So the premise of this comic is as follows:  all of the Earth’s superheroes go off into space to fight the big bad nasty.  They all get smoked.  Earth now has a ton of super powered sidekicks running rampant because with great power comes great responsibility…how many people really think that teenagers can handle responsibility well?  Most teenagers aren’t responsible enough to get my Starbuck’s order right.

Landry Walker takes several established iconic super hero concepts and maps them over his teen sidekicks.  Kid Vigilante (Batman) leads a team comprised of Jack Fearless (Nick Fury), the Magician (Doctor Strange), and Robot 9 (a Voltron-esque power suit character with a distinct manga feel) as they try to stop awfulness from happening due to the huge power vacuum caused by the absence of their mentors WHILE trying to ascertain and resolve a much bigger mystery.   I’m going to make this review brief but I want to hit upon some key components as to why this book is amazing:

• The dialogue is fantastic.  You get genuinely invested in the major characters because their dialogue creates is distinct “voice” for each character.  Each glimpse into the major characters gives you just enough back ground to go, “oh, I wish I knew more about him/her.”
• The art is spiffy.  Yeah…”spiffy”.  It’s not Jim Lee or Frank Quitely but it’s appropriate to the story.  The lines are clean and the backgrounds are well done.  This book is very violent.  Eric Jones artwork really conveys the energy of that violence.  He does these little “retro flashback” pages at the beginning of each issue which are stylistically different and reminds me of the classics from the 60’s while still being relevant to the ongoing story. 

(Yeah, that’s Apollo/Superman getting owned by Kid Vigilante and his “kryptonite” brass knuckles)

• The plot is well constructed.   Landry does an excellent job creating a compelling story while giving you enough background on the characters to become invested in their plight.  There are plot twists and betrayals and scenes that make you think.  I know that sounds silly…but how many comics will show you something and then you have to stop for a moment to actually consider the ramifications of what was just said/done?

With that being said my only complaint about this first volume is that it ends poorly.  And by “ending poorly” I mean “it ends in an awesome cliffhanger and I can’t wait until the next issue comes out”.  I really hope that Walker and Jones continue to work on other more mature comics.  They have a long track record of kids books such as the Little Gloomy franchise and Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8^th Grade….but I’m really hoping they direct their talents into mainstream superhero comics because I’ll eagerly follow them into any upcoming project.

In general I’m the kind of comic book fan who follows a writer as he goes traipsing from one title to another.  I’ll admit it:   I’m kind of a literary snob…I think it stems from decades of reading sci-fi and fantasy novels.  I reminisce about all of those late nights hiding under the covers with a flashlight reading the latest Heinlein or Burroughs novel that I had purchased from Waldenbooks with my lawn mowing money.  That being said I truly don’t have much of an affinity for most comic artists.  Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to own a Mignola or Bisley piece but as far as mainstream super hero art goes I don’t think I’d clutter up my walls with a Jim Lee or Turner print. (yeah yeah, the comic gods are revoking my nerd card right now) There are three artists, though, who just make a book for me:  old school Frank Miller…I’m talking Dark Knight Returns and Ronin, Geof Darrow…his level of detail in Hard Boiled is mind blowing, and finally Frank Quitely.

I know, I know…a lot of you super hero purists are going, “Frank Quitely?  Doesn’t he draw the lumpy people in New X-Men?”  Yeah…he did draw “lumpy people”.   You know what?  It works for me.  His art is distinctive and dynamic.  His level of detail is quite possibly second only to Geof Darrow and most importantly his storytelling is second to none.  He conveys motion and energy along with emotion and expression masterfully.  The thing that makes him a great artist is that, in general, you can remove the words from most of his works and you’ll still grasp the story through expression, posture, and pure kinetic energy.  But I digress…this isn’t me doing a gushing review of Frank Quitely.  It’s me doing a gushing review of WE3 where Quitely teams up with some hack writer…I think his name is Grant Morrison.

