Countdown: Top Graphic Novels of 2015--#16

As Christmas draws ever nearer with New Year's Eve hot on its heels, looking back at the previous year isn't uncommon. In the upcoming weeks, we'll be revisiting some of the most popular trade paperbacks and graphic novels of the year here at the store.

And since we're here why not start now?

It might be unexpected, but The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl's first trade paperback collecting issues 1-4 managed to keep selling out here at the shop! It was as surprise hit that not many people saw coming. A girl with squirrel powers? An all ages vibe? How did it get so big?!

Besides us talking it up (we at G-Mart really love this book), the unashamed silliness and positivity of the book is what we think hooked readers. Written by Ryan North (of Dinosaur Comics and Adventure Time comics) the book's heroine Squirrel Girl aka Doreen Green loves her job as a superhero. With her friends/teammates, Squirrel Girl saves the city (and sometimes the planet) with a smile on her face! With vibrant art from Erica Henderson, this fun collection is pretty friendly for all ages  and seriously does not disappoint.

CHAD'S CHOICES- Episode 2 (Saga)

CHAD'S CHOICES
Where a mildly entertaining middle aged man reviews comics with a mature bent. NSFW, 'natch.

COMICS IN THE CAN- Episode LX (Original Sin #3)

COMICS IN THE CAN
I used to have time to read my comics in a coffee shop. Now I have to read them in the bathroom. Then I write reviews of them. I wash my hands in between.

ORIGINAL SIN #3

I’m sure most of you dear readers are clamoring for my head on a platter since I’ve been so head scratchingly absent from this blog in recent weeks. I just want to head you all off at the pass and tell you that I know I’m heading down a dangerous path letting my duties slide like this but I want to face your anger head on and let you know I’m sorry. I’m trying to get my head on straight and intend to do a better job as head of the G-mart reviewing department.

Now, let’s dive in head first to this review, shall we?

Marvel continues to produce material that is head and shoulders above what’s coming out of its Distinguished Competition. I’m not sure if the head honchos at DC have their heads stuck in the sand or their heads up their asses but Original Sin is already so far ahead of the curve as far as event books go that I’m forgetting how much of a headache I got from Forever Evil. I wish I could take a headcount of all the readers that dropped DC books after that 7+ month fiasco. But that’s ok, it’s all in the past. We have Original Sin to get us headed in the right direction.

I didn’t like the looks of Jason Aaron when he first came on the scene, But since then, and with this comic, he has moved to the head of the class as far as Marvel writers go. This is a strong murder mystery, with limited random punching and a lot of brains. I’m still wrapping my head around the whole thing and its already three issues in. He’s pulled some Z list villains out of his head and made them relevant and dangerous.  I mean, The Orb? Mr. Midas? Had you told me they’d be heading up the next Marvel crossover, I would have laughed my head off. But here they are, and things are happening, The Orb unleashes a ‘secrets bomb’ from the Watcher’s stolen eye and still I can’t make heads or tails of what they are up to. He is captured and the eye ends up in Nick Fury’s hands (but I’m getting a little ahead of myself).

First we head off into space with Bucky, Moon Knight and Gamora, we head into another dimension with Dr. Strange and that headcase The Punisher, and head to the center of the earth with Black Panther, Ant Man and Emma Frost. Each team discovering more evidence in its side mission for the mysterious boss they are all ‘working’ for. Meanwhile I’m over here beating my head against a wall trying to figure out how these gamma irradiated bullets and a living (now dead) planet that looks like a giant floating head have anything to do with anything. I’m sure the heroes will soon start to put their heads together and the true big bad of this story will rear his/ her/its ugly head. 

Until then I will remain head over heels about Jason Aaron’s storytelling. I just hope he’s got his head screwed on straight and brings all of these disparate storylines to a head in a satisfying manner. If not, there may be a price on his head.

CHAD'S CHOICES- Episode 1 (Sex #13)

CHAD'S CHOICES
Where a mildly entertaining middle aged man reviews comics with a mature bent. NSFW, 'natch.

COMICS IN THE CAN- Episode LIX (Forever Evil 7)

COMICS IN THE CAN
I used to have time to read my comics in a coffee shop. Now I have to read them in the bathroom. Then I write reviews of them. I wash my hands in between.

