Top Comics of May 2018

May was huge for superhero comics, with both Marvel and DC locking their futures into place for the next 12 to 18 months. This resulted in some of the best #1 issues of late, as well as in one truly-epic finale for a long run on a flagship character (more below).

May was, in short, fantastic for fans of action and superheroes, and for those of us who like to feel like a kid again by leaving the office to eat lunch on Wednesdays in a sad Subway on Blue Ravine Road in Folsom, CA, where the sandwich artists are generous with the veggies and that one Ed Sheeran song (I’m in love with your body, Oh—I—oh—I—oh—I—oh—I, etc.) is always always playing. Ahem. I’ve gotten oddly specific and way off track, a good sign it’s time to start our list.

Let’s do it!

Shout Outs

One of many fantastic and creepy panels from Abbott #5.

Abbott #5: Abbott concludes with this issue, and man was it a killer series, laden with social commentary and supernatural chills, plus some of the prettiest panels in any comic this year. I highly recommend this book and even thought it could have used a sixth issue to let some of the ideas in its finale breath, but this is a small complaint.

Action Comics Special #1: This one-off conclusion for Dan Jurgens’ Action Comics run was heavy on Lois and Lex, which is enough to get a thumbs up from me. Extra points for the backup from Mark Russell (more on him below).

Avengers #1 - #2: Mark Waid did an admirable job on Avengers while we all decompressed following Jonathan Hickman’s all-time great stint, but I’m ready for the team to be leading the Marvel Universe again, which is where Jason Aaron has it in these early issues.

And all of a sudden, Jorge Jimenez and Alejandro Sanchez are DC's best art team...

DC Nation #0: Jorge Jimenez and Alejandro Sanchez are the best artists working in superheroes today, as shown by the Justice League preview here.

Doctor Strange #390:  Cates-Zdarsky Spider-Man two-page vignette alone lands it here. Hi-larious.

Flash #47: Flash War is brewing. A lot of Rebirth books slowed down after the first two years, but Josh Williamson’s Flash is peaking. Also, more Howard Porter art, please!

Man of Steel #1: Needs more Lois, but I’m giving Bendis time there. Aside from that, his take on Superman started well, with deep understanding of what makes the character admirable, inspirational, beloved, etc. More here!

Marvel 2-in-1 #6: This continues to be Marvel’s best and most consistent comic, doling out laughs, action, and heartfelt moments in equal part. Chip Zdarsky is a criminally underrated superhero writer.

Spider-Man #240: Bendis farewell to his 18-year Spider-Man run almost made me cry. I read #1 when I was 15 (a scientifically ideal time to read about Spider-Man) and grew to adulthood with this writer and this book, which is all a poignant reminder of life’s inherent and unstoppable capacity for change.

Top Comics of May 2018

More Jorge Jimenez and Alejandro Sanchez on Super Sons.

5. Super Sons #16 by Peter Tomasi, Art Thibert, & Carlo Barberi: I’d be taking a far more somber tone about this book had Peter Tomasi not announced that he would write a 12-issue series, dubbed Adventures of the Super Sons, about Jon Kent and Damian Wayne in August, but it did, so here we are. Super Sons is my favorite book that hasn’t yet made our monthly Top 5, and I think the reason is it’s just so reliable and consistent.

The dynamic between Jon and Damian is the heart of this book, which has also boasted wonderful art during its run, most of which was done by my aforementioned favorite superhero team, Jorge Jimenez and Alejandro Sanchez. Tomasi’s plotting keeps to a modest yet exciting scope, and the guest spots from the boys’ parents are always delightful.

4. Barrier #1 - #5 by Brian K. Vaughan, Marcos Martin, & Munsta Vincente: I first read (and loved) Barrier a couple years back when it ran on Brian K. Vaughan’s digital comics site, Panel Syndicate, but I used May’s print run to collect the issues and re-visit the story. As I did, I detailed some of my thoughts in reviews, and I noticed that many folks I knew were reading the book for the first time.

Simply put, good on you! Barrier is a beautifully-illustrated story about the constructs that have come to divide humanity, including language, nation states, natural resources, or misunderstandings. With this fertile ground, the surprising story goes on to tell a tense and poignant tale about two unlikely allies brought together and forced to bond.

I can’t say much past that without spoiling things, but I want to note the last panel of Barrier #5 is one that has stuck with me for years and was reopened in my mind this month like a trauma I haven’t fully processed. Barrier is truly my favorite type of story, one that asks hard questions without forcing pedantic answers.

From recent issues of Amazing Spider-Man.

3. Amazing Spider-Man #800 by Dan Slott, Stuart Immonen, & Team: Dan Slott and his many artistic collaborators really tell a story here worthy of milestone status, playing on an old Spider-Man trope that never fails to feel compelling—imperiling the many meaningful friends Pete has made over the years. The core concept for Peter Parker is he’s a lovable loser gifted with superpowers and doing his best to satisfy the responsibilities that come along with them. This makes the stakes for Pete always intriguing. After all, it’s his value to the world in question, and who hasn’t contemplated that?

But when the danger comes to his supporting cast, Spider-Man really turns compelling. Slott knows this, clearly. He also has a decade of stories to draw friendships from. That combination makes for one of the most taut over-sized comics in recent memory, one that eschews the multiple vignette thing similar issues resort to in favor of a grand finale for Slott’s landmark run on Marvel’s flagship comic, Amazing Spider-Man.

2. Nightwing #44 by Benjamin Percy, Chris Mooneyham, & Team: I have a documented love of Benjamin Percy’s run on Green Arrow, which concluded earlier this year, so I was looking forward to this issue as soon as it was announced Percy would on Nightwing. I was not, however, prepared for how much I’d like this book. Simply put, Percy wrote his fingers off (gross, I know), crafting a comic rich with clever turns of phrase, great interactions between characters (especially Babs and Dick), and a sprinkling of the odd factoids that make Percy’s narrations in comics (and novels/short stories) so compelling. This is also a timely story, with much to say about mankind’s accelerating reliance on tech.

My other major point of praise is Chris Mooneyham and team’s artwork. Be it a subway or junkyard, the art depicts Bludhaven as a gritty, hard-boiled place, more late 70s/early 80s New York than the absurdist alternate Atlantic City it had become under other recent writers. It’s a choice that contributes much without detracting from character or narrative, and it has me hoping this team remains on the book for a good while.

1. Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles #5 by Mark Russell, Mike Feehan, & Sean Parsons: As unlikely as it sounds, I have been made to laugh, cry, and consider about my place in society by a comic book about the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Snagglepuss. And this just a few months after the book’s writer, Mark Russell, inspired me to say this aloud to a friend, “The most cutting satire about 2018 is a comic book about The Flintstones.” Yes, it’s all very strange.

One of the best comics of 2018 is about Snagglepuss. Weird, right?

The unlikelihood of such poignant work being done with licensed characters is an easy talking point when describing Exit Stage Left. What’s much harder is articulating what Russell and team have done with these comics to make the source material so relevant. In The Flintstones, each issue was a different vignette with a loose through-line to future installments, a fragmented narrative about how the military industrial complex and tribalism has shaped mankind. Exit Stage Left is just as smart, but here Russell has crafted a more linear and complete story, one that better enables him to kick the bottom of your heart out.

This fifth issue is the emotional climax of the series, within which the ill fortune Russell had planned for our hero finally catches up to him. He does the right thing and is punished by a misguided and unjust political society. This comic is not as direct a commentary as The Flintstones was, but in many ways it is the superior book—an emotional ride that makes readers contemplate many facets of humanity, from authenticity to artistic value to the mental gymnastics we perform to justify our points of views. There’s one issue left, but Exit Stage Left has already established itself as one of the best of 2018.

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

Why Nightwing's New Run is Working: A 5-Panel Explainer

A new energy has swung into Nightwing as if by flying trapeze (sorry), bringing relevant plotlines, complex characterizations, and storied Bat Family dynamics that we haven’t seen of late. Bludhaven is slimy again, Dick Grayson is earnest-yet-super-dreamy, and there’s a distinct feeling these stories could only happen to the adult Boy Wonder, rather than to generic Batman-lite, which is what Nightwing tends to be when written too meat and potatoes.

And this thunder is being brought by new creators: writer Benjamin Percy (Green Arrow) and artist Chris Mooneyham with Klaus Johnson inks and Nick Filardi colors. It’s only two issues (#44 and #45), but I’m aflutter, aflutter! And obviously since I’m using words like aflutter, I’m incapable of clearly articulating why...so I picked five panels from Wednesday’s issue to explain.

Let’s do this!

Panel 1 - Nightwing's Narration

Panel 1 shows off one of the book’s core strengths—Percy’s Dick Grayson narration. For me, stuff like this really clicks: “I mean...Babs? As in Babs? I don’t accidentally fall into bed with anyone, but especially not her. Our lives are too complicated for either of us to believe in soul mates...but she’s close.”

Gah! There’s so much to love. Dick is just earnest enough, just good enough, and just aware enough to know his life is challenging and weird but that he wouldn’t have it any other way. Nightwing is also a rare comic character that has aged, and Percy embraces that, hinting at a real past, present and future, as well as at real chances for growth.

Panel 2 - Shared Grotesquery

This panel shows how cohesively the creative team is functioning. I’ve read all Percy’s novels, which are loaded with depraved grotesquery. I don’t often hold those ideas for long in my mind’s eye, but if I did, images like this are what I'd probably see. Mooneyham visualizing this cadaver evokes Percy’s prose, whether it’s deliberate or not, and that tells me all I need to know about their shared sensibilities, frighteningly hairy as they are.

It’s also a good fit for Bludhaven. Percy has said his “darker sensibilities” would play well here, and he’s right.

Panel 3 - Some Funny

Humor in violent superhero comics sometimes be preening, but Six-pack McPretty? Hi-larious.

Panel 4 - The Larger Bat Universe

I’ve felt a disconnect between Nightwing and the rest of the Bat Family recently, maybe as far back as Grayson (2015), within which Dick was a secret agent. Percy wasted no time fixing that. The involvement of Barbara Gordon is especially welcome, and Percy has a real knack for writing her, much as he did with Black Canary, depicting both characters as independent from yet also vital to the lives of the male heroes.

(Oh, and the Killer Croc bit here is also a funny moment that backs up Panel 3...the spittle and Croc's pomeranian's name really got me.)

Panel 5 - The Surprise!

This panel is perhaps most illustrative of why Nightwing has worked under its new creators. It’s a key moment in a story about the power of tech over individuals (searingly relevant these days). It also depicts the seriousness and terror Percy et al. bring while adding a twist that ups the stakes for next issue.

Plus, it made me contemplate which would be worse: a robot spider crawling into my throat or said spider emerging later with my deepest secrets. Truly unnerving, and, perhaps most importantly, unnerving in a different way than most Batman stories, which are are far more allegorical. Overall, this Nightwing is vibrant, unpredictable, well-characterized, funny, and connected to the Bat Family while still feeling uniquely Dick Grayson.

