And now, the best of the stuff I picked up this week. Facing down a fairly large pull, and a lot I wanted to cover, so I added in a couple of new categories in order to give every book a fair shot.
Book Most Ruined By A Podcast This Week:
IT'S A TIE! RED SKULL: INCARNATE AND UNCANNY X-MEN
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| Red Skull: Incarnate #1, art by Mirko Colak, colors by Matthew Wilson Uncanny X-Men #540, art by Greg Land, |
This one requires a bit of prior knowledge, but the short version is Greg Pak's Red Skull: Incarnate is a very dark, serious book about post-WW1/pre-WW2 Germany, setting up the childhood of the man who would become Red Skull, without a whole lot in it I shouldn't be laughing at. So of course the first panel on the first page has me accidentally cracking up, all because of three words: "bag of salt". Specifically, three words that have become a running gag on War Rocket Ajax, in the episode of the same name featuring Let's Be Friends Again's Chris Haley and Curt Franklin, who originally suggested a bag of salt was the most important thing to have in case you get sent back in time to "the olds world" or you "just need to cure some meat", pushing an episode that had already driven off the rails so much further off said rails that the very concept of rails themselves were forgotten as the archaic conceit of a more civilized time.
Similarly, the Awesomed By Comics podcast (probably my favorite comic-book podcast) had a hand in screwing up my reading of Uncanny X-Men. While I enjoyed the issue overall, Greg Land's art is distracting as always, particularly in the Emma/Namor scene and the fact that Magick and Emma were nearly indistinguishable. ABCP has, in their long run, had a recurring segment of listening in on Greg Land's fictitious podcast, Watching Porn With Greg Land (starting in episode 49), whose theme song now makes sure I giggle my way through a Greg Land comic instead of groan. Although I can't rightly say this ruined the comic, as, like I said on Twitter, the only thing that can really ruin a Land comic is Land.
Best Art Trip This Week:
THUNDERBOLTS
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| Thunderbolts #160, art by Declan Shalvey, colors by Frank Martin Jr. |
In order to combat the Worthy-fied Juggernaut, Satana sends Ghost inside Juggernaut himself, leading to a beautiful, strange journey through Cain's psyche. If this isn't Declan Shalvey on art for this segment, I haven't yet been able to find anyone else to credit it to, but if it the abstract style and even more jarring the switch from his regular style to this in impressive to say the least.
Best Puppy-Dog Eyes This Week:
TONI CHU
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| Chew #19, art by Rob Guillory, color assists by Taylor Wells |
Toni's easily been my favorite character in Chew since she was introduced back in #15. BONUS TONI (AND TONY):
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| Chew #19, art by Rob Guillory, color assists by Taylor Wells |
There was maybe one other character who was as adorable this week, but he just happened to win our next category.
Best Musical Number This Week:
KING SHARK (HE'S A SHARK)
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| Secret Six #35, art by J. Calafiore, colors by John Kalisz |
Loved Secret Six this month, but had a hard time fitting it into any superlatives, and almost didn't want to say too much this week because I'm sure I'll be blubbering (HA, SHARK PUN (because he eats some in the issue (blubber, that is))) at length about the next (and final) issue next month.
Best Reveal(s) This Week:
PROJECT: SUPERMAN
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| Flashpoint #3, art by Andy Kubert, inks by Sandra Hope, colors by Alex Sinclair |
I don't want to say too much for anyone who hasn't read Flashpoint #3 yet, but I loved the double-reveal of the group first finding "Subject 2" (or what's left of him), then "Subject 1" waiting down in the vault.
And now, the main categories:
Best Cover:
CHEW
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| Chew #19, cover art by Rob Guillory |
I was tempted to give this to Red Skull: Incarnate because I'm a sucker for some faux-propaganda work, but a cover's job is to catch people's eyes while it's sitting on the shelf, and this week that would have to be Chew #19. That the Guillory art is awesome goes without saying at this point. The color is what nets it the Best Cover slot, however. That green on this cover is insanely vibrant; my scanner couldn't even capture it, it ended up so teal it was almost blue, and I had to recolor it myself to even approximate what the physical object is like. This is probably going to be the brightest comic around until books start getting printed with some kind of LED-paper.
