Back in 1999, Tom Spurgeon wrote a piece in The Comics Journal entitled “Martin Wagner Owes me Fifty Bucks.” The subject of that piece, Martin Wagner, was the writer/illustrator of an acclaimed black-and-white comic book called Hepcats. What had begun as a comedic strip when Mr. Wagner was a student at the University of Texas gradually morphed into something much deeper, and the storyline “Snowblind” received an enormous amount of critical acclaim in the comics community in the early ’90s. But after the publication of Hepcats issue twelve in 1994, the series ceased publication, leaving the “Snowblind” storyline frustratingly incomplete.

In 1996, Mr. Wagner signed a deal with the small comic book publisher Antarctic Press to re-print the first 12 issues of Hepcats and then continue the series onward. This is when I started following the series. But while the twelve original issues were re-printed as planned, no new material ever arrived, and to this day the “Snowblind” story remains incomplete.

That is what lead Mr. Spurgeon to write his piece for The Comics Journal, expressing frustration that he (like many others) had invested in the storyline (both emotionally and monetarily), and if Mr. Wagner was not planning on finishing the tale, he owed us all our money back!  I suspect Mr. Spurgeon was not seriously asking for a refund check from Martin Wagner, but his piece expressed the frustrations of fans who follow the work of a particular writer and/or artist, only to have a beloved project left unfinished. (This is not unlike the frustration felt by fans of canceled TV shows whose storylines are left forever unresolved.)

After finally seeing the publication of the years-delayed final issue of Planetary (read my review of the series here and the final issue here) earlier this year, I got to thinking about the other criminally unfinished comic book stories that haunt me. You’d think most of these unfinished series would be small, indie books, whose creators ran into monetary difficulties that made it impossible for them to continue their series (as may or may not have happened to Mr. Wagner, depending on whose story you believe), but that’s not entirely the case…

Stray Bullets – David Lapham’s black-and-white self-published crime comic absolutely blew me away when I read the first issue back in 1995. I was familiar with Mr. Lapham’s work from the Valiant Comics line of books in the ’90s, but Stray Bullets was an entirely different sort of project. The series was told mostly through single-issue stories, each one spotlighting a different character and the tragic circumstances that would befall him/her. The series would jump, from issue to issue, around to different protagonists in different areas of the country and different years (from the ’70s to the ’90s). Of course, as the series progressed, the puzzle pieces began to fit together and readers started to see how the individual stories connected and related to one another. But the genius of the series was in the astounding quality of each tough, brutal gem of an issue. Sadly, after issue 32 the series vanished. The storyline that was in progress was never completed (Mr. Lapham has said in interviews that one issue remained), and I have always felt that the over-all storyline had a ways to go yet. I am devastated that this masterpiece may never be completed!

Daredevil/Bullseye: The Target – After knocking ‘em dead writing Green Arrow for DC and Daredevil for Marvel, filmmaker Kevin Smith began two limited series: Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do, and Daredevil/Bullseye: The Target. The Spidey series didn’t interest me, but I eagerly picked up The Target. I had loved Mr. Smith’s “Guardian Devil” run on DD and I wanted to see what he had planned for this new series spotlighting Daredevil’s long-time adversary Bullseye. Sadly, only one issue was ever published. The Spider-Man/Black Cat miniseries hit a similar snag after issue 3, but was eventually completed years later. No such luck, as of yet, for The Target.

Grant Morrison’s Wildcats (with Jim Lee) and The Authority (with Gene Ha) – I’m a big Grant Morrison fan, and when I heard that he was taking over the two central titles of the Wildstorm comics universe in 2006 I was thrilled. When I found out that he was working with two extraordinary artists, in the form of Mr. Lee and Mr. Ha, I was DOUBLY thrilled. The first issues came out of each title, and I was intrigued by both.  Wildcats was a frothy combination of familiar elements with a busload of new twists, while The Authority kicked off with a bold decision to keep the familiar characters off-screen, instead focusing on the group of normal Joes tasked with investigating an extraordinary phenomena — the Authority’s crashed shiftship. But my interest in the books quickly turned to frustration when issue 2 of Wildcats and issue 3 of The Authority never arrived. (Just a few months ago, Wildstorm did finally begin publishing a resolution to the Authority arc, but it’s written and illustrated by different creators. This doesn’t really satisfy me. And that one great issue of Wildcats seems to have been consigned to comic book limbo.)

The Twelve – J. Michael Straczynski began an intriguing project for Marvel Comics back in late 2007/early 2008. The Twelve was to be a twelve-issue limited series about twelve super-heroic adventurers from World War II who find themselves trapped by the Nazis and cryogenically frozen until a construction project awakens them in present day. This was an interesting elaboration on the basic concept of Captain America, and a fun (and sometimes tragic) look at how society has changed from the ’40s until today. Great scripts by Mr. Straczynski and sharp, detailed art by Chris Weston made this a series worth one’s time. But only eight issues were published. Issue nine never arrived, and now Straczynski is working for DC Comics (rather than Marvel), and Joe Quesada, Marvel’s Editor-in-Chief, has announced that the series is on hold. (By the way, while I’m on the subject of Mr. Straczynski, I was also extremely disappointed by his abandoning his Supreme Power series after issue seven of the second series, right in the middle of a storyline! Readers were left hanging on a dramatic cliffhanger, but the next issue was never published. What is that all about??)

Big Numbers – I actually have never read this series, since when it first came to my attention it was already famously incomplete (and I’ve never felt like starting to read something that I know will never be finished), but no list of unfinished comic books could leave out this collaboration between Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz, two towering geniuses of the field. Only two issues (of the planned twelve) were ever published, back in 1990.

It kills me that the above comic book series were never finished (and don’t look like they ever will be). While I realize that there is a wide variety of factors that can lead to the sudden end of a series, I do tend to think that publishers and creators have an obligation to the fans who have paid for their work to not just abandon stories mid-way. Sigh. This list makes me sad.

Leo has a great mind for planning heists, and seeing all the angles of a job.  But he also has a strict series of rules that he has created for himself.  He feels those rules have kept him out of prison, though they have lead others to label him a coward.  When he’s lured into a risky jewel heist involving the widow of one of his former partners, Leo finds that he’s about to break almost every one of his rules.

Tracy left the rough streets of his home city years ago for a life in the military.  But he left his brother behind.  Now, his brother is dead and Tracy has come home to find out why.  But there are a lot of ghosts to be found on the streets of the city, and Tracy is about to discover that his dead father casts a long shadow.

Jacob is a cartoonist whose character, Frank Kafka, PI, is a no-nonsense tough guy.  Jacob is a different type of man: a lonely, broken-down, chronic insomniac who hasn’t recovered from the death of his wife (and the ordeal that followed in which he was blamed for her death).  But a chance encounter at a diner in the wee hours of one dreary morning are about to bring his not-quite-buried past rushing back for him.

Leo, Tracy, and Jacob are just a few of the compelling characters of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ amazing comic book series, Criminal (which I mentioned a few months ago, in one of my posts about great comics).

Before beginning to read their latest Criminal story, The Sinners, I decided to go back and re-read the series from the beginning.  Doing-so only further solidified my belief that Criminal is one of the greatest comic book series being published today.

Criminal is a collection of hard-boiled noir tales.  Some stories run for 4-5 issues, while some stories are just a single issue long.  The protagonists shift from story to story, although there is a great deal of interconnectedness to be found (as characters and locations from one story frequently pop up in surprising ways in later tales).

Ed Brubaker spins tough, take-no-prisoners yarns.  While Criminal has focused on characters of wildly different types and personalities (the “coward” Leo, the tough and brutal Tracy Lawless, the boxer Gnarly, the hurt and vengeful Danica, etc.), what these characters all have in common is that, as we watch, their lives take several turns for the worse. Criminal isn’t a comic book about super-heroes, and it isn’t an adventure where supposedly ordinary Joes act all super-heroic (what I like to call the Bruce-Willis-in-Die Hard syndrome).  None of these characters are extraordinarily smart, or extraordinarily cunning, or anything like that.  While some of the protagonists possess unique skills that (sometimes) can help them out of a tough spot, Criminal is a street-level series without any easy answers.

Don’t mistake that description to mean that there’s no emotion to be found in these stories.  Criminal may depict the collision of damaged, often unhappy lives in a cold, tough world, but I’ve found that all of the protagonists of the series — even the most unlikable ones — still manage to grip the reader right where it hurts.  I found myself investing, to a really surprising degree, in the lives of each of the main characters.  I kept wishing for them to make different decisions, or to be able to find better roads out of whatever unfortunate situation they’ve found themselves buried neck-deep in.  That the characters often disappoint me, but that I love them no less, is part of the genius of Mr. Brubaker’s writing.

Not to mention Sean Phillips’ astounding art.  There’s a rough feel to Mr. Phillips’ illustrations — a stylized look to his depictions of people and places, most of whom are drenched in shadows — that is absolutely perfect for the crime stories being told.  Mr. Phillips is a master of the comic book page.  The man, it seems, can draw anything, and his storytelling is exquisite.  There is never an ounce of confusion as to what is happening from panel to panel, or as to who is who in the series’ large ensemble of characters.  Mr. Phillips’ drawings (just like Mr. Brubaker’s scripts) imbue powerful LIFE into all of the characters, enabling them to, it often seems, reach up off the page to grab you by the throat.  And this man can draw a background.  Not in the sense of being one of those artists who will necessarily draw in every single window-pane on a 50-story building, but more in the way that his line-work can perfectly evoke any location, be that a grimy diner, a rich man’s study, a street-corner deli, or any other spot in the unforgiving steel canyons of the unnamed city in which most of the stories in Criminal take place.

At this point, it seems to me that Brubaker and Philips have become one of the great comic book teams.  Criminal is indelibly the product of the fusion of both of their skills, and it would be impossible to imagine the series with any other collaborators.  (Though speaking of collaborators, I must also take care here to mention the perfection of the work of colorist Val Staples, whose subtle, understated colors give Criminal its final touches of grime and grit.)

It’s a great time to be reading comic books, with so much amazing work out there today to be enjoyed.  I’ve written about some of the industry’s great recent works (click here to read about another brutal crime series, 100 Bullets, or here to read about the wonderfully fantastic — but no less as tough — series Planetary), and Criminal stands proudly among those seminal works.  Go read it.  (The series is structured so that each story stands alone, but I’d suggest you start with the first collection, Coward.)  What are you waiting for?  This is crime fiction at its finest.

In addition to highlighting some of the very best comic book series that are out there (click here to read about 100 Bullets or here to read about Planetary) I’ve also been having fun writing about some of the great books that I’ve been following on a monthly basis (or semi-monthly basis, as the case may be) when I make my weekly visits to the comic book shop.  Click here to read about books like Incognito, Kick-Ass, and The Nightly News, and here to read about books like Hellboy, Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man, The Dark Tower, and Batman: Streets of Gotham.

What else have I been reading?

Detective Comics — I am all for female heroes in my comic books (as well as TV shows and movies, for that matter) but generally I tend to think that female versions of male super-heroes (She-Hulk, Supergirl, etc.) are pretty lame.  So when I read that Detective Comics was going to start focusing on the newly-introduced character of Batwoman, I was less than overwhelmed.  However, when I heard that Greg Rucka and J. H. Williams III were the creators coming on board the title, I quickly changed my tune and decided to sample the series.  Boy I’m glad I did, because the first five issues of their run have been terrific.  Mr. Rucka is spinning a taught, tense mystery/adventure story (something at which he excels), and Mr. Williams III’s art is absolutely jaw-dropping.  I’m baffled as to how exactly he produces the art I’m seeing before me (and surely colorist Dave Stewart is a key player), but it seems to be a constant mix of different media and styles, presented in wonderfully eccentric panel layouts (no simple panel grids to be found here).  Each page is truly a work of art.  Really wonderful.

Star Trek Romulans: Schism — The very first time, as a kid, that I paid any notice to the names of the creators behind the comic books I was reading was because I noticed that there was one guy whose work I was enjoying way more than anyone else’s.  That was John Byrne.  He was the first artist I really followed, and I made it my business to track down back-issues of his famous work (his lengthy runs on Uncanny X-Men and Fantastic Four) as well as his less-famous work (Alpha Flight, Namor, etc.).  About the time that he was writing and illustrating the magnificent series John Byrne’s Next Men, I was convinced that he was the greatest comic book creator of the time.  Lately, Mr. Byrne seems to have fallen somewhat out of favor within the industry — he’s a name I often see criticized, and it’s been quite a while since he’s worked on a really high-profile project.  I must admit that I, too, have found myself disinterested by some of his recent work.  But I’ve found myself quite taken with his recent batch of Star Trek comics for IDW.  (I’ve long suspected that Mr. Byrne had a fondness for Star Trek, ever since noticing, as a kid, all the little Trek references that seemed to slip into his work on X-Men.)  Schism is the third part in what has turned into a trilogy of stories exploring the Klingon/Romulan alliance that was hinted at (but never really delved into) in the third season of the original Star Trek series.  Mr. Byrne has created a fascinating (no pun intended) story with lots of sci-fi action, great political intrigue, and the reappearance of a number of familiar faces (most notably the Klingons Kor and Koloth).  More, please!

