Graphic novel reviews A

A + X - various - very brief stories in which one avenger and one X-character team up.  With ultra-hip and self-aware radicalness, his comic promises, literally, to be cool.  No grim and gritty, no convoluted backstory, just some heroes kicking ass.  The stories range from the almost-serious to the downright silly, and it's fun enough.

1. = Awesome - Hulk and Wolverine fight their older future selves.  Hawkeye and Gambit vie with each other to try to stop a monster and get a girl's number.  Spider-Man and Beast visit the future world of the Beast-people, where humans are reviled.  Captain America gets psychic help from Quentin Quire, and helps him retain his anarcho-punk street cred as well.  Best story: Thing and Gambit squaring off at the poker table; also Loki and Mister Sinister trading barbs.  Worst: Iron Fist and Doop's ...thing makes zero sense.  [3.5]
2. = Amazing - The series tries a little too hard to be Nextwave ("continuity is lame!  Heroes punching baddies, that's what you want!") but without the irony.  The stories vary in quality, but I liked Beast and Wonder Man's team-up, which takes a romp through a small slice of Marvel's history and is focused more on people and friendship than super-heroics, and Captain America's pep talk to the vampire Jubilee was nice.  I also liked Dr. Strange and a trio of new X-students, including a guy with eyes all over his face. [3.5]
3. = Outstanding - I liked Iron Man and Broo's funny story.  The Spider-Man and Psylocke team-up, where Psylocke is killed and Spider-Man is sad and then goes off to finish his grocery shopping, is just bad.  There's a multi-arc series with Captain America and Cyclops dealing with the latter's apparent murder of Charles X while they both also try to find an errant Skrull group.  I really hate the whole "hero got possessed and murdered someone viciously but they were possessed so it's all fine" thing so I'm glad there was at least a little follow up.  Superior Spider-Man and Magneto team up to find a kidnapped mutant in a story written by the singer for Say Anything, which is well written but really, really tries hard to be Nextwave.  [3.5]
   

Adventure Time - Ryan North

1. Vol. 1 - Finn and his size-changing dog Jake help save the world from a lich trying to put everything in his magic bag and throw it into the sun.  They get help from the Ice King, a vampire, and some magic princesses.  This is lighthearted kid stuff; for me, it's a bit too loosey,  anything-goes silliness.  I love North's writing on Dinosaur Comics but this lacks his comic's grounding in existential and real-world reflection.  For a teen or even a young adult, this rates very high, but for me at this point in my life it's fun but about as weighty as a TV cartoon show.  [3.5]
   

All-New, All-Different Avengers - Mark Waid

1. The Magnificent Seven - Falcon, Iron Man, Ms. Marvel, and Miles Morales form a new team.  Vision is acting strange because he purged out his emotions.  Pretty standard superhero stuff.  [3]
   
2. Family Business - Falcon discovers who the mysterious new lady Thor is, and Nova and Ms. Marvel continue their love/hate relationship.  Decent superhero action, with a bit too much leaning on the teenspeak for me.  [3]
   

All-New Invaders - James Robinson

1. Gods and Soldiers - Jim Hammond, the original Torch, is attacked by a Kree warrior, as is Bucky and Namor, to retrieve a lost machine from their memories.  With it, the Kree can control gods, so Captain America and Torch join with the original Vision to rescue Namor.  It's great action-packed nostalgia, with a few twists here and there.  Old-school heroics and corny speeches, but with a modern dark edge.  Just perfect.  [4.5]
2. Original Sin - a Japanese hero called Radiance, grand-daughter of Golden Girl, a WWII-era hero, learns that the Invaders didn't stop the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, and attacks SHIELD.  Then, Toro is taken prisoner by a power-mad German with an army of Deathloks, who wants to study Torch's AI and cybernetics.  This title continues to be a great blend of the madcap modern Marvel universe and nostalgia of the old.  [4]
3. The Martians Are Coming - Martians, first beaten back by a group of WWI heroes in 1917, attack the modern day and the British Invaders are joined by Killraven to fight them.  Meanwhile, the rest of the group join Iron Cross and Radiance to fight neo-Nazis. The book seems to have gotten canceled, because a lot of unresolved threads are explicitly left in the air, but it ends on a note of triumph and growth (for example, Toro discovers he's an Inhuman).  Really well-done superhero comics.  [4.5]
   

All-New X-Men - Brian Michael Bendis

1. Vol. 1: Yesterday's X-Men - The five original X-Men from 1965 are brought back to the present by a raidly mutating Hank McCoy, in order to talk some sense into the present-day Scott Summers who has killed Xavier and is fomenting a mutant revolution.  They aren't happy to be there. [4]
2. Vol. 2: Here To Stay - Mystique and her gang are using the confusion to rob banks.  Kind of straightforward superheroics here.  [3.5]
   
3. Vol. 3: Out of Their Depth - There's a few things left out of the paperbacks at this point and it's getting a little hard to foloow.  Why did the original five join Scott, Magneto, Emma, and their group?
4. Vol. 4: All-Different [3.5]
5. Vol. 5: One Down - More stuff is left out. Now some of the original five are in space?  We missed that.  I dislike the tendency toward multi-title storylines, which results in this kind of "scene missing" moments.  And... tow be continued in Uncanny X-Men, argh.  On the bright side, I really do enjoy all the various art styles that depict the different potential timelines and alternate universes.  [3.5]
   

Amazing Spider-Man - Van Lente, Waid, Kelly

• The Gauntlet: Electro & Sandman - A fun deep dive into the decades of Spider mythology, looking into the mindsets of the bad guys. [4]
• The Gauntlet: Rhino & Mysterio - More bad guy backstory, with a particularly sweet take on the Rhino.  Mysterio's story is also very cleverly done.  [4]
  

Amazing Spider-Man - Dan Slott

American Born Chinese - Gene Luen Yang [First Second]
Three intersecting, somewhat surreal fables about growing up an Asian-American amid prejudice and shame.  One concerns the Monkey King, who acquires great powers in an effort to deny what he is; one is about a Chinese-American who falls for a blonde beauty in his new school; and one is sitcom-like, featuring the loveable stereotype Chin-Kee.  Startlingly funny, confrontational, and powerful, with absolutely amazing art.  Read twice.  [5]

American Elf - James Kolchaka
1999-2012 (entire run) - Daily strips in the cartoonist's life from 1999-2005.  He plays rock, he draws poorly, he sells books and gets record contracts and book contracts and complains about "everyone wanting a fucking piece of him."  He has childish temper tantrums and yells at his beautiful, pleasant wife (this is the way he presents it).  Great opportunities are handed to him and yet he continually comes off as thankless and quite unpleasant, and his rough drawing style is off-putting.  [3]

American Vampire - Scott Snyder, Stephen King

1. Vol. 1 - In the 1920s, a cabal of monstrously cruel European vampires slaughter and eat people for sadistic fun.  One of them is Hollywood ingenue Pearl, who is later turned into a vampire by a mysterious stranger.  Back in the 1880s Old West, that same stranger, one nasty outlaw named Skinner Sweet, is accidentally turned by that same cabal into a new kind of vampire -- an American breed, unafraid of crosses and the sun.  I stayed up late to read this in one sitting, despite being tired.  It's got thrills, gore, a touch of romance, and some suspense.  Great stuff.  [4]
   

