Jeb D’s Look Back at 2008

2008. The year that it all started going down the tubes. Or maybe it didn’t. Everyone says the economy’s going to kill the monthly comic - except those publishers that have staked many thousands on the assumption that the hard-core comics fan is in for the long haul. The year that everyone got sick of crossovers - except all the people that kept Secret Invasion and Final Crisis in the Top Ten. The year that the comic book movie craze was finally going to burn out in the wake of Fantastic Four 2 and X-Men 3 - except… well, you know what happened there. So, while this is usually a time I try to think about trends and portents… honestly, I no longer have a clue. The monthly superhero comic should, by rights, have died off long ago: even if everyone were writing fun, exciting, jam-packed “one and done” stories, it’s still hard to believe that the 22 page, ad-laden, spandex comic could continue to capture the lion’s share of the readership the way it does. And maybe its days truly are numbered by the four-dollar price point (after all, four-dollar gasoline has killed the SUV, and they’re bigger and heavier than comics). But, then, before I was even born, TV was going to kill off both radio AND the movies, and it succeeded at neither. So maybe my grandkids will still be writing year-end pieces about superheroes when “Marvel 2099” is, in fact, a reality. God, I hope not…

Anyway, snapshots of random stuff that I remember about 2008:

Glamourpuss. I’ve always been a “trust the art - not the artist” type. From Ernest Hemingway to Jane Fonda, I’ve found satisfaction in the creative work of people whose view of the world I might have found fuzzy, at best. And in the world of comics, Dave Sim certainly falls into that group. As a creative force in comics, Sim’s stature is beyond question: you can argue that self-published comics were an inevitable development, but the 300-issue success of Cerebus stands as a major trailblazer. So any serious comics fan had to be more than a little curious as to what Sim would get up to next. And this year, he gave us Glamourpuss… and serious comics fans are STILL curious just what Sim’s up to. I suppose you could call Glamourpuss a parody of fashion magazines—certainly, that’s a lot of its basic structure. And Sim does use it to lampoon the fashion industry, in a somewhat heavy-handed way. He also uses his impressive draughtsmanship to reproduce fashion illustrations, skewing them just enough to match the snarky story beneath. But that’s what you get skimming quickly through the book. Take a minute, read the text, look carefully at the black and white illustrations… and you’ll get an amazing lesson in comics illustration. With the attention to detail of the true fanatic (and I don’t know anyone that would question that description of the guy), Sim gives an absolute master class in the development of black and white comics illustration, name-checking its greats, and comes close to allowing us a peek at just what it’s like to be inside the head—and hands - of a great artist.

The Incredible Hercules. The spinoff that no one expected or asked for continues to outsell titles featuring such spandex staples as Superman and the Fantastic Four. It’s silly and fun. It’s like the best and brightest of 60’s Marvel, with Amadeus Cho and bonus cute dog.

Hercules: The Thracian Wars. The "other" Herc book. About as different from Incredible as you could imagine, and a good example of how much can still be made from that stuff lying around in the public domain.

Marvel Goes Hard-Boiled. I’m not talking about the new Marvel Noir experiment (“noir” and “hard-boiled” aren’t really the same thing, anyway), which is really too new to properly evaluate. No, I’ve been fascinated at the influx of contemporary crime writers now plying their trade at the House of Ideas. Of course, that was Brian Bendis’ entrée into the mainstream, but over the past year or so, Marvel has found interesting niches for novelists like Charlie Huston and Duane Swierczynski, as well as TV vets like Mike Benson and Christos Gage, and just plain comic writers like Jason Aaron. They were all given the keys to the Garth Ennis machine and turned loose on characters like Punisher, Fool Killer, Zombie and Moon Knight, and along with artists like Laurence Campbell and Jefte Paolo and Sean Philips brought Marvel its most interesting slate of non-spandex books since the 70’s glory days of Man-Thing, Howard the Duck, Master of Kung Fu and Tomb of Dracula. I mean—Aaron made Wolverine AND Ghost Rider tough, bloody-minded fun, for chrissake. Oh, and then there’s this Brubaker guy. You know—the one who’s emulating the great mystery magazines of the past with Criminal, and from Gotham Central to Sleeper to Daredevil to his brilliant new Incognito series has shown that the central tenets of hard-boiled detection—and, yes, the fatality of “noir”—can work just as well in a universe with superheroes as one without them. “Comics aren’t just for kids anymore” is a tiresome endorsement (and avoids the very real question of whether or not they should be), but for a company that doesn’t stray from the spandex all that often, it’s a nice twist.

