Once again, thanks to the Discount Comic Book Service for being such nice chaps.

Amazing Spider-Man #600 by Dan Slott, John Romita Jr, Stan Lee, Marcos Martin, and about 100 other people (Marvel)

I haven't bought a Spider-Man comic, since, I dunno, Ultimate Spidey started. And if we're talking the "in-continuity" stuff, since Mackie and Byrne were dealing in the single digits. Now we're back in the triple digits, and here I am purchasing a Spider-Man comic. Why? Well, I just can't pass up a deal. What we have here is over 100 pages of brand-new material, with no ads, for a cover price of five bucks. And DCBS was selling it at half price. How could I refuse? It's a lovely, thick wad of comics-- this baby took me about an hour to read (I had to stop twice for snack breaks)!

Slott, Romita, et al. have produced the best Spider-Man comic I've read since I was eight years old or so, and they've done so by creating a comic that eight-year-old me would unabashedly love. It also evokes all the feelings of a classic Stan-Lee-and-company Annual from days gone by. Look at what we get for our paltry dollars: A 60+ page main story with fight scenes and guest stars galore, a wedding, classic villains, and a cast of dozens. The spirit of Spidey's 60s heyday still lives, vibrantly bursting forth from every page. And let's face it-- at this point, Spider-Man flows so mightily through John Romita Jr's veins that he doesn't have to draw anymore, only bleed all over the page; when it dries, it looks like this-- which is to say, amazing. Or perhaps spectacular. Or maybe "Web of." Okay, not that last one.

I was truly surprised-- and pleasantly so-- at how good this comic was. It's Spidey as you like him: In college! In trouble! In action! action! action! Okay, maybe not that first one, but everything else. We've got Spidey cracking jokes (I quite appreciated the reference to Family Guy's "everybody gets one" and the someone-else-remembers crack about Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place), we've got the umpteenth Doctor Octopus story (with a twist), we've got J. Jonah Jameson officiating his father's wedding to Aunt May-- it's like Stan-Lee-a-palooza all up in here. Then The Man himself stops by to pen a quick ditty (with Marcos Martin art!) about a Stan Lee stand-in chatting with Spidey about all his freakish transformations and continuity mishaps, until he's driven mad by it all and seeks out a shadowy Steve Ditko for guidance. And then the rest of the Spidey-writing crew stops by for back-up strips, and those go about how you'd expect: Waid and Doran do an obvious but still moving Uncle Ben story; Gale and Alberti deliver a pretty but empty story about how Spidey's life sucks; Guggenheim and the Breitweisers do the same Aunt May story that everybody does every 100 issues or so; Wells and Donovan poke some fun at the Spider-Mobile's expense; and Kelly and Fiumara get to be all portentous and stuff with a Madame Web flash-forward. Throw in some one-page gags and even a letters page (gasp!), and you've got yourself an epic comics package that makes everything 1965 all over again. Or 1976. Or 1987. Or 1994.

Will it get me to follow Spider-Man on a regular basis? Well, no-- but it was nice to stop by and see what some old friends were up to. Eight-year-old Bill(y) gives it his highest recommendation.

Atomic Robo: Shadow from Beyond Time #3 by Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener, Ronda Pattison, and Jeff Powell (Red 5)

I believe I've figured out why I enjoy Brian Clevinger's writing on this book so much. Oh, you may think it's for the face-rocking action or the hilarious banter-- and well, it is-- but it's also for his unwavering commitment to verisimilitude. Recently, he's spent some time on the Atomic Robo site explaining why giant robots and aliens aren't gonna show up in the Roboverse anytime soon-- because, naturally, a world with giant robots and aliens wouldn't be a world exactly like our own. You may find this a bit hypocritical, considering the comic is about a talking robot that fights giant bugs, Lovecraftian beasts from beyond this dimension, and Nazi war machines, but I enjoy seeing everything fit into an uber-context, rather than a patchwork universe like DC or Marvel, where God is a known quantity, space travel's a piece of piss, and extinction events occur every two weeks without daily life being affected at all. That's why the back-and-forth dialogue between Robo and the supposedly time-traveling super-smart raptor Dr. Dinosaur in the Free Comic Book Day special was so awesome. But that's me.

Anyway, the comic. This issue jumps the story ahead by a few decades, as 1950s Robo reencounters the aforementioned Lovecraftian beast from beyond this dimension in a cross between an Atomic Age B-movie and the Left 4 Dead video game. It's as funny, cool, and exciting as every other issue of Atomic Robo, which just goes to show that this is probably the most consistently enjoyable comic on the stands. And you should buy it.

