Empire by Mark Waid and Barry Kitson - A Comic Book Review

Having read the first issue of Irredeemable and the first couple trades of Incorruptible over the past couple of months, I recently dug out my Empire trade paperback for a reread.

The first two issues of Empire were originally released under the short-lived Gorilla Comics imprint via Image Comics back in 2000. I guess Gorilla Comics didn’t do too well (most of their books were eventually published by other companies), and eventually the rest of Empire was published by DC Comics in 2003.

In the introduction to the trade paperback, writer Mark Waid talks about the genesis of the story. Basically, he woke up on the morning of his twenty-ninth birthday and realized that he had accomplished everything he had ever dreamed of doing before he was even thirty. It was a sobering and frightening moment for him. Faced with an unknown tomorrow, he could only ask himself, “Now what?”

That really encapsulates at least half of what Empire is all about. It’s a man known as Golgoth, a technologically-savvy dictator in a suit of armor he never takes off (think Dr. Doom), who manages to defeat or kill every superhero in his path and subjugate virtually every civilized nation on the planet.

In most superhero comics, villains rarely triumph; usually, even when they do win, it tends to be either temporary (where you know the heroes will regroup and the villains will get their due comeuppance), or a Pyrrhic victory. Even in a hero’s defeat, you know he usually at least gets the moral victory. At best, supervillains can win a battle but lose the war.

So if half of what Empire is about is the question, “Now what?” then the other half is the bleak idea that evil very well can ultimately triumph. Golgoth’s rule is absolute. He’s killed all of the enemies who were powerful enough to be a threat to him. Moral victories don’t matter to him because he’s accomplished the goals he set out to accomplish. There are only one or two significant pockets of human resistance on the entire planet, and they know it’s all futile. Every other vestige of humanity is under Golgoth’s dominion. His weapons are might and fear. With his technological prowess, his weaponry is unstoppable. He even has technology that allows him to teleport. There really is no escape from Golgoth, and Empire establishes a dreadful sense of hopelessness amongst the common man.

Through a minimal amount of dialogue from Golgoth himself, Waid establishes that this despot is fearsome and authoritative, and, to some degree, he even has the right to be somewhat arrogant. Even though he has armies who destroy his enemies, he’s not above entering a fray and sullying his own armored gauntlets with the blood of his opposition. He seems to revel in butchering the soldiers of freedom, and he slaughters people left and right with a sort of mechanical precision. Though he doesn’t gloat like a traditional comic book supervillain madman, and he isn’t prone to bombastic monologues, it’s clear that Golgoth is capable of extreme cruelty and callousness.

Perhaps the only shred of humanity left in him is displayed through the care and attention he pays his teenage daughter, whom he basically treats like a princess locked in a high tower. (Her mother, Golgoth’s wife, died under mysterious conditions years ago.)

Golgoth is a menace, but there’s no one left who has a chance against him. Although he has no real enemies, there’s still a great deal of tension and conflict in the plot. The story of Empire focuses not only Golgoth and his work in conquering the remaining pockets of resistance on Earth, but also on his political and military cabinet. His cabinet consists of a variety of perverse, twisted, and sadistic individuals, though they’re all highly talented at their tasks. Some of them are loyal, but some of them have their own motivations and intentions. Golgoth keeps his cabinet subject to his will by controlling their addiction to the Eucharist, which is a drug that triples one’s strength and speed. (In the middle of the book, there’s a great story about the origin of the drug, which I’ll get to in a bit.)

Waid takes Golgoth, his daughter, and these disparate cabinet members. Waid uses these characters to tell a story about what sort of world it’d be if evil had its ultimate triumph and good men were powerless to resist. Even Golgoth’s antagonists, whether it’s the last few remaining leaders of the resistance or his own scheming and conniving cabinet members, come off as rather impotent. No matter how hard they try or how well they think they’ve planned ahead, Golgoth always seems to be one step ahead.

One of the chapters of the book, “This Time,” is a microcosm of Empire as a whole. This particular chapter takes a break from the overall plot, and focuses on a superhero named Endymion, who seems like your basic Superman analogue. Years ago, after pretty much killing all the other superheroes, Golgoth defeated Endymion, the last superhuman who could stand against him. Though Endymion was thought to be killed, the truth is that he’s been imprisoned in a room, connected to machinery that constantly weakens him and drains his blood to be converted into the Eucharist.

It’s a tale of despair, as Golgoth has a conversation with Endymion, and Endymion recounts the story of Golgoth’s rise to power. What makes this particular chapter stand out is how powerless and impotent the superhero is. In just about any other superhero comic, the hero would somehow find a way. He’d gather the strength to break free. He’d use mind games to mess with the villain’s head. He’d have friends who would bust him out.

Not here. Here, Endymion does his best to use psychological warfare on Golgoth (he tries to sell Golgoth on the idea that Golgoth’s wife didn’t commit suicide, but was murdered), all to no avail. He has no hope of breaking free of his prison. All of his friends and allies are dead; even if they weren’t, the entire planet already thinks he’s dead. In the end, Endymion can’t get free and it’s all he can do to retreat into his own mind to futilely try and escape the pain of the machinery. Golgoth has crushed the spirit of the superheroic ideal.

And that, right there, really sums up Empire to me. It’s a superhero comic where the superheroes have utterly failed. It’s about being so consumed and obsessed with one’s own goals that perception of reality itself is diminished. This is evident in Endymion’s hope to be set free one day so he can avenge himself, his comrades, and the world. Yet it’s a despairing shred of hope because in his dreams he can’t imagine a better tomorrow; all he can do is revisit the past over and over in his own mind, and think about how things could have been different. In his own way, Golgoth himself is so consumed with conquering everything in his way that he isn’t willing to believe Endymion’s theory that Golgoth’s wife was actually murdered all those years ago.

After Endymion lays out his credibly logical theory on why Golgoth’s wife was murdered, he offers to find her killer if Golgoth will set him free. There’s this great sequence of panel-to-panel storytelling where Golgoth just kinda sits there for a while, glaring at Endymion, pondering his words. It sounds plausible that Endymion is absolutely correct. But after thinking it over a bit, Golgoth just says, “You would say anything to be free.” He then gets up, turns away, and teleports out of the room, leaving Endymion trapped and alone. He can’t do anything except hate his enemy so fiercely that he cries.

I love how “This Time” ends on such a downbeat note. It’s weirdly poetic.

