Nightmares Illustrated 029 Small Furry Animals Mining the Low Rock Wall (Continuity and Recollecting)

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Top Five Picks…Buy These Right Now.

1. Monocyte (IDW).

2. Hitman Vol. 7: Closing Time (DC).

3. Hellblazer 295 (Vertigo).

4. Vampirella 20 (Dynamite).

5. Prophecy 3 (Dynamite).

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DC’s #0s hit the stands about the time this posts. My aching head. After a mere twelve issues of TNFT, of which a few books didn’t survive, DC already has to step out of the new continuity to fill in revisionist backstory. Well, maybe it is not that so much. Maybe it is yet another attempt to convince potential readers (and, I suppose, current readers) that there is something more here than they have been reading. It is a marketing gimmick. But what the hell, they are trying to sell books, right? For that, marketing helps. For me, it is annoying, but as I get older, I am beginning to believe that everything annoys me. I have no interest at all in #0 issues for their own sake. I will read the ones from the books I already like (Swamp Thing; Phantom Stranger; the usual suspects) and not the ones I don’t (Action Comics; Green Arrow; the other usual suspects). In other words, #0 will not change my reading behavior in the slightest. What about you?

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Hitman: Closing Time (DC). Tommy Monaghan is a hit man. Or is it hitman? I am having a Friends flashback about the difference between Spider-man and Spiderman. Or is that flash back? Anyway, Monaghan has always been a real problem in DC continuity because he goes around killing people, but he is typically not on the villain roster. He interacts with Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and the rest as one of the good guys. But he kills people. Clearly, Tommy is another blatant swipe at superheroism by Garth Ennis. It is not a glancing blow, either. It is a kill shot.

DC has been recollecting the collections of the Hitman book, and the final reissue, volume seven, is out now. It has the last arc of the infamous comic book plus two good additions: the Lobo one-shot (“That Stupid Bastich”) and the two-issue Justice League super-mini (“On the Dark Side”). I didn’t much like the final arc of the regular book (“Closing Time”), maybe because Tommy gets it in the end. The Justice League crossover is a lot of fun in a Destroy All Monsters kind of way, but the Lobo one-shot is a balls-to-the-wall free-for-all (in an Accept / Ted Nugent kind of way). Being a diehard Garth Ennis fan, I was going to read this collection no matter what. Lobo and the JLA made Tommy Monaghan’s demise easier to take. Recommended.

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Monocyte (IDW) has just been released in an unbelievably beautiful hardcover edition. Let me hurl a leaden cliché at you: if you only buy one book this year, make it Monocyte. Overused phrase or not, I mean it. The book has no equal in comics or graphic novels – to see anything that compares to IDW’s gorgeous edition you have to start looking at art books. This is a book that goes with me in the incinerator when my days are done. I am not going to say any more about it because I want you to experience it and be amazed. My highest recommendation.

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Fables 114-120 (Vertigo). Bill Willingham is one of my favorite writers, as I have often opined in the luxurious pages of Nightmares Illustrated. I came late to the game and had years of reading to catch up on, but now I cannot wait for each new issue of Fables. The latest arc, “Cubs In Toyland,” wrapped up with issue #120 and, like the entire run, it is required reading.

Fables is not an easy book to jump on. There is a long and complex continuity stretching back ten plus years. This “situation” is what DC (and consequently, Vertigo) and other publishers fear because it is hard to grow a readership if new readers have to invest a lot of time and money to understand the current events in the book. Hence the incessant reboots designed to make “jumping on” easy. But this “situation” is also what makes a story rich. The long history of interesting and exciting events, the character development, and, sometimes, the maturing of the writer. Willingham has always been good, but I think he gets better all the time. The fact that he has written this book from the beginning is astonishing – it is virtually unprecedented. And look, if you grab three issues in a row of Fables at any point in the run you have a good grip on the world and the current conflict. Having read any three issues in a row, you are going to want to read every other one ever published. I’d put money on it. And, and, having started reading every other issue ever published, you will not get bored or discouraged. The only downside is sadness when you finish because there is nothing more to read (Alexander wept…). Instead of letting the sadness take over, why not turn the feeling into satisfaction at being able to experience the wondrous stories in Fables. Treat your yourself. Highly recommended.

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Buy These Too…

Batman No Man’s Land Volumes 1-3 and Batman Knightfall Volumes 1-3 (DC). Probably because of Nolan’s third Batman movie (all thumbs up, by the way), I started noticing Batman products more than usual. There are two long series recently recollected by DC that are excellent and inexpensive. Both No Man’s Land and Knightfall are hard to find in their entirety by picking up all the related back issues separately, so these collections are great. Tons of villains, lots of action, and horror content left and right, if you want to see it. I do not read any of the on-going Batman books, but in the hundreds of thousands of pages of Batman material that has been published since the 1930s, there is metric ton of good reading sprinkled throughout. These are two good examples.

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Bargain Bin…

Not a lot to report from the Bargain Bin this time. Slim pickings. Must be summer. I did find a signed copy of Empire 1 (Image) for a quarter, which was a nice little steal, and the first two issues of Crimson Dynamo (Marvel Epic) for a similar two bits each. The latter was the better book, although I found it under-developed and thick-lined, to some extent. Still worth the pennies. I’ll keep looking and let you know.

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