Collected Editions

Comic Book Holiday Gift Guide 2009

2009-11-19T08:02:00.002-06:00

The Collected Editions blog is back again with our picks for this year's top ten ideas for trade paperback presents for the comic book lover, fan, or collector in your life.

Last year we offered eleven suggestions of books could you get for under $25 -- and, with a little Collected Editions magic, free shipping, too! This year our focus is on ten complete volumes -- standalone books or sets that you can get your favorite comics fan, where they won't have to run out and buy twelve more books in order to understand it. Not all are under $25, but most are -- and we're back with more tips how you can get free shipping!

* Fables Deluxe Edition Vol. 1

A deluxe hardcover makes a lovely, impressive gift under your Christmas tree, and you can't go wrong with the newly-released first volume of the Eisner award-winning Fables series, which pairs fairytale characters with modern, real-world settings. This book features the first and second Fables storylines previously only available in paperback, in this director's cut oversized edition. And, Fables writer Bill Willingham just released a Fables prose novel; pair this book with Peter & Max: A Fables Novel to make a lovely set with free shipping.

* Asterios Polyp

Every comics fan knows David Mazzucchelli's name as the artist on Batman: Year One, but he's also drawn novel adaptions and cartoons for New Yorker magazine. His first graphic novel, Asterios Polyp, would be a cerebral change-of-pace for your favorite comic book fan, the richly illustrated story of a New York architect whose misanthropy culminates with a self-imposed exile to the American midwest. Pair this book with one of two great graphic novels, Will Eisner's The Dreamer or Amanda Vanhamaki's The Bun Field, and you've got two trade paperbacks for just about $25.

* Absolute Death

Be forewarned, this is a pricey book, but it's sure to leave your loved one happy. Ask any comics fan, and you'll find that among their top ten gateways into comics was something to do with writer Neil Gaiman's character Death -- either her appearances in Sandman or her much acclaimed miniseries. Don't let Death's goth girl appearance fool you -- these are stories full of philosophy and magic, and a necessary addition to any comics fan's shelf. Free shipping on this and any book you might pair with it.

* Astonishing X-Men Omnibus

Keeping with our focus on done-in-one volumes this time around, this gigantic X-Men hardcover collects all twenty-four issues of Astonishing X-Men written by Buffy, the Vampire Slayer's Joss Whedon, with art by John Cassaday. Whedon's run also won Eisner awards -- whether your favorite X-Men fan loved X-Men Origins: Wolverine or hated it, this collection will give them something to enjoy. Shipping on this book is free!

* Trinity Vol. 1

Among the Final Crises and Blackest Nights of the past year, DC Comics's weekly Trinity event starring Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman slipped quietly under the radar. Just in time for the holidays, all three volumes of this sweeping, fifty-two part superhero saga are now available in paperback; tied up in a ribbon, this too would make a nice complete set under the tree. Pair one volume with our illustrated Beowulf stocking stuffer, or pick up all three -- either way, free shipping!

* Bone: One Volume Edition

Talk about hefty -- this graphic novel clocks in at over 1,000 pages for just over $25. Independently published and called one of the top greatest graphic novels by Time magazine , the art style of Jeff Smith's Bone looks at first like something from the Sunday funnies, but is really a sweeping fantasy saga in the spirit of Lord of the Rings. Another done-in-one volume -- this is every Bone issue in one place, and sure to keep the recipient reading for a long time.

* Superman/Batman: Public Enemies (Two-Disc Special Edition)

One of my favorite trade paperbacks is the first volume of Superman/Batman, Public Enemies, so I was more than a little excited when DC announced they'd bring Jepf Loeb and Ed McGuinness's story to the small screen. Admittedly, the DVD's been met with mixed reviews, and doesn't quite do the original story justice -- at the same time, there's something about McGuinness's manga-inspired, big muscled art, especially combined with voices from the original Superman and Batman animated series, that's very compelling. Together, the book and movie are good for free shipping -- another great package, and your comics fan can decide for themselves which is better.

* Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

Scott McCloud launched a series of books about comics with this, the illustrated Understanding Comics. Using the medium's own vernacular, McCloud examines the language of comics and how they use pictures to make meaning. This should be on any comics reader's shelf -- I read it a while back, and it completely changed how I read my comics and the details I noticed from panel to panel. Pair with the The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks for a bit of irreverent fun (and free shipping), or just about any of the other full trade paperbacks on the list.

* Star Trek: Countdown

I loved, loved, loved the newest Star Trek movie, and not just because they were willing to take risks like the relationship between you know who or blowing up you know where. I also loved it because of the continuity, that's right, that J. J. Abrams still managed to make the new movie fit with all the old ones (obviously, I'm something of a continuity wonk). For the Star Trek fan on your list, Countdown further bridges the gap between the old and new Star Trek continuity -- it's a fun book that adds a little more to the movie. Add to Understanding Comics for free shipping, or your favorite sci-fi fan might like the Flashforward novel, Dilbert's Scott Adams' essays Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!, plus Will Eisner's The Dreamer to boot -- once again, four books just about $25 and free shipping!

* The Bun Field

This abstract story by Italian artist Amanda Vahamaki redefines the graphic novel genre -- a moody piece where reality is fluid and the rules of perception are made to be broken. I've read Bun Field, the abstract story of a day in the life of a inquisitive child, a couple times since it came out, and I find a different meaning in it each time. I like the idea of pairing Bun Field with The Dreamer, looking at where comics started and where they're going; include Star Trek: Countdown alongside and you've got free shipping.

And for more help qualifying your order for free shipping ...

* The Dreamer

At this very moment, the graphic novel The Dreamer by legendary comics creator Will Eisner is only $5. Eisner literally invented the graphic novel format, and The Dreamer is Eisner's own autobiographical tale of the early days of the comics industry. If you want to add some more weighty trade paperback reading to your gift-giving this year, you can't go wrong with this one; pair The Dreamer with Asterios Polyp and the lighter Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain! for free shipping.

* The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks

From the big screen to the Blackest Night, I don't have to tell you zombies are all the rage this year (and what says the holidays like zombies?). Max Brooks takes on zombies throughout history in this illustrated "guidebook," just one in a series by Brooks. Better yet, this will round out your free shipping with Understanding Comics, Asterios Polyp, and just about everything else you'll find on this list.

* Flashforward

While not a graphic novel, I was fascinated to find in the bookstore that the new ABC series getting so much attention is based on this novel by the same writer, with reportedly more of a focus on the government action. I've got a copy on order from the library, but in the meantime I've been thinking of picking this up as a stocking stuffer myself. Pair with Star Trek: Countdown and just about anything below for free shipping.

* Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!: Cartoonist Explains Cloning, Blouse Monsters, Voting Machines, Romance, Monkey Gods, How to Avoid Being Mistaken for a Rodent, and More

Scott Adams of Dilbert fame offers this book of essays on religion, technology, and just about anything else that comes to mind. Though a little outside the realm of graphic novels, if you've got a Dilbert fan at home, this 400-page book is less than $3 and should help you on your way to free shipping.

* Beowulf: A Tale of Blood, Heat, and Ashes

John Howe of the Lord of the Rings movie fame illustrated this slim volume which retells the legend of Beowulf. While not perhaps the shining jewel of your gift list, this will make a nice stocking stuffer for a fan of fantasy artwork, or a younger reader you'd like to introduce to the epic poem. At just over $5, pair this with Asterios Polyp and The Dreamer and get free shipping, or drop it in with Bone: One Volume Edition for a shipping-free stocking stuffer.

Happy holidays to all, and to all good reading!

(Lots of bloggers, by the way, have Amazon links like the ones above, and when you buy anything after clicking on these links, that blogger gets a few cents. This holiday season, if you're buying gifts through Amazon, consider clicking on someone's link before you buy; I know I will. There are lots of hard-working bloggers out there (see blogroll), and this is a great, easy way to support them.)

Full Blackest Night collection contents revealed

2009-11-18T12:34:00.005-06:00

We now have details on the contents of all seven (yes, seven) Blackest Night collections to be released by DC Comics next summer. The news that Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps will be collected outside the main Blackest Night collection will make some fans very unhappy. As follows:

- Blackest Night - the main eight-issue miniseries

- Blackest Night: Green Lantern - the Green Lantern tie-in issues

- Blackest Night: Green Lantern Corps - the GLC tie -in issues

- Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps Vol. 1 - the Blackest Night Batman, Superman, and Titans miniseries

- Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps Vol. 2 - the Blackest Night JSA, Flash, and Wonder Woman miniseries

- Blackest Night: Rise of the Black Lanterns - the eight "resurrected" titles

- Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps Vol. 1 - the three-issue miniseries (listed as volume one of multiple, but this might be an error)

The issue here, as we've discussed previously, is there's a consensus that you need to read Green Lantern between the pages of Blackest Night to understand the story, but the books will be collected separately.

This hearkens back to the Final Crisis problem, where the original plan for collecting Final Crisis was to collect the main miniseries on its own -- but having read it, it's clear that book would have made no sense without the additional Superman Beyond issues later added in.

I know emotions are high about this one. Are you eager for the Blackest Night collections? Can't believe you have to wait until next summer? Steamed about the separate volumes? Chime in!

Review: Tangent: Superman's Reign Vol. 2 trade paperback (DC Comics)

2009-11-16T08:02:00.009-06:00

I like Dan Jurgens' writing, don't get me wrong. Not only did he pen stories from one of my favorite eras of Superman (and that's before Death of Superman, but also I've dug his Tangent concept and comics through three individual volumes and the first part of Tangent: Superman's Reign.

But the structure of Superman's Reign appears to be such that, while the first six issues (with art by Jamal Igle) took place firmly in the Tangent Universe, the last six issues (with a lesser rotating art team) take place mainly in our DC Universe proper. With this comes much less of a focus on the Tangent characters, and really not much to differentiate the story from your run-of-the-mill Justice League adventure.

Whereas the first volume offered a sort of Tangent "One Year Later," catching up with the Tangent characters since we left them in Tangent Comics Volume 3, this new volume mainly features the DC heroes fighting the world-conquoring Tangent Superman. Our heroes are quite clearly in the right and the Tangent Superman is quite clearly wrong, so there's no depth to this battle. Indeed, the Tangent Superman could have as easily come from another planet or from a parallel universe about which the reader had no knowledge, and it wouldn't greatly affect the outcome of the fight that ensues.

I hold up Devin Grayson's JLA/Titans as an example of a team crossover done right, where the reader gets a chance to compare the characterization of parallel characters and learn something in the bargain. The Tangent Flash runs alongside the New Earth Flash, but they never get to know each other, or consider how the Tangent Flash Lia is much like a young Wally West. There might've been room for plenty other inspired team-ups, like the Tangent Spectre/Plastic Man duo meeting, for instance, the like-minded Teen Titans Blue Beetle and Red Devil, but it's not to be. The Tangent Atom and Hex barely even make the stage.

Similarly, our heroes learn nothing from the Tangent characters. Quite a number of the Tangent characters reflect in awe at how "competent" and in charge our Batman is, as he essentially barks and orders his way through the story (seemingly decidedly like his pre-Infinite Crisis incarnation). Comparatively, our heroes see no benefit in the dystopian Tangent Universe, and as such there's no room for comparison, just easy concepts of "good" and "bad."

