Wrapping Wednesday: Micro Reviews for the Week of 10/30/19

There’s a lot to cover on Wednesdays. We should know, as collectively, we read an insane amount of comics. Even with a large review staff, it’s hard to get to everything. With that in mind, we’re back with Wrapping Wednesday, where we look at some of the books we missed in what was another great week of comics.

Let’s get this party started.

Katana’s Soultaker Sword is one of the key elements of her character. In the annual for “Batman and the Outsiders” writer Bryan Hill crafts a story where Katana’s possessed sword is overtaken by another presence. Newer DC artist Max Raynor is responsible for the artistic contributions in the issue. Hill adds a storyline with a sorceress named Miyako and wraps the conflict with Katana, her dead husband Maseo and her legendary Soultaker Sword.

Raynor’s art follows a more traditional anime-influenced aesthetic making the issue look different from most modern DC comics. Raynor’s interiors exaggerate anatomy and look particularly dull in moments that require subtlety or relationship dynamics. Hill spends most of the issue fleshing out the friendship between Katana and her dead husband Maseo as well as her direct responsibilities with The Outsiders. Katana’s allegiances to both of these elements are tested in the issue. Hill attempts to flesh out Katana’s conflicted feelings towards The Outsiders and make sure they don’t overlap with her marriage to Maseo.

In the more extreme, supernatural context Raynor’s pencils carry the issue with grace. The moments where Katana first enters the sword contain some of the spookiest, most interesting visuals in the entire comic book. Hill has difficulty finding the subtlety needed in the storyline because of the bombast from the fighting and visuals. The plot behind the issue is solid but the execution of “Batman and the Outsiders” Annual #1 is where the story falters.

Despite the oversized length of the issue, the story still comes off as slight, barely adding additional context to Katana’s place on the team. Raynor’s art is also not well suited to any scenes outside of the action context in the script. Hill’s script takes an interesting twist midway through the issue but the clichéd script and art made “Batman and the Outsiders” Annual #1 forgettable.

Final Verdict: 4.9 – “Batman and the Outsiders” Annual #1 adds more context to the relationship between Tatsu and Jefferson but doesn’t rise above a dull premise and art direction.

By horse, by train, by night, by day, Batman is and will always be DC’s definition of ‘inevitable.’ There would be no DC Comics without Detective Comics and no Detective Comics without Batman. If there was ever a constant in the DCU, it’s that Batman is. In his instant classic run on Bat-books, Grant Morrison played with this idea to great lengths. And so too has Tom King.

In “Batman Annual” #4, King, Fornes, Norton, Stewart, and Cowles lace up their tryhard boots, and give their all for what is usually a throwaway Batventure. With 100% exposition, zero dialogue, and told sequentially, Alfred narrates weeks “In The Life Of…” in this epistolary issue from his Batdiary. What could dwindle into the cyclical nature of superheroic American comics, and the sliding time scale of retcon itself actually evolves into a celebration of how multifaceted Batman’s troubleshooting has been over his 1000+ issues.

Fornes’s style can be diluted to Mazzucchelliesque in his classic take, but more so, the aged Bat-looks serve as a built-in nostalgia factor for “Batman Annual” #4, subtly reinforcing the festivities. From battling an MMA champ to solving a murder mystery to facing abstract demons, Fornes and Norton maximize the absurdity of each 4-page sequence by living in spectacular darkness and eye-traced negative space. Fornes’s best cinematography takes place on March 11th, a sequence marked by dueling flashbacks/forwards as Bruce reunites with a tragic love interest. Stewart, the Eisner juggernaut colorist, casually splits the flashes between grime blues and rose-tinted violets to instantly sell the time dilation.

Of instant notice should be Cowles’s blue-collar lettering work in “Batman Annual” #4– what starts as a rigid rectangle to contain the script font of Alfred’s day-to-day is then “torn” along its edge from the Batdiary. But this artificial tearing is done without a template, by hand, for each individual caption, of which there are 333, and that’s not taking into account the SFX. Todd Klein be damned. Get this letterer an Eisner already.

For some, “Batman Annual” #4 will be another great Batromp. For others, “Batman Annual” #4 will be the summer fireworks atop Batman’s legacy. For DC Comics and Batman, “Batman Annual” #4 is just another day in the book. Maybe after his prolonged suffering, Bruce can catch a break, but given his nature as a constant, Batman’s work never ends.

It probably never will.

