A new year, a new team, a newly-shifted love interest.

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I’m back, baby.  Shrugging off what I have to say was the hurtful realization that 4thletter had its best month ever when I wasn’t blogging for it (I can only assume that you all kept coming because I was still in the podcasts), I am back, and a month behind in my Batgirl recaps.  Let’s start catching up right now.

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-Hey, I wrote some stuff. Maybe you missed it. I reviewed the Scott Pilgrim game, heaped some pro-black/pro-fessional praise on Marc Bernardin, Adam Freeman, and Afua Richardson’s Genius, and wrote a surprisingly well-received piece on manga piracy.

-I didn’t do it, but this comic about a bee by Raina Telgemeier is fantastic.

-I’m still reading Shade (I’m up to volume 3, which I’m starting this weekend), but I also picked up Chi’s Sweet Home and Peepo Choo from Vertical, Inc. Jormungand 4 gets in today, I think, and it’ll probably remain my favorite funny action comic book about child soldiers.

–Unforgiven on Blu-ray for eight bucks? That was Purchase On Sight. Wow.

-The countdown isn’t over. There’s one left. 1 Reader, maybe, or 1 Love.

Oh, what, comics come out today? Okay I guess we can talk about that.

David Easterman: Who cares about comical books? (but if that Green Lantern book Gav is buying is The Shield in Space, I might have to start picking that up).
Esther Cobblepot: Definitely: Batgirl 13 Maybe: Birds of Prey 4, Zatanna 4, Doc Savage 5
Jacob Gavin, Jr.: Buzzard 3, Booster Gold 35, Green Lantern Emerald Warriors 1, Justice League Generation Lost 7, Welcome To Tranquility One Foot In The Grave 2, Dark Wolverine 89, Invincible Iron Man 29, Steve Rogers Super-Soldier 2, Ultimate Comics Avengers 3 1

Return of Bruce Wayne 4, words by Grant Morrison, pencils by Georges Jeanty, inks by Walden Wong, colors by Tony Aviña, letters by Travis Lanham. Preview

Cowboy Batman! Maybe I should’ve let Esther write this one, I know she was looking forward to it. I don’t even really have anything clever to say!

Book-wise, I got a few from San Diego, B.P.R.D 13: 1947 from Amazon today, and I’m about 15 pages from the end of Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour. SP is kind of interesting. I like it, but I don’t love it. I respect Bryan Lee O’Malley for getting it done and having it become some kind of crazy ill success, too. I’m slowly working through my stack and decompressing from a hectic San Diego, so I’ll have better words next week.

I gotta buy last week’s comics this week, too. Bleah.

The David: Unknown Soldier 22
The Esther: Definitely: Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne 4 Maybe: Batman: The Brave and the Bold 19, Detective Comics 867, First Wave 3, Green Arrow 2
and The Gavin Authority: The Lost Year 11, Batman: Return of Bruce Wayne 4, Green Lantern 56, Green Lantern Corps 50, Justice League: Generation Lost 6, Deadpool Team-Up 891, Franken-Castle 19, Weapon X Noir, Incorruptible 8, WWE Heroes 5

Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour, Bryan Lee O’Malley. Here’s a preview for the first volume.

The big dog is finally here. I haven’t read the fifth volume yet, but I picked up 5 and 6 to read on the plane to San Diego for Comic-con. Why not, right? I mostly enjoyed the first four, might as well go back to them, and what better time than now? We’ve got the last volume, the video game (which is pretty fun in an old school beat-em-up sort of way), and the movie. It all looks pretty good, and I’m honestly pretty happy for Bryan Lee O’Malley. Like, he’s made it, hasn’t he? Super popular series, a comic movie that looks good (with Chris Evans in his, what, fifteen comic book role?), and the entire internet is talking about him today. That’s worthy of respect.

Whatever happened to Sharknife? I feel like there was a time when Coreyyy Lewis and Bryan Lee O’Malley just ran comics and then Lewis faded in the public eye. I know he has a new book coming out of Image I should check out, Seedless, but Sharknife was like lightning out of heaven to me.

