Welcome to another Weekly Emanata, the MEGATONik review of comics. As these are a combination of readerly reaction and critical examination, expect spoilers. I’m going to write as if you, the reader, has some passing knowledge of comics, but feel free to post questions in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer.

House of Mystery #11
by Matt Sturges
art by Luca Rossi & Jim Fern

Sturges has started to put me in my place. After nearly a year of reading about some characters wandering around a house, answers are slowly, or at least seemingly, trickling in. Of course, the characters still seem to serve as mouthpieces for the writer; everyone has similar witticisms that they drop just a bit too much. In good news, Jim Fern draws the back-up story. I’ve been missing his art since the late-and-lamented Crossing Midnight with Mike Carey. As we’ll see below, though, a good back-up does not a good comic make.

Madman Atomic Comics #14
by Mike Allred
backup by J Bone & Darwyn Cooke

It’s a worrisome thing when the best part of your book is the part by other people. Madman used to exist in a world where anything could happen and the characters and relationships grew and changed in manic, mashed-up ways. This has stagnated and saccharinized for a number of issues and Allred’s offering here goes almost nowhere. Let me summarize. Madman and his girlfriend, Jo, go up a hill. Jo has a haircut that Madman doesn’t like at first. Jo gets tired, decides to go back down the hill, falls on her butt, and leaves. Madman goes to the top of the hill, sees a deer, gets shot by two guys who walk away, gets licked by a bear, stumbles to a cabin, and blacks out. There’s a shot of the book’s characters dressed like the group from Wizard of Oz. Then Madman wakes up and he’s been saved by his friends. There’s no story arc, no character development, and no change or growth.

The backup story, drawn by one of my favorite artists, is at least sort of funny. It offers some cute lines, some nice visual humor, some sarcasm, and a strong traditional-comedy ending. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but it was at least entertaining. Things need to change when other artists start writing your characters better than you do. What happened to Mike Allred: fearless experimenter?

The Mighty #2
written by Peter Tomasi & Keith Champagne
art by Peter Snejbjerg

Last month’s originality starts to look a little bit more like your average post-Watchmen realistic superhero story. We get sinister overtones from the world’s only superhero as he lets some crooks die to teach his new handler a lesson, crushing the handler’s hand and letting him know that no one would’ve died if he’d just listen to the superman. This could go a few ways, one of them being a boring descent into a lesson on how supermen do not follow and cannot be held to the lessons of mere humankind, one of the weaker theme in Watchmen that has been used as a faulty building block in numerous stories since. It’s easy to use superheroes as symbols for tyranny, totalitarianism, and abused authority; it’s the cynical view and ends up being heavy-handed and boring, even when done with craft.

It’s much more interesting to see someone come up with some new use or interpretation of superheroism. Books like Enigma, X-Statix, All-Star Superman, and even Damage Control have all positioned themselves at different (sometimes even cynical) angles and come out fresh and entertaining. I hope Tomasi & co. are just playing on my expectations in order to surprise me.

Mome vol 14
by various

I gave Mome a short shrift when the last issue came out, so I’ll try doing it a little more justice this time around.

Mome is always an attractive book, a little shorter than a monthly pamphlet (height-wise), but much much longer. How long? I’m not sure; there aren’t any page numbers. Published by Fantagrahpics, the quarterly anthology serves as a good showcase of the sorts of things Fantagraphics do best, from art comics to, well, disgusting gag strips. This volume is probably my favorite so far and could’ve only been better if some Eleanor Davis comic had snuck in. Laura Park kicks the book off with a surreal story that examines the conflict between people’s need for privacy and the yearning to broadcast themselves. Olivier Schrauwen continues to produce strange stories set in an old-timey office that juxtapose creativity with productivity. Dash Shaw’s “Scenes from an Abyss” is a creepy little piece about Hollywood’s ability to dehumanize people, even accidentally, and it carries some nice visual rhythm. Connor O’Keefe provides a graceful two-page silent comic that’s part comic strip, part visual puzzle. Lilli Carré provides this issue’s centerpiece, a longer story full of odd tensions that make me want to go back and push parts of the story around until I figure it out. All of these (and the works I like less but will not mention) are punctuated by pieces by Derek Van Gieson that I want to call narrative paintings; some of them have panels, some of them don’t, but they’re all powerful pieces of story. Well done, Fantagraphics.

Spider-Man/Human Torch: ¡Bahia de los Muertos!
written by Tom Beland
art by Juan Doe

This one-shot serves as an indirect sequel to the creators’ previous comic, Fantastic Four: Isla de la Muerte. Like their previous collaboration, ¡Bahia de los Muertos! manages to be a great boiling-down of characters covered with the dirty handprints of years’ worth of creators, a tightly-crafted story, and an ecological parable. It’s a route that I wish more monthly comics would take: since it can be difficult to bring a novel’s or poem’s sensibilities to short-form superhero comics, it’s usually better to get in, make your point, and wrap it in an attractive package. I hope Beland and Doe continue to get work like this.

Superman: World of New Krypton #1
written by James Robinson & Greg Rucka
art by Pete Woods

Due to all sorts of fictional switcheroos, Superman will no longer be the main character in Superman or Action Comics because there is now a world opposite the sun from Earth and it’s populated with thousands of Kryptonians. Status quo change! While Superman bequeaths his main titles to others, I guess he’ll be found in this one, visiting the people from his home planet. It’s too bad that this comic wasn’t that good.

I gave this chance because Greg Rucka is a fantastic writer who’s last go at Superman was entangled and cut short by DC’s Infinite Crisis. I liked co-writer Robinson’s Starman as well, and Woods on art is usually a good thing. Something about the chemistry didn’t mesh for me, though. The art seems rushed and the coloring feels disjointed. The interplay of facial features and dialogue was weak, leaving me with a general “so what?” feeling. On the final page, Superman is now a member of New Krypton’s military, but I have no idea if this was a choice or an assignment; is this meant to be ambiguous?

Now, to be fair, this entire series was originally solicited as being written by someone else entirely, so maybe Rucka, Robinson, and Woods are playing catch-up after the original writer quit. Since all the Superman titles are so intertwined these days, to delay this one would’ve meant delays for at least three other comics. I’m hoping this is so, but even if it is, I don’t think I’ll keep reading.

War of Kings #1
written by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
pencilled by Paul Pelletier

Well, it’s a beginning, and it’s a reasonably strong one. There’s an intergalactic war going on between two great empires with all sorts of Earth heroes getting sucked in, each with an extensive history in the Marvel universe. This first issue uses that history, or, at least, I’m assuming it does; I’m only familiar with most of them in a Wikipedia sense, so while I understand, plotwise, what’s going on, I don’t feel too invested in what’s going on. I’m pretty willing to give Abnett & Lanning a chance since they’ve done some great sci-fi work on Nova, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Legion, but their last big event (Annihilation: Conquest) fell a little flat for me, too. Past that, the setup seems decent, with a strong collision of political intrigue and no-quarter-given war. Not the most confident review, I know, but I look forward to the next issue.