Recommended Reading for 7/3: The Order of the Forge

There are comics that are great, comics that will be remembered and discussed by scholars for years. And there are comics that will warm your heart and comfort you when you need it. And then there are comics that are fun and completely batshit insane. This week's recommended reading is one of the latter. The Order of the Forge is a story of a young George Washington fighting viking zombies to protect the colonies for crown of England. And if that sounds crazy, man the actual comic is even crazier.

Conceived by produced Donn D. Berdahl, the mini-series is written by Victor Gischler, with art by Tazio Bettin. My first experience with Giscler was his superhero work, which was OK, but then I read a fantasy short story he wrote for an anthology of non-illustrated short fiction, and it struck a chord. Since then, I've read a bunch of his horror comics, especially liking Kiss Me, Satan, about a demon who is trying to do right in the world, and his current run on Angel & Faith and have found that work top notch. Factor in my love of the pre-Revolution/ Revolutionary War era of American history, and I was sold at the outset on this book, and it lived up to my wildest expectations.

The series opens with young George Washington having a fight with his father. In anger, he performs one of the acts that made him famous, which is chop down the cherry tree his father had planted. But he loses control of the ax, and it flies off and lands in a Native American totem pole. When he pulls it out, he's blasted with mystical energy. And he runs off, fleeing Virginia. Flash to six months later, where he is working as a servant at a mansion with a young Paul Revere, and they have befriended Ben Franklin. When Kate, the niece of Lord Hammond, the owner of the house, arrives, she stumbles upon her uncle's plan to find an artifact and use it to overthrow the king in the colonies. She tells George, and he and his friends must stop Hammond before it's too late. And thanks to Ben Franklin's lightning experiments combining with the magic from George's ax, they might just each have the powers to do it.

Sounds nuts, right? And it totally is. But the comic embraces this over the top premise and runs with it. It does a good job of fleshing out the characters as well. George is haunted by the curse that came with his new powers. Sure, he now has a magical ax that he can wield with amazing power. But he also literally can not tell a lie, so he comes off sort of brusk and a jerk. Paul Revere is the lighthearted member of the group, who loves nothing more than riding Guillotine, one of Lord Hammond's horses, and the magic bonds the two of them together, allowing Guillotine to be sheathed in flame and run like no normal horse. Ben Franklin is the drinking, whoring, party animal he was according to many biographers, and gets his intellect heightened so he begins building weapons like nothing seen in the 1750s. And Kate Hammond is not a shrinking violet lady of the 18th century. She's tough, smart, and gets super acrobatics and fighting skills as her magical gift. Also, as an interesting note, she is half Indian (India Indian, not native American), making her stand out distinctly from the remainder of the very white cast, and adding something to her backstory, as Lord Hammond scorns his brother for marrying a non-English woman, and producing an heir who is not white. They form a great center for the plot to revolve around.

Lord Hammond isn't a particularly three dimensional villain, but for a comic as broad as this, that's fine. I can actually hear a Peter Cushing or Alan Rickman performing his lines, really adding some classic Hammer horror  and British gravitas to his fiendish plan. He is aided by his right hand man, who has two wolves that serve as his pets, because every arch-villain needs a sidekick who is a deadly threat. That aide is named Drumknott, which is a nod to the same named secretary of Lord Havelock Vetinari, the Patrician of the city of Ankh-Morpork from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. It's not the only Discworld reference in Gischler's recent work, and so as a fellow Discworld devotee, I salute you, sir.

The comic is actually a perfect three act adventure. Issue one is the set-up where you meet the characters and understand the stakes. Issue two is the chase, as George and his friends must use the map Kate stole to find what Lord Hammond is looking for before he gets to it. And issue three is the climax, where Washington must face Hammond, where the find a buried ship called The Forge guarded by Viking zombies, and where they find the weapon Hammond seeks. In a purely critical sense, that structure is perfect, and it makes each issue exciting in its own right.

Oh, and a note of language. There is no attempt to make the language in the series sound "old timey" for want of a better word. Everything is written in modern vernacular, up to and including the sears. And there are a lot of swears. These are guys in there 20s fighting evil English lord, wolves, and zombies. Of course they're gonna cuss.

