories, both of which are parodies; they're pretty on the nose, not very subtle, but are so full of in jokes and well put together, who needs subtlety? In the lead story, mild mannered Kyle McKagen is called by an extraterrestrial beer can to join the galaxy's leaders in partying, the Duffman Corps. Not only do we see Duffman versions of such legendary Green Lanterns as Kilowog, Salaak, Tomar Re, and G'Nort, but there are also Duffmen from the Rigellian species (Kang and Kodos of The Simpsons), and Nibblonians and Decapodians (Nibbler and Dr. Zoidberg from Futurama respectively). When you factor in Vinostro, king of the buzzkills, you get a fun Green Lantern parody. In the second short, we get previews of shows on the new Duff Network, including "CSI: Duff," "Duffton Abbey," and "DuffTales." "DuffTales" was my favorite, with Duffman in a Scrooge McDuck costume and bill, and three of the Seven Duffs as the Beagle Boys. If you watch The Simpsons, you know that Duff Beer is from a corporation so corrupt it would only fit in Springfield (or Wall Street), and so their product placement ads work as a good lampooning of corporate greed. And the next one shot features Kang and Kodos! Nothing better than wacky tentacle aliens!

Eternal Warrior #8
Story: Greg Pak
Art: Robert Gill

I haven't talked about Valiant Comics as much as I probably should have since their return, and I feel bad that I'm only now hitting on Eternal Warrior with its last issue. This arc finds Gilad Anni-Padda, the titular immortal warrior, aged and in the year 4001, a world that has returned to an almost Middle Ages level of technology. There, he has been on a quest to find a cure for radiation poisoning to save the village he has been living with an most importantly his grand daughter, Caroline. Gilad must lead a group of men and women to defeat a death cult that has claimed the bunker that holds the cure, and to do it, must teach them how to use weapons from the old days, including mechanical war suits and laser blasters. Gilad knows that teaching them to use the weapons could again bring about the destruction that was brought about by the high technology. In the end, while Gilad wins and saves his people, he also loses, as Caroline, enchanted by the technology, seems to be the one who will bring it back and doom the world again. This theme, that of the cycle of destruction and rebirth, is important in apocalyptic literature, and Pak adds the extra personal punch of Gilad seeing it's his own blood who will bring it about again. The series ends with this issue with some plot threads left dangling, and I'm hoping to see some of those dealt with in Valiant's new future set series, Rai. But Gilad is the eternal warrior, so I can only expect to see him back.

Herobear and the Kid: Saving Time #1
Story and Art: Mike Kunkel

A couple weeks ago I did an advanced review of the new Scratch 9 series, and said how glad I was to see another great all ages back. And now here's another of the best all ages comics I've ever read back with a new series! Herobear and the Kid is the story of Tyler, a young boy who got a very special inheritance from his grandfather: a pocketwatch that tells Tyler of someone is good or bad and a stuffed bear that, when Tyler presses his nose, turns into a full size flying, talking, superhero polar bear called Herobear. This new series takes place not too long after the first series, at Tyler's first New Year's since his family moved into the house his grandfather left them. He and Herobear have an adventure doing battle with a crocodile, and when he arrives home, he learns the secret of his butler, the always punctual Henry: Henry is Father Time, one of whose jobs it is to aid Santa Claus in his deliveries (oh, did I forget to mention that Tyler's grandfather was Santa, and Tyler is in line to be the new Santa?), and once a year, on New Year's, he turns into Baby New Year, and it's up to Tyler to protect him or there will be dire consequences. Of course, Tyler isn't even a teenager, so you know he's going to get distracted, and the evil Von Klon is waiting in the wings. Herobear and the Kid is the product of cartoonist Mike Kunkel, whose gorgeous black and white art is a major draw to the series. This is a well written comic, with plenty to read; I would be surprised if there were any books from either Marvel or DC that took as much time for me to read. That is not to say it is overwritten; nowhere does the book feel like I'm slogging through too much narration or dialogue. Kunkel really gets into the mind of a child who still can experience the magic of the world in a way we adults can't, while still keeping the stakes high and the action and humor coming. If you have a kid, or are a kid at heart, then you should be reading Herobear and the Kid, and this issue is the perfect time to come on board.

