Best News From Comic-Con International (In Not-really-particularly-ordered List Form)
4. The Amazing Spider-Man panel
Now if you read my post about the Amazing Spider-Man trailer, you know I wasn't exactly won over. The panel went a long more to alleviate my worries, hearing Spidey described as "quippy" and the Lizard looking Ditko-esque (or like Killer Croc, depending on who you talked to). But I think the highlight, or at least the thing that got the most buzz, was Andrew Garfield (Peter Parker)'s entrance to the panel:
And if that wasn't enough, the Lizard's human half, Rhys Ifans was arrested after the panel for his apparent drunken and beligerent behavior as he tried to enter the hall. Though I suppose if he really wanted to channel his inner Lizard, he really should just eat some kids.
3. The book announcements
Aside from DC, who had announced pretty much all of their upcoming books before the con, most major publishers had something to showcase. As for what stuck out to me, amongst their Fear Itself fallout titles, Marvel announced of a Defenders book from Matt Fraction, and Jason Aaron taking over The Incredible Hulk. IDW talked about a Dunwich Horror adpatation that should be "more action-packed and exciting than Lovecraft readers might expect". Dunwich being one of my favorite Lovecraft stories, I'll definitely be picking up this four-issue mini. They'll also be putting out a crossover of their Star Trek licensed comics and DC's Legion of Superheroes, and splitting the license for KISS comics with another company, which will result in the craziest crossover announced during the con: KISS meets Archie.
Among the top picks for me, however would have to be Archaia Comics' Cow Boy, by two of my favorite creators, Nate Cosby and Chris Eliopoulis, about a ten-year-old bounty hunter in the old west. You can see a few preview pages over at the books' Tumblr now. Also, Image had their share of promising announcements, including a Chew spin-off Secret Agent Poyo, about the continuing adventures of the deadly fighting chicken, the squee-worthy news of another Witch Doctor series coming down the line from the Skybound imprint, and Brian K. Vaughan's new creator-owned series Saga, including art from the incredible Fiona Staples.
2. The TV announcements
I think I came away from this con's news cycle more excited about the TV news than the comic stuff, and especially where the two intertwined. Marvel had a lot of news, with live-action Hulk, Jessica Jones, Mockingbird and Cloak and Dagger series coming to ABC, as well as Ultimate Spider-Man and a Hulk-family series, Agents of SMASH coming to the animated front. DC did not have as much, but they did release an extended preview of the new Green Lantern series, which I am slowly warming up to:
The animation... is not pretty, the broad Timm-ian character designs don't translate terribly well into that medium. and besides when they're in the void of space the backgrounds are textureless and lackluster, reminscent of computer-animated series from twenty years, which is something I'd have hoped we'd moved away from long ago. Once you get accustomed to the point that you can tolerate it, however, the rest of the show shines through. The acting and plots seem fine, albeit obviously targeting a younger audience, much in the same way The Brave And The Bold does, and that is one of my favorite animated series in years.
My absolute favorite animated series in recent years, however, is without question Avatar: The Last Airbender, so I was already excited knowing there's a new series coming to continue the series. The trailer for The Legend Of Korra released at the con, though, managed to blow away every expectation I had.
It looks like they've ramped up everything from the original series, from animation quality to action, and for the hell of it dumped in a dose of prohibition-era American gangster film. I've honestly lost count of how many times I've watched this trailer at this point.
Additionally, it was announced Cullen Bunn's Sixth Gun will be getting a series on the Syfy network, which I'll remain cautiously optimistic about until something more has been released about it, and an extended trailer for Walking Dead season two was released:
1. "Retractable pants"
I'm assuming when Cliff Chiang said this at one of the New 52 panels DC held throughout the con it was as a joke, but that doesn't make it any less awesome a phrase.
And now, onto the regular comic superlatives:
Best Cover This Week:
DETECTIVE COMICS
Detective Comics #880, cover art by Jock
Now this is an atypical one, because I won't actually be picking this issue up until probably tomorrow, as my shop's copies were damaged and hopefully they'll have some replacements in by then. But just LOOK at that. Had to give that cover of the week, that was pretty much decided weeks ago when Jock first posted that Twitter. Now I just have to actually read the book before I inevitably find out what happens online somewhere.