Best Art This Week:
FEAR ITSELF
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| Fear Itself #4, art by Stuart Immonen, inks by Wade Von Grawbadger, colors by Laura Martin |
Again, Guillory does incredible work every time Chew comes out, as does Skottie Young and Jean-Francois Beaulieu on Ozma of Oz, but when it comes down to it Stuart Immonen is absolutely killing it on Fear Itself. I wish I could say I was loving the book overall as much as I'm loving the art, but while my problem with the narrative is that it jumps around quickly with little focus on any one scene for too long, contrawise it's giving Immonen a real chance to shine. He's drawing a massive variety of characters and locales, from Nekkrod in Canada to Cap in NYC to Iron Man in Asgard, all of which look amazing.
Best Digital Comic This Week:
ALL-NIGHTER
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| All-Nighter #1, cover art by David Hahn |
This was kind of an easy one because I only picked up one new* digital comic this week. I have noticed that, aside from sales like last week's Vertigo sale on Comixology, that the majority of digital comics I'm dropping money on are from Image. There are a lot of mitigating factors I'm sure, including whether or not my shop bothered to pick up the print issue in the first place and how lazy I am about hunting it down otherwise, but they also keep putting out some great new series with a good digital turnaround time even on the titles that aren't day-and-date, and Image has become my go-to publisher for digital comics.
All-Nighter is the next title in that series of books I missed in the shops and grabbed on my iPod instead. This was a nice book, both well-written and beautifully-drawn by David Hahn, telling the story of Kit, a young punk girl dealing with her young punk life, dealing with her roommates, her family, her somewhat-boyfriend and her past. More than anything, the characters and situations felt very real without dragging it down to earth so much so the story stays compelling and fun.
*Again, "new" here meaning two weeks since the print comic came out.
Best First Issue This Week:
RED SKULL: INCARNATE
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| Red Skull: Incarnate #1, cover art by David Aja |
I didn't want my only mention of this book on here to be "bag of salt", because this is a good book and by the time the series (five issues) is done, I have a feeling this is going to be one of the more powerful stories Marvel has put out. In my comparisons to Marvel and DC, Marvel has always been the goofier younger brother with a reticence to put out anything particularly dark and serious. This is a dark, uncomfortable book. While firmly routed in the Marvel universe, telling the origins of the Red Skull Johann Schmidt, it is also firmly routed in the reality of Germany during the rise of the Nazi party, told from the point of view of a child growing up in the tumultuous time. In Greg Pak's own words, this book is "as historically accurate as possible in the hopes that it can help further conversation about this critical time period." Mirko Colak's art and Matthew Wilson's coloring are both strong on this book, especially in the final scene as the rain starts pouring and the atmosphere, of both the physical world and the narrative grows darker, and Aja did a great job on all the propaganda-poster covers. I usually read fun books and this is not a fun book, but it certainly is kicking off a great story.
Best Last Issue This Week:
SPIDER-GIRL
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| Spider-Girl #8, cover art by Jelena Djurdjevic |
Both Ozma of Oz and Paul Tobin's Spider-Girl wrapped up their eight-issue series this week, though while it was known Ozma was a limited series, Spider-Girl's demise was a bit of a harsher and more unexpected blow when the news of its cancellation first came down a few months ago. I enjoyed this series for the most part, and even when I wasn't digging it I knew I'd want to read more, once the road evened out, but if every issue of Spider-Girl was as good as this last one I'd be actively mourning it's loss. A lot of books lately I've enjoyed more as an arc than any of their single issues combined, my key example has been Batman Inc, which I had my ups and downs but when that sixth issue hit and tied everything together the entire series finally just jibed as a whole. Spider-Girl squarely falls into that camp. I don't know if this story needed to be eight issues long, and I'm sure elements like the cancellation and the effect Infestation/Spider Island took on the direction of the series affected the content of the book, but once the story was done, it justified the path it took to get there. And while not specifically marketed as such, this is as much a prologue issue to Spider Island (which as you'll see in a second, I am quite excited about) as it is the final issue of its own series, before being reborn in a beautiful spider-cocoon as the Spider Island Spider-Girl mini-series this summer-fall. Additionally, the art in this issue was more consistent than a lot of the series, which was something that hurt a lot of the previous issues in my eyes.