The rest of Empire has some good stuff with Golgoth finishing off the rest of the human resistance, the machinations of his cabinet members, and a plot twist involving how his wife really died. I don’t think I’ll spoil the ending too much by stating that the whole thing ends with a little bit more despair than hope. There’s a tragedy in the proceedings, but Golgoth only seems colder than ever. If the typical superhero comic ends with the hero walking into the sunset with more hope in the human condition, or life in general, than ever before, maybe the typical supervillain comic is meant to end with the villain walking into the sunset with more bitterness in his heart than he did at the beginning of the story.

Mark Waid writes some excellent supervillains. There’s been a lot of buzz around Irredeemable and Incorruptible and those comics just reminded me that, in Empire, he’s already written one superb story about a Dr. Doom-like supervillain who stomps all over the world.

I know I haven’t said a whole lot about Barry Kitson’s art. He’s a well-respected artist, and rightly so, especially by Waid himself. I like Kitson’s work for the most part. I think his style can be a bit bland at points, but in terms of craft, it’s hard to really fault him. His panel-to-panel storytelling is clear and conveys all the information you need to know. His facial expressions and his characters’ body language are both well-done. He’s excellent at illustrating action, but he’s also more than capable of depicting the quieter moments and simple conversations.

The design for Golgoth himself is really inspired, capturing the cruelty and the regality of the despot of the world. Some of the designs for the other characters don’t really stand out, and I think some of the uniforms for Golgoth’s new world order are kinda fruity, especially the colors people wear. (Could just be a trope of the superhero genre in general, but I still don’t think the colors look good.) Kitson’s a reliably good artist. He’s nowhere near my list of favorites, but he’s certainly above average and you could do a whole lot worse than him. I’m glad he and Waid have a great rapport, because Empire is better because of his contributions.

Kitson’s overall style is sort of your typical superhero fare, which I think is an interesting choice. Empire is such a dark book that it sort of feels like something is amiss because the art looks like a standard superhero comic. A part of me does wonder how Empire would read if the art were suitably grim, but I do appreciate how Kitson’s art gives the comic a subversive sense of style. It certainly isn’t what it looks like at first glance.

Probably the only thing that really threw me off was how a couple of the later issues contain some uncensored swear words. Some earlier issues had some dialogue where you could tell that a swear word was heavily implied, only to get cut off. It makes me wonder if Waid had more freedom to write once DC picked up the book. Still, it’s a minor tonal shift in the latter half of the book that is noticeable, though it’s not really anything that hinders my enjoyment of the comic as a whole.

I think I’ve read interviews with Waid where he’s stated that he and Kitson, at some point in the future, would like to continue with a sequel to Empire. I’d definitely be interested in seeing how he can take this supervillain tale further. He and Kitson left themselves a few loose ends that I could see leading into a second big story. Still, on its own, Empire does have a satisfying ending, one that feels inevitable but is surprising nonetheless.

Ultimatum by Jeph Loeb and David Finch - A Comic Book Review

There are dumb and pointless, but ultimately harmless, superhero comics and then there’s this travesty. Ultimatum isn’t just a lousy comic book; it’s an insultingly lowbrow piece of filth that should be the poster child for the digital comics movement because no tree deserves to die and be transformed into… this.

On second thought, I’m not really convinced Ultimatum is worth the storage space on anyone’s hard drive, either.

I find this comic very offensive, not because of any sort of underlying message or theme inherent in the text, but because it simply seems to pander to the lowest possible common denominator. It’s like Jeph Loeb thinks his readers are such lazy thinkers that he felt the need to write a pointlessly hyper violent story featuring ill-wrought dialogue and questionable comic book science. I don’t even think I can classify his characters as one-dimensional; they’re more like half-dimensional.

Ultimatum’s supposed to be this major story event that changes the status quo of the entire Ultimate universe. I guess it did its job in that regard, seeing as how the Ultimate Comics line has been rebranded over the past year or two. But that doesn’t make it a readable comic in and of itself.

Ultimatum sort of starts off as a follow-up on Ultimates 3, which I read chunks of and also thought was absolutely horrible, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Let me mention right now that I don’t have a personal vendetta against Jeph Loeb. I certainly don’t wish any ill on the man and, if he were to read this review of his work, I would hope he doesn’t try to hire a professional hitman or someone and destroy me, despite my vitriol for his work. While I don’t think Jeph Loeb has done anything good in years, he did write the screenplays for Teen Wolf and Commando, two rather entertaining and amusing movies. And I know he’s capable of writing decently good comics; Challengers of the Unknown and Superman: For All Seasons are both fun reads from what I remember.

Anyway, back to Ultimatum. Like I was saying, it seems to follow-up on some points left over from Ultimates 3, and broadens the scope of everything so as to include all the major players (and a number of minor ones) in the Ultimate universe.

I guess by the end of Ultimates 3, a bunch of stuff had happened to tick off Magneto in a major way. Scarlet Witch had been assassinated and Quicksilver seemed to have been killed by Hawkeye. Then, in the last couple of pages, Doctor Doom was revealed to be the sinister mastermind who secretly manipulated all of the events of the story. If Doom had facial hair, he surely would have been twirling his curly mustache. (The secret mastermind is one of Loeb’s go-to tropes in his writing. He’s done similar stuff in a lot of his other comics, like Batman: Hush, Spider-Man: Blue, Batman: The Long Halloween, Batman: Dark Victory, and maybe some others that I’m forgetting right now.)

Ultimatum begins when some catastrophic stuff happens to Earth. Apparently, Magneto has shifted the planet’s magneto poles and kicked Earth of its axis. Therefore, as it says on the trade paperback’s back cover copy, “Eastern Europe is frozen over in a new Ice Age. The Amazon is on fire with volcanic eruptions. A massive tidal wave drowns Manhattan.”

I’m not a physicist, but I’m reasonably sure that even the comic book science involved in the premise of these catastrophes is somewhat faulty. I mean, even if all that stuff could somehow happen, why would the massive tidal wave strike Manhattan only once? In the story, there’s just one giant tidal wave that hits one borough of New York City. Why wouldn’t the entire eastern seaboard simply be completely drowned under water? I don’t understand that.

Not only that, but Magneto is shown to be able to basically move the entire planet off its axis with minimal effort. He’d never exhibited such power levels before, so why is he suddenly able to do so now? It all reeks of lazy storytelling.

Speaking of which, why is Doctor Doom depicted almost exactly like his 616 counterpart? When Warren Ellis created the Ultimate version of Doom back in the early days of Ultimate Fantastic Four, Doom was depicted as a vile creature, with hands like talons and legs like those of a goat. Now he just looks normal, and there’s no explanation for it. Was David Finch just too lazy to look at the original model, or did I miss the story where they explained this?

