Marvel Ends Its 18-Year Brian Michael Bender (Sorry)

Marvel Comics is waking up today, hungover after an 18-year Brian Michael Bender (sorry, couldn’t help it). Just imagine, there Marvel is in NYC, blinds drawn and AC up, shaking off cobwebs and trying to piece together the fog. It started innocently enough, a few rounds of a modern take on Spider-Man, then there was a Daredevil run everyone seemed to love, chased by Jessica Jones in Alias (which brought the Bender to a sloppy place in a good way), and, finally, shots of Avengers, X-Men, and Guardians of the Galaxy, plus an Iron Man nightcap.

Now, here we are.

Okay, Bender gimmick over. Thanks for indulging me. Anyway, Brian Michael Bendis’ 18-year tenure as a Marvel-exclusive writer ended Wednesday with Invincible Iron Man #600. For comic fans, it’s not that sad, mostly because next week Bendis will be back with Man of Steel #1 for DC. But for Marvel, the publisher loses a defining voice, a writer who co-created some of its best new characters in years (Miles Morales, Jessica Jones), who enticed talented friends to work there (Jonathan Hickman, Matt Fraction, Kelly Sue DeConnick, plus artists), and whose contributions to movies and TV are evident to anyone deeply-versed in his work.

Yes, Bendis is gone and Marvel has a new reality. Online there has been a bit of negative chatter (shocker!), with some folks saying Bendis will wreck Superman while others insist Marvel has lost all its big talent. I’m a perpetual optimist, admittedly, but I don’t think either of those things are true and here’s why.

My official take is that in a deadline-driven business like corporate superhero comics, it’s easy to get lost in the day-to-day, to only see right in front of your cursor, to lose the creative joy central to storytelling. I’ve spent the past decade writing for three media companies, producing content for newspapers, websites, magazines. Believe me, I know.

Was Bendis burned out at Marvel? He’s a consummate pro and would never say, but all parties seem to realize that Civil War II (2016), which he helmed, was a bit of a dud, and some of his mid-tenure runs at Marvel—X-Men and Guardians—aren’t cited by many as favorites. To my outside eyes, it looked like Bendis over-extended himself in late 2015 and well into 2016, trying to fill the MASSIVE gap left by Jonathan Hickman. Then in the wake of criticism, he stepped his game up and put out some brief-but-excellent work for the publisher, including Infamous Iron Man, The Defenders, and another go around on Jessica Jones.

Brian Michael Bendis

Then there’s Marvel. Was it leaning on Bendis? Knowing full-well sales of his books would probably always be stable? Was having ol’ Bendis a crutch? Maybe so. But that said, Bendis departure comes amid a wave of similar exits, including Fraction, DeConnick, Rick Remender, Jonathan Hickman, Kieron Gillen (almost), and Jeff Lemire (almost again). This has all forced Marvel to elevate newer writers perhaps faster than it otherwise would have.

To that end, the whole bye-bye Bendis business has resulted in a spike in creativity, like for example when Donny Cates got Thanos just before Infinity War and told one of my all-time favorite stories with the character, Thanos Wins. It’s led to Kelly Thompson’s relationship-defining mini-series Rogue and Gambit, and to Matthew Rosenberg writing Phoenix Resurrection, firmly in the top tier of X-Men stories of recent years. Oh, and Tom Taylor has turned X-Men: Red into the best mutant book I can remember.  

Going back to the goofy bender metaphor from my lede, it’s a bit like a newly-sober drunk making major life changes because they skimmed rock bottom.

And there’s a lot to like at Marvel now. Here’s a quick rundown of five writers at Marvel I’m looking forward to reading (alphabetically):

1. Dan Slott on Fantastic Four: I know, Slott is polarizing and (I’ve been told) had some poor moments on social media, but his take on Silver Surfer with Mike Allred is among my all-time favorite superhero stories. I hope he brings the same deeply-personal sensibilities to the first family.

2. All Things Donny Cates: I loved what Donny Cates did with both Thanos and Doctor Strange, and the new books on his docket look great too, especially the Cosmic Ghost Rider, which grew from Thanos Wins.

3. More Jason Aaron: Jason Aaron’s Thor run is now Marvel’s best uninterrupted take on any character, and Marvel has now given Aaron the keys to its biggest franchise, The Avengers. More about why I like that here.

4. Kelly Thompson on West Coast Avengers: I live in California (Sacramento, the most underrated city in that state), and I know the sensibilities here well. The aesthetic of this book and the team lineup is right in line with them, somewhere between madcap fun and social responsibility. Her voice is also perfect. So, big expectations for her here.

5. Ta-Nehisi Coates on Captain America: This seems like a critical and commercial home run. I’ve had comics out when non-comic guests come over, and Coates' Black Panther is the only one that’s sparked conversation. His name alone is huge. Also, given current social and political climates in the country, Coates as a Pulitzer Prize-winning non-fiction writer should have a relevant and important take on a character long functioning as an analog for the nation, its values, or both.

In terms of Bendis’ future, look—I’ve been reading Bendis’ work since I was 15 and Ultimate Spider-Man #1 hit my local shop with a take on the character I was desperate for then...a modern take that reflected my world. As I went to college, got a job, and met my wife, I kept up with this title throughout, watching Bendis grow as a writer, too. Spider-Man #240 was emotional for me, but the sting was short-lived because I’m following Bendis to his new publisher.

He’s written two teasers for Superman so far, which put together total roughly one issue. I liked the fight scene in Action Comics #1000. It had a modern yet classic feel to it, as his best Ultimate Spider-Man work did. I was lukewarm on his depiction of the Daily Planet. My wife and I work in print media (I know, scary), and his newsroom was anachronistic, which took me out of the story. It’s nit picky, and your mileage may vary. There’s also been clamoring online for him to clarify what his plans for Lois Lane (one of my favorite characters in comics). He seems to be dancing around clarifying a narrative twist in interviews. So, here’s hoping months from now we hardly remember this concern.

Overall, I’m bullish on Bendis at DC. I expect the new universe to challenge and rejuvenate him. He may not convert his harshest critics, but I think fans who keep an open mind will find much to appreciate, although isn’t that always the case with comics?

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

Dark Horse Comics’ Black Hammer and Ether: Two Beautiful Stories of Sacrifice

From Ether by Matt Kindt and David Rubin.

I recently read one of the best graphic stories to come my way in some time: Ether Vol. 1 by writer Matt Kindt and artist David Rubin. It was about a man who discovers a scientific realm beyond our own, seemingly inhabited by humanity’s notions of mythology. It is a land of living beings, all of whom firmly believe in magic. Our protagonist begins to visit the land and use his knowledge of science to debunk those beliefs and solve crimes there.

This land of mythology is so beautifully-rendered by Rubin. Many panels in this story could stand on their own as independent works of art. Ether, however, is not unique in this way, as many comics these days have a similarly-striking and imaginative visual quality (this is to take nothing away from Ether). Where Ether really stands apart is through the emotional depth Rubin and Kindt aspire to with its story.

That magical land—known to our characters as the titular Ether—moves through time differently, with months in the real world passing for every minute one spends there. When our protagonist first discovers it and begins to visit, he is happily married with a young family. Each of his visits, however, progresses the lives of his wife and daughters by several years past his own. He becomes addicted, their lives slip away from him—heartbreak.

I read this as a metaphor for the plight of anyone who is similarly driven, and as Kindt and Rubin are artists, I presume this metaphor was drawn through their own time lost at the keyboard or the drawing table, travelling through imaginative worlds grown from their own ideas as their families went on without them. As a writer myself, this gave the book—which stands on its own wonderfully as an engaging story rife with heroes and villains and mystery—a haunting undertow as I read, bringing me to tears somewhere during the fourth chapter.

That metaphor, while gorgeous, is not what this piece is about. I assume I’m far from the only one to pick up on it, as critically lauded as Ether has been in comics circles. What I want to unpack today is how another successful Dark Horse Comics property—Black Hammer by Jeff Lemire, Dean Ormston, and Dave Stewart—could be looked at as a companion piece to Ether, another side of the same artistic sacrifice coin.

Black Hammer by Jeff Lemire, Dean Ormston, and Dave Stewart. 

Whereas Ether examines the loss of one’s family as a price for spending life engrossed in work, Black Hammer depicts a different sort of creative sacrifice, one that has to do with being lost in the mystique of a craft, a professional culture, a niche artistic medium driven by nostalgia. Black Hammer is the story of a group of superheroes, all of whom are analogs for various characters from the Silver Age of comics. These heroes face down a global threat and find themselves confined to a mysterious farm for their troubles, lost to the world they were defending and stuck in a small rural area that doesn’t seem to be on any map.

It is, quite clearly, a paean by Lemire, Ormston, and Stewart to superhero comics, which all of them have spent parts of their careers within. It’s more than just a reimagining of a classic superhero mythos. See, there is sinister business afoot in Black Hammer, a mournfulness to the plight of the heroes on that farm, only one of whom seems satisfied with life there (and even then, who's to say he’s not deluding himself?).

Read a certain way it almost seems like the question underlying Black Hammer is what do we give up when we fall so fully into our nostalgia for superhero comics, how much of a risk are we at of being swallowed whole by it? It’s a poignant question in an era when vicious battles are waged online about the future of many pop culture properties, battles in which nostalgia is often held as a causation. I can only suppose the question is more poignant for the creators, whose lives work is being given over in part to these characters.

Lemire’s work is always somewhat obtuse in origin, difficult to figure out thematically (in the best possible way), but let's think about the timeline during which he may have conceptualized Black Hammer, which was in all probability near the tail end of his time writing exclusively for Marvel. When Marvel’s All New All Different initiative launched, Lemire was one of the central writers, taking on some of the publisher’s most prominent characters, including one of the central X-Men team books, Old Man Logan, and All New Hawkeye, which was a followup to the immensely successful run on that character by David Aja and Matt Fraction.

Throughout 2016, however, Lemire slowly began drifting off those titles, reducing his Big 2 superhero output to a mere two books today, one of which is yet to be released. It’s not a stretch, in my opinion, to suppose Black Hammer was a manifestation of Lemire feeling creatively trapped, a sense that maybe he was drawn into this work by nostalgia and had professionally been stuck on a farm. I’m not saying I know any of this to be a fact, but I think there’s a case to be made.

I’ll conclude by saying I find both Black Hammer and Ether to be among the most intriguing titles coming to comic book stores each month, and I find important questions for us all within them, specifically: what must aspiring creators be willing to sacrifice for our crafts?; and is there danger or risk of stagnation that could kneecap our futures buried within the warm fuzzy feelings of nostalgia?

I really doubt either book will provide clear or concrete answers for such tough questions—great art is rarely so neat—but I trust there will continue to be a beautiful journey in the asking.

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

Batman's Booster Gold Arc: The Good, The Bad, & The Sanctuary

Booster Gold in happier times.

Let me just start by saying Tom King is one of my favorite writers in comics. I bought all the single issues plus also hardcover copies of both The Vision and Sheriff of Babylon, and I’d do the same for Omega Men if a hardcover was available. I’ve loved this Batman run overall (Kite Man!), and King’s Mister Miracle maxi-series has gotten a ton of ink (or whatever the digital equivalent is) on this very site. I love Tom King’s work, which is part of why I feel obligated to apply a critical lens to his latest arc in Batman, “The Gift,” which centered on Booster Gold.

In The Gift, Booster and his flying Palm Pilot/best friend Skeet go back in time to prevent the murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents, trying to create evidence of how awful the world would be without Batman in order to present it to Bruce as a gift for his wedding. I’ve got plenty of nit-picks with this concept—was Booster just going to film it and give Bats a video clip? did he plan on later going back to ensure the murder happened? what about Selina? wedding gifts are supposed to be for both the bride AND groom—but this is comics, and we could nitpick everything all day and still not run out of nits to pick, etc.

My central issue with The Gift is the characterization of Booster Gold. In The Gift, Booster is reckless and—to be blunt—kind of dumb. Even when the world has gone to ash around him and he’s got multiple deaths on his conscience, he’s wisecracking about how he should have just gone with a cheese tray, written closer to Deadpool or Harley Quinn than the character we’ve seen in the past. It’s a far cry from the bleak but tragicomic genius we’ve seen in books like The Vision or Mister Miracle.

To me, Booster Gold has always been a tragic hero, though, one who is undone more by cutting corners, hubris, and bad luck than his own wanton stupidity. Born in the future as Michael Jon Carter, he was a star quarterback who got caught betting on his own games (at the behest of his lousy and I think also alcoholic father). So, he stole a bunch of super advanced tech and fled to the past, where he re-branded himself as a superhero and used his knowledge of other heroes there to his advantage. Also, he wanted to regain his lost fame, riches and fortune.