The Manhattan Projects #20
Story: Jonathan Hickman
Art: Nick Pitarra

This is it, the issue I've been waiting for since the series began. Early on, Albert Einstein discovered how to open a gate between worlds and dimensions, only to be left trapped in another dimension by his alternate self, Albrecht Einstein, who took the place of the great thinker. I knew Albert would be back, and now we get pay off on that long dangling thread. This issue is the story of what Einstein had to do to get back to his home world, and of what he experienced. We see exactly the kind of world Albrecht escaped, a crazy fantasy world where they believe science is magic and magic is science. We see Einstein passing through numerous other alternate Earths. And we see him having a conversation with his alternate self. Now, Albrecht has fit in pretty well with the narcissists and maniacs who make up the Manhattan Projects team, and no doubt he's not a very nice guy, but seeing the world he's from not only clearly makes him the lesser of many evils, but even Albert understands why he would do anything to escape it. And the reasoning behinds Albert's immediate assassination of Oppenheimer a couple issues ago becomes very apparent, and I feel is going to important as the series continues. I've always felt like Jonathan Hickman's strength as a writer has been his big crazy plots, but this issue does a nice job of giving us a character piece with a character who isn't a lunatic. And who could pass up a comic titled "Einstein the Barbarian"? Not me.


And a little additional recommendation. One of the seemingly exponentially number of podcasts I listen to is NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, a weekly discussion of different pop culture topics. Occasionally, host Linda Holmes will have a fun quiz that the panelists have to take, usually to their shagrin. Well, this week, she handed the quiz duties over to Glen Weldon, their resident authority on comics, who happens to be writing a book about how Batman intersects with pop culture, and so naturally his quiz was about Batman. It's multiple choice, but pretty darn tricky; I wound up getting eight out of twelve. Check out the episode and see how you do.

Reviews of Comics from Wednesday 1/2

Batman Incorporated #6
Story: Grant Morrison
Art: Chris Burnham


The end of the first half of Grant Morrison's final act on the Batman titles centers around a conversation between Batman and Talia over radio, while Batman makes his way through one of Leviathan's houses of horror. As much as we've heard of Leviathan, Talia's evil organization, we haven't really seen them in play beyond a few small instances before now, but it seems that is about to change as the endgame begins. The whole series has always been really about the relationship between Batman, Talia, and Damian, and the family dynamic, and this is becoming more clear as Batman and Talia discuss Damian while he fights through an army of her minions. Talia gives Batman and ultimatum: save Gotham or save Damian. And Bruce freezes. He isn't sure which he would save, which for Batman is a big deal. It indicates just how important his son has become to him, and how central to his life Damian has become. The scenes taking place away from this confrontation are no less riveting. Members of Batman Inc, wounded and trapped on the top floor of the building that Batman is fighting through, and the scenes of Knight attempting to resuscitate the wounded Squire are heartrending. When The Heretic, Talia's lumbering bodyguard (who I still believe to be a possibly malformed and imperfect product of the same science that gave birth to Damian), arrives, he brutally seems to kill one member of Batman Inc., an event that will resonate further down the series. And in the Batcave, Batman's four sons (Nightwing, Wingman aka Red Hood, Red Robin, and Robin) discuss what they have to do, with Alfred attempting to referee. Damian's pain at possibly being sent back to his mother is apparent, and he has surrounded himself with his pets, Titus the dog and Batcow. And Alfred presents him with a new one: a kitten whose demeanor is as prickly as Damian's own, something that seems to please him. With an army of Leviathan's converts marching the streets of Gotham, and a last minute revelation by Talia about Heretic and the vision Batman saw of the future, this issue moves the series into its highest gear, speeding towards a conclusion that will no doubt leave the lives of Batman and his son changed forever.

Fatale #11
Story: Ed Brubaker
Art: Sean Phillips

"The Case of Alfred Ravenscroft" is the first of a series of one off flashback issues of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips horror noir series, Fatale. The issue, set in the 30s, features a younger Josephine then we've seen before. Josephine, one of the protagonists of the series, a seeming immortal with the ability to make men fall madly in love with her whether she wants them to or not, hunts down pulp author Alfred Ravenscroft to find out why the stories she read by him are so similar to the nightmares she has been having. Ravenscroft is a thinly veiled analogue for legendary horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, right down to the diary of his lingering illness, something Lovecraft did in the last years of his life. When Jo asks him where the ideas come from, Ravenscroft spins her a tale of his youth, traveling through Mexico with his mother and a cult that she joined. In the end, the young Ravenscroft sneaks into the leader's tent, and there sees a book that grants him a vision of a many eyed thing, a certainly Lovecraftian monster, something similar to the demonic things that have been plaguing Jo in the arcs set in the present. In the letters page, Brubaker comments that this story is one he's had in his head a long time, one that helped spawn the idea for Fatale, and has been reinvigorated by reading the Dark Horse Comics reprints of classic Creepy and Eerie. While I haven't read any of those, there is also a distinctly EC feel as well to this story, especially at the end when Ravenscroft introduces Jo to his mother, or the thing that was his mother. All Brubaker and Phillips works are atmospheric, and I enjoy how Fatale is taking both of it's literary ancestors, the classic horror and crime noir, and twisting them into a chilling mix. This is the first of four one off issues, and is a great point to give the series a try if you haven't yet.