Also, what happened to Thor? All of a sudden, he’s talking in that Stan Lee-style, faux-Shakespearean dialect. And Mjolnir is no longer drawn as that giant axe/hammer thing that Bryan Hitch brilliantly designed. Instead, it looks exactly like the 616 Mjolnir. Again, did I miss a storyline where all of this was reconciled? Also, I can understand that Magneto has somehow gained possession of Mjolnir, how is he able to lift it? Is the Ultimate Mjolnir just a normal weapon without any enchantments?

For that matter, what’s up with the Ultimates’ costumes? I know that Joe Madureira gave some of them a new look in Ultimates 3, but why? I never understood the point of making the Ultimates look and act more like the traditional Avengers. Part of the appeal of the Millar/Hitch Ultimates was that it took place in a world that felt a little grittier and more like the “real” world.  Joe Mad (and Loeb, I presume) were the ones who first started to make the Ultimates feel like the red-headed stepchild of the 616 universe. Talk about a fall from grace.

Now, David Finch’s art isn’t as bad as Joe Mad’s. To tell the truth, though, I’m having a tough time thinking of an artist who’s actually worse than Joe Mad. Still, Finch uses the same unattractive designs that Joe Mad came up with and that’s why I have to read this comic where Hawkeye looks like a poor man’s purple Grifter, Giant Man looks almost exactly like the 616 Giant Man, the Wasp is no longer Asian, and none of the teenagers actually look like teenagers.

(Can someone tell me why the Wasp suddenly stopped being Asian? Well, at least Ultimate Nick Fury’s still black.)

There are a lot of things I don’t like about Finch’s art. Don’t get me wrong; I’m well aware that he is a very popular artist and there’s a reason he’s a big name.  He has a very commercial style, one that seems to appeal to those who grew up on ‘90s Image-era art (and the stylings of Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri, Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane, and the like). His action scenes are furious and gritty. His supermen are broad-shouldered, buff, rippling piles of musculature. His women are large-breasted, with thin waists, and pretty much all curves. I get that a good portion of comics fans love his style.

But that doesn’t mean it’s good artwork. I really don’t like how everything is drenched with unnecessary crosshatching. People’s biceps have way too many lines. Their foreheads and brows are coated with ridiculously unattractive amount of furrows. Thick veins are popping out everywhere.

Finch’s characters only have two expressions: They’re either stone-faced sullen, or they’re raging mad. As a result, his scenes that involve characters doing anything other than fighting are particularly lackluster. Everyone stands around posed unnaturally. It’s like Finch draws everything to be a poster. That might be fine for the occasional splash page or fight scene, but it’s just not good storytelling in terms of panel-to-panel continuity and emotional resonance. I find myself extremely bored looking at most of his pictures.

I also think it’s funny how, in some of the extras in the back of the trade, we see some of Finch’s penciled pages. There’s this one page of Carol Danvers meeting Iron Man and Cap in a hospital, and he originally drew her with her 616 Ms. Marvel mask. In the actual printed page, she doesn’t have a mask. I think that kinda sums up David Finch. He’s more passionate about the superheroic aspects of the story rather than any other personal or emotional aspect.

To be fair, I have to point out that Finch does draw one of my favorite pictures of Hela near the end of issue two. (However, Thor’s arms in the foreground have a disgusting amount of extra lines.) It’s probably my favorite David Finch drawing, other than one of his Sentinels during his Ultimate X-Men run with Brian Michael Bendis. It doesn’t necessarily fit the style of the Ultimates that I felt Bryan Hitch had established so nicely, but out of context, it’s not such a bad drawing.

Now, I can stomach lousy artwork if the story’s any decent. I thoroughly enjoyed the latter half of Bendis’ Ultimate X-Men run, and Finch penciled that. Jeph Loeb, clearly, is no Brian Bendis.

There are a lot of problems with the writing. I’ve already mentioned some of the sillier aspects of the premise. The details of the story aren’t much better.

In the first issue, when the tidal wave hits Manhattan, a number of characters die right off. Cap and Iron Man manage to survive and they both seem fine, but, inexplicably, in the second issue Iron Man is racing an unconscious Cap to a hospital. It’s baffling.

I have no idea whether or not the tie-in issues in the Ultimate line’s regular lineup touched on the emotional impact of the deaths. I haven’t read the tie-ins. I can only judge Ultimatum itself. I have to say that here, the deaths feel completely meaningless and pointless.

True, in real life, death often can feel meaningless and pointless. But that’s not the way you want to convey death in a work of fiction. There are ways to convey the idea and emotions of a senseless death to the other characters in the story, but you don’t want the reader to feel that what he just read was pointless.

As such, a lot of Ultimatum simply feels like Loeb’s just clearing the deck of various characters. Beyond the simple shock value, there doesn’t seem to be any reason behind why certain characters are killed, often in absurdly violent fashion.

There’s the infamous scene in which the Blob eats the Wasp’s guts and organs, and Hank Pym retaliates by growing to giant-size, grabbing the Blob, and chomping his head off. Pym then takes Wasp’s chewed corpse and thinks he can still save her. It sounds like something that could be a parody, but Loeb and Finch play it completely dead serious, like they’re actually aiming at genuine gravitas. The results are unintentionally comedic!

When Magneto kills Professor X by snapping his neck, the Professor lies in a pool of his own blood. Granted, I’ve never seen anyone get his neck snapped before, and I’m no expert on anatomy, but should there really be that much blood after a snapped neck?

There’s a lot of unnecessary gore and violence in this comic.

Carol Danvers uses an assault rifle and blows holes in a bunch of Multiple Man’s dupes. Hawkeye shoots arrows through people’s eyes. The X-Men find the x-ceptionally bloody corpses of their comrades. Giant Man explodes, his skeleton scattered all over the water. Dr. Strange is choked in his own sash to the point where his head explodes and the rest of his body plops onto the ground from sixty feet.

In Valhalla, Cap and Thor hack through an unceasing mob of the undead, who all happen to spurt and gush blood with every chopped limb. (For that matter, isn’t Valhalla supposed to be a majestic hall for the souls of dead warriors? In Loeb and Finch’s Ultimate Universe, it’s just a dreary place ruled by Hela and filled with a zombie army. Also, there’s no background, which must have helped Finch have the time to draw all those extra sinews on those zombies’ biceps.)