Best Event Tie-In:
THE DAILY BUGLE: SPIDER ISLAND
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| The Daily Bugle: Spider-Island |
No, wait, hear me out: I love Spider-Man. That's... about all there is to it, actually. I started reading the main Flashpoint series, which I am actually enjoying, I am... not as enamored with Fear Itself anymore as I should like to be, and while I enjoyed the Uncanny X-Men and to a greater extent Thunderbolts tie-ins, nothing that came out today got me as ramped up for their respective Events as this little promotional pamphlet (available free at comic shops and on ComiXology for iOS devices) did for Spider Island. It has previews of Amazing Spider-Man #666 and #667 (with Caselli and Ramos on art respectively), summaries for most of the Spider Island tie-in titles (including the Spider-Girl series that the above Spider-Girl got cancelled to make way for) and interviews with Dan Slott and Rick Remender. And I know I'm usually against event comics but again, I'm unabashedly biased; I absolutely love what Slott's done since taking over the series, but this looks SO GOOD, you guys. And it's not making any promises that when this ends Nothing Will Ever Be The Same Again. There's even an ad for the Avenging Spider-Man that starts up post-Spider-Island with the status quo looking more or less quo'd. Plus, hey, it's free! The other event books are trying just as hard to act as advertisements for their tie-ins, but at least I didn't have to pay $4 for this one.
Best Comic:
JONAH HEX
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| Jonah Hex #69, cover art by Jeff Lemire, colors by Dave McCaig |
This was harder to pick than I expected, with plenty of great issues this week but no bright and shining issue sticking out from the rest of the pack. I have mentioned them on here at all yet, but I'd be remissed to not at least in passing point out Hulk #36 and Moon Knight #3, while unable to be shoehorned into silly categories, were both excellent; the former bringing new takes on classic Hulk villains with the return of Zzzax and the new generation of MODOK with Jeff Parker continually surprising me with his ability to make me care about Red Hulk, no matter how much of this series I read, while MK provides some more fun in the world of LA espionage and television production (this... this is a Moon Knight book, right?) with Bendis' snappy dialogue at its best, making me feel like it'd be more at home on TV than reading it in a book, even one with art as nice as Maleev's (though that does fill me with hope concerning his upcoming Powers series).
The real stand-out for me this week, though, was Jonah Hex #69. I do love a good western story, and that is exactly what this delivered. I really don't want to talk too much about what's in it, as giving away the surprises would spoil some of the fun, but after a slightly-deceptive prologue the story takes a hard left into territories both unsettling and delightful; going from slightly uncomfortable to laughing out loud at a page-by-page or even panel-by-panel basis. The one thing I'm learning is Lemire's art is an acquired taste. With his Frankenstein book coming down the pipe and the Vertigo sale on, I picked up a few issues of Sweet Tooth recently, and it was initially abrasive and harsh to look at, a rough style I'm not wholly used to seeing on books from the Big Two. However, as I grew accustomed to it, it's charms start to eek out and there is definitely an odd charm to it, a certain amount of grotesque beauty. And that's a perfect fit for Hex, especially this story which has a lot more character work than action to it.
Man-Thing Of The Week:
MAN-THING
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| Thunderbolts #160, art by Declan Shalvey, colors by Frank Martin Jr. |
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