Miracleman, Moon Knight, New comics

New comics!

Catwoman: Lonely City 1

This is the Catwoman version of Dark Knight Returns.  Set ten years in the future, Selina Kyle is old, just out of jail, and dealing w/ a post-Batman Gotham City where Bruce Wayne’s been dead for ten years.  Cliff Chiang surpasses all of my expectations on both writing and art duties, and on top of it all, Josie Mac shows up!  Looking forward to the rest of this.

Superman: Son of Kal-El 5

Admission: I wanted to cut this last issue, but didn’t want my LCS to think it was because I’m against Superman being in a gay relationship.  Whatever.  This comic isn’t doing anything for me, and his relationship status has absolutely nothing to do with it.  Cutting.  

Miracleman: Apocrypha 1-3

A bunch of more short stories from quite the impressive list of creators, including Neil Gaiman, Mark Buckingham, James Robinson, Kelley Jones, Norm Breyfogle, Matt Wagner, Kurt Busiek, Alex Ross, Darick Robertson…

The stories themselves nothing too stand out, except for the Ross story, which is basically a retelling of Ray Bradbury’s Kaleidoscope:

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice

Moon Knight 1-6

The Warren Ellis/Declan Shalvey issues.  He’s definitely on his back half of his career at this point (2014).  It feels like he’s barely trying.  And yet, it really doesn’t suck.  Suboptimal Ellis is still entertaining.  And the sniper issue (issue 2) is really effective as each victim gets picked off one by one.

The moonblades have such a clean, elegant look.

Moon Knight really has the coolest cape ever.

Edna Mode be damned.

I don't know, he killed the other eight.  Bank doesn't always win.

Plus, I think Shalvey’s the one who came up with the “Moon Knight in a suit” thing (I’m not sure), and it’s a sweet look.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice

Miracleman 4

The missing issue in my Gaiman/Buckingham run came in the mail today.  Eh, not that interesting, but it’s worth filling out the gap.  (Gaiman tells us what happens to Winter after she flies off into space.)  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine

Miracleman, New comics

New comics!

Dark Ages 3

Tom Taylor loves his shock moments.  Here he has Quicksilver snap Okoye’s neck and stab Johnny Storm in the chest.  Even better, it comes in the middle of some great character work.

Nightwing 86

Nightwing and the gang take down a UFO.  It’s great watching them all be uber competent.

Everyone ships them.

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow 5

By the time this is over, this has a chance to be my favorite Tom King story.  This is on Pure Joy levels.  

Miracleman 1-3, 5-6

The Neil Gaiman/Mark Buckingham run.  (The missing issue is in the mail.)  These are a bunch of short stories covering life during the Miracleman Golden Age.  

It took me a couple of issues to realize: These are all Sandman stories.  Swap Morpheus in for Miracleman, and these would fit in perfectly as a Fables and Reflections or World’s End one-issue tale.  They’re not as good (except for the excellent Miraclewoman romance), but it’s kind of neat to see the leap between these issues and Sandman four years later.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good (1), Good (2), Nice (3, 5, 6)

Miracleman

Miracleman 1-16

I’m not sure what to say about Miracleman.  For the longest time, this was infamous (at least to me) as one of those classic comics that was never going to be reprinted due to legal issues.  All the issues were scarily expensive, so the horrors of issue 15, which I’d only heard whispered rumors about, would never reach my eye.  

Then Marvel cut through all of the red tape and finally started rereleasing all of the issues, crediting Alan Moore as “The Original Writer,” since Moore is a grump about everything.  (I don’t know the details, maybe he has a good reason.)  

Early Moore really is a sight to see.  His ideas, while brilliant, seem so obvious once you read them on the page; They just make so much sense and feel so right.  And then they’re all wrapped up in that glorious Moore prose.  

I'm a little surprised that 'hir' hasn't caught on.

Moore predicted the internet age back in the early 80s.

There’s so much here that’s good - The retconned origin story, Gorgunza’s endgame, the creepy baby, Moore’s utopian vision, THAT LONDON ISSUE...I was glued to the comic as I was 

reading it.  

So.  Scary.

Creepy kids are super disturbing to me now.

Something about perverted innocence and all that.

London...

At the end of the day, Warpsmith did all the work.  Miracleman did nothing...

...except snap a kid's neck.  Not that it wasn't justified.

Love that John Totleben does studies.  Very Michelangelo of him.

This cover could pass for David Mack.

There are huge similarities between this and Moore’s Swamp Thing, which came soon after.  The horror undertones, the creepy, ominous narration, the emotionally distant storytelling...They’re basically siblings.  

Anyway, great stuff here.  I can’t remember how well I like Neil Gaiman’s followup, I’ll find out tomorrow…

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Good

Miracleman Annual 1

Basically Miracleman 14.5.  Some gap filling stories that serve no real purpose.  Still, we get some rare Joe Quesada interior art, and some amusing stuff from Mike Allred:

Dolphins around the campfire are the new dogs playing poker.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice