Quick Note…

All,

Just wanted to stop by, wish everyone a Happy Holiday, and update you on some things currently effecting the fledging Fiction House blog. My writing schedule has better adjusted to the new puppy this last week, with the help of a brand new hard drive for the once dead iBook, but I won’t be posting anything much until after the new year. I am working on a couple great secret things over the holidays, but more on those if things go according to plan. Hope each and every one of you are enjoying time with loved ones over the holidays, and I’ll be back in 2010. I believe the theme for next year will be “Not Dead Yet” around these parts, but more on that later.

By the by, colors for Miranda Mercury #297 are fully complete, and the triptych cover (and the announcement of the new colorist) are coming very soon. So at long last it’s on to the next one…

B

Double Stack- 12.2.09 & 12.9.09

Okay, so here’s what happened…the Wednesday before the last I went to the comic shop, as I typically do every Wednesday of course, but stay with me. I came home from this particular trip with only seven books, which is probably my lowest weekly tally in the last couple years. So I’m thinking that I should have enough time to both read the entire stack and post an edition of Stackology in the exact same afternoon with little problem. But then the mailman delivered the copy of Madden ‘10 I ordered for my brand new Playstation 3, and then things went a bit gloriously hazy. Combine that with the major shift in my daily writing schedule because of the new puppy, and the iBook recently dying, and my writing window is a little shorter than usual. But seriously…it’s really probably definitely because of Madden. So this week features two installments of Stackology smashed together for my convenience. And hopefully yours. We begin with the order for 12.2.09, which had so few books in it that it prompted me to violate some of my cardinal rules.

KING CITY #3 (IMAGE)
BLACKEST NIGHT WONDER WOMAN #1 (DC)
DARK AVENGERS ANNUAL #1 (MARVEL)
ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #5 (MARVEL)
UNCANNY X-MEN #518 (MARVEL)
SCALPED #33 (VERTIGO)
SIEGE THE CABAL #1 (MARVEL)

Things were obviously in Bendis’ favor this week, but he and Michael Lark’s exciting Siege prologue just barely edges past his Marvel Boy spotlight in the Dark Avengers Annual, which featured a new mission statement for the popular character and some great Bachalo art. Again I’m overtaken by Siege fever, just very excited at the prospect of a Marvel Universe that’s officially reached the other side after being gradually pulled apart by the events of Disassembled, Civil War, and the like. And the closer we get to that, the more excited I get for both the creators and the characters, as they’re freed from the gravitational pull of successive crossovers and over-arcing events. Who knows what kind of stories we’ll get from a post-Siege environment, where the heroes have finally reconciled, and are turning their attention back on the things (and people) they should’ve been on all along?

This is yet another important domino falling, and it’s obvious things aren’t going well as this issue starts with Osborn receiving a pep talk from his Green Goblin mask. And continues with the revelation that he’s begun replacing members of his broken cabal with people like the Taskmaster. It’s not long before Norman clashes with Doom, their secret meeting room no longer big enough for their clashing egos, but I was surprised at the scope and aftermath of Doom’s assault. Truly the beginning of the end here, and as enjoyable as Dark Reign has been, see thoughts above on my grand expectations for the future of Marvel’s flagship books. Great art from Michael Lark as well, who successfully turns things up a notch as Norman’s tower is dissolved in a haze of hungry Doom beetles. (by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Lark)

Now, onto the next week’s haul, which enjoys a much healthier number of books, I’m happy to report…

RED ROBIN #7 (DC)
VAMPIRELLA SECOND COMING #4 (HARRIS)
DAYS MISSING #5 (ARCHAIA)
PILOT SEASON MURDERER #1 (TOP COW)
UNWRITTEN #8 (VERTIGO)
DAYTRIPPER #1 (VERTIGO)
THE WALKING DEAD #68 (IMAGE)
GHOST RIDERS HEAVENS ON FIRE #5 (MARVEL)
SWORD #2 (MARVEL)
PUNISHERMAX #2 (MARVEL)
SECRET SIX #16 (DC)
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #614 (MARVEL)
NEW AVENGERS ANNUAL #3 (MARVEL)
INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #21 (MARVEL)

Love it when something in the middle of the pile clearly establishes itself as the frontrunner, and nothing else is able to ultimately push it out of that position. There’s some great stuff at the bottom there, but Daytripper was even better than I had hoped. Soon as this was announced I was all over it, as I was quite obsessed with Casanova at the time, and had bought the little De:Tales graphic novel the brothers had published through Dark Horse.

Again their writing proves more than a match for their tremendous artwork, and this is a series I will gladly purchase monthly, and then in whatever trade version Vertigo deems appropriate. My vote is for hardcover naturally, as this series starts with a bang, as we’re introduced to ambitious (yet somewhat blocked) writer Bras de Oliva Domingos, whose literary pedigree has been well established by his famous father who never remembers his birthday. Just some really great character work (and art) to be found here, and Bras is the kind of protagonist that you can easily build an entire series around. I might be projecting a bit because of his ambition to write things that really matter to him, or because of his daddy issues, or because of his cool dog and devoted significant other, but I wouldn’t mind reading about the ten most important days of this guy’s life. Great twist at the end, as well. Go and buy immediately. (by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon)

Just Listen- The Salvation

Actually finding a decent hip-hop album more than once a year has become a tiring process the last couple years, but every once in a while you’ll stumble across something that makes you wish most of the “hip-hop” on the radio would die a horrible, embarrassing, public death, and be replaced with more music like this. That’s a larger rant for another day however, as today I want to encourage all fans of that real hip-hop to take a good look (and listen) to Skyzoo’s sharp debut The Salvation. I’ve had my eye on emerging emcee Skyzoo for years now, because well, because he’s done some great songs with super producer 9th Wonder, who I’ve been following around like a helpless lemming for years now.

