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

Oh, we’re moving on now, people!

Kids (March) by Garth Ennis (writer), Dalibor Talajic (artist), Stjepan Bartolic (colorist), Rob Steen (letterer), and Joe Pruett (editor). $7.99, 40 pgs, Image/Ninth Circle.

Ennis comes up with a fun (for a horror story) and disturbing (if it happened in real life) scenario: What if all the babies in the world had grown-up bodies? A suburban couple, Leo and Yoni, who have an older son named Matt, wake up in the middle of the night to find out their baby, Leo, is now a grown man … whose mind is still a baby’s. This is happening to all the babies in their neighborhood (and, by implication, the entire world), which causes some trouble, as babies are, of course, completely unaware of how their actions can affect things, so when they’re big and strong and just flailing out because they don’t understand anything … well, things get bloody. The family manages to escape with their next-door neighbor, an old woman named Hannah who is not the biggest fan of kids, it appears. She seems like an unpleasant woman, but Ennis does a nice job giving them all interesting personalities, so it’s clear Leo and Yoni didn’t get to know her through their own pre-conceived notions about her, and she’s more sympathetic than they expect. Of course, they have to find a place to hunker down, and horrific things keep happening (Ennis has always had a twisted mind, and he puts it to good use wondering where scared babies who can actually walk and get into trouble would do the most damage), but Ennis does a good job keeping the focus on the family and their neighbor as they work out what’s happening. The issue gets resolved in a clever way without Ennis making too big a deal about it (we can figure out what happened, but Ennis reveals it fairly cleverly), and we do get a fun “horror” twist at the end, but unlike what I was writing about Blood Train, this feels less like “Let’s set up a sequel!” and more “Let’s just fuck with the readers’ minds a bit,” because it’s Ennis. Talajic does his usual solid work on the art – he has to draw a lot of violent things, and he makes the book gruesome without going over the top, which is nice – and he had to have had some fun drawing all these naked people (the babies are all naked, obviously) doing violent things and having violent things done to them (as Hannah, at least, has no compunction about fighting back). Ennis is a more thoughtful writer than most people give him credit for, and while this is, on some levels, just a slightly goofy horror story, he does do a lot of things that touch on socialization and prejudice and what we value in our culture. That’s always fun.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Kill All Immortals #1-5 (July-January) by Zack Kaplan (writer), Fico Ossio (artist), Thiago Rocha (colorist), and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (letterer). $19.95, 124 pgs, Dark Horse.

I really wanted to like this comic, and there are some very good things here, but ultimately, it’s a bit disappointing. First of all, the schedule was terrible. It was resolicited more than once, and when it did come out, the five issues took seven months to come out, which isn’t too bad, but you’d think after the delays in getting the first issue out, they would have made sure that the whole thing was done before releasing issue #1. Then, after all that, Kaplan has the unmitigated gall to promise more of it when it ends, which cracks me right the hell up. I usually don’t mind too much if something is delayed – there’s plenty to read, and I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes with the creators, so it might be something serious – but if it’s this slow, maybe don’t turn your series into what looks like a pretty big epic at the end? Maybe just do a self-contained story?

More than that, this is a bit disappointing because for most of it, there aren’t any stakes. We’re introduced to the Asvald family, a very rich and powerful bunch, and their wayward daughter, Frey, who’s dating a journalist named Owen. She gets attacked, so she has to go to Iceland, where her family lives, to ask for their protection. She and Owen are greeted frostily, and then … one of her brothers, Steinn, kills her. Oh dear. But it turns out … the entire family is immortal, so they can’t be killed. Of course, that doesn’t mean Owen can’t be killed, so Frey and he go on the run while Frey thinks about taking revenge on her brothers and father. It turns out the family is over a thousand years old, and Kaplan does give us an interesting reason for why they’re immortal, but for most of the series, it’s just people who can’t die slicing each other with sharp weapons, and it feels … empty? Even Owen turns out to not be that important in the grand scheme of things, and then we get to issue #5, when Kaplan figures out that he has to wrap things up, but why not make it a bigger story? The rhythm of the book is strange, as it feels like Kaplan is taking his time with Frey and Owen, as if it’s going to be something, but it’s not really, and then he realizes he kind of has to wrap things up, so he speeds through it, but then he decides that this immortal thing is kind of fun, so why not do more of it? It’s kind of frustrating.

It’s too bad, too, because Ossio does really nice work on the art. He does nice work with the violence (until the final issue, where the art gets a bit sloppy, but not too bad), and he does well with putting the characters in a sleek, wealthy world that shows how elevated the Asvalds are and how out of touch they are with the “lesser” people. He shows the Viking age nicely, too, contrasting it with the way the family has evolved. Rocha does very nice work with the colors, too, giving the world a beautiful sheen that highlights the sort-of otherworldly nature of the plot. I’m not sure if the art got sloppy in issue #5 because Ossio was rushing, but the choreography does get a bit wonky, and it’s too bad. Still, it’s a nice-looking comic, which is nice. It’s just a bit disappointing. We shall see if Kaplan ever gets a chance to return to it!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Kill Shakespeare: Romeo vs. Juliet (April) by Anthony Del Col (writer), Stefan Tosheff (artist/colorist), Becca Carey (letterer), and Toby Malone (editor). $17.99, 136 pgs, Gemstone Publishing.

