It's Marvel's turn in the hot seat...

IMMORTAL IRON FIST #16 wraps up the Ed Brubaker/Matt Fraction run (though Brubaker apparently checked out two months ago, because he wasn't credited for this issue or #15). As I've said before, IMMORTAL IRON FIST made a big impression on me, mainly because I'd never been interested in Danny Rand or the kung-fu-comics genre he represented until now. There was something new and intriguing about this particular interpretation, and I think a lot of it has to do with the way Brubaker and Fraction expanded the concept of Iron Fist into a trans-generational, trans-national identity. And something else began to emerge: not only was Danny Rand not the only Iron Fist, but pretty much every predecessor (with the possible exception of Orson Randall) did a better job of it than he did. The stories of Bei Bang-Wen and Wu Ao-Shi aren't just there to parallel Danny's life, they reposition the present-day Iron Fist as a neophyte, as someone who isn't the master expert of kung-fu mysticism in the Marvel Universe. The whole dynamic of the character - as I saw him, anyway - changed, because suddenly he's got so much to learn and there's actually a direction he needs to follow, and there's room for the character to grow and change.

Which he has, and this issue finally hits the pause button on the non-stop face-kicking so the dust can settle and the characters can come to the forefront. In the aftermath of the Ultimate Tournament of Fiery Bone-Crunching, Danny's re-evaluating his life and his relationships with Luke and Misty, and there's an appropriate sense of melancholy attached to that because this is both an ending and a new beginning, in that this issue also sets up the upcoming Duane Swierczynski run very clearly: the Living Weapons are running across New York, the question of the Eighth City is still up in the air, and there's a rather nasty prophecy uncovered at the very end that will probably play out in the coming months.

So... VERY GOOD, because the timing was impeccable: this series really needed a calm character piece in-between the crazy action sequences, and now that we've had it, we can move on. Will I be checking out IMMORTAL IRON FIST #17? Not sure... Swierczynski hasn't exactly knocked my socks off on CABLE. We'll see, I guess.

We are now leaving the realm of anything even remotely connected to The Good. Don't say I didn't warn you.

The last time I reviewed a Joss Whedon comic, I really tried to avoid discussing the lateness issue, despite the fact that it could (and probably did) affect the way you'd read the comic in question. I'm not going to cut RUNAWAYS #30 the same slack, because there's no doubt in my mind that the delays played a huge part in how crushingly disappointing this finale turned out to be.

See, here's the thing: Joss Whedon's run, in the final analysis, amounts to six issues of an absolutely mundane and unimaginative storyline, in which there are X-Men and Punisher and God-knows-what-else analogues in 1907 for no clear reason that I can see; New York is apparently blown up but gets all better in the future; a new kid joins the Runaways and good lord she's more annoying than the original Bendis version of Layla Miller. And at the end of the day it all goes back to normal.

I'm in "dude, what the hell?" mode here. I may have had problems with the way ASTONISHING X-MEN ended, but there was plenty of good to offset that. Here... well, honestly, there's that one crack Molly makes about Klara's "marital duties", and that's about it. I'm having issues with Whedon's characterization of the Runaways, with the vast number of disposable secondary characters, with the anticlimactic ending (so, wait, it was all about that Irish ditz after all? Boo-urns!). And, yes, in this case the delays really aren't justified, because I can't see anything here that would require a six-month story to last over a year. CRAP.

And finally, YOUNG AVENGERS PRESENTS #6 is a perfect example of how the number of chefs is irrelevant when none of them are willing to turn to the next page of the cookbook.

Here's the deal: I loved Heinberg's YOUNG AVENGERS. The high concept of legacy characters stealing other legacies was wonderfully subversive, because it twisted around the whole "Teen Titans" formula - Teen Hulk is really linked to Captain Marvel, Teen Thor to the Scarlet Witch, Teen Captain America to Isaiah Bradley rather than Steve Rogers. No one is who you expect them to be.

And then Heinberg did what most TV/movie writers do when they get into comics: he disappeared. And here we are, cooling our heels two years later, waiting for Godot to turn up.

Now, on the one hand, I can certainly understand Joe Quesada's reluctance to continue the story without Heinberg. He did a really good job with the characters, it was a great run, and Heinberg had some interesting ideas for the "second season". Plus, there are so few writers at Marvel who'd really be up to the task of handling this particular book. On the other hand, conventional knowledge says the longer these kids are in publishing limbo, the less popular any future appearances will be. So what we've been getting for the past two years is a series of meaningless filler that doubles as exposition infodumps just in case you've forgotten (or never knew) the basics.

And this is exactly what neutralizes any possible interest in YOUNG AVENGERS PRESENTS. Despite the impressive list of writers and artists involved, all we had here was a strict, formulaic pattern applied again and again with virtually no change: a Young Avenger meets someone connected to their origins, they have a long and meaningful chat, the end. Patriot talks to Bucky about race in America; Hulkling gets to meet his "father"; Wiccan and Speed look for Wanda in all the wrong places and find Master Pandemonium instead (don't ask because I don't know) and so on. It's all very dull, because by definition, these writers can't do anything that could potentially conflict with Heinberg's intentions (I get this mental image of Quesada doing the whole Sitcom Mom routine where he stares out a window for hours, and when Heinberg walks in he starts screaming "Where have you been?! Do you know what time it is?! I was worried sick!").

The problem with that is YOUNG AVENGERS only ran for twelve issues, and to paraphrase Gertrude Stein, there's not a whole lot of there there. So YOUNG AVENGERS PRESENTS and the other place-holder miniseries are just spinning their wheels in a very, very small circle. Do you know what reading over a hundred pages of familiar exposition can do to a person?


So, yeah, I'm going to go with AWFUL because at least they're trying, whereas it looks like Whedon was totally sleeping on the job.

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More evidence that the '90s were made of LIES: summertime has arrived, and contrary to the Fresh Prince's promises, there is no groove, nobody looks good in 125% humidity, and if you're dumb enough to dance in the open while the sun's up, you deserve the inevitable dehydration and/or dissolution into a puddle of skin-colored goo.

As if that weren't enough, June was a seriously weird month for comics - I read nothing but 2000AD for three weeks (new Nikolai Dante story), and suddenly almost every single series I'm following has an issue out on the 25th. To which I say:




CROSSING MIDNIGHT #19 marks the unfortunate end of the latest ongoing series by Mike Carey and Jim Fern. I liked this one - Vertigo's done a lot with British and American mythologies, and it was a nice change of pace to apply that same exploratory approach and lovely artwork to the Japanese mythscape. Of course, the direct market being what it is, there was no way this series could've lasted more than two years; that said, it's still disappointing that CROSSING MIDNIGHT ends on such an unsatisfactory note. It's pretty much the same pattern most premature cancellations follow: we get a compressed finale that skips through the last act, sacrificing any emotional resonance or genuinely surprising plot twists for a quick, straightforward wrap-up. Only in this case, there is no wrap-up because we get a last-page cliffhanger, and that's the sort of thing that really gets on my nerves - the axe dropped on this series months ago, and the least Carey could've done was deliver a real conclusion to the story. Writers have a responsibility to provide closure for those readers who stuck around to the very end; it doesn't even have to be good closure (see: HARD TIME). But if I'd known CROSSING MIDNIGHT would fizzle out with an OKAY non-ending, I wouldn't have kept buying it for nineteen months.

Sticking with Vertigo, Matt Wagner and Amy Reeder Hadley kick off a new ongoing with MADAME XANADU #1. I wasn't quite sure what to expect here: Wagner's done some amazing work (recent Hunter Rose stories aside), and I didn't know anything about the titular character, so it was worth checking out. And... well, I'm underwhelmed. Something about this issue just doesn't work: the dialogue's stilted even by Arthurian standards ("Grant me this boon, oh generous elm! Thanks be for your sacrifice, leafy grandfather. May the winds spread your seeds far and wide") and there's a guest appearance by one of the most irritating characters in the DCU, the Phantom Stranger, whose entire purpose in any story is to hang around and drop cryptic comments before disappearing. I came away feeling like I'd seen all this before, from the druidic tree-hugging to Merlin doing his Mrs. Robinson thing with Nimue, and while I'm aware that it's only a prelude and that the main story moves out of the Arthurian setting, I honestly couldn't find anything here to make me continue reading. EH and better luck next time, I suppose.

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You know, there are times I recall - quite clearly - how excited X-Men readers were at the news that Joss Whedon would be succeeding Grant Morrison on NEW X-MEN. Granted, that's not exactly how it went down, but thematically, ASTONISHING X-MEN was very much the next chapter in the story Morrison had started. And Whedon's run had plenty of high points: Colossus' comeback was simple and touching, "Torn" was one of the best team-wrecking exercises I've read, and Whedon's characterization was spot-on for his entire team.

And now here we are, at the end of a twenty-five issue run, precisely four years to the week that ASTONISHING X-MEN #1 came out. I've just finished reading GIANT-SIZE ASTONISHING X-MEN, and I don't want to talk about delays, or continuity issues, or projections regarding the upcoming Ellis run. I want to talk about the story. So, obviously, here be spoilers.