But Not So Fast

If I have one concern it’s that Percy sometimes gets overextended. I mean, he writes comics while rapidly churning out nouveau Stephen King novels, short stories, and even a recent writing guide. Plus he has young kids, which I understand is a time suck. So yeah, I’ve seen inconsistency here and there, even during his all-time great run on Green Arrow, and I’d wager overextending is the culprit.

But this is a celebration! Two months ago I was on the verge of dropping Nightwing, and now? It’s one of my favorite superhero books. That’s no small feat for two issues. I hope Percy and his collaborators get a run that matches or exceeds his 50+ issues of Green Arrow. I’d love to see his novelistic approach to comics played out in this book.

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

Best Debut Comics of May 2018

I could Tweet right now: “Marvel had four new No. 1s this month…” and the response from my followers (most of whom are passionate comic fans) would be a mix of “Ugh, stop it!” and “Let runs continue!” plus one guy who DMs to ask if I’ll send him Marvel digital codes (I won’t). Those first two reactions speak to an ongoing shift in superhero comics, one very much evident in May 2018’s debuts.

This month brought new No. 1s for The Avengers, Black Panther, The Justice League, Superman, and Venom. In June, there’s another new No. 1 for Justice League, and in July another still for Superman. Also this summer there are No. 1s for Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, The West Coast Avengers, Fantastic Four, and so on and so on forever. So then, what does this all mean? Nothing. It’s just how the business of comics (which you probably don’t understand and neither do I) functions. Several years ago, then-Marvel editor-in-chief Axel Alonso told Entertainment Weekly they were “slowly working into a season model that’s not too unlike what we see in our favorite cable TV shows: a seasonal model that offers accessible entry points for new readers and is respectful of long-term fans.”

It doesn’t mean early ends of runs. If runs sell, they live to the next season with the same writer (see Jason Aaron on Thor, Ta-Nehisi Coates on Black Panther, Charles Soule on Daredevil, etc.). It just means there’s a clear entry point for new readers (plus a hassle for you when you organize you books). And this month the list of best debuts was pretty thoroughly dominated by new superhero seasons, seasons that just like Alonso promised, build upon what was happening while also clearing the way for some new viewers—er, readers.

Let’s get to the lists!

Quick Hits

Death or Glory #1 is a beautiful-looking comic book.

Barrier #1 would have without question made our list, but it’s hard in good conscience to call this book a debut issue, as it’s been available online via Panel Syndicate since 2015. Still, the first print issue hit retailers this month, and so we think this excellent comic from Brian K. Vaughan, Marcos Martin, and Munsta Vincente bears mention.

Rick Remender is one of those creators with a real knack for working with the best in the business, including Jerome Opena and Sean Gordon Murphy. His collaboration with Bengal for Death or Glory #1 is no exception, ranking as one of the best-looking debuts this month. The story, however, didn’t grab me right off. I felt like I’d been thrown into the action without yet having a strong affinity for the protagonist. Still, I’ll be back for the next issue.

Mark Russell is one of my favorite writers in comics, thanks to his work on The Flintstones, Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles, and recent backup stories in Superman specials. And now he’s tackling another character ripe for commentary in his new book, Judge Dredd: Under Siege #1, the first of a four-part story that I will read in its entirety.

Justice League: No Justice #1 of 4 was a very good comic (as was No Justice #4), but unlike some of the other superhero books this month, it felt more like a continuation of DC’s recently-concluded Metal than the debut of something new. That’s not a bad thing, not all. I really liked how Metal directly gave way to this and I’m excited to see the next iteration with June’s relaunched Justice League #1, but in a month with so many strong debuts, our committee of one puts this book here.

Quicksilver: No Surrender #1 from Saladin Ahmed and Eric Nguyen and Venom #1 from Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman were both close to making our list. Quicksilver picks up where Avengers: No Surrender ended, with fascinating art and a deep script, while Donny Cates, Marvel’s most bombastic new voice, takes over Venom. These debuts were strong, but I feel like both books have major jumps in their futures.

In a month heavy on fresh starts and new directions for the muscles and tights crowd, I for one was glad to also read a refreshing book like We Are The Danger #1 from writer/artist Fabian Lelay, which as I said in my review is a stylish slice-of-life comic that does a great job of making both teen life and live music visceral.

Best Debut Comics of May 2018

Jason Aaron's Avengers #1 story spans history.

Avengers #1 by Jason Aaron, Ed McGuinness, & Mark Morales

I didn’t care much for last year’s Marvel Legacy one-shot, with its odd-timing a full six months or so before its content would be relevant. After reading Jason Aaron’s first issue on The Avengers, however, I’ve changed my tune, seeing as that book planted seeds that grew into this one.

For more on why I liked this book so much, check out this piece from earlier in the month. It’s reductive and simplistic, sure, but I think Jason Aaron just gets The Avengers. Also, Ed McGuinness art has been a wonderful surprise. I’ve always thought he was fine, but he’s really elevated his work to the occasion, although I suspect Mark Morales has really helped, too.

Black Panther #1 by Ta-Nehisi Coates & Daniel Acuna

I was a fan of Ta-Nehisi Coates writing before he came to comics in March 2016, as poignant and thought-provoking as it has long been. When he started on the All New, All Different Marvel Black Panther iteration, I had high hopes, and, while I wasn’t exactly disappointed, Coates' first arc made it evident he was new to the medium. His issues were idea-heavy with little (or no) action.

Those concerns, however, are long gone. This issue was a mysterious and visual tour de force filled with characters we know in an odd situation—space, and while I’m not a fan of gimmicky outings to the stars, this doesn't seem to be one of those. Coates expertly teases deeper meaning within this intriguing script, which brings out the best in Daneil Acuna's art. This book was so good it reaffirmed my excitement to continue Black Panther, as well as for Coates' forthcoming run on Captain America, slated to start July 4….I know, right?!

Ether: Copper Golems #1 by Matt Kindt & David Rubin

The first volume of Ether was one of my favorite comics in ages, and I’m thrilled to see the series from writer Matt Kindt and artist David Rubin return to the narrative with Ether: Copper Golems #1, which picks up exactly where the story left off, a la Black Hammer last month.

This book may reappear on my forthcoming Top Comics of May 2018 (although I don’t normally like to double up). The point is, you should each and every one of you be reading this book. It’s so freaking good. Also, it shares some thematic ground with Black Hammer.  

Harbinger Wars 2 #1 by Matt Kindt & Tomas Giorello

Although far from most talked about, Harbinger Wars 2 #1 was the best start to a superhero event I’ve read in some time. I love that Livewire, a fantastic character, is at the heart of this thing, but more than that Kindt and other Valiant writers in recent months have done a great job developing their books in a way that gives all the publisher’s best characters real and believable stakes for being involved. This is refreshing, given that some other superhero conflicts in recent years have felt a bit contrived (cough...Civil War II...cough).

Read our review of Harbinger Wars 2 #1 here.

Man of Steel #1 marks the beginning of Brian Michael Bendis at DC.

Man of Steel #1 by Brian Michael Bendis, Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, & Alex Sinclair

A lot of really smart folks who write about comics have weighed in on Man of Steel #1 (Alex Lu at Comics Beat, Jarrod Jones at Doom Rocket, and GeekDad/GeekMom), rendering my own hot take sort of lukewarm. Still, this is a great comic, one that also represents Brian Michael Bendis’ officially move from Marvel (where he’s been nearly two decades) to DC, launching a new era for Superman as he does. In this issue Bendis makes a lot of really strong, really Bendis-y decisions, from the funny-but-not-too-funny banter to how a pair of hapless toughs discuss Big Blue in hushed tones.

Bendis' experience as a creator shines, especially when he lays track for a coming fight between Superman and his new villain, Rogol Zarr. On top of his experience, though, Bendis also shows himself to be an enthusiastic fan, a kid who grew up in Cleveland where Superman’s creators were from, and who has watched DC from afar, wondering what if. My only note is that he continues to make the curious choice of sidelining Lois Lane, which strikes me as odd. Like Jarrod Jones pointed out at Doom Rocket, this is a “pairing of creator and character that feels like a grand-slam.”

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

REVIEW: The Unexpected #1 by Steve Orlando, Ryan Sook, Cary Nord, & Team

The Unexpected #1 cover by Ryan Sook.

The Unexpected by Steve Orlando, Ryan Sook, and Cary Nord is the eighth and final book of the New Age of DC Heroes line, and—to be direct—it is also the best.

More on New Age of Heroes later, but first let’s talk about what works for this debut. Strength one is the seamless efficiency with which the book familiarizes readers with an entirely new hero, one whose meta-human situation is (improbably) a somewhat fresh concept. Without giving too much away, our protagonist has a condition in which she must physically fight every 24 hours, lest her heart shut down. Our protagonist also happens to be a fearless nurse, one who has treated bystanders in a number of recent DCU mega events (Darkseid Wars, Black Lanterns, Crime Syndicate, etc.). This creates an interesting dichotomy between her meta-human self—who must be violent to live—and her alter-ego, who is dedicated to healing.

This is all made clear within three pages via an intro and killer two-page spread. With questions answered about who the hero is and why readers should care, the creative team then goes full bore into putting its hero to the test with challenges and twists, and ho man are there ever twists. In fact, The Unexpected’s second major strength is how quickly and confidently it subverts reader expectations, going to an—ahem—unexpected and darker place than previews suggested.

And that’s the third major strength: pacing. There is a confidence to this Orlando, Sook, and Nord story that keeps the pages turning like an action movie with well-realized stakes, freeing Orlando to dispense killer, quintessential anti-hero lines like, “I fight to live and I’m undefeated,” lines he honed during his run on Midnighter (2015) and seems thrilled to be writing again. Sook and Nord’s art, brought to life by inkers Mike Gray and Wade von Grawbadger and colorist FCO Plascencia, is also top tier. Sook’s character designs are especially impressive, creating original aesthetics for a previously-unseen batch of superheroes, all of which are unique while also fitting into the DC Universe...which brings us back to discussing the New Age of DC Heroes.

I’m reading and enjoying many of the line's titles (shout outs to Sideways and The Terrifics). One knock, however, has been that the books were marketed as driven by big name artists, yet many of the biggest names left after early issues. As it applies to The Unexpected, Sook seemingly departed at the start to draw Man of Steel #3 (perhaps contributing to this book’s tardy debut), but Cord’s work is strong. Essentially, it remains to be seen if artist turnover will be a problem here, given that this first issue was such a collaboration.

All the character designs in The Unexpected are good, but the Bad Samaritan stands above.

Spare Thoughts: The Bad Samaritan has one of the best villain designs I’ve ever seen, and whoever came up with that name for the bad guy should be proud.