The Order of the Forge isn't going to change your life and the way you look at comics. But it's a fun, self contained story (that I can only hope leads to more stories of these characters, as it's left open ended without a cliffhanger), one you can read and walk away with a smile on your face, and on the eve of Independence Day, I thought nothing would be better to write about than out first President as a mystical hero. And I was right.

The final issue of The Order of the Forge was released two weeks ago, so all three issues should be available at your local comic shop, or easily ordered by them. A trade will be released on November, in time for Thanksgiving.

Reviews of Comics from Wednesday 6/24

The Fade Out #7
Story: Ed Brubaker
Art: Sean Phillips

As readers get deeper into Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips's filmland noir, The Fade Out, they see that every player in the series is haunted by something. Most of the issue is actually taken up by the romantic and sexual romp of the series protagonist, screenwriter Charlie Parrish, and Maya Silver, the starlet who replaced the murdered Valeria Sommers. But even as the two of them dance and have sex at a beach house away from all the pressures of Hollywood, that world doesn't release them. A particular physical trait of Maya's causes Charlie to ask a question that once again brings to mind Val and the suspicions he has about the hedonism of the head of the studio he's working for and exactly how much that might play into Val's murder. And when they're called back to the city early, Charlie gets himself immediately sloshed and into a fist fight with another writer who attacks him for naming names and getting his old partner, Gil, blacklisted. Charlie is haunted by Val's death and his own writer's block, by the corruption of the world around him. And when he goes to clean up after getting beaten down, he finally has a conversation with the man he remembers seeing the night of Val's death, who identifies himself as Drake Miller from the studio, who clearly knows that Charlie is a front for Gil's writing. Charlie knows the threat for what it is, that being outed as a front is suicide in Hollywood at this time, and still does nothing. This paralysis of action is Charlie's defining character trait and flaw, and clearly is connected with his wartime experiences in Germany. The issue also has us drop in on PR girl Dottie and Tyler Graves, the closeted gay James Dean analogue, forwarding their plots, but it's really Charlie and Maya's issue. We do get a little more about Maya and exactly what she went through to get her job on this movie. Brubaker doesn't forward the plot of the series as much as the character, although the final scene with Miller and the note he slips to Charlie are clearly important, something he's done with various issues of his earlier series as well. Phillips balances both the lovely beach scenes with the deeper darks of the bedroom scenes, which are not graphic but sexual. The Fade Out, more than any of Brubaker and Phillips previous series, is a slow burn, piecing out its information slowly while bathing us in atmosphere. I'm wondering if there were clues in this issue that will come back around to be more important later. Oh, and if you've been enjoying Devin Feraci's essays on Hollywood of days gone by that accompany each issue, you should check out You Must Remember This, an excellent podcast about the history of Hollywood in the 20th century.

Gotham By Midnight #6
Story: Ray Fawkes
Art: Juan Ferreyra

After the two month Convergence hiatus, Gotham By Midnight returns with its strongest issue to date, thanks in no small part to new series artist Juan Ferreyra. Ben Templesmith did a good job on the first arc, but I'm a huge fan of Ferreyra's from his work on Colder and Kiss Me, Satan and his talent for drawing the supernatural and the disquieting is well suited to Gotham City in general, and the macabre cases of the Midnight Shift in particular. The ghost haunting Powers Corp R&D is grotesque and shiver-inducing, exactly what I'd expect out of Ferreyra. The issue's story picks up shirtly after the conclusion of the previous arc, with the Midnight Shift attending the funeral of Sister Justine, who fell to help stop the Spectre from wiping out Gotham, and still under investigation by Sgt. Rook of Internal Affairs. After a tense argument about the powers of both Jim Corrigan as The Spectre and his partner, Lisa, Drake, who is part banshee, the two are sent to investigate the aforementioned haunting at Powers Corp. The story there is a tale we've heard before, of corporate greed run rampant, caring more for the bottom line than the human lives of those who work for it, but Fawkes infuses it with character, and makes you really want to slap around the unctuous Mark Jenner, whose corporate think and ultimatums led to the death of George Wooley, who haunts Jenner and Powers to get his justice, something the Spectre can understand. Meanwhile, Lt. Weaver spends time with Dr. Tarr, the Midnight Shift's resident scientist, who has taken Sister Justine's death the hardest, and who continues to investigate the black flowers from Slaughter Swamp, which take on an eerie turn. If that wasn't enough, the final page reintroduces one of my favorite DC characters, one who hasn't been seen since the universe reshuffling that was Flahspoint: Kate Spencer! Yes, the last character to bear the name Manhunter, the tough as nails superhero/attorney is back. Methinks this might mean a recommended reading for Manhunter is coming soon from this very blog, but for now I just want to thanks Ray Fawkes for bringing Kate back, and adding her to the cast of this comic.