It's difficult to avoid comparing ASTONISHING X-MEN and BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, despite the fact that it's been done ad nauseum. I'm not suggesting it's a one-for-one analogy, as if to say that Kitty is Buffy and Peter is Angel and so on, but rather that my expectations of the story were based on the typical Whedon season structure: there's a Bigger Picture behind each individual arc and we can't see it until the very end. That's part of what made BUFFY so interesting to me during its early years, that end-point revelation where all the pieces fit together. It's easy to get used to that, to the extent that when the pieces stopped fitting together in the series' later years? Diana smash.

But what happens if the pieces fit, and the Bigger Picture just isn't compelling? Well, you get GIANT-SIZE ASTONISHING X-MEN.

Here's the thing: on a purely technical level, GIANT-SIZE ASTONISHING X-MEN does what it's supposed to do - we get callbacks to earlier emotional points (that last shot of Peter with his hand on his chest), we get the Chekhov principle where various guns introduced in earlier acts go off (the Sentinel from "Dangerous", the end of Hisako's rite of passage, the "truth" about Abby Brand). But it's all so underwhelming, not very "Giant-Size" at all. Everything more or less adds up but the sum just doesn't impress.

Well, that's not quite true, is it? Because Danger just disappears after an obligatory cameo, and Cassandra Nova is presumably still on the loose, and Kitty Pryde is written off in an incredibly open-ended way... I'd think it was all set-up for the next writer, but Warren Ellis doesn't have the best track record for picking up where his predecessors leave off, and even if he did, there's more set-up here than closure.

And on top of that? It's not even good set-up. Kitty is written out in one of the most contrived, convoluted scenarios I've ever seen, with some technobabble about being fused to a giant bullet, the sort of scenario that pulls you right out of the story because it doesn't make any kind of sense. What's worse, Whedon falls into the same trap that's made Joe Quesada's career of late, as once again "magic" proves to be the bane of storytelling. Shockingly, Dr. Strange fubars the juju and everyone drops into a fantasy sequence that would've been effective if it had meant the return of Cassandra, but ends up being backlash because the Retaliator is magically shielded. Somehow. In a way that may or may not have something to do with Illyana Rasputin. This is the point where I just shrug my shoulders and move on.

So here we are, after four years of waiting for the story to play itself out. Was it worth it? Not really, no. ASTONISHING X-MEN turned out to be an OKAY run with some VERY GOOD moments and an EH finish, but sadly, I don't think it ever went farther than that.

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Well, I can't stay away from the Big Two forever, so let's check in and see what Marvel and DC have for us this week!

I must've been possessed by the Great Cornholio to think I could make sense of DC UNIVERSE ZERO. Never in my entire life have I ever felt so excluded by a comic book - they might as well have stamped "THIS IS NOT FOR YOU" on the cover. Look, maybe it's me. Maybe I'm the only person who expects a #0 issue (not even #1! #0! Before the beginning!) to actually present the starting point of a story, as opposed to trailers of stories that are already in progress. Is that an unfair expectation? I mean, am I wrong to think DC wants to attract new readers? Because the message I'm getting from DC UNIVERSE ZERO is that, if I haven't been following the 80-something-part storyline that's been threading through the entire DCU line for the past... what's it been now, two years? Three? If I haven't been doing that, I've got no business reading DC comics for the foreseeable future. CRAP, because I'm sick of wasting time and money trying to figure out the DCU for the sake of a decent story.

THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST #14, on the other hand, is a textbook lesson on the benefits of accessbility. "The 7 Capital Cities of Heaven" wraps up after six issues, an annual and a one-shot, and you know what? I loved every minute of it, despite having never read an Iron Fist comic before. I thought Shou-Lao was that guy on MORTAL KOMBAT who laughs when you kick him, and Yu-Ti had me thinking I'd picked up a GI JOE comic by mistake. But none of that kept me from understanding - and enjoying - the Brubaker/Fraction run. A big part of why it works so well is because, aside from meeting the standard head-bashing things-go-splody violence quota, what we have here is an intricate storyline spanning generations, from Danny Rand to his father Wendell to WWI Iron Fist Orson Randall. Iron Fist has become the center of an epic, in the true sense of the word, and that's no small achievement in a year's time. The fact that this specific storyline also contains a martial arts tournament, an exploding bullet train, a gender rebellion and flashbacks to a Golden Age incarnation of the Heroes For Hire makes it all the more impressive. Of course, it's sad that this is more or less the current creative team's swan song, but this is a VERY GOOD, very high note to go out on.

X-MEN LEGACY #210 is a mixed bag. On the one hand, we're still neck-deep in Ye Olde Continuity, with a cover straight out of late-'70s Claremont. And yes, this is a book that's undoubtedly geared towards readers already familiar with a relatively large portion of X-Men history: if you can't recognize David Haller by sight, or you don't know what that excerpt from "The Little Matchgirl" is meant to evoke, you won't find out here. On the other hand, I think it's still possible to "get" what's being conveyed, even without the specifics - this is something Mike Carey does very well, referencing continuity without hinging the entire plot on the assumption that his readers know that continuity. For the purposes of reading X-MEN LEGACY #210, it's not vital that you know what went down between Xavier and Voght; if you do, you get a little something extra out of their last exchange, but if you don't? You still walk away knowing what you need to know. The big development in this issue deals with something Paul O'Brien has called attention to in the past - after a start that lacked any visible long-term direction, we now have what seems to be a concrete premise for the series, at least for the immediate future. Potential downside? The way it's set up, I'm not entirely sure Carey intends to move out of Ye Olde Continuity any time soon, and while I trust his storytelling sensibilities, there's entirely too much nostalgia in the mainstream these days, especially with the X-Men, and it'd be nice if everyone just took a big step forward someday. Let's go with GOOD and see what happens next.

Shifting over to Vertigo, JACK OF FABLES has taken a rather unusual turn. Much like its parent title, this comic occasionally steps away from the present-day plotlines to visit secondary characters or tales from the protagonist's past. Last month, the Pathetic Fallacy tried to stage a production of "Hamlet" that went hilariously wrong, and this month, we're in the Wild West, exploring Jack's first encounter with Bigby Wolf. Now, Jack's always been characterized as a bit of a douche, but Willingham and Sturges usually balance that out with a kind of roguish, immature charm that makes him mildly sympathetic. He's written as overbearingly full of himself, but it's played (quite effectively) for laughs. Not so with "The Legend of Smilin' Jack" - as the last page openly acknowledges, this isn't a funny story. At all. There's no redeeming element in Jack this time: he's cruel, he's murderous, he's a Black Hat straight out of a Clint Eastwood western. It's such an extreme change, in fact, that I'm betting there's something else at work here. A GOOD start, though I'd advise Willingham and Sturges to watch their step - there are certain lines not to be crossed if you want to keep your character likeable, and Jack's been on the edge for years now.

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Sorry for the hold-up, but I've been locked in a cosmic battle between good and evil for the past few weeks (I'll let you guys decide which side I was on). No quarter was asked, none was given, and mark my words, I will get Vista off my computer. If I made it through Rob Liefeld's heyday without having my eyes poked out by Cable's pointy feet, I can beat my husband's fascination with transparent windows...

Anyway, I thought we'd take a look at spin-offs today. It's hardly a foreign concept in the biz: every X-MEN eventually begets a NEW MUTANTS (though, like Pringles and Lolcats, it rarely stops with just one). When they're done properly, spin-offs are a welcome extension/continuation of a great story - of course, that concept is problematized in a mainstream where most stories never actually end (case in point: you have to wonder what would've happened if NEW MUTANTS had supplanted X-MEN rather than supplimented it).

But webcomics can be - and often are - finite, which leaves the door open for the question Peter Milligan put best in ENIGMA: "And then what?"

Aeire's QUEEN OF WANDS was an early favorite of mine; I discovered it during its second crossover with SOMETHING POSITIVE in 2004. It was an easy jump to make; QUEEN OF WANDS had a similar tone in its heavily-cynical approach to geek culture, and if Aeire wasn't as vicious as R.K. Milholland, the guest appearances by Charles Darwin and the Grammar Nazi still amused. QUEEN OF WANDS also had a much smaller cast, allowing Aeire to create a consistent focus on her protagonist, Kestrel, and the people around her.

My memories of QUEEN OF WANDS are mostly GOOD: the art was eccentric, but enjoyable, with marked improvement over the years. And if Aeire had an occasional tendency to overdo the flashbacks within flashbacks and the melodrama, she balanced it out with plenty of light-hearted moments. But what I remember most about QUEEN OF WANDS is the way it ended - in a medium where stories can just stop cold when the writer loses interest, it was a real treat to see Kestrel's journey of maturation and self-discovery come to a kind of natural conclusion. And the day after QUEEN OF WANDS ended, Kestrel appeared in SOMETHING POSITIVE, where she became a recurring character in typical Milholland fashion. And that's a sort of spin-off there, because Kestrel's story goes on after the last panel of QUEEN OF WANDS, even if she's now in the hands of another writer.