Amulet - Kazu Kibuishi [Graphix]

1. The Stone Keeper - Emily, Navin, and their mother move into a mysterious old house built by an enigmatic inventor ancestor of theirs; the house is the doorway to another dimension.  A ghastly creature kidnaps their mother and the children set about rescuing her with the help of their great-grandfather's clockwork helpers and an amulet which appears to be sentient as well as magically powerful.  Great color drawings with endlessly inventive creatures and machines; fun characters and suspenseful plot.  [4]
   

Ant-Man: Season One - Tom DeFalco
A movie-ready re-imagining of Henry Pym's origin.  Unmarried to Janet, with Bill Foster at his side (sequel characters all ready to go!), he battles Egghead, who takes his powers and rides a wasp.  Pretty stupid all around, but probably the blueprint for a film.  [2]

Archie - Mark Waid

1. Volume One: The New Riverdale - Mark Waid has revitalized and updated Archie, but this is not a reimagining or gritty urban retelling.  It's remarkably true to the slapstick, teen-problem original, while streamlining some of the older stuff.  Waid provides an origin for Veronics (and a reason why she's in public school), and for why Lodge hates Archie, plus gives Archie and Betty a modern lovers' quarrel that seems to be... permanent?  I'm not really an Archie fan, but this is pretty much a perfect teen comedy comic.  [4.5]
2. Volume Two - Reggie tries to get into Lodge's good graces in order to get closer to Veronica; he succeeds in the former but not the latter.  Meanwhile, Archie and Betty's relationship deepens as they inch toward a reconciliation, and there's a battle of the bands.  The person who takes over the art in the last two issues does not have the same clean lines and energy as the original artist, unfortunately.  [4]
3. Volume Three - Veronica is banished to boarding school in Switzerland, where she meets the scheming Cheryl Blossom.  Of course, soon the status quo is restored and they are both back in Riverdale, where Cheryl starts scheming to take Archie from Veronica.  Not much Betty in this one, but a nice brief Dilton tale.  [4]
4. Volume Four: Over the Edge - Archie and Veronica discover they may come from different world after all, Betty and Dilton find they may have something in common, Cheryl Blossom learns an unpleasant family secret, and Reggie schemes.  Archie and Reggie's rivalry reaches a breaking point when they agree to a drag race, only it's Betty that gets hurt.  I don't know how Waid keeps the soap opera, teen romance, and comedy aspects firing on all cylinders so consistently, but he does.  [4.5]
5. Volume Five: The Heart of Riverdale - Everyone in town comes together for Betty.  Archie must decide between Veronica and Betty, but are his feelings for Betty just caused by guilt over the accident?  And will Betty go for Dilton?  And what's the deal with the Blossom twins' real dad?  How much damage can Reggie do now that he's got a definitive reputation as a bad buy?  [4.5]
6. Volume Six - As Betty makes a recovery, Archie tries to prove that his feelings for her are real.  The Blossom twins get in over their head, as does Reggie, in trying to leverage the knowledge of their real dad.  It turns out he's a seriously bad guy.  Can Archie save the day?  Will Weatherbee retire?  Waid's superior run ends on a very dramatic note.  [4.5]
   

Archie 1941 - Mark Waid
A more somber Archie story, an experiment really, set in the year Archie was created but instead of providing timeless escape through teenage hijinks, shows what Archie in the real world would be like.  More than just a "war is hell" book, this story shows how the war depresses an entire small town, and how those who stayed fared as well as those who left.  And then there's the ones that never came back.  At first I was a bit put off by this story, but then its various plot threads wove into a kind of human tapestry.  In some ways it's only an Archie story in title, the familiar names pasted on different people, but such reinvention is in many ways the whole magic of comics.  [4]

Area 10 - Christos Gage
Black-and-white horror noir about a troubled detective recovering from a brain injury who tries to track down a killer obsessed with the "second sight" granted with trepanning.   But the cop is having visions, and everyone wonders if it's all in his head — or if he is the killer.  Nail-biting, dark, and suspenseful, with a couple of twists.  Plotted and drawn in a very cinematic fashion.  Read twice.  [4]

Arkham Asylum: Living Hell - Dan Slott
Very well done black humor; over-the-top but faithful characterizations of Bat-verse stars like Joker and Two-Face; several interesting new characters.  Sympathetic and competent good guys.  Several fun twists, but gets a bit out of hand at the end. Re-readable. [4.5]

Aster - Thom Pico

Astonishing X-Men Vols. 1-4 - Joss Whedon
The only X-Men comic ever to be good.  [5]

Astro City - Kurt Busiek 

Avengers: Acts Of Vengeance - various writers

Avengers - Brian Michael Bendis
1-5.  Standard superhero stuff.  In one volume, Wonder Man is cast as so against the idea of the Avengers that he leads a team of villains against them, which is ridiculous.  [3]

Avengers - Jason Aaron

1. The Final Host - Loki brings a group of angry Celestials to Earth who have some to cleanse it of life.  It seems that in one million BC, Odin and a bunch of proto-heroes — panther, K'un L'un hero, phoenix force, etc — killed a Celestial who came looking for its dead friend.  So it's up to Thor, Tony, and Steve to once again start a group of Avengers and save the world.  Aaron is making the Avengers into a Justice League-like group, fighting cosmic-level threats, and he does a very nice job of it.  [3.5]
2. World Tour - Namor declares war on all surface-dwellers in the ocean, and the Avengers try to deal with his new group of Defenders of the Depths.  Black Panther, leading the Avengers, assembles allies and agents from a variety of backgrounds, and asks Blade to join.  Meanwhile, a resurrected and apparently evil Agent Coulson puts together a rival group, the Squadron Supreme of America.  [3.5]
3. War of the Vampires - Interspersed with stories of Odin's team from one million BC, who are all approached by Mephisto, the Avengers find themselves in the midst of an internecine war of vampire groups.  Dracula appears to turn himself in to the Russian superhero group, but may have tricks up his sleeve.  The inexperienced Ghost Rider finds his powers to be out of his control.  And Blade gets a side-kick, Boy-Thing!  Fun chaos.  [4]
4. War of the Realms - Trolls and giants from Norse realms invade Earth, and the Avengers and the Squadron Supreme go on the counter-attack.  The SSA turns out to be a creation of Coulson's in a very literal sense, and Coulson is making deals with the devil.  She-Hulk and Ghost Rider doubt themselves and worry about losing control.  World-wide threats, scheming enemies, and an ecletic group of heroes in a "found family."  This book just keeps getting weirder and better.  [4]
5. Challenge of the Ghost Riders - Reyes can't control his demon car so, with the help of Daimon Hellstrom, the Avengers go to Hell and help his race Johnny Blaze for the title of king of hell.  Yes.  And the Avengers Mountain, their HQ made out of the body of a dead Celestial, is possessed by Cosmic Ghost Rider.  And at one point Reyes' car is shot with zombie body parts.  And the dead Celestial's soul is possessed by Reyes' serial killer uncle.   It's like Nextwave without the satire — pure high adrenaline superhero insanity.  [4]
   

AVENGERS A.I. - Sam Humphries

1. Human After All
2. 12, 000 AD

Two books, complete.  The new nano-tech Vision, Hank Pym, and a Doom Bot along with some others fight the new AI menace, a global army of AIs led by the urbane Dimitrios.  The ethics of AI are touched on with a fairly nuanced hand for a superhero book.  It's also exciting and funny; it has a Nextwave feel to it.  [4]

