Trees

Ten years prior to the start of this story, aliens had arrived on Earth. Unfortunately, all they did was plant/land massive Trees, which messed with the local environments. For the most part this was through seismic change and people’s fearful reactions, but some did eventually release toxic acid which killed everyone around them, while another has strange flowers growing near it. In the entire time the Trees have been there no alien has made contact, regardless of how hard humanity has tried to force them to. Because of this failure to communicate, most humans have learned to ignore them, even moving away if they can.

Thankfully, Warren Ellis goes beyond the usual alien encounter story. This isn’t an immediate fight for survival, but rather, a story that follows various individuals across the globe who are forced to face the changes brought about by their silent neighbours.

The cast of this story sounds like the set up for an inappropriate joke. There is a confused artist who moves to the experimental Chinese city of Shu. A Somalian head of state, a young lady under the protection of a fascist gang leader, as well as her new mentor, and entire team of scientists and engineers set up in a remote, frozen Norwegian location.

Unlike inappropriate jokes, however, there really wasn’t anything funny about this. This is more of a slow paced, thought provoking look at how humans react and interact during a crisis situation. Unfortunately, it was just a little too slow for me. I didn’t really care for any of the characters, and right up until the end there was very little action. I can appreciate the buildup, however, and I look forward to the story actually going somewhere.

Upon first look, I found the art to be a little jarring. There were so many extra lines, it was hard to tell if the Trees were supposed to look organic and similar to Earth trees, or if they were smooth and metallic. However, the art quickly grew on me, especially with the great scenic imagery and the expressiveness of the characters’ faces.

All New X-men

Sometimes it seems like the X-Men do more time traveling than Doctor Who.

Following the Avengers vs. X-Men crossover, Cyclops has gone a little kooky. He’s now working with Magneto and Emma Frost to very publically recruit new mutants while attacking humanity. The current X-Men fear that directly confronting him could kick off a mutant civil war so Hank McCoy decides that the best way to stop Cyclops is to let the young Scott Summers get a look at what he becomes. Hank takes a jaunt into the past where he recruits the original team of X-Men, including his own younger non-blue furry self, to come back to the future.

I had a lot of doubts about this concept, not the least of which was making even more of a hash of what remains of the X-Men’s timeline as well as giving us yet another live version of Jean Grey to kill off someday. However, I gotta admit that Bendis did a very good job with this. The dialogue doesn’t rely as much on humor as he usually does. Instead, he sets up a lot of intriguing things with the young X-Men being pretty much horrified at the way things have turned out for all of them.

I wasn’t sure how this works as a time travel story either. If the original X-Men are in the present seeing their future, wouldn’t that mean that it’s going to change? They get around this for now with the explanation that when they return to the past that Professor X will certainly read their minds, know what happened, and then wipe the memories from them. (But no one seems concerned about Xavier knowing

the future after that?) Plus, if one of the team gets killed in the present, wouldn’t that wipe the current version out of existence? This is a point that should come up more considering that Wolverine very vocally considers the idea that killing young Scott would save them all a lot of grief later.

But I was able to set that aside for the more intriguing questions that Bendis and company are playing with here, the ideas of what someone would think of themselves and their fate if they could see into the future as well as considering what warnings a person might offer to a younger version of themselves.

This One Summer

Garbage.

Kudos for tricking someone into publishing this and for the fantastic five-star artwork. Tragedy to have such great art with this dung heap narrative. Almost no plot, no conflicts, just a sour, artsy-liberal meditation with admittedly well-executed tone and very soft themes you have to really dig to find. Almost, ALMOST nothing really happens.

And the last lines, you ask? "maybe I will have massive boobs. Boobs would be cool." that's the nugget of truth we are left with in this Focus Feature-like indie movie, appealing to 1 percent of the teenagers who come in the libraries, obscurely written by (what came across to me as) feminists about their own self-important childhoods being sold off as psudo-fiction.

Here's what I learned: Innocence is lost because people older than you are fuck-ups.

Saga

Saga is a tale of star-crossed lovers. Literally star crossed. They’re on the opposite sides of a galactic war between two species. Marko has horns like a ram and spell-casting ability. Alana comes from a more technologically advanced race with vestigial wings. Guided by royal figures who have video monitors for heads (which makes them seem to be a third species), her faction appears to have the upper hand.

Magic versus technology isn’t the most original premise, but the quality of the writing does set this apart. The characters are contemporary, flawed, and insecure. Even the royal TV-head who is pursuing the couple is shown sitting on the toilet. Vaughan’s writing is humanizing and quite refreshing. The most endearing aspect of the story is the modern-day banter between the smart-mouthed, tough female and her big-hearted but somewhat naïve husband. I would describe it as Whedon-esque. If Saga wasn’t a sci-fi story, Alana would be a punk rock guitarist and Marko would be a street art muralist. Vaughan is best known for his series Y: The Last Man, which I loved but this, so far, has a much wider scope. I hear he also wrote for Lost, which makes me love him just a little bit more.