X-Factor — Speaking of Star Trek, I’ve been a big, big fan of Peter David’s work ever since I noticed, back in the 80’s, that his Star Trek comics were way better than those written by anyone else.  I’ve followed Mr. David through a number of different comic book series for a number of different comic book publishers over the years, and I’ve seldom been disappointed.  I’ve also been following Mr. David’s work with X-Factor through several different incarnations of the series ever since he took over the book way back in 1991 (after the “Mutant Genesis” storyline).  As always, David’s X-Factor is full of ripping adventure yarns, terrific character development and continuity, and a lot of really funny humor.  The book has struggled a bit to find a consistent artist, but the recent work by Valentine De Landro has been very solid.  It’s by far the most bizarre, idiosyncratic of all the X-books, and that’s just the way I like it.  Here’s hoping the series continues to run for another 50 issues, at least!

Astonishing X-Men — The ridiculous delays since Warren Ellis and Simone Bianchi took over this series had tampered by enthusiasm significantly, but issue #31, which began a new story-arc with artist Phil Jiminez, absolutely blew my socks off.  Agent Brand’s encounter with the Brood on an asteroid orbiting Earth goes terribly wrong, and the X-Men have to spring into action to attempt a rescue before her escape pod burns up upon re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.  What follows is a riveting, edge-of-your-seat read.  As always, Mr, Ellis takes the sci-fi aspects of the story very seriously, which brings a real complexity and plausibility to what could easily be just another chronicle of silly super-heroics.  He is also able to masterfully pile on the tension in page after page, as each attempt by Agent Brand and the X-Men to extricate her from her situation only leads to new problems.  This issue is also the best work by Phil Jimenez that I have ever seen.  He layers an extraordinary amount of detail into every panel, all of which effectively serves his story-telling as the reader is kept clear on the ever-changing geography of the issue-long action sequence.  If the series continues with issues like this one (and if it is published on something approaching a regular schedule), then I will definitely be along for the ride!

On Wednesday I wrote about Warren Ellis and John Cassaday’s magnificent series Planetary, which is truly one of the greatest comic book series of all time.  It was also, for quite a while, one of the most frustrating, as fans have been waiting for the final issue, number 27, to be published for about three years now.  (The penultimate issue, number 26, was published way back in December, 2006.)

There’s truly no excuse for such a ridiculous delay, but putting those frustrations aside, what did I think of Planetary’s swan song?

It was magnificent.

I must admit, I was ready for disappointment.  Bringing a long-form story to a close is fiendishly difficult (whether that story be a comic book series that’s been published for the last decade or a long-running TV series or a series of novels, etc. etc.)  Add to that the amazing anticipation and expectation built up after THREE LONG YEARS of waiting, and the potential for crushing disappointment was vast.  I told myself over and over again to curb my hopes because there was no way that Planetary #27 could possibly live up to what I wanted it to be.

I’m sorry I doubted you, Mr. Ellis and Mr. Cassaday!!

At the end of issue 26, it seemed that the main thrust of the over-all Planetary story was over, as the Planetary team (Elijah, Jakita, and the Drummer) had, it seemed, finally defeated their long-standing adversaries, the Four.  But that victory was not the end of the story.  Before we leave them, Planetary has one last wrong to set right, and we finally get some resolution to one of the series’ most enigmatic chapters, issue #9’s flashback to the death of former Planetary team member Abrose Chase.  Along the way, issue #27 is filled with Mr. Ellis’s usual brand of snarky humor and head-scratchingly complex sci-fi theorizing.  (There were several pages whose explanatory dialogue I had to go back and read several times — and that is not a criticism!  This is some dense, dense stuff.)  The central idea behind Elijah’s efforts in this final issue (which I won’t dare even hint at here) is a wonderful hook for this last story, and I was very pleasantly surprised at how many previous issues this final tale referred to (whether it was appearances by Doc Brass and Anna Hark to the familiar look of the central machine which finally gives some context to the I-thought-this-was-just-a-random-adventure Planetary/Justice League one-shot crossover from 2003).  I am really glad to have just recently re-read the entire series, as that helped me to get a lot more, I think, out of the goings-on in this final issue.

There are so many fantastic moments contained within, from Elijah’s deliciously meta ruminations on the nature of storytelling in a 2-D universe, to Jakita’s fears at being useless now that the adventure is all over, to the Drummer’s talk of Schrodingers and Heienbergs.  The final ten-or-so pages of the issue were absolute nail-biters.  I like all the characters so much that I was sort-of hoping for a happy ending, but Planetary has been, often, a fairly grim series that doesn’t shy away from some tough, tragic events in its story-telling.  Without going into detail, I will say that I found the ending — and, in particular, the final page — to be just perfect.

I heaped a lot of praise on John Cassaday’s artistic skills in my previous post — what more can I say here?  Perhaps I can mention that I have spent a long time poring over issue #27’s extraordinary tri-fold cover, which I believe contains pretty much every single character of consequence who has appeared in the entire series, all wrapped up in a gorgeous, intricate design.  George Perez would be proud.  As for the interiors: as always, this issue is an epic story that covers a lot of ground, all of which is wonderfully brought to life by Mr. Cassaday’s illustrations.  Magnificent panel after magnificent panel, there is nary a single line out of place.  Just extraordinary.

I am sorry to see Planetary go.  After re-reading the entire series last month, I am convinced that there is still a lot of life in this series, and I wish that Ellis and Cassaday would go on telling stories in this universe, with these characters, for years more to come!  But I guess they have told the story they set out to tell.  I will have to content myself with the near-perfection of the 27 issues (and three one-shots) that they gave us.

This is a series that I know I will be returning to, time and again, for many years to come.  It’s a high water-mark in comic book storytelling.  Well done, sirs!

With the release of the long, long, looooong-awaited (the last issue was published in 2006!!) 27th and final issue of Warren Ellis and John Cassiday’s comic book series Planetary last month, I took the opportunity to re-read the entire series from start to finish.  This only renewed my long-held love for and admiration of this brilliant series, one of the best comic book works I have read in the last decade.

Elijah Snow, Jakita Wagner, and the young man known only as “the drummer” make up the field team of an enigmatic world-wide organization known as Planetary.  They are the “archaeologists of the unknown,” traveling the globe to uncover the secret history of the world.

In each issue (at least at the start of the series, before an even more fascinating larger story came into play), Elijah and his team would investigate different bizarre phenomena.  The core idea behind this series — and its brilliant hook — is that the phenomena that Planetary was investigating were Ellis and Cassaday’s versions of familiar sci-fi, adventure, and fantasy creatures from movies, TV shows, and comic books.  An enormous part of the fun of those early issues was in paying close attention to the clues in the artwork and dialogue to try to figure out just who or what Ellis and Cassaday were referencing each time.

In issue #2 (an issue which, by the way, boasts what is almost certainly the greatest opening line I have ever read in a comic book), the Planetary team investigate “Island Zero,” a small island on the far north-western tip of the Japanese archipelago, on which are found the skeletal remains of numerous enormously large, bizarre creatures.  (Yep, it’s Godzilla, Mothra, and other monsters from those films!)  Issues #1 and #5 delve into the 1950’s adventures of bronze-hued super-intelligent superhuman adventurer Doc. Brass (who canny readers will note bears a remarkable similarity to Doc. Savage!).  Issue #6 covers the truth behind the spaceflight in which four adventurers were gifted with fantastic powers (sounds a whole like Marvel Comics’ FF to me!).  Then there is my favorite issue of the series, #11, in which the Planetary team learns of three super-powered visitors to Earth: a baby rocketed through space from a doomed planet, a member of an intergalactic police-force powered by lanterns, and the emissary from a secret island of Amazons.  If those descriptions remind you of three of DC Comics’ core pantheon of heroes, then good for you — except that here in Planetary, those three adventurers met most unfortunate ends.

As in 100 Bullets (the fantastic crime series by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso which I recently reviewed), Planetary probably could have coasted through to the finish based purely on the power of that original “hook” to its stand-alone stories.  But as with that series, the stand-alone tales in Planetary gradually made way for a much-more epic, continuing story that makes up most of the series’ second half.  I won’t spoil the details here — suffice to say that the Planetary team find themselves facing a group whose aims run quite contrary to their own, and the century-long past of the mysteriously long-lived Elijah comes to the fore.

This series is absolutely magnificent.  Mr. Ellis’s scripts are endlessly clever — packed full-to-overflowing with astounding ideas and references to everything from super-hero comics from the 1960’s to today’s most cutting-edge scientific theories.  Ellis knows when to pile on the exposition (in which his characters spill forth in a wonderful torrent of words that can be pored over, again and again, by the reader to try to suss out all the levels of meaning), and when to let the action unfold, for pages at a time, in total silence, carried along by Mr. Cassaday’s magnificent art.  Cassaday is an artistic genius, and I bow before his planet-sized talent.  He can pack more detail into a single tiny panel than any artist since Dave Gibbons (of Watchmen fame), and yet he’s not above giving one of his characters an occasionally cartoonishly simplified expression.  The man can also, apparently, draw just about anything.  This is quite a critical ability when working on a series such as this in which he is called upon to depict locales as diverse as the streets of Hong Kong, the Australian outback, African jungles, Frankenstein’s castle, or Sherlock Holmes’ study from issue to issue.  The man is an artistic giant.  (I also praised his exemplary work in my review of his collaboration with Joss Whedon on Astonishing X-Men from a few years back.)

Each issue of Planetary is a wonderfully complete little gem all its own.  What struck me as I was re-reading the series all at once (as opposed to reading it issue by issue as it was published, with months if not years passing between issues due to the series’, er, somewhat erratic publishing schedule since it launched back in 1999) was how well the issues fit together into the remarkably intricate over-all story that Ellis was crafting.  Each issue is a small piece of a much-larger puzzle (an idea made literal in the cover image of the series’ penultimate issue, #26) and I was very surprised and pleased by the way that ideas set up in the first handful of issues paid off in the final handful of issues.

Planetary is a true masterpiece, and not to be missed.  If you’ve never sampled the series, start with the first collection All Over The World and Other Stories (there are four volumes that collect the entire series, plus a fifth volume that collects three stand-alone crossover specials).  I guarantee you that you’ll be hooked.

So what did I think of the final issue, #27, that was FINALLY released last month??  Check back on Friday to find out!

Last week I wrote about some of the great comics I’ve read lately.  That list was just scratching the surface!  Here’s some more fantastic stuff that I’ve been enjoying recently:

Hellboy: The Wild Hunt and BPRD: 1947 - The Hellboy saga continues in these two new wonderful mini-series.  In Hellboy: The Wild Hunt, things are coming to a head for the big red guy.  Cut off from his old friends and comrades in the BPRD, and hunted by the newly-resurrected Queen of Blood, things are looking grim for our hero!  Last month’s issue (#6) was jam-packed with astonishing revelations about Hellboy’s origin that I never saw coming, but that I thought worked absolutely PERFECTLY.  Meanwhile, BPRD: 1947 takes us through a rollicking tale of the second year of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense as Professor Bruttenholm struggles against vampires and a lot of other weirdness.  The Hellboy universe has really richened and deepened over these last few years, and I am really excited to see where things go from here.

Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man — The relaunch of Brian Michael Bendis’ take on Spider-Man (three issues have been published as of this writing) continues just where the previous 133 issues (plus a handful of annuals and other specials) left off.  Young Peter Parker must juggle his, um, interesting love-life with a boring job at a fast-food joint (since he lost his job at the Daily Bugle following the devastation of NYC in the truly awful Ultimatum miniseries) with, oh yeah, his crime-fighting escapades as Spider-Man!  Mr. Bendis is well-known for his witty, true-to-teenaged-life dialogue, but I think his real strength is the depth of characterization he brings to Peter Parker and all the rest of the extraordinarily numerous cast of this comic.  Mary-Jane, Flash Thompson, Aunt May, “Kong,” Kitty Pryde from the X-Men, Johnny Storm from the Fantastic Four (and it is almost embarrassing how much more interesting Kitty and Johnny are here than in their “home” comics) and many more characters are all brought to amazingly real life in these pages.  I’ve been following Bendis’ run on “Ultimate” Spider-Man and I’ll be with the series until he leaves.  Spider-Man has never been done better (in my comic-reading life-time, at least!).  My only small complaint: I’m not quite taken with the overly stylized work of new series artist David Lafuente.  Let’s see if it grows on me any more after a few more issues…

Stephen King’s The Dark Tower — I fell way behind on this series of mini-series, adapting and expanding upon the back story of Stephen King’s seven-book The Dark Tower opus, but I was finally able to catch up last month.  Breathtakingly gorgeous art by Jae Lee combined with a wonderful epic fantasy yarn by Peter David & Robin Furth (working with Mr. King) make this a compelling comic book indeed.  Large amounts of extra credit for the terrific back-up features.  In addition to the main story, each issue is filled to overflowing with lengthy text-pieces that flesh out the extraordinary world that Stephen King created, interviews with the various creators involved with the book, and lots more.  (My only complaint is that Jae Lee was absent for the most recent mini-series, The Fall of Gilead, and the book was not the same without him.  I’d have preferred that they delayed the release of that mini-series so that Mr. Lee could have illustrated it, maintaining artistic continuity across the entire series.)

