God bless Jonathan Hickman.

As the auteur-driven creator behind post-modern odysseys like Pax Romana, Red Mass for Mars and The Nightly News, the man is a single-purpose writer. His goal: give you something that’s really off the beaten track.

While it’s true that his Marvel work is something different to the norm and well worth reading, his creator-owned pieces are another level entirely. A bunch of futuristic soldiers going back to Ancient Rome to change the course of future Christianity? An aesop regarding the follies of transhumanism that will lead to our race being subjugated by super-intelligent apes? A time-travel yarn about a dude fighting a war that started because time travel started a fight after time travel was started due to time travel starting before the other time travel began? Great stuff, even if it gives you a brain hemorrhage afterwards.

Ok, I’m not doing justice to the plot outlines above and they do sound like rip-offs of previously existing movies. It’s more what’s at the core of a Jonathan Hickman story that makes it unique. The art is usually gritty, abstract or both, the characters are anti-heroes at best and there’s rarely a completely happy ending – pyrrhic is the best you can hope for. More importantly, each issue has this tendency of building up joyous dread in you as you read, knowing that it can only go more downhill from here until you reach the end and it all spills out in a giant wave of anxious train-wreck tableau.

That’s a tendency that Volume 2 of Manhattan Projects runs with. Each new chapter of the alternate universe World War II all-star science brigade keeps building that awful, wonderful feeling in your gut that the protagonists are building towards a really, truly bad ending one day. It begins with a poor former Nazi getting his forehead cattle-branded with a swastika in a manner that’d make Aldo Raine proud, and after the guy shows he’s a lot more resentful of his Nazi-ness than most of the Third Reich he gets literally kicked in the face by his former superior, lied to repeatedly about receiving his freedom and has his brain hooked up to an energy vortex that can only be activated by sapping his life force over a period of years.

It only goes downhill from there. And it’s glorious.

I checked out Volume 1 of Manhattan Projects during my summer roundup of indie titles and found it jolly enjoyable, but it was missing a little bit of connective tissue to transform it into a story rather than a series of somewhat-related vignettes. This is a problem Volume 2 has kicked in the teeth; the story has a lot more cohesiveness overall, and peripheral elements that were given minor focus previously (such as the batsh*t crazy President Truman’s freemason orgies) come front and centre in the plot now, and with good reason. Every little lead the story’s set up before now comes together in marvellous fashion, proving that Hickman is playing a long game with the narrative. He knows what’s coming, which is a feeling that gradually builds in tandem with the foreboding “waiting for the shoe to drop” that readers are already getting.

The reason I say it’s glorious to watch as the snowball of unfortunate events grows ever larger is because most, if not all, of the main characters are complete asshats. Sure, it’s cool to root for the villain sometimes and watch as they plan world domination of all the hapless plebs crawling across the Earth, but when you’ve got protagonists including an alternate-universe axe crazy Albert Einstein, a vapid and self-obssessed representation of Richard Feynman and a multiple personality cannibal naming himself Oppenheimer then you’re not exactly in for a bunch of characters worth sympathising with.

The thing Hickman does really well with Manhattan Projects is striking a balance between amoral thuggery and somewhat relatable anti-villainy when it comes to his protagonists, making them clearly on either the black or grey end of the scales but also giving them just enough of the other stuff for the reader to stay invested. That is, they’re not so evil that they’re off-putting as main characters. While it is satisfying to watch as things go exceedingly pear-shaped for everybody in the book’s second half, it’s equally great seeing the resolution to that in a way that’s not dissimilar to when someone like the Punisher (as bleak an anti-hero as you can get) securing a victory against someone like the Kingpin (even bleaker). The end result is a delicious nasty slice of anti-villain pie, bordering on a guilty pleasure as we unconsciously root for the bad guys to win. Or consciously, in my case, but then again I’m probably going to end up in an insane asylum before I’m thirty.

The artwork by Nick Pitarra kicks ass, and not just in the part where the aforementioned kinda-nice Nazi is getting a foot planted in his tuchus. there’s quite a bit of definition in the facial work, with thick lines of articulation along the lines of Frank Quitely and Chris Burnham, and there’s fantastic use of single-colour shades used for flashback scenes and delineation between all of Oppenheimer’s psychotic alter egos. Whenever the book uses pages dipped almost entirely in blue or orange it’s usually not off-putting, although sometimes the block pastels used for those pages can get a bit samey. It’s not a deal-breaker, and for the most part Pitarra pulls it off really well. There’s a particularly gruesome page at the halfway point depicting one of President Truman’s orgies, which hits a balance between full illustration and hinting at deeper details to be truly unsettling without showing everything happening. Kinda makes you wonder why no-one likes the Freemasons anymore.

Dialogue is pretty good. Compared to other Hickman works it’s not quite as solid, and the introspective parts used during the final issue – a solely Oppenheimer-based affair – can get a little dry. Some of the characters do come across as a little cartoonishly villainous, which I guess is kinda the point, and sadly there aren’t as many laughs as last time for me. Still damn good, but not quite reaching the excellent levels of things like Transhuman and the first Manhattan Projects volume.

At the end of the day, They Rule is an excellent addition to the ongoing MP canon. It’s good to know that seemingly minor things have significance later on, and that it appears Hickman is definitely going about things with some kind of road map. The fact that the universe we’re experiencing could literally go in any direction, given its alternate nature, is equal parts exciting and horrifying. The former, because almost anything could – and probably will – happen.

The latter, because it means our villainous protagonists could push the limits beyond what they’ve already got going for them on their resume of bad. Who wants to make a bet that the series ends with Oppenheimer birthing babies and then immediately eating them?

Oh God, I think I’ve just given myself a new nightmare.

PUBLISHER: IMAGE COMICS

STORY: 4.5/5

ARTWORK: 4/5

DIALOGUE: 3.5/5

OVERALL: 12/15

BEST QUOTE: “You have been a very bad computer, Mister President.” – Albert Einstein

I’m always one for innovation and difference when moving forward in a story, particular when a new writer comes aboard an existing franchise. After all, you’ve got two choices: either you establish your own take, your own particular flavour that’ll leave a mark on something long-lasting with enough other author marks to resemble Victor Zsasz after a particularly hectic night on the town, or you just ape the creativity of the guy before you, give a carbon copy of their much-beloved spin on things and end up living in the gutter alongside fellow creatively bankrupt sods like Michael Bay, P.C. Cast and the entirety of One Direction.

Thankfully, coming on the heels of the intensely thrilling and award-winning spy story penned by sterling scribe Ed Brubaker, Rick Remender has managed to take the former option of the above two and create a pulpy, sci-fi-cum-fantasy spin for everyone’s favourite walking flag Captain America. Taking some of the previous run’s character elements and throwing them up against Jack Kirby-esque space demons and utilising time jumps as a plot device the same way most of us use toothpaste, Remender has well and truly given the Captain his own flavour. It’s just a pity the flavour is made up of nothing much more than batsh*t craziness and way too much of John Romita’s artwork.

Following the harrowing events of Avengers vs. X-Men and its assorted paraphernalia, America’s top cop Steve Rogers is dealing with what he sees as impending old age and possible obsolescence in the face of the country’s changing security nature. He’s on his way to a rendezvous with girlfriend Sharon Carter when he’s suddenly and inexplicably plucked from our reality and dumped in the eponymous Dimension Z, a nightmare realm of sci-fi villainy that’s somewhere between Labyrinth and Avatar in terms of its visual weirdness. It turns out Dimension Z is run by old nemesis Arnim Zola, now in a robot body following his stint in his last Captain America appearance and hell-bent on the Star-Spangled Man’s destruction. It’s up to Captain America to escape Dimension Z and reunite with the real world whilst accompanied by a strange little boy who turns out to be…

Well, I can’t really say much more than that without arriving at the armed border-patrolled gates of Spoiler Territory. There’s a lot going on in this book that, for the sake of your own narrative enjoyment, I can’t elaborate on. Suffice it to say that there’s weirdness, cyborgs, a face-stomach virus and a significant amount of in-story time that passes from the book’s beginning to end. Make no mistake, while it may be only a few issues of comic book goodness for us, it’s years for the Captain.