Sabretooth bites Angel’s wings off. Wolverine eviscerates Magneto’s guts out. Magneto retaliates by forcing Cyclops and Iron Man to shoot all the fleshy bits off of Wolverine before he uses his magnetism to completely disperse his adamantium skeleton. It’s all very juvenile.

You also have to love how, for the final battle against Magneto, Nick Fury assembles a hit squad of Cap, Iron Man, Cyclops, Wolverine, Hawkeye, Marvel Girl, Angel, Valkyrie, and Storm. Really? Nick Fury (whom Reed Richards and Dr. Doom retrieved from an alternate universe – it sounds stupid, and it is, so the less said about it, the better), the greatest and most brilliant tactical strategist in the entire Marvel multiverse, plans an assault against the Master of Magnetism and assembles a team with a guy who uses a metal shield, a guy who uses a metal suit, a guy who uses metal arrows, a chick who uses a metal sword, and a guy with a metal skeleton and metal claws? Really? I’m a bit shocked that Colossus wasn’t part of the team. And after all the times the X-Men have faced Magneto, you’d think Cyclops would wear a plastic visor… but nope.

The ending is also a really cheap copout after all the havoc Magneto wreaked throughout the story. After killing half the world for revenge and mutant pride, Fury tells Mags that homo sapiens created mutants in a laboratory. Booya! Mags’ world is totally shaken! Everything he knew was a lie! A lie! And he believed it! So after he learns the truth, he fixes the earth’s axis in three panels and then asks for forgiveness. Cyclops demolishes him with an optic blast. (Aren’t his optic blasts concussive force beams? How come they completely disintegrated Magneto’s face? I don’t understand comic book science!)

A few pages later, in the epilogue, Cyclops is giving a speech when he gets assassinated. (With a completely gratuitous blood splatter! Almost as gratuitous as my use of parentheses! And exclamation marks! Jeph Loeb, look what you’ve done!)

The Thing then pays Dr. Doom a visit and crushes his head with one hand. “You hadda pay for what you did,” Ben Grimm says, grimly. Did you see what I did there? Jeph Loeb would have been proud at my mastery of the obvious.

At the end, Quicksilver is revealed to have survived Ultimates 3. In typical Jeph Loeb fashion, Quicksilver, or rather some mysterious shadowy woman, is the TRUE mastermind of Ultimatum! What a cliffhanger.

What a horrible comic. Still, it’s worth reading, just once, so you can get a feel for what a truly terrible comic feels like when it assaults your senses. Ultimatum is exactly the sort of shameful, puerile superhero drivel that sets the genre back to the point where you question whether people who brush off comics in general as "kids' stuff" have a legitimate point.

Quick Comics Reviews 6

El Diablo by Brian Azzarello and Danijel Zezelj – Originally published during the early run of 100 Bullets, El Diablo taps into a similar twisted bleakness. Like Johnny Double before it, El Diablo is based on an old DC Comics character. Here, Azzarello gets the chance to give El Diablo a bit of a spitshine by injecting a healthy dose of noir attitude into this western. In this story, El Diablo is more of an unknowable force of nature than a character. The protagonist is a guy named Sheriff Moses Stone, a former bounty hunter with a shady past, who is out to track down one mean hombre of an outlaw. Somehow, El Diablo is tied up into Stone’s dark past.

This is a great read. It’s more complicated than you’d expect from what was originally a four-issue miniseries, but this is Brian Azzarello here. El Diablo certainly warrants multiple readings. It’s a rather dense noir western tale about death and tragedy, so how can you not love that? Zezelj’s art really works. He uses a lot of thick lines and alternates between packing a lot of detail into panels and designing cleaner panels. Sometimes things get murky, but I think this just adds to the denseness of the comic as a whole. Sometimes people don’t like it when art is confusing, and I can certainly agree with that. Still, I do think there’s a difference between lousy storytelling and intentional chaos. Just look at some of Chris Bachalo’s stuff and you can see that he likes the intentional chaos. Zezelj’s art isn’t as wild as Bachalo’s, but I do think it forces you to kind of slow down the pace a bit, which is a pretty cool trick of the trade.

Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli – This book deserves all the acclaim it’s garnered. It is an amazing piece of comics art. The title character is a fifty-year old architect/professor who, due to forces of nature, is forced out of his home and ends up soul-searching and reflecting on his past as he moves to a new town. A good chunk of the story is told through flashbacks as we learn more about Asterios and who he is and how he came to be. Thematically it’s rich. It touches upon Greek tragedy and philosophy, dualism, art, arrogance and pride, life and death, regret and optimism, and so much more. It’s really one of those comics you can read many times and continue to glean something new with each successive reading. I love how layered it is, yet it’s not one of those pretentious comics where the creator’s just out to prove how amazing and intellectual he is. Asterios Polyp has genuine emotion at its core, and the protagonist undergoes a legitimate journey of progress. I love the ending, too. It’s hugely satisfying.

Most people probably know of Mazzucchelli due to his art on two of the most influential superhero comics of all time: Daredevil: Born Again and Batman: Year One, both of which were written by Frank Miller. Those two books are rightful classics, but I also want to point out his indie work in the years since. His adaptation of Paul Auster’s novel City of Glass is one of those comics that someone could claim is one of the ten greatest North American comics ever and I wouldn’t bother trying to debate that. Mazzuchelli’s artwork in Asterios Polyp doesn’t really look anything like his work on Daredevil or Batman, but his level of craft is immaculate, and some of his ideas and his execution here could be considered groundbreaking. This is one of those comics that I think people will study years from now. You can learn so much about the form from it.

Asterios Polyp definitely deserves my highest possible recommendation.

The Amazing Spider-Man: The Gauntlet v. 2 – Rhino and Mysterio by Dan Slott, Fred Van Lente, Joe Kelly, Max Fiumara, Marcos Martin, Javier Pulido, and Michael Lark – I haven’t been consistently reading Amazing Spider-Man since it One More Day ended and Marvel revamped the series with its thrice-monthly release schedule. I’ve read a handful of trade paperback collections, though not in any particular sort of reading order. I appreciate what Marvel’s been trying to do with this title and if I were still inclined to buy single issues every week, I could see how Amazing could be an addictive experience. Reading these trades, however, makes me feel rather critical because the actual quality of these comics varies wildly from issue to issue, which is never good when reading a single collected edition.

It’s sort of like a football team that doesn’t have a featured running back who gets the bulk of the carries throughout the course of a game. Sometimes a team doesn’t really have one legit starter, so the team just rotates three guys in and out throughout, hoping they stay fresh and that the constant changes keep the opponent’s defense off-balance.