Del Col returns to his interesting world, in which Shakespearean characters go around fighting each other, and in this he has … Shakespearean characters fighting each other! How about that! There’s more than that, of course, but that’s kind of the foundation of it all. Del Col (without his co-creator, Conor McCreery) continues the story, as Juliet – generally the hero of the story – finds herself pregnant in Padua with the bad guys looking for her – Romeo foremost among them – as the war between Titus Andronicus and Lady Macbeth begins to heat up in the background. Juliet isn’t sure if Romeo or Hamlet is the father, but she’s fairly certain it’s the latter, which is good for her because Romeo is just of a douchebag and Hamlet is a dreamy dude. It’s a pretty good story, as Padua is populated with interesting women who are doing some weird work that the bad guys might be keen to get, and Juliet is trying to navigate this morass. There’s betrayal, of course, there’s murder most foul, and there’s all sorts of nifty stuff. Del Col does a nice job with the Shakespearean language – he doesn’t overwhelm us with it, but he does use it quite well. It’s just a good adventure, as the other stories have been, as well. Tosheff is a good artist – he has a nice smooth line, and it’s not terribly strong, which gives the art a bit of softness which, along with the coloring, adds some nice luminescence to the work. He uses nice blacks, too, which grounds the art fairly well. It’s not as good as Andy Belanger’s work in the original stories, because Belanger has a stronger line and his page layouts were excellent, but Tosheff still does a pretty good job.

Del Col obviously has more stories to tell about this world, and I do like them, so I hope he can keep doing this. That would be nice.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Kosher Mafia (March) by David Hazan (writer), Sami Kivelä (artist), Ellie Wright (colorist), Simon Bowland (letterer), Chas! Pangburn (letterer), and James B. Emmett (editor). $17.99, 112 pgs, Mad Cave Studios.

This is a keen crime comic with a lot on its mind, as Hazan gives us Howard Berkowicz, a bookkeeper for the Jewish mob in 1936 Cleveland, who begins the book with a man, Ephraim Gold, arriving at his house to kill him. Oh dear. Howard, it seems, went to his bosses and begged them to stop doing business with the German Nazis who are operating in Ohio at the time. His boss thinks that it’s just a European problem, but Howard manages to convince Ephraim to help him, and the two of them start scheming against the alliance between the Jews and the Germans while also trying to change his boss’s mind. It’s a good, tense story, as Howard and Ephraim have to survive, of course, but they also have to figure out how they can prove that the Germans in Cleveland are taking orders from Berlin and that the Jews are clearly in their crosshairs. Hazan does a good job putting his characters in danger but making it reasonable that they’d survive (until the end …?), because you kind of need to be able to do that if you’re writing a thriller crime comic. It’s also interesting that the Irish and Italians are also involved, given the fascism of Italy at the time and the fact that the Irish tend to ally with Germany because they hate the English, so they have some interests there as well. The fact that Howard’s boss is trying to be “American” and do business based on what is good for his gang rather than the history, but Howard points out that the Germans feel differently. The tension between “American-ness” versus “European-ness” is something that is an interesting theme to explore, as so much of immigration ideas in the past have this tension between leaving your culture behind and building a new one or clinging to what you’ve always known. Howard’s boss wants to pretend that everyone in the States is “American,” but Howard knows it’s not true, and he has to figure out a way to make his boss see that.

Kivelä, as usual, is excellent, although this isn’t as dazzling as some of his work, mainly because he doesn’t get a chance to be really inventive with his page layouts, as he keeps things kind of meat-and-potatoes. His characters are terrific, and his action scenes work very well, and everything looks like it’s the 1930s, so that’s nice. Wright’s colors are a bit muted, which works for a dreary time like Depression-era, Nazi-nascent period, but it does keep Kivelä’s art from shining as much as it often does. It’s a good-looking comic, as I knew it would be, but it bugs me a bit that Kivelä doesn’t get to cut loose as much as he does sometimes.

This is a solid crime comic. You always have to dig those!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

A Legacy of Violence: The Complete Collection (March) by Cullen Bunn (writer), Andrea Mutti (artist), Rus Wooten (letterer), and Chris Fernandez (editor). $29.99, 244 pgs, Mad Cave Studios.

