The Brave and the Bold #11. Ten years ago or so this series would have seemed quaint, a charming throwback to an earlier era for superhero comics storytelling—not unlike the (uneven but ultimately satisfying) “Silver Age” event that BatB writer Mark Waid helmed in 2000. But one of the benefits of the freshly Morrisonized (gradually Morrisonizing?) DCU is that the distinction between mainstream-contemporary genre conventions and the genre conventions of earlier eras no longer seems to matter much. While in years past a story in which Superman and Ultraman team up with a heroic Mxyzptlk—whose name is Mixyezpitelik and who refers to himself as a “vowelled knight of order”—and the Challengers of the Unknown to do battle with a possessed Metamporpho who has turned himself into a living green lantern power ring would, as “Silver Age” was, have been safely cordoned off in its own, implicitly lesser, corner of the DCU, now it’s just one of many equally valid storytelling modes, just another strand in the tapestry.* This was a fun issue from Waid and new penciller Jerry Ordway, whose work here is so strong I hardly miss George Perez. If this long-running storyline has a weakness its in the generic nature of its villain, who does at least get a pretty good menacing villain line in this month: When asked why he hasn’t just killed the Chals, he tells them, “I’m stockpiling the noise. Someone, someday, may want to know what human beings used to sound like.” True, it’s posing in place of characterization, but it’s pretty good posing.
*Also the being who possessed Metamorpho is an alchemist who stole the library of Alexandria and who wants to bathe Earth in a form of Red-K radiation that will affect humans, but I thought that clause was already running a little long.
Checkmate #24. Writers Greg Rucka and Eric Tratumann and penciller Joe Bennett continue to bring a solid run on this series to what is shaping up to be a strong finish. This issue is dense with narrative and thick with characters, many of whom are not regular cast members, yet it proceeds with remarkable clarity—no small feat. (Even if it does bite down on the old “Superman-is-so-idealistic-he’s-naive” chestnut a little too hard.) There’s a moment early on that makes it seem as though the issue is threatening to topple into lazy real-world geopolitical analogy, but the deliciously disturbing surprise in the last few pages makes it clear that Rucka et al have their heads on straight. All I’ll say is that when, after a firefight with Kobra cultists, Sasha Bordeaux asks Superman, “How do you fight bad religion?”, you might think the connection here is Osama bin Laden or Eric Rudolph, but you’d only be half right—Rosemary’s Baby is in the mix, too.
Immortal Iron Fist #13. I think the most satisfying thing about this typically excellent issue from Brubaker and Fraction and the artistic trio of Tonci Zonjic, David Aja, and Kano is how thoroughly it stomps all over the expectations created in the first part of the arc. We were told back in issue 8 that we’d be seeing a series of one-on-one Mortal Kombat style matchups; we even got a tournament bracket, for pete’s sake. Those early issues set us up for individual heroism in the classic superhero mold. But we should have seen that everything else in the comic was working against that individualism: Orson Randall and his Confederates of the Curious, the Thunderer’s female revolutionaries, the at times seemingly superfluous presence of the Heroes for Hire. This has been a series about families, ad hoc and otherwise, and, more specifically, about getting out from under an oppressive family legacy by slipping sideways into a new family; about sharing the burdens of history that you can’t put down. The Battle Royale coming next issue promises to be infinitely more satisfying than the one we thought we were getting a few months back.
Incredible Hercules #115. Has anyone before Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente made such good use of Hercules’s mythological roots? That’s an honest question; I’ve rarely read a non-Avengers Hercules story, and though there have been some good Avengers-and-Hercules-versus-Olympus stories, my memory is that Olympus might as well have been New Genesis or Attilan or any other abode of long-lived super-beings. Most Hercules stories either press the “vengeful warrior” button or the “soused buffoon” button—not a lot of range there. But in these few issues Pak and Van Lente make all the disparate aspects of Hercules’s character cohere. If Herc is still a bit headstrong and still a bit slow on the uptake, he’s also an immortal who, though bound by his mythological nature to repeat his triumphs and tragedies over and over again, has earned a modicum of wisdom about humanity over the millennia—the only trouble is calming himself down enough to impart it. I don’t know how long Herc and Amadeus Cho will get to star in this title before the Hulk comes back, but I hope Marvel finds a spot for them somewhere on their publishing schedule when he does.
This week also saw another solid installment of Brubaker’s Captain America and the penultimate (sigh) issue of The Order, but maybe more about those next month.
I think I’m done with Brave and the Bold—I finished it each month and just kind of looked at it, realizing that it would never get read again (maybe that Doom Patrol and the Flash Family one, but lord—what year is it in? 1986? 2012?). I like Jerry Ordway, though, and maybe that’ll be a boon.
I’m going to buy that Iron Fist today! And I keep hearing good things about the Herc title—what I read has already been pretty dang fun.