Astro City - Kurt Busiek

Astro City - Kurt Busiek

This isn't "superheroes in the real world," but "the human side of superheroes."  In the real world, these creations would be locked up and done experiments on.  No, this is about humanity. These books explore how it might feel to be a living cartoon, a villain's daughter, a washed-up hero, a hero and a father-to-be.  These volumes are sweet and a sly homage to decades of comic book lore and it may be silly and it may be trite but dammit, sometimes they even make me tear up.  I'm just a sap for bathos and romance.

1.  Life In the Big City - A man moves to Astro City and learns what it means to live with a city of constant superhero tropes.  [5]
   
2. d
3. d
4. d
5. d
6. d
7. d
8. d
9. d
10. dd
11.  
12. Lovers' Quarrel - an aging Crackerjack and Quarrel, on and off lovers and partners, argue about what to do with their lives and whether to quit as they get slower.  Crackerjack is insistent on using the retired Black Rapier's anti-aging serum, with bad results.  [4.5]
13. Honor Guard - the second Hummingbird, daughter of the first, finds out her powers come with a curse; a living nightmare is wakened; Starfighter wonders whether it's time to settle down.  All excellent stories; the chibi-anime-videogame one was the weakest.  [4]
14. Reflections - we see the First Family from the point of view of the Bee Empire, but one youngling finds out the official story may not be true; Steeljack works a case of missing tech; and Samaritan is troubled by nightmares.  [4.5]
15. Ordinary Heroes - a sea-based villain plots a return from the isolated island he's stranded on; two generations of Jack-in-the-Box work on uncovering the original's past; and we return to the story of Maria, who works on the Hill, where the magic is.  [4]
16. Broken Melody - we learn some pre-war Astro City history.  A super-musical force, seen earlier as the Bouncing Beatnik, is born as Mister Cakewalk, of ragtime days, and later Baby Jazz, of the flapper era.  Also the Astro-Naut, a pilot who becomes a space hero and inspires the town's name (this story really lays on the weepy melodrama thick).  And the surprisingly original origin of the Gentleman.  But the heart of this one is the Broken Man, the fourth-wall breaking purple guy who keeps trying to explain his role to us (it gets very Grant Morrison).  I could read Astro City lore forever, I think. [4]
    

MetroBook

1. x
2. x
3. Vol. 3 - This volume combines all four Dark Ages series plus the two-issue Silver Agent story. It's a grand sweeping epic covering (and just briefly touching on) a lot of Astro City lore, but throughout it's the story of two brothers.  One, Royal, is a small-time criminal who works for various underworld bosses.  Charles is a cop who refuses to join his corrupt fellow officers, and later becomes an EAGLE trooper.  What binds them together is their shared trauma — in 1959, their parents were murdered by a Pyramid goon, and the Silver Agent never stopped to help them.  Thus, they both burn with the desire for vengeance and an apathetic attitude toward the costumes.  Working together undercover, they track the killer from place to place as he rises in the ranks of his criminal organization.  Meanwhile, the city is rocked by a series of grim events in which the costumes trend toward excessive force, and the Silver Agent is found guilty in an open-and-shut case of murder, and sentenced to death.  It's a great story, and an interesting look at what to me represents the Marvel stories of the 1970s and '80s.  Astro City is often more DC and Marvel, and this story, set in the 1970s, shows what the human side of supers might be like if they were grim and gritty and the normal people were as fearful and reactionary as in an X-Men comic.  Overall, it's an enjoyable story, although at times the breakneck race through superhuman events in a panel or page left me less engaged.  [4]
   

