Thanks again to NJ Croce for providing the samples included in this review and you can check out more of their ranges on their website; here!

Reviews of AQUAMAN VOL. 1: THE TRENCH and TEEN TITANS VOL. 1: IT’S OUR RIGHT TO FIGHT

The New 52 marches on with the release of two new revamped series. First, the long-mocked defender of the deep and King of Atlantis faces a horde of sharp-toothed wrenches from the briny depths. Then, N.O.W.H.E.R.E.’s hunting down teenage metahumans. Why? None can say, but Red Robin and his comrades rise to the occasion and the superpowered teenyboppers fight back.

Aquaman Vol. 1: The Trench

Whoo, boy, does Geoff Johns love writing generic white guys.

Between reviving Hal Jordan and Barry Allen, two characters who, while not originating their roles, certainly dominate public consciousness when anyone thinks Flash or Green Lantern, Johns has fallen into a slump of writing for your archetypal straightlaced male, whiter than the driven snow with the most blasé or typical of backstories. So it seems a natural move for Johns to write Arthur Curry, alias Aquaman, the half-Atlantean king of Atlantis. He’s blonde, he’s white, he’s blander than mayonnaise on white bread, and, hey! he even has daddy issues! After all, Johns has created some fantastic storylines using characters that initially died more or less because readers’ interest in their bland as paste personalities bottomed out. He takes the bland and makes it interesting. The same seemed to be coming true for Aquaman, so Johns seems a perfect match to pull Arty out of his slump and build an epic storyline for one of DC’s most underrated and underappreciated of heroes.

Of course, that wasn’t always the case. Indeed, many writers made the most of Aquaman’s badass potential, epitomized in the be-mulleted, hook-handed era of the character which ultimately made it to the Justice League animated series. This is a guy who can command great white goddamn sharks, krakens, and orcas for pity’s sake! Not to mention he’s the king of an entire underwater kingdom and has one of the greatest archenemies ever in Black Manta.

But, sad as it may be, Aquaman will never live down the legacy of Super Friends, the Hanna-Barbera produced cartoon which brought the Justice League of America to life and singlehanded proved Aquaman is the most useless superhero ever. Riding around on a giant seahorse, talking to fish through concentric circles, completely useless if separated from the sea and ocean life.

New 52 Aquaman operates under the assumption that both readers and the fictional public in-universe are only familiar with Aquaman via the Super Friends television series or, in fictional context, a reputation that amounts to such. In the first issue, Johns sets about dispelling several myths about the character. No, he doesn’t “talk” to fish, he commands them. Call him weak, he’ll flip an armored car over his head. No one’s “favorite superhero”? Since when have adulations meant anything to a true hero? Indeed, Johns goes out of his way to demonstrate how and why Aquaman is such a badass, leading one to wonder how he gained such a lackluster reputation in the New 52 universe if his actual actions in no way reflect his real life Super Friends reputation. But that bit of inconsistently swiftly gets shoved away as terrors emerge from the deep to combat Aquaman…

The book opens strongly with Aquaman thwarting a robbery in a small east coast town, surprising robbers and police alike with his unexpected feats of strength. We learn that this is Arthur Curry’s hometown, the place where his father raised him, long before he discovered his Atlantean roots and superpowers. Seeking to reconnect with his roots, Arthur takes up residence at the town’s lighthouse with his Atlantean bride Mera (their child and the majority of their history seemingly retconned out of existence). Meanwhile, strange humanoid creatures emerge from a deep water trench, their alien language speaking only of hunger and food. They fall upon a fishing vessel before, devouring its crew while marking others with bile, soon setting their sights on the sleepy seaside village where Aquaman has made his home.

Sound interesting? I would think so, too, but, sadly, the book is undone by its greatest weakness: Aquaman himself.

While Johns manages a few jokes at the expense of Aquaman’s Super Friends rep in the first issue, subsequent issues fail to establish any sort of personality for the guy. We get frequent flashbacks to his father — and a rather forced dream sequence of his father’s ghost taunting him about his origins and duty (the dialogue here causing physical pain) — but, beyond that, there’s dangerously little character belying the king of Atlantis. He’s supposed to be torn between his landed humanity and his Atlantean side beneath the sea, but we never see this struggle. Aquaman at one point seeks out the assistance of a man who once tried to kill him but, again, we never see this conflict. Rather, it’s told to us in dialogue and narration and the events that follow barely reflect these dramatic circumstances.

Moreover, Arthur’s interactions with people — police, local townspeople, etc. — feel stilted and awkward and it’s not quite clear how much of that awkwardness is intentional and how much of it is Johns’ inability to correctly convey stoicism. This doesn’t feel like the same character from Justice League. This doesn’t feel like the guy who summoned a horde of sharks to devour parademons mid air just to put Green Lantern in his place. This feels like some socially awkward weirdo (with an inexplicably hot girlfriend) found Aquaman’s costume and trident.

I use the phrase “generic white guy” to describe him and by that I don’t mean to say that non-white characters are inherently more interesting or more identifiable than white characters, only that Johns’ Aquaman falls into an archetype that has haunted comic books since Superman’s debut. Tall, straight-laced white males who, by whatever means, receive superpowers and become heroes while simultaneously maintaining a complete lack of personality or individual character. Typically, they have jobs which are inherently interesting — Hal Jordan’s test pilot background or, going further back in Lantern history, Alan Scott’s engineering background — but ultimately these professions serve to supplement a personality that simply isn’t there. Aquaman falls victim to this trap, focusing on the character’s external attributes — his history, his power, his reputation, his place in the DC universe — at the expense of the internal conflicts which drive the character, which motivate, which build a special relationship with the reader as they identify and grow alongside the character.

Fundamentally, the book’s emotional core is barren. If you don’t care about Aquaman, you don’t care whether he succeeds or fails. There’s no tension, no intrigue, no commitment. By no means is he actively reprehensible, but by no means is he interesting either which, in this case, is just as bad.

But it’s Aquaman’s longtime love interest, Mera, Queen of Atlantis, who gets the greatest disservice here. Reduced to little more than a soundboard for Arthur’s own struggles (what little of substance there is), she exhibits the same lack of personality while at the same time rests what few character traits she does have on Aquaman. Early on, when Aquaman abandons his duties as king of Atlantis (we never even get to see Atlantis) in favor of reconnecting with humanity, Mera, native Atlantean, alien amongst land dwelling humans, accepts this and joins him with no argument. Seems a bit convenient, wouldn’t you say? Her entire character is defined by her relationship to Aquaman and little else.

And, to add insult to injury, that relationship goes horribly underdeveloped. When did they meet? Why are they together? How did they fall in love? What do they adore about each other? What keeps them together despite coming from two very different societies? Johns refuses to give the reader any insight into how these two work as a couple or why Mera would give up her life in Atlantis for a life above the sea with the man she “loves”.

To give some credit, she does display a great deal of strength, at least physically, and can seemingly hold her own without Aquaman, fighting alongside him against the trench monsters. A recurring joke even has people constantly referring to Mera as “Aquawoman,” which annoys both Arthur and Mera, implying that Mera is defined by more than just her relationship to Aquaman (never mind that her other actions undermine that at every turn) and is no mere sidekick.

Of course, this is undone when Johns gives Mera her own issue in the latter half of the volume, a whole adventure amidst the alien human world that surrounds her. But while Aquaman gets to battle monstrous sea beasts from the abyss, Mera battles — what else? — sexism! Beginning with Mera’s sexual assault at the hands of a supermarket manager, she goes on to combat a wife killer holding his daughter hostage. Mera stops short of calling any male a “sperm bank” (thanks, Frank Miller’s Wonder Woman!) but the intentions here are obvious and no less insulting.

Because, as ever, some writers just can’t get it out of their head that female characters don’t always have to combat “women’s issues.” While Aquaman’s lack of personality leads only to boredom and disinterest, this reduction of Mera’s character is outright offensive, especially given the rank caricature of the sexual offender (honestly, even for a comic book, this guy’s behavior is way too transparent and sleazy) and the dramatic convenience of the wife killer. Just a bad day to be a woman in a sleepy seaside town, I guess. (A sleepy seaside town…which regularly encounters armored car heists and hostage situations…huh. Where the hell do these people live!?)

The only saving grace here is Ivan Reis’ artwork which depicts the trench monsters with terrifying detail and visual personality. Action scenes ring with force and panache, although his background characters leave something to be desired. It’s just a shame that penciling this good is propping up characters this flimsy and poorly developed.

It’s sad to see that something like this deserves a hardcover release in DC’s eyes while Swamp Thing can only be found in paperback. Worse, it’s sad to see DC’s chief creative officer’s talents waning so obviously. Johns has had his ups and downs before but between this and Batman: Earth One, he’s clearly running out of ideas. And the lack of interesting, high concept ideas leaves Johns’ typically weak, uninspired, and workmanlike dialogue fully exposed. Of all the Justice League member books yet published, this is the most forgettable and easily overlooked.

Teen Titans Vol. 1: It’s Our Right to Fight

Between Superboy and Red Hood and the Outlaws Scott Lobdell has demonstrated why he isn’t the best fit for these characters. He has no or little respect for their legacy and no grasp on the clashing ethos between DC’s stable of teenage heroes and the wunderkinds Lobdell wrote over at Marvel during his Generation X days. So, it should come as no surprise that Lobdell’s Teen Titans are composed of characters that could easily pass for Marvel archetypes. Almost all of them are runaways, one of them is a time traveler, one a mutating monster, and another a thief. Throw in an alien for good measure and you have the latest Marvel team-up.

Perhaps that’s an unfair comparison. After all, the DC universe isn’t bare of aliens, mutants, and heroes physically scarred by their superpowers, much less any previous Teen Titans incarnation. But then there’s also things like tone and character to consider. And from a tonal perspective, this book doesn’t feel like a Teen Titans book. The characterization doesn’t feel like DC characterization. Like Lobdell’s Superboy, we again have people goaded into heroism rather than pursuing it of their own volition, the defining trait of most every DC hero including the Titans.

But…is that so bad?

Again, we have the reboot to consider, the goal at the heart of it, to inject new life and new perspective into old characters and old teams. To do away with the stale and the bygone and substitute the new and the fresh.

Nice of Bruce to pose for this photo with Tim. It’s not often you can wrangle him into a Sears portrait, but, when you do, he sells it.

In that regard…we have a bit of a mixed bag.

