By Zack Quaintance — I am always caught by surprise by holidays, which consistently leaving me feeling more worn out than they do rejuvenated for reasons I struggle to understand. Anyway, point is I’m here, a little worse for the Thanksgiving ware. I am, however, totally ready to let you know about the books that our committee (of one) has selected as the Top Comics to Buy for December 4, 2019.
Read MoreFrom the start, Christopher Priest's run on Deathstroke has been about fatherhood and regrets.
By Zack Quaintance — This week’s Deathstroke #33 made absolutely clear what writer Christopher Priest’s run on this book has long been about: regret and fatherhood. The comic’s current arc posits Damian Wayne may be the son of Slade Wilson Deathstroke, rather than Bruce Wayne Batman. The truth is foggy (and probably doesn’t matter), but in searching for answers, Damian joins with Slade, subsequently ushering in a poignant moment of growth for our central character, which is what we’re looking at today.
See, even now Slade continues to insist any involvement with Damian is because the boy can help with the only thing that matters to him: working as a mercenary/assassin. This is telling. Throughout this run, Slade has taken the same attitude toward many youngsters, some of whom are biological children and some of whom are surrogates (more below). This time, however, something changes.
Ed Benes expertly illustrates the regret on Slade's face as he sleeps atop a gun that serves as metaphor for his violent lifestyle.
Wintergreen—arguably Slade’s only real friend—guilt trips him about Damian, telling him the boy is...grandson of Ra’s Al Ghul—raised by the League of Assassins...his own mother had him killed once, Slade...this is a severely damaged young boy. We don’t see Slade react, not immediately, but artist Ed Benes soon illustrates a closeup of Slade’s concerned face, his head on a pillow with a gun beneath it as young Damian intones rhetoric about being a warrior, sounding both traumatized and borderline insane (standard for Damian, but still…).
There’s a clear implication: Slade is recalling past kids who’ve been damaged in his care, as far back as his first fight with the Teen Titans (which is in continuity again?). Protecting children—or failing to—has been central to Deathstroke from his start, and so Priest logically centers this run on the deaths, losses, disillusionment, all of which is traumatizing, even for one as hardened as Slade.
Change, however, does occur. When Damian is nearly lost in a magical shadow realm that causes insanity (yay for superhero comics!), Slade hears echoes of Wintergreen’s words—this is a severely damaged young boy—and saves Damian. Got you! After so many failures—some due to selfishness, others to circumstance—it’s a powerful moment of growth. It’s also expert storytelling patiently executed by Priest. So, with that in mind, let’s look now at the narrative tools that helped build this payoff.
The simplest tool Priest uses is depicting Deathstroke as removed from the pain he has suffered. Essentially, Slade Wilson’s constant insistence that young people in his life mean less than nothing is an invincible Ikon suit for his feelings. Whereas the actual suit protects his body, his repeated insistence he doesn’t care protects his psyche, also distancing him from past regrets.
Slade is a cold person, to be sure. He kills for money, etc. Being emotionally removed is obvious. To flesh Slade out, however, Priest also cracks his exterior, putting hesitation or clumsiness near his worst moments, including when he alienates his young hero team Defiance (a who’s who of kids he’s failed), or when he contracts a hit to get closer to his estranged daughter. Priest puts in work to build a compelling dichotomy within Slade, showing rather than telling us he is conflicted by peppering subtle but consistent moments throughout this lengthy run.
Those aforementioned moments are best examined via the other kids involved with Slade before Damian, specifically by looking at how Deathstroke fails them each. They are..
The first panel of Priest's run: Slade's doomed son Grant in the cold, being cast away for weakness by his father.
Grant Wilson (biological son): It’s incredibly significant the first panel of Priest’s run (back in the Deathstroke Rebirth one-shot!) is Slade’s now-dead son Grant curled in a fetal position, cold and alone in a truck during a hunting trip. Slade bursts in and demeans the boy, the least grandiose of his failings. He’s just a bad dad, insensitive, uncaring, mean-spirited, but it creates an effective starting point for his hero’s journey. For full effect, compare Slade then to the man who saves Damian Wayne...powerful.
How Deathstroke Fails Him: Slade’s cold (heh) parenting pushes Grant to run away, join H.I.V.E., and get superpowers that later cost him his life.
