Omnivoracious

Graphic Novel Friday: Celebrating Iron Man

Summer is almost here, and that means one thing: roll out the superhero blockbusters. Last year, the buzz surrounded the mega-successful Avengers film and the finale to Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, and this weekend kicks off with its own Avengers tie-in, Iron Man 3. Once again, Robert Downey Jr. dons the suit of space-age armor as Tony Stark, the billionaire alter ego of Iron Man, and this time he battles the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) with the aid of War Machine (Don Cheadle) and the World’s Most Beautiful Woman (Gwyneth Paltrow, as recently crowned by People magazine). Outside cinemas, Iron Man has a vast career in comics, and the below five stories mark significant moments in his life as a crime-fighter:

• Iron Man: Extremis by Warren Ellis and Adi Garnov: This redefinition of Iron Man influenced the films, from the look of the suit to Stark’s origin. Ellis is a writer skilled with bringing even the most outlandish superheroes to Earth, and Extremis sheds a more human light on the character of Tony Stark as he battles a nanotech virus. This is a great start for new readers.

• Iron Man: Demon in a Bottle by David Michelinie, Bob Layton, John Romita, Jr., and Carmine Infantino: As if that creator lineup isn’t enough, this is probably Iron Man’s most famous storyline. In it, Tony Stark not only battles evil and Nick Fury’s ever-increasing involvement with SHIELD, but it’s where the very human Stark faces his troubles with alcoholism. Iron Man 2 touched on this storyline, and no matter its compressed storytelling and sign-of-the-times narration and dialogue, it’s still the most influential arc in Tony’s career.
• Iron Man vs. Doctor Doom: Doomquest by David Michelinie, Bob Layton, John Romita, Jr.: Here, the aforementioned creative team pits Marvel’s two most famous armor-clad characters against one another. It’s surprising that this idea took even so long to reach publication, and this collection is strangely out of print (although copies are available in the third-party marketplace). Never fear, true believers, for the Doomquest and Demon in a Bottle arcs are both collected in this 900+ page omnibus.

Omni Exclusive: China Miéville on Dial H and the Superhero B-List

A winner of the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, British Fantasy, and Arthur C. Clarke awards (to name a few), China Miéville specializes in the fantastical and the weird. His literary approach to genre themes earned him a legion of fans (most recently with his novel Railsea in 2012), but Miéville remains a fan as well--of comics. The personal and professional interests collided in the best of ways during DC’s New 52 initiative, when the publisher announced a new Dial H series with Miéville at the helm with artist Mateus Santolouco. In the following exclusive essay, Miéville reveals his long history with the series and how that history led to a fresh, successful start for the book while remaining true to its core weirdness.

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I wasn't very good at canon. Oh, I got better as I got older, but as a kid, I pieced together my comics knowledge like a mudlark, scobbing together whatever titles I could find in local shops and libraries – new copies, second-hand ones, beaten-up and ripped-to-shreds remnants - without any understanding of publisher or continuity. I’d cross-fertilize them with the various exciting bits and pieces I'd picked up, all the rumours and half-truths regarding superheroes.

This led to an idiosyncratic version of the DCU. Once, many years ago, as a very young child, I was delighted to discover a pile of comics in an attic. They featured a blond, orange-shirted superhero who could speak to fish. “Ah,” I thought, settling down to read. “This must be this ‘Superman’ of whom I've heard so much.” I was intrigued that so many of his adventures were maritime.

As the years passed, I got a bit more systematic, but I never lost the excitement at the sheer chaotic variety of costumes, monikers and powers I might find fighting for justice, every time I opened a comic. It was always a surprise. This addiction to the proliferation of the superheroic is something many of us never grow out of.

In fact, inventing superheroes is one of the basic games of childhood. Tie a towel around your neck and come up with a powerset, all the abilities you think you’ll need. Justify that hot mess as coherent by some ingenious, tendentious argument. Finally, give your wonder a name. (Electrical blast and tiger stripes? Electrotiger!) This is what we do. Like countless kids around the world, I was a martyr to superherogenesis.

Graphic Novel Friday: All Now! and All-New X-Men

As part of Marvel Comics’ new Marvel Now! initiative, long-running superhero teams sport new rosters, costumes, and motives. After the events of Avengers vs. X-Men, both teams were left reeling, but it was the X-Men who suffered the biggest loss: Professor X at the hands of team leader Cyclops. No one felt this loss more than Henry McCoy (a.k.a. “Beast”), who was also a founding member with Scott Summers.

