Detective Comics is a title that has seen some incredible highs in the last few years. Between Greg Rucka and Scott Snyder it was a book that deserved to be the headliner for the company. As one of the New 52, is it still as good? The answer to that is more complicated than I expected. The things I like about it are pretty good but the things that I don't like are really, really bad.
OK, so a couple of unkind reviews from me of late. Does that mean I hate the whole New 52? No, not at all. Does it mean that I only enjoy the new characters? Definitely not. Case in point: Wonder Woman is one of my favorite books of the relaunch. I think it's very good, with strong writing, an excellent ambience and fantastic art.
Read on for why this reboot is the first time I've ever subscribed to Wonder Woman!
Grant Morrison's introduction of Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne as the new Dynamic Duo was one of the best things DC has published in the last ten years or so, right up there with Batwoman's reboot and some of the titles that made up Seven Soldiers. The book took a nosedive, however, once Bruce Wayne was back in the suit and it stopped being based on the entertaining interplay of Dick Grayson's good-natured inquisitiveness and Damian's humorous impassivity.
I had high hopes for this book as part of the New 52, hoping that sorta-mostly shedding the narrative dead weight of the setting's accumulated continuity would free the character of Batman to be a little more human and that this book could return to some of that high-flying fun. No such luck. Instead we get yet another title about the trials and tribulations of parenting an exceptional child.
Oh Catwoman, vanguard of controversy in DC's New 52, what did you actually have for us: a fun, dark adventure book or a terrible and exploitative abrogation of character?
Let the record show that not everyone agrees with me on this but I think Catwoman is a pretty fun title and I look forward to reading more. Most of all, in regards to the much-lambasted cat-on-bat sex scene in #1, I think the hype was overdone and the public response a little prudish. Not everything about this book is perfect by any stretch but it is admirably noir - in its story, not just in its presentation - and I see it as a solid result of DC's efforts as long as the overall narrative gets a couple of tires out of the mud. I don't just say that because Winick is such a long-time ally to the queer communities, either. I genuinely think this book has got some fantastic stuff going on.
I really want to like Stormwatch. I mean, who doesn't want to like it? It's Stormwatch! The Midnighter! Apollo! The Engineer! Jenny Quantum, who is at least a reminder of the awesomeness that was Jenny Sparks! Jack Hawksmoor! I am a huge, huge fan of Warren Ellis' original reshaping of the original Stormwatch book into The Authority but something about this book doesn't work for me. The characters don't click like I wish they did and the art? Ugh. Seriously?
I loved Paul Cornell's work on Knight & Squire and I was very, very excited to see that he was writing Demon Knights and that it featured two of my absolute favorite characters: Etrigan and the Shining Knight. I am thrilled to say that it has lived up to my high hopes. Cornell is a master of writing snappy, acrobatic dialogue that jumps between characters and scenes effortlessly. What I didn't expect was that he could wring six really solid issues out of the comics equivalent of a bottle episode.
I spent last Tuesday writing a love letter to Jeff Lemire for his work on Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. but I'm afraid I can't do the same for his reboot of Animal Man. It isn't some fanboy loyalty to Grant Morrison, either, because I've never read his run on the character despite having read about it. For whatever reason, devoid of other context, when I read Animal Man I just don't find myself very engaged. I was really excited to try this title when it first appeared and I liked the first issue but since then it's been more and more of a chore to keep reading. Last week I gave it the axe from my personal pull list because I just didn't care to try anymore.
OK, this book is also super-good. I get a little breathless when I think about it. I don't have a lot of ways to preface my take on it: I get gooseflesh when I read it. No other book in my bag does that to me. When I said earlier this week that Frankenstein has almost everything I want from a comic, that deep, gut-punch of sincere sentiment and chilly thrill is what's missing and Batwoman is the only book under DC's banner that can deliver it so consistently, effectively and beautifully. If this book came out every week I'd buy two copies. Ten years from now there are going to be people who say that Batwoman got them to start reading comics. It has the power to make new readers out of non- which was a part of the whole point of the New 52.
Jeff Lemire and Alberto Ponticelli have given us a gift and there is no way for us to repay them with sufficient thanks. It really is that simple.
No, it's even simpler than that: DC could reboot the whole damned universe every year like clockwork and it would be worth it if it gave us something as good as Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. every time. This book is almost everything I want comics to be and there is no other medium in which this story would work as well.
No, quite the opposite: I've been reading more comics than ever, grad school or no, and biting my tongue about DC's New 52 until such time as I had enough material to be worth reviewing.
What constitutes enough? Nothing less than at least the first five issues. You see, the Internet's self-induced and -enforcing model of insta-reviews so that readers can be told what to buy or leave on the shelf before the shelves are even stocked just doesn't suit me and it sure as hell doesn't suit an event like The New 52. I'm not trying to oversell DC's event, mind you. Rather, I seek to acknowledge two things about the big reboot last year: first, that it was gutsy no matter the output because anything that hyped and weighted with that much potential for customer backlash is gutsy, period, and second that it needed time to develop its own merits before it could be properly judged on them.
A million blog posts were launched on little more than a first issue of one title or another and a shallow impression of what the future might hold for many of them but what the hell is that kind of review worth? I didn't want to know whether some fellow fanboy out there believed Catwoman was doomed from the get-go because they were freaked out by the last page of issue #1 and, similarly, I didn't want to shoot my mouth off about any of the books I've been reading before they had a chance to prove themselves or die trying.
