Comics I read this week

Another week has passed and I've made another trip to the comic book store. Spoilers within

Amazing Spider-Man 546, aka "the first issue of Brand New Day." Let's do a little thought experiment about Spider-Man here. Suppose you were in charge of kick-starting a new back-to-basics chapter in Spider-Man's life. Which character would you absolutely, positively include in your Spider-Man story? I'll give you a hint, Spider-Man fans: it's the only character whose name I have included in every sentence of this paragraph. That's right, Spider-Man fans -- the character any Spider-Man writer ought to include in a Spider-Man story intended to kick off a back-to-basics approach to Spider-Man is Spider-Man! Now guess who appears nowhere in this comic?

Oh, sure. We get plenty of Peter Parker, including some scenes of Peter jumping from rooftop to rooftop. And there's a full-page pnup of Peter remembering some of the stuff he's previously done as Spider-Man. But if you want to see Spider-Man swinging into action, taking on bad guys as only he can, pick up a back issue. Personally, I'm partial to the Lee/Romita stuff.

I was really looking forward to this -- I like Dan Slott's other work a lot, and from what I know, the other authors they lined up (Marc Guggenheim, Bob Gale, and Zeb Wells) should be up my alley too. But I did not like this issue one bit. Thankfully, Marvel was kind enough to include previews of the next four story-arcs and none of them grababed me either. Which means I am hopping off the Spidey bandwagon. This is a bold new direction for people who thought they were telling great Spider-Man stories with a lousy supporting cast. Well, changing the supporting cast doesn't fix the problem of lousy stories. I had hoped that a new editor and new writers would, but there's no sign of that here.

Hulk 1. Another bold new direction, which means another issue in which the title character does not appear. Here, we get a few glimpses of the Hulk in a flashback sequence where Doc Samson uses a corpse and a few footprints to piece together the blow-by-blow of a battle between the Hulk and the Abomination. Couple the sheer ridiculousness of that scene with the stilted interplay between She-Hulk and Doc Samson (I know they're supposed to be angry with each other, but they come off as bad 60s TV-aliens trying to figure out human interaction) and the issue gets off to a terrible start. We then segue into a superhero battle, which is OK but nothing special, and then a super-secret-surprise ending that anybody with half a brain could have seen coming. I won't be picking up the next issue of this one either.

Spirit 12. The last issue of Darwyn Cooke and J Bone's run. They turn in a very good story based on Eisner's original Sand Serif stories. Cooke and Bone's run on the Spirit has been a worthy successor to the work Eisner did on the character, continuing in the Eisner tradition while remaining cognizant of the way comics have changed in the 50+ years since the original strips. Here's hoping that new authors Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier can keep up the quality.

Bat Lash 2. Speaking of Aragones, he cowrote Bat Lash 2. This issue doesn't really advance the plot that much -- the characters basically spend an entire issue snarling at each other, I guess to drive home the point that the people who we saw hating each other in the first issue really hate each other. That said, the story is a breeze to read and the John Severin art is gorgeous.

The Twelve 1. Despite the fact that J. Michael Straczynski's work has never done much for me, I decided to give a shot to this story of twelve Golden Age heroes that only Jess Nevins has ever heard of. It's actually quite enjoyable. I think I like it because Straczynski is capable of writing good stories -- he just doesn't seem to be capable of writing good Spider-Man stories or good Fantastic Four stories. I have no idea what constitutes a good Fiery Mask or Blue Blade story -- my guess is that all twelve of these characters were portrayed as square-jawed straight shooters back in the 1940s -- so it doesn't bother me that most of them are probably acting out of character and contrary to their established milieux. The beautiful Chris Weston art sure doesn't hurt. So I enjoyed this issue. and will plan to pick up issue 2.

I also picked up the issue 0 preview, which probably came out a few weeks ago, but I missed it until now. We get pinups of the twelve heroes who will be featured in the Twelve as well as reprints of Golden Age stories featuring three of them -- Rockman, Laughing Mask, and the Phantom Reporter. The last two are typical Golden Age superhero stories; nothing special. The first is by Basil Wolverton, who is my nominee for the most underappreciated talent in the history of comics, ever. Seriously, he should be mentioned in the same breath as Eisner, Kirby, and Kurtzman, and while this isn't a particularly noteworthy Wolverton story, do yourself a favor and pick up this issue and compare the way Wolverton lays out panels and pages to the way the other two artists in the book (Maurice Gutworth and Sam Cooper) do so. The difference is night and day -- Wolverton was decades ahead of his time. Do yourself a favor and pick this up, if only for the Wolverton story.

Teen Titans Lost Annual 1. So back in 2004, DC was all set do publish something called the Teen Titans Swinging Elseworlds Special, written by Bob Haney and illustrated by Jay Stephens and Mike Allred, with a cover by Nick Cardy. For reasons unknown -- my guess it has something to do with the fact that DC decided at about that time to have nothing further to do with the concept of Elseworlds -- the book was never published. Until now. The book is full of typical Zany Haney fun. It features the Titans and President Kennedy* getting involved in a war between moptops and hippies on another planet. This book is loads of fun, and demonstrates that even in his last years, Bob Haney sure knew how to tell a great story.

Extra speciala kudos to DC for giving work to Messrs. Haney and Cardy. There are a lot of guys (and gals) who did great work in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s who would do great work today, if only some publisher would give them a chance. I don't want to see the door closed to the next generation of writers, and I think it's great to see new guys like Geoff Johns or Dan Slott, but let's make sure to remember the guys who have been around a while and can still turn out some good stories.

* The astute among you may realize that the Teen Titans didn't debut until 1964, well after President Kennedy was assassinated. Nuts to you, I say!

JLA Classified 50. Speaking of guys who have been around a while, it's Roger Stern and John Byrne together again. This time, they're doing the Justice League. There's a little bit of a mystery here that will serve as the basis for a flashback storyline -- the villain recognizes the League, but the League doesn't recognize the villain -- but at its core, this book is just a fun battle between a supervillain and a bunch of superheroes. I don't know what it is (possibly the inking of Mark Farmer), but Byrne's art looks as good as anything he's ever done. Stern's still as talented a writer as he ever was. This is a book that could have been published in the 80s, and I mean that as a compliment. I'm on board for the durration of the Byrne/Stern story arc.

Nova 10. I didn't mean to end on such a lackluster comic, but that's how it worked out. In this issue, Nova and Gamorra fight for an issue. It's competently done, but no great shakes. Oh well.

So what did you read this week?

Posted by Jason Fliegel at January 12, 2008 11:38 AM