Batman and Robin — Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s latest partnership is this bizarre, violent, madcap new take on Batman and Robin.  But this isn’t the Batman and Robin that you might be familiar with.  Following the recent dramatic upheavals in the DC universe status quo, former Robin Dick Grayson has taken the mantle of the Dark Knight, with Bruce Wayne’s long-lost son Damian (who Bruce fathered to Ras Al Ghul’s daughter Talia in the long-forgotten but recently returned-to-continuity graphic novel Batman: Son of the Demon from 1987 by Mike W. Barr & Jerry Bingham).  The characterizations and plot-lines don’t quite jive with what’s happening in the other Batman titles these days, but who cares.  Mr. Quitely’s gorgeous, distinct illustrations have always served as the best conduits for Mr. Morrison’s out-there storytelling, and this book is no different.  My complaint, as with the Dark Tower series, is about the shift in artists: already we’re having fill-in artists after only three issues??  Sheesh!!

Batman: Streets of Gotham — Speaking of Batman, I’m also thoroughly enjoying this book written by the great Paul Dini (one of the key creative forces behind Batman: The Animated Series, which stands in my mind as my favorite version of Batman in ANY media) and illustrated by Dustin Nguyen.  I’ve been a fan of Mr. Nguyen since his great run on Wildcats 3.0 with Joe Casey, and his work here is absolutely stellar — from the wonderfully evocative water-color covers (issue #4’s cover featuring the horrifying Mr. Zsasz was a particular stand-out, though shame on whoever is responsible for the placement of the logo which makes it very difficult to see that Zsasz is standing under a silhouette of Batman) to his stylized work on the interiors.

Doom Patrol — Full disclosure: my friend Liz Gehrlein edits this book, and she’s the one who encouraged me to sample this new series (which I might not otherwise have picked off the racks myself).  I’m quite glad I gave it a try.  It’s got a sort-of retro feel filled to the brim with classic comic book super-hero escapades.  In contrast to the “decompressed” storytelling that has become very popular over the last several years, each issue so far has been jam-packed with exciting story.  Extra props for the magnificent Metal Men back-up feature that reunites two extraordinary talents: Keith Giffen and Kevin Maguire.

Superman: Secret Origin — I wasn’t sure that I would be interested in yet another take on Superman’s early years, but Gary Frank’s terrific cover prompted me to pick up issue #1, and I’m glad I did.  Mr. Frank’s art is, of course, spectacular.  He is able to combine really emotive faces with extraordinary detail in his rendering of people’s clothing, cars, and other background details.  I also found myself intrigued by the way writer Geoff Johns mixes and matches various ideas and iconography from various different versions of Superman.  There’s the crystalline Kryptonian technology from Richard Donner’s Superman movies; there’s the endearingly pre-Crisis look to the spaceship that brought Clark to Earth; there’s the heat-vision-as-metaphor-for-puberty idea from Smallville; there’s the depiction of Krypton as being divided up into various guilds that has been a big part of the New Krypton stories running through all of DC’s current Superman titles over the past year; and, of course, there’s the last page, which firmly establishes that young Clark took on the identity of Superboy while still living in Smallville.  (The only bit of cheese in this big melting pot that I wish had been left out?  The Gregory Peck-looking Jor-El from Adam Kubert’s run on Action Comics with Mr. Johns from 2007.  Mr. Kubert is a magnificent artist, but that version of Jor-El never did it for me.)  Still, a really enjoyable debut issue, and I eagerly anticipate the rest of the series.

I’ve written a few pieces, recently, about some of the great comic books that I’ve been reading lately.  (Click here for my thoughts on 100 Bullets, and here for my reviews of three recent graphic novels adapted from the short stories of Alan Moore.)  What else have I been reading lately that has tickled my fancy?  I’m glad you asked!

Filthy Rich, by Brian Azzarello and Victor Santos — After finishing 100 Bullets, I was eager to check out some more work by Brian Azzarello.  Luckily, this original graphic novel had just been published, so I snapped it up.  Richard “Junk” Junkin used to be a football star.  Now he sells cars.  Not very well.  When Junk’s boss asks him to work as the bodyguard for his spoiled, party-going daughter, Junk find himself swept up in the world of the young and the rich that he is at once envious of and disdainful of.  Not surprisingly, things don’t go well.  Mr. Santos’s black-and-white artwork has a bit of a cartoony, Bruce Tim bent which one might think incongruous with a gritty crime story, but I quickly found myself loving his detailed, quirky illustrations.  There are a lot of characters in this story, but under Mr. Santos’ sure hand I never found myself confused as to who-was-who.  This is a great, street-level gritty story (an Azzarello specialty), and if you’re looking for a break from comic book super-heroics, this is worth a shot.

Frankenstein’s Womb, by Warren Ellis and Marek Oleksicki — As noted above, last week I wrote about three Alan Moore graphic novels published by Avatar Press.  But that’s not all that Avatar has to offer.  Last month I had the pleasure of reading this recent graphic novel (or “graphic novella,” as it is labelled on its cover) written by the enormously talented Warren Ellis.  The year is 1816.  Mary Wollestonecraft Goodwin, her husband-to-be Percy Bysshe Shelley, and her stepsister Claire Clairmont are traveling across Europe.  In Germany, they come across a strange and deserted castle.  Castle Frankenstein.  This wonderfully weird and quite haunting tale of where Mary Shelley REALLY got the idea for her famous novel is one of my favorite things I’ve read this year.  Mr. Ellis’ clever (and quite grim!) script is perfectly supplemented by Mr. Oleksicki’s incredibly detailed, evocative black-and-white linework.  Absolutely wonderful.

Incognito, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips — Taking a break from their stellar crime series Criminal, Brubaker and Phillips bring us the story (told in six issues) of former super-hero Zack Overkill.  After his twin brother (and fellow super-villain) was killed, Zack served as a secret witness against the head of his criminal organization, the Black Death, and went into a super-villain version of the witness protection program.  Given a drug that eliminates his super-power, Zack is set up with a new name and a dead-end job (working as a file clerk) and instructions to blend in… to become part of society.  But making peace with his new life as a normal worker-bee proves to be extraordinarily difficult for Zack, who craves the excitement of the life he lost.  When he discovers that getting high counter-acts the powers-robbing drugs he’s been taking, he’s over-joyed — but quickly finds himself caught between his handlers (of whose strict rules of parole he’s in clear violation), and his former super-villain comrades (who aren’t so happy to discover that he’s still alive).  Spectacular art by Mr. Phillips (a man whose style I’ve come to admire more and more with each new project) and an extraordinarily compelling, human script by Mr. Brubaker make this gritty, noir take on super-villains a must-read, and a worthy reason for them to have temporarily put their masterpiece Criminal on hold!

Kick-Ass, by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. — Totally juvenile and also an outrageous amount of fun, Kick-Ass tells the story of a lonely, comic-book-loving kid named Dave Lizewski, who one day starts wondering how it is that nobody has ever tried to be a superhero before.  ”Why do people want to be Paris Hilton, and nobody wants to be Spider-Man?” he asks.  So he sets out to become a superhero.  Telling you anything more about what happens to Dave would be ruining all the fun, but be prepared that Kick-Ass is extraordinarily violent (and not a little profane, to boot)!  John Romita Jr. is one of the very best comic-book artists working today, and it’s great to see him cut loose with this “hard-R” material.  His work has such life to it!  I can easily understand why this is being made into a movie (directed by Matthew Vaughn  – you can read more about the Kick-Ass film here).  My only criticism?  The book has seen some major, major delays.  (My understanding is that the first story-line is scheduled to run eight issues, but only seven have been published so far, and the wait has been very, very long between each of the last several issues.)

The Nightly News, by Jonathan Hickman — This six-issue limited series was published in 2006-07, but I’ve only recently gotten around to reading it in its entirety.  (After really enjoying the first two issues, I decided that this series would be best read all at once, so I decided to hold off on reading the rest of the individual issues until the entire series came out.  But once I’d stopped, it took me a while to get back to it.)  But I’m really glad that I have, because this series is truly a unique creation.  It’s an incredibly detailed, anarchic critique of multiple aspects of today’s modern American society, focusing on the mega-conglomerates that control our access to information and shape our consumerist society.  Hickman also find time along the way to question the way our schools are run, the way behavior-altering drugs are proscribed to children, the push-pull dance of influence between media and government, and much more.  I must also comment on the wonderfully intricate lay-out of the comic itself.  This isn’t a conventional “x number of panels per page” comic.  Mr. Hickman has woven his illustrations and text together with all sorts of tables, graphs, and other details into an information hodgepodge that is unlike anything I have ever seen in a comic book before.  This cutting-edge design works beautifully with his themes that deal with the ways our lives are shaped (and controlled) by the information we have access to.  Mr. Hickman has been getting a lot of work lately from Marvel Comics, but this is the project that brought him to their attention, and it is worth yours.

Last month I waxed poetic a bit about the groundbreaking comic book work of writer Alan Moore, and I reviewed a recent interview/retrospective of his career, The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore: Indispensible Edition, by George Khoury, published by TwoMorrows Publishing.

I commented, at the end of my review, how the highest compliment that I could pay that project was that it made me want to drop everything and go re-read all of Mr. Moore’s great comics!  Well, I didn’t quite have the time to do that, but I did have the pleasure recently of checking out three relatively new works by Mr. Moore, published by Avatar Press.

Over the last several years, the fine folks at Avatar have been republishing some hard-to-find early works by Alan Moore (such as A Small Killing, which I really need to get my hands on).  Even more interestingly, they have also published several original comic book versions of some of Mr. Moore’s short stories.  Anthony Johnston is credited as having done the adaptations (at least, all the ones that I have read so far), and they are quite marvelous.

I was a bit worried, at first, when I read that these new graphic novels (which I’ll call graphic novels, even though in his interview in The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore, Mr. Moore was somewhat critical of that term) were merely adapted from Mr. Moore’s works, as opposed to having been 100% scripted by him.  But Mr. Johnston (along with all of the artists involved) has done a fantastic job of bringing Moore’s stories to the comic book page in a pure form.  The collected edition of Hypothetical Lizard (about which I’ll write more in a moment) contains Mr. Moore’s complete novella at the back.  After reading the comic, I had a great deal of fun reading the prose story while constantly flipping back through the comic to compare and contrast Mr. Johnston’s adaptation with Mr. Moore’s original piece.  The adaptation was PHENOMENALLY faithful.  This isn’t some Hollywood project where the names and basic premise are the same and everything else is different.  No, almost every scene and line of dialogue from Mr. Moore’s story was preserved — everything had just been shaped into comic book form.

OK, here are some more specifics on what I read:

Hypothetical Lizard — This was the longest of the three works that I read.  (It was originally published in four issues.)  This incredibly fantastical tale is set entirely within the confines of the House Without Clocks, within which dwell a variety of unique men and women, all of whom are prostitutes.  In the first chapter we are introduced to a young girl named Som-Som, who is beginning the long and terrible journey necessary to prepare her to become a lover of wizards.  At first, I thought this tale would be Som-Som’s story.  But she merely serves as the witness to an even more terrible drama between the beautiful and mysterious Rawra Chin and the actor he spurned, Foral Yatt.  The world of Hypothetical Lizard is a world where the magical and fantastical is commonplace, and one of the most interesting aspects of the tale (and a hallmark of Alan Moore’s work) is the way he slowly sketches in tantalizing background details of this world while telling his story.  If I have any complaint, it’s that after spending so much time with Som-Som in the first chapter, I expected her to be much more of a central player during the rest of the story.  But that’s a fairly minor quibble.  The grey-washed artwork by Lorenzo Lorente and Sebastian Fiumara is lovely, setting exactly the right tone for this dark tale.  (I must particularly complement Mr. Lorente’s work in the first chapter.  His attention to detail in the backgrounds and attire of all the characters really brings the world of this story to life.)

The Courtyard — Federal Agent Aldo Sax specializes in anomaly theory, drawing connections from the obscure details that most others overlook.  He is undercover in Brooklyn, investigating a gruesome series of murders all carried out in a similar fashion, but with no apparent connections between the victims or the perpetrators.  Aldo’s investigation takes him to Club Zothique and suspected drug-dealer Johnny Carcosa, but the grim world of drugs and satanists that Aldo finds himself dredging through turns out merely to be the cover for something much, much more horrifying.  This is a terrific tale, an engrossing detective story that turns into something else entirely.  There’s a lot of Lovecraftian lore referenced herein, and while I am sure I only got a small fraction of those references, that didn’t stop me from throughly enjoying this dark, dirty little story.  Artist Jacen Burrows has the most “comic book” style of the artists on these graphic novels (using what looks like traditional pen & ink line-work, as opposed to the gray-scaled washes of Hypothetical Lizard or the fully-painted artwork of Light of Thy Countenance), but that is in no way a criticism.  Quite the contrary, Mr. Burrows’ work is fantastic.  Every panel is filled with a terrific amount of detail, from the exterior scenes set in the grimy streets of Brooklyn to the interiors of Club Zothique and Aldo and Carcossa’s appartments.  There are also some magnificent double-paged spreads towards the story’s climax (whose content I will not spoil here), that I could look at for hours.  This is a disturbing story, make not mistake, but one that is terrifically well-told.