FOREVER EVIL #7 & VARIOUS AFTERMATH BOOKS

Free at last, free at last, great god almighty, we are FREE AT LAST! The long national nightmare known as ‘Forever Evil’ is OVER. Thank freakin’ GOD. This thing was overwrought, overlong and its damn AFTERMATH issues hit the stands before its FINAL issue did!!! Jesus, DC, get it together!!! I wish there was a way to track how many subscribers jumped ship from DC after this mess. I have a feeling its more than a few.

Now that its done, there were some things I liked about it. The portrayal of the villains, Lex Luthor in particular, was one of them.  There was character development and now he’s actually, seemingly genuinely embracing his role as hero and one admired by the world.  But the resolution of this story was kind of unexciting. So Lex Luthor deduces that if Black Adam’s lightning can’t change crazy ass Earth 3 Luthor back into a normal man, then his voice surely can. That was pretty easy. What’s even more easy was that he sent Adam and Sinestro to MOVE THE MOON OUT FROM IN FRONT OF THE SUN. Ok, they’re powerful, sure, but that’s a little far beyond the acceptable ‘comic book realism’. It has its desired effect, though and Ultraman is weakened. All the heroes escape from the Firestorm Matrix (except, for some reason, Vibe and Element Woman. They keep referring back to it too. I don’t know where it’s going, nor do I care, but it would be just like DC to use this to redact a couple of characters that weren’t going anywhere.

Then the rest of the damn book was setting up stuff for the coming months! What the hell is the Anti-Monitor doing there? He’s the monster that destroyed Earth 3? We got some setup for Dick Grayson’s new spy series. Ted Kord shows up foreshadowing something Blue Beetle-esque I’m sure. Luthor’s kinda genuinely upset at the loss of his Bizarro monster and has his techs growing a replacement. Superwoman is carrying Earth 3 Luthor’s baby and it’s been prophesized to be really bad. And we find out that Lex Luthor has deduced Batman’s identity. Which, anyone in the world should have after Grayson’s unmasking, but for now I guess only Lex cracked it.

I did like the immediate aftermath Justice League issue though. Luthor, on a high from being a hero, tries to weasel his way into the League through ego and gifts. He tells the current roster that the world isn’t as trusting of them after the recent events, that there’s a big bad coming and they need him to help stop it, and he offers them a new satellite and a new member in Shazam. Superman unsurprisingly kicks him out, while the rest of the team isn’t so sure he should be dismissed outright. But THEN Luthor shows up at Wayne Manor asking for ‘Batman’ so you know he’s going to work some coercion into his campaign for membership.  

I like when these crossovers actually change the status quo and shake things up. It appears to be happening here, so I’m cautiously optimistic. And I’m excited to see what happens with Power Ring’s ring and its new bearer.

Don’t get me started on that Aftermath Batman vs Bane one shot (that came out WEEKS before Forever Evil 7). They could have published a one page book that read ‘Batman kicks Bane’s ass and takes back his city. The end.’

COMICS IN THE CAN- Episode LVIII (Original Sin #1)

COMICS IN THE CAN
I used to have time to read my comics in a coffee shop. Now I have to read them in the bathroom. Then I write reviews of them. I wash my hands in between.

ORIGINAL SIN #1

Holy Crap there is a lot going on in this book!

If you look back at my review of issue zero, you’ll see that that book annoyed the crap out of me. In semi-real and mostly petty ways (as most of my annoyances tend to be). This book, though…this book gives me hope. And I haven’t had a lot of hope in my life lately. At least where mega crossover events are concerned. Come on, Jason Aaron, be my hero.

So The Watcher gets shot in the opening pages of the book (inciting incident for all you literary nerds out there) and we cut to a diner in the middle of nowhere where Captain America, Wolverine, Black Widow and Nick Fury Sr. are having what they call ‘meat night’. Apparently these old friends and colleagues still get together on a regular basis to share a meal and commiserate. The scene is genuine and real and shows me that Aaron can do the quiet, character moments well. 

Cap gets a call from Thor and they are off to the moon to investigate the scene of the crime, bringing a retired Fury along for the ride. Once there, they discover that things are way worse than anticipated. See, we learned in the zero issue that The Watcher has been storing a bunch of super weaponry in his base on the moon (including the Ultimate Nullifier that scared off Galactus way back when). Well, a bunch of those dangerous weapons are now missing. As are The Watcher’s eyes. Gross and I have the feeling is gonna turn out to be way worse than the missing weapons. I mean, he’s seen everything with those eyes, right?