Anyway, like I said, I’m in San Diego for the week doing what I do best. Updates will continue as usual, of course, but I won’t be able to pick up my comics until… well probably next week sometime. Ouch. I’ve got Scott Pilgrims for the plane, Shade the Changing Man: Edge of Vision, and my holy grail comic for the week, the one stands over and above all others, Vagabond 8. As far as comics go… this week is pretty dope.

David vs The World: Amazing Spider-Man 638, Atlas 3, Hellblazer 269, Thunderbolts 146
Esther Gets It Together: Tiny Titans 30, Superman/Batman 74. Maybe: Supergirl 54, Power Girl 14
Gavin’s Finest Hour: Azrael 10, Welcome To Tranquility One Foot In The Grave 1, Age Of Heroes 3, Atlas 3, Avengers 3, Dark Wolverine 88, Deadpool Merc With A Mouth 13, Deadpool 25, Heroic Age Prince Of Power 3, Lady Deadpool 1, Marvel Zombies 5 5, Marvelous Land Of Oz 8, New Avengers 2, Thunderbolts 146, Ultimate Comics Avengers 2 5, Darkstalkers The Night Warriors 3, Darkwing Duck The Duck Knight Returns 2, Kevin Smith’s Green Hornet 6

Mary Choi gave a killer interview about Lady Deadpool on Comics Alliance. My man Jamaal is writing over at FBB again, too. Go read that so we can collectively make sure he keeps writing.

What’re you reading this week? Looking forward to anything out of San Diego?

There’s a lot going on in the world of Deadpool. The guy has like a million different comics going on at the moment with Deadpool, the soon-to-be-ending Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth, Deadpool Corps, Deadpool Team-Up, the miniseries Deadpool: Wade Wilson’s War and some other miscellaneous appearances. He’s been revealed as a new character in the long-awaited Marvel vs. Capcom 3, where his quirks include Moonwalking, beating his opponents with their own life bar, doing a Shoryuken, yelling, “YOU PRESSED THE WRONG BUTTON!” when losing and getting tentacle raped by accident via Morrigan Aensland in the opening cinematic.

He also, as recently revealed, is going to have three more comics coming out. One is Deadpool: Pulp, which is in the alternate universe decade-specific retelling spirit of the Marvel Noir series. All I know is that the Jae Lee covers are completely stellar, so that at least has my attention.

The second comic is Deadpool MAX by the team of David Lapham and Kyle Baker – a team that’s been making several comic fans weep in frustration. Isn’t that right, Mr. Brothers?

Then again, I’ll weep in frustration too if the interiors are done in Baker’s current ugly-as-sin computer generated art that makes me pray for the day when his trial copy of Poser finally expires. Come on, man. I know for a fact that you’re better than this.

Even more recently announced is Uncanny X-Force. In the wake of Cable’s death and the revelation that Cyclops put together the latest version of X-Force, Wolverine decides to keep the black ops dream alive himself with an even more secret team made up of Wolverine, Archangel, Psylocke, Fantomex and Deadpool. Deadpool and Fantomex in the same book? I’m completely there. It’s rather interesting how the recent arc in Deadpool’s core book where he joined the X-Men for all of several hours foreshadows this development several times over.

Oh, and Deadpool’s dimensional counterparts are going to be getting their own one-shots, so add that to the pile. Plus that Deadpool #1000 issue.

With Deadpool everywhere, I think it’s about time to get past the groaning and joking about how Deadpool is everywhere. I know I’m just as guilty as everyone else, rolling my eyes when they revealed a third on-going series, but I’ve long reached the state of acceptance. Why? Because most of the time, I’m enjoying the spread shot of Deadpool they’ve been handing us.

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Amazing Spider-Man 637. Words by Joe Kelly, pictures by Michael Lark and maybe Stefano Gaudiano.

You’re not reading this? You’re missing out. Amazing Spider-Man: Grim Hunt has been fantastic. If you’re still holding a grudge over One More Day… get over yourself and read some good comics.