Comic books don’t really work that way. Or if there has been a series that’s pulled that off, I can’t think of it right now.

This Spider-Man-by-committee succeeds in giving readers a steady, consistent dose of Amazing, but I can’t say everyone in their creative stable lives up to the top billing that The Amazing Spider-Man rightfully deserves.

In The Gauntlet volume 2: Rhino and Mysterio, we get some excellent stories written by Joe Kelly featuring the Rhino. We also get some really mediocre comics about Mysterio (with some stuff about Silvermane, the Maggia, and Mr. Negative) written by Dan Slott. Fred Van Lente chips in with a couple of origin stories, each of which feature the aforementioned supervillains.  Max Fiumara’s art in Joe Kelly’s stories is serviceable, but compared to the truly wonderful art of Marcos Martin (and Javier Pulido) in the Mysterio arc, it isn’t as appealing. Michael Lark draws on of Slott’s issues, too. If only the artists had been switched around.

All in all, I wasn’t impressed by this collection. The Joe Kelly issues are ace, though; I really like what he’s done with the Rhino’s character. He gives the Rhino a memorable voice and the heart of the character even feels consistent with Peter Milligan’s indelible “Flowers for Rhino” story back in Tangled Web some years ago.

Slott’s issues are middling. They seem to focus more on the larger, overall plot of the series (which is meaningless to me, as I haven’t read everything to keep up, and this didn’t make me interested enough to start caring). There are some things I don’t like about Slott’s writing. I’m tired of how many times he has Spider-Man tell us that his Spider-Sense is tingling, and I’m just not down with the incessant, melodramatic chatter that goes on during action sequences, or when characters narrate their actions.

He also portrays Spider-Man as a bit of a jerk, as someone who uses his friends to do stuff for him, and who feels okay with playing the field when it comes to women. I get that most people probably wouldn’t think twice about that, but there’s a part of me that just feels like Spidey should be one of the last bastions of the wholesome superhero. It’s disappointing, and while Kelly’s issues are enjoyable, the package as a whole is forgettable.

The Amazing Spider-Man: The Gauntlet v. 3 – Vulture and Morbius by Fred Van Lente, Greg Weisman, Mark Waid, Tom Peyer, Joe Kelly, and various artists – The third installment of The Gauntlet isn’t a whole lot better than the second. Morbius only shows up for half an issue, which is misleading based on the title. Paul Azaceta does some nice art for a two-parter written by Waid and Peyer featuring the new Vulture. It’s decently-executed, but again, lacks a satisfying resolution. I suppose that’s something more noticeable when reading the trades, as opposed to weekly installments of a serialization. I also thought it was a little overly melodramatic the way J. Jonah Jameson goes out of his way (holding a press conference, no less) in order to humiliate Peter Parker on a professional level, especially when Peter’s intentions were good. I know Jameson is supposed to be a jerk, but I felt that this was some unnecessarily melodramatic overreaction on his part. It’s rather artificial, as though the writers are just trying to pile dogcrap on Spidey just to show us that he’s got it that bad in life.

Tom Peyer does write a fun little Jameson short story about a wannabe villain kidnapping him. It’s a pretty silly story, but fun and true-to-character. Greg Weisman (the Gargoyles guy, I believe) contributes a realistic issue about Flash Thompson dealing with losing his legs from the war in the Middle East. It’s surprisingly heartfelt, and probably one of the more interesting subplots going on in the series. Joe Kelly and Max Fiumara also do a one-off issue with the Rhino that serves as a tragic epilogue to their story from the previous volume. That’s the sort of sad-sack Spider-Man story that really works, (especially compared to how things are handled in the Vulture story) because it all flows so naturally from the characters and situations they face.

Ultimately, the Spider-Man-by-committee approach makes for some rough trades. Not every story is an Adrian Peterson. If I could find all of the Joe Kelly issues in a quarter bin somewhere, I’d pick them up. Otherwise, I can live without owning these books.

Level Up by Gene Luen Yang and Thien Pham – Level Up is a well-done coming of age tale about an Asian-American young man whose addiction to videogames makes it tough for him to live up to the expectations his parents have for him to become a doctor. These are some themes that Yang excels in communicating, as evidenced by his award-winning American Born Chinese comic from a few years back. Don’t think that Level Up is a rehash, though, because this comic has its own soul. It’s realism mixed with a bit of magical realism, as the main character communes with four silly little angels who poke and prod him on his way through life and med school. Pham’s watercolor-style art is attractive and his facial expressions and body language are superb. There’s humor, drama, sincere emotion, and actual character growth throughout Level Up. The ending is brilliant.

Two-Step by Warren Ellis and Amanda Conner – Warren Ellis did a string of three-issue miniseries in the early 2000s, and they all had some really sharp high concepts. Two-Step’s high concept: “A weird romance with guns in three issues. He’s a Zen Gangster. She’s a wirehead camgirl. They don’t fight crime.” That right there tells you all you need to know. Taking place in a madcap, insanely multicultural and sci-fi London, Two-Step is full of rowdy action set pieces and Ellis’ blisteringly pithy witty dialogue. Heartily recommended to anyone who has a pulse.

Quick Comics Reviews 5

Incorruptible volume 1 by Mark Waid and Jean Diaz – I’d heard plenty of good things about this series and Irredeemable. I’ve only read the first issue of Irredeemable, and even though Incorruptible is sort of the sister title to that series, the first volume is a good introduction to the story. Irredeemable is about the Plutonian, a Superman-like being who turns out to be a psychopath, turning on Earth, and just unleashes the full force of his wrath upon the planet. Incorruptible is sort of about the opposite: A supervillain decides to become a superhero so somebody can stand up to the Plutonian. It’s an unusual perspective for a superhero comic, and Mark Waid is a reliably talented superhero writer. He does a good job building the world and setting up the backstory and characters.

It actually feels like Incorruptible isn’t a spin-off series because it stands on its own so well. The artwork, however, is rather bland and inconsistent. One of the characters is supposed to be a sixteen-year old girl named Jailbait, but she doesn’t look like a kid, and sometimes the artist gives her freckles, and sometimes he doesn’t. The character designs aren’t very inspiring, either. Despite all this, Diaz still tells Waid’s story clearly. This is an expensive trade paperback, though. For four issues, this trade costs seventeen bucks. I get that Boom! is a smaller publisher, but I just can’t justify paying retail for this book. I’m interested in seeing where Waid takes this story, but right now it doesn’t feel like an essential must-read.

