2022 Comics in Review - Part 1

Another year, another week of me looking back at last year's comics. I'm sticking with the same format I've used for 15 years. Look at the title over the first four days, highlighting the good and the bad, then the big, "who was the BEST?" shtick for the final day? Why mess with a winning formula, or at least one that's easy to maintain?

A Calculated Man #1-3: Jack Beans was a former mob money man who went into Witness Protection. But when he's spotted by remnants of his old employers, Jack has to put his perfect memory and analytic skills into killing all of them before they kill him. At the same time, though, he's trying to carry on a relationship with a woman he met online, who thinks all his stories about being a killer are just things he's making up.

High Point: Tobin writes some good conversations, either when Jack is talking to himself, or arguing with the U.S. Marshal who's about to become his new contact when the current guy retires. It helps to flesh out Jack's personality, the areas where he feels very sure of his judgment, and those where he doesn't. Alburquerque and colorist Mark Englert depict a world that looks very much like ours, but they keep it vivid and varied enough that it's interesting. Also, Jack gets creative with some of his killing.

Low Point: I had certain problems with how far Tobin took Jack's ability to predict exactly what people were going to do through the power of math. Again, this is a world where the other characters appear essentially average, but Jack's outmaneuvering them like he's a precog. It stretched my suspension of disbelief. I won't directly speak about the final issue, since it came out last week, but suffice to say, it did absolutely nothing to put that concern to rest. It actually made it worse.

Above Snakes #1, 2: Sean Lewis, Hayden Sherman, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou with a Western about a guy seeking revenge for his murdered wife, with a talking vulture that may or may not be in his head for company. I enjoyed Sherman's color work, but after two issues, I decided I didn't need to read another deconstruction of how people tie up revenge with justice, pushed through the lens of a Western.

Agent of WORLDE #1-3: Philip is, as the title suggests, an agent of WORLDE, a super-science agency that decides what super-science stuff gets to exist (under their control) and what doesn't (basically everything else.) Philip seems not entirely enthused by his work, which will probably come to some sort of a head, if/when the final issue shows up. Deniz Camp's the writer, with Filya Bratukhin as artist, Jason Wordie as color artist, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou as letterer.

High Point: There are panels where I find Bratukhin's art too fussy, too many dots or little hash marks on people's faces. But damn if Bratukhin don't put that excessive amount of detail into some wild settings and characters. And it goes different ways. Sometimes the weird stuff is beautiful and sometimes it's horrifying. I think I liked the scientist who made a bunch of robot children for himself most of the missions so far.

Also, I like how Camp keeps creating missions for Philip where he destroys people that have built themselves these unconventional families, but he gets to go home to his secret family. Why does Philip get to keep his family when these others don't? Simply because he's better at keeping his hidden than those others? I'd like there to be a reckoning there, but I don't think it's that kind of story.

Low Point: I can't shake the fact I don't actually like Philip (see the sentence above about wanting to see a reckoning.) I haven't actually rooted for him to succeed in a single one of his missions so far. Is that what Camp's going for, or am I supposed to empathize with the family man who doesn't like his work, only to get some rug pulled out at the end? I don't know yet.

Amazing Spider-Man #87, 88.BEY, 89: I hadn't bought any new Amazing Spider-Man comics in about a decade, but what the heck, they were gonna use Ben Reilly and the Black Cat. I'm not nostalgic about everything from my childhood, but I am about some things. Probably not my best decision in this case. I did like the issue about Felicia and Captain America trying to get Peter back up to snuff after a near-death experience. But bringing Dr. Kafka back as a clone only to turn her into some Psycho Pirate-esque Goblin, while turning Ben into a villain again, yeesh. Maybe I'll try again in 2032.

Batgirls #2-6: I thought a book focused on Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain (and Barbara Gordon), having their own adventures largely independent of the rest of the Bats would be a good time. But the first arc really didn't do it for me, even if throwing a bunch of armored goons, a super-hacker, and Spellbinder at them was a good try at really making the Batgirls seem like they were on the defensive, so I dropped it. With all the revamps/reboots/linewide resets, it was a bit like looking at someone that really reminds me of someone you used to know, but it's not actually them. Everything's just a little off. I don't think I'm the audience for it, but I hope it found that audience.

High Point: There were some funny parts, like Cass affirming that reading was fundamental in issue #4. The work Becky Cloonan, Michael Conrad, Jorge Corona and Sarah Stern put into establishing "the Hill" as a distinct setting, inhabited by some everyday people for the heroes to interact with outside of crimefighting.

Low Point: While they did explain some things about the "Saints", armored bruisers trying to bring in the Batgirls, after 6 issues, they hadn't explained anything about the Seer was, why she was so determined to hound Oracle, how she kept getting around all Oracle's defenses. They didn't even deal with the fact Seer seemed to know their secret identities, which seemed like kind of a big deal!