It’s Our Right to Fight chronicles the assembly and creation of the first Teen Titans team (something that will clash with the continuity of Lobdell’s own Red Hood and the Outlaws but we’ll get there). Of course, these aren’t the teens we’ve known for so many years, seen as an impetuous Kid Flash causes a backdraft in a burning building, endangering himself as well as the firefighters as arrogance overrides scientific brilliance. Meanwhile, Tim Drake, alias Red Robin, monitors not only Kid Flash but several other teen heroes, all of whom he believes stalked by the secret organization N.O.W.H.E.R.E. (which you may remember from Superboy). Soon enough, N.O.W.H.E.R.E. agents track down Drake and force him out of hiding. Now on the shortlist, Red Robin embarks on a search for fellow teen heroes to unite and combat N.O.W.H.E.R.E. and their mysterious backers. These heroes include the returning Wonder Girl/Cassie Sandsmark and Solstice/Kiran Singh, as well as new characters Skitter and Bunker/Miguel Barragan.

Compared to Lobdell’s previous outing with Superboy, Teen Titans succeeds more often than it fails. Whereas Superboy remained insular and rarely interacted meaningfully with supporting characters around him, remaining suspicious and dissocial, Teen Titans focuses much more on the interpersonal relationships building between our team members. Each Titan has a well defined personality and we get a fair number of bonding moments between them throughout the book, though not as many as one would like for a new team just getting to know each other. In particular, Bunker barely rises about a caricature, flamboyant and sassy as any poorly written gay Hispanic male. (Try not rolling your eyes when Bunk exclaims “Fabuloso!” without a tinge of irony.) Nevertheless, Kid Flash’s veneer of arrogance eventually drops, Solstice displays a caring, nurturing side, Wonder Girl holds some typical thief-with-a-heart-of-gold traits but pulls through for the team when the time comes, and Tim Drake feels like Tim Drake, leading the team ably though with a cold edge, something he will no doubt combat and settle in following volumes.

The Titans’ conflict with N.O.W.H.E.R.E. earns some suitably action heavy moments, such as Superboy’s battle with Wonder Girl and the Titans’ assault on N.O.W.H.E.R.E.’s base. N.O.W.H.E.R.E. leaves something to be desired as a villain, however. They’re certainly no Trigon, but as their ulterior motives become more apparent with Lobdell’s coming Culling crossover event, they may have a few tricks to pull yet. In fact, that’s another thing Teen Titans has in its favor that many New 52 books seem to be missing: narrative direction and focus. This story feels like it’s going somewhere, building to something, whereas too many books hopscotch between one-off stories and incomplete narratives hinting at future plotlines without any forward momentum regarding character or plot development (see Resurrection Man…on second thought, don’t see Resurrection Man — it sucks).

What this book lacks is heroism. The Titans spend more time combating N.O.W.H.E.R.E. and its agents than fighting crime (albeit, most superheroes nowadays make their living battling clandestine organizations with vaguely evil motives than street-level crime). And, granted, N.O.W.H.E.R.E. isn’t the most benevolent of organizations but it would have been nice to see the Titans save a life or two that wasn’t their own. Again, this feels like an X-title: mutants protecting mutants — or meta-teens protecting meta-teens in this case. Little in the way of do-gooding, more in the way of self-preservation. Would it kill someone to rescue a kitten from a tree!?

Overall, the book has a very light and fun feel with none of the heavy-handed angst teen books easily fall into. There’s nothing overly offensive or moronic but the book doesn’t measure up to previous Titans runs and under Lobdell’s guiding hand, it likely won’t rise above the Generation X-lite status it earns in this volume.

For any longtime Teen Titans fan I can’t recommend this book; Lobdell either changes the personalities of established characters too radically (Superboy) or reverts them to points readers had long since past (Bart Allen/Kid Flash). The book doesn’t evoke any of the spirit or character that earned previous series their fanbases. Though that isn’t to say it lacks spirit or character and, for any new readers, particularly anyone making the jump from Marvel to DC, there’s still plenty to enjoy here — lighthearted action, fun characters, and a well-plotted narrative.

Reviews of SWAMP THING VOL. 1: RAISE THEM BONES, RESURRECTION MAN VOL. 1: DEAD AGAIN, and THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS VOL. 1: SCIENCE BAD

Science. Science and madness. Science and madness and monsters. All come into play in today’s line of books which include the revitalization of two languishing DC properties — a woe begotten creature from the bogs of Louisiana battling the forces of decay and ruin, and a man of many lives and many deaths and many a superpower questing for lost memories and answers — and a new series from Image which takes us down an alternate route through history powered by unadulterated feats of SCIENCE!

Swamp Thing Vol. 1: Raise Them Bones

Created by writer Len Wein and artist Berni Wrightson, Swamp Thing first appeared in the anthology series The House of Secrets in 1971 but soon received his own ongoing series exploring the desperate battle between man and monster. Featuring botanist Dr. Alec Holland chemically transformed into a vegetative monstrosity, the series naturally gravitated toward horror — the body horror of Holland’s transformation, the horrors of man’s hubris both scientific and supernatural, and, of course, the the simple horror of a monster-of-the-week. And, in many respects, Swamp Thing has enjoyed a far more illustrious career than some of DC’s more well-known characters with two theatrically released films (the first, and by far the more worthwhile, directed by Wes Craven) and a seventy-two episode television series under his belt.

In comics, however, Swamp Thing’s most definitive run came in the wake of his film adaptation under the tenure of Alan Moore who established the most long lasting aspects of the character. Sweeping aside the previous series’ cast of secondary characters, Moore deemphasized the Alec Holland side of Swamp Thing in favor of the monster, reminiscent in many ways of the eponymous creature of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, especially in Swamp Thing’s grandiose narration and dialogue. Moore introduced the Parliament of Trees, a supernatural group of elementals who speak for the Green, the force governing all vegetative life, for which Swamp Thing became guardian and champion.

Building upon the mythology originated by Alan Moore while tying into Jeff Lemire’s Animal Man mythos, Scott Snyder — author of American Vampire and the New 52’s highly acclaimed Batman series — revitalizes the Swamp Thing name once again. And rather than wiping previous Swamp Thing continuity out of existence, Snyder’s series assumes those events transpired (at least in broad strokes) while reintroducing us to an untransformed Alec Holland — the memories of his monstrous years made fuzzy and foreign to the now human Holland. This has the advantage of creating an entry point for new readers without disregarding previous continuity in its entirety (so for a second time Snyder proves why the reboot may have been unnecessary).

Snyder draws a clear line between Alec Holland and the Swamp Thing of previous comics as Holland’s reclaimed humanity makes him a radically different character. Thus, he can act as the audience’s voice when encountering new, strange sights while not being completely uninformed as well — a good example of Snyder having his cake and eating it too. The only hiccup here comes through an exposition scene early in issue 2 which fails to derail the book’s plot but is nevertheless stilted and awkward. That aside, the book hits all the high points one would expect from a Snyder-penned horror title.

All over the world animals are spontaneously dying in large groups — birds falling from the sky, cattle collapsing in the field, entire schools of fish sinking to their graves — and the superheroes of the world take note. Alec Holland, meanwhile, works construction outside the swamps he once roamed as a monster, tormented by memories he can’t bring himself to call his own. The Green still calls to him but Alec, having finally rid himself of the monster and reclaimed his humanity, will have nothing to do with it. That quickly changes when the Rot, supernatural embodiment of decay and death, gathers its undead forces for yet another war against the Red and the Green, setting sight on Holland, the man destined to be the Green’s greatest champion.

Much like Animal Man, Swamp Thing emphasizes supernatural body horror to chilling effect. As an emissary of the Rot forces an archaeologist’s neck to twist and snap of its own accord while said archaeologist can only wait and scream as his own body turns against him, the hairs of one’s own neck will be standing on end. Emissaries of the Rot (alternatively, the Black in keeping with the color theme) are more frightening than ever, quite the accomplishment considering how well they were rendered in Animal Man. All glory in that regard goes to Yanick Paquette’s artwork which integrates beautiful linework with creative layouts and arrangements that evoke J.H. Williams III. His monster designs give Travel Foreman’s a run for their money but aren’t nearly as spine chilling as the Rot’s supernatural ability to manipulate dead or necrotized flesh, turning tumors and diseases into mutant abominations that kill from the inside out.

And, again, much like Animal Man, the book’s greatest strength is its characters. While Holland’s reluctance to become Swamp Thing again leads to some damnable consequences, you nevertheless sympathize with his situation and never blame him for the tragedies that ensue. The sacrifice of Holland humanity holds greater weight because it’s no longer an accident of science and mutation, and his guardianship of the Green feels more grandiose because it’s something he must choose to uphold rather than a duty foisted upon him by a higher power. As well, Holland’s relationship with longtime Swamp Thing supporting character Abigail Arcane rings true despite the relatively short interval the characters spend together, evoking the romantic connection shared between the characters from previous continuity while also developing into circumstances that can seemingly only lead to tragedy. However, Snyder gives the reader enough hope and establishes the characters so well that one can’t help but root for Holland’s triumph over the Rot.

Scott Snyder brings us another must-read book, especially for any fan of supernatural horror or Swamp Thing’s previous incarnations. Suspense, horror, and action deliver in equal measure, never once battling for a greater share of the spotlight but blending together seamlessly (something which won’t be shared by our next title). As well, Swamp Thing is essential reading for any fan of Lemire’s Animal Man as the two’s intertwining mythologies will soon have them crossing over in the “Rot World” event where the forces of the Green, the Red, and the Rot will finally wage war.

Resurrection Man Vol. 1: Dead Again

Conceived by British writing duo Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning with American Jackson Guice, Mitch Shelley, alias Resurrection Man, originally appeared in a self-titled series in 1997 which lasted until 1999. Written as a “non-traditional” superhero, Mitch Shelley possessed a seemingly immortal body following experimentation by your typical clandestine super-science organization; after each apparent “death”, Shelley resurrects with a new superpower based on how he previously died. Eschewing colorful costumes and superheroics in general, the original Resurrection Man series focused on Mitch’s journey across the United States in search of the truth behind his past and rebirth as Resurrection Man. After cancellation, Shelley made sporadic cameos in other DC books but never received any spotlight attention until eleven years later when Abnett and Lanning returned with a rebooted Resurrection Man for the New 52.

Featuring a rewritten origin that ties Shelley into the larger DC universe, the new Resurrection Man once again follows Mitch Shelley battling amnesia as he struggles to uncover the secrets of his past and his powers. Along the way he’s accosted by a rather demonic looking angel, a pair of lesbian assassins, a retired supervillain, and even crosses paths with some of Gotham’s mentally disturbed denizens. And as exciting as those things sound, the execution largely disappoints.

Next to nothing of the previous series’ continuity remains although enough changes have been made that the book doesn’t retread old territory. Rather, the book’s failings stem from its general lack of focus, the plots aimless meandering, Shelley’s weak sense of agency, and an unnecessary amount of fan service.

