Some reviews from the first four months of the year … part nine!

When will it end? The big pile o’ comics next to my computer says No Time Soon! Let’s jump right in!

Godzilla: Skate or Die! (April) by Louie Joyce (writer/artist), DeOutrora (color flatter), Rus Wooton (letterer), and Alonzo Simon (collection editor). $17.99, 103 pgs, IDW.

I don’t know if IDW has some kind of “Godzilla Continuity Universe” going on or not (I don’t really care that much, to be frank), because in this book, nobody seems that surprised by its appearance, and I wonder if companies that publish Godzilla comics have just decided that everyone just knows about kaiju and they don’t fret about it too much, like they’re natural disasters that just show up occasionally. I’m perfectly fine with that, but because of that, I do wonder if IDW considers this book to exist in the same universe as other Godzilla comics they publish. Probably not, but it’s just a thought I had.

Anyway, this is a pretty fun story. Four teens in Port Kembla, Australia (the town exists – it’s a bit south of Sydney) discover that Godzilla is approaching their town from the ocean and another kaiju is heading toward it from the desert in central Australia, and they’re going to meet right at a spot on the waterfront that is the teens’ hang-out spot (Joyce never explains its name, which I think is kind of neat), so they decide they’re going to have to save it. The monsters are coming because something lured them there – a meteorite that the military scooped up and is keeping in a lab under the waterfront, something they think can solve Earth’s energy problems but just seems to be drawing giant monsters toward it. The kids stumble upon it, of course, and they have to keep away from the military while also trying to divert the kaiju. As with every Godzilla story, the human element needs to be strong, as Godzilla doesn’t talk and doesn’t have much of a personality, and Joyce does nice work with that. The kids are fun, and he brings in some generational gap stuff, as one adult has trouble relating to their own daughter and sees the obnoxious skater teens as stand-ins, and there’s some good humor in the book, as well. I mean, the kids are wildly stupid for leaving the evacuation and sneaking off to save their spot, but they save the world in the end, so it all works out. Joyce’s marvelous, kinetic, jagged artwork is the star of the show – he draws both Godzilla and the other monster wonderfully, and their battle has a crackly energy to it and a terrific sense of scale. The people are interesting, too, and Joyce does a nice job giving them distinct personalities, and even the “bad guys” aren’t really evil, just bureaucratic, and Joyce makes sure that they retain their humanity, as well. He gives us some amazing double-page spreads, too, which is pretty keen.

This is a fun, action-adventure that happens to feature Godzilla. The Big Guy doesn’t overshadow the human drama, but it does get its moments, and Joyce has a good time with it all. This is a pretty keen comic!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Paranoid Gardens (April) by Gerard Way (writer), Shaun Simon (writer), Chris Weston (artist), Dave Stewart (colorist), and Nate Piekos (letterer). $19.99, 146 pgs, Dark Horse.

Far be it from me to disagree with the blurb writers on trade paperbacks, but the person who wrote on the back of this calls it “surreal,” when it’s nothing of the sort. I mean, it’s a bit weird, but people who read this probably read superhero comics, and it’s no weirder than those, and if you bought it because you’re a Gerard Way fan, you’ve probably already gotten, say, The Umbrella Academy, and that’s more surreal than this (and that’s not that surreal either). Listen, just because you have a sentient nursing home in your comic doesn’t make it surreal, copy writer for Dark Horse! Use a different adjective!

Because this is a perfectly good comic, although underneath all the weird trappings, it’s just a screed against consumerism and homogenization … not that there’s anything wrong with that. Loo (Louise) is a nurse at Paradise Gardens, which is an unusual care facility in that a lot of the residents are strange creatures. The head nurse is a strange creature herself, and it’s her job to keep the facility – which is alive, to a degree – healthy and happy. Unfortunately, the doctor at the facility – an older white dude, who could have guessed? – has plans for the Gardens because he’s a member of some weird cult that makes promises to him. The cult is, shockingly, an analog for Disney, and they want the Gardens so they can commercialize it and prey on wealthy and lonely senior citizens. Oh dear. Loo, meanwhile, doesn’t remember her past, but when a superhero is brought with out-of-control heat vision, he recognizes her and she starts to get her memories back. She has her own powers, of course, and the cult certainly doesn’t want her to remember, because it might interfere with their plans. You do not get any points if you figure out how this all ends.

It’s well done, certainly, and we can always use screeds against homogenization and consumerism (he says, after having paid money for this comic book), and Way and Simon do a nice job with the weirdness of it, but one thing kind of bugs me. We’re supposed to think that Loo’s past is somehow almost irredeemable, because nobody wants her to remember it. But … I mean, the event that everyone knows about is traumatic, certainly, but I’m not sure if it would drive Loo to madness or if the people who are angry with her would be angry with her. I don’t want to give it away and it’s a serious thing to write about, but it seems … too easy? I dunno – it just seems like what Loo did or what happened to her should be worse. I’m not sure what she could have done in the situation.