Additionally, Beast keeps a secret close to his furry blue chest: he is dying. And as a super-scientist, if he cannot find a cure no one can. Except. What if there was a way for Henry McCoy to consult with the only person who could match his brains? What if Henry McCoy were to enlist the help of Henry McCoy, and what if the only person who could talk Scott Summers out of his murderous funk is Scott Summers? This mind-bending hypothetical kicks of All-New X-Men Vol. 1 (subtitled Yesterday’s X-Men—everything old is all-new again),written by superstar hit-maker Brian Michael Bendis, who left a mountain of Avengers stories and influence to freshen up Marvel’s mighty mutants. With this first volume, Bendis has already crafted what feels like a classic run, where the pages cannot turn quickly enough and the revelations compound.

In order to consult with himself, Beast does what X-Men do: he time travels. In the past, Beast finds the original X-Men and pleads with them to travel to their future to help the X-Men of present day. Plus, two Henry McCoys have a better chance at saving his/their life/lives than one. It’s heady stuff and Bendis wisely skips over the finer details of paradoxes in favor of character moments, where he excels. Beast sees a young Jean Grey, as yet untouched by the Dark Phoenix and her ultimate fate, and marvels at her youth, attitude, and beauty. Of course, yesterday’s X-Men hop aboard with Beast to the present day, where they encounter the all-new X-Men, a team weary from decades of inner mutant battles and a public who hates and fears them now more than ever.

Graphic Novel Friday: Iron: or, the War After

I fell in love with Iron: or, the War After immediately upon holding it. The compact hardcover sports a red, textured cover with an embossed golden-colored rabbit and tree. Snowflakes drift from the limbs. It’s a package unlike most—and then I opened it.

Artist and writer S.M. Vidaurri’s watercolor treatment features predominant greys and blues with occasional splashes of red (a recurring robin, for example). The word he crafts is one of “constant winter,” and it’s populated by anthropomorphic animals. These creatures live in an age of quiet rebellion, post-wartime, where a faction of animals plan a revolution while those in power seek their hideouts. The story is rife with paranoia, threats of betrayal lurk in the wintry corners of dialogue balloons. A rabbit, Hardin, is the focus of the first chapter as he escapes an enemy’s clutches with stolen documents. All of this—the war, the rebellion, what lies within the documents--unfolds at a measured pace, and it keeps the reader at a crossroad: quickly turn the pages to uncover the mystery, or linger to appreciate the stark, absorbing artwork.

As future chapters develop, Hardin’s children become the focus while the threatening forces grow closer to their targets. There’s a train sequence that is heightened by its chugging course through the snow; plot points slowly collide, upsetting the quiet nature of the book with an explosive reveal. If all the heartbreak of the finale weren’t enough, Iron ends with a letter from a son to his father. It casts one last ray of wintertime light onto a character, opening his motivations long after it is too late.

Publisher Archaia continues to produce these under-the-radar gems—see also our spotlight on their much louder and fast-paced Tale of Sand—that reward any reader lucky enough to happen upon them.

--Alex

Archer & Armstrong: Heroes, Humor, and History

As part of its relaunch, Valiant Comics is making a bid for “Call It a Comeback” publisher. In the 1990s, Valiant was very much a part of the comics boom, launching independent characters in the marketplace to great fan adoption. Like many of its contemporaries, however, Valiant suffered once the initial superhero bubble burst. But that was 20 years ago, and the market is a much different place, rife with opportunity and nostalgia. Enter Valiant Comics, again, with several throwback titles reborn into sophisticated packages.

One such title is the winning Archer & Armstrong, by writer Fred Van Lente and artist Clayton Henry. Fans of historical conspiracies and buddy-cop stories will love this one. Young Obadiah Archer is in search of his possibly immortal enemy, Armstrong, an ancient Mesopotamian who tried in vain to stop a prophetic Armageddon. The comic jumps from historical flashbacks to contemporary chase scenes. Archer’s duties stem from a Biblically focused upbringing, and he leaves his tutors (all creepy eyes and smiles) with a singular purpose: destroy Armstrong. When he finds his archenemy, however, he sees an intoxicated cad, and before Archer can fulfill his purpose the two of them are captured by an order of nefarious zealots. Their true schemes shake Archer’s resolve, and—naturally—Armstrong helps him escape. Readers can see where this is going: the two grudgingly band together to thwart the true evil, but it’s the journey that makes the book so rewarding.

Van Lente writes punchy, ever-quipping dialogue as Archer and Armstrong banter between fisticuffs. Yes, there are a few anachronistic moments, where contemporary phrasing pops up in the historical flashbacks, but the book is full of punchy jokes and clever twists. Look for Van Lente’s narrative boxes whenever Archer uses a new martial art or technique, or when Archer focuses on a particular weak point of his assailants—both informative and funny. Henry’s artwork is the book’s highpoint—his sharp lines, wide-open faces, and expertly choreographed fight scenes turn this story into one that is beautifully told. I’ve been following his work since Exiles, and he’s at his best in Archer & Armstrong.

