Y: The Last Man #22

May 4, 2004

Quick Rating: Very Good
Title: Widow’s Pass Part Two

Agent 355 sets out to save Dr. Mann from the Sons of Arizona… but who’s going to save her?

Writer: Brian K. Vaughan
Pencils: Goran Parlov
Inks: Jose Marzan Jr.
Colors: Zylonol
Letters: Clem Robins
Editor: Will Dennis
Cover Art: Aron Wisenfeld
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo

Vaughan’s near-epic story about the last man alive continues this issue. As Yorick Brown and Ampersand stay in hiding with a new friend, Agent 355 heads out to rescue Dr. Mann, who is trying to negotiate safe passage to California from the radical militia group The Sons of Arizona. As always happens to our heroes, things quickly spin out of control and even our escape artist Yorick will be hard-pressed to twist his way out of this one.

Vaughan uses several nice elements in this book – a revelation about Dr. Mann that we’ve been waiting for since the first issue, a few funny character moments with Yorick, and a couple of reality checks (it’s just not as easy to knock someone unconscious in real life as it is in the movies). He ties things up with one of his trademark last-page cliffhangers. It wouldn’t be an issue of Y without a last-page cliffhanger. It’s getting to the point where other writers who want to use last-page cliffhangers have to send Vaughan royalty checks.

Goran Parlov, still pinch-hitting for regular artist Pia Guerra, does a fine job on the artwork. It’s easy to make Yorick stand out visually, as he’s the only male character in the book, but all of the artists on this series deserve credit for making so many female characters separate and distinct visually. No one looks like anyone else, and whether that’s because there’s a good blend of ethnicities or because of other tricks like our bald friend P.J., this is one comic book where you don’t need a scorecard to remember who’s who.

There’s not much to say about this comic that hasn’t been said 21 times already. It’s a great, solid adventure story, something really distinct in an artform that seems kind of homogeneous at times. It’s one of the strongest offerings of an already-strong Vertigo imprint, and if you’re looking for a mature tale with a good, meaty story behind it, you just can’t go wrong with this title.

Rating: 8/10

Hellblazer #195

April 24, 2004

Quick Rating: Good
Title: Out of Season Part One

Constantine’s friends hunt for him as his amnesia causes him even more problems.

Writer: Mike Carey
Art: Leonardo Manco
Colors: Lee Loughridge
Letters: Clem Robins
Editor: Will Dennis
Cover Art: Tim Bradstreet
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo

After an encounter with an unpleasant fellow with telepathic tendencies last issue, John Constantine is trying to figure out who he is with nothing but his first name. His large friend is looking for him, a new friend isn’t exactly stable, and his old friends are trying to find him by any means necessary.

This is listed as the first of a two-part story, but it essentially continues from last issue’s quite good “Ward 24” story. Seeing Constantine trying to get by without his usual wit, snarky nature or anything else is new territory for the character, and for someone with 195 issues under his belt, finding something new isn’t easy. He gets into a seriously dangerous position in this issue and is unable to rely on any of his usual tricks, not remembering what they are, and the result is much more perilous than usual without actually making the stakes as high as they often get in a book like this.

Leonardo Manco does a fantastic job with the artwork on this issue. He has a handle on Constantine that actually echoes the rendition of the character done by cover artist Tim Bradstreet. It’s not quite as detailed – but doing the level of detail on a Bradstreet cover for the interiors would virtually eliminate any chance of getting an issue done on time. The facial structure is similar, however, and moreso than it usually is when it’s just different artists trying to draw the same character. It’s as if they used the same model.

Manco’s creepier scenes work well too, with just the right touch of blood and gore interlaced with some pretty normal-looking characters. These guys are still in shape, but unlike some horror comics, there is no character in this title that could be mistaken for a superhero.

With My Faith in Frankie over, this is easily the best title Mike Carey is writing now. He manages just the right mix of horror and potboiler, and that’s something that’s always fun to read when it’s done right.