Two years later (an eternity in net-time), Aeire teamed up with Chris Daily to produce PUNCH AN' PIE, a QUEEN OF WANDS spin-off featuring the hyperactive, childlike Angela in the lead role. It's a very different webcomic, not just artistically but also in terms of the story, and to be totally honest, it hasn't quite clicked for me. I realize that rehashing QUEEN OF WANDS would've been completely derivative, but at the same time, PUNCH AN' PIE takes a long, long time to start "moving" (as opposed to that oh-so-fitting first page of QUEEN OF WANDS, which pretty much sets the tone for the entire series), and six months in, I just wasn't feeling the same kind of energy that had made QUEEN OF WANDS so enjoyable. That's not to say it doesn't have its moments, but... well, part of the problem might be that I never really liked Angela to begin with, and that's crucial when it comes to spin-offs: it's the same reason why, despite my deep appreciation of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, its sister show ANGEL never held my interest for more than a few episodes at a time - I wasn't fond of Angel (to say the least), so the prospect of an Angel-centric series had me about as thrilled as a diabetic trapped in Willy Wonka's factory. And that's likely why PUNCH AN' PIE just didn't rate beyond OKAY for me.

Having sung the praises of Shaenon Garrity's NARBONIC, it should come as no surprise that I'm recommending LI'L MELL AND SERGIO, a spin-off featuring the irrepressible Mell Kelly in first grade, with brainy nerd Sergio replacing Dave Davenport in the "straight man" role. I don't know why it surprised me to see how perfectly Garrity captured the essence of Mell's character - she did create her, after all - but it's as funny and unpredictable as its parent series. Unlike the QUEEN OF WANDS/PUNCH AN' PIE schism, LI'L MELL AND SERGIO does feel like an extension of NARBONIC in some capacity, and it's especially fitting that Mell is the star, given how perfectly the story of Helen and Dave ended.

Let's move on to the works of K. Sandra Fuhr, an interesting case study in how the malleable nature of webcomics can work to one's advantage. Fuhr's first comic was UTOPIA, a sci-fi comedy which featured, among other characters, a trio of vampires: Mikhael, Harley and Tybalt. They were eventually spun off into their own series, THIS IS HOME, by all accounts the biggest maelstrom of teen angst, rape, murder and melodrama since Laurell K. Hamilton. And when that didn't work, Fuhr took her lead characters, stripped away the pseudo-Gothic trappings, and BOY MEETS BOY was born.

Then she deleted UTOPIA and THIS IS HOME. Poof, not a trace of it left anywhere online. And believe me, I've looked.

The reason I find this so interesting is because you don't have that kind of total dissolution in mainstream comics: even the most massive reboot I know of, CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, was never able to completely excise everything that had come before it. That pre-history may not have been in continuity anymore, but it still existed, people still talked about it and - most importantly - they could still access pre-Crisis material on a regular basis. Eventually, DC had no choice but to acknowledge pre-Crisis history again. But with webcomics, you push a button, and as far as the average reader is concerned, the comic never existed. Fuhr was essentially able to retcon her own bibliography. And if traits belonging to earlier versions of the characters bled through... well, how would you know?

Getting back to the actual comics for a bit: BOY MEETS BOY is pretty much your textbook yaoi manga, with an added dose of pop culture that, unfortunately, has become a touch dated by now. The premise can pretty much be summed up in a single page. Still, it's cute enough that I appreciate it on its own terms: for example, you have the gag and its requisite counter-gag, various breakings of the fourth wall and so on. GOOD stuff, all the moreso for being unpredictable with its storylines: you may think you know where the story's headed, but there's usually a twist just around the corner.

A year into the series, Fuhr imported Fox and Collin, formerly of UTOPIA, into the story. Introduced as college misfits and nemeses to Harley and Mikhael, they ended up becoming rather dominant characters, to the point where entire storylines revolved around them. I don't think it came as any surprise to Fuhr's readers that when BOY MEETS BOY ended, Fox and Collin were spun off into their own series, FRIENDLY HOSTILITY, which kicked off with a storyline that fleshed out the wacky Maharassa clan.

I should note that both Fuhr's writing and her artwork undergo a massive evolution as time goes on: if BOY MEETS BOY has some awkward aspects and the art can generously be described as rough and inconsistent, FRIENDLY HOSTILITY hits the ground running with smoother artwork, stronger dialogue, and less of a reliance on the histrionics native to the yaoi genre. In fact, I'd argue that FRIENDLY HOSTILITY leaves yaoi and its conventions behind altogether: it's much more realistic (the occasional demonic cameo aside), more in the vein of a romantic comedy than the out-and-out chaos of its predecessor. It's only right that FRIENDLY HOSTILITY be graded VERY GOOD, in recognition of the author's vast improvement over a relatively short amount of time.

And finally, technical notes:

* QUEEN OF WANDS ran from July of 2002 to February of 2005, followed by a "rerun" of the series from March of 2005 to November of 2006 with commentary by Aeire. Full color. The series archive has a "Storyline" option but it only goes up to 2004; you're on your own after that.

* PUNCH AN' PIE is ongoing, in black and white. The series started at the end of February 2007, and updates Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Unfortunately, the archives are woefully out-of-date, making navigation a real challenge.

* LI'L MELL AND SERGIO is ongoing, in black and white. Girlamatic used to charge subscription fees to read the series, but it's now free of charge. It updates on a weekly basis, featuring multiple artists.

* BOY MEETS BOY ran from September 2000 to January 2004, in black and white. The very last page featured Fox and Collin inviting the readers to check out FRIENDLY HOSTILITY...

* ... which is ongoing, in black and white; the "Problematic" storyline began concurrently with the end of BOY MEETS BOY, while the series proper started in August of 2004.

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During my (admittedly short) time as a comic book critic, I've reviewed comics that made me happy, or sad, or violently ill; works by writers I can't stand, or admire, or wish would try just a bit harder because they're capable of so much more (you know who you are).

But there's one comic I've never talked about, and likely never will:

WATCHMEN.

To be totally honest, WATCHMEN intimidates me. It's too great a work for me to discuss, and it's such a central part of comics discourse that I doubt there's much I could say that hasn't been said before, by greater critics than myself.

And I'd be content to let sleeping dogs lie, except the comic I'm about to review can't be discussed outside the WATCHMEN context, and that puts me in a rather uncomfortable position. So I'm just going to take a deep breath and see where things go from here. More after the jump.

One of the perks of being a Savage Critic, aside from the company, is that we occasionally get advance copies of comics that have either just been solicited or, on very rare occasions, haven't actually been announced yet.

So when I got a PDF from DC Comics titled MINUTEMEN, I figured it was some colonial-era historical drama, perhaps with some dinosaurs and time-travel thrown in just so we wouldn't forget it was a comic book.

I certainly wasn't expecting a 48-page WATCHMEN prequel by Leah Moore and Dave Gibbons, due for release in July.

Needless to say, I ended up having some deeply conflicted feelings about this comic. So let's start with the positive aspects first: the most obvious pro, of course, is that this one-shot constitutes a return to a world that had been previously self-contained. Granted, it's a prequel, and Alan Moore had already covered most of this the first time around, but the effect on me as a reader is like opening a favorite book for the twentieth time and finding a whole new chapter that I'd never seen before. A sense of the new and the familiar, all the more powerful because WATCHMEN changed the way I read comics.

And Leah Moore delivers a good story, for the most part. Her previous project, ALBION, had left me rather indifferent, but here she really shows a knack for small, silent, understated scenes that drive a huge emotional spike through your heart: Ozymandias handing Mothman his first glass of bourbon with a knowing grin was absolutely chilling, because there's no dialogue, no narration, and yet you just know what Moore's trying to imply.

Obviously, it's the artwork that sells these sequences, and Gibbons deserves a huge round of applause here for sticking so closely to WATCHMEN's character designs. It contributes a lot to that feeling of connection I mentioned - that this really is an organic companion to its parent text.

However, I can't help feeling like the whole project is unnecessary on some level. Part of WATCHMEN's appeal is that it doesn't spell everything out, and we don't necessarily know every detail of what happened in that world Moore and Gibbons created all those years ago. We knew Silhouette and her lover were murdered - did we really need to see it happen? Doesn't that take away from the mysteries of the original, the things left in the shadows? A lot of what Leah Moore does is basically confirm, explicitly, the things her father left to our imagination: yes, Hooded Justice and Captain Metropolis were lovers, and the Comedian found out, and Dollar Bill thinking about adding a cape to his costume comes with all the ominous foreshadowing you'd expect...

And when she does add to the mythos, the contributions are questionable at best - nothing in MINUTEMEN technically contradicts anything in WATCHMEN, but there's a hint of that familiar "everything you know is wrong" vibe that annoys me on principle these days (so you can deduce my feelings towards SECRET INVASION too).

Still, in lieu of the Great Bearded Warlock making a comeback, I could settle for this. In short, I'd give it an OKAY if it weren't an early April's Fools' joke.

...

...

Gotcha!

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Let's get right in there, shall we?

