We’ve got a number of new comics offerings this week, with the best coming from Image Comics. Greg Rucka (Stumptown, Whiteout) and Michael Lark (Gotham Central, Terminal City) team up to bring us Lazarus #1, a slam bang dystopian action extravaganza. In a stark future time, power has come to rest where it’s truly always been, with the wealthy. Powerful families rule the world now in a feudal system, employing serfs and keeping out “waste,” the starving masses of humanity not willing to serve. Each family has a single protector known as a Lazarus, a member of the clan who is given specialized training and advanced medical procedures rendering them immortal and very, very deadly. The Carlyle family rule over a large swath of Central California, and Forever Carlyle is the daughter chosen as their Lazarus. Forever is facing difficulty with her duties, however, as she comes to realize that perhaps it’s not alright to murder people for attempting to steal food because they are starving to death. The action adventure here is high speed and non-stop, and the moral message is a little bit on the (violently broke) nose. In a time when wealth disparity is growing at rapid rates globally, as well as locally, it’s certainly apropos, but it also feels like something we’ve seen before: the samurai doubting the master’s unwavering brutality, questioning his orders. Only time will tell how long it takes before Forever goes rogue, but that time is undoubtedly coming. That’s perhaps the main flaw in an otherwise great story of a powerful female character, the strong feeling that we know things will go badly for her, immortality or not.
Andy Diggle (The Losers, Snapshot) and artist Aaron Campbell (The Shadow) have the other great debut this week, with Dynamite’s Uncanny #1. Weaver is a con-man with a unique ability – he can steal people’s memories, thoughts and abilities for a time by touching them, sort of a psychic vampire. It’s a useful skill for cheating casinos and making a quick getaway, especially if you are convinced you are the only person in the world with these gifts. But what if you aren’t? The seedy underbelly of Saigon is a great setting for this week’s second high stakes thriller, and while Weaver is a bit on the vanilla side (he’s like Jason Bourne, but with a cheat code, Up, Up, Down, Down, Left Right … anyway), his new-found friend Maggie is a welcome addition. Weaver does a decent job narrating his own tale, but it’s a lot of (highly entertaining) bravado. The arrival of the mysterious stranger on the motorcycle is an obvious plot device, and so far Maggie doesn’t seem to be much more. Still, her few words let us know she has a certain disdain for Mr. Weaver, and since he’s written as not the nicest of guys, it makes it easy to like her. Uncanny is more noir with a touch of sci-fi than anything else, and highly entertaining. We’ll just have to hope Maggie lives up to her initial promise, and that Mr. Weaver straightens out.
In the world of the spandex clad, DC brings us two new #1s from it’s mainline, beginning with the stunningly illustrated Batman/Superman #1. The inimitable artistic style of Jae Lee (Before Watchmen: Ozymandius, The Dark Tower) is the star of this show, but Bats and Big Blue are handled well by writer Greg Pak (X-Treme X-men, World War Hulk). The book is in many ways about their similarities more than their differences, as Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent share similar family histories in DC’s Rebooted Universe. The deaths of Wayne’s parents are well documented, while the Kents died in an accident. Both men reflect heavily on those back stories while working the case of several murdered Wayne Corp employees in Metropolis. There is a bit of time travel confusion here that folks might have trouble with, if they’re NOT familiar with the New 52 reboot. Superman and Batman take on a mystical enemy that unites versions of them from the present day and five years prior (images of Superman in a Superman t-shirt and jeans will perhaps elicit giggles, but that’s how he originally played it in the new DC universe) and it’s the nature of how these two men know each other that gets called in to question. Are they heroes with troubled pasts who see the other as a threat? Or allies with a grudging respect for one another who are always ready to bring their counterpart to bay if they cross the line? This has long been the thematic relationship between this Universe’s two biggest characters, but the human exploration of their similar childhoods is the best part of the writing here. The art does its best to steal the show, as Lee is one of the most original stylistic artists working today, but the balance is maintained overall.
And then, mostly just for giggles, DC launches Larfleeze #1. You’d need to really be a comic geek for this one. Larfleeze is the lovably sleazy dog-like alien who also happens to be the Universe’s only Orange Lantern. While the Green Lantern Corps wields the emotional power of Hope, Orange Lanterns are fueled by the power of Greed, and thus (to cop a phrase) there can be only One. A recently defeated Larfleeze has drifted to the core of the Galaxy, sadly lamenting the loss of, well, everything. All his STUFF. As the only Orange lantern around, he had a lot of it, apparently, and is now left with only his condescending alien butler, to whom he recounts his origin story in flashback. There’s not much to speak of on a social level here beyond the obvious, that Gordon Gekko might have been off base when he told us Greed is Good, but we’re lead to believe that perhaps Larfleeze once was good, or at least had a chance to be. If you like cosmic adventure, and a snicker or two, you might just want to follow along and find out.
And then there are three comics that are not much more than that: god ol’ funny books. The Malevolent Mr. Burns #1 is an origin story told in vignettes, recounting the life of the evil billionaire from The Simpsons. It’s a cute little set of stories if you really like the show, and not much more if you aren’t a super fan. IDW brings us yet another Godzilla comic with Godzilla: Rulers of the Earth #1, in which the creatures are formally classified as kaiju and a school of Megazoology is established to study them. Godzilla is still presumably the king of these beasts, but we get a quick run down of just about every big bad ever created for film and comics alike in what amounts to a comic book college lecture on this mystical branch of science. And lastly, for no apparent reason, Image brings us Hoax Hunters: Case Files #1, a comic collecting a series of vignettes about the characters from the mainstream book, a team of sort of X-files operatives who know, in fact, that there are strange things out there, and make everyone else believe they are hoaxes, to keep them secret and safe. There aree a few memorable laughs, including good use of Murder, who is a walking, talking 60’s era space suit, filled with birds. (Really.) The best of the bunch is the explanation that Bill Murray’s current life as a guerrilla comedian in the No One Will Ever Believe You blogs and videos, is in fact a hoax to cover up thousands of clones of Bill Murray, each permanently stuck as one of his iconic characters. Priceless fun, for sure.
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