The Witching Hour #1 – Review

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

The Story: Will you catch any of these folks speaking with the devil?

The Review: These Vertigo showcases are proof positive that there really are an endless number of ways to look at the world, or even just one thing in it.  Both Ghosts and Time Warp offered stories that dealt with actual spirits and time-travel, but just as many stories that explored spirits and time as concepts, and a few that struck at the subjects on both a literal and figurative level.  It’s pretty amazing to see what the imagination will dream up when prompted.

Take Brett Lewis’ “Mars to Stay,” which in both substance and form resembles less like anything having to do with witches and more like a hard piece of science-fiction—the hardest kind, given how Lewis doesn’t take too many liberties with the fiction to deliver science that actually falls within the realm of possibility, if you have a cynical view of the way people work.  Maybe that’s where the witchcraft lies, in the slow, creeping way that the stranded crew’s psyches break down, as if infected with a curse.  Either way, it’s an impactful, haunting tale, despite having no clear connection to magical women whatsoever (and it doesn’t hurt that you get Cliff Chiang’s starkly sharp art illustrating the whole thing).

Django Unchained #7 – Review

By: Quentin Tarantino & Reginald Hudlin (story), R.M. Guéra (art), Giulia Brusco (colors)

The Story: Django’s finally letting loose—everybody run for cover!

The Review: To be honest, it’s a little hard to summon up the appropriate enthusiasm for this final issue—not that the series has stretched on for too long or gotten boring or anything like that.  It just feels like the most exciting parts of the story have already passed.  The deaths of both Calvin Candie and Dr. Schultz, Django’s primary antagonist and most charismatic figure respectively, felt very much like a kind of climax; what’s left now is mostly the wrap-up.

But if one’s idea of tying loose ends involves a lot of blades and guns, even that can be quite entertaining.  Without his mentor to advise restraint, Django completely fulfills the mandate of this title and goes all out in taking down everybody who’s ever wronged him, and when I say everybody, I mean everybody.  Not even the Candyland dogs who fed upon a poor, worn-out Mandingo in #5 get off scot-free.

Django Unchained #5 – Review

By: Quentin Tarantino & Reginald Hudlin (story), Danijel Zezlj (art), Giulia Brusco (colors)

The Story: As a glorified butler, it’s probably not a good idea to give lip to a man with guns.

The Review: Last issue, I talked about the hierarchy of disenfranchisement that existed for the African-American population in Django’s world of the antebellum South.  Slaves weren’t the bottom, amazingly enough; that position belonged to the Mandingo fighters, whose value and longevity lasted only as long as their last fight.  At least slaves generally had longer productive lives.  By comparison, house servants lived in the lap of luxury, some more so than others.

I had thought Cleo, with her fine mastery of language skills and social graces, represented the very top of the house servant’s life, but the introduction of Stephen, the steward at Candie’s main estate, proves otherwise.  Not only does he have a position of power in the cushy environment of the indoors, he can take liberties in his behavior to his master that probably no other slave could.  In response to Candie’s warm greeting, he grumbles, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, hello my ass…”  Undaunted, Candie asks if Stephen missed him.  “Yeah, I miss you like I miss a rock in my shoe.”  Stephen even has the privilege of addressing Candie by his first name.

Django Unchained #4 – Review

By: Quentin Tarantino & Reginald Hudlin (story), Jason Latour & R.M. Guéra (art), Giulia Brusco (colors)

The Story: Beware—the following story may be offensive to hillbillies.

The Review: Still haven’t seen the movie, folks.  I’ll get to it eventually, but I really just don’t have two successive hours to spend on anything lately.  But even without seeing it, I’ve heard a great deal about the controversy surrounding the film, though I can’t really comment on the particulars.  I don’t know how Tarantino handled it—I’m sure he added his usual fearless spin to things—but try to remember Django Unchained takes place in a controversial era to begin with.

The use of the word “nigger” is the least of it.  If we thought Schultz’s unhesitating willingness to shoot down a father in front of his son last issue was cold, Django’s lack of mercy in the role of a Mandingo “one-eyed Charlie” here is downright freezing, to the point even his mentor seems sickened.  Seeing Schultz avert his gaze when Django gives the go-ahead to set some dogs upon a runaway slave, Candie remarks, “Your boss looks a little green around the gills for a blood sport like nigger fightin’.”