I get the feeling Rick Remender is writing a large, sweeping saga for Cap with the first of his entries, and given the “Book 1” title it presupposes that more will follow. The shedding of his easily-called Avengers co-workers and removal of almost all recognisable status quo gives Cap a harrowing, intensely personal journey that seems more like something The Walking Dead or Savage Wolverine would do, augmented in tone by the almost Lovecraftian landscape and nightmarish feel. The personal aspect is also backed up by frequent flashbacks to Steve Rogers’ past as a young boy in Brooklyn, which does quite a lot for fleshing out his character in ways Ed Brubaker didn’t touch upon. In fact, it’s an almost polar opposite to Brubaker’s political intrigue and expansive cast of supporting players in the previous run, and to the story’s credit there seems to be an awful lot of creative thinking going on as a way of pioneering a different story and tone for a character who’s been through many well-worn plotlines over the last few decades.

Quite, simply, its a new trick for a very old dog. It’s just a pity the trick leaves the dog panting and heaving as it struggles to catch up and move on to the next act in the repertoire.

There’s an awful lot of story fatigue going on that is juxtaposed by brevity; given the frequent use time jumps in the narrative, there’s little time to dwell on particular portions of the plot as they’re introduced to us. What could be status quo in Issue 2 is almost completely rendered moot by the start of Issue 3, and with the limited exposition that borders on almost Grant Morrison-levels of inexplicability it leaves the reader tired and trying furiously to follow everything that’s going on. By the time we get used to a circumstance, character development or plot point, in the short space of a few pages no less, it’s been whipped away from us and made into something else. It’s particularly egregious in the case of the aforementioned young boy following Cap who, without wishing to spoil, has his entire raison d’etre completely changed between issues right after we figured out who he originally was. It’s like figuring out a particularly complex mystery at the conclusion of an episode of LOST, then having one of the characters in the next episode go “No, actually the polar bear wasn’t put on the island by Dharma Initiative submarines, he was actually sent by Jesus and his intergalactic Christian biker gang.”

Not really helping is the distinct lack of dialogue, especially compared to other Remender-penned works like Uncanny X-Force. The book relies on the old Uncanny Avengers trick of having an insane amount of introspection and little thought boxes, but even those don’t do much to elucidate the craziness going on in Captain America’s head in a satisfying way. We’re given Classic Morrison snippets of half-lines and hints at what’s transpiring, but on the whole there’s a lot of explanation left out. Plus, in a rather ignoble move by Remender, what little three-dimensionality Arnim Zola had during the Brubaker run is almost completely removed in this book. He’s only a real head and a bottle of facial Rogaine away from being a literal moustache-twirling Saturday morning cartoon villain, and the link established between him and his young lady minion (which is, as with Cap and his little boy scout, a bit of a spoiler) doesn’t do anywhere near as much as it should to give the villain some depth.

Finally, the very worst aspect of this story is the artwork. John Romita Jr., as you’ll remember from my oft-referenced Avengers vs. X-Men review, is an artist I’ve never gotten into because his drawings are at once far too heavily layered and, at the same time, childishly simplistic. His work here brings all the worst aspects of his doings in AvX and Kick-Ass, where blood looks more like tomato soup and there are way too many goddamn motherpusbucket lines on things. I know artistry is subjective to taste, but I just cannot get invested in almost any of his tableaus or scenes presented on page. The characters’ heads are boxy and rectangular, noses still look like an elongated > symbol, and all the hair looks like it was scribbled on after the fact with a Sharpie. I know Romita’s a much-beloved artist, I know he’s won awards and I know he and his father are basically comic book art royalty, but I hate his artwork. With fiery, burning passion do I hate it.

What I don’t hate, though, is this book. Despite the above paragraphs of petulant whinging, I loved Castaway in Dimension Z. It had a tough act to follow after Brubaker, and while I never envisioned I’d praise it far above things like Winter Soldier and The Death of Captain America I didn’t think I’d like it as much as I did. Is it perfect? Of course not. Could the problems be enough to permanently harm the series if they’re continued later? Possibly. Is this worth reading? Abso-flaming-lutely. It’s different, challenging and not fully explained, and for that reason it’s an original twist on an old hero that behooves you to experience it.

PUBLISHER: MARVEL COMICS

STORY: 4/5

ARTWORK: 2/5

DIALOGUE: 3.5/5

OVERALL: 9.5/15

BEST QUOTE: “Where’s our breaking point? How many years will pass before we find some sign of hope? When will it become too much? The other way out…the other way out isn’t one you consider.” – Captain America

(Massive thanks to Thomas “Dac” Lee for writing this guest review)

Wait a minute, how did I end up with this gig?

Oh well.  Mysteries of life.

Cable & X-Force is one of Marvel’s two current titles with “X-Force” in the title, and the first of the two I’ve read.  It revolves around Cable, who founded the original X-Force a couple of decades ago, as he puts together a small group to take out future threats before they happen, which is Cable’s usual M.O. but has taken a bit of an odd turn here.  Also like the previous X-Force stories, this team is an unsanctioned, unapproved bunch who should (emphasis on ‘should’; remember that, it will be important) have no compunction about killing.  The ragtag bunch put together by Cable includes former flame and fellow Force friend Domino, disgraced powerhouse Colossus, nutjob tech wiz Forge, and…Dr Nemesis.  …your guess is as good as mine.

The first arc, Wanted, deals with, as most first arcs tend to do, bringing the team together and their first mission, which naturally ends disastrously.  The whole thing is written by Avengers Arena and X-Men Season One scribe Dennis Hopeless, whose name I refuse to make jokes about since the entire Internet has already done it to death, and illustrated by Salvador Larroca, of a few dozen X-titles and the under-read Newuniversal.  Bit of an odd blend but it should be OK, right?

A couple of things I feel I should point out before we get down to business: I didn’t read Avengers Vs. X-Men.  I took one look at that buffet table loaded with ominous servings and stayed away.  It’s not really fair of me to criticise the book without having read it, so I won’t do that.  I only really bring it up at all because, as with all the X-books, its repercussions are felt across Cable & X-Force.  How could they not?  Cable’s return in X-Sanction, also unread by me, kicked the whole escapade off, and as Havok angrily reminds Cable in the very first issue of this book, the Summers family name doesn’t need any more tarnishing after Cyclops’s, ahem, actions.  Also along for the ride is Hope Summers, Cable’s adopted daughter and saviour of AvX.  If you weren’t aware of that latter fact, don’t worry, this book reminds you at least three times.

In the wake of AvX, Cable comes to Forge to give him a little bit of help.  Having lost his techno-organics, his arm and eye are about as full of life as Chuck Austen’s writing career.  Forge, who spends a prologue issue getting his insanity cured after that whole Ghost Box thing in Astonishing X-Men, builds him a new arm and gives him an eyepatch, because if you’re going to be a rogue team, you may as well be led by a pirate.  Forge already has the whole pegleg thing, now that I think about it.  Anyway, Cable also recruits…

Oh wait.

Wait, wait, no, I’m going about this all wrong.

Sorry.

See, the first four issues of this series are non-linear.  I can see the appeal, put up a situation and explain how things led to it, constantly switching between the beginning and the middle and back again to do so.  When done right, it’s great.

This was not done right.

