Broken Frontier

Happy Valentine’s Day everybody! This is William Gatevackes. Instead of flowers or chocolates, I’m giving you a look at the books coming out tomorrow, February 15th.

Batman: Year One Hundred is a take on the Batman of 2039, the hundredth anniversary of Batman's first appearance (hence the title).

The series is written and illustrated by Paul Pope, a creator with a unique style that has gotten him a wide amount of acclaim. DC should be commended for its willingness to allow one of its most iconic characters to be handled by a wide variety of creators. In addition to Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, which features different writers and artists on a monthly basis, DC has also recently published several limited series that allowed talent such as Matt Wagner, Sam Keith and Steve Niles the chance to work on Batman.

Some might say, instead of separate mini-series, why couldn’t these storylines be worked into the Legends of the Dark Knight book? After all, the purpose of that book is to allow creators who wouldn’t normally handle Batman to have their shot at him. People might even argue that publishing these stories on their own is a way for DC Comics to extort as much money as possible out of Bat-fans’ pockets. I prefer to think of it as a way for DC to spotlight these tales and bring them to the fans’ attention. While these arcs would work in the Legends of the Dark Knight title, they might not be as easily noticed by casual readers. Publishing them as separate titles makes them into special events and alerts customers to their existence.

Tomorrow’s Daredevil #82 brings a changing of the guard for the title, as Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark take over the comic from the former creative team of Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev.

Replacing long running and popular creators such as Bendis and Maleev on a book is always a dangerous proposition. Whoever Marvel brings on will immediately be compared to those who came before. If the comparison is unfavorable, the continued success of title will be in jeopardy.

That being said, I think Brubaker and Lark are excellent choices to take over the book. Brubaker has experience writing dark and gritty crime-based comics like Daredevil. Lark’s style is unique in its own right and should fit the character nicely.  Brubaker and Lark have worked together in the past on DC’s Gotham Central, so the chemistry is there. Hopefully, their tenure on Daredevil will be a long and popular one.

New Avengers #16 acts as a prologue to the title's new storyline, “The Collective”. This storyline ties in to the House of M mini-series and creates a bunch of new characters. But a sentence in the solicitation, and the rumors it has spawned, may be the cause of some concern.

The publicity for this issue claims that it will feature the Canadian super team Alpha Flight “in their final battle”. This has caused many fans of the team to believe that Marvel intends to kill off the team in this book. If this is true, it is another example of a disturbing trend in comic books: the killing off of popular characters for shock value.

Alpha Flight was introduced in the pages of the Uncanny X-men almost 27 years ago. Since that time, the group has appeared in different incarnations in three volumes of their own title and in numerous guest-starring roles in other titles. The team has a small, but loyal, fan base, one that would be quite upset if they were killed off.

Recently, there has been an upturn in deaths in comic books. In the past, the ones getting killed used to be in the supporting cast, and more often than not, they stayed dead. Now, heroes that once were popular enough to support their own books are dying. And fans of these characters are getting angry.

These deaths are used to make a point, or as a writing tool, if you will. If the assumed demise of Alpha Flight comes to pass, it will illustrate the severity of the threat the New Avengers must now face. It heightens the risk and adds drama to the situation. If whatever force the New Avengers must take on is powerful enough to kill everyone in Alpha Flight, can the New Avengers themselves survive?

Odds are that Alpha Flight’s last battle will be a well-written one, perhaps even one of the best treatments of the characters to date. This might be even more irritating to fans of the characters. If Alpha Flight was that well written during any previous incarnation of their title, they might not be such cannon fodder now.

The emotional attachment fans demonstrate towards certain heroes and villains is what makes comic books great. Killing off Alpha Flight as a plot device is irksome to their fans, but even more infuriating is the fact that it could mean that it might be the last time Alpha Flight is seen in action. If the characters die, the possibility of talented creators bringing them to new heights ends.  If they stay alive, that possibility will always exist.

Two DC titles end this week. The first we’re going to discuss is Batman: Gotham Knights #74.

Gotham Knights started with a unique format. Each month, it featured two stories starring Batman. The second story in each issue was printed in black and white. This segment brought out many top-rated creators who were interested in working in this style, and created many great stories.

With issue 50, the title dropped the black and white section and went with a full issue of an ongoing storyline. While the storyline was, in my opinion, good, the title lost a lot of its originality. Gotham Knights became just another ongoing Batman book, and with no shortage of them on the market, the title was not long for this world.

       

Losers #32, published by DC’s Vertigo imprint, is the final issue of that series. Cut from the mold of label mate 100 Bullets, Losers tells the tale of rogue C.I.A. agents trying to get revenge against a shadowy agent called Max, and trying to save the world in the process.

The book features richly defined characters, excellent writing by Andy Diggle and inventive art by Jock. At first look, you wouldn’t think the story would lend itself well to comics, but the creators made it work.

On an ironic note, after the title was cancelled, Warner Brothers announced that it will be making a movie based on the concept. Whether this means that we will be seeing the Losers again in comic form is anybody’s guess.

Marvel has been having Seventies flashbacks recently, a fact illustrated this week by tomorrow’s Giant-Sized Ms. Marvel. The character of Ms. Marvel had her own series from 1977 to 1978, a series which touched on a popular issue of the time, woman’s rights. In the 70s, Marvel also published “Giant-Sized” issues of many of their titles. These issues contained more pages than the normal Marvel books and featured both original stories and reprints.

The “Giant-Sized” format was recently reintroduced, and I couldn’t be happier. You get what amounts to three or four comic books all in one. That’s a healthy chunk of reading material for a measly $4.99.

Ms. Marvel didn’t get a Giant-Sized issue back in the 70s, but Marvel is giving her one now. This issue features an original story by Brian Reed and Rob De La Torres, along with reprints of pivotal issues from Ms. Marvel’s earlier appearances. It acts as an introduction of sorts to the new Ms. Marvel ongoing series, which will be done by Reed and De La Torres.

Finally, the solicitation for tomorrow’s Birds of Prey #91 says it features “guest writer Jim Alexander” and “guest artists (Brad) Walker and (Jimmy) Palmiotti” on “a stand-alone tale”. Why is this so special? Because, ladies and gentleman, this means that this is a fill-in issue.

You don’t see many fill-in issues today. The trend of writing arcs for trade paperbacks prohibits them. But in the past, when books were in danger of being late or when the creative team needed a break, we got a fill-in issue.

Fill-in issues would either feature reprinted stories, or one written and drawn by someone other than the regular team. Sometimes this could be jarring if the styles were noticeably different, but it insured that each book came out on a monthly basis.

In today’s day and age, where chronic lateness is common place, I wish more companies would employ fill-in issues to keep their consistently late books on schedule. This probably isn’t feasible in every case in today’s market, but if it could help just a little, I think fill-in issues should be used more often.

That’s all I have for this week. I hope your Valentine’s Day went well. Stop by next week when the titles we cover may include Warlord #1, Storm #1, Black Panther #13 and several others. Until then, I’m William Gatevackes, thanking you for reading.