Hellboy in Hell #2
Story & Art: Mike Mignola

Boy howdy, I can't get over just how gorgeous this book looks! I think I said pretty much the same thing with issue number one, but Mignola has only gotten better during his hiatus away from drawing Hellboy. This issue, Hellboy begins a Dickensian travel through his past, seeing his own birth and how exactly he received the fabled Right Hand of Doom, and then takes a trip to Pandemonium, the great city of Hell. There is no one who draws demons like Mignola in comics, creating things that look close to classic demons, with their cloven, goat like appearance, but still something very much in the vein of the universe that has been created. The dusty, twisted architecture of the abandoned Pandemonium adds to the overwhelmingly eerie feel of the issue. Even trapped in Hell, Hellboy maintains his usual cool and sarcastic demeanor, still refusing to take up the crown that has waited for him his entire life. The issue ends on a cliffhanger, with Hellboy about the confront the last demon in the city of the damned. This series is a great extension of Mignola's already fascinating Hellboy mythos, and it will be interesting to see more and more of what will happen as Hellboy tries to maintain his good spirit in a realm where good spirit is something distinctly lacking

The Manhattan Projects #8
Story: Jonathan Hickman
Art: Nick Pitarra

The Manhattan Projects is one of the most interesting comics on the market for its discussions of science and its relative morality, but this issue, there's nothing relative going on. President Harry Truman and his fellow Mason leaders have decided that the alliance between the Manhattan Projects and their Soviet counterparts in Star City to create science outside the control of their governments is not to be tolerated, and so AI Franklin Roosevelt has taken over all robots and tech that he can and has begun to kill anyone at the sites. And even in all of this chaos, Hickman finds a way to get in some very interesting character moments. The issue is mostly narrated by Wernher Von Braun, and we get a good view inside the head of the former Nazi scientist. I won't say he's made sympathetic, I don't think any of the cast of this series is ever going to be terribly sympathetic, but the reader is given a view into what drives Von Braun, and his passion to reach the stars and make advancements in science. Also, what other comic has an evil alternate dimension Einstein and Robert Feynman shooting robots with their computer screens filled with the image of our 32nd President? While the issue wraps up with the combined Soviet/American scientists winning a victory, the question remains how long can they maintain it?  The issue title, "They Rule," is spoken about the Masons, but with a victory for the Projects, has the balance of power shifted? Or is it just a matter of time before Truman and his crew attack again?

Recommended Reading for 9/14: The Manhattan Projects

One of the great failings of a lot of today's media is that they retread the same ideas over and over. They might polish them up, add a little shine (or gloom), but in the end, nothing is different from countless other stories, and nothing changes. This extends to not just comics, but movies, TV, and the stage. But sometimes, something comes along that is just bursting to the seams with new ideas; big ideas, little ideas, and everything in between. The Manhattan Projects, the recent series from Image Comics written by Jonathan Hickman and drawn by Nick Pittara, is a series that not only is full of ideas, but is about ideas.
The high concept on the title is simple enough: what if the Manhattan Project as we know it was just a front? That while nuclear research was part of the project, behind that were many other projects, all of them wilder and stranger than the last. And what if all the men involved in the projects were insane, evil, or just a bit off? Within each issue, there are a series of other concepts, little bits of science and philosophy, that mix to create a broad tapestry of ideas like none I've seen in recent memory.