Joseph Wilson (biological son): Having the most interactions with Slade, Joseph (a.k.a. Jericho) also has the relationship that is arguably most complicated. Of all the kids in Slade’s orbit, Joey is possibly most like him, although obviously not as cold.
How Deathstroke Fails Him: When Joey is young, The Jackal comes looking for Slade, finds Joey, and slits his throat. When he’s older, Slade sleeps with his fiance (it was complicated, but still…), and the list goes on from there.
Rose Wilson (biological daughter): Rose is the first character that causes a real crack in Slade, showing us growth from the painful mistakes made with his sons. His methods are clumsy, but, ultimately, Slade is trying to get closer to Rose.
How Deathstroke Fails Her: He’s absent most of her life. As an adult, he puts a hit on her so they can investigate it together, assuming it won’t endanger her because she’s clairvoyant (but still…).
Wally West a.k.a. Kid Flash: Deathstroke comes into Wally’s life as a fatherly mentor, which makes sense because Wally’s own biological father was an actual villain.
How He Fails Him: By letting Defiance fall apart, leading to an apparent suicide by Power Girl (more next). Basically, he was not a great mentor.
Power Girl a.k.a. Tanya Spears: Power Girl’s case is the saddest of this bunch. She has little else in her life, before being set upon by Slade, who oscillates wildly between helping her and needing help, misleading her throughout.
How He Fails Her: Slade deceives her constantly, taking one redemptive step forward and two back, before putting her on a path to being lost in another dimension (I think?).
Time jumps are used to great effect throughout this Deathstroke run, using the past to convey Slade's interiority.
Priest has a unique style, jumping fitfully through time. This is fairly common in superhero comics. Priest, however, uses more precision than most writers. If Deathstroke is consumed by regret over failing young people around him, his head would logically be in the past. There are myriad examples of how Priest shows this, but perhaps the most effective is in the Rebirth one-shot, wherein a man begs for life, telling Deathstroke, I have sons...and Slade hesitates, recalling the long ago hunting trip and his lost boy. It expertly sets the tone for how meaningful flashbacks will be moving forward, for how Slade’s past will inform his present and future for the next 30-plus issues.
Ultimately, it’s this flashback structure that is Priest’s most interesting use of graphic storytelling, deployed not just for exposition but to convey our hero’s interiority, especially in memories of that cold day Slade took his sons hunting, how he treated them, and how he could/should have been a better man. The setting is frigid and so is Slade, and as the story progresses, this significance becomes painfully clear in the context of Deathstroke’s flawed decisions.
Lastly, I'm predicting the Deathstroke vs. Batman arc is a finale for Priest’s run on this book (my predictions are always wrong, but still...). Issue #35 drops in September, concluding the Damian Wayne story while possibly bringing to a head all of Slade’s issues with fatherhood, responsibility, trauma. There’s an interesting mirror structure between Deathstroke #33 and Deathstroke #4, which share similar openings—Slade disguised on a road trip with a kid.
The opening to Deathstroke #4.
The opening to Deathstroke #33.
Could the entire run be mirrored? Is it winding down the way it was ramping up the last time we saw this opening? We’ll see.I’ve said many times that I hope Priest gets a long character-defining strech on Deathstroke, a la Jason Aaron on Thor, but if this is how it ends, I’ll be satisfied with all he has accomplished. It’s so rare that a superhero (supervillain?) comic gets to show this many careful and quiet moments of hard-earned personal growth.
Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.
Although the stories and good work of DC Rebirth are likely to continue, today’s release of Damage #1—the first book of DC’s fresher initiative, New Age of DC Heroes—marks a next phase for the publisher, similar to how the New 52 segued into DC You.
There are plenty of questions about this new phase, including whether the books will last, whether the superstar artists will stay past the early issues, and whether the publisher is forgetting that Rebirth succeeded by paring down and simplifying its line. These discussions are likely to continue long into the coming weeks and months, but, in our opinion, what they boil down to is whether DC is risking throwing away what worked in Rebirth for the sake of newer books.
With that in mind, we think it’s important to look at what worked best in Rebirth. The New 52 was unwieldy and inconsistent, and by the end of its run it sold poorly and failed to generate even passing interest in some of the greatest characters in comics.
