The Wicked + the Divine #7

Laura and Inanna believe that the people who tried to assassinate Lucifer (waaaay back in Issue #1) weren’t actually opposed to the gods — they were really fans. So Laura has traveled to Fantheon, a huge London convention for god fans. She’s a minor celebrity here, as one of the few confidants of Lucifer, so she has to sign a lot of autographs and attend a few panel discussions. She finally gets to meet up with Woden — he wears a Daft Punk/Tron costume, his only power lets him empower his specially designated Valkyries, and he’s considered a creepy racist, at best. When he humiliates a former Valkyrie at the convention, she tries to take the fabled Prometheus gambit — murder a god, and you gain his powers. It doesn’t work out for her at all. After that, she meets up with Baphomet and the Morrigan, who invite her to party, and reveal there’s a new god being introduced: Dionysus.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great art and story, but I say that every time. Gotta give extra credit to the great pun-filled map of the London Fantheon. And do we talk enough about the outstanding work Matthew Wilson is doing on the coloring? ‘Cause a lot of the reason this book looks so gorgeous is because of all the amazing work he does with the colors.

Captain America and the Mighty Avengers #4

Cap has recently been de-inverted and is back to his old self, but he’s still dealing with all the bad publicity he created for himself by going hardcore fascist. Luke is also back to normal, but he’s pretending to be evil so he can find out what’s up with Jason Quantrell, the thoroughly evil CEO of Cortex, Inc. But he’s not quite as undercover as he thought he was. And Power Man and White Tiger are investigating the death of racist supervillain Gideon Mace. What monster is waiting for them? What’s the connection to Cortex? And will Sam Wilson get his spirit back?

Verdict: Ehh, not at all bad. But it’s nothing earthshatteringly fantastic either.

Lumberjanes #10

While April, Ripley, and Jo decide they’re going to finally get some merit badges — starting with the badge for cake decorating — Molly and Mal go off in the woods for their picnic, but before anything romantic can go on, they end up chasing the mysterious Bear Woman, who then accidentally leads them through an otherworldly outhouse into a world full of dinosaurs! Will they be able to make it back home?

Verdict: Thumbs up. What we expected to be a low-key day of loafing around ends up with dinosaur chases. Holy cheese. And that’s not even counting the oh-so-awkward-and-sweet picnic or Ripley dancing with a raccoon.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Milestone Comics are coming back!
• Never forget that the nerds won the war that the moral guardians fought against Dungeons & Dragons.
• This is something that should happen a lot more often. Not enough people are willing to run the Klan, the neo-nazis, and the teabaggers out of town on a rail.

We’re getting mighty close to Christmas, but there’s still time for some more gift recommendations for the comic book lover in your life.

Today, we’re going to talk about three different comics that I’ve already reviewed multiple times (click on the links at the bottom of this post if you want to see my more in-depth reviews of each issue) — but they’re now out in trade paperbacks, there’s a decent chance they’ll still be available in your local comics shop for you last-minute shoppers, and they’ll make great gifts for any comics fan who hasn’t yet gotten to enjoy the series.

First, there’s Moon Knight: From the Dead, by Warren Ellis and Declan Shalvey.

Ellis and Shalvey’s much-too-short run on the series produced one of the best superhero comics of the past year, as Marc Spector takes on military cyborgs, snipers, killer psychotrobic mushrooms, punk rock ghosts, and more, all wearing amazing all-white costumes — standard superhero costumes, suits and ties, magical bone armor.

The art and storytelling here are simply amazing. You get six done-in-one stories, beautifully illustrated, gloriously colored, fantastically action-packed. Almost every issue Ellis and Shalvey produced could be nominated for awards — and should be — and if you know a comics fan who loves innovative storytelling and spectacular art, you can get this at your local shop for about $18.

Next, we get Southern Bastards: Here Was a Man, by Jason Aaron and Jason Latour.

This is a grimy, deep-fried Southern noir starring an old man named Ernest Tubb who’s returned to Craw County, Alabama for the first time in decades. He gets pulled into the dirty political machinations of the town, thanks to a bunch of redneck thugs picking on innocent people, and because of Coach Boss, the coach of the local football team, owner of the best barbecue joint in town, and the local crime boss.

Aaron and Latour are both from the South, and they end up bringing a lot of both the good and the way-too-frequent bad of the Deep South. The noir is pitch-black — more a tragedy than a traditional Southern gothic — the characterization and dialogue are grand, and there’s even a recipe included for Aaron’s mom’s fried apple pies. And it’s just $10, which is a great way to introduce this series to the crime fiction fan on your shopping list.

And finally, here’s The Wicked + the Divine: The Faust Act, by Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, and Matthew Wilson.