Light of Thy Countenance — In the opening pages of the story, we are introduced to Maureen Cooper, a bartender at a dive bar.  But she’s not real.  She’s a fictional creation, a role played by television actress Carol Livesey.  But what happens to Maureen when the TV show on which her character appears is cancelled?  Light of They Countenance is my favorite of these three graphic novels (although I loved them all).  It is a truly unique creation — a look at the development of television and its increasingly insidious effects on our lives, told from the point of view of — wait for it — television itself.  It’s a brilliant idea, and with television as our guide we are taken through a fascinating journey.  Felipe Massafera provides the fully painted art, and it is absolutely gorgeous.  His work is jaw-droppingly stunning, and it brings a powerful realism that grounds the rather fantastic story definitively in our real world.  A tremendous achievement.

If you’re not a big comic book fan, and you’ve never read anything written by Alan Moore, then you certainly want to start with some of his justifiably most-famous works:  Watchmen, V For Vendetta, or From Hell.  But if you’re familiar with those astounding graphic novels and want to dig a little deeper to discover more works from the master, then you should not miss these fine stories published by Avatar.  They are proud additions to the Alan Moore spot on my bookshelf!

Alan Moore is one of the undisputed masters of the comic book form, and that’s putting things mildly.  He has authored a quite astounding body of work, including V For Vendetta, From Hell, and, of course, the magnum opus that is Watchmen.

TwoMorrows Publishing has, for the past few years, been publishing a wonderful series called Modern Masters, in which they spotlight a variety of the greatest artists in the field: Alan Davis, George Perez, Arthur Adams, John Byrne, etc.  The format of those books (I suppose I should call them books — they are the size of magazines, but they are square-bound and much lengthier than your average magazine) is a lengthy one-on-one interview with the subject.  Through these series of in-depth questions and answers, the reader is taken on a detailed journey through the life and career of the subject, and is also given great insight into his/her style, approach, and techniques.

First published in 2003, The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore adheres to the format of the Modern Masters series.  The entire work is a lengthy interview with Mr. Moore, conducted by George Khoury.  But while the Modern Masters volumes are all in-depth, this work puts those volumes to shame, clocking in at a hefty 237 pages.  The new “Indispensable Edition,” which is what I have, was published a few months back, presumably with the intention of meeting the renewed interest in Mr. Moore’s work following the release of the Watchmen movie.  This new edition has a great new interview with Mr. Moore, conducted in 2008, that serves as a fine epilogue to the whole piece.

For anyone who has ever read and enjoyed any of Alan Moore’s amazing comic books, I cannot recommend this publication highly enough.  I thought that the early chapters, dealing with Moore’s youth and childhood, would be boring — but Mr. Moore’s wit brought great humor to those stories of his “early days.”  And once the story moves to his break-though stint writing Swamp Thing, the narrative really kicks into high gear.  The book is filled with behind-the-scenes stories of Moore’s time working on all of his seminal works.  I’ve read a good deal over the years, for example, about his run on Swamp Thing and the making of Watchmen, V For Vendetta, etc., but the stories found here quickly move beyond the familiar “legends” connected with those projects.  It’s endlessly fascinating to hear Moore’s thoughts on the development of those works, as well as his opinions about them now, looking back.  (I was quite interested to read about the reasons for his dislike, for example, of The Killing Joke, which — despite his feelings — I continue to regard as one of the definitive Batman stories.)  I was also pleased that the book spends a significant amount of time discussing some of Moore’s less well-known works, from the tantalizingly unfinished Big Numbers, to his time writing for Jim Lee’s Wildstorm and Rob Liefeld’s Awesome Comics universes, to his well-regarded but all-too-brief (to me, at least) development of his very own comic book “universe,” America’s Best Comics.

As if anything else was needed, The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore is supplemented by a number of illustrated tributes to Mr. Moore by some of his best artistic collaborators: Brian Bolland, Rick Veitch, John Totleben, Mark Buckingham, Dave Gibbons, Chris Sprouse, and more.  There is also a wealth of imagery from all of Moore’s varied works that accompanies each page of the interview, including some great samples of his earlier, hard-to-find work from 2000 A.D. and other British publications.  I was also tickled to see that lots of samples of Mr. Moore’s own illustration work was included.  I had read that Moore had a decent talent for illustration himself, but I was quite blown away by the skill of his work (even drawings from 20-30 years ago!!) that was reprinted here.  The man has talent, that’s for damn sure.

I thought it would take me a while to read The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore in its entirety, but it was so enjoyable and fascinating that I blew through it at great speed.  Now I want to go back and read all of the Alan Moore comic books in my collection!!  (And I also have a list of other projects by Mr. Moore that I need to track down, such as A Small Killing, which he apparently holds in great esteem.)  For any comic book fan, this is indeed an indispensable work.

You can find more about The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore, the Modern Masters series, and lots of other fine TwoMorrow publications at www.twomorrows.com.

One of the greatest comic books that I know of took its final bow recently: Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso’s masterpiece, 100 Bullets.

The centerpiece of the series has been, since the very first issue, the mysterious Agent Graves.  Graves brings the powerless and the beaten-down a chance at vengeance: an attache case filled with irrefutable evidence about the person or persons who destroyed their life, as well as a gun and 100 rounds of untraceable ammunition.  Somehow, Graves has arranged so that no law enforcement agency on the globe can touch the user of that gun and those 100 bullets.

When the series began, its structure was that of short stories (some one issue long, most spanning several issues), each featuring a different protagonist — from a former gang-banger from Chicago to an ice-cream truck man in Brooklyn to a bartender in California to gas-station attendant in Texas, and many others — each faced with tough choices as to how to respond to Graves’ “gift.”

But the beauty of 100 Bullets is the way that an even more complex and fascinating larger story began to emerge, slowly, as the series progressed.  Characters from one story would re-appear in later tales in unexpected ways.  Events seen in the background of panels in one issue would, many issues later, become the focus of another story.  Slowly it came to light that the people Graves was visiting might not be as totally unconnected and random as they had at first appeared.  Eventually we readers began to discover a larger story, about the thirteen families who had long-ago divided up control of America, and the secret war that was now tearing them apart.  As great as the tough, pull-no-punches stand-alone crime stories were that the series began with, I found myself even more engaged with this epic story-line that came to dominate the series over the course of the second half of its run.

I’m not even sure where to begin in terms of singing the praises of the series’ creators.  Azzarello’s stories are both painfully, brutally intimate and also astonishingly epic.  Over the 100 issues of the series (collected in 13 volumes — and that number isn’t random, as attentive readers of the series surely know), Azzarello wove a head-poundingly intricate web of increasingly inter-connected events and characters.  I have re-read the early volumes of the series many times now, and each time I read them I discover amazing new connections — the way a major player late in the series’ run was there all along in the background of an earlier tale, or the way an off-hand comment made by one character early on the series would illuminate the motivations behind an angry confrontation many issues later.

Also astounding is Azzarello’s ability to capture the distinct  feel of every one of the series’ many different locations.  Every few issues, the story would shift to a new setting.  Over the course of the 100 issues, we spent time with characters at all levels of society, from the highest to the lowest and everywhere in between, and all across the United States.  Yet no matter the location, and no matter the character, Azzarello’s ear for dialect was astounding.  No two of his characters ever spoke in quite the same way.  The attention to detail — in terms of accent, slang, etc. — is mind-boggling, and added a powerful reality to the stories being told.  The only thing I can compare this to is the magnificent TV show The Wire, which so engagingly created fully-realized characters from every societal strata of Baltimore — from the politicians to the cops to the drug-dealing kids on the corners.  Imagine if, every few episodes, The Wire had shifted its setting to an entirely new city, and you’ll have some idea of Mr. Azzarello’s achievement here.

And as for Mr. Risso’s art — simply astounding.  From the very first panel to the very last, my jaw remained on the floor in worshipful awe of his skills.  Just as Azzarello’s words crafted unique and distinct characters in each and every issue, so too did Risso’s pen design a magnificent array of different people of all shapes and sizes.  Despite the enormous cast of characters that Risso had to create and illustrate over the course of the series, there was never any iota of confusion as to who was who.  Risso’s style is a miraculous combination of slightly cartoony exaggeration with incredible attention to detail.  His work here is one of the greatest achievements in comic book illustration in recent memory.  I am in awe.

Periodically I write about great comic books that I’m enjoying, either current story-lines in long-running series, or smaller stand-alone tales.  100 Bullets isn’t short, that’s for sure — 13 volumes is quite a lengthy saga.  But if you’re looking to sample one of the finest comic book stories to come down the pike in recent memory, an adult story (and one not for the faint of heart), then don’t miss 100 Bullets.  Give the first volume (First Shot, Last Call) a try.  I think you’ll be hooked.

It is the distant future of the DC Universe.  Beings with super-human abilities have spread across the globe, and ever-more powerful violent heroes and villains wreak untold havoc with their escalating conflicts.  Meanwhile, the heroes of old are gone.  Green Lantern has abandoned Earth for the solitude of space.  Wonder Woman has returned to Themyscira.  Batman, his body broken after years of pushing himself beyond the limits of human endurance, maintains order over Gotham City through the use of menacing robotic sentries.  And Superman has lived alone in his Fortress of Solitude for the past ten years, ever since the Joker’s brutal attack on the Daily Planet resulted in the deaths of ninety-two men.  And one woman.

This is the world of Kingdom Come, a dazzling tale of the future of the DC Universe by Mark Waid and Alex Ross.  Originally published in four parts in 1996, one of the initial core ideas of the story was a comment on the increasingly violent anti-heroes that were very popular in comic books of the nineties.  The brutal Magog, with his scarred eye, his enormous shoulder-pads, and his vicious weaponry was a clear comment on Marvel Comics’ character of Cable.  The specificity of that reference has faded over the years, but the power of Kingdom Come has not.

I can think of few stories that have captured the grandeur of DC’s pantheon of heroes as well as Kingdom Come.  This may be a story of an alternate, possible future, but it remains oen of the most iconic tales of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman that I have ever read.  The dynamic between the three of them is at the heart of the story.  Kingdom Come focuses our attention on the way their differing backgrounds have lead them to view the world from vastly different points of view.  Those differences drive deep wedges between the characters, and lead to much of the drama of the story.  Mark Waid’s script is filled with powerful moments and wonderful characterization.  Having read the tale countless times, I am still struck by the moments like Wonder Woman’s first visit to Superman in his isolation, when she throws his oft-repeated commitment to truth and justice in his face.  Then there is my very favorite moment in the series (and frankly, one of my favorite moments in any comic book ever), which comes in Chapter Three when a furious Superman flies out of the Batcave at super-sonic speed, basically disappearing from sight he’s moving so fast, leaving a solitary Batman to remark “so that’s what that feels like.”  Brilliant!

Which brings me to Alex Ross’ remarkable painted artwork.  I have been an enormous fan of this great talent ever since I read his epic work Marvels (with writer Kurt Busiek), and I have read almost everything he has ever illustrated in the years since.  But Kingdom Come remains, in my mind, his greatest work.  Ross is able to bring unparalleled realism to every image while never losing the ability to make the god-like heroes of the DC Universe look appropriately majestic.  He is able to cram a staggering amount of detail into every panel of every page, whether that image is of an elderly preacher walking down the street, or two armies of super-humans engaging in an armageddon-like conflict.  Each page, each panel, is a true work of art, and I get tremendous enjoyment from lingering on the images to try to absorb them all.

I can still remember the enormous anticipation my friends and I were gripped by as we waited for the fourth issue of Kingdom Come to come out, back in 1996.  I was working at summer camp at the time, and I remember like it was yesterday the afternoon when one of my friends strolled onto the camp grounds bearing issue four in his hands.  It was manna from heaven!  I sat down, with another one of my good buddies right beside me, and we read the issue together, page by page (not turning the page until we’d both finished reading).  If one of us finished before the other, there were a lot of non-verbal exhortations to “hurry up already!!” so we could move on to the next page.  This is a true story!  I have never in my life read a comic book in such a fashion.

Last month I wrote about some of my favorite super-hero graphic novels.  Kingdom Come is one of the very best.

Yesterday I wrote about three terrific series that told the story of The Ultimates, Marvel Comics’ reinvention of their super-hero team, the Avengers.  In addition to those three phenomenal series that I discussed (The Ultimates, The Ultimates 2, and the Ultimate Galactus Trilogy), there have been a number of subsequent mini-series that have carried forward the stories of many of the characters from those series.  

Some have been excellent.  Others, not so much.

Let’s take a look!

Ultimate Vision, by Mike Carey & Brandon Peterson — Basically an epilogue to Warren Ellis’ Ultimate Galactus storyline, we follow Sam Wilson and the Vision (two characters that Ellis introduced to the Ultimate universe in his series) as they discover that one Galactus module has survived.  If they don’t destroy it, bad things will happen!  The story is really carried by Brandon Peterson’s magnificently detailed art, which I could look at all day long.