When the first issue opens, Cable and team are caught in a building surrounded by corpses of innocent humans by Havok and Captain America, and a whole press team.  Hence the chewing out by Havok I mentioned earlier.  Things look pretty bleak for the team, and they teleport away, where no one’s too thrilled about how it went down, least of all Colossus, who nearly puts a fist through Cable’s face.  The arc then proceeds to describe how things got to this point: after getting his literal bodybuilding from Forge, Cable still has inexplicable migraines and gets Dr Nemesis to check his brain out.  At the same time, Hope goes AWOL from her foster home to go looking for daddy, and winds up forcing Domino to show her in.  After a somewhat touching reunion, Hope takes some of the heat from Cable’s migraines (Cable is telepathic and Hope can tap the powers of those around her.  Explaining that was remarkably easy) and they realise he’s getting visions of the future which they need to prevent.

OK, that’s a problem.  Cable trying to stop bad futures from happening has been part of his shtick ever since the future farted him back into the present, but the reason for that was, he was from the future.  He knew how things would happen because he studied them growing up.  Random telepathic flashes, which are never adequately explained but vaguely hinted someone may be doing it to him, just seems like a total cop-out.  Nonetheless, that’s the driving force here.  One of these flashes clues them in to what appears to be a scheme by a fast food corporate exec (no, really) to engender the usual anti-mutant bile, leading to Sentinels, camps, yadda yadda yadda.  Thankfully there’s more to it than that, and I’ll admit the fast food exec has more reason to dislike mutants than most, and it’s actually a nice breath of fresh air when it’s not personal, it’s business, so there’s positives and negatives.

So there’s a bit going on here.  Cable recruits team of morally-dubious figures, has to stop evil plots involving zesty breakfast burritos, has a troubled relationship with his kid and a few medical problems.  If that feels like a lot to cram into four issues, well, that’s because it is.  I haven’t even gotten started on Colossus’s intro yet (he’s trying to live a normal life and happens to be working in the same building the team needs to shut down.  Whoops) and there’s a whole beach rescue thing which is as irrelevant as it is forgettable.  As in, I forgot it until I was writing this paragraph and didn’t think it important enough to insert above.

The artwork is not the best you’ll ever see, but Salvador Larroca is one of those rare artists whose body of work, at least as far as I’ve seen, always falls between ‘excellent’ and ‘decent’.  If his name is on the cover of a book, you’ll get some nice images.  He certainly keeps the team looking interesting, although Dr Nemesis’s new goggles-mask-and-duster-coat looks inexplicably like Grifter from Wildcats, especially once he loses his hat.  Cable’s new look may take some getting used to, but I have to admit I respect the decision to consciously make him look different as a way of moving forward.  I just can’t help but think…eyepatch? Really?

The dialogue?  Well that’s a bit of a problem.  Part of it is the story’s fault; with such a rushed pacing, there’s a lot to cram in, and as such the characters don’t seem to take the time and really interact with each other.  Cable and Hope’s reunion is sweet, but unfortunately brief, and the most interesting conversations are, unsurprisingly, the ones not related to the maniacal plot; specifically the ones between Cable and Domino about his, ahem, medical condition.  Dr Nemesis’s vocabulary comes across as Fantomex, Deadpool and Beast getting tossed into a blender, and having the liquid spilled onto a Thesaurus, which I honestly did not want to like because it seemed to jar with the rest of the team, but by the end I couldn’t resist sniggering at his interjections.  Helps that, despite having read Nemesis in other books, I honestly still don’t know who the hell he is or what his deal is, so if this is off-character bingeing and purging for him, I didn’t even notice.  As mentioned before, the fast food exec has a lot of winning points behind her, which surprised me, so I was never bored when she turned up.  The true loser in the dialogue department is Colossus, who speaks very little while off-mission and his remarks on-mission tend to fall in the “RAAAAAAHH!  MUST SAVE THESE PEOPLE!” variety.  His intro scene was much more subtle and heartfelt, but it seemed to be all downhill from there.

So this was a poor start to the series, then?

Well…

Those are the first four issues.  This volume contains five.  And honestly, that fifth issue?  Saved this book a LOT of grief.  Why?  Because it shows the team on downtime.  Do you know how many superhero titles take the time to show their heroes having downtime?  And I don’t mean one or two panels in an issue.  This is a whole issue solely devoted to the team catching a break.  After such a sandwiched first mission and the way it ended, power to them too.  It was a very good issue; Colossus and Domino sink a few and Colossus discusses why he was so pissed Cable had to kill the people in the building (oh, did I not mention he actually did do it?).  The discussion is one of the most genuine I’ve heard in a comic in some time, and given how poor Colossus’s dialogue was in the preceding issues, it stunned me all the more.  There’s Cable riding around on a motorbike, which was the issue’s weak point, before having an overdue heart-to-heart with Hope, and Forge and Nemesis playing video games against each other.  Having come to guiltily enjoy Nemesis’s non-sequitirs, it’s hard not to laugh when it turns into bravado about kicking Forge’s arse at Time Nuggets.  The adventure continues at the end as the team prepare to jetset off.

And thanks to that issue, I’m considering following their next adventure.

So at the end we have an arc that needed to take its time, pace itself out a bit, forego the utterly unnecessary non-linear device and give its characters more time to adjust to each other.  The hooks for the next arc were utterly blink-and-you’ll-miss-them; the cameo appearance of one of Remender’s Uncanny X-Force (or was it?) came out of nowhere and went back there moments later, not to be mentioned again until the downtime issue.  I cannot give the downtime issue enough credit for saving this arc; in fact I worry I may be overhyping it so anyone reading this may be disappointed.  If I can give you any advice on this series, it is this: take it with a grain of salt, but don’t be turned off completely.  It’s far from the greatest thing you’ll ever read, but far from the worst, too.

Oh, I better do this too.

PUBLISHER: MARVEL COMICS

STORY: 2.5/5

ARTWORK: 3.5/5

DIALOGUE: 3/5

OVERALL: 9/15

BEST QUOTE: “This isn’t normal to me.  You raised me.  Bouncing around half a step in front of the gun, trying to save the future for a present that won’t ever appreciate it.  That’s what I want.  That’s my normal.” – Hope

Remember having imaginary friends when you were a kid? I do. It was the first sign of the impending psychosis that would later transform me into the uncultured serial killer you see before you.

Plenty of tales have dealt with the impact, effects and implications of having imaginary friends at ages where it would be seen as a signifier of future mental problems, but rarely does one manage to strike a balance between the childish acceptability of fantasy that comes with juvenile age, juxtaposed with sprawling creative dreamworlds that make Alice’s Wonderland look like the local park.

To put that in a less ungainly way, 2011’s  Joe the Barbarian is cool.

The story deals with the eponymous Joe being bullied and harassed at school, as is the rite of passage for all nerdy heroic protagonists, before we learn he’s an eleven-year-old diabetic living alone with his recently-widowed mother in a house they’re about to be evicted from. While mummy dearest goes off to do whatever mothers do when the plot demands they leave the hero alone, Joe suffers from a bout of blood sugar deprivation so extreme that he hallucinates an intense and expansive fantastic realm of fantasy derived from his toys, his pet rat and the nightmarish dimensions of his dusk-shadowed house. The world his mind creates features a number of pop culture figureheads telling him that he is to slay the enormously powerful King Death and bring freedom to the land of make-believe.

Being a kid-friendly version of Grant Morrison’s usual drug-induced hallucinatory narratives, this carries just enough weird to classify it as properly Morrison-esque without becoming completely incomprehensible, while the toning down of extreme violence and adult elements (ok, there is some decapitation going on but the blood’s all green and gassy, like someone downed a crate of SoulStorm Brew) makes it a story younger readers can get into as well. I can’t remember if there’s swearing, though – my brain thinks there might be, but I’d have to go back and read it again to find out.

