What do you do after you introduce new-found fans to one of your less flashy, but still rife with potential, characters through a supporting role in one of the biggest summer blockbusters of all time? Yeah, I was going to say put together a creative team that everyone has been waiting to see reunited on his new book, too.
Written by Matt Fraction
Illustrated by David AjaWhat is the Vagabond Code?
Barton and Bishop mean Double the Hawkeye…and Double the trouble.
Fraction and Aja are back with a chase that will blow not only your mind, but several your ancestors’ minds as well.
How do I even start? Editorializing for a bit sounds good.
Like many, I was first introduced to writer Matt Fraction and artist David Aja through their “Immortal Iron Fist.” This was when I was getting back into comics for the first time in maybe ten years, and until then I had primarily read comics where the writer(s) and the artist(s) were doing completely separate jobs — there was the writing, and there was the art, and while they both contributed to telling the story they did not seem to overlap. In “The Immortal Iron Fist,” though, I got one of my first tastes of what comics could be when writer and artist came together as partners, rather than co-workers. Fraction and Aja, along with co-writer Ed Brubaker, presented me with a comic that wasn’t just words alongside pictures, but true, honest-to-god sequential storytelling. “The Immortal Iron Fist” made me not a fan of Marvel superheroes, but of the art form that is comics.
What happens, then, when you take two creators who are already very much in sync to begin with and have them work together in the old school Stan & Jack Marvel Method?
First of all, let’s just admire David Aja’s aesthetic. Aja fits well into that resurging post-Image aesthetic of “less is more” — if a line does not serve a purpose, then you probably are not going to see it on Aja’s finished page. Whether it shows depth, conveys motion, or fleshes out a certain apartment’s dilapidated condition, a mark on an Aja page has something to do. At the same time, one hesitates to call his work “clean” — not in the same way one would call Jamie McKelvie’s art clean, for example. It’s amazing how his work can be so sparse while still retaining a grainy 70’s-esque vibe, precisely the kind of look a street-level hero such as Clint Barton needs. The seemingly contradictory style of Aja’s art is what makes it stand out from anything else you can buy in the comic shop — his knack for design and his almost machine-like technical precision confirm that it stands out because of his talent, and not because of novelty. Colorist Chris Hollingsworth returns to color Aja’s work, and approaches his job in a similar style — his work is as far from over-rendered as one can get, but could never be called flat. A great colorist knows how to play to the line artist’s style, and Hollingsworth blends his art with Aja’s so well that you could be forgiven that the same person did both.
What makes Aja a great comics artist, though, is how well he tells stories with pictures. If you have any doubts, check out the car chase in this issue. Car chases, the classic staple of high-speed action films, are a surprising rarity in comics, and that’s because they are very difficult to pull off on the page. Think of the Flash: sure, he moves at speeds we can’t comprehend, but that’s what actually makes him easier to draw than a ’70 Challenger that’s roaring down the street. The reader has, I would think, never met anything that moves as fast as the Flash does in real life, much less a human being, and so the disbelief in our very reading of movement is suspended. A car, though? I’m sure that many of us see an uncountable number of cars zooming by every day, some at speeds that should be reserved for those big-budget action movies. Try to capture that speed on a panel, though, and the audience is sure to only see a static image of a car, especially considering a car doesn’t move like people do when we run. Unless, of course, you’re David Aja. The chase scene in this issue rivals many of the best in film, throwing the reader into the back of their seat and making them grab for the “oh shit” handle when Kate careens into a turn — and Aja makes it look so easy. “That jerk,” says every other artist.
Continued belowAja is, of course, only half of the equation. Story writer and finishing scripter Matt Fraction gives this book a heap of personality, giving his readers character in bulk without talking their ear off. Clint and Kate may be chatty, but their banter does not disrupt the story at hand, and in fact tells the reader a lot about the both of them, as opposed to the “telling” of exposition through dialogue. Both of them sound like people — granted, people who live in a world where a dude with a bow can stand next to a literal god of thunder — as opposed to the cardboard cutouts that are seen in many comics and movies, and goddamn it, they’re just fun to read. (The “f-word” in a supposedly objective review? You bet.) The one flaw in Fraction’s script — and the comic as a whole — is that he seems to be enjoying the bro-speak a bit more than anybody else, but it doesn’t look like it will be ending anytime soon. The story itself, and the “Gotcha!” moment at the end, is just as witty as the dialogue; like an expert magician, the secret to Fraction’s ultimate trick isn’t something pulled from out of the blue, but something he was taunting the audience with earlier. This is the first issue that really points in the direction of any particular ongoing plot, but that’s all we need. Point, don’t push. For now, all we readers want is to enjoy this next little one-and-done, and Fraction respects that.
Comics this good don’t happen on accident. This isn’t something that Matt Fraction and David Aja just “lucked into.” These first three issues show off the Marvel Method at its very best, with incredible visual storytelling and a clever script that avoid ever getting in the way of each other. It’s a bit early to claim this the best series Marvel is currently publishing, but that’s only because we have yet to see what artist Javier Pulido has to offer. If the next issue is just as great, or even near as good, as this issue and the two before it, it will take the crown from the current reigning champion — i.e., whatever you think is better, even though you are, as a pure matter of fact, wrong.
Final Verdict: 9.0 – Don’t even question it.
