Comic Review: Infidel

Horror is a genre that has, for a long time now, found itself in desperate need of a shot in the arm. For a better part of the last twenty years, western horror has simmered with lukewarm novels, predictable cliche-ridden movies and that period where they just remade everything the far east had made the year before. Horror was dying, and didn't look like there was much of a way out.

However, in recent times we're seeing an unexpected sub-genre growing that could save horror as a whole. The emergence of ethnic horror in the public eye is a much needed breath of fresh air, and is introducing wildly new and unexplored viewpoints to the genre. Films like Get Out give us terror from an angle never before seen on the silver screen, and comics like Pornsak Pichetshote's new Infidel, continues in this exciting new branching out of a once tired genre.

Infidel tells the story of a young American Muslim woman living in an apartment seemingly filled with the grisly echoes of murderous hate crimes. The shadow of awful events lingers within her nightmares, and these demonic visitations seem to begin leaking into waking life.

Infidel explores not only the supernatural terrors, but shows us the true fears of the world this young woman is now a part of. The suspicious stares of neighbors hide unspoken words, and what could be a loving family is cracked by the echoes of old prejudices never forgotten. In Infidel, seemingly benevolent faces hide terrible secrets, and it seems whatever haunts this young woman is just around the corner at any moment.

Infidel has an atmospheric first issue, with a lot of thorough attention to character found therein. It's an unnerving experience in horror, with both a slow burn uneasy feeling to its pages as well as boasting a few panels that are truly ghoulish to behold. I'm excited to see where our protagonist is taken, and what awful secrets she uncovers in the shadows of her apartment, as well as the shadows of the family she finds herself a part of.

Written by Pornsak Pichetshote, with art by Aaron Campbell and Jose Villarruba, Infidel #1 is out now.

Comic Review: Legion

Of all the recent superhero shows filling the box the last few years, none have quite stood out like last years out-of-nowhere sleeper hit, Legion. The psychedelic, music inspired sci-fi comedy horror romantic-drama told the story of a troubled antagonist, inspired by the X-Men franchise's character of the same name.

It's been a while since we've seen David Haller, as Legion much prefers to be called, in the comics. Last seen in a truly seminal run penned by Simon Spurrier, X-Men Legacy confronted the nature of Legion's many personalities, giving them individual faces, names and forms, and ended with the incredible finale of David's fractured mind finally coming under  his own control at last. Sane at last, David uses the reality editing power of his ultimate personality to remove himself from history, choosing to exist only in the mind of the woman who loved him.

Now Legion is a complex character, and not just thematically. Since his introduction in The New Mutants, David Haller  has been through the ringer. He's a deeply haunted and troubled young man possessed of a plethora of conflicting personalities, some good, some evil, and some utterly beyond human understanding. Over the years writers have taken him from a mentally handicapped child, to an all powerful anti-villain splitting universes apart, to a lonely traveler seeking redemption.

Milligan's Legion begins at an unspecified time in David's life, when the wandering mutant, garbed in his hospital scrubs, is tormented by a fierce and dominant new personality, Lord Trauma. Desperately seeking freedom from his increasingly aggressive alter-egos, David encounters New York Psychologist Hannah Jones. A shrink to celebrities, Dr Jones appears to be encountering strange and unexplained phenomena all her own, with apparitions and hallucinations warning her of dangerous events to come.

Finding each other in their time of distress, David Haller and Hannah Jones meet, and perhaps will be able to help each other. 

There's some great moments in the first issue of Legion, with the sinister telepath Lord Trauma manifesting himself in the brain waves seen as David undergoes an Electroencephalogram being a particular high point. The interior art is stylish and colourful, Wilfredo Torres using a mix-up of dutch angles to leave us feeling as off balance as the characters within the story, and the sharp blacks and hard edges are reminiscent of classic Mike Allred work. The cover image is a puzzling one though, which shows a much more cartoony styled theme than what new fans of the character attracted by the show are likely to take to.

