Revival #18

All kinds of stuff going on in this issue — Dana Cypress is trying to hide the fact that she took a shotgun blast in the back during her secret investigation. Her son Cooper is being stalked by a ghost. Dana’s dad, the sheriff, is heading toward a major confrontation with the local anti-government nut. Her sister Em, a reviver, is starting to have serious trouble keeping her blood inside her body. Lester Majak loses his dog. And we learn a bit more about the mysterious disfigured assassin of the last few issues.

Verdict: Thumbs up. An outstanding story, fantastic artwork, some really excellent stretches of dialogue, and a constant increase in the tension. This is such a glorious series — I hope y’all sre enjoying it as much as I am.

Day Men #3

David Reid is a day man — a mortal tasked with serving the needs of the Virgos, a family of vampires, during the day when they can’t leave their coffins. The Virgos have found themselves at war with a rival clan of vamps called the Ramses, and David was tasked to protect Calista, one of the Virgos in charge of a facility in Vermont. But things don’t go well — a squad of vampires assault the house, led by the Ramses’ day man, Jacob the Burner, and David is narrowly pulled to safety by a girl named Lera, one of Calista’s off-the-books staff — who’s been assisting her boss in a particularly unsavory activity called the Fang Trade, which appears to involve pulling the fangs from large numbers of other vampires.

Word gets out that the Virgos are involved in the Fang Trade, and the rest of vampire society cuts them off. David helps Lera escape the vampires’ wrath before he goes to warn the Virgos about what’s going on. They’re not real happy to see him — and they’d be even less happy if they knew they had enemies working against them they don’t even suspect…

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a good action-packed story with lots of great art. But I do wish they’d define some of their terms. What exactly is the Fang Trade? What’s an unregistered I.T.K.? I don’t think these have been defined previously — and even if they had, this series only comes out every few months, and I can’t necessarily remember all the little minutiae of issues that came out six months ago or more…

Coffin Hill #3

Something dark and dreadful is in the woods near where Eve Coffin grew up. Seeking answers, she goes home and confronts her mother, who, like Eve, is a powerful witch. Eve also visits the local insane asylum to visit an old friend who got driven mad by Eve’s black magic. And it turns out the doctor running the asylum may not be entirely stable himself. Is Eve ever going to get to the bottom of this case — or just to the bottom of a shallow grave?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s spooky and weird and occasionally actually unnerving. I’m still having fun with it. And Eve’s weird cracked blackened eye may be a big part of the fun…

Manifest Destiny #2

The Lewis and Clark expedition has run into a serious snag — they’ve managed to kill a gigantic bison centaur that attacked them, and the crew is understandably freaked out about that — especially when the autopsy reveals that it’s a juvenile. And things get weirder when they see a woman throw herself off a cliff — and then her body disappears. And then a herd of the bison centaurs attacks. Most of the crew manage to get safely into a nearby fort — which is mysteriously deserted. It is deserted, isn’t it? Mmmmaybe not…

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s very weird, yes, but what really drives the story forward is a huge amount of paranoid tension. The expedition is in an untamed wilderness, possibly surrounded on all sides by hostile monsters — and even when they make it to safety, we still expect something horrible to spring out and attack. So far, it’s wonderful daylight horror.

Lazarus #5

We get a quick look at Forever Carlyle’s less-than-ideal childhood, mostly devoid of love or affection and devoted to combat training. Back in the present, Forever tries to track her renegade brother, runs into some nogoodniks on the border of the family’s territory, and gets shot in the back by the nogoodniks. Of course, Forever is extremely hard to kill, and she manages to throw enough fear into the nogoodniks to get them to execute the guy who shot her. But a lot of the drama in this issue focuses on a small family of Waste — the bulk of the population with few resources and no benefits from contact with or service to the Family. The Barretts live in Montana and are facing a catastrophic flood. Can they get the Family to provide them any assistance or are they, like the rest of the Waste, just hopelessly out of luck?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The whole thing has a really strong focus on just how crappy this world is for everyone in it. Forever is loved by no one, the nogoodniks can’t even rely on each other, and while the Barretts may be better off than some of the Waste, they ultimately have no support and no defense against tragedy. It’s a thoroughly brutal comic, and I reckon it deserves to win all kinds of awards.