Also, Scott Wegener's art is as lovely and fluid as your favorite lager. The overlooked team of Pattison and Powell does an excellent job, too; every aspect of this comic is just damn pretty. Now buy the damned thing or I'm going to come to your house, use your bathroom, and leave the toilet seat up.

Batman & Robin #2 by Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, and let's be honest, you're not reading these credits, are you? (DC)

Can a comic be too good? Is such a thing possible? I'm afraid Morrison and Quitely may have discovered the alchemical formula to such a thing. Seriously, everything in this comic is so perfectly tuned: every word so considered, you can literally taste each line of dialogue; every panel so meticulously laid out, every image so precise, that the pages exist as modern architecture more than drawings on a page. Morrison and Quitely bring out the best in each other, of that there's no doubt, but their collaboration is such a well-oiled machine that the work almost feels rote and mechanical-- lifeless, by being too lively, or somesuch paradox. The rich art and seemingly minimalist scripting techniques that I've enjoyed so completely since I first saw them in concert on New X-Men in 2001 have perhaps oversaturated me; they hold less impact. Perhaps I'm just insane.

Anyway, the comic. It's a fast-paced sucker, this one, with a gorgeously laid-out fight scene taking up the bulk of the plot, though G-Mo and F-Qui crisscross these sequences with trademark after-the-fact Dick Grayson despair, though Alfred, of course, saves the day, as he always does. My biggest problem comes from Alex Sinclair's coloring, actually; the backgrounds shimmer like a pool of oil left floating in a parking lot. I'm not sure if it's a fluke of the printing process or a stylistic choice, but it is slightly off-putting to my eyes, at least. But that's a good thing. If this comic was any better it would probably suck-- going so far up one end of the scale that it appears at the other end, like a mighty Ouroboros.

Captain Britain and MI13 #15 by Paul Cornell, Leonard Kirk, Jay Leisten, Brian Reber, and Joe Caramagna (Marvel)

I have awfully heavy hackles, let me tell you, but several things still manage to raise them. Take the cancellation of this series, for example. I'm used to comics I like being canceled, as it's something that happens to me often. The unfortunate demise of this series could've been prevented, however, if someone in editorial took the unwieldy title-- and the fact that the good Captain is probably the least interesting character in his own book-- and changed it to Avengers U.K., or something similar. Avengers: England, BBC Avengers, The British Avengers, Wait, No, Not the Steed and Peel Ones. Whatever. That's what this comic's all about, after all-- England's Mightiest Heroes, defending queen and country. Those Avengers comics are pretty hot, these days. Maybe a different title and an occasional cameo from a sneering Norman Osborn would've given us another ten thousand readers or so. Who knows? The praise of the blogosphere clearly doesn't seem to have an effect on sales, otherwise the Top Ten would have stuff like Seaguy, Young Liars, Scalped, and this.

Anyway, the comic. This is the grand finale of my favorite Marvel series of the past, oh, 15 or so months. It gives us everything we could expect, in a Joss-Whedon-y "season finale that could totally be a series finale, and oops, it is" way. Tables turned, lost loves reunited, vampire torpedoes from space, a gratuitous Death's Head appearance, swordfights with Dracula, and probably the coolest final page from anything in a while. Paul Cornell writes the hell out of it, Leonard Kirk draws the hell out of it-- it's good comics. It's British comics.

Love 'em and leave 'em-- that's the British way. At least, that's what I've learned from James Bond and short-but-satisfying British television seasons. The nigh-paltry sum of 15 issues and an annual is certainly less than Cornell intended for this series, but I'm glad we got that much, at least.

(I would love Cornell to write a Blade series. He is the only one to ever make me care about Blade.)

Dethklok versus the Goon by Eric Powell and Dave Stewart, with some help from Brendon Small, and hey, they didn't credit a letterer, did they? (Dark Horse)

I've tried Eric Powell's Goon before, and it wasn't to my taste. I initially thought the same thing about Metalocaylpse, however, but giving it a few tries on Adult Swim eventually won me over completely. So when I saw that my favorite fictional animated heavy metal band, Dethklok, was crossing over with the Goon, I knew I had to give it a try. And so I did. And I didn't like it.

