The Mystery Play - Grant Morrison

The Mystery Play - Grant Morrison

In a small English village of Townely, a revival of a medieval mystery play is being put on, when suddenly the man playing God is murdered just offstage.  Enter Sergeant Frank Carpenter, a bearded, taciturn detective, coming to solve the murder in a rather peculiar way: "I don't want to examine the smashed pieces of an event, you see what I mean?  Fragments are no good to me.  I want to see it whole, in relation to everything around it."  Carpenter uncovers some rather unsavory practices in the local politician, and a reverend who lost his faith and didn't get along with the deceased very much, but none of it adds up to anything.  Then a reporter uncovers a macabre secret about Carpenter,  and things start to get weird.  Carpenter is haunted by his past and every clue he finds.  I didn't really engage with this one much, despite Morrison's erudition and the interesting twists.  I liked his clever coat motif and the mob frenzy at the end, but I'm not wholly onboard with Morrison's ideas that we're all part of a collective organism or story, and the individual pieces don't matter as much.  And the symbolism is just so heavy handed. I mean, his name is Carpenter? and he gets a wound on his hand?  "The house is empty"?  It's all a bit on the nose.  This book has some interesting themes and exciting moments, but ultimately I found it just a collection of ideas rather than a complete work.  [3.5]

Hakim's Odyssey - Fabien Toulmé

Hakim's Odyssey - Fabien Toulmé

1. Book One: From Syria to Turkey - With simple, two-toned line drawings, Toulmé tells the story of Hakim, a young Syrian who owns a gardening store in Damascus.  After Assad comes to power, there are protests that are put down with brutal violence.  Hakim is picked up by the state police for helping some protesters. After being interrogated and tortured, he is released, but decides he must flee his business, family, and country.  Moving from Jordan to Antalya, Turkey, he discovers that life as a refugee consist of low wages, suspicion, and anger from the locals.  In Antalya, he marries a fellow refugee, then leaves with her family for Istanbul, where the book ends.  Especially given the strongman tactics of the American wanna-be king in the 2020s, this is an important, chillingly relevant, and upsetting story.

 

Morning Glories - Nick Spencer

Morning Glories - Nick Spencer

Volume One -  The Breakfast Club, or maybe "Gossip Girl," meets Cthulhu.  The story opens in a prestigious boarding school, Morning Glory Academy, where six academically gifted but troubled teens arrive, and very quickly things seem eerie and off  The six characters find they all share the same birthday, and the teachers are adept at evading questions. Spencer leans into secrets, hidden agendas, and "something is very wrong here" energy.  The kids' cell phones lose signal, their parents claim not to remember their very existence, and the sinister teachers seem to have planned a series of deathtraps for the teens unless they toe the line.  However, I thought it was ultimately unsatisfying.  Spencer stirs a lot into the pot early on, including a set of murdered parents, with mysteries and questions building without immediate payoff.  I also found the characters thin and overly stereotyped, while the writing was of the self-conscious, quippy kind (think "Gilmore Girls" meets "West Wing") in a rapid-fire babble that doesn't match how anyone, let alone teens, talk.  "Our little suicide girl is your carrot on a stick, and they know it."  "This is Guantanamo Bay for the statutory set."  "Or we wave the white blouse and beg for clemency before these psychos get all Clockwork Orange-y with us."  Lines like that might dazzle in a writer's room, but no panicked teenager would ever say them. Joe Eisma's art is crisp and detailed, but I found it also glossy and flat, with little dynamism or depth, in that way matching the writing.  By the "shocking twist" on the final splash page, I found myself less intrigued than indifferent. The mystery may run deep, but the characters and dialogue never made me care enough to follow it further.  [2.5] 

The Bat-Man: First Knight - Dan Jurgens

The Bat-Man: First Knight - Dan Jurgens

Set in 1939, this story drops us back into Batman's formative nights, when he still had a hyphen, wore purple gloves, and relied on a handful of crude gadgets, a big red roadster, and raw nerve. There's no Alfred, no Robin, just a grim vigilante stalking Gotham's alleys as the effects of the Great Depression lingers and the shadow of global war creeps closer.  A mysterious zealot called the Voice seeks to turn Gotham into an isolationist fortress, commanding an army of brutish, inarticulate "monster men"—reanimated corpses of recently killed men. With moral counsel from a sympathetic rabbi and some unexpected tenderness from a Hollywood starlet, the Bat-Man, still dismissed by most as a myth or a lunatic, fights to stop the Voice before the city is consumed by his madness.  It's a stylish throwback with pulp grit and surprising heart.  [4.5]

 

Dark Night: A True Batman Story - Paul Dini

Dark Night: A True Batman Story - Paul Dini

Dini, a writer for Batman and Animaniacs, is brutally beaten and mugged, and uses his imagination to get through a difficult psychological healing process.  The determination and heroism of Batman in particular convinces him not to sink permanently into despair.  This is an honest, courageous tale, brought to life brilliantly by Eduardo Risso's art.  It's moving and troubling but at times funny and ultimately optimistic.  A real masterpiece.  [4.5]

Boy Wonder - Juni Ba

Boy Wonder - Juni Ba

Writer and artist Ba tells the story of Damian Wayne, the outsider whose brutal outlook seems to prevent him from fully joining the royal Bat-family: the king and his three adopted sons, brave and rageful and clever in turns.   Infusing the story of the Robins with Asian legend vibes, focusing on the confusion and need for acceptance of the skilled but antisocial Damian, and having one oddly unafraid hostage tell it like a fable to a confused robber, Ba has created an intriguing, quirky, and visually dynamic tale that stands out from the glut of Bat-books.  [4]

The Exterminators - Simon Oliver

The Exterminators - Simon Oliver

1.  Bug Brothers - Henry James, an ex-con, takes a job at Bug-Bee-Gone, an exterminator company run by his stepfather.  Doing his rounds with AJ, a boastful, racist, misogynistic druggie, they find a corpse.  Later, AJ injects himself with Draxx, their newest glowing, blue poison, and dies grotesquely.  It turns out Draxx has an unexpected effect on roaches, making them huge and aggressive.  James is matched with a new partner, apparently Buddhist but with a sense of rough justice when they find a woman chained to a bed at a mental hospital; meanwhile, James' girlfriend will do anything to move up her own career chain at Ocran, a weapons maker.  It's all very graphic, trashy, and chaotic.  There's a bit too much here for the reader to get grounded and care about the characters; presumably, Oliver will bring some of the strands together in the next volume.  [3.5]