Maybe it was a deliberate approach after Barbara's comment she was sure Steph and Cass could handle the Saints if they were prepared, but the perfunctory way they trashed them in the opening pages of issue 5 was kind of a letdown. They spent 4 issues running from these guys, to take them out in half an issue?

Ben Reilly - Spider-Man #1-5: Marvel puts out a steady stream of these mini-series by veteran creators set off in distinct earlier eras of comics. In this case, J.M. DeMatteis and David Baldeon had Ben Reilly in his time as Spider-Man trying to deal with a serial killer. Plus he keeps getting attacked by super-villains while he's in his civilian identity, such as it is.

High Point: The view of Ben's extremely isolated life at the start of the mini-series, where he's still struggling to carve a place for himself in a place filled with Peter Parker's friends and memories, that was good. I always liked that aspect of Ben, so that was welcome.

Low Point: The main villain being Spidercide, yeesh. He's one of those things I don't have nostalgia for. In part because I missed the comics he showed up in during the Clone Saga. The way he seems to keep pulling more powers out of his butt every issue, and his motivations go back-and-forth from page to page was just tiring. He wants Ben to die. No, Ben has to live! He wants Ben to be friends with him! No, he doesn't, he wants to take Ben's place! Ugh.

Blink #1-5: Christopher Sebela, Hayden Sherman, Nick Filardi and Frank Cvetkovic were the creative team for this mini-series about Wren, who's looking for answers about her past. She gets them, but it involves going back to a place she only vaguely remembered. Once she's there, she finds it's hard to make sense of anything going on there.

High Point: Sherman drew the hell out of this comic. The layouts were great, how panels might switch from moving left-to-right to going up-down as Wren gets turned around within the building like in issue 3. Or the panels borders are made of tape reel, or panels are stretched out with hooks through them as we see people being taken apart and rebuilt into monsters (issue 4). It was one of the best looking books I read all year.

Wren's confusion and frustration as she keeps trying to get answers, and everyone keeps giving her just enough to push her forward. Enough to get her closer to doing what they want her to do. She's in a maze in every sense of the world, perfectly baited.

Low Point: There really isn't one. I'm not sure what Sebela's trying to say, but I have some theories, and that's good enough.

Broken Eye #1-4: This was kind of an odd one, by Martin and Xavier Etxeberria and Inaki Arenas, about a young man in 1970s Liverpool who has one eye that can see the past of objects when he picks them up. He gets tangled up in the murder of an aide to the mayor, and then the murder of a friend of his.

High Point: The Etxeberrias put a lot of moving parts in play, allowing for a lot of different interactions and connections. Characters bouncing off each other and creating unexpected ripples. I don't know how accurate a representation of 1970 Liverpool it is, but I thought Arenas gave the city a presence as a place that may have seen better days, and has a lot of history buried in it.

Also, I loved that page of the IRA guy leaving prison, where the center panels are focused on him, while the ones one either side chart his progress from the cells to the outside world. Just really nice work.

Low Point: While I like Arenas' work - it has the clean look I generally prefer - I wonder if something a bit grimier wouldn't have fit the story. All the betrayals and backstabbing, the dirty deals and people lashing out in bitterness.

Also, I'm not sure how I feel about how Seamus knows two women in this series, and the one who works as a dominatrix (and is Chinese) gets killed while the pretty white girl who works with orphaned kids makes it out clean. I guess it's not unusual for a story like this that sex workers get killed, but man it felt really obvious things would end along those lines from the moment both Victoria and Eleanor were introduced.

Damage Control #1, 2: A couple of TV writers and Zac Robson revived Damage Control, but I didn't really enjoy their take on it. It felt more focused on workplace comedy that happens to involve superheroes, than really focusing on situation that could arise from having a company like Damage Control in a superhero universe. So I dropped it. Moving on!

Deadpool #1, 2: Wade's new ongoing series. Alyssa Wong introduced a new group of elite assassins Deadpool would like to join, as well as a new character for him to become obsessed with. All that's fine. I'd even be fine with Deadpool killing Doc Ock. Is it really any worse than that time Ock got killed by Kaine? Unfortunately, Wong also introduced a subplot with a symbiote implanted in Deadpool by a evil bio-engineer, and that's getting most of the focus so far. At least Martin Coccolo is good at drawing the resulting body horror.

Defenders #5: This was another the best-looking comics I read all year. Javier Rodriguez really knocked it out of the park, but I just don't care about these meta-commentary stories about the comic universe as a stand-in for the history of comics themselves. Which is why I didn't pick up the next Defenders mini-series, even though from what I can tell, Rodriguez drew the hell out of it too.

That's it for Day 1. Tomorrow we'll get through a lot more letters, and there'll be fewer books I was disappointed by, which is always nice.