This one has a really great hook — every 90 years, a dozen young people become the avatars of actual gods. They are worshiped and revered, despised and denounced. They perform miracles, and they perform concerts. And within two years, all of them die. It’s time for a new celestial cycle, and we follow two main characters — Laura, a divine fangirl and wannabe, and Luci, which is short for Lucifer. She’s the Devil.

The art is crisp and glorious, the story is inspired and mind-blowing, and the characters are people you want to learn more and more and more about. The “gods as supernatural pop stars” is a fantastic set-up, and the mystery at the heart of the story is fascinating and terrifying. You’ve got someone on your holiday list who would absolutely love this one, and you can get it for ’em for just ten bucks.

The Wicked + the Divine #6

A few months have passed since Lucifer died, and Laura’s life is settling into post-celebrity teen angst. She’s never managed to recreate Luci’s powers and is having trouble reconnecting with her parents — but she’s just gotten a phone call from another member of the pantheon, and he wants to meet her. Inanna is a Sumerian love goddess born into the body of a male teenager, and his clothing is so purple, you’ll need to dig out all your old Prince CDs while you’re reading this. (That’s not a bad idea anyway.) And it turns out Inanna is actually a Laura fanboy — he met her briefly before his ascension to godhood.

Verdict: Thumbs up. As always, fantastic art and storytelling. Love the infographic on Laura’s room, as well as her unspoken speech to her mom, which both do a great job of getting us deeper into our protagonist’s head. Other things worth loving are Laura’s smackdown of the middle-aged pantheon fanboy at the convention who doesn’t think the current generation is worthy, mostly because they’re not his generation — pretty much every over-the-hill rock critic who idolizes the music he grew up with. And the awesome Princeness of Inanna’s outfits are really just glorious.

Wytches #3

Sailor Rooks has gone missing after stealing a school bus after a rough day at school. And no one knows it yet, but her uncle is missing, too. Her parents are upset, and the local police are trying to calm them down enough to get them to aid them in the search. Charlie is also upset because of the mysterious woman who attacked him earlier in the day — no one is quite sure she was real, and even Charlie has some doubts. But someone is trying to send the Rooks family a message — in the strangest way possible…

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a wonderfully creepy story – and I gotta say, one of my favorite bits is actually after the story is over, when colorist Matt Hollingsworth shows us how he adds the colors, as well as the incredibly cool paint spatter, that gives the comic such a unique look.

Manifest Destiny #12

The expedition continues west, encountering a few monsters — and some Indians. Sacagawea is able to talk to them a bit, even though they’re from different tribes, and while they consult, we learn how Lewis and Clark came to lead the expedition — Lewis was a walking scandal until President Jefferson revealed that there were monsters in the Louisiana Purchase and strongarmed him into taking the journey, while Clark was retired, drunk, upset, and bored — he joined just to have some discipline back in his life. Meanwhile, does Sacagawea have more secrets she’s keeping from the crew? Oh, that seems quite likely.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A nice breather story, with lots of interesting info about how the expedition came about.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Spider-Woman is getting a cool new costume, thanks, mostly, to positive buzz about Captain Marvel’s and Batgirl’s new costumes.
• Holiday fun with Supergirl and Batgirl.
• This annotated version of Stephen Colbert’s farewell song makes it a lot easier to tell who everyone is.

The Wicked + the Divine #5

Lucifer has strolled out of jail and is casually blowing away any cops who come after her. Laura is desperate to help her before she gets into even worse trouble, but the rest of the gods aren’t very patient — Baal comes in swinging his fists and lightning bolts, and Sakhmet isn’t far behind. Laura runs for the Underground and summons the Morrigan, and they’re able to get Luci to safety. She agrees to go into hiding with the Morrigan — but the gods are wrathful and cruel, and they refuse to be denied.

Verdict: Thumbs up. As always, it’s beautifully illustrated and pretty damn beautifully written, too. And while it’s really nice to see the godheads cut loose with their powers, the whole issue is also a serious gut-punch. It’ll be very interesting to see what we’ll see happen next.