That’s not to say I’d forgo a second reading because I didn’t like Joe the Barbarian – quite the opposite, actually – but rather because the story is dense. Morrison packs an awful lot of lore, narrative, meta-narrative, character introduction, character development, character murder and post-modern crossings between reality and fantasy that the end result is a story that’s engrossing and highly entertaining but also leaves you drained by the end of it. Keeping up with the various factions vying for control of Joe as the standard “Apocalyptic Chosen One”, as well as the expansive supporting cast following him around fighting creatures that look like the bastard offspring of the Grim Reaper and a Ringwraith, can get a little overwhelming at times. To the book’s credit almost everyone gets their moment to develop and show off some depth, and I genuinely felt sad at the narrative’s conclusion that we were leaving these interesting, nuanced characters behind. It’s only made tolerable by the rather excellent and succinct ending page that hammers home a definitive and unyielding cessation to the story, hopefully ensuring no ham-handed sequels when the suits at Vertigo declare the need to plumb recognised stories when the money pile dries up.

The fantastical craziness of the world Joe envisions is brought marvellously to life by Sean Murphy, who you may remember as the sterling writer/artist DIY combo behind Punk Rock Jesus. Unfortunately for Murphy, the problems he had with the sometimes-confusing artwork there got their beginnings in Joe the Barbarian two years prior; the art is lavish, deep and richly coloured, but at the same time the thin pencils and copious use of line shading mean that elements can be quite visually overlapping at times. Similarities in colour between separate objects can also lead to the occasional smattering together of a bunch of things that all look like one thing together – that is, the visuals can get a bit messy. It’s not enough to entirely detract from my enjoyment of the book, and if you could forgive Punk Rock Jesus‘s similar issues then you can look past it here.

It must be said, despite the above criticism, that Murphy really puts a lot of effort and love into his illustrations. They look like something laboured on intensely, so that everything looks refined and re-drawn even if it gets muddled at times. In this age of computer-aided redesigns and Photoshop being the best friend of certain creatively-deficit artists, Murphy deserves massive props for art that looks organic, lovely and cared for.

Dialogue is almost entirely Classic Morrison (I think that needs to be an official vernacular now); weird, abstract, missing bits here and there to prevent a full explanation of events to the reader. It’s exactly what I’d come to expect from Morrison as a weird-ass scriptwriter, which would be fine if it was purely aimed at mature readers. Since its goal is presumably also to appeal to some of the young ‘uns too, it might not be as serviceable as intended. It’s kind of hard for me to recommend one way or the other, since if you’re not a fan of scripting that doesn’t give you everything on a silver platter then it may not be for you. Personally I found it enjoyable and, at times, laugh out loud funny – and as I’ve said before, any comic that makes me physically emit a bellyful of joviality gets an almost instant pass on the dialogue box.

It strikes me that Joe the Barbarian is trying to be somewhere between Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal with the merest dash of The Sandman, giving us a slightly more mature fantasy that still has enough to interest the kids. The crossover between the surreal and pop culture elements is great, with appearances from famous faces like Batman and Captain Picard being chuckle-worthy on their own, and while it’s clear Morrison and Murphy are having fun sticking whatever the hell they feel like into a post-modern odyssey through hallucinatory fantasy there’s still a clear and structured character arc that enables Joe and some of his supporting players to evolve as the narrative reaches its endpoint. We’ve got interesting characters, an intriguing plot and art that can support it.

As a middle-ground fantasy for young and old readers, it’s certainly better than anything the Percy Jackson writers could come up with.

PUBLISHER: VERTIGO

STORY: 4.5/5

ARTWORK: 4/5

DIALOGUE: 4.5/5

OVERALL: 13/15

BEST QUOTE: “Help me get to the kitchen, and I’ll do my best to kick Death’s ass. How about that?” – Joe

Superheroes as anti-heroes – if it’s done properly, it’s a concept that can brilliantly carry a less-than-esoteric story.

Take something like X-Force; with most of the cast of characters being friendly, cuddly and downright heartwarming mutants like Wolverine (SNIKT bub), Fantomex (a sociopathic cloned hitman) and Warpath (a friendly Native American with a begrudging ability to kill people and a not-so-begrudging love of KA-BARs), it’s established fairly early on that the “heroes” are seemingly acting in our best interests whilst undertaking courses of actions that we’d be more likely to attribute to someone like the baddies of Sin City. They kill, they pillage and the assassinate all in the name of the greater good while little pieces of their hero status flake away like old paint until only the morally ambiguous murderer remains. Done poorly it’s a worn-out trope, but done properly it can elevate a story from “pretty good” to “enthralling”, like the difference between discount chardonnay and a bottle of Moet.

As it happens, two recent releases tackle the idea of the superhero as anti-hero. I was planning on taking them down on separate reviews but on reflection they do overlap quite a bit, and not necessarily in a way that’s displeasing. In one corner, we have the morally deficit band of  all-American asshats that are Jonathan Hickman’s New Avengers, and in the other are the Westchester rejects, the maniacal mutants that make up Brian Bendis’ Uncanny X-Men.

FIGHT!

STORY

Anyone remember BioShock Infinite? You know how the main characters traipsed across multiple realities as easily as a Grand Theft Auto character might hijack cars on a freeway? That’s pretty much the backbone of New Avengers; a bunch of realities are splurging together and causing all kinds of interdimensional shenanigans. This galvanizes Marvel smartmen Reed Richards and Tony Stark into leading a band of buff brothers across universes in order to save their own, potentially at the cost of several hundred other neighbouring ‘verses who happened to be minding their own business at the time, to prevent some kind of multiversal entropy thing. There’s a rather helpful (pfff) diagram of the whole affair later in the book that helpfully illuminates how truly and utterly bollocksed the Marvel Universe is if they fail, and the whole thing  gets a cherry on top with the team’s need to ally with an evil telepath, con Black Panther into abandoning stewardship of his home and mind-rape Captain America while they’re at it (it makes sense in context…sort of).

Uncanny X-Men goes for a comparatively more grounded feel, with mutant fugitive Cyclops getting the hell out of dodge following the events of Avengers vs. X-Men with three of his fellow former compatriots, being Emma Frost, Magneto and Magik. They hit upon the world-beating idea of starting their own academy for gifted youngsters in the wake of Charles Xavier’s death, taking in several outcasts from across the world and training them in the ways of the Force how to use their mutant powers. Unfortunately, since they’re considered villains by every corner of the Marvel U, they have to contend with efforts to stop them made by the “good guy” X-Men led by Wolverine, the seriously pissed off Avengers and even a kidnap attempt by freakin’ Dormammu (the closest thing the Marvel Universe has to Satan).

As much as I love Hickman and his attention to character arcs amongst a backdrop of universe-ending scale, I’ve got to give Uncanny X-Men the story point. The New Avengers are presented as anti-heroes, yes, especially after they wipe Cap’s memory and go against orders not to fiddle with all the multiversal crap going on, but the X-Men are significantly more “villainous” (and even that’s not the right word) yet presented in Revolution as sympathetic and, to a degree, relatable. They’re not shining golden boys and girls, misunderstood by the bigger, meaner Avengers kids in the sandbox, but they’re not the bone-deep criminals they’re represented as in other Marvel books like All-New X-Men and Uncanny Avengers. They’re people who’ve done some bad stuff but are still at least a little bit redeemable at the core, and they genuinely believe that what they’re doing now is going at least some way towards rectifying the mistakes they’ve made. It’s an engrossing, fascinating character study of these guys (particularly Cyclops and Frost) that really shines a light on what makes them tick.

That aside, Uncanny X-Men gets the point because Bendis – who I’ve previously established can be extremely hit or miss when it comes to his comics these days – finally wrote a recent release that didn’t make me want to set fire to it.