Here’s the story in a nutshell:  A dog, a cat, and a rabbit are weaponized with cybernetic power armor and, after a series of missions, they are set to be “decommissioned”, i.e. “killed”.  They escape…face several trials while they flee the military and then there’s an ending.  BAM!  Sounds simple.

Simple yet amazing.

Grant Morrison’s writing is at its best.  The dialogue is distinctive and gives each character their own “voice”.  The story is incredibly compelling and emotionally driven…I mean, how heartless do you have to be to not be touched by animal cruelty.  Each animal, through their implants, have the ability for limited speech…which gives them a dissimilar personality and further emotionally invests you in their plight.  Yes, Grant Morrison is fantastic.

Quitely’s artwork is even better.

He frequently uses a “fractal” art technique which is basically using dozens of smaller panels overlaying a larger piece of art to better convey motion or emotion.  Each small panel is a glance at a brief moment in time so, when combined with other small panels, creates a diorama of frenetic activity.

Although the animals have the ability for limited dialogue, you don’t really need it to see the dog’s sense of loyalty, the cat’s level of distrust, or the rabbit’s obliviousness.  The art more than adequately carries the story.

In conclusion, this Eisner award winning book is the complete package.  Rarely can I discuss a work where I can rave endlessly about both the art AND the writing.  It’s fortunate for us that these guys have a long track record of amazing comics.  Flex Mentallo, JLA Earth 2 (recently back in print), New X-Men, and All-Star Superman (easily in my “Top 3 Favorite Superman Stories Ever”).  I’m eagerly looking forward to Quitely’s new creator owned project with Mark Millar called Jupiter’s Children which, in theory, starts this year.

My entire facebook feed is clogged with the news of how Disney has paid Lucas 4.05 billion dollars for the Star Wars franchise…..and man…there seems to be a lot of hate.  I dislike making disparaging comments about a huge chunk of my geekdom (yeah, that’s right, geekdom…as in “Tony’s kingdom of geek friends”) but I’m gonna counter rant and hate on the haters.

So a huge chunk of folk who watched the original Star Wars trilogy went back after a long hiatus with the force and watched the new episodes as they came out.  After all, it had been over 15 years since the light and dark side had at it.  So they went and watched Episode I.  And hated it.  With a passion.  Vitriolic seething anger.  You get the idea.  I can remember the endless rants in my store about how Lucas had sold out and how Jar Jar was horrible.

But you have to realize that he didn’t write these movies for the 30+ year old fan boys.  He wrote it for an entirely new generation of kids.  Sure the dialogue may have been cruddy and some of the acting not up to par but to be honest these comments can similarly be applied to the original trilogy.  If you think Phantom Menace was awful, I have 1.027 billion reasons to disagree with you.  (Episodes 1-3 garnered a minuscule 2.5 billion dollars in ticket sales…I wouldn’t even hazard a guess at how much they made on merchandising)   The young kids who had their parents buy these tickets went to see these movies again and again.  Exposure to the space opera/sci-fi genre opened their minds to a whole new field of cinema and literature.  These same kids are the young adults who are now Doctor Who, Firefly, and Walking Dead fans.  And by “fans” I mean “avid consumers”.

So feel free to direct your anger at Lucas and Disney’s potential further trashing of your childhood but keep in mind they aren’t interested in your bygone memories of Yoda raising the X-Wing out of the swamp.  They are far more interested in the money that will be generated by exposing a whole new generation of kids to the Star Wars’ franchise.  You are not the fans they are looking for.

A lot of good books came out from Image in 2011.  A few that come to mind are Luther Strode and Severed (Scott Snyder is amazing…that’s right…AMAZING.  Not “amazing” like a dog playing the piano but “AMAZING” like someone flying to Venus in a space ship made of Twizzlers).  But now I’m going to give you the big reveal.  A wonderful comic that only myself and a couple of other people enjoyed.  Of course the people who also enjoyed it were Warren Ellis and Mark Waid, but what do they know about good writing?