Jurgens' one standout character here is Lori Lemaris, formerly the Joker and now carrying the mantle of Manhunter. The Tangent Joker was something of a Harley Quinn figure, and the Tangent Manhunter similar to ours -- Lemaris's change is a better indication of the darkening of the Tangent Universe under Superman's reign than the scenes of oil magnates quivering at his feet. In the end I didn't quite feel the reader understood what Jurgens tried to say by Lemaris's transformation -- I might perhaps have liked to see some reflection of how our own world has changed since Tangent Comics began in 1997 -- but surely Lemaris's struggle is the strongest part of this series.

As well, I give Superman's Reign credit for feeling like a big story. The cast includes the entire Justice League plus three Green Lanterns and a handful of Tangent characters, and seeing them all on the page together evokes Crisis on Infinite Earths, Infinite Crisis, and what have you. Unfortunately I didn't feel the art lived up to the epic challenge; Jamal Igle exits, and while Wes Craig does a passable job in the first two chapters (with interesting uncolored pencils around the borders), I couldn't much get in to the bland faces and indistinct figures of Carlos Magno in the end.

As much as anyone, I feel bad about the end of Tangent: Superman's Reign because of how much I've enjoyed these characters over the previous volumes. If DC published more adventures of the Tangent characters, I'd be happy to read them. But maybe what we've found here is that Tangent and the DC Universe just don't mix -- if Jurgens' creations are going to be overshadowed by the DC characters in his own miniseries, I'd just as soon the Tangent heroes stay at home.

[Contains full covers, "History of the Tangent Universe" section]

Trade Perspectives: Crossover Comparison - Final Crisis vs. Blackest Night collection

2009-11-12T08:31:00.003-06:00

Now that we're beginning to see some of the shape of how Blackest Night will be collected in trade, I thought it would be interesting to compare the collections with those of the most recent previous crossover, Final Crisis.

It bears comparing the way DC has collected recent crossovers because I dare say it's a work in progress. Consider that of the last four crossovers (defined as a major line-wide event where the main story took place in a minseries) before Identity Crisis -- Final Night, Genesis, DC One Million, and Day of Judgment -- only two of them have been collected at all, and certainly not to the extent that Infinite Crisis and many of its crossover issues were.

So let's look at Final Crisis and Blackest Night in the categories of lead-ins, the event, crossovers, and aftermath. I'll choose "winners" for each category, loosely based on which approach I favor or gives the most bang for the buck.

Lead-Ins:

Final Crisis had a whole year's worth of lead-in stories, Countdown to Final Crisis. Of course, if you consider that all the nearly fifty-plus issues of Geoff Johns' Green Lantern run have been leading in to Blackest Night, that's pretty hefty, too. It looks like ten Green Lantern trades versus four volumes of Countdown -- but then, for completists, there's Countdown to FInal Crisis: Lord Havok and the Extremists, The Search for Ray Palmer, Arena, and Countdown to Adventure, plus Salvation Run (and even Amazons Attack was involved), and none of the Countdown books have really been considered breakaway successes. Winner: Blackest Night

The Event:

Previously we examined all the issues going in to Blackest Night -- not only the eight issue miniseries, but also seven three-issue miniseries (another eighteen issues) plus seven "resurrected" titles -- thirty-six issues that are specifically titled Blackest Night. Final Crisis, in contrast, had seven issues, plus the Requiem, Resist, Submit, and Rage of the Red Lanterns specials, the Final Crisis Secret Files, the two-issue Superman Beyond, the three issue Rogues' Revenge, and the five-issue Revelations and Legion of Three Worlds -- twenty-seven issues total, and some of them extra-sized. We had thought Blackest Night was a behemoth as compared to Final Crisis, but it actually looks a little more even.

In terms of collections, Final Crisis had the main hardcover (which included some of the specials), the Final Crisis Companion, Revelations, Rogues' Revenge, and Legion of Three Worlds -- just four hardcovers and a paperback if you'd like to say you read the whole thing. At this writing, however, Blackest NIght has the main hardcover plus Rise of the Black Lanterns, Black Lantern Corps volumes one and two, and Blackest Night: Tales of Corps volume one and two. That's five hardcovers (so far) to Final Crisis's four. Winner: Final Crisis

Crossovers:

Final Crisis distinguished itself by a general lack of crossovers, though there were some: Justice League of America #21 and #31 dealt specifically with the fallout of Final Crisis, as did Titans #16; we also can't forget the "Last Rites" story that appeared in Batman after Batman RIP. Mostly, however, we can agree that Final Crisis kept to itself. Not so Blackest Night. I count at least sixteen issues of regular DC Comics series with ties to Blackest Night (and I probably missed some), plus at least eight issues each of Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps. Some of these will likely be collected in the hardcovers above, but if you're going for the complete Blackest Night picture, you'll probably be updating your collection with a good wide swath of the DC Comics Universe. Winner: Final Crisis

Aftermath:

Of course, it's hard to judge the aftermath of Blackest Night given that we don't know what will be released yet (though more hardcover Green Lantern volumes are sure to come). Final Crisis saw in its wake four six-issue miniseries, Run!, Dance, Escape, and Ink, all of which will be collected in softcover. As contrast, Infinite Crisis only had two follow-ups specifically labeled as "aftermaths": Crisis Aftermath: The Battle for Bludhaven (really a very early Final Crisis prelude) and Crisis Aftermath: The Spectre. We'd be surprised if the upward trend didn't continue with at least four miniseries coming out of Blackest Night. Winner: To be determined

Summary:

It surprises me that Final Crisis "wins" above, because I prefer how much more Blackest Night is tied into the DC Universe. One thing that sticks out to me, however, is the question of crossovers into monthly titles.

As I mentioned, Final Crisis has a lot of "fallout" -- that is, not monthly titles that cross over into the main event as with Infinite Crisis and Blackest Night -- but rather its effects are felt later in Teen Titans, Robin, Nightwing, and the like, and you get a complete story even if you only read the Final Crisis miniseries.

This reminds me of Identity Crisis, "the crossover that wasn't" -- as I understand it, Identity Crisis didn't start out as a crossover, but as it gained attention, writers began incorporating it into their stories and eventually it became a cornerstone of Infinite Crisis. I think this is how I'd like crossovers to be -- there's some thrill to seeing issues co-branded with Blackest Night, but something more organic like Identity Crisis and Final Crisis (or even how Blue Beetle and Teen Titans eventually crossed over with Sinestro Corps War) seems a better hedge against event fatigue.

Love when a crossover involves your favorite monthly? Wish those pesky events would stay in their place? Let me know in the comments!

Review: Ocean trade paperback (Wildstorm/DC Comics)

2009-11-09T08:02:00.003-06:00

[This review comes from Collected Editions reader David Tobin]

Ocean is a 2004 series from writer Warren Ellis and Chris Sprouse released under the Wildstorm banner. Set one hundred years in the future, Ocean follows U.N. Weapons Inspector Nathan Kane as he undertakes a mission to Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. A U.N. exploratory station called Cold Harbour has been investigating the oceans on Europa and has discovered the remnants of an ancient civilization, which include countless coffins and weapons capable of planetary-scale destruction. Kane is sent in to assess the situation and keep the weapons and technology out of the wrong hands.

The cast of the book is very well written and Ellis really gives each character their own voice. Each character has an anecdotal moment tied to the main narrative which helps define their personality. Kane, for example, is completely averse to guns of all kinds after his parents were shot and killed, spurring him to become a U.N. weapons inspector.

The dialogue really shines strongly throughout the entire collection, in particular the quieter scenes between Kane and Fadia, any scene engineer Siobhan is in, and the confrontations with the schizophrenic Doors Station Manager who attempts to undermine the U.N. research. The only misgiving I would have with the characters is that I feel Kane can sometimes feel as if he is a watered-down version of Planetary’s Elijah Snow, especially in the action scenes that could have been lifted wholesale from that book.

Ellis portrays technology and science in a very interesting and tangible way by making every advancement tied to a reasonable current-day practice or theory. This one-step-removed way of looking at an advanced civilization is humorously played upon by the character of Kane at the book’s beginning and ending. The technology gives the entire narrative a Hollywood blockbuster feel with giant flying saucers, advanced weapons and ballistics, as well as the book's antagonists, the Doors company.

Doors is the only real mis-step in the book. The ideas of the imprinted human workers and the hive-like structure to the company is interesting and well handled, but the pointed jokes portraying Doors as Microsoft really take you out of the story. Painfully obvious puns like “I mean, could you ever get Doors 98 to work?” are so heavy-handed and out of place. The idea here is interesting but Ellis doesn’t really ever do the concept justice.

Chris Sprouse does an amazing job as always. His clean lines and great sense of design bring Ellis’ ideas to life and have a good coherence between technologies and the clutter of the world. His storytelling is strong and there is never a wasted line. I’ve always been a huge fan of Sprouse, his Tom Strong run with Alan Moore in particular, and I’m amazed that he is still not getting the mainstream recognition he so rightly deserves.

Overall, Ocean is an excellent read. Art and script are excellent despite the niggling issues I pointed out. Anyone who’s read any of Ellis’ Planetary or Authority will love the popcorn movie spectacle and fully fleshed out world.

Review: Superman: New Krypton Vol. 2 hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

2009-11-05T08:02:00.003-06:00

Don't get me wrong -- Superman: New Krypton is good comics. Whether this second volume is good Superman is debatable, as is the question of whether this seemingly quite decompressed storyline couldn't have been collected in two hardcovers instead of three. That aside, I recently listed the "New Krypton" series at Speed Force as among my top three comics I couldn't do without; here's why.

What I continue to love about New Krypton is its scope. It's easy to have a hero fighting a villain and a couple of subplots -- New Krypton has a gigantic cast of characters, each with their own motivation and reasons for action in the series. Thinking about this, I was struck specifically by the modern incarnation of Reactron -- alongside Metallo, he's one of many classic Superman villains pitted by General Sam Lane against the Kryptonians, but at the same time Reactron's working toward his own ends to gain a new body, and exacting his specific vendetta against Supergirl. There's nary a character taking part here, from the Daily Planet staff to the Kryptonians to the US government, who doesn't have some double loyalty (as, of course, does Superman) and it gives every scene special resonance.

This volume's trio of writers -- Geoff Johns, James Robinson, and Sterling Gates -- also work hard to keep the surprises coming. There's no less than two startling deaths in this volume, one surprising betrayal, and the volume's widescreen conclusion; surely this volume is as much a page-turner as the comics must have been weekly "first reads." At least three of the characters have mysterious secret identities (about which the writers liberally tease us), and that's not to mention a number of hanging, unexplored threads like Robinson's Atlas character or what an errant Legion flight ring might have to do with all of this. New Krypton is packed, just packed, with so much stuff that the reader can't help but thrill to the ride.

Superman's villains get the spotlight in this second volume; short of Mr. Mxyzptlk, just about every classic Superman villain appears here. Most of them don't have a role yet -- having been rounded up by the Kryptonians and shunted to the Phantom Zone -- but it's obvious from how the writers rejuvenate Metallo and Reactron that good things portend for Superman's bad guys. There's a great nod especially to the Lex Luthor/Brainiac team-ups of yore, though I didn't much like Luthor getting his comeuppance from Sam Lane; master villain Luthor ought be the one pulling the strings, and hopefully we'll see that before too long.