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #12: Here's my $0.02 on The L Thing, from the perspective of a series-long fan. Do I believe Buffy would sleep with a woman? Yes, provided the woman is a Slayer - that was, after all, the subtext of her dynamic with Faith (especially in "Bad Girls"). However, I thought the execution here was a bit problematic for two reasons. Number one, as Chris Sims points out, the whole "post-coital reveal" really is a cliche these days. Number two, and this is something that bothered me a lot during the show's final years, there's no subtext or ambiguity in the Buffyverse anymore. That was a huge pet peeve for me, because the first three seasons were great at being subtle (ie: you never knew exactly what Angelus and Drusilla were up to behind Spike's back, which left your imagination running on overtime), and afterwards everything was in-your-face-with-a-can-of-mace (I'm thinking here of the near-rape in "Seeing Red" to name just one egregious "geez, what happened to my show?" scene). It could've been more interesting to be ambiguous about Buffy and Satsu, to drop teases and hints, rather than pull the old Wile E. Coyote anvil-to-the-head maneuver. I wasn't at all surprised to learn that Drew Goddard wrote that Season 7 episode when Spike's mother goes all Freudian on him, because that's exactly the kind of bluntness (which, in all honesty, could very easily be attributed to sensationalism) we get here. All that said, this is still a VERY GOOD issue, and Goddard deserves kudos for the abundant humor, to say nothing of the main reason I'm enjoying Season 8: new variations on canonical threats. The vampires in this issue are linked to an enemy Buffy's faced before, and that's precisely the sort of internal continuity mixed with innovation that makes the story even more interesting (and I didn't even like that particular enemy when he turned up).

CABLE #1: Cable, as a character, greatly benefited from MESSIAH COMPLEX: if, in earlier appearances, he either drifted around aimlessly or played at being Robo-Jesus, he's now a soldier with a clear mission and a nemesis who thematically parallels his own situation (after all, Bishop is also a soldier with a clear mission). What isn't apparent by the end of the issue is where Duane Swierczynski wants to go from here, big-picture-wise: is this series set in the New Jersey of 2043 we see here? Or will Cable and the baby be jumping through time with Bishop on their heels? It could go either way, and both options have potential (though I think we need a bigger supporting cast, because Cable monologuing as the baby cries could get old very fast), but we're off to a GOOD start. Special props to Ariel Olivetti for that look on Cable's face when he has to change the baby's diaper. Verily, a fate worse than death... and if this baby turns out to be Jean Grey, we can look forward to the inevitable argument where they both scream "I CHANGED YOUR DIAPERS!" at each other.

LOGAN #1: With Y: THE LAST MAN complete, I've been feeling the lack of Brian Vaughan in my monthly readings (don't ask about EX MACHINA). Now, I'm not a Wolverine fan. At all. But there's a handful of writers who can get me to check out anything they do, and Vaughan's one of them. (Carey's another, which no doubt explains why I feel like I've already passed my Wolverine quota for this year.) So imagine my disappointment when LOGAN #1 turned out to be a rather dull comic. Where is Vaughan's trademark unpredictability? Where are the twists and turns? This issue reads like WOLVERINE FOR DUMMIES, a standard (and standardized) fusion of stock tropes I've seen a hundred times already. EH, because I honestly don't care.

Postscript: The second I finished posting this, I saw that Douglas had beaten me to it.



I call the right side!

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One of the most widespread genres in webcomics is fantasy, specifically that swords-and-sorcery sub-genre usually associated with RPGs (ie: DUNGEONS & DRAGONS). Interestingly enough, many of those webcomics (including all the series we'll be looking at today) have a decidedly subversive tone to them: they poke fun at conventions, they turn basic tropes on their heads, they break the fourth wall with a wink and a nudge. It's probably a reaction to the prominence of fantasy in the mainstream, particularly "serious" fantasy like LORD OF THE RINGS and HARRY POTTER (you have to wonder what Mel Brooks would've done had he picked Tolkien's trilogy to parody rather than STAR WARS or ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES) - but that reaction leads to a whole multitude of stories that work with, and against, the formula.



LOOKING FOR GROUP by Ryan Sohmer and Lar Desouza is a basic "inversion" scenario - Cale'anon, the only good member of a wholly evil race, falls in with a trio of amoral killers on some sort of ill-defined quest. Despite his heroic intentions, Cale keeps stumbling into situations where he does more harm than good. It's comedy, of course, playing on the protagonist's continual mortification at the slaughter and mayhem, whereas his allies are decidedly less troubled. It starts out rather well, though Sohmer and Desouza lost me mid-second issue, when the story takes a more serious turn at depicting an internal Elvish conflict. The quips keep on coming, but the transition didn't really work for me.

Tarol Hunt's GOBLINS takes a different approach. Rather than deal with alignments (good, evil, lawful, chaotic, etc.), what's inverted here is the racial subtext built into the generic RPG world. Our protagonists are, as the title suggests, goblins - typically cast as the cannon fodder of the fantasy realm. Ironically, this doesn't change just because the story is about goblins: they're totally out of their league, clearly outmatched by "proper" adventurers. And I think that's a big part of why they're so sympathetic: they're the underdogs fighting the good fight, and despite their "monstrosity", their heroism is never questioned. The series does have one rather major flaw: unlike LOOKING FOR GROUP, which made a (hasty) shift from humor to serious adventuring, GOBLINS vacillates erratically between the two. One moment, we're all having a good laugh at stupid barbarians, the next we have to watch as a childlike protagonist is tortured horribly. It can be difficult to reconcile these extremes, all the moreso because there's no real transition between sequences: you're just snapped back and forth. The end result is somewhat paradoxical, because the world Hunt constructs is full of wonder (especially since you're viewing it through goblin eyes), but it's also a world where very bad things can happen to weak and defenseless people, without any mitigating effect.

If you're looking for consistency, I highly recommend Rich Burlew's ORDER OF THE STICK, one of the best examples of fantasy subversion - but beyond that, it's also an excellent webcomic in itself. Because there's more to this series than the jokes and the play on RPG rules and "mystical artifacts" - ORDER OF THE STICK is a true epic, offering a wide array of story elements such as romance, action, humor even during heroic confrontations, and a war worthy of Peter Jackson. Burlew should also be commended for his tight story structure: each phase of the Order's adventures reads like a novel in a series of novels, and elements from an earlier "book" (ie: the Linear Guild) recur in later stages to have real impact on the storyline. And while some might find the stick-figure-esque artwork simplistic, I actually think it's all the more effective given the story Burlew's telling - and, of course, there can be intricacy even in simplicity, which is precisely what I find here. ORDER OF THE STICK is one of my favorite webcomics, and with good reason.

I only recently discovered YET ANOTHER FANTASY GAMER COMIC by Rich Morris, and despite the title, this strip has some unique qualities when lined up with the other webcomics featured here. For example, in contrast to the other series, YET ANOTHER FANTASY GAMER COMIC has no central character(s): it's an ensemble piece styled on an Arabian Nights pattern where every storyline leads to the next tale, which may be set in a different place with a completely different protagonist. So what starts out as the romance of Bob and Gren smoothly transitions to Arachne and Drow politics, then we get Mrs. Bloodhand's story segueing directly into her son's tale. The overall narrative is always in motion, maneuvering very deftly between these "character clusters". As with ORDER OF THE STICK, I should make a note of the artwork - YET ANOTHER FANTASY GAMER COMIC relies primarily on pencil-based art, so if you're put off by that sort of thing, you might want to skip it over... though you'd be missing out on a great series.

From its very first page, Rob Balder's and Jamie Noguchi's ERFWORLD stood out as something... different. I can honestly say I've never seen a creation myth attributed to a trio of giant Elvii before, or a Tome of AOL. It's an adorable series, reductive in that it infantilizes RPG conventions - necromancy is referred to as Croakamancy, the local warlord calls himself Stanley the Tool after the divine hammer he wields (which just happens to look like a child's toy), dragons are referred to as Dwagons, and the artwork reminds me of chibi (well, minus the enormous eyes). Aside from being so damned cute, ERFWORLD has more than a touch of the surreal to it, which is actually unusual in that most fantasy webcomics I've seen take a very realistic approach to the worlds they create. So this is a fun, refreshing deviation from the norm.

Tom Siddell's GUNNERKRIGG COURT uses surreality much along the same lines, both in the artwork and the story: the titular Court is a boarding school that, in terms of visual design, serves as the anti-Hogwarts (which may explain, in part, my affinity for it) - it's dark, it's huge, there are subtly threatening mysteries around every corner. But the surreal feeling derives from the fact that no one, not even newcomer Antimony Carver, seems bothered by things like minotaurs, demons and robots. Also atypical is the setting: where other fantasy writers would put a great deal of effort into constructing an entire world to accomodate their protagonists, GUNNERKRIGG COURT is very centralized - the various chapters all take place either on the grounds or in the immediate vicinity (though, as it turns out, there's no shortage of nooks and crannies to explore within the Court itself. I also appreciated the subdued tone here, as opposed to the pomp and noise surrounding the world of HARRY POTTER - it feels more genuine, somehow, in the absence of people shrieking about Quidditch and magic beans.

And finally, technical notes:

* LOOKING FOR GROUP is ongoing, in color, currently at 125 pages. It updates every Monday and Thursday and its archive is organized by issues, each of which numbers around 30 pages.

* GOBLINS is ongoing, starting in black and white for two months before moving to full color. The series began in June of 2005 and updates erratically. Its archive divides the series into three books (so far), with additional divisions highlighting various "chapters" in the story.