ARTWORK

No use beating around the bush – New Avengers snags it. Steve Epting nails the art beautifully, putting me in mind of the good old gritty days where he illustrated Captain America. The darker tone of the book compared to Hickman’s other Avengers title is matched by Epting’s great use of shadows, slightly washed-out skin tones and good but not overwrought use of a shadier palette. I am a little biased when it comes to a book Epting’s written since he’s just that damn good.

Conversely, I’m also a bit biased when it comes to artists like Uncanny X-Men‘s Chris Bachalo. I didn’t like the art back in his Wolverine and the X-Men days, and I still don’t like it now. It’s a little too odd, striking a balance between cartoonish and abstract in a way similar to Emma Rios of Captain Marvel fame. Granted, it does look a bit better and less visually confusing than it was in WatXM but it’s instead hindered by the constant (and misguided) use of diagonal panels at strange moments in the story. I’m all for trying something different, but there comes a moment when pretentious artiness needs to not put the story flow in the trunk of its car.

DIALOGUE

To say it’s a tough call is an understatement. Do you prefer abstract, almost meta dialogue that strongly evokes weird-ass writers like Grant Morrison, or something more conversational and realistically-oriented in a manner similar to Dark Avengers and early-career Joss Whedon? New Avengers and Uncanny X-Men, respectively, deliver on either front, and it’s hard to pick a clear winner when they both have the ability to make me laugh, suck air through my teeth and lament the inclusion of 21st century teen lexicon (though that’s more a problem Uncanny X-Men suffers).

New Avengers feels like a high stakes, intensely thrilling multiversal end-of-the-world story with dialogue to match, thankfully never relying on disaster movie cliches or wording that evokes characters from the Transformers movies dramatically worrying about the impending apocalypse with terrified eyes and overwrought string backing music. Uncanny X-Men is more a return to Bendis’ Dark Avengers days, not only as an anti-hero/villain text but also through conversational dialogue peppered throughout the supernatural superheroics of its protagonists. Both books represent different parts of the anti-hero spectrum, and both work exceedingly well in their respective wheelhouses. Which is why…

WINNER

There isn’t one.

Seriously, go read both of them. They might both match in the theme of anti-heroics and morally questionable protagonists, but as stories in that particular subgenre they stand far enough apart to be entertaining on their own merits while presenting something fresh. New Avengers can have a slightly muddled and techno-babbly story at times, and Uncanny X-Men‘s art suffers through use of an illustrator better suited to a Picasso imitation festival, but on the whole both books are supremely enjoyable. It’s really refreshing to see books coming out of Marvel’s relaunch that give us something a little different, rather than DC’s current strategy of re-releasing all their good, virtuous and noble heroes as nothing other than what they were before the New 52 maligned our favourite Bats and Supermen.

Also, I’d just like to point out that Brian Bendis has earned back all the points he lost after All-New X-Men. Remember how much I despised All-New and lamented Bendis’ fall from grace after his sterling work in Dark Avengers and Daredevil? Well, he’s recouped his losses with Uncanny X-Men. That’s how bloody good this book is.

PUBLISHER: MARVEL COMICS

STORY: 4/5

ARTWORK: 5/5

DIALOGUE 4/5

OVERALL: 13/15

BEST QUOTE: “Let hope die, you fools. It’s time to embrace oblivion. We are already dead.” – Namor

PUBLISHER: MARVEL COMICS

STORY: 5/5

ARTWORK: 3/5

DIALOGUE: 5/5

OVERALL: 13/15

BEST QUOTE: “I wish we had a superhero from Australia that wasn’t kangaroo-themed. That seems pretty lazy.” – Eva Bell

This book blows a number of things out of the water, such as the decent plotting, intriguing characters and engaging artwork of what came before it. It blows away the hopes I was getting that, between its predecessor and that new Teen Titans run, maybe comics aimed at a slightly teen-ier audience were actually taking steps in a direction that made them appeal to anyone over the age of 20. It blows up almost any feelings of sympathy or interest I had in its main character.

In short, it just blows.

I had slightly unrealistic expectations that I figured Superboy: Extraction wouldn’t be able to meet. After all, last year’s Incubation was a surprise pleasure that dealt with a story far above average for teen superhero yarns, a character that actually garnered feelings of engagement from the reader and artwork that, while nothing too standout, was nonetheless visually pleasing. I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did, and I was waiting with bated breath – avoiding all the spoilers, which is a rarity for someone with days of Wikipedia-perusal under his belt between then and now – for the follow-up to the book itself and the cliffhanger that I really didn’t see coming.

Thank you so much, Extraction, for pissing all my hopes against the wall and giving me a story only marginally better than unanesthetised brain surgery.

It’s almost impossible for me to summarise Extraction‘s story in a few sentences or less since the plot goes in so many directions it ends up just being an incoherent mess. Roughly, the first half of the story deals with The Culling, a crossover event similar to Batman’s Night of the Owls between Superboy, the Teen Titans and some idiots from the future called The Legion. After this stupendously messy and unintelligible portion, the second half follows Superboy adjusting to life with the Teen Titans (wait, weren’t they, like, massive enemies with each other? How’d that get sorted out?). He does this by hitting on his landlady, beating up a robot that seems to like ripping off the  Borg from Star Trek, and stealing billions of dollars from a bank vault.

Um…what?

I’m not even kidding with any of that. The plot is so disjointed and schizophrenic that nothing is explained, or resolved, or followed up on from any earlier story or plotline. The chunks ripped wholesale from The Culling don’t make sense on their own because they’re missing vast tracts of the rest of the story, which is kind of like trying to watch a season of Game of Thrones but skipping every second episode. What meagre plot elements do make sense are so stupifyingly awful, cliche and a bunch of other mean words that you’d get a more satisfying reading experience checking out the instruction manual for a dishwasher. Seriously, who the hell cares about Superboy possibly getting it on with his landlady? Who gives a feckless lump of duck crap if he and Wonder Girl have so much belligerent sexual tension you’d think they were the lead characters from Castle?

What made Incubation such an effective first volume was that it treated Superboy as an other, a character the audience was distanced from because of his alien nature, yet still relatable with because he experienced that distance and alienation (no pun intended) from his superiors and his peers in a way that made him interesting. I got sad that he was treated like crap by N.O.W.H.E.R.E., and that people like Rose Wilson and Caitlin Fairchild were equal-opportunity asshats to him. I felt remorse that the only way he knew how to express his disheartenment and desire to find a purpose was through intense physical violence and levelling cities.

Now, all those personality problems and deficiencies in his character have been almost completely solved with little to no explanation. He’s buddy-buddy with the Teen Titans, got a good friendship going with Bunker (who still wins the prize for “Most Awkwardly Crowbarred-In Humorous Dialogue of Any Comic Book Character Ever”) and even has his own apartment that he leases for free from a drunk socialite who can’t decide if she’s Paris Hilton or Holly Golightly. There is absolutely zero engagement with the character whatsoever, and all the things that made him interesting (and set him apart from his pre-reboot cookie-cutter-Superman self) are gone or forgotten. More usually both.

Connected to a rambling and inconsistent plot is a lot of rambling and inconsistent artwork. As well as R.B. Silva and the team from Incubation we’ve also got Brett Booth from Teen Titans and a few guest artists whose work in this book is pallid at best. The illustrations are all full of the usual bright colour and poppy imagery featured in the volumes preceding them, mixed with some new costumes ripped straight out of the TRON movies. I don’t recall ever seeing the characters enter a computer world or do anything that necessitates the use of Tron Lines on their outfits, but then again it could be part of the big chunks of The Culling that are missing from the book. Presumably those chunks would also explain how the team ends up stranded on a question-mark-shaped island with dinosaurs for company.