Book-wise, this week is light for me. I got a preview copy of Matt Kindt’s Revolver and burned through that in one sitting. Review coming soon on Comics Alliance, but the short version is “That was a good’un.” Art’s good, story’s interesting, hook’s cool, go on ahead and get that one. I’m also working my way through Takehiko Inoue’s wheelchair basketball drama Real. Trying to keep my consumption to a couple volumes a month. I finished the fourth volume last night, so I’ll probably read Real 5 before bed tonight. This is another one that’s full of good stuff. Great characters, great art, blah blah blah. Read Real if you aren’t. The bulk of my reading right now are older books for this 6 Writers thing I’ve been doing. Next week may be a little different.

Oh, next week is San Diego Comic-con. So much for getting any reading done there.

Speaking of Good Comics
David: Amazing Spider-Man 637, Captain America/Black Panther 4
Gavin: Authority: Lost Year 10, Batman 701, Booster Gold 34, JL: Generation Lost 5, Magog 11, Astonishing Spider-Man and Wolverine 2, Avengers Academy 2, Deadpool Corps 4, Gorilla Man 1, Invincible Iron Man 28, Iron Man Noir 4, X-Men Origins: Deadpool
Esther: Definitely: Batgirl 12. Maybe: Batman 701, Brave and the Bold 35, Doc Savage 4, Power Girl 14, Superman 701

We move closer and closer into the present with the various Mr. T comics and upon hitting 2008, we get to my favorite of the bunch. Now, while Mr. T and the T-Force and the short-lived Mr. T from 2005 involved a couple of neat elements, there’s something rather underwhelming about going the lengths of getting the Mr. T license and not doing anything extra special with it. The A-Team comic wasn’t especially fantastic, but at least it knew that being outlandish couldn’t hurt. The stories made little sense, but we still had B.A. Barracus fighting a sumo, getting into bar fights and knocking out Russian soldiers.

After the unfortunate cancellation of the 2005 Mr. T due to the company closing down, Christopher Bunting decided he would keep it going. He started up Mohawk Media and released yet another Mr. T comic. While the stories are basically split up into issues, including covers, they would not be released separately and by the month. Instead, Bunting would let them loose all at once with the new Mr. T graphic novel.

I don’t know how to feel about that “AS SEEN ON TV” logo.

There are five issues in the trade. The first four are its own story arc with JL Czerniawski on art. The bonus issue is done by artist Giovanni P. Timpano. While, yes, the comic does have a lot of Mr. T being preachy, it’s a lot less forced this time around. The reliance of having Mr. T yell at children for doing drugs is finally put to rest.

Also, between the issues are pages of Mr. T answering fan mail. If you’re wondering, Mr. T believes Clubber Lang would beat B.A. in a fight.

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Casanova 01. words by Matt Fraction, art by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon, colors by Cris Peters, cover by Gabriel Ba. Preview.

I used to really love Casanova. It wasn’t my introduction to Matt Fraction (I think that was Last of the Independents?), but it was the first book of his that I really genuinely liked. Something about it–the superspy stuff, dimension hopping, interesting storytelling–clicked with me and I ended up buying every issue, plus the hardcover of the first series. This post is full of hyperbole and mistakes I wouldn’t make today, but it shows you how high I was on this comic at the time.

This year sees the return of Casanova, but maybe return should be in “douchebag quotes.” It’s being re-serialized from the very beginning, recolored and re-lettered, and the entire series is going to get the deluxe treatment out of Marvel. On the one hand-great! I loved reading these. On the other hand–it’s not 2007 any more. I buy comics differently. If I leap into this, which I have read and liked and appears to be improved, I’m looking at possibly quadruple dipping on this series. I bought the originals, bought the trade, and bought the originals for the second series. I could buy the new issues, but what I really want are the trades of the stuff I’ve already read (with the new colors and etc).

There’s a dilemma for you. Support in singles after having already supported in singles or be selfish and buy the trades several months down the line?

(I’m buying the trades because this really isn’t a dilemma at all, but if you haven’t read Casanova, give it a look.)

