This Week's Comics

2/3/2011

I might try and do this as a regular feature, but I'm not really sure weekly serialised comics always deserve the chatter that often seems to surround them as individual issues. And I have a few ideas for several series of posts that will probably be more interesting to write. For me at least. But I feel inspired to do it for this week at least, and it's something I might at least do on a semi-regualar basis. Anyway, my thoughts on the comics I picked up from my local comic shop this week:

5 Ronin #1

Marvel seem to be doing this a bit of late, taking their regular characters and reimagining them in alternative time periods or genres. In this case it's 17th Century Japan, which is surely obvious from the title. It feels very similar to what DC used to do with their interminable series of Elseworlds, where the new setting often functioned as little more than a background for the same old origin story to play out for usually either Batman or Superman. Which is not to say that some of them couldn't be entertaining, but it often depended on what prior interest you had in the setting.

I picked this up on the strength of the fact that it's written by Peter Milligan, who on the evidence of this first issue at least appears to be doing a reasonably interesting job of reinterpreting Marvel heroes - Wolverine in this first issue - in the chosen setting. There's one moment that is particularly wonderful, evoking a genuine folktale-like magic. And in a neat reversal, the rationalising explanation which appears only a page or two later doesn't undermine the sense of mystery. A reinterpretation of 'the man who can't die' that doesn't rely on fantasy, for all that the explanation offered is a rather unlikely one, actually seems more magical in the context of Marvel comics.

The art by Tomm Coker is suitably moody and evocative in depicting landscape and atmosphere, but falls down a bit with rather stiff figure drawing and in his depiction of action.

The First Wave #6

A mini-series originally designed as an introduction to Brian Azzarello's reimagining of old Pulp characters, but subject to a number of delays, and now finally finishing just as the DC have apparently announced that the line is to be shut down. The art seems particularly rushed, with the addition of a second inker in Phil Winslade, but Brian Azzarello provides a suitably pulpy and grandiose finale with an ending that obviously leaves open the possibility of more stories which we'll now never see. I've not been reading any of the other First Wave books, the books this series was supposed to be introducing, although I'm interested in getting hold of the issues of The Spirit written by David Hine who I've recently rediscovered through his work on Shaky Kane's marvellous Bulletproof Coffin.

Joe the Barbarian #8

Many of my favourite comics bloggers display a great deal of love for the work of Grant Morrison, and that frankly, is one of the reasons why they're favourite bloggers of mine! I've come across a fair bit of carping online about this series, but apart from the fact of the delays, can't see much to complain about myself. This has been a fantastic comic. Sean Murphy's incredible art has of course been a revelation, helped no doubt by Dave Stewart's typically sympathetic colours. The story too, as simple a fantasy/adventure comic as it was, has been thoroughly entertaining. Yes, it does feel a bit as if Grant Morrison has reigned himself in a bit, attempting to tell something a little more 'traditional' than he has sometimes done in the past, but I loved this. This extra sized finale wraps everything up in fine style, wringing something genuinely emotional from the tropes it's mainpulating. The return of Jack, the rat whose apparrent death I was practically in tears over only a couple of issues previously, was particularly heartwarming for me. The whole issue felt heroic!