Nightmares Illustrated 041 The Shell Game Continues

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Top Five Picks…Buy These Right Now.

1. Unleashed #1 (Zenescope).

2. Phantom Stranger #8 (DC).

3. Red Lanterns #19 (DC).

4. The Colonized #2 (IDW).

5. Vampires, The Eternal #1 (Zenescope).

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A looming summer threatens to disturb my equilibrium. It turns out that I usually travel a lot in the summer. Not really on vacations exactly. Unfortunately. No, it is more like an ambiguous attempt to generate some kind of hypothetical product or theoretical revenue to be exploited at some unidentified time in the future. Unsurprisingly, I usually end up with a bag full of air. Still I keep trying, year after year, summer after summer. One important surety in the past few years has been the writing of Nightmares Illustrated, an activity that keeps me grounded and constantly aware of the passage of time. There will be no interruption in this space over the hottest months no matter where I might be in the world. The brain barf will continue to land with a happy splat right on time.

Here we go.

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I have written quite a bit about the most recent incarnation of Swamp Thing. It started, I said, as an homage to Alan Moore and a few of the artists from volume two of the book back in the day. Then it drifted off into the ether for a while. Then it was a goat dance for a while. And now it is back to an homage to Alan Moore. The current arc is setting up a multitude of walk-ons beginning with Scarecrow and Superman in #19. That issue, #19, starts off in Snoozeville and ambles there for about 10 pages until a sudden splat of violence sends the “Urban Jungle” story into a nice episode of weirdness. Cue Scarecrow. Minor skirmish. Tension-building event. Tease Superman. Curtain! These scripts just write themselves, don’t they.

I actually see this newest direction as a promising turn. There is a dizzying level of déjà vu, but you get the feeling reading the familiar set-up that it will be fun to watch, like the remake of a movie you liked in its original form. If you have never read the Alan Moore stories, then this is all new to you anyway (in the same way as, over at Marvel, if you missed the Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy reboots of a couple years ago the new reboots seem terribly terribly terribly innovative). If you have read them, then you can smile ever time to identify an element lifted from the earlier work. Just watch out for mouth cramps from all the grinning.

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Dungeons & Dragons, The Legend of Drizzt: Neverwinter Tales (IDW). I am not a giant D&D fan. When I was younger I used to roll up characters now and then, and I sure liked the Monster Manual and the Fiend Folio and so on. I never played modules much and after a (short) time I gave it up altogether. Still, I like dark fantasy and I have not a thing against D&D as such, so I read the new collection with an open mind. Set in the world of R. A. Salvatore’s Neverwinter Saga novels and written by R.A. and Geno Salvatore, the book is light on verbiage and heavy on colorful art making the read quick and exciting. There is very little literal violence but there are a lot of monsters, dark beings, and magic. While it did not inspire me to seek out more of this material, I did enjoy reading the book quite a lot and I happily give it a casual recommendation.

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I suffer from BIG EVENT weariness. DC and Marvel have worn me down. And then there was that uninspiring Image crossover I am sure we all remember, begrudgingly. So, with this in mind and on my mind, I was not very excited about Zenescope’s big Unleashed event-thingy. I guess you can see where this is going: I was wrong. Every bit of this “event” I have seen so far has been great. There is the six-issue main book, Unleashed, and five three-issue mini tie-ins: Hunters, The Shadowlands; Vampires, The Eternal; Demons, The Unseen; Werewolves, The Hunger; and Zombies, The Cursed. I have seen “events” go off the rails badly half way through (the image of Image is again in my head), but that kind of thing does not happen much in Zenescope books. I am cruising on a full buy-in – notice two of my top five titles this issue are from this “event.” I am trying not to get too enthusiastic. I am trying to have realistic expectations, but the issues I have seen so far are making restraint difficult. Recommended.

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Nine.

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Buy These Too…

Age of Ultron #1-3 (Marvel). While this story line reads like a Green Lantern script, it is slowly growing on me. If you are a Marvel fan, then you will like this because of the Avengers content (and you are probably reading it already). For me the best part is Moon Knight, a character that has never been utilized to the greatest possible effect, if you asked me.

Vampirella Strikes #4 (Dynamite). Wow. I have been recommending this title all along and issue four really kicks it up a notch. I am now on heavy recommend. Don’t wait for the collection. Catch up on the mini-series and stand in line for the next one.

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Bargain Bin…

Batman Phantom Stranger (DC). This one shot is a mighty riff on greed and its downfalls. From 1997, it is a wee 48 page “graphic novella.” It is a good Batman story, and every Phantom Stranger book is worth reading. And I saw it in the bin. Win-win-win.

Vertigo Visions Phantom Stranger (DC/Vertigo). 1993 saw the publication of this odd treatment of the Phantom Stranger. The weird part is mainly the interior artwork by Guy Davis. It is not bad at all, just different. As a 56-page one-shot, it is a steal in the bin. Dig it up.

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