Ultimate Wolverine/Hulk, by Damon Lindeloff and Leinil Francis Yu — The promise of a Wolverine/Hulk battle authored by Lindeloff (one of the masterminds behind Lost) was very tempting, and the first two issues were a lot of fun.  Then the series ceased publication.  Last month, after more than 3 years, the third issue was finally released (with the assurance that the remaining 3 issues will be coming out monthly).  The jury is still out on this one.

Ultimate Power, by Brian Michael Bendis, J. Michael Straczynski, Jeph Loeb, and Greg Lang — This 9 issue crossover started with an intriguing premise: Reed Richards, desperately searching for a cure for his friend Ben Grimm (who was transformed into the Thing in the accident that gave the FF their powers), sends probes into alternate universes.  One of them gets contaminated and apparently winds up wreaking incredible devastation upon the Supreme Power universe (from the series Supreme Power, Straczynski’s reinvention of Marvel’s classic Squadron Supreme characters).  What followed was an extended super-hero slugfest.  Land’s art is beautiful, but the story was extremely choppy.  Instead of Bendis, Straczynski, and Loeb collaborating on all nine issues, each one of them scripted three issues.  I enjoyed the Bendis and Straczynksi issues, but Loeb didn’t stick the landing.  Characters suddenly seemed completely out of character, and in the end it all turned out to be a pretty stupid super-villain plot.  Lame.

Ultimate Iron Man, by Orson Scott Card and a variety of artists — I got very excited when it was announced that famed sci-fi novelist Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game) would be writing the origin story for Tony Stark, but sadly the execution left something to be desired.  Card’s story had a lot of layers, and it was filled with a ton of interesting sci-fi ideas, but the story was overly complicated and hard to follow.  (This was exacerbated by the long delays that plagued the series, and the constant rotation of artists.)  I also didn’t feel that the revelations about Tony Stark in this series jived with the depiction of Stark that Millar gave us in his Ultimates series.  (For example, that Tony didn’t seem like he could re-grown his limbs at will!!)

Ultimate Human, by Warren Ellis and Cary Nord — A welcome return to form for the Ultimate universe, as Tony Stark and Bruce Banner unite to try to solve Banner’s Hulk affliction.  Great Warren Ellis sci-fi ideas and snarky dialogue combined with Nord’s beautiful, lush art make this series a winner.  My only complaint: at only four issues, I wanted more!

The Ultimates 3, by Jeph Loeb and Joe Madueira — A complete disaster.  Loeb’s scripts lack all of the nuance of Millar’s, and his versions of the character seem totally different than the ones that Millar had established in his two Ultimates series.  Where Millar was… well, not subtle, but let’s say playful (for example, hinting at the incestuous relationship between Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch), Loeb comes out and makes dull, obvious jokes.  And the art — I have been a fan of Madueira since his work on the X-Men almost 15 years ago, but the digitally-painted look to his illustrations here is a total eye-sore.  Thank heaven this only lasted 5 issues.

Ultimate Origins, by Brian Michael Bendis and Butch Guice — Set mostly in the past, Bendis weaves together the back-stories of a variety of Ultimate universe characters (Captain America, Nick Fury, Wolverine, Professor X and Magneto) in a compelling story with several surprising revelations (such as the origin of all mutants) that sets the stage for the coming upheaval of the Ultimates universe: Ultimatum.  And I loved his version of the Ultimate Watcher!

Ultimatum, by Jeph Loeb and David Finch — Only three of the five issues have been released, but so far I am not loving this “universe-shattering” mini-series.  Jeph Loeb has written a lot of stuff that I have really enjoyed (Superman For All Seasons, Batman: The Long Halloween), but I am not at all digging his work in the Ultimate Universe.  This series is exhibiting the same problems as did Ultimates 3 and his final 3 issues of Ultimate Power — poor characterization, an over-wrought story, and a lot of dumb, on-the-nose dialogue.  The catastrophic events of Ultimatum are being felt in other Ultimate titles such as Bendis’ Ultimate Spider-Man, which I’ve been reading — and I have been FAR preferring Bendis’ take to Loeb’s.  We’ll see if the next two issues pick things up.

That’s all for me for today!  See you back here tomorrow!

Last month I wrote several posts about my favorite graphic novels.  One of the works that I mentioned (saying at the time that a more lengthy review would be coming) was Mark Millar & Bryan Hitch’s The Ultimates.

In the early 2000’s, Marvel Comics launched their Ultimate line, in which they took several popular, long-running Marvel characters and basically started them over from ground zero.  Spearheaded by some of Marvel’s top talent, the idea was to make the characters fresh and dynamic again, and remove the burden of 30-plus years of back-story and continuity.  The Ultimate line kicked off with Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley’s Ultimate Spider-Man.  This was an amazing, extraordinary piece of work, and it deserves a longer article of its own.  Suffice to say, I have never enjoyed a monthly Spider-Man comic as much, and I am still following the series every month.

Today I want to talk to you about Millar and Hitch’s reinvention of Marvel Comics’ premiere super-hero group, the Avengers, in their series The Ultimates that ran from 2002-2004.  (The series is available in two softcover collections or in one gorgeous hardcover.)

This is a magnificent, adult piece of work, and one hopes that it will be used as a template for the coming Avengers feature film.  The story begins at the end of World War II, as we witness the last mission of Captain America.  What might be a short 4-page flashback in another series is a lengthy (taking up almost the entirety of the series’ first issue) tale of gritty combat that sets the series’ tone of brutal intensity and incredible attention to detail.  

Then the story jumps forward to the 21st century.  It’s a brave new world filled with new wonders and new threats, both at home and abroad.  Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD, decides that the only way to protect America is to create a new team of American super-heroes.  Unfortunately, no one has been able to re-create the super soldier serum that turned scrawny Steve Rogers into the super-human Captain America.  But disparate events are about to come to a head that just might give Fury the elements he needs for his super-human task force: Scientist Bruce Banner injects himself with an experimental formula; brilliant industrialist and drunkard Tony Stark creates an extraordinary suit of armor; an anti-corporate hippie who claims to be Thor, the Norse God of Thunder, has begun to amass a legion of followers; and finally, the frozen body of Captain America is discovered, perfectly preserved in the Arctic.

Mark Millar’s writing is very contemporary — the story really runs with the conceit that all these events are happening in our “real” world, and so we see all the sorts of things that would probably happen if super-heroes started coming on to the scene: press conferences, PR people, and a lot of other interactions with real-life folk (celebrities, politicians, etc.).  Millar also doesn’t shy away from the violence and brutality that would come from super-powered conflicts, or from the emotional complexities that any human being would have, particularly someone with extraordinary abilities.  But Millar is able to balance those elements with his ability to tell a really ripping super-hero yarn.  There’s a lot of character development, but also a lot of extraordinary “wide-screen” action.

In both respects, Millar is aided by the hyper-detailed art of Bryan Hitch.  From the very first page of the very first issue, in which Hitch creates a gorgeous, incredibly detailed image of Allied planes flying over the North Atlantic in 1945, readers know they are in for something special.  Hitch has a talent for conveying the personalities and emotions of the characters that he illustrates.  He can make an extended “talking head” dialogue scene extraordinarily compelling — and not just because of the enormous details he pours into the backgrounds, whether the scene is set on SHIELD’s futuristic base, downtown Manhattan, or the Arizona desert.  And his action sequences are astounding.  I have never seen fight scenes in a comic book quite like these.  Issue five contains a massive battle with the Hulk in New York City, and the incredible detail that Hitch gives to every single panel of carnage is jaw-dropping.  

Millar and Hitch returned to these characters and stories in a second, 13-issue series, The Ultimates 2, published from 2004-2007.  In that follow-up series, Millar and Hitch continued to pose challenging questions about what would happen if such a team of super-heroes existed in our real world.  We witness Nick Fury’s growing temptation to use The Ultimates to pacify America’s enemies abroad, and of the devastating consequences of those actions.

I wasn’t sure if anything could top the first Ultimates series, and at first, I wasn’t sure The Ultimates 2 would.  The first six issues are fairly leisurely paced.  We witness a number of different vignettes, including the Ultimates’ deployment in Iraq, the efforts of the US’s international allies to create their own super-soldiers, the assembly of a group of wanna-be super-heroes who call themselves the Defenders, and the growing rifts between the members of the Ultimates themselves.  But it was unclear at first where all of this was going, and what sort of story was being told.  But things shifted into high gear in issues seven and eight, and then came the staggering issue nine.  In that chapter, titled “Grand Theft America,” in one horrific scene after another we witness the complete defeat of the Ultimates and the total conquest of America by a union of its enemies.  Millar and Hitch sure know how to go for their jugular — the shocking story is enhanced by their choices of imagery: devastation in New York city, the destruction of SHIELD headquarters, the capture of Washington DC, and the toppling of the Statue of Liberty.  To say that the remainder of the story (issues 10-13) is action-packed would be an extreme understatement, as the Ultimates and their allies attempt to regroup and fight back, and the situation escalates even further.  

Ultimates 2 might be a little more indulgent than the first volume (what with the digressions of its first half, and the ever-more-intense super-hero slugfests of its second half), but I love it just as much.  Each page that I turn brings to my eyes increasingly astounding imagery from the mind of Millar and the pencil of Hitch.  There really has never been a super-hero comic book quite like this.  

In my discussion of The Ultimates, I should also mention Warren Ellis’ Ultimate Galactus storyline.  This was originally released as three limited series (Ultimate Nightmare, Ultimate Secret, and Ultimate Extinction), and has subsequently been collected in one edition.

Something or someone has begun broadcasting all over the planet images of the brutal deaths of a variety of alien species.  Nick Fury sends his team of Ultimates to investigate.  Thinking that the source of the broadcasts is a mutant in distress, Professor Xavier sends a team of his X-Men.  The two groups converge in Tunguska, where they discover the relic of an advanced, extra-terrestrial mechanical being who came to Earth to warn us of the coming of the world devourer Gah lak tus.  The Fantastic Four, along with several other familiar Marvel characters, quickly become involved as Fury tries to figure out just what that entity is, and how mankind could possibly mount a defense against something that has already destroyed countless worlds.

When writing about his sci-fi comic book stories last month, I praised Warren Ellis for the way he incorporates a lot of real-world science and far-out ideas into his tales, and his reinvention of Galactus is no exception.  When Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced Galactus into the Marvel Universe in Fantastic Four #48-50 back in 1966, their depiction of Galactus as a huge guy in a purple outfit was dramatic and astounding.  Today, while the look of Galactus is a classic one, it is also undeniably hokey.  Ellis’ reinvention of Galactus for the Ultimate universe is a lot more complex, and a lot more creepy.  As Millar did in his two Ultimate series, I was quite impressed at the way Ellis was able to totally reinvent a classic Marvel concept into something entirely new and contemporary, while not losing any of the iconic imagery and ideas behind the original creation.  (I was also pleased to see Ellis introduce several other classic Marvel characters into the Ultimate universe, as well:  the Silver Surfer, Captain Mar-Vell, Moondragon, and even Misty Knight!)

Ellis’ story is also supported by some terrific art: Trevor Hairsine, Steve McNiven, Brandon Peterson, and others.  I do wish that there was more consistency to the art, with the same artist illustrating the entire tale.  But since almost all of the artists used are quite talented, I can’t complain too much.  In particular, Peterson has a great eye for illustrating sophisticated technology (both real and imagined), and his work brings a lot of weight and power to the series’ final chapters.  

Are these three series (The Ultimates, The Ultimates 2, and the Ultimate Galactus Trilogy) serious comic book works with a capital “S”?  No they are not!  But they are extraordinarily entertaining stories nonetheless, ones that are aimed squarely at adults.  They sit proudly on my bookshelf, and I have no doubt I will be re-reading them often in the future.

IDW has published a four-issue prequel to J.J. Abrams’ upcoming Star Trek movie called Countdown.  I picked up the four issues, but decided right away that I would wait to read them until after seeing the new movie.  I didn’t want to be spoiled about any of the film’s story-lines, and frankly I didn’t have great expectations for the quality of the comic series.  (I have seen quite a lot of movie “tie-in” material — books, comics, etc. — for all sorts of big-name movies of the past decade or so, and most of them have been pretty wretched.)

So what changed my mind?  Well, I’ve been reading pretty rapturous reviews of Countdown on-line over the past few months.  People really seemed to be digging the series, which raised my excitement level.  And as my own anticipation of the new Trek film has grown over the past months and weeks as the release of the film inched ever closer, I found myself looking quite eagerly at the four issues of Countdown sitting in my “to-read” pile of comics.  I also realized that, while I have for the most part been successful in avoiding major spoilers about the film, my repeated viewings of the trailers, in addition to everything that I have read about the film for the two years that has been in-the-making, have certainly meant that I have a pretty good basic idea about the film’s storyline, and where/how it branches off from established Trek continuity.  I didn’t think the comic would reveal anything I didn’t already know, it’d just hopefully connect the dots a little bit more for me.

And so I took the plunge and read through the series.

And I am pleased to report that it is very, very excellent!

