Image © DC Comics, Inc.

The seemingly endless crossover storyline is almost over, and there isn’t much to say about this issue. Even writer Peter Tomasi doesn’t have a lot to add, there are seven pages with no lettering and a few more with one or two balloons. What there is is lots of fighting, between the First Lantern and the Corps, the First Lantern and a resurrected Mogo, the Corps and Mogo’s constructs, and so on. I found the battles emotionally uninvolving, and the issue generally uninteresting. Yes, the art by Fernando Pasarin and Scott Hanna is realistic and detailed, the action is full of energy, but I know the good guys will survive, and the bad ones will meet their end next issue, very likely, and I’m not invested in the storyline at this point. Ready for something else on a smaller and more personal scale between a few characters I’m given reasons to care about.

Mildly recommended.

Image © DC Comics, Inc.

Perhaps I should mention that all the DC comics I’ve reviewed recently have a double-size cover which folds out from inside, so each is a kind of tease and reveal. Works better on some than others. I wonder if the extra cost is worth it, though the larger art is nice to see.

There’s a lot going on in this issue. Barry Allen is powerless, due to events in DIAL H FOR HERO apparently, but he does have a bag of weapons from his old Rogues Gallery, and uses them effectively in an attack on a prison for dangerous characters like the new Trickster. The group of ordinary folks who were trapped inside the Speed Force are no longer ordinary, and trying out the superhero bit, not too successfully. Flash himself does appear eventually, and in a move I’d like to see more of, interacts with the Justice League in a small way that makes sense. Finally, we see the larger threat that’s teased on the cover just at the end.

Those final pages are by Francis Manapul, and I’m hoping he’ll be back for more soon, I miss him, though Marcio Takara did fine on the rest of the issue. The story is going in too many directions this time for me, but looks like it will be more focused soon.

Recommended.

Image © Dark Horse Comics.

As evident on the cover, Dark Horse is relaunching some of their superhero titles from years past, and sampling them in this anthology. I don’t buy many Dark Horse Titles other than the Hellboy-related ones, but I do continue to enjoy this sampler of what’s going on at the company. Nice to see that logo again, I believe it’s one I designed for the character in 1992. The story excerpt is one where crime bosses have been targeted by this vigilante assassin, and are sure their defenses will keep them safe…until they don’t. Well done, if violent by writer Duane Swierczynski and artist Eric Nguyen. (Glad I don’t have to letter those names!)

Part 2 of “Alabaster” by Caitlín R. Kiernan and Steve Lieber continues the story of ghosts and evil entities in a small town diner that makes the best BLTs ever. Even so, I don’t recommend eating there. Great stuff.

In Part 3 of “The Deep Sea,” the survivors of a deep dive have been unexpectedly rescued after decades under the sea, and the vessel that found them is under attack by huge, scary creatures. The story by Palmiotti and Gray is good, but the art by Akins and Mounts seems to have gone off the rails this time, very loose and sketchy, and confusing layouts and storytelling, leaving me unsure of what exactly happened in places.

Part 2 of “Gamma” is an odd mix of cute animals and monster hunters. Didn’t work for me.

Part 2 of Captain Midnight by Joshua Williamson & Victor Ibañez worked great on all levels, smart writing about a smart character who shows why he was a hero back when, ready to take advantage of the situation when the modern-day military underestimates him.

A segment of “Mind Mgmt” by Matt Kindt is well told, though I don’t care for the art style.

Part 4 of “Crime Does Not Pay: City of Roses” is well told and well drawn by Phil Stanford and Patric Reynolds. Crime fiction is not very appealing to me, but this story carried my interest anyway.

Part 2 of a new “Resident Alien” storyline by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse is great stuff. There’s something intriguing about this soap-opera approach to the characters with only the reader aware that one of them is an alien, as seen very clearly in the art. Kind of the opposite of the old twist ending, here we start with the reveal, and then the story rolls along as if it wasn’t there at all, mostly. Looking forward to more.