Here it is:

“Hal-see-wuh?” you may ask.

Halcyon is a wonderful five issue story written by Marc Guggenheim and Tara Butters and drawn by Ryan Bodenheim.  Imagine a world full  of the classic super hero/villain archetypes where good wins.  Crime goes away.  Wars stop.  The bad guys give up and devote themselves to such trivial endeavors as curing cancer and global humanitarian aid.  A flawless utopia…but an enforced utopia.  It’s not that people have just stopped being bad, instead society is under a mental compulsion where they can’t do bad.  Sabre (aka Batman) throws himself into solving the mystery of  how and why this is happening while coming at odds with his teammates in Halcyon (aka the Justice League) who are trying to decide if an enforced utopia is better than no utopia.

So there it is.  Superb dialogue, a great mystery, Enos the cybernetically enhanced genius space chimp (not joking on this one), and a ton of super heroes beating the crap out of each other.   So who is this Guggenheim fellow?  Who’s Tara Butters?   I have no idea.  I’d love to be able to say, “these folk are awesome.  Here are the other 50 things they’ve done that are all equally awesome.”  Nope, I just can’t do it.  Outside of a stint on The Flash and some odds and ends Guggenheim really hasn’t done much in the comic industry.   I’m not even sure if Tara Butters (the comic writer) is really a person.  What I am sure of is that they work magic together and I’ll follow their writing careers from here on out.

1. A woman of great seductive charm who leads men into compromising or dangerous situations.

2. An alluring, mysterious woman.

[French : femme, woman + fatale, deadly.]

I was a little concerned initially when I heard that Brubaker was diving into more of his creator owned work by coming out with Fatale.  His Captain America run, which he is primarily known for by current readers, has been a little “meh” as of late.  Winter Soldier, which I thought would be a great spin off,  was also a little mediocre.  I guess the bar has been set a bit higher with his writing after reading his amazing run on Daredevil and Immortal Iron Fist (do yourself a favor and track down the Iron Fist trades…they are so good that you’ll dragon punch yourself in the face for not reading it sooner).

But then I got to thinking, “When has the almighty Brubaker let me down when it comes to the crime noir genre?”  Criminal, Incognito, and Sleeper are books that I lovingly keep right by the nightstand at Casa Florence.  It took me about an hour to burn through the first Fatale trade, Death Chases Me, which collects issues 1 through 5.  Why an hour?  Because it took me that long to wrap my mind around one of the best reads I’ve had all year.  It’s the complete crime comic package with a bit of a twist.  There’s the corrupt cop, the reporter, the sexy dame, occult rituals and Cthulhu monsters.  WHAT?!?  That’s right, I said Cthulhu monsters.  Like something straight from Lovecraft’s creepy imagination.  Brubaker has really mastered crime comics and I can appreciate him getting away from straight crime fiction and tossing in some horror (which probably isn’t a huge leap from his work on Incognito which blended super villain awesomeness into his crime writing).

After reading through this trade twice I couldn’t come up with much in the way of criticism.  The narrative is a bit convoluted due to prolonged flashing back of events but the transitions are seamless.  Sean Phillips’ artwork is spot on with its pulpy feel with my only slight criticism coming  from my feeling that some of the people are drawn a little too similarly (I guess all guys look alike when wearing a fedora) but I had this problem with Eduardo Risso’s art on 100 Bullets and easily worked through it.

The story is compelling, the characters are well developed, and small twists here and there make you wonder who the good guys and bad guys are.  Except for the Cthulhu monsters.  They are, of course, always bad.  There are no good happy Cthulhu monsters.  You will never see a Shoggoth and Nyarlathotep having tea and biscuits.

Things you may have enjoyed by Brubaker:  Brubaker and Darwyn Cooke on the 2002 Catwoman revamp, Brubaker and Rucka on Gotham Central in 2003, the Vertigo title Deadenders, his big giant run on Uncanny X-men 475-503.