* ORDER OF THE STICK is ongoing, in color, currently at 533 pages. The archive contains only a list of strips without any specific division, but the printed editions separate the series thus far into three books: strips 1-121, 122-300 and 301-484. It updates three times a week, more or less at random.

* YET ANOTHER FANTASY GAMER COMIC is ongoing, in black and white (with the occasional color strip). The series began in May 2006 and updates on a daily basis. The earliest strips in the archive are organized according to the featured characters, but this eventually gives way to individual titles per strip.

* ERFWORLD is ongoing, in color, currently at 96 pages. It updates Tuesdays and Saturdays. Like ORDER OF THE STICK, the archive doesn't divide the strips by story, though in this case it's probably because Balder and Noguchi are still on their first "book".

* GUNNERKRIGG COURT is ongoing, in color, currently at 17 chapters. It updates Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The archive features chapter and page division; additionally, each chapter ends with a bonus page or two featuring less-discussed aspects of the Court's world.

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The last time I tackled a Gail Simone book, worlds lived, worlds died and the Savage Critics were never the same. Will lightning strike twice?

Probably not. I thought WONDER WOMAN #17 and "The Circle" were OKAY.

I'll admit that I struggled with that grade - it was either going to be a high OKAY or a low GOOD. The thing is, I liked the premise; it was an interesting twist on the story of Diana's birth, pointing to an aspect of Themysciran life that had never really been dealt with before. And, of course, Alkyone's prediction could have come true very easily, which goes a long way towards making her and the other members of the Royal Guard sympathetic. Their story was compelling... up to a point.

The major problem I had with "The Circle" had to do with pacing, and this has been a issue for me with Simone-written series going back to THE ATOM and WELCOME TO TRANQUILITY: too much happens too quickly, and there's no room for depth or real drama, not when you're fast-forwarding through the story like Dark Helmet in "Spaceballs". This, in my opinion, has plagued Simone's recent output - a failure to allocate enough attention to the varied story elements. If I were to break down "The Circle" in terms of plotlines, this is what emerges:

A) The backstory of Alkyone and the Royal Guard, coupled with their present-day escape and their targeting of Diana.

B) The Nazis invade Themyscira, get whipped by the mother-daughter team-up of Hippolyta and Diana, and are sent packing.

C) Diana befriends gorilla warriors.

D) Etta Candy may or may not be a spy for Diana's boss or something... I didn't really get that sequence (though I don't fault Simone for that - I'm guessing it's a leftover from the Heinberg or Picoult runs?).

Now, the best stories are those which form thematic parallels between the B-plot and A-plot, the better to integrate them towards the climax: we can think here of how FABLES has moved Flycatcher's long-running character arc into the greater Fabletown/Empire conflict as an example. With "The Circle", though, what we get are two separate plotlines which only intersect in the name of contrivance (ie: the Nazis free the Circle), at which point they separate and are resolved separately - the Nazi cleanup has very little to do with the Circle's attack on Diana. As a result, neither develop any real gravitas: had this been the Circle's story, Simone might have been able to flesh out the other three members of the Royal Guard, and bring their conflict with Diana to a much more potent boiling point, dramatically speaking. But there simply aren't enough pages to do that, because you have Nazis and gorillas running about, smacking each other around. And at no point during this four-issue arc does Simone ever convince me that the Nazis and gorillas were needed.

Ultimately, "The Circle" fizzles to a very unsatisfying conclusion: there's something poignant about Alkyone's final realization, but at the same time, I felt that it just wasn't enough, that more could have been done with the Circle and their complex relationships with Hippolyta and Diana. So... OKAY, because I liked the idea and I wanted to see more, but I didn't.

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Very few moments in comics have had the distinction of making me cry. There was SANDMAN #72, when Nada throws flowers into the river as Dream's funeral boat passes by; Valerie's letter from V FROM VENDETTA; Noah finding the scooter in DEADENDERS #16.

And now we have the conclusion of Y: THE LAST MAN - even as I write this, I've got tears in my eyes.



Well... maybe not quite that tearful.



Better.

Anyway, Y. I'd actually been holding out on reading the last arc until yesterday, when I had all six final issues in my hands. I'm glad I did - while Brian Vaughan packed as much dramatic weight as possible into each individual issue, the sheer impact of the last storyline as a whole made it worth the long (long, long, long) wait.

There's really no way I can do justice to Y: THE LAST MAN and what it meant to me as a reader - for five years, it entertained me, shocked me, made me think, made me laugh, and yes, made me cry. It was consistently well-written and well-drawn, it was complex, and right up to the very end, it never opted for the easier storytelling choice: Vaughan always chose the less-traveled, and therefore less-predictable route, and in the end even the reader's perception of the series itself, of what Y: THE LAST MAN is supposedly about, is challenged.

Taking a broader view for a moment, I like to think Y will be remembered as the post-SANDMAN Vertigo flagship - symbolizing, if you will, a shift in trends from literature-based fantasy to a kind of gritty realism that nevertheless speaks truly and pointedly to the human condition. Not to knock PREACHER, or the still-running FABLES (which continues Gaiman's tradition of mixing myth and reality), but Y was different - more real in terms of the world presented and the way people behaved. I love that the hero of the series was just an ordinary guy; I love that there will never be one true answer to the question of the Gendercide; I love that the book took us all over the planet and really explored the possibilities of a world without men, with all the negative and positive and ambiguous implications therein. I love that the finale made me feel like I'd witnessed the end of a saga - that bittersweet sensation of a wonderful journey coming to its inevitable end.

Thank you, Brian and Pia and everyone who worked on this book. Thank you for recognizing that all tales need endings - and for giving us a conclusion that met the very high standards you set for yourselves. Thank you for five years of EXCELLENT stories.

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The Mad Scientist is a common staple of the superhero genre: you've got Victor von Doom, Tivo spokesperson Arnim Zola, pre-Crisis Lex Luthor and many more. More often than not, these characters skew towards a very specific personality archetype: the megalomaniacal whackjob with Simon Cowell's ego and Tyra Banks' love of monologuing. Of course, since most mad scientists serve as foils to the heroes, these are good qualities to have, because they ensure that we'll want to see the crazy person get taken down. Conversely, this is also the reason there are many stories with mad scientists and few stories about mad scientists, because would you really want to read a six-issue story arc where Doom goes on and on about his brilliance and his heritage and his family tree and then he grows goat legs and uses magical cellphone powers to summon robot insects that... hmm. Right. Moving on...

Anyway, that brings us to today's double-feature:
NARBONIC by Shaenon Garrity and A MIRACLE OF SCIENCE by Jon Kilgannon and Mark Sachs. These webcomics are noteworthy not just for the fact that they directly feature mad science and mad scientists, but also for their very different interpretations of that character type.

To call NARBONIC a comedy is at once oversimplifying things and oddly appropriate: it is, after all, a very humorous and funny story with a fair share of whimsy, and even at its most dramatic points, it never lets the reader take things too seriously. And yet Garrity planned her plotlines so carefully, so methodically, foreshadowing events that would take years to unfold, that the term "comedy" just doesn't seem apt enough.

The story concerns Dave, a Computer Science graduate hired by mad scientist Helen Narbon and her gun-happy henchwoman Mell Kelly. The first thing you'll notice about Helen is that she's unlike any mad scientist, male or female, that you've ever seen: she's obsessed with gerbils, charming even when she lapses into her "mwah-ha-ha" mode, and talks about killing people with a cheerful grin straight out of a Disney movie. All of Garrity's characters are endearingly quirky, and they keep on surprising you as the series progresses.

One of the aspects I most enjoyed was the way Garrity never stuck to a specific situation or formula for very long. The status quo got shaken up so often I'm not even sure there ever WAS a status quo. And there was a tremendous amount of variety in terms of output: for example, every new year would start with an eerily prophetic homage to LITTLE NEMO IN SLUMBERLAND. Sundays were occasionally devoted to our heroes' Victorian-era counterparts, or to chapters of an epic fanfic concerning evil yogurt (is there any other kind?), or to guest strips amusingly framed as the cast's desperate search for a new artist. And that was just the peripheral stuff - there was no lack of unpredictable fun in the series proper, ranging from a visit to Hell to a Mad Science Convention to a James Bond-esque adventure story.

But what left me most in awe of Garrity was that, from November 2002 to the very end of the comic, she used the filenames of the strips themselves to tell a prose story about a defining moment in Helen's life. That just blew me away, because I'd never seen anything like it - for printed comics, it would be like using the lines between panels to tell a parallel story to the one playing out on the page. That was an ingenious technique, and very demonstrative of the wit and cleverness Garrity used on a daily basis for over six years. If a rank higher than EXCELLENT existed, I'd award it here.

Kilgannon and Sachs' A MIRACLE OF SCIENCE takes mad science in a decidedly different direction: these are the bombastic, domination-oriented nuts we've seen before, but what's emphasized here is something that's (surprisingly) rarely touched upon in this sort of fiction: the fact that mad scientists are, in fact, mad. In this webcomic, mad science is a form of mental illness, a "meme" that cmpels its victims to follow a precise behavioral pattern that, ironically enough, is the quintessential formula for the mad scientist archetype: first they come up with a ludicrous scheme, then they build a giant robot, loudly announce their plans, get chased by the authorities, and finally surrender on the condition that their research is kept intact. This is intriguing notion because it turns what has traditionally been seen as a character archetype into something different.