Avengers Academy - Christos Gage, mostly

1. The Complete Collection Vol. 1 [collects #1-12, some related issues and a Giant-Size #1] - Some untested and possibly dangerous young superhumans are rescued from Norman Osborn's clutches and inducted into a training camp for Avengers.  But what are the older Avengers hiding?  And can Osborn do more for them than Pym can?  The teens question themselves and their future, form bonds and romances, are arrogant, etc.  As always, Gage's writing is sharp and taut, fleshing out all the characters, villains and heroes and undecideds alike with much-needed real human emotion and motives.  He also has a superb ear for dialogue and gives each character their own voice, and is especially good writing women.  [4.5]
2. The Complete Collection Vol. 2 [collects #13-20, plus Fear Itself: The Home Front #1-7 and some other material] - The team faces, and is bested by, the Sinister Six and the Absorbing Man.  Also, in the Fear Itself event, Speedball tries to make peace with a woman from Stamford whose son died in the explosion, while the kids face a much more powerful and possessed Absorbing Man and Titania.  Gage's writing is still impeccable, with the best part being Speedball's redemption arc.  [4.5]
   

Avengers: Children's Crusade - Allan Heinberg

When Wiccan's powers seem more than he can handle, he and Speed go looking for the vanished Scarlet Witch, who is hunted by both Avengers and X-Men for her murders and power-erasing.  With their team and Magneto, they find her with Dr. Doom, who obviously has plans of his own for her reality-altering powers.  This is a nice wrap-up of some very gritty "major event" in Marvel's past.  There are teen romances and moments of self-doubt, but it's all done with a clean, optimistic style that is refreshingly not dark 'n' grim.  The looming specter of big bad Dr. Doom is wrapped up a little pat, but it's a fun read.  [4]

Avengers: Endless War - Warren Ellis
A dark look at what war does to people and whether you can come back from it, as exemplified by Captain America and Wolverine.  Adds a touch of thought to the usual super-heroics.  [4.5]

Avengers Epic Collection - various

Avengers: Vision and Scarlet Witch - Steve Englehart 

The classic twelve-issue limited series that explores what it's like for a magic mutant and a synthetic man to try to built a suburban life together in New Jersey -- oh, and to have a baby.  While this comes from the era of comics in which exposition is the main character and the heroes and villains alike lounge around in full costume, scythe-hand or quiver notwithstanding, this is nevertheless a pretty darn good exploration of desires and consequences in the superhero world, for its time and publisher anyway.  It's also pretty bold, attempting to make some major changes in the Marvel universe (though as I understand it, those babies get retconned somewhere along the way).  Some of the dialogue is pretty hackneyed, especially where it concerns Vision's attempt to have a family in Wonder Man's relatives.  However, the pregnancy is handled with maturity and understanding, and there's some stabs at attacking intolerance.  The plot arc with Toad as an infatuated incel before his time is funny as well as sadly accurate.  [3.5]

Avenging Spider-Man - Zeb Wells
Vol. 1: Spider-Man teams with Red Hulk, Hawkeye, and Captain America, in funny stand-alone stories that are more about character growth and friendship than punching.  Whether sacrificing everything for J. Jonah Jameson and teaching Red Hulk to let go of violence, or letting braggart Hawkeye take a win to keep his confidence up, this Spidey is a genuinely good person as well as a fast talking, self-effacing hero.  Good stuff.  [3.5]


Awkward - Svetlana Chmakova [Yen Press]
Peppi, an artistic girl at a new school bumps into a quiet science nerd and, in a desperate fit of embarrassment, yells at him to get away from her.  Ashamed of herself, she is mortified when she finds that not only is her art club rivals with his science club, but that he is working with her and a tutor.  As she befriends the genuinely nice science nerd, the rivalry deepens and pranks get out of hand; Peppi is torn between allegiances.  An absolutely spot-on depiction of the various pressures put on a smart, shy new kid at school, told with an optimistic slant and with a truly sweet lesson at the end.  Brilliant. [5]

Graphic novel reviews B

Baba Yaga's Assistant - Marika McCoola

Baby-Sitters Club - Raina Telgemeier

• Kristy's Great Idea -  A faithful, B&W adaptation of the series for tween girls.  Makeup and boys and growing up and divorce and mom's new boyfriend issues.  Nicely drawn, easy reading.  I am not the target audience.  Library.   [3.5] 
• The truth About Stacey - The club has new rivals, older girls who start taking the club's old customers; meanwhile Stacey is dealing with the trials of diabetes and her parents' over-protectiveness.  It's rather simplistic, but then it's not for me.  Enthusiastically and skillfully adapted.  Library.  [3.5]

Bad Houses - Sara Ryan
In a small Oregon town, a young man who works with his single mother selling items from estate sales falls in love with the daughter of a nurse who is secretly a hoarder.  As the two get to know each other (amid background plots such as a long-lost father, a boyfriend who steals and sells drugs from the old age home, and a gruff antique dealer who has connections to their past), questions of what we do and don't value, what family is and isn't, and what we can ultimately escape from are examined.  Wise and tenderly written, with B&W illustrations that fit the tone of the story.  Library.  [4.5]

Bandette - Paul Tobin + Coleen Coover [Dark Horse]

• #1 Presto! - A freewheeling and impulsive young woman is a master thief and acrobat; with the aid of her street friends, she steals valuable items while aiding the police (personified in the grouchy, slow-footed B.D. Belgique) and sparring with her sometimes friendly rival, Monsieur.  As the names suggest, this is an homage to the French and Belgian tradition, and it hits the nail on the head.  The art is a perfect mixture of cartoonish and modern, while the story allows only the faintest sense of real danger to creep in and spoil the fun.  [5]
• #2 Stealers Keepers! - More of the same as above; it's episodic and comforting. [4.5]

Barbalien: The Red Planet - Tate Brombal

Barbarian Lord - Matt Smith
A grim barbarian lord is betrayed by his enemy the Skullmaster and flees to another land, where he performs great feats and returns with an army to reclaim his lands.  This is basically Conan, as drawn by Jeff Smith, set in the world of the Icelandic eddas with a few Bone characters thrown in.  Witty and straight faced, it's very well done.  Nothing original here, but fun.  [4]

BATMAN: BRUCE WAYNE: FUGITIVE (vols 2-3) - various
Decent superhero crime fodder, mostly by Rucka and Brubaker.  The wrap-up story in which the self-loathing assassin is protected by Batman despite himself is a high point.  [3.5]

Batman Incorporated - Grant Morrison
Including #1-8 of the series plus a one-shot called Leviathan Strikes!  Batman starts training operatives around the world in order to Leviathan, the head of a worldwide crime network.  Battling enemies such as the bizarre Lord Death Man and the senile Dr. Dedalus.  Fun at times (I really enjoyed the Native American Man-Of-Bats and Little Raven, presented as they are with respect and largely self-contained); at others, it is just too Morrison - all continuity porn, grand announcements of unstoppable esoteric terrors ("The city of numbers is on fire! All must kneel to the worm captain!") and deus ex machina resolutions that only open further layers of abstruse weirdness.  [3]

Batman: Three Jokers - Geoff Johns

Batwoman - Greg Rucka (2017, Detective Comics 854-863)