After touring the mixtape and guest appearance circuit for years, he finally drops a fully realized album, with pretty fantastic results. Lyrical content and versatility is matched by impressive production throughout, as the aforementioned 9th is joined by Just Blaze, Black Milk, Best Kept Secret, Illmind, and a few others, in creating one of the more promising debuts in years.

One of the standout tracks from the album, Return of the Real, is featured below, and of course, check out iTunes or Amazon for additional clips and such…

This is Why (New X-Men, pt. 3)

And now we bring things to an end, ladies and gentlemen…

Parts one and two are available at the preceding links, if you need to get all caught up. Last time we left off, we’d just talked about the Murder at the Mansion story arc, and its intentionally ambiguous ending, which made it clear that something was terribly awry at Xavier’s school. Oh yes, and Cyclops had just quit the team once again, rushing off to parts unknown, after Jean learned about the psychic affair he’d begun having with Emma Frost. Let’s bring it on home…

My Mutant Power (Issue 142)
Whoever thought that putting Scott and Logan in a strip club would be this much fun? The odd setup makes for some wonderful moments of absurdity, which also form an effective teaser for yet another major status quo shifting arc. Touched on this a bit earlier, but the newfound level of maturity and mutual respect that’s the cornerstone of this new relationship between Scott and Logan is a welcome development, and as seen here, can lead to great character moments for them both. Certainly in the past, Logan would be the first to try to capitalize on Scott and Jean’s marital problems, but here he gets Scott good and drunk on Jack Daniels, and then drags him into a dangerous adventure to get his mind off his woman troubles. And when Logan tells Fantomex, “This guy’s one of the best,” you know he means it…even with Scott currently passed out on the floor.

Weapon Plus (Issue 144)
One of the most interesting aspects of Fantomex’s introduction was his casual clarification that Weapon X has always really meant Weapon Ten. It was such a simple and clever distinction that I’m surprised no one thought of it before, but I suppose that’s why Grant Morrison has earned such an incredible reputation over the years. But this arc further expands on that grander vision for the history and the objectives of the secret government program that created Wolverine, and most of those ideas are his typical brand of greatness—just tossed out there like they were the most obvious things in the world, and just begging to be explored further. You ask me, there could be an entire book about The World, and all of the interesting things that go into building super soldiers to hunt down and contain the mutant race. The Euthanasium? The Alteration Chamber? Synthetic time? That’s some fantastic material right there.

It was also a great idea to incorporate guys like Captain America and Nuke into the history of the program. And putting the main base of operations in deep space as an answer to the timeless question, “Why can’t anyone ever find those Weapon X assholes?” Throw in a Scott Summers with performance issues, Fantomex, and Chris Bachalo, and you’ve got another bright spot in a series that has already had several up to this point.

Star Brain (Issue 146)
So here we are at the infamous revelation that Xorn was really Magneto in disguise. This issue really works, regardless of your personal thoughts about the overall ruse, because of the sense of dread it creates with every scene, everything falling like dominoes until Charles’ terrible discovery. Finally we learn what’s really been going on with Xorn’s special class, who’s been pumping Kick into the campus, and what really prompted the attack on Emma Frost. And it’s all connected by a campaign that’s been in play almost as long as this incarnation of the book has existed.

Again though, I wish it were clued in a little earlier, maybe even as far back as the character’s first appearance in the ‘01 annual. While appreciating what a cool turn it was at this stage, I instantly had a stack of logistical questions. How did Magneto actually escape Genosha during the massive Sentinel attack? Was there ever a real Xorn, or was he a complete fiction from the start? How did he conceal himself from three of the world’s most powerful psychics for what appears to be months? Most importantly though—why go to all the trouble for yet another ultimately futile attempt at embarrassing Xavier and beating the X-Men? We’re going to get into that last one in just a bit, but on the face of it, this was an incredibly clever stratagem that effectively gave Magneto the one thing he could never quite manage on his own—absolute trust. Which he naturally abused of course, but more on that later.

Always A Way (Issue 148)
It’s a pretty decent trap, you have to admit—Jean and Logan, the two heaviest hitters on the entire team, trapped on the wreckage of Asteroid M on a one-way trip into the sun. But Magneto hasn’t been paying attention to the rest of Morrison’s run apparently, because this is the all-new, all different, and slightly more impossible Jean Grey. I mean, you’d think that having spent so much time around her these last couple months, he’d know that all previous bets are off. That whatever he thinks she’s capable of doing, it’d be safer if he just took that and multiplied it by a hundred. Because like she told Charles several issues ago during one of her Phoenix manifestations, being able to tap into that almost infinite power source is, “…how it feels to be the last hope…and to know you’ll win against all odds.” And these look like some terrible odds, right? So you know Jean’s gotta have one last trick up her sleeve to give the X-Men a necessary edge against Magneto…too bad she had to die first…

Xavier School is the Best School (Issue 150)
Despite his clever little Xorn identity, this latest assault by Magneto officially confirms that he is truly a remnant of the distant past, with no new perspectives or fresh ideas to offer the future of mutant kind, or this book for that matter. For all his planning and subterfuge, once he gets an opportunity to affect some real change, the only thing he can think to do is blow everything up. Or turn Manhattan into a pretzel. Stand in front of people that see him as some mutant folk hero and savior, promising them things he has no capacity or intention to deliver. In the world of New X-Men, he’s little more than a fossil that refuses to evolve with everyone else around him, doing nothing but coming back over and over again with the same threat of reversing the earth’s magnetic poles. He’s your typical supervillian in a series and framework that’s become larger than him, and the only way he can even hope to keep up is by using drugs. The end of Planet X was written the second he removed Xorn’s helmet and revealed himself.

