After everything I said last weekend about December being a quiet month, this is the heaviest week for new releases in quite a while.\u00a0 Throw in a batch of X-minis (though curiously, none of the regular ongoing titles), and I’ve got an awful lot to cover here.\u00a0 So…<\/p>\n
The Anchor<\/em> #3<\/strong> – This is Phil Hester and Brian Churilla’s ongoing series for Boom! Studios.\u00a0 We reviewed the first issue on the podcast a couple of months ago, and then I more or less forgot to order issue #2.\u00a0 Oh well.\u00a0 The premise, you might recall, is that there’s this immortal guy who holds off demon armies in hell, and simultaneously exists in the real world where he fights giant monsters.\u00a0 That makes him an explicitly Christian superhero (the eponymous anchor is the St Clement’s Cross he wears on his belt), but it isn’t one of those toe-curling evangelical books.\u00a0 It’s really only a Christian comic in the same sense that Thor<\/em> is about worshipping Odin.\u00a0 The story focusses on the “real world” version of the Anchor, and it’s the old standard plot where the army wants to figure out what makes this guy tick.\u00a0 Naturally, they can’t get very far with him.\u00a0 Churilla’s art seems to have drifted into slightly more cartoonish territory since issue #1, when he was doing something closer to Hester’s style, but it works very well.\u00a0 Inventive and interesting, and so far it’s managing to make use of Christian mythology in a way which works whether you believe in it or not.<\/p>\n Anywhere<\/em> #1<\/strong> – A six-issue mini written by Tom Akel, who’s a producer at Comedy Central.\u00a0 Arcana Press have priced the first issue at a dollar, so they evidently have faith in it.\u00a0 It’s a comedy book about two undermotivated superheroes, Dust and Wormhole.\u00a0 Back in the nineties they’d have been called slackers.\u00a0 In practice, they do as little actually superheroing as they can get away with, and just wander aroud getting drunk instead.\u00a0 All of which is fine as a starting point, but the problem with this first issue is that it’s pretty much totally plotless.\u00a0 An actual mission emerges out of the blue two pages from the end, but the rest of the story is just a bit of a directionless meander.\u00a0 To be fair, the characters acknowledge it (“We take it that you, the reader, are wondering where this is going, and so are we”), so it’s obviously a deliberate choice, but it’s really too<\/em> formless and shapeless, at least for a first issue.\u00a0 Some of it’s passably amusing, but as a whole, it doesn’t work.<\/p>\n Black Widow: Deadly Origin<\/em> #2<\/strong> – Looks like this is going to be one of those awkward stories where Paul Cornell tries to square all the different things that have been said about the Black Widow’s back story at different times by heavy use of the “brainwashing” explanation.\u00a0 I’m not convinced about this.\u00a0 Natasha has several perfectly viable and straightforward origin stories, but blending them all together like this results in somebody you can’t identify with at all, and who is literally less than the sum of her parts.\u00a0 John Paul Leon’s art on the flashback sequences is wonderful, however.<\/p>\n Dark X-Men<\/em> #2<\/strong> – If you prefer, it’s issue #2 of a Nate Grey series, told from the perspective of Norman Osborn’s beleaguered X-Men – a mixture of pressganged villains and the genially disturbed.\u00a0 I realise that a Dark X-Men series also starring the late and largely unlamented Nate Grey doesn’t sound <\/em>like an especially attractive prospect, but it’s actually turning out to be quite a smart move.\u00a0 If you don’t really want to read about Norman Osborn’s mock X-Men, well, here’s an actual legitimate X-character.\u00a0 And since Nate was never very well-developed, he works better viewed from the perspective of other characters who are more rounded.\u00a0 This is the second Paul Cornell comic of the week, and it’s the better one – it’s got the big ideas and sense of humour that worked in Captain Britain & MI-13<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Daytripper<\/em> #1<\/strong> – A new Vertigo miniseries by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon.\u00a0 Apparently it’s going to be a series of individual stories about Bras de Oliva Domingos, a wannabe writer, each one showing an important day in his life.\u00a0 The idea is presumably that the whole thing should add up into a really thorough portrait of the character.\u00a0 It’s an unusual structure, and if they pull it off, this could be something very special.