This book ties into Metal in multiple interesting ways, giving it the most direct connection to the event of any in the line.

Overall: Unexpected #1 is the best debut of the New Age of DC Heroes line, delivering a compelling protagonist with conflicting priorities that pit her needs versus her desires. Add a confident, intriguing twist that subverts expectations, and The Unexpected could very well be DC’s best new original book since New Super-Man. 9.3/10

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

REVIEW: Wasted Space #2 by Michael Moreci, Hayden Sherman, Jason Wordie, & Jim Campbell

Wasted Space #2 cover by Marguerite Sauvage

Michael Moreci and Hayden Sherman’s Wasted Space #2 brings more of its central protagonists’ backstories into focus, putting the duo at a bar, getting them drunk, and having them share tales of mutual prescience. One of these characters—Billy Bane—acts as a stand-in for the audience, voicing a question inherent to the first issue, namely how legit are the future-predicting/God-seeing powers that are in play here? He then posits that his abilities may be a product of his own insanity.

As a result, I’m not sure whether we learn if Billy’s powers are legit, not just yet, but I think the structural choice is a solid one for this second issue, one that lets readers know Moreci is aware of what they’re wondering and also that they can trust him to deliver a satisfying payoff eventually. So, I’m very much with all of that. Another choice I enjoyed in this issue was Moreci continuing to pose capital B Big, sweeping questions about humanity, specifically asking whether the species is doomed to forever war and jockey for position because that’s what it took to get us to the top of the evolutionary chain.

Without giving anything specific away, one of the plot developments here also seems to make a statement about political extremism, specifically about the merits of having a predictable and intact system versus moving toward anarchy by forcing norms and structure to die and crumble. It’s the best kind of surprise twist, at once thrilling and meaningful.

Hayden Sherman is establishing himself as one of the best sci-fi artists in comics.

And this is all heady stuff, especially considering the thematic and philosophical weight introduced in the first book, which basically opened with a drug dealer arguing that the Greek mythological figure of Sisyphus—fated to forever push a boulder up a hill that just rolled back down again later—actually had a great life free of confusing distractions and filled with focus. Oh, and the first issue also took a David Foster Wallace-esque stance on escapism, painting it as the author did in his opus Infinite Jest as at once incredibly dangerous but also possibly mankind’s natural and necessary state.

There are a lot of massive ideas here, so many that this story falls a bit into a common trap of second issues, lacking action in parts as it dispenses exposition left out of the previous issue. Sherman and Wordie’s art, however, makes the flashbacks and contemplations visually engaging, so much so that Sherman again furthers his case as one of the premiere sci-fi artists in all of comics (shout out to his other ongoing book, Cold War), both in terms of his technology and cityscapes.

Overall: This issue sought to meet a huge bar set by its predecessor, which as I wrote in my Wasted Space #1 review did an incredible job balancing action and ideas. The second issue falls just short of the first, but it’s still fantastic, doing the difficult yet necessary work of familiarizing us with our leads. I will for sure get wasted again next month. 8.5/10

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

REVIEW: Vagrant Queen #1 by Magdalene Visaggio, Jason Smith, Harry Saxon, & Zakk Saam

Vagrant Queen No. 1 is the latest book from Vault Comics, which has been on a hot streak this year (at least for my tastes) with Cult Classic, Deep Roots, and Wasted Space, in addition to its several excellent ongoing titles. One thing I’m fond of saying about Vault is that the publisher has one of the highest minimum bars for quality of any in the indie comics game.

Really, a high level of artistry and storytelling is the only major commonality between Vault’s disparate titles, although they are all generally built upon sci-fi or fantasy concepts (Cult Classic notwithstanding, as it has more of a nostalgia-driven horror bend). With this in mind, Vagrant Queen builds on that reputation, while giving the publisher a book that is just a bit different from its other recent efforts.

Vagrant Queen stands out in that it puts good ol’ fashioned quips and space opera in front of the capital B Big ideas that have driven many other recent Vault books, including Deep Roots and Wasted Space. The concept is still a high-minded one, with a tagline on its back cover that really lets you know what’s for sale here: “They took her throne. She told them to keep it.” This is a sci-fi action book about a deposed princess with no interest in her own privilege.

Smith and Saxon excel at conveying impact in Vagrant Queen #1.

Writer Magdalene Visaggio first earned my trust earlier this year with her work on Eternity Girl, the breakout hit of DC’s soon-to-be-concluded Young Animal line, and this debut made me an immediate fan of both artist Jason Smith and colorist Harry Saxon. That team uses wide but tight, almost claustrophobic panels for its action sequences, ones that really emphasize points of contact to convey the force of impact. It’s a great and exciting effect.

Really, I’m always and forever down to watch wily heroes shoot at gaggles of soldiers as they hastily board a spaceship to make an escape. This one is a fast read, too, one you may return to the start of once you’re finished to take it in a second time. Visaggio, Smith, and the team have built an intriguing lead in to a world here, one that promises prison world’s, exploration of monarchical hypocrisy, and a perfectly-coiffed sinisterly-smiling bad guy who I want to see more of—I’ll definitely be back for a second issue.

Overall: Vagrant Queen #1 is an action-packed and quick debut for another exciting new series from Vault Comics, one that almost surgically familiarizes us with our characters and our world. It’s a bit lighter on big ideas than other recent Vault debuts, but the action and pacing works so well that it hardly matters. 7.8/10

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

Q&A: Toren Chenault, Author of New Superhero Novel 'Mystic Man'

Artwork by Jes Richardson from Cover Bistro

We first met Toren Chenault on Twitter, where he was promoting a simple concept we liked: peace, love, and comics (also the name of his blog). Soon after, Toren started talking about a novel he planned to release this spring, a first building block in an extensive superhero universe. Dubbed Mystic Man after its protagonist, this novel is available online now via Amazon.

Everyone who works on our site (obviously) is a writer, and we all know how difficult it can be to finish short projects (let alone an entire book). Even though this his first published work, Toren has finished four. So, to inspire ourselves and our readers, we caught up with Toren to ask about his new book, his experience with self publishing, and what’s in store for his future.

Let’s do this!

Q: Where did you first get the idea for Mystic Man?
A: The idea has always been in my head, but the first time I really considered writing this story was after seeing Man of Steel. I love the film, and overall I enjoyed the things Zack Snyder tried to do with the character of Superman. Where he really missed the mark to me was in the realism of Superman. I just didn’t believe it. Maybe it’s the inherent white privilege I think Superman has, I’m not sure, but I saw what the film was trying to do—it just didn’t quite execute it. So, when I sat down afterward, I asked myself the question, “How would the world react to its first superhero being black?” That’s where the spark came from.

Q: What was your writing process like?
A: I wrote the majority of the book in college, and I got the writing done whenever I could. I actually had to take a year off from college because of financial issues. That lit a fire under me. I wrote a good chunk of the book then while working a full-time security job. When I got back in school, the book was basically done, but I still made time for revisions. It sounds cliche, but I just fit in writing wherever I could.

Q: You’re a comics fan...what made you pick the novel format as opposed to comic books?
A: Maybe there’s a fancier response to this question, but I don’t have one. I just love books and I want people to read more. I read comics growing up, but books like Ender’s Game, 1984, and Brave New World changed my life as a teen, really shaping the person I am now. Comics can do that too (and have for me) but books did it first. The way I wanted to tell this story works best with a book. But, I do plan on showing off Mystic Man’s world through comics someday, too.

Q: What are some lessons you learned from the writing/publishing process?
A: Mystic Man is actually the fourth book I’ve written. It’s just the first I’ve published. During this process, I learned the value of patience. I’m a patient guy, but it’s something all young writers struggle with—we want everything to be done now. I have a vision for Mystic Man, for my universe, and I get frustrated some days (most days) that people don’t know or care about what I have to say. And sometimes, that type of negativity can bleed into my work. Patience is key in novel writing or when building something as big as a universe. It’s going to take time, years in fact, but that’s okay. I learn more about it each day.

Q: Can you talk about self-publishing and what was it like navigating that space?
A: I didn’t publish the three other books I wrote, but I did try. I sent queries out to agents, publishers. Nobody gave a damn. I decided I wanted to be a writer and storyteller at age 17 once I read the last page of Ender's Game, and I put everything I had into getting better. Mystic Man isn’t the greatest novel ever written, but I think it’s time to show everyone how much I’ve grown since writing my first books. Wasting time with big publishers wasn’t productive, and honestly, this was liberating, navigating that space. I know the Ebook/Amazon market is oversaturated, but it was nice to handle everything myself and oversee everything about the book. If I didn’t self-publish, Mystic Man would be just another thing on my computer.

Q: What comes next for you and for the world you've created here?
A: More books. Mystic Man is the most powerful hero in my universe, but he isn’t the first. Other heroes have been around for a while and some are even in this first book. Next, I’ll be introducing the other heroes in my universe. They’re all different, but Mystic Man is the hero that inspires them to be better. The next hero readers will learn about is my personal favorite. Her name is Victoria Gonzalez, the Shade of San Juan. After her, we go to Africa, and meet former child soldier David Batu. He’s the DreamCrusher. They’re my Trinity so to speak. Each has different roots, different problems, and most importantly, different powers. I hope this continues to grow because like I said, I plan on showcasing these heroes in comics. It sounds like a lot, I know but I think it can be done. And it all starts with Mystic Man.

Toren Chenault, a native of the Cincinnati area, currently lives in Michigan with his girlfriend. A graduate of Michigan State University, he is a long-time superhero fan who counts Captain Atom, Carol Danvers’ Captain Marvel, Daredevil, Divinity, Nightwing, and XO Manowar among his favorite heroes. Mystic Man is his first book. Buy it now here.

REVIEW: Pestilence - A Story of Satan #1 by Frank Tieri, Oleg Okunev, Rob Schwager, & Marshall Dillon

An upcoming cover by Tim Bradstreet for Pestilence: Story of Satan from AfterShock Comics.

Pestilence: A Story of Satan #1 marks the start of the second volume of an ongoing story in which the bubonic plague, aka The Black Death, of the late 14th Century was actually mankind’s first brush with zombies. Church and religion factor into its plot, as do the political power structures associated with those institutions. To up the stakes this time around, the antagonist is now Satan. So yes, there is quite a bit going on here narratively.

Make no mistake though, in spite of the historic and theological trappings, the core of this book is good ol’ fashioned zombie killing and survivalism, and the creative team is well aware. The plot constructs are mostly used as an interesting lens to filter the tropes of zombie horror through, to create a different set of circumstances for readers to imagine themselves in and contemplate what they would do if faced with the same odds, which to me is the core of any good zombie story.

And as with most zombie stories, there’s also plenty of cheese here. Satan is grotesquely and perfectly rendered by Okunev and Schwager’s artistry, while simultaneously being portrayed by Tieri’s script as a lord of fire and brimstone mixed with that one friend you don’t call much anymore because he swears around your kids, brags about the deal he got on his whatever, and punches you in the arm as a greeting. Satan is terrifying but also the absolute worst.

