Brandon Graham makes the book disorientating by never telling us exactly what’s going on. He and Giannis Milonogiannis show us everything that the trio of Prophets is experiencing on this Euro-punkish sci fi, but they’ve kept as at arms length away from the story by constantly introducing these new versions of Prophet and their stories. Just as we begin to think that we find some understanding in one issue, Graham has no problem changing the story so it feels like we’re starting over again in this issue. We thought we knew who Prophet was after the last issue but now we’re introduced to three essentially new characters and their stories.

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As Pekar chronicles the history of the city, for every success there is an equal or greater failing that the city experiences. His recounting of the 1948 World Series at the beginning of the book perfectly introduces this pattern. They won in 1948 but the Indians would go on to lose the 1954 World Series. It would take them another 40 years to reach the World Series but they lost twice during the 1990s and haven’t been back since. “For me,” Pekar writes, “the 1954 World Series was a turning point. I always looked at the Indians as an up-and-coming team. But now they seemed to be rotten to the core with success... A few years later, that’s how I viewed Cleveland: rotten.”

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So last week a comic about a Spider-Man clone came out and this week, it's the return of the posterboy of 90s comics Prophet.

Instead of picking up where the series left off in 1997 (at least that’s the closest I can figure out to when a new Prophet comic book was last published) with its hyper-muscular bodies and headwear out of some medieval sport, Graham and Roy begin a brand new story and a brand new character. He may share a name with the old Prophet but this one looks more like an astronaut in an orange jumpsuit. Imagine more Charleton Heston in Planet of the Apes as a stranger in a strange world and that’s the story that Graham and Roy are telling. Prophet wakes up 10,000 years in the future and has to survive long enough to find out what his mission in this world is. Maybe there will be ties to the old character later on but this issue starts out fresh, like we’re seeing a new character in a new world.

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So, this is kind of embarrassing.  You see, I wrote a piece on Action Comics #5 for last week's Flashmob Fridays but was kind of shocked when it didn't show up in the Friday roundtable post.  I thought maybe I had been kicked out already for saying I really didn't get Carl Barks' comics the previous week and that Alan just hadn't told me yet.  I had finished it up last Wednesday, well before out deadline but somehow I never emailed it.  So for the week, I get to show up on our Monday Wrap Up Show, talking a bit more about Action Comics #5 and how so far this seems to be a series of unfulfilled potential.

In this last few years of political, economic and social upheaval in the United States, I think Morrison is on the right track in trying to redefine Superman. The 21st Century started out with a Superman that somehow tried to renounce any American citizenship and even was proclaimed as standing for “truth, justice and all of that other stuff.” But like the times when Superman was created, the “American way” is either corny, an anachronism or a lie depending on your views of the country. And how does the country’s #1 adopted son respond to that? That’s the story that it felt like Morrison was trying to tell in the first two issues of Action. How does the ultimate boy scout live in an era where the Boy Scouts are eventually sent overseas to fight wars that no one understands while those who stay home get rich and fat? 

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See the full gallery on Posterous

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• Lobster Johnson The Burning Hand #1 Regular Dave Johnson Cover
• Star Wars Agent Of The Empire Iron Eclipse #2
• Star Wars Legacy Vol 11 War TP

• Batwoman #5 Regular JH Williams III Cover
• Frankenstein Agent Of S.H.A.D.E. #5

• Avengers 1959 #5
• Wolverine And The X-Men #4 Regular Nick Bradshaw Cover (X-Men Regenesis Tie-In)

• Roger Langridge's Snarked #4

• Before The Incal Classic Collection Deluxe HC
• Ballad Of Halo Jones TP Simon & Schuster Edition
• Complete DR & Quinch TP Simon & Schuster Edition

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Over at Newsarama, I wrote a few words about Jeff Lemire and Travel Foreman's Animal Man #5, trying to focus mainly on the art.