Part of why DC Rebirth became such a critical and commercial success was that it took a long view and went back to basics, rehabilitating the universe and the publisher. Our list today looks at which characters and books benefited most from this. You won’t find Batman or Justice League, or any of the handful of other books that were doing just fine at the end of the New 52. No, what we’re discussing is which heroes and titles went from dysfunctional and forgotten, to books we now look forward to each Wednesday.
Superman is a great place to start. I was enjoying some of the work being done with the character toward at the end of New 52 by creators like Greg Pak and Gene Luen Yang (whose excellent New Super Man would be on this list if it wasn’t entirely new), but a problem was that Superman had undergone too major of a reimagining at the start of the New 52. Basically, of all the characters in the DC Universe, it was easiest to think of New 52 Superman as something entirely separate from the character we’d known.
Perhaps most frustrating was the loss of his romance with Lois, foundational as it was to the mythology for so many fans, both in comics and the mainstream. Considering this alone, it’s no surprise to me that bringing back the pre-Flashpoint Superman, as well as his family, has been foundational for Rebirth. That move sums up the initiative’s back-to-basics approach, as well as its deliberate decisions to preserve old continuity that had seemingly been lost (ahem, like red-headed Wally West).
Lastly, while I know others have consistently cited differences in quality between Superman and Action Comics, I haven’t seen that. I think Superman opened stronger, and that Gleason and Tomasi are a great team, but Action has also done some interesting things under one of the best Superman writers of all time, Dan Jurgens. I don’t separate them much in my head, not the way I do Batman (solo book) and Detective Comics (team book), even though I know Superman generally focuses on Clark and his family. Don’t @ me, I like it all!
Super Sons being next gives us a natural transition, because half of this two-hero team didn’t even exist at the start of the New 52 (that half being the current iteration of Superboy, Jonathan Kent). To be blunt, I love all things Super Sons. This book takes the classic Batman-Superman dynamic and boils it down into volatile and childish pre-teen form (is Damian 13 now? hey! stop being a stickler, you’re losing sight of what matters). It does a great job with humor and the heart strings, and Jorge Jiménez’s art here is among the best in superhero books right now, if not THE best.
Super Sons pulls double duty, appealing to what I’ve long seen as the two sides of the comic fan coin: kids looking for escape, and adults looking for escape from the pressures of having kids, or, in my personal case, preparing to have kids. With this book, you get all the teen hijinx, and you get characters you grew up with, Batman and Superman, in the background learning to be dads. This is a really special book, and I’m far from the first to say this, but I hope Brian Michael Bendis taking over writing duties on Superman soon does not disturb this title.
Green Arrow is an odd book when discussed in the context of Rebirth, as it kept the same writer from the New 52 and still seemed to undergo a significant increase in quality. My theory is that Benjamin Percy, a fantastic novelist and short story writer (who I actually was lucky enough to meet at a writer’s workshop several years ago and can attest that he’s also a nice guy), took over Green Arrow so late into the New 52 run, that Rebirth was practically on the horizon, about 18 months away, thus limiting what Percy was able to do at that time with the title. Also, when Percy came onto Green Arrow, the book was in a weird place, having been forced into a closer approximation of the CW show Arrow, which, love it or hate it, is a far cry from the Oliver Queen of the comics. My suspicion is that he wanted to go straight back to basics all along, but was told to save his ideas.
He’s said in interviews that he wanted to bring back Ollie’s relationship with Black Canary and was told to wait, which corroborates my theory. In the early days of Rebirth, Green Arrow was described by many as the biggest surprise, but I think if you read Percy’s very first (and best) New 52 arc, you see all the qualities that have made the new book such a success, ie the cultural commentary, the distinct sense of place, the top-notch villainy. The only thing that seems to have changed in Rebirth is the guidance and backing from editorial, which kudos to DC for recognizing what it had and not dumping Percy off the book just to stir up some hype.
The Green Lantern concept is almost tailor-made for today’s comic market, particularly the idea that holders of the ring are members of an ancient intergalactic police force, which allows DC to bring in new Lanterns without a major deal being made about honoring legacy or whatever. That concept, however, wasn’t being used effectively enough toward the end of New 52, with the Green Lantern corner of the universe being dominated almost exclusively by Hal Jordan.
