Waited for the Trade: A Batch of Shorties

by Dan

With the craziness of my job the last several weeks (thanks stock markets!), I've been completely MIA from most things Internet. Yet, the comics and trades kept on coming. So, here's some shorty reviews of sixteen trades and graphic novels from nine different publishers. From the excellent Black Summer and Immortal Iron Fist to the complete opposite of excellent Black Diamond and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed plus plenty in between.









Army @ Love Vol. 2: Generation Pwned – More often than not, I love Rick Veitch’s writer/artist work. But after giving up on the critically acclaimed Can’t Get No, I was worried going into Army @ Love. Thankfully, this has been an awesome satire book with plenty of sex, drugs and war. A wonderfully crafted series that ended all too soon (there is a second “season” out now, but I’ve read that it goes in a very different, yet interesting, direction). B+

Authority: Prime – Authority fights StormWatch and it’s all Bendis’ fault. I always knew that guy was up to something! Wait, Bendix, not Bendis. Eh. Much less interesting now. An okay check in with the WildStorm universe, but after the excellent Authority Revolution it’s a clear step down in quality. C+

Black Diamond – For a story about a cross-country, raised superhighway they spend WAY too much time on anything but the cross-country, raised superhighway. Overall, this was really disappointing. The art at the beginning was just not my thing, but when it became more iconic and more graphic designer-y at the end, I really enjoyed it. D-

Black Summer – This was just an awesome Warren Ellis series. Mostly, I saw it to be Ellis' final word on The Authority and what a terrible path they would eventually have taken. Gory and violent with lots of commentary about the U.S. government. Great stuff. A

Classic Battlestar Galactica – I don’t know why, but I still dig the original Battlestar stuff more than the new. Granted, I lost track of the new show after the first season and Dynamite flooding the market with “New” Battlestar books has been too overwhelming to follow. Thankfully, Rick Remender (a fave writer thanks to Dark Horse’s Fear Agent) was let loose on the old characters and creates a fun episode of the classic show. B

Criminal Macabre: My Demon Baby – I was regretting this purchase before I read it, as I couldn't really remember how I felt about the first two collections I read years ago (apparently there's been two more that I missed). That said, I completely dug this four-issue story. Niles has a lot of Ellis in his lead character, Cal McDonald. Lots of dark humor fun and I may have to figure out what the other two books are and grab those. B





Immortal Iron Fist Vol. 2: The 7 Capital Cities of Heaven – I’ve never been an Iron Fist or Heroes for Hire or Kung Fu fan. Ever. And yet, I completely and thoroughly enjoy this title and all its Iron Fist-tastic history. I did get a little confused with who was who, including the reveal at the end that references the annual included earlier in the collection. So, sometimes there is too much history and too many characters to keep straight, but that just makes me want to sit down and read Brubaker and Faction’s entire run once volume three comes out. Great art from Aja too. This is quality comics. A-

Maintenance Vols. 1 & 2 – This Oni series just makes me giggle. Thanks to Customer Appreciation Day (aka Free Comic Book Day) for finding this one. Reading these on the can is fun, but got surreal when our trusty janitors took an adventure into the can. B+

Mini Marvels: Rock, Paper, Scissors – Turns out I've read a bunch of these shorts featuring the Bullpen Bits characters and, in all honesty, it's just not that funny the second time around. Some of the later stories that riff on Marvel events like Civil War and World War Hulk are amusing, but overall this just doesn't hold up to multiple reads. B-

New York Four – Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly do it again. Although I was frustrated by the fact that there could be a lot more story told and, more than likely, it won't happen. B+

Power Pack: Day One – A fun revamp of the kids' origin story. I've never read the original version, but I'm sure this has been updated to be, ya know, entertaining. Anyone that's been reading this series of mini-series will enjoy this about as much as the others. I'm really looking forward to the Skrulls digest though. B-

Star Trek: The Return of the Worthy – The last reprint Titan did of the old DC version of the original Trek. The main story about The Worthy was a completely predictable, 100% Trek message type of story. Not bad, but nothing new either. C+

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed – When I preordered this, I was already dropping the last of the Dark Horse titles, Legacy, from my pull list. I figured this was a last shot at Dark Horse’s current Star Wars universe (although I am checking out the current Clone Wars mini). Even more concerning was the fact that this book was based on the video game of the same name and was serving as a way to fill in some of the back-story. Unfortunately, the book reads like a video game with all the paces and boss challenges included. This is definitely not for anyone but fans of the game, and even then I’m not sure it’s good on any level. D

Too Cool to be Forgotten – Very cool story that gets somewhat sidetracked/rushed at the end in order to wrap up the main ideas about father/son even though 90% of the book was just about the son. I get what Robinson was going for, and he succeeds for that 90%, but I wish the end had been drawn out or built up to better. A-