Dialogue is AWFUL. Seriously, the last time I read scripting this teen-y and OC-reminiscent was during The Children’s Crusade, and at least that had Scarlet Witch and her sexy sexiness to distract me from that facepalm-fest of wording. Bunker still talks like every joke he makes is crammed in to be as racially insensitive and awkwardly “hilarious” as possible, almost all of the characters are now reduced to two-dimensional cardboard cutout personalities (most egregiously Wonder Girl, who is only a bottle of red hair dye and calling Superboy “an idiot” away from basically being a grouchier version of Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion) and the forced warmth between team members seems like it was pretty realistic in the same way botox gives you a pretty realistic smile.

Don’t read Extraction. It’s rare that I come right out and say something like that, and usually I try to find a redeeming quality or a thin reason to add it to your shelf, but I can’t with this one. It’s just dreck, plain and simple. I can’t even recommend it for kindling or toilet paper, because that would mean you’d still have to spend money on the damn thing – stick with two-ply and random sticks, respectively.

Wait, I think I meant those the other way around.

STORY: 1/5

ARTWORK: 2/5

DIALOGUE: 0/5

OVERALL: 3/15

BEST QUOTE: Like Faces of Death before it, this book has no good quote. You want a quote?

“This book is so awful it makes me want to shoot my face off.” – Chris Comerford, the Perturbed Writer.

There is nothing and nobody in the world that is above criticism. If there were, we wouldn’t have the love we do for something as horrible as The Room or Battlefield Earth.

When viewing the world – or, at least, aspects of it – through the ignorance of the rose-tinted glasses our species tends to have as a permanent fashion staple these days, it’s easy to just assume some things we enjoy or respect will maintain airs of consistent positivity. You’re sure the next episode of The Walking Dead will be as awesome as the rest of the season has been so far. You know James Cameron can’t possibly make a bad film, not with poles like Terminator 2 and True Lies propping up his tent. And hell, if Scott Snyder – the scribe behind one of the best Batman stories of the last decade – decides to write something not related to charcoal-clad guys punching other charcoal-clad guys in minimum lighting, chances are it’ll be friggin’ sweet.

(apologies if anything in this post seems rushed, incomplete or nonsensical – I wrote it in a hurry to stay current)

Games have E3. Movies have the Oscars. Books have…nothing.

Comic books have Comic-Con.

As the single biggest international nerd event of the year, San Diego Comic-Con is the place for all the big announcements, news and interviews with creators of various comic book intellectual properties that somehow escaped the media traps of C2E2 and the Emerald City Con. It’s normally the go-to event for big, universe-shaking announcements for all the major players of comics, movies, TV shows and internet-related shenanigans.

While I didn’t get the privilege of attending this year, I did keep my ear to the ground with all the big announcements and news items hitting the blogosphere (Christ I hate that term). So, presented herein are some snippets of big-ticket items that hit the San Diego Comic-Con for 2013. Keep in mind I don’t have the line space or patience to examine every single bit of pop culture goodness to come out of the Con, but if you stick around till the end of this post we’ll have a look at the two big news items we got within the last 48 hours (you know the ones).

Let’s kick things off with a look at the “Agents of SHIELD” stuff. As well as an exclusive screening of the ABC pilot we were also treated to the news that Cobie Smulders, soon-to-be-alum of How I Met Your Mother and the woman behind SHIELD’s tough-ass Maria Hill, is making some kind of guest appearance in the series. While she can’t be a regular right now, am I the only one thinking she’ll hop onto this gig once HIMYM wraps up next year? Am I also the only one imagining the insane amount of snark we could get from a Hill/Coulson team-up every other week? A man can only dream.

Speaking of dreams, clearly writer Robert Venditti is dreaming of dollar signs if he expects his new Green Lantern fans to swallow a massive crossover event so soon on the heels of Geoff Johns’ climactic Wrath of the First Lantern finale, coz that’s the only reason I can think of for DC allowing such a misguided attempt at an epic story so soon after Venditti’s run has begun. I know it’ll take a while before we get over the loss of Johns as primary GL writer, but come on, he hasn’t even been in the ground that long! Especially with big events like Trinity War and Forever Evil hitting the DC books come September, maybe it’s time to ease off on the crossovers for a little bit.

As well as giving us more teases regarding those two events, DC’s comics panel was one of fairly predictable movements. We got glimpses at the ill-advised Superman/Wonder Woman series that is guaranteed to have shippers squealing with delight on every page, as well as more tie-in rubbish for the Arrow TV series and a comment from current Batgirl writer Gail Simone that during the story she’s currently writing (titled Batgirl: Wanted, which sounds almost like a direct rip-off of the Bruce Wayne: Murderer? storyline from the early 2000s) we’ll find out how it is that Barbara Gordon regained the use of her legs in this continuity. Speaking as someone who loathed, despised and detested Simone’s first volume of Batgirl, is there anyone who really gives a crap right now? I thought we established she got some magic mystic hoodoo thing in Africa that restored her legs, and even if we hadn’t I’m still so riled at the fact she’s no longer in a wheelchair that I just don’t care about her anymore. Call me when Simone announces the return of Stephanie Brown, then I’ll be interested.

Interest was also low for me with most of Marvel’s comic-related announcements this year. Among other things we were teased with a new ongoing called Amazing X-Men (is that a crossover between the X-Men and Spider-Man now?) and the return of former teammate Nightcrawler from the abyss of Comicbookdeathlandia. I’ve spoken out about comic death multiple times before, but this move cheapens the Elf’s death more than Fear Itself cheapened Thor’s – Nightcrawler went out in a blaze of glory during 2010’s X-Men: Second Coming, and it was a genuinely moving and tragic death that seemed to actually stick for a while (and yes, I know they had Nightcrawler on during Rick Remender’s Uncanny X-Force but shut up, he was from another universe). Brian Bendis deciding once again to molest continuity with his current X-shenanigans leaves me unenthused at best and willing to mount a cross-country Marvel-HQ-bombing venture at worst.

On top of that, Marvel also decided to completely piss off fans of their Ultimate Universe continuity by announcing Cataclysm: The Ultimates Last Stand. The miniseries, penned once again by that idiot Bendis, comes on the heels of the ridiculous ending to Age of Ultron where Galactus, the original giant purple-people-eater, encroaches on the Ultimate Universe with the intent to eat the bloody thing. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, Marvel are having one of their best-selling and most-beloved continuities EATEN by a giant guy in a purple Flash Gordon outfit.

It seems the major cool stuff is going on over at Image Comics, renowned indie publishers and current owners of sterling writer Ed Brubaker. In addition to more on his new series Velvet and a quick look at the new arc of Fatale, Brubaker commented that he writers stories “for readers,” and that working for Image is less about making money and more about providing readers with engaging material – “It’s not about keeping others’ IPs alive,” he says. Bravo, Ed. You’ve not only secured the “Smartest Thing Said at Comic-Con” award for 2013, you’ve also ensured I’ll keep coming back to your works further down the line because you actually give a damn about the reader, and not the reader’s wallet.

Image then proceeded to make fanboys everywhere scream themselves inside out with further announcements regarding the two Rick Remender-penned series coming later this year, being Black Science and Deadly Class, which both look freakin’ sweet. We also got some bits and pieces about J. Michael Straczynski’s new Ten Grand and his work on Book of Lost Souls with Colleen Doran, one of the visionary artists behind Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, which both sound like they could be pretty awesome.

Also, before anyone asks me, no, I will not be making any comments regarding anything to do with The Sandman: Overture. I’m staying the hell away from any news to do with it beyond the initial announcement. I want to read the single issues without being tainted by the sting of any news items related to it, positive or negative. I have no doubt, with Gaiman and JH Williams III (the writer/artist behind the current epic run on Batwoman) on it, we’ll be given a superior book in time.

