HELLO.
I come to you š¶-ššš¾šššš¾šā in the mucous grip of a wee sickness, a vaguely but profoundly uncomfortable eel hoisted from my rightful mire into a rowboat rented for a poorly-conceived bachelor party. Will they figure out how to cook me before Clarf is reduced to a skeleton in a corduroy tux? Will Glebra will still have him as her spouse without, as stipulated in their vows, āthe steadfast presence of dat assā? Do the servers have any miniature pigs in a blanket left, and if so could the swing by the altar? My license fully entitles me to bind a human woman and a skeleton in holy matrimony, but my officiant contract entitles me to my weight in puff pastry and Hebrew Nationals.
DEARLY BELOVED, we are gathered here today in the name of New Comic Books. I am gathered here today on my couch wrapped in an afghan, zonked out of my zooper on sudafed and blearily half-watching The Eternals.
Play ball.
(Obligatory reminder to subscribe to my once-monthly newsletter here, which rounds up everything I wrote in the preceding month and includes a pice of exclusive bonus content I will NEVER repost anywhere else, ever! Itās free, fast, fun, and youāll feel left out of the cool kidsā newsletter conversation at lunch if you donāt!)
āStep back into the Gotham of Tim Burtonās seminal Batman movies! Batman ā89 brings in screenwriter Sam Hamm (Batman, Batman Returns) and artist Joe Quinones (Dial H for Hero) to pull on a number of threads left dangling by the prolific director. Gotham becomes torn in two as citizens dressed as Batman and The Joker duke it out in the streets. As D.A. Harvey Dent tries to keep the city together, he targets the one problem tearing it apart: Batman! But what happens next has dark ramifications for not just the Dark Knight, but Harvey Dent himself. Bruce Wayne embarks on a crusade to better Gotham as both himself and the Batman, but a young new hero on the scene stands in his way, claiming his mission is shortsighted. Meanwhile, Harvey Dent starts down a path leading to nothing but ruin. The fate of Gotham hangs in the balance as these two sides of the same coin do battle. But when the coin finally flips, on which side will it fall? Collects Batman ā89 #1-6.ā Look, part of loving comics is accepting that comics are so fucking stupid, and embracing that, and I truly donāt know if Iāve ever seen a better example of that principle at work than this incredibly bonkers thing: a comics sequel to a movie that came out the year I came out of meine Mutter. How did this get made? Who had the idea? What person in the position to approve or deny it said āYes, make this thing, what America needs now is more of Billy Dee Williams as District Attorney Harvey Dent, gone out of his fucking gourdā? Weāll never know; at least I wonāt, and that mystery has always been the heart of my religion.
Will things get nuts? Will we find out why one ought never to rub another manās rhubarb, or where indeed he does get those wonderful toys? We must live in hope.
Hilarious sidenote, despite this coming out yesterday thereās already a 1-star review up, calling this a terrible disappointment for embracing the āwoke trendā, and I donāt know about you citizens but if my comics dollar can piss off a racist and bring me Lando Calrissian fighting Frasierās con-artist brother-in-law, I will spend that fucking dollar twice.