So, as this goes up I am also scheduling automated postings of reviews of the first five or six issues (however many were available when I wrote them) of the following titles:
All-Star Comics
Animal Man
Batman
Batman & Robin
Batwoman
Catwoman
Demon Knights
Detective Comics
Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E.
Stormwatch
Swamp Thing
Wonder Woman
I'm also going to be posting a round-up of the #1's I read that didn't make the cut, long-term, and the #1's I read and said, "I love this, but I have to wait for the trade," and why. I haven't given up on my non-DC comics, either, but I admit that those have been piling up waiting to be read. Once these are done I have, like, months of X-Factor and Secret Avengers and Young Avengers: The Children's Crusade and Hack/Slash (which is just crazy good and if you are't reading it then there is something wrong with the world - something you can fix by reading it).
It's ambitious, I know, which is why this isn't going up until I've got the reviews ready to go, too. Then, through the magic of post scheduling, they'll go up over the next few weeks for your perusal.
I try my hardest to remove myself from my reviews on comics. Analysis works best with a sense of objectivity, especially when the object under review is laden with the creator's personal intimations, as comics often are. Most cinema is made with an attention to the collective viewing experience - and all of television too - but with comics, especially in creator-owned titles, there is only you, passively receiving what the author wants to tell you.
Autobio comics can amplify this effect, as direct reportage of the creator's life story, like heat-seeking empathy missiles that might hit close to home, or at the very least, dazzle you with their alienated force. In Rick Worley's collected A Waste of Time (graciously given to me by the fine guys at the NYCC Prism comics booth, thanks y'all) the diary-like webcomic of the same name re-formats the strip into an epistolary to all of Rick's twink groupies. But it's more than some San Fran gay's catalog of lovers. Its extra-wide presentation allows the four-panel strip to breathe, so that when the seamlessly-integrated full-page portraits make their appearance, it's as if you were flipping through Rick's actual sketchbook. To see the characters talk about the preparation for a sketch, followed by the sketch itself, you're struck with a feeling of veracity. Take the authenticity of Pekar's American Splendor, and blend it with classicist artcomix values, and you get an idea of the beauty behind Rick's book. He even goes so far as to invite all his readers so moved by his work to contact him and be his groupies. Literally fucking with your audience. It's genius.
Fan interaction has been present in comics since the days of the letters columns, but it's come to a head with the reprints of Matt Fraction's Casanova. So far the backmatter has regaled us with Matt's tales of drug addiction and recently, the psychological impact of an accident in his youth. The 2.5 volumes we've seen have always been a post-modernist backlog of Fraction's favorite comics-cultural references, but the most recent issue, Avaritia II, straight up features Fraction himself, interacting with fans at a con before his creation comes to shoot him down. Casanova Quinn's mission is to eradicate all instances of his arch-nemesis Newman Xeno across the multiverse, and wouldn't you know it, a surrogate for Matt himself falls on the hitlist. Newman recurs as a creative type in any universe, and Fraction uses this to explore some very personal insecurities involved in the creative process, whether or not they apply to him directly.
After probing their authors, both these works turn the bloody forceps on us, and ask to dig a little deeper. There's a bit in universe 9.999 (The Fraction/Xeno reality), where, realizing disappointment in an encounter with a fan, pseudo-Faction/pseudo-Newman despondently claims, "OH GREAT." "YOU'RE GONNA GO HOME AND BLOG ABOUT THIS OR WHATEVER". Which describes, too perfectly, my reaction last year to my meeting with series artist Gabriel Bá. This is precisely when comics are at their most beautiful. When the story gets all bug-eyed and sentimental and all you can mutter is "but...me too...". Whether you're inspiring your readers to draw nudes of their boyfriends, or bitching about how hard it can be to write stuff, those are the moments where the emotional investment pays off. Thank you Rick. Thank you Matt. Thank you comics.
Oh, honey, my feet are still tired. I have finally administered myself enough medicinal martinis to get back in the game, though, and I have to tell you I had a pretty freaking fabulous time at Dragon*Con 2011. I did take pictures and you remember that part where I said my phone camera was good enough? Yeah, not so much. Next year I'm sucking it up and taking the real camera. That I am already thinking about next year should be taken as a sign of the kind of time I had, though: a very good time, indeed. The Rainbow Flag Party was packed and lots of queer cosplayers were happy to pose for your intrepid reporter; the gaming track was fantaaaaaaaaaaaastic OHMYGODSOMUCHFUN and I only got in one shoving match with other Con-goers which, given my redneck roots, I count as something of an accomplishment.
Read on for the skinny on this year's trip! Oh, and here's an early caveat: the con staff themselves were extremely and very personally rude to me this year so I feel no real compulsion to be nice for niceness' sake. Every opinion expressed in this post is (a) mine alone and no one else's and (b) as honest as it gets.
Review: Wonder Woman #1 - #5
OK, so a couple of unkind reviews from me of late. Does that mean I hate the whole New 52? No, not at all. Does it mean that I only enjoy the new characters? Definitely not. Case in point: Wonder Woman is one of my favorite books of the relaunch. I think it's very good, with strong writing, an excellent ambience and fantastic art. Read on for why this reboot is the first time I've ever subscribed to Wonder Woman!...