Buz Sawyer - Roy Crane

Buz Sawyer - Roy Crane

1. x
2. Sultry's Tiger - In this volume, which starts 10/5/45, WWII has just ended.  There is a two-strip moment of suspense when we fear Buz's plane home has gone down, but the family is disabused of this notion immediately, and we are off to the drama of exotic locales and femmes fatales.  Pilots are a dime a dozen, but Buz's old pal Chili gets him a job as a jack-of-all-trades pilot adventurer, first with International Airways and then with Frontier Oil.  A wily ex-guerilla maharani he knew in the Pacific tries to win his heart, but is jealous of his old flame Tot, which leads to trouble for them both.  Buz is sent to Greenland to stop a mad German from shooting at planes.  He is kidnapped, along with a plastic surgeon, and taken to Africa.  He goes to south America to rescue a vanished pilot and comes upon some unsavory characters who control the whole area through fear.  It's all planes and bare knuckles and curvaceous beauties, pulp adventure in glorious 1940s black and white.  The story telling is quite brisk, with very little of the dragging out of side plots, lingering on one scene, or repetition of previous material, so reads extremely well in this format.  [4.5]
3. Typhoons and Honeymoons - This volume starts 7/24/47.  Buz is still working for Frontier Oil as an adventurer-of-all-quests.  The first story is mostly light humor, in which he meets up with his friend Thirsty, who pulls a bait and switch on Buz and leaves him with his fiancee, whom Thirsty is ashamed to face.  But then a typhoon blows in Thirsty must step up.  Next a long arc starts in which Buz plays cat and mouse with what will become a long-term foe: Harry Sparrow, a cruel but hapless blend of Lex Luthor and the Deacon from Pogo, who is running guns.  He's a terrific character, a rich crime lord with a delicate stomach who detests violence.  His dumb muscle Gool is similarly a delight.  But it's not all fun and games; Buz is marooned on an island, left on a burning ship, even drugged and reduced to an amnesiac hobo in the care of a frightful old bag lady.  The last third details an excursion to drill oil in Africa.  It's all masterfully drawn and plotted.  Easily some of the best adventure strips in the medium, I'd say.  [5]
   

Justice League Dark - James Tynion IV

Justice League Dark - James Tynion IV

1. x
2. Lords Of Order - Some truly nasty monsters call the Otherkind have come to our world to eat magic.  The Lords of Order, led by Nabu, have decided that magic is too dangerous are willing to destroy entire worlds to get rid of it (in order to save to multiverse).  Wonder Woman, Zatanna, Detective Chimp, Swamp Thing, and a more benevolent Man-Bat must try to stop them and save magic, while also avoiding being destroyed by the Otherkind.  This leads them to turns to help in questionable directions, such as Circe and Mordru.  This is brilliantly written supernatural horror, beautifully (and disturbingly) illustrated.  The short Swamp Thing story in which he is replaced by a new guardian of the green, the King of Petals, is similarly grim.  [4.5]
3. The Witching War - After defeating the Lord of Order, JLD faces off against the group that consolidated in the vacuum.  Led by an overpowered Circe, Klarion, Grundy, the new Fluoronic Man, and Papa Midnite wish to rule everything, and the key is the gem that has trapped Eclipso.  More absolutely top-notch occult drama from Tynion, whom I've never read before but is a great writer.  [4.5]
   

Reckless - Ed Brubaker

Reckless - Ed Brubaker

1. Reckless
2. x
3. x
4. x
5. Follow Me Down - Eric is asked by a neighbor to track down his son's wife Rachel, who has gone missing.  It turns out that she had been contacted by her childhood abuser and is now on a mission of revenge.  Seeing a kindred spirit, Eric decides to help her get away with it, and then offer active assistance.  As always, pitch-perfect crime noir from Brubaker, from the detailed procedures of pounding the pavement to the explosive, brief moments of action.  This is a relatively straight revenge story, without any surprising twists, but enthralling from start to finish.  [5]
    

Barbalien: The Red Planet - Tate Brombal

Barbalien: The Red Planet - Tate Brombal

From the pages of Black Hammer.  Warlord of Mars turned superhero, and tissue-paper-veiled Martian Manhunter clone, Mark Markz has found his place on Earth as both a decorated police officer and as Barbalien. But in 1985, the midst of the AIDS crisis, hatred from all sides makes balancing these identities seem impossible.  As a young white man, he explores the gay night scene with some Hispanic gay activists.  But even as he explores this side of his already fractured identity, he comes into conflict with his police coworkers.  He tries to make peace between the activists and the cops, pleasing no one.  Meanwhile, a murderous bounty hunter from Mars comes to track him down.  This is a superb story, taking Lemire's character and exploring a whole new facet of his personality, while also grounding him for the first time in the real world of AIDS awareness and intolerance.  Brombal uses the story's parallel structure deftly to show that Earth, too, is the red planet.  [4.5]

