Recent Comics

I have recently come into possession of approximately one metric ton of new comics, and reading them, along with re-watching all 4 seasons of LOST & reading some previously unread Vonnegut stuff, has dominated my life recently. I'll write about some of them eventually, but here's a general & random overview:

Incredible Hercules: Sacred Invasion - Awesome. Just awesome. It actually has fairly important stuff in it for the crossover, as far as I can tell. Great fun, great story, highly recommended. Also, I was reading this while listening to Enslaved's Below the Lights album, which synced up to the action & mood in an eerie, Dark Side of the Moon/Wizard of Oz sort of way, whcih enhanced my reading experience.

Pax Romana - This Hickman fellow certainly is interesting. This is very different from the Nightly News, but every bit as interesting and good. I'm not sure which I likemore, it's like comparing apples & oranges. This guy is defineltly on my "buy on sight" list now, though, if for no other reason than that he's interesting as hell.

Warren Ellis' Blackgas 1 & 2 - This was pretty cool, actually. It's Ellis doing his take on a Zombie story, which is a bit more in the 28 Days ater vein, but goes even farther with the human misery and horror. Fun! Not something to go way out of your way for, but a good read.

Warren Ellis' Atmospherics - Very effective little B & W horror oneshot. Ellis seems to sort of pump out these high-concept one-shots at Avatar to little or no fanfare, which is a shame because they all seem to be really good. He's a great high-concept guy. At any rate, this doesn;t have quite as good a twist as Aetheric Mechanics, but it's a well constructed story told with a lot of flair.

Gravel 0-6: Yeah, I suddenly discovered Ellis' Avatar stuff, if you couldn't tell. I wasn't totally crazy for this series like some of his other stuff, but that was partially because I've never read previous Gravel stuff so I didn't totally follow the plot. It's explained pretty well, actually, so what the hell do I know. The book improves greatly with Oscar Jimenez' arrival on art in issues 3-6 - his Gravel just looks like a guy who will fuck you up for looking at him funny and not even think twice about it. This was cool though, the closest reference point I can think of, and bear in mind that this is a severey uninformed opinion, is a sort of Hellblazer through Warren Ellis' eyes. It was good, but not totally my thing, I guess. I'm not huge on magic. I also got Strange Killings but havent read it yet.

Doktor Sleepless 1-9: Well, now I get the Transmet references. One of my favorite things about this, actually, was that the Doktor starts out as a sort of anti-hero, counter culture figure like Spider Jerusalem. Throughout seven issues you get more and more hints that he's a bit darker than that, before Ellis just completely hammers home that this guy is the villain. We've been reading a supervillain comic and we didn't even know it. Otherwise, this is probably the most blatantly "Warren Ellis" of all this Avatar stuff that I've read, if you know what I mean. That's a (tiny, tiny) bit frustrating after reading other Avatar stuff by him where he actually branches out his voice, but oh well. I know I get on Millar mercilessly when he does that, by the way, but I guess I just like Ellis' voice and get annoyed by Millar.

Mighty & New Avengers Secret Invasion Crossover issues: Wow, alot of these really were pointless, huh? I pretty much agree with everything most people say - the two Nick Fury issues were good, the rest was a lot of fairly repetitive "here's how this character became a Skrull" and "Here's how this character found out!" stuff. The Hank Pym/unstable Skrull stuff was interesting, but as far as I know it didn't end up going anywhere and makes Pym seem a lot more crazy than he's ever really been in the comics.

Black Panther SI Crossovers & Joker's Asylum: Penguin: Wow, Jason Aaron writes manly characters pretty damn well. I have to give Scalped another read. This was pretty badass, enhanced by some artwork that really fits the mood. This was kind of a Conan take on BP, in terms of "Don't fuck with me" machismo. Aaron seemed to be having fun with BP's whole prepared for every eventuality angle, taking the whole thing to almost ludicrous degrees. Pretty cool.

The Penguin special was especially good & effective, and really really makes me want to re-read Scalped. Aaron adds more depth, tragedy and darkness to the character than I think I've ever read, at once making him sympathetic and totally disgusting. I'm definetly giving Scalped another shot after reading this. YOU HEAR THAT, CALLAHAN? You win.