Eight Million Genies - Charles Soule & Ryan Browne

Eight Million Genies - Charles Soule & Ryan Browne

In a bar in Michigan, a band prepares to set up for their gig in a bar, a young boy tries to wake his passed-out father, and a Chinese couple come in looking for directions.  At that moment, a genie appears to everyone on Earth, ready to grant one wish.  Instantly, the bartender (who seems to be more than he appears) wishes that the bar and everyone in it be protected.  Outside, the world goes berserk as every single person on earth gives voice to their craziest desire.  Some are superheroes, some save their wishes, some just want to watch the world burn.  The planet, obviously, will never be the same.  This is an intriguing through experiment brought to life by one of the most interesting writers in comics.  In terms of the "rules" of the premise, the genies sometimes are transferred to other people so they can collect plural wishes, and unless I'm missing something, this is never explained, which I find annoying.  Other than that, it's a fun thrill ride that goes in some unexpected directions.  [4]

Sebastian O - Grant Morrison

Sebastian O - Grant Morrison

In a technologically advanced Victorian England, renowned reprobate and dandy Sebastian O escapes Bedlam prison, where he has been held for writing a little book on "Uranian love,"and seeks vengeance on the powers that be that broke up his scandalous club, silencing their ideas.  The evil Lord Lavender sends some nasty assassins after Sebastian, but with the help of some tribadists and pederasts. Sebastian triumphs.  I give it points for audacity and wit, and even though it's only three issues, I though Morrison did a good job condensing his quasi-steampunk Victorian setting into an understandable gloss.  I'd like to have enjoyed it more, but it feels a little degrading to root for a "hero" who cavorts with a pedophile.  [3.5]

Drafted - Rick Parker

Drafted - Rick Parker

The Vietnam War has generated no shortage of memoirs, but Rick Parker's graphic memoir stands apart because it isn't really a war memoir at all. Instead, it's a diary about waiting for war, fearing war, and trying to survive the absurdities of military life while hoping not to be sent into combat.  Parker, a shy and artistically inclined young man who isn't particularly good in school, is drafted into the Army in 1966. Unlike in many Vietnam narratives, he never actually serves overseas. The threat of deployment looms its head every now and then, but the book's focus is on boot camp, officer training, military bureaucracy, and the strange, often ridiculous routines of Army life. Parker discovers quickly that he is profoundly unsuited to military culture and spends much of the book trying to endure it rather than embrace it.  It's a fairly sanitized account.  The only violence comes from two candidates who die in car wrecks, and sex mostly presents itself in the form of a couple of women who flirt with Parker, who is wooden and awkward and (at first) doesn't reciprocate.

Parker doesn't reinvent himself as a hero, nor does he present military service as a grand coming-of-age journey. If anything, Parker is too taciturn — there's very little introspection, regret, or sizing himself up.  Perhaps that's just a tendency of his generation; his parents drop him off at the recruiting office (with war a very real specter hanging over him) with far less anxiety or emotion than parents today drop their kids off at summer camp.  The memoir's most memorable scenes often involve mundane frustrations, arbitrary authority, and the constant low-grade fear produced by the draft itself. Parker is similarly silent on the social and racial issues of the day.  The cartooning is expressive and accessible, leaning toward caricature rather than realism. His storytelling often recalls the autobiographical comics of Harvey Pekar: anecdotal, conversational, and more interested in lived experience than dramatic plotting.  [3.5]

Superman: American Alien - Max Landis

Superman: American Alien - Max Landis

Collecting all seven issues, this book adapts, retells, and modernizes the Superman mythos.  But as the jacket states, this is not a Superman story.  It's the story of Clark Kent, an alien wondering who he is.  Meeting Bruce Wayne and Oliver Queen and Lex Luthor, fighting the Parasite — these are not the point of the stories, but merely events that help Clark discover what he should be.  I love how Landis implied that the whole town of Smallville knows Clark is Superman and keeps it to themselves, I love the Lois Lane romance (although it's extremely compressed), I love the retelling of the Deathstroke meeting on the yacht.  Just brilliant mythmaking.  [5]

Silver - Stephan Franck

Silver - Stephan Franck

1. Of Treasures and Thieves, Book 1: James Finnegan, con man and master thief, finds he and his gang are out of luck when after a daring escape, he loses the key to their loot.  Desperate, he looks through the old journals of Jonathan Harker and learns two unbelievable things.  First, there exists a massive silver hoard called the silver dragon, worth millions.  And second, vampires exist and this hoard is in the possession of Drakh-Kahn, king of the vampires.  With the help of a sword-wielding Van Helsing granddaughter, a future-telling child, and an old ham actor, Finnegan goes for the big score, undead blood rituals and monsters be damned.  This is an exciting and fun adventure, with writing that evokes Brian Azzarello and black and white art that evokes Sin City.  Franck pays proper homage to Stoker's work, while letting Finnegan be a modern, devil-may-care hero.  This collection has six issues, stopping at a cliffhanger just as the long con gets rolling.  [4]

Plunge - Joe Hill

Plunge - Joe Hill

A small salvage crew and a marine biologist are hired by an oil company to investigate why a 46-year-old wreck off Alaska has recently begun sending a distress call.  They find the crew, all right, but they aren't alive any more.  The problem is, they aren't quite dead, either.  The beings animating the former crew need the salvage crew to do something for them, and they offer trade, or violence.  The problem is, what these beings want could result in a something very, very bad.  This is a well-written, creepy story with an eerie atmosphere, a high body count, and a few clever twists.  It's a sort of homage to The Thing, mixed with a touch of Alien.  [4]

Top 10 - Alan Moore

Top Ten Compendium - Alan Moore, Paul Di Filippo, Zander Cannon

This weighty tome contains Top 10 #1-12, Smax, Beyond the Furthest Precinct, Season Two, and a couple of specials.  It tells of the professional and personal lives of a super-powered police squad in a city where everyone is super-powered (except the Smax series, which in an excursion to Smax's home dimension of elves, trolls, and dragons).  At first the conceit seems pretty labored, but in Moore's capable hands it develops into a chaotic but human story that manages to be over the top, silly, witty, winking, and even poignant at times.  There are references to and cameos of every fictional character you can think of, from Captain Haddock and Pogo to Marvel characters and creators.  The writing wanes a bit in the later series, not written by Moore, even undoing some of Moore's denouement, which grated on me more than it should have.  [4]