āCollects Devilās Reign: Villains for Hire #1-3 and Devilās Reign: Moon Knight. Listen: I am but a man, with a manās limitations and a manās desire to be able to afford cat-food, wife-food and me-food (Diet Coke), which puts a boundary on how many goddamned comics even I can read in a week. This being the case, Iām still on the second issue of the main Devilās Reign trade because I had to snarf down like six Silks before this week, and that with diminishing returns, I might add; Clone Conspiracy, more like Yawnspiracy. Ha! Take that, people who work harder and are more successful than me and totally deserve to be! āCollects Devilās Reign: X-Men (2022) #1-3, Devilās Reign: Winter Soldier (2022) #1. I donāt know much about the X-Men and even less about this Hellfire Club unless it features Eddie Munson. Nor do I know much about this Wintered Soldier, this Brumal Bucky, but Iām both enough of a completionist and actually interested enough in Devilās Reign to pick this up, and the $6.99 price tag was inoffensive enough to make that easy; in fact all of the Devilās Reign satellite titles are priced about half as much as they could easily have gotten away with, and whether this is an effort to actually respect the reader or just an attempt to counteract the cost associate with crossover-fatigue, itās still a pleasant surprise that I hope will set a trend for future events, like the one Kieron Gillen is heading right now. āThe legendary cartoonist aims his pen and paper toward his high school summer job. Not many preexisting thoughts on this one, Iām just always interested in hearing about what creators did before they created what theyāre most known for (similarly, Kate Beatonās Ducks: Two Years In The Oil Sands will be coming out in a little bit and you know I preordered that bad boi), and Iām always interested in learning about industries and experiences and processes that I donāt know anything about. The emotional, experiential angle appeals to me as well, for as we all know there does not exist a father-son story I wonāt sign on for, except that movie Patton Oswalt just did about catfishing his son. I also love a chance to support an international artist, and to see what he thinks of his younger self; hopefully time has made him kind and forgiving of the things he said and did when he didnāt know any better, or knew better but was scared, or knew better but made a bad choice anyway, as we all have done and will do again, and hopefully time has done the same for us. Donāt go to therapy, draw a graphic novel about what an asshole you used to be, then be better, is my point; it seems to have worked for this gentle Quebecer, itāll work for you. (Obviously that was a goof, Therapy Is Good.) āHarley and Ivy are on the road trip of the century! Following the wedding disaster of the decade, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy end up on the run from Commissioner Gordon and the GCPD! But as fun as that all sounds, Ivy still worries about her actions after Kite Man left her at the altarā¦luckily, Harleyās got the perfect scheme to shake her out of her wedding day blues. A HarlIvy Moon! But when they come face-to-face with one obstacle after another-old lovers? trust issues? childhood trauma?-not to mention a bevy of villains with their own bones to pick, will this Thelma and Louise-style journey end in victory, or tragedy? This packs in the entire run of the GLAAD Media Award-nominated series. Collects Harley Quinn: The Animated Series: The Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour #1-6ā Readers, every time for the past yearāand I mean year, the first issue of this dropped a year ago Thursdayāthat I have seen a delightful, hilarious, adorable, fucked-up comics page in any of the Twitter or Facebook or Silverfizz circles I frequent, and I say āHey that looks like fun, heh, Zatannaās trying not to barf, I wonder what this is?ā, and the OP didnāt tell us what goddamn book itās from, the research has led it to being The Long Harley Quinn Title a solid 75% of the time. Iām not familiar with the animated series of which this is annnnnnnā¦adaptation? Spinoff? Gaiden???ā¦but Iām familiar enough with the DCAU in general to know that by and large itās good work made by people with genuine affection for the source material, and the consensus appears to be that this is the cream of that particular crop, and based on what Iāve seen of this title this is an absolutely worthy addition to its stable. Plus, I love any Batman-adjacent story where he, as pretty clearly indicated here, is just a grumpy party-pooper off to the side, that always cracks me up and Iām sure the girls will take full advantage of it. āWhat happens when writers from Harley Quinn the TV show and Harley Quinn: The Animated Series: The Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour the comic book get together and swap stories from New Gotham? Absolute mayhem, thatās what! Follow what happened to some of your favorite Gotham sidekicks on Tawny Youngās new trash-tastic daytime talk show and watch the chairs fly as they spill the tea! Guest-starring Clayface, Batgirl, Frank the Plant, and Harley Quinnās worst sidekickā¦The Joker!