Christian's Week in Comics 11/14/12: Saga, Thor, Bloodshot and more!

OK.  Holy hell did I ever buy a bloody lot of comics today.  Right.  So instead of doing three or four mini-reviews in my "Week of Comics" thingy, I'm going to try and keep my thoughts on each book to a minimum, and assign a little number rating out of five (people apparently like numbers- I am allergic to mathematics).  Alright, enough with the preamble!

Batman #14
"Funny Bones"
Writer: Scott Snyder
Artist: Greg Capullo
DC

I'm just going to say it right now, this is the best Joker story in years.  Snyder and Capullo have stepped out of the shadow of Heath Ledger and a delivered a chilling new version of the Man Who Laughs that has more in common with Freddy Krueger than any former incarnation of the Clown Prince of Crime.

This isn't an issue you want spoiled, so go to Comixology or your local comic shop and read it for yourself, or else the Joker is going to keep hitting Alfred Pennyworth with his hammer, and God only knows what he's done to Alfred's eyes.   Story: 5 Art: 5

X-Men Legacy #1
"Prodigal"
Writer: Si Spurrier
Artist: Tan Eng Huat
Marvel

People (if they can be so generously described as "people") like to complain a lot about how the Big Two never take risks, and then proceed to not support the books that Marvel and DC publish that challenge this preconception.  I hope I am wrong, because X-Men Legacy is one of the riskiest damn books Marvel could have decided to publish as part of its Marvel NOW event.

For starters, it's a book by a relatively unknown writer from the UK, Si Spurrier, drawn by another unknown artist, Tan Eng Huat, and stars David Haller, a mentally ill mutant with a serious case of disassociative identity disorder otherwise known as Legion.  It's also as mad as Spider Jerusalem's acid flashbacks.  Although careful readers will be able to make sense of what's going on inside and outside of Legion's crazed head, Spurrier and Huat seem determined to blur the lines between reality and the Qortex Complex, the brain-jail where Haller has locked up all the deviant psycho-personalities lurking in his skull.

This is a great book for new readers to get into, and if you find yourself pining away for the days when crazed men from across the pond like Warren Ellis and Grant Morrison used to scribe for Marvel, this is the X-book for you. Story: 4 Art: 3.5

Saga #7
"Chapter Seven"
Writer: Brian K. Vaughn
Artist: Fiona Staples

Ah, can you feel that? It's the collective sigh of relief from thousands of readers who can finally breathe easy because the greatest comic being published right now is back from its three-month hiatus. Yes, Saga is back, and despite the break, this book hasn't missed a step.  Picking right up from where issue #6 left off, Marko's parents have arrived and are not very pleased with his choice of life partner.  After a masterful look into the war-torn past of Marko's father, which really serves the anti-war metaphor that underlies the entire book, Vaughn and Staples split the parents up with the newlyweds, leading to some great moments between characters.

I'll admit I was little worried when Saga first went on hiatus, but now that it's back, I realize I had nothing to fear. If you haven't read the first 6 issues of Saga yet, you'll need to pick up the first trade before jumping on with this arc.

Also: giant swollen alien testicles.    Story: 5 Art: 5

Bloodshot #5
"The Rise and Fall Part 1"
Writer: Duane Swierczynski
Artists: Manuel Garcia Arturo Lozzi
Valiant

Bloodshot is not everyone's cup of tea.  I get that.  It's full of blood and nastiness and mixes its hard military SF with real sociopolitical overtones that can be hard to swallow.  But me, I like my tea bitter (which is kind of apt, since if Bloodshot were a tea, he'd be Earl bloody Grey). This issue finds Bloodshot storming the secret base of Project Rising Spirit, but finds more than he bargained for in the special ops nightmare that is Chainsaw: an early project of PRS' that also attempted to fuse human beings with sharp cybernetic objects.

I love Wolverine and The Punisher, but it seems absolutely redundant reading those books in a world where Bloodshot exists.  Here, you get the best of both worlds.  Bloodshot is basically an indestructible cybernetic Punisher with a head full of secrets that would make Julian Assagne blush.  If brutal, bloody action and modern day military SF sounds like your thing, read this book. Even though this is #5, the helpful back matter on the first page of the book will fill you in on everything you need to know about the series going into this new arc.  Valiant has been doing a great job of making each issue friendly to new readers, and Bloodshot #5 is no exception to that. Story: 4 Art: 3

Thor: God of Thunder #1
The God Butcher, Part One of Five, "A World Without Gods"
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Esad Ribic

Thor is a character who I've always liked as an Avenger, but haven't been interested in reading in his own book.  This changed when I saw preview pages of Esad Ribic's interiors for this new series.  The painterly quality of Ribic's art seems like it was transported out of the pages of some forgotten issue of Heavy Metal and into my Marvel comic, and I absolutely love it.  Sometimes art drawn in this fashion doesn't work as well sequentially, but Ribic's strength as a visual storyteller shines here. He and Aaron make an excellent pair, as Ribic's visuals compliment Aaron's story of Thor across three time periods.  The mood of this story is foreboding, and often eerie. Thor's anger and confusion when he arrives at the atheist planet is palpable, and his dismay when he finds the butchered corpses of the Sky Lords fills the comic with a overwhelming sense of dread and despair.  Epic is a word that gets tossed around quite loosely in geek culture, but in the case of this story, it thoroughly applies.  If I had to pick a favorite moment, it was when the old God-King Thor (heretofore known as O.G. Thor) asks for someone to bring him his metal arm, only to remember that all his servants are dead. Story: 4.5 Art: 5