Lazarus #12

A Conclave has been called, and all the Families are gathering at a platform in the North Sea owned by the Armitage family. The Carlyles don’t have much to look forward to on this trip but serious politicking — Jakob Hock has their traitorous brother Jonah and has been torturing him. He hates the Carlyles to an insane degree, and the family is concerned that if he’s discovered something called the Longevity Code in their DNA, he could use his knowledge to get all the other Families on his side. Forever gets to meet up and spar with the other Families’ Lazari, and then it’s time for the Grand Ball, and Forever and Joacquim Morray put on a wonderful demonstration on the dance floor. And then Jakob Hock shows up with a surprise for everyone.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice to meet some of the other Families, and especially their Lazari, who always seem to be the most interesting members of the entourages. All the talk of politics might normally seem a little dry, but Rucka makes it all entirely fascinating.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Yeah, people, the “Avengers: Age of Ultron” teaser trailer is entirely awesome. I’m already wanting a trailer devoted to nothing but James Spader’s Ultron.
• I know this is something I’ve heard some parents talk about before — their kids love comics and superheroes, but there are not enough comics that are really kid-friendly, and some of kids’ favorite superheroes only have kid-UNfriendly comics on the stands…
• This is a great little tribute to “The Shining,” but I’m not sure if it makes me want to shop at Ikea…
• Here’s a really cool article explaining what makes horror movies scary, complete with videos from great movies to demonstrate each point.

The Wicked + the Divine #4

Laura and her “friend” Cassandra meet up with Baal, who’s basically classic-era Kanye West — incredibly arrogant because he’s incredibly good. He tells them he’s not Baal Hammon, the vengeful fiery sky-god — he’s Baal Hadad, who’s less vengeful and more electrical. He insists that Lucifer has to serve her time in jail because the gods are ultimately powerless to free her. He leaves Cassandra behind and brings Laura to meet a contingent of the gods, including Amaterasu, Sakhmet, Minerva, Woden, and the mysterious Ananke. They tell Laura that any of them could be the killer, but Lucifer has to stay in jail ’til the real killer is found — if she’s not the real killer anyway. If the rest of humanity realizes all the gods could be as loose-cannon as Luci is, the gods might never be able to return again. Lucifer doesn’t react well when Laura tells her what the rest of the Pantheon had to say.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baal

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a gorgeous story full of gorgeous people. Still loving the interpretations of the gods. I do wish the explanation for why the gods couldn’t interfere to free Lucifer, and why they were so uninspired to find the real killer — after all, he or she could kill again and leave them with the same problem all over again.

George Perez’s Sirens #1

Quite honestly, this one was a maze of nonsense. There’s tons of time-jumping, tons of different characters, most of them unidentified, with the ultimate goal being to bring these timelost heroines to the distant future to stop some cosmic threat.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Like I said, it’s a maze of nonsense. Gorgeous art, but not much else to recommend it.

Trees #5

A small African nation has gotten some serious international attention by placing weapons on top of one of the Trees so they can threaten a neighboring state they want to take over. In China, repressed young artist Tian Chenglei gets a bit less repressed — all just in time for the government to make a move on the city he’s in. In Cefalu, Sicily, the older man, with an unexpected knowledge of historical occultism, takes a younger rebellious woman as an apprentice. And in the Arctic, the flowers that sprang from the Trees are more persistent, infectious, and dangerous than anyone expected.

Verdict: Thumbs up. We’ve got a lot of different storylines, and they’re all right on the edge of jumping to the next segment of rising action. This seems to me that it’s going to be a very exciting and interesting story.

The Wicked + the Divine #3

Well, it looks like Baphomet has just murdered the Morrigan — but whoops, no, it’s just Baphomet using magic to make her look dead. In truth, the Morrigan, with three different hairstyles and three different personalities, is good and pissed, and the two gods are about to throw down and probably massacre all the mortals who came to see them — until Laura manages a desperate ploy to distract them from their fight and convince them to perform together instead. This may not be an improvement — everyone else may end up dying anyway. Then the cops show up and arrest everyone. Does any of this lead Laura any closer to finding out who framed Lucifer?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The Morrigan is a lot of fun. Baphomet is alright, too, but the Morrigan is definitely the highlight of this issue. Laura’s gambit is appealingly deranged, too. Did I mention how awesome the art is, too? ‘Cause the art is just plain awesome.

Daredevil #7

Matt is trying to find out why Wakanda has kidnapped his mother, a nun called Sister Maggie, so he has S.H.I.E.L.D. airdrop him into the Wakandan jungle. Once he’s there, he’s captured pretty quickly — which turns out to be part of his plan. Otherwise, he’d have to trek through miles of jungle to get to the royal palace. Can Daredevil convince the new Black Panther to release his mother and the other nuns? And will he find out the secrets behind the vision he had of his mother and father?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Matt gets to demonstrate his greatest power once again — lawyering — and the backstory of his mother is interesting and points an excellent spotlight on the problems of post-partum depression.

Manifest Destiny #9

While Lewis is stuck aboard the boat trying futilely to kill the frog monster in the river, Clark and the rest of the expedition are roaming around the countryside getting into terrible trouble, mostly involving really large mosquitoes.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Not the best issue of this series, but there’s nice interaction between the characters and a lot of wonderfully gory scenes with giant mosquitoes.

