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.
The famed British anthology 2000AD debuted a new limited series, collecting one of their finest stories with Ian Edgington and I.N.J. Culbard’s Brass Sun #1. Wren is a young woman who lives in The Orrery, a clockwork solar system where whole planets spin on vast metal arms and the Sun is built of millions of cogs. But these cogs are slowly winding down, and the outer planets are freezing and dying, one by one. Wren’s grandfather was once the bishop of the church of her world and denounced this ending as heresy, even burning his own daughter and her husband at the stake. Now he has come to see the error of his ways and discovered a great many secrets about this clockwork universe. He’s passed on these hidden secrets to Wren, who must journey among the tubes and pipes of her steampunk solar system to its core and restart her star. This is charming fantasy with none too little violence, yet it still reads like the very best of young adult fiction. There are no dreaded love triangles or overwrought teen angst, simply a young hero on a grand adventure. Wren is a bright girl, ready to take on the task her grandfather set before her, despite her sadness at his loss. Her Grandfather’s story is really the heart of this book, but it’s just the tip of this story’s iceberg.
C.O.W.L. #1 from Image Comics is another twist on the super hero genre, this one with an interesting economic and political angle. The Chicago Organized Workers League is the first Union for Superheroes, established after World War II when a great many of the cities’ early heroes were at their zenith. Now it’s 1968, and the union is run by the aging Geoffrey Warner, publicly known as the former superhero The Grey Raven. C.O.W.L. have just about put the super-villain community out of business, but one last case, headed up by John Pierce of the Investigations Division and the brash superhero known as Eclipse might just change everything in Chicago. The concept of superheroes working together like this, within the bounds of city politics, is a novel one. Unfortunately, it shines a poor light on the only female character in the story, the hero known as Radia. She is marginalized by the union as a spokesperson and model (her only public duty is a PR event to show off her new costume), and she’s been having an affair with the married Warner, who clearly treats her like a trophy. It’s an interesting concept given that the book takes place in a time when women were much more marginalized than they are now, but that’s no reason to continue such treatment, especially for a super hero. Yet the book doesn’t appear to have much sympathy for the character, as if to suggest that it’s actually Radia who should be doing more to show herself in a good light, not the other way around. Still, she’s an interesting character – not a particularly good person, who doesn’t stand up for herself, and she’s willing to be used by C.O.W.L. and Warner for their own means, at least so far.
Master writer Warren Ellis returns to comics with the sci-fi high concept comic Trees #1. 10 years ago, the first proof of intelligent life in the universe arrived on Earth, setting down giant pillars all over the planet. And then they did… nothing. Trees is told in a series of character vignettes, detailing the lives of people all over the globe who live near the giant spaceships, examples of alien life who don’t consider us intelligent or even alive in the same way they are, aliens that have no interest in communicating with us at all. Human societies all over the world have been radically altered by the Trees and scientists have studied them ceaselessly, but no one has any idea what they are. Ellis has found a way to comment on society in general by showing what me might do and say if we were suddenly ants under someone else’s microscope, and he seems most interested in what the ants might do to each other.
Dynamite Comics continues their new universe building withDocktor Spektor: Master of the Occult #1from Mark Waid and Neil Edwards. In an amusing take on pop culture in general, Doctor Spektor is a monster hunter of sorts, doing it in prime time on his own reality show. The Doctor is haunted by a ghost from his past, and when a real medium appears on his show and suddenly gives that ghost – along with a few others – corporeal form, it’s up to Spector’s newest personal assistant Abby Horne to help get the situation reined in. The plot is a touch all over the place, as if it’s trying to do a whole lot in not enough pages, but the concept is soundly presented. The idea that something as unusual as real vampires and ghosts makes for no more than television fodder is amusing but also, alarmingly, very easy to accept, as if we all simply expect that’s what coming next.
And as an honorable mention this week, check out Star Wars: Rebel Heist #2from Dark Horse Comics. While the first issue was all about Han Solo, as promised issue #2 focuses on Leia. Each book is told from the perspective of a new character interacting with the franchise favorites, and this time around we see Leia as a spy worthy of Bond. This is the Princess from the very beginning of A New Hope, strong willed and capable, and she’s a blast to follow in her element. The overall tone of writer Matt Kindt’s book borders on hero worship, but these are heroes who deserve it, and Leia’s turn in the spotlight was worth every page.