Rating: 7/10

Swamp Thing (2004 Series) #2

April 10, 2004

Quick Rating: Fair
Title: Bad Seed Part Two

Tefé finds help in strange places, while the Swamp Thing declares his separation from humanity.

Writer: Andy Diggle
Art: Enrique Breccia
Colors: Martin Breccia
Letters: Phil Balsman
Editor: Will Dennis
Cover Art: Enrique Breccia
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo

As Tefé’s body literally gets up and walks out of the morgue, Swamp Thing and Abby share a tender little moment where he announces his disdain for humanity.

While I do enjoy this title more than Andy Diggle’s work on Losers, I have a similarly blasé reaction to it. There doesn’t seem to be anything exciting, anything that pops and makes me want to keep reading. The elemental who hates humankind scheme has been done and done and done some more, and Tefé’s plotline is just plain confusing. I do, however, give Diggle credit for bringing back an old character that was pretty well forgotten – that’s something I’m always in favor of.

Enrique Breccia’s artwork has both its high and low points. He does a fine job with the otherworldly elements like Swamp Thing himself or the reanimated corpse of Alex Hammond. His human characters don’t work as well, though, including a few police with blank faces that look like they were peeled right out of an old John Severin Mad comic book.

This is a book that will mostly appeal to old Swamp Thing fans, and while most people will find something or other to like, the casual reader probably won’t find enough to come back month after month, not necessarily because there’s anything wrong, but because there’s a lot of other stuff out there that’s a lot better.

Rating: 6/10

Y: The Last Man #21

April 10, 2004

Quick Rating: Good
Title: Widow’s Pass Part One

On the long trek to San Francisco, our friends are sidetracked by the Sons of Arizona.

Writer: Brian K. Vaughan
Pencils: Goran Parlov
Inks: Jose Marzan Jr.
Colors: Zylonol
Letters: Clem Robins
Editor: Will Dennis
Cover Art: Aron Wiesenfeld
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo

The long walk across a half-dead America to Dr. Mann’s lab in San Francisco has been made even harder than our friends expected thanks to natural disasters that have gone unchecked and woman-made disasters that force them to divert through Arizona. The road gets bumpy again, however, when Yorick, Mann and Agent 355 encounter a young woman who warns them of the actions of the Sons of Arizona, an ironically-named militia group who has decided that the government was responsible for the mysterious plague that killed all the men on Earth, and are determined to save their home state even at the cost of the other 49.

This is by no means the first time this story has gotten political, but it is a little disappointing to see Vaughan return to the frequent whipping boy of the militia. That said, even though it’s not exactly an original idea, Vaughan handles it very well, giving the whole situation an appropriate sense of menace without going overboard.

The characterization in this book really stands out. Yorick finally learned a lesson last issue about his reckless nature, and that lesson is taking its toll on his emotions and actions. The Yorick that marches into Arizona in this issue is a markedly different young man than the boy who was the only male to survive the enigmatic plague 20 issues ago. He has grown, gotten stronger and matured, and more than anything else in the books, he shows how the world has changed with him.

One thing that has surprised me about this series is how much it has really tuned into a road story. At the outset I expected more of a hardcore sci-fi series with a bit of a horror aspect, but the focus is really about our characters walking across America and showing how much every part of the country was touched by the deaths of all the men. For some reason, that focus really struck me in this issue, even though it’s been a part of the series since the beginning. It’s not what I expected in issue one. I love it, though.

Goran Parlov steps in for Pia Guerra as penciller this issue, and does such a good job that I didn’t even realize we had a guest penciller until I read the credit box to write this review. Knowing it’s a guest artist, I was able to see some small stylistic differences, but Parlov either has a very similar style or he deliberately tried to stay consistent with Guerra’s style and either way, we get an issue that looks very good and doesn’t jar the reader with a drastically different style the way a lot of guest-artist issues do.