Foreman doesn't hide anything from the reader.  The bulbous monsters and the horrible disfigurement that Buddy suffers battling it are front and center in this issue. Nothing is hidden or left to the reader's imagination. A vision of Animal Man's daughter Maxine as the corruptor of the world is made complete by her spider-like legs and a thoroughly dissected Animal Man. It gets far more shocking when she pulls the skin off of his face in the vision, an image repeated from the cover but the vision in the book is more vivid and terrifying. Foreman makes an image that's impossible not to see. His horror is presented so matter-of-factly that you can not avert your eyes from it. It's not hidden and it's not implied. Foreman is drawing a horror story that won't let you look away from it. It's the kind of horror that's terrible in idea and concept but beautiful in execution.

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With the rest of the merry mobsters (I want to make that a thing,) I take my turn at tackling Walt Disney's Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes, a collection of Carl Barks' duck stories.  Honestly, I think I've only ever read a small handful of Carl Barks.  I don't even know if I really read any Walt Disney comics before a couple of years ago.  I'm finding it this odd struggle to go back and read comics as a 41 year old that I probably should have been reading and loving as an 8 year old.  I was such a Marvel zombie when I was a kid that anything that didn't feature tights was not something that I wanted to read.  Sure I even picked up the random DC comic here or there but it wasn't until Marv Wolfman and George Perez brought a Marvel storytelling sensibility to The New Teen Titans that I found my gateway into DC comics.  

What I enjoy about Barks (and his spiritual descendant Don Rosa) is that he doesn’t tell stories about cartoonish ducks but he tells them about characters who happen to be cartoonish ducks. The stories themselves, from the adventurous and titular “Lost in the Andes” to the screwballish “Plenty of Pets” and even to the one page gag strips, are built around characters. Donald Duck is the loyal but easily flustered hero. He seems to be all about himself and how everything affects him but he’s always doing things for his nephews or his uncle out of a strong love that exists among these characters. Even as characters lose their tempers and get mad at each other, there’s never a sense of spite or selfishness around these characters. Donald Duck is like Ralph Kramden in The Honeymooners. He’s quick to anger but there’s hardly a bigger heart around.

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• BPRD Hell On Earth Vol 2 Gods And Monsters TP
• Witchfinder Vol 2 Lost And Gone Forever TP

Two Mignola-verse book.  Tyler Cook’s artwork on BPRD is quite impressive but I’m really looking forward to seeing all of John Severin’s work on Witchfinder.  I read the first issue and his artwork was as impressive as ever.  

• Action Comics Vol 2 #5 Regular Andy Kubert Cover
• Animal Man Vol 2 #5
• OMAC Vol 3 #5
• Swamp Thing Vol 5 #5 Regular Yanick Paquette Cover

I think the first week of the month is my biggest week for the new DC but that may change.  I’m so on the fence with Action Comics.  I don’t think it works that well from issue to issue but after reading all 4 issues a couple of weeks ago, I think this will be fine in the collected form.  And if you had asked me in August what one of my favorite books right now would be, I don’t think I would have ever said OMAC.  

• Fatale #1 Cvr B

I’ve read this one already.  It’s good.  Really good.  Look for a review to pop up somewhere tomorrow.

• Shaky Kanes Monster Truck GN

I thought this one came out last week.  

• Uncanny X-Force #19.1

Not really interested in the Age of Apocalypse stuff so I may end up sitting this one out.

• Betrayal Of The Planet Of The Apes #3 Cvr A
• Flash Gordon Zeitgeist #2 Regular Francesco Francavilla Cover

Two fun series about old science fiction concepts.  Both are also good looking books.