The Shadow #100
Story & Art: Various listed below

I don't know exactly what math was used to determine that Dynamite was at issue one hundred of the comic featuring pulpdom's original masked vigilante, but however they got to the number, the celebrated it with an impressive prestige format anthology collecting six stories of The Shadow.

Story 1: "The Laughing Corpse," written and illustrated by Francesco Francavilla, is the story of the Shadow following leads as prominent scientists are dying with their bodies contorted and  with grotesque smiles on their faces. No, it's not a crossover with another famous masked avenger (that's for later), but a story of revenge with Francavilla's usual style and grace, with gorgeous layouts an tons of atmosphere.

Story 2: Writer Victor Gischler and artist Stephen B. Scott's story deals with members of the card club frequented by the Shadow's alter ego of Lamont Cranston being robbed and killed. It's the most detective oriented story in the collection, although the reader is on on what's going on from the beginning.

Story 3: "Black and White and Red All Over" by writer/artist Howard Chaykin, who has quite a history with the Shadow, deals with The Shadow dealing with an old friend of his from World War I who is now a published of this new fad, comic books. We get a tale right out of the early days of comics, with gangsters and unscrupulous businessmen. And the final page shows an incensed Margo Lane, the Shadow's female companion, irked that the same crooks who bought out Shadow's old friend are no publishing a Shadow comic, something the Shadow takes in stride. Less so in...

Story 4: Michael Uslan, best known for being the producer of the Burton Batman films but who has written some comics featuring both the caped crusader and The Shadow in the past, and artist Giovanni Timpano, tell a story with so much 30s charm and in jokes that I couldn't help but smile. After The Shadow saves a couple and their young son from being mugged (if it wasn't clear who they are to readers at the outset, there's a bit with pearls that seal the deal), the Shadow slips off to tell off the guy who's voicing a radio version of his, something the Shadow does not approve of. If you know anything about the classic Shadow radio show, you know who this is, and Timpano captures the actor's look perfectly, and the final page mentions of Hearst and Rosebud  again make it clear what famous actor the Shadow has set on a course to make his masterpiece

Story 5: Left out of the credits at the beginning of the comic, the back cover told me this story, of a criminal watching as the Shadow takes apart the underworld, comes from Chris Roberson and artist Ivan Rodriguez. This story feels like it follows in the footsteps of some of the best Will Eisner Spirit stories, where the Spirit, or in this case The Shadow, serves as more a plot device, letting us get into the head of a denizen of the city, in this case a crook with a sense of honor who the Shadow seeks to add to his collection of agents.

Story 6: The collection is rounded out by " The Curse of Blackbeard's Skull" a prose story with accompanying illustrations by Matt Wagner. The format, similar to that of the pulps where the Shadow comes from, makes it an excellent choice to end the anthology, and Wagner knows the Shadow. A story of rich men dying after possessing the cursed skull turns into a story of greed and avarice.

If you've never read a story of The Shadow before, or only know him vaguely, this is a great place to first read him, as it will give you a good feel for the character and his world.