Weston does his usual solid job on art – his somewhat stiff action scenes, precise lines, and ability to nail facial expressions makes him a good artist on slightly weirder comics that need to be grounded a bit, and his designs are pretty neat. He does very good work with the details of the facility, so it looks like a real place that also has something bizarre lurking behind the walls and under the ground. His cult stuff is bizarre, too, but his style is so solid that it feels far too realistic. He does a good job contrasting the schlock of the cult with the more comforting grounds of the Gardens. It’s well done.

I like Way’s comics, and this isn’t a bad one. It’s just not surreal, so don’t think it is!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

‘Patra volume 1 (April) by James Robinson (writer), Scott Kolins (artist), and Jim Campbell (letterer). $19.99, 96 pgs, Dark Horse.

This is a brutal and bleak story, just so you know, as Robinson gives us a serial killer who seems to have something supernatural going on with him and the girl, ‘Patra (we never find out what it’s short for, but it has to be Cleopatra, right?), who has to stop him. The killer slaughters families but doesn’t kill every member right away, so ‘Patra discovers that it’s a rescue mission too, because she has to save the survivors. I really don’t want to give too much away about the book, even though Robinson reveals secrets fairly quickly and it’s not that difficult to figure out what’s going on anyway, but of course there’s something weird going on with ‘Patra as well as the killer. Robinson can’t leave well enough alone, though, and he turns this into an ongoing at the end, which isn’t the worst thing in the world, but I always worry that we’re simply never going to see it again. Still, as wonky as Robinson has been in this century, he can still put together a story, and while this is not for the faint-hearted (I mean, it’s a story about a serial killer, so of course, but Robinson does not pull punches), it’s still a pretty interesting tale. Kolins really cuts loose in this, too, which is nice. His designs are excellent, and he bends and distends characters occasionally for wild effect, either because what’s happening is so violent or so strange that the art conforms to the narrative. His details are wonderful and intricate, and his colors are superb. He’s a co-creator, so if Robinson wants to continue with this, it seems like he’ll have to do it with Kolins, and that’s not a bad thing.

This isn’t the best thing Robinson has written (that is, of course, Airboy), but it’s a pretty good, intense story. We shall see how much more we get!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

The Pedestrian volume 1 (February) by Joey Esposito (writer), Sean von Gorman (artist), Josh Jensen (colorist), Shawn Lee (letterer), and Mike Ford (collection editor). $19.99, 96 pgs, Magma Comix.

Speaking of surreal comics, this one is more surreal than Paranoid Gardens, even though it’s not really all that surreal and it also feels like it has kind of the same plot as that book does. Hmmmm …

In this book, the hero is, well, a pedestrian. He’s right there on the cover! He doesn’t speak, though (he’s very mysterious), but he does obey all the traffic laws, so there’s that. The story has to be told by the people he encounters as he patrols Summer City, where this takes place, because of his lack of speech, and that’s what Esposito does. Our hero stops a purse-snatcher on the opening pages (but can’t pursue him because the light changes and he can’t jaywalk), and the woman whose purse he saves, Kira, later ends up babysitting two kids who were also saved by the Pedestrian, as they were almost run down by a drunk driver. Their father works weird hours at a non-profit charitable organization, and if you guess that it’s more sinister than that, well, congratulations – you’ve read a comic before. Meanwhile, the purse-snatcher is picked up by a cynical cop who is also trying to figure out what’s going on with the Pedestrian, but the purse-snatcher is “rescued” by a strange dude who seems to be the Pedestrian’s polar opposite. A woman who delivers pizza to the purse-snatcher before he’s arrested went to high school with him (but didn’t know him well), and she’s also dealing with her own disappointments in life, as she was supposed to leave town and never come back, but here she is back and working at a pizza joint. The school crossing guard who helped the Pedestrian save the boys knows a lot more about our enigmatic hero than she’s telling, as well.

There’s a lot going on, and that’s before the Pedestrian meets … the Traffic Gods? Maybe? Anyway, Esposito does a nice job with the weirdness, as he grounds it with relatively mundane people with mundane (but still important to them, of course) problems. The purse-snatcher isn’t a bad dude, but he does feel like nothing will ever go right for him, which leaves him open to corruption. The other characters have moments of despair, too, and Esposito does a good job showing that they’re not much stronger at resisting the siren song of the Evil Dude than purse-snatcher James, they’re just luckier in that moment. It’s a nice, subtle way of showing that James isn’t that bad, just lost. Meanwhile, he has these weird ideas circling around the story, as the Pedestrian seems to gain power from traffic control signs, which leads to some deeper things going on with the other characters, as well. In the end, we get a sinister cabal, which is a bit tiresome, but Esposito has made them a bit weirder and more interesting than your usual sinister cabal, so I’m willing to go along with it. Von Gorman’s art is solid but nothing spectacular – his figure work is a bit stiff, so the action scenes don’t flow as well as they might, but his design of the anti-Pedestrian is pretty cool, and he does good work with the metaphysical stuff, which is fairly important, so the art, while not great, is pretty good. Von Gorman hasn’t done a ton of work, so I assume he’ll improve, but it’s not like the art is bad or anything. He does give the Pedestrian an interesting presence, which is good because the dude doesn’t talk, so von Gorman has to do some heavy lifting there, and it works well.