With the introduction of the Body Doubles, the aforementioned lesbian assassins (characters introduced in the original Resurrection Man), the book seems to start moving in a plot progressive direction as we learn more about Shelley’s revamped past and his relationship to the Doubles, Bonnie and Carmen. But the narrative swiftly abandons these threads as one of Shelley’s eponymous resurrections spirits him away to Arkham Asylum. Following that diversion, the book then decides it’s time for Shelley to learn the value of heroism as he confronts some meth manufacturers held up in an abandoned Metropolis apartment complex.

This shift isn’t wholly without setup and Shelley never acts out of character, but it nevertheless feels underdeveloped and unearned. Mainly due to Shelley’s poor sense of agency leading up to that point. The book’s narrative primarily focuses on things happening to Shelley rather than him taking any sort of action of his own. We understand the motives of those hunting him more so than his own motivations to avoid them. Supposedly, he’s trying to find answers to his past but he inevitably happens upon those truths by accident rather than discovering them himself. The only time he takes any sort of action is in self-defense against the Body Doubles or his supernatural hunters. It’s also telling that, while other characters reveal personality through dialogue, Shelley’s character mainly emerges through narrative captions rather than his interactions with others. Consequently, Shelley comes off as bland and uninteresting — an ironic contrast to his former life, prior to amnesia, which reveals Shelley’s unfeeling, malicious past as a bastard, a more compelling characterization for no better reason than at least he has a personality.

Abnett and Lanning can’t seemingly decide if they want the series to have a linear narrative or indulge in episodic adventures. As such, the book becomes unfocused and even a bit confused as to what it wants to be, fluctuating between supernatural horror and action thriller, ultimately failing to terrify while the action feels unmotivated and pointless. An extended sequence features the Body Doubles trying to take down Shelley for the sake of transporting him to their boss, but dialogue reveals that Shelley would have come with them willingly just to learn about his past and lost memories. So, basically, the Doubles murdered dozens of civilians and caused millions of dollars in collateral damage over a failure to communicate. Fucking hell.

Pencils by Fernando Dagnino are nothing spectacular though neither are they terribly lazy or incompetent. At worst, panels can seem a bit cluttered or crowded and certain visuals rely heavily on poorly integrated CG and Photoshop effects, particularly any “energy” effects or powers exhibited by certain characters. The colorist puts a heavy emphasis on black ink and darker tones, a trait common to many New 52 books, but here it’s especially overdone despite the darker shades matching the general feel of the book. However, as soon as the Body Doubles emerge on scene, the artwork perks up for a good helping of fan service, including a full page spread of the girls in their underwear, and some panty shots during their action scenes. The spread had to be a request of Abnett and Lanning — a particularly fetishy request, at that, as the girls are surrounded by guns and ammo, posing seductively for…well, no one since they’re alone and seemingly not in the mood to entice each other — but the panty shots are no doubt Dagnino’s choice and completely unnecessary. I’m not normally one to get uptight about fan service, especially in books obviously aimed at a more mature audience, but when the person being eroticized is an unrepentant murderer and generally repugnant in every other regard, I find it difficult to get hot and bothered.

As of issue thirteen, the series has been slated for cancellation and it’s not difficult to see why. While there are certainly worse titles still under publication, Resurrection Man fails to recapture any of the qualities that garnered critical acclaim for its original series. Shelley isn’t an engaging character, the mysteries at play aren’t particularly enthralling (or have obviously telegraphed conclusions), and the whole affair reeks of blandness. I doubt we’ll be seeing another resurrection out of Resurrection Man. (Had to get that pun in there eventually.)

The Manhattan Projects Vol. 1: Science Bad

SCIENCE!

Delicious, delicious science.

Science stays crunchy, even in milk!

The internet certainly loves its enthusiastic exclamations of “Science!” While one could hope that this enthusiasm represents a growing affinity for critical thinking in popular culture, more likely it proves that some spirit of the ‘50s and ‘60s era of limitless scientific discovery and accomplishment still lingers in our society. And likewise, the latent fear of science — the potential unwelcome truths and weaponization of grand notions — still pervades. The Manhattan Projects proves a perfect vessel for both, reimagining the program that would eventually give the U.S. the atomic bomb as a cover story for even deeper explorations into the untapped realm of super-science, leading down heretofore unexplored realms of war, death, and madness.

The book brings together some of the most well-known scientific minds behind the historical Manhattan Project — Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynman, Wernher von Braun (an unhistorical addition to the team), and project director Major General Leslie Groves — and recasts them as a troupe of inglorious bastards, paving the way for America’s future through the paranormal, extraterrestrial, and whatever preternatural means they can get their hands on.

These first five issues focus on the introduction of our cast, each issue giving focus to a different member of the Projects while delivering revelations and secrets that will no doubt play bigger roles later in the series. Indeed, author Jonathan Hickman (Nightly News, Fantastic Four, Future Foundation, and S.H.I.E.L.D.) hints at future plot developments and grander schemes via excerpts from fictionalized records of the Projects which precede and conclude every issue. These excerpts simultaneously build character and expand upon the nature of the world at play, hinting at a vast and marvelous history.

Meanwhile, the characters themselves resemble little to nothing of their personalities (actual or perceived) in favor of gross caricatures which fit the twisted, paranormal world they inhabit. Major General Groves is the hard-nosed, Doc Savage-esque man-of-action never without a live grenade strapped to his lapel. Oppenheimer is the off-putting eccentric masking a dark secret. Feynman, a successful popularizer of science and physics in real life, is an utter narcissist. And Wernher von Braun is your classic only-in-it-for-the-science madman, willing to poison his peers and betray the Cause just for a whiff of steel and rocket fumes. Each enthralls and enriches the story in their own way and the book could easily follow any one of them while working equally well as an ensemble cast.

Summarizing the plot proves difficult because only the inklings of a larger narrative reveal themselves in this volume, opting more for episodic adventures and stories while hopping through the Projects’ timeline. Suffice to say, it involves a lot of science, madness, aliens, and a good dose of reckless abandon.

In the vein of Frank Quitely, Nick Pitarra’s art is detailed, fantastical, and perfectly suited to the madcap nature of the book — especially as a teleporting Japanese Torii gateway spews mechanical samurai into the Projects’ underground Los Alamos base — but will nevertheless be off-putting to those who don’t like his particular stylization. Personally, the art took a moment’s adjustment for me but soon felt perfectly natural for the cartoonish and outlandish nature of the book.

If any make-or-break fault can be found in the book, it’s that it has no relatable protagonist. No one speaks for the audience or acts as the conscience of the book. And while the cast is not without their sympathetic aspects, all of them possess some quality that fundamentally dissociates them from the reader. Whether it’s Feynman’s simple narcissism or General Groves’ fanaticism or Von Braun’s…well, being a Nazi (he never removes his uniform and no one else seems to mind) or the more radical fates of Oppenheimer and Einstein, there exists no character who acts as the series’ moral compass. Rather, the book opts for the unfiltered madness and lunacy that ensues when all these personalities are thrown into a room and given fantastical tools of super-science to play around with.

So, any objections against the book devolve into a matter of taste more than anything. Hickman has the story he wants to tell, knows the audience it will appeal to, and is more than comfortable with how narrow that audience will be. Nevertheless, The Manhattan Projects is compulsively readable if only to see what strange sights and abominations will emerge out of Los Alamos next.

Reviews of SUPERBOY VOL.1: INCUBATION and SUPERMAN – ACTION COMICS VOL. 1: SUPERMAN AND THE MEN OF STEEL

The boys of steel take flight with the title that started it all, Action Comics, and the superhero that started it all, Superman. Along for the ride we have Superboy, Superman’s half-Kryptonian, half-human clone, created as a weapon for a clandestine organization bent on…well, something nefarious, surely.

Superboy Vol. 1: Incubation

For every positive I can name about this book, there seems to be something to diminish it. The first trade release of three titles helmed by Scott Lobdell, along with Teen Titans and the much reviled Red Hood and the Outlaws. And both books share the same quality as Superboy, complementing each moments of exceptionalism with something to annoy the reader. With Teen Titans, it’s the atrocious art design and the underdeveloped characters, and with Red Hood and the Outlaws…well, we’ll get there eventually.

Best known for his work on various X-Men titles in the ‘90s and co-creating the teenage mutant team title Generation X, it’s no surprise that Scott Lobdell writes Superboy and Teen Titans like a bad ‘90s X-Men title with morally ambiguous characters who have to be goaded into heroism rather than take inspiration from their forebears and pursue of their own initiative. But, then again, maybe that’s what the Teen Titans needs. A radical shift from the norm and a break from the old formula. After all, isn’t that what the reboot is all about? Shaking up the status quo to entice new readers? (Well, of course not — it’s about sales but let’s humor DC for a moment.)

N.O.W.H.E.R.E., a secret, pseudo-military organization so enormous and all encompassing that not even senior staff know half its secrets — or even what the acronym stands for (which is in no way a cheap way of disguising that no one bothered to define the acronym disguised as a joke), with headquarters located, ironically enough, in the middle of downtown San Francisco…okay, no, it’s not, but that’s just as good as any of the “nowhere” jokes that actually crop up in the book. Here, a whole fleet of Dr. Insanos are hard at work engineering a Superman clone spliced with an unspecified human donor’s DNA (a secret which is either horribly telegraphed or building up to a disappointing red herring). Soon enough, Superboy makes his explosive debut, leveling the entire laboratory and killing dozens before N.O.W.H.E.R.E. subdues him and puts him to work.

Now, to be fair, Lobdell’s writing isn’t god awful. On the contrary, he pays more attention to constructing dialogue than an unfortunate number of writers currently working and the construction of this volume and Teen Titans leading up to The Culling crossover event shows that he pays a good deal more attention to plotting than those same writers. But at the same time, it’s immediately clear he’s one of DC’s lesser writers if for no better reason than that he isn’t a match for these characters, either as they were pre-reboot or, worse yet, as the writer tasked to reinvent them.

To wit, Lobdell goes to great lengths to separate this Superboy from previous interpretations of the character, but this turns into another double-edged sword for the book. First, we have the revamping of Superboy’s suite of powers, extrapolated the implied telekinetic abilities of Superman, Supergirl, and other Kryptonian characters (e.g. the tactile telekinesis used to maintain the structural integrity of the large objects they lift, preventing buckling and structural collapse) into overt telekinesis. From an action standpoint, this works well, making Superboy more than just yet another brawler. It also complements his altered personality: where once Superboy was a moody, conflicted teenager prone to fits of berserker rage, this Superboy is very much reserved, emotionally muted and struggles to be more empathic and emotive despite his powers requiring undivided concentration and emotional stability. These changes are executed well enough on their own but in light of previous Superboy storylines, they ultimately add up to the same angsty moaning and groaning about being a clone, being a weapon, not fitting in, and all the same, tired tropes Superboy had already worn to death. So, regardless of all the aesthetic changes made to the character, he retains all the aspects of the character everyone grew tired of years ago.

