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Weekly Pull Review 4/1/15

Not much to review this week.

Black Science #13– Image

Even for this series, this was a seriously dark issue. A planet ravaged by a fast acting, horribly contagious, and absolutely lethal virus, which they find out is their fault, or at least the fault of their alternate selves. Multiple characters infected by the disease. At least one, and probably two, character deaths. Flashbacks to the terrible home lives of the McKays. That’s not to say that this is ever a particularly light-hearted series, and the cast almost never gets any downtime from danger, but this issue just feels much, much darker. There are a few lighter moments, as well- Grant seems to have finally embraced the role of mad scientist, leading to jetpack escape scenes and such. Apparently, reading the note in the back, they’ve planned out this series to issue 50 already- I wasn’t expecting it to go quite that far, but I’m not complaining. Still, however, I think they’ll need to slow down here and there, and give us and the characters the occasional breather to prevent action fatigue.

God Hates Astronauts #7- Image

So, apparently the America of God Hates Astronauts is ruled by President Rushmore- literally a man with a smaller version of Mount Rushmore with a head. Watching the various presidents try to work together to make a phone call? Priceless. Also, it isn’t even remotely surprising that Thomas Jefferson is a coke fiend. …Actually, on second glance, he’s not even on a phone, Lincoln just has his head by his hand. Also, the White House flies, and there are snakes wearing business suits. Charles Soule replaces 3-D Ghost this issue for some reason, Time Giraffe hits on Starrior, and there’s pig samurai. (Hamurai.)

Eh. All in all, a pretty tame issue for this comic.

Hellboy and the B.P.R.D. 1952 #5- Dark Horse

This miniseries started off pretty slowly, but these last two issues have been moving at breakneck pace. I’m not going to say they feel rushed, by any means- the pacing feels fine. It’s just a very different speed than what came before this. Hellboy fighting Nazis never gets old, either. Overall, it was pretty good (though far from the best of the Mignolaverse), but it feels a bit too stretched out. They really should have had three or four issues top for this story, I think.

Weekly Pull Review: 3/18/15 & 3/25/15

You get two weeks at once, since I had houseguests last week!

3/18/15

Invisible Republic #1- Image

Invisible Republic is a far cry from most of the scifi comics I’ve seen lately. It’s a complex political thriller- it is set on a far away world, yes, but the story could likely stand pretty strongly on its own even without the scifi elements, which many stories lately probably couldn’t. Invisible Republic is set on a world seeded by slower than light colony ships, and only lately reconnected with humanity at large via faster than light. A despot/ political strongman was recently overthrown, and the planet is wracked with poverty and political unrest. A journalist discovers a manuscript which seems to be a herebefore untold story of the despot’s rise to power from someone close to him. The story bounces back and forth between the memoir and the “present” day (I always feel really weird saying present day when referring to far future science fiction.) The story could technically exist in a non- scifi environment, sure, but I feel that it is enriched wonderfully by being scifi. The creators (a married couple, actually) depict the transplanted humans and terrestrial lifeforms competing with the local, alien life, it provides an ability to isolate a world that goes well beyond the ability to isolate a nation in any other genre- not only physically, but economically and culturally as well. Plus, the visuals are gorgeous. It’s very much a grim, gritty industrial future, but something about it just clicks for me. One of the best #1s for me in quite some time.

The Manhattan Projects: The Sun Beyond the Stars #1- Image

The Manhattan Projects has been split into a group of miniseries now, following the divergent cast members, who were, to be fair, getting a little unwieldy. The Sun Beyond The Stars follows Yuri Gagarin as he quests to find TALKING SPACE DOG Laika, who’s been missing for some time… IN SPACE (also, got transformed into a dog-humanoid somehow, which edges uncomfortably close to furry stuff for my taste). SPACE. The issue starts off introducing some new alien space threat, then skips to Yuri dealing with SPACE JUSTICE (I don’t know why I’m capitalizing SPACE. I just feel like it.) The Manhattan Projects is one of my favorite comics, but Yuri was never one of my favorite characters in it- I would have rather the series followed Richard Feynman and the interdimensional Einstein clones first. (Hey, there’s a great band name.) Still, I’m very happy to see it back.

