Vertigo Quarterly: Cyan #1 – Review

By: Too many to list—or even to review. Just check out the issue.

The Story: It’s impossible not to feel blue after reading this.

The Review: Of all the showcase titles out in recent years, the ones from Vertigo have been the best by far, with a good mix of known and unknown writers confidently spinning self-contained yarns from the chosen motif. Until now, I haven’t had a proper appreciation for the choice of motif, which provides some degree of unity to what would otherwise be jumbles of disparate, unconnected stories. But revolving stories around a color doesn’t quite do the same trick.

The big difference is that a color is an abstract concept in comparison to, say, witches or ghosts, which are somewhat more defined, even if a writer takes the notion in some radical direction. In theory, you can write any story and shoehorn a bit of cyan in there, which is what a lot of the features in this issue do, whether it’s Shaun Simon’s unconvincing “Serial Artist” or a metaphysical numbers extravaganza in Mony Nero’s “Much Ado About Nothing.” It’s easy enough for the colorists to dab a bit of sharp light blue in any given feature, but difficult to grasp the color’s effect on the story.

Hinterkind #5 – Review

By: Ian Edginton (story), Francesco Trifogli (art), Cris Peter (colors)

The Story: When trying to escape a self-destructing facility, just follow your nose.

The Review: I know what you’re all thinking: how could I have possibly have delayed in reviewing what has been the most exciting series currently produced by Vertigo?  Kidding aside, I do apologize for the lateness, but I sincerely believed that I had already Dropped this title.  Talk about your Freudian slips.  It doesn’t take a shrink to conclude that I was convinced I had stopped reading Hinterkind probably because I subconsciously wanted to stop reading it.

I don’t meant to suggest that Edginton’s writing has been bad, necessarily—just uninspired.  In reading Hinterkind, I never feel like I’m reading an original work so much as a mish-mish of elements poached from other works.  Now, this in itself is not a problem, so long as the writer can keep things clean and unified.  Saga, for example, never has a problem with cohesion because no matter how many characters Brian K. Vaughan throws in, no matter their personal arcs, they all revolve around the nucleus of Alana and Marko’s illicit relationship.  There’s no such common ground for anyone in Hinterkind.

Hinterkind #4 – Review

By: Ian Edginton (story), Francesco Trifogli (art), Cris Peter (colors)

The Story: It’s never a good thing when your doctor is sicker than you are.

The Review: One of the unfortunate necessities of serial fiction is that it doesn’t have much tolerance for stories that need extra time to get their acts together.  With novels, you come in prepared for a few chapters of exposition, where the plot is slowly constructing itself, because you have the luxury of reading on until you get some action.  When the story comes to you in monthly doses, it’s natural to expect a little more bang for your buck.

It’s pretty clear that Edginton has spent the last few issues painstakingly putting the big pieces of Hinterkind together, establishing the various character groupings (Prosper and Angus, Asa’s scouting party, Hobb’s gang, Starla’s posse, etc.) and multiple plotlines (Angus’ mutation, the oncoming Hinterkind conflicts, humanity’s general survival, etc.).  The title isn’t lacking in material, just cohesiveness.  Four issues in, you’d be hard-pressed to explain to a potential reader what Hinterkind is about.

Hinterkind #3 – Review

By: Ian Edginton (story), Francesco Trifogli (art), Cris Peter (colors)

The Story: If there’s one thing all can bond over, it’s the addictive qualities of daytime soaps.

The Review: There are few true victims in the conflicts between races.  Oh, there may be an a genuine dispute if you go back far enough, but at a certain point, no one can really claim to be on the high road anymore.  Whether one is the instigator or the one reacting in vengeance, both are doing wrong to the other, and for as long as the conflict continues, there are no people on the side of justice—only those who profit and those who don’t.

That’s pretty much the scenario we see between humanity and the Hinterkind, or most of them at least.  It’s unclear how many subscribe to the view Jon Hobb self-righteously proclaims to Prosper in this issue, that the Hinterkind simply let humanity do its own thing then “retreated into myth” as a consequence.  It’s impossible to believe the Hinterkind were as passive as all that, especially when so many of them seem so naturally inclined to prey on humans (“Eat you all up, an’ suck out your marrow!”  “Leave nothin’ but a rag, a bone and a hank of hair!”).  It’s much more likely that the more uncouth Hinterkind gave in to their impulses and mankind defended itself, with prejudice.