We Are Robin #1
Story: Lee Bermejo
Art: Jorge Corona & Rob Haynes

The final major issue one of this month from DC is We Are Robin, where the idea of Robin, of a teenager doing something to protect Gotham from the crime that infests it, has reached a point where it has become a movement. But we only get hints of that this issue. The main focus of this issue is Duke Thomas, who will be the series point of view character. For those of you who haven't read Duke's earlier appearances, he has popped up a couple times in Scott Snyder's run on Batman, most recently in "Endgame," where the Joker used Duke and his parents as bait for Batman. This issue opens with Duke in foster care, as his parents are among the missing after the Joker's rampage. His case worker is long time Batman supporting cast member Leslie Thompkins, who has popped up intermittently and inconsistently since the reboot, and writer Lee Bermejo captures her in a way that makes me hope she is a regular supporting cast member in the book. As for Duke, one issue in and I love him. He's likable, clever, with a bit of an attitude, but he's not written to be a stereotypical street kid in any way. He's already well rounded by Bermejo just by drawing on his few appearances in Batman and what Bermejo does in this one issue. Looking for his missing parents, Duke goes into Gotham Underground and comes across a plan to blow up Gotham City proper. And when he's in trouble, that's when the Robins show up. Someone has been directing them to Duke, and we don't exactly know who that is or what their agenda is, but the final pages indicate someone with some resources is backing up the Robins.Jorge Corona, drawing off breakdowns by Rob Haynes, provides art removed from the DC house style, but with a lot of energy, appropriate for a book that is going to be populated by young, acrobatic characters. With mainstream superhero comics' recent push for greater diversity, a book featuring a young African-American lead and a group that looks to cross every possible societal group is a smart choice for the less than diverse recent DC Universe, but Duke is presented as a character first here, and that's the key to a solid character and title, something this first issue of We Are Robin sets up well.

Reviews of Comics from Wednesday 10/23

Daredevil #32
Story: Mark Waid
Art: Chris Samnee

Now that it's been confirmed that Mark Waid's excellent run on Daredevil is wrapping up, every issue is a treasure. And this issue features appearances by the Legion of Monsters! Now the appearance is small, and at the end of the issue, setting up next issue, but I still love these characters, especially Werewolf by Night, also known as Jack Russell (yeah, for those unfamiliar with him, you heard that right). But that's just something that speaks to my inner fanboy, which would be enough to get me to write the issue up, but there's so much more great about the issue. The opening scene, where the villain, The Jester, has left a dummy of a hanged Foggy Nelson, is one of the cleverest examples of Waid's use of Daredevil's powers and the lack of understanding others have of it. The Jester's surety that the horrible site of Foggy hung up before him would cause a reaction from Daredevil, but draws none, is clever and Jester's reaction was amusing, and this is inverted when Matt assumes that a mob in the small southern town he heads to at the end of the issue is preparing a race based lynching, when instead they are hunting monsters, something he couldn't tell with no site. Waid has done a tremendous job of writing scenes that remind the reader that Daredevil is blind and that radar sense is not the same as sight. It's also nice to see Daredevil and Foggy working together to help find an answer to the problem with the Sons of the Serpent; Foggy's cancer hasn't removed him from the book, but it's nice to see him doing something other than sitting in a bed. Four issues left, and the wild ride of Waid and Samnee's Daredevil doesn't look like it's slowing down.

Kiss Me, Satan! #2
Story: Victor Gischler
Art: Juan Ferreyra

I know I just wrote about the first issue of this Dark Horse horror comic last week, but when a good second issue comes around, I might as well keep writing. Barnabus Black continues to protect the witches from a line of bounty hunters. Writer Victor Gischler uses this to continue to expand the world he has created, introducing vampires, necromancers, and ninja zombies. I feel like Gischler has a whole world in his head, with all sorts of supernatural craziness, and he's slowly rolling it out. We also get to see more of our villain, Cassian Steele, werewolf chieftain, and I have to say, this is one bad guy. Sure, kill another werewolf in cold blood to maintain your power base, that's pack infighting; tell your pregnant wife you're going to kill the baby and you can always try again until you get a werewolf baby? OK, he's an A-1 bastard. The story is great, but what pushes the comic over the top is the art from Juan Ferreyra. The main action piece of the issue, a battle between Barnabus and animated ninja corpses, that starts out on cars and moves to a graveyard, is a sight to behold. Ferreyra mixes action with great body language and facial expressions. October is the spookiest time of the year, and this is the perfect comic for a chilly October night.