Best Art This Week:
STEFANO CASELLI, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
Amazing Spider-Man #666, written by Dan Slott, art by Stefano Caselli, colors by Marte Gracia, letters by Joe Caramagna
I was close to giving this to Olivier Coipel on Mighty Thor, since as always he's doing an amazing job on that book, but I just kept coming back to Caselli's work on Spider-Man this week. Spider-bias aside, Caselli, along with Marte Gracia's coloring, does some amazing work in here; brilliant, exaggerated figures and expressions without venturing too far into the realm of stylized cartoonishness. I seriously love the way he captures faces, and I'm happy to just have his characters sitting around talking, yelling or playing poker...
... as I am when they're embroiled in action from the basic acrobatics and webslinging, to the two-page spread of Spidey and the current Madame Webb fighting around Shang-Chi's dojo in a Spidified version of the Matrix's "I know kung-fu" scene. This issue acts as the prologue to the events of Spider Island, and as such it's jam-packed with the various plot points that need to be introduced before the arc really kicks off. This leaves Caselli with a lot to draw, not to mention cameos from the Future Foundation, the Avengers and Young Allies on top of Spidey's regular supporting cast and he does an excellent job with all of it. With the rotating artists on this book, I'm always sad to see Caselli go, but it helps that he's being relieved by Humberto Ramos.
Best Digital Comic This Week:
ELDRITCH!
Eldritch! #2, written by Aaron Alexovich, art by Drew Rausch
This was another light week for digital books, so I overcompensated by finishing volumes of Turf and Finals on ComiXology, and Hexed on Graphic.ly, but I noticed the second issue of Eldritch! had gone up on mydigitalcomics.com, so I grabbed that pretty readily. The winner of Zuda's webcomic competition, and survivor of the digital imprint's collapse, the six issue series, unlike most of the books I've been picking up, is being released exclusively digital, through Alexovich's website or most digital comic distributors. Not really being aware of Zuda until it no longer existed, I missed out on this and I'm pretty late to the party, but after seeing a bit of this book, there really wasn't a question that I was going to pick this up. The first thing that really struck me was the art, far more evocative of animated series' character design, particularly around Jhonen Vasquez's ZIM era (which Alexovich also worked on) than a lot of comics or even its webcomic ilk, but in no way comes across as derivative. It's delightfully cartoony, juxtaposed to the Lovecraftian overtones of the book, which is ever my favorite Reeses' Peanut Butter Cup of comicdom. The story is sister versus brother, science and logic versus the arcane and demonic, all buried deep in the wasteland of modern suburban California. Comics Alliance posted a preview a few months back, but at $0.99 an issue, I think it's worth taking a chance on.
Additionally, Gladstone's School For World Conqueror's #3 went up on ComiXology, and that book remains as awesome as the first two issues. Also, I saw they put up Fables #69, which wraps up the Good Prince story arc, which only served to remind me how much I loved that book. You probably need to have read all of Fables up to that point (which really, you should anyways) to really get the impact of Flycatcher's journey, how he got to that point and what he goes through, but that is without question my favorite arc throughout Fables and its spin-offs, before or since, and easily one of my favorite comic volumes of all time.
Best Event Tie-In This Week:
SECRET AVENGERS
Secret Avengers #15, written by Nick Spencer, art by Scot Eaton, inks by Jaime Mendoza, colors by Frank D'Armata, letters by Dave Lanphear
I was about to give this one to Spider-Man for the Spider-Island prologue just out of tradition, but I mulled it over and this one edged it out a bit, because unlike a lot of books, this one was, for lack of a better word, interesting. It was almost hard to consider this one a tie-in, as it could function very well as a stand-alone issue but I suppose that's part of what makes it so good. Along with the rest of Spencer's run on the series so far, the Secret Avenger's Fear Itself tie-ins have all been one-shot comics focusing on a different member of the team. The first two, Beast and Valkyrie, were deep in the middle of Blitzkrieg USA, but Black Widow's issue here takes things in a different direction. Breaking into the offices of a tabloid claiming to have proof Bucky Barnes was still alive, Natasha gets into an argument with the staff about the nature of death in their universe, and the differences between the super-folk and regular people, or on another, more self-aware level, the differences between characters and extras. It didn't offer any answers, and presented both sides of an argument that it's hard to say you come down on either side of. In the end, this didn't move Fear Itself forward at all, it wasn't action-packed (even though Natasha was usually drawn standing in some fairly dramatic poses) but it was an engaging issue that raises some of the questions that must be asked when these characters live in a world where death seems so ephemeral.
