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Snapshots for 6/29/05
There's no way that Don and I can cover all of the material we have for review in full reviews, so these capsule reviews will offer some brief comments on other recent releases.
DEATH JR. #2
by Gary Whitta & Ted Naifeh (Image Comics)
 The first issue of Death Jr. was a surprising delight, and the second issue is no different. Well, in terms of quality. In terms of story, Death Jr. #2 is a bit darker, and the story continues on from a relatively small plot point in number one, making it very accessible and standalone even if you missed out on the first issue. Whitta tells a tale of kids wanting to grow up and the influences, good and bad, on us at that age using his naive but well-meaning Death Jr. as the focus character. DJ makes some dumb decisions in here, but you never feel he's dumb, just inexperienced and manipulated. There's some real darkness here, as DJ goes on a couple killing sprees, but they're played offscreen mostly for humorous effect, which is a tricky balancing act of tone that absolutely works. Naifeh (with additional colors by Craig Phillips) looks great here, with an especially nice job on Death and "Uncle Mo," a pair of characters who have a more "adult" look that contrasts with the quirky kid vibe of the rest of the art but which jibes with that style at the same time. Forget about the videogame tie-in... Death Jr. is a really fun, beautiful and interesting comic taken on its own merits.
ELK'S RUN #2
by Gary Hale Fialkov & Noel Tuazon (Hoarse and Buggy Productions)
 Elk's Run is an unusual kind of horror comic. Make no mistake, despite the deliberately slow pacing and lack of any kind of supernatural elements, this is a horror comic, but it's about the horrors that human beings can perpetrate on one another in the name of their beliefs and their cause. This kind of fanaticism coupled with violence is particularly applicable to our modern world, and Elk's Run always leaves me more than a little creeped out, realizing that people like the folks who founded Elk's Run exist in our world. This issue gives us an insight into one of the town founders, and his experience in Vietnam that helped shape his worldview, and it's creepy all the more because we see it from his point of view, and you can sort of see the rationale for his monstrous actions even while considering them monstrous. The artwork by Noel Tuazon and colorist Scott Keating goes a long way towards creating that atmosphere, although I have to be honest and say that it is a bit too sketchy for me in a lot of ways, and key storytelling points aren't always clear on first read. In addition, the plotting is slow paced, which is a deliberate choice but which might put off some looking for a story to grab them more quickly. Elk's Run is something completely different from the work that Fialkov is putting out in his contributions to Western Tales of Terror, but it is definitely still in the horror vein and definitely intriguing.
FORGOTTEN REALMS #1
by R.A. Salvatore, Andrew Dabb, Tim Seeley & Andrew Pepoy(Devil's Due Productions)
 I admit it freely, I'm a gamer geek. Been playing Dungeons & Dragons about as long as I've been reading comics, and though I'm nowhere near as into role-playing games as many, I do still have a regular gaming group. I've always thought that the worlds of Dungeons & Dragons had rich potential for storytelling, but more often than not, the resulting translations to other media are boring (see many of the modern D&D comics) or godawful (see the D&D movie.) Devil's Due seems to have hit upon what seemed obvious to me from the start, and that was making use of the world material that Wizards of the Coast (publishers of D&D) have put together over the years. And so we get a new Forgotten Realms comic, the first one since DC's solid efforts in the '80s that I can read and enjoy. This particular comic is an adaptation of the Dark Elf Trilogy, the origin of D&D's "Wolverine," the dark elf Drizzt Do'Urden. I haven't read these particular Drizzt novels, but I think that Dabb, Seeley and Pepoy did a pretty good job of capturing the ruthless society of Forgotten Realms drow as well as the exotic nature of their underground setting and the ever-present worship of their dark goddess and resulting magic. If you have no particular fondness for D&D, I don't know that Forgotten Realms will have as much to offer, but those looking for a sort of "pop" fantasy comic with strong artwork and interesting characters should definitely give it a look.