Over in TV-Land we got a surprise appearance by Khal Drogo himself as well as a nice little reel from the Game of Thrones panel regarding the numerous character deaths they’ve suffered over the last three seasons. I found myself sobbing by the end – goddammit, I’ll always miss you Baratheon Soldier #680, you were my favourite. We also got panels for shows like Arrow, Breaking Bad and Once Upon a Time, which also promised awesomeness, more awesomeness and more of the same bland crap respectively.

Finally, before we get into the two meaty kebabs at the end of this Con rundown, we had the presentation of the 2013 Eisner Awards. Essentially the comic book equivalent of the Oscars and a major feather in anyone’s cap who earns one, the awards this year were dominated by Brian K. Vaughan and the team behind Saga (like it was a surprise). It was very much a night for indie winners, with Marvel only scoring a scant three awards and DC getting only one, and the only reason the former won those three is because the successful series’ in question – being Hawkeye and Daredevil – would be classified as indie series’ themselves if their respective protagonists didn’t wear superhero spandex. Congratulations to all who won, and let’s hope the Big Two are taking notes to try and improve their IPs for when the awards season comes next year. If all else fails, we’ll hold a special awards ceremony for DC akin to the Golden Raspberries – we’ll call it the Dull Crap Comics Awards.

And now we get to it – the two biggest announcements made during SDCC 2013. As well as the expected stuff relating to the upcoming Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy films (well, expected apart from a freshly-shaven Karen Gillan) it was announced that Joss Whedon’s next superhero entry into Marvel’s film canon will be titled Avengers: Age of Ultron (according to Whedon, the film will be unrelated to the Bendis-written book of the same name released later this year).

This mind-boggling tidbit came mere hours after DC and Warner Bros broke ground on their next film, namely a team-up of Batman and Superman that acts as a sequel to Man of Steel, bolstered by hints that the two superheroes’ relationship may be adversarial and something akin to the one between Bats and Supes in The Dark Knight Returns.

As if 2015 wasn’t already packed as it is with new entries from Star Wars, James Bond, Pirates of the Caribbean and possibly Star Trek, as well as the conclusions of The Hobbit and The Hunger Games, we’ve now got a mega-super-ultra Avengers sequel featuring probably the deadliest villain ever created by Marvel (yeah, that’s right, Ultron’s way more lethal than a pussy like Thanos) and a team-up between the two septuagenarian superheroes who literally created the subgenre together on the big screen – with the likelihood that both films will be hitting cinemas in the same month. I will put money down right now and say that at least half the movie-going population of the Western world will have their brains exploded by awesomeness by the time all of this stuff hits their minds.

There are, of course, plenty of reasons to be hesitant about embracing the two upcoming filmic juggernauts. Will Joss Whedon be able to catch lightning in a bottle twice, and make something either as good as or superior to his first groundbreaking effort? Can Zack Snyder give us a film that rises above the shallow characterisations and overblown action of Man of Steel, whilst doing justice to everyone’s favourite Dark Knight? It is entirely possible both movies will suck huge amounts of grimy farts, leaving only perplexed cinema patrons and a ton of smelly-egg-win in their wake, or they could both raise the bar for superhero films in a way that can only be surpassed by a team-up between both the Avengers and the Justice League (at which point I’m pretty sure the universe would spontaneously implode).

At the end of the day, I’m optimistic if only because most of the comic-related announcements were crap. It gives me an idea – why can’t we have people like Whedon and Snyder running the comics and the films? Could we maybe get DC and Marvel to swerve in a slightly more auteur direction with their series’, and have something that is, like Ed Brubaker’s work, written for the readers rather than the desire for more greenback?

No, that’s too optimistic. That’d be like hoping the Republican party might decide to pack up shop and go live with their autocrat buddies in the Middle East. Too much of a good thing.

He’s the best he is at what he does. But what he does best isn’t very nice.

That’s how we’re introduced to probably the definitive entry on everyone’s favourite dude-slicing, beer-swilling Canadian. Ever since he rose to higher popularity by having Hugh Jackman portray him on the big screen, Wolverine’s been the X-Man most people easily recognise and love (or hate) to death. Before his popularity really took off he was given a miniseries back in 1982, penned by legendary X-Men scribe Chris Claremont (who you may know as the man who first killed Jean Grey in 1980’s The Dark Phoenix Saga) and drawn by equally-legendary writer/artist Frank Miller (who you’d know from Sin City, The Dark Knight Returns, 300 and a bunch of other stuff…but not All-Star Batman and Robin. He didn’t write that, it was his similarly-named doppelganger from Earth-2).

With the impending release of The Wolverine, the latest entry in Fox’s extensive X-Men film canon, I thought it’d be worth going back to the beginning of everyone’s favourite animalistic mutant killing machine. Well, almost the beginning. Wolvie first broke onto the comics scene in a 1974 issue of The Incredible Hulk, but this is the series that started his meteoric rise to (some would say ‘undeserved’) unending popularity.

It’s a good thing the story wasn’t branded as an X-miniseries like X-Men: Wolverine, since the yellow spandex brigade only show up fleetingly at the end. The narrative follows Logan moping around Japan looking for his long-lost love Mariko, a two-dimensional nihongo lady who’s now married to a scummy Tokyo businessman who may or may not be involved in the criminal underworld (spoiler alert: he totally is, especially with glasses like that). Upon realising he’ll never be able to just kill the husband and take Mariko for himself as any sensible sociopath would do, Logan equivocates by chilling with a bloodlust-filled assassins named Yukio and tries to avoid the attentions of Tokyo’s criminal element by getting drunk and picking fights with sumo wrestlers. Before long, though, Wolverine must decide if he wants to squander his life on such base, animal pleasures or if he wants to be a MAN. 

 There’s quite a bit of criticism that can be levelled at Wolverine by today’s standards, like the fact that the walls of text (both introspective and dialogic), which are Claremont’s signature writing device, can be off-putting, the art is simplistic and the actual plot is a bit meander-y. The thing is that you’ve got to analyse Wolverine through an 80’s lens, taking yourself back to the days of pastel shirts and flairs and being of the mindset that a story with this level of script density and character development is actually groundbreaking rather than de rigeur. If you read the story as a fan of the old days, Wolverine stands head-and-shoulders above much of the published material at the time.

For starters, the depth with which Wolverine is fleshed out as a human being rather than “SNIKT BUB” is, while being a bit alienating through use of the aforementioned walls of text, quite impressive. Rather than being a one-sided killer with a rabid thirst for beer Logan is instead presented as a lost, sometimes tragic character doing his damnedest to fight the demons inside him that run the animal half of his brain, and his love for Mariko (despite her cardboard-cutout characterisation) seems deeper than one would think at first read. He really asks himself, and by proxy the reader, whether it’s possible to overcome animal instincts and become a MAN, or if one is truly doomed to living with the beast at the core of their self.

Concurrently, effort is made to flesh the villains out a little too. Ok, it was the 1980s so you can’t expect a lot of depth from characters that evoke a mashup of Ernst Stavro Blofeld and the main baddie from the Mortal Kombat movie, but at least Claremont tries to give them a little bit of motivation beyond “I want to control Japan for all of teh monies!” Big bad Lord Shingen seems to be driven by something familial as well as financial, and the morally-questionable Yukio seems torn between following her orders and caving in to her allegedly genuine love for Logan which creates an interesting dichotomy for both. The only villain who fails spectacularly is Mariko’s businessman husband who could only be more cartoonishly evil if he’d been drawn by the illustrators behind Pinky and the Brain.

Speaking of, the art is at once engaging and repelling. Frank Miller does a great job with a minimalist pallet and evocative angles (especially in books like Sin City, whose pallet is so minimalist it only consists of three colours) but here the artwork swings between overly-simple as to be boring, and finely tuned with specific and deft use of striking colour where appropriate. To better explain: a plainly laid out scene depicting Wolverine kicking the ass of a sumo-wannabe, with limited colour and monochrome background, then follows onto a scene depicting the neon cityscape of Japan mixed with the dank blackness of the backstreets Logan and Yukio frequent, where the selective use of pastel colour – meant to evoke Japan’s neon lights – really pops. The book seems to skip between 50% boredom and 50% kickass where the illustration is concerned, even if at times Wolverine looks too much like Lion-O from Thundercats and has the kind of giant, manly Adam’s apple that’d make Morgan Freeman weep with jealousy.

