Comic Books Comic Book • Page 469

Nice House on the Lake is one I’ve had on my radar for a while just never got around to it. I’ve heard nothing but great things.

 

started Brian Azzarello's WW. not sure I like the writing so far, but Cliff Chiang's art is awesome.

 

I really liked that run, but treated it as an elseworlds story in my head. The art is fantastic all the way through and I really enjoy the new takes on the Greek Pantheon.

 

I’m a firm believer that the Azzarello Wonder Woman run actually sucks and doesn’t deserve someone as good as Chiang. Dude popped off hard on a writer’s mediocre-at-best-and-occasionally-utter-dogshit work, lol.

Everything with the Zeus origin, and Orion, and the god of war angle, and the male Amazons, is just… bad.

 

Finished volume two and, yeah, I don't like the writing that much, but the art really is amazing

 

Cliff Chiang rules and totally carries that whole run.

 

one volume left to go. it feels more like a story about the Greek gods that happens to feature Wonder Woman and not the other way around how it should be. some of the plot points are kind of... annoying? but most of the time it's just okay. definitely here more for the art than the writing

edit: finished. and my opinion hasn't changed. at least i don't feel like it was a waste of time, though. it wasn't really good, but I enjoyed it.

 

What I got through in the last two days:

Void Rivals 01-06
Transformers 01
Somna 01-02
Devil’s Cut anthology
Deviant 02
Rare Flavours 01
Something is Killing the Children Vol. 02

I really enjoyed everything I read. I want to start writing some more, so I might try to put together some thoughts on the books and do mini-reviews.

 

The next three volumes to finish off the arc finally arrived: It might be too soon to tell but I think the Meredith and David Finch continuation of Azzarello's WW is an improvement on at the very least the writing. it's making the best out of a bad situation with what's been established. Diana for once feels like the center of her own story again. The art is pretty, for sure, but it lacks the distinct character of Cliff Chiang's style

 

Still finishing up the Finches' run, it's a nice Diana story so far but they did Donna dirty

edit: from what I've gathered, it looks like Rebirth retconned Diana's New 52 origin but for some reason kept some of Donna's. Weird

 

From what I recall, they ended up reintroducing Donna in two different titles towards the end of New 52, in two different ways that did not line up.

But to be fair, she’s one of those characters (DC has more than one of ‘em!) that had already been rebooted and retconned enough times to be pretty incoherent by then. Donna especially was famously created more or less accidentally and has had multiple “who is Donna Troy” stories, sometimes by the same writer.

 

After taking a bit of a break I finally finished the Finches' run, it was pretty disappointing. Was kinda hoping it would build up to something better, but the last few issues weren't very good. While the art was nice, narratively it ultimately had the same problems as Azzarello's run except at least that had a satisfying conclusion. David Finch didn't even draw the last two so the art got worse as well. This whole arc focused too much on the Greek gods rather than on Diana herself. I very much prefer Earth One as an origin story and Lords and Liars as a story of a Diana who's assimilated into the modern era.

 

So anyway I'm now starting The Many Deaths of Laila Starr

 

Feel like I haven’t posted that much recently about various series I’m following, so gonna shout some random shit out:

Crave by Maria Llovet - erotic thriller about a mysterious hookup app driving a college campus to madness. Llovet’s art is very sexy and just generally stunning to look at; gorgeous line work and colors.

G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero by Larry Hama & Chris Mooneyham - Hama has been doing this for decades and has not lost a step. I had mostly just dabbled in the series over the years, but it’s been a blast jumping on with the shift to Skybound (and far better art than IDW gave it).

Hack/Slash: Back to School by Zoe Thorogood - idk, I’ve never been a big Hack/Slash fan, but Thorogood is fucking brilliant. It’s a blast seeing her cut loose and have fun on this miniseries.

Immortal Thor by Al Ewing & Martin Coccolo - easily the current Marvel ongoing I care about the most.

