Oh, its been
a hell of a week, hasn't it? Never have I been so grateful for my
comics to arrive than this week, the chance for either some escapism
or to get really, really angry and I didn't care which I just wanted
to not think about Trump for a hour or so.
So, let's
look away from the blackened maw of death for a while and throw some
opinions out into the aether, shall we?
The
Kamandi Challenge #1
I have been
waiting for year for DC to do something with this property. I loved
the Kamandi feature in Wednesday Comics waaaay back in 2009
but there hasn't been much done with the Last Boy On Earth since. He
turned up for a bit in Multiversity and some crossover spots here and
there but nothing really extended. Now we have a twelve part
maxi-series (do we still call them that?) with an all-star creative
team.
Multiple
all-star creative teams. I like the idea of this round robin series
format, even if the second half of this issue makes me wish that Dale
Eaglesham could be drawing the whole thing. I love Eaglesham's art
style and in spite of Keith Giffen and Scott Koblish doing a more
“faithful” rendition of Jack Kirby's style, Eaglesham's somehow
seems more in the spirit of it.
Story wise,
this is pretty much a complete reboot but its DC so who's honestly
surprised? This company has never met a wheel it didn't want to
reinvent. That said, its not like this is story people are anywhere
near as familiar with as Batman's origins so it is probably sensible.
Giffen and
Koblish's first half handles the origin pretty well, setting us up
the mystery of who Kamandi is and how he ended up in that bunker
whilst Abnett and Eaglesham do the heavy lifting on world building
the Tiger Empire. Both episodes move at a good pace and the art teams
cram them with visual information to the point at which you sort of
come to resent the more drawn out pace of other comics.
Detective
Comics #949
Batwoman
Begins finale
As a
prologue to the new Batwoman
series this was great, though I am rather confused about why we're
getting a Rebirth
one-shot before the series proper as this two-parter delivered a
pretty compelling manifesto all on its own. Saying what that
manifesto is would be spoiling too much but the whole issue is about
the difference between Bruce's methods and mission and Kate's.
On
a related note, Kate has a wonderful moment of just not caring about
Bruce's disapproval when she uses a gun and it is glorious. One way
to make me love a Bat-family character is to have them just not care
about Bruce's moaning (see also Jason Todd and Tim Drake).
Very
much looking forward to the Batwoman
ongoing but more looking forward to the next Detective
storyline which promises me the League Of Shadows, which hopefully
means their little prisoner is going to be making his comeback.
Daredevil
#16
The
Seventh Day part two
This
was a nice character piece, which I wasn't expecting. When a
Daredevil writer brings in Bullseye you sort of expect them to go for
the epic confrontation between Daredevil and his worst, greatest foe.
This.,. went a completely different direction. Bullseye's presence is
pretty much ignored, His effect on Matt is explored, what Bullseye
means in the grand scheme of things, but there's no big fight, the
two characters barely interact.
That
could be disappointing but instead we get to dive deep into Matt's
state of mind. Next issue promises, after more than a year, to tell
us how and why Matt erased knowledge of his secret identity from the
world and this issue tells us where Matt is as a person as a
consequence.
Plus,
this story gave us a new priest character for Matt to bounce off:
Father Jordan, a funny sort of Catholic priest. Not in the sense of
his personality but in the sense that Marvel might be playing with
the history of the Catholic faith in ways I don't think they have
before.
Before
this story my interest in the series was flagging but I'm more than
willing to reserve judgement now I've seen this creative team show me
more of the character they want to convey in Murdoch and with the
promise of long-withheld answers.
Infamous
Iron Man #4
Aside
from that awful Bendis habit of only getting to what the cover
promises on the last page, this was a very nice issue.
Now,
even though I read comics to years beforehand what made me a fan was
Bendis, Maleev and Hollingsworth's Daredevil
run and the nostalgic glow this issue gave me to those days was
immense. The first half of the issue is a lovingly rendered sit down
chat between SHIELD director Maria Hill and Victor Von Doom, our
Infamous Iron Man. The dialogue sings, chipping along with a great
back and forth rhythm between the two whilst the art sells every
inflection of the dialogue through facial expressions and posture.
Elsewhere
in the issue we get to see that his face turn hasn't robbed Doom of
his steel as he confronts the general he left in charge of Latveria
for his failures. One thing I have always liked about Doom in most
incarnations is that no matter how horrible he is to the Fantastic
Four or whatever other heroes he fights he genuinely does care about
his people. Now, this isn't true in every version but my favourites
have always been the ones where Latveria is pretty well off as
dictatorships go, perhaps not a country you'd want to live in but you
can see how Doom thinks he's doing the right thing.
I
just look forward to next month and getting to see the scene the
front cover and last issue's cliffhanger promised me, is all.