In recent years, there actually have been a few writers in comics who really seem to love science fiction, and tend to jam their books full of ideas. It feels similar to the boom in crime comics in the early 00s; a few writers (in that case Brian Azzarello, Brian Bendis, Ed Brubaker, and Greg Rucka) seem to feel something coming and start telling stories in a genre that hasn't been featured in comics for some time.  Matt Fraction, Nick Spencer, and Kieron Gillen all have written interesting science fiction comics, some within traditional superhero universes, and some on their own. But for me, Jonathan Hickman is the preeminent voice of the new science fiction comics. While I haven't read his early works yet, I can say that I was impressed with his time travel series Red Wing, and his run on Fantastic Four/FF has been the best since Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo, a run that mixes both the family dynamic of the team with his brand of super science.

But for sheer science fiction, nothing he's done touches The Manhattan Projects. One of the things that I find really impressive is that The Manhattan Projects is legitimate science fiction. When Oppenheimer, Einstein, or Feynman are talking about the science behind their madness, there is (or at least seems to be to my relatively untrained eye) a legitimate basis in fact. It's easy in comics to talk about unstable molecules and ultimate nullifiers, but instead to talk about teleportation and dimensional travel and have a reader think that there might be something to that is a completely different thing.

The issues are each structured as done in ones that build off each other. This is great, since it allows readers to pick up any one issue and not feel cheated. But reading each issue allows the reader to understand more of what's going on. You don't need to know that J. Robert Oppenheimer isn't just a multiple personality, but happens to be his twin brother Joseph, who killed and replaced his brother, but it helps. The device seen invented in one issue can come to rear its head in the next.

Now here there be real spoilers. While I've talked about this as a book based around ideas, ideas are only as interesting as the characters who speak or embody them. And, hoo boy, these are some characters. The series is an ensemble book, with each of the scientists who were really a part of the Manhattan Project recast in a broken light. Richard Feynman is the closest the book has to a central figure, since each issue is framed with quotes from his autobiography, but different characters narrate each issue, giving the reader a view into the particularly twisted mindset of that character. I already mentioned Oppenheimer is actually a brilliant, if insane, multiple personality twin of the real scientist, but I didn't mention that he also has the ability to eat the brain of someone else and absorb their knowledge and personality. Albert Einstein is not this universe's Einstein, but actually Albrecht Einstein, an alternate universe reality version of the great physicist who replaced his double when Einstein bridged the gap between dimensions. And hey, if you don't like your scientists as evil doubles, you have the narcissistic Feynman, or the A.I. based on the mind of FDR.

The somewhat malign or selfish intentions of all these characters are important because there's more than just science here. There's a look at the philosophy of power and responsibility that I feel is part of all science and science fiction. Stepping momentarily onto a soap box, I don't think people are any more vile or violent than they ever were noawadays. I just think we have the capability to do so much more evil with modern technology, and can see so much more of it because of that. Social advancement has not caught up to technological advancement. And I feel like that is reflected in these stories. Every amoral or immoral character doesn't stop to think if they should do what they're doing. They just want to see if they can, not for anyone's benefit except their own, and for their own glory.

The fifth issue of the series was particularly chilling, as mankind contacts other species. The US government has had contact with aliens for some time, but when a new race appears to meet with them, things go bad, and Oppenheimer realizes, through eating an alien brain, that the aliens they have dealt with before have been conquered. So, a group of scientists go to meet these new aliens and, unbeknownst to him, use poor, irradiated Harry Daghlian to wipe them out. Power and fear are the driving force here, not thought and hope. This is not a story of man reaching out to the stars. This is the story of man shutting his borders and killing anything that tries to climb the fence, including his fellow man. And the final two pages, with Oppenheimer looking at the door to anywhere, and paraphrasing the most famous thing the real Oppenheimer is purported to have said, sent a shiver up my spine.

Artist Nick Pitarra is an able accomplice to Hickman's brilliant science fiction madness. His art is super detailed, with gorgeous backgrounds and settings. His characters are distinct, and while I'm not familiar with how all these people looked in real life, the ones I do know look similar to what Pitarra puts on the page, with some choices stylizing them (Werner Von Braun's super robotic arm, or Fermi's non-human features come to mind). The designs of the different alien species are fascinating and different from the more traditional aliens you see in many other places.

The Manhattan Projects is not a comic to read if you're looking to turn your brain off and sit back. This is a series to read if you want to think, if you want to be challenged. Moral questions, super science, alternate history; this is a stew of concepts. You might learn something, or some away with a new view on life. Or you might just get a kick out of mad science. Either way, it's a wild ride.

The first collection of The Manhattan Projects, Science Bad, is available now, collecting the first five issues. Issue six was released this Wednesday. Both should be at any good comic book store.