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Of all of Brubaker and Phillips characters, Riley Richards is the one who wins. He gets exactly what he wants. It’s not a dream and it’s not an imaginary story as Richards’s plan works to near-perfection. Even better yet, he gets his wife’s fortune, much to the ire of his father-in-law. He wins and that’s what makes Criminal: The Last of the Innocent so frustrating. Going back to the idea of Brubaker and Phillips’ heroes, the struggle between a desire to do good and an instinct to do bad does not exist Riley’s character. Once he gets the idea that Felicity has to go, there is no turning back for Riley as the story becomes about the journey to him finding his own happiness. Unlike other characters in other Brubaker and Phillips’s stories who have gotten dragged down deeper and deeper into the darkness mostly through their own weaknesses and failures, Riley’s story is about him rising up into that darkness, accepting it and controlling it so that he is never overwhelmed by the circumstances around his life. There is no failed heist or tragic death for him to try to overcome. There is no outside force manipulating Riley into actions he doesn’t want. There is only his plan and it’s all about his control of the world around him. 

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Over the years, there have been plenty of images of Daredevil kicking a thug in the face but it’s Martin’s simplicity that makes this image and his art in the whole issue something special. The clean lines that Martin uses to draw Daredevil make it nice and easy to just follow the action from one side of the page, all the way across it and then out of the page. His Daredevil looks like he belongs in the air, not like he’s flying but more like he is an acrobat or martial artist and this is just one of his go-to moves. Martin carries that lightness and motion of the character throughout the book. 

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With Hawken, Timothy Truman shows that it's not the years but the mileage, and that this character has plenty of both. Every wrinkle and scar on Hawken's face have their own story to tell, as Truman uses every opportunity to put in small details into the artwork that builds a vivid story. From Hawkin's blind mule to the one-eyed ghosts that follow him to the dog who urinates on the arid Arizona ground, Truman builds in many small little details to alert us that we need to pay attention to this story. And all of those details are just in the first few pages.

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Opena takes that force and speed that Remender writes and makes these character's conflicts and turmoils completely believable. Opena draws this issue as if he's drawing a superheroic opera. His characters are larger than life on the page, whether it is a gigantic, menacing Iceman or the conflicted Fantomex, who does not quite know what he is fighting for. He makes Remender's fantastical vistas and struggling characters real because of the conviction of his artwork.   There's no doubting the characters or the settings of this issue because Opena just makes them all look so natural.

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It's over at Popdose.

If the book lost one writer, it picked up an extra artist as Rafael Albuquerque is joined by Mateus Santolouco. The two artist trade off scenes during the Las Vegas story with Santolouco doing all of the art on Hattie’s story. There two art styles are complimentary, never clashing or jarring as you move from one artist to the other. Albuquerque’s is has more character to it while Santolouco’s is more rendered. When you look at individual pages from both artists, you can easily spot the differences in their work. When you read the book, experiencing their pages interwoven together, there’s a great visual continuity created. Albuquerque has set the visual character that comes from the unfussy way he puts ink down on the paper while Santalouco’s artwork looks rendered so that each and every line fulfills an intended storytelling purpose.

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Adlard is a wonderfully naturalistic artist who's great at drawing people actually just talking, which happens a lot in this story.  Particularly in this new volume, if you didn't see the zombies, you could swear that Adlard is drawing some kind of bedroom drama or a character driven piece about people trying to live up to their own personal images of themselves.  And that's actually a pretty good description of The Walking Dead for the past couple of years, only with zombies thrown in between the bedroom parts.

It’s a strange, short tale that takes one or two odd turns, particularly a brief passage where Blackburne becomes some kind of carnival act, sharing mystical visions with an audience. It shows just how far Blackburne has fallen from the path of science and inventing. Gallaher’s story is heavy, cramming a lot of plot into the book and Steve Ellis does a good job keeping it moving along.

Levitz practically pioneered the six or seven part storyline in super-hero comics but he seems to have forgotten that you need to focus on the characters to give the story its purpose. Maybe he needs to go back and read “The Great Darkness Saga” and see how it’s supposed to be done.