As entertaining as this horror story is, it’s a bit disappointing, which is frustrating. I like Bunn’s writing and try to get most of what he does, and he’s usually entertaining but just short of greatness. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop buying his work, but it does mean I’ll probably be a bit frustrated by it. His comics often feel slightly like empty calories, and it vaguely annoys me. This comic is a good example: a doctor named Nick is involved in an incident at his hospital (which is not his fault, but he seems strongly affected by it), and he ends up with Médecins Sans Frontières in Honduras at a small hospital in a remote village. Of course he does – what a perfect setting for a creepy horror story! Odd things start happening, villagers disappear, some of the doctors do some weird things, and bodies start dropping. Nick is at the center of it, and we slowly find out why. It’s not a terrible set-up, but it does occasionally feel a bit perfunctory, which is a shame. The book is set in 1985 for a good reason beyond “nobody has cell phones or access to the internet” (which is why it feels like some people set things in the 20th century), and Bunn does a decent job showing how Nick’s past affects his present (it’s implied in the name of the comic, after all), but it does feel the tiniest bit like he’s just going through the motions. The book is a bit too long – it feels like it could have been 8-10 issues rather than 12, as occasionally it feels like it’s spinning its wheels a bit. Mutti does his usual good job on art, although there are a few places where his storytelling is a bit confusing, and I don’t know if it’s the script or his interpretation of the script. Overall, it’s nice work, and the few moments of confusion don’t really detract from the work, but they can be a bit disorienting.

This is a solid enough comic, but I just feel like it doesn’t do enough with what Bunn presents in favor of lots of violence. I don’t mind a big ol’ gorefest, certainly, but Bunn introduces some disturbing elements to the book that don’t feel like they get enough development (I don’t want to spoil anything, hence my vagueness). It feels like there’s a more psychological drama lurking in here that Bunn hints at and then ignores so that dude on the cover can kill more people. It’s, as I noted, frustrating. Sigh.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Long Cold Winter #1-4 (December-March) by Francesca Perillo (writer), Stefano Cardoselli (artist), Lorenzo Scaramella (colorist), Buddy Beaudoin (letterer), and James B. Emmett (editor). $19.96, 92 pgs, Mad Cave Studios.

Here’s yet another batshit comic from the pen of Cardoselli and his collaborators, one which is wafer-thin but serves as simply a vehicle for Cardoselli’s insanity. I’ve been writing basically the same thing for a few years now, ever since Cardoselli’s comics started getting printed in English, and I’ll say it again: they’re fun as all heck, crazy as shit, look great, and have the teeny-tiniest of plots. On a blasted post-apocalyptic Earth, a robot named The Kid (the article is important!!!!) asks an ex-soldier named Peace Dog to help him get to a land up north where robots can live free. The Kid points out that Peace Dog has nothing to lose, as there’s a bounty on his head and someone is bound to collect. Peace Dog agrees to help, and off they go. It does turn out that Peace Dog made a deal with Death and he’s breaking the terms of the deal, but he doesn’t seem to care about that. There’s a girl (of course there’s a girl!) whom Peace Dog used to know, and she helps get them out of town and shows up later in a more active role. There’s a lot of violence, of course, and it’s absurd like so much of Cardoselli’s violence, and the book ends with poignant hope, which is the way a lot of Cardoselli books end even if he’s not writing them. As always, I love these comics, but I can’t really recommend them unless you absolutely love crazy mayhem with very little plot. But hey! maybe that’s your thing!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

The Mammoth (January) by Paul Tobin (writer), Arjuna Susini (artist), Pippa Bowland (colorist), Emilio Lecce (colorist), Charles Pritchett (letterer), and James B. Emmett (editor). $17.99, 112 pgs, Mad Cave Studios.

Tobin is always an interesting writer, so I figured I’d enjoy this horror-adjacent story about events in a town surrounded by a weird forest. In the first few pages, a woman named Olivia, who’s part of a geological survey of the valley because of its odd seismic history, is killed in what appears to be an earthquake. Her lover, Jess, grew up in the area and wants to figure out what the activity is, but now Olivia’s dead and Jess is depressed … until Olivia comes back from the dead. Oh dear. There seems to be a lot of revenants wandering around the forest, and they seem to be responding to some kind of very big monster … you might almost say it’s mammoth. Some people in town seem to know what’s going on, but they’re remaining tight-lipped, which leads to some complications as our heroes – Jess, Mason, and Kokoro, along with the undead Olivia – try to figure out what’s going on. Tobin does a nice job with the mystery and with showing that horror doesn’t necessarily have to have a big bad – everyone in the book is motivated by something recognizable and even sympathetic, so while some bad things happen and some people aren’t quite as nice as they could be, it doesn’t come out of nowhere and it makes the bad things a bit more upsetting. Ultimately, this is a book about dealing with grief, as Jess needs to come to terms with the fact that Olivia is dead, even though her body is hanging around and occasionally she even seems to understand what’s going on. Susini does decent work with the art – it’s a bit rough and stiff in places, but we do get a good sense of the creepiness of the forest and the weirdness of what’s going on. Overall, this is a pretty good horror story that Tobin takes in interesting directions. That’s never a bad thing.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

All right, that’s a long enough post for today. I’ll be back – the comics never stop coming, and I have a compulsion to write about them that ain’t healthy!