Part 1 of “Station to Station” throws us into a disaster of epic proportions and then begins to unravel how it happened. Looks like scientific experiments gone wrong so far, but what’s that weird creature? Interesting opening by Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman.

“The White Suits” is a spy vs. spy story set in Russia that doesn’t appeal to me much, but the art looks good.

Overall, not a bad issue. I have to say the variety of material is less than in the past, and the number of continued stories make it hard to recommend this issue as a starting point for new readers, but in general this is a great anthology and recommended.

Image © DC Comics, Inc.

Arthur Curry is still having a tough time as king of Atlantis. A group of former king Orm’s friends are working secretly to return him to the throne, an old friend refuses to help Aquaman in his effort to track down dealers in Atlantean weapons on the surface, and then there’s this guy on the cover, who certainly looks the part of Atlantean King! Meanwhile, Mera has her own problems, not only with the guy above, but someone from her past. Geoff Johns continues to deliver a great mix of action, intrigue and character development in this title. The art by Paul Pelletier and Sean Parsons is fine, too.

Recommended.

Image © Boom Entertainment and Roger Langridge.

While the characters in this book have their origin in the work of Lewis Carroll (The “Alice” books and “The Hunting of the Snark”), it’s a Roger Langridge comic all the way, and that makes it a great one. Roger has a talent for writing and drawing funny stories, and an equal talent for appealing characters. Even the supposed villains of the piece are appealing, including the famous Snark, which finally shows up in this third and final collection. Scarlett, the daughter of the lost Red King has come with the crew of the ship “Hope” and the Walrus and Carpenter to Snark Island to find and rescue her father. She has pursued this path with singular resolve, despite all kinds of funny and frustrating twists and turns in the plot, and finally the King is found. Trouble is, he doesn’t want to be rescued! He’s quite happy in the Snark’s cave, avoiding all his kingly duties for the first time in his life. Meanwhile, everyone else other than Scarlett has their eyes on the Snark’s vast treasure and are making plans to get some of it and bring it home, if they can avoid being eaten first!

Great stuff, and a book all ages will enjoy. Highly recommended, though of course you’ll want to read volumes 1 and 2 first.

Image © Mike Mignola.

Usually I don’t go for stories where the main characters are miserable. For some reason, in the Hellboy universe, I do. Perhaps it’s because each of the agents of the B.P.R.D. are compensating for their own unhappiness by throwing everything they have into fighting monsters and protecting their world. In this “Hell on Earth” series, the monsters are so pervasive and powerful, the cause seems almost pointless, but they all carry on anyway as best they can. This book has two storylines. One focuses on a new agent trying to bring in a girl with psychic “hunches” that keep her one step ahead of trouble. There’s so much trouble around them that even her ability isn’t enough, though. In the other storyline, the ghostly Kraus in his fragile containment suit is leading a group of newer agents on a hunt for a werewolf in the forests of Canada. The werewolf is someone he knows well, making the story even sadder.

There’s not much good news in this book, but you will find compelling writing, suspense, thrills, and fine art by Tyler Crook and James Harren. Recommended.

Images © Bryan Talbot.

The third of Bryan Talbot’s GRANDVILLE albums is just as wonderful as the first two. If you’ve read those, you can move on to something else. If you haven’t, read on.

The realm of anthropomorphic animals, in other words animals that act like humans, has a long tradition going back at least to Eve and the serpent, and Aesop’s Fables. Even in comics, it’s a long tradition, with characters like Britain’s Rupert Bear and America’s Disney animals. When you give them very human bodies below their animal heads, the range narrows some, but there are two masterful new series using that technique, Spain’s BLACKSAD by Juan Díaz Canales (writer) and Juanjo Guarnido (artist) and England’s GRANDVILLE by Bryan Talbot. While BLACKSAD is very film noir and 1940s, GRANDVILLE is more Sherlock Holmes in Paris.

an homage to “Wind in the Willows,” the evil mastermind behind BETE NOIR’S villainy is a toad reminiscent of that book, but much crueler. Baron Krapaud has a plan to take over the government of France by force, and it’s a fiendishly clever one. Meanwhile, Detective-Inspector LeBrock has been called in on a locked room murder case in Grandville (Bryan’s Paris) that has the local police baffled. While investigating he runs into an old flame, Billie, a call-girl making extra money posing for artists. As LeBrock and his assistant Roderick delve into Grandville’s many levels of society searching for answers, LeBrock and Billie’s relationship develops. Soon, more murders begin to up the stakes as the plans for revolution are revealed, leading to war in the streets!