“Naw, he just ain’t used to seein’ a man ripped apart by dogs, is all,” Django replies.

“But you are used to it?”

“Well, him bein’ German an’ all, I’m a little more used to Americans than he is.”

Django Unchained #3 – Review

By: Quentin Tarantino & Reginald Hudlin (story), Denys Cowan (pencils), John Floyd (inks), Jose Villarubia (colors)

The Story: At the Schultz School and you, too, can learn how to shoot a snowman in the heart.

The Review: To this date, I still haven’t seen the actual movie of Django Unchained, but even just reading its comic book adaptation, I think I’ve caught on to its unique appeal.  It’s a story of opposing forces existing side-by-side: blacks versus whites, the freedom of the bounty hunters versus the servitude of the slaves, the practice of killing without mercy against the travesty of enslaving one’s fellow man.

For an example of these strings of contrasts, you need look no further than in our dual protagonists.  Aside from the differences in their race and class, you can see that there’s a kind of tension between Schultz’s obvious kindness and patience with Django and his utter lack of sympathy for their intended targets.  It’s the kind of strange tension you see with mafia men who nevertheless love their families, and it seems to embody the fundamental paradox of humanity: a species in whom depravity and virtue can coexist very, very comfortably.

Saucer Country #14 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (story), Ryan Kelly (art), Giulia Brusco (colors)

The Story: Kidd realizes he’s spent a lot of time visualizing naked people.

The Review: It’s kind of a rite of passage for every comic book fan to get attached to a series that seemingly no one else in the world even cares about, much less cares enough to love or hate, and then go through the agony of having that series taken away before its time.  I’ve had the fortune to experience this multiple times, which has allowed me to get a practical perspective on the whole thing, though it doesn’t lessen the sting by much.

The cancellation of Saucer Country was announced about a month or so after I officially declared it as one of my favorite titles last year, which left me with the sneaking suspicion that I might be cursed.  Oh, well.  In a case like this, all you can really do is cross your fingers that you’ll at least get a somewhat satisfying finale, one that rewards the devotees for all the time and affection they’ve invested into the story and characters.  To a certain extent, this issue strives to do all that, but gets hampered by the timing.

Saucer Country #13 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (story), Ryan Kelly (art), Giulia Brusco (colors)

The Story: Professor Kid discovers he’s been the object of a kinky couple’s dirty game.

The Review: With only one more issue until the end, Saucer Country now seems in a hurry to get it all over with.  If you thought last issue went by quickly, this one takes it up a couple notches more, throwing one big confrontation after another in succession.  This isn’t such a bad thing; the pace on this series has been fairly slow up to this point, so acceleration during what is essentially a series finale seems appropriate.

So it’s not the speed itself that feels off; rather, it’s the jarring feeling of everyone suddenly kicking their interactions into high gear when cautious wariness has been the name of the game for the past year.  Saucer Country has always been about the mind games these various groups engage in with each other, but to win requires playing for the long game—meaning you need to do as the chess masters do and take your time to consider the next move.

Django Unchained #2 – Review

By: Quentin Tarantino & Reginald Hudlin (story), R.M. Guéra & Jason Latour (art), Giulia Brusco (colors)

The Story: It only takes one phony tooth to take out a crowd of surly men.

The Review: It’s something of a luxury to review an adaptation when you’ve never seen the original.  Despite our best open-minded intentions, we tend to get pretty attached to the first version of any story, and anything that comes after seems pale or too different by comparison.  Maybe if I had already seen the movie version of Django Unchained, I might be a little more cautious about the comic, as I might with the cheapie “novel” adaptation of Avatar.

As it stands alone, though, Django Unchained the comic works very well.  The last issue established the premise and introduced the characters with surprising efficiency, and this issue rolls along at nearly the perfect pace, fleshing out the general direction of the story while giving us an outline of what’s to come.  I don’t know Hudlin at all, having never read his run on Black Panther, but he melds his familiarity with the original Django with his comic book writing skills very well to deliver the ideal adaptation.