GIRLS #2
by The Luna Brothers (Image Comics)
 Well, I wasn't expecting that. Girls already had the appearance of being a little bit off-the-beaten path in terms of concepts, but the final page of this issue takes a turn I did not see coming, and I confess that I am now anxiously awaiting the next issue to see where the story goes from here. The Luna Brothers are telling a story of a small town hit by unusual events, but the focus in these first two issues is mostly on the "small town" and less on the "unusual events," which allows them to build up an intriguing cast of characters whose human foibles are plenty evident in the way that they act toward one another. None of the characters are 100% likable, but they all feel pretty real in this issue, and the foundation of reality makes for more effective shocks when the weird elements begin to intrude. And as always, the Lunas' animated cel style artwork looks terrific.
NAT TURNER #1
by Kyle Baker (Kyle Baker Publishing)
 In this, the early days of the 21st century, everyone who matters now realizes in their gut the inherent wrongness of slavery, the abhorrent horror that it represents, the stain on humanity as a whole. Reading Nat Turner #1, however, one is pulled into a visual translation of that gut feeling, as Baker wordlessly illustrates the attack on an African village by slavers, the transport of the slaves across the ocean and the treatment of slaves as not even cattle but as product, no different from dry goods or other merchandise being transported. The silence is very effective, as Baker is forced to rely on stark, shocking images that instantly convey the horrors of the situation. A woman forced to step over her countrymen and women in order to reach a boat that will take her to a life of slavery and abuse. Hundreds of men and women stripped naked and stacked under a ship's deck, with only rats and their dead to keep them company. A baby born into this environment, only to reach an ending that is at once terrible and (at least in the eyes of one slave) a mercy, better than the life that awaits the rest of them. What's amazing is that even with this dire subject matter, Baker manages to make the book exciting on its own terms and not just dwell on the shocking subject matter. The action sequence as Nat's mother tries to fight off the slavers is fantastic, exceptionally choreographed, and a visual symbol of her inner strength as potent as the symbols of the oppression that follow her capture. Nat Turner #1 is the foundation upon which the tale of Nat Turner, slave turned revolutionary, is founded, and Baker has me anxious to read the rest.
QUEEN & COUNTRY DECLASSIFIED VOL 3 #1
by Antony Johnston & Christopher Mitten (Oni Press)
 Some Queen & Country fans might have been nervous about this, the first Q&C story not written by Greg Rucka. They needn't have worried, because Johnston and Mitten knock it out of the park, delivering a tense political thriller set in the midst of the ongoing war between the IRA and the SAS with a story that kicks off in an incident from over 20 years ago. Johnston has keyed into the secret of Declassified, which is that each of them seems to be about a particular time and place for espionage, and his exploration of the Irish separatist movement and their interactions with SAS are fascinating. The brutality and anger on both sides, the emergence of a politician who is trying to change things (admirable, given her own personal run-in with the IRA at a young age) and the fanatical, psychotic drive of a longtime IRA member just released from prison all come to vivid life in these pages. Mitten provides art that captures the chaos of battle effectively, and his style here is clear and enjoyable, reminiscent of Ted Naifeh's work in a lot of ways. Queen & Country is sort of a sporadic pleasure these days, but it's always worth a look when it comes out, and Declassified Volume 3 is no exception.
RUNAWAYS VOL. 2 #5
by Brian K. Vaughan, Adrian Alphona & Craig Yeung (Marvel Comics)
 Nice twist. That's all I'll say in regards to this issue, which was definitely one of the stronger issues of the Runaways relaunch. Victor Mancha's father is finally revealed, and I have to say, it's a clever bit of misdirection that I never saw coming. I predicted one twist, but not the other. Alphona, Yeung and colorist Christina Strain do some great superhero action, as well as a clever take on a classic Marvel villain that fits visually right in with the style of Runaways. The Excelsior team also gets relatively little screen time this issue, but what they do have is promising, as it hints that maybe the obvious story ("their benefactor is evil") might not be as it seemed either. So the strong twists and turns of plotting that I've come to expect from Runaways are back in full force with this issue, and the terrific, Whedon-esque dialogue never left, and the book is back on top of my hit list again.