Day Men #2

Five months between Issue #1 and Issue #2? Bad form, Matt Gagnon, Michael Alan Nelson, and Brian Stelfreeze.

David Reid is a normal human who works for the Virgos, a family of vampire mobsters, taking care of the tasks that need to be done during the day. The Virgos are at war with the rival vampire clan called the Ramses. David is very good at his job, but the Ramses are uncommonly ruthless, and their day man, Jacob the Burner, is the best in the business. Can David save a member of the Virgo clan when the Burner sets his fiery sights on her?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice story, great art, excellent drama and action. But the next issues better show up in a much more timely fashion, or people are gonna start to lose interest.

Red Sonja #1

It has been an awfully long time since I read a comic from Dynamite. Honestly, I mostly think of them as just a shade above Blue Water Comics — mostly there to publish comics in hopes that they’ll become collectibles, always with lots and lots of variant covers. But hey, they got a comic written by Gail Simone? Sure, I’ll give it a shot.

So we got Red Sonja, She-Devil with a Sword, who we’re first introduced to as a just-released prisoner of the brutal Zamorans. A group of 80 prisoners were kept in the dungeons and forced to fight to the death — only Sonja and a woman named Annisia survived when they were rescued by an invading army. Years later, Sonja is called back to civilization by her rescuer, King Dimath — his kingdom is wracked by plague, his soldiers are dead, and the Zamorans have built up a mighty army of psychos and monsters. And Sonja is asked to train the remaining citizens to fight in a war. Can Sonja accomplish the impossible?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Excellent writing — well, of course, it is Simone, and she tends to bring her A-game for almost everything. Good action and dialogue. Very nice cliffhanger. All in all, I approve. Nice work, Dynamite — always better to go with quality above variant covers…

Day Men #1

It was a pretty good week for new comics. This is a nice one, written by Matt Gagnon and Michael Alan Nelson, with art by the great Brian Stelfreeze. We’re focused on a guy named David Reid, a guy who works for the Virgos, a major crime family. Specifically, the crime they specialize in is drinking blood. Reid’s job is to take care of chores the vampires need done during the day, when they’re all stuffed in their coffins. His duties involve everything from running off suspicious mortals to cleaning up bloody crime scenes to paying off cops and informants. The serious trouble for David starts when he has to pick up Nybor, a family member who’s been on a drunken bender for a few days. Turns out he’s passed out in a room with the dismembered body of one of the Ramses family, a rival vampire clan. Can David get Nybor to a safehouse before the Ramses find out and start a vampire war? Probably not…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great art, fun story. We’ve got a nicely realized background, with the underground vampire gangsters coming out as a combination of brutal Mafia stereotypes and twisted vampire stereotypes. David Reid and his coworkers are nicely drawn, though I expect we’ll learn more complexities in their characters as the series goes on.

Batwoman #22

Batwoman and Hawkfire are working to track down clues to Batman’s real identity — which involves beating up Bane and then interviewing a bunch of supervillains, including Black Mask, Professor Pyg, the Mortician, and Fright. Meanwhile, Joseph Kane is continuing his training of Bette — while he and his wife worry that she’s not ready, the mercenaries he’s using to provide her fight training feel like she’s doing a great job kicking their butts.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Fantastic action all the way through. Man alive, so much ass-whuppery. And it’s great to see Bette turn into a great fighter. Really, this was an incredibly fun comic all the way through.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Here’s a really cool Wonder Woman fan movie. Why do people keep saying a Wonder Woman movie would suck? Are they paying no attention at all?
• Hey, cool — I went to high school here. Loved watching the Eagles play hoops. This is why I still can’t believe more teams don’t run a full-court press during the whole game.
• This is all the information you ever needed to know about the sea pig.