Rucka's eye for gritty detail and penchant for independent women heroes blends with with gorgeous art, especially in the character arc centered on the Wonderland-quoting villain, Alice.  It's very much of the same type of story as his Queen and Country stuff, but there's nothing wrong with that.  [4]

Be Prepared - Vera Brogsol
All that bookish Vera wants to do is fit in, but that’s not easy for a Russian girl in the suburbs. Her friends live in fancy houses and their parents can afford to send them to the best summer camps. Vera’s single mother can’t afford that sort of luxury, but there's one summer camp in her price range: Russian summer camp.  Vera is sure she's found the one place she can fit in, but camp is far from what she imagined. And nothing could prepare her for all the "cool girl" drama, endless Russian history lessons, and outhouses straight out of nightmares! Sketchy, mono-colored pictures fit the theme.  [4]

The Beast of Wolfe's Bay - Erik Evensen [Evensen Creative]
A blend of modern adaptation of Beowulf with Sasquatch legends.  Very creative idea, lightweight execution.  Too short to have in depth character development, too much Joss Whedon-style indie cool pop reference dialogue at inappropriate times.  The reveal at the end is clever, though.  [3]

Blacksad - Juan Diaz Canales

• Blacksad vol. 1 - It takes Europeans to tackle the tough questions about America (race and class) head-on, while wrapping it all up in thrilling noir as performed by anthropomorphic animals.  The art is some of the highest quality I have ever seen; not only is the level of technical proficiency eye-popping, but the way Juanjo Guarnido makes these animals' faces show human emotion is uncanny.  [5]
• Blacksad: Amarillo - a decadent poet gets in over his head when he kills his bullying mentor; Blacksad, on vacation, tries to find him before he gets hurt.  [4]

Black Hammer - Jeff Lemire

Black Hammer: Visions - various

Black Terror - Alex Ross, Jim Kreuger

From the pages of Project Superpowers, Black Terror decides that he's sick of the corrupt America he's woken up to.  Grabbing a sword, he sets off for the White House to arrest the president and get his sidekick Tim back.  But the White House has defenses of its own, including a quintet of patriotically-themed superheroes from Pandora's jar.  While I'm a fan of this project in general, I found the art on this one a little crowded and chaotic.  The script came on heavy-handed, comparing the moral clarity of WWII with the corruption of today ad nauseam with little subtlety.  And story-wise, I wasn't convinced that Black Terror on his own would just tear through all those defenses, and even given he did, that's not a very interesting story.  Conflict is more fun to read when it involves planning and intelligence.  [3.5]

Blake and Mortimer - Edgar Jacobs

1. The Secret Of the Swordfish: The Incredible Chase - After an evil "yellow Empire" headquartered in Tibet wipes most of the major cities of the West off the map using advanced technology and a sneak attack, Blake, an MI5 agent, and Mortimer, a scientist, flee with the secret of the Swordfish, an advanced weapon that can turn the tide.  After them is the evil Colonel Olrik.  It has intricately detailed art in the Hergé style (he worked on the Tintin books), but although the stories are thrilling, the continuous narration and description of nearly every picture, with not a single scene left for the reader to connect, results in a very heavy, verbose style.  [3.5]
2. The Secret Of the Swordfish: Mortimer's Escape - After a chase through the desert, Mortimer is captured by Olrik, who demands he work on the Swordfish for him.  Through disguises, codes, and submarine chases, Blake and his allies try to rescue him, as well as find the lost Swordfish papers.  Again, very detailed artwork, with narrative exposition to the point of dulling the senses.  [3.5]
3. The Secret Of the Swordfish: SX1 Strikes Back - After a climactic battle at the rebels' undersea base, the secret weapon is finally finished, and it turns out to be a sort of flying submarine that launches atomic missiles.  Why this is a super weapon that can win all wars and defeat the empire that crushed the entire West is beyond me, as it seems like it could be shot out of the sky, and is no match for the atomic weapons the Tibetans have.  But, it is, and at the end there's a sort of, "Well, WWIII happened, time to rebuild civilization" moment.  It kind of takes away from the credibility of it all.  [3.5]
4. The Mystery Of the Great Pyramid: The Papyrus Of Manethon - Mortimer travels to Egypt to visit and friend and gets mixed up in a mystery about a hidden treasure, as well as a drug- and artifact-smuggling ring led by, you guessed it, Colonel Olrik.  I was pleased to find that the narrative overload has lessened a great deal, and the story is quite fast-paced.  [4]
5. The Mystery Of the Great Pyramid: The Chamber Of Horus - Mortimer and Blake go after Olrik's gang and explore the hidden Chamber of Horus hinted at on a papyrus, but even as the two sides play cat and mouse with one another, a more mystical presence is watching.  This album takes us from the realm of science fiction to quasi-mystical pulp adventure, and it's an excellent entry.  Lots of twists and turns, and I love the way Jacobs keeps swinging the advantage from the good guys to Olrik and back.  [4.5]
6. The Yellow "M" - A master criminal is on the loose in London, and getting more and more serious in his crimes.  He's apparently unstoppable, and leaves his sign, a yellow "M," wherever he strikes.  Blake and Mortimer are on the trail, but apparently he can kidnap prominent men from right under their noses! This would be a superb story, except for Jacobs' unbearably tedious and superfluous narration.  This is printed in English as the very first B&M case, which is completely stupid, as its plot relies on at least the previous two books.  [3.5]
7. Atlantis Mystery - unread
8. S.O.S. Meteors - Another stunningly illustrated hard science fiction action tale, as Mortimer investigates the possibility that a secret cabal might be responsible for the spate of cataclysmic weather that has hit the west.  Once again, a page-turning, enthralling adventure with plenty of twists and turns, marred by the unnecessary narration and verbosity.  There are no meteors in the story. [3.5]
9. The Time Trap - Here we move from the previous hyper-detailed, plausible, hard science fiction into pure speculative science fiction.  A scientist from the last volume leaves for Mortimer in his will a trail to his time machine, which Mortimer uses, but realizes the controls are useless and he is buffeted backwards and forwards in time.  It's a terrific adventure in very much the same vein as H.G. Wells' story, plus all that infernal narration.  [3.5]
10. The Affair of the Necklace - A very valuable necklace is held at a jeweler's residence is stolen, right after Olrik's escape on the way to trial.  The jeweler is hounded by both the press and a suspicious caller. Blake and Mortimer descend into the Paris catacombs to hunt for Olrik and the missing necklace.  In contrast to the very earliest issues huge death count, bullets fly back and forth here but no one is ever hit, and there is no science fiction element.  [3.5]
11. 
    