For example...WARNING, profane language...in the space of two pages, Satan says the following: “...stupid mortal c**ts…” “...you fleshbag t*at…” and “Shut the f*ck up!” The profanity works though, and in this book there is over-the-top fun on nearly every page. Tieri also does a great job nailing his plot twists and ending, making for a quick and suspenseful read that does its duty with exposition while also peaking at its end, thereby enticing anyone who enjoyed this first issue back for another installment.

In a larger context, this book fits nicely with the rest of its publisher’s line. It is essentially an action-packed, B movie-esque horror alternative that compliments AfterShock Comics’ more literary and mysterious takes on fear, specifically newer books like A Walk Through Hell and Her Infernal Descent (both of which I love). It is, to be blunt, one hell of a bloody good time (sorry!).

Overall: I recommended this book for fans of both alternate takes on history and of horror stories co-mingled with theology, and I suspect it's also well worth a look for fans of the zombie genre. Pestilence: A Story of Satan #1 is an uncouth variation of standard zombie tropes made more interesting by its continued secret history premise. 7.5/10

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

May 2018 New Comic Discoveries: Funny Books

Humor in any medium is delicate, but especially so in novels or comics, where a joke must literally be spelled out. These mediums provide precious little help from timing, delivery, or any other human connection to help audiences sympathize with a joke’s teller. Also, as with any narrative, one bad joke early might sour a reader to all that follows. Humor, simply put, is risky.

For those reasons, I don’t often read humor comics. No Deadpool or Harley Quinn for me, and I often shrug when well-meaning friends recommend the genre. My track record with being glad that I read a humor comic is not great. I do, however, fancy myself a relentless optimist (as it pertains to comics, anyway), and so here I am with a trio of new comics discoveries for May that all have to do with humor.

If I were a funnier writer, I might try a joke here, but I know my limitations so I will instead end while still slightly ahead...onward!

Rock Candy Mountain #1 - #4 by Kyle Starks & Chris Schweizer

This book (which was recommended to me by Dan Grotes of WMQ Comics, by way of Will Nevin) is nothing short of a revelation, one of the funniest and most straight-up entertaining comics I’ve read in some time. Set in 1948, Rock Candy Mountain is a story of a devils and hobos and one-on-one combat, and it’s absolutely hilarious.

Rock Candy Mountain.

The story opens on a guy who is clearly the devil (we can tell because he has horns and is also red) literally shredding a ring of hobos. Satan is in search of a man named Jackson. When he’s done with the shredding, he realizes he’s left none alive to interrogate, remarking to himself, “I certainly goofed that one.” We eventually meet Jackson, as well as his new friend Pomona Slim, a failed actor trying to get home from Hollywood (by way of Pomona), who becomes the readers' window into 1948 hobo-dom. And we’re off to the absurd races from there. The thing I like most about Rock Candy Mountain, however, is how if you stripped the humor away, there would still be a compelling story at the core.

Jackson, what a guy.

You can tell that Kyle Starks, the auteur who both writes and draws here, has put a substantial amount of both research and thought into this work. The world of post-war train jumping and drifting is well realized, and the driving plot of a man who sold his soul to the devil and is trying to find paradise for his family before it comes due is relatable, to be sure. The real heart of this story, though, is the buddy dynamic between hirsute, inscrutable Jackson and kind-but-unlucky Pomona.

Overall: Rock Candy Mountain's clever wit comes from a big-hearted place, one that reminds us of how at its best this medium can be fun and poignant. This book’s sensibilities could be described as grown up Calvin and Hobbes with way more hobos (plus some tramps, because as Starks points out, there’s a difference).

Punks Not Dead #1 - #4 by David Barnett & Martin Simmonds

Punks Not Dead, one of the vanguard of ex-Vertigo editor Shelly Bond’s new IDW imprint Black Crown—is a supernatural coming-of-age story that’s brimming with dry British wit. The concept itself is amusing: schlubby teen Fergie finds himself tethered to the ghost of deceased Sex Pistol’s bass player/vocalist Sid Vicious. Hijinx ensue.

Full disclosure: I went through high school lost in punk rock and comics (and later skating and hip hop), so I’m predisposed to like this book, although it’s been a couple decades since I was proudly into punk rocking. This, however, is a smartly-written book that thrives when it hits its greatest heights of bizarre, such as any scene involving Britain’s Department of Extra-Usual Affairs, or when the ghost and Fergie try to separate from each other.

From Punks Not Dead #4

Writer David Barnett and artist Martin Simmonds embrace the dynamics in this book with a reckless abandon, interlacing them with the aforementioned witty remarks, which makes a concept that could come off as cliched read incredibly charming (side note, I seriously considered putting Tini Howard and the legendary Gilbert Hernandez’s Assassinistas on this list, which expertly blends femme fatale badassery with a decades-long family drama, but I may write in greater length about that book in the future, so I kept that in my pocket).

Overall: There’s an odd universality to this ghost story, one that anyone who has turned to music during times of loneliness and alienation will surely relate to.

Great line: “This smells of something a bit more than Teen Spirit.”

Galactic Junk Squad #1 by David Moses LeNoir

Galactic Junk Squad has an old school, Stan Lee enthusiasm to it, embracing the high science fiction concepts of the far cosmos as well as alliterative exclamations in equal part. This is evident from the early pages, wherein the artist’s gaze pulls us through interstellar landscapes as we slowly become aware of two voices arguing, two bumbling brothers, as it were.

Their tone soon becomes meta, as they debate their own character names and an editor’s note lets us know time in this world is measured by how long it takes between issues. Galactic Junk Squad soon reveals itself to be a family drama in which the members of the family look like Kirby-esque celestial beings. The family has been tasked with collecting artifacts of the past by a so-far-unseen power.

More importantly, though it’s a high-minded and hilarious story, one rich with sitcom tropes on top of a grittier version of Kirby’s New Gods.

Overall: Galactic Junk Squad is one of those rare and fantastic comics wherein you can almost feel writer/artist David Moses LeNoir having fun, the sort of fun that you can’t help joining as a reader. This is a witty book with a true reverence for the comic tradition that it is apart of, and I highly recommend checking it out.

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

REVIEW: Vampironica #2 by Greg Smallwood & Meg Smallwood

Vampironica No. 1 was essentially just a brief introduction to Archie Comics’ latest horror book. It was a fast and good-looking comic, one that got the horror started, laid on some heavily eerie ambiance, turned Veronica Lodge into the titular Vampironica, and gave all of us readers some of Greg Smallwood’s creeptacular imagery to feast our eyeballs on (much like Vampironica feasted on supple necks). But that first issue wasn’t a substantial read, and, truth be told, it didn’t really have to be. It was a hook and that was just fine.

Now, fast-forward a couple months (there have been delays), and here we are at Vampironica No. 2, which does a solid-to-very-good job of filling in any expository blanks left by its predecessor, questions like who turned Veronica, what's this story going to be about, and exactly what sort of vampire will she be? Vampironica No. 2, to put it simply, delivers missing context, while also upping the ante by throwing in usual Riverdale melodrama (of the Archie-Betty-Veronica variety, of course), plus an unexpected twist.

This issue strikes an excellent middle ground between horror and camp, the exact tone these Archie horror books need to hit in order to work best. Greg and Meg Smallwood (who joins her husband here for a story by credit) are clearly fans of both Archie and horror, and they seem to lean into what they're inner fans would like to see.

I won’t spoil it, but there is one particularly campy and grotesque dream sequence about midway through the book that let me know the Smallwoods were in full control, and that we as readers/Archie horror fans could just sit back and trust in the upcoming bloody fun.

Smallwood draws a great OMG! face.

Smallwood’s art is, of course, excellent throughout, but he especially excels with Veronica’s facial expressions, which run the usual Veronica gamut from OMG what am I even doing in Riverdale I’m a Lodge! to very charming and sweet. As far as the story goes, this is also a deceptively-dense script, one driven by three distinct types of storytelling: Riverdale, horror, and mythology.

By the time we reach our end, we’ve gotten key ingredients of our hero’s journey: Veronica has a mentor for the threshold she’s crossed, and we as an audience have a villain to watch machinate against her. This issue basically assures us that the book will go to some delightfully-dark places, made even livelier by Smallwood’s strong artwork.

Overall: Vampironica No. 2 delivers any and all missing context that the first issue that was withheld in favor of stylish brevity. Smallwood’s artwork is strong and creepy as ever, and the Smallwood’s story shows not just an excellent grasp of Riverdale, but that they might just have a bit more planned than Vampironica biting a bloody path through high school. 7.7/10

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

REVIEW: Quantum and Woody! (2017) #6 by Eliot Rahal, Francis Portela, Andrew Dalhouse, & Dave Sharpe

There may be a high intimidation factor to Quantum and Woody! #6 for some. It’s billed in part as a tie-in to Harbinger Wars 2, it’s six issues into a run, and it’s the first issue by a new creative team. Any of those things might discourage a new reader from picking up this book, but none of them should. Quantum and Woody! #6 is a simple but surprisingly emotional comic book that requires no prior knowledge of the characters, preceding issues, or even the Valiant Universe.

I’ve read Quantum and Woody! sporadically, depending on the creative team, but I’d caught all of this run from Daniel Kibblesmith and Kano. I also came into this book previously familiar with writer Eliot Rahal, whose own career is not short on humor writing, as he used to do stand-up comedy and also co-wrote an amusing The Paybacks book with Donny Cates. Kibblesmith is a blast on Twitter and his run on this book conveyed his humor well. That’s all a way of saying I came into this book maybe expecting Rahal to try to out-joke him, but what I found was a much richer reading experience.

Instead, this issue is a rare superhero comic wherein I could see myself very clearly facing the same predicament as the heroes: a burning building filled with imperiled people that the heroes as able-bodied passerbys (without their powers for a reason unbeknownst to them) felt obligated to help. No spoilers (always and forever), but Quantum and Woody have to make difficult choices, take risks, and ultimately sacrifice, leaning on each other for support.

See? Like I said, simple but surprisingly emotional. Much credit is due to the scope of Rahal’s script, which doesn’t ever needlessly exaggerate the situation or odds Quantum and Woody face. Francis Portela’s art (with colors by Andrew Dalhouse and lettering by Dave Sharpe) is also on point. Valiant in recent years has at times seemed to have a house style that favors full room perspectives and intricate detail, and Portela deploys it here expertly, also doing a great job of capturing the calamity that eventually befalls the heroes.

This arc stands to be brief—just this issue plus next month’s—but Rahal will be staying on the book longer, eventually teaming with Joe Eisma (who’s done some great work for Archie Comics of late) through the end of the summer at least. This issue stands alone really well, but Rahal also captures a few small moments that would seem to strongly indicate he has an expert grasp on the tentative, brotherly dynamic that drives Quantum and Woody! I for one will be following this title during his tenure to see where else he takes it.

