What to read?

                As mentioned in our previous post, there are endless possibilities when it comes to comics.   Every so often my roommate, an avid comic fan himself, will ask me what he should read in one of his rare moments of down time.   I read about ten comics a month; however, Josh only reads about one a week.  So my dilemma is in what to prioritize with my suggestions.  Anyone who reads comics regularly has this same problem; it comes up in our comic book club all the time.  What should we read and why?

                The answer depends a lot on your personal  preference.  I am a big fan of the superhero genre but I know lots of people who can’t stand it.  Others have company preferences and only read the books that are published by DC, Marvel, or Dark Horse.   Regardless of such inclinations we can all recognize a good book when we see one.   Having said that, the following may not appeal to everyone but I have thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

One such book is issue #9 of Geoff Johns and Francis Manapul’s The Flash.  This series has been generating a lot of heat in the recent months because of the upcoming summer event Flashpoint.  According to the updates that have been coming out it looks to be about a different reality or rather an alternate version of the current DC universe timeline, the latter being hinted at by the end of this issue.  The run so far has been amazing.  In a lot of superhero books the characters and the stories just become about the super powers, but Johns is writing Barry in a very specific way, going back to the fact that he is a police detective as well as a superhero.  They‘re even naming the different story arcs “Case One, Case Two, ect”.  The first arc, Case One: The Dastardly Death of the Rogues, was not only a well written mystery but Manapul’s art is amazing.  As was clearly stated by both Johns and Manapul they wanted to show The Flash (Barry Allen) using his super speed in new and interesting ways and not just more “speed lines”.    Issue # 9 starts a new story arc that leads directly into Flashpoint and begins starts the second story arc called “Case Two: The road to Flashpoint Part One.”  The story centers around two events.  The first is the appearance of a new motorcycling speedster in search of fuel and Barry Allen.  The second center of the mystery is the death of a costume hero.  I thought the issue like all the ones before it was excellent.   Without giving any spoilers, this issue is a definite set up for the alternate reality madness that is to come this summer.  If you are not currently reading the Flash series you are missing out on great writing and fantastic art. 

  Geoff Johns is also the writer on the series Brightest Day, which the follow up to his series Blackest Night.   Both take their names from the famous Green Lantern oath.   Brightest Day follows the fall out of Blackest Night, specifically centering on the entity in the White Lantern and its will for some of the characters in the DCU.   The series is biweekly and has had its ups and downs.On the one hand the series has been an interesting and extremely well written story.  The problem is that it follows several stories at once that have very little overlap, so you can get a little lost.   This set back kept me from really enjoying the title as much as others.   For instance I haven’t really cared for the Hawk world story or some of the dead man stuff, but that’s mostly because I don’t gravitate towards those characters.  However, all those things are redeemed  because of two facts.   First, Johns has done a great job writing J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter.   

 Over the years I’ve noticed that the J’onn has been difficult to write.  People don’t know how to fit him in with the rest of the DC characters and so they seem to harp on just one aspect of his character:  the quiet philosopher, the tortured telepath, or the conflicted immigrant from mars.  Johns has been able to maintain all those things, but has given the character a lot more depth.  He accomplishes this by juxtaposing J’onn with the evil female martian D’kay.  This has been a classic tool that Johns uses.  By presenting a villain that is the mirror opposite of the man protagonist he can better define the hero.  In Flash: Rebirth he describes Barry Allen over and against the reverse flash as well as Hall Jordan (Green Lantern) against Sinestro (Yellow Lantern) in his going run on Green Lantern.  A lot of folks aren’t fond this technique.  The main criticism I’ve heard is that it’s too black and white.  I disagree.  While it does provide a sharper contrast between characters that clashes with my generations fascination with the anti-hero, it also provides a frame work in which a characters internal and external conflicts can have more meaning.   Issue 21 of Brightest Day has some of the best J’onn stuff I’ve ever read so I highly recommend it for any Martian Manhunter fans.  

Back to the second reason why I’m happy reading Brightest Day; because Johns has single handedly made Aquaman cool.  Another main protagonist of this series has been the newly resurrected Arthur Curry otherwise known as our favorite king of Atlantis: Aquaman.  Much like J’onn, a lot of writers have struggled with what to do with Arthur because of his obvious limitation to the sea and water.   Grant Morrison’s late 90s run on the JLA was one of the only times I’ve ever liked him as a member of the Justice league-- that and his team up with Etrigan the demon in The Brave and the Bold #32.  Arthur can either be barely relevant or just not heroically threatening. 

 

  But Johns has made him a hero again.  Most of this I think rest upon the amazing action scenes.  The two that come to mind are Aquaman, trident in hand, grappling with Black Manta and then the awesome splash page of Aquaman leading the charge of an army of zombified aquatic life.  If you want to have your faith renewed in the king of the seven seas, you need to read Brightest Day.

                                                           Jake

Hellboy: The Sleeping and The Dead

Hellboy’s most recent two shot, The Sleeping and the Dead, is a fantastic classic horror story, illustrated brilliantly by Scott Hampton, and filled with such awesome twists and turns and eerie folklore that you wish the thing could last a little bit longer.

I don’t follow Hellboy religiously, (Jake could tell you more about him than I could) but I am a big admirer of Mignola’s art and character design, and am fairly familiar with the good natured demon himself. Its stories like this one that make me wish I picked it up more often, though. Scott Hampton, (being no stranger to the monster magazine, having worked on comics such as Simon Dark,) teamed up with Mignola for the first time in this series, adopting certain “classic” Hellboy style, while maintaining own his distinctions. I think he fit beautifully with this book.

The story follows the repercussions of Hellboy’s killing a female vampire. We learn from her brother, an emotionally enslaved caretaker, that both she and their sister were transformed by an English Vampire, who will avenge her death by calling on a whole graveyard of his victims. But that’s not even the scary part. The second sister, the one we’ve yet to meet, has indeed transformed, but not into a vampire: into something far worse, less definable, and fantastically terrifying. This creepy little girl, who wanders ghostlike about the basement singing nursery rhymes, transforms into a being of pure horror. The brother, last remaining alive and in the human world, takes care of his family despite their wicked transformations, and soon Hellboy finds himself offered as a meal to this thing in the basement. I’ll let you read the ending to see how the whole thing unravels… its classic Mignola.

There’s a cool distinction between American and English Vampires in this book. I like the idea of Vampires going into hiding for years—centuries—so that the world forgets and no longer suspects them, so as to rise and conquer later on. Apparently they have it a lot worse in England, as far as blood suckers go.

And can I just say how refreshing it is to see Vampires back in the horror genre where they belong? I’ve had about all I can take of our culture’s recent infatuation with sexy teenage “vampires.” It makes me ache for the classics. I want that old magic back. I want to be scared of Vampires again: to see them portrayed as the monsters they ought to be: truly unsettling, terrifying and dreadful. This series delivers, I recommend you all take the fun journey I did and end up delightfully creeped out.

See you in the Funnybooks! -Stephanie