Blue - Pat Grant  [Top Shelf]
A generation ago, three delinquent Australian kids trek down the railroad tracks, where an immigrant blue man has been hit by the train.  In the present day, one of the kids, now a man employed in cleaning blue graffiti off the walls, bemoans the negative changes in his economically depressed town, brought on by the bizarre blue immigrants.  Intricate to the point of OCD drawing, in soft blue and brown, with ugly, cartoon people.  It's an interesting statement on xenophobia and the tunnel vision of childhood, but I think it's too flimsy a work to say anything really weighty.  [3.5]

BLUFFTON - Mat Whelan [Candlewick Press]
In a small Michigan town in 1908, a traveling show comes to stay.  Among the performers is a young Buster Keaton, who enthralls local kid Henry.  But while Henry wants to learns how to be like Buster, the tumbler seems to prefer baseball and talking to Henry's little girl friend.  Written in an understated tone, with no sound effects, and in rather muted watercolors, this is a quaint and tender period piece.  It's sweet, if inessential.  [3]

Bone - Jeff Smith
Vols. 1-8 - Pogo meets Conan, and he is us.  Brilliantly executed B&W romantic dramedy fantasy saga with talking... animals?  Superb.  [5]

BOXERS & SAINTS - Gene Luen Yang [First Second]
Two volumes, telling two views of the vast historical epic that is the Boxer Rebellion.  Boxers follows Little Bo, who becomes a hero warlord when his visions lead him to victory after victory against the English and the converts.  Saints tells the story of Four-Girl, or Vibiana, who follows her own visions of Joan of Arc and becomes a Christian.  A sophisticated and powerful tale of wishing to make a difference, and the possible futility of fighting one's fate.  [5]

The Boys - Garth Ennis  [Dynamite]

Breaking Up - Aimee Friedman [Graphix]
A teen girl drama about popularity contests, first loves, and testing friendships.  Well written and drawn.  Strictly for teen girls, however.  [3.5]

BREAKFAST AFTER NOON - Andi Watson [Oni]
A skilled worker in a British factory is laid off, and he falls into a cycle of apathy and self-pity, while his fiancee sets up a financial plan and goes back to school.  Well-done realistic tale of economic woe and how money troubles affect romantic relationships.  Not terribly original.  Bleak but with tacked-on happy ending.  Watson (who is a male) uses simple, thick-lined B&W drawings to tell the story.  [3]

Buz Sawyer - Roy Crane

BY THE NUMBERS - Laurent Rullier

• 1. Traffic In Indochina: In 1950, a seemingly mild-mannered accountant is drawn into a currency-smuggling ring that takes him to Saigon and up against some thugs willing to kill.  Illustrations that evoke a less-detailed Tintin, and a story that's more akin to a dramatic film than a Tintin adventure. [4]
• 2. The Road To Cau Bang: Victor, the accountant, stays in Vietnam, having recovered the missing money, and becomes something of a trafficker himself.  He falls for a Vietnamese refugee, but is soon caught between two gangsters, one who wants his money back and the other who wants his gambling-addicted girl.  Meanwhile, the war rages on.  [4.5]
• 3. The Night Watchman - Back in Paris (and dispensing with the flashback conceit), Victor becomes a night watchman, only to get mixed up in a spy ring willing to kill to get their hands on information about experimental planes.  This is extremely reminiscent of Marlowe, as Victor has become a sort of unfeeling, reluctant crusader, following a moral code he himself doesn't fully understand.  [4.5]
• 4. Meet Me in Saint-Nazaire - Victor is asked by his grandfather to pick up a demented old relation, fresh out of prison.  But he isn't the only one who has an interest in the old man; two sets of thugs are after his hidden war gold.  This series has lost a lot of the atmosphere that made the middle two episodes so enthralling.  Maybe Rullier has reached the end of what he wants to say about the accountant, because this is the last book.  [3.5]
  

Graphic novel reviews C

Captain America - Ta-Nehisi Coates

1. Winter In America - In the wake of the whole Hydra thing, Cap's back and trying to make amends for his face being the face of the Supreme Hydra Commander. Unfortunately for Steve, no one's happy to see him back. The rest of America just kind of wants to forget Captain America exists. Some even believe he's still part of Hydra.  A plot slowly unfolds, Cap fights Taskmaster, Cap faces Selen who could beat him without any effort but decides to leave instead (?), the Russians are planning something.  This isn't wonderful, but it's intriguing.  [3.5] 
   

Captain Marvel [2016] - Ruth Fletcher Gage, Christos Gage

Captain Marvel [2019] - Kelly Thompson

Cardboard - Doug TenNabel  [Graphix]
An out-of-work dad gets his son a cardboard box for a present, only to realize that the creatures they make from it come to life.  When the nasty bully next door sees that, he takes the magic cardboard, but it's too much for him to handle.  This is a pretty good book about friendship, offering a helping hand, and being content with what you have.  The plot goes a little off the rails near the end, but the kids will love it.  [4]

Cardboard Kingdom - Chad Sell

The Carter Family: Don't Forget This Song - Frank M. Young

A biography of A.P. Carter, his wife, and her cousin, and how they went from dirt poverty to radio superstars in the 1930s.  It's very deeply researched, but also a broad overview.  The art is a little clumsy but it's a detailed and affectionate portrait.  [3.5]

 

Castle Waiting - Linda Medley

1. Vol. 1 - A fantasy that centers mainly on the lives of independent, strong women.  In the first story, pregnant Lady Jain escapes her husband and goes through some adventures before finding refuge in Castle Waiting, where bizarre but friendly characters such as the horse-man knight Sir Chess and the bird-headed steward Rackham welcome her.  In the second part, one of the ladies there tells a long series of stories about the origin of a cloistered order of bearded women.  More escaping nasty husbands and finding good men ensues.  Bold black and white art evokes Bone.  Excellent, startlingly original stories, although personally I prefer the first part which involves more talking animal folk.  [5]
   

Catwoman - Ed Brubaker
Vols. 1-4 - Perfect superhero noir, blending all the tropes and history of the comics with a neo-noir sensibility.  Not gritty, but dark and suspenseful, with real wit and humor.  It's like a comic written by an adult, for adults.  [5]

Caveboy Dave - Aaron Reynolds

Champions - Mark Waid

Champions - Eve Ewing

Cheer Up: Love and Pompoms - Crystal Frasier

Annie is a smart, antisocial lesbian starting her senior year of high school who’s under pressure to join the cheerleader squad to make friends and round out her college applications. Her former friend Bebe is a people-pleaser—a trans girl who must keep her parents happy with her grades and social life to keep their support of her transition. Through the rigors of squad training and amped up social pressures (not to mention micro aggressions and other queer youth problems), the two girls rekindle a friendship they thought they’d lost.  Very well done queer drama.  [4]

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina - Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa

1.  The Crucible - A gory updating of the cheesy original, but set in the '60s.  The backstory involves a bit more lost love and killing and stolen babies, but keeps the doting (albeit cannibal) aunts and the snarky cat.  Sabrina comes to a school full of humans and falls for the local football hero, but a resurrected spirit of vengeance called Madam Satan has other plans for her.  It's well done, but a bit too visceral for me.  Horror fans would like it.  I mean, I would read the next one, but I won't be too upset if I don't get around to it.  [3.5]
   

Class Act - Jerry Craft

The sequel to New Kid.  Highly motivated Drew, straight-A student and star athlete who lives with his grandmother, enters eighth grade less sure of his place than ever.  His two closest friends are Jordan and Liam, but once he sees just how wealthy and rarefied Liam's life is, he starts to drift away, knowing how hard it is to bridge such a gap.  Pressures mount, among them a girl who keeps pressuring him with too much attention, and a well-intentioned but clueless white faculty.  This is a hilarious and important book, done with humor but not shying away from how tough racial issues can be.  I really enjoyed all the references and homages in the art.  [4.5]