There’s also a steampunk element to the story, and some really clever mysteries and problem-solving, all wonderfully drawn by Bryan. This oversized album is full of great art and great reading on every page. You don’t really need to have read the previous albums to enjoy this one, but you’ll want to.

Highly recommended.

Image © Eric Shanower.

It’s been quite a while since I was able to read an issue of AGE OF BRONZE, but despite the large cast of characters, many of whom look somewhat alike (no superhero costumes here), I had no trouble getting back into the story. Of course, the inside cover synopsis helps, but mostly it’s because Eric is really good at retelling this mammoth story.

Not only is it mammoth because it’s a war with hundreds of speaking characters, it’s mammoth because Eric is folding in not only the story told by Homer in “The Iliad,” but other stories within that story as embellished and expanded by other writers. This time the focus is on Troilus and Cressida, two troubled lovers made famous by the Shakespeare play, and not really in the old Greek legends at all. Cressida’s father has decided he wants to defect and join the Greeks, but Cressida has fallen in love with Troilus, son of the king of Troy. Father and daughter are given up to the Greeks in a prisoner exchange, which naturally does not make the couple happy. Once in the Greek camp, the pretty young maiden is beset with romantic offers from many of the Greek warriors, which only makes things worse. Meanwhile, the battle rages on outside the walls of the mighty city, and heroes fight and fall.

Of course you really need to start this epic at issue 1, but this one is just as good as the rest, with fine art and writing. Recommended.

Image © DC Comics, Inc.

There are some characters from the golden age of comics with now-embarrassing or silly names. One of them is kissing Power Girl on this cover. Writer Paul Levitz gets around that by never mentioning the name at all, in fact it took me a while to remember who this guy with the floating T balls is: Mr. Terrific. I guess no name is better than that. Huntress and Power Girl are putting together the pieces of a puzzle in which he’s a major figure…or is he? The reveal at the end of the issue says something else is going on here! Something that should make the next issue interesting.

The art this time is by three new artists, only one of which is familiar to me: Barry Kitson. His pages are terr…wonderful, the others not so much. The look of the characters changes too much from one artist to another to work for me. I expect this is a fill-in, artistically.

Mildly recommended.

Image © DC Comics, Inc.

I’ve heard good things about this series which I haven’t been reading, so I decided to try the first collection. The writer, China Miéville is a well-known science fiction writer, but I haven’t read any of his work, this was the first. The gimmick of this book in its original incarnation was the great variety of heroic personae the lead could dial up in a moment, usually several per issue. The revamp is more complicated than that, with a loser-type, Nelson Jent, discovering the magic dial by accident in a phone booth, and spending much of this book trying to figure it all out, with help from another dial-holder, and lots of hindrance from various characters who either want to kill him, or get the dial for themselves. While there are some comic moments, most of the story is played serious and violent. Miéville is very creative with his hero personae, almost to the point of parody, but they are entertaining. And while there are lots of mysteries and unanswered questions, some idea of how the dial works and why emerges by the end.

If the art all looked like the cover, I’d be calling this a pure winner, but unfortunately the main interior artist, Mateus Santolouco’s work does not appeal to me. His characters are all rather ugly, but what bothers me most is a kind of Plastic Man feel to them, in that their shapes and features move around in an nonhuman manner from panel to panel. The grasp of anatomy is uneasy, and the style is loose and sketchy, just the opposite of Brian Bolland’s covers. I liked the art of David Lapham and Riccardo Burchielli—each on one issue—better, and would be more inclined to continue reading if one of them were the main artist. Wish it wasn’t so, but good writing does not always triumph over art I don’t care for.

Mildly recommended.