The Wicked + The Divine 4 (September 2014)

The Wicked + The Divine #4 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.

McKelvie makes a very interesting choice with the gods’ hangout chamber. It looks like Tron. Not a little like Tron, exactly like it. Only the protagonist is too young to make the reference.

So then there is a lot of talking and a lot of banter from the various gods and none of it’s good. Gillen spends almost half the issue on exposition he could summarize in a paragraph.

The second scene is the protagonist and Lucifer. It’s even slighter.

It’s all about the gimmick, not the protagonist.

B-

CREDITS

Writer, Kieron Gillen; artist, Jamie McKelvie; colorist, Matthew Wilson; letterer, Clayton Cowles; editor, Chrissy Williams; publisher, Image Comics.

The Wicked + The Divine 3 (August 2014)

The Wicked + The Divine #3 Something is a little off this issue. Gillen has maybe run out of establishing stuff to do and he’s getting underway with the actual story. This young woman investigating the gods and just happening to see some amazing stuff like a god-fight.

The fight, which is full of banter between the gods, is just filler. Gillen’s strengths on the comic clearly aren’t going to be the investigative scenes and this issue doesn’t have much besides those. Except the protagonist and her sidekick recapping what they know at the end. It doesn’t go over well either.

A lot of the problem is McKelvie. Most of the issue feels like someone trying to carefully mimic his style and even when it does feel like him… it feels very rushed. And without solid art, Wicked + Divine’s problems start to show. You start looking behind the curtain for the Wizard.

It’s too bad.

B-

CREDITS

Writer, Kieron Gillen; artist, Jamie McKelvie; colorist, Matthew Wilson; letterer, Clayton Cowles; editor, Chrissy Williams; publisher, Image Comics.

The Wicked + The Divine 2 (July 2014)

The Wicked + The Divine #2 The last few pages are mostly text. It’s decent text, so Gillen can kind of get away with the hard cliffhanger and not actually have to do much. He doesn’t really do much in this issue all together, except write really good characters. He has his protagonist discovering the whole returned god thing as she goes along, which is great since the reader’s doing the same thing. It’s not heavy lifting.

But the concept is sort of heavy lifting and not because of the returned god thing, but because of the history. For whatever reason, giving Wicked a backstory makes the whole series seem deeper than it may actually turn out to measure.

Gillen also knows how to best utilize McKelvie; he does a phenomenal job this issue. Even with the slight illustrations on the text pages. Well, most of them.

It’s a good comic. Not earth shattering, just good.

CREDITS

Writer, Kieron Gillen; artist, Jamie McKelvie; colorist, Matthew Wilson; letterer, Clayton Cowles; editor, Chrissy Williams; publisher, Image Comics.

The Wicked + The Divine 1 (June 2014)

The Wicked + The Divine #1 I read a few scenes in The Wicked + The Divine too fast and got confused about whether Jamie McKelvie was drawing boys who look like girls or girls who look like boys. It’s the latter but, dang, was it confusing for a page or so.

It’s a very high concept series, though old gods living among hipsters is the latest thing in comics. A teenage girl finds herself hanging out with these reincarnated gods and angels–writer Kieron Gillen is obviously enjoying having Lucifer as a character.

But lots of time is wasted in the issue revealing this situation to the reader. Gillen uses a lot of music references, including what might be an ABBA one (oh, I hope so), and that approach does give the comic an in-joke feeling. When the reader gets it, the scene’s better.

Slow start, excellent finish. Hopefully Gillen improves the formula going forward.

CREDITS

Writer, Kieron Gillen; artist, Jamie McKelvie; colorist, Matthew Wilson; letterer, Clayton Cowles; editor, Chrissy Williams; publisher, Image Comics.

Osborn (2011) #1

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The first thing I noticed about Osborn is the Emma Rios artwork. She reminds of Paul Pope in a lot of ways. She’s very good, able to mix the implied evil and then the lighter comic moments with the Daily Bugle cast.

The second thing I noticed was the implication Peter Parker was rushing off a reporter to engage in some sort of sexual congress, possibility receiving the very clearly implied fellatio from his female colleague. I’m not up on my Spider-Man, so I don’t know if he’s dating her but it doesn’t seem like it. Does Disney know about this series?