The best part of Flashpoint: Frankenstein and the Creatures of the Unknown #1 may just be that Lemire and Roberson wisely ignore that first part of the title, "Flashpoint."  There's nothing linking this issue to DC's mega, continuity changing series.  Lemire and Roberson don't feel like they're creating a continuity-heavy tie-in book.  They're just writing and drawing the first issue of a three issue miniseries.

With Golden riding shotgun, Mignola puts all the familiar elements of his stories that we're used to in this book but the book never feels as frantic or adventurous as most of his stories usually do.  This book, following Baltimore on his quest to find the vampire that killed his family is much sadder than most of Mignola's stories are.  Baltimore's tale isn't one of adventure or destiny or even the day-in/day-out workings of fighting monsters; it's the story of one man trying to atone for his sins and that gives it a different feel than almost anything else that Mignola has done.

While Warren has his fun poking at the sexuality of superheroes who run around dressed as animals (could he be right that this borders on bestiality?) and anime fan service pointing out how Maidman's outfit is perfect for panty shots, this comic is disappointingly light on the tease and really doesn't have of anything beyond the story.

Larsen's art in this issue looks easy and fun. It looks like Larsen has fun drawing in a way that too many other artists don't. Each page is exciting and pure as Larsen gets out of his own way and lets the story happen. He's a natural storyteller as there doesn't appear to be much effort put into the book yet the story is tight and well done.

Riley is trapped in the world that he longs to regain and the world that he's stuck in. Brubaker and Phillips give him a lovely moment of clarity at the end of this first issues when the two worlds collide in a dream sequence. As he sees his past, not just as memories but as something that can be regained, Brubaker gives Riley a perfect moment of dark humor, a near perfect cliffhanger that lets you know just what Criminal: The Last of the Innocent is going to be about.

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It’s been a while for one of these.  While activity here at the Wednesday’s Haul base camp has been fairly dormant lately except for a review of the Thor by Walt Simonson omnibus, I’ve been active at Newsarama while being a major slacker at Popdose.  Only now as I’m trying to put this together am I realizing that I went all of May without having anything over there.   I’ve got 2 or 3 things for that site, hopefully one that will make Johnny Bacardi happy once I better wrap my mind around one of his favorite books.

(Below you can click on the links to be taken to the full review)

So just this week over at Newsarma, I wrote a bit about Cullen Bunn, Shawn Lee and Matt Kindt’s The Tooth, a book that I had a great deal of fun with.  

“While maybe not as intense as either of those stories, The Tooth, a comic that only children raised on Steve Gerber, Man-Thing and a heavy dose of Stan Lee-inspired prose, could create and could love, provides the same thrills with extra doses of pure charm and fun. This is the comic that you wish you made when you were in 4th grade.”

And then there was the mess that was Green Lantern: Emerald Warrior #10:

“Remember when the Red Lantern Corps first showed up and all they did was vomit red age? That was the extent of their power: to be really, really angry and to vomit up red blood. Got that picture back in your mind? If it helps, the only truly memorable member of that Corps was a little, cute kitty cat who could puke rage with the best of them. Now imagine a whole book like that, puking up all the colors of the rainbow for twenty-some pages. Well, the good news is that you don't have to imagine it because Peter Tomasi and Fernando Pasarin give you that book and technicolor vomit in Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors#10.”

At least that week also gave us the collection of the excellent DV8: Gods and Monsters by Brian Wood and Rebekah Isaacs.

“Maybe as kids it's too easy to just become something like friends with the people that you're thrown together with. Maybe it's too easy to become comfortable with them and yourself until you're pushed into new experiences and have to try to figure out who you really are. Those are the kind of stories that Brian Wood is so great at telling, where the characters have to figure out if they're going to remain as kids and immature all of their lives or whether they're going to take on some kind of responsibility and become an adult. With this book, he blends that journey with super powers and creates the superhero equivalent of Lord of the Flies. There's a lovely sense of foreboding hanging over this book as you just know that these kids are completely unable to make the right decisions.”