Volume two technically wraps up the "New Krypton" saga -- even though volume three is also labeled "New Krypton," it actually contains the subsequent New Krypton miniseries whereas these issues close the initial ten-part "New Krypton" crossover. Maybe, one could argue, that's why this hardcover contains just six issues, but still it feels awfully short. I'd have preferred perhaps another issue or two tucked into the first volume and a couple more into the third; while certainly "events transpire" in volume two, it sometimes feels like a collection of cliffhangers sandwiched between repetitive conversations (mostly Superman and Supergirl's mother Alura), when perhaps some of it could possibly have been truncated to save the reader buying three hardcovers.

As well, I remain disappointed by Superman's own role in New Krypton. This time around, as I mentioned, he spends nearly all his time making moralistic demands on Alura. Superman's right, of course, but he comes across stodgy and unbending as he demands over and over the names of Kryptonians wanted for murdering Metropolis policemen -- instead of, say, putting those reporting skills to good use and trying to souse out the killers himself.

I still struggle, however, to see New Krypton as a real Superman story. Something like Last Son, where Superman fights Zod over Metropolis and gets pulled to some exotic locations in the process, is to me a Superman story, but Superman considering living on New Krypton -- away from the Daily Planet, away from his role inspiring humanity and his fellow heroes -- I'm not sure I see how that helps define Superman himself (though I still have faith in the writers to get us there). I can think of exceptions, of course -- two of my favorite Superman stories, Panic in the Sky and Exile, both have Superman off-planet, though in a different way than this. My hope remains that when the New Krypton dust clears, these same writers have some more traditional Superman stories up their sleeves, too.

Irrespective, New Krypton is so well structured and well characterized that it continually keeps me coming back for more. I'm hooked, and if you're not already reading this, do yourself a favor and get hooked, too.

[Contains full and variant covers]

More Blackest Night collections, Cry for Justice, Adventures of Superboy

2009-11-04T15:05:00.004-06:00

Eagle-eyed Collected Editions blog reader Chris Hilker just pointed out a bunch more Blackest Night hardcover trade collections now solicited. To wit:

- Blackest Night: Rise of the Black Lanterns, by Geoff Johns, etc.
- Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps Vol. 1, by James Robinson, etc.
- Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps Vol. 2
- Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps Vol. 1

Granted, the authors listed for these books may just be placeholders, but here's my speculation, branching off our earlier conversation as to how you would collect Blackest Night:

- James Robinson, as you know, writes both Blackest Night: Superman and Blackest Night: JSA. My bet is that between the two volumes, Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps collect the six main spin-off miniseries (that is, also Batman, Flash, Wonder Woman, and Titans). Pure speculation, based on Robinson's name being there.

- Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps is, at least, the three-part Tales story that came out in July. That's not enough for a hardcover, though, and the solicitation says volume one (of an expected two volumes). Could this be, perhaps, where we'll see the relevant Green Lantern Corps issues collected?

- Rise of the Black Lanterns, by Geoff Johns, almost sounds like a lead-in volume, not unlike the volume of collected stories that relate to Johns' current run, Green Lantern: In Brightest Day. "Rise" could also refer to the various "cancelled issues" coming out in January, collected here in one volume (or it could be, strangely enough, a collection of the issues where the various Black Lanterns *died*).

Very interesting ...

Some other notables:

* Adventures of Superboy Book One

This book collects very early Superboy stories by Don Cameron, Joe Shuster, and Stan Kaye. Part of DC's recent Superboy lawsuit has to do with Superboy stories that Don Cameron wrote for DC while Joe Shuster served in the army; obviously things are rosier if DC now sees fit to release this collection.

* Justice League: Cry for Justice

Love it or hate it, James Robinson's Justice League miniseries certainly has people talking. I'll likely pick up this hardcover and hope I don't regret it.

* World's Finest

Just as the first issue hits the stand, here's word of the collection of the Sterling Gates/Phil Noto Super-Family/Bat-Family crossover.

* Supergirl: Friends and Fugitives

The next collection of Sterling Gates' Supergirl run. Who is Superwoman? ends with issue #42; this will either pick up with #43, or if #43-46 are in the Codename: Patriot collection, maybe #47.

Let the Blackest Night speculation continue!

Wednesday Comics, Superboy, Final Crisis and Batman RIP paperbacks solicited

2009-11-02T11:47:00.006-06:00

The DC Comics trade paperback solicitations for 2010 keep rolling out, with these new graphic novels for the upcoming summer. Some interesting first release hardcovers and paperbacks, but also some significant second run paperbacks as well.

* Wednesday Comics HC

DC Comics announced the Wednesday Comics collection earlier this month, and it's now available for pre-order. At $50, cheaper than many Absolute editions, this 11 x 17 volume collects all 12 issues of the weekly series, reorganized to read by character.

* Superboy: The Redemption

Perhaps my favorite item on this list, DC collects Geoff Johns and Francis Manapul's first six issues on Adventure Comics in hardcover format. I've heard nothing but good things about this story ... and it's Superboy (!) ... and it's written by Geoff Johns. I'm counting the days.

* Gotham Central Book 3: On the Freak Beat

The next Gotham Central hardcover collection. The first hardcover collected the first two Gotham Central trade paperbacks, In the Line of Duty and Half a Life, and the second included the trade paperback Unresolved Targets plus some previously uncollected issues. That second volume had twelve issues; this third volume could include the trade paperback The Quick and the Dead plus the previously uncollected issues #26 and 27 at eight issues total, with one more Gotham Central hardcover to follow.

* JSA vs. Kobra
* The Shield Vol. 1: Kicking Down the Door

After Checkmate, Eric Trautmann became one of my new favorite writers (Sterling Gates is in that circle, too). I'm super-excited for this upcoming paperback, which I see as essentially a spin-off of some of my favorite Checkmate storylines. Also solicited is the first volume of Trautmann's Shield series, including the introductory Red Circle special by J. Michael Straczynski.

* Batgirl Vol. 1: Batgirl Rising

I have high hopes that this Batgirl will become the DC Universe's next, lasting Batgirl. The first two storylines, about six issues long, could comprise this first trade.

* Superman: New Krypton Vol. 4

Listed as a paperback, but price-wise, and given that the first three of these were hardcover, I expect this is hardcover as well. Probably collects most, if not all, of the final issues of the Superman: World of Krypton miniseries.

* Wonder Woman: Warkiller

DC previously solicited Wonder Woman: Rise of the Olympian as a hardcover and paperback to be released on the same day, but now it appears only the hardcover will be available. With Warkiller, the series switches to paperback only; not a great sign for a series that DC's trying to set as a foundation of the DC Universe.

* Atomic Knights

John Broome and Murphy Anderson created the Atomic Knights in 1960; this hardcover collects their early stories. Interesting that DC is collecting these without any sort of header (DC Classics Library, etc.); it remains to be seen if this is the start of a new set of classic collections.

* Titans Vol. 3: Fractured

This trade collects the one-shot "Day in the Life" stories that followed the Deathtrap crossover, including a Blackest Night prelude and a Starfire issue in the aftermath of Final Crisis. Likely includes issues #14-22.

* Justice Society of America: The Bad Seed

Even as I'm gearing up to buy a deluxe edition of Bill Willingham's Fables, I have severe reservations about his ongoing run on Justice Society; we'll see. The series is now being released in paperback only. Collects at least issues #29-33, leading up to the JSA All-Stars spin-off series.

* Doom Patrol Vol. 1: We Who Are About to Die

* Red Tornado: Family Reunion

Paperbacks - if you've really been waiting for the trade, your wait is over; Final Crisis and Batman RIP are on their way in paperback, along with a couple ancilliary volumes:

* Final Crisis

* Batman R.I.P.

* Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?

* Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow

* Superman: New Krypton Vol. 1: Birth

* Green Lantern: Rage of the Red Lanterns

Make your preferences known -- what's on your to-buy list?

Review: Booster Gold: Reality Lost trade paperback (DC Comics)

2009-11-02T08:02:00.003-06:00

Booster Gold: Reality Lost with art by Dan Jurgens and writing by Dan Jurgens and Chuck Dixon, goes firmly in the "more fun comics" pile; not very much happens here right up until the very end, but having Dan Jurgens write and very solidly draw again the character he created -- especially in a rollicking tale of time paradoxes -- is worth the price of admission all on its own.

[Contains spoilers for Booster Gold: Reality Lost]

Jurgens and Dixon enlist a healthy dose of time-travel conceits in Reality Lost, and each serves to remind us why time travel stories are so much fun. To prevent a time anomaly, Booster must prevent the past Batman, Robin, and Batgirl from foiling a robbery by Killer Moth; the resulting chaos results in a scene where time-separated versions of Booster play almost every different character's role in the same scene, like something out of the Three Stooges.

Subsequently, Booster finds himself in such far-flung locations as ancient Egypt and World War I; he even intersects with his own previous adventures and teams up with himself. This isn't the first time Jurgens has drawn time-travel (see one of my favorites, Superman: Time and Time Again), and this story is highly reminiscent of that one. The cameo by Enemy Ace, for instance, is largely gratuitous, but there's a certain thrill in seeing modern heroes cast into war-torn Europe that you can only find in stories such as these.

One central idea examined in Reality Lost is how Booster and his compatriots are routinely manipulated -- by Time Master Rip Hunter, by the duties they've undertaken, even by time itself. The story takes a while to come around to this (not in the least because Jurgens picks up and alters the story Dixon starts), but we see it most strongly in Booster's being flung through time by a trio of chronally-charged knives, and in Booster's sister Goldstar's near-breakdown at realizing she's been resurrected from the dead.

I'm not familiar with Goldstar from Booster's original series, so I haven't been quite sure what to make of her bubbly, almost air-headed portrayal in Booster Gold: Blue and Gold and then her falling apart this time around. The quick change from happy to sad suggests an air of mania which, if this is Jurgens goal, he achieves aptly. Only, I hope Goldstar's disappearance at the end of this story doesn't signal the character's departure from the series (which would make her re-entrance last time something of a waste), but rather an indication that Jurgens has further tricks up his sleeve.

I also enjoyed the look at how Booster has matured, illustrated by the interaction Booster has with his own past self. While there's perhaps a bit too much shoulder-patting in this volume (if I have to hear Booster decry how he's the greatest hero the world will never know one more time, I'll scream), as we reach the twelfth issue (the end of the first full year), it's interesting to see how much more driven and darkened Booster is than when the series began.

Granted, there's only one volume between the beginning and this story, but obviously losing Blue Beetle -- a second time -- has taken its toll. It's in this way that I can appreciate Reality Lost as a sort of "checking in" on the Booster Gold series; nothing really happens other than Goldstar's departure, but in essence Jurgen takes stock of where the characters are after two volumes of the book and deals with the more subtle implications of Blue and Gold. As the new (returning) writer of Booster Gold after Geoff Johns, I can spot Jurgens one book of treading water before the title finds a direction again (and solicitations suggest it has indeed).