\u00a0 By the way, since it’s a Vertigo book, it’s probably worth mentioning that there’s no surrealism or supernatural elements here; it’s a straight drama.\u00a0 The first issue picks up with Bras working as an obituary writer, talking up people who have evidently had rather more satisfying lives than him.\u00a0 Understated, and definitely a story to watch.<\/p>\n God Complex<\/em> #1<\/strong> – Michael Avon Oeming’s new project from Image.\u00a0 It’s a world where the gods of Olympus secretly returned to Earth at around the time of the industrial revolution (not quite sure about the thematic link there, but okay), and there are superheroes wandering around LA who might or might not be connected with them.\u00a0 Apollo gets bored with being a god and decides to go rogue.\u00a0 It’s not wholly dissimilar to the current set-up in Incredible Hercules<\/em>, which in many ways does it better.\u00a0 Apollo himself is a fairly standard character, and the romantic interest is sketchy at best.\u00a0 That said, something about the idea of hidden religions still existing alongside the real world (complete with underground worshippers) does kind of work.\u00a0 It’s patchy, but it has its moments.<\/p>\n Murderer<\/em> #1<\/strong> – A “Pilot Season” one-shot from Robert Kirkman and… well, they’re crediting Marc Silvestri as co-creator of the character, but the actual story is drawn by one Nelson Blake II.\u00a0 And it’s very much a pilot episode, as planned.\u00a0 Jason is a telepath who hears other people’s voices in his head, which means that he can identify baddies.\u00a0 (There’s actually a bit more to it than that, but explaining the rest would spoil the ending.)\u00a0 Basically, it’s Dexter<\/em> with telepathy, but I suppose that means it could be expanded into a series if need be.\u00a0 To be honest, though, I think it’s the sort of concept that probably works better as a one-off story; this issue makes the point and makes it well enough, but it doesn’t feel like something with enough depth to support an ongoing title.<\/p>\n Nation X<\/em> #1 <\/strong>– Yet another relocation for the X-Men means yet another anthology miniseries.\u00a0 And as usual, it’s a mixed bag.\u00a0 Simon Spurrier and Leonard Kirk’s “Ghost of Asteroid M” has a nice idea about Magneto finding a message that he once left for people who defeated him, but doesn’t work it up into a decent story.\u00a0 James Asmus and Michael Allred’s “Road Trip” is a string of disconnected stuff, some quite good on their own,\u00a0that doesn’t add up to anything in particular.\u00a0 Chris Yost and Michele Bertiolernzi’s Iceman story actually does have a proper plot, not to mention a reasonable idea about Iceman having trouble adjusting to minor characters seeing him as some sort of elder statesman.\u00a0 And Scott Snyder and David Lopez do a decent character piece with Colossus and Magik, who’ve had surprisingly little panel time together since she was brought back – I question why something like this hasn’t been done in one of the regular titles, but this story does it well enough.\u00a0 So there’s some good work here, but probably not enough to make this of interest outside the audience of X-completists.<\/p>\n Necrosha: The Gathering<\/em><\/strong> – An anthology one-shot explaining how Selene recruited her henchmen for the current “Necrosha-X” crossover.\u00a0 Which isn’t a great subject for an anthology, because it results in a lot of stories where characters mope for five pages, before Selene shows up.\u00a0 Aside perhaps from the Wither story, which tries to bridge the gap from where the character was left at the tail end of New X-Men<\/em>, there’s not much to any of these stories.\u00a0 The book does have some unusual artwork in its favour.\u00a0 Gabriel Hernandez Walta gets some interesting lo-fi visuals out of Blink’s piece (though the story itself seems to assume that everyone reading will remember plot details of the Phalanx Covenant storyline from the 1990s), and Leonardo Manco’s Senyaka sequence is beautiful stuff.\u00a0 But that aside, it’s forgettable stuff.<\/p>\n Phonogram: The Singles Club<\/em> #6<\/strong> – With this issue, we get to Lloyd, the embodiment of over-earnest fanzine culture.\u00a0 Which means that much of the issue is actually done in the style of a fanzine.\u00a0 And appropriately enough, even the rest of the issue doesn’t actually take place at the club with everyone else; for Lloyd, the point of experiencing the evening is to analyse it afterwards.\u00a0\u00a0In fact,\u00a0much the same could be said about his attitude to\u00a0music itself.