Saucer Country #12 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (story), Ryan Kelly (art), Giulia Brusco (colors)

The Story: You decide—man who may be an alien or woman abducted by aliens?

The Review: This is the big downside of serial fiction: if it manages to get some momentum, having it suddenly halt almost guarantees a major derailment that leaves the plot in smoking, broken heaps on the ground.  The best thing that can happen in these cases is if the story’s near some kind of end anyway and can semi-neatly wrap up.  The worst-case scenario is for the creators to give up and phone in the rest of the series.  And who can blame them, really?

What usually winds up happening lands somewhere on the middle ground: the story will desperately try to jump ahead to what should have been its long-term conclusion, squeezing in every last plot thread it can along the way.  In most instances, this well-intentioned move usually results in a haphazard, rushed, and implausible jumble that has almost no chance in satisfying anyone.  In the hands of a skilled storyteller with experience in the art of forced resolutions, the result is usually just rushed.

Saucer Country #11 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (story), Mirko Colak & Andrea Mutti (art), Giulia Brusco & Lee Loughridge (colors)

The Story: Aliens versus fairies.  Pretty sure that movie’s not going to be made any time soon.

The Review: I think I have little choice than to start off this review by talking about Saucer Country’s impending cancellation.  While it surely looks as if (as phrased by Dean Stell) DC’s trying to stop indie-lovers from putting any money into the company, and the axing of yet another title from Vertigo’s dwindling offerings does wreck DC’s creative cred some, all you have to do is look at the numbers to see why the title’s cancellation was all but inevitable.

Looking at the Comichron stats for December 2012, Saucer Country #10 was nearly the lowest-selling title for DC that month—bested only by kiddie series Green Lantern: The Animated Series and Scooby Doo: Where Are You? as well as October’s issue of Suicide Squad.  Do I think that’s a crime?  Yes.  Do I think lackluster sales should be a reason to prematurely end a title of great integrity?  No.  But do I think DC is making a reasonable business decision?  Well…

Django Unchained #1 – Review

By: Quentin Tarantino (story), R.M. Guéra & Jason Latour (art), Giulia Brusco (colors)

The Story: It figures a dentist’s unflinching tolerance for pain makes him an ideal bounty hunter.

The Review: I don’t have too many unreasonable prejudices—I don’t think—and the ones I do have I usually try to suppress whenever possible, but I’ve got to say: I am not a fan of adaptations of any kind, from any one medium to another medium.  Almost always the original intent of the original author gets lost (see the Lord of the Rings films, or 2001: A Space Odyssey, the novel), even when the original author is involved.

Still, I decided to give Django Unchained a shot.  True, I’d never seen the movie (but then, none of us has at this point, presumably) and I really had no idea what the story was even about, but what the heck—live dangerously, I say, especially when the only thing it’ll cost you is three bucks.  I figured an adaptation which basically lifts the original script and provides some nice visuals ought to have a pretty good chance of being as faithful as possible.

Saucer Country #10 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (story), Ryan Kelly (art), Lee Loughridge & Giulia Brusco (colors)

The Story: And now the presidential candidates confront the real issues—alien abduction.

The Review: Here at the ten issue mark, Cornell would be, if precedent means anything, about a few issues away from calling it a day on this series.  And if that should turn out to be true, it would be the absolute worst decision he ever made.  Given all the major events of our nation in recent days, Saucer Country as a political story, a social commentary, and just as a work of comic book fiction is more important, more relevant, than ever.

I will try to keep my real-world extrapolations to a minimum; it’s always risk to draw comparisons to a story when none are intended by the author.  But I wonder.  Even if Cornell couldn’t have predicted what would happen yesterday morning in an elementary school of Newtown, Connecticut, surely he had other similar atrocities in mind as he made gun violence a focus of this current arc.  Here, however, the shootings are not senseless; they mean something.

Saucer Country #9 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (story), Ryan Kelly (art), Giulia Brusco (colors)

The Story: Here you’ll find the worst and best shot in the history of the world.