Hinterkind #2 – Review

By: Ian Edginton (story), Francesco Trifogli (art), Cris Peter (colors)

The Story: Talk about selling out your fellow humans…

The Review: The biggest failing in Hinterkind’s debut was a lack of context.  Although Edginton had produced a fairly potent combination of fantasy quest, action-adventure, and post-apocalyptic survival, there didn’t seem to be much unifying substance in the joints between these genres.  Consequently, Hinterkind has come across less like an original story and more like an assemblage of discrete fictional parts.

Slowly, however, Edginton begins to thread these parts together.  We had assumed that these mythic creatures, officially called “Hinterkind” (as opposed to, say, mankind), came part and parcel with “the fall” mentioned last month and were in some way responsible for the current state of human affairs.  That assumption proves false when Prosper and Angus, after dealing with a troll, indicate it’s the first time they’ve ever seen or heard of one.  If the Hinterkind weren’t the cause of the fall, then where do they come into the story?

The Manhattan Projects #1 – Review

By: Jonathan Hickman (writer), Nick Pitarra (artist), Cris Peter (colors) and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: What if there was more going on during the Manhattan Project than we were told?

Review: This was really good.  Anyone who has been a fan of Hickman’s creator owned works knows that he can whip up some crazy ideas and he likes to dwell in an area of secret conspiracies that is right up my alley.  Seriously, if you haven’t read Nightly News and Pax Romana you should correct that post haste!  Transhuman is pretty good too.

 I’m going to SPOIL one aspect of this first issue right now, it isn’t a huge spoiler, and nevertheless you’ve been warned.  You know that the series is going to be supercool when we see a military officer welcoming Robert Oppenheimer to “The Manhattan Projects”.  Did you catch that?  Yes, he used the plural form of “project” as in “the atomic bomb is only ONE thing we’re working on.”  So, one of the central themes of this story seems to be: What if there was a LOT more going on during the big World War II science projects than we were told?  We know a little bit about crazy projects that the Nazis and Soviets were working on during that era because they either (i) lost the war OR (ii) had their governments fall apart…. and it was some really trippy stuff.  We’re talking science that was seemingly decades before its time that took place due to the total war environment of WWII.  But, our secret projects are still nothing but the subject of conspiracy theories because we won the war and our government never fell apart.  The concept of a series written by Hickman that explores THOSE secrets is really tantalizing!  Sign me up!

Daken: Dark Wolverine #20 – Review

By: Rob Williams (writer), Alessandro Vitti (art), Cris Peter and Rachelle Rosenberg (colors)

The Story: A romance for psychopaths.

The Review: This is going to be a short review. I picked up Daken: Dark Wolverine #20 because it’s a slow week for my pull list, and the last time that happened, I reviewed another book about one of Wolverine’s progeny that was slated for cancellation, X-23 #18. I liked that issue, though I felt I was not the target audience. I get the feeling that Daken #20 was not aimed at me either, but this time, I just cannot find anything to like.

We open on Daken preparing to assassinate the “Kingpin” of LA with a sniper rifle Daken seems to have stolen out of a Rob Liefeld book. Daken believes that by killing this guy, he’ll be able to take over LA. Not the best supervillain scheme I’ve ever heard, but I can work with it. He never get’s an opportunity for a clear shot, so he decides to try again later. The book moves on to FBI Agent Donna Kiel sitting alone in a dinner, waiting for Daken to join her. She and Daken have been through a lot together recently, and she’s kinda at the end of her rope. When a stranger flirts with her, she pulls out a gun, and puts it to her own head to let him know she isn’t interested.

Once Daken joins her, the rest of the issue deals with the pair trying to reconcile the attraction they have for each other with the repulsion they feel toward that attraction. To be fair to the creators, this issue is well done. Rob Williams provides a tight story which does great job of exploring Daken and Kiel’s romantic and violent insecurities. The pacing is great, the characters are well developed, and this really functions well as a one-shot. Aside from the over-sized gun I mentioned earlier, I have no complaints about the art, handled by Allessandro Vitti. The issue is dynamically drawn, shows our two antiheroes for the damaged goods they are, and matches the desperate tone of the script. I also want to applaud Vitti for actually drawing the characters so they look like real people instead of supermodels, and particularly for drawing Kiel in clothes that don’t appear to have been sprayed onto her body.