What appeals to me with regards to A MIRACLE OF SCIENCE is its particular mix of genres and styles: artistically, there's a strong manga influence (big eyes, odd hairstyles/colors, etc.), but it reads like a Warren Ellis story (well, at least Ellis prior to his Year of Whoredom and the resulting creative STDs) - a hard-boiled detective with a dark secret in his past is paired with an avatar of a living planet, chasing down leads on an impending crime across the solar system. It's an adequately-executed premise that doesn't get bogged down by technospeak, as can sometimes happen with sci-fi. GOOD, because the story is fun and functional but it doesn't reinvent the wheel.

Technical notes: NARBONIC ran from August 2000 to December 2006. There's a link on the main page leading to the "Director's Cut" of the series, with added commentary by the strip's creator, Shaenon Garrity. It's primarily in black and white, with the occasional color strip. Additionally, Garrity toyed with panel length and size during the series' run, so keep an eye out for scroll bars on your browser. The Table of Contents is indexed by storyline, and every link leads to a week's worth of strips.

A MIRACLE OF SCIENCE ran from 2000 to 2007, black-and-white for the first chapter and switching over to color for the rest of the story. Unlike NARBONIC, Kilgannon and Sachs have provided a distinct chapter division for A MIRACLE OF SCIENCE; it's a much shorter read, around 400 pages to NARBONIC's 2000+ strips.

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I hate to kick a man when he's down (because, really, Chris Claremont couldn't be any further down at this point), but EXILES: DAYS OF THEN AND NOW presents the perfect argument to avoid the upcoming NEW EXILES relaunch.

I'm going to expose a bit of a bias on my part here: in earlier times, Judd Winick's EXILES was my favorite X-book. Yes, even more than Morrison's NEW X-MEN. To this day, I think of EXILES as the last truly good book Winick ever wrote: the characters were dynamic and engaging, the line-up was fluid and changed frequently, the premise allowed for some interesting use of the old "What If" scenario, and the pace allowed an occasional introspective issue.

The shine came off during Tony Bedard's run - I tried to support it, but looking back I think Bedard's mistake was shifting the focus from the characters to the plot, and the series lost something in the transition (its "heart", if you will). I liked it, but I didn't love it anymore.

Still, I followed EXILES for eighty-nine issues and an annual (minus the two Chuck Austen runs, of which the less is said, the better). And when Chris Claremont's first issue came out, I took it off my pull list without a second thought.

Now, during my time as a comic critic, I've never concealed my belief that writers can be profiled according to their strengths and weaknesses - that they have certain qualities which travel from book to book. Any series by Mark Millar will utterly fail to understand the meaning of "subtlety" (or "overkill", for that matter); a Brian Bendis-written comic will feature a dozen characters using the exact same speech patterns, and will most likely focus on rewriting Marvel's past rather than directing its present; any women found in a Frank Miller comic will be... well, I'm sure you can guess. Of course, profiling isn't an inherently negative practice: Warren Ellis knows his sci-fi, and you want Ed Brubaker on a crime/noir series, etc. Neither are these values absolute - I suppose it's possible that Garth Ennis will one day write the world's greatest SPIDER-MAN LOVES MARY JANE, it's just not bloody likely.

My point is, there are certain qualities I've attributed to Chris Claremont over the years that make him black-list material for me. See, this is what happens when Claremont inherits a book: first he sets it up as a vehicle for his own wish fulfillment (look, Psylocke's back! And there's the male Mystique he always wanted!), then he spins his wheels with the old mind-control/slavery routine, then he starts dredging up decades-old abandoned plot threads (Merlyn, Roma and the Fury - AGAIN). As all this is going on, character dynamics become embarrassingly soaplike and dialogue mutates into some quasi-teen speak that makes you want to grind your teeth. It is, quite literally, "same old same old", and there's a healthy trail of incomprehensible comics Claremont has left in his wake to prove it, if you're inclined to look.

How does this relate to EXILES: DAYS OF THEN AND NOW? Precisely that it's everything Claremont's NEW EXILES won't be. For example, Mike Raicht's protagonist, Quentin Quire, visits four alternate worlds in about forty pages and not once does he meet anyone from the Fantastic Four. Or Storm. Or Kitty Pryde. Raicht depicts four worlds (five counting Quire's home reality, itself an interesting fusion of PLANET HULK and ANNIHILATION), and there's not a single Captain Britain in sight. And the team that ultimately emerges at the end of the issue is a diverse, interesting group - one I'd gladly pick over the Claremont Cast-Off Collection.

That's what used to define EXILES for me: unpredictability, the feeling that a beloved team member could drop dead and be replaced at any moment, that the next alternate reality could be paradise or purgatory, that their next mission could be eating a danish or murdering an innocent child to prevent genocide. For a little while, Mike Raicht brought that feeling back for me, in a GOOD show of variety and inventive decisions - things you won't find when the next issue comes out.

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In connection with this week's featured webcomic, Dan Miller's KID RADD, I want to talk about cross-genre appeal. It seems to me that this particular creative strategy never works out well for the mainstream companies: I'm sure we all recall such catastrophic experiments as I HEART MARVEL and DC's line of ill-fated horror film adaptations. The failure was two-fold there - not only did the core readership stay away, but fans of those other genres such as romance and horror weren't interested either.

That raises an interesting question: can comics accurately capture the cross-genre effect at all? Does MARVEL ZOMBIES scare you? Does it have the same effect as NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD? Or, to make the comparison fairer, did MARVEL ZOMBIES/ARMY OF DARKNESS appeal to EVIL DEAD fans, or fans of horror films in general? I don't think so.

It might be an issue of compatibility: horror, after all, relies on scaring the audience, on audio cues (the soundtrack), on boogeymen leaping out of the shadows. That's not really something a comic can replicate. Then again, romance actually gains something when you have imagery to go along with the words (well, unless you're a fan of the whole overwrought "he thrust his purple-headed warrior into her quivering mound of love pudding" style), and yet: Mark Millar's TROUBLE. Go figure.

The reason this is relevant to KID RADD is because, aside from telling a great adventure story, Dan Miller designs a fictional world that appeals to me as a fan of video games, especially games from the late '80s and early '90s. A lot of KID RADD's humor is derived from conventions you'd probably be familiar with if you ever played a SUPER MARIO BROS. game, and it's precisely that mix of mediums and genres that makes a good webcomic even better.

Radd, our titular hero, is the protagonist of a platform video game where he blasts mindless drones in a quest to save his girlfriend Sheena. The comic begins with an introduction to Radd, his world, the game, and his relationship with the unseen player that controls him. Together, Radd and his player eventually beat the game, repeating the cycle over and over until they master it completely. And then one day, Radd's player doesn't come back.

That's where the story really starts.

Don't let the quasi-simplistic pixel art fool you - Miller actually raises some pretty complicated issues in KID RADD, particularly when it comes to philosophies like nihilism, fatalism and determinism. These concepts aren't explored to any great length, but they add some depth to what could've been a straightforward boomfest. Miller also makes good use of the telescoping plot structure: as the series progresses, the stakes get higher and higher, the tale becomes more and more epic, and Radd evolves and grows.

KID RADD is also noteworthy for the ways it uses its "canvas": combining pixel art, animation and MIDI music, Miller creates a true multimedia experience. Additionally, the entire webcomic is available for download via a self-extracting EXE file: it's about 30MB, over 3,000 files, and like the magic sword in Jeph Loeb's WOLVERINE, I don't know how it works - only that it clearly does. As I understand it, the panels aren't single images but bits and pieces combined with background, foreground and so on to create the complete panel.

For story, art and characterization, I give this webcomic a VERY GOOD, but its technical construction is so impressive that I'm bumping it up to EXCELLENT.

Technical notes: this pixel-based comic ran from February 2002 to September 2004, for a total of 601 comics split into 29 chapters. It's in color and uses a HTML/GIF-based viewer. Though the main page warns against viewing it through Internet Explorer 6, I've been using that for a while now and never noticed any problems (though some MIDI files lag when you stream them online). There's a selection of amusing "extras" available both at the site and in the EXE file - worth checking out after you've finished the story.

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What better way to kick off this series than by featuring a webcomic about webcomics? Kristofer Straub's CHECKERBOARD NIGHTMARE lays it all out in the very first strip (which doubles as a cast page): Chex is a cartoon character obsessed with webcomics. He wants to go all the way to the top without investing any long-term effort or talent. Since this shake-and-bake strategy brought about the Great Boy Band Epidemic of the early '00s, it's hard to argue with his logic.

Unfortunately for Chex, all he's got going for him is a short attention span and a knack for plagarism. Fortunately for us, that translates into a brilliant comedy that follows our hero's hilarious schemes.

CHECKERBOARD NIGHTMARE has a lot going for it: it's based on a simple four-panel formula where the first three panels set up the punchline and the fourth panel delivers, and this runs on a daily basis for five years, but even Straub's most repetitive gags (ie: Vaporware's choking fetish) never cross that line where they stop being funny. His style of humor is sophisticated without being exclusive, and that's important to me as a reader because I don't see the funny in fart/poop jokes, but the other end of the spectrum can come off as horribly pretentious.

