the years best comics (in my opinion) part 2

so, this September DC decide to reset all their monthly comics and relaunch 52 new #1 issues.
The Flash centric mini series/maxi series multi titles crossover event Flashpoint led up to the big reset....im not gonna talk about it, it was boring (i only read the main title; Flashpoint. im informed some of the spin off titles were of merit) 


Some cosmic event happened and the DC universe, some elements of the Vertigo universe and the Wildstorm universe (wikipedia them if you have no idea what im talking about) merged into a brand new DC continuity,  with revised origin stories and some pretty big changes to established DC lore.


so 52 new titles starting from scratch. pretty exciting. there was a lot of moaning (on the internet obviously) about the New 52 as they have been dubbed but i was really into it. i love comics and i heard some pretty classy writers were getting a chance to write certain characters..........LETS HAVE A LOOK SHALL WE!!!!!!!!


sorry for shouting.


ok first up:


Justice League by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee


i dont have a lot to say about this title. Johns essentially writes Michael Bay quality scripts for his comics. fairly pedestrian stuff. i enjoyed some of his Green Lantern stuff but Justice League was just ploddy and boring. a guy with concussion could write a more engaging story. 


for me it was all about Jim Lee. 
chances are if you are around the same age as me and ever read X Men in the 90s you have seen Jim Lee's classy mutha' fuckin' pencils.

.................just, wow..............

he is a damn good penciller, the figures look muscular with out looking ridiculous (*ahemrobliefeldahemahem*) so its always a joy to look at his line work. but the story was just weak. so i abandoned it after issue #3.

goodnight my sweet prince....

Animal Man by Jeff Lemire and Travel Foreman AND Swamp Thing by Scott Snyder and Yannick Paquette


These two titles i was really excited about. 


Animal Man had been one of Grant Morrison's early successes and i was about half way through reading Alan Moore's amazing, ground breaking run on Swamp Thing, so i was curious to see what Lemire and Snyder would pull out of the bag.


What i got was two separate stories by separate writers that, subtly and gradually begin to dovetail together to form a broader story. Each writer enriches the sauce of their story with the delicious juices from the others comic.

and, you know, chicks on motorbikes shooting Swamp Thing with a shotgun...

Swamp Thing, written (expertly) by Snyder, is a knight of The Green., the life for ever all plant matter on the planet. Alec Holland woke up a month prior to the start of issue #1 with no memory of his own life but memories of people and incidents the Swamp Thing had experienced. is Holland Swamp Thing? why do the  elder knights of The Green need him to defend all living things against an approaching darkness? ....im not telling...read it!


Through out the first four issues Holland meets Abby Arcane, a woman from his inherited memories and the stage is set for a battle with the Rot, the rotten, dark force of death and disease. A Scott Snyder comic is always a meaty read, he doesn't scrimp on dialogue but his stories always have a great pace. it's sorta-gritty almost conversational style is perfect, winding and writhing like a tendril of an ivy plant climbing up a thick tree trunk. 


Yannick Paquette compliments Snyder's writing so perfectly. His pencils for the human characters have a chunky, Jack Kirby-esque heft...

do what the big green plant guy says, dude....

But it's Paquette's double page spreads that really get my juices flowing (just picture that for a second, ok...) they are intricate, psychedelic tapestries....BEHOLD:

its not big, but its all i could find, soz!

so yeah, perfectly written and illustrated. go read it.......


Animal Man, or Buddy Baker to his wife and two children, is a low level superhero. He did a bit of acting, an indie film and now is returning to semi sorta full time super heroing.


He defuses a hostage situation using various animal attributes he borrows from near-by fauna via his powers! so he barks like a dog and uses the proportionate speed of a fly and saves the day.


Then he gets home and find his young daughter playing in his backyard with recently deceased animals. So begins Buddy and Maxine Bakers journey into The Red, the source of the life blood over every living thing on the planet. Buddy's wife and his son Cliff are then stalked by agents of the Rot in the form of three John Carpenter's The Thing-esque Hunters Three, twisted metamorphing monsters. 


Lemire writes in a loose, spindly style. Like arranging strands of thick red wool on a plain surface, strands of story intertwine, some of the strands even make their way into Snyder's Swamp Thing....loose but engaging.


Travel Foreman (great name) illustrates in a...hang on. Just look at this shit, man....

sweet jesus!

oh yeah, thats right!

new underpants please!

so yeah, this is great, great pencilling. Quirky but really precise.


Swamp Thing and Animal Man are both really awesome comics. i look forward to these two titles probably the most out of my usual pull list from month to month. I look forward to seeing where Snyder and Lemire take the stories.


that all for now, im gonna do another New 52 post soon so stay tuned.....