Posted in: Comics | Tagged: action comics, Avengers vs. X-Men, Comics, dc, dynamite, fanboys vs zombies, Harbinger, marvel, morning glories, prophecy, secret, Snarked, the boys, thief of thieves, valiant

Eleven Other Thoughts About Eleven Comics Today – Mudman, Avengers Vs X-Men, Prophecy, Action Comics, The Boys, Fanboys Vs Zombies, Snarked, Thief Of Thieves, Secret, Harbinger And Morning Glories

Okay I'm calling this. The finest superhero comic book being sold right now. And this issue has it all, unrequited love, a mysteriuous stranger, a subervillain with unusual motivation, and a young man coming to terms with how his body is changing. It has all the unrealised subtext of a 1960s Marvel comic, combined with a post modern understanding of the form. A clean, simple, moving style that's layered over a deep Dave Sim-style understanding of storyteling and the comics medium. If you like Byrne, Bendis or Morrison, this could well be your favourite superhero comic book. Mudman #4 by Paul Grist from Image Comics.  Just buy the damn thing.

Prophecy #1 from Dynamite appears to be a time travelling way to League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen a bunch of people at odds together, from Holmes loking at an Aztec dagger, to Red Sonja getting her hands on it before being thrust into Vampirella's jungle. A very dangerous game in that it often comes over as wishful fanfic, and so it is here, each new character revealed as the curtains being pulled back, their presence supposed enough to justify that scene. It's not and apart from some entertaining opening scenes,  it falls badly on its face. The art however is lush and pretty enough to carry you through.

Morning Glories #19 runs through time and space, chasing a man who has spent his life racing to catch up. Isn't it fitting that his saviours are just in time?

As the world starts to change, Wee Hughie in The Boys finds himself in a leather jacket and an attitude to authority that seems just a little familiar. Butcher may not change. Wee Hughie really has. Though at least he is becoming aware of it…

It does feel annoying that not one cast member of Fanboys Vs Zombies, constant attendees at San Diego Comic Con, has ever been to a Max Brooks lecture. But this issue does something fantastic, and portrays the zombified Comic Con goers as… Comic Con goers. It feels ripped straught from the shopping mall of Dawn Of The Dead, but in a world of tweeting, gaming and collecting. We Are The Zombies! Aaargh!

Watch a master cartoonist at work, folk, giviung new and even odder takes on the characters of Wonderland and The Looking Glass. Roger Langridge's Snarked takes the crew to sea to meet the furious Bandersnatch. Some of the best cartooning in comic form right now, that fills your mind with text as much as it does pictures. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if {Paul Grist and Roger Langridge teamed up…

Thief Of Thieves feels very unlike a comic, it uses few tricks of the medium to tell its story. It's slow, it's measured, it's careful. But here it uses single pages, each one to recruit a hesiut member, each one setting up the future of the story, and ensuring one character stays in control. That's before it all, inevitably falls apart thanks to our protagonist. But in terms of time, space and tone it simply has nothing on…

Secret #2. I'm sorry but wow. Telling a not-too-disimilar tale, this comic explodes the comics medium, literally over four pages. We start will a killer opening and then run through a series of times, tones and characters, in a decompressed but very controlled use of the medium. Colour especially plays a huge rol and is used like a scalpel in differentiating points of view, that then come together. An outstanding work, and strangely reminiscent of the very different Nightly News on Hickman's control of the panel. This issue could be my favourite work to date of his.

Wow again. Comic of the week.

Do you remember Patrick Stewart in Extras? Wanting to make a film in which he had telepathic powers but was more realistic than the X-Men?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IURfntimnlA[/youtube]

Welcome to Harbinger from Valiant where we get that, mixed with a little Jumpers. And telepaths going wll beyond what Professor X would consider acceptable and into Patrick Stewart territory…

In Avengers Vs X-Men #5, well those who like what they've had before will enjoy this, for the rest of us, it's all a bit Ky'lun Crystal uber alles and one of those X-Men gimmick issues from the eighties witb Art Adams. However, it does give a little context to the idea of No More Avengers. And if nothing else, we get a big fuck off Iron Man.

And Action Comics #10 does quite a trick. As Superman finds his world getting more and more exposed, he finds an escape clause. I've been told that DC basically lt Grant Morrison do anything they want with Superman and everyone else has to catch up. I wonder what they are going to do with this one…

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