My favorite Monthlies, Part 1: Fear Agent

In an apparently continuing effort to be positive, I'm going to take a stab at discussing some of my favorite Monthlies (or books that ship close that schedule) and why I look forward to them. These are in no particular order, and I'm starting with Fear Agent, because it's a kickass comic book that you should read.

Fear Agent is a recent addition to my pull list as I obsessively hunted down every issue in a span of less than a month. And I'm glad I did. Like Casanova, part of the fun of this series is reading a book that the creators clearly love making - you can almost sense Remender skimming through his favorite comics & movies for influences, the same way Fraction must for Casanova. And that sense of sheer joy is part of the appeal, as is the strength of Heath Huston as a character. Rememnder has successfully distilled the best elements of the "rugged" hero achetype - trusts noone but himself, essentially decent soul underneath his rugged exterior, stubble and whiskey bottle - and tempers them with a harder edge - he doesn't just casually drink, he's an alcoholic with a serious problem. He's not just a loner, his fucked up personality has driven away everyone close and he keeps people at bay because he hates himself and doesn't feel he deserves friends.

Besides all the fun elements (which I haven't even scratched the surface of), the book doesn't get enough credit for the depth of it's narrative - it's basically on issue 23 of one long story, broken into smaller arcs. Just like Casanova's 14 issues are really one story told in a series of one shots and Bru's Captain America has been telling one story. Remender has a long, planned out arc in mind here that seems to be coming to a head soon.

Time travel, time paradoxes, galactic conspiracies, clones gone awry, and the survival of the human race tossed in a blender with smelly aliens, other worlds, and hard travellin' space heroes. If that sounds like good fun, go read Fear Agent. I honestly haven't even scratched the surface of why I love it.

Goddamn Jim Lee on All Star Goddamn Batman

I see a lot of criticism from the intellectual comic book community (OK, that's like, 3 or 4 guys, but whatever, bear with me) about Jim Lee's art on ASB. I am here to convince you why it is brilliant.

OK, brilliant may be too strong. But it is entirely appropriate to the book, and the book would absolutely not be what it is without him.

You need to understand two things at this point, both of which concern my interpretation of the book. First, Miller is actively & intentionally fucking with his audience. I don't think anyone would disagree, at this point, that he's messing with us for a reaction at least a little bit. Second, Miller is, similar to Ellis on Thunderbolts, deconstructing the "badass" superhero, and in particular "The Miller Batman's" (which is how I shall refer to Miller's Batman work, since it's practically a subgenre) influence on the creation of such.

Jim Lee is (arguably) the prototypical 90's superhero comic book artist. Muscular, square jawed men, buxom women, lots of gritted teeth & squinted eyes, cool-looking technology that seems to serve no function, badass posing. Now, I actually think Lee deserves much more credit than this and that he's a far more skilled artist than he's made out to be, but that's not relevant to my point here. He's the UBER badass superhero artist. When we look at his Batman, we EXPECT to see big time, badass superheroics, but at the same time, SERIOUS superheroics. We don't expect an intelligent deconstruction of the superhero from a Jim Lee comic (again, I'm talking perception here, this isn't a knock on Lee). Badass, serious superheroes are what we get from ASB, in a distorted way - it's the distortions that make it so brilliant, we all agree. But when we LOOK at it, when a casual reader flips through the comic, they get suckered in by the art. It looks like every cool, slick Batman story they ever read - then Miller starts pushing their buttons and twisting their nipples.

Lee's art is part of what pushes those buttons with us as fans - we expect to see cool, competent, badass heroes, not this maniac giggling to himself and tormenting a little boy. Batman and Green Lantern, drawn by Jim Lee? Cool, are they fighting gross aliens with lots of drool in their mouths in some big crazy spaceship? Nope, they're drinking lemonade in a yellow room while Hal Jordan gets yellow shit on his chin and his little bootsies. Huh?

