Scouring out the weekly singles scene … in comics!
WildStorm puts out some of the most inventive and unusual titles in comics today, including RED HERRING #1, written by David Tischman. It’s a Beltway-set conspiracy thriller with a sci-fi edge, with Maggie MacGuffin as its unwitting protagonist. She’s a lowly Congressional aide for Florida Sen. Damorge Channel, a married man with whom she’s having an affair. In this debut issue, she’s to meet him at the park one night, but instead is attacked and left for dead by an unknown assailant, but lands in the care of a secret government agent known as Teddy “Red” Herring. With Philip Bond’s pencils landing somewhere between realistic and rowdy, it plays like an intriguing mystery, even if few of its pieces fall into place within these pages (some of which are taken up by a preview for COMPLETE WILDC.A.T.S.).
But RED HERRING #2 starts filling in the blanks, as Sen. Channel has ties to The Capricorn Group, which has proof of an alien existence it’s kept secret for decades, which is why Maggie’s wanted out of the picture. Herring does everything to keep that from happening — a task proving increasingly difficult. From the ways things are left, #3 promises to kick the plot into high gear, and I’m already hooked. A couple of off-handed juvenile references aside (Dr. Butman, Cornhole Barbeque), this is an intelligent, exciting chase that has cinematic adaptation written all over it. With only six issues planned, HERRING obviously knows where it’s headed, so it’s one to watch. The issue closes with a sneak peek of the final stand of WildStorm’s other out-there titles: Warren Ellis’ PLANETARY.
After rebooting The Hangman, Inferno and The Web, J. Michael Straczynski completes his project with DC’s THE RED CIRCLE: THE SHIELD #1. The hero this time is Lt. Joseph Higgins, a Army man who’s injured in Afghanistan, but saved from death by a nanotech super-suit that renders him nearly indestructible. (The sucker can jump from planes onto solid ground!) He’s like a high-tech Captain America, minus the shield. Even in just a few pages, Straczynski weaves all the other three heroes in, bringing everything full circle, as it were. The Shield and The Web now go on to their own individual titles, with the other two making appearances. (Personally, I’d rather read The Hangman, but hey, I’m not in charge.) Art on this one’s by Scott McDaniel.
MOON KNIGHT SAGA is one of those free promo copies that you get at the checkout counter of your local comic book store. Most of them are pretty worthless, but this one’s worth it, assuming you’re a fan of Moon Knight. (And who isn’t?) Like Marvel’s other SAGA freebies, it tells the story of the Batman-esque character using art from his appearances from every era — some his own title, some not. In doing so, none of it jells visually, but since that art is often moody and noir-ish, there are so many great examples here. This likely was put out to promote novelist Gregg Hurwitz’s new VENGEANCE OF THE MOON KNIGHT series, but I more look forward to ESSENTIAL MOON KNIGHT: VOL. 3. Wherever your allegiances lie, grab this. Free is good.
Too bad HULK TEAM-UP #1 is just a one-shot, because it’s so much fun that I’d love to see it as a series. The bulk of this HULK is devoted to Marc Sumerak and Sanford Greene’s “Aftershocks,” in which the Hulk is dueling it out with Red Hulk, then finds himself plagued by a group of flying robot harpies who look like Bruce Banner’s girlfriend Betty. He gets a much-needed assist by X-Men members Angel and Iceman, although other mutants make an early appearance. The backup story, Alex Zalben and Joyce Chin’s “Smash Hit,” is less about heroics and more about humor, as the shy Banner becomes the object of Dazzler’s affections. The attention is more than he can handle, obviously. Chin’s wildly out-of-proportion figures threaten to harm the story, but its overall good-naturedness makes it impossible not to warm up to.
DARING MYSTERY COMICS 70TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL #1 is one of Marvel’s best among all the one-off birthday books, primarily because it’s guided by the sure hand of novelist David Liss, making his comics debut. For it, he’s revived the all-but-forgotten hero of The Phantom Reporter, aka playboy journalist Dick Jones, who looks and acts not unlike The Shadow. Liss plops him in the middle of the murder of a childhood friend he once betrayed, and Jones suspects a pharmaceutical family is to blame. He’s right, of course, but Liss crafts a mystery more involved that just that, ably illustrated by Jason Armstrong. The 1940 Phantom Reporter story reprinted in the back shows the character has come a long, long way, reading rather hokey (“This is the best corned beef and cabbage I’ve ever eaten, Bess!”), but who’d have it any other way?
Following a nine-month battle against the “frost giants,” that god of thunder known as Thor is accused of killing his fellow Asgardians with that big rock hammer of his, in Marvel’s THE TRIAL OF THOR #1. He’s arrested on charges of murder and treason, but escapes to prove his innocence. This being a one-shot, he does just that before it’s all done, and the murder mystery with a fantasy bent turns into an action-packed fight, blood included! Peter Milligan writes, and Cary Nord provides art, which achieves a painterly quality at times, doing snowy exteriors like nobody’s business. Thor’s not that interesting a character for me to follow regularly, but it’s nice to check in on him every once in a while with specials like this.
I was a fan of Antony Johnston and Ben Templesmith’s DEAD SPACE graphic novel, but Image’s DEAD SPACE: EXTRACTION seems to exist only because the accompanying video game demanded it. You have to have read the previous SPACE book for it to make any sense, and even then, what sense it makes is not all that much. It’s plugged as a prequel, but reads to me like the same story, only told through the eyes of a different person — in this case, medical office Dr. Nicole Brennan — and without the backstory, the explanations, the build-up and, therefore, the payoff. Oh, you get the monsters, alright, and Templesmith draws them with his usual verve that helped make 30 DAYS OF NIGHT such a smash, but the overall effect is one of emptiness. —Rod Lott
Related posts:
- LOUIS’ SERIOUS ISSUES >> 1.31.07
- Essential Rampaging Hulk: Vol. 1
- Essential Moon Knight: Vol. 1
- LOUIS’ SERIOUS ISSUES >> 9.21.06
- Essential Marvel Two-in-One: Vol. 2
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Essential Moon Knight Vol 3 can’t come out soon enough for me. Moon Knight Saga finally got me to read the newest run of this character.