The Week In Ink: March 24, 2010

I’ve been reading comics for 19 years, but until this week, I am pretty sure that I had never seen Volstagg, the Lion of Asgard, deliver a Kick to the Face.

 

 

Thanks to Thor #608, that’s another life goal I can cross off the list.

“Doing the last Week in Ink,” however, remains thoroughly un-crossed, which brings us to another round of the Internet’s Most Strangely-Fixated-On-My-Own-Mortality-This-Evening Comics Reviews! Here’s what caught my eye this week!

 


 

Jughead #200: I talked about this one during my appearance on the Awesomed By Comics podcast, but in case you missed it, Jughead #200 is awesome.

And I don’t mean awesome by my standards–it certainly means those, but admittedly, I’m already a guy who loves Archie–I mean it’s awesome by comic book standards. To start with, there’s the technical aspects that are only interesting to me, namely that it’s the first ever Archie book with a variant cover and that they printed it on glossy stock rather than Archie’s usual newsprint. It seems weird that they went that far for Jughead and not the recent (and highly disappointing) Archie #600, but I’m glad they did because this one deserves it.

And now the stuff that’s probably interesting to people who aren’t me: This issue’s written by former Twisted ToyFare and current Robot Chicken writer Tom Root and drawn by Archie veteran Rex Lindsey, who do what is without question the best Archie story since Archie Meets the Punisher. It’s the kind of story that plays to Archie’s strengths, with each of the characters selling off their defining characteristic to a witch in an attempt to get Jughead’s metabolism back after he swaps it for a truly ridiculous sandwich. It goofs on the established format in a way that’s actually really funny, to the point where it’s the first Archie comic I’ve read in a long time that I not only laughed out loud while I was reading, but laughed later when I was telling friends about it. Heck, it’s the first Archie comic I’ve read in a long time that I’ve actually wanted to tell my friends about. And I read every Archie book for like four years.

It’s exactly the sort of thing Archie needs to do more often: Find people who are willing to tweak the formula to build jokes, or allow the ones that are there to take the risks that lead to good comedy. If this issue shows anything, it’s that the Archie books still have the potential to be genuinely funny without losing any of what’s at their core, and it’s exactly what I’d like to see them follow up on. I might be the only one who wants the Archie books to be good, but believe me: I want it enough for all of us.

 

Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #61: And speaking of comics for kids that are totally awesome, this month saw the end of Marvel Adventures Spider-Man. It’s not really the end–along with Super-Heroes, the series restarts next month with a new #1 and the same writer for reasons that elude me–but Paul Tobin wraps up a plot that he started when he took over the book with #53, which, for a Marvel Adventures title, is pretty long-running.

If you haven’t been reading it–and really, if you like Spider-Man at all, you owe it to yourself to check out stories that are up there with the best of the “Brand New Day” stuff–the book’s been centering on a love triangle that’s been developing between Peter Parker, Gwen Stacy and Chat, a new character Tobin created for the MA book that can speak to animals. Things were going well, but then suddenly Chat forgot she and Peter were dating and Gwen started acting like she and Peter were, which ended up having a lot to do with the fact that Chat’s best friend is Emma Frost, who has been running around getting her kicks as a super-villain called the Silencer. It’s the perfect sort of blend of super-heroics and personal relationships that made me fall in love with Marvel Comics in general and Spider-Man in particular when I was a kid.

And everything’s just pulled off so well: The scenes with Peter talking to George Stacy are about as perfectly written as they can be, and between Emma’s confession and Peter’s response to Chat wanting to break it off with him at the end, Tobin, Christian Nauck and Terry Pallot put in more genuine emotion in a kid’s book than most of the comics aimed at adults. There’s just not a false note to it. Like Puckett and Parobeck’s Batman Adventures, this is the sort of kids’ comic that’ll make a kid love comics, and that’s about the highest praise I can give it.

 

Nemesis #1: Moving into the comics that are devoutly not for kids, this week saw the release of Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s latest project, and while we’re going to talk about it a lot on Monday’s episode of Ajax, I figured I might as well cover it here. As much time as I didn’t care for Kick Ass, I actually ended up really enjoying this one.

Like the best Mark Millar books, Nemesis is big, loud, dumb, and based around a premise so simple that Mike W. Barr did it twenty-five years ago: What if Batman hated cops? And it’s done so ludicrously over-the-top that you can’t help but enjoy it. I mean, there’s a scene where the eponymous bad guy is standing on the nose of a jet shooting out its windshield with a gun. That’s nonsense. That’s ridiculous by all but the most Fletcher Hanksian standards. But–as Millar well knows–it’s also exciting, especially when it’s just one of a series of exploits that keep getting bigger and louder and even more nonsensical.