While I’m not as crazy about this issue as some of the previous ones, it’s undeniably a solid book that advances the story very well. Y: The Last Man fans will not be disappointed.

Rating: 7/10

100 Bullets #50

June 8, 2004

Quick Rating: Huh?
Title: Prey For Reign

As a bunch of crooks wait for the fallout of a job, one of them tells a story of a long time ago.

Writer: Brian Azzarello
Art: Eduardo Risso
Colors: Patricia Mulvihill
Letters: Clem Robins
Editor: Will Dennis
Cover Art: Dave Johnson
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo

I’m told this book marks the halfway point in this critically acclaimed Vertigo series, and it appears to fill in some needed backstory. However, if you haven’t been reading 100 Bullets – and I haven’t – it’s just going to leave you scratching your head.

A group of criminals called together for a job, Reservoir Dogs-style, sit in a bar and wait for a straggler to arrive or turn up dead. While they wait, one of them begins to tell the others a story of a time long ago when a group of 13 power-hungry men took actions that would place the world in their hands. This of course raises another question, like in the recent 1602, does every comic book title with links to colonial times have to invoke the Roanoke colony? (Yes, I know 100 Bullets was planned out long before 1602, but that doesn’t make the whole thing any less repetitive.)

This is clearly intended to be backstory on the main recurring plot of this series – the mysterious Mr. Graves who gives people guns and 100 untraceable bullets to take revenge on whomever they wish. However, the details and pieces of the puzzle are completely lost on someone like me, who hasn’t really been following the title. It’s a terrible issue if you’re looking for a jumping-on point, but if you’ve been reading the series it’s probably pretty good at filling in some of the gaps you’ve been wondering about.

Risso’s art style was tailor-made for this book. He keeps things dark and gritty, with characters that are basically very realistic, flawed people. His scenes set in the past work well too, employing the same style but translating it to fit 16th century warriors, clerics and explorers.

As confused as I was, I still enjoyed this issue more than any issue of Azzarello and Risso’s “Broken City” run on Batman. This is more the story they are suited to tell, and I’m sure legitimate fans of the book will have much better things to say about it than I do.

Rating: 7/10

Hellblazer #194

March 30, 2004

Quick Rating: Very Good
Title: Ward 24

An amnesiac John Constantine wanders into a hospital where treatment takes a back seat to torture.

Writer: Mike Carey
Art: Leonardo Manco
Colors: Lee Loughridge
Letters: Clem Robins
Editor: Will Dennis
Cover Art: Tim Bradstreet
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo

As uneven and inaccessible as I’ve generally found Mike Carey’s work on Lucifer to be, I get the exact opposite reaction from his Hellblazer series. This is a book I’ve found very easy to jump in and out of, with a well-identified and defined protagonist and clever storytelling. After the cataclysmic events of last issue, Constantine is wandering around wounded and bereft of his memory. He encounters a young, injured girl trying to fish with gummy worms and, in an act of kindness, takes her to a hospital to get help. His own wounds and memory loss land him a bed as well, and he finds himself at the tender mercies of a man who seems to know every dark secret about everyone, and is upset that he can’t read the blank slate Constantine represents.

This issue really sums up what makes Hellblazer work – dark fantasy just this side of outright horror, some mystery elements and a dash of black comedy to keep everything from going completely off the deep end. Carey does a very good job with this character, and hopefully has plans to stick around for some time.

I’d like to say the same for our guest artist, Leonardo Manco. He draws a great Constantine and his entire issue had a good look to it – not totally grim and gritty, but not lighthearted superhero fare either. Drawing Hellblazer is as delicate a balancing act as writing it, and Manco does it better than most I have seen.

People already reading this title will enjoy this issue. People who haven’t been reading it may find it an odd place to jump on, but I think with a little effort and imagination even a non-reader who knows a little about Constantine will be able to fill in the blanks and enjoy this issue… even if our hero can’t.