Both of the Lantern books in Rebirth are among my absolute favorites in the line, and they take arguably the biggest risks in concept. Baz and Cruz as rookie Green Lanterns is certainly a new one, while Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps. Feels so grandiose and liberated, so creatively untethered that it at times reads like it was written by a bunch of comic fans sitting around saying, dude you know what would be awesome? And I mean that as a huge compliment. Both Sam Humphries and Robert Venditti have done awesome work with the Lanterns, and Tim Seeley’s stuff after trading Nightwing to Humphries for Green Lanterns has been promising as well, particularly his early characterizations of Simon and Jessica, the latter of whom has quickly become one of my favorite Lanterns.
Deathstroke by Christopher Priest is one of those books that has been so good it’s hard for me to write about without sound like—excuse my language—a kiss ass. After a convoluted start (which paid off for careful readers, I can attest to that after revisiting it for this piece), Priest has elevated this book to a rare place for superhero fiction. Deathstroke feels at once accessible and complex, rooted in the new continuity of the character as well as his past with the Teen Titans while at the same time also pushing forward with fantastic new ideas, like Defiance.
I read an interview where Priest, who was essentially out of monthly comics when he got the call for Rebirth, said that for a long time he used to get calls from DC or Marvel asking him to write a character, one that was always a person of color, and he would refuse them. Priest told CBR that somehow overtime he’d gone from being a writer to being just a black writer. When DC called to ask him to right Deathstorke, he had to double check and ask them if the character was black. When they said no, he said keep talking.
And for us fans, it’s a great thing they did. Priest, who’d been out of monthly comics for almost a decade, is now writing Justice League, arguably DC’s biggest book behind Batman. This anecdote about Priest, and the incredible stories that have grown from it, is really encouraging as this new initiative moves forward. It suggests DC is determined to recognize and reward good work, and to also hold onto its talent. The rise of Priest’s stock within the company in lieu of one of the best solo Deathstroke stories of all-time shows that the publisher seems to have learned from some of its past snafus with talent, as well as from some of its stumbles with managing its books, and that it is now hyper aware of what it has to learn from past mistakes. It is indeed a new age at DC.
Long-running books like Saga and The Wicked + The Divine NOT cracking our top 5 comics of 2017 has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of those books. No, in fact, Saga is as good as always, while Wic + Div is reaching new and awesome heights, propelled by epic twists that have changed this story of music and gods as we know it.
Those books didn’t make the top 5 because, as you’ll see when part 3 drops (hopefully tomorrow!), 2017 was a killer year for comics, at least critically (sales is another story). In our top 5, we’ll have a truly phenomenal Marvel series with a perfect ending, and we’ll have one of the industry’s best writers doing great things on multiple books and characters over at DC. But hey, we’re getting ahead of ourselves! Let’s save it for the next post.
Besides, the crop we have here is pretty great. So, let’s quit fiddling around and check out 6 - 15!
15. Doomsday Clock by Geoff Johns / Gary Frank
We predict Doomsday Clock will end up higher on next year’s list once it's get further into the story, but at the moment we’ve only seen two of the twelve issues. Those issues, however, were quite promising, setting up a tale likely to have ramifications throughout the DC Universe. With Geoff Johns and Gary Franks leading the way, we’re in for some real good comic booking.
14. X-Men: Grand Design by Ed Piskor
As with Doomsday Clock, X-Men: Grand Design will likely be higher on next year’s list. We’ve only seen one of six issues, but this might just be a masterpiece. Reading this book is like watching a perfectly-executed historical documentary, one informed by massive amounts of research. Ed Piskor, the auteur behind Grand Design, did the same thing on his last book, Hip Hop Family Tree, which traced the history of that music genre as Grand Design traces the X-Men. Simply put, this is an unprecedented and artful attempt to streamline decades of convoluted stories, and Piskor is nailing it. If he’s willing, Marvel should have Piskor produce similar books about Spider-Man, The Avengers, Hulk, Iron Man and so on and so on, etc, forever.
13. Secret Weapons by Eric Heisserer / Raul Allen
There was a cinematic quality to Secret Weapons, a Harbinger offshoot that ended up being the best Valiant book this year. That cinematic feel is likely owed to writer Eric Heisserer, who also penned last year’s excellent film Arrival. Secret Weapons is about a team of underdogs who learn to use seemingly useless powers to combat a threat that is hunting them. The plot doesn’t break new ground, but the characters’ powers are fresh, the script is compelling, and the art is top-notch. I'm becoming exhausted with Valiant not letting series grow into themselves, but this mini was satisfyingly self-contained.