None of that is all that stupid. Narcissistic and selfish, perhaps, but also clever and calculating. As a result Booster is often depicted with a mix of daddy issues and imposter syndrome, which making him highly relate-able. A hallmark of his character over the years has also become his respect for the delicacy of the timeline, something that was even depicted well in the last 18 months or so in an Action Comics arc written by Dan Jurgens (the greatest Superman writer of our generation), in which Booster essentially stands up to Superman, who’s trying to save his own parents. It just isn't consistent that a Booster who recently went through that would then turn around and initiate the same idea as a wedding gift for Batman, even if he did intend to undo it.

My first inclination was to chalk this up to rushed writing, to King trying to spin the wheels on Batman for a few issues and bridge the way to No. 50. The more I contemplate this, however, the less I think that was the case. The end of The Gift leaves Booster a broken man, one vigorously cleaning a nigh-invisible splotch of blood left on his golden visor, which is hardly an ending at all. King, however, has shown himself to be expertly adept at ending arcs and story threads with the best in the business, and here there's almost no closure. King leaves us disturbed and a little perplexed, an odd note for a writer who has consistently tugged on reader emotions with subtle and savvy bits of narrative genius.

What I think is far more likely is that this is the start of a King story rather than the end of one. Now, this idea that The Gift is a seed for a larger Booster Gold arc rather than a simple guest spot in Batman isn’t all that original, not at this point. Outlets from Bleeding Cool to CBR have posited much the same, presenting more than enough evidence from King’s Twitter feed to back up their hypothesis. The standard line of thinking has quickly become that Booster Gold will be headed for King’s next concept, a PTSD clinic for superheros dubbed Sanctuary, and I’m on board with that. I certainly trust King—a man who has been to actual war—to tell that story and to tell it well.

What I would caution as a reader, however, is that there is a danger in making nuanced characters a blank slate defined by recent pain and suffering. As we saw in The Gift, it leaves entire plot points open to feeling contrived and insincere. One of the things that worked so well within DC's Rebirth was a strong emphasis on the core concepts of characters. To throw that away—even for an idea as strong as Sanctuary—seems like folly. And really, for an in-continuity, shared universe story like this one, it’s probably on the editor to enforce character growth and consistency from Action Comics to Batman to whatever comes next, etc.

One of the best Batman variant covers in recent memory.

But hey, enough with the negativity! King's scripts have a high bottom line for quality, and the artwork by Tony S. Daniel and Sandu Florea was great. Overall, King’s batting average is still really high on Batman, a book for which he must produce two scripts a month, no easy task for any writer, and I for one firmly believe that this wedding is going to be fantastic. I recently re-read Batman Annual No. 2, and it's still one of the best Batman stories in years, as well as one of the best Bat-Cat stories period. The Batman/Elmer Fudd Special is also a modern pop art classic, wonderfully-bizarre in conception and pitch perfect in execution, just downright great comic book-ing. Basically, for every Booster Gold fumble, there is an equal or greater Kite Man. King is also pretty busy right now—planning a wedding is never easy.

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

4 Things Jason Aaron Got Right About The Avengers

On Wednesday, Marvel Comics ushered in a new era for its flagship team book The Avengers, releasing a new No. 1 issue from writer Jason Aaron, artist Ed McGuinness, inker Mark Morales, and colorist David Curiel. The book built on plot points Aaron originally dropped in the massive Marvel Legacy one-shot last fall, and it marked the debut of this year’s new Marvel season, Fresh Start (although, no mention of Fresh Start was made by the book’s marketing, which I found interesting...).

Most importantly, however, this comic book was actually really very good. For real. The art team was cohesive and precise, giving the over-sized debut a polished feel, an almost high-budget aesthetic that seemed to declare this is THE Marvel book of the hour. What I found most engaging, however, was that Aaron’s plot and script seem to understand the enduring appeal of The Avengers in a way recent incarnations of the team have at times missed.

And that’s what we’re talking about here today. This book is not a throwback, not exactly—despite the traditional core of the team returning—but it does pay homage to some the most beloved and enduring aspects of The Avengers, without at all feeling dated in the process. Here are four of the major elements Aaron and the team simply get right about The Avengers... 

1. The Threat

The Avengers were formed originally because there was a threat that demanded they exist. In recent years, however, I think the concept has become a bit perfunctory, taking a wink-and-nod attitude that the team exists because the publisher, the fans, or whoever else expects/demands it. This book immediately gets away from that, establishing a convincing and compelling threat that spans millennia and brings our team together, even if some of them would rather not (more on that in a second).

This galvanizing threat is what made Avengers #1 work so well for me as a reader. I enjoyed Mark Waid’s preceding run on the franchise. I mean, he’s Mark Waid, and he just gets superheroes, but under Waid the book always seemed like an auxiliary title, rather than the publisher’s flagship, as that honor seemed to go to whatever event was beginning, middling, or ending (usually middling—boom, roasted!). In summation, Aaron’s run seems to be at the forefront of the publisher, giving it an exciting and dynamic sort of energy.

2. The Reluctance

Reluctance has been part of The Avengers DNA since the early years, when the original lineup minus Steve Rogers quit, leaving Cap to marshal a group that included Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and Scarlet Witch, all of whom were at that time villains. We get that reluctance here early and often, starting with a great buddy-buddy-buddy scene where Steve Rogers, Tony Stark and Thor Odinson meet in a bar for a beer, a shirley temple, and roughly three giant flagons of mead, respectively.

Just a few old friends, not wanting to be Avengers while having a drink at a bar called Aaron's.

Not only is this reluctance foundational to The Avengers, it is in many ways the heart of Marvel superheroes all together, the main thing separating them from DC, whose heroes mostly run, fly, or grapple-hook eagerly into battle. Marvel heroes by comparison are more real and more flawed, like all of us, and they don’t always rise immediately to the occasion, like all of us again, with, of course, a few exceptions—thinking here of Carol Danvers. Aaron gets that right throughout, and his debut issue of The Avengers is better for it.

3. The Relationships

All great teams have iconic relationships, be it the antagonistic banter between The Thing and Human Torch in Fantastic Four or the love story between Midnighter and Apollo in The Authority. I think it’s fair to say, however, that The Avengers have slightly more characters with special connections to their teammates, characters like Giant Man and The Wasp, or The Vision and Scarlet Witch, or Wonder Man and The Beast.

Right off in this debut issue, Aaron makes great use of existing bonds, specifically those between Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor, while also laying groundwork for some new ones. My favorite scene in this entire book was actually when T’Challa and Doctor Strange used their individual expertise together to investigate a shared concern. It’s a somewhat odd pairing, I suppose, but it yielded surprising chemistry. I’m really hoping for more of that kind of interaction.

4. The Rotation

My all-time favorite run on The Avengers was by Kurt Busiek and George Perez in the late ‘90s, and part of what I liked about it so much was the feeling that week-to-week the team’s roster was dynamic, that new members could be incoming and existing heroes could be on their way out of the mansion. Mark Waid did a bit of this in his run, although it really amounted to just one big splinter when the younger heroes departed to form The Champions.

Going into this book, however, Aaron has said in interviews that one slot on the team will be essentially reserved for a rotating member, and for this first arc that slot goes to Doctor Strange. I like that idea, although my hope is that the rotating concept is a wider one, not limited to a neat one-in, one-out setup that takes place like clockwork each time we start a new arc. I’d rather see roster churn happen organically (and maybe even surprisingly) as a result of our plot.

Plus, One Minor Complaint

So, I guess everyone—characters, writers, publisher, fans—is just fine now about the whole Hydra Steve business? I know this is comics and change is the only constant and HUGE events one month have little impact the next, but this man was seething with evil to the point he oversaw the destruction of a major American city, like as recently as last year, which is even shorter in comic book time.

Obviously, we have to get this behind us, and Secret Empire did the heavy narrative lifting after its climax to explain what happened and get us moving in a better direction. Plus, we got a brief and rehabilitative Captain America run from Waid and superstar artist Chris Samnee. Still, all I’m saying is a bit more of a grudge held by other heroes might feel cathartic for us all, regardless of what our feelings were toward Secret Empire as a concept. The good news is this is just one issue, and there’s still time to dive deeper into that idea, plus other dynamics. I know I, for one, am looking forward to Aaron unpacking the presumably large baggage between Tony and Carol following the second superhero Civil War.

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at@zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

How Thanos Won: A Look at Donny Cates’ Epic Run

Let’s talk about one of Marvel’s best comics in years—Thanos Wins by Donny Cates—and how it was an unlikely success.

The solicit for the first issue, #13, teased a story about what happens when Thanos wins, written by Donny Cates and drawn by Geoff Shaw, a duo that was rising, to be sure, but by no means household names with the Big 2 superhero crowd.

Essentially, Marvel had a somewhat untested creative team (strong indie work aside) taking over a book about a villain that was 12 issues into a run, teasing a plot about a future where everyone’s favorite heroes had been murdered, brutally.

Then the incredible happened.

The first issue sold out. The second issue sold out. Both issues went for second printings. A spinoff series was announced. Online buzz started. Copies started going for more than quadruple the cover price on eBay. Retailers said years from now the trade would be an evergreen seller, with casual fans coming off the street to find it.

Simply put, Thanos won.

And thank the divine comic book forces it did. Marvel needed the emergence of a writer like Cates. It had, after all, lost Brian Michael Bendis—its most influential voice of the past two decades—to rival DC. It needed a bold new voice to push its marquee superhero properties in bold new directions. Cates delivered and as a reward is now getting a summer event (Death of the Inhumans) and a forthcoming run on Venom. Basically, Thanos could mark the rise of Cates at Marvel, the start of a new era.

With this significance in mind, let’s look at some of the elements that propelled Cates, Shaw, colorist Antonio Fabela, and Marvel to such a massive W here.

Cates' Voice

The first thing that tickled my brain (ew) about Thanos was the way Cates writes with such a confident voice. Cates work has more narration than most, but his language is so compelling, one hardly notices.

His sentences are clear and accessible, yet often long, winding, and poetic, leading readers on quick journeys that tend to end with full-on outlandishness. Check out these examples:

“After all, when one is murdering every sentient being in the cosmos by hand...a lapse in perfect record-keeping can be forgiven.”

“The last titans stood over the body of a shattered angel in a church built for their greatest love.”

“And of course, this is how it ends. The last of the titans fighting for the hand of death at the dusk of time.”

“Each Thanos taking a combined eternity of pain and sorrow out on themselves. Dealing not in words or feelings, but in their shared language of blood.”

There’s real voice to Cates writing, and while the two couldn’t be more different, the untethered confidence in that voice actually reminds me of a young Brian Michael Bendis on Powers or Ultimate Spider-Man, like a writer talking directly to you, telling a story he just has to get out because it’s that good.

Each opening line in Thanos is well done, but look at #16’s:

“When he was a younger man, and not yet a cosmic-fueled engine of time-traveling murder, Frank Castle’s wife and children were shot to death before his eyes.”

I Tweeted about liking this line, and Donny Cates responded with, “Haha. Yeah I’m pretty happy with that nonsense.” That gets at another thing working well in Thanos: despite the dark story and violent happenings, you can tell Cates is living a dream and having a blast.

I mean, try to read this panel and not laugh with him. ‘Nuff said!

Death’s Mercurial Facial Expressions

Cates wasn’t the only one having fun, though. Shaw (whose artwork with Fabela really owned the grandiosity of Cates’ script) did an incredible amount of work with a few mercurial facial expressions once Thanos lady love, Death, finally showed up. Observe:

Now seems as good a time as any to point out that part of the reason this plot succeeds is because it focuses on the most compelling and relatable thing about Thanos—his core motivation is that he’s a passionate man who is deeply in love. But more about the story in the next section...

The Story Structure

Really, Thanos Wins sticks to a pretty classic Hero’s Journey, which gives it a stable framework within which to build all of that nonsense.

Take, for example, the first truly great panel, which comes early in the story's first part:

This is just expert comic storytelling, with a caption giving us a casual contrast to the violent domination Thanos has just wrought. But this is also still the exposition phase of our story, the time before the call to adventure where we’re in Thanos’ status quo, and what Cates’ establishes here is that normal life is one in which Thanos just *shrug* obliterates the Chitauri, a race so fearsome it was the villain in the first Avengers movie.

The rest of the book reads like a game of Cates one-upping himself from there. 

Marvel’s Commitment and Support

Thanos Wins is the most significant run at Marvel since Tom King’s 2015 Vision, and I’m drawing that connection to note one way that Marvel did not let history repeat. After Vision, DC swooped in and snapped King up. Marvel must have figured out what it had in Cates, because they signed him months before Thanos' first issue dropped.

And good on them.

Support like that is key to a story as big and seemingly limitless as Thanos Wins. In an endnote for the run's finale, Cates notes he was shocked that Marvel let him do the things in this book. He doesn’t mention this, but Marvel also supported Cates over Jim Starlin, the character’s creator.

See, Starlin was at work on a three-part graphic novel series that he said had a plot close to what Cates did here. No one has gone into detail, so it’s tough to know how much it truly overlapped, but what is known is that Starlin felt Marvel choose Cates’ work over his own, and he quit the publisher because of it.