Where Peter Milligan's Legion fits into the greater picture of the character isn't clear yet, but I do hope it acknowledges past (or future?) events from the previous runs (and please don't forget David's often neglected accent Pete!) There's still a lot to explore with the character, and a whole plethora of new personalities to explore it with. If anyone can do justice to David's twisted and warped mind, Peter Milligan is sure to write from experience.

Comic Review: All-New Guardians of the Galaxy.

The Guardians of the Galaxy are a team that's close to my heart. A group of space faring adventurers, travelling the galaxy and surfing the fringes of heroism. 

The team have been around, in some form or another, for decades now. The ever changing team a protean lineup of anti-heroes, weirdos, and genuine superheros. Until recently, you never quite knew who you were going to get each time a new issue rolled around. 

With the surprise success of the film adaptation, the lineup has solidified somewhat around five core characters. Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, the most dangerous woman in the Galaxy, stand-out fan favorite duo Rocket and Groot, and their plucky leader Star-Lord. They are all great characters, to be certain. It can't be easy juggling five main characters every issue, even if one of them doesn't exactly have much dialogue. 

Keeping the balance between five protagonists isn't easy, especially in a book with a strong comedic tone. Who's the funny guy? Basically all of them, if you do it right. Giving five heroes fair screen time, and crafting a story on top of it all, isn't an easy job. 

For the last five years, the Guardians of the Galaxy reins have been gripped in the hands of Brian Michael Bendis. 

Now it's very popular to take a shot at Bendis. He's the butt of a lot of jokes for comic fans and creators, but to call him a bad writer just wouldn't be fair. He's created memorable characters, been at the helm of some great stories, and pens more books in a season than many other writers do in years. 

Not every writer is a good fit for every book, however. As a huge fan of the characters found in the Guardians of the Galaxy, his work on it left a lot to be desired. The series added members every few issues, with Captain Marvel, Angela, Eddie Brock, Kitty Pryde, and the ever lovin' blue eyed Thing to name a few. Stories became predictable, verging on repetitive. In the five years past, without going back to look, I can only remember a scant handful of events that transpired within those pages. It lacked a cohesive story, an appropriate villain, and love for the heroes it dealt with. A writer need not introduce brand new members to the team each week when they have yet to flesh out the characters that are on the cover. No one picks up Guardians of the Galaxy and exclaims "Wonder what the Thing is up to this month!"

By the end of Bendis' run. A quote from one of my favorite stage plays often came to mind: 

Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go, when things have gotten about as bad as they can reasonably get.

It was time for a change. 

I was thrilled to hear that the pen was being passed to Gerry Duggan. A younger writer, Duggan is currently best known as the driving force behind turning Deadpool from a Looney Tunes character into a hero with weaknesses, complexities, and sharper comedy than ever before. He delivers characters with real voices.

From the pages of the first issue, there's a lot to love about the All-New Guardians of the Galaxy. 

As our heroes pull off the most over-the-top smash and grab bank robbery in galactic history, we already see development in the characters we know. Drax has been soul searching, maybe finding new ways to do things in life, new mysteries from Gamora's past arise to befuddle her team-mates, and Groot has reverted to his sprig form, a mysterious growth halt afflicting the botanical hero. 

There's an enigmatic antagonist to be found in the form of the Grandmaster, a collector of unique baubles from around the galaxy. Blackmailing the Guardians into obtaining a new acquisition for him, the Grandmaster's plans threaten to sever the professional relationship the Guardians have with a certain other cosmic Collector. 

The artwork from Aaron Kuder is clear, colourful, and kinetic. Most of the Guardians have even undergone a design shift for their new story as well, distancing them a little from their movie counterparts, helping separate them from sometimes overbearing movie personas.  

All-New Guardians of the Galaxy is off to a vibrant start, and I'm eager to see where Duggan takes the characters. There's a whole lot of room for weirdness in that big old space up there. 

All-New Guardians of the Galaxy #1, written by Gerry Duggan with art by Aaron Kuder, is on the shelves today.

Comic Review: X-Men '92.

