Welcome to another edition of Last Call Comics. Here, as we continually bolster AIPT’s weekly comics coverage, we catch any titles that might’ve fallen through the cracks. Or those books that we might not cover but still deserve a little spotlight. Either way, it’s a chance to explore more comics, generate some novel insights, and maybe add to everyone’s to-be-read pile.
Once more, happy New Comic Book Day to everyone.
Nights #2
Courtesy of Image Comics.
If you missed it, I gave Nights #1 a perfect 10. That’s rare enough from me, but this book from Wyatt Kennedy and Luigi Formisano deserved that praise (and maybe more). In a weird, alternate history Earth, we got a powerful story about a young man, Vince, trying to find his way in a deeply unnatural world full of monsters, a super cool vampire girl, and drama galore. It really was the perfect little book — that also managed to KO most of us with that big ol’ twist ending.
So, can the book keep up that perfect pacing and wow us even further? Issue #2 is your response, and the whole thing basically translates to, “Hell friggin’ yeah!!”
What makes issue #2 so dang compelling is that it both subverts our expectations and also delivers onto them in new and interesting ways. The bulk of the issue is basically an extended encounter between Vince and Starven, a star-nosed mole. I don’t want to spoil too much from their meeting/journey, but it accomplishes a few things. One, it’s a great extended demonstration of Kennedy’s writing — he crafts dialogue with so much personality and energy that it’d make some TV writers jealous. And yet amid all the seemingly frivolous convo between two strangers, Kennedy also manages to develop Vince in some compelling ways; tease some important character threads to come for the rest of the issue and beyond; and make us laugh more than a few times.
It’s the sort of top-tier character work that feels really inventive and fresh — done with a comfort and general ease that you can’t help but swoon over even temporarily. And that’s not even counting what happens at the issue’s end — it’s another mostly new layer that I promise will pay off. Maybe it’s not as big as issue #1’s ending, but then that’s the point: this book is building something powerful and intricate, and you’ll want to see every corner of this ever-growing world. Also, I may have mentioned this book is like True Blood meets Kids, and that dynamic feels really essential to encapsulating this issue.
I think if you gave a lot of artists an issue with “A teen boy and a mole get chased by monsters,” they wouldn’t know how to capture all the ripe potential. But Formisano is a different breed, and after the star-making performance in #1, he continues his ways in #2. Yes, we can some great stuff with the Vince-Starven stuff; his whole approach artistically feels really personable while playing up the whole Looney Tunes-ian bent of their encounter. But where Formisano really excels in this issue is the light touches. Like, further showing us this world through the architecture; adding personality and nuance to characters in the way they touch or even lay in bed; and some really inventive, body horror-adjacent stuff with some monsters in this issue.
And yet at the same time, none of that comes really close to fully covering the series of tiny moments/gestures that hint at some conspiracy, explore characters’ attractions and relationships, and tell us so much about the story’s greater scope without ruining our deliberate immersion. Even when we get something like an explainer for a can of soda, it all feels so effortlessly cool, wonderfully geeky, and never any less effective. It’s all of those decisions that show the attitude and history of these characters and this larger world, and it give us a means to pay attention and engage with the story as it starts to slowly build up toward its goals and add to its larger lore.
Maybe you’re like me and you’ll have a slightly muted experience of issue #2. It doesn’t instantly wow us like the first, but it proved more than effective in that unenviable task of building what’s next from all that energy and hype. Factor that in, and the issue feels just as robust and victorious, a way to focus all that buzz into a multifaceted tale of love and friendship, the ever-changing world, and what lies beneath that which we can’t fully see. If you’re not buzzed about what’s still to come, then maybe figure out where you misplaced your childlike joy and wonder.
Final Thought: Nights continues to be a profound book that you must experience firsthand.
Score: 9.5/10
Guardians Of The Galaxy #8
Courtesy of Marvel Comics.
You have to give it up to this run of Guardians of the Galaxy: Grootfall has been a proper event. Yes, sure, it didn’t land the “classification” a la a Secret Wars or Empyre, but there’s been so many ups and downs, twists and turns that Grootfall could compete with any of those big-time outings.
Issue #7 was a massive demonstration of that sheer quality. After the creative team made us believe the Guardians were dead — complete with Wiccan and Hulkling as “replacements” — they pulled out the old Kansas City Shuffle and presented the newly-rebranded Guardians of the Grootspace. What happens next, though, and can this book maintain its elite, event-level brilliance?
On the surface, #8 is a pretty solid continuation of this “streak.” We get to see the Groot-ed (Groot-i-tized?) Guardians in action as they seek to further the mission of Grootfall (which is mostly about life and not, as we initially believed, fiery destruction and nihilism). There’s some important bits along the way, including the true nature of The Fold, and even some big stakes as the Guardians come face-to-face with a rival in their space-faring mission of positivity, the Spartax (and Peter Quill’s own sister, Queen Victoria). It’s an issue that, in every conceivable way, adds to the heft of this run’s blend of world-building and action-heavy storytelling.