Final Verdict: 10.0 – Batman forever.

“Invisible Woman #4” is a thoroughly good comic book. The protagonist is awesome. The plot is solid. The art is great. But there’s something holding “Invisible Woman #4” back from being great and that something is named Aidan Tintreach. The former ally turned villain story is one that’s been done a million times but its generally a fun one…when it’s done right that is. The issue here is that Aidan’s motivation seems to boil down to “once we weren’t partners anymore I started killing people and I felt bad but I couldn’t stop and then I killed a kid and I felt so bad that I just had to be evil” and that just doesn’t work.

Luckily, the rest of this book is so fun that the poorly written antagonist is forgivable. Sue is a compelling character and seeing her get backed into a corner, forced to help the bad guys to stop them from blowing up a plane full of children, and grapple with her old partner’s moral 180 (stupid as it is) will definitely keep you interested.

The reason that this book succeeds despite its narrative shortcomings is the presence of one Mr. Mattia De Iulus. His artwork is absolutely incredible, bringing at atmospheric, cinematic quality to every page. De Iulus and Waid present Sue’s powers in a way that’s inventive and shows us that she’s a force to be reckoned with. The scene where she regains her sight, sends some grunts flying, blows up two machine guns, and pins Aidan and his new partner, Octavia to a wall gives us exactly the kind of pulse-pounding action that we want from a superhero/spy comic.

The book ends with Maria Hill showing up, ready to arrest Sue and Aidan, putting that plane full of children in danger. Its a strong cliffhanger and hopefully the next issue will end this story with a bang, not a whimper.

Final Verdict: 7.0 – A hard to believe villain bogs down an otherwise deeply enjoyable “Invisible Woman #4.”

There’s nothing quite like a good parallel timeline story. Not only is it fun to see artists and authors play with different versions of a character, but it also allows for telling stories that show character growth. Characters will often learn about what makes them unique by confronting what they could become or what they could have been, often giving them insight into how to save the day. “Jughead’s Time Police” #5 is a fantastic example of parallel timelines, telling an entertaining story with a lot of heart.

Sina Grace uses parallel timelines to tell a fun, tongue-in-cheek parable of not taking the easy way out and to appreciate what you have. Jughead Prime is able to convince evil Jughead from the ’40s that as long as you have the right people (and the right food), no one timeline is better than any other. The best thing about “Jughead’s Time Police” #5 is that he actually takes the lesson to heart. Jughead applies his newfound understanding of the power of friendship and channels it into band practice and a more positive outlook on life. It’s about as cheesy as a burger from Pop’s, but it works well for the story being told.

While the script is solid, the true delight of “Jughead’s Time Police” #5 comes from the art. Derek Charm is clearly having a lot of fun in the series, as he combines different art styles and lighting to depict the different Jugheads from different timelines. Most of the background versions of Jughead don’t speak but are still full of personality. There’s a Werewolf Jughead, a Saturday Morning comic strip Jughead, and a Superhero Jughead (just to name a few), and I would read a comic featuring any one of them based solely on the merit of their designs.

The coloring also helps to make the mismatch of Jugheads distinct. Each character’s color palette, blending, and shading also make it look like different eras of printing are all coming together in one place. The majority of the characters also look like they are from Jughead prime’s timeline, which only helps the other Jugheads stand out more. The visuals of “Jughead’s Time Police” #5 help take a good story and make it memorable.

Final Verdict: 8.6 – “Jughead’s Time Police” #5 is a lighthearted take on the alternate timeline story that allows both the author and artist to have a lot of fun exploring all the different worlds of the Archie Universe.

“The Last God,” DC’s new and much-awaited foray into fantasy, is downright biblical. Writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson and artist Riccardo Federici spent a long time over the cauldron for this one, and the world of Cain Anuun is an intense concoction that mixes the brutality of a Song of Ice and Fire, the character flourishes of Middle Earth, and the grim atmosphere of Sanctuary (the primary realm in Blizzard’s Diablo franchise), to stunning success. Or maybe, just think of it this way: The Last God is what you wish your lawful evil D&D campaign looked like.

Unloading edgy fantasy tropes, however, only goes so far. Luckily, “The Last God” #1 does more than just that, and by subverting those tropes promises a deep, complicated world. In fact, I’d argue that “The Last God” goes a step further and perverts those tropes, adding a tinge of disillusionment and grotesqueness that makes you question if the genre was ever pure or sacred. For example, the recurring motif of animal filial-infanticide-as-omen, made especially visceral by Federici’s hand, let’s you know precisely what kind of world this is, and what kind of depravity can exist in these kinds of settings.