And kudos to Marvel for an awesomely creepy tie in product:

So Nick Fury takes point on the investigation, while a mysterious figure recruits a ragtag team of heroes including Black Panther, Emma Frost, Ant Man, Winter Soldier, Moon Knight, Gamorra, Doctor Strange and The Punisher to investigate different aspects of this crime…I think…it was kinda vague, but in an interesting, ‘all will be revealed’ way. This person teams them up and then sends them off in different directions. I hope this doesn’t mean crossover books. But you know I’ll buy them all because I’m a sucker.

Black Widow finds a glowing green fragment of something she thinks is the bullet that killed Uatu, and before they can talk to Bruce banner, Cap and Fury have to head back to earth because the Thing and Spidey are fighting a ‘Mindless One’ who suddenly has a mind and some telepathic powers and is also wielding the Ultimate Nullifier! The MO is all upset because it has thoughts now due to something it did on the moon and then uses the Nullifier to blow its brains out. 

Meanwhile, in a warehouse somewhere, a bunch of other Mindless Ones are developing individuality, as are their bosses, cloaked in shadow, and clearly the ones who took The Watcher’s eyes and weapons. But they are being changed by their stolen items…

I’m not sure where this is going and that’s OK. I’m always down for an old fashioned murder mystery and that’s what this seems like at its core. So I’m giving it a chance. We’ll see if I want to rip my own eyes out by the time its over.

COMICS IN THE CAN- Episode LVII (FCBD: Transformers VS GIJOE #0)

COMICS IN THE CAN
I used to have time to read my comics in a coffee shop. Now I have to read them in the bathroom. Then I write reviews of them. I wash my hands in between.

FCBD: TRANSFORMERS VS GIJOE #0

What in the ever-loving, bloody, blue hell is this piece of horseshit?

OK, hold on, let me back up a minute.

Yes, I realize Free Comic Book Day was a week ago. Yes, I realize there are other, more ‘important’ FCBD books I could have reviewed. But this is, to date, the ONLY FCBD book I have in my possession. The story goes as follows: My four year old son, Logan (named, indeed, after Wolverine), lives in Iowa with his mother. The weekend of FCBD was a weekend I got to spend with him in Iowa. My son has not…embraced a love of comic books yet (I blame his mother). And it was a beautiful weekend outside so he wanted to play in the various parks that the Metro Davenport area had to offer. In transit between two of these parks I was able to coerce him into stopping into a baseball card shop with a couple racks of comics that was ‘participating’ in FCBD (basically the sneering shopkeep eyeballing you on the way out making sure you didn’t snatch and of the not free comics). But it was around 2 PM and all the good stuff had been raided. Logan picked out a Spongebob Squarepants comic and I grabbed the only remaining somewhat appealing choice…this. I didn’t read it until TODAY because Pat Loboyko at G-Mart mentioned that he wanted to read my copy when I was in on Wednesday for my new books. Now, I like Pat, but not enough to run home and read this book any faster than three days later.

So here we are.

I’m probably alienating ¾ of the 8 people that read this column on a regular basis but this book looks like one giant Hostess Fruit Pie comic.  (Long ago, kids, the Hostess snack company used to take out full page ads in our favorite comics. They would craft a one page comic having a recognizable hero like Spider man or Captain America defeating a villain who was A, trying to steal Fruit Pies or some other Hostess product or B, the hero would use the snack product to trap, distract or otherwise incapacitate said villain. They were not very well done and mostly trite and hokey). This book is…I don’t even know what to say. The art is at once simplistic and overdrawn (don’t know how they managed that) and the pages look washed out and old. I’m sure its intentional, but I sure don’t understand the intention.

Now let’s talk about the story. I haven’t been following the GIJOE or the Transformers books at IDW at all. So I don’t know where this radical change to accepted lore is coming from but it kinda pisses me off. Duke is a rookie, Snake eyes has yet to be disfigured and still can speak and is in some sort of love competition triangle with Duke for Scarlett’s affection.  Bumblebee and Starscream are landing on earth for the first time I think in this issue. There’s all these crazy creeper vine bombs that Cobra is developing/ using. Dr. Venom is there, but so is The Baroness. I don’t know. I’m so confused.

If you’re a big fan of these properties and like to see them shaken up, then get on board this series when it starts in earnest in July. Me? All I know is I’m annoyed. And knowing is half the battle.