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention, in the days of title delays and rotating artists and inkers, that it's a sheer joy to read a collection of seven issues all drawn by Dan Jurgens with inks by Norm Rapmund. As someone who remembers fondly the days of Jurgens and inker Brett Breeding (and less fondly Jurgens with inks by Joe Rubinstein), I'd say Jurgens is at his best in this Booster Gold volume. I'm struck by how his art has grown more "widescreen" since the days of panels that didn't bleed off the page, and at the same time preserves Jurgens' trademark full and muscular figures . Having consistent art -- and good art, to boot -- in a collection makes a difference, and it's another reason why I rate this volume so highly.

Booster Gold: Reality Lost isn't a staggering, moving collection, but it's a quality comics tale, and hopefully we'll find it makes a nice bridge between the great previous volume and good things to come.

[Contains full covers, "Origins & Omens" tale]

Review: Showcase Presents: House of Secrets Vol. 1 trade paperback (DC Comics)

2009-10-29T08:02:00.001-05:00

[This review comes from Collected Editions contributor Derek Roper]

There is this house, see, and it has had its fair share of occupants; a drifter and more recently a group of six mercenaries. But before them, there was a man named Abel and his “imaginary friend” Goldie, they spent many nights alone in this house. Although old and rickety it held many strange tales hidden within its walls. This house--The House of Secrets--is back with its strange and gruesome tales in Showcase Presents: The House of Secrets Volume 1. Scream!

I have to play realtor for a minute. The house was built by Kentucky Sen. Sandsfield. As the tales goes; he built it by hand. Every inch of the place is made with 100 percent Kentuckian material. He claimed that if the house wasn’t built with pieces of Kentucky, it wasn’t a real Kentucky home. It should be noted that the senator’s wife went mad in the house--yup, mad as a hatter.

After that, the house went through four owners who weren’t pure Kentuckian and so the house set dormant for a little while until a man by the name of Mr. Barkus purchased it and decided to have it hauled away on a trailer. But he too did not last long, as it was told; the house detached itself and knocked Barkus off a cliff where he met a gruesome death. The next owner, Abel, who was a pitiful man, was talked into looking at a house by a creepy realtor who disappeared and filled Abel with the entire house’s tales. Next up was a girl--a drifter--by the name of Rain Harper. She moved in (in the Vertigo series) and found that a closet held the Juris, a group of spirits who judged people whether they liked it or not. Eventually, the house was said to be demolished after the girl left. The last guests to move into the house before the events of Infinite Crisis were a group of six mercenaries who called themselves the Secret Six.

Now that you have the history, the collection in question boasts over 500 pages of horror and suspense tales, and collects The House of Secrets #81-98 and even some stories from its sister book The House of Mystery.

Each issue has stand-alone stories but also an underlying arc featuring the narrator Abel (think Rod Serling) who gets acclimated with the house. He is very timid at first but after his spooky introduction via the realtor he learns the ropes of the house and becomes just as creepy as the stories that are hidden within the halls. He is frequently visited by his brother Cain who lives across the way at the House of Mystery. The two frequently fight over who has the scarier stories.

Being that this was written in the 1970s, don’t look for modern dialogue; it is very proper and uses slang from that era. It is easy to read but if one has come into comics in the 1980s on, words like “shnook” don’t really pack much of a punch.

For fans of horror literature, most of the surprises in the stories can be seen from a mile away. It is kind of disappointing because they seem like a rehash of stories from the Twilight Zone and The Dark Side. Nostalgia is the only thing that can get one through these stories, and they’re in black in white to boot.

The black and white pages are cheaper economically but sometimes detract from the story. In the stories that have a dark setting, the mood doesn’t come across as strong. In the story “The Little Old Winemaker,” the ending effect of the red wine was supposed to resemble blood, but given that it is black it doesn’t do much for the story. Lighting and the creatures in subsequent stories also need color and not just zebra colored pages. I’ve had the honor of seeing the color pages and they have a sort of color to them that is reminiscent of the old Scooby-Doo cartoons. Plus, art by Alex Toth, Neal Adams, and Jim Aparo deserves to have its artwork in color.

Still, plenty of highlights stand out in this book. “Trick or Treat,” featuring a theif who meets an unfortunate end, is downright scary. An early version of the modern Swamp Thing also appears in issue #92,  with story and art by Len Wein and Bernie Wrighton respectively.

In between the stories are “Able’s Fables,” which are like a spooky version of Tony Millionaire’s Makkies. They feature eccentric and sometimes downright dangerous situations like a little boy on the other side of a “Peep Show” stand blowing a dart through a straw towards the cornea of a business man wanting a thrill.

The tales from the House are the perfect collection to read to the kiddies or ones suffering from horror nostalgia, but for horror aficionados, this is better left on the shelf.

The next volume, Showcase Presents: House of Secrets Vol. 2 will feature issues #99-119 and also promises 500 pages of on-the-edge-of-your-seat-tales.

Happy Halloween from Collected Editions!

Review: The Spectre: Tales of the Unexpected trade paperback (DC Comics)

2009-10-26T08:02:00.002-05:00

Collected Editions is celebrating Halloween with not one, but two scary reviews this week! If you want a gory, gruesome comic book for your Halloween celebration, The Spectre: Tales of the Unexpected is a trade paperback for you (if not for me).

I face a reviewer's dilemma in writing about Tales of the Unexpected. I didn't like this book and would likely never read it again, and yet I fully realize it's not the book, it's me. Writer David Lapham, known for his crime fiction, presents a blood-soaked story in the spirit of the old EC horror comics and the well-known Michael Fleisher/Jim Aparo depictions of the Spectre. To that end, trying to judge this book on its own merits, I would have to say yes, it accomplishes successfully the goals it sets for itself and had a place as thoughtfully-written comic book literature. But personally -- I was done even before the scene of the sobbing man being forced to kill himself by devouring his own intestines.

Fool me twice, I guess. I picked up this book even though I had a similar reaction to the first volume, Crisis Aftermath: The Spectre, mainly because this book promised to involve Batman -- significant because this iteration of the Spectre is former Gotham Central cop Crispus Allen. Be not misled, however -- Batman appears for one issue only, and he doesn't discern Allen's identity as predicted (though Lapham does deal with Allen's identity, and a number of Gotham Central guest stars, later in the book). I did enjoy, however, Lapham's perspective that Batman sees the Spectre not as a fellow hero, but as a serial killer, one that we know Batman would just as soon see in Arkham if only he was able.

But better than Batman's appearance is one by the Phantom Stranger, in a chapter illustrated by former Spectre artist Tom Mandrake (whose great run, with John Ostrander, begs for a full series of collections). Here, Lapham lets the Stranger allude to all sorts of things regarding the murky relationship between Allen and the Spectre entity -- that Allen can control the Spectre instead of just going along for the ride, that Allen can choose the Spectre's victims or temper the Spectre's anger, and that Allen and the Spectre may not be two entities, but rather that Allen's in control and just can't accept the horrors he's committing.

This suggested a deeper plot thread for Tales of the Unexpected, more than just the Spectre revealing who committed the murder at Gotham's Granville apartments, but rather some story about Crispus Allen and the nature of his new "life" as the Spectre. Unfortunately, I felt this was one area Lapham didn't quite finish what he started; we get an inkling that Allen can save a victim or slow the Spectre's vengeance when he tries, but this was not so clear as to give the reader a good sense of the "rules" of the post-Infinite Crisis Spectre. Perhaps it's that I hoped for some happy or hopeful ending to this story, but true to form, Lapham leaves us with a gritty of Allen essentially cursed to follow morbidly along behind the Spectre's mayhem.

If you did enjoy the first volume, you'll find that Lapham took good care with the hints he dropped about Granville along the way, and ties all the clues into the denouement. No doubt it's clear from the outset that more than just one tenant participated in the murder of Granville's seedy landlord, but who did what -- and in the end, to what additional lengths they go to hide their secrets -- is satisfactorily explained, if you have the stomach for it. Me, I'll take my Spectre a little more superhero-y and a little less bloody, thanks.

[Contains full covers.]

More scary stuff coming up later in the week with Showcase Presents: House of Secrets. Don't miss it!

Review: Teen Titans: Changing of the Guard trade paperback (DC Comics)

2009-10-22T08:02:00.001-05:00

[Contains spoilers for Teen Titans: Changing of the Guard]

In Teen Titans: Changing of the Guard, writer Sean McKeever improves on many of the difficulties found in his previous Teen Titan volumes, though unfortunately it all still falls way short of Geoff Johns' stories that began this book.

The structure of Changing of the Guard is rather ingenious, matter of fact. McKeever presents two four-chapter stories, "Pawns and Kings" and "The New Deal"; in each, the first two issues could essentially be read as individual stories. If mildly formulaic, it allows McKeever to break the "Teen Titans fight Team X" pattern that dragged down his previous volumes. Wonder Girl and Red Devil are the respective main players in the two stories, but the slow build gives McKeever time to focus on Robin, Bombshell, and a bevy of new new Titans at the same time. McKeever also improves this time around by keeping the Titans (few as they are) together as a team, instead of splitting them to face individual challenges.

Unfortunately, I couldn't help but think this time that McKeever went for both easy stories, and easy solutions. Since Titans East, Teen Titans has dealt with (1) Wonder Girl's transformation to a whiny basket case in the wake of Superboy's death, and (2) Red Devil's deal with the demon Neron to hand over his soul on his eighteenth birthday. McKeever builds these stories relatively well, but then resolves them with almost ridiculous ease -- a follower of Ares seemingly kills Wonder Girl, only to have her emerges to save the day with a new costume and unexplained powers; Red Devil apparently finds out he never signed his contract with Neron (yeah, like Neron's that careless) and *poof* no more soul-selling.

The stories are "explained away" rather than "resolved," and as such didn't leave me overly satisfied. I liked that Red Devil's storyline tied into the Keith Giffen miniseries Reign in Hell, though resolving Red Devil's issues with Neron ever even making an appearance was something of a letdown.

I also noticed that McKeever traded Ravager for Bombshell in this volume -- that is, one stereotypical tough talking, "so over it" character for another. As in Teen Titans: On the Clock, McKeever undercuts a number of supposedly poignant Titans moments with Bombshell's smart aleck remarks, and he does his writing a disservice -- the moments are corny enough that Bombshell's attitude only reinforces what the reader is already thinking, and Bombshell's comments aren't so clever as to make the reader like her. The Titans come off in these moments as kids, and not kids you'd especially want to hang out with; McKeever essentially takes the air out of his own stories.

After much back and forth (and some equally just-not-that-funny scenes with a potential Titan called The Face), the new Titans team resolves itself as Wonder Girl, Aquagirl, Kid Eternity, Red Devil, Static, Bombshell, Miss Martian, and Blue Beetle. It's a non-traditional lineup at Titans teams go (no clear legacies short of Wonder Girl and Aquagirl), but one with potential: Beetle, Devil, and Static could be a great trio if Static weren't acting uncharacteristically holier than thou; I've also enjoyed the Miss Martian character since Johns introduced her. Aquagirl seems the only weak spot, a character without a lot of personality previously established, and I wonder how McKeever intends her to function in the team.