Subversion and perversion happen on a grander scale, too. When we first enter Cain Anuun, it’s from the perspective of civilization’s height, decades after the good guys banded together to defeat The Big Bad Evil Guy that doomed their world. However, victory was not so glamorous. In the present day, gladiators fight to the death for a rabid audience of ailing peasants, nations are still subjugating one another, and nobody in power seems too comfortable. Maybe this is the world of Cain Anuun, or maybe this was fantasy all along.

Most of all, none of this world-building feels tiresome or at the expense of character development. The heroes’ motives (at least for now) are clear but never arbitrary, and grounded in the suspect and teetering morality of the universe. As the story continues, it will be exciting to see how the diverse themes of loyalty, pride, indigeneity, and class–all touched on somewhat in this issue–develop further. To sum it up, “The Last God” presents a nihilistic but not meaningless take on fantasy, and we cannot wait to sink into every nook and cranny of this thing.

Final Verdict: 8.8 – Like Jenga from hell, “The Last God” #1 builds a beautiful fantasy world and then slams into it, full force with blood and gore. Here’s to hoping it only gets messier.

Happy belated Halloween everyone! Let’s keep the party going with Marvel’s favorite horror franchise: “Marvel Zombies: Respawn” #1.

Writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson has “Marvel Zombies: Respawn” #1 open at a pretty slow pace, but it eventually picks up with a team of heroes discovering the corpse of Galactus floating in space. What follows next is a fairly standard collection of zombie story tropes: the horror of a sudden and devastating zombie attack, heroic last stands, and the rapid and insidious spread of the zombie plague that threatens to overrun the planet. It’s a story that doesn’t really do anything new, but the promise of seeing your favorite Marvel heroes turned into walking piles of rotten flesh is still a novel idea that can tell a good story.

The artwork is good, Leonard Kirk and Guru-eFX team up to create a book that has a soft, gentle, almost painted feel to it with decent gore and the scenes where the heroes have to literally walk into the corpse of Galactus are appropriately gross and creepy. Where the comic suffers is from its rating, which is marketed as a book that is for an audience that is far too young. This means that the book can’t be as gory and as violent as it probably should be, which means that gorehounds won’t be that impressed. Still, it’s a good effort and it’s clear that the art team did the best they could.

Your mileage will vary on “Marvel Zombies: Respawn” #1 and will entirely depend on how much you like the idea of another zombie comic coupled with low risk and low key gore and violence. Still, the fact that we get to see Marvel’s greatest heroes—and one of the most imposing characters in all of Marvel history—turn into mindless flesh-eating ghouls is too much fun to pass up.

Final Verdict: 7.6 – Even if we’re all tired of zombies by now, and even if the art isn’t as violent and as gory as we might like, Marvel finds ways to maintain their unique twist on the genre and gives us a meaner, nastier, hungrier zombie horde that is starving for the flesh of Marvel heroes.

Nightwing Annual #2 provides much-needed context following Dick…correction…Ric being shot in the head by KGBeast. Readers get a better understanding of what the character experienced after he woke up. At the same time, the creative team shows readers how the Court of Owls surfaced to Ric’s side.

Travis Moore and Nick Filardi’s work is truly amazing in every single way. Moore’s attention to detail in his art is impeccable from the worried facial expressions of the Bat-family to night skyline of Gotham. Filardi amplifies Moore’s art through his rich color choices. Filardi’s colors especially shine through with the Bat-family and Nightwings’ costumes. Readers might read this issue several times to appreciate the work of Moore and Filardi. The team at this point remains a classic pairing for all things Nightwing.

One of the core themes in this issue is family. In Ric’s current state he is pulled by the Bat-family and the Court of Owls. Who is his real family and which will he choose? Yet, this all depends on who Nightwing wants to be or can be. On top of this, Ric remembers his parents and reflects on what their love meant to him. The creative team does an excellent job of exploring the theme of family to the fullest.

Final Verdict: 7.8 – A beautiful book with much-needed context for how Ric came to be.