We don’t know enough to say what Cates’ role (if any) was, and, really, I’m not sure it matters in the context of this conversation. As Oliver Sava noted in an AV Club piece early during Thanos Wins, “it’s all part of a bigger conversation about creator rights as superheroes continue their pop culture dominance.”

I think that’s true, and thus we'll save further examination until we can give the topic the space it deserves.

Thanos Wins

I’ll bring this home by noting Cates' work here is enough for me to buy his future Marvel books without hesitation. I’m also reading his creator-owned series Babyteeth and Redneck, and I'd place him in rarefied air with the aforementioned King and Jeff Lemire, whose work I also buy unconditionally.

What I find maybe the most interesting about Cates is he’s a pretty straight-forward storyteller, rarely toying with form or meta dialogue. He’s kind of a classic writer, in that his stories are driven hardest by character choices, with all plot growing from that. He seems to have an obsession with what drives people to violence that he’s dissecting in his work, and he’s not afraid to use an everyman voice in narration, or go the other way and sound like a poem. Call him the Cormac McCarthy of comics. Too much? Whatever. 

Anyway, I’m glad he landed at Marvel and I hope he stays. Marvel’s risk-friendly editorial team seems better suited for Cates’ sensibilities. I should, however, note he has so far shown himself expert at contained mini series with big endings, and is yet to drive a book long-term like Jason Aaron on Thor, or Bendis on Ultimate Spider-Man. If Cates' Twitter is to be believe (and it's not, he literally said he wasn’t doing Venom a day before it was announced he was doing Venom), plans are for Venom to run for many, many issues. I don’t care much for Venom as a character, but with Cates writing, I’m downright excited to check that book out.

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

The Reality of My First C2E2

So last week, once I checked into my hotel room for the Chicago con, I posted about my expectations for my first time attending C2E2 (you can find that here). I look back fondly at that post. I can honestly say that I got so much of that list right. This lets me know that a little preparation goes a long way. So, if you have read that post you’ll know that I can keep this one short, because I don’t have any real complaints about the convention. I only have a few additions to the positive ways to spend your time.

1.) Always be adaptable.

I showed up three and a half hours before the show floor opened on Friday to get a wrist band for the Jim Lee signing at the DC Booth. As you can imagine, that wasn’t early enough. Jim only had one hour to spend at the con, and those wrist bands went quickly for those who ignored their need to sleep. While meeting Jim Lee was priority numero uno on my list of con accomplishments, I wasn’t distraught at the inability to shake his hand and get my two most prized books of his signed. I realized that the show was full of creators with plenty of incredible opportunities still available. After all, the show wasn’t even 20 minutes in and I wasn’t going to be destroyed.

Fortunately, even though I made the trip to Chicago all alone, I made friends in line. When you show up before 7 a.m., and the show doesn’t open until 10, you’ve got plenty of time to get comfortable in line. While waiting I couldn’t help but notice the witty banter of some gentlemen standing next to me. As it turns out, they were super cool (of course) and we soon engaged in a friendly, yet spirited debate, about the merits of the latest Star Wars movie. This debate grew to include not only our immediate threesome and enveloped two others near us. You’re probably wondering why you should care that I am a social butterfly. Well, once the show floor opened, these gentlemen made a straight line to the CGC booth. I myself don’t worry too much about getting my books graded, but these guys made me laugh and a strange bond was formed. Well, I think fate was at work. It turns out that at the CGC booth was a private signing available for Jim Lee. We were the first in line and were able to get the books we brought submitted to have Jim sign them. While we missed out on the chance to shake the DC Comics co-publisher’s hand, we still got to get our books signed and graded (for a fee, of course).  So, the moral of that overlong parable is that when you make friends and your carefully pre-planned schedule goes awry, be open to change. I got to get my books signed and make great friends (more on that later) because I was open to change.

2. That big plan you had? Keep it, it will serve you well, but be ready to add to it.

I had the fortunate opportunity to get my books signed by Brian Michael Bendis at a signing time slot that I only found because I was looking for the Mark Millar signing (which I had a ticket to attend). It was perfect, yet it took two hours away from the con plan that I had in my head (and on my printed schedule and C2E2 app). Believe me, it was worth it to meet the guy who has been responsible for almost the last twenty years of Marvel lore. Yet, that experience brings me back to one of the things I warned about in my previous post.

3. Pack light. You don’t need to bring your entire comic collection.

I was in a line for Brian Michael Bendis that did not move for almost 45 minutes. The talent showed up 15 minutes early, and yet the line slugged for what felt like infinity. When the first signee went walking down the line (with a thick stack of books that went from his waist to his head) we line dwellers all realized he was the inconsiderate fan who was only concerned with himself. Look, I won’t shame a fan for wanting to have an incredible moment with one of their favorite creators. I will, however, shame the hell out of a person looking to hawk books on eBay. When you attend a con with a bunch of creators and an exponential amount of fans, think about someone besides yourself. I don’t mean you shouldn’t ask for a selfie moment, but I do mean to avoid getting every single comic you own signed. Don’t overly consume the limited amount of time each creator has available for signing. We all have spent a decent amount of money to attend the con. Just be aware and…

4. Be cool and get ready to make amazing friends.

I can’t even tell you how far being a decent human being goes at a con or just in general. A solid rule of thumb in life is to be a good person. I won’t get specific, but being a nice guy got me into a few different lines that I initially didn’t have access to attend. So, at the end of the day talking to fellow fans, or people working the con, and being genuinely cool will open doors that you wouldn’t have been able to enjoy beforehand. I got signatures and met just the coolest creators by being just a nice dude.

Whether you attend a super helpful panel or make the most of the hours you spend in line, you’re going to meet some incredible like-minded individuals. I cannot express enough how awesome Kyle Higgins, Gene Ha, Jim Zub, or Michael Moreci were. They were all involved in panels and stayed afterwards to offer some of their knowledge and experience. That kind of information is invaluable to an aspiring creator.

5. Don’t just hang out at the big three booths.

I know what it’s like to want to spend your whole con experience at the booths of the companies you know. It’s tough to expand your horizons but look for the smaller publishers with booth space on the con floor. I was very happy to speak with the editors and publishers of smaller companies who were willing (and able) to chat with me. That is a great way to start your journey into the industry. Pleading with DC, Marvel, and Image for a book is silly. You’re not going to pitch your way into a major company at a con. You may, however, be able to network your way into the opportunity to pitch with a smaller publisher. That being said, be cool. You still need to be a decent human being to seal that deal.

6. Remember to be in the moment and enjoy the experience.

I made great friends and enjoyed meeting creators while I was at C2E2. I will be an annual attendee for the foreseeable future, because the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo was good to me. I avoided the Con Crud (thank you Emergen-C), and I managed to make friends and connections whilst satisfying my fandom. What more could you ask of a convention?

Brandon Evans is a freelance writer and comic book lover from St. Louis, MO. He is currently working to find his way into the comic book industry. You can find him on Twitter as @writingbrandon

Bendis is coming!

REVIEW: Justice League of America #28 by Steve Orlando and Hugo Petrus

Justice League of America #28 by Steve Orlando (w) and Hugo Petrus (a).

After the previous issue of Justice League of America setup Chronos as one of the most dastardly villains in the DC Universe, this one went ahead and solidified his terror. What really did the trick for me wasn’t Chronos’ typical villain dialogue, which was well done and included both taunting the heroes and telling henchmen to shut up. It also wasn’t the way Chronos took the fight to the JLA via a literal army of sycophants from throughout history (a classic move used often at Marvel by Kang the Conqueror). What made Chronos so compelling to me was the triviality of his motives. He seemed to embrace and own his status as a straight up bad guy (a fitting motif given our current political climate but that’s another discussion…).

As I noted in my review of issue #27, Steve Orlando is a writer who really lives in the heads of characters he writes, giving his books a more well-rounded feel than most, a sense that even small lines and brief actions matter, even if it’s just to create a more robust picture of what’s happening in this world with these people. There have been signs that Chronos was a petty man from the start, that his motives were entirely vindictive, and that he was messing with the God of superheroes, Ahls, simply to humble the League and take them down a notch for being altruistic, which has been a recurring motif in this run.

By the end of this issue, Chronos all but confirms as much, with Ryan Choi subsequently noting that Chronos had started as a petty thief, a dim man with a chip on his shoulder for being degraded by the superior intellects of first Ray Palmer and now Choi. This is all very much in keeping with behavior we’ve seen from Chronos, and it’s yet another example of what I’ve often said about Orlando’s JLA: it’s a well-wrought and complex run that rewards readers for investing deep levels of focus and attention.

Another thing I’ve really enjoyed about this current arc is that it leans in to being a story of superheroes. Orlando is also a writer with real passion for the tradition of his work, often taking close consideration of continuity when scripting character interactions. This passion shows in the lack of cutesy winking found in JLA. This is a book that takes story very seriously, and, as a reader, it’s hard to not follow suit. Of the talented artists Orlando has worked with throughout this run, Hugo Petrus’ work best embraces this total buyin. There are some truly fantastic superhero panels here, including one of a battle in which Black Canary lunges from the foreground at a foe, giving us a glimpse at an immense and impressive depth of field.

Overall: Justice League of America #28 is the penultimate issue of a book that has been a real treat, and I’m sad that things have to end. Not many of the characters from this team have been teased as part of the League moving forward, with the exceptions being Batman (of course) and Lobo, who is at least involved with No Justice. Still, getting nearly 30 issues with this eclectic and disparate group has been a treat, and issues like this illustrate why. 8.8/10

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

A C2E2 Newbie Plans for the Massive Con

I’m sitting in traffic in Chicago. Apparently, it’s a mistake to be on the highway at this time of day, but my flight was delayed. Nothing like flying two states west when trying to go one state east. The Uber driver tells me we should take side streets. I oblige, he is friendly enough, but I’m eager to get to my hotel room to begin finalizing my attack plans for C2E2. For those who don’t know, C2E2 is the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo, an annual event where people from all over flock to the Midwest in a comic book and pop culture-induced frenzy. This is my first time attending, and I’ve been plotting for months how to get the most out of my time.

I’ve been to comic conventions in St. Louis, but this is my first large out-of-town convention. I have a few reasons for attending. Chiefly, I’m a massive comic book fan. So, being able to meet a plethora of creators is irresistible, and the celebrity appearances are pretty neat, too. But, if I’m being honest, the main reason I’m here is to network. My end goal is to find work, as a writer, in the comic book industry. As far as reaching out to make those connections, there is simply no better place to start than a con. So, after my Uber ride I head to the hotel bar and start typing away, plotting my plan of attack for the show. I’ve spent a decent amount of money getting here, as I’m sure other attendees have, and I’m trying to maximize my success. Below I’ve listed the key parts of my plan so far.

1.) Plan…plan like you’re trying to overthrow the world

C2E2 is just massive. I mean truly, for a first-time attendee, the programming has been almost overwhelming to just read, and trying to meld that information into a mental visualization has been, well, let’s just say staggering. So, I’m approaching the situation with the C2E2 app. It has super useful information and it’s constantly updating. I even used it to create an in-app schedule for which creators are signing at what times, which panels occur when and where, and what photo ops are going on. Both the app and website also have printable floor maps. Those have really helped me formulate a good game plan to find artist’s alley, the DC and Marvel booths, and the panels. They also have really useful things like coat check, check-in for badges, and even a quiet room to chill and decompress during a show.

2.) And then plan some more

Most creators are apt to post their signing and appearance schedules on social media. These are really helpful in setting up a timeline for maximizing your fan time at the con. I’ve used Sean Gordon Murphy, Mark Millar, and several others to efficiently plot a course through the show floor map.

3.) Pack light

Of course, this sounds super obvious, but by pack light what I really mean is bring luggage—that’s basically empty—for the swag you purchase at the con. Nothing says “I didn’t really plan for this” more than trying to shove super sweet lithographs and original art into your carry on. Also, and this is truly where I struggled, don’t bring all of your comic collection with you to get signed. I know this is counter intuitive to the core of fandom. I spent an entire week, with stacks of my super sweet comic collection spread out on the floor around me, agonizing which books I could bring with me and which books had to languish behind. I’ve got so many books by Brian Michael Bendis and Tom King, yet I tried to keep in mind that C2E2 had 80,000 attendees last year. Yes, you want to meet your favorite creators. Yes, you want to get your books signed. But you also want to keep the creators and other fans in mind and be considerate. Most lines have a max of items you can get signed. Remember, you are just one of myriad awesome fans that want to have a personal encounter with a writer/artist/celebrity/editor/colorist/letterer/cosplayer/etc. Be mindful of the time and excitement of your fellow fan.

4.) Assume the worst and the prepare for it

I’ve learned from following the social media feeds of various creators that there is this thing called comic con gunk. Basically, if you go to a mass event, you expose yourself to massive possible instances of contamination. Accordingly, I’ve been drinking an Emergn-C daily before each leg of the convention. I’ve got too much to do to come down with a debilitating affliction during or after the convention. So, when you see folks preparing for the zombie apocalypse, don’t shrug them off. Just preemptively medicate.