After this arc, Henry departs the book, but fans need not fear: Emanuela Lupacchino will handle pencils in the second volume (due in August), and she brings beautiful character designs, fluid action, and amusing facial expressions to her projects (see also Castle and X-Factor). 

You can’t go home again? Nonsense. Archer & Armstrong revisits a fan-favorite duo and gives them new life.

--Alex

Graphic Novel Friday: This is Hawkeye, Bro.

This is not the book you think it is. When you see a new comic with the name “Hawkeye” in the title, you may recall the film Avengers, where Hawkeye is somehow on a team with a god, a hulking monster, and a super soldier when he possesses all the power of a bow and arrow. It’s a bit ridiculous, even in a world where ridiculous things happen every day. But the new Hawkeye Vol 1: My Life as a Weapon embraces this ridiculousness before stripping it all away.

Clint Barton, a.k.a. Hawkeye, became the greatest sharpshooter known to man. He then joined the Avengers. This is what he does when he’s not being an Avenger. That’s all you need to know.

Ha! Writer Matt Fraction knows the character Hawkeye very well, and he knows that readers may not—and such a blend of awareness and execution makes this book the perfect jumping-on point for new fans. Hawkeye’s lack of powers and marquee villains means he has more time to do laundry, set up his stereo system, self-deprecate, and attend rooftop barbeques at his shoddy apartment complex. It’s at one such barbeque where Hawkeye—mistakenly referred to as “Hawkguy” by his neighbors—learns that the rent will be unreasonably escalated, thanks to the shady dealings of the landlord. This sets in motion a loose thread that connects the five chapters in this first volume, where Hawkeye discovers a network of tracksuit-wearing Russian mobsters with a penchant for referring to themselves and pretty much everything else as “Bro” (as Hawkeye escapes, one of the Russians yells to another: “Bro, get that bro!”).

Graphic Novel Friday: Sort-of Endings for Hellblazer and Swamp Thing

Recently, two iconic Vertigo characters bid adieu to the status quo in comics, either ending their grand run or finishing a stellar arc with select creators.

One of the most surprising announcements in recent comics news was that publisher Vertigo elected to end their longest running series, Hellblazer, with issue #300 (available in digital format or via our third party marketplace). Writer Peter Milligan diligently wrote the book for as long as I read it in single issues, and his issues  comprise the most consistently entertaining run in comics that I’ve read in the past decade. Milligan reinvented anti-hero, dark warlock, possible immortal, chain-smoking John Constantine as a reluctant husband and grown-up. Sure, Constantine still ran into the usual demons and forces of evil, but under Milligan’s pen John met and wed Epiphany, a young witch who tamed the cad, who showed him that there was more to life than death. In Milligan’s 50 issues of Hellblazer, John traveled across the world, was attacked by his own trench coat, lost a thumb, gained a nephew, and sacrificed his father-in-law to the First of the Fallen (not a good thing).

I read the final issue three times last weekend because Milligan infuses multiple twists into the overarching plot surrounding John’s ultimate fate, or fates. His interactions with Epiphany are heartfelt and heartbreaking husband and wife moments. Plus, Milligan ties up many loose plot threads without making it feel like a chore or checklist. And that last page? Wow. Coupled with longtime Hellblazer artists Giuseppe Camuncoli and Stefano Landini, this is the way to end a beloved series—with a literal “bang” and a metaphorical one. I suggest beginning with the Scab collection and reading from there to this final issue. It all makes sense at the long journey’s end, I promise. John Constantine will be folded into the proper DC Universe with Constantine #1, out later this month with a new creative team.

Graphic Novel Friday: Gray Morrow's Orion

Go ahead and judge this book by its cover: Gray Morrow’s Orion is exactly as enchanting as the image to the right suggests. Originally serialized (in color, at least) in Heavy Metal magazine in the late 1970s, Orion follows the swashbuckling titular hero through a fantasy land filled with high adventure. Published late last year, the oversized Orion is a book to behold—with forgiveness for its pulpy prose. For example, the opening narrative box announces:

Orion’s world is not our world but one of which the stuff of fantasies and legends are made. His enemies and conflicts are wrought of demons and sorceries, more palpable here than competitors or tension and frustration. Here powerful dark gods command men’s obeisance and magic their beliefs. The secrets of science are privy to but a few…and everyone knows they are quite mad.

The text could only be more purple if it were colored as such, and the fun part of it all is that it works when coupled with Morrow’s attention to, well, everything. Outfits vary by character—Orion is clad in bandanas, buckles, tassels, and cummerbunds; he is a pirate, after all—and the men sport impeccable facial hair, while the women are shapely and usually topless (in tune with Heavy Metal’s sensibilities). Plus, the hair! Morrow excels at flowing locks, gently tousled by an ever-present wind. The male characters are men’s men—hairy chests and bulk without any sculpted preening. Orion is the antithesis to contemporary superhero comics, and I loved the outlandish settings and ships, including an airborne armada resembling a school of giant minnows.