Empire State: A Love Story (Or Not) by Jason Shiga – This piece of semi-autobiographical fiction is about an Asian-American post-college grad named Jimmy who lives in Oakland. His best friend is a Jewish girl named Sara, but she hates Oakland and moves to New York City to have a life. Jimmy ends going through a bit of a funk before he decides to take a cross-country bus to meet up with Sara and confess his love for her. It’s an earnest comic that never degenerates into any pretentiousness or self-indulgence.

The honesty of Jimmy and Sara’s friendship feels real and the story excels at evoking feelings of nostalgia and logic simultaneously. Shiga effectively conveys the sense of hope that Jimmy feels for Sara, but it’s tempered by a realistic understanding of how to handle disappointments in life, so the story never feels wishy-washy, but grounded. The seemingly simplistic artwork belies rather masterful storytelling craft. Throughout the comic, Shiga uses negative space and layouts that really serve to control the pace of the story. Using negative space can often be difficult to execute properly (a lot of times, this comic book storytelling tool can be used for no real discernible purpose) but Shiga does it well. The duotoned colors impart emotion and mood into the scenes, and his characters’ eyes are particularly expressive. This is a fantastic piece of work, and a great read for anyone interested in straightforward good stories. I highly recommend Empire State.

Superman: Earth One by J. Michael Straczynski and Shane Davis – Imagine a story about a young, unsure Clark Kent, fresh out of junior college, newly moved to Metropolis, trying to decide what to do with his life. He’s grown up with solid American values but hasn’t decided to become Superman yet. Then an alien armada invades Earth, looking for him, and he ends up putting on the costume and beating them to save the day. Well, you don’t have to imagine that story because JMS and Shane Davis have given it to us.

What’s the point of this? Is there really any purpose for yet another Superman origin story? This comic doesn’t do anything to make me appreciate Superman more. It doesn’t have anything noteworthy to say about Superman or the Superman mythos that we haven’t already read before. Even all that isn’t unforgivable, but this book doesn’t even have an interesting plot. I also don’t like how some of the characters sometimes talk out loud to themselves when no one else is around. Why not use thought balloons or narrative captions instead? Shane Davis’ art is horrible, too. From his uninspired designs (the primary villain looks like The Crow with metal death wings) to his overreliance on thin lines and cross hatching, Davis gives Earth One a really mediocre style. He doesn’t do a good job handling facial expressions or body language, and seems more suited to drawing middling fight scenes. The panel-to-panel storytelling is marginal at worst, merely adequate at best. His work here reminds me of a homeless man’s Jim Lee.

I also feel obligated to point out how badly Davis failed in illustrating a scene where Clark tries out for Metropolis’ pro football team. Not only does he fail in drawing the proportions of the players on the field, he seems to lack a complete understanding of football as a sport. The players are wearing seemingly random numbers (numbers should be assigned based on position) and Davis draws them haphazardly all over the field with no sense of how football is played. It’s the fudging of details like this that really show the lack of serious attention the creators put into making this book. Skip this and read Mark Waid’s and Leinil Yu’s Superman: Birthright instead, if you feel you must read a modern Superman origin story.

Amulet Book Three: The Cloud Searchers by Kazu Kibuishi – The third volume of the series continues the nice level of quality of the previous books. Heroine Emily and her unlikely band of rebels and misfits go on a journey in search of a fabled lost city that floats in the clouds. She gains some new unruly allies and a dangerous new foe. Kibuishi keeps the story flowing along, striking a nice balance between humor, action, and quiet moments. The artwork, as usual, is breathtaking and I think one of the nicest things I can say about Amulet in general is how well it’s able to kindle that sense of adventure in anyone’s imagination.

Gen 13: I Love New York by John Arcudi and Gary Frank – In this run of stories from the mid-nineties, Arcudi and Frank take the established premise of Gen 13 (a team of superpowered teens on the run from shadowy government agents) at the time and make it readable. I think anyone reasonable can look back on just about any of those early nineties Image books and see how shallow those efforts are. Gen 13, when it was first created, didn’t have a whole lot going for it other than the fact that J. Scott Campbell (whose art I particularly disdain) would draw all these unbelievably big-breasted teenage chicks in varying states of undress. I guess they knew their audience back then.

By the time Arcudi and Frank came aboard, I suppose Image (or WildStorm, at least) started to realize how badly the stories sucked and wanted to improve. Thus, we had Warren Ellis (who also did a couple of giant-sized issues of Gen 13) on Stormwatch and Alan Moore on WildC.A.T.s. Gen 13 never reached the heights of Stormwatch or WildC.A.T.s, but this was definitely a step in the right direction until Adam Warren took over the book. I Love New York takes the kids out of their usual digs in San Diego and brings them to the Big Apple where they continue to elude the people on their trail. It isn’t anything revelatory but it’s a competent superhero comic with nice art, which is all you can ask for sometimes. I don’t think it’s anything you need to go out of your way to look for, but reading it doesn’t feel like a complete waste of time, either.

Avengers Academy volume 1: Permanent Record by Christos Gage and Mike McKone – I’ve enjoyed just about every Christos Gage comic I’ve encountered. Avengers Academy is a fairly straightforward teen superhero comic. It actually reminds me a bit of The Intimates, only far less subversive and more conventional. Avengers Academy is about a team of six teens who are being trained by Hank Pym and a handful of other C-list Marvel heroes to be future Avengers. There’s a nice little twist at the end of the first issue (which is, unfortunately, spoiled on the trade’s back cover synopsis) that adds an interesting element to the teens’ adventures and what being in the academy means. I like McKone’s artwork. His clean style is always appealing when paired up with a good story. Maybe Avengers Academy doesn’t look as good as his art on Teen Titans, but this is still some of his better stuff. All in all, this book is a nice tour through one corner of the Avengers’ section of the Marvel universe. It’s a cool superteen team book with just enough thematic depth and character development to keep me turning the pages. The only misstep was when a guest artist drew one of the issues; it was noticeably mediocre compared to McKone’s issues.

NYX: Wannabe by Joe Quesada, Josh Middleton, and Robert Teranishi – NYX takes place in the New York City of the Marvel Universe and follows a small group of superpowered teens who basically have nowhere to go. It’s a bit darker and more cynical than Gen 13, though. Whereas Gen 13’s characters are generally likeable, and even the uncouth and buffoonish Grunge has a certain charm, I don’t particularly care for any of the characters in NYX. On one hand, I don’t think there’s any intrinsic problem with a story having unlikeable characters. Sometimes, it is to the benefit of the story. However, in NYX, I really don’t see the point of why Quesada chose to portray his characters as insufferable jerks who basically deserve all the cruelty they have to endure. (Or maybe it’s just me, and my own personal biases which taint my view of them.)