Before too long, the X-Men are going to escape their respective deathtraps, regroup, and then take him down. This time it’s a little different, likely reflecting how far beyond him everyone else has evolved. His special class quickly learns they’ve been sold magic beans. Cyclops, with absolutely no doubt at all that his friends are still alive, leads the assault and rediscovers his optic blast, firing it directly into Magneto’s helmet and setting his entire head on fire. And then Wolverine delivers the killing blow, after Mags’ last-ditch attack on Jean Grey.

Magneto just doesn’t get that he’s a symbol of everything “wrong” and backwards about superhero comics, and that he’s being made an example of. If it’s true that coming back from the dead is his secondary mutation, maybe next time it’ll be with something different or more interesting to say. I think it says a lot that he was infinitely more interesting when he was pretending to be someone else, which I believe Ernst actually says while he’s in the midst of one of his villainous rants.

Inherit the Earth (Issue 154)
Only Morrison would end an entire run like this, with an arc that takes a handful of his plot threads and ideas from the last few years, mashes them all together, and fires them 150 years into the far flung future. I have always loved the title of this arc, Here Comes Tomorrow, but even more interesting than that is the course of the entire future hinging on an important decision by Scott Summers. For a Cyclops nut like myself, the idea that what appears to be a fairly unimportant decision about he and Emma taking over the school being the one thing that literally cracks the world in half offers some sort of strange validation that’s difficult to explain. I mean, I’ve always considered Summers the lynchpin of the entire franchise, but this story went to incredible extremes to solidify that viewpoint.

And it also spoke to the larger importance of the Emma/Scott relationship, which obviously was to become even more crucial than it initially appeared. A well orchestrated redemption arc for Emma, and a fine emotional note to leave us with, after a highly explosive beginning. The fact that Jean offered her blessing was another nice touch, and like I said before, even in Grant Morrison comics all you need is love. Something very refreshing about that, I think.

 

So there we go, folks, over three dozen issues of New X-Men come and gone. Hope you all enjoyed this series, and that you’ll come back for the upcoming complement digging into Whedon and Cassaday’s spiritual successor Astonishing X-Men.

New X-Men, by Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, Phil Jimenez, Igor Kordey, Ethan Van Sciver, John Paul Leon, and Keron Grant…this is why I love comics.

Additional thoughts and discussion of the entire series are welcome below, as always.

Stackology- 11.25.09

Because of the holiday, I wasn’t able to tear through this week’s batch of releases at my usual frantic pace, but that didn’t diminish the strength of this particular stack one bit. As something of a ballpark measure, in your typical week, Amazing Spider-Man will always drift towards the bottom, but this time it’s nowhere even near that. So here we are again, in that final shipping week of the month, with a pile of books filled with some of my favorite creators and monthly titles, yet forced to pick a favorite. Would it be Invincible Iron Man, which featured what has to be the monologue of the year from Tony Stark? Or would it be the New Avengers doing their best Ocean’s Eleven impression, aided by some simply awe-inspiring artwork from Stuart Immonen? In Blackest Night things took another horrible turn, and a victory grows more and more impossible with every issue. However, as it was last month around this time, J.H. Williams and Detective Comics impresses the most.

DAYS MISSING #4 (ARCHAIA)
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #39 (DC)
UNKNOWN SOLDIER #14 (VERTIGO)
FANTASTIC FOUR #573 (MARVEL)
CHEW #6 (IMAGE)
SECRET WARRIORS #10 (MARVEL)
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #613 (MARVEL)
ULTIMATE COMICS AVENGERS #4 (MARVEL)
SUPERMAN SECRET ORIGIN #3 (DC)
UNCANNY X-MEN #517 (MARVEL)
GREEN LANTERN #48 (DC)
POWERS #1 (MARVEL)
INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #20 (MARVEL)
NEW AVENGERS #59 (MARVEL)
DETECTIVE COMICS #859 (DC)
BLACKEST NIGHT #5 (DC)

One sequence (honestly, one panel) was the deciding factor this week. This installment continues its run through Kate Kane’s beginnings, and though it was important to see her stand up for herself when confronted about article 125, and how exactly she met Montoya, I wasn’t as blown away as I was by the opening chapter. For a short while, anyway. Until I reached that final scene where Kate has a fateful run-in with a certain Dark Knight, while fending off a mugger. Which shouldn’t have been that exceptional a thing on its own, but what Williams and colorist Dave Stewart did with the art here was truly remarkable. Until this point, Williams was employing two very distinct styles for the past and present narratives, but in this sequence, both styles come together in a very subtle, yet beautiful way. Two characters that are rendered in two completely different visual styles touch one another, and you can feel that everything is going to change for one of them after this moment. I know we should all be used to this type of thing by now, but man, no one illustrates a comic book like this guy. If you’re not buying this (or planning to once it hits trade) I feel sorry for you. Seriously. (by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III)

This is Why (New X-Men, pt.2)

My personal excavation of Grant Morrison’s New X-Men run continues. When we left off last week, the X-Men had just repelled a Shi’ar offensive cleverly orchestrated by Cassandra Nova Xavier, whose evil genocidal brain was secretly hidden in Charles Xavier’s body. But the good guys pulled it out in the end, thanks to the incredible psychic feats of Jean Grey-Summers, and when the smoke cleared, Charles had regained full use of his legs. Additional details and gushing can be found here.