While a villain as iconic as Norman Osborn does seem like a good idea for a Halloween special, a return to his time as the Red Goblin is a decidedly very odd choice, even with that several-month period having happened in the year since the previous Halloween. However, between Rob Fee, Sean Ryan, and Patrick Gleason, “Red Goblin: Red Death” #1 proves worth the effort nonetheless, albeit perhaps cutting it a bit close in terms of how the timeline of that period actually happened at times. From an oddly near-moral glimpse at Osborn as he tries to rein in the Carnage symbiote to a darkly comedic scenario not dissimilar to a certain character from Groundhog Day to a more nightmarish situation involving the eponymous character’s grandson, the three writers help show a wide scope for different aspects of Norman Osborn’s personality overall during that period of his life.

Between Pete Woods’s artwork and colors on the first two stories and the combined talents of illustrator Ray-Anthony Height alongside colorists Dono Sánchez-Almara and Protobunker, the overall artwork can range from disturbingly normal to almost refreshingly dark and depraved, helping to showcase just how nightmarish the Carnage symbiote, then it working together with Norman Osborn together, truly is when taken as a whole.

Final Verdict: 7.0 – This anthology may be going back a few months in history, but it is by no means “back to formula.”

“SFSX” #2 adds a bit more to the story than the overly symbolic moralizing of the first issue, but not much of that is a personality for Avory. Unfortunately.

There’s an interesting story around the edges of “SFSX” in its take on puritanical feminism, elitist leftism and the conceit of the uber-conservative Party, but the set dressing doesn’t do much when none of the characters feel alive. Horn plops Avory down on the page with a slew of external accomplishment and traits: she’s queer, she directs porn, she’s a sex worker, she’s a slut, etc. We’re supposed to accept that none of these accomplishments are the sum total of her existence based on her own words and actions, but it seems like they just might be given we haven’t cracked much real vulnerability beyond her forgetfulness about her paperwork, her whining to her friends or her stated love for her husband.

When it comes to craft, the dialogue is stiff and narration redundant, with the occasional awkward panel structuring to boot. Dowling’s art is minimal and O’Halloran picks up the best bits of it with a textured palette that adds the grit Avory claims her life holds that was lacking in the first issue. Wands’ choice of font is disappointing – taller than it is wide, it takes up a lot of space on the page and dominates smaller panels with aggressive butting.

This book may seem revelatory for those non-initiates out there, but it’s not the sum total of the experience for folks who are and thus its flaws stand out. “SFSX” disappoints because it’s currently what it claims to be against a shallow send-up of salaciousness designed to prioritize a message first and an authentic story second. Slowing down on some of the nuances of sex work, like Avory’s relationship with Nick as a client, would give the book some much-needed depth and up the entertainment value beyond the sheer novelty of it all.

Final Verdict: 5.5 – “SFSX” #2 would do well to slow down on its plot and go for internal growth for its characters if it wants to succeed beyond its message.

In 2014, Sam Wilson took on the mantle of Captain America. This change was treated as a big deal. It was announced on television and made national headlines. Personally, I was conflicted. On one hand, I loved it. As a black comic book fan, representation is very important to me. Falcon was the first African-American superhero in comics and now he was taking on this premier role…plus that costume was amazing. Steve and Bucky wished they looked that cool. On the other hand, I knew in my heart that it wasn’t going to last.

I’ll let you in on a little secret, comics aren’t big on change. Not real, lasting change anyway. Oh sure, it seems like they are because of all the fanfare on the front end. More often than not though, things snap back to the status quo. The next time you’re mad about a reboot? Take a deep breath and give it three years. Just like Sam’s time as Cap was always going to be temporary, Otto Octavius was on borrowed time as the Superior Spider-Man.

I can’t even say the return to the status quo in “Superior Spider-Man” #12 feels particularly interesting either. It feels more like boxes on a checklist are being checked off. Classic Doc Ock is back? Check. Character development and new relationships set aside? Check. His memories of Peter Parker’s secret identity conveniently missing? Check. You get the picture.

The art’s good though. The pleading and heartbreak is clear on the faces of Doc Ock’s friends as they beg him to stay good (Spoiler alert: He doesn’t.). The fight scenes are dynamic, even though Otto’s master plan to beat Norman is just to control more arms. Still, it can only do so much. The issue’s chiefly concerned with undoing all that’s been done and getting things ‘back to normal’. Mission accomplished, I just don’t care for it.

Final Verdict: 5.0 – Listen to me, no more Spider-Men making deals with Mephisto. We get it, “One More Day” was a thing. This is the last time, let it go.