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The Forecast for March 9th 2005
Welcome to The Forecast. Every Monday, Ninth Art's core team of comment writers, the Ninth Eight, will be your guides to the best, worst, weirdest and most noteworthy books on the shelves of your local comic shop. BOOK OF THE WEEK: SLEEPER Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' SLEEPER is the best thriller on the comic store shelves today. Out this week is the third trade, collecting the first six issues of the book's final season. Noir is hard to write well, and superhero noir almost impossible, but Brubaker makes it look easy. A CROOKED LINE isn't a happy book. It's a nightmare fairground ride into the black depths of the criminal fraternity and those shadowy agents who try to fight them, but whose techniques are often worse than the criminals'. SLEEPER stars double agent Holden Carver - I always want to write "Holden Caulfield", the lead character from Salinger's CATCHER IN THE RYE. And now that I think about it, the two Holdens share a similar kind of death grip on their idealism in the face of a world pushing them to just let go and forget about it. If Carver gave up caring quite so much about trying to do the right thing, his problems would mostly be over. But instead he rattles between criminal super-boss Tao and the equally crooked master-spy John Lynch, until he ends up at the exact point described by Neitzche when he wrote, "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you". Carver is surrounded by monsters, and he is long past knowing that he's become one of them. And there's a dame, of course. Long red hair, hot as hell and meaner than a one-eared tomcat. But he loves her, in his way, and keeping her safe may just do him in. I'm the kind of girl who usually works out the twist in thrillers in the opening couple of pages, but I can tell you I have no idea how Carver is going to get himself out of this. I just hope it doesn't go all SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD at the finale. Carver deserves a happy ending, but I don't think he's going to get it. [Alex de Campi] WINGED VICTORY Grant Morrison's SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY super-series begins in earnest this week with the first issue of SHINING KNIGHT (DC Comics). The Shining Knight of the tale is Sir Justin, a young Arthurian who finds himself thrown 800 years into the future, landing in the maddening dystopia that is the 21st-Century DC Universe. Fortunately, both Justin and his wingéd horse, the noble Victory, will probably blend in amongst all the gorilla guerillas, plastic men and star-spangled girls that parade up and down LA's Sunset Strip. SHINING KNIGHT, followed later this month by THE MANHATTAN GUARDIAN, is the first of a series of seven approximately bimonthly overlapping miniseries, which can be read separately or as part of a greater whole, and which tell Morrison's grand story of a secret war across the DC Universe. With Morrison the common denominator, we can expect that the writing will, at least, be of a certain high standard. It may be that it's the artists who determine whether or not you read a particular book. The artist on SHINING KNIGHT is Simone Bianchi, who has drawn Conan for Marvel Italia, amongst other things. The preview pages here show Bianchi to be an excellent, meaty artist in the Glenn Fabry mould. Hopefully, his depiction of modern-day America will be as visceral and as cutting as the battle scenes set in 12th-Century Camelot. It's worth noting that the seeds for this super-story were apparently sewn in Morrison's recent JLA: CLASSIFIED run (#1-3). SEVEN SOLDIERS completists may want to keep an eye out for the back issues, or make sure to order the inevitable trade. [Matthew Craig] ONLY INHUMAN Marvel's stereotypical superheroic schtick is that the stories tend to concentrate on characters who are alienated teens, or young people who find themselves thrust into positions of responsibility due to their powers. You'd think that the likes of the X-Men and Spider-Man would have left this a played-out theme, but Sean McKeever has found a rich new seam with the Inhumans. INHUMANS: CULTURE SHOCK sees a school exchange party of Inhuman teens visit a US school. The alienation has been turned up to 11, and the situational humour benefits from not having the decades of baggage that Marvel's other properties have. The superpowered shenanigans add nicely to the individual characters, who are all interesting takes on predictable college kid archetypes - Artistic Loner, Naive Jock, Bitchy Beauty and so forth. Matthew Clark's pencils are a great deal nicer than most of the over-hyped rubbish that Marvel seems to be trumpeting as the next big thing, and should suit the digest format perfectly. This was one of the most enjoyable books of the couple of years, and so I heartily recommend it. [Lindsay Duff] THE MENSCH OF STEEL Click here to crack open a Real Media version of Howard Jacobson's BBC Radio 4 documentary, 'Is Superman Jewish?' (The link may only stay active for a few days, so don't wait too long.) Jacobson's exploration of Superman's origins is rooted in assimilationist mythology and ancient Jewish legend. Interviews with DC Comics editors and Jewish scholars reveal layers to the Man of Steel's origins that may have escaped even the most avid reader's notice. Parallels drawn between Superman and larger-than-life Talmudic holy men, and between elements of Super-myth and elements of Jewish culture, argue the case more convincingly than anything I've read or heard before. The only place where the documentary falters is in its dramatisation of SUPERMAN comic strips, which ooze with condescension and lack gravitas. Jacobson argues that now might be the time for Superman to "come out of the closet" and embrace his Jewish heritage more fully. While this might put paid to such godawful creations as the Jewish Hero Corps (what, no Kosher Krusader?), Superman's true power may lie in his allegorical Judaism, rather than a concrete devotion to any one faith. [Matthew Craig] THE SHIPPING LIST FOR MARCH 9th 2005: Shipping details come courtesy of Diamond. Visit the Diamond website for the latest information, as the list is subject to change. DARK HORSE JAN050087 BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL #99 (MR) $2.99
DC COMICS JAN050290 AQUAMAN #28 $2.50
IMAGE
MARVEL JAN051833 DISTRICT X #11 $2.99
OTHER PUBLISHERS DEC042789F AMAZING AGENT LUNA VOL 1 GN $10.99
The Ninth Eight are Matthew Craig, John Fellows, Kieron Gillen, Alistair Kennedy, Zack Smith, Andrew Wheeler, Ben Wooller and Bulent Yusuf. Ninth Art endorses the principle of Ideological Freeware. The author permits distribution of this article by private individuals, on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice. Back. |