The Unwritten #54
Story: Mike Carey & Bill Willingham
Art: Peter Gross, Mark Buckingham, & Dean Ormston

The first volume of The Unwritten wraps up with the conclusion of "The Unwritten Fables," the big crossover between The Unwritten and Fables. The final battle between Tom Taylor and Mr. Dark plays out with a lot of very interesting twists, involving Tom's connection to The Leviathan, the font of all stories. But while much of the story is thoughtful, with Frau Totenkinder trying to explain to Tom exactly what he is and how he fits into the grand scheme of things, the rest of the Fables cast fights with the revanant Boy Blue and Bigby Wolf faces down his wife and children. It's a blood soaked issue, with many favorite characters meeting a final fate. Artists Peter Gross, Mark Buckingham, and Dean Ormston each draw pages suited to their styles, with Gross focusing on Tom, Buckingham on the Fables, and Ormston on the final pages, with scenes of horror as Fran Totenkinder morphs into a monster to hold Mr. Dark off as Tom performs the endgame. It;s a very clever ending, having been set up many issues ago, playing off both the classic poem The Song of Roland and what the readers know about the Tommy Taylor books, the in universe series of children's books. The issues wraps with Tom seemingly ready to find his way back home in time for the final twelve issues of the series, the maxi-series "Apocalypse." It feels like so many of the series I really love are coming to their end. But I can hope the ending will live up to the high quality of the series so far.

Velvet #1
Story: Ed Brubaker
Art: Steve Epting

New work from Ed Brubaker is always something to look forward to, and when he's partnered with one of those artists he has a rapport with, guys like Michael Lark, Sean Phillips, or in this case Steve Epting, you know you're in for a great comic. Velvet is a spy comic in the classic mold; it has touches of James Bond, touches of Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy, and a whole lot of the action you expect when you have Brubaker and Epting together. Velvet Templeton, our lead, seems to be the secretary to one of the director's of Arc-7, a super secret black ops spy organization. But Velvet isn't Miss Moneypenny; Velvet clearly has a background that features plenty of spy training of her own. After an agent Velvet was fond of is killed, she begins investigating his death, and is quickly pulled into a case that features death and deception, and puts Velvet's life in danger. Brubaker wrote the best spy comic on the racks when he was writing Captain America, and he's bringing that same feel for the genre here. Velvet is a complex character, and after one issue you can already tell that she has a complex history. Like all spies, there are things that haunt her. The rest of the cats is sketched out, including Velvet's boss and some of  the other agents, and I'm sure we'll get to know them better, but this issue was the perfect introduction to our protagonist. Epting is an artist whose work has grown tremendously over the years, and this is easily the best work he has ever done. The shadow, the expressions, the action, all are second to none, and perfectly fit the grit of the 70s spy movie. Between Fatale and now Velvet, it's a good time to be a fan of Ed Brubaker.

Reviews of Comics from Wednesday 10/16

With apologies for the month plus without an update, this week will feature a few books that I picked up this past week from previous weeks, but can't really go back all the way to when I last updated. Sorry for that, folks, but I'm in the middle of buying a house, and that has been taking up a lot of my spare time. But that's enough about me. On to the comics.

Bloodhound: Crowbar Medicine #1

Story: Dan Jolley

Art: Leonard Kirk

I was one of the people who read Bloodhound when it was being published by DC (admittedly, I first picked up issue 8, since it had a D-List Batman villain, Zeiss, in it, but I then picked up the first six and was along for the ride for the last two), so when I saw that new Bloodhound stories were coming out from Dark Horse, I was excited. And that excitement paid off with the serial in Dark Horse Presents, and now in the first issue of this mini-series. If you didn't read either the DC adventures of the serial featuring Travis Clevenger, our title character, and his partner/handler Saffron Bell, that's ok. Everything you need to know is made perfectly clear early on: Clev (as he's called) is a guy who hunts people with special powers for the FBI on a sort of work release; it's kind of like the concept of the TV show White Collar, if Matt Bomer was nearly seven feet tall and indestructible, and they were hunting rogue metahumans, not crooked bankers. The first issue let's you meet Clev, see the kind of guy he is, and then see him go on a hunt. The guy who Clev is hunting turns out to not be a bad guy, just a desperate one, and the polive pursuing him seem to be far worse than he is, which gives a nice layer to the world and to the ending of the issue. The last couple pages set up the thrust of the story, when a mystery doctor named Bradley Morgenstern hijacks all TV channels and offers to give people superpowers to protect them from the menace of rogue powered people. It's an argument made for assault rifles in the hands of everyone, and it's a great example of using superpowers as a metaphor for the concerns of the modern world. The chemistry between Clev and Saffron is great, and helps push the book beyond a simple plot driven think piece and into something that readers can get invested in. There's a nice letter page at the back, where writer Dan Jolley talks about getting the entire original creative team back together to do this book, and asks for those of us digging the book to share it, and I am more than happy to oblige. Glad to see you back, Clev.