5.) Have goals

This also seems obvious, but take a moment to think about why you’re attending. You’ve no doubt spent a decent amount of money to be here. Why? Is it to meet the creators or celebrities who bring your favorite characters to life? Are you here to showcase your killer cosplay outfit? Or are you here to network and try to meet people to sell you ideas to? Maybe it’s a bit of all or the above? Just remember, you’ve only got so much time at C2E2. There are a lot of panels focusing on important topics, as well as phenomenal cosplay tips. Know what you’re here for. Don’t get caught up in fandom if your goal is to find editors to pitch ideas. Again, if you’re here to solely get books signed, that’s great. If you’re here to meet potential prospects, that’s also great. Just be careful with your time. If you play your cards right, you can be a fan and a potential creator. Just do it properly.

6.) Have fun

Going to a con can be overwhelming. Just remember, at the end of the day, you’re here to have a good time. Don’t get bogged down with ideas of what you should be doing. Have fun. Go meet other like-minded individuals. Get books signed, get commissions done, and grab a photo with your favorite actor. At the end of the day this whole thing is about enjoying fandom. So, do that. Don’t let some silly list dictate what you’re going to do. Enjoy yourself, plan your con, and make some memories.

I’m posting this, but I will post a pre C2E2 post as well. I just want to share what my expectations were vs. the reality. Have a great weekend. See ya guys on Monday!

Brandon Evans is a freelance writer and comic book lover from St. Louis, MO. He is currently working to find his way into the comic book industry. You can find him on Twitter as @writingbrandon

Best Debut Comics of March 2018

There’s a special feeling at comic shops on Wednesdays when two HUGE books drop, an awareness that not only are we getting great comics, but we’re getting something else we love too: an easy Book A vs. Book B debate. In general, these types of big books are usually event stories starring flagship characters from the Big 2. In general, but not always.

Let’s look at this March, during which we got two major books on one Wednesday that were both creator-owned titles by industry titans: Robert Kirkman (Walking Dead, Invincible) and Jeff Lemire (insert 20 titles here). I read and loved both Kirkman’s Oblivion Song and Lemire’s Gideon Falls and think that years from now we’ll look at March 7, 2018, awed that two titles like this launched on the very same day.

And you know what? I have no desire whatsoever to pit them against each other. Now, maybe this means I’ve evolved as a fan (unlikely), or (more likely) maybe it means there are so many high quality books lately that asserting an aggressive preference gets too tiresome, too quickly. For I am a simple man and have not come to the Internet to debate.

I have, however, come to tell you about the best debut comics for March 2018. Let’s do it!

Eternity Girl #1 of 6 by Magdalene Visaggio & Sonny Liew

Our first list falls into what I’m starting to think of as DC’s burgeoning prestige sadness category, which as of now contains basically just Eternity Girl and Mister Miracle. Magdalene Visaggio’s Eternity Girl is an eclectic book thematically, one that raises questions about suicide, disassociation from life, post-traumatic stress, malleable identities, and the always-elusive proper role one plays in the world. You can see why I’d draw a comparison to Tom King’s industry-shaking Mister Miracle. In other words, this is indeed an intriguing book. One last thing it shares in common with Mister Miracle is incredible art, this time courtesy of Sonny Liew. Have you seen some of these upcoming covers? So awesome it’s crazy, or it makes me feel a little crazy, hard to parse which is the case.

Gideon Falls #1 by Jeff Lemire, Andrea Sorrentino, & Dave Stewart

In January I got a copy of this for advanced review, so I’ve already heaped mounds of praise on Gideon Falls. With that in mind, I’ll just quickly recap now why I loved the latest collaboration between Jeff Lemire, Andrea Sorrentino, and Dave Stewart so much.

As I said in January, this is a book deserving of a large and devoted audience, and given the star power of its creators, it will likely find it. The intrigue of the storytelling will ultimately make Gideon Falls one to follow for the long haul. It’s got influences of David Lynch, filtered through Jeff Lemire’s increasingly sharp sensibilities, and comics don’t get much better than that.

Infinity 8 #1 by Lewis Trondheim, Zep, & Dominique Bertail

Infinity 8 #1

This is such a polished and strong debut, one that offers a clear character with compelling desires from its start, those desires here being a deep longing to reproduce. Dominique Bertail’s art is stylish and imaginative, idealizing the human form and going wild when alien designs or space debris call for it. Overall, Infinity 8 is a story conceptualized to be three arcs of three issues, plotted and directed by French creatives Lewis Trondheim and Olivier Vatine. Based on entertaining I found this one issue, I’m in for the duration.

 

 

Oblivion Song #1 by Robert Kirkman & Lorenzo De Felici

I am admittedly a Robert Kirkman fan. While I don’t watch The Walking Dead television show (and haven’t since back in season 2), I am a fan of The Walking Dead comic. I’m an even bigger fan of the recently concluded independent superhero book Invincible, and a slightly less enthusiastic fan of the ongoing Outcast by Kirkman and Azaceta, which, make no mistake, I also think is quite good.

All of that is a lengthy preamble to saying Oblivion Song is Kirkman’s best debut yet. I recently The Walking Dead #1, and most of the flack Kirkman has gotten for his early simplicity of concept and wonky dialogue isn’t misplaced, not entirely. These are issues. They are, however, not issues in his newest book, which has a layer of complexity his previous works have lacked. Word also has it that the creative team here is two years ahead. All of which seems to indicate that Kirkman is still learning and still very much excited about telling graphic stories. Very cool.

Oblivion Song #1

Shadowman #1 by Andy Diggle, Stephen Segovia, & Ulises Arreola

Valiant Comics is in a state of flux. It was recently bought in full by Chinese investors. Most the senior staff that us comic folks know and love are gone (Dinesh!), and word has it the new directive is increased focused on Valiant films. Blerg.

This is all very concerning for Valiant Comics fans, and while it may be time to worry, books like Shadowman #1 show that it’s not quite time to straight panic. It was so good to see Jack again in this book, and while this may not be entirely accessible to virgin Shadowman readers, I think Andy Diggle’s script does enough to orient while also setting up compelling questions one can only assume the coming issues will answer.

Vampironica #1 by Greg and Megan Smallwood

Veronica Lodge is a vampire, that’s the simple concept here, but what makes this book worthy of a spot among the best debut comics of March 2018 is not the concept but rather the execution. Greg Smallwood is a superstar, and his talents are especially evident when applied to the occult (see his recent Moon Knight run with Jeff Lemire). So, Vampironica is a fast and pretty read, and while I hate to use the word fun to describe a comic—so vague and reductive—that’s exactly what this series looks to be, fun and blood-soaked and cheesy and escapist and...why not?

See last month's best debuts!

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

Best Action Comics #1000 Variants (and Why We Love Them)

The first major comic I read as a kid was Superman #75. This isn’t unique to me. Released on November 18th, 1992, that book was the culmination of the Death of Superman, in which Supes and beastly kill machine Doomsday perished at each other’s hands. I was 9 and not exactly an active participant in our economy, so I had to read a copy belonging to a friend’s older brother in the basement of their house. I can still smell must mingling with that glorious new comic aroma.

It was formative. I loved Superman almost as much as I did my parents (again, I was 9). Every page in the book was a single panel; this was something special, something epic and grandiose. There had even been stories on the news—TV and print—about the gravitas of it all. Basically, it felt like we’d never see a comic so huge again, and I’d argue that we haven’t.

You can make a case for other books in the past 25 years being more influential or important, but it’s hard to argue another comic has garnered as much attention upon release as Superman #75—until now. Enter Action Comics #1000.

Landing on April 18, 2018, just shy of 80 years since the landmark Action Comics #1 launched the superhero concept, this book will celebrate all things Superman, and, in many ways, all Superman has given rise to, including superheros, shared universes, accessible science fiction, and so many allegories about hope. To mark the occasion DC has tapped a veritable army (or at least a squad) of the best artists in comics to do variant covers.

A cynical view is that DC is simply milking this achievement for every last dime, and, for sure, these variants are a sure fire way to bank. The more optimistic take, however, and the one more fitting for Superman, is that each of these artists had a moment like I did when I was 9, a moment blending an intense love of the character with a sense that his adventures were meaningful, and that these variants each represent that feeling, that formative bit of our histories put to paper.

Anyway, there’s no denying these covers look great, which is why today we’re taking a look at some of our favorites, and sharing a few thoughts about what makes them special.

Behold! In no particular order our favorite Action Comics #1000 variants:

Newbury Comics Variant by Patrick Gleason

One of the best parts of DC’s Rebirth publishing initiative (which is essentially ending with Action Comics #1000, but that’s a whole other story…) was how it revitalized Superman by putting his wife Lois and son Jon back into his life. Patrick Gleason, the artist responsible for this cover, was vital to that run, which he commemorates beautifully here, depicting Superman, Lois Lane, Jon, Krypto, and the flag of the good ol’ U.S. of A.

Newbury Comics retailer exclusive variant by Patrick Gleason.

1960s Variant by Michael Allred

Of course Michael Allred (one of my favorite artists in comics) did the 1960s variant, of course he did. His kitschy pop art aesthetic is a perfect fit for Silver Age Superman, from the beefy stature, to the colorful details, to the spiderweb of panels showing the most beloved and maligned of 60s Superman tales (Lori Lemaris!). I wasn’t a big fan of the other cartoony Action #1000 variants, largely because of my firm belief that this one is absolutely perfect.

1960s decade variant by Michael Allred.

Kings Comics Sydney Variant by Nicola Scott

One idea permeating Action Comics #1000 is that Superman is character with strong core values, but also one that remains malleable to best fit the present decade. You can really see subtle ways he’s changed from decade to decade here, be it through his hair, logo, facial structure, and, yes, The Trunks. Superman is also a character built on hope, and the Superman in the forefront of Scott’s wonderful piece looks more hopeful than any of his predecessors, as if he has learned from recent mistakes of the past (ahem, no trunks), and is still determined to make tomorrow better. That’s a thought that gives me goosebumps.

Kings Comics Retailer Variant by Nicola Scott

1980s Variant by Joshua Middleton

This cover really lives in the decade it depicts (look at Lois’ blouse, hair, makeup!), with an aesthetic best described as Deathly Sincere 80s Adventure Movie Poster. It also, however, has a timelessness to it. See the facial expressions that perfectly capture the essences of Superman (determined and brave, charging off toward peril), Jimmy (wow!), and Lois (confident and ready, pen poised). Oh, and then there’s Luthor speeding across the frame while a terrifying visage of Braniac looms high above all. Wonderful.

1980s decade variant by Joshua Middleton.

Third Eye Comics Variant by Kaare Andrews

Okay okay, so I said these were in no particular order, but I have to admit this cover is my top choice. Besides from just being straight-up gorgeous, it speaks to one of my favorite things in all of comics: the Superman-Lois Lane relationship. I’ve written about this at length, so I won’t belabor it again, but Superman without Lois Lane is hardly Superman at all. She’s been there from issue one, so having her central was always going to be a must for my favorite cover.  

Third Eye Comics Retailer Variant by Kaare Andrews.

Forbidden Planet Variant by Jock / Bulletproof Comix Variant by Gabriele Dell'Otto

I don’t really have deeper thoughts about either of these, other than “Hoo boy, look at this!”

Forbidden Planet Retailer Variant by Jock.

Bulletproof Comix Retailer Variant by Gabriele Dell'Otto.

1990s Variant by Dan Jurgens and Kevin Nowlan

I'd like this one quite a bit more (heavy Lois presence and all) if not for the Kaare Andrews cover, which I like better.

1990s decade variant by Dan Jurgens and Kevin Nowlan.

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

REVIEW: Justice League of America #27 by Steve Orlando & Hugo Petrus

Justice League of America #27 is an excellent example of why I’ve loved this too-short run (just over a year and change). The team dynamics are once again complex and logical, giving careful readers a reward for their attentions. From the start, this incarnation of the JLA has been rife with incohesion, which is fitting due to it being a wildly disparate group, and writer Steve Orlando has expertly played out the dynamics that would logically develop.

Orlando really lives in his characters heads when writing, capturing subtle bits like—this week—The Ray boasting to Batman he was in control and Batman responding, yeah, good job, or Black Canary going out of her way to show Aztek welcoming kindness. We’ve previously seen The Ray questioning his worth alongside Canary or Batman, and it’s nice to see him act in a way that calls back to that while also demonstrating his growth. That's just one example, though. The book has many.

And it’s actually this idea of varied levels of hero experience I’ve enjoyed most in the JLA’s interactions, the ways younger and newer heroes like The Ray act around the vets. It’s really created not just a sense of past for each character, but for the current DCU, something inherently absent from the team books during New 52.

This idea of past especially shines with this issue’s villain: Chronos, David Clinton, the time-manipulating arch foe of the Ray Palmer Atom. As Ryan Choi tells us, “Chronos spends ages plotting an attack in what seems like seconds to us. He’s a high-tech thief with an old school grudge.” And how do you beat him? “You don’t do it alone.”