I hope we get more of this (I know it’s planned, but you know these things don’t always work out), because it’s an interesting quasi-superhero book that feels like it should be sillier given the premise, but Esposito makes the silliness work in a serious context. That’s always interesting if it works!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

The Pit (April) by Erik Kriek (writer/artist/colorist/translator) and Sean Michael Robinson (letterer, based on hand lettering by Frits Jonker). $28.95, 129 pgs, Living the Line.

Kriek’s follow-up to The Exile isn’t quite as good, but it’s still a pretty good horror story, and it makes me want to keep checking out his work, so there is that. It begins with a storm that knocks over a very old tree, revealing the titular pit, and then we get to our characters – Hugh and Sara, a couple moving into a country house that Hugh inherited from his weird old uncle. They left Amsterdam (they’re Dutch, don’t you know) because their son died and they needed to get away and make a fresh start and you can see where this is going. Their marriage isn’t great (it seems like Kriek wants us to think Hugh is more of a dick than he is – he’s not the greatest person in the world, certainly, but he’s not a dick), Sara isn’t over their son’s death (because she feels guilty about the circumstances in which it occurred), Hugh really wants to move on, and there’s something strange going on with the house and the forest around it (the pit is, of course, on their property). They find the pit and the trees next to it marked with runes, Sara stops taking the meds that are helping her with her trauma, Hugh can’t be home all the time because he has to work … and then their kid shows up. Oh dear. Kriek unspools the story nice and slowly, even though we’re fairly certain we know where it’s going (and it does go where we probably expect), so that while the destination isn’t a surprise, it’s interesting to see Sara and Hugh get there. The best kind of horror stems from real-life situations, and the death of a child certainly qualifies, and Kriek does a nice job implying supernatural horrors without bringing them to the forefront. Something weird is happening in the woods, and Kriek does a nice job not making it too concrete. He leaves it up to our imagination, which, hey! you can do that? Unglaublich! Meanwhile, his art is stunning. As I noted with The Exile, he rarely uses holding lines, which adds an ethereal quality to the art, and because he sets his stories in places where the wilderness is paramount, this lack of definition helps create a chaotic, unsettling world. Added to this are his spot blacks, which lend a heaviness and inevitability to the story, as Sara and Hugh move toward their ultimate fates. He uses blacks on the faces of his characters really well to throw them into overwhelming darkness as the shadows of the world consume them. He’s still able to give us nice facial moments, as Sara’s pain is evident in so many panels as is Hugh’s dismissiveness as he tries to move on. Kriek does a nice job with colors, too – most of the book is in neutral earth tones, but flashbacks to the couple’s life in the city are blue, and occasionally Kriek will switch to red for some of the more horrific moments, and his color choices work really well.

Even if it’s not quite as good as his previous book, it’s still an intense horror comic rooted in far-too-real scenarios. I hope Kriek continues to do cool comics!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Plastic: Death & Dolls (March) by Doug Wagner (writer), Daniel Hillyard (artist), Michelle Madsen (colorist), Ed Dukeshire (letterer), and Kevin Gardner (editor). $16.99, 126 pgs, Image.

I still haven’t read Plastic, for which this book is a prequel … I really should get on that. I’ll probably enjoy that more than I enjoyed this, because this was fine, I guess, but it shows why I don’t love prequels. Edwyn, the serial killer star of the first comic, gets an origin story, and I imagine, like most stories that show the protagonist fully-fledged, Edwyn is a lot more interesting if you don’t know a lot about him. He’s in love with a plastic sex doll (hence the name), and here we find out why. We also find out a lot about his childhood, and … it’s not boring, exactly, but it doesn’t tread a lot of new ground. Plus, he kills people who “deserve” it – not that they’re completely evil, just that they’re douchebags, so it’s clear Wagner and Hillyard kind of want us to be on his side, but … I mean, he’s pretty brutal (one of his victims wipes a booger on a table in a diner, which, sure, he’s a douchebag, but does he need to be killed?). I don’t love “serial killers with a heart of gold” stories (one reason I never loved Dexter), but, I mean, ok, he kills douchebags. It’s still not that interesting, nor is the whole Who He Is And How He Came To Be aspect of the story. There’s also the fact the Edwyn is absolutely invincible and unstoppable – he doesn’t seem all that interested in covering his tracks, and the police seem completely inept because he just keeps getting away with it. He also fights like a superhero, as in he knows exactly how to hurt people, he never gets touched, and he seems impossibly strong. It just strains credulity, and it’s kind of annoying. This is not unique to this comic, of course – I’m often frustrated by the genius-level planning and uncanny abilities shown by many characters in fiction – but we’re not talking about those stories, are we? It’s just frustrating.