Fables #134

Story: Bill Willingham

Art: Mark Buckingham

Some of the best issues of Fables are the interlude issues that give the reader a little breather mid-arc before things invariably go completely off the rails. Bigby Wolf is dead and has found his way into an afterlife that is the apotheosis of all forests, where he hunts creatures and lives as the great beast he once was. The sound of a hunting horn calls Bigby to find Boy Blue, who is there to explain some of the ways the afterlife works before he moves on from the borderlands where Bigby's forest is to his personal reward. The two of them have a long conversation about life, death, and the choices that we make in life. Bigby comes to some realizations about his life and his fate, and Blue explains that he has no intention of ever returning to life. There are some fun labs at Stinky, the badger who started the religion around Boy Blue, and it will be interesting to see how he reacts when Bigby returns and tells him exactly what Blue said to him. It's a lovely send off to Boy Blue, and a wonderful final conversation between two of my favorite Fables characters. The final two pages are touching, so touching that they brought a tear to my eye, and brings a resolution to the quest that Bigby was on before his death. 

Kiss Me, Satan #1

Story: Victor Gischler

Art: Juan Ferreyra

I'm a sucker for horror comics, and have a strong preference for werewolves over either vampires or zombies, and when I saw the cover copy, "New Orleans is a Werewolf Town," I had to give this book a try. My only experience with writer Victor Gischler was the Spike mini-series he wrote and a couple short stories, and no familiarity with artist Juan Ferreyra, so I came in fresh. Barnabus is a fallen angel who is trying to earn his way back into the good graces of the almighty, so he's doing freelance work for heaven, all the while ducking squads of demons that want to bring him back to Hell to pay for making a runner. It's a solid core concept, but where are the werewolves? Well, it seems the packleader of the local werewolf clan, Cassian Steele, has a pregnant wife, and the witch who was summoned to test the fetus tells Steele the baby isn't a werewolf. This means that Steele will lose his standing within the pack. Steele kills the only werewolf who knew, and then sends his wolves after the witch and her apprentices. And this is where Barnabus crosses paths with the werewolves, as heaven has sent him to protect the witches. The whole series is set up to move from here, a quick, action based supernatural thriller. Gischler does a great job fleshing out the characters quickly, and Ferreyra's art is astounding. he has a dynamic style, and his werewolves are beautiful, or as beautiful as monsters can be. A perfect comic for this spooky time of year, the second issue hits this week, so grab both for a double dose of horror action on Wednesday.

Superior Spider-Man #17-19

Story: Dan Slott

Art: Ryan Stegman

Yes, these are the first Spider-Man comics I have reviewed on here. I don't have anything against Spidey, but I've never been a big fan either, and haven't had any real interest in the Superior incarnation. However, when Spider-Man 2099, a character I do love, came back for this arc, I couldn't resist it. I read all the Peter David issues of Miguel O'Hara's adventures from the 90s, and I was worried that he wouldn't ring true after all these years, but credit to Dan Slott for getting him exactly right. The story is a classic time travel yarn, with O'Hara going back in time to keep himself from being erased from the timeline by protecting his grandfather, Tiberius Stone, a sleazy scientist who has gotten on the bad side of Spidey, or Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man's body. Having not read a single issue of Superior Spider-Man, or any of Slott's Amazing Spider-Man for that matter, I was worried I would be lost, but Slott does a great job of giving the reader a good feeling of the status quo. The issues are action packed, with plenty of Spider-Man on Spider-Man action, and very cool tie-in to the history of the 2099 universe. This was a great self contained story that does have some payoff to what seem to be long running plotlines and set-ups for the future. And by stories end, there might just be two Spider-Men running around the Marvel Universe. If you remember the 2099 comics with any fondness, this is definitely an arc you'll enjoy.