We’re No. 1! is a weekly feature looking at first issues in new comic series, as well as one-offs and special releases. In his reviews, Jeff highlights stories with diverse characters and plot lines Geekquality readers can care about, as well as points out comics that miss the mark.
This week, families take center stage in the few #1 to be found in comics stores this week. There weren’t a great many new beginnings to choose from, so let’s get right to our honorable mention, the first trade paperback volume of Kieron Gillen’s Young Avengers series. After we looked at the first issue when it was released 8 months ago, I put the book down without further reading, and it was clearly a mistake. Since then, Gillen has taken this young bunch of heroes and really put them through the wringer. Their first major nemesis? Their PARENTS. (Sort-of.) Teen mage Wiccan (a fan favorite), “Son” of the Scarlet Witch, attempts to restore some normalcy to the life of his long time boyfriend Hulkling, who lost his mother to the Skrull. Sadly, Wiccan’s errant magic instead brings forth “Mother”, an inter-dimensional being that takes on the forms of the deceased parents of the various members of the team. The book, written with an authentic modern teen style, even includes comic book versions of Tumblr and Facebook posts, 5am breakfast sessions after fake ID nightclub outings, and the absolute belief in young life and young love that all teenagers possess, with that never-ending confusion bubbling right under the surface. The relationship between Wiccan and Hulkling gets put to some real tests in this book and the issues that followed it (issue #9 debuts this week). In fact, the publication of the first arc as a trade paperback led to a reading binge, as I picked up every issue since and plowed through them all in a row. Newer issues introduce Wiccan’s brother Speed, as well as former X-teen Prodigy, a fantastic addition to the tale. Prodigy was formerly a mutant with the ability to pick up the powers and knowledge of anyone in his close proximity, and when you rub elbows with the likes of Dr. Strange, Hank McCoy and Logan, you get some pretty interesting info inside your head. When the events of The House of M, Decimation and Schism series in the X-books robbed Prodigy of his power, they didn’t take away the knowledge and life experiences he already had in his head, and now he’s a gifted genius with interesting insight into the super-heroic world. Prodigy, whose real name is David Alleyne, is a fascinating exploration of how being super-powered might inform one’s identity in ways that aren’t often explored in comics. David startles Hulkling with an impromptu kiss and explains that by experiencing the knowledge and personal feelings of everyone he came into contact with, he was able to understood the emotional depth of his feelings for both sexes. Rather than this “making him” bi, David’s gift allowed him to become open to something that was always just under the surface of his identity, making for a compelling coming out narrative.
I feel like I could go on and on about the quality of characters in Young Avengers. While I’m still waiting for Miss America to become more well rounded, she’s a welcome character in the world of capes and superheroes. The young Latina superhero is drawn with realistic style, but she has the least to do in these stories so far, and hopefully that will change soon. The exploration of the relationship between Kate Bishop’s Hawkeye and former Marvel Boy Noh-Vaar is also entertaining and puts the youth on display in the title. They are older than their counterparts (Hulkling and Wiccan still live with their parents, and seem high-school aged, while Kate is in her early 20’s). Thus, their somewhat more mature physical relationship informs the youth around them, and it’s fun watching super children who’ve all grown up too fast keep trying to find real emotional connection amidst their shared loss.
Family dynamics abound in other new books this week. Aspen Comics continues their “10 for 10” launches with a book voted on by fans, Overtaken #1. It’s the story of Will and Jesse Harden, a young couple relocating to a small town to be closer to Jesse’s aging parents. Will is an investigative journalist who usually knows a suspicious story when he sees one, but he’s slow to notice the unusual nature of his new home. Several people have recently gone missing, someone is yet to put these disappearances together. The book’s opening, depicting a violent and destructive war on a far away alien planet seems to suggest that this cozy little town has a dark secret, one that Will is forced to investigate when Jesse mysteriously vanishes in a bright flash of light on her way home one evening. The tale seems to be about a happy couple, but the book sends confusing messages, largely due to the writing. A really large swath of the book (as in, more than half) is spent showing us rather emphatically the Will and Jesse are a happy couple and in another genre we might think the writer doth protest too much. However, here it seems more a product of poor pacing than an effort to cast their relationship in doubt. Will and Jesse come across as adults behaving like teenagers in love, and it’s tough to get into the sci-fi story that the writer is very slowly building. Also, while the narrative seems to set up Will as the investigative hero and Jesse as the captured damsel, a great deal of the promotional art and covers suggest that eventually this will be Jesse’s story. It’s tough to tell where the book is going, however, and thus hard to maintain interest in the rest of the yarn.
DC takes a new swipe at its oldest and best family series, the Bat Family, with the Batman Incorporated Special #1. The book is an anthology showing the various members of the multi-national arm of the Bat Army as they deal with the tragedies of the recent battle with Tali al Ghul and Leviathan that lead to the death of the most recent Robin, Bruce’s and Talia’s son Damian Wayne. Damian wasn’t the only casualty, and one particularly well written piece here shows the struggles of Britain’s Robin, known as The Squire, as she takes up the mantle of her fallen partner The Knight. Knight and Squire have been around the edges of the Bat books for years, and this goes into the real measure of grief a person would feel – even in the world of superheroes – stepping into her mentor’s shoes. Other tales here feature Man-of-Bats and his sidekick Red Raven, as they try to talk a former construction worker off a ledge, and the debut of Bat-Cow (yeah, you read that right) in her first solo story. The book is good for some super heroic thrills and laughs, but there’s also an undercurrent of sadness, as a shattered Bruce Wayne struggles with what comes next for his family and his army in the wake of his son’s death. The book helps mark the close of superstar writer Grant Morrison’s stewardship of the Bat Family, and its emphasis on these characters as a grieving family is a fitting wrap-up to Morrison’s work.
There were a couple of simpler stories in the #1’s this week, worth mentioning briefly. Dark Horse brings yet another short series from the pages of Dark Horse Presents, with Station to Station. This a one shot sci-fi tale of monsters emerging from other dimensions after an explosion in a lab on the Bay Area’s Treasure Island. The amorphous beasties are also mind controllers, and the doctors who brought them here are seriously inhibited from fighting the creatures. The series is a solid premise that suffers from being collected all at once, and would have played better as a series of shorts.
Vertigo gets in on the anthology game with a collection of stories from its American Vampire series, with writing from some of the top creators in the business. The best of these comes from star writer and real life superhero Gail Simone (Birds of Prey, Batgirl) who tells a brutal tale of vampiric revenge set in 1920’s Hollywood. This story of Hattie Hargrove’s past is soul wrenching and expertly crafted in just 8 pages, and both Simone’s writing and artist Tula Lotay’s work shine.