Wolverine: Death of Wolverine – This collection starts off interesting enough with Jason Aaron and Howard Chaykin’s “Man in the Pit” issue. Wolverine has been captured and put in a pit where he’s shot a few hundred times every 15 minutes to keep him subdued. The rest of the collection is Marc Guggenheim and Chaykin’s Logan Dies story, which rewrites Wolverine’s healing powers as a literal fight with Death every time he’s extremely injured. A bit odd, but, like the first story interesting. Unfortunately Chaykin’s art is incredibly distracting – sketchy and blocky with odd close ups. B-

Wolverine: Get Mystique – Hey, a Wolverine story that actually ties in to current continuity! Wolverine is chasing down Mystique after her betrayal during Messiah CompleX. Cool enough of an idea. Unfortunately, it gets a bit convoluted due to writer Jason Aaron throwing them into the middle of Iraq and Afghanistan for no real reason other than those are topically locations. C
Read more!

Under Your Radar: Local

by Liana

I guess it’s a couple of years ago now that, while lying in bed reading comics, Dan turns to me and says, “If I give you something, will you read it?” Usually, my answer is no; we tend to like different comics. But I was in a good mood and he asked really nicely, so I took the comic from him (though I wasn’t exactly looking forward to reading it). That comic was Local #3 and it blew me away.

Local is the twelve issue series from Brian Wood (DMZ, Demo) and Ryan Kelly (Lucifer, The Books of Magic), following the life of one young woman, Megan McKeenan, as she travels from town to town, trying to figure who she is and where she belongs. That’s it in a nutshell. But what in life has ever really fit inside a nutshell (other than nuts)?

Local starts off as a series of done-in-one stories, loosely held together by Megan’s presence. Sometimes she was the star of the issue and sometimes, like in issue #3, she just made a cameo. The real star of the series, at least at first, was whatever town Megan was currently living in. Great care was taken to accurately reference each town (from Portland, Oregon to Burlington, Vermont, with ten stops in between) and make them all characters in their own right. As the series goes on, we learn more about Megan’s life, and her struggle to understand herself eventually becomes the main focus.

Each issue takes place about a year after the previous and, as stated, in a different town. The famous #3 that immediately hooked me was in Richmond, Virginia and was about a successful rock band breaking up and coming back to their hometown that has seemingly moved on without them. What’s the old adage? You can’t go home again? Megan only appears on three pages, in a sequence where she finds the band’s drummer and asks him to sign an album, only to get back a misspelling of her name and his phone number. I guess Richmond goes on Megan’s Disillusionment List, which is a list I just made up and erroneously at that since Megan doesn’t exactly come across as the most hopeful of individuals.

In fact, she’s pretty screwed up. So much so that, apparently, there are people online who want to punch her in the face. I know this not because I’ve run into any of them, but because Brian and Ryan talk about them in some of their fantastically insightful essays at the end of each issue. I have to wonder why, if Megan moves them to such hate, they continue to read, but then that’s the kind of thing you have to wonder about everyone who subjects themselves to all kinds of crap. And we all do it in some way, don’t we? But still, it seems to me that if you hate the only constant in a limited series comic book, maybe you can just save yourself the aggravation every month (oh, if only this book had actually come out every month!), take your three bucks and buy yourself an ice cream cone instead. Ice cream makes everything better.

There are some pretty weird times in this book, like in #2 when Megan sort of dates a guy who sneaks into her apartment in Minneapolis and leaves polaroids of himself with messages on them. There are some pretty scary times in this book, like in #4 when Megan is held hostage by a dangerous family feud (not her own) in a Missoula, Montana diner. We meet her brother in Austin, her cousin in Tempe, her OCD roommate in Brooklyn and a slew of boyfriends and other acquaintances in Chicago, Toronto, Halifax, and Norman, Oklahoma. Through it all, Megan goes from a confused 17 year old girl on the brink to a mature 30 year old who faces her demons and accepts who and where she’s been and who and where she is.

Local is a deep, dark journey that most of us can relate to. Who hasn’t known what they’re doing and where they belong? Who hasn’t felt unconnected to the world?

Normally, I’m all about getting trades at the library. But Oni Press is putting out a nifty hardcover edition of the series, and it's currently being solicited in Previews for release in September (ISBN: 978-1-934964-00-2; Diamond Code: JUN08 4143). This one, I think I need. And I think you need it to. Go to your local comic shop and preorder it. What else can I say to convince you? If you’re a fan of Brian Wood’s or Ryan Kelly’s, this is obviously a must-own. If you like Blankets or The Waiting Place or Andi Watson or JD Salinger or The Breakfast Club or indy record shops (hi Zia!), then you’re going to love this. If nothing I’ve said has sparked even the slightest interest, then I’m sorry to say you might be dead inside. But I’m willing to punch you in the face to make sure. Read more!