Overall: Despite being six issues into a run and billed as a tie-in to Valiant’s big summer event, this issue of Quantum and Woody! stands well on its own as a simple but surprisingly emotional tale of self-sacrifice and heroism. 9.0/10

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

A Handy Guide for DC's Big comiXology Memorial Day Sale

Midnighter Vol. 1 is one of our top picks, available for $5.99.

I am scared to count how much money I’ve spent on DC’s Memorial Day Sale on comiXology, which runs through Monday. Figuring out my budget is a problem for Next Month Me. I also suspect I’m not done yet and I’ll end up making more last minute purchases as the weekend winds down.

To that end, I’d like to enable all of you to spend money along with me. This is America, you know. All told there are 1,000 titles, most of which are marked down to $5.99 while a few others to $4.99. Deciding what to buy can be a bit overwhelming, which is why I’ve compiled this Handy Guide for Last Minute DC comiXology Memorial Day Sale Shopping. Behold!

Below you will find five categories: my top 10 overall picks, a list of significant runs to invest in, some essential classics it’s nice to have, the books that offer the biggest savings, and a quick list of all the $4.99 books.

Hope you find this helpful, and feel free to hit me up on Twitter to let me know what you bought!

Top 10 Overall Picks

This list skews toward books I’ve perceived as underrated or under-discussed recently, with my hope being readers will find new discoveries. I could have put All-Star Superman or Watchmen here, but how helpful would that be, right?

1. The Flintstones Vols. 1 & 2
The Flintstones by Mark Russell and Steve Pugh is one of the sharpest comic book satires ever, commenting on everything from the military-industrial complex to artistic struggles to consumerism. And it’s somehow also about The Flintstones. It takes a leap of faith, but if some or any of what I described sounds appealing, I highly recommend doing it. Total Price: $11.98

2. The Wild Storm Vol. 1
Warren Ellis and Jon Davis-Hunt are doing something ambitious and special with this new take on the old Wildstorm universe and characters, which is fresh and stands on its own yet brimming with plenty of nods to long-time readers. The sister title, Wild Storm: Michael Cray by Bryan Edward Hill and N. Steven Harris, is just as good (but, alas, not on sale). Total Price: $5.99

3. Green Arrow: Rebirth Vols. 1, 2, 3, & 4
I know, I know...this book has already gotten much attention, but I just had to include Benjamin Percy’s Rebirth Green Arrow run here. If you want to know why I like it so much, you can find that here. Total Price: $23.96

4. The Omega Men: The End is Here
Before Tom King was Mister Miracle Tom King, or Batman Tom King, or even The Vision Tom King, he was The Omega Men Tom King. This is the book that first brought one of the best current writers to my attention. If you’ve enjoyed his high-profile recent work, you’ll surely appreciate this too, like watching a rookie have a breakout game in sports. Total Price: $5.99

5. Cassandra Cain as Batgirl Vols. 1, 2, & 3
Just like Wally West is always and forever my Flash, Cassandra Cain is my Batgirl. She was, after all, in the costume when I read my first Batgirl comics. If you liked her in James Tynion’s recently-concluded Detective Comics run, you’ll like this book, too. Total Price: $17.97

6. New Super Man Vols. 1 & 2
This title is ending soon, but Gene Luen Yang’s New Super Man—a Chinese teenager genetically enhanced by his government—has been a highlight of DC’s Rebirth. It’s also one of the few titles from the initiative that takes refreshing risks rather than leaning on foundations of long-established characters. Total Price: $11.98

7. Midnighter Vols. 1 & 2 & Midnighter & Apollo Vol. 1
Midnighter, which starts in the New 52 and extends into Rebirth with the six-issue mini Midnighter & Apollo, is the book that first brought Steve Orlando to my attention. It’s complete with faith in the reader and nuanced character beats that make Orlando’s most recent work—Justice League of America and Crude—so favorably-reviewed on our site. Total Price: $17.97

8. Superman and the Legion of Super Heroes
There is a surprising amount of commentary about nationalism in this book (planetism, technically) that feels searingly relevant today. If you’re dying for the Legion to return to the post-Rebirth DCU, this quick read might just tide you over. Total Price: $5.99

9. Swamp Thing (2016)
The last few months of the New 52/DC You were a mess, as the publisher was aggressively looking to the future. Swamp Thing (2016), however, was a standout, and it also ended up being one of the last stories the character’s creator, Len Wein, ever told. Total Price: $5.99

10. Batman: New Gotham Vols. 1 & 2
I may have nostalgia bias here, seeing as this collects the first run of Detective Comics I read as a kid, but I’ve always thought Greg Rucka’s time on the title was underrated. It’s set in the aftermath of No Man’s Land, and it does a great job of depicting the central tenants of Batman’s world, including Bruce Wayne, Gotham City, and the GCPD. Total Price: $11.98

All Star-Superman is essential reading.

7 Essential Classics

This section is dedicated to books that all comic fans should own. I have many of these in hardcopy—and, as always, I advise you to support your local comic shop/community by purchasing in that format, too—but it doesn’t hurt to have digital copies, you know, in case you need to clean panel shots to post on Twitter.

• All-Star Superman - $4.99
• Batman: The Dark Knight Returns - $5.99
• Crisis on Infinite Earths - $5.99
• Kingdom Come - $4.99
• Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? - $5.99
• Watchmen - $4.99
• Wonder Woman by George Perez Vols. 1 & 2 - $11.98 Total

 

8 Significant Runs to Invest In

The section above is mostly standalone books, so let’s look now at some of the best runs in this sale, which range in size from three volumes to as many as nine.

• Aquaman (by Geoff Johns) Vols. 1, 2, 3, & 4 - $23.96
• Batman (by Scott Snyder & Greg Capullo) Vols. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, & 9 - $53.91
• Deathstroke: Rebirth Vols. 1, 2, & 3 - $17.97
• Green Arrow Vols. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, & 9 - $53.91
• JLA Vols. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, & 9 - $53.91
• Justice League Vols. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, & 8 - $47.92
• New Teen Titans Vols. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, & JC - $53.91
• Secret Six Vols. 1, 2, 3, & 4 - $23.96 & New 52 Secret Six Vols. 1 & 2 - $11.98

All the Biggest Savings

These books cost $29.99 or more but have been marked down for this sale to $5.99.

• Aquaman: A Celebration of 75 Years $29.99
• Aquaman: The Atlantis Chronicles $34.99
• Batgirl: A Celebration of 50 Years $29.99
• Batman by Azzarello and Risso $29.99
• Batman: Eternal Vol. 1 $29.99
• Batman: Eternal Vol. 2 $29.99
• Batman: Eternal Vol. 3 $29.99
• Batman: A Celebration of 75 Years $29.99
• Batman: Ego and Other Tails $29.99
• Batman: War Games Book 2 $29.99
• Catwoman: A Celebration of 75 Years $29.99
• DC Universe of John Byrne $29.99
• DC Universe of Mike Mignola $29.99
• DC: New Frontier $39.99
• Green Arrow by Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino Deluxe Edition $39.99
• Green Arrow: A Celebration of 75 Years $29.99
• Green Lantern: A Celebration of 75 Years $29.99
• Justice League of America: The Nail $29.99
• Justice Society of America: A Celebration of 75 Years $29.99
• Lex Luthor: A Celebration of 75 Years $29.99
• Lois Lane: A Celebration of 75 Years $29.99
• Midnighter: The Complete Wildstorm Series $29.99
• Shazam! A Celebration of 75 Years $29.99
• Superboy & The Legion of Superheroes Vol. 1 $34.99
• Superman: A Celebration of 75 Years $29.99
• Superman: Doomed $39.99
• Swamp Thing by Scott Snyder $39.99
• Tales of the Batman: Archie Goodwin $29.99
• Tales of the Batman: Carmine Infantino $34.99
• Tales of the Batman: Don Newton $29.99
• Tales of the Batman: Gene Colan Vol. 1 $29.99
• Tales of the Batman: Gene Colan Vol. 2 $29.99
• Tales of the Batman: Gerry Conway Vol. 1 $34.99
• Tales of the Batman: JH Williams III $34.99
• Tales of the Batman: Len Wein $34.99
• Teen Titans: A Celebration of 50 Years $29.99
• The Flash: A Celebration of 75 Years $29.99
• The Joker: A Celebration of 75 Years $29.99
• The Multiversity Deluxe Edition $34.99
• The New 52: Futures End Vol. 1 $29.99
• Wonder Woman by John Byrne Vol. 1 $29.99
• Wonder Woman: A Celebration of 75 Years $29.99
• Zatana by Paul Dini $29.99

All the $4.99 Books

If $5.99 still sounds too rich for your blood, worry not! A handful of books have been marked down even lower, and most of them are classics like All Star Superman, Batman: Hush, Kingdom Come, and Watchmen.

Kingdom Come is on sale for $4.99.

• All Star Superman $4.99
• Aquaman by Geoff Johns Vol. 1 $4.99
• Batman: Hush $4.99
• Batman/The Flash: The Button: $4.99
• Doom Patrol Vol. 1 $4.99
• Flashpoint $4.99
• Green Arrow: The Archer’s Quest $4.99
• JSA by Geoff Johns Book 1 $4.99
• Justice League New 52 Vol. 1 $4.99
• Kingdom Come $4.99
• Planetary Book 1 $4.99
• Teen Titans by Geoff Johns Book One $4.99
• The Legion by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning $4.99
• Watchmen $4.99
• Wonder Woman by Brian Azzareto Vol. 1 $4.99
• Zatana by Paul Dini $4.99

That’s it for our guide. I’m sure a good many of you have already poked around, but Hopefully, our little list gave you some new ideas. I know writing it motivated me to spend more money (not like that’s hard with comics—I have a problem).

Anyway, enjoy your Memorial Day weekend, and we’ll see you next week for some great reviews of this week’s books, plus a list of New Comic Discoveries for May 2018 and maybe some other content if an idea strikes our fancy.

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

Marvel Ends Its 18-Year Brian Michael Bender (Sorry)

Marvel Comics is waking up today, hungover after an 18-year Brian Michael Bender (sorry, couldn’t help it). Just imagine, there Marvel is in NYC, blinds drawn and AC up, shaking off cobwebs and trying to piece together the fog. It started innocently enough, a few rounds of a modern take on Spider-Man, then there was a Daredevil run everyone seemed to love, chased by Jessica Jones in Alias (which brought the Bender to a sloppy place in a good way), and, finally, shots of Avengers, X-Men, and Guardians of the Galaxy, plus an Iron Man nightcap.

Now, here we are.