This may as well be a thesis statement for this issue, if not the entirety of Orlando’s JLA. Batman brought this squad together while acknowledging they weren’t the Justice League proper, not the A Squad, but were still needed to address a specific incident (see the prior arc!) while the heavy hitters were otherwise occupied. JLA #27—like every other issue in this run—stuck to that theme of teamwork over inexperience, while also incorporating the lessons and history from the team’s recent past. This may not be the easiest book to dive into, but if you invest, it more than rewards you for reading, and I’ve always been a fan of superhero complexity.

As for the art, I loved what Hego Petrus did with his page layouts, using inset panels with facial closeups to convey emotion during key moments. Petrus also did an annoyingly good job of making Chronus stupid face look smug (and punchable). I am far from a violent guy, but I must admit I fantasized about taking a swing at him in the final panel.

Best Line: “I don’t want them to get hurt because of me, but I’m not going to argue with Batman. Does anyone argue with Batman?” -Ryan Choi

Overall: Justice League of America #27 is another issue in a great run driven by the complexity of the relationships between team members with disparate motivations, levels of experiences, and emotional IQs. The villain in the story is a time manipulator, which fits wonderfully with Orlando’s foundational theme of overcoming experience and living up to legacy. Add to it Hego Petrus’ fantastic artwork—especially on detail shots and facial expressions—and you’ve got an issue that makes me sad this run is ending next month. 9.0/10

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

ADVANCE REVIEW: Wasted Space #1 by Michael Moreci and Hayden Sherman

I’ve been a fan of Vault Comics for a while now, continually impressed by how the rising publisher manages to put out some of the best pure science fiction and fantasy stories in the graphic medium. I’ve written about this before, but along with Lion Forge and Aftershock Comics, Vault is slowly remaking perceptions of what indie publishers can be, exercising incredible judgement at the talent and books they promote.

Vault’s latest sci-fi book, Wasted Space—by writer Michael Moreci, artist Hayden Sherman, and colorist Jason Wordie—is yet another in a growing collection of titles that are as entertaining as they are complex. Wasted Space is set in a dystopian future where most facets of life have evolved toward their logical extremes, including technology, religion and—most importantly for our plot—drugs. I was impressed here from the first page, wherein a blip of a human form floats tethered to a ship deep in the cosmos. The narration begins: The galaxy is totally f*%#&@.

I’m an easy mark for stories about futures wherein things have gone massively awry, and I’m also prone to liking protagonists who start their hero’s journey feeling distant and defeated. Wasted Space delivers both those elements, and it delivers it well. This book’s marketing describes it as Preacher + Phillip K. Dick + Star Wars, and, to be sure, there are shades of all those properties, but Space also addresses modern concerns, as most good science fiction tends to do.

The social commentary, however, never becomes too overt, and Moreci’s script here is careful to focus on characterization. The galaxy has gotten bleak, sure, and it’s clearly due to some combination of religious extremism, greed, group think, and charismatic-yet-devious leadership, thereby forcing much of the populous to seek chemical-fueled escape. To me, this world seems more than a little familiar, and I’d wager that’s the point.

It’s also worth noting that Hayden Sherman is fast-becoming indie comics go-to artist for frenetic dystopian futures. I first noted this earlier in the year after reading Cold War #1 from Aftershock. That book, drawn by Sherman as well, is a breakneck story of a world in which cryogenic promises have been broken. Once-frozen citizens awake and are plunged by some shadowy control agent into violence. In Cold War, Sherman accomplishes some incredible world building as well as clear action in his panels.

Sherman’s work in Wasted Space again creates a set of sci-fi cityscapes that enhance the script rather than distract, and while there isn’t as much kinetic energy as there was in Cold War (I struggle to think of any recent book with as much kinetic energy as Cold War) Sherman does a pitch-perfect job of using panel perspectives to convey the tension, desperation, yearnings to escape, and loneliness that drives our characters.

Overall: Wasted Space #1 is a super solid debut issue with an incredible amount of promise. Being a vocal proponent of Vault, I’m often asked for a good title to start with, and for the sci-fi set my answer moving forward will likely be Wasted Space. Basically, Wasted Space is a sci-fi allegory for our tumultuous times, one that raises questions about demagogues, escapism, and the dual businesses of selling religion and drugs. This debut issue does a great job of setting the stage and piquing interest for future installments. Count me in. 8.5/10.

Spare Thoughts: Moreci is a graduate of DC’s New Talent program, and his work first caught my attention in the publisher’s New Talent Showcase, which featured a story of his about the White Lantern at the time. It’s also worth noting that Cold War, which we mention here, was by Christopher Sebela, another graduate of that program. Along with Moreci and Sebela, that class of creators also featured Vita Ayala, who has been co-writing Supergirl with Steve Orlando and also had a recent notable indie book of her own in the form of The Wilds. In other words, how badly would you like to participate in DC’s new talent program? Look at the careers it’s helping to launch!

Wasted Space #1 is available for pre-order now at your local comic shop, and it will be out April 18. 

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

The Legacy of Jane Foster, a Mortal Worthy of Gods

It all started with a whisper, though not a careless one, all the way back in 2014. Jason Aaron stripped Thor Odinson of the mighty Mjolnir with the simple sentence, “Gorr was right.” Three words that came with a hell of a lot of consequences. Not only could the blonde god we all know and love not lift the mystical hammer, but he lost his namesake. According to some, this was an affront to their devoted fandom. Others thought that maybe it was fine. “Things that happen in events don’t last that long,” we told ourselves. How wrong we were. Not only did Odinson lose his name, but he also lost an arm! May the uncalled-for torture of our favorite Asgardian never end? What is it that angered Jason Aaron so much about this character he had been writing?

To be fair, asking these questions is missing the point of the story. This story isn’t about the Odinson. It’s about a simple mortal. A strong woman named Jane Foster, the former love interest of the Asgardian god whose namesake she took, was deemed worthy by Mjolnir and she wielded the hammer as an uncannily adept goddess of thunder. The hammer soared for Jane in ways it had never done before, and even Odinson was in awe. It did so because Jane formed a different type of relationship with the hammer. In the past, Thor had simply used the hammer as a weapon or a tool. He undoubtedly had respect for it, but Jane viewed Mjolnir as much more.  Maybe that’s because it called to her when Odinson was no longer worthy. She heard Mjolnir’s voice in her head and was compelled to lift it and be transformed into the Mighty Thor.

The question that we should be asking though is why Mjolnir called out to Jane. Why of all the other Asgardians, or characters who’ve proven their worthiness in the past, was a woman in the midst of her own battle with cancer chosen to wield all that power?

That question is the strength of this entire run on The Mighty Thor. Issue after issue Jane proved why she deserved to be Thor. In reality, Mjolnir decided to call to Jane because Jason Aaron thought it was a unique idea. Then he gave that idea life, and boom we got one of the best runs on a Thor book we ever could have asked for. We should be grateful, and yet parts of the internet are still sour to the idea. If you feel that this shifting in the balance of Thor stories only happened because of an editorial push for diversity in comics, I won’t flat out disagree with you. It is probably a germ of where this idea came from. It certainly isn’t the reason this story happened, but it probably helped it come to publication. The point of the entire Mighty Thor storyline isn’t that Thor became a woman. The point is that Thor became a mortal who didn’t aspire to be a god.

Let that sink in for a moment and digest it. The new Goddess of Thunder didn’t want to be a god. Jane didn’t even let the gods use their magical healing abilities to defeat her own battle with cancer.  That alone is a testament to how strongly rooted in her own humanity Jane is. I’m not sure anyone facing a life-ending illness would pass up a chance to live the rest of their normal lifespan – let alone taste immortality and walk away. And yet, Jane did, leaving behind an actual sense of loss in her fellow characters and the readers who’ve been following her adventures. Although, this moment of her passing is not an unexpected one – Jane debuted as Thor already on the tough end of her battle with a terminal disease – because the last arc of her adventures has been titled The Death of Jane Foster for months now. We’ve been preparing ourselves for this, but it still hurts.

So, let’s get back to why Jane is undeniably worthy of the title she assumed. Due to his nasty little machinations, Malekith unleashed a war that literally consumed all of the realms. All the while as the realms were caught in this inescapable carnage, Odin turned his one good eye away from the whole situation. The leader of the gods refused to come off his throne and help those who would call out for his help the most. Jane saw this and plunged herself into fighting for those who couldn’t, even as each transformation advanced her aggressive cancer’s damage to her mortal body. Jane literally gave herself to save complete strangers when the gods couldn’t be bothered to help. Well most of the gods, Volstagg did his best to help and we got the incredible War Thor out of the process. His story was both heart wrenching and exhilarating to read. I’m only sad it ended so quickly when Volstagg fell to the indomitable Mangog.

The seemingly unstoppable creature with the strength of a billion billion beings – and a design that borders on ludicrous – was awakened by the war of the realms. Mangog is apparently the universe’s answer to the gods. He is their reckoning and judgement made into a single powerful being.  So, as he set about on his quest to reach Asgardia and purge the universe of all of Odin’s ilk, he destroyed the ultimate version of Mjolnir, crumbled the Bifrost bridge, laid waste to the Asgardians, and sent Asgardia itself on a collision course with the sun. Then he engaged both Odinson and Odin in a brutal confrontation.

Jane, having given up wielding Mjolnir to focus on her own health, had promised to leave all things Thor aside – it was determined that if she transformed into Thor one more time her mortal body would perish – realized that Thor was needed and lifted Mjolnir one last time. She knowingly gave her all to come to the rescue of Odin even when his unwillingness to act set about the events he was currently suffering. Jane then of course found a way to defeat Mangog, at the cost of her own life and apparently even that of Mjolnir’s. Thus, giving up any chance she had at continuing to live.

It is important to note that as Jane fought the self-proclaimed judgement of the gods, she gave the ultimate judgement to Odinson. In the midst of her mortal battle she proclaimed, “We need gods we can believe in! Tell them that! Tell all of Asgard! Tell them it’s time to earn the gift they’ve been given!” Effectively, in her last few moments, Jane laid the ground work for Odinson to believe in not only himself, but the rest of his fellow gods, again. Odinson may have to lift a new hammer, but he will be able to do so as Thor with a fresh realization on what it means to be a god. A final gift given to him by a mighty mortal.

Brandon Evans is a freelance writer and comic book lover from St. Louis, MO. He is currently working to find his way into the comic book industry. You can find him on Twitter as @writingbrandon

Why Lois Lane is My Favorite Character in Comics

For a few years, I've been under the impression that Superman was my favorite character in comics, ever since I went from feeling like an unlucky underdog (a la Spider-man) to an adult who wanted to use his position in the world to make a difference. Upon closer examination of these feelings, however, I recently realized it wasn't Superman I was relating to, no, it was actually Lois Lane.

In retrospect, I now believe Lois has been my favorite for some time; it just took a jarring threat for me to realize it.

This threat came in DC’s June solicitations. Soon, Brian Michael Bendis will take over the Superman line. Bendis has been (arguably) Marvel’s defining writer for two decades, and so him writing Superman is a huge deal and a source of much speculation. Recent Superman books have had Clark settled down with a family, with his wife Lois and son Jon, and a prevailing fear among many fans is that Bendis will undo all of the domestic happiness.

And the solicitations played right into that. Just look:

THE MAN OF STEEL #1

• Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS • Art by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO
• A new era begins for Superman as a threat from his earliest origins reemerges to destroy the Last Son of Krypton. As Superman struggles to come to grips with what has happened to his wife and son, he must also face a new threat that’s determined to burn down Metropolis!

Read that again: As Superman struggles to come to grips with what has happened to his wife and son…

Awful. Now, smart money says nobody would tip such a major plot point in a preview, and this is simply a means of playing with our anxieties (for better or worse), but I was still shook, so shook I began to deeply contemplate what Lois Lane means to me. And the answer is an awful lot.

The reason why comes down to three main points...

Lois Lane is Human

Superman’s appeal is that of the idealized man, a pinnacle of “the American way,” but that’s not quite right. Superman is alien, and try as we might, we’ll never have his power. Lois, however, is one of us, and her best characterizations embrace this without making her meek or powerless. In fact, Lois done well is one of the most talented figures in comics, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who does as much good with her pen as others do with freak abilities.

Lois’ power comes from hard work, fearlessness, and deep desire to make a difference. Who would I like to emulate? Superman, sure, but that’s impossible. The better answer is Lois. She isn't perfect—she’s a bit reckless at times, her dad is a cog in the military industrial machine, for years she was blind to Clark’s identity (I blame the writers), and she’s always falling off buildings (ditto)—but Lois still contributes to society in meaningful ways, both through writing and, more recently, through pushing Clark to be a better guy.

Lois is what we can be at our best, more than Superman, by virtue of her humanity.