The Review: If any of you caught the final page to last issue, you’ll know exactly what I mean when I say: well, that was quite something, wasn’t it?  Having a masked assassin attempt a potshot at Arcadia from point-blank definitely takes the tension of the series to whole new level.  I think that shot is a message from Cornell that even while the players try to navigate the myriad conspiracies surrounding them, that doesn’t mean they can avoid physical danger for long.

With all the government intrigue, you always had a sense that what Arcadia and friends were doing posed some risks, but for some reason, you—or, rather, I never thought that’s where the harm could spring from.  Cornell has spent so much time keeping our vision focused outward, looking for threats from the stars, that the credible, real-world dangers fell into a mental blind spot.  I don’t feel too bad, though; it’s clear the Alvarado team landed in the same trap.

Saucer Country #7 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (story), David Lapham (art), Giulia Brusco (colors)

The Story: If the conspiracy theorists catch wind of this, their heads just might explode.

The Review: This series has come a remarkably long way without drawing clear lines in the sand between the protagonists and the antagonists.  By the seventh issue, almost any other title can’t really avoid having hero and villain confront each other directly.  This title in particular has a lot of enemies for Arcadia & Co. to choose from: Dr. Glass and his military connections; the all-seeing nerds, the Bluebirds; and of course, the aliens themselves.

It speaks to the special quality of Cornell’s story that even without direct encounters between these groups (save for Arcadia and Dr. Glass’ strained civility post-hypno session), Saucer Country has had an amazing amount of tension.  It all has to do with Cornell’s choice of context.  Placing our hero in a position of such power and exposure, you might say that whoever she meets and whatever she does, whether confrontational or not, she’s at risk.  There’s a nameless, unseen threat in this title, and it comes from the judgment of the American people themselves.

Scalped #60 – Review

By: Jason Aaron (writer), R.M. Guera (artist), Giulia Brusco (colors), Sal Cipriano (letters), Mark Doyle (associate editor) & Will Dennis (editor)

The Story: The end!  Who dies, who lives and what will happen to the reservation going forward?

A few things (with SPOILERS): 1). Honestly…confusing first few pages. – I honestly don’t know what happened in the opening sequence.  I read it three times and still don’t know who killed Catcher: Dash or Agent Nitz.  I guess the second sequence is more likely true since Nitz does end up dead, but there’s nothing to indicate that Dash’s brutal killing of Catcher is imaginary.  There really should be something that makes it clear what happened.  Or I guess it’s possible that somehow this is all due to Catcher’s quasi-mystical status and I’m just trying to be too literal, but I really hope that isn’t the case.  Scalped is best when it is just a gritty crime story and the supernatural is left out of it.

Amazing Spider-Man #692 – Review

Alpha, Part I by: Dan Slott (writer), Humberto Ramos (pencils), Victor Olazaba (inks), Edgar Delgado (colors), Chris Eliopoulos (letters)

Spider-Man for a Night by: Dean Haspiel (writer/artist), Giulia Brusco (colors)

Just Right by: Joshua Hale Fialkov (writer), Nuno Plati (artist)

The Story: Spider-Man gets a new sidekick, but will he be more than Spidey can handle?

A few things (with minor SPOILERS): 1). Predictable, but let’s be open-minded… – So, Peter inadvertently creates another super-powered being and is then assigned to babysit this super-powerful and possibly out-of-control kid.  It seems like there are some very predictable places that such a story can go, right?  I really don’t want a story that shows how Peter became a good Spider-Man, didn’t abuse his powers and stuff because PETER is a good person, whereas some other person might get superpowers and behave badly because they are not as good of a person as PETER.  We’ve seen those stories before.  Let’s just have faith that Dan Slott is too fastidious of a writer to give us a recycled story….but my antennas are up.

Saucer Country #5 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (story), Ryan Kelly (art), Giulia Brusco (colors)

The Story: This is a long, long way from the late act of a high school grad night.

The Review: I don’t know what this world is coming to.  Without naming names, I often look at the TV personalities frequenting the airwaves, unleashing loose opinions and unsubstantiated ideas with a delivery that borders on frantic, yet somehow drawing a ton of people into their larger-than-life mania.  I don’t know how folks get suckered into such a ridiculous worldview yet simultaneously scoff alien conspiracy theorists because in my mind, there’s no difference.