ā Back in the Batman: The Animated Series days, the episodes I loved best were always the Day In The Life ones that focused on a particular villain and humanized them some; those are one of the many reasons that show was great, alongside such blessings as the advent of Kevin Conroy, the jumping-off point for the second phase of Mark Hamillās career, and giving us the entire existence of Harley Quinn thanks to one Joker-goon who put some extra stank on her read of āMr. Jā. God, what a wonderful thing, and reminder to always go as big and weird as you goddamn feel like. āAfter barely surviving in the jungles of Belize, The Jokerās fled to Europe! Jim Gordon pursues the super-villain, but the seeds of doubt are sproutingā¦If The Joker didnāt gas Arkham Asylum, who did? And whatās the next move for Vengeance, daughter of Bane? Collecting The Joker #6-9 and The Joker 2021 Annual #1!ā God dammit how much more Batman can be on this list? I donāt even consider myself that big a Batman guy, but I guess thatās like saying you donāt consider yourself an oxygen guy, but whatcha gonna do, itās right there with all the nitrogen, and whoās got the time to strain it out? Not this citizen, not at todayās straining-prices. āThe clashing of blades echoes in the depths of the labyrinth, and Oliver takes his first steps onto the path of blood. As he plots his vengeance from the shadows, though, other students are putting their own schemes into motion. Despite Oliverās best attempts to remain obscure, he and Nanao have attracted the attention of their classmates with their magical prowess. āWho is the strongest first-year?ā they wonder. Well, thereās only one way to find outāa battle royalāstyle tournament!ā MAGIC STUDENTS FIGHT EACH OTHER WITH SWORDS AND SPELLS: YES, VERY GOOD. āThe world is caught in an all-out war between Scorpionus and Moonflower as the two enact their plans to force their versions of utopia on us all! Our only hope for liberation is a perverted, drug-addled metalhead and his flying Trans AmāAgent Scumbag! Really, the blurb says it all; about this volume, about why I love this disgusting, hilarious series, and why Iām very glad this will be the end of Ernie one way or another, although I am a little bummed they wonāt have to keep coming up with James Bond-related title-puns. āCollects Silk (2022) #1-5. Listen, as I mentioned above, I had to chomp through a shit-ton of Silk to be caught up for this, and I did notice a sharp downturn in quality from the fantastic Vol. 0 and pretty good Vol. 1 into the just miserable Vol.s 2 and 3, although the nosedive did pull almost straight up with the second Vol. 1, Threats And Menaces. Now, the astute reader will notice that sentence was a fucking trainwreck, and that is unfortunately appropriate. So thatās me this week, gang. What did you all get? How much Batman did you buy without realizing it? Which movie from 1989 would you read a comic continuation of? You canāt say Jason Takes Manhattan, ācause Elliott Kalan and Andrea Mutti already did it and it rules! Which Daredevil villain would you hire to do your yardwork? Lemme know in the comments!
As Mayor Wilson Fisk wages war on all super heroes, New York City is on a razorās edge. Thereās only one force fighting for the rule of law amidst the chaos: The Thunderbolts! But who are they? Fisk has laid out a proposition for the villains of the Marvel Universe: Join him or suffer the same fate as the heroes ā or worse. But some who enlist are only interested in serving and protecting themselves! Where others see chaos and fear, they see opportunity ā cash to be made and skulls to be cracked! Meanwhile, Moon Knight has been arrested and imprisoned in the high-tech Myrmidon! Now, surrounded by hostile guards and many of the very criminals he helped put away, Marc Spector must fight for his survival!ā
REGARDLESS, I have met the Thunderbolts and can confirm with malice aforethought that they suck, to a degree that I actually am very curious how they came to be a team full of jerks, I wondered that as I was reading it before I realized that question would be addressed by this volume, and Iām left with no recourse but to admit that already Devilās Reign appears to be pulling off what so many comics-crossover events have failed to: making all of these satellite-titles feel like theyāre actually related to whatās happening and about characters who are meaningfully involved, not just suddenly having Venoms hijack a completely unrelated issue thatās supposed to be about Matt Murdock adjusting to life in jail and then vanishing just as quickly, as happened with the mostly pretty good King In Black event.