Story credit for Countdown is given to Roberto Orci & Robert Kurtzman, the writers of J.J. Abrams’ Trek film.  I don’t know exactly who is responsible for what in this comic, between Orci & Kurtzman and the credited writers, Mike Johnson & Tim Jones, but based on what I read here I am very, very encouraged about the upcoming movie.  My biggest fear about the film is that it has been made by people who didn’t really know and love Star Trek, and thus has abandoned too much of established Trek continuity that is important to the fans who have invested in this universe for over 40 years now.  But Countdown was clearly written by people who really love Trek, and who are steeped in its lore.

OK, I’m going to avoid any MAJOR spoilers as I proceed, both for what I know about the upcoming Trek film and for the Countdown series itself.  So most of you should feel comfortable in continuing to read.  But if you have managed to avoid learning ANYTHING about the upcoming film, and if you want to try to keep things that way, then maybe this is the time for you to move on.  (Maybe pick an interesting older post from my archives to read, instead?)

Still here?  OK, here we go.

Countdown is set in the Next Generation timeline, several years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis.  It tells the story of Spock and Nero, how their paths cross in the 24th century and how they both eventually wind up thrust back in time.  When I wrote above that Countdown was written by people who clearly love Trek and are steeped in its lore, I wasn’t kidding.  Countdown is full of little details that demonstrate that the writers really know their Trek.  I was also very, very happy that this “official” story undid many of the most egregious storytelling mistakes of Star Trek: Nemesis, such as the death of Data (whose “resurrection” is explained away in one sentence in which the writers took advantage of the extraordinarily obvious “out” left by the end of Nemesis) as well as Worf’s return to Starfleet.  (Although, minor quibble, Countdown’s revelation that Worf now commands a Klingon battle-group didn’t suit me any better than Nemesis, which had him back in Starfleet with no explanation.  Maybe I’m just a hard-core Deep Space Nine fan, but I thought that show left Worf in a perfect place, as the Federation ambassador to the Klingons.  It felt like the perfect ending for Worf, who throughout Next Gen and DS9 had always felt himself torn between those two worlds.  I wish the writers had stuck with that.  But anyways…)  Data and Worf aren’t the only familiar Next Gen faces to pop up (but I’ll keep those secrets safe).  Countdown is set many years after Nemesis, and part of the fun is seeing where so many of the characters have wound up.  With the small exception of my complaint about Worf, everything feels “right” (as opposed to all the out-of-character behavior seen in Nemesis).

I should also pause here and remark about the art, which is gorgeous.  David Messina is able to capture the likeness of all the characters while still maintaining his own very distinct style of thick lines and deep, deep blacks.  His characters feel alive, not like stiff, traced copies of the actors’ publicity stills.  Messina is also able to illustrate beautiful and highly-detailed alien vistas and landscapes (with his depiction of the Romulan capital in issue 1 being a particularly impressive example) as well as some terrific space-ship combat sequences (like Nero’s battle with the Klingon fleet and then his showdown with the Enterprise E in issue 4).  I must also compliment the very subtle color art.  There are lovely gradations on all the characters’ faces and clothing, and some beautifully atmospheric outer-space imagery.  There were also a lot of presumably computer-assisted touches, such as the depictions of the Enterprise computer-control graphics that we can see are being holographically displayed over the crew-members’ consoles.  This is a really nice touch — it’s a cool little detail that looks awesome if you notice it, and is also a neat way to show that Starfleet tech has advanced since the last time we saw it.

Do I have complaints?  Well, sure, I do.  As someone who is very attentive to Trek continuity, there were a few things that threw me a little bit.  There’s a scene in issue two which takes place in the Romulan science council.  But Mr. Messina has illustrated the space so that it is a dead ringer for the Enterprise’s stellar cartography lab (as seen in Star Trek: Generations).  I was confused as to why Romulans were in a Starfleet facility, until I realized that it wasn’t meant to be a Starfleet facility at all.  Also in that issue, Spock returns to Vulcan and meets with the head of the Vulcan High Command.  Spock addresses that individual as “Praetor,” a term that has often been used in Trek books and comics for the head of Romulus, but never Vulcan.  Now, the Romulans are offshoots of the Vulcans, and so maybe the writers were trying to draw a connection between the two cultures.  Still, I thought it was an odd choice, and one that just confused me for a minute as I was reading.  (”Wait a second, is Spock actually meeting with Romulans??” I thought.)

But my biggest complain is with the catastrophe (I’ll keep vague on the details) that strikes Romulus, thus bringing Spock and Nero together and then driving them bitterly apart.  It comes out of nowhere, and for something capable of wreaking such havoc on the galaxy, I needed more of an explanation than I got as to just what the heck it was.  And, despite any distrust the Romulan Senate might still have for a Vulcan like Spock, it seemed totally ludicrous to me that Spock was the only individual on the planet who could detect what was happening.  Surely ONE other Romulan scientist somewhere else on the entire PLANET could have checked Spock’s data to see what he saw??  Spock and Nero seemed very much like Jor-El on Krypton, warning fruitlessly of what was to come.  This should be the key event of Countdown, and yet to me it felt totally silly and out of left field.  That really weakens the over-all story.  (It is possible that the Trek movie will give us more information that will answer some of my questions, although I sort of feel that the film will give us LESS information than Countdown, not more.  Providing background detail is a major point of the Countdown series, after all…)

But I don’t want to be too negative.  I really did thoroughly enjoy the comic.  It’s a great Trek tale, filled with exciting action and space adventure, some fascinating arcs for characters old and new, and best of all it provides a firm link between J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movie and the established Trek universe, particularly the 24th century Next Gen characters.  I sort of wish we could see some of this on the big-screen, in some sort of prologue to Abrams’ film!  But of course I understand his desire to make a clean break and start things fresh.

One of my favorite things about Countdown was its ending.  Spock and Nero disappear (no surprise there), and the surviving Next Gen characters have no idea that they have traveled back in town.  But there are a few pages of the comic that take place AFTER Spock and Nero disappear.  Rather than having the Next Gen universe wink out of existence at the end (because of the changes to history that one presumes Nero makes in the Trek film) the Next Gen characters continue.  My supposition about the Trek film, as I have mentioned here before, is that Nero’s actions are going to result in an altered timeline, thus allowing J.J. and his team to make lots of future Trek adventures with their new cast, without having to worry about hewing precisely to established Trek canon.  We’ll see in a few weeks if I’m right.  But if I am, then I was very pleased to see the writers acknowledge that the Next Gen universe remained.  Maybe now it’s an “alternate” universe, but who cares.  I hope that J.J.’s Trek movie is an enormous success, and that we see lots more films with his new cast.  But I also hope to see lots more adventures of Picard and co. in the 24th century.  If it’s not on-screen, then books and comics will have to suffice!

As for Countdown, it did exactly what a prequel “tie-in” should do — it got me even MORE excited to see the Star Trek film.  Just a few more weeks!  I’ve got lots more Star Trek stuff to discuss with you all as the movie approaches, so stay tuned!

Over the past two days I have listed several of my favorite graphic novels.  (Click here for part I and here for part II.)  You’ll notice that most of them had nothing to do with super-heroes.  This was purposeful — although super-hero stories dominate the American comic book scene, there are so many other types of stories that can be told using the comics medium.  That’s something I wanted to highlight.

But that’s not to say that I don’t also love a terrific super-hero story, because I certainly do!  Here are some of my favorites, that are available in graphic novel or collected-edition formats:

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns — Following the death of Robin, Bruce Wayne retired his Batman persona.  It’s been 10 years, and Gotham City has sunk into an urban decay of crime.  Bruce Wayne is a broken man, empty and lost.  But when something drives him to put on that mask one more time, everything changes.  (Although not necessarily for the better!)  Along with Watchmen (which was also released in 1986), Frank Miller’s magnus opus changed the comics industry forever, demonstrating without a doubt that it was possible to tell sophisticated, mature stories with super-hero characters.  (It also was a tremendous influence on the look and tone of Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman film.)  This story is intense and shockingly brutal.  It is also a gorgeous work of art, filled to the brim with overlapping narratives that tell the stories of an enormous cast of characters, all struggling to make their way in the brutal urban jungle that Gotham City has become, and all of them somehow affected by the shadow of the bat.  The Dark Knight Returns is also infamous for Miller’s depiction of an almost fascistic Superman, and his battle with the Batman in the series’ final chapter is a show-stopper.  (I should also mention that I am quite fond of Miller’s Batman: Year One, illustrated by David Mazzucchelli, from which a great deal of the story of Batman Begins was adapted.)

The New Frontier — Darwyn Cooke’s brilliant series re-tells the origins of many of DC Comics’ most familiar characters, albeit set in the years in which they were originally created.  Similar to the way in which The Right Stuff showed how American fighter pilots gradually became our astronauts, The New Frontier tells the story of how the pulp heroes that came out of the second world war gradually became the costumed super-heroes of a brave new age.  Cooke’s somewhat retro, simplified art style is stunningly gorgeous and absolutely perfect for the story being told.  The New Frontier captures the innocence and wonder, as well as the growing dangers, of the 1950’s and 60’s.  It is an epic saga, filled out by an enormous cast of characters, all of whom Cooke wonderfully brings to life.  I only discovered The New Frontier about two years ago, but it immediately became one of my absolute favorites.

Astonishing X-Men — Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly) and John Cassaday crafted the greatest X-Men story of the past decade, which I wrote about at length here.  A scientist declares that she has discovered the cure for mutants (that storyline was incorporated into the lackluster third X-Men film), Professor X’s mutant-tracking system cerebro attains sentience and threatens the students, and an enormous extra-terrestrial threat is revealed.  But all of that takes a back seat to the characters’ story-lines.  Whedon has a quite a gift for creating vibrant characters, and his stories are intense and also filled with delightful humor.  Whedon & Cassaday’s entire story is available in four softcover editions or two hardcovers.  

Spider-Man: Kraven’s Last Hunt – I probably read this at too-young an age, but it certainly captured my imagination at the tim.  I am pleased to say that it also holds up today as one of the most compelling Spider-Man stories ever told.  In the ultimate tale of revenge, Spider-Man villain Kraven the Hunter shoots Spidey, buries him, and then, in order to prove his complete superiority over his foe, puts on his costume and takes his place.  And that’s just in the first chapter.  This jaw-droppingly grim and serious story takes the reader on a powerful journey through the haunted past and disturbed psyche of Kraven, while also giving us great insight into the mind of Peter Parker as he faces his mortality and struggles to overcome a seemingly impossible situation and an indomitable enemy.  J.M. DeMatteis’ wonderful prose (which follows the inter-weaving narratives of several major characters) and wonderful, over-lapping dialogue was way ahead of its time, and Mike Zeck and Bob McLeod’s art is dense, atmospheric, and truly gorgeous.  I can’t tell you how many times I have read this story, and it never ceases to amaze me.  

The Ultimates by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch and Kingdom Come by Mark Waid and Alex Ross — I recently re-read both of these, and I have longer posts in the work about them both that will be coming in the next few weeks.  For now, let me just say that they are both true masterpieces, and must-reads for any comic fans.  

OK, whew!  This has been a fun look at various amazing comics over the past three days.  I like being reminded about just how terrific this medium can be.  Did I leave out one of your favorites?  Let me know!  And if you’ve never read a comic book and are just bewildered as to what the heck I’ve been going on about for these past few days, I do hope that you’ll give one of these great works that I have listed a try.

Yesterday I wrote about several examples of my favorite graphic novels.  Today I’d like to share a few more that represent longer works:

Bone — Three cousins stumble into a mysterious valley filled with wonderful and dangerous creatures.  What begins as a whimsical, fun-filled fantasy romp gradually grows into an epic, Lord of the Rings type of adventure filled with action, death, greed, and a beautiful story of unrequited love.  The Lord of the Rings comparison does Bone a disservice, actually, as Bone is a brilliantly unique work unlike anything else I have ever read.  At times hilariously funny and at times deeply intense, Bone is a truly wonderful tale that (unlike many of the other graphic novels I have listed) is perfectly suitable for all ages.  It’s available in nine collections.  Start off with volumes I & II, Out From Boneville and The Great Cow Race, and I guarantee you won’t look back.

Cerebus — If you read 300 issues of The Amazing Spider-Man (heck, if you read 50 or 100 issues!) you would probably be struck by the cyclical nature of the story-telling.  The characters don’t really change, villains return again and again… you might enjoy the stories, but it’s not remotely a chronicle of what could really happen in one person’s life (even someone bitten by a radioactive spider!).  With his comic Cerebus, writer/illustrator Dave Sim set out to do something entirely different.  What began life in the late 70’s as a parody of Conan the Barbarian became something entirely different when Sim decided to create the ultimate 300 issue “limited-series.”  His comic would chronicle the life and adventures of one character, Cerebus (an aardvark living in a medieval world of humans).  It would be told at a realistic pace (with stories unfolding slowly and action only occurring every 30 or more issues, as opposed to having complete adventures every month), and it would end with Cerebus’ death.  (And in 2004, when Cerebus #300 was finally published, that’s exactly what happened.)  Although some have said, only half-jokingly, that Dave Sim went insane over the almost 30-years of working on his epic (and having read the bizarre and erratic final volumes I’m not sure I disagree), for much of its run it was truly magnificent.  Skip the first collection and start with the phone-book sized volume II, High Society, and volumes III & IV, the two-part Church and State.  These are extraordinary works, sophisticated commentaries on the nature of politics and religion that are also terrifically fun adventure stories filled with an extraordinarily rich cast of characters, and set in a fully realized fantasy world that has been fleshed out by Sim (and collaborator Gerhard) to an amazing degree.  Like Bone, this is truly a unique work — there has never been anything like it, and I don’t know that there ever will be again.