Rating: 8/10

Y: The Last Man #20

February 28, 2004

Quick Rating: Very Good
Title: Safeword Conclusion

Yorick is at Agent 711’s mercy. So what will she do with him?

Writer: Brian K. Vaughan
Pencils: Pia Guerra
Inks: Jose Marzan Jr.
Colors: Zylonol
Letters: Clem Robins
Editor: Will Dennis
Cover Art: Aron Wisenfeld
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo

I knew there was more to it.

Over the last two issues our hero Yorick Brown, has been drugged and restrained by Agent 711 the woman charged with keeping him safe as his friends left him for a time. She teased him with threats of (and equipment for) some kinky S&M games, but instead she just wound up making him relive some of the most painful memories of his life. This issue we see what Agent 711’s real agenda was, and it’s something completely unexpected, totally logical and incredibly satisfying. In other words, it’s a textbook example of what makes this such a great comic book month after month.

In addition to shedding more light on Yorick’s past, we also get a new mystery thrown at us (in a book that’s already loaded with them). Yorick makes a discovery this issue, but we don’t get to see what that discovery is… I suspect it’s going to be a McGuffin in this series for some time to come. It’s the sort of thing that will drive a character, and will keep the reader coming back to find out what’s going on.

We get a lot of insight into Yorick in this issue, even moreso than in the first two issues of the story arc, and we even go back to the two-part “Comedy and Tragedy” storyline that preceded this one. It seemed a bit of an unnecessary side-trip at the time, but it comes to fruition here at least in a small way, helping to establish Yorick, a character who has been well-established from day one, but who keeps proving he has more layers than the reader even knew.

Pia Guerra is as solid an artist as she has ever been. We get chilling flashback sequences, disturbing water battles and even a few quiet moments in this issue, and she handles them all cleanly and with great talent. This title has been pretty good at getting solid guest artists whenever Guerra takes a little time off, but she owns this book as much as writer Brian Vaughan, and things never seem quite right until she comes back.

This is one of the best sci-fi titles in comics now, and it’s a fantastic mystery as well. There’s no mystery why it’s one of Vertigo’s top sellers every month.

Rating: 8/10

Loveless #1

October 27, 2005

Quick Rating: Fair
Title: A Kin of Homecoming

Wes Cutter finally comes home – to a home he has to fight for.

Writer: Brian Azzarello
Art: Marcelo Frusin
Colors: Patricia Mulvihill
Letters: Clem Robins
Editor: Will Dennis
Cover Art: Marcelo Frusin
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo

I’m glad to see DC taking some chances in the western genre again – I’ve always been a fan and it used to be a staple of the comic book form, so seeing the return of Jonah Hex and this new project by Brian Azzarello are definitely encouraging. That said, after the first issue of Loveless, I’m not sure if I’m seeing anything really new.

Wes Cutter, a former Confederate soldier who waited out the end of the Civil War in a Union prison, returns home to find Yankee soldiers taking up residence in his home. Naturally, he’s not going to stand for that.

Overall, this is a decent first issue, but there are two big problems for me. First of all, there’s the question of what the direction will be for this series. It can’t be a long-term comic about a single ex-soldier fighting for one small plot of land, that story is good for an arc, but not an ongoing series.

Second is the problem of Wes Cutter himself. As a protagonist, he’s something of a cardboard cutout. A former soldier, hardened by war, lost his faith in God and country… we’ve seen it everywhere from the Punisher to Mal Reynolds on Firefly. Wes rides a horse and curses more – aside from that, I don’t particularly see the difference.

If anything makes the book stand out, it’s the artwork. Marcelo Frusin does a really good job here. With heavy inks and a good use of shadows, he also has a good eye for design – the clothing and architecture all feels quite appropriate to the era. The fight scene is very well done, with a series of small, quick panels that give you an idea of Cutter’s skill, even against pretty massive odds Patricia Mulvihillhas a great handle on the colors as well, using a muted palette at some times, and getting a little more colorful in the daylight.