This reads like bad Metalocalypse fanfiction, which is weird, because creator Brendon Small was brought in to script doctor. Lines that might work in a late-night cartoon, however, fall completely flat on the page, but most of the dialogue just doesn't ring true as what the Dethklok characters would say, or perhaps how they'd say it. "Flat" and "untrue" describes the art, as well. I love Powell's art-- and when it comes to the Goonverse characters, he's right on. But when he draws the Dethklok gang, he does so in a flatter, less-defined, 2-D style, as best to ape the look of 2-D animation; it all just looks off somehow, contributing to the lifelessness of the whole thing.

I can see why they didn't credit a letter, though-- because the lettering is terrible. Maybe Augie De Blieck and I are the only folks who notice this kinda thing, but the first-- okay, maybe the third-- rule of lettering is (or should be) "don't cross your i's in the middle of a word." Down with the serifs! It makes the whole thing look ugly. The choice of font isn't exactly a winner, either. The writing was probably half-killed purely because of the lettering, which is, of course, antithetical.

So yeah, I'll stick to the cartoons.

Doctor Who: Room with a Déjà View by Rich "Bleeding Cool" Johnston, Eric J, Kris Carter, and Neil Uyetake (IDW)

If all time travel stories give Greg Burgas a headache, this one would probably kill him outright. Our hero, the Doctor, receives a distress call (or does he?) and investigates, landing in a isolated space station in the literal middle of nowhere (or is it?). There's been a murder (or has there?) and the prime suspect happens to be an alien fellow called a Counter, who lives his life backwards in time (or does h-- yes, yes he does), answering the Doctor's questions before he asks them. So, naturally, to unravel the mystery, the Doctor travels back in time-- over and over and over again-- to work out the chap's story. Because of this, a few sequences in the comic have to be read backwards to get the full poop, a clever little trick we'd probably never see on the TV show.

Rich Johnston nails the tenth Doctor's voice down pretty well, as the script sparkles with jokes, asides, and one-liners, but the emotional moments sell the whole story. The backwards interrogation scene is the central showcase, and the main conceit of the plot plays those clever tricks with time travel that we all like seeing. Eric J's art is often rough-hewn, but tells the story well enough; the script's clearly the star here, though.

I've praised a lot of comics to the hilt in this post, batting my eyes at them until they buy me one drink too many and whisk me off to their respective hotel rooms, but I have to say that this little book here is my comic of the month. I wouldn't mind seeing Rich get another crack at the Whoniverse. This is a really great little one-shot, doing the exact kind of thing these comic spin-offs should do: telling a good story in a manner the televised parent can't get away with.

Greek Street #1 by Peter Milligan, Davide Gianfelice, Patricia Mulvihill, and Clem Robins (DC/Vertigo)

I give every new Peter Milligan comic a chance, because Milligan's delivered a lot of my favorite comics over the years. This is not one of them. The premise, which adapts classic Greek tragedies to a dark, edgier, modern HBO setting is okay enough, sure, but the execution leaves me cold, and I liked Davide Gianfelice's artwork more in the first arc of Northlanders. It's worth picking up if you see it lying around, because it's one measly dollar for an oversized first issue, meaning everyone should give it a try, as it's bound to be the perfect comic for somebody. I'm not that guy, though.

My biggest gripe with this issue comes from the coloring, however. I guess it adheres to the standard Vertigo color palette, but it looks more like Patricia Mulvihill never met a shade of brown she didn't like. Browns, mauves, anything generally dark that bleeds well together with other tepid tones, making the art look more muddled than anything else. I picked up the second trade of Scalped, from the same colorist, and I could barely tell what was happening on some of the pages. Nothing really stands out; the characters on every page look like action figures sinking into mud. I don't know if it's the fault of the colors, or the paper stock, or both, but this is probably the drabbest comic you will see this summer.

Ignition City #4 by Warren Ellis, Gianluca Pagliarani, Chris Dreier, Digikore Studios, and why don't these comics credit letterers, darn it? (Avatar)

Ever notice the indicia in Avatar's books? "All characters as depicted in these stories are over the age of 18"? I'm sure that's left over from Avatar's, er, less savory publishing days, but since they've become the go-to place for original work from Ellis, Ennis, and even Moore, among others, it seems like something they could do away with, no?

Anyway, the comic. Ellis brings the goods here, giving us my favorite issue of the series thus far. The reason? It's almost all down to Doc Vukovic; every line he spews is absolute gold, from the bit you see above to "Science will fuck you!" and "They are stupider than mud that's been fucked by a donkey." What Vukovic really brings to the proceedings, though, is heart. Our protagonist Mary Raven is finally able to let her guard down, allowing Ellis to reveal the emotional core of the characters. The series works in detailing a place where all the glorious, forward-looking, optimistic pulp science fiction of old has a cynical shadow fall over it. The Buck Rogers analogue reveals the horror of the future that turned him into a broken man; a thug, spending all his time in the engine rooms of those old shiny ships, laments never having seen space; the old Doc has stopped wondering, stopped being curious, and it's ruined him. Cracks begin to show in the dark veneer, however, as Ellis lets a bit of hope and redemption leak through; the mad bastard is, of course, a big softie.