Best Comic This Week:
VENOM
Venom #5, written by Rick Remender, art by Tony Moore and Tom Fowler, inks by Crimelab Studios and John Rauch, letters by Joe Caramagna
Venom's first story arc wraps up with a story that spends almost no time with Flash Thompson suited up in the Symbiote. After saving a senator's daughter from c-grade villain the Human Fly in a segment drawn by Tony Moore, the art duties are tossed over to Tom Fowler as the issue itself turns over to Flash, seperated from the suit, dealing with his issues, past and present, with his abusive, alcoholic father. It's a realistic look at the strains alcoholism can put on one relationship, and how that can spread out to other relationships, taking a look how it shaped Flash's years as a bully, his own alcholism and rage issues, and how this affects his relationship with his mother, girlfriend Betty and friends like Peter Parker. The superhero aspects of the title are completely cast aside, and after the opening sequence there's nothing that happens in this book that couldn't be happening anywhere in our world right now. This is what seperates Remender's Venom from previous attempts at the character, the importance is placed on the person in the suit instead of the suit itself, to the point that an issue almost devoid of the Symbiote might be the best issue so far. It's stark and emotional and powerful and it's in the same run as Venom fighting a crazed Kraven in the Savage Land. When I wrote my post about Venom, and predicted Remender was going to redeem the character, I really had no idea how good it was going to be. And as I mentioned, this book features both Tony Moore and Tom Fowler on art. This book's been bouncing between the two in an effort to keep the title on schedule, and while sometimes you might worry that you're getting Artist B when you wanted Artist A, in this case both are amazing artists who fit the book perfectly. They even compliment each other to the point that, when they're both in the same issue, it doesn't interrupt the reading one bit. Altogether, this book has taken Venom from a unweildy '90s throwback to one of Marvel's must-read books, and this issue is a perfect jumping-on point.
Best Comics That I Didn't Talk About:
BEST OF THE REST
I didn't grab too too many issues this week, but there were a few that still didn't get brought up in here, so here's the quickie reviews for those I missed:
-X-Men Schism #2 (Jason Aaron, Frank Cho) is starting to show the stress that will leading to the titular divide, as Scott and Logan try to deal with the Sentinels activating all over the world. Meanwhile, the new Hellfire club is starting to act on their plan, whatever it may be. Not quite as compelling as the first issue, but it's the beginning of the chess game, as the pieces are moving into place, and it still had some good moments.
-The Mighty Thor #4 (Matt Fraction, Olivier Coipel) is another great issue for this series, focusing mainly on what happens when two higher beings such as Odin and Galactus meet in combat, while Thor and the Silver Surfer duke it out in a more terrestial fashion (despite being on Mars). Coipel's and Laura Martin's color knock it out of the park on this issue. My only complaint, if you can call it that: needs more Volstagg. The issue was packed, but I still thought it could have more than touched down on the "battle" in Broxton.
-Godzilla: Kingdom Of Monsters #5 (Eric Powell and Tracy Marsh, Victor Santos) I'm really loving this series so far, told in a series of small moments and vignettes around the monsters' destruction rather than focusing on the monsters themselves. It seems to be building to something, but very few of these focal characters survive long enough to really put too much together yet. I'm liking Santos' art but must admit I'm going to miss Hester on this book. Dude could draw a 'Zilla.
-Flashpoint: Project Superman #2 (Scott Snyder and Lowell Francis, Gene Ha) changed focus this issue a bit, with the arrival of "Subject 1", or Kal, to the Project. We see a great deal of what led to the events of Flashpoint #3, but it's still years in the past and we have yet to see the fate of Subject Zero, exactly where the Project acquired their knowledge to build him and why he seems to have turned into a ten-foot-tall Super Saiyan (Perhaps someone more versed in DC lore than I would be able to piece all this together). A fine issue, but once again suffering from Issue Two Syndrome. Sometimes I don't get why books don't just jump from issue one to three.
MAN-THING
Art by James Kaminski, from the Covered blog. Just because this was the only Man-Thing I came across this week doesn't make it any less special.
No comments:
Post a Comment