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The Forecast for November 17th 2004
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: Y THE LAST MAN Alas, poor Yorrick, I knew him so well. At least, I thought I did. Turns out that the guy is a nasty little pervert who likes to get his nuts stepped on by tall women dressed in skintight leather. Actually, that's a lie. The revelations to be found in Y THE LAST MAN: SAFEWORD (DC Vertigo) go much deeper than that. This series has been consistently surprising in the way that it takes a well-worn cliché of science-fiction thrillers and packs it with fresh ideas and entertaining situations. But beyond the hook of the premise, its strength lies in the characters themselves, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the stories collected here. After a devastating plague has struck the Earth, Yorrick Brown is the last man left alive in a world of women. On the run from matriarchal extremists who want him dead, his friends leave him in the care of Agent 711. But 711 isn't the friendly ally she appears to be, and Yorrick soon finds himself trapped in a drug-fuelled miasma of love and human bondage. Without giving too much away, their encounter reveals much about the motivations and feelings of the titular hero, and while the whole S&M aspect of the story had the potential to be hugely embarrassing, Vaughan and Guerra manage to pull it off with a level of maturity that's rarely seen in mainstream comic books. In the parlance of sexual slang, a 'safeword' is a codeword that simply means 'stop'. They're usually agreed upon before indulging in games of role-play or sexual bondage, so that participants can make as much noise as they like, but still have a way of clearly indicating when they feel uncomfortable or are in excessive pain. It's a fact worth remembering over the course of this story, just in case you get tied up in knots over the adult content. [Bulent Yusuf] UNITED STATES OF WHATEVER Of all the characters in all the comics mainstream, one causes the most confusion. No two creators can agree on what he should be, who he should be, how he should act and for what end. That character is Captain America, and he's about to face another challenge in the form of Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting. The character's most recent reinterpretation was as a political figurehead, a mouthpiece for post 9/11 America, and was roundly derided as jingoistic dross. He's since been in a holding pattern in the form of Robert Morales' questioning killer and Robert Kirkman's classic superhero. Now he's being revamped - post AVENGERS DISCOMBOBULATED - and we get another attempt to clarify who he really is. Brubaker's stated plan is to eschew the politics, and the over-arching concept of Captain America somehow embodying America, to focus instead on espionage and military whodunnits. It's not an area that the character has really investigated deeply of late, and it'll be a stark and pleasant change from the sloganeering and anti-terrorist verbiage of recent years. Steve Epting was most recently seen on ULTIMATE NIGHTMARE with Warren Ellis, and he's an artist suited to a more realistic approach to the character. Some of his action scenes seem to lack continuity, and they often devolve into random panelling, but his static panels are gorgeous. He's loose enough to give the colourist room to interpret, too, so expect a beautiful package - even down to the wonderful covers and new-old logo. With Ellis's IRON MAN, Bendis' NEW AVENGERS, and now this, Marvel clearly wants to reinvent its classic characters with none of the old misconceptions. Hopefully Brubaker is the right man to breathe new energy into an old icon. [John Fellows] THE FULL DANTE There is one 2000AD/Rebellion reprint I've been waiting for more than any other: Robbie Morrison and Simon Fraser's NIKOLAI DANTE: THE ROMANOV DYNASTY. This 120-page bundle of joy is the closest you will get to a rip-roaring, swashbuckling adventure story in modern comics. It's equal parts Errol Flynn and Flash Gordon, it will make you laugh, and it will even make you more attractive to members of your target sex. (I may be lying about one of these things). NIKOLAI DANTE is the story of a young rogue with - to paraphrase Samuel Johnson - the manners of a dancing-master and the morals of a whore. The bastard son of a pirate queen, Dante spends this first book getting to know his father's side of the family: the ultra-powerful, and ultra-nasty Romanovs. Well, when he isn't fighting, gambling, drinking, or sleeping with anything that doesn't run away fast enough. Dante's world is a great part of the charm of the stories. It's based on Imperial Russia, but set in the future. The book wears its influences clearly on its sleeve, most notably Hugo Pratt's CORTO MALTESE books, and Christin and Bilal's sublime HUNTING PARTY. DANTE co-creator Morrison went on to have a poorly-received run on Wildstorm's THE AUTHORITY, a book that I always felt was a bit of a one-trick pony anyway. When free of crippling editorial restraints, he's a truly gifted writer with a real talent for humour. This comes across in spades in DANTE, and it's helped by Fraser's art. Morrison is also the one British writer who can write war stories as well as Garth Ennis - it's also worth seeking out his and Charlie Adlard's WHITE DEATH OGN from AiT/PlanetLar. [Alex de Campi] THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN When everyone else in school was reading THE HARDY BOYS and their occasional crossover buddy NANCY DREW, I was reading... well, crappy movie adaptations, mostly. But I clearly remember that in the decades before Potter, most of the other kids were into child detectives and adventurers. Even I have fond memories of watching Enid Blyton's FAMOUS FIVE on the telly, though to this day, I still can't remember whether George was a boy or a girl. My memory's kind of hazy. So, not being familiar with THE HARDY BOYS, I didn't really notice that they were ever gone, but hey, the important thing is that they're back, and this time it's in comic form. Written by Scott Lobdell, with art by Lea Hernandez, this is the first book from NBM's new 'tween' division, Papercutz. The book will act as a prologue to a new series of novels featuring Frank and Joe to come out in 2005. It'll be a must-have for HARDY BOY fans, and it could also help build up the "comics for kids" market, and Hernandez's manga-influenced art will surely be a help in that regard. An interesting aside: THE HARDY BOYS is a being released as a monthly title, with every three-issue story being collected into a trade, while NANCY DREW is being published as pocket-sized, 96-page graphic novels. I'm assuming this is more a bookshop experiment than a comment on the different comic reading habits of boys and girls, but who knows? [Ben Wooller] THE SHIPPING LIST FOR NOVEMBER 17th 2004: Shipping details come courtesy of Diamond. Visit the Diamond website for the latest information, as the list is subject to change. DARK HORSE SEP040013 CONAN #10 $2.99
DC COMICS SEP040300 ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #634 $2.50
IMAGE SEP041573 BATTLE OF THE PLANETS PRINCESS #2 (Of 6) $2.99
MARVEL SEP041730 AVENGERS EARTHS MIGHTIEST HEROES #2 (Of 8) $3.50
OTHER PUBLISHERS JAN042801 ANGEL SANCTUARY GN VOL 1 (MR) $9.95
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. |