\u00a0 Not, of course, that there’s necessarily anything wrong with\u00a0experiencing something for the sake of analysing it afterwards (heaven forfend); Lloyd’s problem is\u00a0more that\u00a0he’s seeing\u00a0everything in a rather humourless way and at one remove, and\u00a0he’s the classic teenage diarist who’s painfully unaware of how adolescent he actually is.\u00a0 I’m not quite sure that fanzines are the right reference point here, though; surely these days the average Lloyd is online.\u00a0 In particular, the fanzine aesthetic is<\/em> retro, which Lloyd is very keen to stress he isn’t.\u00a0 Then again, perhaps he’s ironically appropriating it – he’s the sort of person who’d think that was very clever<\/em>.<\/p>\n S.W.O.R.D.<\/em> #2<\/strong> – Ah, Death’s Head.\u00a0 And not just the later Death’s Head from the Marvel UK line, but the original Death’s Head who was the size of a Transformer.\u00a0 Some of this is playing to the UK crowd, but hell, the original DH was always a great character and well worth dusting off.\u00a0 Meanwhile, S.W.O.R.D. gets to work rounding up all the aliens on earth, which turns out to be a lot simpler than you’d apparently imagine.\u00a0 Obviously some of this isn’t going to stick – plotlines from Dark Avengers<\/em> aren’t going to be resolved in this title – but the book certainly isn’t afraid to go for the big scale.\u00a0 I’m still not sold on the art, which looks a little rough around the edges for my tastes, but the book’s got some real energy, and doesn’t take itself too seriously.\u00a0 And it’s funny.\u00a0 All of which makes it fun reading.<\/p>\n The Unwritten<\/em> #8<\/strong> – We’re in the middle of the “Inside Man” storyline, with Tom Taylor stuck on remand in a French prison, and so Mike Carey pauses for an issue to step back and show us the same story we’ve already seen from the perspective of the governor.\u00a0 Claude Chadron loves the Tommy Taylor books, and so do his kids… perhaps a little too much.\u00a0 That leaves him with some very conflicted thoughts about the books, and plenty of opportunity to take them out on Tom himself; after all, if there’s one thing that’s clearly<\/em> bad about the books, it’s Tom’s antics screwing with the minds of innocent kids.\u00a0 I love this series; Carey and Gross are\u00a0dealing with a really interesting and complex subject, the impact that a cultural phenomenon can have on people and the point where it becomes unhealthy, but they’re doing it with a very light touch.\u00a0 It really shows both creators at their best.<\/p>\n Wolverine: Under the Boardwalk<\/em><\/strong> – Yet another random Wolverine one-shot.\u00a0 Don’t ask me why they keep putting them out, perhaps there’s a huge market for this stuff somewhere in eastern Europe.\u00a0 Anyway, this is a noir story, where Logan is called back to Atlantic City to revisit a minor altercation from 40 years before.\u00a0 In the end, some things are explained but nothing much is resolved, and it all comes across as thoroughly inconsequential.\u00a0 In its favour, it does have art by Tomm Coker, but that’s something of a mixed blessing – a character who’s supposed to be in her sixties looks about half that, and when Wolverine shows up in costume (for no particular reason), he looks hopelessly at odds with the rest of the story.\u00a0 Not very good.<\/p>\n X-Men Forever<\/em> #13<\/strong> – Part 3 of “Black Magik”, and oh dear, it looks like Chris Claremont is returning to one of his pet themes again.\u00a0 Yes, it’s good old mind control and corruption, and while this book has largely steered clear of them so far, that doesn’t make them any more welcome now that they’re here.\u00a0 To be fair, this time round we do actually have a scene at the end which tries to suggest that people are choosing it willingly, so he might be going for a more interesting take on the subject than usual, but I’ve still seen him do this story so many times before that I don’t relish the prospect of sitting through it again.\u00a0 Fortunately, this is a fortnightly title, and there are plenty of more promising subplots being juggled, so if this one doesn’t work… well, there’ll be another one along shortly.\u00a0 Isn’t scheduling great?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After everything I said last weekend about December being a quiet month, this is the heaviest week for new releases in quite a while.\u00a0 Throw in a batch of X-minis (though curiously, none of the regular ongoing titles), and I’ve got an awful lot to cover here.\u00a0 So… The Anchor #3 – This is Phil […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-x-axis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions\/132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}