I love the emotional expressiveness to the art - there's sharper angles and vibrant colours, especially in the panels where Staples obviously threw in her love and went for it. So the book clips along at a nice pace and that's very much due to her, and so long as you don't linger over the filler panels then you'll probably find this is top-notch comics. I'm actually a big fan of the more feminine styles from creators like Staples - her character designs are pretty amazing, and the fluid quality of the backdrops is a nice change from the punch-to-the-head stark designs of many books. Vaughan's secret talent in writing this book is having these fantastic creatures and weird characters just talk like normal people.

Some great world-building gone into this work. Vaughan and Staples have created a universe with species upon species of different people and things that make my eyes go wide every time I meet one. Winged humanoids, horned humanoids - they're just the start. The robots-with-TVs-for-heads are sinister and human; the war beasts and forest creatures are wild. The politics of this galaxy are at the same time simple (hatred, fear and greed) and deliciously real (propaganda, jealousy, magic).

Rocket Girl

Rocket Girl Vol.1: Time Squared written by Brandon Montclare and illustrated by Amy Reeder, tells the story of Dayoung Johansson, a member of the NYPD teen division in an alternate universe from ours. Dayoung time travels back to 1986 in order to change a key event and alter history in the hopes of changing the entropic future that is controlled by a corporation. 

The story, although it is funny and light, is nothing out of the ordinary. Echoes of Terminator and Back to the Future can be found in the writing. The "future" being 2013. A 2013 that reminded me once again of Marty McFly's adventure or the Jetsons, where humanity has advanced so much that there are flying cars all over the place, among other technological advancements, which contrasts with our much grounded present.

What truly captivated me about Rocket Girl was the illustrations. The combination of the pencils, colors, movement and lighting effects is a fantastic complement to the story that actually enhances it. Let's just say that it is pure eye-candy.

I put this comic down quite a lot over my time reading it, and it took me a LONG time to get through it. Not because it was painful or hard to get through, but something about the plot or the execution of the plot was just not holding my interest for more than 5 or so pages. But I am interested in where this story goes and what these awesome characters do to continue on, hopefully in an even brighter and exciting volume 2.

Powers

So I saw mixed reviews of Powers, and I don't follow comics enough to understand why the comic store guy was salivating over Bendis, but obviously I find myself in the "Wow, that kicked ass," side of the balance. Well, kicked ass is maybe a little strong. But you can only say, "That was cool," so many times.

Bendis has written a unique story. Powers: Who Killed Retro Girl is the story of a pair of homicide detectives who cover the "Powers" beat - ie, homicides involving men and women with super powers. Someone has killed the nearly invulnerable Retro Girl, and detective Walker and his new partner have been assigned to the case. Walker has some history with both Retro Girl, and the rest of the heroes and villains in this story, and his new female partner is intent on figuring it out. It's a classic detective and murder mystery placed within an unlikely narrative landscape, but in the end manages to work very well. This is a story about policemen and the work they do, and less of a story about superheroes. You can sense the frustration of the coroner's job when he attempts an autoposy on Retro Girl - whose skin is impenetrable to everything, including a blow torch. You feel the long hours involved in a case going cold, with no leads materializing. The fact that it is set within the world of superheroes works mainly to jar the reader and "defamiliarize" an extremely familiar cops and robber story.

Brian Michael Bendis has done a fair bit of world building here along with Michael Avon Oeming as the artist. This volume introduces a series I will gladly continue reading!

The Book of Mr. Natural

I'm on a mission to understand why Robert Crumb is considered such a genius. I read one of his other books and enjoyed the artwork, and the artwork wasn't the issue with this. The problem is that I don't see the point of it. After reading Mr. Natural it seemed like a waste of time. It did not offend or confuse me, it just seemed pointless.

Throughout the book, it's clear that Crumb uses Mr. Natural as a way to comment on our cultural and personal dilemmas, whether it's sexual desires, misogyny, feelings of misplacement, or our desire to fit in. However, Crumb has said that sometimes he makes up stories as he goes along, and it's a bit easy to see that here as most stories don't really go anywhere. It's obvious what's bothering Crumb about our society, but the stories don't really wrap up in the end, and we're left wondering where exactly he's going with all this. Perhaps Crumb just uses Mr. Natural as a way to vent?

Either way, it's so easy to get lost in the beautiful art (as always) with Crumb's great linework and his use of space, choosing to show you only the essentials of the environment and focusing instead on the dialogue between the characters.