If there was one single crystalline thing I can think of in my youth that I can say got me into comic books, it was probably the X-Men cartoon series.

It was a truly genre defining element of the after school lineup when I was 6 or so. It was the typical high octane goodies kicking the crap out of baddies that you would find on any action cartoon of the time, but filled with an incredible depth of kid-friendly social commentary. All the strongest characters were women, and the main villain had a justifiable motivation of his own. There was serious complexity to be found at 4pm on weekday afternoons. We absorbed that stuff, us kids did.

We watched Beast be unfairly denied bail and go to prison, just because he was a mutant. We saw the legacy virus ravage the mutant population, and watched mutants be ostracized for it even though it could spread to anyone. The setting may have been fictional, but the problems were real, and there was a lot to learn from in these stories.

X-Men ran for 5 years, and a lot of people that grew up with it still consider it their favorite adaptation of a comic book property. The incarnations of certain characters here, like the outrageously accented Gambit and Rogue, or the nefariously evil arch-villain Apocalypse, are considered by many to be the finest versions of the characters in any medium.

It would seem impossible to return to the halcyon days of the X-Men Animated series, but indeed, through the miracle of science (and Secret Wars) it seems we've done it. This week, X-Men '92 #1 comes out, and brings up back to that world we left so long ago. Yellow spandex and all.

The first issue of X-Men '92 brings us back to the halls of Xavier's school for gifted youngsters (where else?) where class is in session under the guiding hands of professor McCoy. When class is interrupted by the return of a mysterious villain from the past, and his messages of a great evil to come, it kicks off what promises to be an entirely original plot, with some new characters introduced too.

It's good to see characters back in old costumes again, eyesore outfits from decades past and personalities echoed we'd long forgotten. The tongue is planted quite firmly in the cheek for the overall style, with writers Sims and Bowers clearly aware that the same audience who loved the cartoon are probably all roundabout 30, and play to that idea well. There's even some cameos from mutant characters I personally thought I'd never see again (Long live the X-Statix!). The artwork of Alti Firmansyah fits perfectly, being both reminiscent of the cartoon whilst still being sharp and stylish.

It will be very fun to see what direction X-Men '92 takes in the long run. The time frame of 1992 is less a hard fact and more a rough suggestion of the zeitgeist, as we see movie posters for films that hadn't been released as of 1992 for example. With virtually no ties to the rest of the Marvel universe as it currently exists, the story bears none of the burden that comes with upholding the collective canon. What other characters will turn up? What accent will they write Pyro with? Only time will tell.

Comic Review: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl

If a series gets two first issues in the same year, you know it's got to be either really good, or a shameless cash in.
Thankfully, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #1 (Volume 2?), by Ryan North and Erica Henderson, is heaps of the former, coming out with a great first issue, for the second time this year.

With not much comedy on the shelves in modern day, it's good to see Marvel put out something both alternative, and actually really funny. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is, in essence, a superhero sitcom, with our titular heroine attending college, making friends, and defeating villains on the side. This incarnation of Squirrel Girl is the most well formed of the character to date, with a distinct lovable personality, yet remaining grounded and not too looney to be unrealistic. For a character who talks to squirrels as her main superpower, she's remarkably identifiable, being an otherwise typically socially awkward young woman.
The dialogue is sharp and witty, falling somewhere between the humor of 'Communuty' and 'Spaced', with a cast of exceedingly likable new characters like Squirrel Girl's college roommate, the cat-obsessed computer science major Nancy, and the beginnings of Squirrel Girl's own adorable animal-themed supergroup: Chipmunk Hunk and Koi Boi (Who talks to fish and slowly grows to fit the size of his container)
It's sharp on the social commentary, in a not-so-subtle-in-your-damn-face kinda way, with all the main characters being modern college students, they talk like actual young people, and the whole thing is a nice breath of fresh air, both with the multi-racial characters and the openly feminist themes. Also returning is the mini commentary by the creators in tiny text at the bottom of every page, offering often hilarious insight. 