My point is, Devilās Reign feels, at last so far, like an active, living system and this title appeals to me as an organ of that system that has meaningful, consequential interaction with the whole, instead of a vestigial second ass that hasnāt evolved away yet just because they had to make sure there was an Ant-Man tie-in issue for people to have to buy; if the estate of Jack Kirby is gonna make me have an auxiliary ass, by God I expect to be able to get some use out of it.
The Queenās reign! Emma Frost has many skeletons in her closet, but only one of them is currently Mayor of New York City. Now, in the midst of the chaos of DEVILāS REIGN, the truth about the White Queenās secret past with the Kingpin of Crime may be about to come to light! It turns out that attending fancy Hellfire Club soirees was not the naughtiest thing Emma was up to in the time before she joined the X-Men, and her dirty deeds are coming back to haunt her in a big way! Plus: As Fisk gathers information on super heroes, how far will Bucky Barnes go to steal the file on his own shadowy, half-remembered past as the Winter Soldier? And what horrible revelation awaits him in its pages?ā
For three summers beginning when he was 16, cartoonist Guy Delisle worked at a pulp and paper factory in Quebec City. Factory Summers chronicles the daily rhythms of life in the mill, and the twelve hour shifts he spent in a hot, noisy building filled with arcane machinery. Delisle takes his noted outsider perspective and applies it domestically, this time as a boy amongst men through the universal rite of passage of the summer job. Even as a teenager, Delisleās keen eye for hypocrisy highlights the tensions of class and the rampant sexism an all-male workplace permits.
Guy works the floor doing physically strenuous tasks. He is one of the few young people on site, and furthermore gets the job through his fatherās connections, a fact which rightfully earns him disdain from the lifers. Guyās dad spends his whole career in the white collar offices, working 9 to 5 instead of the rigorous 12-hour shifts of the unionized labor. Guy and his dad arenāt close, and Factory Summers leaves Delisle reconciling whether the job led to his dadās aloofness and unhappiness.
On his days off, Guy finds refuge in art, a world far beyond the factory floor. Delisle shows himself rediscovering comics at the public library, and preparing for animation schoolāonly to be told on the first day, āThere are no jobs in animation.ā Eager to pursue a job he enjoys, Guy throws caution to the wind.
Translated by Helge Dascher and Rob Aspinall.ā
Anyway, my point is that Iām very much here for a bunch of Batman villains airing their dirty laundry and two creative teams of wildly (and deservedly) successful works just going bonkers together on the stupidest thing they can think of, itās fucking beautiful and more people should get to do it, but if anybodyās gonna get to, Iām glad itās these weirdos.
Oh fuck, I forgot Baneās daughter was even in the first volume, thatās how much of an impression she makes on me despite being I guess kinda the main antagonist? Listen: I barely care about Bane himself, to say nothing of his nearly-identical genderswapped progeny, but I am willing to put up with either or both if it means I get more Joker and Gordon shenanigans where Mr. J acts like theyāre best pals and/or the Odd Couple, I could read 600 pages of that shit in a single sitting. Iām also pretty interested in the idea of the Joker being framed for the massacre at Arkham, because Iām a huge sucker for bad guys with rules, even if the only one he has is āhey I didnāt fuckin do that, I wouldāve done it funnierā.
The Joker canāt stay out of Gotham for long; he canāt breathe the air anywhere else, no matter how fresh and filled with bullets it might be, so I donāt think this series could develop into an extended travelogue, but this feels like the midpoint of this specific storyās arc and Iām very much here for its conclusion and for whatever might come next.
Quit being a jerk and come for one final spin with RICK REMENDER (SEVEN TO ETERNITY, DEADLY CLASS), ROLAND BOSCHI (Winter Soldier, Ghost Rider), and Ernie Ray Clementine, as he sets everything right in the world for everyone! Or the exact opposite! Why would we tell you how the story ends in this blurb?!