NYX is a frustrating book because I think it had so much potential to be something better than it is. If Charles Xavier and Magneto are different sides of the same coin, then the mutant outcasts in NYX are the dirty dollar bills floating in the gutter. These teens are involved in gangs, drugs, prostitution, and all that stuff. It’s interesting that the artwork is so bright and lively because the contents of the story are rather depressing. Quesada’s dialogue can come off as awkward and forced (especially when he writes street lingo), the plot doesn’t really have a satisfying resolution, and, like I said, I didn’t like the characters. Still, NYX might be worth a library read because it’s got an interesting premise and it’s obvious that Quesada was trying to say something with his work. I just don’t think it comes across too clearly, if at all.

Quick Reviews 4

Superman vs. Muhammad Ali (Deluxe Edition) by Neal Adams and Denny O’Neil – For a late ‘70s comic, this is quite readable. The plot and premise are a bit silly, but what do you really expect from the title of the comic? Considering it’s a product of its time, this comic isn’t anything as cringe-worthy as, say, Judd Winick teaming up the Outsiders with John Walsh from America’s Most Wanted. The dialogue is dated and rather melodramatic, but there’s enough sincerity in the story to somehow make it work. It’s a pleasant and uplifting story about two American icons, and any serious analysis of the plot is just kind of unnecessary. Neal Adams’ art is, of course, masterful, and his portrayals of inner city life and extradimensional aliens are each convincing in their own ways. The production values on this hardcover make it a worthy purchase for any old-time fan, and the remastered coloring is mostly well-done. (There are a few spots where the computer effects look out of place.) Your tolerance for absurd plots will likely dictate your enjoyment of this work.

X-Men: Manifest Destiny by Jason Aaron, Stephen Segovia, James Asmus, and various others -  This was a mixed bag. The four-part Wolverine: Manifest Destiny story written by Aaron is great fun and features some clever writing. It’s another story about Logan’s past come back to haunt him, only this time the story takes place in San Francisco’s Chinatown, and Aaron makes what could be a trite exercise in repetition a fresh little chunk of throwback kung-fu action. Segovia’s art looks like a poor man’s Leinil Francis Yu, but I think he’s got plenty of potential to grow and improve. (Yu’s early comics art wasn’t very good, either.) Mike Carey has a character-centric follow-up to some of his earlier X-Men stories, and Asmus writes a couple of fun Nightcrawler stories and a Boom-Boom story (illustrated by Chris Burnham!). Frank Tieri and Ben Oliver turn in a story about Avalanche hiding out in San Francisco that probably won’t mean anything except to the most diehard of Avalanche fans (if they’re actually out there somewhere). All in all this hardcover isn’t worth the price. The Wolverine story would be worth owning on its own, and Carey’s story would be better collected in one of his own X-Men Legacy books. The rest of it just feels like slapdash comics that I could have appreciated more had I found them in a quarter bin.

Superman: The Black Ring by Paul Cornell and Pete Woods – Collecting the first six issues of Cornell’s run on Action Comics, this is a Lex Luthor story where Superman himself isn’t involved. Cornell certainly does an excellent job writing a callously egocentric and cruel Luthor who is also, somehow, an empathetic protagonist. Luthor’s on a quest for ultimate power here, and in Vandal Savage, he has an antagonist who can match up well with him. The story where Luthor meets Neil Gaiman’s Death is tastefully done and develops both characters very well. Pete Woods has got to be one of the finest artists working in DC’s stables, and his work here is among his very best. It’s just a shame the ugly David Finch covers are so misleading.  I really like Woods’ rendition of Mr. Mind –he’s menacing and kinda gross, but also kinda adorable in his own bizarre way. I’d like to read the second half of this story.

Batman: The Widening Gyre by Kevin Smith and Walter Flanagan – Kevin Smith seems to get a lot of hate from comics fans because of his lateness, and I have no idea if these issues were released on a timely basis. (And I don’t care, because I’m all about reading the TRADE, BABY.) He also seems to get a lot of hate for other reasons, as well, like his characterizations of certain established characters. Well, I’ve got no problem with his interpretation of Batman. Here, his Batman is a bit more personable, and less of the unlovable jerk he’s often been portrayed as for the past seven or eight years. Smith’s Batman talks more, jokes around, smiles, falls in love, makes mistakes, and even acts friendly. It still feels like Batman to me. Flanagan’s art has steadily improved from his work on the three-part Cacophony miniseries, as well. As a tour through Batman’s world, from the corners of his JLA adventures to the grimy alleyways of Gotham City, The Widening Gyre is mainly propelled by the notion of Batman finding true love (in Silver St. Cloud, a classic character) and deciding that maybe he doesn’t have to be Batman forever. Of course, as readers, we’re expecting something to go horribly awry, and Smith certainly doesn’t disappoint. The last couple pages of this book are inevitable and really make me want to read the next six issues of this saga. This is a worthy addition to the Batman canon. It’s entirely different from what Grant Morrison’s been building over the past several years, but this is entertaining in its own right.

Wolverine Weapon X volume 2: Insane in the Brain by Jason Aaron, Yanick Paquette, and C.P. Smith – Aaron is rapidly becoming the definitive Wolverine solo writer. (Granted, he doesn’t have much competition, does he?) Still, this is some very good superhero comics. The story starts with Logan being a confused inmate at an insane asylum, and Aaron slowly rolls back the curtain to reveal how he got there. There’s a lot of wicked humor in the story and some absurdity that doesn’t feel out of place at all. We’re just waiting for Logan to rediscover who he is so he can make his tormentor pay. Aaron also follows up on some of the plot threads from his Get Mystique storyarc, as well as the first volume of Wolverine Weapon X. He does a good job balancing balls-out action with quieter, character-driven moments. It all makes for some quality superhero action and drama with some legitimate character development. Yanick Paquette’s expressive artwork is the icing on the cake, and C.P. Smith’s design-oriented art in the epilogue is a wonderful complement to Aaron’s work.