As for the plot, the eight chapters revolve around Orion’s magical and “terrible” sword, Thorbolt, which is the envy of just about everyone. Orion alternates between keeping it and various women safe from the clutches of arch-nemesis Lamonthos. But again, stay for the visuals and enjoy the compressed narrative for its exclamation points and unabashed chest-beating.

In the bibliographic page, publisher Hermes Press notes that the initial four chapters were scanned from comics, while the last four were sourced from the late Morrow’s original artwork. Sure, there is a noticeable shift in quality between the two, but that’s part of the charm. Orion is an anachronistic artifact, a story out of time that exists thanks to the genuine love of its curators. Plus, there is a bonus story from Gray Morrow, "Edge of Chaos," that features a similarly bearded protagonist in a more science fiction setting. The overall package is a commemorative unsheathing of a lost narrative, where imagination and skill run rampant (that purple prose is infectious), and where a cover is a sure sign of the contents within.

--Alex

Graphic Novel Friday: Reinventing the Steel

After reading Dark Horse’s latest volume in the comic book exploits of Conan, I say this as a fan of Robert E. Howard and his Cimmerian: it’s about time. Writer Brian Wood, artists Becky Cloonan and James Harren, and lauded colorist Dave Stewart take Conan in a stylistically new direction in their adaptation of Queen of the Black Coast. Before purists cry “Crom!” and have at me, let me quickly say that there are countless volumes in Dark Horse’s library where Conan is traditionally represented as a hulking warrior with an unfortunate haircut. Hey, he has far more pressing blades to worry about than those that cleave his black locks. These timeless adventures will always be there, but it’s here that Dark Horse takes a chance at establishing a fresh starting point for new fans--and it works.

Very early on, there is a double-page spread by Cloonan, where Conan escapes on horseback only to look over his shoulder to give his pursuers a sly smile--a make-it-or-break-it moment for longtime fans. It’s a knowing look, a contemporary awareness that Conan has heretofore lacked. Readers will likely cheer, however, as he leaps onto a nearby ship and immediately takes command of the vessel based not only on the edge of his blade but the sharpness of his tongue.

Graphic Novel Friday: Chasing Alabaster: Wolves

Reading Alabaster: Wolves by Caitlin R. Kiernan and Steve Lieber feels as if I’ve been dropped mid-way through a horror film. There are monsters, a four-headed angel, a talking bird, a haunted church, and an albino hero who comes loaded with cryptic backstory. It is also the best comic I’ve read so far in 2013.

This the first work I’ve read from Kiernan, whose bio is an impressive resume of genre projects in novels, short stories, and comics for DC/Vertigo. Kiernan’s heroine, Dancy Flammarion (yes, you read that correctly), is a character from her novels but prior reading is not required. Like most contemporary fantasy heroines, Dancy is a reluctant Chosen One, and she alone must stand against the forces of darkness in order to—well, we’ve been here before, but what sets her apart is that she isn’t sexualized. Dancy isn’t fancy; she wears cargo pants and long sleeves underneath a t-shirt. She has a bad haircut, red eyes, and plenty of bruises and scuff marks. She’s a storied hero, and part of the fun is hearing other characters refer to her past exploits—one villainess asks, “All us monsters you done laid low, and you don’t believe in werewolves?”

Then there’s the spitting-angry, four-headed, fiery angel that looms over Dancy. What is the story here? Readers aren’t given much to go on, but there’s clearly a tale or two to tell should Kiernan ever feel like enlightening new fans (please). The angel directs Dancy to her supernatural targets, but at the outset of the graphic novel Dancy is already chafing at her duty and questioning the angelic monster:

  And me, I’m silently asking it, “Just this once. Just this once you could do the deed your own self. Seems like I’ve earned that much. Just this once, please.” But I know better.

Another aspect that sets Wolves apart from its peers is the citing of music that Kiernan and artist Steve Lieber listened to while working on each chapter. I admit that most of it went above my head (All Eternals Deck by the Mountain Goats, for example), but again, that’s the fun here—the reader is out of his or her element. We aren't privy to everything in Dancy’s world, because we haven't been with her from the beginning. We’re catching up with her as she catches her demons. There are twists and revelations that remain still-spun and unrevealed by the book’s end.

The last page finishes with a rare “The End”—the idea that there aren’t more Dancy stories is perhaps the scariest moment in this horror comic.

Alabaster: Wolves releases next month!

--Alex