Just when I thought Fraction would never turn the series around, he delivers a fully fantastic issue. There’s no wasting time here, there’s no dawdling. At most he spends a few pages with the minor supporting cast, but it all turns out to be to prop up the main cast.
And having Mike back as the lead helps immensely. Even though the supporting cast–Gene’s secret gets out, along with some other secrets–have their share of story this issue, Fraction is back to Mike on his investigation. He doesn’t discover much, though Fraction and Chaykin do an astounding explanation of women’s stockings, but the investigation (and its weight on him) brings Sam back around.
Hopefully Fraction can maintain the pace–he’s spent a lot of time putting things in place without them paying off and now he’s showing his deliberate pacing was worth the wait.
It’s amazing stuff again.
A
CREDITS
Keyhole and Welt; Shadow, Seam, Heel; writer, Matt Fraction; artist, Howard Chaykin; letterer, Ken Bruzenak; editor, Thomas K.; publisher, Image Comics.
It’s a decent enough issue–with Reis doing a lengthy Sienkiewicz-inspired action sequence–but it’s a little light.
The Fez is, unsurprisingly, a lot of fun. The longest story in the issue has the Fez helping exorcize the queen of England. It comes in the middle of the comic, after Langridge has done some smaller stories establishing the Fez as something of a buffoon. There's a great Twitter-related joke to show just how out of it the Fez can get; he's an invisible man, so who knows what kind of stresses he's under.
★★★★
Copland's art would be enough to carry Pop; he has intricate panel composition–through a bunch of psychedelic sequences–but also a wonderful sense of movement for the rest. About the only thing he doesn't get to do this issue is talking heads scenes, since most of the issue's calm moments are internal. But the art is very impressive.
Well… let’s see… where to start–the issue is two and a half scenes. The first has our protagonist, the human girl detective investigating on Lucifer’s behalf, with her sidekick interviewing Baal. He’s evil but irresistible. Only it’s not really an interview scene, it’s to get the protagonist into see all the gods and ask them for help with Lucifer’s wrongful imprisonment.
In some ways, this issue has Gerber's most predictable comics scene. Man-Thing and his arch-nemesis, Schist, duke it out in a laboratory where Man-Thing could regain his humanity and Schist could gain immortality. Sure, it's got Ploog artwork, but there's nothing special about it. Man-Thing's almost human again and Gerber can't think of anything to do with him except fight.
Gerber only puts in a few pages of about Man-Thing's erstwhile human sidekicks, but it's all rather effective. It grounds the issue in reality, while elsewhere Gerber pulls even more out of it. Turns out Schist isn't just a bad guy industrialist, he's actually a bad guy industrialist looking for the fountain of youth.
Wow.
Pope tries so much different stuff with this issue–he's got one scene in here where he seems to be homaging Charles Schulz. Everything he tries is successful; some of it is more wildly successful than the rest, but it all works.
Well, it’s definitely a predictable ending because Brisson sets it up for two possibilities. I had been hoping for a third result, but no luck. Instead, The Field concludes more visually than anything else. Brisson gives Roy something to do, but it’s not much. If it weren’t for Roy’s ability to stretch the material… it wouldn’t work out as well.
This issue has three things going on. First is the boxer who's Strel's ex-boyfriend. He gets a couple chapters–Pope splits 100% into chapters and there are a lot of them in this issue. Anyway, the boxer gets a couple chapters. They're mostly for mood and exposition.
Sirens is a whole lot of work. George Pérez clearly had this series in mind for a while, considering it’s a sequel to some other long-running series in his imagination. He’s not introducing the cast of beautiful and empowered caricatures he calls Sirens, he’s reintroducing them.
The issue's all action, which makes up for Alan Kupperberg and Bill Collins's artwork. The proportions are weird, even if Kupperberg's fight choreography and panel composition are generally okay. It's a forced crossover issue, with Blue Devil passing through Pittsburgh so of course he's going to get into the middle of a fight between Firestorm and his foes.
So much talking. And Couceiro does a great job with all that talking, but the issue consists of four or five conversations and one suggestive last page. I can't remember but it might be the first time Brisson's done a bridging issue on Sons of Anarchy. Maybe not, but certainly never so deliberate as this one.
Pope introduces a few new characters this issue, including a couple fairly substantial ones. He opens the issue on some guy who's calling Strel; she doesn't want to talk to him. Later on, Pope introduces Strel's cousin, who's interested in Kim. Kim doesn't exactly narrate her scenes–Pope uses close third person, which really brings the character into focus.
Will the real Mark Millar please stand up…
Joe Brozowski appears to be taking over as regular penciller. He does okay; he tries real hard with expressions, which don’t tend to work out with the regular people but it’s fine with the action scenes. He’s stuck with plotting out an action scene in an arena–a bunch of giant computers on loan from the Batcave.
Alphona is back on the art, which explains the awkwardness of the action scenes. Alphona goes crazy with the settings–this time an abandoned factory setting–and that detail distracts from the action. It's hard to discern foreground from background.
What's 100% about? It's about this club–the Cat Shack. One of the characters is a dancer there, another is a manager, another is a busboy, another is a prospective dancer. Writer and artist Paul Pope uses the club–which also has a dancer get murdered at the start of the story–as a central location; it's the embodiment of the setting. But Pope gets away from it enough throughout, it never feels forced.
Casey goes with a four-way split on this issue of Captain Victory. There's the original spaceship, hunting down the Captain Victory clones who are off who knows where. Then there's the full-grown, yet battle damaged Captain Victory who doesn't remember anything exactly; he's getting in fights on a garbage planet. He's not particularly interesting and Casey doesn't give Fox a lot of great stuff to draw on his story.
It's funny, but George Tuska really brings the book around. He's just filling in, but Conway's got Multiplex (Firestorm's foe since the second issue of the original series) getting all the villains together–although Firestorm's rogues gallery doesn't have a clubhouse–to attack him. Or something.
A Hollywood screenwriter discovers his creation has sort of come to life and he also has a brain tumor. The writer, not the creation.
It's another high concept issue from Pasko. He's got McCoy meeting his estranged daughter for the first time in years–she's marrying a Vulcan (a much, much older one), he's got the Enterprise landing on The Planet of the Apes and how it plays out when the Klingons get there. Pasko plays a lot with the Apes thing, working in all sorts of genre stuff from outside. For a few pages, it all feels like a mystery, and for the last few pages, Pasko goes for difficult character work.
Akin and Garvey’s inks are a little better this issue. Not much, but a little. There are a lot of action sequences and most of them come off well, as does Firestorm’s trip to the sun. Martin has some theories about their powers and wants to investigate; for a moment, Firestorm feels like sci-fi and it works better for it. Conway’s engaged and imaginative.
The Stop Button 