Lois has a Rich History Rooted in Reality

Lois Lane has been around from the start, appearing in 1938’s Action Comics #1, but even before that the character was accruing a rich and compelling history. See, Lois Lane is based on a real reporter named Nellie Bly (RIP).

And Bly’s story is amazing. Like Lois Lane, Bly was a fearless reporter, and she worked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, racking up some incredible journalistic accomplishments, including:

• Earning her job by writing an impassioned response to a newspaper column suggesting women were only good for having kids and keeping house.
• As a foreign correspondent in Mexico, writing about a dictator imprisoning protesters so effectively that he forced her to flee the country. She was 21.
• Going undercover to investigate brutality and neglect in the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island, later writing a book that sparked outrage and forced reform.
• Traveling alone around the world in 72 days, beating a fictional record set by Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg (she also stopped in France to meet Verne en route).
• Eventually becoming a powerful industrialist who patented a stackable garbage can.

It's a credit to Superman's creators that way back in 1938 they had the good sense to form a character that was his equal, and, given the archaic social mores of the time, to also make this character a woman. The invention of Superman and Batman are impressive, of course, given their originality and lasting legacies, and Superman in particular was a response to societal ills, but creating Lois Lane was downright bold, and her having an actual historical basis in a figure as important as Nellie Bly endears Lois to me even further.

My Wife is a Reporter

Speaking of ways Lois endears herself to me, I should note my wife is a reporter for one of the biggest newspapers in the country, The Los Angeles Times, and that like Lois, she’s been fearless with her work from a young age. In high school, my wife reported on the disappearances of local women in the dangerous Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez. You can’t see my face right now (obviously) but I’m beaming.

Anyway, indulge me as I draw similarities between my marriage and Lois and Clark's.

• Lois is a fearless and successful reporter; while Clark is a sometimes above average writer who could be better if not for his life as a comic book hero.
• My wife is a fearless and successful reporter; while I am a sometimes above average writer (I said indulge me!) who could be better if not for my life reading about comic book heroes.

Joking aside, we have a connection, one that makes stories about Superman's family life deeply meaningful to me.

And now Lois and Clark's marriage in the Superman books seems to be at risk. I’ve loved recent Superman, in which Lois and Clark work together to handle all the challenges that come at them, be they cosmic or domestic. All of us who have grown up and coupled can surely relate, and robust sales numbers suggest I’m far from alone here.

This recent version of Lois has had agency, participating in action sequences in extreme locales like Apokolips all while continuing to work at the Daily Planet. She’s as human and hardworking and determined to improve the world as ever.

In closing, I should note that I know this piece is a bit solipsistic and many readers have personal connections to Lois, especially young girls who didn’t have the luxury of viscerally identifying with Superman. I’m also aware many of my impressions of Lois come from the best-written versions of her, and that her depiction has at times oscillated wildly between empowered and distressed.

I get that, but I’d still like to close on an optimistic note. Bendis’ recent work at Marvel has largely been respectful in its treatment of female characters. Just look at Invincible Iron Man. Bendis has shifted the focus of that book to characters like Mary Jane Watson, Tony’s long-lost biological mother, and a young Chicago super genius named Riri Williams. Here’s hoping he writes Lois Lane the same way, the way she deserves.

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

Cover of Superman #45 by Patrick Gleason

The Miracle of Life: A Look at the Ties that Bind in Mister Miracle

It’s difficult to explain what you think is going on in Tom King and Mitch Gerads’ Mister Miracle. You might disagree, but think about it. First, you’d have to be able to convince yourself what exactly you think is going on. Try doing that, and then go back and try again. I bet you’ll create enough doubt, or straight confusion, that you won’t be able to put it together well enough to explain the overall story of the series. 

Now, of course, that isn’t to say that you couldn’t just go back and lay out the plot points as they occurred and then tell somebody what happened page by page. I mean yes, in that regard, you could tell somebody what occurred page by page. But, what is that weird thing that happens in some of the panels where they distort visually? You know, like when an old VCR had trouble with a video cassette – it kills me that some of you won’t get that reference – or when the Blu-Ray skips. Wouldn’t you call that a distortion in the reality of the series? So, go ahead and tell me what you think is happening again. 

Regardless of what is going on in the story – I’m sure we will be able to begin to piece it together soon as the series just hit its halfway mark – there is one theme that is persistent and undeniable. Whatever is going on with Scott Free, family is surely one of the most important aspects of it. You might say that yes, that’s pretty obvious, but let’s look closer at his relationships in this series. 

WARNING: Spoilers are below, so read the issues first!

1.) Highfather: Scott Free’s own biological father is notably absent in this series. He is mentioned in the first issue before being reported dead by Orion – the work of Darkseid, apparently – and sparking the final war with Apokolips, that Scott and Barda find themselves in. Nothing like daddy issues to really get a character moving, am I right?

2.) Darkseid: Scott’s adoptive father, I guess, and ruler of Apokolips. His presence can be felt throughout the entire series. Even though he is only shown in one panel – so far – Darkseid’s reach is far and strong. He is apparently the murderer of Orion, but if you ask him what he’s done he will tell you that Darkseid doesn’t do. Darkseid is. I doubt you’ll forget that powerful moment in the series. 

3.) Granny Goodness: I’m going to say this flat out, Granny is a mind f@*k in this series, so far. When she meets with Scott and Barda, she treats them with a kind and nurturing demeanor that you would expect from a good granny, but it isn’t long before she mentions her past tortures of the pair while simultaneously starving one of their comrades to death; this is all while they eat like a family. She alludes to Scott that he is actually her son and maybe, just maybe, Highfather wasn’t his real father after all. She mentions some prophecy to Scott that also insinuates that Darkseid is his real father just before Barda viciously beats her to death. Too bad she couldn’t spill any more secrets with some of her innards. Scott’s only maternal figure is taken away from him, by his wife. Which seems to fit the natural order of things for the New Gods. 

5.) Orion: Scott’s brother, although not biologically. He is the pinnacle of a dickhead. I mean, he sentences Mister Miracle to execution. He is exactly the type of character that you expect your older step-brother to be. He is harsh, demanding, and abusive. He clearly wants to lead, and briefly does but at dear costs to New Genesis’ war efforts against Apokolips – just ask Forager. He is the force that Scott must answer to for much of the story so far, and yet Scott tolerates and even defends him. His brotherly love and respect for Orion is apparent from issue 1, and his death obviously affects Scott. So much so that when he dies at the end of issue 6, we instantly get a new life in issue 7. Thus, filling the void that Orion has left. 

4.) Big Barda: Scott’s loving wife. Barda knows exactly what Scott needs when he doesn’t himself. She is soft and caring, yet stern and demanding when the time is necessary. She may not know why Scott tried to kill himself, but she certainly doesn’t seem too concerned about getting to the bottom of it either. All Barda seems to be interested in is enjoying every moment she can with Scott, whether that’s as warriors or lovers. If Scott is escaping Death in this series, I think the argument could be made that Barda is his ideal source of Life. 

5.) Jacob: The son of Mister Miracle and Big Barda. He is born at the end of issue 7 and he is just perfect. Well probably, there are some ominous things that are surrounding the new little guy. If you look closely on a heart monitor the omega symbol is present in one of the panels. This monitor was specifically monitoring Jacob’s heart before he was born. Also, Scott had to cut the cord from around Jacob’s neck with The Fahren-Knife – forged from the hide of Darkseid by Desaad – which supposedly burns you from the inside out. At the end of the issue he doesn’t seem to have any ill effects, though he does begin to cry as the chapter comes to a close. Foreshadowing much?

6.) The Female Furies: Oddly, we don’t really get to see the Furies until this point in the series. It’s incredible that they are Darkseid’s honor guard that are sworn to kill his enemies, and yet they show up to support the birth of one of their former member’s child. Their disgraced and treasonous former leader to be exact. While they don’t have a close relationship with Scott, who seems uninterested in their arrival, they do represent a lot for Barda. They are where she came from, who she used to be. The Furies operate as a great foil for her while also conveyingthe strength of the bond of family. 

The theme of Family and its importance in this story can’t be denied. In fact, every time Scott is faced with a problem, he turns to Barda. They even start a family in the middle of a New God war. It’s interesting that it’s as a family man, that Mister Miracle starts to become miraculous again and not just be the same old same old character we’ve seen for years. 

As I wrap up, I’ve noticed a few things to continue to look out for in the series:

• Barda’s eyes keep changing color from brown to blue. Scott even mentions it in issue one and he is right, they do keep changing color at interesting moments.

• The “Darkseid is.” panels seem to show up whenever Scott is making a decision. The most recent and prime example is when he decides to use the Fahren-Knife to cut the cord on Jacob and save his life.

• The Face of God that Scott isn’t supposed to see – or maybe is – keeps popping up. It’s foremost in issue one and is the last thing he sees in issue six.

• A small detail, but Scott is referred to as High Father for the first time in the same issue that his son is born. That’s either important or a very nice touch by Tom King.

Hopefully, these will begin to reveal some more about the story soon. Either way, it’s been a great ride so far, and I look forward to how it continues. 

Brandon Evans is a freelance writer and comic book lover from St. Louis, MO. He is currently working to find his way into the comic book industry. You can find him on Twitter as @writingbrandon

How to Handle Marvel’s Fresh Start: Your Guide to Re-Numbering

Marvel is renumbering its comics again this summer, marking basically the sixth time the publisher has done that in six years. Many comic fans on Twitter have no answer for this, well, aside from flipping out, getting mad, fighting, swearing things have never been this bad, and accusing Marvel, or DC, or both Marvel and DC, of ruining the business (side note, this is actually how comic book Twitter responds to everything).

That’s why today we’ve put together a guide for how to handle Marvel’s Fresh Start, which is the name for its latest re-numbering. You're going to have to learn to cope, friends. Marvel’s leadership literally said three years ago it was going to a seasonal model, which, like TV, would see their books building on past seasons each year while going in fresh theoretically new audience-friendly directions. 

So, let’s face it, Marvel is going to re-number its comics annually every year for the foreseeable future.

Here’s what you should do in response:

1. Tell everyone else on comic book Twitter you don’t like this. Tell them often, and tell them angrily.

2. Tell Marvel that you don’t like this, see above for frequency and tenor with which you should do this.

3. Assume that because 6 - 8 other people agree with you, that the entire industry is crumbling.

4. Assume that the only reason Marvel is doing this is because they hate you.

5. Don’t stop for a second to wonder if a multi-million dollar corporation knows more about business than you do.

6. Forget all of this ever happen for the next 6 - 12 months.

7. React the same way in 6 - 12 months when Marvel announces the start of its next publishing season.

8. Continue to buy (or at least talk about angrily) Marvel comics.

Okay, so that’s all a joke (obviously), but what you should actually do is pretty simple.

Just ask yourself, do you read and enjoy any of Marvel’s comics now? If you said yes, go ahead and continue reading those Marvel comics. At the moment, it looks as if many of Marvel’s top books will continue with little changed, or at least with the same writers (see Black Panther and Thor). Also, if you like the sound of some of Marvel’s new creative teams--as I do with Avengers, Venom, and the rumors about Captain America--go ahead and hop on those books, too.

If you said no, and you are not currently reading any Marvel comics, or if you don’t like the sound of the new creative teams, either carry on or go ahead and stop reading those comics and instead read something else. There are some great Image and indie books around these days, or so we've heard. 

This is all not to say that there aren’t legit questions about this seasonal method Marvel is forcing upon the industry. Change is scary like that, and there is a sizable number of fans, as well as retailers, who are quite vocal about how they don’t like this (over and over). But, again, that’s how change works. So, buy the stories you like and don’t buy stories that you don’t like, which is just what comic fans have done for decades; the market will naturally sort out whether Marvel's model is viable.

What you shouldn’t do, however, is continue to read Marvel comics, forget that this seasonal model is here to say, and then react with frustration and outrage, as if doing so could change anything. Or, if you're not reading Marvel comics, continue to throw a ton of negativity into the ether to be heard by the fans who do enjoy them, like some kind of super dick-ish molotov cocktail of dickery. Anyway if you did that, you’d be behaving the exact same way and expecting different results, which is, my friends, the definition of insanity.

Is the New Age of DC Heroes Good?

This site is not a destination for news. We update twice a week, generally with content that is more analytical than informative. Yet, in January when DC launched its 8-book publishing initiative New Age of DC Heroes, a dozen readers on Twitter asked me what the deal was with these books, specifically if they were any good.

There was anticipation, doubt, and curiosity, and it was all understandable. These books follow a roughly 18-month-long period during which DC deliberately avoided large-scale new book rollouts. Now, all of a sudden, they’re doing eight. I responded:

I admire DC for trying new things, but 8 books at once seems like too much, especially when none star a bankable character (you could say Plastic Man but I’d say that’s stretching, then I’d laugh at my pun until everyone got uncomfortable). My guess is the art will be incredible, but, overall, I’ll be surprised if most of this line lasts 20 issues.

Three of the books have now dropped, and, the thing is, I’m still hearing questions, although not as many. Some fans are reading the damn things (good!) and others have moved on to asking about Scott Snyder’s Justice League or Brian Michael Bendis’ Superman.