Now let’s get it going once again…

Fantomex (Issues 129-130)
Another great new character from Morrison, that I’m pleased to see making a bit of a resurgence in recent (and coming) months. He always felt extremely promising to me in this particular arc—another Weapon X escapee slightly more “advanced” than Wolverine, with an equally mysterious past, and a personality surrounded by an impenetrable veil of overpowering arrogance. And this is even before you take into account that his partner is a cool ass flying saucer housing his entire nervous system. The dude just has “breakout character” written all over him, and it seems writers like Jason Aaron and Matt Fraction certainly agree.

But his introduction is great stuff here, placing Charles and Jean in a moral dilemma over his amnesty request, getting to spend a little time with his mother (maybe), learning that X has always meant ten, watching him shoot people in visually interesting ways, all before the reveal of why he really led them into a battle with Weapon XII. Know people tend to complain about Igor Kordey’s artwork on this series, but his style was a perfect match for this character, and if the time ever comes when Fantomex is spinning off into his own series, that’s the first guy they should call on. More on the storytelling and sales potential of Weapon Thirteen a little later on down the line, but seriously, that cover there is pretty awesome, right?

Cross That Line (Issue 131)
We didn’t know exactly how far it was going to go until now, this flirtation between Scott and Emma. Oh sure, this sort of thing has happened before, Scott and Jean being pulled apart by Logan, or Psylocke, or whoever, but bottom line, the X-Men’s power couple always emerges unscathed and relatively unaffected. But this latest development, what began as “counseling” now turning into a full-fledged psychic affair, always felt a little different, like they were really serious about changing things up this time. It was all about simple context, and this developing relationship felt a little more torrid than earlier attempts—not as much a physical betrayal as an emotional one, making it all the more genuine, if such a word can be applied.

This issue includes some great moments and imagery throughout—Scott and Jean’s old uniforms flying out of the chute, Emma slipping into some of Jean’s Phoenix gear, and Logan thinking that Scottie has fallen asleep at the wheel. No turning back from this point, so all we could do now was settle in and wait patiently for the inevitable confrontation.

The Originals (Issue 134)
This was just a tiny bit, but it was really good watching Scott and Hank interact a little when the world wasn’t splitting apart. Having Scott confront Hank about his real motivations for coming out, and on the flip side, Hank teasing him about his developing relationship with Emma was a gentle reminder that these two have been at this forever. And that they’ve built an endearing and complicated friendship that always manages to survive whatever changes they’ve both gone through over the years. Even apocalyptic mind loss, in this particular case. Again though, this is a small almost insignificant moment among others, but one I always personally appreciated.

Welcome to the Special Class (Issue 136)
Okay, so let’s talk a little about Xorn and the huge upcoming reveal that the Chinese healer with the star for a brain is really just Magneto, in a clever and elaborate disguise designed to infiltrate and destroy the Xavier school from within. Now, there have been a couple of very subtle hints scattered throughout, but to me, this refreshing diversion with the special class offers the first official clue that all is not what it seems with him. Which doesn’t make the eventual surprise materialize entirely out of left field, but this never felt like the “fairest” revelation to me, and every time I re-read it, I feel the same way.

I want to feel better about it, especially since Morrison’s original manifesto reprinted in the first hardcover made it clear something was up from the beginning, and I think there were some real opportunities to lay the groundwork a little more directly. Yeah, it’s kinda there, but even though there was obviously something funny down, I never thought, “You know what, maybe that’s actually Magneto again.” Even when he dispatches the U-Men with a strangely intense power manifestation, and makes it clear to Angel that no one is to be told about it, I never went there. Of course, that could’ve been entirely the point, and there’s plenty of time for this discussion when it actually happens, so let’s shift focus to the actual context of the aforementioned power manifestation.

The return of Quitely is again perfectly timed here, as his visual style really shines with these weird, and highly unusual new mutants. No offense to any of the book’s other artists, but no one really drew Beak like him, or Basilisk, or Ernst, etc. etc., and he had a way of humanizing even this terribly motley crew. This would be his final arc on the book, and Grant made sure he went out in style, giving him an opportunity to draw a lot of the major elements and new characters that he began cycling in with issue #114. Little more about this swan song right below of course, but clearly one of the greatest elements of it were his renderings of Xorn and his special class on a fateful camping trip interrupted by U-Men.

Break It Up Now (Issues 137-138)
Quentin Quire’s little youth uprising is great fun, powered by drugs, matching uniforms, and as Logan called it, “a half-baked manifesto,” but seeing the real X-Men hand them a well deserved beating is much better. Because of my Cyclops crush, I’m required to mention him breaking Redneck’s nose with an optic blast, and that dope-ass cartwheel/blast combo thing he does shortly after that. Oh yeah, and tearing down the road in a purple sports car, showing everybody what a well-executed takedown looks like, is great too. But you know, you definitely get the vibe that this crew has been kicking folks asses for years now, and it was a slight change of pace from some of the crazy overwhelming threats they faced in the first half of this run. Sometimes it’s really cool to see just how easily things come for experienced, well-trained superheroes. Unfortunately, some of the kids don’t come out of the riot alive, effectively ending the second act of the series as we wave goodbye to Frank Quitely, who delivered his usual best on every interior page he touched.