Teen Titans -- like Nightwing, Robin, Birds of Prey, Justice League, and once upon a time, Supergirl -- is one of those DC Comics titles stuck in an awkward place where it can't quite seem to get a steady creative team or momentum under its storylines. Many times, as with the Bat-titles, this cycle ends with the title's cancellation; Supergirl, after a number of rotating creative teams, seems lucky enough to have found its footing with writer Sterling Gates. In a volume or so, McKeever will be replaced on Teen Titans by Felicia Henderson, who'll hopefully "pull a Sterling" on Teen Titans -- I don't think DC will cancel this book, but I don't think it could take another writer and another course correction.

[Contains full covers, "Origins & Omens" pages.]

Review: Robin: Search for a Hero trade paperback (DC Comics)

2009-10-19T08:02:00.000-05:00

[Contains spoilers for Robin: Search for a Hero and just about everything Batman-related these days, including the "Batman Reborn" storyline and the new Batgirl series.]

Writer Fabian Nicieza pinch-hits on Robin: Search for a Hero, charged with the unenviable task of both bringing this long and often troubled series to a close, and also pointing it in the direction that a whole committee of Bat-writers have decided it should go. What results is a story that serves as a fair retrospective of the Robin series, though evoking sometimes as much the bad as the good. It also defines Robin's future in a way seemingly incongruous with the rest of the Bat-titles, though I did wonder at points if it wasn't the other Bat-titles that were the ones out of step.

To read Peter Tomasi's Nightwing: The Great Leap, you'd think Batman spent his entire life praising the first Robin Dick Grayson and calling him "chum," so happily nostalgic is Dick about his upbringing. Indeed in the post-Infinite Crisis era of the kinder, gentler Batman, it's hard to imagine any of Batman's wards angry with the Dark Knight. Enter Nicieza's third Robin Tim Drake, however, who spends the entire story with a chip on his shoulder and even, it seems, feels partially gratified to be taking over from a dead Batman. Where does this attitude come from?

On one hand, Nicieza's Robin feels artificially angry. Tim's exact reasons for being suspicious of Batman and using a new, more violent approach come out in drips and vaguely-worded drabs, and it seems -- since Tim wasn't this mad at Batman only a few issues ago -- perhaps Nicieza needed Tim to be mad at Batman for the story, rather than this welling from any concrete story moments. Also, Tim's anger didn't impress me, if you will; he spends much of the book in an obsessive attempt to control every aspect of Gotham City, an attempt that the reader knows is ill-advised and as such, can only sit and wait for the character to wake up from what's by now a comic book cliche.

On the other hand, the more I thought about it, the more I considered a scenario where, while everyone else has basked in the glow of happy Batman, Tim Drake's become the forgotten son of the Bat-family. Nicieza makes the point -- backed up with scenes from Grant Morrison's Batman run and elsewhere -- that no sooner did Bruce Wayne adopt Tim Drake as his son did Talia al Ghul drop in Batman's lap his real son Damian. In addition, in a plot-necessitating throwback to Batman's bad old days, apparently Bruce suspected that Robin's girlfriend Spoiler wasn't really dead, without telling his partner -- all of which adds up to some friction between the Dynamic Duo.

It's all mildly silly. Given the momentus struggle other writers in other titles have undertaken to show the ways in which Batman has changed, that he's still portrayed as underhanded in Robin (to which I don't fault Nicieza, but the plotline he inherited) seems repetitive and tired. This is made worse by a storyline in Search for a Hero where Batman conspires with Spoiler to pit Robin's fiercest enemies against him -- a ridiculous redux of the Flash Wally West versus Zoom that falls flat here.

(And, for those keeping track, it's one -- count 'em, one -- trade since DC Comics resurrected Spoiler that not only does Spoiler screw up and help ignite a gang war [yes, just like in Batman: War Games], get told by Robin that he never, ever wants to see her out as Spoiler again [yes, just like Batman did in Robin before], but gets shot and taken captive by a villain in a creepy sexually suggestive scene [see again War Games]. Those fans who thought DC began cleaning up its depiction of women when they brought Spoiler back can commence head-shaking again. I'm eager to read the new Spoiler-lead Batgirl series, but I greatly hope someone will realize that bringing this character back from the dead is an excuse to begin writing her with brains -- no one wants to read about a screw-up for this long, and this depiction of Spoiler is well beyond repetitive.)

Nightwing: The Great Leap, I noted, puts too happy a face on Batman's history; we know Batman's relationship with his Robins has been tempestuous over the years. But Robin: Search for a Hero seems an angry kiss-off, a story that denigrates the time Tim Drake spent partnered with Batman. Considering this is the end of the Robin series, I'll take the Nightwing approach instead; just like you want to believe your favorite television characters live happily after the series finale, so too ought the final story of the almost 200-issue Robin series evoke something meaningful about the Robin character, even despite the fact that Tim Drake picks right up in a new title.

I did appreciate the wealth of Robin villains that Nicieza features here as part of the gang war storyline. Of late, given a bevy of writers and shifting status quos, Robin hasn't had a real rogues gallery to speak of, and it was fun to see Nicieza bring back a bunch of new and old heavy hitters -- Anarky, the General, Lynx, Lady Shiva, Scarab, and Jaeger. It reminds me, frankly, of just how good Chuck Dixon's original run on this series was, and how the title hasn't been the same since. It's proof positive why this "Batman Reborn" plot was necessary, as much for Batman as to clean house on the ancillary Batman titles.

[Contains full covers, Origins and Omens page]

Read another review of Robin: Search for a Hero at Oz and Ends.

Trade Perspectives: How would you collect Blackest Night?

2009-10-15T08:02:00.009-05:00

Now that we know that the trade Blackest Night hardcover collection is on the horizon (though not, unfortunately, in a deluxe edition), it's time to start considering how YOU would want to see Blackest Night collected.

[If you enjoy this post, please share it with others.]

Even more than Final Crisis, it seems Blackest Night has a whole bunch of moving parts that need to be included in this. Let's take a look at them.

* Blackest Night: The Series

Final Crisis was seven issues; Blackest Night clocks in at eight issues, the first of which is an oversized 48-pages and the rest at least 40 pages (though likely issue #6 or #8 might be oversized, too). Right off the bat, that's 328 pages, whereas the Amazon listing for Blackest Night only cites 304 pages. Though a page count this early is usually just a placeholder and could change, it makes it very unlikely that the Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps crossover issues will be included in this volume.

As discussed in the comments of our original post on this, there's some debate as to how the Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps issues will read separate from Blackest Night (the former perhaps better than the latter, but basically, there doesn't seem to be room in the hardcover for any). Chances are we're looking at a Blackest Night hardcover, and then Green Lantern: Blackest Night and Green Lantern Corps: Blackest Night companion hardcover volumes, which'll make about as much sense on their own as the Final Crisis crossover "Last Rites" in Batman RIP, but such is the life of reading comics in collected format.

Another interesting suggestion in the previous post is that we might actually be looking at two volumes of the main Blackest Night hardcover, which could then include the Green Lantern titles. DC did this for The Sinestro Corps War, though that was a largely in-title event; a two-volume crossover collection would be a first for DC Comics.

* Blackest Night: Tie-in Miniseries

None of that takes into account, however, a whole slew of ancillary Blackest Night miniseries published in addition to the main title and the Green Lantern books. Not only is there the three-part Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps, there's also six three-issue miniseries starring DC Comics heroes -- Batman, Superman, Titans, Wonder Woman, Flash, and JSA -- and eight "resurrected" issues DC just announced for January. That's twenty-nine (!) more Blackest Night issues that must (of course), be collected.

This is where I venture we'll see a Blackest Night Companion like the Infinite Crisis and Final Crisis companions before it. And twenty-nine issues probably means Blackest NIght Companion volumes one, two, and maybe three -- as this moves farther from Blackest Night proper, I'd hope to see paperbacks of these.

* Crossover Titles

As of November, DC Comics has solicited a number of in-series Blackest Night crossovers -- Adventure Comics, Booster Gold, Doom Patrol, and more. And I say: Well played, DC, well played.

See, I wait for the trade, on one hand, and on the other hand, my budget isn't what it used to be. So when I'm faced with two new series, for instance, and I have to think, "Do I want to buy Power Girl: A New Beginning, given that I read the introductory Power Girl trade and I follow Justice Society, or do I want to pick up R.E.B.E.L.S.: The Coming of Starro?" R.E.B.E.L.S. is brand-new and I don't already follow the series ... BUT I know that the next R.E.B.E.L.S. trade is going to contain the Blackest Night crossover, and if I want to be up-to-date for that, I might pick up R.E.B.E.L.S. instead (or, frankly, in addition). The same is true of Doom Patrol, a title on which I might otherwise have passed for a while.

Kudos to DC, by the way, for including a bevy of the "Origins & Omens" pages in the requisite trades. They're included as far as I know in Nightwing: The Great Leap, Robin: Search for a Hero, Booster Gold: Reality Lost, and Teen Titans: Changing of the Guard, and I'm sure there's more. If I knew a trade that I otherwise might not pick up (few as they are) had the "Origins & Omens" pages in it, would the completist in me then want to pick it up ...? Probably. Well played, DC, well played.

* Conclusion

So that is, frankly, an almost dizzying amount of material due to land on our doorsteps in 2010 related to Blackest Night.

I open it up to you now: how do you want to see Blackest Night collected, what will you buy, what could you do without ... and will the final product be thick enough that you can beat zombies with it when the dead will rise? Chime in!

Blackest Night trade collection, Showcase Presents Suicide Squad solicited

2009-10-13T11:35:00.003-05:00

The various retail sites are now announcing the Blackest Night hardcover to be released in July 2010.

Given the increasing popularity of deluxe format editions (Batman: RIP, Batman & Robin, Superman: Secret Origins, I wouldn't have been surprised to see Blackest Night also in deluxe format -- but a hardcover will do just nicely!

We'll be back a little later to talk more about the Blackest Night collection. In the meantime, also forthcoming from DC Comics:

* Batman: Long Shadows

This hardcover collection by Judd Winick definitely includes the four part Batman story from #688-691, and potentially also the issue 687 Battle for the Cowl epilogue.

* Outsiders: The Hunting

Following The Deep, which collects Outsiders #15-20, this collection picks up with artist Tom Mandrake joining Peter Tomasi, and likely includes a Blackest Night tie-in issue.

* Batman: Streets of Gotham Vol. 1: Hush Money

The real question about this hardcover collection of Paul Dini's new series Streets of Gotham is whether it'll also contain Detective Comics #852 and Batman #685, which bridged Dini's Detective Comics and Streets of Gotham runs.

* DC Greatest Imaginary Stories Vol. 2: Batman & Robin

In 2005, DC published a volume of their "greatest imaginary stories," including Superman-Red and Superman-Blue. That volume contained a number of Superman stories; this new one, as you can see, focuses on Batman and Robin. If it's successful, might Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, and other volumes be on the way?

* Showcase Presents Suicide Squad Vol. 1

Suicide Squad was one of the Showcase volumes announced and then cancelled due to royalty issues a few years back. Maybe this is an erroneous entry, but I sure would be glad to see this back on the table.

* Icon Vol. 2: The Mothership Connection

Milestone title Icon formerly received only one collection of issues #1-8. A second collection of issues #9-14 would take this right up to the Worlds Collide crossover with the then-separate DC Universe.