But I think what I liked most about this issue is what is had to say to a more subliminal degree. It feels like the last few years have been about exploring how the Guardians react to heartache and negativity, and what this does to question and reconfigure their “family” dynamic. And this time around, writers Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly are taking it from a wholly “positive” perspective.
If this is the “best” version of the Guardians, what does that actually mean? How does their family operate when they’re in a good place? Does it still have the same value on this mission o’peace? Has all this positivity changed them? (You’ve got Gamora quipping!) Are they still a family, or have they transcended that, and is that good or bad? These sorts of questions feel really important to the heart of the Guardians, and it’s really engaging to see this existential exploration play out in new terms that redefine some key parameters. It makes us second guess what they’re all about, and to do so in a way that serves the team as this ongoing device for gauging our own humanity. It’s been a core function of this whole run so far, but this issue especially feels like a vital chapter.
From a visual standpoint, a lot of those ideas and sentiments were reinforced by the art team (Kev Walker, Walden Wong, and Matt Hollingsworth). Mostly, they gave us some really cool set pieces (a neat-o battle with The Whitecaps) and some other great odds and ends (the armor of a Groot-i-fied Star-Lord!). And yet all of that isn’t all just super cool stuff to gawk at — it also creates some big moments that people can latch onto even as the team’s dynamic slowly evolves in front of our very eyes.
But more than those huge moments, it was a series of mostly little instances that really helped facilitate a lot of the team’s shifting dynamic and interactions. Be it some bright-eyed gaze from Drax, or a silly little leap from Rocket, there were all these quiet decisions where we saw how the team had developed in this run, even when maybe we’re not always consciously aware of what that might be like (or that it’s currently happening on the page). I think a more intimate feel to this team — with heavy emphasis on exuding layers of personality and giving them space to interact — felt like a way to show us what really matters here. Which is to say, action and explosions are cool, but this is a team that’s entering a new and daring world (again, complete with great visuals around some further Groot-i-fications), and the clearest sign of that is getting to see the team up close and personal and to have our assumptions and ideas confronted through their movements and emotions. The story is the idea of it all, but it’s the art where these concepts grow and flourish in truly wild ways.
A thought dawned on me partially through this issue: what if there’s another turn coming? What if the happy and joyous Guardians is a ruse, and we’re going to get some sinister turn that has further to do with the nature of Grootfall? Maybe that doubt just means I can’t experience happiness, and thus I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop. (Still, if it did indeed happen, it would be a great twist of a twist.) But mostly it shows how much this story has deeply affected me, and the ways in which its helped revitalize something essential about the Guardians. And if that’s not as successful as dozen Civil War events, then what is?
Final Thought: In which peace and joy are the mightiest of storytelling weapons.
Score: 8/10
Nice Jewish Boys #1
Courtesy of comiXology Originals.
True story: when I was a teenager, I considered, for quite some time, in converting to Judaism. There was something earnest and grounded about the faith — a kind of holiness in the ordinary ephemera of life.
And while I never did convert, those same ideas and energies swirl at the very heart of the great new comiXology series, Nice Jewish Boys.
The series, from writer Neil Kleid, writer-artist John Broglia, and colorist Ellie Wright, focuses on one Jake Levin, an Orthodox Jew. Struggling to make ends meet as as a writer, Levin takes a job at his friend Chaim’s fish shop/grocer — and that’s where everything goes horribly, horribly wrong. I won’t spoil much else, but the framework here is like a slice of life meets gritty gangster flick, with Levin stuck in the middle of doing right by his faith and community and trying to do better for his family.
To an extent, the unwilling mobster bent can be a little trite at this point. And yet the Judaism “angle” makes all the difference — it informs why Levin is so ingrained and dependent upon his community and why there’s also this tendency to “keep up with the Cohens,” as he puts it. It’s a little shift outside the norms of most gangster/crime stories, and yet it feels really inventive as this new way to understand and explore the larger Jewish experience in America. Whereas something like, say, The Godfather picks up more on the immigrant’s story, this book focuses on Jews as a dynamic group, occupying both an outsider’s role as many also chase some version of the American dream.
And that’s Levin’s struggle/journey to a tee — he is caught up in a “system” he loves and yet it also forces him to make choices he might not otherwise. It uses Judaism as a powerful storytelling device as it further honors these traditions and ideals. And even if you’re not at all familiar with the faith and its history, it’s all broken down in a way to speak to those of us who have dreamt of ways to conquer life’s tedious struggles and how far we might go to actually flourish.
The art, meanwhile, feels just as complex and multifaceted. Broglia and Wright combine to make something that blurs and blends a lot of influences — there’s some pulpy grit and heft and also something akin to a more grounded, ’60s-inspired aesthetic. The end result gives a certain style and power to, say, a grocery store while taking more violent scenes (a proper scuffle in said shop, for instance) and offering them a more “joyish” undertone. It’s an experience that feels like it runs the gamut in some novel ways while never distracting from the serious subject matter.