Gianluca Pagliarani's artwork looks less like lines on paper and more like woodcuts, or perhaps etchings on the side of a big metal spaceship that's starting to rust over. It's a fitting aesthetic for this book.

Lightning Round!

Beta Ray Bill: Godhunter #2 by Kieron Gillen, Kano, Álvaro Lopez, Javier Rodriguez, and Nate Piekos (Marvel)

This book's likely to fly under the radar of most "mainstream" readers, I'd imagine, except for the completists (get all those space horse comics!), and that small sect of comics aficionados who enjoy "quality." And yet, this probably sells five times or more than Gillen's baby, Phonogram.

Anyway, the comic. It's cleverly written, with some fine character work for comics' favorite Bill, and well drawn by Kano. And it still has that snazzy Simonson reprint in the back, complete with eye-singing primary coloring.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #26 by Jane Espenson, Georges Jeanty, Andy Owens, Michelle Madsen, and Jimmy Betancourt (Dark Horse)

Joss Whedon has a strong pimp hand. This is why I'm still buying this series, which had, at one point, some forward plot momentum, but which took a year off to wander around and "find itself," like a pretentious teenager. And now Jane Espenson is kick-starting the plot again and throwing the whole cast in a room together because bloody hell, it's #26 and we haven't really done anything! When season nine-- which I'll probably buy, because pimp hand--  inevitably hits, I hope the cast shrinks considerably. We just can't care about faceless hordes of teen slayers getting impaled by faceless hordes of demons. The cast needs some serious trimming, and the thematic focus needs to go back to what it once was-- high school/college/growing up is hell. Not "my army is bigger than your army."

Anyway, the comic. Oz is back. Yay, Oz! Now can we get more racist Dracula?

Doctor Who #1 by Tony Lee, Al Davison, Lovern Kindzierski, and Robbie Robbins (IDW)

Here's the debut of the new Tony-Lee-driven ongoing Doctor Who series, and the last place we're going to be seeing the Tenth Doctor once David Tennant's final stories air at the end of this year. But even when Matt Smith graces our screen, we can still turn to IDW for more Doc Ten goodness. This issue's got the atmosphere of a 1970s episode with the gob of the Tenth Doctor, as he stumbles into old-timey Hollywood and runs into Charlie Chaplin-- oh, I'm sorry, Archie Maplin. That's the biggest problem with the issue-- the fact that something legal popped up at the last minute and turned Chaplin into Maplin. But that's what white-out is for. Meanwhile, Davison's art is solid, with some good facial work in spots, but the occasional awkward figure here or there. This crew seems to really "get it," and this series will sate Who fans' hunger as they wait for the next special to air.

I have no idea how Burgas does this reviewing thing every week. It took me two weeks just to write this.

16 Comments

• At August 13, 2009, Red 5 Comics » Blog Archive » Reviews for Red 5 Titles wrote:

  [...] Comic Book Resources It’s as funny, cool, and exciting as every other issue of Atomic Robo, which just goes ...

• At August 13, 2009, Joe wrote:

  The only problem with calling Captain Britain & MI13 would be that the internet would be complaining about "yet another ...

• At August 13, 2009, Matt wrote:

  Buffy Season 8, I want to love you, but you're taking waaaaay too long to do anything. We should already ...

• At August 13, 2009, Greg Burgas wrote:

  Isn't Chris Dreier the letterer on Ignition City?

• At August 13, 2009, Michael P. wrote:

  You said it was funny, so I sincerely hope that Spidey 600 had more than just tired pop culture jokes. ...

• At August 13, 2009, FunkyGreenJerusalem wrote:

  I got all excited thinking you had #3 of Batman And Robin to review... where is that thing?

  Also, it weirds ...

• At August 13, 2009, onion3000 wrote:

  'Captain Britain & MI13' should have been called "The Blighty Avengers."

• At August 13, 2009, Alan Coil wrote:

  "‘Captain Britain & MI13? should have been called..." the Cancelled Avengers. Buh-Bye.

• At August 13, 2009, Mary Warner wrote:

  I'm glad you finally read a Spider-Man issue again. the fact is, despite all the complaints from the professional ...