Do you know why we all brush off the UFO-heads as crazy people?  Because with few exceptions, they act like crazy people, either strident to the point of violence, or so deadly convinced of their erroneous logic that it’s frightening.  You can pity these people, but you can’t take them seriously.

Scalped #59 – Review

By: Jason Aaron (writer), R.M. Guera (artist), Giulia Brusco (colors), Sal Cipriano (letters), Mark Doyle (assistant editor) & Will Dennis (editor)

The Story: Realizing that violence solves nothing, Catcher, Dash and Red Crow enter into group therapy to resolve their differences.  Haha….no….

Review (with minor SPOILERS): What did you really expect?  Everyone knew that Scalped was likely to end in a bloodbath and this is it: THE bloodbath.  Most of the issue consists of a gunfight right out of a John Woo or Robert Rodriguez movie: dual pistols, rapid fire, better marksmanship than you’d see in real life, dogs (instead of birds)….

The only unsatisfying item about this shootout it’s that we don’t get the resolution.  In some ways, I really was hoping for the big death(s) to happen in this issue leaving the finale to deal with the aftermath.  Aaron is a gifted writer, but I can’t imagine how he’s going to deal with the violent fates of Dash, Catcher, Red Crow and Agent Nix and still have time to visit Carol or Officer Falls Down for a quiet moment.

The other thing that was slightly off in this issue were Catcher’s dogs.  Maybe it’s me personally, but I’ve never quite understood this pack of dogs and what they’re supposed to symbolize.  I understood his old horse, Fetsus, just fine… But these dogs have never worked for me so I never like it when they play a roll as big as they play in this issue.  Scalped is such a grimy and grounded story and it doesn’t help to start weaving in some supernatural elements.  The horse wasn’t so bad because most of the time, Catcher was just riding the horse.  But every time we see the dogs, there’s this waft of supernatural that feels out of place.

Saucer Country #4 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (story), Ryan Kelly (art), Giulia Brusco & Lee Loughridge (colors)

The Story: There’s more than one way for an alien to be a Predator.

The Review: I’ve hinted at this from the start, but Saucer Country, when you think about it, works with a lot of clichés.  The aliens in particular are a callback to the hysterical imaginings of the nineties, but many other parts of the story also draw from certain tropes of the genre, whether it be the feverish conflicts between believers and skeptics, or the deepening suspicion that the government and other entities know more about the foreign visitors than they ever let on.

This issue very nearly falls into that hole of the overdone when Michael recalls his hypnotically recovered memories of “the abduction” for Arcadia and her team to hear.  Every part of his tale can be linked back to one common conspiracy theory or another, the tired invention of paranoid who has long ceased to even strike doubt into people’s hearts.  Remember, though: Cornell plays on all this with a lot of self-awareness; his goal isn’t to make you believe Michael’s story, but to remind you why those stories propagated and struck our consciousness in the first place.

Saucer Country #3 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Ryan Kelly (art), Giulia Brusco (colors), Sal Cipriano (letters), Mark Doyle (associate editor) & Will Dennis (editor)

The Story: Are alien abductions real?

Review/Recap: So, this is the issue where Cornell starts to fiddle with the idea of whether alien abductions are real or whether something else is going on.  The whole issue recalls some themes from The X-Files–before that show collapsed under its own weight.  Remember when The X-Files started to make it vague whether aliens were actually abducting people, or whether it was just the government stealing people and it was convenient for the government to let us think it was aliens because then we wouldn’t blame the government?  Well, this issue has a lot of that vibe to it.

Scalped #58 – Review

By: Jason Aaron (writer), R.M. Guera (artist), Giulia Brusco (colors), Sal Cipriano (letters), Mark Doyle (associate editor) & Will Dennis (editor)

Review (with SPOILERS): Things just aren’t going to end well for our characters, are they?  The lesson of Scalped seems to be: you reap what you sow.  Most of the characters in this series have behaved amorally and it’s all coming back to bite them.  The only question in my mind is whether Jason Aaron is going to leave anything standing at the end, so that we can imagine a Prairie Rose Reservation after the final page of issue #60.  Or do they all die?

