[Friendly reminder: Cool Shit is not a comic book review.
It’s just what I think is the best gathering of books that came out this week.
Because of this, there will be spoilers. The spoilers for this week are in the
last selection, ALL-STAR WESTERN #27.]
WRAITH #3: Charlie Manx is one of the finest villains in
horror history, and it’s good to see that writer Joe Hill has decided to do a
comic book series about him. The antagonist of NOS4A2 has walked into the
middle of a prison bus escape. A former circus geek, a movie mogul who
accidentally killed his lover during a moment of kinky sex and a moral father
who might have committed murder to avenge the wrongful death of his son (we
still don’t know for sure if this is the case, but it sure looks that way) have
crashed their prison bus and have taken their guards captive. The mogul happens
to be a friend of Charlie Manx, and he contacts the creep to help them escape
the authorities. The only problem is, they have to go to Christmasland to do it
. . . I love the reactions of all three criminals in the back of the Wraith as
they first realize how strange the car is, and then when they see Christmasland
and its toothy denizens with their own eyes.
SERENITY: LEAVES ON THE WIND #1: Looks like FIREFLY has
returned to comics yet again. The Browncoats may be making a comeback in this
book. A new revolution is beginning, thanks to Mal’s actions at the end of the
film. Could it be that the Alliance
is about to come to pieces? And what the fuck is Jayne doing off on his own? I
just have one problem: can we please, pretty-fucking-please, stop using the
leaf-on-the-wind phrase? It’s getting driven into the ground. That scene was
very moving in the film, a very powerful moment, and to see it constantly
cheapened over and over again is nauseating. Also, who wants to take bets that
writer Zack Whedon is going to bring Wash
back to life somehow?
ALL-STAR WESTERN #27: At first, I was going to say that this
was the single worst issue of anything that ever featured Jonah Hex in it. Even
worse than the Booster Gold issues. Almost the whole book is a waste of time.
First of all, the first seven pages are dedicated to Superman showing off to
Hex, flying him around and then throwing boulders into the air so he can use
his heat ray eyes to make them explode. Fuck that shit. Most of the rest of the
book shows Hex’s girl showing him around a Jonah Hex exhibit at a museum, and
this includes a display of his taxidermied corpse. So it would seem that the
New 52 is sticking to canon on that point. That’s kind of cool, but it’s not
enough to redeem the rest of the bullshit of this book.
And then . . . then came the last panel. Oh please, I beg of
the DC gods, let this be the last issue of ALL-STAR WESTERN. This would be the
perfect ending to the series. Jonah Hex dies in a drunk driving collision, his
motorcycle versus a big rig 18-wheeler? It makes perfect sense. Let it end
here. Don’t give us a next issue which starts with him in a hospital bed
covered in bandages. Or even worse, don’t let this be the way he gets back to
the Wild West. That’s stupid. He’s got to be dead. Look at all that blood. Hex
doesn’t have super powers. It should be next to impossible for a motorcyclist
to survive crashing into a truck head on. I know, there’s no way DC will go
with that. But I can hope. Fuck me for being a completist. If I had the
willpower to quit this series, I’d take my THE FOLLOWING stance with it. (I
refuse to watch the new season of THE FOLLOWING because I think the ending of
season one is the perfect ending to that story.)
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