• At August 13, 2009, FunkyGreenJerusalem wrote:

  .) But it seems half the guys on the internet refuse to even look at the book anymore, so they ...

• At August 13, 2009, Bill Reed wrote:

  (Two Guys, A Girl, & A Pizza Place? Yeah, that’s on-topic!)

  It is an outdated reference, but I loved that sitcom. ...

• At August 13, 2009, Bill Reed wrote:

  Spider-Man is finally being done right again, even if they had to really screw things up to get it there. ...

• At August 14, 2009, Kieron Gillen wrote:

  Thanks, Bill. And, yes, it does.

  KG

• At August 14, 2009, Chad Nevett wrote:

  Greg -- Avatar books don't credit the letterer, so who it is is unknown... unless you just ask them.

• At August 14, 2009, Mary Warner wrote:

  For some reason, even though I clearly recognised the psychiatrist as Stan immediately, it never occured to me that the ...

• At August 15, 2009, Greg Burgas wrote:

  Chad: Yeah, I saw that Dreier was the inker after I posted. I always assumed the artist lettered the ...

THE USUAL SUSPECTS: AV Club reveals the evolution of comic art in their "Reinventing the Pencil: 21 Artists Who Changed Mainstream Comics (for Better or Worse)" inventory. I bet you can guess who's #1.

In fact, in honor of that little San Dimas Comicon no one really went to, The AV Club hosted a bit of a comics-themed week. They some space to Seth, in a semi-interview where the Canadian cartoonist goes over come classic cartoonists. The article should probably be retitled "Seth is blasé about most cartoonists." The Clubbers also interviewed comics' sexiest humorist, Michael Kupperman, about his sexy humor, and comics' sexiest Hindu love god, Grant Morrison, about the nuts and bolts of visionary comics writing-- but they ask some questions most comics interviewers wouldn't. Like all G-Mo interviews, it's a fun, fascinating read, loaded with great pull quotes. Here's one:

AVC: What is it about the comics medium in particular that appeals to you as a storyteller?

GM: The essentially magical qualities of inert words and ink pictures working together with reader consciousness to create a holographic Sensurround emotional experience. What else?

Further features on the AV Club include an in-depth interview with Steve Bissette, a Gateway to Geekery on Love & Rockets, and a Q&A on recommended first comics.

KER-SPLUTCH! Chris Sims takes us down the bloody brick road with his list of the 40 Most Violent Comics Ever for Complex Magazine.

WHALE'S VAGINA COMICON, as Burgas would call it, or Nerd Prom, as nerds who didn't go to prom call it, was in full effect this weekend, and the drunken zombies that used to call themselves "comics professionals" still have to scrape their way through the remains of the day before they can be loaded into boxes and mailed home. Of course, the CBR mothership has their server stuffed with news, but I'm going to break it down to the illest bits for you:

• So. Marvel bought Marvelman. Uh... holy crap, dude!
• I'm very much looking forward to Choker, even if it sounds almost exactly like Fell. Like, exactly. Right down to the Templesmith. Let's see if this McCool fellow can out-Ellis Ellis!
• The Beat reveals the Eisner winners. Hurray, I sort of write for an Eisner winning site thingie, tangentially! And hurray, the Herbie Archives walked away with an award!
• Is it just me, or does James Robinson's new JLA line-up sound spectacularly awful?
• I, Zombie sounds like a really, really cool series. You should buy it.
• Willingham taking over Angel? That's unexpected.
• I never thought I'd say this, but that guy from that goth rock band or whatever writes some damn fine comics. I'm looking forward to both Umbrella Academy: Hotel Oblivion and The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys.
• Let's hope Dark Horse's acquisition of the Gold Key heroes leads to some awesome Magnus, Robot Fighter comics.
• Finally, the B'Wana Beast action figure we've all been waiting for!
• Okay, I'm just going to admit that I'm phoning this one in. Did anything interesting happen at Comicon?

WHO'S ON ELEVENTH: This week marked the first foray into filming for the fifth season (God bless alliteration) of Doctor Who, featuring the first public outing of Doc #11, Matt Smith. Can't say I'm thrilled with the "Patrick Troughton had a horrible tweed accident" outfit, but I'm sure I just need to shut up and deal with it. Sunday Brunch favorite Neill Cameron already has an illustration of the new Doctor up. IDW, if you're listening, I will totally write a Doctor Who one-shot (or six-shot) on the cheap, for Neill to draw.

