comickal: recently read, open-ended edition

[iainpj]

1. Fables #92, by Bill Willingham & David Lapham (DC/Vertigo)
   In which we catch up with Ambrose "Flycatcher" the former Frog Prince in his new kingdom of Haven back in the homelands. His peace seems to have held -- at least, there's no indication that the growing unrest in other corners of the homelands has encroached on his kingdom. In a serious lapse of taste, he's imported baseball -- in fact, the story starts as a somewhat transplanted version of Casey at the bat. Red Riding Hood and Ambrose continue to pine for each other in a quietly genteel sort of way. And then at the end of the story come two dramatic and unexpected events. (Well, OK, one of them kind of IS expected, but the resolution isn't. And the second event you actually seem to see happen, but don't understand the apparent significance until the end of the story. That said, the whole thing feels like an oddly insignificant side-trip away from the main battle back in New York against Mister Dark; however, since Frau Totenkinder has gone back to the homelands to find ... something, I'm going to trust that this all connects up. The Fables side-trips usually do, somehow.
   Good; Recommended



2. Power Girl #8, by Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti & Amanda Conner (DC)
   The conclusion to the Vartox story begun in issue 7, and managed somewhat more deftly than the introduction. (The death of an admittedly incidental character was handled with alarming breeziness in the previous issue.) The threat introduced in the previous issue is dealt with fairly quickly -- and oddly irresponsibly, as far as we can tell -- leaving PG free to deal with Vartox and his reproductive requests. Sadly, PG does not appreciate Vartox' normal formal evening wear, which consists of a see-through ... robe-like thing, and a G-string. In any event, it's a fun, light superhero story, and the next story arc -- or possibly two -- gets set up nicely. That said, one of the odd things about this series is the way it just leaves things dangling out there. Some of them are very minor -- why did Vartox' pheromone spray knock out Doc Midnite, and how is he doing, anyway? -- and some major -- what's going on with the person who discovered PG's secret identity? (Though I will note that Atlee's eyeroll at the very concept of PG's secret identity being at all difficult to discover was kind of perfect.) That particular thread has been hanging out there for nearly half the series already. Shouldn't something be happening on that front? Granted, she's been kind of busy, but still...
   Good; Recommended



3. Starman #81 (Blackest Night), by James Robinson, Fernando Dagnino & Bill Sienkiewicz (DC)
   Man, this was kind of perfect. A one-shot tie-in done as they should be. That said, if you haven't ever read Starman, and you're picking this up for the sake of getting all things "Blackest Night", you're going to be pretty well lost. Nekron raises David Knight, who got to spend something like a whole week as Starman before getting himself killed, and the being that takes over his body then proceeds to terrorize Opal City. Fairly quickly, this reaches the point where the Shade -- still having a thing with Hope O'Dare (and "thing" is perhaps the best way to describe it, given their discussion) -- gets called into action. Something theoretically truly terrible happens to the Shade in the course of the story ... and it does not have the effect one would expect. Certainly Nekron's patsy is surprised by the result, in any event. The only downside, if there is one, is that it suddenly seems to unbalance the Blackest Night event -- the Shade would seem to be powerful enough to possibly end Blackest Night all by himself, and that can't possibly be what they've got in mind. After all, this has got to be dragged out for another two months, and then we get to go careening into "Brightest Day" or whatever the next big mega crossover event is.
   
   Overall, it is awesome like an awesome thing of awesomeness, with a side order of awesome. As much as one issue could be, anyway.
   
   (If Robinson were interested in doing a new Shade series, I'd be so on board with that. Yes, please! More!)
   
   Excellent; Highly Recommended



4. Incorruptible #2, by Mark Waid, Jean Diaz & Belardino Brabo (Boom)
   This title actually has the potential to be far more interesting than the Irredeemable title that it's spun out of. After all, hero goes mad, does appalling things -- it's a story that we've seen a lot before. (Three times in the past year or so, at least -- Irredeemable, Absolution, The Mighty [although, properly speaking, Alpha One doesn't quite go mad].) Villain gets shocked into going sane ... now that's a storyline that you don't get quite so often. It also gives us a look at the ground-level effects of what Plutonian's madness and destruction have done to the rest of the world, which is really entirely missing from the Irredeemable title. We also get to see how difficult it can be for a villain to go good; after all, even when some people believe him, most won't, and so Max Damage(yes, that's his name) winds up accidentally causing problems even when he's trying to help. At the same time, his former sidekick/girlfriend Jailbait (who really is only about 16) is struggling to understand why her former partner in crime and everything else suddenly doesn't want her any more, and acting out in some very 16-year-old ways.
   
   I do wonder if it's all being set up so that in a few dozen issues or so, both titles suddenly merge and we get the Irredeemable/Incorruptible story arc about the Big Final Battle Between Good gone bad and Bad gone good. It makes a sort of sense; Plutonian has been slowly but surely picking off the remaining superheroes in his own title and ignoring the supervillains, so sooner or later, Max Damage is likely to be the only one left standing against him.
   Good; Recommended



5. Joe the Barbarian #1 (Grant Morrison/Sean Murphy/Dave Stewart; DC/Vertigo)
   Joe is a kid who is having a sucky life, at the moment. His father was killed in the Middle East, it seems, and his mother is having a hard time holding onto the family home. He gets pushed around and bullied by other kids at school. And, on top of everything else, he's a diabetic. Interestingly enough, given tne way it ends, it seems like it may be only the last aspect that's the most relevant, at least in the near term. Quite honestly, I think maybe this should have been released as an original graphic novel, rather than serialized. It feels like a story that would work better done in one; it's very easy to miss what's going on with Joe. I'm just not sure that a miniseries of Joe experiencing hypoglycemia induced hallucinations is quite going to work as such. Murphy's artwork is really well done and evocative and works very well with Morrison's narrative style in this story.
   
   Judgement reserved.



6. Daytripper #2 (Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba; DC/Vertigo)
   In which Bras de Olivia Domingos dies. Again. This time, eleven years earlier than he died the first time, and in an entirely different way.
   
   I really don't have the slightest idea what to make of this series so far. At a guess, maybe he's going to be revealed to be looking back on ways he could have once died, writing his obituary. Or maybe the last death we see will be the real one, and the series will turn out to have been him, looking back on the different times and ways he could have died, and comparing it to what really happened. Or maybe we'll get no explanation at all, and we just get to watch him die over and over for a year. (Which, frankly, if they do this well enough that we come to know Bras very well at all, is going to be increasingly more difficult to read.) Their artstyles are beautiful to see, as always, and work with a story like this -- though what "like this" means, I really have no clue.
   
   Judgement reserved.

This week's pull list:
- Astro City The Dark Age Book Four #1 (apparently Busiek was serious about putting the title out more regularly. Huzzah!)
- Batman and Robin #7 (what, out again so soon? I thought it had another month of haitusing to go)
- Buck Rogers #8 (I find I'm enjoying these resurrected pulp series. Now if only there was another series of Ardden's Flash Gordon forthcoming...)
- Chew #8 (the concept is so very very gross, and the title is so very very good)
- Jack of Fables #42
- Madame Xanadu #19 (Nimue vs. Morgaine le Fay! Who will win?)
- Web #5
- The Sword #21
- World's Finest #4
- Wonder Woman #40