Starting from the opening scene, we see Agent Nix brutalizing a newspaper box over the news that Red Crow is going to walk free now that the state’s star witness (Dash) is himself wanted for murder.  Nix has been burning to nail Red Crow for decades and along the way, he’s broken laws, used good people and been a total ass.  Would anyone say that he deserves to be rewarded by sending Red Crow to jail?  This is a dude who deserves whatever he gets.

How about Carol?  I love Carol as a character, but she hasn’t been an angel.  We’ve seen her in a sympathetic light, but she’s pumped gallons of drugs into her veins and used her daddy’s exalted position to live a decadent life when others on the reservation are living in squalor.  Plus, we have the whole thing with the pregnancy. There aren’t any “right” decisions for a pregnant woman who doesn’t want the baby, but if she hoped to have Dash and Red Crow be part of her life afterwards she needed to either tell them or make sure she could take the secret to her grave.  Not sure Carol deserves to be happy.

Red Crow?  Although he has a roguish nobility to him, he’s like Tony Soprano.  Everyone loved jolly old Tony, but he was really a despicable human and so is Red Crow.  The guy has killed people, had people killed, run drugs, run guns, used political corruption to enrich himself…  Sure, he’s had an old man’s spiritual awakening, but Red Crow can’t just have a happy retirement.

Saucer Country #2 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Ryan Kelly (artist), Giulia Brusco (colorist)

The Story: They’re everywhere!  In the mirror!  This couch!  That potted plant over there!

The Review: It’s been a long time since I thought about the show, but it seems appropriate to mention The X-Files here.  Fear of what’s out there has been a recurring theme in fiction since The War of the Worlds, but X-Files capitalized on that sentiment, combined it with growing distrust of the government, added in a heaping helping of psychological thriller, and became the exemplar of its genre.  Every similar work since feels redundant and familiar as a result.

You can’t tell at this point how far Cornell can break away from the trends and themes X-Files established, but one thing’s for sure: his gift for dialogue and character work will always ensure whatever he writes feels fresh and different.  The heated exchange between Chloe and Arcadia (and, to a lesser degree, Harry) in the limo embodies much of what makes Cornell an effective writer.  The way Arcadia keeps Chloe firmly in line, almost commanding her to stay despite an admittedly tenuous story about visiting aliens (“You say it was ‘like a dream’?  I think, therefore, that it was probably a dream!”), makes the would-be president that much more convincing, and that makes the premise in general that much more convincing.

Upon closer reading, you realize there’s so much groundwork getting laid down in this scene.  Just because Arcadia perceives an impending alien invasion doesn’t mean she’s about to let that jeopardize her chances of appearing as a viable candidate for the White House.  Yet at the same time that she demonstrates her governmental competence hasn’t diminished for her paranormal experiences, she also creates a sticky issue of political ethics: should someone whom we’re supposed to trust to lead the country be keeping a secret (delusional or no) this big from us?

Scalped #57 – Review

By: Jason Aaron (writer), R.M. Guera (artist), Giulia Brusco (colors), Sal Cipriano (letters), Mark Doyle (associate editor) & Will Dennis (editor)

The Story: Haha!  Did you really think there’d be a happy ending?

A few things: [with SPOILERS]

Shit’s about to get real! – Last issue was very unexpected as we leapt forward a few months, but it also painted an almost idyllic scene for the denizens of the Prairie Rose Reservation.  Probably no body thought we’d end this series on a calm note, so this issue isn’t a huge surprise.  Plus, we really can’t have a happy ending for Dash like at the end of Shawshank.  He’s done too many bad things along the way and they’re starting to bite him in the ass. Eventually your sins won’t stay buried.  I like the figurative idea of Dash’s sins being dug out of a shallow grave by a pack of stray dogs that then drag them all over, for everyone to see.   It’s like the dogs are saying, “Look!  He’s not a hero!  He’s a bad man too!”