What’s 4l! buying?!
David: Amazing Spider-Man 636, King City 10
Esther: Batman and Robin 13, Secret Six 23, Batman Confidential 46, Red Robin 14
Gavin: Batman & Robin 13, Secret Six 23, Avengers: Children’s Crusade 1, Avengers: The Origin 4, Hawkeye & Mockingbird 2, Hit-Monkey 1, Steve Rogers: Super-Soldier 1, Irredeemable 15

Book-wise, I just got Shade the Changing Man: The American Scream, Human Target: Chance Meetings, Hellblazer: Hooked, Batwoman: Elegy, The Life and Times of Martha Washington in the Twenty-First Century, and One Piece 54. I didn’t own Human Target: Final Cut, so I went ahead and grabbed that trade. I haven’t read Shade before, or at least not to my memory, so I’m starting in on that. And Hellblazer… Hellblazer is just good. Let Tucker convince you. He’s right. So yeah, it’s a heavy Milligan week for me, but I can’t complain. And I get King City and One Piece and a follow-up to one of the top three greatest Spider-Man stories of all time? Comics should always be this good.

(If you’re not reading Amazing Spider-Man: Grim Hunt, you’re making a mistake. The last page this week is on bomb status.)

Tell me what you’re buying and how you liked it.

I’m going to be completely honest for a minute here. My favorite genre isn’t crime. It’s “violence.” I like my violence stylish and casual. You can’t work that hard at it, unless you’re John McClane, and even he makes it look effortless. I’m talking about single bullet in the head, hard jerk, splash of blood on the sunglasses violence. We gotta kill every rat-bastard one of them violence. No-look pass violence, where the hand that holds the knife moves so quickly and smoothly it’s almost independent of the body. Fade to black, the tip of a cigarette goes bright orange, one gunshot, and that’s all she wrote violence. I’m talking about the fact that bullets cost about twenty cents a piece, so your life is much, much cheaper than you think it is.

My most recent fix for that is Keitaro Takahashi’s Jormungand. I’ve written about it before, but I think I spent a lot of time introducing it, rather than actually talking about it. Its premise is fairly simple, which is the weird part about the lengthy introduction I wrote. A child soldier who hates weapons joins an arms dealer and people die. That’s it. There’s subplots involving vain crushes and revenge and all, but that’s flavor.

The second volume ended with Jonah, the child soldier and theoretical focus of the series, going into a suicidal rage and attacking a man named Kasper, brother of his boss, Koko Hekmatyar. The first chapter of Jormungand volume 3 reveals why he hates him. Three months ago, in an unnamed country in West Asia, most likely Afghanistan, Jonah was sent to support a military unit. Present in the camp are a group of local orphans. Jonah befriends them and protects them. Halfway through that first chapter, a vile arms dealer takes two of the orphans and goes out looking for the US military ordnance that he was planning to turn into profit. When he accidentally triggers a landmine, he uses the body of Malka, a young girl, to shield himself. She dies. He doesn’t. Jonah has a very reasonable reaction.

“I can’t accept that Malka died and not that bastard. I’ll personally send him to hell.”

By the end of the chapter, every soldier in the base is dead and the the arms dealer has four new holes in his face.

Jormungand is primarily an action manga. Its primary focus is strictly on entertainment. Bullets are expended by the dozen, each member of the cast has their specialty (sniping, tech, knife fighting, alertness, a willingness to murder), there’s a hopeless romance, fanservice, goofy comedy, and a quirky/wacky character. With that said, it isn’t completely empty of meaningful content. Jormungand is about violence. It’s about the application of violence, its beauty, its ugliness, the way it twists and distorts people with its pressure. It’s about the necessity of violence.

After his… temper tantrum, Jonah becomes a bodyguard for Koko. He hates weapons, and the people who make and use them, due to the fact that his family was killed as a direct result of arms dealers prizing profit over basic human decency. Due to his situation, and his history, Jonah is sullen and withdrawn, and not at all eager to open up and soften his facade. Which, of course, means that people are eager to talk to him and they talk at him. The cast discusses weapons and violence with him a couple times in each volume. In volume two, Koko discusses the UN’s Millenium Development Goals with Jonah. She tells him that nearly two hundred countries pledged to raise twenty-two billion dollars to genuinely improve the world. She says, “But that figure was recently surpassed by the average annual amount of money spent on weapons in regional conflicts across the globe. Can you believe that? Clearly the world likes war a lot more than it likes little kids!”

