Young Avengers #15 – Review

By: Kieron Gillen (story), Becky Cloonan, Ming Doyle, Joe Quinones, Jamie McKelvie (art), Jordie Bellaire, Maris Wicks, Matthew Wilson (colors)

The Story: Clearly, you’ve been through a real dry spell if you’re willing to kiss yourself.

The Review: I was a little puzzled at first why Gillen would choose to spread out his New Year’s finale over two issues, but then I realized that this is his last opportunity to do all the character building he neglected to do during the life of the series.  It’s a bit like realizing at the last minute during an essay exam that you forgot to mention a key point of your thesis and being forced to cram it into the conclusion.  It doesn’t belong there, but at least you got it in.

This “better late than never” quality permeates most of this issue, as Gillen tops off his series with fitting resolutions for the Young Avengers who didn’t get their time in the spotlight last month.  Of course, when you’re trying to make a point with time running out, it’s never going to come out as coherent as if you had started earlier, which is probably why our last moments with Noh-Varr and Prodigy feel unsatisfyingly incomplete.  Just like with Kate and America, Gillen needed to have put in more work earlier to really clinch these final moments.

American Vampire: Anthology #1 – Review

By: Scott Snyder, Jason Aaron, Rafael Albuquerque, Jeff Lemire, Becky Cloonan, Francesco Francavilla, Gail Simone, Gabriel Ba, Fabio Moon, Declan Shalvey, Ivo Milazzo, Ray Fawkes, Tula Lotay, Greg Rucka, JP Leon, Dave McCaig, Jordie Bellaire, Jared K. Fletcher, Steve Wands, Travis Lanham, Dezi Sienty

The Story: A group of super-creators gathers to tell short stories set in the American Vampire universe.

Review (with very minor SPOILERS): Whoa! This was really incredible.  I knew I wanted to read this issue because I’ve read and loved every issue of American Vampire.  It wasn’t even a question for me, despite the $7.99 price tag.  I love AV and this was a MUST READ.  Even if it costs as much as two other comics, it was twice as long and probably ten times as good.

Even though I expected quality, I was still surprised by the excellence of the content.  I really didn’t know what to expect from the stories within.  I’m sure there have been interviews out there that detailed the content of assembled stories, but I quit reading such interviews a long time ago.  So, I went into this cold and couldn’t be more pleased.

The issue features a framing sequence by Snyder and Albuquerque (the regular creators on AV), set in 1967 New Mexico featuring everyone’s favorite American vampire: Skinner Sweet.  There isn’t a ton of content here.  Just a few little pages showing Skinner getting into a messy fracas that is surely a tease for when the ongoing series returns from hiatus.  I can’t wait to see more of this story.  Why did those bikers want to kill Skinner?  Skinner versus Hell’s Angels?  That sounds nifty.  I’ll read that.  Please hurry up and create those comics for me, sirs.  It also raised an interesting thought in my mind: Skinner sure hasn’t gone very far from home.  Except for his World War II excursion, he has never left the American Southwest and southern California.  I’m not really sure if that means anything except that Skinner was probably a lot like other Americans of that era: He mostly stayed around his home area except for war.  I mean, we haven’t seen Skinner in New York or South Beach.  Kinda interesting…

Swamp Thing Annual #1 – Review

By: Scott Snyder & Scott Tuft (story), Becky Cloonan (art), Andrew Belanger (pencils), Karl Kerschl (inks), Tony Avina (colors)

The Story: What’s more romantic than a historical tour of a village on a barren mountain?

The Review: If you’ve noticed nothing else about Snyder’s work in the last few years, you’ve at least realized by now that he’s had big ideas for the DCU ever since he started working on Detective Comics.  As amazing as his work has been, though, only lately has he begun to stretch his legs and take command of the material like his own.  He now sees much more comfortable taking the familiar characters and twisting them to his own vision.

You might be thinking that he’s always done this, which is true, but you have to admit he’s become quite a bit more radical in the last few months.  The early issues of this series displayed a huge amount of knowledge and respect for the Swamp Thing mythos, retaining as much of the preceding authors’ continuity as possible.  In #0, you saw Snyder muck with Alec’s origins in a pretty significant way, and here, that mucking turns into full-on historical revisionism.

Batman #12 – Review

By: Scott Snyder & James Tynion, IV (writers), Becky Cloonan & Andy Clarke (artists), Sandu Florea (inks on a few pages), FCO Plascencia (colors), Richard Starkings & Jimmy Betancourt (letters), Katie Kubert (assistant editor) & Mike Marts (editor)

The Story: Batman has a new helper.

A few things: 1). Neat new character. – I kinda like this new character, Harper Row.  She’s clever, handy and hits that cute-but-not-sexy sweet spot (as appropriate for a teenager).  I like how she uses nothing but her wits and skills to figure out some things about Batman’s operations.  Heck, she basically hacks and improves his network.  That’s really cool.  In fact, her attitude and skill sets remind me a little bit of Tim Drake who famously figured out Batman’s identity and then went on to become Robin.  Could a character arc like Tim’s be in store for Harper?  Who knows…..but it would be a fun possibility.

Demo #5 – Review

by Brian Wood (writer), Becky Cloonan (artist)

The Story: Lisbeth can travel through time.  She decides to travel backwards to visit her teenage self so that she can try and steer herself clear of living the empty and vapid life she’s found herself in the present.  While there, she also decides to take brutal revenge on her abusive father, but nothing is ever that simple.

What’s Good: I’m a sucker for time travel stories.  So, as I read this issue of Demo and realized that’s what this issue was, I was elated.  There’s just something about plots that concern damaged characters trying to change what made them who they are through the use of science fiction that gets me every time.  Wood’s tale of Lisbeth and the straight-forward approach with which he treats her gift are refreshing.  Most time travel stories are full of plot points and morals that teach you that you should never use time travel for personal gain and that, above all else, you can never, ever, change events in the past because of the cataclysmic effects such an action might have on the present.  In this issue of Demo however, the writer immediately throws such concerns to the wind.  Lisbeth is living a financially successful life due directly to her abusing her time traveling abilities.  When she travels backwards in time to visit her younger self, she physically touches the young Lisbeth (a common no-no in these types of stories) and is very candid about what she needs to do in the future.  Not only that, but she kills (or at least tries to) someone who I assume is meant to live longer, whether or not he deserved to.  It’s a nice change of pace to see a protagonist change things in such a personal, almost-selfish way and have everything still work out for the better in the end.  Moral lessons are great and all, but sometimes it’s nice to see that you really can get what you want when given the means, universal laws be damned.

Becky Cloonan’s artwork has always been perfect for the Demo series.  She’s an artistic chameleon who adapts to different types of stories as she sees fit while never losing her own stamp on her pencils.  Her design of the characters, especially of Lisbeth, feels perfectly appropriate.  Her visual representation of time travel, while a bit confusing initially, is wonderfully sparse and graceful.  The decision to contrast the falling Lisbeth with a blank slate, so to speak, also works nicely with the black and white artwork.