Explain (Issue 139)
You knew it was coming, and it’s as emotionally charged and visceral as you’d expect, but even though Jean’s anger is well justified, I don’t think that Emma Frost has ever come across as sympathetic as she does when Jean storms into her thoughts, and starts pushing things around. Emma clearly says as much when they’re sparring, but Jean’s increasingly heightened power levels are so beyond everyone else, that when she does cut loose with good reason, it’s easy for her to simply come across as a well…well, a playground bully. Attacking Frost with her greatest failures and insecurities seems a bit much, especially when Scott gets off scot-free with a telekinetic kick out of the room. But while combing through Emma’s deepest, darkest thoughts, Jean is surprised by a terribly inconvenient truth…that Emma is genuinely in love with her husband. And that important truth is going to be a driving force throughout this final leg of Morrison’s run, and be the one thing that literally saves the entire future of the X-Men. Even in Grant Morrison comics, love conquers all.

Motive For Murder (Issue 141)
One door on Morrison’s locked room mystery (which I guess is really a locked mansion mystery) closes when Bishop and Sage learn who attacked Emma Frost, but another more ominous one continues to cycle open as the exact why eludes them. This was a nice little story that featured fantastic guest turns from Bishop and Sage, an entertaining duo who I thought should be getting their own series following this appearance. There are some great character moments that come from them placing the entire school into lockdown, and treating every one of the senior staff and students as potential suspects in the murder attempt. The end result is an engaging and intelligent whodunit that takes full advantage of everyone’s varied abilities and relationships. The actual how of the crime involves a number of different characters dealing with a number of different personal issues, the identity of the secret drug dealer on campus, mind control, and a concealed pregnancy, offering a complex, but entirely believable conclusion.

 

And here’s where we take one last break before this whole deal is wrapped up just in time for the holiday. After that, we move on to Joss and John’s Astonishing X-Men work, which I’m having a great time experiencing all over again, without the frequent interruptions.  Everyone have a great Thanksgiving, and thanks for again dropping by. Back soon.

Stackology- 11.18.09

Not too much pre-game commentary this week, as I’m working feverishly on the massive conclusion to the This is Why showcase for New X-Men, re-reading and taking excellent notes on Astonishing X-Men, and looking after the brand new puppy we just adopted on Saturday. That last critical element has changed around my writing schedule for this week somewhat, but she’s terrible cute, and getting along well with big brother Drake, so all is forgiven. Pictures, you say? Oh all right…but right after that onto the business of the week.

Here’s my sequence for this past Wednesday…

NOMAD GIRL WITHOUT A WORLD #3 (MARVEL)
DEADLOCKE #1 (DARK HORSE)
NOLA #1 (BOOM!)
COWBOY NINJA VIKING #2 (IMAGE)
BATMAN STREETS OF GOTHAM #6 (DC)
VIKING #4 (IMAGE)
IRREDEEMABLE #8 (BOOM!)
AIR #15 (VERTIGO)
AZRAEL #2 (DC)
BRAVE AND THE BOLD #29 (DC)
WOLVERINE WEAPON X #7 (MARVEL)
SPIDER-WOMAN #3 (MARVEL)
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #612 (MARVEL)
DARK AVENGERS #11 (MARVEL)
DARK REIGN LIST AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1 (MARVEL)

As interesting as it’s been to watch the entire Marvel Universe pulled around by the nut sack during Norman’s Dark Reign, I’m really glad to see that it’s rapidly coming to an appropriate end. Cause really, no widespread dose of Slott’s cleverly referenced “stupid pills” could explain why the big guns wouldn’t eventually get their shit together, and close Norm down for good. Gladly accepting the relay baton from Invincible Iron Man, Dan Slott and Adam Kubert team-up to deliver another public embarrassment for Osborn, who is only a couple dumb moves away from the end all lying, murderous, psychotic scumbags always receive in superhero comics.

The art and storytelling here is just superb, and Slott manages to cram in an entire years’ worth of plotlines and developments to make this one-shot the most essential of the bunch. Spider-Man finally makes a big move against his ageless foe, gets into an exciting and well choreographed battle over and on the streets of New York, but in the end, it’s Peter Parker who proves the enemy that Norman doesn’t have an answer for. Spidey is a fugitive terrorist that can be arrested or shot on sight (depending on whoever’s mood), but Parker is an American citizen with unassailable rights that Osborn can’t intimidate in front of a crowd of witnesses. Only in a world controlled by the Green Goblin, could Peter Parker become more powerful than Spider-Man. Great final touch there, and good to see things continuing to move along to their logical conclusion. (by Dan Slott and Adam Kubert)

Quick note—the Stackology for 11.25.09 likely won’t post this time next week, both because of the Thanksgiving holiday, and because of a terribly packed (yet exciting) shipping list that should see at least 17 books coming home. Whew.

This is Why (New X-Men, pt.1)

Welcome to The Fiction House blog’s first exclusive installment of This is Why…

For those just joining, the series works like this—I take a completed creative run of a comic, and methodically/obsessively identify just why it should be regarded by all clear-thinking individuals as a “new classic” that everyone should have in their own personal libraries. It might be an entire issue, a cool moment or exceptional image, or maybe even just a single line of dialogue, but together these elements comprise a work that embodies the very best the medium is capable of, and provides fuel for all those that aspire to one day join the creative ranks. Only works that perpetuate this vibe have been discussed here, and to kick things off on this blog, I’ll be examining two distinct runs that use the same universe of characters to accomplish slightly different, yet highly essential results. These are Grant Morrison’s New X-Men, and Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men.