* Green Arrow/Black Canary Vol. 5: Big Game

At this point, Green Arrow/Black Canary splits into a feature and co-feature, though interviews have suggested these two will be collected in the same volume.

UPDATED:

* Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?

* Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow

These two books, released as deluxe hardcovers last year, now in paperback.

* JSA vs. Kobra

Very excited by the news that Greg Rucka and Eric Trautmann's final Checkmate story will appear in the Kobra: Resurrection trade paperback -- this trade by Trautmann continues that story.

* Batgirl Vol. 1: Batgirl Rising

* Azrael: Death's Dark Knight

Two more "Batman Reborn" titles, both in paperback.

So other than Blackest Night (naturally), what's on your to-buy list?

Collected Editions blog link browsing for 10/13/09

2009-10-13T10:37:00.002-05:00

* If you're visiting the Collected Editions blog today, be sure to hop over to the Collected Comics Library. Chris Marshall celebrates ten years of his excellent blog and podcast -- go wish Chris well, and browse the site while you're there.

* At the Baltimore Retailer Summit, DC Comics announced that that they will release Wednesday Comics as a $49.99, 11 x 17 hardcover. The original series measured 14 x 20, so the hardcover is mildly smaller, but will be considerably more manageable to hold on your lap!

This is not a must-read for me, but I'm sure I'll pick it up eventually, maybe around the next holidays. It'll be interesting to see each characters' comic sequential, when before one would read them interspersed each week; I wonder how that might change the reading experience. [Via The Source, care of Robot 6.]

Review: Nightwing: The Great Leap trade paperback (DC Comics)

2009-10-12T08:02:00.002-05:00

[Contains spoilers for Battle of the Cowl and the general new Batman direction]

Peter Tomasi offers an impressive end to a troubled book in Nightwing: The Great Leap. In many ways it seems the "Batman Reborn" storyline coming out of Batman: RIP is less about the popular Grant-Morrison-helmed Batman title itself than about the ancilliary Bat-titles, none of which were hitting the top of the charts given numerous rotating creative teams. Each must now bow out, and there are right and wrong ways to do so; Tomasi gets it right, and believably sets up Nightwing for the next phase in his life.

Nightwing, most readers know by now, becomes the new Batman in the wake of Battle for the Cowl; this trajectory is something I couldn't help but see in The Great Leap, and as well surely something that Tomasi intends. One of the winningest moments of this book is when Tomasi has Dick Grayson leave his home in New York and take the train in to Gotham City, much as a young Bruce Wayne, in Batman: Year One took the train into Gotham after his travels abroad.

In this, Tomasi suggests that all of Nightwing's past to this point is prologue, and his role now as Gotham's protector is where the real story begins. Tomasi ends the story clearing away much of the baggage that other writers created between Batman and Nightwing, leaving it that Bruce Wayne cared for Dick Grayson, and now Dick will care for Gotham in Bruce's stead. There's plenty of ways in which this is too easy or quick, but certainly it's the happy ending that the Nightwing title always needed to end with, and I very much admire Tomasi for delivering it.

In the wake of Batman's disappearance, the Harvey Dent aspect of Two-Face recruits Nightwing to help save an endangered trial witness from Two-Face himself. The encounter with Two-Face reminds Nightwing of their early defining battle when he was Robin, even as the Bat-family comes to grips with Batman's apparent death. Nightwing must later contend with Ra's al Ghul while deciding what his role will be in a Gotham without Batman.

Roundabouts Batman: Prodigal, another story that saw Nightwing considering life post-Batman, someone at DC noticed that Two-Face factored heavily into the origins of Robins Jason Todd and Tim Drake, and as such retroactively added a major fight between Dick Grayson and Two-Face. Viola; instant arch-enemy. Though not much has been done with that story since, Tomasi picks it up here, giving Nightwing and Two-Face a relationship somewhat akin to Wally West and Zoom in Flash -- Two-Face becomes like Nightwing's "other father," opposite of Batman, who introduced Dick to fear rather than hope from a young age.

Most notably, Tomasi offers an epilogue to "The Great Leap" storyline (with great art by Doug Mahnke) where Nightwing and Two-Face simply talk, and where Nightwing notes that he does not see the former Harvey Dent when he looks at Two-Face, only the villain. This is a startling difference between Nightwing and Batman, well-concieved by Tomasi, and it's part of Tomasi's characterization of Nightwing in this book that helps one see Nightwing not so much as his own man, but as a worthy successor to the Batman. Nightwing appears here as having learned the lessons of his mentor, enough such that as Batman he would do his mentor proud.

There's many such instances like that in this book. Deb, Tomasi's romantic complication du jour for Dick Grayson, breaks up with him in one of the most bloodless and amicable splits in comic book (and certainly Batman) history; Dick accepts that his life is now meant to be spent in service of Gotham City and he takes only that role without the angst we've seen before. When Nightwing assists the Justice League with the building of a heroes' memorial, we see in Nightwing the friendship with other heroes that Batman couldn't accomplish; when Dick Grayson jumps out of an airplance, breaking records only he will know about, we see his peace in an inner life that Bruce Wayne never had. This is a Nightwing, the reader understands, who has learned both from Batman's tutelage and mistakes, and as such his ascension to the cowl makes a perfect sense when at times it couldn't have seemed more unlikely.

For me, The Great Leap cements Peter Tomasi as a writer to watch. The climactic fight that he writes between Nightwing and Two-Face, with scarred acidic pennies raining from the sky and Nightwing jumping between flying dirigibles to reach Two-Face is nothing short of an astounding action scene (with credit, too, to Doug Kramer and Rags Morales for selling these concepts throughout the book). One of my favorite Batman stories is Marv Wolfman's A Lonely Place of Dying, which introduced Tim Drake but also pits Batman against Two-Face; Two-Face is in his hokey glory here with exploding death traps and "two"-related clues; it was that kind of widescreen, manic, Bat-action joy that I felt Tomasi captured. I've liked Tomasi's work on Green Lantern Corps, and the action and heart he brings to The Great Leap make me eager for what this writer might do next.

[Contains full and variant covers, Origins & Omens pages]

Read another review of Nightwing: The Great Leap at Oz and Ends.

Review: Secret Six: Unhinged trade paperback (DC Comics)

2009-10-08T08:02:00.003-05:00

[This review comes from Collected Editions contributor Derek Roper]

When we last left the Six, they were in tatters in Birds of Prey. Knockout had been killed in the events leading up to Final Crisis, Harley Quinn left because it got too dangerous, and the rest were imprisoned on a planet in Salvation Run. What was a group of mercenaries to do? Get an ongoing series, that’s what.

Catman, Deadshot, Scandal, and Ragdoll return to the House of Secrets in Secret Six: Unhinged (collects issues #1-7). But they are not alone: a certain A-List Batman villain, Bane, and a wealthy casino owner, Jeanette, join the group as they try to deliver something that has every villain and some heroes scrambling after them.

Simone once said that the plan was to have a Secret Six and Catman revolving miniseries but in the end the monthly is what we got. This gives her plenty of room to flesh out the characters and give them long story arcs that is set up in this trade.  The plot begins with two brothers, Aaron and Tig, who escort a very nervous man down to a basement in a gay bar called the Bear Trap. He has lost something that belongs to Junior. The crime boss Junior sits in the basement in a trunk with nothing but a rotary phone and a notepad. He apparently runs the entire West Coast action and takes points from the 100 and Intergang.

I must detour for a moment and say how scary this “Junior” is. The villain is shrouded in mystery and the only glimpse we see are two black hands with long fingers. There is something about a villain that is not seen but strikes fear in characters and readers alike. The buildup is very horror movie-ish. It is reminiscent of M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village, where one can just imagine how horrible it is going to be when the creature is unmasked. But unlike the buildup of The Village, Unhinged does not disappoint. The reveal on page 120 is so startling that it makes one wish someone would have prepared them.

OK, back to the plot. The Six are hired by a mysterious client (that pays in advance cash smelling of herring) to bust the Tarantula, Catalina Flores, out of Alcatraz prison and escort her across the country to the eastern seaboard city of Gotham; along with Ms. Flores they have to stop and get a small card that was very precious to Junior. That is where the mayhem breaks out and the blood starts flying.  The group of villains led by Cheshire and Lady Vic go after the item in question and manage to create some horrific moments. The best was a nod to the classic horror movies when the group got to the house where the card is located and get surprised by Cheetah, who has such a serial killer presence it makes one glad that Bane is on the team—even if he does get smashed into a wall. 

It was nice to see that the Origins and Omens story was included. It was rumored the upcoming volume DC Universe: Origins was going to house that material but it is nice to see them being collected with their respected story arcs. This O&O story was essential to the plot of the book because it gives background on who hired the Six.

Simone has an affinity for character dialogue and each rogue has a unique voice, from Deadshots’ colloquial “Go on, Killer. But do me a solid” to Jeanette’s elitist “You look a proper shock.” Equally, Simone’s humor is dark and twisted. After the fight fest on the Gotham Bridge, Jeanette had broken the top and bottom of King Shark’s mouth. She then proceeds to tell him “Why not send the silly little fish-man to swim about and find her?” To which the bandaged and wounded shark replies “Hmmf! Eye Ainff Noo Fiffmanff! Eye a Fark!” It is there that Simone can poke fun at some of the absurd characters of the DC Universe.

The art in Unhinged is superb. Nicola Scott’s introduction to the Six began during her tenure on the now cancelled Birds of Prey. Scott has a very good grasp on characters’ emotions. In the Secret Six: Six Degrees of Devastation trade, the art by Brad Walker wasn’t so clean. A lot of the lines that made up a characters' faces ran together and it was hard to tell if it was a wound or a frown line. The background art in this trade is so clean and crisp. The Gotham City skyline in issue two was absolutely breathtaking and shows that Scott has an eye for depth and scale.

However, I do have a quibble with one of the plot points in the story. Since the Six had to go to Alcatraz, they knew they had to keep the world’s greatest detective at bay. Catman confronts Batman to not only occupy him but to let him know that he is a force to be reckoned with. They fight each other and Catman manages to get a good shot. Batman has trained with Lady Shiva and trained Nightwing and Barbara Gordon and yet Catman gets a good shot at Batman? It makes sense that he has the gusto to fight the Bat, but Catman ought not stand a chance.

I also felt the ending was a bit of a bust in that characters that deserved some longevity were seemingly killed. Hopefully, since DC is a fan of characters coming back from the dead, said characters shouldn’t have too much of a wait. One of the Six walks away with Junior’s item and it will be interesting to see how it plays out in future collections.

Secret Six has always been a wild ride, from their days in Villains United to now. One never knows who is going to live and who is going to die, but they will be promised the three F’s; Filth, Fun, and Fiends.

Review: Final Crisis: Revelations hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

2009-10-05T08:02:00.001-05:00

There's few things I like more than a comic by Greg Rucka, and especially a comic by Greg Rucka that includes Renee Montoya as the Question, and also references Renee's history with Gotham Central. By virtue of its Final Crisis ties, this story didn't strike me as quite at the level of its Question: Five Books of Blood predecessor, but Final Crisis: Revelations has got a lot going for it nonetheless.