REMAKE/REMODEL is Lady Fairplay. I'ma gonna give it to Paul Sizer this week:

The comics internet actually seemed to shrivel up and die like a desiccated zombie this week. Everyone clear out for Comicon? Probably. But what actually happened at Comicon? One or two intriguing bits of news, but is that it? Bah.

This column may take next week off, depending on how much reality I'll be swamped with, and what shenanigans I'll be getting up to over the weekend.

12 Comments

• At July 26, 2009, Argo Plummer wrote:

  I for one am excited about Robinson's JLA line up because I have always enjoyed the generational aspect of the ...

• At July 26, 2009, Steve Cameron wrote:

  I didn't really care for the Onion AV Club feature on influential artists (and I'm generally a big fan of ...

• At July 26, 2009, Debaser wrote:

  What's wrong with the JLA Line-up?

  Anyway, MarvelMan being bought by Marvel was easily the biggest disappointment of the Con, once ...

• At July 26, 2009, Ian A. wrote:

  My favorite SDCC announcement was the Seagle/Allred non-announcement.

  I, Zombie sounds like Chew mixed with Pushing Daisies with a dash of ...

• At July 26, 2009, Adam K wrote:

  Seriously, this was the least interesting SDCC ever.

  That being said, I'm super pumped for I, Zombie and the Animal ...

• At July 26, 2009, Alan Coil wrote:

  I wish ANYTHING on the internet was entirely accurate.

  ;)

• At July 26, 2009, Adam K wrote:

  I'm a beautiful human being, inside an out.

  There, wish granted.

• At July 26, 2009, rhod wrote:

  Doctor Who hasn't started filming the fifth series, they've started filming the special 'one-off' episodes due later this year (some ...

• At July 26, 2009, Bill Reed wrote:

  Doctor Who hasn’t started filming the fifth series, they’ve started filming the special ‘one-off’ episodes due later this year (some ...

• At July 26, 2009, Gavin wrote:

  Marvel characters added to LittleBigPlanet...makes me really want a PS3 even more for that game, but the system just isn't ...

• At July 27, 2009, Craig wrote:

  #14 from Complex's Most Violent list says: "Robin’s death was determined by a phone-in poll, with over 10,000 votes cast. ...

• At July 27, 2009, MarkAndrew wrote:

  Stupid the Onion.

  Love and Rockets is an ANNUAL, not a monthly. (And the last issue wasn't my favorite of ...

Atomic Robo: Shadow from Beyond Time #2 by Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener, Ronda Pattison, and Jeff Powell (Red 5)

This, my friends, was my favorite comic from June 2009. Mark it in your ledger!

Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener have perfected their shared wavelength and created the most entertaining comic on the stands. Clevinger's plotting is perfectly pared down to the essentials-- after all that fun banter and exposition in part one, this episode's all action, but not without its fair share of hilarious dialogue, be it Charles Fort's mixture of eagerness and incredulity ("Edison would never allow the likes of you or I near his necrophone"), or Robo's carphone conversation with Nikola Tesla, in which he tries to act like nothing's wrong and he's not chasing down a giant Lovecraftian (literally!) beastie with a carful of lightning guns. Meanwhile, Wegener's artwork is crispier than fried chicken, his facial cartooning brilliant-- it's marvelous how he can eke so much emotion out of a character who, by all rights, doesn't have a face.

It's in the last handful of pages, however, where Clev and Weg (as they shall now be known) really hit me, as Robo literally turns things up to 11 and the reader is handed the most badass, exciting comic book moment I've read in ages. It's flawlessly paced, the epitome of action storytelling. "There's one underlying scientific principle common to all existence. ... Everything explodes." That's the best way to describe Atomic Robo-- explosively awesome. And not in the "Taco Bell put the fear of God in me" way.

Batman & Robin #1 by Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, Alex Sinclair, and Pat Brosseau (DC)

I suppose the title is technically "Batman and Robin," but I enjoy typing ampersands. What can I say about this comic that hasn't already been said? Nothing, probably. Heck, reviews of the second ish are already out and I've just sat down with the first! Egads, Bill, get with the times! Batman & Robin #1 is so last month!

G-Mo and F-Qui have this thing down to a literal science by now. They have become such a well-oiled machine that one expects nothing less than perfection from their collaborations, and we pretty much get that here. I loved the hell out of this thing, from the vibrant yellow background on the cover to the flying Batmobile to Quitely putting the sound effects into the art to the decrepit remnants of the giant mechanical dinosaur to the cutaway of the Bat-Bunker (which I did hope would be a bigger drawing, I admit), to Damian calling Alfred "Pennyworth" to the paracapes to the brilliantly disturbing new baddie Pyg. And now I'm out of breath. But yes, absolutely gorgeous and electric, giving me the same chills I got with Morrison and Quitely's first issue of New X-Men. You might as well call this New Batman, because that's what it is. I didn't think I'd care about Dick Grayson in the Batsuit, but I'd read it forever if these two Scottish blokes were in charge. Really, there is no need for another Batman comic besides this one.