I’ve always considered these two creative runs different sides of the same coin, and after discussing them individually, I’ll likely work up an epilogue that effectively compares and contrasts them. But in short, I think they are the two perspectives of the X-Men from the last decade that will remain the most enduring going forward, and have attempted to contribute the most to the overall franchise. Obviously, it all starts with Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, back when Marvel was propelling themselves out of bankruptcy with a newfound level of aggressive storytelling, and a willingness to break new ground in who actually produced their comics and why. We’ll be at this for quite a while (there’s a lot to discuss) so let’s get things started with the absolute supernova of a storyline that was E Is For Extinction…

The Statement (Issues 114-116)
Every once in a while, a creator will arrive on a well-established title and change the game on it instantly. Without being too disrespectful to the people that manned the store before they did, there is an immediate seismic shift in how and why the book is going to work from now on, and you can’t help but wonder, “Why wasn’t it always like this? What took so long for this to happen?” And if it’s that serious, if it’s that exciting, you don’t have to hang around for three or four issues before feeling it either—it’s right there in front of everyone’s face. Somebody else is now in control of this book, and while they’re in town, it will remain one of your favorite titles to read and discover each and every month. That’s what New X-Men #114 was to me, and by extension, this entire initial storyline from Grant and Quitely. Everything was supposed to be different after this…how could it not be?

#114 has one of my favorite comic pages ever, and it’s the very first of the issue, with Cyclops casually blowing a hole into the head of a downed Sentinel, while Wolverine viciously attacks in the background for no reason. There was just an attitude and posture about the visual, and an obvious level of symbolism of course, that effectively sets the tone for the status quo shattering E Is For Extinction. Gone are the days of skyscraper sized mutant killing machines, replaced with smaller, highly adaptable things made from scraps of rusted metal and lawnmower engines. Gone are the brightly colored spandex costumes, replaced with black leather, high impact Kevlar, and emergency ruby quartz contact lenses. Professor X stays strapped, in case someone is able to take over his incredibly powerful mind. Scott and Logan actually get along, finally putting the Jean rivalry behind them like a couple of fully functioning adults. Cerebro gets a big sister, and Charles has one too, one that’s completely terrifying and utterly incapable of remorse after murdering over sixteen million mutants. So yeah, Genosha is gone too, along with so many other symbols of the franchise’s storied past. And that’s entirely the point.

Welcome to the New X-Men, with the super cool logo that reads the same even upside down…hope you survive the experience.

In Plain Sight (Annual 2001)
Besides this annual featuring some great art from Leinel Yu, and being presented in the “widescreen” format, which always takes me back to that X-Force/Spider-Man crossover from way back, three important story threads got started here. The international man of mystery Xorn makes his first appearance, as does John Sublime of the U-Men movement, but the most important development here is Emma Frost making her first run at Scott Summers. What does or doesn’t happen at the end of this issue isn’t clearly settled for about two-dozen issues, but this is where the snowball begins to roll down the extra steep hill, and with this very strange sentence, “So tell me, Scott…what’s all this I hear about your vow of celibacy?”

Recognizing that the familiar Scott and Jean relationship has grown creatively stagnant, Morrison made another bold change here, one that remains a critical element of the X-books to this day, and continued his “rehabilitation of Scott Summers.” Using the character’s recent possession by Apocalypse as an emotional trigger, Morrison devoted a lot of time over his run solidifying Cyclops’ standing within the X-Men, doing his best to create additional layers for a sometimes misused character. I’ve always contended that the really smart writers understand just how important and “cool” Scott Summers really is, and it’s clear Morrison is one of those guys. Expect this to come up again as we move forward, but I think the fact that Scott and Emma are still together almost ten years later says it all.

Cassandra Nova (In Charles’ Brain) vs. Henry McCoy (Issue 117)
As if poor Hank’s night wasn’t already bad enough, he makes the terrible discovery that Nova and Xavier share a strange genetic connection, and then comes under sudden and brutal attack. Watching Hank fight back as Cassandra worms her way into his mind and batters him with his greatest fear is just as uncomfortable and horrible as Morrison probably intended, and seeing him battered into a coma by one of his prized students is even worse. Cool reveal though, which originally had me rushing back to #116 looking for clues I missed regarding the switch, and it’s all right there with a couple well concealed strings of dialogue. But obviously, with Cassandra now waiting on a ride from Lilandra and the Shi’ar Empire, everything is about to become much worse for the
X-Men…

Dark Angel (Issues 118-120)
Every creator does it as soon as they get onto the X-Men—introduce a few new mutants into the mix that are often a clear reflection of their motivations for doing the book in the first place. Which makes one of Morrison’s obvious, as one of the first things he did was filling the Xavier Institute with young mutants whose mutations had taken them down a slightly less glossy and physically perfect path. When you think about it, it never made much sense that every new mutant seemed to emerge from puberty with washboard abs, perfect teeth, and Barbie doll measurements, but for several years of the book, that seemed the visual standard. Which can often be applied across comics, but for a book whose central premise was mutation and discriminated sub-cultures, it was great to see some true diversity at Xavier’s school. Guys and girls of all colors, shapes, and sizes were now the norm, and a distinct character like Angel Salvadore was able to carve out a substantial spotlight.

A runaway from an obviously broken home, Angel emerges from a self-generated cocoon with a bug’s wings, and the ability to puke acid at people that deserve it. Which naturally includes the U-Men that woke her up in the first place, intent on dissecting her and grafting all of her weird, creepy mutant powers onto themselves. Fortunately, Logan is on the scene, and as history has shown, he’s pretty good with impressionable mutant teenagers. But Angel is certainly no Kitty Pryde, and her character only becomes more and more relevant going forward, as she’ll later become Emma’s newest pet project, have very interesting children with Beak, another great addition, and rally the students when the Shi’ar comes knocking. The Cuckoos will ask her, “You look like you’ve experienced more violence than the rest of us put together. Do you have any idea how to fight super heroes?”

Her response? “Yeah. Dirty, I bet.”