Hillyard’s art continues to be great, though. He has a nice, cartoony style but he’s still able to show a lot of emotion on the characters’ faces, and he lays pages out really well, so we can see how Edwyn dispatches his victims cleverly, even if it’s a bit unrealistic. Hillyard has a lot of fun with the violence in the book, too – it’s a very bloody comic, and Hillyard gets nice and demented quite often. There’s nothing wrong with the art in the book!

I like these dudes’ comics, and I’ll keep checking them out. I just wish they had avoided going backward in time with Edwyn. I suspect the original story is better because we don’t know as much about our killer. Too much information will be the death of us all!*

* In fiction, that is. In politics, it’s how we get people like the Great Orange Baboon.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Precious Metal (April) by Darcy Van Poelgeest (writer), Ian Bertram (artist), Matt Hollingsworth (colorist), and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (letterer). &19.99, 276 pgs, Image.

You know what I love? Prequels! Who doesn’t love a good prequel? Wait, that guy one review up? Well, screw him!!!! Precious Metal is a prequel to Little Bird, which I didn’t particularly love, but I dig me some Ian Bertram art, so I figured I’d pick this up. Little Bird came out five long years ago, and I don’t remember much about it, but it was a fairly typical “battle against evil organized religion” story that can get a bit boring. The reason this prequel works better than Plastic: Death & Dolls is, for me, because of the world Van Poelgeest builds and the fact that the Evil Religion in Little Bird isn’t established yet, so it’s about how they took power and how people tried to stop them, and while the secret origin of a serial killer isn’t all that interesting, a religion trying to take over the world can be. This is a wild story – simple, sure, as it’s about a lone dude trying to find himself in a world gone mad, but Van Poelgeest does so many interesting things with it that it becomes a marvel. Max, our “hero,” is hired to find a boy who’s important to a lot of different people. Why? Well, I’m not going to tell you that. Max finds the kid easily enough, but then everything goes to hell, the kid is gone, Max is in trouble, and he has to rely on many questionable allies to find the boy and discover what happened to him in his youth, as he doesn’t remember and only has conveniently intriguing scraps of memory. Meanwhile, there are two different competing religious sects vying for power (another reason this is interesting, as it’s unclear which one of them is going to win), and Van Poelgeest does a nice job with both of them, using science-fiction tropes to reveal the horrors in our own religions by showing how brutal these characters are. There’s a bit of “hey, this is like Trump!” stuff, but it’s not too heavy-handed, and Trump isn’t original anyway, so Van Poelgeest can just say he’s just following the authoritarian playbook. And despite the weirdness, Max’s desperation to find out what happened to him and how the innocent kid can help him with that is at the heart of the story, and Van Poelgeest does good work with that. Bertram is still the star, though, and his art is magnificent. I’m just not sure how long it took him to draw almost 300 pages, because he doesn’t take any panels off, and this might be his most impressive work so far. He creates a bizarre world full of strange, often beautiful, and often insanely terrifying creatures (Twelve is one of the most disturbing creations we’ve seen in comics in while), and he turns them loose in a world that vaguely resembles our own, but has been turned almost inside-out. His sense of scale is tremendous – Max and the other characters in the book seem almost overwhelmed by the surroundings, which makes the book feel even more epic, and at the end, when the horrors come home to roost, it’s almost overwhelming to the reader, as well. Bertram’s details are superb, too, not only in the mise en scène, which feels like a real, if bizarre, place, but also in the characters, whose lives are etched fully on their faces. This is a violent and beautiful comic, and Bertram is adept at both the horrors of bloodshed and the delicate moments of beauty, while Hollingsworth’s stunning colors keep us engaged but also discombobulated, as they make Bertram’s excellent lines leap right off the page. The story is certainly compelling and rich and fascinating, but Bertram’s art makes Van Poelgeest’s world come alive.

I’m a bit stunned that I enjoyed this so much, because I didn’t like Little Bird that much (again, I recall that it was fine, but nothing special). Van Poelgeest certainly links them at the end (this takes place a few decades before the original story), but you don’t need to have read that to enjoy this. It’s a very cool comic, and I encourage you to seek it out!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Ok, let’s stop there. Another one in the books! I would guess I have four more to go, but don’t quote me on that. Have a nice day, everyone!