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Weekly Pull Review 3/11/15

Southern Cross #1- Image

Hey, I’m giving a #1 top billing this week! Will you look at that? To be fair, none of the usual major heavy hitters came out this week (Saga, Sex Criminals, etc.), so I decided to push something a bit new. That’s not to say Southern Cross isn’t very deserving in its own right- I’m really digging it so far. Even apart from passing the Bechdel test, (the rarity of that in comics is extraordinarily depressing), it’s got solid art with an almost retro-futuristic look. Retro-futurism is most often applied to Buck Rodgers style futurism or 50’s futurism (Fallout), but Southern Cross feels like 80s retro-futurism. (And yes, that was three decades ago.) Grungy space stations and ships, industrial decor, headbands, transparent visors, actual naval outfits for starship personnel- it’s got the tone of so many of my favorite 80s scifi films. (My roommate thought of Cowboy Bebop.) The mystery set up has me interested, though there do seem to be hints of some sort of weird, semi-psychedelic craziness going on in the background- that, or the protagonists dreams are just extremely trippy.

East of West #18- Image

Babylon is really what this comic has been needing for a long time- a character you can actually sympathize with. There are abundant badasses and cool characters, but… yeah, I mention this every issue lately. Anyhow, Babylon gets to play with a giant horrifying demon that he sees as a giant hamster, Death and Lady Mao have a loving farewell, backstory backstory, the Endless Nation and the PRA plan out their war. Good times. I should backpedal on the character sympathy bit- getting to see Death and Lady Mao together actually goes quite a way towards humanizing the Horseman of the Apocalypse and the supergenius cybernetic despot.

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Weekly Pull Review 3/4/15

Saga #26- Image

Insert obligatory raving about Saga. Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples are continuing to keep this arc balanced on all three of the main stories so far- Dengo and his captives, Team Lying Cat, and the dads. This arc so far seems to really be one focused on character development, moreso than plot development, which isn’t a bad thing at all. (Especially considering how common the reverse is in the industry.) Dengo especially stands out in terms of growth- not that I particularly expected Saga to have anything less than a fully fleshed out, complex villain. Also, that ending splash page? Hooboy.

Descender #1- Image

Descender starts off with an interstellar (Alliance? Council?) at the height of its power, and on the eve before an attack by unstoppable, moon-sized humanoid robots. It then skips ten years forwards, into a world where over three fourths of the inhabitants are dead or gone, the planet lies in near ruins, and angry mobs have destroyed most of the robots in existence. When a childlike robot companion wakes up on an abandoned mining colony, a hunt for him begins as it is revealed that his model of robot might actually have something in common with the massive destroyers. I’m torn on this one. Dustin Nguyen’s art is fantastic, no question there. Jeff Lemire’s writing is solid in the sections revolving around the protagonist, Tim the robot boy and his robot dog, Bandit. Many of the other scenes, however, have some quite clumsy over-exposition, at least in my mind. There’s a comment I’ve heard bandied around about science fiction, though: That science fiction movies run twenty or thirty years behind science fiction novels in terms of ideas, which, to be fair, is pretty much spot on. I think that the same adage might be applicable to comic books, though perhaps not to the same degree. It’s not a commentary on the quality of the work at all, but it might have something to do with my reaction to the exposition here- it’s stuff that is already old hat in science fiction prose, so it just feels forced.

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Weekly Pull Review 2/25/15

ODY-C #3- Image

It’s cyclops time! Woo! The cyclops is one of the best comic book monsters I’ve ever seen- It’s absolutely profane and alien, all at once. A three lobed mouth that looks almost like one of Guillermo Del Toro’s freakish mutant vampires from Blade 2, though not quite, an enormous eye with eyelids that close along a vertical line, enormous breasts running in three rows down its chest- it definitely stands out. We get introduced to new gods this issue- Hera takes a greater role than in the past, and we get properly introduced to Apollo, and more especially Dionysus. Poseidon still takes the cake as the most visually striking god, but Apollo and Dionysus stand up quite well themselves.

Chew #46- Image

This isn’t the first time a major character has died in Chew, but it’s treated very differently this time around. Most characters don’t even know about this death yet- in fact, only one person does. The status quo has undergone a number of other shakeups, as well- beyond all of the characters lying in the hospital, Tony now refuses to work with Colby, and is stuck working with D-Bear, of all people. No signs of the Vampire yet this arc, but considering that this arc is titled Blood Pudding, and has vampire teeth in the logo…

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