Black Hammer: Visions - various

Black Hammer: Visions - various

1. Volume 1
   
2. Volume 2 - This collections contains four stories of varying quality: a tale of the cat and mouse game between Skulldigger and a sexy cat burglar (a clear Catwoman and Black Cat stand-in), which begins in the typical playful matter but turns serious; Ms. Moonbeam, a character in limbo, taking matter sin her own hands to make it big; a slyly funny tale of Cthu-Lou, an out of work plumber who is the very unwilling avatar of the great dead god; and maybe the best entry, a story of the Horseless Rider, written by the great Scott Snyder.  [3.5]
   

Miracleman - Alan Moore

Miracleman - Alan Moore (credited as The Original Writer)

1. X
2. The Red King Syndrome - In his human form as Moran, MM is going to be a father.  But when Dr. Gargunza, who created Miracleman, kidnaps his pregnant wife for his own nefarious reasons, Moran enlists the help of Cream and together they travel to South Africa to rescue her.  Told with interspersed flashbacks of how Gargunza discovered a crashed alien ship and came to have the idea for Miracleman and his two sidekicks, the story shows both a human side to Moran (his rage, fear, and helplessness in the face of his missing wife) and a "realistic" view of what an invincible superhuman could do to his enemies if he wished.  [4.5]
   

Batman: Three Jokers - Geoff Johns

Batman: Three Jokers - Geoff Johns

Three identical Jokers commit murders at the same time on camera or in front of witnesses, prompting Batman to work with Red Hood (Jason Todd) and Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) to try to find out where these extra Jokers came from and which one is the "real" Joker.  The art recalls Brian Bolland's work on "The Killing Joke," quite deliberately, I'm sure, while the story itself tries to reconcile the loose ends and recriminations of both that story and "A Death in the Family."  It's Johns writing in the vein of Alan Moore, and a terrific story, but in the end not as meaningful as Moore's best works.  I will say I quite enjoyed the final pages, an ending which may not be taken as canon by subsequent authors, but to me fits very neatly.  [4]

Knights of the Lunch Table - Frank Cammuso

Knights of the Lunch Table - Frank Cammuso

1. The Dodgeball Chronicles - Artie King, new to Camelot Middle School, makes friends with his fellow nerds while trying to avoid the evil Principal Dagger and the Horde, a group of dodgeball-playing bullies.  His friend Percy suggests a game of dodgeball in lieu of being pummeled, but the three friends have no chance.  They go on a few quests to seek help, but nothing seems to work, and soon even their friendly advisor, Mr. Merlyn, puts his job security on the game's outcome.  As is clear, this is a very thinly-veiled pastiche of the Camelot stories.  It's funny and silly, and kids probably will like it.  It was too childish even for me, though.  [3]
   

Captain Marvel - Kelly Thompson

Captain Marvel [2019] - Kelly Thompson

1. Re-Entry - CM is back from her sabbatical in space, and is immediately talked by Tony Stark into taking Hazmat under her wing.  Her relationship with Rhodey is doing well and everything seems good, but she is then attacked by Makhizmo, the Nuclear Man, who wants her for his super-bride.  He's put a bubble around Roosevelt Island that only women can pass through.  She enters and finds some of her friends and allies, albeit depowered.  Together they try to stop the Nuclear Man from carrying out his extremely creepy plan, while also dealing with the suspicious sole male on the island who claims to be an ally.  It's a fun, fast-paced story with some humor, though overall a bit wordy.  Putting together a multiple-ranched army out of mostly civilians without the Big Bad noticing is a little hard to swallow, too, but I guess that's comics.  [3.5]
2. x
3. The Last Avenger - CM is captured by Vox Supreme and is forced to kill the Avengers and bring their bodies to him.  But she has a plan involving Singularity, a friendly pocket universe, and with their help she plans to double-cross Vox.  Also there's a story in which CM, Wolverine, Ms. Marvel, and a couple of others are trapped in an escape room by an unexpectedly powerful loser.  The main story is highly enjoyable; it's nice when the writer takes care to make their character's win over other heroes plausible.