Revelations tries its best to explore the spiritual side of Final Crisis. Thematically (if not completely on the page), Final Crisis looked at free will and how, in a world of tabloid news and Internet journalism, we daily cede ourselves to the real-life equivalent of Darkseid's Anti-Life equation. Revelations finds God's agents--the vengeful Spectre and the merciful Radiant--impotent against the Anti-Life equation precisely because, the Radiant explains, God imbued mankind with free will and it's mankind who has to take it back. Greg Rucka's voices of the people, the Question and the Huntress, battle the epitome of human evil, the biblical Cain, for mankind's ability to make their own choices.

It sounds riveting on paper, and the story does deliver plenty of what most fans bought the story for: the first meeting between former Gotham Central partners Renee Montoya and Crispus Allen in their new roles as the Question and the Spectre respectively. Rucka's dialogue shines here with Renee's sometimes snappy, sometimes self-effacing one liners, and I continue to enjoy the backdrop of his haunting Religion of Crime.

Rucka also makes the smart decision to separate Renee from the shadow of Batwoman a bit, and instead brings in the Huntress (whom he wrote to great success in the Huntress: Cry for Blood miniseries). Rucka doesn't spend too long on Huntress's religious background, but longtime fans knows she has one (as does Renee, for that matter), and it makes the character a perfect fit for this spiritual story. Much of Revelations brings to close plotlines begun around Infinite Crisis, and it's fitting to find Huntress in a church here just as she was during that earlier crossover.

Different from Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge, which I thought made great use of the Final Crisis background, Revelations is a good story that feels hampered by Final Crisis. Despite that the Crime Bible mythology had its origins in Apokolips in 52, the role Darkseid plays here, and his relationship to the story's villain Cain, is never completely clear and seems largely tacked on. As with Countdown to Final Crisis and Death of the New Gods, the end of Revelations seemingly solves the Final Crisis on its own, and it's hard to see the necessity of Revelations as part of Final Crisis rather than its own entity.

In addition, the Final Crisis timeline severely hampers the story; Renee and the Spectre could've fought Cain any day of the week, but setting this during Final Crisis severely restricts the story's ability to breathe. Revelations ends up taking place only over a couple of hours, much of it spent with Renee and the Huntress running dizzyingly in and out of a church. Renee and the Spectre get a little time to chat, but there's not as much reflection as I would have liked; let's not forget Renee nearly drank herself to death, at one point, feeling guilty over the death of her former partner.

To be sure, however, I did appreciate some of the work Rucka tries to do on the Crispus Allen Spectre. Like Will Pfeifer and David Lapham before him, Rucka doesn't seem quite the rules and abilities of this new Spectre, but he does pick up on the rather quick death of Allen's son in Pfeifer's miniseries, and applies good story logic to why this death might have been so quick. Was Allen indeed meant to let the Spectre kill his son, the Radiant wonders. Was it a test that Allen failed, or did Allen's son's death prevent further deaths down the line?

They're good questions (as Renee is wont to say), though Rucka doesn't answer them so much as open Allen's eyes to new spectral abilities, such that everything's copacetic in the end. Not, perhaps, the explanations I was hoping for, but at least Rucka begins to distance the Spectre from the Lapham/Fleisher incarnation (not before he takes revenge for the murder of Martian Manhunter, however), seemingly moving the character toward a cosmic interpretation more comfortable with the Justice Society.

(I did wish, however, Rucka hadn't created this opposite number for the Spectre, the Radiant--equally undefined, I've some doubt we'll see her used much again in the DC Universe, and it frustrates me when an author creates a new character when there are so many in the DCU waiting to be used; Radiant might've been the 1990s Superman character Kismet, for instance, or someone else.)

[Contains full and sliver covers, Crime Bible page from Final Crisis Secret Files]

So--while Revelations didn't quite pack the punch of the Final Crisis crossover Rogues' Revenge, fans like me of Greg Rucka's new Question will surely be glad for this volume, and eagerly awaiting the next.

Review: Superman: New Krypton Vol. 1 hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

2009-10-01T08:02:00.003-05:00

It's clear from the first volume of Superman: New Krypton that this story has all the makings of an epic. Though New Krypton still seems very much an effort on the writers' part to work out how to tell a Superman story, rather than a Superman story itself, there's such a fine mix of old and new elements here that I'll go happily along for the ride.

What I liked best about New Krypton -- summed up in a rainy late-night meeting between Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane at the Daily Planet, where they discuss Jimmy's leads on a shadowy government organization -- is the intrigue. Everyone in this story has an angle or a moral ambiguity, from the Guardian with blood on his hands to Lois's connection to the story's mystery villain, to Superman overly trusting a few thousand newly resurrected Kryptonians mainly due to his sorrow over the death of his father. It's one thing to tell a superhero story where superhero X battle villain Y; it's another to tell a story where this character used to fight alongside that character and this one is related to that one ... all this interconnectedness, frankly, is one of the clear signs writer Geoff Johns is involved.

With this intrigue, we're presented with the kind of fully-realized supporting cast for Superman that we haven't seen since the 1990s. Writers Johns, James Robinson, and Sterling Gates surely love the "triangle title" era, as they bring back both the Guardian and Agent Liberty; this, combined with important roles for Lois Lane, her sister Lucy, Jimmy Olsen, Ma Kent, Krypto, Lex Luthor, and a bevy of Kryptonians, combine to make the story feel real and textured. Even better, Superman remains at the forefront despite the large cast, with all their plotlines feeding into his larger struggle.

Admittedly, these elements help the New Krypton story that, on its own, remains a bit predictable. Ten thousand Kryptonians, now resurrected on Earth, immediately begin acting badly, as does a secret government cabal, with Superman stuck in the middle. Superman will undoubtedly emerge as a symbol of the best of both worlds, just before the Kryptonians' eventual demise. And yet, even as everyone acts to their stereotype -- optimistically naive Superman, haughty Kryptonians, xenophobic Earth military -- I'm a sucker for this kind of "trust no one," two-front war storyline, and I love Superman at the center of it with enemies on all sides.

Another problem (as we already begin to see in this volume) is that Superman hanging out with a couple thousand Kryptonians doesn't leave a lot of room for Clark Kent. For my money, a good Superman story involves both sides of Superman's life, both cosmic villainy and the Daily Planet (see, as a random example, "Going to Blazes," or [don't flame me] Superman Returns), while New Krypton seems to employ the guy with the powers only. It's easy, I think, to put Superman in the role of "generic superhero," and pitting him against other Kryptonians -- rather than, say, against the Toyman over Metropolis -- is to examine Superman rather than to write him. Geoff Johns' Green Lantern title has become much the same, exploring Green Lantern rather than writing him, and in a way I'm more eager for what comes after the Superman-rejuvinating New Krypton than I am for New Krypton itself.

James Robinson contributes the most to this book, and I took special note of his work because I had initially disliked (but on second reading, enjoyed a bit more) his first Superman foray, The Coming of Atlas. Some of Robinson's dialogue still lacks the zing I remember from Starman (especially a scene where Clark Kent essentially tells Jimmy Olsen to shut up), but I give him credit for writing a spunky, motorcycling-riding Jimmy whose flight from a pursuing assassin had me cheering. The Guardian story that Robinson contributes doesn't add much to the volume, but overall I liked what Robinson did here enough to assuage some of my previous concerns.

What I've gleaned from interviews is that New Krypton feeds into a 2010 Superman anniversary celebration (or is that a DC Comics anniversary? I'm not clear on this), and my expectation is that we'll see New Krypton at the center of DC Comics' next crossover after Blackest Night. If you're like me, and Hal Jordan out in front of the Justice League (instead of Superman) just looks wrong to you, then you'll share my excitement at a DC crossover with Superman at the center. Here's hoping.

[Contains full covers and variants.]

Review: Uncanny X-Men: Divided We Stand / Wolverine: Get Mystique trade paperbacks (Marvel Comics)

2009-09-28T08:02:00.002-05:00

[This review comes from Adam J. Noble, a public librarian living in Eastern Canada.]

If you go shopping on Amazon for trade collections of Uncanny X-Men, you’ll find that those unpredictable mad scientists who toil in Amazon’s warehouses have decided to begin numbering the Uncanny X-Men volumes with Matt Fraction’s first crack at writing the Mopey Mutants (eg. Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1: Manifest Destiny; Uncanny X-Men Vol. 2: Lovelorn), which is fair enough. Fraction is doing the nigh-impossible and giving us a fresh, exciting take on the X-Men without venturing too far left of field into hard sci-fi (i.e. Grant Morrison’s New X-Men) or going off in the other direction, into soap opera territory (Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men). Fraction’s been delivering an allegorically charged, witty and fun take on the X-Men that feels like it’s just getting started.

However! Amazon’s unofficial “numbering system” ignores the collection Uncanny X-Men: Divided We Stand, which falls in between Fraction’s run and the Uncanny X-Men/X-Men/X-Force/New X-Men crossover Messiah CompleX. I came up in the 1990s, my brothers and sisters -- I am not going to read an X-Men crossover ever again, if I can help it. (Once Onslaught-en, twice shy.) So I feel completely justified in telling people to skip Messiah CompleX and begin with Divided We Stand -- which features a recap page, if you need it.

But the volume doesn’t feel like the epilogue to a line-wide crossover. It instead feels like a prologue, and a more than serviceable one at that. Any explicit references to prior events feel more like the in media res way that Grant Morrison often begins his books (“Jimmy’s been cursed by a gypsy fortune-teller? Sure, why not…”).

Although Fraction isn’t credited with the writing of this volume, his Immortal Iron Fist collaborator Ed Brubaker is surprisingly on top of his game here, so much so that one suspects that Fraction was involved to a large extent in the plotting. I’ve criticized Brubaker on this site before: he’s capable of crafting great crime comics but writes in such a grim, “realistic” idiom that he shouldn’t be allowed within ten feet (3.048 metres) of a superhero comic writing credit. Yet, here’s a Brubaker-penned story about Cyclops and Emma Frost vacationing in the Savage Land, Angel and Warpath getting hypnotized into thinking that they’re hippies (along with most of San Francisco), and Nightcrawler wearing an Angelina Jolie hologram so that Colossus gets photographed by paparazzi.

Yeah, not so much with the grim.

I suspected briefly that Fraction might even have ghost-written this volume, except it features lots of Brubaker hallmarks like having everybody give long speeches about exactly how they feel (like people do all the time in real life right? *COUGH*) and Emma Frost not sounding the least bit English or, for that matter, bitchy.

But in all, this is the most fun superhero book that Brubaker has attached his name to, and it does a great job of setting the stage for a pretty terrific Fraction run. If you’re looking to get on board with Uncanny X-Men after hearing all the buzz surrounding the current crossover with Dark Avengers, this is a great place to start -- consider it Volume Zero and dig in. Uncanny X-Men: the San-Francisco treat.

Bonus review: Wolverine: Get Mystique, written by Jason Aaron and illustrated by Ron Garney (the creative team behind the excellent ongoing series Wolverine: Weapon X), serves a similar function to Uncanny X-Men: Divided We Stand, in that it acts as a bridge from Messiah CompleX into the new status quo. Mystique -- whom casual X-Fans will remember as being played by naked Rebecca Romijn in the movies -- has betrayed the X-Men’s sympathies once again, and Wolverine has been tasked by Cyclops to bring her down ... permanentlyOOOHSNAP.