Kelly Sue DeConnick is a smart writer, mixing the sensationalism (Norman Osborn’s a celebrity in the Marvel Universe, after all) with the more mundane newspaper reporting and prison procedures.

The Warren Ellis backup is cute (the Jamie McKelvie art helps on that front) but sort of unnecessary.

Phonogram: The Singles Club (2008) #7

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Gillen mildly redeems himself–not really, he avoided the most interesting characters in Singles Club and filled three issues with malarky, but somewhat–with an almost wordless issue featuring Kid-With-Knife, another supporting cast member from the first series. He ends up with the girl from the first issue, the one we’re not supposed to like.

Otherwise, the story is mostly just a silent street adventure. Kid-With-Knife is a superhero too, in addition to being Gillen’s only likable character. He saves these people from being mugged and leads the muggers on a chase.

It’s got a lot of nice art from McKelvie.

There are four backups this issue and they sort of ruin the high Gillen was on. All of them are pointless, none of them make a real impression of any kind.

Except maybe the Cloonan one… only because it’s a completely idiotic waste of time.

Phonogram: The Singles Club (2008) #6

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Wow.

Gillen wants the reader to through pages and pages of poorly written text with bad punctuation. The writing eventually gets so bad I had to give it up.

Here, instead of a bad person in Phonogram, Gillen wants the reader to enjoy making fun of the loser. I’m not sure why he included this character in the story, since he brings nothing to it except some laughs–and this issue clearly shows Gillen can’t stretch it out.

It’s a strange thing to be asked to dislike a character; Gillen has done it twice now. I’m not sure why he thinks it makes Phonogram worthwhile. I do like how the last page (seemingly unintentionally) implies the character is gay.

The backups, with art by PJ Holden and Adam Cadwell, are nice.

The Holden one is actually a good story, even with Gillen’s bad narration. The Cadwell one has good art.

Phonogram: The Singles Club (2008) #5

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Here we get the story of another depressed girl–she opens the issue cutting herself–and she tells most of her story in quotes from songs. While it’s admirable how much work Gillen put into finding those quotes and making them work in the narration, it’s not good writing. His first person narrator is talking directly to the reader, which makes absolutely no sense but he also can’t pull it off.

It doesn’t help the story is generally bad too. She’s a boring caricature. At least his other caricatures so far in Singles Club have been sensational.

It feels a little like Gillen’s running out of enthusiasm for the series overall. This issue has only one backup story, illustrated by Boultwood. Gillen concentrates on funny lines, which is fine for a backup, but Boultwood’s style doesn’t lend itself to sight gags.

The main story doesn’t even have a satisfying conclusion.

Phonogram: The Singles Club (2008) #4

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Whether Gillen intends it to be or not, this issue is more a concept issue than anything else. The protagonists are the two DJs at the club and we pretty much don’t see anyone but them for the entire issue. There’s a lot of affected dialogue, but Gillen can get away with it because of the concept.

Unfortunately, it leaves McKelvie with almost nothing to do. He’s drawing the same panel over and over, maybe some differences in expression, but most of the expressions get repeated eventually. Because of the design, it works fine… it’s just not particularly interesting once finished reading it.

As opposed to the previous issues, Gillen has no insight into the characters. He’s intentionally writing caricatures, not doing so because of limitations.

The backups–one by David Lafuente and one by Charity Larrison–are useless.

Lafuente’s art is good. The Larrison one is pointless, but pleasant.

Phonogram: The Singles Club (2008) #3

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Not sure how you’re supposed to read this one. Gillen’s protagonist this issue is Emily, a supporting cast member from the first series. But it ends with her having casual sex with a complete stranger in order to forget her past. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to judge her for it–Gillen would probably argue any judgment is a misogynistic response–but if we aren’t supposed to judge her for it, why does Gillen make it so clear she’s truly unhappy? And if she is truly unhappy, isn’t he just using a woman and her suffering the way he complained about indie bands doing in the first issue?

It goes round and round.

Great art from McKelvie and the issue’s solid even if the intent is fuzzy.

The Gallagher backup (retelling the first series) is awesome. The O’Connor one is lame because Gillen’s making some kind of music commentary.