Given the right material, Lobdell could probably write some exceptional DC superhero comics but that X-Men bug comes around to bite him in the ass. Here, he seems misplaced and I can’t help but pine for someone like Jeff Lemire to swoop in and show me something interesting. Nevertheless, to give Lobdell fair dues, despite much of Superboy’s character being conveyed through narration yet avoids the overwrought prose that comes with excessive narration, though the red text boxes clutter up a few panels. As well, the secondary characters — the female scientist simply known as “Red” for a majority of the book, Rose Wilson, and Superboy’s various handlers who come and go with circumstance — are all fairly well developed at least as far as necessary given the limits of their role. (I’d have liked to see more out of Rose Wilson, personally, but that’s just personal preference and not necessary to the book’s chosen arc.) Their interplay with Superboy and each other feels genuine and well crafted.

The book tries to pose an interesting nature versus nurture argument as Superboy, free of N.O.W.H.E.R.E.’s influence, seeks out a place for himself in the human world and reluctantly comes to the rescue of diners being assaulted by a pair of metahuman criminals after committing several acts of incidental (and accidental) vandalism himself. One gets the sense that Superboy must fight his instincts to heroism from his Kryptonian donor and instincts to narcissism (perhaps even villainy) from his human donor. But this motif isn’t well developed, at least in this book, pairing focus with Superboy’s confrontation with the Teen Titans and the Culling crossover event. So this subplot ultimately amounts to Suberboy moping some more and coming off as a bit of a twat, especially whenever he gets opines over his weaponized clone destiny.

By no means is this book bad, it’s just not the type of book that will appeal to anyone with even a mild knowledge of Superboy and his typical suite of character traits and dramas. Even those who know him from only Young Justice will likely be put off by the radical changes to his personality. Regardless, even if you’re mildly interested in Teen Titans and the event arc Lobdell’s forging in that book, Superboy is necessary reading if only for the foreshadowing and insight into N.O.W.H.E.R.E.’s operations. If you don’t mind a radically different interpretation of an established character, then I can certainly say it’s worth at least a glance, but I don’t think, long term, you’re going to get an amazing Superboy story arc out of this writer or this setup.

Superman – Action Comics Vol. 1: Superman and the Men of Steel

Grant Morrison returns to Superman following an exceptional run on Batman prior to the DC reboot. Given Morrison’s All-Star Superman will make you love Superman regardless of how you felt beforehand, he seems the natural choice for this series of stories recounting Superman’s early days as Metropolis’s Man of Steel. All-Star effectively encapsulates everything amazing about the character — the altruism, the passion, the tireless struggle against evil, the conflict between man and super-man, the unrequited romance, everything — and his entire mythic legacy from Luthor to Doomsday in one twelve-issue mini-series, spanning the Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Modern Ages with nary a hiccup inbetween. With room to breathe here, Morrison draws a narrower focus onto a certain era of the hero’s history.

Here, Morrison returns Superman to his roots, specifically his Golden Age roots, roots many readers and writers had long forgotten — largely for the changing political landscapes the character has travailed for nearly a century now. A brief bit of history: Superman debuted in 1938, a politically charged time as the United States slowly emerged out of the dark days of the Depression and overseas the Second World War broke loose across Europe. The economy as it was, Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel conceived Superman as very much the New Deal superhero, a hero not merely for criminal justice but economic justice as well. Many of Superman’s early nemeses were not raygun wielding super scientists but corrupt businessmen abusing their workforces and bolstered inequality across the country. Making keen use of the historical parallels at  work here, Morrison gives us a younger superman — more impetuous, more headstrong, more morally righteous, and very much informed by those early, socialist roots of Superman’s Golden Age origins — battling those old enemies at the fore of our economically depressed times: corrupt businessmen.

We begin with Superman assaulting a businessman, dangling him over the side of a fifty story building, demanding he confess to numerous crimes against the law and his workers — someone told Morrison he’s writing Superman again and not Batman, right? A good bit of Supes’ dialogue comes off a bit Batman-ish, as well. This is hardly the noble, high flying Superman we know, as embodied by his early costume of a T-Shirt, farmer jeans and mud-stained boots; similarly, Clark Kent is down on his luck as a reporter for a lesser known Metropolis periodical, assaulting Metropolis corruption in the press. While Superman’s flagrant act of assault goes fruitless, he nevertheless manages to save a group of people squatting in their former apartments (presumably victims of the housing crisis) from a wrecking ball bearing down on their homes but the government is having none of this rabble rousing heroism. Enter the U.S. Army and their special, anti-Superman consultant — one Lex Luthor — who, despite major difficulties, manage to subdue the Man of Steel, exposing him for the alien he is.

Morrison manages to cover a great deal of territory in the space of five issues and, honestly, the initial story arc here could have used the extra three issues to flesh out the story. As is, this is less Superman: Year One and more an extended flashback into Superman’s past before moving on to present adventures. We see how Superman transforms from proletarian firebrand into Metropolis’s resident champion for truth and justice but we also miss out on the Clark Kent aspect of Superman. Working at the Daily Star — the Daily Planet being a far-off dream — Clark’s interactions with Lois Lane and best pal Jimmy Olsen seem limited. You don’t really get why Jimmy and Clark are best friends when they never spend any time together outside their jobs while a majority of their dialogue is shared over the phone. Given how DC has pulled back on the Lois/Clark romance, Lois’s disinterest in Clark here seems natural and their confrontations have noticeably more spark to them.

During the course of events, Metropolis turns on Superman, damning him as an alien. Clark grows disheartened and retires the cape and shield, setting up the triumphant Return of Superman moment that, disagree if you will, never gets old — always puts a flutter in my heart, at least. But this moment is executed mostly in montage with Metropolis’s turn against Superman occupying scarcely a few panels with what could have consumed an entire issue. Worse, in moment of greatest weakness, Clark says “I failed you” to the spirits of Ma and Pa Kent, a scene that could have had immense emotional impact had it not been confined to one panel.

Nevertheless, it’s clear that this is much more a Superman book than it is a Clark Kent story; it’s about a hero growing into his own, becoming something more, so naturally interpersonal relationships take the sideline. Superman’s eventual battle for and championing of Metropolis rings true and I feel this take on early days Superman is universally heartening in that way only Superman can achieve. It’s classic comic book heroism at play as Clark transforms from the champion of the little guy into the champion of all people — rich, poor, big or small.

It seems hypocritical of me to punish Superboy for retreading familiar territory while Action Comics does plenty of that itself, but any amount of retreading or recycling of old material can be forgiven granted that the emotional core of the book shines through and connects, fostering sympathy with the character and their plight. This is where Superboy fails and Action Comics succeeds. Clark Kent doesn’t whine or mope or despair at his situation; her perseveres, conquers, and rises above regardless of the odds or the forces rallied against him.

Artwork by Rags Morales is some of the best produced by any of DC’s titles, especially during flashback sequences to Krypton and Superman’s amazing feats. And while Andy Kubert takes the reins after the first story arc, he produces some ominous imagery for Morrison’s Anti-Superman Army story arc. The book also contains several backup stories, wisely relegated here to the back of the book rather than interrupting the flow of the story (as per Detective Comics Vol. 1).

All-in-all, you have a lot of what Morrison does best here: taking lavishly ludicrous and giving it a heart. While not reaching the heights of Scott Snyder’s Batman, this run of Action Comics is a must for any fan of the Krypton’s last son.

Haven’t gotten your fill of bats yet? With Batman headlining four — now five — titles, how could you not be tired of the old bastard showing up every book this side of the Source wall? Honestly, this is worse than Wolverine at his peak with the shear number of cameos Bruce has been putting in. Nevertheless, today we have two books inspired by the dark vigilantism of the Bat. Barbara Gordon, miraculously walking again, returns to the rooftops of Gotham as Batgirl while the Congo sees its very own Batman patrolling the skies with Batwing, a Batman, Inc. affiliate.

Batgirl Vol. 1: The Darkest Reflection

Now we arrive at one of DC’s more questionable moves with the reinstatement of Barbara Gordon into the role of Batgirl. While not the originator of the role, Barbara Gordon certainly stands out as the most memorable Batgirl, in no small part due to Batman: The Animated Series, a legacy which follows her into the current Young Justice series. In 1988, Babs hung up the Batgirl mantle to pursue a normal life before events of The Killing Joke put any future superheroic aspirations to a permanent end. Since then, rather than vanishing into the annals of DC history, Barbara gained new life as Oracle, information broker and computer expert, providing support for the entire Bat-family as well as the wider DCU when needed. As well, Oracle played a key role in Birds of Prey, an all female team of crime fighters originated by Jordan B. Gorfinkel and Chuck Dixon but perhaps most famously written by Gail Simone, creator of the now defunct Secret Six.

Simone returns to write for a character she clearly has deep affections for as DC’s altered continuity allows Gordon to regain her mobility and return to the role that first got her into the superhero game.

We join Batgirl as she tracks down a set of serial killers, foiling their plot to murder an innocent couple for kicks, but in the process she earns the ire of a new masked villain stalking Gotham’s streets. Mirror, a glass-faced hood with an unique MO: targeting survivors of near-death experiences. And both Barbara Gordon and Batgirl have made his list.

Guilt and miracles suffuse The Darkest Reflection as the book is less about Barbara’s return as Batgirl and more about her personal recovery from the events of The Killing Joke. She isn’t just up and about, swinging from rooftops with the best of them immediately after abandoning the chair. No, recovery takes time, consuming both the physical and the mental. An early incident sees Batgirl frozen terrified by the sight of a gun pointed at her midsection, right where Joker shot her three years ago. As a result, Batgirl misses the opportunity to rescue a victim of Mirror. Naturally enough, Barbara blames herself for this failure and kept help but reflect on her own survival against the odds, both from the Joker’s bullet and her numerous stunts as Batgirl. It’s a smart area of focus given the character’s backstory and a great way of getting Barbara back into action without simply shrugging off a life changing disability.

Regardless, Batgirl lacks the charm of other Simone books. Partly for the darker focus, partly for the lack of compelling secondary characters to complement Barbara’s sweet pea personality. You have her new roommate, Alysia, but in her few scenes she barely has any time to develop beyond a few quirks into something tangible and relatable. More often, she simply acts as a soundboard for Barbara’s current dilemma, delivering ironically appropriate advice or simply listening to Babs extol her woes. Nightwing and Batman put in requisite cameo appearances and while Nightwing’s exchange with Batgirl is rather touching, they don’t really do much beyond their cameos.