Casanova #1 – Review

By Matt Fraction (writer), Gabriel Ba & Fabio Moon (artists), Cris Peter (colorist)

Like most Good Things in comics, I would argue that we can blame this one on Warren Ellis.

See, back in 2005, Ellis created a comic with Image called Fell, an atmospheric detective story told in an experimental format that packed more content onto fewer pages for a lower cost. A completely satisfying reading experience for Value Menu prices–a worthy experiment to pursue, right? Fraction certainly thought so, and a year later he supported Ellis’ Slimline format with the release of Casanova, a psychedelic, genre-busting tale of espionage, music, and the multiverse. Under the Image banner, Casanova enjoyed fourteen glorious issues before going on hiatus while Fraction, Ba, and Moon went on to achieve super-stardom through other projects. But the times are, as Dylan keenly observed, always a-changin’, and after two agonizing years, Casanova has been brought under Marvel’s Icon banner where it’s good and ready to remind the world why it is one of the greatest American comics we’ve got going right now. No joke.

At its heart, Casanova is the tale of Casanova Quinn, a master thief and unscrupulous rogue whose very existence is an insult to his father, the head of a superspy organization called E.M.P.I.R.E. (nope, they still haven’t explained what the hell it stands for, but does it matter?). After Casanova’s sister, the apple of her father’s eye and an operative in his organization, is killed in the line of duty, Casanova is abruptly kidnapped from his dimension by Newman Xeno, the bandaged kingpin of a criminal organization called W.A.S.T.E. (nope, don’t know what that one means either, but whatever) and dropped into a parallel universe where he is dead and his sister is an evil bitch working for Xeno, who now wants our Casanova to work for him as a double agent in his parallel-father’s organization.

Got all that? Yeah, me neither. But that’s okay because Casanova is back to blow our freaking minds, and we need that kind of Weirdness in our comics.

This comic is about so many things: fathers and sons, love and hate, redemption, greed, egos and faith and the perils of screwing with time and space. And it’s a comic influenced by so many things: rock music, beatnik poetry, James Bond, science, religion, books, comics, the aesthetics of Genres and the ambiguity of Love. And it does it all with such brazen, assured coolness and ruthless swagger that you hardly realize it’s a story that’s trying to tell you meaningful things. It’s also a record of Fraction’s life, of the things that were on his mind and the ideas and music and comics he was feeling passionate about at the time he was writing each script. There’s a kind of honesty to the way he’s let us into his world that I really identified with when this comic first came out, and I’m really grateful to see that vibe continues here in the back matter of this issue.

Hexed #4 – Review

Michael Alan Nelson (writer), Emma Rios (artist), Cris Peter (colors)

Before the Review :
If you haven’t been reading Hexed, you might want to. It’s about Lucy, a.k.a. Lucifer, a quick-on-her-feet cat burglar with a special trade. She only goes for things of supernatural interest, such as feathers of angel wings, or as the story goes, the Carasinth; a mystical artifact with deadly powers. Unfortunately, the squeeze is on, and her past has caught up to her.

The Story:
It’s the end of the road for Lucifer. Her employer and close friend are being held at gunpoint, and that son-of-a-gun Dietrich is looking to use the Carasinth to raise his standing in the world. She’s got to think fast, and outwit him before she and Val run out of time.

The Good :
Michael Alan Nelson puts together a nice, tight storyline and resolution for Hexed, which works by itself and within the larger story of Boom’s Cthulu Tales – the twists, turns, and pacing are present and solid. Emma Rios’ art has a wonderful motion and fluidity, and really brings the characters to life. The coloring, done by Cris Peter (is that his real name? If not, that’s fantastic!) brings a kind of tension to counteract the motion, helping make Hexed one of my favorite comics to look at.

The Bad:
Mostly, the fault lies with Michael Alan Nelson. The dialogue is fun and snappy, but can be just awkward enough to distract the reader from what’s going on. It’s simultaneously a strong and weak suit for him. Thankfully, the rest of his writing is pretty spot-on and fun, but that’s a glaring blemish that’s holding him back. As it stands, it’s keeping a good writer from being a great writer.

Grade : B+

-Brian Lynch

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