Collects THE SCUMBAG #11-14ā³
I also hope theyāll finally address something thatās actually really bothered me throughout the seriesā run: Ernie has always occupied a Third Position against the outright fascist, neo-Nazi Scorpionus organization and the cartoonish Tumblr-liberal caricature Moonflower cult, and while itās obviously correct to reject those both out of hand, Ernieās stated (and at one point in Vol. 2, realized) platform of āYou both suck, letās just rockānāroll, get high and partyā equates admittedly self-righteous and exhausting White Internet Liberal Feminism with actual goddamned white supremacists, and that is a problem.
One could (and arguably should) make the argument that it actually empowers fascists and white supremacists when, for example, trendy influencers make acknowledging their privilege a Brand without spreading the benefits of that to the vulnerable communities to which theyāre supposedly apologizing, e.g. aestheticizing, appropriating, and profiting from the language of feminism/social justice, without substantially engaging with marginalized identities such as women of color, trans women, and other groups who do the majority of the work in those circles, get almost none of the credit, and still endure the most of the oppression and danger. Painting both sides as being equally-and-oppositely wrong, with no care for the context in which these multifaceted issues arise, is in fact the typical stance of the privileged; it is White Supremacy Lite, or as the kids say, Enlightened Centrism at its finest.
My ultimate point is that while Ernie is correct to find both of these unpalatable, and to feel the urge to kick both of their asses, this is not a Letās you And Him Fight scenario, and I hope the series takes the chance to address that here in the finale, because while Ernie is absolutely an idiot who cares nothing for understanding the power structures that shape our world and do real harm, we the readers should, I hope, want and deserve better than that.
(Nota Bene: Iām a white cishet dude, and wanted to be very careful about how I expressed these thoughts for obvious reasons, and so my siteās very first consultant credit goes to my best friend Autumn, who can speak to these matters more authoritatively and who can be found on Twitter being smarter than all of us, for making sure I wasnāt about to accidentally do a hate crime.)
Silk is back! Cindy Moon returns as the web-spinning spider-hero! As Silk gains popularity in the public eye, Cindy begins questioning her place in the world. But existentialism will have to wait ā because a powerful new villain has been turned loose! An ancient, wicked witch is draining the life force out of young people, and Silk has to figure out how to stop her before she claims another victim. But what Cindy doesnāt know is that she is the witchās next target! In a race against the clock to stop this evil sorceress from putting her grand plan in motion, Silk will discover the dangers of ancient Korean magicā¦and social media. Donāt miss the comics debut of stunning storyteller Emily Kim and the return of legendary comic artist Takeshi Miyazawa!ā
If Iām doing this math right, there have been three separate Silk series (2015a, 2015b-2017, and 2021) which have been collected as Vol.s 0, 1-3, and 1 again, and now this Vol. 2 represents a fourth series marked 2022, and thatās before we get into Silk: Out Of The Spider-Verse, which is a 3-volume omnibus collecting those first five volumes, which was an attempt to make then 2021 Vol. 1 a clean starting-point. At some point Iām going to have to do an article about the 2015 Marvel reboot, which some series incorporated, some series ignored, and no two series articulated the same way in their issue and volume-numbering schemes. God I hate comics.
Okay, all of that said, I actually enjoyed Vol. 1 (2021) a lot, I think it was the strongest since the 2015a series, and while Iām made slightly nervous by a new writer taking the helm, having an all-Asian creative team for a Korean character (Emily Kim is also the writer on Tiger Division, Marvelās South Korean Avengers series in their own title for the first time) is obviously the correct move. Thatās not to say that non-Asian or non-specifically-Korean creators would be incapable of telling a good Silk story, or that this creative team is automatically going to tell a better one, and in fact her cultural heritage frankly hasnāt played a huge part in any storylines yet (although the prominent taegeuk on the cover above would indicate thatās about to change), but that doesnāt change the reality that marginalized creators deserve the chance to tell stories about marginalized characters, both from a moral and ethical standpoint and for the sake of authentic portrayal and understanding of character.
Until next time, be good to yourselves, be good to each other, wear your goddamned masks, and if you see four lights, say four lights. Bye all my buddies!
Send this to a friend! Or an enemy! Or your State Senator! Or Dave!