The majority of the narrative unravels in Barbara’s head with narrative captions pushing much of the plot. On the one hand, Barbara’s self-aware commentary provides much of the character’s charm; on the other, one can’t help but yearn for some deeper intrigue, mystery, or suspense. Babs’ narration undermines the tone, making light of dark situations and jokes out of action beats; at times you just want her to shut up, let the images speak for themselves, and get on with the story.

While certainly not as bad as other products of the relaunch, Batgirl suffers for the same reasons. Fundamentally, this is backtracking and while in a few years some great Barbara Gordon Batgirl stories may be told, the road their slogs through a swamp of been-there-done-that. Despite the utterly botched execution, at least Green Arrow’s reimagining brought something different to the character (different, yes, if not original). This is Batgirl as she once was, as immortalized in Batman: The Animated Series and as she remains in Young Justice. There’s never any doubt that Babs will overcome her post-traumatic stress and her survivor’s guilt, so Gail Simone’s respect toward the character as a handicapped individual feels more obligatory than anything and blunts the dramatic tension because we know the ultimate conclusion. In the end, this is a story that was necessary to tell given the reboot, but didn’t need to be told in the grand scheme of things. We already had two capable Batgirls in the wings and a comfortable, well-adjusted Barbara Gordon as Oracle, yet here we are going backwards because everything old must be new again.

I enjoyed this book for what it is, to make that clear, though remain disappointed for what it could have been — and a bit peeved for costing Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain a role in the DC universe. It’s worth a read for the ardent Batman family fan but perfectly skippable for anyone on a budget.

Batwing Vol. 1: The Lost Kingdom

The Lost Kingdom fairs a bit better than Darkest Reflection, mainly due to focusing on a relatively new character with an unaltered, nay expandable, backstory. Indeed, David Zavimbe, alias Batwing, marks the first in-continuity black Batman and one of the few superheroes headlining a series outside the United States, so already this book has a lot going for it in terms of showing me something new. After all, fighting crime in the questionably stable political climate of the Congo carries a very different set of risks and hazards than Gotham City.

That said, however, the plot of The Lost Kingdom plays things pretty straight, something I can’t quite decide works to the books detriment or advantage. After all, you want to attract new readers with familiar trappings yet consummate Batman fans may want to see more than a non-superpowered hero fighting yet another homicidal maniac. As such, despite all the action and plot complications, the average reader is likely to see many of the twists coming. One in particular isn’t fully resolved in this volume but no doubt any reader will suss out the “twist” coming in future issues given events leading up to it.

Debuting in the pages of Batman, Inc. (though his character design takes inspiration from an obscure issue of Batman, per Morrisons culling from obscure bits of continuity) David Zavimbe works by day as a police officer in the fictional city of Tinasha in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and by night as the vigilante Batwing. Unlike other Batman family characters, Batwing relies primarily on a suit of powered armor with flight capabilities along with the requisite multitude of gadgets. Though like many in the Bat family, he inevitably relies most on his fists to get the job done.

Someone is killing members of the Congo’s former superhero team, the Kingdom, making a show of each kill and massacring anyone who opposes him. Thus, Batwing rises to the occasion and begins a manhunt for the maniacal killer. And that’s all that need to be said plot-wise. It’s a basic setup and an effective framework for establishing David’s character, tying in nicely to his past as a child soldier and the path that led him to Batman, Inc.

Given the setting, certain hot button issues get touched upon, including AIDS, child soldiers, and warlords, but these elements never cross the line into heavy-handed prosthelytizing or stereotypical caricaturing. They’re things that exist given the setting and Winick wisely acknowledges them without giving them undue focus or turning characters into mouthpieces. With the minor exception of some clunky dialogue around introducing the fact that David’s parents died of AIDS, leaving him an orphan, something that could have been fixed with an additional draft or editing.

Thematically, the book dwells on the typical Batman family stable of subjects. The corrupting influence of power. The moral boundary between righteous vigilantism and hopeless vengeance. Confronting villainy while resisting the temptation to kill. Much like the plot, these tropes are played fairly straight. As such, this isn’t an example of Judd Winick’s best writing — a lot more creativity and verve went into Catwoman — but neither is it bad by any stretch of the imagination; quite the contrary, like Batman, Batwing carries the least amount of baggage from the reboot, allowing the book to just have fun exploring interesting, dark, and dramatic directions.

Artwork by Ben Oliver is gorgeous, the right mixture of realism and stylization that is at once stunning, highly emotional, and kinetic, although his backgrounds and exterior locations leave something to be desired. It feels often that characters exist in a void or a barebones location — walls without details, streets without people, like film backdrops that haven’t been finished yet. Nevertheless, the amount of work Oliver puts into a single expression should serve as an example to DC’s lesser artists.

Lastly, a brief tangent, Batwing carries on DC’s dubious ratings system which labels each issue “T for Teen” despite the hefty amounts of gore and bloody violence which skirt well into 16+ territory (and yet again it’s a Judd Winick penned book that inspires me to harp on about this issue). Resident villain Massacre pretty much specializes in dismemberment and senseless slaughter, leading to some brutal images.

A solid book, more so than Batgirl, but, then again, Batwing didn’t carry with it the number of unfortunate implications and glass-walking subjects as Batgirl, so properly comparing the two is a bit unfair. Nevertheless, Batwing remains the more recommendable book, less bogged down in problems, much more straightforward and entertaining. I can’t help but look forward to seeing where David’s story takes him.

The Dark Ages, a period in European history following the collapse of the Roman Empire notably devoid of history, dark not so much for the grim events that filled it but more for our simple lack of knowledge as to what occurred during that time. So who’s to say a mobile empire mounted on the backs of dinosaurs didn’t rend and plunder the borderless nations of Europe aiming to conquer an ancient lost city of great and wondrous power?

Seven Against the Dark collects the first seven issues of the series (get it? number symbolism, you’ll be getting a lot of it here) which, together, form the Demon Knights’ origin story. Seven strangers find themselves coincidentally gathered in the small village of Little Spring, an insignificant township at the foot of Alba Sarum, the aforementioned lost city. They are: Jason Blood, Merlin’s apprentice, survivor of the fall of Camelot, and host to the Demon Etrigan; Madame Xanadu, sorceress and Jason Blood’s lover; Sir Ystin the Shining Knight (Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers of Victory reinvention of the classic Golden Age character), a fellow survivor of Camelot born of ancient Celtic stock and the last surviving knight of King Arthur’s court; Vandal Savage, a younger, more boisterous version of the infamous DC villain; and original characters the Horsewoman, an archer never seen unmounted from her namesake horse; Al Jabr, a Middle Eastern inventor, mathematician, and expert in all things scientific (as far as the ancient world knows it); and lastly, Exoristos, a hulking warrioress from a land ancient and long forgotten even for the Dark Ages. Meanwhile, the Horde of the Questing Queen marches on Little Spring with Alba Sarum in its sights and our motley band of seven must come together to protect the tiny village from certain demise.

Not unlike Frankenstein Agent of S.H.A.D.E. and Suicide Squad, Demon Knights is pure fun, especially for any fan of sword and sorcery. High adventure and thrills outweigh the cerebral but the book isn’t without substance to complement its style. While our seven protagonists are certainly heroes in our eyes with their good intentions and strong virtues (Savage and the Demon excepted), the reader will be left wondering whether their actions were ever truly heroic — several lingering images and a bit of ironic dialogue serve to punch that point home. After all, this is the Dark Ages, not the Golden Age, and a bloodless victory is more a fantasy than any dragon or fairy queen.

Paul Cornell finds a comfortable middle ground between the often overwrought high English of certain fantasy epics and the vulgarities of modern English, giving characters diction appropriately arcane for the time without lapsing into the dissociatively elaborate. Similarly, each individual character gets enough time to form distinct personalities without any one of them dominating the book or any one of them left one dimensional and unrefined by book’s end. Nevertheless, Vandal Savage manages to steal the show on occasion with his delightful brand of barbarism as his deceptive brand of civility collides with his underlying maleficent nature. The Demon Etrigan walks away with more than his fair share of memorable moments and along with Exoristos, as the two bruisers of the group, produce the most moments of badass throughout the book.

If forced to nitpick, the only thing I’d hold against this book is the artwork which, while enormously vibrant, colorful, and action packed, often feels claustrophobic. Think on Lord of the Rings and the fantastical visuals throughout those films, many of them will no doubt be the amazing landscape shots of New Zealand. Everything feels grand and vast whereas the scenery in Demon Knights feels tightly packed despite the lack of limitations on visuals afforded a comic book over a live action film. Even wide shots used to take in such grandiose sights as an outsized Apatosaurus with a palace straddling its back seem smaller than they ought to be because the closeness of the frame fails to adequately convey scale. While this style does succeed in making action scenes more intimate and thrilling, it fails to convey the kind of majesty you expect from a fantasy world.

Nevertheless, the artwork excels in every other aspect and the book as a whole emerges as one of the New 52’s standout creations, vastly superior to many reboot creations for no better reason than that it actually feels like something new. I harbor no delusions about my limited readership but please, anyone who happens to read this, seek out this book. It needs all the support it can get to lead a long and prosperous run.

Here we have portraits of the Batman in two phases of his life: a young, inexperienced Bruce Wayne  in his earliest years as Batman, little more than a sack of vengeance with a costume; to a modern, self-assured Wayne in his mid-…thirties? forties? fifties?…mid-forfties, a father growing tired of his hardboiled, paranoid past, looking forward to carving a brighter, safer future for his son and city.

Batman & Robin Vol. 1: Born to Kill

Now we come to the third of Batman’s four headlining titles. The first was spectacular, the second a dud, so how will Batman and Robin fair against the respective ceiling and floor established by those books? Well, spoilers, this is no Detective Comics — far from it in fact, and thank Zod for it. So the question remains: how does this book stack up against Scott Snyder’s Batman? Well, let’s dive in.

The current Batman and Robin is the successor to Grant Morrison’s pre-relaunch Batman and Robin which featured Dick Grayson as Batman and Damian Wayne as Robin, a pairing that seems at first odd but in actuality created a new, fun dynamic for the duo. A fun loving, positive Batman and a hard-as-nails, moody Robin. Their growing mutual respect for one another became the backbone of the book’s emotional core, along with Dick’s quest to equal Bruce’s legacy and Damian’s fight against his violent upbringing. Their relationship worked so well that I was honestly sad to see them broken up with the return of Bruce Wayne and the reboot in September 2011. Now, Dick Grayson’s back to being Nightwing, Bruce Wayne’s back in the role as Batman, but Damian Wayne remains the current Robin. The worry then becomes how will Peter J. Tomasi create a unique dynamic for two characters seemingly so alike yet so at odds? At odds, in essence, the same way Batman and Jason Todd were at odds (i.e. Jason continually moaning and disobeying orders like an insufferable prick).