SOLO #5
by Darwyn Cooke (DC Comics)
 No surprise here: I loved it. But then, I'm a huge Darwyn Cooke fan, have been since Batman: Ego, and I expected that his issue of Solo would be my favorite of the bunch so far. Cooke uses a framing device featuring what is probably his favorite DC character, set in a sort of out-of-continuity place that feels like the hipster '50s that Cooke's work embodies in a lot of ways, and these vividly colored interstitials are as fun as the stories that they introduce. There's a lot of variety in those stories as well. There's "World's Window," the sepia-toned, touching and heartfelt look at Cooke's introduction to the magic of art. There's "King of America," a stunningly beautiful espionage adventure set in '50s Cuba. There's "Everyday Weirdness," an EC-style story that blends humor, comedy and oddball horror in all the right measures. There's "Deja Vu," a Batman tale that shows Batman at his scariest and most effective, even though in reality he's already failed in his own mind. Then there's my favorite tale, which puts "The Question" into a politically-charged story about precise revenge on some of those who caused 9/11 while condemning those who have used the tragedy to forward their own agenda. I've been loving The Question on Justice League Unlimited, and Cooke's take is similar to that but even stronger. I'd love to see more of Cooke's Question or King Faraday work based on the short stories here. Or, for that matter, a Slam Bradley ongoing. Or, hell, a regular anthology like this one where he could show off to the degree that he does here. This is the kind of thing that I was hoping for when Solo was created, and will no doubt register as one of my favorite comic books published this year.
SPIDER-MAN/HUMAN TORCH #5
by Dan Slott, Ty Templeton, Drew Geraci & Greg Adams (Marvel Comics)
 There are not a lot of people reading this miniseries, so a lot of folks are going to miss not only five really good Spider-Man and Human Torch stories, but a big turning point for both characters that happens in this issue. I don't want to spoil it, but I think it's at least as big as Spider-Man joining the Avengers, is somewhat related and is long overdue in terms of the relationship between the characters. Also, and this is a key, this big turning point is part of the story, but it isn't the entirety of it. Instead, this story serves as a summing up of Spidey and Torch's friendship/rivalry (by replaying key moments from the miniseries for humorous effect) as well as delivering a standalone action/superhero story right out of the old school but set in modern continuity. The artwork again is solid but heavily inked, and the change in inkers to the Geraci and Adams confirmed what I had suspected, that the heavy inks were not a failure on the part of Nelson but a deliberate change in the artwork to make it more closely resemble the work of John Romita Sr. A shame, as Templeton's own natural style would have suited these stories better, even if it didn't quite evoke the "old school" look quite as strongly. At any rate, Spider-Man/Human Torch has been a lot of fun, and this last issue actually introduces a prety important bit of continuity for fans of the characters. Check out the digest when it hits, it's worth your time.
THE SURROGATES #1
by Robert Venditti & Brett Weldele (Top Shelf Productions)
 Top Shelf, best known for black and white original graphic novels, takes a departure from the norm with this full color science-fiction miniseries, and the risk pays off big. Venditti & Weldele spin a tale of cops in a world where people hardly ever come out of their home, instead sending out robot "surrogates" that they link up to in order to feel and live. Wrapped around an intriguing murder mystery, Surrogates offers up both "hard" science-fiction (exploring the blending of modern-day Internet technology and theoretical advances in robotics) and "soft" science-fiction (exploring the sociological ramifications of techonological perfection and what it means to be human). Brett Weldele delivers some of the best art I've seen from him, with gorgeous, evocative color and as a bonus features, the issue includes a little text piece, a scholarly dissertation on surrogate technology that provides some nice flavor. Good speculative science-fiction is rare in comics, and The Surrogates is not to be missed.
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