100 Bullets — The mysterious Agent Graves visits average people to give them an attache case containing incontrovertible proof that they have been grievously wronged by someone, along with a gun and 100 completely untraceable bullets.  With the assurance that no law enforcement agency on the globe will hold you in any way accountable for any actions you take with that gun and those bullets, what would you do?  It’s such a simple, gripping hook, and at first this hard-boiled crime series tells a series of stories in which Graves visits different people and we see the wildly varying ways in which they react to what they are given.  But as the series proceeds, a much larger story of secret societies and powerful, warring families comes to light, and the seemingly unconnected events that we have witnessed begin to come together in astounding ways.  Brian Azzarello’s mastery of dialogue and character combined with Eduardo Risso’s beautifully detailed, unique art creates a dizzying world of moral ambiguity filled with one wonderfully distinct character after another.  The final volume comes out this summer, and I can’t wait!  You should start with volume I: First Shot, Last Call, and prepare to have your mind blown.

Akira — The lives of Tetsuo and Kaneda, two tough, biker friends living in Neo-Tokyo (a metropolis built after Tokyo was annihilated in World War III) change forever when strange, powerful abilities begin to awaken in Tetsuo.  Suddenly Tetsuo becomes the target of a variety of groups and government agencies eager to control his power, and the mystery of the force that destroyed Tokyo gradually is revealed: the little boy known as Akira.  Katsuhiro Otomo’s sprawling story is an intense, action-packed epic.  Its exploration of a dystopian future in which technology might have outpaced humanity is reminiscent of Blade Runner, while the fierce, violent action, rendered in Otomo’s stunningly hyper-detailed art, gives the story a unique flavor all its own.  Dark Horse Comics has collected the saga in six enormous volumes.  Start at the beginning with volume I and then start screaming Tetsuo at the top of your lungs!  (That’s a reference to the extraordinary animated film of Akira, which although it was released back in the 1980’s remains the unbeaten masterpiece of animation, in my opinion.)

If you’ve ever wanted to understand why people like me are so in love with comic books, just try any one of the masterpieces that I have described over these past two days.  I guarantee you won’t regret it!

Click here for part III of this article, in which I describe some of my favorite Superhero graphic novels.

Recently I’ve had a number of conversations with friends about graphic novels.  A lot of this was prompted by the Watchmen film.  People have been asking me what I thought of the original Watchmen graphic novel (it’s a masterpiece!), if they should read it (YES!), and if I could recommend other graphic novels that might be of interest (read on!).

Which brings me to today’s post.  While this is by no means a comprehensive list of my all-time favorite graphic novels, below are several extraordinary works that I think anyone who is interested in seeing what comics might have to offer would really enjoy.

A quick note, before we begin: I am using the term “graphic novel” to refer to any comic book story available in “book” format (as opposed to 24-32 page “pamphlet-style” single issues).  I am not distinguishing between a collection of comics that were first published as single issues or something that was originally published in this longer format.  I’m talking about any sort of collection that you could pick off your book-shelf and read as a complete story.

V For Vendetta — It is November the 5th, 1997, and a young girl is rescued by a mysterious vigilante wearing a Guy Fawkes mask who calls himself V.  Set in an alternate history in which Britain has become a fascist state, this towering work by Alan Moore and David Lloyd explores issues of identity and individuality.  It also turns the entire idea of the super-hero vigilante on its head.  When the figure of V first appears, we readers are conditioned to root for him as the clear hero of the tale.  Subsequent events cause one to question that thinking, as Moore and Lloyd pose difficult questions about the nature and necessity of the use of violence.  This is a beautiful, haunting work, a true masterpiece of the comics medium.

Give Me Liberty — Like V for Vendetta, this is a story of a slightly-alternate world, in which individual freedoms have become a thing of the past.  In Give Me Liberty, the cause is the unchecked spread of enormous corporations that have long-since co-opted the American government. Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons’ tale begins in 1995 with the birth of Martha Washington, a young, precocious African-American girl who grows up in the horrifying squalor of “The Green,” an extension of Chicago’s Cabrini Green housing project.  Her brains and her courage help her escape the projects and join the military, where she finds herself embroiled in a much larger conspiracy.  This astounding mix of social commentary and sci-fi adventure rises above other works of speculative fiction mainly because of the compelling lead character of Martha.

Jinx — This was the first work I ever read by Brian Michael Bendis, well before he became one of Marvel Comics’ go-to writers, and it remains my favorite.  A dark (but also very funny in places) tale of a young bounty hunter (the titular Jinx) and her hunt for $3,000,000 in loot and all of the trouble that ensues.  Bendis’ gift for dialogue and the rhythms of conversation is immediately apparent, but the twisty story of crosses and double-crosses is also compelling.  Bendis doesn’t do much drawing these days, but I must confess to quite enjoying his unique art style, filled with dramatic page layouts and a lot of what look like photo-copy tricks in the backgrounds.  It gives the work a unique flavor.

Ocean — I just loves me a good sci-fi story, and Warren Ellis, along with illustrators Chris Sprouse & Karl Story, spin a great one here.  UN Weapons Inspector Nathan Kane is sent to a space station orbiting Europa.  The team there has made an astounding discovery: what look to be ancient caskets floating in the ice-covered oceans of that moon.  As Kane struggles to determine the origin and purpose of the amazing find, it quickly becomes apparent that one of Earth’s software conglomerate has its own plans.  Filled to the brim with many of Ellis’  fascinating ideas about science and the universe, all wrapped up in a gripping mystery, Ocean feels a lot like 2001: A Space Odyssey — only a lot more exciting!  The beautiful art is just the icing on the cake.  (Warren Ellis has written several other magnficent sci-fi tales, such as Orbiter and Ministry of Space.  Both are also phenomenal!)

All of the above are one-volume tales that represent complete stories, start-to-finish.  I’ll be back here tomorrow to discuss some other fantastic graphic novels that represent pieces of much longer, more elaborate tales.  See you then!  (Click here for Part II of this article, and here for Part III!)

I’ve been torn as to whether to recommend to my friends who aren’t already into comic books that they should go and read Watchmen.  On the one hand, it is unquestionably one of (if not the) greatest graphic novels of all time.  On the other hand, would someone who’s never seen a movie before really appreciate Citizen Kane?

I have read Watchmen scores of times.  Part of its brilliance is the incredible depth of its detail — upon each re-reading I always notice new things, new details, new connections.  If you are going to take the plunge and sample Watchmen for the first time (and, you know what, forget what I wrote in the first paragraph — if you haven’t read Watchmen you should go find a copy to read RIGHT NOW) or if, like me, you’re considering re-reading it in anticipation of the upcoming movie adaptation, then here are some things to watch out for while (re-)reading:

Mirroring and (fearful) Symmetry in Watchmen — Watchmen is replete with the repetition of images.  This device is used to draw connections, visually, between otherwise disparate scenes and ideas.  Obviously, any fan can recognize the iconic image of the smiley face with the splotch of blood, but have you really noticed just how often that image repeats and repeats throughout the story?  Take a look at the owlship in the last panel of issue 2, page 17; the sun in the center of the Buddha poster in the last panel of issue 5, page 7; Laurie wiping a smudge in the window in panel 7 of issue 7, page 1; the electric socket at the bottom of issue 12, page 6; the covers of issues 7, 10, and 11… and so many more examples.  Slightly less iconic but no less striking is the repetition of the composition of the panel that shows the Comedian’s face, right before being thrown out the window, in panel 3 of issue 1, page 3.  Take a look of that image, and then check out panel 8 of issue 2, page 21, and panel 4 of issue 2, page 22.  Look familiar?

Repetition and symmetry figure heavily into the stories and backgrounds of many of the main characters.  Consider chapter V, titled “Fearful Symmetry,” that focuses on Rorschach.  Obviously, the chapter title is a clue, but look deeper.  The entire issue is symmetrical in its composition and color, with the first panel of the first page almost identical to the last panel of the last page, then working forwards/backwards, panel-by-panel, towards the middle of the issue.  Pretty cool, no?  Consider also the symmetrical nature of the many inkblots (rorschach tests) that the character is tested with in the following chapter.

Then there is Jon Osterman (Dr. Manhattan).  He has evolved beyond linear time, experiencing every moment of his life simultaneously.  Possibly my favorite chapter of Watchmen is chapter IV, titled “Watchmaker,” in which the reader is presented with Jon’s life the way he experiences it — circling from the past to the future to the present and back again, round and round.  The title Watchmen seems to be, on the surface, referring to the idea of superheroes — they are supposed to be our watchmen, but in this deconstructionist work their failings are laid bare.  But the title Watchmen can also be interpreted as drawing out attention to these ideas about symmetry and repetition in life and in this particular graphic novel.  This helps us explain the following notable example of repetition:

Clocks and Watches in Watchmen — Throughout the graphic novel, the visuals and the prose constantly draw our attention to images of timepieces.  The clock image that begins each chapter ticks one minute closer to midnight as the story progresses.  Jon’s father was a watchmaker (and as just mentioned, that is the title of chapter IV, which examines his life).  That issue also includes a significant reference to the famous Time magazine cover of the damaged pocket-watch that was stopped at the instant of the Hiroshima blast.  As the psychiatrist Dr. Long shares an awkward meal with his wife and friends, a ticking time-piece can be seen in the foreground (panels 7 and 8 of issue 6, page 27).  There is even the headline of the paper on Ozymandias’ desk in panel 4 of issue 1, page 18.  

What is the meaning on this focus on time, and on clocks and watches?  As I suggested above, it could be one way of emphasizing the story’s focus on symmetry and repetition.  But I think there’s a deeper question being raised.

God and Watchmen — In panel 7 of issue 4, page 2, Jon considers his life and the trajectories of the stars in the heavens, and states, “I am trying to give a name to the force that set them in motion.”  Later in that chapter (on pages 27 & 28), Jon wonders, “Who makes the world?”  Is it all “a clock without a craftsman?”  These questions of belief and faith are, I believe, at the heart of the story being told.

Throughout Watchmen, there are constant references to the changes that the existence of superheroes has wrought upon the world.  The U.S. used its super-powered heroes to help win the war in Vietnam and rescue the Iranian hostages, actions which then lead to an escalating Cold War with Russia and a developing nuclear showdown.  We see evidence of new technologies that appeared because of Dr. Manhattan — electric cars, the omnipresent blimps traveling across the skylines of the world’s cities, etc.  But far from feeling safer, the existence of superheroes has lead to a growing sense of fear and uncertainty in many.  The text piece after issue 4 discusses the unease that came with people’s acceptance of powerful superheroes such as Dr. Manhattan.  His existence “deformed the lives of every living creature on the face of the planet.”  Many people did not respond that well when learning that “everything [they've] ever known to be a fact is probably untrue.”  

Many people across the world today struggle with issues of faith and belief in God.  How would one’s faith be tested in a world where, as Dr. Milton Glass states in the issue 4 text-piece, “God Exists, and he’s American”? (By the way, I really hope that line makes it into the movie!!)  I think this is the central question to which all of this watch-imagery is trying to draw our attention.  Is Dr. Manhattan God?  How does a world that contains such miracles and such horrors affect one’s belief in God?  

Rorschach has his answer.  ”God was not there,” he says, recalling the horrible moment that has defined his life, and his identity as Rorschach (issue 6, page 26).  Meanwhile, Dr. Manhattan’s quest, with Laurie, to answer this question for himself leads directly into the climactic events of the graphic novel.  What is your answer, Watchmen asks of its readers?

Although I have gone on at great length about the above notions, these are just a FEW of the many layers found within this great work.  I could have also written many paragraphs on the questions raised by the way the heroic characters of Watchmen are constantly undermined, or whether text pieces such as the excerpts from Hollis Mason’s Under The Hood support or counterpoint what seems to be the main story’s thesis that anyone who’d dress up as a superhero must be either a fascist or a pervert.  I could have written about any one of a hundred other different themes/questions/ideas like those that can be found within this story.  There are a lot of layers to the onion that is Watchmen!  

But these are the ideas that I was thinking about on my latest read-though, and I wanted to share.  What issues within Watchmen most interest you?  Will any of these layers and sub-layers make it into the film that is coming our way in just a few more days?  I certainly hope so!  But whether they do or don’t, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ towering work will remain as one of the finest graphic novels of our time, an effort that shows us everything that the comic book form is capable of.  If you’ve never read it, I think now’s the time!

Well, I hope you enjoyed my lists of the Top 10 TV Shows and the Top 10 Movies 0f 2008.

But, you know, EVERYONE writes those sorts of top 10 lists!  So today, I wanted to send some love in the direction of the best comic books that I read in 2008.  2008 was a PHENOMENAL year for comics, with a lot of great material out there.  Here’s what I felt was the best of the best.