And if superheroes aren’t your thing, there’s always Disney duck books like Boom Studios’ Walt Disney Treasury Donald Duck Volume 1.

“There are more than jokes to Rosa's stories though. Two entertaining stories show how well Rosa is at doing adventure stories with these characters. Spurred on by Scrooge McDuck's need to own everything, Donald and his nephews travel the world in these stories to bring back exotic treasures for their beloved, yet stingy, uncle. Rosa shows that these characters can do more than the jokey short stories that show how silly and simple they are. These adventure stories are rich and exciting, inspired as much by Indiana Jones as they were by Walt Disney.”

And sometimes you just want slice of life manga like Shunju Aono’s I’ll Give It My All Tomorrow:

“In a fascinating and funny dream sequence, the 42-year-old Shizuo ends up arguing with the 32-year-old, 22-year-old, 17-year-old and 15 -year-old versions of himself, moderated by "God," who looks a lot like a hip Buddha-like Shizuo. None of his younger selves can understand why Shizuo made the decisions and gave up everything until the 11-year-old Shizuo shows up and gives the older Shizuo a thumb's up. That's all the justification and approval that Shizuo needs to continue with his dream.”

Of course, you really want to know about Flashpoint #1 even though Flashpoint #2 just came out:

“Brother Adam and father Joe's artwork carry bigger emotional impacts as their lines and cartooning tend to be more expressive. Kubert, particularly here as he's inked by Wildstorm alum Sandra Hope, tends to look more like Jim Lee or Neal Adams, going for a strong realism in his artwork. He is a fantastic superhero artist, carrying through in his art all of the importance and heaviness that any script requires. There's little subtleness in Kubert's work as all of his characters show exactly what they are thinking. It makes for clear and concise artwork that looks strong and heroic but lacks any emotional punch.”

A book that really has struck me how much I’ve enjoyed lately has been Jonathan Hickman’s FF #3.

“FF is a book of mourning. Hickman is not letting his characters feel anything but numb as Reed, Sue and Ben are understandable emotionally drained but their pallor hangs over the ever growing cast that Hickman's assembling right now. There are no emotional highs or lows in FF #3, just a series of events as lost characters try to find and define their lives in a world that none of them wanted. It's not that any of the characters are good or bad in this issue. It's just that they're searching for a purpose, anything to justify where they are in the world right now, whether they've lost a dear brother and friend or whether they've always been defeated by the Fantastic Four and are trying to figure out how to score a victory.”

Sometimes you know just what you’re getting, like ‘Breed III #1:

“Stoner, who transforms into a large hulking demon to fight other demons, is a hero in spite of himself, kind of like Starlin's Dreadstar or Adam Warlock.”

And sometimes you don’t. like David Hine and Shaky Kane’s The Bulletproof Coffin:

“Comic books need to be dangerous again. They need to be full of seditious ideas that create more than simply an audience of consumers. Comic books need to lead the revolution of storytelling and what a better place to begin that revolution than with David Hine and Shaky Kane's subversive The Bulletproof Coffin, a paean to almost every evil and every mind-warping scenario that Dr. Wertham warned us about in Seduction of the Innocent back in the 1950s. After the comic burnings and Senate hearings, comics may have tucked their tails between their collective legs but Hine and Kane kept on producing their EC like books in secret, continuing The Unforgiving Eye, Shield of Justice and Ramona, Queen of the Stone Age for more issues than any price guide is willing to catalog. At least, that's what The Bulletproof Coffin would have you believe.”

Black Dynamite, a great movie but a not-so great comic:

“The odd thing is that we practically got a Black Dynamite comic book last year in Jim Rugg’s Aphrodisiac. Rugg’s book, while it has nothing to do with Black Dynamite, homages the same blaxploitation movies as well as comics from the 1950s to 1970s. The movie Black Dynamite and the comic Aphrodisiac are both as much about the medium of film or comics as they are about the genre of blaxploitation.”

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