Click - Kayla Miller

Clubbing - Andi Watson  [Minx]
A snarky teenage girl is sent to her grandparents' place in the countryside after being caught with a fake ID.  She chafes against the boredom but is soon caught up in a murder which may involve an occult coven.  Watson (who is a man, despite the spelling of his name) makes his heroine rather unlikely - model thin, in micro-skirts and halter tops, obsessed with clubs and shopping, but also casually name dropping Thomas Hardy, P.G. Wodehouse, Emmeline Pankhurst, and Evelyn Waugh, and using words like "emetic."  The plot starts well but ends a bit over the top.  Read twice, accidentally.  [2.5]

Concrete: The Human Dilemma - Paul Chadwick  [Dark Horse]
Eisner-winning story arc about world overpopulation and the ethics of addressing it.  Chadwick is a great artist but his writing is a bit histrionic and self-important for me.  Bought used and sold.  [3]

Criminal (6 volumes) - Ed Brubaker
Perfect gritty flawless noir.  Endlessly re-readable. [5]

Cub - Cynthia L. Copeland

Graphic novel reviews D

DMZ (6 volumes) - Brian Wood
Depressingly realistic look at a new civil war in America, through the eyes of earnest reporter Matty Roth.  Gritty stuff, well told, unafraid to tackle controversial topics.  Re-readable.  [4]

Daredevil (7 volumes) - Ed Brubaker
Brutal street noir mixed with superhero drama.  Nearly flawless.  [5]

Daredevil - Charles Soule

Daredevil (vols 2-3) - Mark Waid
Waid cuts down on the unrelenting tragedy and lets DD relax just a bit, throwing in some curveballs like an ethical dispute with Mole Man and Latverian agents stealing his radar sense.  Very enjoyable.  [4]

Dark Reign: The Hood - Jeff Parker
Crime boss the Hood struggles to balance his secret domestic life with leading an army of super-villains, as well as trying to rein in the ever-growing influence Dormammu has over his occult powers.  A decent Marvel U story, overly cartoonish art.  Sold.  [3] 

Daybreak - Brian Ralph
A zombie story.  Starting mis-en-scene and entirely from the POV of a nameless, silent protagonist, who meets up with a one-armed man; the two get lost and then fall victim to a crazy man who takes them prisoner.  Detailed brown-and-white pictures of rubble and broken cars, resembling woodcuts.  It's rather unrelentingly bleak.  Well-done but not for me.  Library.  [3]

Disquiet - Noah Van Sciver

District 14 - Pierre Gabus

1. Season 1 - In a bizarre world of humans, aliens, and anthropomorphic animals, a blend of '50s gangster noir and dystopian ruins, modernism and Old World mysticism, an elephant with a shady past comes to District 14.  He becomes friends with a beaver reporter and a sexy poodle lady.  Before long, they're crossing paths with several warring criminal types, as well as a couple of apparent superheroes.  Its intricate, dream-like, and violent plot relies heavily on ideas of class conflict, the ultra-wealthy and the oppressed, the free press, the mob, and the overlords.  Sometimes hard to follow but very addictive.  The obsessively detailed, crosshatched black and white drawings are impressive.  [4.5]
2. Season 2 - The elephant, now horribly disfigured due to a slow poison, becomes a sort of folk hero as he fights the criminal classes from hiding.  His erstwhile friend in journalism finally drops his prejudices against the extra-terrestrials and fights for their rights to become citizens.  Tiger-Man forces his old scientist friend, whom he keeps prisoner, to use alien organs to expand his powers.  There are just so many balls in the air in this wonderfully demented, yet somehow all too human, tale of corruption, love, sex, and power.  I have rarely been as surprised to see the words "The End," but I guess a story has to stop somewhere.  [4.5]
   

 

Deadpool - Daniel Way

1. Secret Invasion - Deadpool is hired by Nick Fury to infiltrate the Skrulls and take them down from the inside.  Also, he is hired by some guy to find his wife, who's apprently run off with a mad scientist who makes zombies.  I like madcap craziness and silly bloodshed, if it's done well, but this isn't my cup of tea.  [3]
2. Dark Reign - Following the Skrull invasion of Earth, Norman Osborn steals information that Deadpool stole from the skulls for Nick Fury.  To clean up his mess, he sends first Tiger Shark and then Bullseye after Deadpool.  Ha ha, they can't because he's invincible and crazy.  I found myself not really caring because, of course, Bullseye is a major character and can't be killed, although obviously given the fictional parameters he would be offed rather easily.  Marginally better than the first book but still not my thing.  [3.5]
   

Defenders Masterworks - Roy Thomas, Steve Englehart

• Volume 1 - Collects the appearances of the Defenders in Sub-Mariner and Marvel Masterworks, as well as the first six issues of their own title.  Taking as given the '60s references, the square attempt at "hip" talk in the the sole minor black character, and the overblown Stan Lee-style speech, this is a pretty good superhero book.  Plot points are dropped, teased, and brought up again, making the story into a coherent, continuous epic.  The speech styles and personalities of Hulk and Namor add spice to the "non-team," making dissent and grudging acquiescence part of it from the beginning.  The addition of Valkyrie leavens the alpha male posturing a bit.  [3.5]
  

Doctor Thirteen: Architecture and Morality - Brian Azzarello

Dr. Thirteen and his daughter meet up with a bunch of old DC properties languishing in Limbo, including  I... Vampire, Infectious Lass, Anthro, and one I never heard of, Genius Jones.  Skeptical of it all, he nevertheless plows through Grant Morrison-esque insanity to meet the Architects (DC writers), who want to have him and the other losers gone from continuity.  Azzarello is at his funniest here, although there's not much of an ending.  Utterly gorgeous Cliff Chiang art.  [4]

Donut the Destroyer - Sarah Graley  [Scholastic Graphix]

Doodleville - Chad Sell

Doomsday Clock - Geoff Johns

Ozymandias, whose plan to bring peace to earth has failed spectacularly, teams up with a new Rorschach to search for Dr. Manhattan, who has seemingly gone to the DC universe.  His interfering there is causing strain in the time-stream and realities start disappearing.  Ozymandias wants Jon to save their world, but will he, or will he destroy the DC universe as well?  Drawn and written in an extremely on-the-nose homage style to Moore's work, this pays tribute to the original while also moving beyond, and building upon, it.  To me this is an absolute masterwork.  [5]

Drama - Raina Telgemeier
A love triangle at school, with a twist.  Sweet, but not up to par with Smile.  [3.5]

Graphic novel reviews E

Edison Beaker, Creature Seeker - Frank Cammuso

 

Eight Million Ways To Die - John K. Snyder

A pitch-perfect adaptation of the beloved Matt Scudder novel, in which the monstrous cruelty of New York, particularly a case involving a dead hooker who wanted out of the life, keeps the grim detective edging ever closer to sobriety.  Scudder's eternal struggle between his fatalism and his dogged interest in rough justice is brought vividly to life.  The art, also by Snyder, is on point, all rough sketches colored with washes of red and grey.  Even Block's sometimes cartoony characters (a classy pimp who becomes an art mogul!) are made more believable on the graphic page.  [5]

El Deafo - CeCe Bell [Harry Abrams]
An autobiographical tale (in anthropomorphic rabbit form) of growing up with hearing aids and the search for a friend who can accept you for who you are, not avoid you as a weirdo or lay on the "you are a special wonder" nonsense.  Funny and heartfelt, with cute drawings.  [4.5]