Wildstorm… wha’ happen?

Amazing Spider-Man. Actually Amazing again? Sure, One More Day was a lame and painful storyline (particularly when you consider that virtually everything it wanted to accomplish was achieved in a single panel of one of Dwayne McDuffie’s issues of Fantastic Four). But Brand New Day is a blast. The recent Mark Waid-Marcos Martin storyline was probably the best so far, but the entire enterprise has restored an interest in Spider-Man that I thought I’d lost back in the 70’s.

Jonathan Hickman. I’ll accept the argument that Pax Romana is less a comic book than an illustrated novella. I know you have to turn Nightly News sideways to read parts of it. And I still have to finish A Red Mass For Mars. But this guy sees the medium with bigger eyes than anyone since the early days of creators like Allred and Mignola.

Great comics over the past year or so that I’m not sure I have much left to say about: Fables. Jack of Fables. Y The Last Man (*sniff*). Captain America. All Star Superman. Hellboy/BPRD. Four Eyes. Age of Bronze. Immortal Iron Fist. Scalped.  Invincible. Batman (for the words). Action (for the pictures). Captain Britain and MI-13. Astro City. I Kill Giants. Casanova. 1985. Punisher MAX  (thanks, Garth). The Goon. Fell. Ex Machina. Acme Novelty Library. Daredevil. Buffy.

Wonder Woman. I read the various relaunch/reboots for the sheer trainwreck entertainment value. Now they’ve turned the character over to a first-rate writer (Gail Simone), with serious respect for Princess Diana and her place in the DCU . And you know what? It is… I’m sorry… boring. The fact is that Wonder Woman was long ago cut off from every superhero’s source of power: her origin. If, for example, a writer wants to invigorate his approach to Fantastic Four or Batman, they can go back to Stan and Jack, or look at the work of Kane and company, to take sustenance from the source. But that option is simply not open to the Wonder Woman writer: tales of bondage-happy lesbians preaching loving submission may have helped William Moulton work out his kinks, but even the fact that he was a genuine proto-feminist in his personal life doesn’t change the fact that the Golden Age Wonder Woman would be unacceptable today. So even as strong a writer as Simone is left to sort through the various mythological meghillas of predecessors like Byrne and Perez to find a foundation, and try to bring some of her trademark wit to a character that has proved completely resistant to it. And let’s face it: ongoing superhero comics are, structurally, soap operas. And as such, the ups and downs of sex and romance have to take center stage now and again. This is never going to be easy with a character whose sexual identity was forged in the coils of her own lasso.

Patsy Walker, Hellcat. A glimpse of just how much fun, and how different, a superhero series with a female sensibility can actually be. Kudos to Katherine Immonen, her good hubby, and David LaFuente.

The Twelve. Actually, I’m not sure I have that much more left to say about this series either, apart from the fact that Chris Weston’s art is the most consistently striking superhero work being done today.

Empowered. Adam Warren, bless him, continues to examine and exploit the fetish side of superhero comics with a sure and witty eye. One of the few black and white comics that I'd love to see in color: for all its manga influence, its sendup of superheroes would be even sharper if it looked more like something from the Big 2.

Grant Morrison continues to spin out ideas faster than anyone can read them (or artists can draw them, evidently). Serious DC fans seem to be divided about Batman RIP, Final Crisis and their various offshoots, but it’s really only a problem if you’re trying to follow the storyline, or its impact on the DCU (hint: there will still be a Batman when he’s done). I’ve read about three-fourths of both series, and a couple of the ancillary things, mostly as single issues out of order, and basically got just about  as much fun out of them that way as I ever do out of a DCU book. So, Go Grant.

Anyone remember Powers?

E for Effort: 1001 Arabian Nights: Sinbad. Tales of the Penance. The Dreamer. Gigantic. Madame Mirage. Dead She Said. The Sword. 76. Air. Caliber. Savage. Contract. The list goes on: perfectly nice comics, produced professionally, doubtless by perfectly nice people. Wish I could be more enthusiastic.