Finally, there is one element of Wolverine that totally stands up regardless of which decade lens you’re reading it with – the fight scenes. Each and every one of them is sublimely illustrated and executed, and the multiple panels showing kick and punch and counter and sword swing really give the impression that we’re looking at the kickass storyboard of a movie battle rather than a comic book. The first and last fights between Logan and Shingen stand out in particular as sublime to look at and genuinely gut-wrenching to experience. There’s no flagrant use of onomatopoeia or absurd character grunting sounds like “Ugh!” or “Yah!”, just blows and weeapon slashes and counterattacks that look like two real people having a bust-up. I’m surprised at the comparative lack of blood given how many limbs Wolverine severs, but I guess they had to find some way to make it at least a little accessible to the under-15 audience.

While it’s by no means a perfect story, Chris Claremont and Frank Miller’s Wolverine is still a standout classic with an intelligence belied by its subject matter. While it’s true that a lot of Wolvie-centric stories these days are all about the “SNIKT BUB” and copious amounts of cheap Canadian beer, it’s nice to know there are still older works that better portray the dude as something other than a one-lining grouchy tough guy. There are times it’s great to read books where he’s just a baddie-slashing meme machine, and others where it’s fun to read about him struggling to be a MAN.

PUBLISHER: MARVEL COMICS

BEST QUOTE: “The clown on my back’s named Takahashi. He’s a sumotori, a sumo wrestler. He could’a been a champion, but he cheats. Blacklisted from the professional ring, he earns his living in these illegal barroom bashos. In this arena, he’s undefeated. When I challenged him, he laughed. [Wolverine lifts the sumo over his head effortlessly] Sucker ain’t laughin’ anymore.” – Wolverine

About a year ago, I reviewed probably the worst Batman book – nay, the worst DC book – to ever blemish my bookshelf. Worse than Cry for Justice, worse than the new Batgirl, and worse than the abortionate mess that is Countdown to Final Crisis. It was a terribly written, poorly plotted and sub-par illustrated piece of feckless garbage that did nothing but earn my ire for almost every review I did after it.

Yes, it’s Faces of Death. Anyone who’s been reading me for long enough knows that I hate, loathe, despise and detest this feculent atrocity that can only barely be termed as a graphic novel. It won the worst read of 2012 award from me last year for being truly abhorrent, and you’d think that the titanic level of vitriol I’ve levelled at it would mean I’d be hesitant to check out any kind of sequel it would spawn. If it were any other book you’d be entirely right, however there’s a slight problem with that supposition here.

You see, this guy called John Layman (responsible for the hilariously funny and exceptionally witty Chew) has come onboard the Detective Comics boat after the timely departure of Tony Daniel, one of my favourite authorial targets and the man responsible for the aforementioned crap-riddled mess. Layman’s upcoming arc is being touted as Volume 3 of Detective Comics, and if there’s one thing I hate it’s missing parts of a series on my shelf and only having volumes 1, 4, 5 and 23. So if, for the sake of completeness, I’m forced to have Faces of Death 2: Joker Boogaloo on my shelf, I might as well read the bloody thing.

Mercifully, the story gains points right off the bat by abandoning the terminably stupid plotline from the last book regarding Bruce Wayne and his hollow brunette love interest (who was so memorable that I completely forgot her name). Rather than being a semi-coherent journey into pointlessness like its predecessor, Scare Tactics has more of an anthology feel to it with several short stories that are largely unconnected. It’s also got a chapter from the recent crossover Night of the Owls, which makes little sense out of the context of the larger event and is probably just included for the sake of completeness.

As for the stories themselves, they’re middling. While we’ve gotten past such stupidity as Bruce’s aforementioned 2D (or should I say Double D?) girlfriend, we’re still dealing with a characterisation of the Batman that borders way too close to the macho, self-aggrandising weightlifter that he was in the last book. We’re still treated to plenty of internal dialogue that sounds like it was written by an All-Star–era Frank Miller, with Bats making copious reference to how strong and scary he is while mimicking an acne-riddled teen playing the heavy in a DnD game. There’s a rather misguided attempt to have the testosterone-poisoned Batman in this book engage in somewhat deeper narratives than before, including an quite weird storyline involving a sympathetic scientist, time travel, a rip-off of the Large Hadron Collider and a dude who calls himself Mr Toxic, creating a juxtaposition between cerebral storytelling and old-school 1960s schlock that doesn’t gel well together. There’s also a really strange plot involving Black Mask being psychotic and possibly possessed by something that may have been carried over from Faces of Death (I’d have to go back and read it again to be sure, which would be tantamount to undergoing the kind of finger-flensing that Theon Greyjoy partakes of) which ends on a direct lead-in to the next big Snyder-Batman crossover event, Death of the Family. All in all, kinda forgettable stuff in a book that is clearly not shooting for the stars.

That is, until you get to the back section of the book. Once we’re done with all the Miller-inspired Bat-child violence we’re treatedto two particularly lovely surprises. First, an early days origin tie-in for Bruce Wayne, courtesy of writer Gregg Hurwitz, that deals with his adventures in Tibet (I think) regarding a family who teach him a fighting style while he fawns after a cute local girl. Second, there’s a Two-Face tale about betrayal that is quite possibly the best written work Tony Daniel’s ever done – it’s almost enough to make me forget about the horribleness in Volume 1. Almost. While both stories aren’t exceptionally revolutionary or classic, they’re a welcome relief from the faux macho-ness of the rest of the book. I’d almost go so far as to say they’re worth the price of the book alone – provided you buy the paperback, of course. That’ll give you $16 that would’ve gone towards the hardcover that could be spent on something more worthwhile, like nail clippers or a subscription to Cosmopolitan.

Artwork is ok. Not good, not bad, but ok. There’s not a whole lot I can say about it without repeating what was said in my Faces of Death review, except that some of the visuals in fight scenes can get a bit confusing. Other than that, it’s serviceable.

Dialogue is still a problem. While the Bruce origin and Two-Face stories are fairly well-written, the bulk of the rest of the book remains mired in the same issues Daniel had when writing Faces of Death. Batman still sounds so far up his own ass he’s in danger of choking on his lungs, and the inner monologues give him a distinctly juvenile personality. There’s also an attempt to tug at our heartstrings with the plot regardingthe sympathetic scientist and his time travel shenanigans that comes and goes far too quickly to be substantial. Why should I care that the scientist dude is actually a supervillain in the future who may be a clone of himself? How is that going to inspire any emotion in me other than boredom at the uninspired garbage I’m reading?

The short version: Is Scare Tactics a good book? Not really. Is it better than Faces of Death? Markedly so. It’s still like saying you’d prefer to die by decapitation rather than immolation – it’s quicker and less painful, but you’re still dying anyway – but at least it’s a few steps in the right direction. As Tony Daniel’s swan song for the title it’s passable, and is at least mediocre enough to not make me consider using the book as kindling. If I’m sad about anything it’s that his removal means I can’t take shots at him for the series anymore (not that that wasn’t an old gag of mine to begin with) but at least we’ll always have the memories. Awful, ear-bleedingly bad memories.

PUBLISHER: DC COMICS

STORY: 2.5/5

ARTWORK: 2.5/5

DIALOGUE: 2/5

OVERALL: 7/15

BEST QUOTE: “[while beating up a Batman impostor] You owe me some answers…after you wake up, of course.” – Batman