Dark X-Men by Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk – I’ve enjoyed Paul Cornell’s work, but Dark X-Men just felt a bit aimless to me. While there are some good bits in this story, like some clever dialogue and character moments from Mystique, it all ultimately felt like Marvel simply wanted to commission a five-issue story to resurrect and reintroduce Nate Grey, X-Man, to the Marvel Universe. And as a spinoff to the Utopia: Dark Avengers/X-Men crossover, this book really has no relevance to anything beyond it surface. I didn't feel that there’s any real meat to this story other than people in costumes beating up and outmaneuvering other people in costumes. That may all be fine for many readers, and this wasn’t poorly crafted or anything, but it’s ultimately something I’m probably not going to care to read again.

X-Men: S.W.O.R.D.: No Time to Breathe by Kieron Gillen and Steven Sanders – Now here’s something that looks like a throwaway X-Book designed just to cash in on a couple of Joss Whedon’s creations from Astonishing X-Men (with a few John Cassaday covers to boot). But this is actually one gem of a comic. Steven Sanders’ cartoony art is unusual for an X-Book, and he illustrates humor and action with equal aplomb. Gillen’s writing is sharp and witty, and he does a superb job of crafting lighthearted humor with interstellar action to go along with a few zany science fiction ideas here and there (not to mention some friendly shoutouts to the alien characters of the Marvel Universe). Through it all, this character-driven yarn flies at lightspeed. This is comic is very well-executed and worth checking out.

Amulet Book Two: The Stonekeeper’s Curse by Kazu Kibuishi – I’m a few volumes behind on Amulet, but I finally got around to reading the second book. Amulet’s the ideal all-ages comic because its cast of characters appeal to kids, but the story is rich enough that an adult can appreciate it. Amulet’s basically about two kids (and their mom) who get fall into a fantasy world and get involved with talking animals and robots, and they all get caught up in a quest against these dark elven guys. It’s entertaining stuff, and probably one of the nicest fantasy comics I can think of right now. Best of all is Kibuishi’s magnificent artwork; Amulet really does look like an animated film set on paper, but his figure work is emotive and lively. The backgrounds and colors are very impressive, and it’s just a treat to see such an imaginative world brought to life on such a grand scale.

Noir: A Collection of Crime Comics by Various Writers and Artists - An anthology of crime comics published by Dark Horse, this is a pretty decent collection. Like many anthologies, the individual stories themselves can be hit-or-miss. Fortunately, this is a Dark Horse anthology, which means the ratio of hits to misses is pretty favorable. Everything’s in black and white, and that serves the subject matter just fine. Lots of creators contributed to this anthology, but I think in general, the big names were the most successful. My favorite stories are David Lapham’s Stray Bullets story, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ Criminal story, and the Brian Azzarello story that ends the collection (which features art by Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba). The stories are mostly dark and twisted, as you’d expect, although a few of them have cheap twist endings that I don’t think really work, and there were a couple stories I just didn’t care for. As a package, though, this is a nice book to own for the right price.

Necrosha X by Craig Kyle & Christopher Yost, Clayton Crain, Mike Carey, Zeb Wells, and others – I like Clayton Crain’s art. That’s probably the nicest thing I can say about Kyle and Yost’s X-Crossover. Necrosha X (or is it supposed to be X-Necrosha? I never figured it out. I don’t think I care.) just felt like Marvel’s attempt to pull a Blackest Night-type of story, where a bunch of the X-Men’s greatest dead foes and allies come back to life, and everyone has to fight. Lame. The main story takes place in Kyle and Yost’s X-Force issues, and those aren’t good comics. I’ve never liked their comics and this doesn’t change my mind. Everything centers around the plot, and there’s just nothing more to it beyond a bunch of people fighting and trading banter while they fight. Zeb Well’s three-part New Mutants tie-in is just as bad. Taking place concurrently to the main story in X-Force, the New Mutants story was much too long for something so pointless. It’s hard for me to understand how anyone could sincerely enjoy these comics for what they are, as opposed to feeling compelled to read them just because they’re, y’know, X-MEN COMICS!!!. Mike Carey’s four issues are good stuff, though… He manages to take the constraints of the crossover but continue to build on the character development he’s been working on in X-Men Legacy. I wish his issues got their own trade, because this giant 35 buck book ain’t worth it. This trade is padded with a bunch of other issues that explain the backstory of some of the characters involved in the crossover, but none of them are any good and I don’t think they’re worth discussing. Avoid this comic, but read those Mike Carey issues.

Elmer by Gerry Alanguilan – This is the best comic I’ve read in a while. Elmer is about an alternate Earth where chickens have gained human intelligence and the ability to speak, and they basically end up considering themselves to be a race of humans. Alanguilan (yup, the same dude who is probably best known for being Leinil Francis Yu’s inker) does a masterful job building this alternate world, and he does it in a very economical way. On one level, Elmer is science fiction and alternate history story, as we see how society changes at the outset of the moment chickens gain their sentience. That alone is a gripping tale, and touches on all the themes you’d expect, like racism, bigotry, hatred, terrorism, and death. It’s chilling and there are a number of disturbingly unsettling moments as we see how humans react to the chickens. On another level, Elmer is also the story about a chicken named Jake who must deal with his father’s death. Jake reads his father’s journal and learns about the early days of chicken sentience, but also learns a lot about his father, mother, and his parents’ human friend Ben. With universal as well as personal themes, Elmer succeeds as a piece of fiction that makes you think about the broader world around you and appreciate the mundane relationships in your life. Look, I’m just gonna say it: This is a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. Elmer gets my highest possible recommendation.

Beasts of Burden by Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson – This Dark Horse hardcover is a very attractive production. It’s also an exceptional comic book (and an Eisner Award winner!). Beasts of Burden is about a group of dogs (and one cat) who are paranormal investigators in an ostensibly peaceful suburb. They end up dealing with black magic, cannibal frogs, demons, zombie roadkill, animal spirits, killer rats, and all sorts of creepy stuff. As a horror comic, it’s better than most because the horror is based on making you care about these characters, and then putting them into perilous situations. As a talking animal comic, it’s better than most because Evan Dorkin writes with a great sense of humor, but also infuses genuine emotion into the characters. Even though the protagonists are all animals, and they can talk, they still think and act like animals. It’s a subtle thing, but this sort of writing probably takes a lot more thought than most people realize. Jill Thompson’s exquisite watercolors give Beasts of Burden a storybook style, and she seamlessly depicts a world that’s inviting even though there are things in this world that are intensely repulsive. And make no mistake, there are some pretty disgusting things that the animals encounter. She does a fantastic job illustrating animals who are expressive and adorable. With tight plotting, clever scripts, and characters with real personality, Beasts of Burden is something that’s worth owning. I give this comic my highest possible recommendation.