Hellboy: In the Chapel of Moloch — Writer/Artist: Mike Mignola
Mignola handles full art duties on his signature character for the first time in a long while, and offers a mordant commentary on bad art and demonic inspiration, leavened with lots of punching and tough-guy quips. It’s a one-shot, requiring no prior knowledge from the reader, and is thus a perfect try-this-comic comic for those who’ve never picked it up (the rest of us figured out that Hellboy drawn by Mignola (and, really, most anything else in the Hellboy universe that he has a creative hand in) was worth an automatic buy years ago).
Ultimate Spider-Man Annual #3 — Writer: Brian Michael Bendis; Art: David Lafuente
Peter and Mary Jane, mostly, fit around an Ultimate Mysterio story, drawn in a mangaesque style and serving as a reminder of just how good Bendis has been with these characters and concepts over the last eight years; like the Mignola Hellboy, it’s a perfect little stand-alone tale that plays to the storytellers’ strengths and leaves readers both happy and satisfied (and no, they aren’t the same thing).
Kick Drum Comix #2 (of 2) — Writer/Artist: Jim Mahfood
I’ll buy anything by Mahfood, and this magazine-size book offers high-quality reproduction and color, and two stories combining 46 pages of his energetic, idiosynchratic art. The first, a realistic high school battle-of-the-bands piece, is the better story; the second is a low-rent space opera with a female lead that’s mostly an excuse to draw cheesecake (not that there’s anything wrong with that); together, they’re more than worth the $6 cover price.
The Boys #24 — Writer: Garth Ennis; Art: Darick Robertson
Battlefields: Night Witches #1 (of 3) — Writer: Garth Ennis; Art: Russ Braun
Streets of Glory #6 (of 6) — Writer: Garth Ennis; Art: Mike Wolfer
Three Garth Ennis comics, highlighting three facets of his work: first, The Boys is Ennis’s high-profile gig right now, an over-the-top combination of superhero satire and coldhearted violence with a surprisingly-sophisticated grasp of character, and a very human love story at its core. This arc involves an affectionate and enthusiastic tribute to Animal House; the alternate cover by Robertson, an astonishingly-detailed parody of the movie poster, shows that he has fond childhood memories of that classic college movie, too.
Next, Battlefields is an historically-accurate war comic, examining WWII German ground troops at the Russian front, and the Soviet women pilots who oppose them. Like most of Ennis’s war books, it’s a combination of stout-hearted idealists, weary realists, psychos, bureaucrats and cowards, all confronting mind-numbing violence. It won’t get half the sales of The Boys, but it’s clearly done for love of the genre and not money (his research rivals Harvey Kurtzman’s, and is probably just as non-cost-effective); it’s clear that commercial success isn’t the issue here: making great war comics is.
Finally, Streets is the conclusion to yet another genre tale, an elegaic (but still bloody, sometimes spectacularly so) western set on the cusp of the 20th century; it’s the most minor of the three, but still offers enough careful characterization and passing-of-the-warrior theme to be worth a look.
No Hero #2 — Writer: Warren Ellis; Art: Juan Jose Ryp
Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Boxes #1 (of 2) — Writer: Warren Ellis; Pencils: Alan Davis/ Mark Farmer; Ado Granov
Ennis beats Ellis, who has a comparatively-meager two books out this week, similarly representing different angles of his output: No Hero is a creator-owned look at how pharmaceutical super-powers might work in the “real” world, cynical and bright and brutal, rendered in Ryp’s clear, draw-every-piece-of-rubble-and-torn-chunk-of-flesh style. X-Men is the commercial side, a work-for-hire spinoff from Ellis’s main AXM book, notable because it uses that series’s “ghost box” gateway-to-parallel-Earths conceit to set up two six-page “Elseworlds”-type stories (the second half of the book reprints Ellis’s scripts for the two stories, a boon for any budding comics pros curious about writing formats or techniques). The Granov offering is a Victorian-timeline tale focusing on Emma Frost; the Davis story is about one alternate Earth invading another, and serves mostly to showcase just how bad that artist sometimes is at interpreting a script clearly — the art is incomprehensible in at least two sequences, and readers have to turn to the scripts to figure out what’s actually going on.
Superman/Batman: Vampires and Werewolves #2 (of 6) — Writer: Kevin VanHook; Art: Tom Mandrake
The story’s a throw-in-everything-but-the-kitchen-sink horror-movie pastiche (in addition to the titular monsters, there’s a Lovecraftian terror-from-beyond-space Cthulhu thingie looming at the end of this issue — and who knows what cliches are lurking around the corner for the final four episodes?), but the main attraction is the Mandrake art; with his equal talents at drawing believable humans and moody gothic atmosphere, he’s the closest thing we’ve got to a successor to Gene Colan, and the beautiful pictures sell the book.
Amazing Spider-Man #575 — Writer: Joe Kelly; Pencils: Chris Bachalo; Inks: Tim Townsend
Another comic where the art seals the deal: Bachalo’s another artist who can handle both character and mood equally well, and has a unique line that’s instantly recognizable. The story, one of Marvel’s perennial attempts to make the Dick Tracyish villain Hammerhead into something other than a joke, is more brutal than it needs to be, but has a couple of nice sequences (including one where Spidey’s attempts to go all after-school-specially on a young gangster fall flat) and helps to remind us of the easy competence and readability that Joe Casey always brings to his superhero work-for-hire books.
Stuff I read and liked enough to buy, but don’t have much to say about, so read previous reviews in the archives if you’re interested:
The Sword #12 — Writers/Artists: Jonathan and Joshua Luna
Justice League of America #26 — Writer: Dwayne McDuffie; Artist: Ed Benes
Legion of Super-Heroes #47 — Writer: Jijm Shooter; Penciller: Rick Leonardi; Inker: Dan Green
Knights of the Dinner Table #144 — Creators: Jolly Blackburn, Brian Jelke, Steve Johansson and David Kenzer
Jack of Fables #27 — Writers: Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges; Pencils: Russ Braun; Inks: Jose Marzan Jr.
Phil Mateer