For those still curious, however, today I have some brief impressions of the three live titles, plus updates on my thinking about the five that are yet to come.

The Known Knowns

Damage by Robert Venditti & Tony S. Daniel: One of the conceits of New Age of Heroes is some books are basic Marvel ripoffs, this character the most. Damage is The Hulk, if Banner had been a foot soldier rather than a scientist, a military pawn rather than architect of his own trauma. The first issue was a Hulk story, albeit one that hinted at deeper exploration of the modern military industrial complex. The art was good and the story did enough to get me to read #2.
Next issue: 02/21/2018

Silencer by John Romita Jr. & Dan Abnett: I wasn’t expecting much here because I’ve never found stories about vigilantes with guns compelling, due to lack of escapism and excess of uncomfortable reality. I know they can cautionary, but they also walk a line between glorifying the behavior they examine. It’s especially too much right now given the power the NRA wields in Congress. I don’t want to spoil anything, but this book is actually a far cry from that brutal brand of vigilante justice, although part of me wonders if it’ll get a bit closer as the first arc progresses.
Next issue: 02/28/2018

Sideways by Kenneth Rocafort & Dan DiDio/Justin Jordan: Sideways is my favorite so far, although I should note I’m a sucker for Kenneth Rocafort art and teenage superhero origin stories. Still, this one is especially well-done. As many have pointed out, Sideways has Spider-Man vibes, but that’s fine. Youth culture has changed dramatically since the last Spider-Man origin overhaul was done in the Ultimate books by Bendis, so there’s ample ground to explore, and I’m game to explore it through visuals as lush as these.
Next issue: 03/14/2018

The (So Far) Unknown Knowns

Terrifics by Ivan Reis and Jeff Lemire: This book is a blatant DC take on the Fantastic Four, swapping Reed Richards for Plastic Man, The Human Torch for Mister Terrific, and so on. It’s also written by Jeff Lemire and drawn by Ivan Reis. This is, to be clear, my most anticipated book of the line, so much so I openly insist you all read it. All of you.
First issue: 2/28/2018

Curse of Brimstone by Philip Tan & Justin Jordan: The title of this book put me off at the start, because it sounds like a Hardy Boys novel. The description, however, is intriguing. It’s about a man making a deal with the devil to save his struggling small town. If this plot goes into the withering Midwest, the opioid crisis, the brain drain challenges plaguing smalltown America, it could be really good, or at least relevant.
First issue: 04/04/2018

Immortal Men by Jim Lee & James Tynion IV: Jim Lee, one of the industry’s best and tardiest artists, is drawing three issues of this book, the first of which has been delayed...and delayed...and then delayed. I think the debut will come out, eventually, but I have no idea whether two more Jim Lee issues will ever drop at this rate.
First issue: 04/11/2018

New Challengers by Andy Kubert & Scott Snyder: This book is an update of Challengers of the Unknown, one of Jack Kirby’s many creations. Embarrassingly, I have zero familiarity with it. However, it doesn’t seem like I’ll need any, as the previews make clear this is about new characters. Challengers Mountain was mentioned in Carter’s journal during the Metal event, so this is also poised to have a direct Metal connection. Overall, I’m a Scott Snyder fan, plus the character designs from Andy Kubert are intriguing. If Snyder really lets his psyche roam, we could be in for some fantastic adventures.
First issue: TBD

The Unexpected by Ryan Sook & Steve Orlando: When this book was announced, Steve Orlando (a MASSIVELY underrated writer) described it as Seven Samurai meets The Dark Tower. Okay, cool! And from what I understand, some characters have already been introduced, during Metal or via connections to more prominent stories. That said, it seems any of them will be notable enough to pull in readers. What may do that, however, is Orlando writing another team books with a disparate group struggling to cooperate. See Justice League of America to observe how skilled he is at that.  
First issue: TBD

New Age of DC Heroes Overall

Maybe I’ll lose any cred I had as a discerning comic book reader, but I think this line is kind of cool. The books are $2.99 and there are no variant covers, which allays (a bit) my suspicions of  cash grabs and gimmickry. I’ve also genuinely liked two of the three books so far, and the next one coming is from Jeff Lemire, easily one of my favorite writers.

And really, what should DC be doing instead? More alternate takes on Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman? More books with new lenses through which to see obscure characters? We’re getting enough of both those things. DC is confident and exciting right now, more than it has been in many years. Good for them for looking in new directions, even if they lead to failure.

Whether these books last hinges on sales, but sales never tell whole stories of success and failure. Upcoming solicits show an effort to integrate these characters with existing DC properties. The cynical view sees this as desperation to move more books. My sunny optimist view, however, is that it’s actually commitment to the concepts long-term, regardless of whether they sell. They say you should always end your writing with a cliche (right?), so...I guess in the end, only time will tell…

Back Matter

I’ve been burned out on X-Men and had zero interest in X-Men Red, until some smart readers told me this one was different. Now, I’m adding my voice to that chorus. Even if you’ve become X-Hausted, this first issue is worth a read. It hems closer to the central metaphor than any X-Story in years, rightly picking Jean as true caretaker of Xavier’s legacy. Plus, there’s a twist!...The literary writer Mat Johnson is one of my favorite accounts on Twitter. He’s witty, sharp with his politics, and prolific. Incognegro Renaissance is one of the smartest and most subtle comics this year, understated in a way that is often difficult for the medium. Johnson takes risk with nuance and they all land...Finally, Milk Wars has been great. The first round of Young Animal valued aesthetic oddity over deep meaning AND accessibility. I prefer my odd visuals with one or the other, otherwise it feels like showing off, kind of like Terrence Malick’s lesser movies. This event, though, is odd, accessible and might have some deeper meaning, too. Plus, it’s worth reading for the story line in part 2, within which Batman is a preacher and his congregation is a bunch of mini Robins with big shotguns.

Best Comics to Buy Your Significant Other

Valentine’s Day falls on Wednesday this year, which, of course is also new comic book day. So I figure, what better time to discuss something I suspect all comic fans think about from time to time: how do I get the person I love to also love my hobby?

I know I think about this. In fact, last year I bought my wife a trade in hopes she’d start to read comics. And guess what? I had some success! I went with the first trade of Snotgirl, which I’ve described as Clueless for the Instagram generation with a sinister twist.

Now, my wife is a reporter at one of the three biggest newspapers in the United States, and she spends quite a bit of time contemplating personal branding, audience trust of media personalities, and just generally how one presents themselves online. She’s also quite stylish and moderately obsessed with Instagram fashion models who wear her type of clothes.

I suspected she’d appreciate Bryan Lee O’Malley’s scripts and thematic interest, and she did! What surprised me, though, was she also absolutely LOVED Leslie Hung’s art. Now, I’m a fan myself, but it never occurred to me someone who’d never read an entire comic book would be drawn more to art than to text.

While my wife didn’t run down to our local shop and start her own pull list (she’s content trade-waiting for Snotgirl) she did gain a new appreciation for the medium and for my hobby, which, aside from her and my day job, takes up most of my time. Ultimately, this understanding brought us closer together, making us stronger as a couple. Aren’t comics wonderful?

I hope you find a book from my suggested list that will wow your loved one, too. Oh, and happy Valentine’s!

Comics to Buy Your Significant Other

This list is in alphabetical order, and, if you’ll notice, there’s no Batman, Superman, Spider-Man. In other words, it eschews the mainstays of comics. It’s not that I don’t love those characters (ahem, what’s the name of this site), or that I think it’s impossible to use stories like The Long Halloween or All-Star Superman or Ultimate Spider-Man to show the brilliance of comics. I just think they are a bit too highly stigmatized and obvious to be illustrative of the medium’s nuances. Simply put, if your significant other was going to get hooked based on one of these three, chances are it would have already happened, as they’ve likely known their core stories since they were a kid.

It should go without saying that I LOVE every book on this list, by the way.

Hawkeye by Matt Fraction & David Aja
This is a story about humanity more than anything else, about a guy who has a job and an apartment and plenty of flaws and bad habits, but still wants to do right anyway. Oh yeah, and he also happens to be an Avenger but in this story that’s secondary.
For: The significant other who loves PBR, black-rimmed glasses, and acting like comics aren’t hip enough for their time (this is all a nice way of saying buy this book if you’re dating a hipster).

Monstress by Marjorie Liu & Sana Takeda
I met Marjorie Liu at a comic book store in Austin soon after this book launched, and I remember her saying this series grew from a vision she had of a young woman that was absolutely furious. Monstress is a great choice because it starts with a first issue that’s among the best debuts in recent memory, and while yes, the fury that inspired it does cool down, Lie and Takeda replace it with some of the best world-building in any medium.
For: The significant other who likes Final Fantasy, anime, Kill Bill, Empire Strikes Back, revenge, or any story the puts strong female protagonists and antagonists alike front and center.

Saga by Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples
This is my favorite comic book, to be blunt, and its title is as simple and effective as its plot. Two lovers from species that have been at war with each other for generations fall in love and have a child. This is the story of their family.
For: The significant other who loves both Shakespeare and Star Wars, or maybe even just Star Wars and Game of Thrones.

Sandman by Neil Gaiman & Various
Sandman is steeped in dark mythology that spans history and our modern day, ultimately creating an effect that delves deep into the human mind.
For: The significant other who majored in philosophy and also likes to meditate (or to expand their mind in less wholesome ways).

Sex Criminals by Matt Fraction & Chip Zdarsky
Awwwwwww, yeah.
For: Oh, don’t act like you don’t know what this one would be for, you dirty dog (this book is more about relationships than it is about a couple getting raunchy, although it is also about a couple getting raunchy).

Snotgirl by Bryan Lee O’Malley & Leslie Hung
Lottie Person is an Instagram model with a large fan following, secretly severe allergies, and a pension for putting too much stock in appearances as well as for brushing up against the macabre.
For: The significant other who loved Clueless, takes pictures until they get the perfect shot for the ‘Gram, and is content to re-watch Scott Pilgrim over and over and over again.

Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis & Darick Robertson
Billed as a cyberpunk transhumanist comic book (uh yeah, okay, let’s just go ahead pretending that’s a perfectly normal way to bill something) Transmetropolitan has a central protagonist named Spider Jerusalem, who is a renegade gonzo journalist in the future, navigating a dystopian world suffering from corruption and U.S. presidents who abuse their powers.  
For: The significant other who shudders when politics come up and is still hurt and reeling from the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Warning, this is risky title to start with due to its density, probably best left to fans of political dramas and deep sci-fi.

Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
A superhero deconstruction that doubles as a cautionary tale about mutually assured destruction, common threats, and the Cold War. It’s a great fit for the more literary set, requiring only a cursory knowledge of superheros to be appreciated.
For: The significant other who reads The New Yorker and is always bugging you to read their short stories.

X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills by Chris Claremont & Brent Anderson
This original graphic novel does the difficult work of encapsulating the X-Men with minimal need to know the characters’ long and convoluted back stories. The X-Men have one of the best central metaphors of any ongoing property in fiction, and this story makes it accessible.
For: The ‘90s kid who loved the animated series, or for anyone concerned with the equality inherent to the characters’ central metaphor.

The Ultimates by Mark Millar & Bryan Hitch
I recently re-read The Ultimates for years and was struck by how blatantly this story was a blueprint for the Marvel Cinematic Universe as we know it. This didn’t come as a surprise, as so many folks in media love to point this out, but it was still fascinating to go back and read it now that we’re a bajillion movies in.
For: The significant other who loves Marvel movies but has always seen the comic books as too geeky or ridiculous to bother to read.

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

The Best Long-Running Image Books (We Take for Granted)

Something shiny and new is almost always more attractive than something reliable you can depend on. This is a concept so worn out it’s become a cliche, ending hundreds of TV marriages and sparking many a mid-life crises.

But as with most cliches, there’s truth to it, especially in our beloved world of comics. As we’re all aware, the path to big profit in the comics industry has long been paved with new #1 issues, and, really, this cliche is a big part of why.

Comics and capitalism are inextricably tangled; it’s part of what makes comics such an American art form. We all love the idea that a #1 we buy for $3.99 could net a few hundred bucks later. Also, it’s just so much easier to understand a story when you read it from its start.

Reasons aside, fans buy more #1 issues and reviewers tend to write about #1s more as well. Meanwhile, there are amazing books in their 30s, or 50s, or even their 170s that we’re barely acknowledging. We know these books will be good, every damned month. They’re on our pull lists and we’ve maybe even bought them to reread in trade, and yet it’s the new #1s that drive us crazy.

Not me, man. I want to give older books some love, specifically those at Image, before the spring comes and the publisher launches another wave of new creator-owned work, work like Steve Orlando and Garry Brown’s Crude, Robert Kirkman and Lorenzo De Felici’s Oblivion Song, Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino’s Gideon Falls (read our advanced review), and David F. Walker and Sanford Greene’s Bitter Root (read why we’re excited).