Review: Swamp Thing Annual #1

Swamp Thing Annual #1

Writers: Scott Snyder & Scott Tuft
Artist: Becky Cloonan
DC Comics

This issue was a breath of fresh air.  I haven't exactly been silent on my feelings regarding the overall direction of Swamp Thing and Animal Man since the New 52 began.   Initially, I loved that both of these books were essentially superhero horror stories, and I really enjoyed the interconnectedness between the two titles.  However, as the months settled, these books started to feel stagnant, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that they've essentially been facing the same mutual antagonist since day one: The Rot.  This lead into the Rotworld crossover, which I was initially excited for, but the delay brought on by Zero Month has made this crossover seem like its stalling.  These titles are just barely keeping me interested, especially as this crossover is scheduled to drag on into February 2013.  And in comes this issue, with guest co-writer Scott Tuft and art by the always wonderful Becky Cloonan.

Full disclosure: Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan's miniseries Demo was one of the first graphic novels I ever bought.  I have been fan of Becky's art ever since, so my capacity to judge her art objectively is somewhat blinded by the fact that I am an unabashed fan.

Along those same lines, Scott Snyder and Scott Tuft's 2011 collaboration, Severed, was one of my favorite comics of last year, so as soon as I heard that Tuft co-writing this issue, I started getting chills.

So it pains me to say that this issue is a bit of a mixed bag.

Most of this issue takes place outside of the main story of the Rotworld crossover, and this is where the issue really shines.  The introduction and conclusion of the story are pencilled by Andrew Belanger and take place within the Rotworld story, although not exactly from where Issue #13 left off, and well, it just serves to remind me of how tired I am of the whole storyline involving The Rot.  Once we're past that intro, and the story focuses on Alec Holland and Abby Arcane's first meeting, the issue really starts to take off and reminds me of why I love these characters.

It's difficult to describe the tone and atmosphere of this issue.  I'd say it's a cross between a romance comic and an EC horror book.  Most of the issue just focuses on Abby and Alec's first date, and it's exactly as charming and sweet as you'd think a story about star-crossed lovers drawn by Becky Cloonan would be...and then Anton Arcane is shown skinning a hanged man so he can wear his body like a meat-suit.

Wow, that got dark quickly.

Despite the abrupt shift in tone and genre however, the story and the art just work.  This is the best art I've seen in Swamp Thing, actually, any DC Comic, since Yanick Paquette left as the full-time artist on this book.  It's a real shame she isn't staying on this book longer, which is the same I'd say for Scott Tuft as co-writer.  Clearly, he and Snyder share the same horror sensibilities.  Though much of this issue is really light-hearted and romantic, this issue gets downright scary, much more than in any previous issue of Swamp Thing.

If Scott Snyder can leave The Rot storyline behind and bring Tuft on as a co-writer full time, it might be enough to keep me interested.  Anton Arcane has turned out to be a genuinely frightening threat, but crossover fatigue is keeping me from being excited about this book any more.  I know it sounds like backhanded praise, but if you've been feeling like I have about Swamp Thing, I'd recommend you pick this issue up. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Swamp Thing #11

Swamp Thing #11
"Family Reunion"
Writer: Scott Snyder
Artist: Marco Rudy
July 11, 2012
DC Comics

Issue #10 brought about two big changes to Scott Snyder's run on Swamp Thing: a change in artists, from Yanick Paquette to Marco Rudy, and the return of Alec Holland's arch-enemy, Anton Arcane!

I'll be frank, Paquette (who drew the cover for this issue) has been my favourite artist since the launch of the New 52, so I was not happy to see him leave as the book's full time artist. However, Rudy made an impressive debut in #10. Arcane's new character design is appropriately gruesome, and the tone of the art in that issue left me feeling like I had just read something out of E.C. Comics. 

This issue continues that pulp horror vibe, but the stark, brooding atmosphere of Issue #10 is gone here, and has been replaced by a vivid, loose, more colourful style. I thought the panels involving Alec Holland and the young Parliament of Trees were as beautifully rendered as anything Paquette drew during his time on the book, but the scenes involving Swamp Thing's fight against Arcane and his Un-Men sketchy and lackluster.

One thing that bothered me especially was the lack of backgrounds in several panels. Too often, a character reacts to something in the panel and in lieu of an actual background we just get their head surrounded by wavy lines. This could be effective in one or two panels, but I counted at least eight occurrences of this!

Still, there were some occasionally great scenes in this comic. Abby Arcane's vision of Rotworld was especially unnerving, and provided a great counterbalance to the scenes of Alec and the Parliament.

This issue leads directly into the upcoming crossover between Swamp Thing and Animal Man, so even though I am somewhat on the fence about this issue, it's still a must-read for fans of either title looking forward the "Rotworld" storyline beginning in August.