Black and White Boys. Not long ago, two of my alltime favorite independent comics ended their runs: Jeff Smith’s Bone and Terry Moore’s Strangers in Paradise,  both of which were series that employed the clean simplicity of black and white art to stunning effect. And since so few great comic stories ever reach satisfying conclusions, both guys had tough second acts ahead of themselves. Both started (and who can blame them) by reaching for a Big 2 brass ring. Smith’s art on Captain Marvel was, as expected, perfectly in synch with the look of Billy Batson and the Big Red Cheese, but the script felt wildly out of whack until you read the first few issues of his new creator-owned book RASL: darker than Bone, with Matrix-like plotting and a sense of bleak desperation that was always bubbling under the surface in Bone; in a way, it’s almost a road map for his darker (and, I felt, less effective) vision of Captain Marvel. It lacks the surface appeal of Smith’s previous epic fantasy, but it gets under your skin. As for Moore, he’s writing two series for Marvel: Runaways is just not working for me (not sure how much of that is due to my finding Ramos’ artwork unbearable, or how much Moore’s mishandling of the characters might be coloring my reaction to the art), but Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane is a thing of simple beauty that’s all too rare outside the indie ranks. But, as with Smith, I was really itching to see Moore penciling his own work again, and his new series Echo has proved more than satisfying: his relationship writing is as strong as ever, while his handling of mystery and adventure has matured since the early days of SIP, and his use of the element of super-powers is not only well integrated, but metaphorically convincing in human terms. And he once again demonstrates that he can capture the subtleties of facial expression as well as anyone in comics. Smith and Moore have that rare gift (like a Charles Burns or Los Bros Hernandez) of making black and white comic art seem like the purest form of artistic expression there is.

I don’t like bashing comic pros, and I have nothing but admiration for someone who can work through personal tragedy and even try to turn it around to benefit others. But I’m sorry… I’ve READ the first two issues of Ultimatum. I’ve READ what I could slog through of Ultimates 3. Jeph Loeb, my man, TV needs you. Answer its call. Comics will survive without you, honest.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young. I mean—have you SEEN issue #1? This is a freaking amazing comic. I’d much rather have seen them team up on something wholly new, but considering how few people know Baum’s original, I guess it’s the next best thing. I presume there will be a hardcover. If you don’t buy it for every kid you know next Christmas, you’re one Bad Santa.

Hardest working man in show business: Warren Ellis. I’ve lost track of all the books he put out last year, and even so, I’m not sure he actually released a single issue of my favorite one (Fell) during the calendar year. And while newuniversal sort of fell by the wayside, he picked up the slack with his sharp 90-degree turn on Astonishing X-Men. He did the anti-spandex thing with blood n guts in Black Summer and No Hero. He gave us Doktor Sleepless, for all those who weren’t around for Transmet. There’s Gravel, for those who think Gaiman’s for pussies. And with Thunderbolts, he actually swiped the center of the Marvel U away from his buddy Bendis: from Civil War to Secret Invasion, the reboot he gave the series has made it the real book of record for things in the 616.

The X-Men in San Francisco. OK, I’ve never been a huge X fan, haven’t really followed the line seriously since the day Bill Sienkiewicz left New Mutants. But I have to say that it’s been fun to have them running around my stomping grounds. And I’ll admit that Brubaker, Fraction, Ellis (him again), et al have really made the setting work for them, both visually and metaphorically—it’s the first new perspective on the “difference” of mutants in the Marvel U that’s really worked since the creation of Genosha. And the change is infectious: even the Secret Invasion X-Men tie-in by Mike Carey and Cary Nord, neither part of the regular X braintrust, was a vigorous adventure postcard from the City By The Bay.

The Umbrella Academy. I hear this Way guy’s in a band. Whatever. He’s read his share of Mignola comics, and unlike a lot of Mike’s imitators, has actually learned something from them.

Interesting comics that seem to have disappeared: The Chemist. Deadlander/Dead Rider. I’d have put Winter Men on the list, too, but the final issue is sitting over there on the table waiting to be read. And it’s only been, what—a year and a half since the last one?

The Return of Thor. It’s hardly an industry-shaking development, but Marvel’s recent handling of the character has been extremely impressive. After letting the Thunder God lie fallow for a couple of years (apart from his bizarre clone appearance in Civil War), J. Michael Straczynski and Oliver Coipel's new series brought Asgard “down to earth” and reintroduced the familiar cast of characters in an environment blending the spectacle of Kirby or Buscema with the humanity of Simonson. In addition to the fine new ongoing, we also got a fascinating series of one-shots written by Matt Fraction with terrific art from the likes of Dan Brereton and Patrick Zircher, as well as the Secret Invasion tie-in series illustrated by Doug Braithewaite. The greatest potential of the character has always been to allow us to ask what it means to be a god, and get an answer back about what it means to be human. For now, anyway, that potential’s being realized.

And finally, Magneto: Testament by Greg Pak and Carmine Di Giandomenico. One entry with no snark or sarcasm. A serious subject treated seriously, and entertainingly. Marvel must have known the thing would sell fuck-all and still went ahead with it. Go them.