And I really like that the art tries to toe the line; it plays up this slightly fish out of water tale while furthering some bizarre sentiment, as if Levin is somehow dreaming all of this. Even the lettering feels really important to that process, and there’s also little gags — like price tags at a bar mitzvah, for instance — that nicely balance the playful tendencies with the very serious and deliberateness of the story itself. I think it’d be easy to get caught up in just the larger meaning of the story and its thematic exploration, but the art does so much to undercut and heighten it simultaneously.
This debut issue manages to accomplish a lot of things — and set up some big stakes for the rest of the story. But if it does nothing else, it manages to dissect a community in a compelling and respectful way by bringing that group into a familiar storytelling structure. It remains to be seen what’ll happen with or to Levin, but I can already tell his will be a journey with deep truth and insights for anyone struggling to make more out of this life.
Final Thought: It’d be a real shanda if you missed out on this book.
Score: 7.5/10
Hunt For The Skinwalker #3
Courtesy of BOOM! Studios.
The defining trait of this book so far has been an imbalance of sorts. Writer Zac Thompson has tried desperately to balance the book’s nonfiction chronicles of alien phenomena with the drama and theatricality that these events and stories foster in our imaginations. Similarly, issue #1 was a bit muddled, and #2 offered some clarity.
But issue #3 may be the best example so far of what this book does right and wrong — often in the very same breath.
In terms of the “wrong,” it continues to be the over-science-ication of this story. (Yes, you read that right.) This issue especially spends a lot of time around a visit from NOSS (National Organization for Speculative Science), which turn Tom and Ellen Gorman’s ranch into a field laboratory. And if that sounds a tad tedious, it sure is; it means the bulk of the issue is spent talking about the science of UFOs, and just as the team finds nothing, we as readers don’t really get enough from the story itself.
And, sure, I get that this whole tendency is part of the book — we’re learning about a real enough thing with very real stakes and context. Yet I can’t help but feel we’ve seen too much about how the hamburgers are made, and that seems to really stifle what makes this book good. We’re forced to explore the tedium when all we really want is weird alien dissections.
Still, that’s not all we get here as there’s some really important happenings with Tom Gorman across this issue. Even as this new turn threatens to choke out some of the remaining humanity to this series, it’s Tom who remains a proper beating heart. His decisions and behaviors across this issue exemplify the effect the ranch has had on him, and this driving urge to both understand and perhaps even “control” this horrid place. He cares about the cows here as a representation for some simpler version of life and a decency outside the madness of the unknown.
He is both a hero and a victim, as it were, and he remains a proper vein of emotionality amid an issue that needed so much more of that pure heart to get us to care about this place and ultimately what it represents. The fact that so much of the actual phenomenon here is tied directly to Tom’s ideas and understandings, and the dissonance he earns from those so-called geniuses, feels like an unknowingly self aware display from this book. I can’t say if the emphasis on Tom really helps this book but it’s at least something of proper weight amid the nonfiction shenanigans.
Despite those narrative-centric issues, the art seems to really excel — even as it still grappled with some of those aforementioned limitations. Sure, much of the art tries to provide something compelling amid a series of shots around measuring devices and building fences. (Artist Valeria Burzo may have a really great style and presence, but not even that frenetic and playful line work can really make a difference.) But there were still plenty of moments where the mundane is “colored” with something truly powerful. Like, scientists exploring trees and missing the movement of some alien entity/craft. Or a tinge of tension to some group overlooking a vista at the ranch. They’re small enough moments but there’s just so much power attached — they’re not only when our interests really pique, but they feel like a way to counter the blandness in the story in a truly effective manner.
They’re the few instances in this issue, and maybe the book in whole, where we’re allowed to see the story and not have more exposition beamed up our tail pipes. They’re so effective, in fact, that even when we see some direct alien handiwork (toward the end with a mangled calf), those subtler moments still feel more compelling given that they effectively whisper ideas than have to present them in extra gory detail. (Even as said detail remains really cool and just proof positive of Burzo’s skill in presenting a fresh and jarring take on alien madness.) I’m not entirely sold on the art being able to make up for the issues with the narrative, but there’s at least some upsides if you can commit to the super tedious pace and the overt hand-holding.
It’s crazy to me that we’ve only got one more issue of this series. Partially because I can’t believe it’s been that many and we’re only just now at a proper impasse of sorts regarding Tom and his proof of the hell that’s plaguing this place. But also that I have no idea how the book can properly execute a meaningful ending if this is how we spent the bulk of this penultimate chapter. So we’re in for quite the ride when it comes to issue #4, and it’s my hope that it’s a lot closer to #2 then it is #1 and #3 in terms of scope and accomplishments. Otherwise, the aliens can just have the dang ranch.
Final Thought: Is there room for bureaucracy in an alien invasion?
Score: 6.5/10
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