So there, I've just repeated what everybody else said. But man! What a cool comic! Why couldn't Morrison's whole run to date have been like this?

Beta Ray Bill: Godhunter #1 by Kieron Gillen, Kano, Alvaro Lopez, Javier Rodriguez, and Nate Piekos (Marvel)

Kieron Gillen writing pop comics about hip music and the cool cats who dance to it? I can't wrap my brain around that. Kieron Gillen writing an action comic about a space horse with the power of a Norse god who decides to kill an unstoppable force that devours planets? Hell yeah, sign me up.

I get the feeling that Gillen's going to be a big name in a couple years, one of those go-to guys at Marvel who follow the same path as Matt Fraction or Jason Aaron-- they'll wow you with their early creator-owned work and then start spinning cool superhero yarns, but they gotta start by paying their dues. And so Kieron Gillen gets to write a mini-series about one of my favorite characters, the noble alien warrior with a face like a dead horse who shares my name and flies a talking spaceship named Skuttlebutt. I'm surprised to see Beta Ray Bill getting the spotlight as regularly as he has been, what with the mini-series and one-shots and team books he's appeared in over the last few years. What once was maybe a novelty pet character of Walt Simonson's is apparently a favorite of some editor out there, and so we're blessed with books like Godhunter, which is about the titular Bill deciding Galactus needs to die, and going about the mission. It brings him into contact with SWORD, which puts him in the path of of a being who disintegrates folks with his cosmic organ music-- yes, that happens-- and then into a smackdown with one of Big G's heralds. And yeah, the story is pretty groovy, and it could be going places, so I'll be looking forward to the second issue.

Kano should probably be a star by now, but it seems he keeps getting overlooked for the big assignments, and that's a shame, as he really bridges the gap between a looser, cartoonier line, and more of what's the Marvel house style, but it gives the art a real verve.

This puppy's a whole lotta pages for four bucks and has no ads! What it does have, though, is a reprint of Thor #337, the first appearance of Beta Ray Bill, written and drawn by Walt Simonson. I've got this issue in my collection already, but what really struck me in perusing the reprint were the colors, especially when compared to the new story. George Roussos provided the original coloring to this old story; on newsprint, it looked cool, rife with Benday dots, but on these slick magazine pages, the bold flat colors throttle one's retinas-- in a good way, of course.

Take a look at the two panels above. Which ones excites you more? Yes, coloring is far more of an art in comics these days, and I do enjoy the various digital brush strokes you can see in Thor's face on the opening pages, but these bombastic colors in the back half of the mag really command my attention. A lot of coloring these days feels really over-rendered, which gives the pages a muddled feel, and certain contributes to the "sameyness" of Marvel art. Loads of careful attention is paid to the comics page these days, but I can't help be more enchanted by the almost violent, done-by-hand work of Simonson, Workman, and Roussos in some old issue of Thor.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Tales of the Vampires by Becky Cloonan, Vasilis Lolos, Dave Stewart, and Comicraft's Jimmy (Dark Horse)

I made sure to buy the one that had the Moon-n-Ba cover, because those two gents are awesome.

What Cloonan and Lolos give us here is something only tangentially related to the Buffyverse, but I'm glad that Buffy logo is on there, because that means a lot more people are gonna buy this comic, which is superbly crafted. Cloonan works away at the periphery of the Buffy mythos-- folks know vampires exist now, sure, and slayers are out there, but Nashua, New Hampshire is far from the Hellmouth (well, closer to the one in Cleveland), and dull teenage life is still dull teenage life. Jacob yearns for more, and he gets it-- at a price, of course. It's about choices, and bad ones, specifically.

Cloonan's known for her art, but she really sells the script here, especially with the mother character. Lolos' art is excellent as always, deftly cartooned, letting the primary characters be almost swallowed by the empty backgrounds, until the vampires bring everything into close-up.

Dave Stewart's colors are magnificent. There's a reason he's the best in the biz, and it helps that he falls more in line with what I talked about above. Many of the colors here are subdued-- lots of mauve, surprisingly-- but that works to the art's advantage. I dig Stewart's play with light, whether in the panel above with the parking lot lamps, or with the shadow that so often appears on the protagonist's face for the first half of the book.