It will take a few more issues to get a feel for the comic book. It has a promising beginning, if the writer can pull himself away from the stereotypes of a western.

Rating: 6/10

100 Bullets #49

March 9, 2004

Quick Rating: Good
Title: In Stinked Conclusion

A band of poachers meet their fate.

Writer: Brian Azzarello
Art: Eduardo Risso
Colors: Patricia Mulvihill
Letters: Clem Robins
Editor: Will Dennis
Cover Art: Dave Johnson
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo

People who read my reviews regularly know that I haven’t been a big fan of Azzarello and Risso’s run on Batman. This book proves that it’s not their style that I don’t like, it’s their style applied to that specific title, because with 100 Bullets they provide a smart crime drama that works on levels that their work on Batman just doesn’t.

This issue concludes the “In Stinked” storyline, about particularly cruel group of poachers having fun with some big jungle cats in their supposed care. Azzarello wisely avoids the temptation to turn the story into any sort of political statement and instead serves up a simple story of betrayal and revenge. While this is the last issue of a story arc, it’s fairly simple to jump in and understand who the players are, who wants to kill who, and who we’re supposed to be rooting for in the end.

Eduardo Risso’s artwork is perfect for this book. If you put an issue of 100 Bullets next to an issue of his Batman, it’s clear that he uses a different style for each title – not drastically different, mind you, but noticeably different. It’s good that an artist is capable of stretching themselves, but Risso is far stronger doing his own thing than he is when he tries to emulate classic Batman artists. Along with good colors by Patricia Mulvihill, they put together a great visual package that compliments the hardcore, angry world that Azzarello has created for this title.

Not being a regular reader of this book, it’s hard to say whether this story arc has advanced the overall plot of the title – looking at the elements I have seen, it doesn’t really appear as though it has. This is not a criticism, mind you, merely a statement of fact – every book deserves the chance to take a little time off from the main storyline and tell sidebars now and then. Next month will be the 50th issue of 100 Bullets – I don’t know if anything big is planned, but this issue has got me interested enough that I may just look into that anniversary issue as well, and any comic book that makes you want to read the next one in the series is a comic book that has done its job.

Rating: 7/10

The Losers #10

March 20, 2004

Quick Rating: Average
Title: Island Life Part Two

The Losers close in on their latest target, and we get more dirt on Max.

Writer: Andy Diggle
Art: Jock
Colors: Lee Loughridge
Letters: Clem Robins
Editor: Will Dennis
Cover Art: Jock
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo

After a fairly entertaining start to this story arc, Andy Diggle gets back to the stuff that makes this title less appealing to me. Conspiracy theory, black ops and some action. To make matters worse, the conspiracy we’re faced with in this issue is pretty stale and overdone. It would have been possible to fit in more clichés, but he would have had to employ either John F. Kennedy or Area 51.

To his credit, Andy Diggle does work in a scene that fills us in on the background of the title. That’s something this book has needed to grab new readers — he wisely uses a “briefing” scene that works perfectly in the context of the book and it helps to bring everybody up-to-date. The problem is, even though we get more of a sense of who the characters are, there’s nothing here that makes us particularly care about any of them. Even in a conspiracy/action comic like this, if you don’t care about the characters you’re pretty much treading water at best.

The action, as I’ve often found with this series, is the best of the title. Diggle writes a good fight scene and Jock draws one. Considering the generally shady nature of this book, both in terms of story and artwork, it would be very easy to get lost in darkness and lose the visual sense of progression, but Jock keeps it clean enough to follow and Lee Loughridge does spot-on colors that set each scene off and never dominates anything.

Overall, though, this book will appeal to its core audience that shares its rather cynical philosophy and alienate others. That’s how I’ve felt about it from the beginning, and I don’t expect it to change.

Rating: 5/10