March 2013 was a roller-coaster ride of emotions for comic book fans. Well, more so than usual. Comic fans felt many feelings when the bat-books at DC Comics made their way through Robin’s “Requiem” which certainly got people talking. But DC ended up in the news for all kinds of other reasons they didn’t expect when Andy Diggle and Joshua Hale Fialkov both walked off of books and stories that haven’t even started releasing yet. Yet more editorial disagreements marked a rough month for DC when it was rumored that Fialkov’s walk-off stemmed from plans to kill John Stewart (one of several Earth Green Lanterns).
Marvel did a better job of getting fans to say “WTF?” than DC had been with their surprising April gatefold covers by announcing that Neil Gaiman’s “Angela” character from Todd McFarlane’s “Spawn” would be showing up sometime during “Age of Ultron” and would play a role in “Guardians of the Galaxy” (co-written by Gaiman).
But the pretty much unanimously celebrated story of the month was the release of a surprise new Brian K. Vaughan/Marcos Martin digital comic, “The Private Eye.” Let’s talk more about that particular piece of news, yeah?
Best Book of the Month: The Private Eye #1
Everyone can agree that “ownership” in comics is a big deal for a significant portion of the fandom, right? After all, the idea of “the collector” has been ingrained in our culture for decades now. So when intangible digital comics come along, it’s understandable that comic fans will have all kinds of opinions about how much they should cost and just how you should own them. Let’s pause the teeth-gnashing for a bit, guys. Vaughan and Martin took the guesswork out for you. You can pay whatever you want and you own the digital file to do whatever your heart desires with it!
Oh, and hey, it’s a damn good story too.
Runner-Up: Change #4
Worst Book of the Month: Constantine #1
Can’t blame DC Comics for keeping their bottom line healthy, but the fact remains that John Constantine is an R-rated man in a PG-13 world and his world’s been sterilized, even if DC has the best intentions toward making him an anti-hero smartass. He’s just not the same.
The book isn’t really well put together either. Kind of a slap-dash job in a pinch from two otherwise really talented writers. Check out Matt’s review.
Runners-Up: Age of Ultron #1-3 – Where Marvel NOW! has emphasized fun and a willingness to put Marvel’s characters in entirely new situations, “Age of Ultron” has felt like a relic of the past, dour, and overwritten (despite that writing not being up to Bendis’ usual par).
Best Writer: Jonathan Hickman
To produce a list of the ongoing comic books that Jonathan Hickman has scripted for March 2013 is to stagger the mind. In this month, he dropped “Avengers”, “New Avengers”, “The Manhattan Projects”, and “East of West.” Two of those are the biggest of the big Marvel marquee books and the other two look to be creator-owned works that just might rank among the all-time greats when all is said and done. It’s too soon to tell for the terrific apocalyptic western “East of West”, but I’m calling “The Manhattan Projects” a modern masterpiece right now. There’s just nothing about that book that isn’t excellent (Follow our “Multiversity Projects” monthly column to get an even deeper look at it).
Runner-Up: Brian K. Vaughan – modern comic book royalty produces the always great “Saga” and drops the biggest news story of the month with “The Private Eye.”
Most Disappointing Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
“Age of Ultron” #1-3 may not have been the out-and-out “worst” issues of the month. They were not good, to be sure, but they weren’t filled with cosmically awful writing (aside from the angst-ridden panel seen above) or ugly art. It’s just that this team is capable of so much more than what “Age of Ultron” is aiming for, which is quite clearly: to be the latest Marvel event money-suck for their unwitting customers. It’s a magnification of everything that fans don’t like about events. It’s overpriced, drawn out, has numerous unnecessary tie-ins (by the way, it doesn’t matter that they’re conveniently numbered. That doesn’t make it a better story), and is overly grim.
Continued belowThe only real moment that resonated in these three issues happened on the last page of the 3rd issue, with absolutely none of the lead-up being necessary for the “curveball” to land properly. There is simply no arguing that the first three issues of this comic weren’t completely stretched out and made incredibly thin, even by Brian Michael Bendis’ usual standard of Decompression.
Runner-Up: Scott Lobdell – for the usual crimes against Superman and the DC youth.
Best Artist: Patrick Gleason
People die around superheroes all the time. Batman? Hell, he’s lost more than a few friends and allies in his time. So it takes a special talent to keep the inevitable “mourning” issue from being overly maudlin or a retread. Gleason’s art, though filled with allusions, symbolism, and homages, became iconic with this universally lauded issue.
Runner-Up: Piotr Kowalski – discovery of the year! Lent extra legitimacy to “Sex” as a project.
Most Disappointing Artist: Action Comics’ mismatch of Rags Morales & Brad Walker
Rags Morales is a fine comic book artist. Brad Walker is a fine comic book artist. The two of them should not be thrown together into a Grant Morrison comic book. One imagines that any Morrison comic is tough for an artist to pin down for maximum impact. The man writes complicated stories. Regardless of the difficulty, the mismatch of art in Morrison’s finale (and, really, throughout “Action Comics”) was troublesome.
Runner-Up: Mark Bagley – Fantastic Four needs to gain more energy and the art is at least half of the problem.
Best Scene: The Private Eye Visits Gramps
Kids these days, right? Always on their smart phones and their Facebook. Always saying stuff like “dude” and “man.” Well, someday those kids are going to be parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. And Brian K. Vaughan gave us what we hope is a highly exaggerated satirical take on that idea. It was the funniest thing in comics all month.
Best Collection of the Month: Maximum Minimum Wage HC
This is a stellar package (as is always the case with an Image release) for the “Underground Comix” crowd. Bob Fingerman’s quirky NYC tales of being down on your luck in an unforgiving city in an unforgiving time are some of the best of their era. Fans of Peter Bagge or Harvey Pekar might feel at home here, but this stuff has even more of an edge to it. Fingerman isn’t afraid to get ugly, because, hey, sometimes that’s what life is.
Runner Up: Sleeper Omnibus HC
Best New Series: East of West #1
“East of West” is like a Jonathan Hickman smorgasbord of a western. The great deciders of history come together to will their visions of the future into existence, whilst the horsemen of the apocalypse draw near for “the end of everything” (as Hickman’s characters are fond of saying). With collaborator Nick Dragotta in tow, we’re getting another gorgeous ongoing from one of the most brilliant minds in comics. There’s a bit of Hickman’s “The Manhattan Projects” here and a dash of Garth Ennis’ “Preacher” there, but the end product is something beautiful all its own.
Runner-Up: The Private Eye #1
Best Book You Probably Overlooked of the Month: Change #4
A series that promised the death of Los Angeles in its first issue and became something else entirely by its beautiful last issue. Lots of feels in this one.
Check out my review here.
Best Reaction Face: Batman, Incorporated #9
Moo, indeed.
*sniff*
Moo, indeed.