Wolverine’s hunt for Mystique across continents and war zones turns out to be a framing device built to showcase a flashback to the pair’s first meeting, in the days of flappers, speakeasies and the Charleston. Wolverine and Mystique’s relationship escalates until it reaches a climax in a boxcar that neither of them could have foreseen. Funny, violent, genuinely disturbing and most of all sad, Wolverine: Get Mystique is not just the best solo Wolverine story ever: it’s also one of the best collected editions Marvel has ever released. And for a $10.99 US cover price, it’s also a bargain.

Get this, then get the collection entitled X-Men: Manifest Destiny, which mostly consists of the Aaron-penned story of what Wolverine gets up to once he moves back to San Francisco with the other X-Men (it involves kung-fu warlords and is perfect). Then, start picking up Wolverine: Weapon X.

Ol’ Sniktbub has never been better at doing what he does. He’s the San Francisco treat. (I already used that joke? Never mind. Just pretend I made a Grateful Dead reference.)

Review: Superman/Batman: Finest Worlds hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

2009-09-24T08:02:00.001-05:00

Superman/Batman: Finest Worlds, Michael Green and Mike Johnson's second volume of the series, hearkens strongly back to the classic World's Finest series. In the spirit of the kinds of adventures where Superman and Batman competed for the heart of an alien princess or Bruce Wayne joined Clark Kent at the Daily Planet, Finest Worlds offers three tales, almost Elseworld tales, that mix and mingle the elements of Superman and Batman. But while the wackiness found within well distinguishes this volume, it does unfortunately hurt the overall relevance of the stories.

The main story, "Superbat," finds Superman's powers accidentally, and magically, tranferred to Batman. What follows is by and large exactly what you'd expect: Clark Kent tries to adapt to a normal life while Batman uses his new powers first to clean up Gotham, and later to try in a fit of stark raving madness to eradicate all crime everywhere, until Superman and the JLA must step in to stop him. The writers get no points for bringing any new insights to the characters of Superman and Batman, but yet the story is filled with lots of little moments: Superman teaching Batman to use heat vision, Supergirl's surprisingly moving grief when Superman is injured, Super-Batman fighting both Bane and the Justice League. The story benefits overwhelmingly from art by Identity Crisis's Rags Morales, giving it the semblance of a weight it otherwise wouldn't deserve.

The difficulty with "Superbat" -- and also the funny, charming "Lil' Leaguers" story that sees Superman and Batman teamed with cartoon dopplegangers -- is that they're magic-based stories where all the toys go back in the toybox at the conclusion. Possibly this was editorially-mandated (and possibly, I've heard, the reigns will be looser on Superman/Batman post-Blackest Night), but the writers' previous volume, The Search for Kryptonite, had no such problems. Kryptonite was surprising and interesting and deeply rooted in the current events of the DC Universe; Finest Worlds is a satisfactory volume of Superman/Batman, but it lacks the "oompf" of the previous book.

That said, I must praise the writers for "The Fathers" (which marked the fiftieth issue of Superman/Batman). Surely Green and Johnson aren't the first to posit a meeting between Thomas Wayne and Jor-El, but I loved the mid-issue tease that it all might be a dream -- and finally the revelation that the meeting in fact took place. I hold no illusions that any other writer will ever reference the event ever again, but I credit the writers for "going for it" and not taking the easy out found in the book's other two stories.

The truth is, despite that Finest Worlds is another step away from the direction Superman/Batman needs to go if this title is going to last (read: relevancy), the book is plain, old-fashioned fun. The outlandish campiness of the parallel Superman/Batman narrations (begun by Jepf Loeb and continued here) virtually ensure these stories can't be taken seriously, so there's no choice but to sit back and let them wash over you. Ultimately I decided to view these stories like episodes of the Superman or Batman cartoons, and only then did I feel I really "got" their intended tone.

[Contains full and alternate covers]

Superman/Batman: Finest Worlds is a fair collection for completists, but those waiting for Superman/Batman to really "find its feet" might want to wait for the next team to take over this book (more details recently announced.)

Review: Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

2009-09-21T08:02:00.003-05:00

The important question about Neil Gaiman's Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? is, does it indeed function as the "last" Batman story? Yes, it does. Gaiman offers in two issues a deconstruction of the elements of a Batman story, what it means for the Batman to die, and how perhaps so many different interpretations of the Batman can coexist. It is a story that will quickly become dated, much as Alan Moore's Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? has, but that will likely help define Batman for future writers to come.

Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? might alternately been called "Batman: This is Your Life." We find Batman present here at his own wake, as allies and enemies recount the story of the death of Batman. Except, each character has a different story of Batman's death, and here the Killing Joke's Joker coexists with the Batman: The Animated Series Joker and a seemingly Golden Age Catwoman.

We find this is not the story of "our" Batman's death -- that is, his apparent Batman RIP/Final Crisis death -- but perhaps the story of "the story of Batman's death," or maybe a story about stories about Batman. Final Crisis plays no overt role here, but there's definite thematic agreement between Caped Crusader and the meta-interpretation of stories in Final Crisis.

Boiled down, the conclusion that Gaiman reaches is that, no matter how Batman dies, he dies fighting. It's true -- I can think of many instances of Batman dying (his un-death in Dark Knight Returns immediately springs to mind), but never a time that Batman gives up. And though it's something one could also say for Superman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, and what have you, I think Batman's mortal status gives this a slight edge -- everyone might go down fighting, but Batman goes down fighting and he's "just a man."

Similarly, Gainman whittles down what it takes to make a Batman story such. He tells one imaginary tale where all of Batman's foes are simply actor friends hired by Alfred to humor the mourning Bruce Wayne -- but even this story must by rights include the death of Thomas and Martha Wayne, the presence of Alfred, the Bat-signal, and such. Gaiman closes the story with a terrifically offbeat take on Goodnight Moon where he checks off the requirements for a Batman story -- the Batcave, Alfred, Commissioner Gordon -- and also what might change with time -- "the Boy Wonder" (but not necessarily Dick or Tim); "the Joker and all of you" (the various rogues who come and go). It's a fantastic examination of how to write Batman, and the riff on Goodnight Moon is sweetly bizarre given Batman's status, lets not forget, as the arm-breaking scourge of villainy.

What I found most interesting was the last scene of the book, as the Bat-signal morphs into a pair of hands drawing baby Bruce Wayne from the womb to the world. As Gaiman's Death notes (here in the form of Martha Wayne), Batman's is a backward story -- rather than working hard and receiving his reward at the end of his life, Batman receives his reward first (his time with his parents), and then faces his hard work of being Batman. Only in his death and resurrection does Batman achieve what he otherwise cannot -- the return of his parents -- before he must fight for them once more. It's in this way that Batman's story is different than Superman's, moreso than their powers or secret identities, and bears, I think, additional consideration.

DC Comics pads what would otherwise be a slim volume with a couple of Batman-and-his-foes stories that Gaiman wrote over the years, including a Batman: Black & White story where Batman and the Joker are actors hired to work on the comic book panel. The included origins of Poison Ivy and the Riddler have been many times retconned since their printing; while I understand some readers found these stories to be needless filler, I liked again how they worked with the main story to talk about "stories" -- Batman stories that don't quite fit and don't quite make sense, but which are Batman stories nonetheless.

In twenty years, Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? will hardly still be the "last" Batman story. I thrilled to a Jean Paul Valley Azrael cameo in one panel (Andy Kubert does a magnificent job of emulating all sorts of Batman artists), but the presence of Batman's newfound son Damian in seemingly every other crowd scene puts this story firmly in the Grant Morrison Batman era, just as Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? relates to the Silver Age Superman and not the current. But we currently exit a time when Batman was "grim and gritty" and after that a jerk, and Gaiman offers something else: the Batman who never gave up. If that sticks and defines the Batman to come, nothing wrong with that at all.

[Contains full covers, foreword by Neil Gaiman.]

Deluxe format for Johns/Frank's Superman: Secret Origins

2009-09-17T15:20:00.003-05:00

From the "Why should Batman have all the fun?" department comes news that Geoff Johns and Gary's Frank's Superman: Secret Origin will be collected in DC Comics' deluxe oversized format.

Previous deluxe books include Batman RIP, Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?, and the JLA hardcover collections.

As a weigh-station between Absolute format and a regular hardcover or trade paperback, I like the deluxe editions a lot. I've always envisioned comics collections as needing to be more than just a bunch of issues bound together, but rather something that builds on the original comic -- this large-format collection showcases the story and art that appeared in monthly form. I don't mind paying more for a hardcover if it's "special" in this way.

More deluxe Superman volumes on the way?

Also newly solicited from DC: Batwoman: Elegy in hardcover (hopefully more than just the first few issues of the Greg Rucka/J H Williams Detective run) and Sam Keith's Arkham Asylum (newly mentioned on DC's The Source blog; that this shares the name of a popular video game doesn't hurt).

More to come!

Review: Alice in Sunderland hardcover (Dark Horse Comics)

2009-09-17T08:02:00.000-05:00

[This review comes from Loki Carbis, an Australian pop culture junkie, who cannot resist a good graphic novel. He lives at The Centre Cannot Hold on the web, and in his own imagination, among others.]

Somewhere right about the middle of Alice in Sunderland, Bryan Talbot shows himself beginning to lose faith in the project. It's large and complex and may not have an audience.

But then Scott McCloud appears to him in a vision, and reminds him that comics can be about anything. Reassured, Talbot continues to work on this comic which is not so much about anything, as about everything.

It's a fascinating work, one of the most ambitious things attempted in comics format since From Hell by a writer, and no less ambitious on the art side. Talbot blends photographs, woodcuts, and a range of other artworks along with his own drawing. It sounds like it shouldn't work, but Talbot pulls it off remarkably well, creating something that is part Kirby-collage, part J.H.Williams on Promethea, part something else entirely, and wholly Talbot's own. On one level, the book is a tribute to the possibilities opened to the comic form by Photoshop and other such digital manipulation. But if that's the only reason you're reading it, you've missed the point.

Quite simply, Alice in Sunderland is a tour de force. A sort of documentary in comic form, it investigates the life of Arthur Dodgson (alias Lewis Carroll); the creation, plot and symbolism of Alice in Wonderland; Dodgon's relations with the real Alice's family; and in more general terms, the history of Sunderland and its place as a centre of art in the United Kingdom. Along the way, it shoots down more than one aspect of the legend of Lewis Carroll, leaving a more balanced portrait of the man and his art.

The book is largely told in first person by Talbot, who – in a variety of guises – leads the reader through all of these things in a wildly discursive monologue (or ocasionally a dialogue, when another living person appears), without ever losing sight of his intentions for the narrative. In the end, you're left with the impression that there's neither a word nor an image out of place. The book is both a serious work of history and an elaborate conjuror's trick, and very frequently both at once.

Alice in Sunderland is only available as a coffee table sized hardcover, its pages made from thick, high quality paper and printed in a kaleidoscopic range of colours. It's a little more expensive than most other graphic novels, but it's worth every cent.