Think Angel most recently showed up in the latest New Warriors revival, but I liked her a little better here, before she was ultimately de-powered, losing some of the more bizarre and interesting aspects of her mutant ability, and thereby her personality, in the process.

Shall Not Pass (Issue 120)
With U-Men marching onto her lawn, and a school filled with children to protect, Jean Grey-Summers kicks much ass and makes it look easy. With some minor help from the kids, Jean defends the school’s borders with a dazzling display of telekinetic prowess, triggering a manifestation of the Phoenix, which will lead to a larger conversation at a later date. But Grant made a habit of taking all of the X-Men’s powers and pushing them to (and even beyond) their conceivable limits, and no one benefited from this approach more than Jean, who just does one impossible thing after the other. The cool thing though is that “impossible” is what superhero comics are all about…at least the good ones anyway. Again though, we’ll come back to Jean specifically quite a bit.

Silence: Psychic Rescue In Process (Issue 121)
Quitely makes a triumphant return to the book’s interiors with this gem of an issue, that was one of the strongest efforts of the entire ‘Nuff Said promotion. Honestly though, if you were telling a story powered by dream logic and abstract imagery, who else would you want on the art? From that first spiraling splash page of Jean diving into Charles’ mind, to that final horrific battle between Charles and Cassandra in their mother’s womb, Morrison and Quitely again prove an undeniable creative combo. The little storytelling details are what always stood out to me, including but not limited to things like Emma taking a drink before her and Jean get started, the shifting facial expressions on the evil doors, Jean’s hair turning into a Phoenix, and the guys just waiting patiently until the psychic experts finish their work. Spend any amount of time examining these pages, and there’s a host of other cool things that’ll jump out at you. Great effort all around, and how cool was it to find out Charles was the one who tired to murder his own twin?

Star Student (Issues 125-126)
The X-Men are completely screwed by the end of this arc. All of them are infected with tiny, microscopic Sentinels that are killing them from the inside out. They’re staring down the barrel of an alien empire convinced they’re infected with a dangerous galactic pathogen, and therefore need to be exterminated for their own good. They’re also hosting dozens of innocent reporters, who have come to the mansion to hear Xavier’s ultimate vision of peaceful coexistence before his brain dies. Cyclops and Xorn have been captured and are trapped in deep space. And Cassandra Nova is behind it all, coming back for her body, and really just to make sure the job gets done right. So yeah, the good guys are in big trouble here, backed into a corner, and stage set for a thrilling counter-offensive.

The chief architect of that is once again Jean Grey-Summers, who unquestionably deserves MVP status when the smoke clears. The new headmistress keeps it together when everything around her is falling apart, but her most astounding display is evacuating the mind of Charles Xavier into her own when Nova’s bobby trapped body can no longer hold his consciousness. With her brain splitting open, body filled with Sentinels, and blood pouring out of her nose and eyes, Jean’s amplified abilities climb to even more impossible heights with this desperate maneuver. And for an encore, she then uses Cerebra to split shards of Charles’ consciousness among all the living mutants in the world, laying a clever trap for Nova, and an even cleverer way for Charles to ultimately regain his body. Now that’s some real superhero type stuff.

Honorable mention goes to her husband, who returned back to the mansion with Xorn just in the nick of time, and who never had any doubts the X-Men would find a way to win against incredible odds. Still, that wife of his is something else, right?

Think this is a great place to stop for a few days, and stay tuned for the next installment of the series, coming real soon. Just like before, feel free (and welcome) to contribute your own thoughts and personal highlights of the series on the message board. Thanks for dropping by, and for a slightly more concise perspective on what Grant Morrison ultimately did to and for the X-Men, please check out a recent posting by David Brothers on the 4th Letter. Unlike Newsarama, where I intentionally stayed off the boards most of the time, any and all questions and comments can and will be discussed.

Stackology- 11.11.09

Great, great week of new releases here, which maintains a much better sense of momentum and overall excellence than last week’s stack, prompting this week’s slight overuse of the word “great.” The books at the bottom of the stack showed up big time this week, with a great introduction to DC’s upcoming First Wave in the Doc Savage special, a great heroes death in GL Corps, a great new creative team for the Punisher, and a great finish to the second arc of Batman & Robin. Biggest surprise of the week was the first issue of Sword, which I liked quite a bit, and was my first exposure to Kieron Gillen, whose rep is slowly increasing every month. Had the same feeling as The Order, something with a very cool premise and a great (there’s that word again) cast of characters that I hope will stick around for a long while. Look for that to migrate further toward the bottom next month. A sharp debut, but like everything else, it ultimately falls to the proven pairing of Joe Kelly and Deadpool.

ROBERT E HOWARD THULSA DOOM #3 (DYNAMITE)
LUKE CAGE NOIR #4 (MARVEL)
RED ROBIN #6 (DC)
GI JOE MOVIE SNAKE EYES #2 (IDW)
ANCHOR #2 (BOOM!)
BLACK PANTHER #10 (MARVEL)
UNWRITTEN #7 (VERTIGO)
SWORD #1 (MARVEL)
DAREDEVIL #502 (MARVEL)
WALKING DEAD #67 (IMAGE)
BATMAN DOC SAVAGE SPECIAL #1 (DC)
GREEN LANTERN CORPS #42 (DC)
PUNISHERMAX #1 (MARVEL)
BATMAN AND ROBIN #6 (DC)
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #611 (MARVEL)

Yeah, so that was plenty awesome. Been waiting for this particular issue since the minute it was announced, and the results are just as impressive as we all hoped. Joe Kelly made his name writing Deadpool, and has proven in recent months to be just as natural a fit for Peter Parker, and smashing all three of these things together makes for a gloriously berserk story that feels much longer than 22 pages. Seriously, the man uses every single panel of the appropriately titled “This Man, This Asshole,” and it shows—this isn’t a comic that you’ll blow through in five minutes, wondering all the short while where all your money went. It starts with Deadpool surrounded by strippers, faking a call from Obama, and ends with Spidey and Deadpool telling yo-momma jokes on a crowded playground. The stuff in the middle is just as insane, and features (among other things) the triumphant debut of Lady Stilt-Man. Can your other comics say that? Right, that’s what I thought too, and the art is fantastic on top of all this. Know some of you find Canete’s Spidey renderings a little abstract, but I will buy and champion anything he puts his pencil to, and no one can stop me.