Batman and Robin opens with something completely audacious to Batman purists: Bruce Wayne deciding to put his parents’ deaths behind him, to move on, to honor who they were in life rather than live in the shadow of their demise. Bringing son Damian along, he even casts the playbill from that fateful night’s show adrift in the sewer below Crime Alley which is soon to be demolished to make way for a new housing, part of Wayne’s urban revitalization.

Wait a minute! An emotionally stable Batman trying to overcome his demons rather than wallow in them? What kind of cockamamie hippie bullshit is this!?

Yes, while the rest of the DC universe has turned back the clock, Batman seems to be moving forward with his life regardless of whatever timestream bullshit tries to unweave past developments. No, it’s onward and upward for Batman and Bruce Wayne, but the path uphill is fraught with perils. As Batman pits nurture against nature in bringing up Damian as both son and sidekick, a mysterious figure from Bruce Wayne’s past emerges to tear the two apart. (For a nice change of pace, why not a mysterious figure from Batman’s past who just wants to give him pie instead of the usual revenge plot?) And here we see how Tomasi changes up the dynamic between the two, focusing on their familial ties to define who they are and how they interact with one another. Batman struggles to be a father while Damian struggles to be a son. Neither character descends into being insufferable even when they do something wrong or betray one another’s trust because each step of the way we understand their mindset and motives. The books strikes at some universal themes here and will no doubt resonate with any father or any son with a troubled bond to their parent or child. (Insert “Cat’s in the Cradle” joke here.)

Along with Scott Snyder’s Batman, Peter J. Tomasi’s interpretation of the Dark Knight also marks a decisive move away from portrayals of Bruce Wayne as an ever brooding, ever moody sack of neuroses and paranoia, unable to trust anyone outside his insular adoptive family. A decidedly positive change for the character who was growing quite boring and lacking in development (as well as devolving closer and closer into Frank Miller’s All-Star Batman and Robin character assassination). While Batman brings the character back to his roots as a detective confronting the horrors of a city consumed by monsters, Batman and Robin introduces a new angle to the character we haven’t seen before. Mainly, Bruce’s new role as a father. Arguably, one could say Bruce Wayne always had a fatherly aspect to his character in his upbringing of Dick Grayson and Tim Drake, but those two always viewed him as a mentor more than a father (especially Tim with his living father still active in his life…well, pre-Identity Crisis, anyway). Damian, however, very much looks up to Bruce as a father and Bruce doesn’t really know how to respond in kind. In a particularly poignant scene, Alfred tells Bruce he should pay more attention to how he praises the boy, stressing the importance of demonstrating pride over simple approval. Bruce has trouble grasping the distinction and his actions shape Damian’s own.

Meanwhile, the development of Nobody, the latest addition to Batman’s rogues gallery, parallels our duo’s dilemma in both life and theme. Unlike Tony S. Daniel’s Dollmaker, who was just another dime-a-dozen psychopath, Nobody has an interesting past and motivation (building upon established Batman mythos, in fact). A vigilante operating outside the law, not unlike so many other of Gotham’s heroes, Nobody crosses that line Bruce promised never to breach, killing criminals to end their wrongdoings for good. Nobody is a foil in both practice and philosophy to Batman, making him the perfect alternative role model for Damian given his past among the League of Assassins.

Batman and Robin avoids all the pitfalls Detective Comics succumbed to. The eight issues collected here actually build on a singular story with a coherent sense of rising action and falling action. The characters are well crafted, their dialogue honed and meaningful, and the villain compelling, threatening, and the perfect foil for Batman in his current state. The only arena where Detective Comics may have the upper hand is in the art. And even then, Patrick Gleason’s pencils suit the book perfectly, lacking only in technical ability of Daniel’s penciling but perfectly capturing the mood and spirit of the book.

The strong emotional core of this book cannot be overstated. The relationship Tomasi builds between Bruce and Damian strikes some truly heartwarming chords while at the same time driving much of the action, leading to some intense, knuckle-biting scrapes and confrontations. Hearts will be racing one moment and tears welling in the next. Along with Scott Snyder’s book, this is a must-read for old and new generations of Batman fans.

Batman: Earth One

The ontology of Earth One is comparatively simple against our own universe. It exists as a playground for writers to explore the early days of a DC hero’s career, beginning, naturally enough, with Superman in J. Michael Straczynski’s Superman: Earth One. Therein, Straczynski recounts Superman’s first arrival to Metropolis and his transformation into the hero we know, exploring the various motives past and present driving humble Clark Kent to don the tights and do battle with forces cosmic. Ironically, Straczynski better captured Superman’s heart in this alternate universe tale than in his mainstream run on Superman: Grounded. The same cannot be said for Geoff Johns, however, who has perhaps proven more talent for crafting ongoing plotlines than short, closed stories.

Given the nature of the book, there’s little point in providing a plot synopsis save to note certain important changes made to Batman’s continuity. First, Bruce’s parents were killed on the eve a mayoral election wherein Thomas Wayne was a candidate, leading Bruce to believe his parents were assassinated as part of a political conspiracy. Second, Martha Wayne, Bruce’s mother, is no longer Martha Wayne née Kane but Martha Wayne née Arkham. What dramatic shifts does this turnabout offer? Surprisingly little. In fact, it’s mostly just setup for a needlessly contrived coincidence.

This book fails primarily because it telegraphs plot points in the worst possible way. Basically, every character begins at a place contrary to how we know them from mainstream continuity. Commissioner Gordon is cowardly, having bought into the Gotham’s corruption after the death of his wife, so obviously he’s going to go through a dramatic experience that brings him back to being the hero cop we know from every piece of Batman fiction ever. Harvey Bullock starts out as a thin, straight-laced, sober detective looking to do good in Gotham (while still harboring selfish ulterior motives), so you know he’s going to devolve into the grizzly, drunken “bad cop” famed to stalk the streets of Gotham.

Oswald Cobblepot, alias Penguin, in a surprising “twist” reveals himself as Gotham’s mayor, Thomas Wayne’s rival from all those years ago but, surprise, surprise, he’s just as corrupt and evil as he’s always been. That reveal pretty much spoils whatever “mystery” the book had to offer as Penguin’s villainy is played painfully straight. Moreover, rather than rely on a villain’s cunning and wit to make them a compelling threat, Johns falls back on shock value with implications of child molestation and murder. Johns deprives Penguin of the noteworthy traits that make him a named supercriminal in Batman’s mythos. (Seriously, the Penguin’s role here had more dramatic tension when he was running for mayor in the Adam West TV series.)

Alfred Pennyworth is the only character who begins with an altered backstory and doesn’t transmogrify into a mainstream version of his character by the book’s climax. And even then, his character amounts to an older, grizzled version of Dr. John Watson, complete with a cane, a limp, and history as a soldier. Ironically, the character to get the least amount of development is Bruce Wayne. You know, BATMAN. The character the damned book is named for. He goes through the exact same character arc depicted in vastly superior Batman: Year One and Batman Begins, only without the attention to detail and character that made those stories interesting. Johns does very little to get us into Bruce’s head, to make us understand his mindset and his drive.

Apparently, Geoff Johns simply found Batman the least interesting character to focus on in a Batman book as every other focal character — Gordon, Bullock, and Alfred — gets more time devoted to fleshing out their personality and backstory than Bruce Wayne. But, you know what? Fair enough. Batman’s origin has been told and retold a thousand times; it’s a tall order expecting Johns to bring a new spin to this old yarn, so focusing on the characters around Batman seems like an promising avenue for new stories, new developments, and a new perspective on an old character. The problem here being that every other character’s development comes at the cost of making Batman look like a fucking putz.

Ultimately, Bruce Wayne plays the least role of all the characters responsible for resolving what passes for a plot in this book. The sum total of Batman’s actions here amount to crashing through a window by accident, correctly identifying the presence of rust in a footprint, and beating up a big guy in a birthday hat. Gordon and Bullock end up being more decisive and effective in their actions and neither of them are the brightest bulb here. Gordon’s a coward, Harvey’s a douche, and neither of them should be outgunning the “world’s greatest detective”, inexperienced as he may be or otherwise. He did train with ninjas, after all. Though, for all we know, Johns may have omitted that part of Batman’s history. How else to explain a cop getting the drop on Bats and the fact that he gets physically bested by nearly every opponent he faces save the ultimate villain.

(SPOILERS: Scratch that. While Bats does indeed best the Birthday Boy, Alfred ultimately has to bail him out by gunning down the Penguin after Cobblepot managed to stab Batman through the gut with his trick umbrella.)

It’s one thing for Batman to be inexperienced, it’s another for him to be completely useless within his own story. The book purports to be about Bruce’s investigation into his parents’ murders, but that turns out to be a red herring in the end. A red herring Johns wishes were wrought with symbolism and irony but it feels more like an insult. One last contrivance to give Bruce motive to keep being Batman, proving that the forces of plot inevitably override individual volition. For this reason, the moment when Bruce truly “becomes” Batman, the defining moment of any Batman origin story, here given the typical full page spread treatment, feels hollow and unearned. The character hadn’t done enough to earn that moment because Johns’ writing sure as hell hadn’t earned it. It’s a shallow imitation of those same moments from Year One and Begins.

Moreover, a lot of the changes from mainstream continuity in this book end up arbitrary and pointless when all they do is place the character outside their comfort zone just long enough to throw the reader off till Johns feels comfortable putting them back where they belong. That shot of Bullock gazing longingly up at an imposing wall of liquor should hold a great deal of dramatic weight but all it really signifies is a return to status quo. The character hasn’t changed. Rather, he is now unchanged, relieved of those new and different aspects to his character Johns introduced in the beginning.

As a last parting shot at the reader, Johns teases us with a look at the Riddler studying Batman from a control room but I couldn’t care less at this point. The book utterly fails to achieve what Straczynski’s Superman: Earth One reached by that book’s end: a compelling story of a hero’s early days struggling to become more than the sum of their parts — more than their tragedies, their origins, their joys, and their fears — to become superheroic, an idea, a value given form. Straczynski put you in Clark’s head with every exchange of dialogue and internal monologue. Here, Johns completely forgoes narration while dialogue primarily moves the plot forward, developing character only as necessary. Given a playground of ideas and possibilities, Johns only musters a modest variation on an old story. One certainly not worth exploring unless one is truly desperate for Batman stories.