Okay, Bender gimmick over. Thanks for indulging me. Anyway, Brian Michael Bendis’ 18-year tenure as a Marvel-exclusive writer ended Wednesday with Invincible Iron Man #600. For comic fans, it’s not that sad, mostly because next week Bendis will be back with Man of Steel #1 for DC. But for Marvel, the publisher loses a defining voice, a writer who co-created some of its best new characters in years (Miles Morales, Jessica Jones), who enticed talented friends to work there (Jonathan Hickman, Matt Fraction, Kelly Sue DeConnick, plus artists), and whose contributions to movies and TV are evident to anyone deeply-versed in his work.

Yes, Bendis is gone and Marvel has a new reality. Online there has been a bit of negative chatter (shocker!), with some folks saying Bendis will wreck Superman while others insist Marvel has lost all its big talent. I’m a perpetual optimist, admittedly, but I don’t think either of those things are true and here’s why.

My official take is that in a deadline-driven business like corporate superhero comics, it’s easy to get lost in the day-to-day, to only see right in front of your cursor, to lose the creative joy central to storytelling. I’ve spent the past decade writing for three media companies, producing content for newspapers, websites, magazines. Believe me, I know.

Was Bendis burned out at Marvel? He’s a consummate pro and would never say, but all parties seem to realize that Civil War II (2016), which he helmed, was a bit of a dud, and some of his mid-tenure runs at Marvel—X-Men and Guardians—aren’t cited by many as favorites. To my outside eyes, it looked like Bendis over-extended himself in late 2015 and well into 2016, trying to fill the MASSIVE gap left by Jonathan Hickman. Then in the wake of criticism, he stepped his game up and put out some brief-but-excellent work for the publisher, including Infamous Iron Man, The Defenders, and another go around on Jessica Jones.

Brian Michael Bendis

Then there’s Marvel. Was it leaning on Bendis? Knowing full-well sales of his books would probably always be stable? Was having ol’ Bendis a crutch? Maybe so. But that said, Bendis departure comes amid a wave of similar exits, including Fraction, DeConnick, Rick Remender, Jonathan Hickman, Kieron Gillen (almost), and Jeff Lemire (almost again). This has all forced Marvel to elevate newer writers perhaps faster than it otherwise would have.

To that end, the whole bye-bye Bendis business has resulted in a spike in creativity, like for example when Donny Cates got Thanos just before Infinity War and told one of my all-time favorite stories with the character, Thanos Wins. It’s led to Kelly Thompson’s relationship-defining mini-series Rogue and Gambit, and to Matthew Rosenberg writing Phoenix Resurrection, firmly in the top tier of X-Men stories of recent years. Oh, and Tom Taylor has turned X-Men: Red into the best mutant book I can remember.  

Going back to the goofy bender metaphor from my lede, it’s a bit like a newly-sober drunk making major life changes because they skimmed rock bottom.

And there’s a lot to like at Marvel now. Here’s a quick rundown of five writers at Marvel I’m looking forward to reading (alphabetically):

1. Dan Slott on Fantastic Four: I know, Slott is polarizing and (I’ve been told) had some poor moments on social media, but his take on Silver Surfer with Mike Allred is among my all-time favorite superhero stories. I hope he brings the same deeply-personal sensibilities to the first family.

2. All Things Donny Cates: I loved what Donny Cates did with both Thanos and Doctor Strange, and the new books on his docket look great too, especially the Cosmic Ghost Rider, which grew from Thanos Wins.

3. More Jason Aaron: Jason Aaron’s Thor run is now Marvel’s best uninterrupted take on any character, and Marvel has now given Aaron the keys to its biggest franchise, The Avengers. More about why I like that here.

4. Kelly Thompson on West Coast Avengers: I live in California (Sacramento, the most underrated city in that state), and I know the sensibilities here well. The aesthetic of this book and the team lineup is right in line with them, somewhere between madcap fun and social responsibility. Her voice is also perfect. So, big expectations for her here.

5. Ta-Nehisi Coates on Captain America: This seems like a critical and commercial home run. I’ve had comics out when non-comic guests come over, and Coates' Black Panther is the only one that’s sparked conversation. His name alone is huge. Also, given current social and political climates in the country, Coates as a Pulitzer Prize-winning non-fiction writer should have a relevant and important take on a character long functioning as an analog for the nation, its values, or both.

In terms of Bendis’ future, look—I’ve been reading Bendis’ work since I was 15 and Ultimate Spider-Man #1 hit my local shop with a take on the character I was desperate for then...a modern take that reflected my world. As I went to college, got a job, and met my wife, I kept up with this title throughout, watching Bendis grow as a writer, too. Spider-Man #240 was emotional for me, but the sting was short-lived because I’m following Bendis to his new publisher.

He’s written two teasers for Superman so far, which put together total roughly one issue. I liked the fight scene in Action Comics #1000. It had a modern yet classic feel to it, as his best Ultimate Spider-Man work did. I was lukewarm on his depiction of the Daily Planet. My wife and I work in print media (I know, scary), and his newsroom was anachronistic, which took me out of the story. It’s nit picky, and your mileage may vary. There’s also been clamoring online for him to clarify what his plans for Lois Lane (one of my favorite characters in comics). He seems to be dancing around clarifying a narrative twist in interviews. So, here’s hoping months from now we hardly remember this concern.

Overall, I’m bullish on Bendis at DC. I expect the new universe to challenge and rejuvenate him. He may not convert his harshest critics, but I think fans who keep an open mind will find much to appreciate, although isn’t that always the case with comics?

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

ADVANCED REVIEW: Harbinger Wars 2 #1 by Matt Kindt, Tomas Giorello, & Diego Rodriguez

I’ve always thought of Harbinger as Valiant’s answer to X-Men, which is, admittedly, a fairly obvious comparison to draw. Harbinger Wars 2 #1, however, was actually a really nice reminder that this franchise’s significantly more under-the-radar status allows it a degree of agility the now-hulking X-Men behemoth no longer has, and it uses that degree expertly in this issue to play upon current societal woes and concerns. Essentially, the first part of this summer’s Harbinger Wars 2 event is a poignant and engaging story, involving nearly all of Valiant’s best characters (where’s the Eternal Warrior at these days, btw?).

As it should. The Harbinger concept to me is the center of Valiant’s universe (or was until Divinity showed up, anyway), and this event is poised to treat it as such. It’s yet another tale of superheros turning against each, and as common as that has become these days, doing it convincingly is still tricky business. Without giving anything away, I’ll say this book handles it better than most in recent memory, rich as it with solid and believable motivations for the involved heroes to take their respective sides. The action of the shadowy government types here are a little harder to fathom, as they almost always are, but I digress.

But let’s keep it abstract, seeing as this is an advanced review (this book drops May 30) and I don’t go in for spoilers. Let’s get away from details and talk about the commentary. In a sense, the themes in Matt Kindt’s script are nothing we haven’t seen done or attempted by X-Men several times over the years: an outcast population, children on the run because of who they are, a government acting out of fear, a debate over what constitutes proper methods of resistance.

Kindt, however, is an incredibly nuanced writer who doesn’t need to hit us over the end with any of that to make this story compelling. He puts all those questions and themes in here seemingly as a mechanism for understanding the reasons our characters have for fighting, then he gives them all plans that start to pull them together. Each page pulls our opposed characters closer, revealing more about their motivations as it does so and setting the stage for a massive rumble to come.

There’s a cinematic quality to this story, in both its structure and scope, as well as in the way characters from various Valiant franchises are introduced, presented in big splashy panels as if they were leaving room for an applause break. Tomas Giorello hits the artwork here out of the park, as he has during previous collaborations with Kindt in Valiant’s best ongoing right now, XO Manowar.

Overall: Come for the incredibly tense and entertaining story, stay for the subtle commentary on our times—exactly as a book about outcasts persecuted by vast governmental power structures should be. This issue is all rising action, bringing in power players and stopping just short of slamming together. I can’t wait for No. 2. 9.3/10

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

Dark Horse Comics’ Black Hammer and Ether: Two Beautiful Stories of Sacrifice

From Ether by Matt Kindt and David Rubin.

I recently read one of the best graphic stories to come my way in some time: Ether Vol. 1 by writer Matt Kindt and artist David Rubin. It was about a man who discovers a scientific realm beyond our own, seemingly inhabited by humanity’s notions of mythology. It is a land of living beings, all of whom firmly believe in magic. Our protagonist begins to visit the land and use his knowledge of science to debunk those beliefs and solve crimes there.

This land of mythology is so beautifully-rendered by Rubin. Many panels in this story could stand on their own as independent works of art. Ether, however, is not unique in this way, as many comics these days have a similarly-striking and imaginative visual quality (this is to take nothing away from Ether). Where Ether really stands apart is through the emotional depth Rubin and Kindt aspire to with its story.

That magical land—known to our characters as the titular Ether—moves through time differently, with months in the real world passing for every minute one spends there. When our protagonist first discovers it and begins to visit, he is happily married with a young family. Each of his visits, however, progresses the lives of his wife and daughters by several years past his own. He becomes addicted, their lives slip away from him—heartbreak.

I read this as a metaphor for the plight of anyone who is similarly driven, and as Kindt and Rubin are artists, I presume this metaphor was drawn through their own time lost at the keyboard or the drawing table, travelling through imaginative worlds grown from their own ideas as their families went on without them. As a writer myself, this gave the book—which stands on its own wonderfully as an engaging story rife with heroes and villains and mystery—a haunting undertow as I read, bringing me to tears somewhere during the fourth chapter.

That metaphor, while gorgeous, is not what this piece is about. I assume I’m far from the only one to pick up on it, as critically lauded as Ether has been in comics circles. What I want to unpack today is how another successful Dark Horse Comics property—Black Hammer by Jeff Lemire, Dean Ormston, and Dave Stewart—could be looked at as a companion piece to Ether, another side of the same artistic sacrifice coin.

Black Hammer by Jeff Lemire, Dean Ormston, and Dave Stewart. 

Whereas Ether examines the loss of one’s family as a price for spending life engrossed in work, Black Hammer depicts a different sort of creative sacrifice, one that has to do with being lost in the mystique of a craft, a professional culture, a niche artistic medium driven by nostalgia. Black Hammer is the story of a group of superheroes, all of whom are analogs for various characters from the Silver Age of comics. These heroes face down a global threat and find themselves confined to a mysterious farm for their troubles, lost to the world they were defending and stuck in a small rural area that doesn’t seem to be on any map.

It is, quite clearly, a paean by Lemire, Ormston, and Stewart to superhero comics, which all of them have spent parts of their careers within. It’s more than just a reimagining of a classic superhero mythos. See, there is sinister business afoot in Black Hammer, a mournfulness to the plight of the heroes on that farm, only one of whom seems satisfied with life there (and even then, who's to say he’s not deluding himself?).