I think the key to Straub's success, the reason why CHECKERBOARD NIGHTMARE is so entertaining, is his understanding of the principles of balance: just when you think you're getting tired of the done-in-one jokes, a whole storyline pops up about Chex's #1 Fan (there is no #2 Fan), or a send-up of cop-based action series, or a glimpse of Dot's ill-fated singing career. And not to spoil the ending, but let's just say Straub makes an astonishing use of continuity during the series' climax.

This strip is also unique in that, while it heaps satire on specific webcomics as well as the conventions of the medium itself, it's also a fairly educational tool. It's part of the strip's duality, a rather clever trick Straub is playing: every strategy or gimmick Chex fails to appropriate has succeeded elsewhere, whether it's using insult humor (SOMETHING POSITIVE), joining a popular webcomic group (Keenspot, Graphic Smash, etc.) or using a "safe format" to attract wider demographics (GARFIELD). These tactics don't work for Chex, largely because he misunderstands why they're supposed to work (and that, in turn, goes to the core of the character's comedic tendencies), but they're the foundations of many other popular series.

So in reading this EXCELLENT series, not only do you come away with a smile, you might actually learn a few things about webcomics too.

A few technical notes to wrap things up: the main CHECKERBOARD NIGHTMARE series ran from November 10, 2000 to November 11, 2005. Though Straub released a few sporadic strips after the big wrap-up, they were mostly topical done-in-one gags. According to the FAQ, the series has no regular update schedule - prior to its most recent August 31 update, the series was last updated September 1, 2006. Straub has since moved on to STARSLIP CRISIS, another EXCELLENT webcomic I'll probably be reviewing at a later date. The archive is conveniently ordered both chronologically and by storyline, making for easy navigation. The strip is primarily in black-and-white, though Straub switched to color during its final year.

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With Jog doing his bit for manga, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to add even more diversity to our humble site by introducing a new regular feature: webcomic reviews! I'll be focusing on free series, starting with webcomics that have run their course and concluded - like graphic novels, they represent a complete, self-contained reading experience. After that we'll move on to ongoing series, alternating between some old favorites of mine and webcomics I've recently discovered.

But before we get to the good stuff, I thought I'd start this prestigious #0 issue (now with exclusive Brian Hibbs triple-fold hologram variant cover - scratch it and it procreates!) with a discussion about webcomics as a whole: why they matter to me, why I get such a kick out of them, and what they have to offer those mainstream readers who may have gotten a bit tired of the current output.

I first discovered webcomics a few years ago, via my dear friend Jacob (who, some months later, put up his own short-lived but brilliant webcomic called NAUSEA, now sadly offline). I'd come back to comics after a long hiatus, and we were discussing genre: even then, when I was still very enthusiastic about the mainstream, I had to admit that the superheroes wore a bit thin at times. It was always such a treat to discover something like Kyle Baker's WHY I HATE SATURN or Judd Winick's ADVENTURES OF BARRY WEEN, proving that the medium could be used for more than just fights-in-tights.

At some point in the conversation, I brought up WHY I HATE SATURN and asked why we couldn't have something like that on a regular basis: no grandiose cosmic spectacles, no superpowers, no suspension of disbelief necessary - just ordinary people hashing out their ordinary lives, with all the drama and fun and sadness and joy that comes with it. Jacob directed me to R.K. Milholland's SOMETHING POSITIVE. I was hesitant at first, for the same reason I'm picky with fan fiction - in a domain without any real quality control, you're taking a leap of faith that the next story you read won't be a reincarnation of THE EYE OF ARGON. Also, there's so many of them, owing to the fact that just about anyone can write and upload their creations online - who has the energy to sort through ten thousand wank fantasies for the good stuff? SOMETHING POSITIVE was, at the time, nearing the end of its fourth year: there was a lot of reading to be done. Jacob assured me it'd be worth the effort.

And damn him, he was right.

Looking back, I can identify several factors that made SOMETHING POSITIVE such a perfect gateway into webcomics for me. First, Milholland's tone resonated with the irreverent atmosphere of the Jemas administration, but with Marvel I always had the feeling that they were holding back: it was okay to make fun of the '90s, but I R SIRIUS KOMIC NAO. Milholland rarely, if ever, restrains himself, and when he goes for shock or provocation, he always seems motivated more by self-amusement than by the desire to target a specific demographic (see: Fred MacIntire versus the Idiot Christians). It somehow felt more authentic, a more direct channeling of the author's voice than anything you'd find in the mainstream. We've all seen good stories (or, at least, good intentions) gone off the rails due to editorial interference and licensing concerns (just look at the current state of Spider-Man, or ask yourself why, as Graeme noted, the "magic reboot" gets used so often lately), and that's something Milholland never really has to deal with. When you're dependent on your readers, you have to keep them happy, and if that had been the case with S*P, this probably wouldn't have happened. Nor this, for that matter. It's a kind of creative freedom you just don't see with the big companies.

Another aspect of SOMETHING POSITIVE that intrigued me was... well, precisely that "alternative genre" I'd been looking for. Here was a dark comedy bordering on satire, with a bunch of friends - abnormal in normal ways, if that makes sense - getting together to bitch about things that annoyed them. Not something you'd easily locate at my LCS, that's for sure. And that was just the tip of the iceberg: I've read sci-fi webcomics, gaming parody webcomics, fantasy webcomics, action webcomics... I never felt boxed in as I do with the direct market, where only a very specific type of story can survive for any significant amount of time (see: every unfortunate cancellation in the history of comics from DEADENDERS to SENTINEL to SMALL GODS). In fact, based on what I've seen, I'd guess that the superhero genre is actually among the least popular in the medium: if it does pop up, it's usually some tongue-in-cheek take on the subject matter (ie: Brad Guigar's EVIL INC.) or downright subversive (Justin Pierce's THE NEW ADVENTURES OF WONDERELLA). I believe that, like fanfic, webcomics partially exist to address a lack - the extremely narrow focus on superheroes by established companies left pretty much every other field up for grabs, just as fanfic seems predominantly occupied with taking the story to places the canon can't (or won't) go.

Now, I'll admit this isn't a flawless medium - the downside to having no higher authority is that writers can (and often do) simply abandon their stories mid-way through, having simply tired of the effort. It happens more frequently than you'd think - Sean Howard's A MODEST DESTINY stopped so many times, and ended so poorly, that I'm sorry I ever read past the first book. The closest analogy would be something like the Grant Morrison/Gene Ha AUTHORITY run, aborted mid-story with little hope of resolution. Another downside is the lack of permanence - just because a work is available one day doesn't mean it'll be available the next. After discovering K. Sandra Fuhr, I was quite interested in her earlier works, UTOPIA and THIS IS HOME... except she'd deleted them. That's a whole block of an author's bibliography that you'll never find in a bargain bin.

The issue of price (or lack thereof) can also be a bit of a sticking point in webcomics. The argument tends to go thusly: on the one hand, most webcomics are free, which means you can start, stop and resume whenever you like, with absolutely no limitations. You get what may be an incredible tale at no cost at all. On the other hand, if things go sour, and you don't like where the story's going, the counter is that since you're not paying for it anyway, you don't really have the "right" to make demands. It's an iffy debate that I'm not getting into now - hell, I've always thought that even paying customers don't complain enough (though when they do, it's bloody brilliant), but it does raise the question of how you'd rate the importance of an editor: Tom Brevoort didn't do much to make AVENGERS DISASSEMBLED readable, but leaving all the creative decisions in the hands of the writer can lead to some unfortunate storytelling decisions - FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE being the most egregarious example, though DOMINIC DEEGAN: ORACLE FOR HIRE has made a few wrong turns as well.

Getting back to the whole price thing: the reason free webcomics are so important, especially these days with the digital piracy issue on the table, is because you have a ready-made alternative to amorphous, institutionalized popularity contests (Zuda) and clunky, uncomfortable efforts to lure you into paying anyway (Marvel's online initiative). And for those who prefer paper comics just because they like the feel, or because they're attached to those familiar icons such as Batman and Spider-Man, ask yourself this: how much are you willing to spend, and for how long, on comics that are decidedly inferior to, say, Rich Burlew's THE ORDER OF THE STICK or Shaenon Garrity's NARBONIC? I understand the attachment - hell, I'm still reading print comics, aren't I? - but at the same time, I could drop Marvel, DC and the rest of them tonight without feeling a very great loss. I haven't done so mainly because there's a handful of writers out there who still interest me, but if they were out of the picture? I would be too.

It's been almost three years since I discovered SOMETHING POSITIVE. I'm still reading it, along with nearly twenty other webcomics from a wide array of genres. I've stumbled onto completed webcomics that ran on a daily basis for five to seven years, huge and sprawling series I could read at my leisure, years compressed to days or weeks. I've read EXCELLENT stories.

And I'll be sharing them with you.

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I don't even play Portal and I'm addicted to that damn song...