So, hey, remember when DC did that whole New 52 thing back in September 2011 so they could reboot the DC universe and introduce new readers to their books by resetting everything to chapter one? Well, apparently no one told Paul Levitz! Legion of Super-Heroes picks up more or less where Levitz’s prior run left off, continuing the adventures of a Tolstoyian cast of characters, all of whom introduce themselves in the very first issue. And I do mean all of them.

But unlike Batman or Green Lantern, Legion of Super-Heroes makes no attempts whatsoever to ease you into the groove of things. No, it just tosses you right into the melee armed with nothing but your wits and dedication to slog through this dense pile of narrative buildup.

This is a complicated book to describe because, honestly, it’s nearly impossible to follow unless you’ve read any previous Legion books. And even then, it descends into a slog regardless. Levitz does make an attempt to reintroduce these character but in the most atrocious way possible. Rather than a series of interpersonal scenes establishing each character and their relationships — you know, the typical training or boot camp sequence a la Full Metal Jacket or briefing scene a la Aliens, or, hell, the scene between Hal Jordan and Carol Ferris from Green Lantern or Bruce Wayne’s speech from Batman — we get text boxes, friggin’ text boxes! Text boxes featuring a character’s name, homeworld, and abilities with arrows leadings to the appropriate character, the most horribly intrusive way to introduce characters because it neglects that one thing that makes them compelling and worth following: their character. We know next to nothing about their personal interests, foibles, and backstories, only that they are members of the Legion and each have their own unique power — the things which, while essential for a team book, often end up the least interesting things about a team book. Moreover, these boxes break up nearly every scene in the first issue as your eye can’t help but be drawn to a distractingly yellow box, three or four of which pop up across a single page. And by the time you return to the dialogue, you’ve lost track of the conversation and now it’s time for backtracking. Worse, in the original issues, these were present in every issue. But God knows anyone following this book month-to-month is going to need reminders. And God forbid any character be memorable enough that we’d just remember who they are without the hints.

What I would have given for just a single scene of two characters talking to each other about something that wasn’t plot related. Something that gave me just the slightest insight into who they are, why they’re a hero, and why I should care for them.

A large cast need not be a burden but here every page bears the weight as action gets shoved aside and each new digression pushes out the memory of the last until A, B, and C plots become jumbled and confused beyond repair. The first four issue story arc could have easily been expanded to fill this entire seven issue trade and been all the better for it given additional space to develop characters and introduce new ones at a reasonable pace. As is, the thing is condensed as hell and any narrative investment is lost along with the characters. Even with prior knowledge, I find it hard to believe anyone could read the first half of this book and be satisfied as the pacing is just so erratic and the tone shifts wildly with each scene.

The action begins in media res but it took me several repeat readings to figure out what exactly was going on, who people were, and why the hell they were doing any of the things they were doing. The only characters I recognized were those I vaguely recalled from the original Legion Lost and, even then, these are vastly different versions of those characters. I have no idea who they are in the context of this group nor, indeed, context for the group itself. Sure, they’re heroes — it’s in the name — but for whom? Who composes the United Planets? Why are they in conflict with the Dominion? To what extent are the Legion’s actions sanctioned? Are they an official/unofficial quasi-military organization? I know the answers to these questions only because I researched them; the book itself offers little in the way of setup and basic establishment of good guys and bad guys. And this is supposed to be our introduction to this series!? Christ!

A squad of legionnaires from the Legion of Super-Heroes, a formalized, almost militaristic league of metahumans and super-powered aliens, arrive on a foreign planet to infiltrate a shady military installation, fearing invasion from the Dominion, a race of rather nasty looking bug alien people (the good looking races never go evil). Meanwhile, fellow legionnaires are reconnoitering at Legion headquarters on earth following an event that apparently cost the lives of many legionnaires and cut the Legion’s time travel abilities off from the 21st century (the event in question being Flashpoint and the lost legionnaires the current cast of the revamped Legion Lost, presumably). All-in-all, not that complicated a set up. In execution, however, utterly fumbled.

As I understand it, Paul Levitz was forced to cut short his run on Legion prior to the reboot, ending storylines before they had properly developed, so the book could start anew. An unfortunate fate for several books, in fact, including the lauded Secret Six. So I can’t help but feel sorry for Levitz, a writer forced to kill his baby for the sake of a marketing gambit. But I do blame him for this awful beginning to what otherwise looks like an intriguing book, regardless. After four issues the book finally begins to breathe a bit and the last story arc actually builds some interest, divulging itself of tangents and distractions, focusing on a limited set of characters to tell a simple story about two sisters and their diverging paths in life which ultimately lead them to conflict. The whole thing wraps itself up in futuristic cultural politics, combining high concept storytelling with character drama, the essential goal of any piece of science fiction. And despite my bitching, we get inklings of that in the preceding issues (provided you were willing to suss them out from the milieu), just not nearly enough of it in a cogent fashion.

The artwork serves the book far better than it deserves. Futuristic cities look intimidatingly futuristic, costumes are suitably ridiculous (especially those of any female character which will almost always feature an ass shot at some point), and the action scenes sparkle despite the muddled writing. The art design has a Flash Gordon-ish charm, as if all outfits and locales are purposefully ludicrous as an homage to the book’s Silver Age roots — all bubbles, glowing tubes, capacitors, and outsized pieces of technology despite its continued miniaturization in real life (I’m just waiting for someone to bust out the food pills at dinner) — though I can’t decide if this works in the book’s favor or not. Any time the reader is expected to take a scene seriously, their investment is blunted by the outlandish. Take action girl Dragonwing’s diaphanous transparent coat, for example, which she sports in battle while wielding flame breath powers. I suppose future-silk is both fire- and laser-proof. Oh, what’s that? Space politics? I couldn’t hear you over your giant neon yellow lapels!

As a fan of high concept science fiction and space opera, I want to give this book another chance to hook me (and no doubt I will), but, as a reviewer, I can’t honestly recommend it to new readers nor, really, to old ones either. It’s a bad start, pure and simple, but a book not without potential. Although, rather than hyping me for new ongoing adventures, I’d rather delve into Levitz’s older books and discover the quality stories only hinted at here before DC forced him to butcher it all.

Superheroines rule the day as we look at two of comics’ most fearsome femme fatales…well, one of them at least — Emp is getting there. Specters, spooks, and the screams of missing children haunt Batwoman, Kate Kane, in her New 52 solo series. Meanwhile, the continuing adventures of Empowered give pause for Emp’s best friend Ninjette, fearsome ninja princess from New Jersey, to take center stage, squaring off against a squad of rival ninja, her reproductive rights as the ultimate stake.

Batwoman Vol. 1: Hydrology

Born out of the pages of 52 and codified in her own lauded Detective Comics arc, Batwoman: Elegy, Kate Kane, the latest heroine to bear the Batwoman moniker, proved immensely popular due in no small part to the writing of Greg Rucka. Taking inspiration from the real life story of Dan Choi, Rucka crafted a character out of the most basic of superheroic elements: inspired by personal tragedy, a person with the drive and the ethos to serve a greater cause than themselves takes up the mantle of the Bat to fight crime. In Kate Kane’s case, a cadet in the USMA at West Point, daughter of a U.S. Army colonel, is ejected from the academy for violation of then-current Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Ever the restless soldier, unwilling to live a life without service, inspired by local Gotham hero Batman, Kane assumes the title of Batwoman and joins the caped crusader’s mission to extinguish Gotham’s corruption.

But with the departure of Greg Rucka from DC for Marvel, the pertinent question here becomes, can Batwoman maintain the same level of quality established in Elegy without Rucka’s penmanship? In his place, artist J.H. Williams III has stepped up to fill Rucka’s shoes with help from W. Haden Blackman, and, together, they keep the momentum going.

Hydrology continues the story of Batwoman where Elegy concluded, Kane investigating the disappearances of children from Gotham’s Hispanic neighborhoods while still recovering from the revelation of her father’s lies and the apparent death of Alice, Elegy’s villainess. Complications emerge with the arrival of Kate’s cousin Bette Kane, alias Flamebird, former Teen Titan, who Kane takes under her wing to train as a sidekick. More complications arise as a new criminal organization, Medusa, infiltrates Gotham (oh, good, as if Gotham didn’t have enough of those already). Yet more complications surface when the Department of Extranormal Operations (DEO)’s director takes a particular interest in Batwoman…and discovering the face beneath the mask.

Normally, I don’t spare quite as many words for a book’s artwork as I do for its writing — not for a lack of appreciation, mind, but more for my story-oriented approach to most art. But here it’s nearly impossible to separate story from visuals, as is true of nearly everything J.H. Williams III touches. His images could drive even the weakest plots, but thankfully Williams and Blackman weave a compelling tale driven by Kate’s mentoring of Bette, budding relationship with Detective Sawyer, and collapsing ties to her father.

It’s a bit much to balance all at once but our writers give adequate attention to main and secondary characters alike. However, this dedication to character comes at the cost of trimming the primary plotline down to a sliver. Surprisingly little time is dedicated to Gotham’s missing Hispanic children despite clearly occupying a large share of Batwoman’s mind. But the plot never runs too thin, thankfully; we get just enough, just not as much as we would like. Our main antagonist gets the least character development of all, thus the eventual climax lacks the investment gained from a more fleshed out villain.

Inevitably, this six issue volume consumes itself mostly in setup for future issues — a problem perhaps remedied best by introducing Director Bones and Cameron Chase at book’s end, teasing them for future issues while dedicating more time to Kate and Bette’s teamwork investigating the missing children and Medusa. As is, Bones and Chase, of the book’s hefty stable of secondary characters, contribute the least to the book’s overall plot (which pains me to say because I love Director Bones and his lovable bastard characterization here).

All the while, Williams assembles panels like panes in a stained glass window, each image assembled into a vibrant suite, demonstrated best in his two-page spreads, like Detective Sawyer’s investigation of metahuman massacre and yet another of Williams’ favored bat-symbol arrangements.

Each character’s narrative voice shapes the images around them: observations form zooms and x-rays, psychoses swirl and warp borders, and moods determine style from Kate’s clean, classically rendered life unmasked to Batwoman’s dark, realistic mode suffused with elaborate, slick, and grimy shades and complex panels. Colorist Dave Stewart adds wondrous layers to Williams’ already phenomenal pencils. From every angle imaginable, Batwoman leads the pack in artistic merits, embarrassing all other books achieving less. You won’t find a more gorgeous volume on the market from DC or any other publisher.

The combination of a great character and superlative artist subdue whatever minor narrative hiccups that arise in this volume. In the end, you’ll be yearning for more: more Batwoman, more adventure, more J.H. Williams making sweet, sweet love to your retinas. Unquestionably, for any fan of Batman or Bat-Family characters — hell, any fan of superheroes or sequential art — this is a must-read.