Read a certain way it almost seems like the question underlying Black Hammer is what do we give up when we fall so fully into our nostalgia for superhero comics, how much of a risk are we at of being swallowed whole by it? It’s a poignant question in an era when vicious battles are waged online about the future of many pop culture properties, battles in which nostalgia is often held as a causation. I can only suppose the question is more poignant for the creators, whose lives work is being given over in part to these characters.

Lemire’s work is always somewhat obtuse in origin, difficult to figure out thematically (in the best possible way), but let's think about the timeline during which he may have conceptualized Black Hammer, which was in all probability near the tail end of his time writing exclusively for Marvel. When Marvel’s All New All Different initiative launched, Lemire was one of the central writers, taking on some of the publisher’s most prominent characters, including one of the central X-Men team books, Old Man Logan, and All New Hawkeye, which was a followup to the immensely successful run on that character by David Aja and Matt Fraction.

Throughout 2016, however, Lemire slowly began drifting off those titles, reducing his Big 2 superhero output to a mere two books today, one of which is yet to be released. It’s not a stretch, in my opinion, to suppose Black Hammer was a manifestation of Lemire feeling creatively trapped, a sense that maybe he was drawn into this work by nostalgia and had professionally been stuck on a farm. I’m not saying I know any of this to be a fact, but I think there’s a case to be made.

I’ll conclude by saying I find both Black Hammer and Ether to be among the most intriguing titles coming to comic book stores each month, and I find important questions for us all within them, specifically: what must aspiring creators be willing to sacrifice for our crafts?; and is there danger or risk of stagnation that could kneecap our futures buried within the warm fuzzy feelings of nostalgia?

I really doubt either book will provide clear or concrete answers for such tough questions—great art is rarely so neat—but I trust there will continue to be a beautiful journey in the asking.

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

REVIEW: Crude #2 by Steve Orlando, Garry Brown, & Lee Loughridge

Crude No. 2 by Steve Orlando, Garry Brown, and Lee Loughridge is a rare second issue that builds expertly on its predecessor while also standing alone as a rewarding read. On the surface, this issue is the story of a turf war between a dominant oil company in a far-flung industrial Russian city and an upstart rival, with an old man who has a history of violence  interjecting himself into the fray.

I’m not doing the plot justice (read this book for yourself—I strongly recommend it), but it’s equal parts bleak and compelling, heavy on ethos and fast-paced, graphic storytelling. It's very good. When evaluated as a continuation of Crude No. 1, however, this issue becomes a deeper and more rewarding part of a larger narrative about a man solving a mystery, seeking revenge, and potentially atoning for his life's chief mistake.

One of the qualities to Orlando’s work that puts him among my favorite comic book writers (dating back to his excellent 2015 Midnighter) is how he refuses to dumb anything down for readers. There’s a promise I’ve found made by Orlando comics, something along the lines of If you work to immerse yourself in this story, to really focus and engage with what I’m doing here, I will greatly reward you for your efforts.

And this new creator-owned book from Image Comics is his strongest work to date. In the first issue, Crude showed itself to be a story of juxtapositions of two lives, one of violence and another of domestic bliss, all within its first four pages: two of which showed our protagonist, Piotr, at breakfast with his family, and two of which showed him violently thrashing enemies.

One problem I see at times within modern comics is a somewhat gratuitous use of time jumps: Then. Now. Five Minutes Past Then. Next Thursday, etc., but Crude uses non-linear storytelling to great effect, thereby justifying every time jump. Crude is a story that must incorporate mistakes made through time—not so much the violence of Piotr’s past but rather his decision to keep it hidden from his son—and it uses juxtaposition to make those mistakes all the more powerful. The non-linear time elements in this book are, in other words, essential.

There two panels, which appear in both Crude #1 and #2, are at the crux of its story.

Crude's artwork also bears mention. The nature of our plot is such that there’s a significant amount of interiority. It’s basically a story of a man grappling with regret, which is a difficult conflict to convey in comics, but Brown and Loughridge’s art does an incredibly effective job working in tandem with Orlando’s scripting. In issue No. 1, when Piotr first sees the body of his son, the book excels at showing rather than telling, deploying panels that alternate between the body and the man’s reaction as he hears earlier dialogue echo in his mind, asking “this your son?” and we realize he’s weeping not only for his loss but because his own life of secrets prevented him from ever truly knowing his only boy. Powerful stuff.

Overall: Crude No. 2 introduces a framework for the challenges and mystery our protagonist must fight to overcome, and it does so in a suspenseful way that doesn’t sacrifice any of the interiority that made No. 1 so compelling. Orlando, Brown, and Loughridge are really building something special here, something that feels powerful as well as painstakingly deliberate. 9.3/10

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

Batman's Booster Gold Arc: The Good, The Bad, & The Sanctuary

Booster Gold in happier times.

Let me just start by saying Tom King is one of my favorite writers in comics. I bought all the single issues plus also hardcover copies of both The Vision and Sheriff of Babylon, and I’d do the same for Omega Men if a hardcover was available. I’ve loved this Batman run overall (Kite Man!), and King’s Mister Miracle maxi-series has gotten a ton of ink (or whatever the digital equivalent is) on this very site. I love Tom King’s work, which is part of why I feel obligated to apply a critical lens to his latest arc in Batman, “The Gift,” which centered on Booster Gold.

In The Gift, Booster and his flying Palm Pilot/best friend Skeet go back in time to prevent the murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents, trying to create evidence of how awful the world would be without Batman in order to present it to Bruce as a gift for his wedding. I’ve got plenty of nit-picks with this concept—was Booster just going to film it and give Bats a video clip? did he plan on later going back to ensure the murder happened? what about Selina? wedding gifts are supposed to be for both the bride AND groom—but this is comics, and we could nitpick everything all day and still not run out of nits to pick, etc.

My central issue with The Gift is the characterization of Booster Gold. In The Gift, Booster is reckless and—to be blunt—kind of dumb. Even when the world has gone to ash around him and he’s got multiple deaths on his conscience, he’s wisecracking about how he should have just gone with a cheese tray, written closer to Deadpool or Harley Quinn than the character we’ve seen in the past. It’s a far cry from the bleak but tragicomic genius we’ve seen in books like The Vision or Mister Miracle.

To me, Booster Gold has always been a tragic hero, though, one who is undone more by cutting corners, hubris, and bad luck than his own wanton stupidity. Born in the future as Michael Jon Carter, he was a star quarterback who got caught betting on his own games (at the behest of his lousy and I think also alcoholic father). So, he stole a bunch of super advanced tech and fled to the past, where he re-branded himself as a superhero and used his knowledge of other heroes there to his advantage. Also, he wanted to regain his lost fame, riches and fortune.

None of that is all that stupid. Narcissistic and selfish, perhaps, but also clever and calculating. As a result Booster is often depicted with a mix of daddy issues and imposter syndrome, which making him highly relate-able. A hallmark of his character over the years has also become his respect for the delicacy of the timeline, something that was even depicted well in the last 18 months or so in an Action Comics arc written by Dan Jurgens (the greatest Superman writer of our generation), in which Booster essentially stands up to Superman, who’s trying to save his own parents. It just isn't consistent that a Booster who recently went through that would then turn around and initiate the same idea as a wedding gift for Batman, even if he did intend to undo it.

My first inclination was to chalk this up to rushed writing, to King trying to spin the wheels on Batman for a few issues and bridge the way to No. 50. The more I contemplate this, however, the less I think that was the case. The end of The Gift leaves Booster a broken man, one vigorously cleaning a nigh-invisible splotch of blood left on his golden visor, which is hardly an ending at all. King, however, has shown himself to be expertly adept at ending arcs and story threads with the best in the business, and here there's almost no closure. King leaves us disturbed and a little perplexed, an odd note for a writer who has consistently tugged on reader emotions with subtle and savvy bits of narrative genius.

What I think is far more likely is that this is the start of a King story rather than the end of one. Now, this idea that The Gift is a seed for a larger Booster Gold arc rather than a simple guest spot in Batman isn’t all that original, not at this point. Outlets from Bleeding Cool to CBR have posited much the same, presenting more than enough evidence from King’s Twitter feed to back up their hypothesis. The standard line of thinking has quickly become that Booster Gold will be headed for King’s next concept, a PTSD clinic for superheros dubbed Sanctuary, and I’m on board with that. I certainly trust King—a man who has been to actual war—to tell that story and to tell it well.

What I would caution as a reader, however, is that there is a danger in making nuanced characters a blank slate defined by recent pain and suffering. As we saw in The Gift, it leaves entire plot points open to feeling contrived and insincere. One of the things that worked so well within DC's Rebirth was a strong emphasis on the core concepts of characters. To throw that away—even for an idea as strong as Sanctuary—seems like folly. And really, for an in-continuity, shared universe story like this one, it’s probably on the editor to enforce character growth and consistency from Action Comics to Batman to whatever comes next, etc.

One of the best Batman variant covers in recent memory.

But hey, enough with the negativity! King's scripts have a high bottom line for quality, and the artwork by Tony S. Daniel and Sandu Florea was great. Overall, King’s batting average is still really high on Batman, a book for which he must produce two scripts a month, no easy task for any writer, and I for one firmly believe that this wedding is going to be fantastic. I recently re-read Batman Annual No. 2, and it's still one of the best Batman stories in years, as well as one of the best Bat-Cat stories period. The Batman/Elmer Fudd Special is also a modern pop art classic, wonderfully-bizarre in conception and pitch perfect in execution, just downright great comic book-ing. Basically, for every Booster Gold fumble, there is an equal or greater Kite Man. King is also pretty busy right now—planning a wedding is never easy.

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

REVIEW: Bloodshot Salvation #9 by Jeff Lemire, Ray Fawkes, & Renato Guedes

Under the guidance of writer Jeff Lemire, Valiant’s Bloodshot franchise has grown in recent years from being a revival of another ‘90s heroes who carries big guns (plus also maybe a sword) and can heal from gruesome wounds, into a walking metaphor for the human toll of the military industrial complex. In Lemire's stories, our man Bloodshot has looked for love, found it, and become a dad—only to be dragged back into war and violence.

Lemire’s characterization of the principal Bloodshot—Ray Garrison—is top-tier, just like Lemire’s characterization in most books, but where his work on Bloodshot has really excelled has been in telling the story of the Bloodshot technology over time, bringing in past Bloodshots as metaphors for the military industrial complexes in bygone eras, including Vietnam and World War II. This issue focuses on another recent addition to Bloodshot’s supporting cast, his faithful dog Bloodhound, who we learn here is a veteran of WWI.

It’s a solid issue of Bloodshot, to be sure, and it’s the type of story Lemire, joined on writing duties here by Ray Fawkes, does well: one that fleshes out characters and is so entertaining that readers can forgive a one-month break from our plot (see his work on Descender for more great examples of this). The end result is an issue that both adds to the larger Bloodshot mythos but could also work as a poignant standalone for first-time Bloodshot readers.

