The above Achewood strip represents my relationship with comic books, particularly my genuine attempt (key word: attempt) at reading the fifteen million billion Flashpoint and Fear Itself tie-ins that came out this month, solely for the sake of this feature. I feel that it provides necessary context for the article that follows after the jump.
Best Book of the Month: Butcher Baker, the Righteous Maker #6
You know, if there’s one thing that Butcher Baker reminds me of, it’s the best period of the Rolling Stones. To clarify, even though it should be obvious to anyone with ears: I’m talking around 1968 through 1972, Beggars Banquet through Exile on Main St., the Jimmy Miller years. The boys in the band embraced their role as pure-sex princes of darkness, disappearing into femmy macho posturing, heroin haze, maniacal taboo-shoving, Anita and Bianca… Joe Casey and Mike Huddleston make comics that come from that same psychedelic bad trip — call it the ur-Altamont. Butcher Baker isn’t a comic book that reaches out to you, the reader. Instead, it invites you along as it disappears further into itself, pushing toward a critical mass of self-obsession that will either produce genius or total collapse. To read it as it skates along that narrow line makes for one of the few genuinely thrilling comics of the summer.
Worst Book of the Month: X-Men #15.1
The idea of the Point One initiative, beyond “thirteen or more issues in a 12-month span because if there’s more to buy we get more money,” is that they’re jumping-on points for the new readers flocking to comics — whole fives and tens of them every month. X-Men‘s central concept, as far as it’s ever really registered, is that it’s a book where the X-Men team up with other elements of the Marvel Universe, except for the five issues where they didn’t. X-Men #15.1 doesn’t even manage to explain this well. It also doesn’t set up the cast or introduce them. It also focuses almost entirely on a character who doesn’t appear in the book regularly. It also doesn’t explain the new Ghost Rider even a little. This could maybe be forgiven if the story was something more than fluff, but it’s not. It takes true irrelevance to stand out beyond the legions of faceless Earth-Nihilism Flashpoint tie-ins, but X-Men did it. Maybe a return to longer arcs will bring it back to the “fun romp” status of the first two storylines.
Best Scene of the Month: Vengeance #2
I’m still not really sure how this got published with all apparent implications intact, but I’m glad it did, because mainstream comics are starved for thoroughly messed up stuff. (I mean, there’s plenty of messed up stuff, but it’s all the same-old same-old “people getting their bodies torn apart or exploded” or “bad guys playing the rape card to show just how bad they are.” Old hat by now.) Lady Bullseye, more like Lady Buttgereit, am I right folks.
Worst Scene of the Month: Fear Itself #5
I can see what the intent was here, and that’s why it crashes into the ground as hard as it does — worse than an unqualified conceptual failure is one that could have succeeded. So the world is ending (again) and the heroes are faced with foes of seemingly limitless magical power (again) and everyone not only acts like it’s something totally unprecedented in their lives, but starts giving up all hope. It could be the set-up for a twist, but as it stands, it just reads like ham-fisted drama trumping even the most basic logic, and any suspension of disbelief shattering under the weight.
Continued below
Best Writer of the Month: Rob Williams (and yes I’m aware that that above image is from, like, July)
I know I gave the other two writing trophies to Joe Casey, but those were for specific things, not, you know, ideas. If anyone has proven themselves able to work wonders on a conceptual level, it’s Rob Williams. What did he do, you ask? Well, he turned Daken: Dark Wolverine into a book that’s actually worth reading month-to-month. Seriously, the boy is on some water-to-wine shit there.
Best Artist of the Month: Nick Bradshaw
So Astonishing X-Men was supposed to be a big deal because, in large part, of Jason Pearson. Then Pearson fell off the face of the Earth or went back to his home planet or whatever, and they brought in Nick Bradshaw to draw the second half. Never mind that the two have styles that mix like oil and baby sea mammals. What we learned: Nick Bradshaw should have been drawing this story from the start. He mixes the detail of Art Adams with the cartoonish body language of Ed McGuinness, and with both of those living legends frequently disappearing from the racks for long stretches, having someone to take up both their banners is a wonderful thing.
Best New Book of the Month: Star Wars: Knight Errant: Deluge #1
I know what you’re thinking: not many #1s in August, huh? Well, that’s true. But what makes Deluge stand out is its subtle forward-thinking, even if it’s only within the limited scope that being a Lucasfilm licensee allows. As we all know, the Jedi storyline of Star Wars is a thinly veiled metaphor for fundamentalist Muslim forces overthrowing and permanently crippling Western imperialism, and replacing its capitalist corruption with righteous Sharia law. Where Deluge deviates is that it highlights the role of women in destroying the machinery of a complacent, Hutt-like Great Satan, showing that there’s a place for everyone in the glorious struggle to come.