The downfall here is that Squirrel Girl's personality in other comics may seem derivative after reading The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, as her personality elsewhere just doesn't match up to her wit and intelligence here. She's a recent addition to the New Avengers team, and her appearance there (so far, at least) is occasional one panel comic relief.. With a passing joke about her new teleporter in The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, they blew away all the comedy in the New Avengers in one go. Squirrel Girl as a character is evolving because of this series, and it may take a while for other books to catch up to that.

The funniest thing about The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl may be her almost meta-awareness of her place in the Marvel Universe. She heads over to Tony Stark to borrow a Squirrel shaped Iron Man outfit, because she can! She's friends with Deadpool, because who wouldn't be? There's a brilliant throwaway gag as Squirrel Girl's mother explains exactly why technically (and legally) Squirrel Girl isn't a mutant. It's fun stuff, and the new series looks to be even better than the last. With writer Ryan North finding a continuous pace that keeps getting more enjoyable to read, and artist Erica Henderson giving a distinctive, expression heavy style to the characters that fits perfectly.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is one of the best comedy books of the shelves at the moment, not because of obvious jokes, but because of charm and character. If the strength of the new first issue is any indication, it looks like Squirrel Girl has a lot of adventures ahead.

 

Comic Review: Karnak.

With Marvel's largest crossover in history winding to a close, the next month sees a whole range of new books, comprised of both returning series and brand new names. In this post Secret Wars universe, we're promised a change in the Marvel Universe as we know it, with new characters and new teams taking center stage.

Amid the obviously eye catching new titles like Wolverine and the various new Avengers books, one that may fly under the radar, or be overlooked entirely, is Karnak.

For those unfamiliar with the character, Karnak is one of the long term members of fringe superhero group The Inhumans, and although he has his dedicated fans, one often overshadowed by bigger and more exciting members of the group like Black Bolt, the Inhuman king who can crumble mountains with a whisper,  or Medusa, with her prehensile hair and cold as ice royal conduct.
Karnak takes the role of adviser to the Inhuman royal family, and although he has no real powers as we know them, he is possessed of the preternatural ability to find the weaknesses, both literal and existential, in all things. A subtle talent, but one the right writer can work magic with.

Fortunately, Karnak has been placed in the hands of one of the comic industries most significantly gifted writers, Essex-born Warren Ellis. A veteran writer perhaps best known to comic fans for creating science fiction classic Transmetropolitan and genre bending superhero title The Authority, Ellis is known for mature themes, gritty characters both humorous and horrific, and presenting the audience with a view of our own world through some very cracked lenses.

Ellis's Karnak begins with the titular character in seclusion in a monastery of his own making, when he is dragged from his peaceful contemplation by agents of SHIELD seeking his skills in the matter of a kidnapped Inhuman child. Ellis's token commentary on society as we know it is clear right from point one, as we find that Inhumans, while recognized by the government, aren't protected by the same rights as 'normal' citizens, and Karnak is employed as an independent agent, operating outside the rules of SHIELD to track down the child that no one else is caring to find.

The dialogue is sharp, intelligent, and a joy to read. The potential plot may only be in its infancy, but it's gripping from the get-go, and Karnak's personality is clearly defined in every scene. A man of deep thoughtfulness, sardonic humor, and intense bitterness. Karnak refers to his unique perception as a curse, being profoundly aware of the flaws in all things, even that which is wonderful and beautiful. To Karnak, nothing can be perfect, as the flaws are the first thing he sees.
The art is nothing short of steller as well, Gerardo Zaffino's distinct style fitting the gritty theme perfectly, with rough edges and deep shadows, and Karnak himself being redesigned into a  significantly less 'cartoony' look from previous appearances. Zaffino is able to lend a feeling of movement and velocity to his art that is wonderfully demonstrative of Karnak's incredible precision.

Of everything I've picked up from Marvel's new season of books, Karnak is the one I was interested to read the least, yet found myself enjoying the most. It's a poignant reminder that a character previously of little to no interest, in the right hands can become something startlingly exciting.