If this were drawn in the STYLE of Jim Lee but not BY Lee, we'd be bemoaning the lack of a competent artist (see Morrison's Batman run), and claiming that the art was the reason the comic doesn't work. If Miller was drawing this himself, it would exist in a whole review-proof plane of existence as the work of one of comics' greatest Auters (spelling? correct me). Worse, even more people would fail to take it seriously given his more recent garish, distorted pencilling style (once again - I'm speculating on popular opinion, not mine).

This book needs the Goddamn Jim Lee and all his steroid inflated Superhero glory to work properly. It simply would not be the same Godamn book, and it wouldn't be the Goddamn Batman.

Warren Ellis - Thunderbolts

Hooray! Huzzah! I'm blogging again!

No real reason for my absence from the ol' blog-o-sphere, I just sort of drifted away, which I predicted would happen back in my very first post ever. Oddly enough, the comic that brought me back to this isn't one that I ever expected to have that effect. Warren Ellis' recently completed run on Thunderbolts, which I got on eBay dirt cheap.

I avoied this when it first came out. The lineup seemed gimmicky, and something about hijacking a comic just for hype and to throw a big name on it annoyed me (even though I loved X-Force/X-Statix). But after hearing many good things about this arc, I gave in. And you know what? Pleasantly suprising.

Pleasant may be a bad word for this. These are some downright unpleasant comics about deeply unpleasant characters. But see, when this was first announced, I figured this would be Ellis playing around at being "cool" and "edgy" by glorifying a bunch of bad guy characters, and I had no interest in that. I was completely wrong. He doesn't glorify them AT ALL, and therein lies the brilliance of this run.

These people are totally ineffective - Swordsman gets his ass kicked every issue; Bullseye gets turned into a vegetable in his second mission; Venom is a useless maniac; Moonstone spends all her time being manipulative and gets nothing accomplished, since no one trusts her or likes her anyway. Ellis doesn't glorify these characters - if the point of the original Thunderbolts was bad guys trying to be good, then his run subverts the concept by showing what happens when you try and FORCE bad guys to do good. The outcome? A trainwreck - I'm a bit of a cynic by nature, so I love that Ellis' point here seems to be "some people are just plain BAD, and there's no helping them".

Further supporting this point is the fact the these Thunderbolts are ONLY effective when allowed to indulge their disgusting urges - Venom's useless in a fight until he flips out and eats a guy's arm; Bullseye sneaks up on a pretty much innocent man and cripples him. These people can't accomplish anything by being good because it goes against their nature - denied their natures, they're flaccid imitations of themselves.

The other main reason I avoided this run was Penance, Marvel's resident emo-boy, the former Speedball. Again, Ellis proves me wrong and ties Penance into his theme of people not being able to deny their nature. In the first 6 issues, Penance is useless in a fight - crippled by guilt and anxiety, he spends an entire fight thumping his head against a brick wall, muttering "not good enough" over and over again. Far from being a dangerous badass, this man is seriously disturbed and an emotional cripple - not a hero, but a pathetic character in need of serious help. Ellis shows mercy and gets him his help, in the form of superhero shrink Doc Samson. Finally, Penance is allowed to have a useful moment, putting down a mind-controlled Moonstone in humane fashion. He was only able to do this, of course, after several issues of Doc Samson slowly bringing back the man inside him - Robbie Baldwin, founding member of the New Warriors and generally happy guy. Ellis doesn't take the easy route and have Penance completely cured and restored; but he does manage to reconnect the character (briefly) to his true, "good" nature, and by doing so allows him to shine.

I got this not sure of what to expect, and I was pleasantly suprised. This is an intelligent deconstruction of "badass antiheroes", and why they don't work, even within the logic of superhero comics. Kudos to Ellis.

And I didn't even mention Norman Osborn's HILARIOUS performances in issues 120-121. Ellis needs to write this guy in everything he ever writes again, ever.