Elmer - Gerry Alanguilan  [SLG]
Some sort of singularity brings sentience and speech to chickens, who then must fight against an incredulous, violent human race for the respect and rights that they deserve.  It's a human-rights allegory dressed in a rather outlandish premise.  Despite the originality of the setup, the allegory is not startling; it's surprisingly by-the-numbers. Library. [3]

Emmie and Friends - Terri Libenson

Essex County - Jeff Lemire

Set in the Canadian farming community of Essex County, this somewhat gloomy book tells the interconnected stories of three unfortunate residents.  The first part, Tales from the Farm, centers on young Lester, sent to live with his Uncle Ken after his mother’s death from cancer.  He draws crude comics, unable to express his pain and awkward with Ken.  He befriends former hockey player Jimmy, working at a gas station after his head injury.  The second part, Ghost Stories, shows a man named Lou alone only with his memories of the rift that tore him and his brother apart, then as deafness and dementia set in and he is moved from his farm house to a nursing home, estranged from his brother and growing deaf and succumbing to dementia.  It's terribly bleak.  The third part, The Country Nurse, follows Anne as she flits about the county visiting and caring for others, all the time struggling with her own family situation, while her centenarian mother is in a nursing home, recalling her life.  The art is ink-heavy and blocky, and while it fits the dreary tone of the stories, it didn't exactly draw me in.  [4]

The Eternal Smile - Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kirk Kim  [First Second]
Three short stories, each dealing with fantasy life vs. reality, and how while the former is fragile and an escape, it also serves as a source of strength in dealing with the latter.  Well done but not exceptional, except the final story which goes in a slightly unexpected direction.  [3.5]

Eternals by Jack Kirby: The Complete Collection - Jack Kirby

The nineteen issues and annual of Kirby's Eternals.  Beautiful, gorgeous colors on Kirby's madman-visionary art.  The faces of panicked people, detailed machinery, bizarre robots, arcane symbols, and flamboyant costumes all burst to life.  The story itself is not particularly great, although the drug-trip concepts (Deviants! Uni-Mind! Celestials!) are fantastic.  There's no attempt to set the story in the existing Marvel universe, although it clearly is set there.  The idea that they are the source for Earth legends such as Greek and Roman gods is particularly dissonant, since said gods, you know, exist in the Marvel Universe.  The Kirby dialogue, with its high-flown quasi-Shakespearean histrionics mixed with New Yawk street talk, is endearing of itself but sort of undercuts my engagement in the story.  [3.5]

Ex Machina - Brian K. Vaughn

• 1. The First Hundred Days - Mitchell Hundred is elected Mayor of New York City.  He can talk to and control machines as a result of an encounter with an alien device.  He used to be a superhero who called himself "The Great Machine" but was largely regarded as a nuisance.  Taking on all the liberal issues of the day like school vouchers and gay marriage, he also has to deal with conspiracies against him, his past a costumed vigilante, and the bizarre alien tech that made him the way he is.  A little dated and almost quaint nearly ten years later, but extremely well done.  [5]
• 2. Tag - Mayor Hundred deals with post-9/11 guilt, a serial killer, and Roma fortune teller who seems to be the real thing.  [4.5]
• 3. Fact v. Fiction - The zigzagging chronology of the narrative continues to be extremely well done in this story.  [4.5]
• 4. March to War - Finally (in flashback, of course) we meet Hundred's "arch-nemesis," Pherson, who can talk to animals after a botched experiment to replicate Hundred's powers.  I'm not sure that playing his words backward would make the animals turn on him.  Even in this fictional setting that's just... not how anything works.  Vaughn continues to offer theoretical fixes to the problems of the day, such as capital punishment.  [4]
• 5. Smoke Smoke - A thief disguised a fire fighter!  People self-immolating on City hall steps!  A mole on Hundred's staff!  [4.5]
• 6. Power Down - The power goes out, Hundred loses his powers, and a man comes from another brane to warn Hundred about something.  [4.5]
• 7. Ex Cathedra - While Hundred meets with the Pope, some Russians try to hack his mind.  More of his past is revealed, and he sees a slave ghost.  This story continues to be a page-turner, a suspenseful puzzle begging to be solved.  [4.5]
• 8. Dirty Tricks - Kremlin continues working with the mole in Gracie Mansion to bring Hundred back to the flying suit.  Still a terrific mix of action, suspense, and humor.  A brief but funny vignette about a graphic novel autobiography guest starring Vaughn and his illustrator is a great capper.  [4.5]  
• 9. Ring Out the Old - New year, new elements of the past and what exactly gave Hundred his powers come to light.  [4.5]
• 10. Term Limits - Maybe it's just me, but this seemed to end quite abruptly.  I feel like many threads were dropped unceremoniously (like the dimension traveler from Power Down), or given strange endings.  The sudden drunken gayness of his longtime bodyguard comes out of nowhere, and Hundred's rather nefarious self-serving side is a jolt.  [3.5]

Exiles - Judd Winick

1. Down the Rabbit Hole - A team of alternate universe mutants are brought together by a mysterious power (a convenient plot device) in order to "rectify" supposed problems in the multiverse.  Blink, Morph, Mimic, Nocturne (Nightcrawler's daughter) and others bond as they go from reality to reality, making sure things happen the right way.  Winick's dialogue is fast-paced and cute, and this is a fun way to cherry-pick interesting bits of the ridiculously complicated X-universe lore.  [4]
2. A World Apart - The merry brand of alternate reality misfits team up with a version of Alpha Flight to fight Hulk, and find themselves on a Skull-occupied world fighting in gladiator games.  Still fun, although it occurs to me that this is very much MTV's "The Real World" is superhero form -- a group of attractive strangers, brought together by an outside force, romances form, one of them is obnoxious, see if they can get along, lots of cheesecake, etc.  Interesting.  And while he's a great character, Morph's non-stop "horny dude" persona gets old after a while.  [3.5]
   

Graphic novel reviews F

The Fade-Out - Ed Brubaker - three volumes, complete
In '50s Hollywood, a screenwriter with a secret (he's been relying on a blacklisted friend to ghostwrite for him) wakes up to find the ingenue star of his movie dead.  When someone makes it look like suicide, he's determined to get to the bottom of it.   Pitch-perfect Brubaker noir.  [5]

A Family Secret - Eric Heuvel
A young boy in Holland looks in his grandmother's attic for things to sell and stumbles on the history of a family split apart by the war, with one brother a collaborator and the other a Nazi, the young girl a friend of Jews and her father a policeman charged with rounding them up.  Realistic, grim, and educational. Art that owes pretty much every line to Tintin.  A character guide on the title page ruined the twist at the end.  [3.5] 

Fantastic Four: Foes - Robert Kirkman
A 6-issue miniseries.  A couple of villains come up with a plot that fools even Reed Richards.  Starts out in high gear with lots of cheery Kirkman notes, but lacking in tense drama (fights are crucial to the plot but glossed over; even when vastly outnumbered, the FF never appear to be in any danger) and ending somewhat abruptly.  Perhaps it could have stretched out to ten issues.  I sold it.  [3] 

FANTASTIC FOUR/FF - Matt Fraction
-NEW DEPARTURE, NEW ARRIVALS (#1-3/#1-3)
-FANTASTIC FAUX (FF #4-8)
Fun superhero silliness.  Fraction has a great understanding of character and he uses every bit of obscure weirdness in the MU.  His plots are over the top and sometimes goofy.  [4]