Empowered Vol. 7

Sexy fun times return with a heaping dose of ninja in the ongoing adventures of a girl and her superpowered long underwear.

I love Empowered. It’s possibly one of my favorite comic books, certainly the one I look forward to most whenever I hear a new volume is on its way. In fact, Empowered holds a special place in my heart because it helped bridge the gap between my lifelong manga fandom and mainstream comic books. It seemed to fit in with that exceptional form of comic like Kick-Ass or Watchmen which comment more on the style and form of comic books rather than conforming to them. What surprised me was how the book, rather than subvert or reject typical cliches of the genre, embraced them, making them a part of the book’s fictional culture. Your usual damsel-in-distress in Empowered’s world is not merely the over-abused trope we know it as but a subculture, complete with its own set of standards, mores, slang, and even sub-cliches.

Classifying Empowered as a satire, as most are prone to do, seems somewhat inappropriate if for no other reason than it avoids descending into the gross negativism and cynical pessimism consuming other comic book “satires” like Preacher or The Boys (or anything by Garth Ennis, for that matter). It strikes me more as an affectionate parody, poking fun at superhero tropes without condemning them outright, akin to The Venture Bros. Moreover, Empowered manages to remain consistently fun and entertaining with no pretense about making broader statements or declarations as you might see in other books striving for the subversive and meta. Ironically, by focusing on the characters and their own self-conscious quirks, a book about tights-wearing superhumans and villains with giant punctuation marks on their heads seems more down-to-earth and packed with universal messages about human nature, vigilantism, and the potential for coexistence between superhumans (or “suprahumans” per Empowered terminology) and normal humans than most books foisted under the “dark and edgy” banner.

Oh, yeah, and then there’s the sex appeal. Probably the thing Empowered is most known for. After all, the title character has her origins in a series of commissions for damsel-in-distress bondage art (believe me, she’s come a long way since then…a long, long way). And volume seven continues that fine tradition with plenty of near-nudity, nipple pasties, baudy discussions of superhero sex habits, and Emp’s signature, leave-nothing-to-the-imagination supersuit. (And yet f-bombs and other familiar four letter words still get censored for some reason despite the book’s obviously M-rated content.)

For the seventh volume of the series, we pause our leading lady’s ongoing plotlines to focus on supporting character Ninjette, kickass ninja princess from New Jersey. Per multinational ninja clan tradition, clan royalty, princesses especially, serve key roles in keeping the clans alive via arranged marriages — though this carries with it the unfortunate implication of turning young girls into little more than breeding stock for the…less bountiful ninja clans — a prospect with which Ninjette is none too keen. Having bested Ninjette in previous volumes only to be curbstomped by Emp, the Ayakami ninja clan return to settle the score by capturing Ninjette, horribly mutilating her, and sending her back to her clan to meet her fate, only this time ‘Jette is ready with a surprise counterattack of her own.

At first, the sudden change of focus away from our title character seems like a gyp. After all, these books aren’t exactly released month-to-month — the next time we see these characters may be a year and a half to two years away — so dangling plot threads keep a-dangling, wrapping up only ‘Jette’s ninja clan rivalry chicaneries. But this volume serves a different overall narrative purpose.

Warren’s typical brand of satire and humor are in full force here, as well as the sudden dramatic shifts common in later volumes, but overall volume seven feels lighter than volume six: it’s a breather episode, a chance for the characters to recover from the events of volume six, distance themselves from the tragedies, and regain some measure of sanity. While ‘Jette’s conflict takes center stage, flashbacks recount the fallout of Death Monger’s siege and we get plenty of our leading lady as well as all our favorite secondary characters (though not enough Strapping Buck, who deserves his own spin-off, in my humble opinion…He’s a dear that walks like a man and has super strength! And his name is Strapping Buck! You can’t tell me that’s not awesome! FEAR THE DEER!). Taking some pressure off Empowered gives us a buffer for the dark waters alluded to in Vol. 7’s final pages: mainly, the return of Willie Pete and revelations of Thugboy’s past finally coming to light.

Warren’s pencil work remains excellent, improved by the switch from pulp to glossy pages. The higher contrast removes the dinginess from the shading and makes each panel look less muddled and over-detailed, problems repeatedly plaguing previous Empowered volumes. As well, Warren finds a superior balance for his typically verbose dialogue. Dialogue balloons no longer crowd out panels and the Caged Demonwolf’s speech has been toned down to just the right level, just enough so he never tips over into the obnoxious (an unfortunately common occurrence in previous volumes). Warren’s balance of drama and humor also improves with each volume with Vol. 7 nimbley mixing the dark, the comic, and the darkly comic: karaoke night with zombie superheroes, ‘Jette’s tragic recollections of her father, Emp’s continued bumbling attempts to understand her supersuit’s capabilities, all work to make you care for these misfits characters and their parodic romps.

If you’re not into this series yet, pick up the first volume and give it a go. You’ll find a smart, humorous book filled with compelling, lovable characters and crackin’ good jabs at superhero-dom. If you’ve read the past six volumes already, what are you waiting for? Seven brings the same magic and humor, a lighthearted prelude to the foreboding shadows hinted at for volume eight.

In my last review I made a big deal about a lot of the arbitrary changes made to Green Arrow’s character and mythos and how they added very little to either the narrative or character. Similarly, a lot of fans became polarized by Brian Azzarello’s Wonder Woman because of a specific change to Diana’s backstory, mainly the circumstances of her birth and her relationship with her mother that follows therefrom. But unlike the changes in Green Arrow, this change actually informs the character, makes the story more interesting, more dynamic, and invigorates it with life and nuance. It gives a staid and well-trodden character somewhere new to go, rather than, say, retread older, better stories all over again. Without it, Wonder Woman has no thematic parallel to the story being told and no deeper motivation to see her mission through.

Some could make the case that this alters Wonder Woman’s character in a way that won’t be appealing to all readers, especially long time Wonder Woman fans. To their credit, Diana is a lot angrier in this book, more dispassionate — more attuned with her Amazon roots, I would argue — and the change I mentioned only exacerbates these qualities. But this is a younger Wonder Woman, as well, one more disconnected with mortals and their less violent, more introspective foibles, so, on a character level, I think these things can be forgiven. Nevertheless, for anyone used to Wonder Woman’s character as it was prior to the reboot, this book may be a tough sell, but, to Brian Azzarello’s credit, at least he’s using the relaunch as an excuse to do something new, something we haven’t seen before with this character. But enough of that, on to the book at hand.

Well, what’s there to say about Wonder Woman? Amazon, ass kicker, spirit of Truth, and foremost superheroine of the DC universe. Indeed, we waste no time with introductions as this book leaps straight into the action:

Zola, a woman living in isolation somewhere in Virginia, receives a sudden visit from the Messenger of the Gods, Hermes himself, informing her that she is not only pregnant, but pregnant with a child of Zeus. Immediately, two centaurs beset them and Hermes teleports Zola away, away to the home of Diana Themyscira, who, upon hearing Zola’s story, agrees to help her, rescuing Hermes, and whisking the two away to Themyscira itself, Paradise Island. Elsewhere, the gods plot and scheme, pondering matters beyond the bastard of their father god. Matters of succession. Matters of right. Matters of blood.

As the volume’s subtitle, Blood, implies, thematically this book is about family. The ties that bind, drawing people relentlessly together despite their efforts to forge their own path. Every conflict in the book revolves around these ties — the old grudges, the allegiances, the days long past both fond and foul. On a personal level, we see Diana confront her mother Hippolyta with lies and secrets hidden for decades, a fantastical conflict born out of a genuine emotional kernel: What happens when you realize a parent is something more than they appear, something more insidious and challenging to your personal ethos? And how do you react when you realize their blood flows in your veins as well?

As 100 Bullets stands to prove, Brian Azzarello knows how to craft an intricate, well plotted, and irresistibly intriguing story. From the very first moments when the headless bodies of two horses explode into mighty centaurs in wicked, bloody fashion, it is difficult to tear one’s attention away from this book. And like 100 Bullets, as the various factions (here, the gods and goddesses) reveal themselves, hints at multitude plots and conspiracies being woven by numerous players, each seeking the throne of Zeus, emerge. As such, this volume is mainly concerned with introducing the players themselves who will no doubt serve larger roles later in the story. Long time Wonder Woman villains Ares and Hades make only brief appearances before retreating into their own maniacal webs.

Indeed, the biggest criticism I can level at this book stems from how much it’s “written for the trade” — hell, one could say it’s written for the omnibus. Character development comes slim in each issue, and, even in this collection of the first six issues, the characters only just begin to take form. Not that big a deal given how little backstory and development need to be covered with Wonder Woman herself, but the supporting cast feels a bit lacking. However, this doesn’t read so much as a “lack” of character but, rather, like Brian Azzarello is keeping his cards close to his chest, eeking out fragments of the characters’ hidden depths slowly, deliberately. Zola alludes to her past, showing very little, but what hints we get aren’t pleasant: an abusive father, no other family to speak of, anonymous encounters with multiple men (to the point she doesn’t even remember sleeping with Zeus, the friggin’ king of the gods!), and she seems to take the news of her pregnancy with a demigod and impending murder at the behest of a goddess in stride.

In lieu of deep characterization we get ACTION! Big, bold, bloody, and brutal. DC’s interpretation of the Greek mythos, like many modern interpretation, is largely sanitized, lacking the grit and gore of the classical myths. Myths which largely focused on enormous men beating each other crimson and screwing anything that moves in a whirlwind of passion, rage, and sweat. Azzarello takes that old depiction, the safe and wholesome Greek lore, and tosses it in the bin, giving us something more akin to old myths, the grim and gritty myths. The gods are gods and humans merely playthings to them as we see Apollo casually obliterate three women in the first issue.

Artwork by Cliff Chiang and Tony Akins is a particular highlight among the New 52 titles, nicely stylized without deforming into the cartoonish, able to blend the real and the fantastical seamlessly. Their designs for the gods build on simple iconography evocative of both role and stature: Apollo the sun god, coal black in the night, explodes with the first rays of sunlight, shedding light on the world and the myriad plots taking form about it. And for a book calling for action, Chiang and Akins deliver with fearsome impacts of swords, arrows, and fists. Blood runs through more than veins here and colors by Matthew Wilson shine with every trickle, complementing the illustrations fantastically. This has to one of the most vibrantly illustrated and painted of DC’s current line.

Along with Batman, Wonder Woman is one of the most solid entries in the New 52 line, a beautiful blending of art and writing. A great starting point for new readers as well as something new for the longtime fans. All that’s required is an openness to change and patience enough to wait for the full story to take form.