It might just be the fact that he’s inking himself under colors by Dave McCaig rather than having inks by Dexter Vines and colors by Morry Hollowell, the team that did Civil War and Old Man Logan, but Steve McNiven’s art seems a little more rushed here. There’s a certain flatness to the coloring in parts, and while both of those sound like criticisms, I actually really like it. It lends a cartoonishness to the book that serves it well, because Nemesis is a cartoonish bad guy. And I don’t mean cartoonish like Dr. Doom, either; I mean he’s like Cobra Commander, who once literally attempted to blow up the ocean. He’s that kind of ridiculous, so when guys get shot and giant, Evil Dead 2ish blood fountains sprout from both entry and exit wounds, that only helps underscore the big fun silliness of it all.

The only thing I don’t like? Believe it or not, it’s the swearing. Believe me, I’m not opposed to it on a moral level–I have a mouth like a sailor with stubbed toe–but it just seems shoehorned into the scripts wherever to make sure it’s earning that mature rating. It’s Junior High swearing, where you’re not quite sure how to work in the words but you want to do it anyway.

But other than that? It’s a hoot.

 

Mysterius the Unfathomable v.1: I know I’ve mentioned this quite a bit over the past few days, but really: You guys need to read this.

I could write about how Tom Fowler’s art is just absolutely beautiful and how Jeff Parker’s script has an incredible dark wit to it that works as a perfect example of his range as a writer, but I’ve already said all that, and if I’m going to repeat myself, I’m going to repeat the most relevant part. Heck, I’ll even put it in boldface:

This is a comic where a bastard of a magician stops an invasion of Lovecraftian nightmares from Earth-Seuss by rooting out the pagan ritual that is Burning Man.

Here is the link to purchase it.

 


 

And on that authoritarian note, I’m calling it a night. As always, if anything caught your eye this week, feel free to mention it in the comments. But please! I haven’t picked up my copy of the Boy Commandos hardcover yet, and I don’t want any spoilers on this reprint collection of comics from 65 years ago!

12 thoughts on “The Week In Ink: March 24, 2010

  1. “Supergod” is shaping up to be Warren Ellis’ best Avatar book to date. Every one of these superhumans he’s created for this series feels wholly unique, which is something I’ve come to expect from Ellis but it still amazes me in this day and age.

    I was a little thrown off by McNiven’s art in Nemesis, I’m so used to (and in love with) the McNiven/Vines/Hollowell team that this just looked unfinished and kinda wrong. It’s not bad, just not what I was expecting. Loved the issue on the whole, but I’m completely in the tank for Millar so that was inevitable.

    Oh, and everyone needs to buy the second Phonogram TPB, out this week.

  2. Wow, I didn’t even think it was anatomically possible for Volstagg to deliver a kick in the face. Show’s how much I know about Asgardian anatomy…

  3. Mark Millar writing the adventures of Stardust, the Space-Revenge-Wizard might out-horrify Grant Morrison’s Dan Dare.

  4. caleb!: Well, to be fair, it does look like he got a pretty good running start.

    So, when is everybody else expecting a real-life Paradise on a Bun to show up on This Is Why You’re Fat? I give it two weeks, tops.

  5. Shit, I didn’t realize that Thor was no longer written by JMS. I love Thor, and have been waiting for someone other than JMS or Bendis (who I know hasn’t written the actual Thor series) to write him to buy the monthly. Guess I need to make a second trip to the comic shop this week.

    I’m guessing whatever fake Thor is depicted there must have been more or less laying on the ground previous to those panels. Volstagg is great, but the phrase “pear-shaped” was pretty much invented to describe him. And Don Wilson.

  6. I don’t know what week it was…but, I just picked up this week that kick-ass Invincible Iron Man hardcover that reprints the first NINETEEN issues in mega size and top-quality paper with all the covers for forty bucks.

    Obviously taking advantage of movie fever, but who the hell cares. Thanks, Marvel. Now kick out that complete Incredible Hercules hardcover.

  7. Have you checked out Orc Stain? Has a sort-of 70s Heavy Metal fantasy if written by Brandon Graham vibe going for it…

    Oh and what are your thoughts on the “Scott Pilgrim” trailer? I’m still not sure on Cera, but I thought it looked pretty sweet…

  8. Not Boy Commandos (sadly) but Newsboy Legion, I think.

    I’m curious about your thoughts on it, whenever you get it, because I thought it felt a little rushed. The coloring and production are not as strong as Fourth World, OMAC, or even the Sandman volume from a few months ago. But I haven’t finished it, so maybe I’m over-reacting.

  9. Volstagg has an incredibly luxurious beard in those pictures. I’m sort of mesmerised by it.

  10. I talked to Jeff Parker briefly at the Emerald City Comicon and told him how much my wife and I enjoyed “Mysterius.” He told me that he and Tom were currently in talks with Wildstorm about doing a second mini. Not a for-sure thing yet, but I thought I should pass it on. :-)