As you'd expect, comic purchases were down significantly this year for me. 73 new single issues. I think trades and manga were up slightly, but not by a huge amount from some previous years. Marvel was, as usual, number one in purchases, at 22 comics, or just over 30%. A new low on both counts. DC was at 10 comics, or 13.7%. That total is its highest since 2017, and it's highest percentage since 2015, when it was 25 out of 124. All other publishers combined for 41 comics, or 56.16% of the total. It's the highest percentage, but both 2018 and 2019 beat it for total.
Broken Gargoyles #1-3: A "dieselpunk" story in 1925, it revolves around a disfigured World War 1 veteran who hijacks a sort of mech thing, and one of his former infantry mates who offers to try and hunt him down in exchange for a reward. But like Atlantis Wasn't Built for Tourists, it really seems to be the first chapter of a story. Unlike that comic, it doesn't feel like it offers any sort of conclusion to anything. Bob Salley wrote it, with Stan Yak handling most of the penciling and inking, and colors mostly by Mike Nugent.
High Point - Some of the visuals and forms that Helen's memories take on the planet are really creative. Some are heartbreaking, and a few are just freaky. The bit with her father, even before it goes really wrong, is presented in a way that makes it obviously bad news, but you can still understand why Helen doesn't figure that out. The way Helen would rather focus on anything but the weird shit felt extremely real. And I like the shift in the color scheme of the world. How the longer she's there, it becomes more vibrant and less realistic for what appeared to be a dead world.
Low Point - I guess you can kind of see how it's going to end from a long way off. That's not terrible, Chisholm makes it work. And I don't think the story was about giving us some big twist, as much as it was about Helen getting what she needed, and that being very different from what she thought. But it's as close to a complaint as I can muster.
High Point - Wade sneaking his way into Krakoa and causing all sorts of problems, mostly just because he's mad he didn't get an invite. I still contend there's no way having Deadpool on your island nation is more disastrous than having Mr. Sinister. Or Mystique. Apocalypse. Magneto. Sabretooth. I could go on for days. But hey, Deadpool threw a tiny shark at Storm's face, which was pretty hilarious. Having Elsa Bloodstone in the supporting cast definitely seemed like an appropriate choice.
Low Point - I'm not sure what Bachalo was going for, but the panel layouts with so much unused space, and strange, difficult to interpret close-ups, did not work for me. At all. Which I knew was a risk, since Bachalo is always hit or miss with me. He's one of those artists that just gets too far into his style sometimes, and it loses coherence (Daimon Scott's like that for me, too.) I'm not sure Elsa's actually working as a supporting cast member.
Fantastic Four - Grimm Noir: Gerry Duggan, Ron Garney, and Matt Milla did this one-shot where Ben investigates the disappearance of a singer who lives across the street, and ends up in D'Spayre's realm, put through a host of nightmares. I don't know why exactly this exists, but it's fine as a done-in-one story about Ben accepting he's got a lot more crap bugging him than just being a rock monster. Garney and Milla give it a grainy, steeped in shadows look so that Ben's terrified blue eyes really jump out at you.
Giant-Size X-Men - Nightcrawler: Nightcrawler takes a small team of X-Men to investigate some weird stuff in the remains of the old X-Mansion, and finds an infestation of some alien bugs that must be from an outer space adventure I don't remember. This thing would really be more accurately titled Giant-Size X-Men - Cypher, since Kurt really doesn't do much of anything. I figured Alan Davis drawing Nightcrawler was worth putting up with Jonathan Hickman's writing, and I was wrong. Oops.
Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey #1: This was part of the "Black Label" imprint which I'm betting DC has since abandoned in their desperate flailings. It's got Amanda Conner art with Paul Mounts on colors, which is usually a winner. Unfortunately, Palmiotti and Conner's version of Harley when it comes to their writing hasn't grown on me any more than when I bought their ongoing back in 2015ish. She's just too. . . much, even for someone used to Deadpool. Probably because nobody is actually telling Harley to shut the hell up, which people do to Deadpool all the time.
Two days down. Tomorrow is a whole bunch of things I only bought one or two issues. Some of them were only that long, or have only gotten that far, but there's a few duds in there, too.
3 comments:
I'm not sure what DC's Black Label is supposed to signify. At first, I assumed it was a sort of mature reader imprint, a replacement for Vertigo, but I noticed the other day that All Star Superman is on it now. So is it Elseworlds as well? I suppose it's a general term for "not in the main DCU"? I will waste no more brain power on the conundrum.
I thought it was the "mature" imprint, too, but probably more like Marvel's old "MAX" designation than Vertigo, but maybe it's more of a prestige format thing? Did Marvel have something like that in the '80s? Epic, or something like that, where they'd do special graphic novel releases?
Yeah, I suppose it's close to Epic. That also lacked a distinct identity, so you'd get creator owned stuff next to Marvel miniseries and reprints of The Incal and Akira.
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