So, today we’ll be looking at why these new books are so awesome and sexy and good and so fricking cool and totally worth all your money and mine—gah! Wait a minute, that’s not what we’re doing at all! Damn this attractive newness!!

Ahem. Today we’re looking at our favorite dependable titles, the ones deep in their runs and still going strong. Sure, they’re not as mysterious or full of possibilities as they once were, but these books are part of us. We’ve been through so much together, we’ve grown together, and we care for each other deeply. Or, we would if they the books sentient, instead of flimsy paper.

Anyhoo, let’s get to our look at the best long-running Image books we all take for granted!   

The Walking Dead, Outcast and Invincible

The Walking Dead is the epitome of an excellent long-running book that’s so dependable it gets ignored. Take #175, for example, which *SPOILER* contained an intriguing status quo shift along with a twist for a major character so powerful it made me tear up. This deep in a run, that’s quite an achievement. Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard’s monthly pace on this book is also torrid, and I can’t even remember the last delay! (We’re in for a long post this week, but we should also note that Kirkman’s Outcast is fantastic and Invincible is headed towards a killer ending.)

Potential to end soon: Low. Kirkman says nothing is eminiment, but he knows how the book will end. The book also sells like gangbusters (hey, 1923 called, they want their hacky adjective back). So, we don’t envision an ending coming before issue #200, which is more than 2 years away right now.

Descender

Descender is a true sci-fi adventure with a varied cast and a plot heavy with well-constructed secrets. Frankly, this is one of the most compelling mystery stories in comics. As I’ve noted in the past, we’re nearly 30 issues in, and I have little idea about this book’s end game, even though I can tell there have been ample clues.The art is also incredibly special. One of the things I enjoy most about Lemire’s titles is he works with artists who fit his stories, and Dustin Nguyen is no exception. Descender’s robots and their relationships with humanity raise questions about the nature of existence, and Nguyen’s lush watercolor pallet steeps these questions with a fitting existential haze.

Potential to end soon: High with an Asterix. Lemire recently teased a “last arc” on Twitter, before quickly noting he didn’t mean the end of Descender. So an “ending” might be coming, but it’s probably won’t be an ENDING.

Saga

Saga is, quite simply, my favorite, and yet, it landed at #8 on my best of 2017 and has only been in my monthly best of list once in the five months I’ve done them. Why? Well, it’s partially because I’m human, and I love me some newness. But also, it’d be boring if every best of list was: Oh, look at that, Saga wins again. Yawn. Anyway, Saga is amazing, and Brian K. Vaughan is basically the writer equivalent of the comic book we take for granted, too, because he’s just so reliable. He’s at a point in his career where his two ongoings, Saga and Paper Girls, brim with ideas, three-dimensional characters, and chingos of plot twists, so much so we all just expect it. Really, it speaks to the number of amazing comics that are around nowadays that we have the luxury of taking a writer as good as Vaughan for granted.

Potential to end soon: Super low. Vaughan says he wants Saga to go forever, which, okay, is probably over-ambitious because while the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak and dies between ages 80 - 100, if we’re lucky. However, I could see another decade of Saga, following the life of its narrator, Hazel, in near-real time. What a glorious thing that would be.

The Wicked + The Divine

I’ve long thought of The Wicked + The Divine as a foundational title for modern Image, one that should be at the forefront of any conversation about the wave of varied and diverse creator-owned work from the publisher. Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie are one of the best teams in comics (shout out to Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips), having also teamed together on Young Avengers at Marvel and multiple Phonogram stories. Wic + Div (as us REALLY hip folks call it) though, is their opus, a stylish and perfectly-executed epic about music fandom and fame and a pantheon of fleeting gods destined to be destroyed.

Potential to end soon: High...Probably. I haven’t gone back to look, but I’m pretty sure Kieron Gillen has said he’s winding this book down about three times now. Thus the PROBABLY. The HIGH, meanwhile, is because after the latest issue, it really does seem like an end game is in motion. The last arc was loaded with action and punctuated by a surprise so shocking it sent me to my back issues to read this book from the start. It all makes sense, and it’s all fantastic.

East of West

East of West reads like a complex alternate history of the U.S., as told by someone from an alternate dimension. I’ve used that last descriptor—as told by someone from an alternate dimension—to describe Jonathan Hickman’s work in the past, and if the early issues of The Black Monday Murders are any indication, I’ll probably be using it again in the future. This book has gotten better with time. I found it convoluted until the creators included a timeline that laid out the political machinations of the involved nations, but from that point on I’ve been riveted. I should also note artist Nick Dragotta is creating phenomenal comics here, both with his line work and the stunning dystopian world he creates on each page.

Potential to End Soon: Hickman. That’s right, my exact prediction for when this ends is Hickman. I mean, can you even predict something as precise as an ending with a writer as dense as Hickman? No. You can’t. So, just greedily take the story as it comes and relish the other worlds he manifests for you.

Other Contenders

Last, I’d just like to note this was a tricky list, because how does one quantify a long-running book? In the end, I went by issue number not by debut, which disqualified Southern Bastards, Monstress, and Sex Criminals, three of my favorites that were a little short (this where an aside about the word short would be in Sex Criminals, btw). I know Descender only has a few issues on Sex Criminals, but for some reason it seems a bit more mature (this is where Sex Criminals would do another funny aside).

Moving forward, there are a host of books at Image with potential to reach “long-running and taken for granted status.” I’d put the aforementioned Southern Bastards, Monstress, and Sex Criminals there, as well as newer titles such as Black Monday Murders, Paper Girls, Redneck, Royal City, Seven to Eternity and Snotgirl. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if Oblivion Song or Gideon Falls ascend to this conversation, and I haven't read past the first issue of either.

In closing, go forth and be nicer to your bosses and significant others and co-workers and families...all those people in your life who may not be new but are sturdy and dependable and loving and vital. Not to be solipsistic, but I think how we treat those who become routine to us says a great deal about our character. Basically, we must bag and board them for proper storage, just with our thanks and affection rather than with cardboard and plastic (good lord, I’ll stop, I’m so so sorry, what the hell was that last metaphor, was I serious?!).

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

Celebrating an All-Time Great Green Arrow Run

A few years ago, I went to a writer’s conference in Portland, Oregon run by the literary magazine Tin House. It was great, both personally and creatively. I made writer friends who I’m still in touch with to this day, I learned too much to recount, and I met some of my favorite writers, including Green Arrow scribe Benjamin Percy, who was yet to start writing comics way back then.

Each night at Tin House, after we’d finished our morning workshops, lessons, and craft lectures, we all went down to an outdoor amphitheater along a river to listen to the accomplished writers read, and one of those evening readings featured Percy.

I remember so clearly how at the podium he told everyone in a gruff voice that he’d grown up obsessed with werewolves and that now, as an adult, he’d written a novel about them, a grisly epoch with shades of commentary on terrorism called Red Moon (which is a great read, btw). Then he read the first harrowing chapter.

This was eye-opening for me. To that point, I’d never seen a capital-A Author let their childhood fascinations bleed (werewolf pun, eh? okay, I’ll stop but you have to give me some time to be a better person) into the serious adult work of literature, certainly not so directly. It was refreshing and freeing and incredibly inspirational to see a writer I admired and respected do this, and it’s a lesson I’ve kept with me as I've given myself permission to re-indulge my lifelong love of comics.

It’s a lesson I’ve also been thinking a lot about in the past 24 hours since news broke that Percy’s last installment of Green Arrow would come in March. I've been on board since the start, since the New 52, and Percy’s run, quite simply, has been among the all-time best on the character, with each arc acting as a chapter in a rich novel, upping the stakes as it heads toward a climax. I can’t call it THE best ever yet because I haven't seen the end, but my guess is that it lands in the conversation.

I also think Green Arrow has been foundational to Rebirth’s success, arguably the book fans and critics point to most when praising the way the initiative rehabilitated characters and brought back core elements. Percy assures us another killer team is taking over after the April-May two-issue fill-in arc, and he’s cryptically hinted he’ll be on a new DC book soon, saying he’s headed to “the zip code where a dark sensibility like mine belongs,” which is totally Gotham, right? Right. So, we have that to look forward to.

Today though, following 24 hours of mourning a Green Arrow book I’ve loved for the past 3 years, I want to celebrate Benjamin Percy’s time on Green Arrow, and I also want to throw out a wild prediction for who takes over the book next, before ending with a literary reading list for comic book fans who also enjoy literary fiction.

Let's do it!!

Part 1: The All-Time Great Green Arrow Run

The Voice

One of my favorite things about Benjamin Percy’s Green Arrow is the staccato captions of its narration. Nowhere else in these comics is it more evident that Percy is a writer with vast experience in prose. His captions in Ollie’s voice are generally short, sometimes funny, sometimes beautiful, and always pitch perfect for what’s about to unfold, so subtle you might read through them without giving a second thought to the utter precision of the language guiding you. It’s a beautiful thing.

The Setting

Readers of Percy’s novels and short stories likely recognized the geographic fit right off. Percy is seemingly as fascinated with the Pacific Northwest as he is with werewolves, which says a lot. Few heroes in comics are as associated with a real world city (one that isn’t New York, anyway) as Green Arrow is with Seattle, and Percy just gets Seattle, the glimmering side of it as well as the rainy melancholia that lies beneath. This understanding of the setting really came through in his work on this book, especially in the recent Rise of Star City arc *SPOILER* that turned it into a post-capitalist hellscape known (perfectly!) as Star City (what a statement).

The Art

Right from the start, Percy worked with fantastic artists on this book, including the incredibly consistent and underrated Patrick Zircher during the New 52, plus guest pencils by the downright sinister Szymon Kudranski, whose work I've long admired. Then, in Rebirth Percy was joined by one of the best 1-2 punches of the entire line: Juan Ferreyra and Otto Schmidt, whose styles are as distinct as they are varied, yet somehow seemed to sync up around the stories. I'm excited to see the work they go on to do, hopefully with even bigger marquee books at DC, but I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t hurt to think I won’t get to regularly see Ferreyra's action work or Schmidt's all-time best depictions of Black Canary.

The Goatee

An alternate title for this section could be “The Love of the Character,” but I think that love is best summed up by The Goatee. Oliver Queen’s unabashed return to his trademark facial hair at the start of Rebirth was played for laughs in Percy’s script, but there was also serious truth behind it: somewhere along the way the essence of the character had been lost and Percy was hellbent on finding and restoring it, starting with the goatee and following close behind with the return of Ollie’s relationship with Black Canary, which Percy depicted better than any Green Arrow in quite some time (to be fair no other writer has even written the Canary-Arrow relationship in quite some time because in New 52 it never existed).

The Growth

Like Ta-Nehisi Coates in Marvel’s Black Panther, Benjamin Percy in Green Arrow was a writer you could see growing with his proficiency in the comics medium on the page. There were early missteps in the New 52 Green Arrow, to be sure, which is why I think this ended up being the Rebirth book that enjoyed the most successful resurgence. You could practically see Percy learning as he went, maturing into the skilled comic book writer many of us are sad to see moving on now.

Part II: What’s Next

I threw this out on Twitter after hearing the Percy news, but I'd like to once again call my shot: the next permanent Green Arrow writer will be Brian Michael Bendis. I had this hunch back when the Bendis news broke. Green Arrow is the exact sort of street level character Bendis has always written to great success at Marvel. He’s also a hero with a definite sense of humor who can alternate between gritty and witty. Plus Jessica Jones, who is arguably Bendis’ most famous creation, owes some of her look and attitude to Black Canary, now doesn’t she?

I’m calling it: BENDIS.

Part III: More Books Without Pictures

Comics and literature have always been linked for me. In high school, I got heavily into them both, reading as many comics each Wednesday as my part-time job allowed while going to the public library to discover work from Michael Chabon and Jonathan Lethem and Chuck Palahniuk. As I got older and went to college, my interest in comics waned (gah! I’m a cliche!), but nonetheless I found myself drawn to literary writers who loved or dabbled in the medium. If some or any of this sounds familiar (heck, even if it doesn’t), then you may enjoy some of the following books, none of which have pictures.

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz: All of us are Oscar sometimes.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon: Especially recommend for those who love the Golden Age of Comics.

Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem: Growing up with comics and adversity.

The Broken Earth Novels by N.K. Jensen: Modern classics. 

Loving Day by Mat Johnson: This book has two characters who buy a big stack of new comics every Wednesday, possibly making it the most well-known book in literary fiction to have this.

The Changeling by Victor LaValle: LaValle wrote an excellent series for Boom! last year. Also, this was my favorite novel of 2017.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel: Don’t read this when you’re home sick like did, but read it literally any other time, it’s that good.

The Hannish Cycle Novels by Ursula K. Le Guin: Start with Rocannon’s World, which would make a brilliant comic book adaptation, but end with Left Hand of Darkness or The Dispossessed, a pair of masterpieces.

Red Moon by Benjamin Percy: You know this guy.

Voodoo Heart by Scott Snyder: You really know this guy.

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.