12. Deathstroke by Christopher Priest / Various
Deathstroke has been a highlight of DC Rebirth. It's written by PRIEST, an all-time great creator who returned to monthly comics to helm this, and man, are we lucky he did. The plotting and character work in Deathstroke is more complex and nuanced than almost any other superhero title today, and PRIEST is consistently planting seeds that payoff later. His work here has been so good that DC allegedly offered him the Batman editor gig (which he allegedly declined) before giving him its flagship team book, Justice League. Smart moves, all around.
11. The Wild Storm by Warren Ellis / Jon Davis-Hunt
We’ve gone two whole spots without saying this, but The Wild Storm is yet another book likely to be higher next year. There is an incredible amount of complex track being patiently laid here by writer Warren Ellis. In fact, before this book launched, Ellis said he’d plotted exactly what would happen and when (and which books would spin out of the title), and this intricate planning shows. Also, Jon Davis-Hunt is one of the most underrated artists in comics. His facial expressions are almost photographically realistic, and The Wild Storm #9 had a samurai sequence that ranks as the best graphic action storytelling of the year. We can’t wait to see where this goes.
10. Royal City by Jeff Lemire
Royal City is a personal and introspective book, easily the most personal and introspective book appearing monthly in almost every shop. What’s especially impressive for such an introspective book is that the story here is also relatable, rich as it is with family dynamics, economic struggles, addiction, etc., and it's told with a really cool ‘90s grunge vibe, super familiar to readers of a certain age. Also of note is that Royal City is written AND drawn by Jeff Lemire, whose Google Calendar must be INSANE because he’s writing a half dozen other books always.
9. Supergirl: Being Super by Mariko Tamaki / Joelle Jones
Supergirl: Being Super gives the titular character the reimagined out-of-continuity origin story treatment, a concept that has previously resulted in great stories about more prominent characters, mostly Superman and Batman, over and over and over. It's nice to see it now applied to Supergirl. All four of the glossy oversized issues that make up the run of this book were killer, and Joelle Jones’ art was so good it often felt like watching a great teen drama that was heavy on emotion.
8. Saga by Brian K. Vaughan / Fiona Staples
Saga has been a favorite throughout its run, and we’ve given it to friends and co-workers who don’t read comics (harshly judging any who did not respond with praise), and we never miss an issue. Recently, @SageTerrence described this book on Twitter as “Star Wars and Romeo and Juliet combined,” which is a good starting point for explaining Saga. Taking it further, this is also a book about a family fighting to survive a galactic conflict that is so polarized and entrenched many of those engaged in it have lost sight of the cost, becoming blinded to what's productive and only focusing on whether they're right. This, sadly, was a tragically-relevant theme for 2017, a drag-ass year if ever there was one. Here’s to a better 2018, in which Saga continues to be this good.
7. God Country by Donny Cates / Geoff Shaw
Donny Cates was a talented up-and-comer when 2017 started. Then God Country dropped. Now, as 2017 ends, Donny Cates is a bonafide comics star. If you’ve read God Country, this makes total sense. The book was so good, my LCS now orders all of Cates stuff, marking the first time this particular shop has stocked AfterShock Comics or Vault Comics titles (because of Babyteeth and Reactor, respectively). Like all of Cates’ best work, this book is powered by a mix of unique concept and clever scripting, with a healthy coat of pure Texas, Cates native state.
6. The Wicked + The Divine by Kieron Gillen / Jamie McKelvie
It’s been easy to forget The Wicked + The Divine in recent years, not because the book hasn’t been good or memorable, but because it’s been so reliable. It’s like the friend you take for granted because he or she is always there. This year, however, Gillen and McKelvie took the story to new places with a blockbuster arc that paid off events from the first issue that pretty much anywhere realized would come back to be relevant. This year's incredible arc was easily Wic + Div’s best, no minor feat for a story that’s 30-some issues old. The end game is coming for this book, and while we're sad to see it end, we have total faith that the finale will be spectacular.
SPECIAL NOTE: The exciting conclusion, complete with the Top 5 Comics of 2017, is coming tomorrow!