15.  Top 10: Season 2 (issues #1-3 published in 2008) — One of Alan Moore (Watchmen, V For Vendetta)’s greatest works of the past decade was the first “season” of Top 10, published between 1999 and 2001.  It chronicled the efforts of a police force in a bizarre city that seemed to be a meeting point for all sorts of fantasy characters from comics, TV shows, and movies.  Although Mr. Moore has not returned for this second installment, talented writer Zander Cannon along with returning artist Gene Ha have crafted a story every bit as weird, complex, and compelling as Mr. Moore’s original.  Ha’s art remains staggeringly complex and detailed, filled with lots of fun surprises in the background for an attentive reader.

14.  Detective Comics #846-850, “Heart of Hush” – Although Grant Morrison’s “Batman: R.I.P.” storyline over in Batman got all the attention this year, it was writer Paul Dini (one of the guiding forces behind the amazing Batman: The Animated Series) who was behind my favorite Batman story of 2008.  Enigmatic villain Hush returns with a complex scheme to take down the Dark Kight, while in a series of flashbacks we learn how the friendship between young Bruce Wayne and Tommy Elliott went wrong.  Throw in Catwoman and gorgeous art by Dustin Nguyen, and you have a classic.  (Collected edition available here.)

13.  Ultimate Spider-Man (issues 116-128 published in 2008) — I cannot believe how much I continue to enjoy this Spider-Man book.  Guided by the incredible writing of Brian Michael Bendis, who has been writing this reinvention of Spider-Man since issue #1, this is everything a super-hero comic book should be.  It is filled with great action, terrific humor, and incredible continuity and character development.  I don’t know of any comic that is consistently more fun, and the fact that such a high standard of quality has been maintained for 128 issues and counting is amazing.  (The entire run of USM is available in collected editions.  Here is the latest.)

12.  Steph King’s The Dark Tower (issues 1-5 of “The Long Road Home” and 1-4 of “Treachery” published in 2008) — A complex but coherent story and absolutely gorgeous art by Jae Lae and Richard Isanove characterize this adaptation and expansion of the back-story of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series of novels.  The richness of the world that has been created rivals that of The Lord of The Rings.  Extra props for the extensive back-up features found in every issue.  (Collected edition of “The Long Road Home” is available here.)

11.  Fantastic Four #554-562 — With their “Worlds Finest” storyline that began in issue #554, writer Mark Millar and artist Bryan Hitch have returned this long-running Marvel series to greatness.  Millar’s tales are modern and yet also retro, recapturing the feel of FF comics from the 60’s in which every issue would feature big new ideas, characters, and adventures, and Hitch’s hyper-detailed artwork is eye-candy of the greatest kind.  (Collected edition of their first story-arc is available here.)

10.  Kick-Ass (issues #1-5 published in 2008) — You’ll be hearing a lot more about this comic series in 2009, as it’s being made into a movie directed by Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake, Stardust).  Set in a world like ours, in which super-heroes exist only in the pages of comic books, Kick-Ass follows young Dave Lizewski, a boy who decides to become a super-hero.  Much mayhem follows.  Much, much mayhem.

9.  Young Liars (issues #1-11 published in 2008) — David Lapham (Stray Bullets) returns to the world of black-and-white comics!  The sprawling story (that constantly jumps around in time) follows a group of young twenty-somethings of dubious morality on a mind-bending adventure involving stolen art, rock and roll, and, um, spider-men from Mars.  Yeah, it’s weird.  Extra appreciation to Mr. Lapham for managing to see eleven issues published in 2008, quite a feat!  (The first six issues are collected here.)

8.  RASL (issues #1-3 published in 2008) — After completing his magnificent epic, Bone, Jeff Smith began this bizarre tale involving a thief with the ability to travel between parallel universes.  The story is just beginning to unfold, but I am already hooked by Smith’s energetic illustrations and the sci-fi tinged story.  I just wish new issues came out more often!  (And no, readers don’t yet know quite what the title of the series means…)  (Collected edition available here.)

7.  Hellboy/B.P.R.D. — Through a series of mini-series and one-shots, Mike Mignola and a talented group of collaborators have continued to expand and move forward the stories of Hellboy and his former partners at the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.  Special notice must be made of Guy Davis’ work on the B.P.R.D. series — he has a style that is completely unique, and perfect for the book.  The man can draw anything.  And 2008 also saw Mike Mignola return to the drawing table for the Hellboy one-shot “In The Chapel of Moloch”!  Absolutely outstanding work, all around.  Click here for my full review of the last several years worth of Hellboy and B.P.R.D. adventures.  (Collected edition of the latest B.P.R.D. series, “The Warning,” is available here.)

6.  Ex Machina (issues #32-40 published in 2008) — Mitchell Hundred was once a super-hero known as the Great Machine.  After 9/11, he successfully ran to become the mayor of New York.  Brian K. Vaughn and Tony Harris’ story combines politics, exploration of character, and a little bit of super-hero action and sci-fi weirdness into a ceaselessly entertaining mix.  The stories never go where I expect them to, and I love the series even more because of that.  (The latest collected edition is available here.)

5.  1985 — A magical, engrossing tale of a young boy who starts seeing characters from his beloved Marvel comics pop up in his regular life, this mini-series tapped into a well of nostalgia for the Marvel comics I loved as a kid when I started reading them in the late eighties.  The story is enhanced by Tommy Lee Edwards’ amazing illustrations.  I’ve never read a comic quite like this.  Read my full review of 1985 here.  (Collected edition available here.)

4.  Criminal (issues #1-7 of Criminal Volume 2 were published in 2008) — I first discovered the team of writer Ed Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips when they were working on the much-acclaimed (but I guess little read) series Sleeper for Wildstorm Comics a number of years back.  As good as that work was, Criminal is even more engaging.  There are no super-heroes to be found here — Criminal is hard-boiled noir of a type I don’t think I’ve ever before seen in comics.  Criminal kicked off 2008 with a trio of extra-length stories that were each stand-alone tales, but that linked together to tell a larger story set in 1972. Those three tales (available in a collected edition called The Dead and the Dying) established some powerful and poignant back-story for the characters introduced in Criminal Volume 1.  Then, issues 4-7 told the tale of a former counterfeiter for whom a chance interaction at a diner leads to a whole lot of trouble.  The world of Criminal is filled with vivid characters, most of whom are pretty sorry sons-of-bitches who have made a lot of bad choices in life.  This is a marvelous series, and I hope that Brubaker and Phillips continue telling these stories for a long time to come.

3.  Daredevil (issues #102-114 published in 2008) — Ed Brubaker (just mentioned as the author of Criminal) shows that he is just as skilled at writing super-heroes as he continues to spin yarns about the blind hero of Hell’s Kitchen, Daredevil.  Brubaker has been making Matt Murdock’s life a living hell for quite some time now, and I am loving every minute of it.  His partner in this endeavor is artist Michael Lark, whose gritty work creates the tough, unhappy New York streets in which Brubaker’s stories are set.  (The latest collected edition is available here.)

2.  Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men (issues #23, 24, and Giant-Sized Astonishing X-Men were published in 2008) —  This is sort of a cheat, as only the final 3 issues of Joss Whedon’s story were published in 2008, but they were without question some of the very best comics I have read in years.  I grew up loving the X-Men, but I have felt for a long, long time now (since the mid 90’s), that the various X-Men comics had all lost some of the magic that made Chris Claremont’s lengthy run on the title so special.  Then came Joss Whedon (known as the creator and show-runner for Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Firefly), who crafted an astounding tale that reminded me of every reason why I used to love these characters.   No one can breathe life into special-but-misunderstood youths quite like Mr. Whedon, and the astoundingly evocative illustrations by John Cassaday were only icing on the cake.  Read my full review of Whedon’s run here.  (Collected Edition of Volume I of Whedon’s run is found here, and Volume II is found here.)

1.  All-Star Superman (issues # 10-12 were published in 2008) — Another series that only saw it’s final few issues published in 2008, All Star Superman nevertheless rises above every other comic that I read this year.  Just as Joss Whedon was able to channel everything iconic and beloved about the X-Men into his run on Astonishing X-Men, so too were Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely able to synthesize 50 years worth of different interpretations of Superman into what I consider to be a truly classic version of the character.  They told a complex tale, but were able to stick the landing and wrap everything up into a satisfying conclusion.  In many ways this series was designed to be their version of the LAST Superman story (as in, what might the final issues of a Superman comic ever be like should DC decide to stop publishing it), but what I wouldn’t give for another few issues from these fine gentlemen.  Read my full review here.  (Collected edition of Volume I of the series is found here, and Volume II is found here.)

Whew!  Quite a list of good stuff, there.  If you’re interested, follow the links and pick up some of the collections that are available through Amazon.  They’re well worth your time.

On Friday, we’ll wrap up my look back at 2008 with my list of the Top 10 DVDs of 2008! See you then!

There is a lot of terrific comic book work being published these days. Last month I spent a lengthy post discussing Hellboy and the B.P.R.D. Allow me, today, to bring a few other high-quality series to your attention:

All Star Superman, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely – The idea behind DC Comics’s All-Star line was to allow today’s top creators to tell stories with the big DC heroes without worrying about current continuity issues. And so we have been blessed by this twelve-issue take on Superman (currently collected in two volumes) which manages to be retro (capturing a lot of the weirdness and silliness of Superman comics from the 50’s) and also very modern (in terms of the sophistication of the narrative). As a reader, you know you’re in for something special on the very first page of the very first issue, in which Morrison and Quitely manage to capture everything you need to know about Superman in four simple panels. As for the series’ story: Lex Luthor realizes that he’s getting older and so had better get serious about finally killing Superman. You’re best-off if I don’t tell you anything other than that, except that you should feel safe in the knowledge that, freed from the regular comics’ continuity and the need to leave all the toys in the same place that they found them, Morrison and Quitely are able to tell a story that involves real change for all the characters (no super-amnesia kiss to be found here) and that does not back away from the end that the first issue seems to be suggesting. In so doing, they are able to, at least for me, really get to the heart of the character of Superman. Brilliant work.

1985, by Mark Millar and Tommy Lee Edwards – 1985 was a big year for Marvel Comics, with the publication of their huge inter-company cross-over, Secret Wars. I began collecting comics right around that time, and I was a Marvel zombie, so the feel and tone of the Marvel Comics adventure stories from those years really holds a powerful nostalgic allure for me. What does that have to do with this six-issue mini-series? That sensation of immersing oneself in the magical world of Marvel Comics in 1985 is something that Millar and Edwards really channel in this work, but I won’t spoil it by telling you exactly how. I will tell you that 1985 is set in the “real world.”

We are introduced to young Toby, a boy who hasn’t had the easiest childhood (parents divorced, etc.). Things start getting much worse for him when he sees a Marvel comics super-villain, The Red Skull, standing in the attic window of a mysterious neighbor’s house. Now, despite what that very short synopsis might lead you to believe, this is NOT the story of a young boy imagining things to escape from his sad life. No, it’s a tale about wonder, about heroism, and also about the love of comic books. It is a transporting, magical story, and I loved every page. (A snazzy collection of this series will be available soon.)

The ClanDestine, by Alan Davis – When I was in high school, one of my favorite comic book writer/artists, Alan Davis, launched a new title for Marvel Comics. It was called The ClanDestine, and it was about a family of extremely long-lived, super-powered individuals. There was an element of the “super-hero” to this tale, and it was set firmly within the Marvel universe (featuring guest appearances from Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, etc. etc.). But right away from those first few issues I could tell that there was something special about the series. Although no-one draws a super-hero punch-up better than Alan Davis — and there certainly was a lot of great action on display in the series — Davis’ ClanDestine seemed to focus more on the characters. Through the stories, readers were able to enter the world of this weird, argumentative, mysterious group. I enjoyed all of the mysteries seeded in to the series: questions about exactly who these people were, where they’d come from, and what they’d been up to over the decades and centuries. Unfortunately, after only eight issues, the title was cancelled. (Well, actually, Alan Davis had a falling-out with Marvel editorial and left the series. Marvel attempted to continue his series without him, but even as a kid I was wise to that and so avoided picking up issue #9 written and drawn by other people. I guess most everyone else did, too, as Marvel ended the series only a few issues later.) The ClanDestine popped up about 2 years later in a two-issue cross-over with The X-Men, written and drawn by Mr. Davis, but if that was an attempt to reignite interest in the series I guess it failed because that was that for the ClanDestine.

And so I was shocked, but quite delighted, when this past year Marvel and Alan Davis released a new 5-issue ClanDestine mini-series, picking up right where the original issue #8 had left off all those years ago. There is some exposition added in for new fans, although I would imagine anyone reading the new mini-series without having read the older work (which Marvel has recently collected in a nice new edition) would be rather lost. But who cares about them! I was just thrilled to be able to enjoy a new ClanDestine adventure, continuing the story I had thought was over for good. (A collection of this new mini-series, subtitled Blood Relative, was just released last month.) It is a fun tale, not overly serious but still a real page-turner. Some lingering questions from the original issues are addressed, although when I got to the last page it was clear that there was still a lot more story yet to be told. The solicitation for this new mini-series advertised it as the first of a SERIES of mini-series. I hope that is the case, and that Mr. Davis is hard at work on the further adventures of the ClanDestine was I write this now… I’d really prefer to not have to wait another decade and a half before the next installment.