Trees #4

As rural artist Tian Chenglei slowly gets accustomed to the weirdly anarchic city he’s moved to, Marsh and the scientists in the Arctic learn that the black flowers growing around the Trees are actually filled with wires.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is, so far, a very slow moving story, but it’s really a great deal of fun to get to know all these characters and their settings, and by extension, the transformed Earth they all live in. The Trees never interact with humans, but they’ve still changed the world in entertainingly drastic ways.

The Wicked + the Divine #2

Lucifer has apparently murdered a judge with her godly powers — but she claims she didn’t do it, and only god-wannabe fangirl Laura believes her. She overhears Luci asking Amaterasu to get her someone named Ananke. Unable to learn anything about Ananke, Laura bluffs her way into the prison holding Luci and gets an audience. She learns that Ananke is an old woman who reveals to teenagers that they’ve become gods — and Luci makes Laura an offer: help her, and she’ll make Laura the first of her demons. And later, Laura goes to see an underground concert — literally underground, deep in the subway tunnels under London — by the Morrigan. But who they get definitely isn’t the Morrigan.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Beautifully illustrated from cover to last page, with great writing to go along with it. My favorite bits: Laura’s perfectly normal and fairly happy family life, which she apparently hates because she’s young and angsty, and young angsty kids hate the world if it’s not ending; the flashback of Lucifer’s deification, which is horrifying and beautiful and awe-inspiring; and the long, dark trip into the underworld to meet the Morrigan.

Silver Surfer #4

The Surfer is returning Dawn Greenwood to Earth. They meet up with the Guardians of the Galaxy (Gee, they’re in every one of Marvel’s comics lately — it’s like they’ve got a movie coming out or something) who check them for contraband. The Surfer tells Dawn about the days when he was unable to leave Earth as he returns her to her home at Anchor Bay. Everyone is glad to see Dawn back and eager to show the Surfer proper hospitality, but something seems off — might be the way the furniture grows teeth whenever no one is looking.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Gorgeous retro artwork from Mike Allred, of course, and it really is very creepy when we realize something unseen is stalking Dawn and the Surfer.

The Wicked + The Divine #1

So, the setup: once every century, the gods return to Earth. Not all of them — just a dozen. They inhabit the bodies of young people, they perform miracles, they perform concerts, they get worshiped by masses of people — and in two years or less, they all die. And the newest crop of gods are back on the material plane again.

Our viewpoint character is Laura, a fangirl looking for some gods to worship. She shows up for a concert by Amaterasu, a Shinto sun goddess inhabiting the body of a white girl from Exeter. Amaterasu pretty much blows everyone’s minds, and when Laura wakes up, she meets Lucifer, who takes her backstage to meet Amaterasu and Sakhmet while they’re getting interviewed by the skeptical media. And then there’s the brutal and utterly hilarious assassination attempt, gleefully shut down by Luci. But is the aftermath going to lead to the downfall of the gods?

Verdict: Thumbs up. As I believe we’re all quite well aware by now, Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie really love modern fantasy about pop music, and this one is basically pop stars as gods — insanely, gloriously popular for a couple years before they inevitably burn out and fade away. The art is spectacular, the character design is wondrous, the writing, characterization, and humor are fantastic. This was really great fun, and y’all better jump on the bandwagon for this one.

The Manhattan Projects #21

We finally get to focus on Laika, stuck on a very lonely mission exploring deep space. She’s captured by a spaceship categorizing alien lifeforms, is given a universal-translater snack, and is put into a cell with an alien glob and a lying spy-bot. But the ship is soon attacked by a larger warship, and Laika and her companions must flee to safety — and in the process, she gets dowsed in a genetic re-sequencing liquid. What happens to the world’s most famous space dog after a few thousand generations of forced evolution?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lots of action and humor and weird stuff, and it’s great to get to spend some time with Laika, who we just haven’t gotten to spend all that much of this series with.

The Witcher #4

Geralt the Witcher and Vara the succubus find Jakob the hunter in the dining hall with his wife Marta the vampire. Jakob has been desperate to find Marta all this time, but is now terrified to be in the same room with his terrifying, near-silent wife. After that, the Grave Hag makes it into the house and leads an attack of zombies. Geralt and Vara enjoy some time together, Jakob decides he wants to leave the house, then decides he doesn’t want to leave the house, and Geralt discovers one of the house’s great secrets.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good action and some wonderfully creepy weird stuff make this one a lot more fun.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Here’s a pretty entertaining panel discussion with a bunch of female comics creators talking about superheroines.
• This crossover almost makes me wish I was reading “Dick Tracy.”
• I’m not a big fan of baseball, but Tony Gwynn sounds like he was a heck of a great guy.