COOL SHIT 3-6-14

TRILLIUM #7: Another mind-bending issue from Jeff Lemire. Wow, there are a lot of great visuals in this one, and a lot happens. However, the thing that truly makes this issue cool is the reveal that the Atabithian language can actually be translated by readers. It’s pretty easy to figure out what they’re saying when you have some context, but when there aren’t any words in English around their odd squiggly language, it becomes nearly impossible. In the back of this issue, Lemire gives us the means of translating it all. How cool is that?

VELVET #4: Dammit. Burke left us for another job. He was a pretty cool character. But in this issue, we gain a new, interesting character in the form of Roman, who used to be a Russian spy until a job went bad, and he started freelancing rather than go to a gulag. Velvet goes to the king of all masquerade parties in order to track him down. You don’t get more exotic than that, and of course there’s plenty of two-fisted spy action to go with it. Velvet and Roman are old enemies, but they seem to have a lot of respect for each other and enjoy being in each others presence. Great weird stuff from Ed Brubaker.

THE TWILIGHT ZONE #3: Finally! We get the story of who is really wearing Trevor Richmond’s body, and it’s a doosy. While the real Trevor gave up all of his wealth to get into a new body in order to evade the authorities, a man who is dying of a very painful disease is given Trevor’s body—and life—to live in until the time of his death . . . for free. The poor bastard, who was a stock boy at a Wal-Mart-ish store, is living Trevor’s life as Trevor should have. But now Trevor wants his old life back . . . This tale of identity is really getting heated up. Very obviously, the real Trevor is a piece of shit, and no one could possibly root for him, but he’s a resourceful piece of shit. Looks like this one will be wrapped up with next issue.

STARLIGHT #1: This book has a special place in my heart because it tackles one of my favorite subjects. Take an old fashioned pulp hero and take a look at him in his old age. I wrote a story on the subject called “Fade Away,” which was published in THE REALM BEYOND (buy it here!). My story was about a pulp hero who, as an old man, encounters the bones of one of the monsters he vanquished at the Field Museum. Mark Millar’s new book is about a pulp hero, but no one knows he was a pulp hero. (Or he’s got a screw loose. It’s hard to tell.) Once upon a time, he got sucked into a wormhole and found himself in another world, where he saves the people from a tyrant. Then, he comes back home and lives the life of a regular guy. Now he’s an old man who just lost his wife to breast cancer. The only family he has left are his sons, and they’ve got their own lives to live. He’s trying to make the most of his old age, but then a reminder of his past comes back to haunt him. Is he going to end up back in a pulp adventure? I don’t know, but I’m fucking excited to see where this goes. Some of these layouts are amazing, juxtaposing his adventurous youth with his mundane life as an old man. Great stuff from Goran Parlov, who also worked with Garth Ennis on his PUNISHER Max series and one of the greatest war miniseries ever written, FURY: MY WAR GONE BY.