Masterpiece by Brian Michael Bendis & Alex Maleev - first Bendis book I’ve followed in forever. Very quintessentially Bendis, in a way that’s a fun throwback for me.

Poison Ivy by G. Willow Wilson & Marcio Takara - easily the current DC ongoing I care about the most.

Red Sonja by Torunn Grønbekk & Walter Geovani - Grønbekk was born to write Sonja. The plot is fine, but her Sonja characterization and approach to narration keeps it consistently engaging. Helps to have one of the two most iconic artists of that character’s entire publication history.

Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai - another case of a creator with decades of work on a single ongoing series that’s as vital as ever. One that’s effortless to slide on into with any particular arc/mini, if you’re curious. Sakai’s cartooning, down to the lettering, puts most of his peers to shame.

 

I think I have one more chapter of Laila Starr to go. Finished. I heard this would be good, but like, holy shit? It's really fucking good.

Oh also I somehow managed to snag My Favorite Thing Is Monsters at a local book store for twenty bucks, basically half what I would've paid at B&N. Support small businesses

 

Absolutely brilliant work.

Good reminder that I need to catch up on that creative team’s current miniseries, Rare Flavours (which had another issue drop this week). Also pumped for Ram V’s upcoming mech book, Dawnrunner. And, the Universal Monsters: Creature From the Black Lagoon miniseries he’s cowriting with Dan Watters.

 

Been meaning to read that. I bought most of his Swamp Thing run and first few issues of his Venom run I believe. Definitely wanted to check out his Detective Comics run but I’ve been out of comics for a bit now.

 

I’m holding off on his Detective ‘til it’s done, at which point I’ll get it in some collected format (which DC always drags their feet on, lol).

But, almost everyone whose comics takes I respect talks about how great it’s been. With a clear thematic and aesthetic vision that hasn’t been derailed by anything in the other Bat-books. Ram V describes it as basically a Batman “opera” which is… a fascinating way to describe a comic.

 

I remember when his first arc on Detective came out and it felt very much like that from what I saw people saying about it so it’s not surprising. From what I’ve read of Ram’s he has a very cinematic approach and feel but in the best way possible. Feels kinda similar to Scott Snyder in a way

 

Oh, hell yeah. I miss The Wicked + The Divine, so I am all about this.

 

“As The Wicked + the Divine was to Young Avengers, this is to Immortal X-men. It’s a comic informed by superheroes, but one where a fight is the absolute lose state, for everyone. It’s set from 1945-1999, and so is a chance to really have fun with an alternate cultural history too. I think you can see it as an extension of my best work: WicDivian alternate-pop culture, a cold-war take on Uber’s realpolitik, Die’s social group drama hyper-charged by genre.”

Just that first sentence.

 

Gonna have to pull out my issues of Gillen & Wijngaard’s Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt to prepare for this.

Especially since Gillen uses Watchmen as one of his reference points, and Thunderbolt was a very direct response to the legacy of Watchmen.

 

Finished It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth. It's incredible.

I've accumulated a bunch of graphic memoirs these past couple years but I haven't gotten to a lot of them because I've been preoccupied with superhero shit. Maybe I thought the memoirs would be depressing and I wasn't in the right headspace for them. Kind of ironic that I started with the one about depression. But yeah, I think I need to balance it out more.

I almost feel like I'm spoiling myself for reading this and Laila Starr back to back, two amazing books, but I was kinda disappointed by Azzarello/Finch WW so maybe I'm just making up for it

All that being said, I just bought some Batgirl of Burnside, which I've already read, on my quest to eventually own every Batgirl title ever. What can I say, I love superhero shit, especially Batgirl. Even buying used it feels like a daunting task, so maybe I'll just get a couple at a time every month or so instead of adding a dozen books to my cart and seeing the subtotal add up...

 

Javier Rodríguez and Mariko Tamaki is such an inspired artist/writer team. I’m not an avid Zatanna reader, but I’m 100% all in on this book.