Anyway, during the Savage Critics' short-lived re-enactment of Marvel's Civil War (whose side were YOU on?), Peter Adriaenssens made what I thought was a rather insightful comment:

"I find it interesting that the reviews are considered 'joyless' and 'dreary', as that seems to be one of the prevailing opinions on superhero comics in general these days."

Now, personally, I think Peter's made the Call of Duty 4 equivalent of a head-shot here: enthusiasm, that genuine joy one gets out of reading comics, is hard for me to come by these days. I get terribly jealous of someone like Chris Sims, who seems to pull it off so effortlessly week after week, even when reviewing soul-destroying artifacts of Satanic origin like TAROT: WITCH OF THE BLACK ROSE. I just can't work myself up to that level, mostly because the endless chain of mediocre events and crossovers and "oh hell no" moments on both sides of the fence have taken me to a pretty apathetic place, generally speaking. I get a lot more fun and satisfaction out of webcomics (which, Hibbs willing, I may actually talk about here someday!).

I'm going to be fair here, and note that the Big Two are business enterprises and they have every right to prioritize the cash-grab (COUNTDOWN) over quality (CRIMINAL). And I'm not saying that financial motivation can't produce a good story, though I'm hard-pressed to think of a recent sales stunt that I actually enjoyed as a reader: the return of Captain Marvel? World War Hulk? Skrulls? Meh.

So, yes, there are times when my outlook on comics gets a bit dreary and lacking in the fun department, because I'm not having fun and I'm not happy about it.

Then Ed Brubaker puts another comic on the shelves, and I get my groove back.

When I think about comics that have truly impressed me over the last few years, Ed Brubaker's CAPTAIN AMERICA is pretty high up on the list. Since issue 25, Brubaker has taken what could have been an empty sales stunt - I'm looking at you, "The Death of Superman" - and turned it into a true character-driven story full of action and intrigue. With the most recent CAPTAIN AMERICA #32, we're now eight issues into the "Death of the Dream" storyline, there's no sign of the protagonist, and this series isn't the least bit poorer for it.

Part of it has to do with the way Brubaker's almost writing around the Captain's demise now, in that the story's still moving: Falcon and Bucky and the Black Widow are picking up the slack, and Sharon Carter's in a dangerous place, and the Red Skull's endgame - whatever it may be - continues to unfold. I'm still invested in the story and in these secondary characters, precisely because Brubaker's fleshed them out to the extent that they can maintain themselves as credible protagonists even without Cap to provide the context. And that's no small feat: could Superman's supporting characters have held the line together if he'd never come back? Probably not, ADVENTURES OF PERRY WHITE doesn't have the same ring to it (though I suppose that, in the Silver Age, it might've actually made for some hysterically funny reading).

I'm also very appreciative of the way Brubaker's done away with decompression without sacrificing the story's integrity: a lot happens this issue, and a lot happened last issue, and it's gratifying to feel like the story's going places rather than tread water for 22 pages at a time.

For all these reasons, I'm giving CAPTAIN AMERICA #32 a well-deserved EXCELLENT. Bravo, Ed!

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Better late than never? When it comes to WELCOME TO TRANQUILITY #12, I would've preferred NEVER.

Gail Simone seems seriously off her game lately. Between this AWFUL series finale, WONDER WOMAN, ALL-NEW ATOM and GEN13, a trend has started to emerge where Simone throws a bunch of random events and character beats together in the hopes that they'll gel, and they rarely do. Her comics, of late, read like Grant Morrison-lite in that Morrison tends to use the same shtick, tossing out all these weird ideas that don't seem to go anywhere... but with Morrison, the payoff is (usually) worth the confusion. I don't feel that way about WELCOME TO TRANQUILITY.

To be fair, there's nothing wrong with the high concept of superheroes and supervillains living together in a retirement community. In fact, that and Simone's knack for humorous wit got me interested in the series from the very beginning. But she didn't quite pull it off here: twelve issues in, you've got about ninety cast members running around, none of whom are even remotely fleshed-out in terms of characterization, and whatever humor Simone sees fit to inject comes off rather weakly.

On top of that, the storylines deteriorated into half-crossover half-Biblical mush, with all these pastiches being sewn in from seemingly random places (where the hell did that Cowboy Punisher come from?). If I make like Masi Oka and squint until I go blind, I can just about see what Simone was trying to do - Tranquility is a sort of nexus for characters from all comic book genres, which means you could tell pretty much any story you want. But the groundwork just isn't there. And even though WELCOME TO TRANQUILITY was cancelled rather quickly, and I do take that into account when evaluating what was done here, the painful truth is that this book was losing readers long before the axe fell. And I can only attribute that to the lack of a hook, and this, I think, is where Simone's quasi-Morrisonian emulation falls short. Morrison is a thoroughly weird writer, but his best work had, at its core, human (or human-ish) characters you could care about. Simone's no stranger to this principle - it defined her run on BIRDS OF PREY and DEADPOOL/AGENT X before that, and GEN13 more recently - and yet we have books like TRANQUILITY and THE ATOM which just don't allow for any real emotional center. Failing that, you'd have to have a pretty intriguing plot/premise to keep people coming back, and while WELCOME TO TRANQUILITY falls firmly into the "cute" category, that's just not enough in the long run.

P.S. Unless Blogspot lies, this was the Savage Critics' 1,000th post! Happy millenium, guys! Here's to another 1,000 comics savaged!

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This one goes out to Keith Giffen. You wanted snark; snark ye shall have!

MIDNIGHTER: ARMAGEDDON #1 is the latest attempt to revitalize Wildstorm, which - at this point - is soggier than a Jim Balent comic in the hands of a teenager. The imprint's great thinkers, whose vast intellect has brought them to the state of near-collapse they're currently enjoying, have decided that the response to widespread apathy is to tease the destruction of the universe. Don't like Wildstorm? Good news! For fifty bucks, you can watch the whole thing get blown up (maybe)!

I guess my main problem with this issue, and with the underlying premise of this so-called event, is that I've already seen the blasted landscape/dead heroes/everything's crap future. I've seen it in X-MEN, I've seen it in HULK, I've seen it a thousand times... and I'm tired of it. At some point, it's become the default standard whenever anyone wants to depict a future dystopia. Oh, London got crushed by a giant spaceship! Millions of people are dead! A bunch of heroes went missing! Nobody knows what happened! Bleh. Show me a future where Doctor Phil is elected President, or where masses of defenseless humans are forced to watch hourly broadcasts of the Tila Tequila show. That's scary.

What's worse, there's zero dramatic investment in this particular future. Aside from purely cosmetic changes, Midnighter's crew remains more or less the same stereotypiriffic (take that, Mary Poppins!) cutouts they were before. It certainly doesn't help that the characters themselves shrug off Midnighter's apocalyptic vision with about the same lack of interest I feel when I get the latest Britney Spears update. "She got visitation rights? That's nice. The world is doomed? Yes, dear."

Ironically, this future-themed issue has no future to speak of: numbering aside, it's a one-shot (there's no MIDNIGHTER: ARMAGEDDON #2), and I doubt anyone who reads this actually believes Wildstorm is going to shake up its status quo so much. Come to think of it, didn't we already do this Armageddon thing with Captain Atom a while back? The thing is, even if Wildstorm has the stones to actually do something drastic this time, that's still an acknowledgement that the imprint has been so badly screwed up that only a cosmic Ctrl+Alt+Del can fix things. And, to be blunt, that's not the sort of tactic one should rely on too often. It would be more creative and rewarding to work with what you've got rather than toss it all out and start from scratch... but then, creativity and reward rarely synch up at Wildstorm, if this whole Worldstorm abortion is any indication.

AWFUL. Go ahead, Jim Lee, nuke 'em all. See if I care. (Hint: Probably not.)

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Well, it's been an interesting week: some new beginnings, and a somewhat unfortunate ending. Let's get right to it, shall we?

I'm hard-pressed to find a more radical transformation this week than SHE-HULK #22: with Dan Slott's departure (he'd be writing Spider-Man right now if Joe Quesada's shock collar still worked), Peter David takes the book in a completely different direction. That's to be expected, of course - David and Slott have very different senses of humor, with the former leaning more towards quips and puns while the latter works better with goofy, cartoon-esque scenarios - but I didn't expect to become so interested in the story. It may just be that David has more experience in the field, but I found his first issue of SHE-HULK was enough to hold my attention, where Slott's run never really caught on with me. On the other hand, David has a tendency to wear his pop culture influences on his sleeve... X-FACTOR's Singularity Investigations was obviously drawn from Wolfram & Hart (ANGEL), and I doubt it's a coincidence that SHE-HULK #22 is structured on the same principle as the HEROES season premiere: we start the story in medias res, time has passed, and a big part of what compels us forward is learning what's happened in the interrim. Narratively speaking, this is a perfectly fair and efficient tactic, but the timing could be better. Nevertheless, this is a GOOD starting point for David's run: there's a proper balance of action, humor and mystery, though if you're looking for Slott-esque gags, you're better off searching elsewhere.

AUTHORITY: PRIME #1 is another new beginning of sorts, though I suppose anything Wildstorm's doing at the moment is soured by the total collapse of the imprint. It's interesting that this miniseries comes out more or less at the same time STORMWATCH: PHD was cancelled; for all intents and purpo