Fantastic Four - Dan Slott

FABLES - Bill Willingham
The first 10-12 volumes are superb.  [5]  After the Great Fables Crossover and the introduction of some eternal comic types, the title loses steam.  [3.5]

Fatale - Ed Brubaker
Not up to the quality of his Daredevil run or Criminal.  Whether it's the disjointed chronology or the occult-horror-noir hybrid, this isn't really my thing. [3.5]

Fibbed - Elizabeth Agyemang

The Fifth Quarter - Mike Dawson

5,000 Km Per Second - Manuele Fior

FIVE WEAPONS - Jimmie Robinson - two volumes, complete
At a school for assassins' children, the son of a living legend assassin shows up.  He chooses no school of weaponry but challenges them all with just his wits.  However, not all is what it seems. In the second volume, his best friend is also enrolled, but now apparently set against him, knowing all his secrets.  It's not as gritty as it sounds --- it's both drawn and written in a slightly jokey, childish style.  The dialogue runs from clever to stilted to just awful, and the plot has more than a few holes in it.  Pretty fun, but not for adults, I think.  Given away.  [2]

Foiled - Jane Yolen [First Second]

• 1. Foiled - A teenage girl in New York who doesn't fit in anywhere but the fencing studio discovers that her practice foil is actually a faerie weapon that enables her to see the magic creatures all around, and the boy she was chasing is a troll in disguise, sworn to aid her.  A bit thin, from the overdone "teenage misfit becomes magic realm's protector" to the lack of any meaty conflict.  [3]
• 2. CURSES! FOILED AGAIN - The second volume, wherein the heroine deals with whom to trust as she faces a shadowy enemy, is much better.  [3.5]  Library.

The Fox - Mark Waid

Freddy Lombard - Yves Chaland

1. The Will of Godfrey of Bouillon - One rainy Belgian night, Freddy (who looks just like Tintin!) and his two friends come upon a wine-loving duke at an inn.  He hires the three to help him dig for treasure buried by his ancestor before the Crusades, unaware that someone is listening in on the story.  In a long dream sequence, Freddy imagines he and his friends meeting the dukes' ancestor a thousand years ago, and we see the treacherous counselor trying to get his hands on the estate back then.  Then back to the present for a bit of adventure and a rather anticlimactic, enigmatic ending.  Marvelously inventive, and just utterly gorgeous art.  [4]
2. The Elephant Graveyard -  Containing two stories: An African Adventure, about travels to the jungles of Africa in search of a unique photographic plate for a collector. The second story, The Elephants Graveyard, involves Freddy's investigations into the murders of several ex-army gentlemen who served in Africa. Told at a frenetic pace, with some rather whiplash-inducing swerves from absurdist humor to high body count.  The three friends live like squatters, shivering in a run-down apartment and selling furniture for food, but nothing much is made of this.  [4]
3. The Comet of Carthage - Freddy rescues a woman fleeing from her abusive sculptor lover, and also imagines her to be a queen of Carthage, and himself a Carthaginian warrior.  The woman says that her lover has killed previous models.  Dina pines for Freddy and soliloquizes about their lives in Carthage. Storms wash out the only road out of Cassis.  A comet is coming and may hit the town.  The three friends stay in a cave by the shore and search for things to eat.  Freddy befriends the sculptor.  Beautiful, just gorgeous detailed art (Chaland can draw a ruin or wind-swept cliff just as well as anyone), but the story is simply insane.  [3.5]
4. Holiday In Budapest - In Venice, 1956, Dina is working as a Latin tutor; the boys are camping by the lake. Her pupil, an impulsive Hungarian twelve year old, runs off to join the rebellion against the Soviets.  While the boys catch up and drive him there, Dina flies to his family.  They get mixed up in the war, in firefights, scuffles, and accusations.  It's a very odd transition from the first, more goofy, style of the series.  [4]
   
5. F-52 - The three friends are hired as air attendants on the new super-fast atomic plane to Australia.  In a much less convoluted adventure than the previous ones, they are embroiled in staff squabbling, some sexual harassment from Dina's supervisor, a search for a Soviet spy, and grimmest of all, an insane rich couple who scheme to kidnap a little girl from another pssenger to replace their child, who has Down Syndrome.  [4.5]
   

Freshman - Corinne Mucha  [Zest]
A slight book about a teen girl's first high school year.  The usual worries about changing friendships, boy troubles, popularity.  Clunky doodle-style monochromatic art.  Aimed directly at teen girls; I found it simplistic and cliched on the first reading.  But on the second reading a year later I approached it with a more open mind, and conceded the touching side; the themes of uncertainty and desire to be something more are, in fact, universal.  Read twice.  Library.  [2.5] 

Graphic novel reviews G

A Game for Swallows - Zeina Abirached  [Graphic Universe]
In war-torn Beirut, two kids and their neighbors wait patiently amid the shelling for the children's parents to return from visiting their mother.  A poignant portrait of the kids' games, the food, and the people who try to keep life going amid death and chaos.  Ink-heavy black and white illustrations reminiscent of Persepolis.  [4]

Garlic And the Vampire - Bree Paulsen

Gear School - Adam Gallardo  [Dark Horse]
Teen girl in military flight training must step up when the aliens attack the base.  Far too short to have any weight; there is no character growth or sense of drama.  Detailed colorful art is marred at times by unnecessary anime shorthand.  [2]

Gender Queer: A Memoir - Maia Kobabe

Glitch - Sarah Graley

Giant Days - John Allison

Giants Beware! - Jorge Aguirre [First Second]
In a medieval village, a blacksmith's daughter runs away to fight giants, bringing her friend the wannabe princess and her baby brother, the aspiring chef.  Funny and silly.  The art is at times like Eric Powell, at times a cartoony Darwin Cooke.  For kids; got it from the library,  [3.5]  

Gods of Asgard - Erik Evensen  [Studio E3]

Gold Key Alliance - Phil Hester

The Golden Hour - Niki Smith

 

Green Hornet Year One - Matt Wagner

1. Vol. 1 - This volume tells how Britt Reid comes to be the Green Hornet and how his faithful partner Kato comes to meet him, while in the present (Chicago, 1938) they take on a nasty gangster with a scraped-up face, "Skid" Caruso.  Wagner adds a dash of humor and a heap of grit to his origin story.  He uses real historical fact (like the Rape of Nanking) to add color to the characters' backstories, and shows how Reid turns to vigilantism because he's stymied by the limits of the press.  It's all very well done, except for some egregious grammar and spelling erorrs ("emporer" twice, "you're English is coming along" — yikes).  [4]
   

Grendel, KY - Jeff McComsey

A grindhouse, southern-friend interpretation of Beowulf, with a pot farm standing in for the beleaguered castle and a tough as nails female biker standing in for the hero.  A Kentucky town is prosperous, for its land bears fertile weed crops, but at what cost?  When her biker gang is massacred and the town's secrets are laid bare, Marnie goes out for revenge.  This is a gritty but fun updating of the ancient tale, with terrific inky art.  [4]

Guts - Rana Telgemeier

Rana wakes up one day with a stomach ache and it doesn't go away.  Her fears and anxieties about puberty and other middle school joys compound the fact that she has developed irritable bowel syndrome and is prone to vomiting when stressed.  This is the story of how she tries to overcome her fears as well as her own body.  [4.5]