She goes on to ask him who owns most of the guns in the world. Military? Police? Private militias? Terrorists? No. Civilians own sixty percent of all the guns in the world. Less than one percent are owned by radical militias. This PDF link to “Transition to Peace: Guns in Civilian Hands” suggests that her figures are accurate. Finally, Koko says, “It’s a world where it’s easier to find a gun… than to find kindness for a stranger.”

You know what I like in my action comics? Actual facts that are more depressing than anything in the world.

Violence and weapons, they’re like a genie that’s come out of its bottle. They are not going to go away. The best you can hope for is to minimize the damage. One thing that comes up again and again in Jormungand is what it takes to defend something. Koko is of the opinion that the guns, in and of themselves, hold no values. What matters is why you use them and what you believe in. Jonah is disgusted by weapons, period. They exist only to hurt and to kill. They took his family from him.

At the same time, the necessity of them drives a lot of his actions. He is in danger simply by existing, and especially due to who he associates with. He’s a bodyguard, and you can’t defend someone with pacifism. For Jonah, weapons are a necessary evil. He can’t escape them. He knows that he needs weapons to get the job done. Early in the first volume, Jonah and Koko have a one-sided conversation about killing arms dealers. “Can you really give up the gun?” Koko asks him. She answers for him, saying, “No, you can’t. You’ll never be able to walk away from weapons. You may hate them more than anyone… but you know better than most how powerful you are with a weapon in your hand.” Simply put: you can’t bring a knife to a gun fight, and every fight is a gun fight.

Lehm, the old thrill-seeking mercenary of the group, emphasizes the importance of a cool head. He tells Jonah that the violence they engage in is just business and that they do not get into feuds. Control is what separates the men from the boys. One kind of violence destroys both sides. With control, only one side goes down. When another man describes a gunfight as “symphony,” Lehm tells him that he’s wrong. A gunfight is “a farting contest. Something awful, ugly, messy, and most of all, shameful!” Lehm thinks that a gunfight should make you apologize, and, after killing a young woman, he does exactly that to a teammate. It was necessary to kill her to protect someone’s life, but Lehm regrets it regardless.

Valmet, the eyepatch-wearing knife-wielder, prizes efficiency and emotion over all else. She believes in doing just enough, and doing it for a good reason. She has a cartoonish crush on Koko, the kind that’s obvious to everyone but Koko, but it also means that she’s fiercely loyal. While she has a certain amount of flair, since this is an action comic after all, she’s very straightforward. No flourish, no tricks, just doing what needs to be done.

Mildo, a member of a rival group, considers Valmet the big man on campus and wants to make her rep by beating her. She provides a nice contrast to Valmet. She fights because, after a while, all of the violence and death makes you empty on the inside. You take up a gun to protect your family or fight for your country, but after a while, all of that just becomes a rationalization. Mildo does it because she wants to be the best.

I find Jormungand so interesting because there are all of these questions and motivations swirling around. Every character, including Jonah, acknowledges the fact that, at a certain point, violence is a necessary evil. Jonah knows that he can’t get justice without weapons. Koko has used her position as an arms dealer to gain a greater appreciation of the way the world works. Lehm is a mercenary because it’s exciting, but he knows how to control the more unpleasant aspects of it.

I don’t know if this is making any sense. I have this theory that the stuff people describe as mindless entertainment, or popcorn movies, or whatever–none of that is worthwhile. It’s the entertainment equivalent of treading water or ten cent ramen noodles. It’ll kill some time, and you won’t come out of it angry or anything, but it won’t make an impression, either. The stuff that people remember and talk about and genuinely enjoy tends to have something beyond lasers and cool fights. It’s got to have something for you to latch on to. Jormungand is an action comic with something to say. There’s a lot of action and several exciting gun battles, but between all of that are the conversations and arguments that give context to all of the violence. It’s kind of like having your cake and eating it, too.