All of that is a credit to the plot, which subverts expectations in terms of the roles the two main characters in the narrative seem poised to play at its start. The groundwork is laid for the sensitive doctor, who is seeing his first battle, to be our heart, our humanitarian, our entry point into a violent and savage world of war. Meanwhile, we also get a foil for our assumed protagonist, a seasoned military commander who barely tolerates the doctor’s presence, one I assumed would be a cynical roadblock, complicating the doctor’s efforts to save lives.

This issue, however, just isn’t that neat or simple, and, not to spoil anything, but there ends up being shades of gray throughout. There’s a particularly poignant bit where one character refers to “cost,” and it later becomes unclear if the true cost being referred to was lives or money. It’s a moment that puts the lens back on the reader and asks what are you as a civilian more concerned about: sending soldiers to die or finding more efficient ways to kill enemy soldiers at minimal taxpayer expense? Yikes.  

My only gripe with the issue is a small one, in that some of the commentary is a bit on the nose, with soldiers randomly cursing the war, or describing it as a pointless meat grinder.

Overall: Bloodshot No. 9 is a well-done issue, one that sets out to create an emotional origin story for Bloodshot’s faithful companion Bloodhoud and succeeds, all while paying off one of the better commentaries about the military industrial complex and our role in it as civilians, which is what I’ve long seen as the overarching theme of Lemire’s Bloodshot work. 8.5/10

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

ADVANCED REVIEW: We Are the Danger #1 by Fabian Lelay, Claudia Aguirre, & Taylor Esposito

We Are the Danger #1 is a book about music, outcasts, and friendship, which means that it has some familiar ground to tread. Fortunately, it’s a book that treads that ground quite stylishly, both in terms of form as well as in the aesthetic of its characters, its settings, and the pivotal scenes in which there is music.

In terms of form, writer/artist Fabian Lelay (Jade Street Protection Services) finds plenty of interesting (and sometimes unique) ways to disseminate the story here of a girl who changes schools during her senior year of high school, including shots of text message conversations, tracklists that reveal the mindset of characters, and key parts of said first day at a new school overlaid atop a cassette tape. Lelay’s art also uses posture to great effect, especially in the early part of the book, where two characters are having a (potentially-romantic) first interaction.

What I found most interesting within We Are the Danger #1, though, was the book’s subtle and efficient use of time, blowing expertly past all mundanity to give us key scenes of action and development. It’s an unnoticed thing for most readers, but it's also one that can bog down slice-of-life graphic storytelling, which is the category I'd put this book into. The stakes aren’t all that high here, and that’s okay—they aren’t meant to be, not yet, anyway. I have a feeling they'll start to increase as our story moves forward, and our story certainly has a stylish and engaging foundation. This first issue is a breezy read, as good introductions should be.

What’s really for sale here is the artwork and aesthetic, and Lelay reaches lofty levels of stylishness without a single scene reading as preening or too on the noise, no simple task for a book about music. Lelay’s artwork shines most, however, in scenes where music is being performed or listened to. Sound is tricky to convey on a static comic book page, but this book draws on the universality of youthful experiences with live music to create imagery capable of making one’s mind fill in the drum, the guitar, and the voices of these fast friendships. Good stuff.

Overall: This first issue builds friendships really well while also establishing a confident aesthetic tone. It’s a slice-of-life story, to be sure, and a good one at that, taking the time with emotions and relationships those books rely so heavily upon. I really appreciated how stylish this book was without ever becoming preening. It’ll be a fun one to follow. 7.5/10

We Are The Danger #1 will be available May 30, 2018.

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

Top Comics of April 2018

April had one landmark issue—Action Comics #1000—and what felt like some place-holding between new initiatives for both Marvel and DC. Creator-owned books were strong, especially in terms of debut issues, but mostly April was a month of looking toward the future, toward flashier summer happenings like Marvel’s Fresh Start, and DC’s No Justice, New Justice, Man of Steel, and Bat-Cat Wedding.

Even so, there were still a strong crop of books to be consumed. So what are we waiting for? Nothing. Let’s do this!

Shout Outs

Batman and wonder Woman, stuck in the cover art of a metal album via Brave and the Bold #3.

...Brave and the Bold #3 had me really hoping Batman and Wonder Woman can escape from the metal album cover art they’ve somehow gotten trapped in...

...Mark Waid and Chris Samnee’s run together culminated with this month’s Captain America #700, and it was unsurprisingly a joy, given how adept both men are as graphic storytellers. The future for Cap fans now belongs to Ta-Nehisi Coates, who takes over the title with a new No. 1 in July. Here’s hoping he pushes the character to headier, more analytical spaces, as his interviews and Free Comic Book Day short suggest...

...Champions #19 featured a new creative team of writer Jim Zub and artist Sean Izaaske. Zub’s script is as big-hearted as the Champions themselves, but I was most impressed by Izaaske’s phenomenal artwork, which gave me early Jorge Jimenez vibes, high praise given I currently consider him one of the best monthly superhero artists...

...Huckleberry Hound’s relationship with the cop in Exit Stage Left: Snagglepuss Chronicles #4 put tears in my eyes. Just tragic. I’m loving this satirical book, which goes to some very poignant places but thankfully has the Sasquatch shorts at the end serving as an emotional palate cleanser...

...New Super Man and the Justice League of China #22 is yet another stellar entry in one of my favorite in-continuity DC runs in many years. With this book, Gene Luen Yang has created a layered and believable superhero story for a country outside the United States. It’s an odd comparison (and we’re getting off track) but the only other time I remember half as much thought going into non-American heroes is Alpha Flight. Anyway, this book is ending soon, but what a treat it has been…

...Mister Miracle #8 is yet another installment in an ongoing modern classic maxi-series from Tom King and Mitch Gerads. I don’t have anything to add to the discourse, other than I could easily put this book in the Top 5 every month but am holding back because of how frequently we’ve featured it...

...Finally, R.I.P. to a pair of too-short Justice League runs by Christopher Priest and Steve Orlando, both of which concluded in April with Justice League #43 and Justice League of America #29, respectively. Priest’s was a brief teaser that re-enforced him as one of our best superhero writers, able to work magic with seemingly any character. Justice League of America, meanwhile, was a dense and rewarding treat throughout its life, one I may write about it at length sometime in the near future, schedule permitting.

Top Comics of April 2018

5. Grass Kings #14 by Matt Kindt & Tyler Jenkins

Matt Kindt and Tyler Jenkins next book, Black Badge, begins in August

This book has been rich and engaging from its start, driven in equal parts by character, mystery, and Jenkins wispy, ethereal artwork. Every arc has been deliberate, a slow burn, but things are entirely ablaze now. No. 14 really snuck up on readers (or at least on me, anyway), and now all of a sudden we’re in the middle of a tense, life and death situation.

One of the highest compliments I can pay a piece of narrative art is that it made me feel intense and surprising emotions. This issue’s ending did that, making me really feel the danger for the characters. This is the penultimate issue. But! Kindt and Jenkins already have a follow up work on the way in August, Black Badge.

4. Action Comics #1000 by Various

A comics Twitter friend of mine—Dan Grote of WMQ Comics—pointed out that many of the stories in Action Comics #1000 feel like fodder for a forgotten annual, and I can’t entirely argue with that. Minus the context of this being a landmark 1000th issue, many (but not all) of the vignettes here fall flat. These stories, however, do have that benefit, and it’s impossible to evaluate them without contextualizing them within the legacy they honor—which is why I wrote so glowingly about this book in a recent review.

I should note, however, this review was written the day of release, and I’ve since had time to meditate on my rankings. The only change I would make would be bumping The Car by Geoff Johns/Richard Donner, Olivier Coipel, and Alejandro Sanchez to No. 2. I continue to standby my list of favorite variants, though.  

3. Thanos #18 by Donny Cates, Geoff Shaw, & Antonio Fabela; Thanos Annual #1 by Various

Just a bit of the awesomeness from Thanos Wins.

With the release of Avengers: Infinity War, April was a huge month for Thanos, as his appearance in that movie essentially made him a household name, even inspiring some to start writing/Tweeting about how thirsty they are for him because that dude is so thicc (I just found out what that means because I’m old or uncool or both...probably both). The world is a strange and wonderful place. Anyway, April was also a big month for Thanos in comics, thanks to the double dose of Thanos #18 and Thanos Annual #1.

The former was a killer ending to one of Marvel’s most memorable runs in years, aptly titled Thanos Wins (read more about How Thanos Won here). It was a six issue bout of epic imagination and even more epic silliness from the red hot team of writer Donny Cates and artist Geoff Shaw. The Annual, meanwhile, was a nice chance for some other major industry talents—Ryan North, Kieron Gillen, Andre Arujo, Al Ewing, and Frazer Irving, among others—to do their own quick hit stories about Thanos, Marvel’s biggest bad (I tacked on my favorite panels from that book to my Infinity War review, fyi).  

2. Saga #51 by Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples

Words to live by from Saga #51.

Saga lands on our Top Comics list for the second consecutive month. I try to account for how I’ve over-exposed my interest in the book. Still, No. 51 was so good I had to. There are no bad arcs in Saga, but some arcs are more engaging than others. Right now, our story is hitting pretty high notes, as some of our principal characters wrap up quests and start to knock around with each other, resulting in all kinds of narrative tension, some of it with pretty severe consequences.

This issue gives Fiona Staples another chance to show off her imaginative design skills by creating a new creature, one who like most of Saga’s other creations is memorable and interesting. Staples’ design work on Saga is as strong as that of any fictional universe, giving Saga a distinct feel generally only found in much older sci-fi properties, specifically the Stars, both Trek and Wars (I stole that from the character on 30 Rock played by Alec Baldwin, btw). There is a certain look to a Saga creature, a Saga character, a Saga ship, and that was again made evident in this issue.

1. Batman: Creature of the Night #3 by Kurt Busiek and John Paul Leon

This series is a spiritual and conceptual successor to Busiek’s 2004 mini Superman: Secret Identity, in that Batman: Creature of the Night essentially tells the Batman story on our Earth, where Batman is a ubiquitous comic book character.

Plot-wise, Creature of the Night is a bit trickier than Secret Identity. Superman was easy to get going, because Supes got his powers inadvertently and surprisingly. Batman’s heroics, however, were born of tragedy and an obsessive, steely response. Creature of the Night got the tragedy aspect right from its start, as well as things like the protagonist’s personality and his supporting cast, or at least Alfred.

What was missing until now was a believable way to have a Batman as a crime fighter. This book gives us that, dark and surprisingly, as it should be. Overall, Creature of the Night is one of the best Batman stories in years. Busiek is a veteran writer, one who has long been a storyteller communicating in a language of huge ideas. This book is turning out to be a pure distillation of the lessons he learned throughout his august career, plus his penchant for layered and complex stories, the sort more common in award-winning novels.

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at@zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

Batman: Creature of the Night #3 is this series' best issue yet.