So yeah, it's a good book, probably more akin to Demo than any issue of Buffy, and I hope the usual Buffy audience picks it up and responds well to it.

Lightning Round!

Astonishing X-Men #30 by Warren Ellis, Simone Bianchi, Andrea Silvestri, Simone Peruzzi, Morry Hollowell, and Chris Eliopoulos (Marvel)

A lot of folks rag on Simone Bianchi's art, and I'll say this: I really dig it. It's not the most dynamic, and the storytelling isn't necessarily brilliant, but my word, look at those ink washes! Every page of this looks like it wasn't sullied by mere human birth but instead brought down from Olympus by the god of storks himself and raised on pure, massaged Kobe beef. Other than that, the story finally decides to go places in its last chapter and the X-Men become dark, mean, genocidal maniacs. Maybe this is the beginnings of a dark, longform plot from Mr. Ellis, but it takes a lot to make me enjoy an X-Men comic, and I don't feel I'll be back for the next arc. Sorry, chaps.

Captain Britain & MI13 Annual #1/#14 by Paul Cornell, Mike Collins, Adrian Alphona, Leonard Kirk, Ardian Syaf, Livesay, Jay Leisten, Craig Yeun, Jay David Ramos, Christina Strain, Brian Reber, and Joe Caramanga (Marvel)

You know, I read the Annual, and still I feel that I don't know anything about Meggan or the game of cricket. There's not much in here to excite me or make me really care about the characters. Sorry, Paul! But I did very much enjoy #14. Yes, the opening negates the previous issue's balls-to-the-wall cliffhanger, but it does so using pieces earned from previous stories. Things are heating up for the big finale, and I'm looking forward to it, though I'm saddened that the end is near.

Seaguy: Slaves of Mickey Eye #3 by Grant Morrison, Cameron Stewart, Dave Stewart (no relation), and Todd Klein (DC/Vertigo)

I was going to write about this here, but I'm now considering saving my thoughts for a larger standalone post. But it may just have redeemed this mini-series for me; I'll have to reread the series and get back to you later. Promise!

Two-in-One Review!

Doctor Who: Autopia by John Ostrander, Kelly Yates, Kris Carter, and Kubikiri (IDW)

Thor: The Trial of Thor by Peter Milligan, Cary Nord, Christina Strain, and Joe Caramanga (Marvel)

I try not to buy comics whose titles don't start with A, B, or C, but sometimes I make exceptions.

I've lumped these two comics together because they both provoke the same feeling in me, which is that they feel like comics you'd find in a three-for-a-dollar bin in the back of a comic shop, wedged between unloved issues of Dan Jurgens' Justice League run. By which I mean they both exude the less-than-sexy aroma of the dreaded "filler." This Thor book is not unlike a random Thor annual you'd find in the early 80s, only with better coloring, and the Doctor Who comic lacks any of the more interesting or exciting ideas and developments you'd find in the show; it's just what one fears when they open a licensed comic.

I know Ostrander and Milligan are good writers-- I've read their good writing! I feel they're more capable than this. Both comics just kinda go through the motions, shuffling towards the inevitable when they happen to run out of pages and the plot decides to stop. The artists do their best with the material-- Kelly Yates' cartooning is quite polished, and he storytells the hell out of a plot that mostly consists of guys and robots standing around; Cary Nord draws a mean fantasy barbarian comic, and this issue is no exception.

Neither book, however, thrilled, intrigued, or otherwise truly entertained me. There's nothing inherently wrong with these comics-- everybody does a professional job, nothing stands out as an eyesore-- but they're just kinda there. A mediocre comic from good creators is the most depressing comic of them all.

5 Comments

• At July 2, 2009, Chad Nevett wrote:

  Trial of Thor is almost worth it just for the whole CSI: Asgard element. I would totally buy a comic ...

• At July 2, 2009, Ian A. wrote:

  Wegener’s artwork is crispier than fried chicken

  If Red 5 doesn't use that as a pull-quote and slap it on the ...

• At July 3, 2009, Cass wrote:

  SPOILERS: I hated that it was the dwarves at the end of Milligan's Thor. I'd read Ages of Thunder and ...

• At July 3, 2009, Scott! wrote:

  I agree with Ian =D

  Gonna email this one to the bosses right now.

• At July 3, 2009, Philip Ayres wrote:

  > You know, I read the Annual, and still I feel that I don’t know anything about Meggan or the ...