Great job Mr. Kelly, please consider doing an entire mini-series featuring these two with Canete on the art chores and we’ll call it about even. Inspiring end to what was already an impressive week of comics. (by Joe Kelly and Eric Canete)

Ambidextrous 318- Not Enough Future

Got the Miranda Mercury fever this week, as we continue our push to get the book back on the stands in the spring of 2010…

The story of our unfortunate hiatus has been well documented by me in the past, but for those just coming in, and for a newfound motivation I’ll reveal shortly, we’ll go once more from the top. The Many Adventures of Miranda Mercury #295 launched in February 2008 to great reviews and positive buzz, but before #296 could be released, our publisher Archaia Studios Press entered a restructuring period, effectively putting all of their titles on indefinite hold. Obviously, this was a major setback, as all of us considered Miranda Mercury our creative proving ground for the year, and thought its initial run would go a long way towards convincing people that we could create some good comics. Hell, I think almost all of us were able to parlay just that first issue into additional gigs elsewhere, and that was far from our strongest effort.

So losing that platform stalled everything out, and was another unexpected blow to a project that has absorbed many since we started developing it in ‘05. Several months later, the financials all settled out when a brand new company acquired ASP, leading to another brief delay as contracts and such were being discussed amongst all the various players. Around that time, we learned that we wouldn’t be able to retain our original colorist going forward, which led to us holding a talent search through Ambidextrous through Newsarama. A possibility that should’ve occurred to me much earlier than it did, but perhaps there was a good reason.

Floored by the number of entrants, and impressed at many of the samples we received, we quickly offered the job to someone we thought was both enthusiastic and highly professional, but it turned out he was neither. This ate away even more valuable time, when combined with my getting married, then moving into a new apartment, and Lee finding Chinese drywall in his home, prompting a highly unexpected move on his end, ultimately brings us to this very point. And I just typed all of that out because I don’t intend on mentioning most of it ever again. What you’ve just read is a thing of the past, and we’re going to do our best to move on from it, as we’ve done with most of the setbacks and obstacles Miranda Mercury has come up against.

So what’s going on with the book now, you ask? Check this out—

Yesterday (11/2), we got another four colored pages from the new new colorist, which means that #297 is about halfway done—an amazing feat to us considering the pencils have been done for over a year now, and the inks shortly after that. Finally seeing the pages in full color has made the entire story feel new again, though after reading through the script (which is over two years old), I’ll definitely be cleaning up a ton of dialogue and captioning at the lettering stage—a little too much ‘07 and not enough ‘10, if you know what you mean. But we are extremely excited about his work thus far, which is getting better with every page, as he gets a clearer handle on exactly how the characters and the world are supposed to look. Probably another month or so before we reveal his identity, along with some of his pages, but we already know which ones we’ll be hitting you with.

Meanwhile, Lee has wrapped up the Snake Eyes mini for IDW, and is moving onto his next Miranda script, which is a beast of a story that has more characters and backdrops than the first three issues combined. He’ll be cursing me the entire time he’s drawing it, but I have no doubts it’ll result in the best looking comic pages of his life. And before years’ end, I’ll be wrapping up the whole thing with a monstrous script weighing in around forty pages, presumably leaving me free to devote the next year to nothing but the promotion and marketing of the book.

Can’t say exactly what happens, but this is an oversized issue that features three independent, yet strangely interconnected stories, that form up to properly celebrate the 300th issue of Miranda Mercury. One story is the logical conclusion of the whole “Time Runs Out” theme driving this first story arc, and continues directly from the heartbreaking and emotionally wrenching cliffhanger of #299. One is issue #124, which just so happens to be the issue where the series was re-titled The Many Adventures of Miranda Mercury in the first place, and features the first of many showdowns between Miranda and eternal nemesis Cyrus Vega. The last tells you what the book was called before it belonged to Miranda, and that’s all I’m saying about that one.

But all three of these stories tie together in interesting ways, while also tying into issues #295-299, so my first order of business was doing a very carefully plotted outline, so it won’t take as long to script, or melt my brain in the process. Which it probably will anyway, because it’s three interlocking stories that interlock with a bunch of other stuff that came before, and even some stuff that hasn’t. It’s already paid off though, because when I started the outline, all of the stories were going to be the exact same length, but while working out the finer details, it became clear that one of them deserves a little more space to work. Not to pick favorites, but it’s really the most important story of the bunch, and increasing its page count naturally forced me to rethink my approach to the two others. Bottom line, this story needs to be the emotional fulcrum of the piece, and will get completely scripted first. Then everything else will be constructed around its frame.

As always, more details when they are available, but I have been thinking of twittering some dialogue as I’m drafting things out, which knowing me, I’ll only rewrite later. Ah, what the hell, let’s give it a try at the end here and see what it turns into.

Thanks for stopping by and letting me get some things off my chest for the last time. Here’s the sneak preview…

“MIRANDA MERCURY. ALL MINE. FOREVER.”