Catcher. – What an odd character Catcher is!  On one hand, I thought he was dead when we saw his horse stomping on him a few issues ago.  But, he is clearly back and acting as some kind of avenging angel for the Reservation.  He’s also changed his animal totem from a scrawny old horse that seemed to have a moral code, to a pack of dogs that are intent on exposing and punishing sin.  I’m sure that more clever readers will be able to put all the figurative stuff together better than me, but even with my literal brain it is still pretty cool: Catcher is washing the Reservation clean.

Red Crow. – In some ways, Red Crow is more the central character of Scalped than is Dash.  He’s also a more moral man than Dash at this point, but as much as he loves Dash, he loves his daughter more.  I love the way Guera draws Red Crow.  I mean, he’s an older guy….so he can’t maintain washboard abs and he’s going to have some floppy skin on the backs of his arms, but every image of him just exudes power.  Even as a 60-something man, he doesn’t look like anyone you’d want to get into a scrap with.  It’s really a pleasure to see an artist who can draw something besides generic superhero bodily perfection.

Saucer Country #1 – A Second Opinion

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Ryan Kelly (artist), Giulia Brusco (colors), Sal Cipriano (letters), Mark Doyle (associate editor) & Will Dennis (editor)

The Story: The Governor of Arizona announces herself as a candidate for the Presidency under weird conditions that may or may not involve aliens.

A few things: 

1. Yay! A new Vertigo #1! – I don’t really count Fairest #1 since that’s just a spin-off from Fables; it has been a LONG time since we got a new Vertigo #1 from an ongoing series.  I Zombie was the last ongoing to be launched by Vertigo and it is up to issue #21.  And, Saucer Country is part of a glut of new series from Vertigo, which is great because this is the place for great ongoings for adults.  Image will hit a few too, but Vertigo has a better set up for ongoings and a better track record.

2. Interesting story concept. – There’s a lot to enjoy about this story.  Of course, we’ll have to see how Paul Cornell and Ryan Kelly execute on the promise of this issue, but they lay out a lot of tasty bits.  Of course, the big hook is the very X-Files treatment of aliens: Maybe they’re here and abducting us…or maybe something else is going on.  Given that the protagonist announces her candidacy for the Presidency, I’d imagine we’ll get into government conspiracies and cover-ups.  That’s just catnip for someone like me who loves to read conspiracy websites about what NASA knows about aliens but won’t share with the public.  But, layered on top of this, the protagonist seems like a wonderfully complex character.  In this first issue we meet Ms. Arcadia Alvarado, Governor of New Mexico, her estranged husband who physically abused her and her campaign staff.  Arcadia is that great mix of both strong and vulnerable and she’s a fairly three-dimensional character after only one issue.  Can’t wait to see where she goes.  But, the other characters seem neat too: There’s clearly more going on with her ex-husband than meets the eye, her bodyguards seem like they have interesting back-stories, I like her plucky campaign advisor and there’s even a whacky university professor who writes about aliens.  It’s all very rich.

Saucer Country #1 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Ryan Kelly (artist), Giulia Brusco (colorist)

The Story: I swear, I was abducted by green men who took me to a museum—or I was drunk.

The Review: I’m a big Cornell fan, if my last review of Stormwatch didn’t make that clear—and it did, because I practically slipped on my own tears writing about my disappointment on his leaving the title.  Of course, there’s always Demon Knights, but once Vertigo announced Cornell’s involvement with Saucer Country, I had to know what kind of story he’d write given semi-complete creative freedom, unbound by continuity or traditional interpretations of any kind.

If you boil down this series to its essence, you can scrape the dredges together and call it your classic alien encounter/psychological thriller.  All the major tenets of that genre are accounted for: uncertainty of what’s real and what’s imagined; tampered memories and repressed traumas, all to be whipped up upon some foreboding trigger event; people perched precariously on the edge of cogency and paranoia.  In that sense, Cornell doesn’t break the formula all that much.

Again, just as in everything people do, it’s all in the execution.  Cornell’s first step away from convention is in his choice of protagonist.  Arcadia Alvarado is no helpless, simpering lady begging the authorities to believe in her; she is the authority, being governor of New Mexico, and moreover, she’s out to become the authority as she trains her sights on the White House.