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.

Final Crisis #6
written by Grant Morrison
art by JG Jones, Carlos Pacheco, Marco Rudy, & Doug Mahnke

The big hubbub about this issue is that Batman is dead, burnt to a skeletal corpse by Darkseid’s Omega Sanction. We should just get that out of the way to separate the sensationalism and plot from the things that are actually going on in the construction of this story.
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Welcome to another Weekly Emanata, a weekly review of comics. 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.

The Emanata is running a little late this week due to a hectic work week followed by an extreme vacation. Normal scheduling will be resumed shortly.

Chas: The Knowledge #1-5
written by Simon Oliver
art by Goran Sudzuka
Oliver once said, “Woooow, what’s this ‘writer responsibilty’ thing? Was there a memo? I started to write as a way to shirk all responsibilty and to have an excuse to sleep-in in the mornings. If that’s all going to change I’m going to have to have a long hard think about this whole thing.” With that in mind, I didn’t expect too much thematic structure or literary value from this miniseries. What I got was a pretty cool setup (The Knowledge, the system of routes memorized by all licensed London cabbies, is actually a giant spell keeping a plague demon trapped) and some good characterization scattered in between a standard plot.

I would be remiss not to mention Sudzuka’s art, though. This is the first I’ve seen from him and I’m pretty impressed. It’s sort of a Dave Gibbons/Warren Pleece style with nice, moody inks.

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Welcome to another Weekly Emanata, a weekly review of comics. 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.

Army@Love: The Art of War #1-4
written by Rick Veitch
art by Veitch & Gary Erskine
I have a natural aversion to satire. It’s not that I dislike any satire I read; it’s just that it seems way to easy to become heavy-handed, to go for the obvious jokes instead of actually commenting on something, or to become so concerned with iconoclasm that any semblance of story just seems to slip away. Rick Veitch has done some earlier work that I’ve enjoyed (Swamp Thing) and some work that I’ve pretty much reviled (his time at America’s Best Comics). I’d heard some pretty rave reviews for his short-lived Army@Love, though, so when I got the chance to pick up the first four issues of this “season two” for cheap, I went ahead and gave it a try.

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Welcome to another Weekly Emanata, a weekly review of comics. 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.

Batman #683
written by Grant Morrison
pencilled by Lee Garbett
The final part of the epilogue to the climax of Grant Morrison’s first half of his great Batman novel… to be continued in Final Crisis #6. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been fun seeing Batman triumph over everything the world could throw at him, from the products of an twisted Batman-making experiment to, apparently, the Devil himself, but things seem a little out of control.

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Every year, for the past four years, the great folks at the Comic Book Resources Classic Comics forum have participated in a Classic Comics Christmas list. Thought up and moderated by the Spectacular Kurt Mitchell, past lists have been built around favorite single issues, favorite characters, and favorite comic adaptations and merchandise. This year, the topic was favorite covers from before 1990.

So, presented here with gracious permission from Kurt Mitchell and the rest of the Classic Comics crew, are my picks for this years Twelve Days of Classic Comics Christmas.

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Ladies and gentlemen, you get tickets to one of these fights. Which do you choose?
(Take a gander after the cut).
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Welcome to the first installment of Weekly Emanata, a weekly review of the comics I buy. With MEGATONik’s push to be a place for all sorts of nerdpop culture, I’ve made it my mission to pretend I’m qualified enough to review my favorite things in the world. In fact, I’m just a guy who works at a comic store and has spent more money than I can believe on all sorts of comics, graphic novels, and sequential art.

So, here we are. 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 will do my best to answer. This first set of reviews might be a little longer than later columns since I’m also going to be doing a little “bringing up to speed” on the titles I get every month.

Beanworld Holiday Special
Larry Marder finally returns to his comic book baby, Beanworld. It’s a little tough to describe: Beanworld is a little microcosm of humanity and ecology, a world that is carefully balanced in a strange set of rules. Marder intends to have the arc of the book, which was first published in 1985, follows its own life cycle. “First and foremost, I’m investigating what I often call the ‘poetry of a bean plant.’ Beanworld over time is growing and evolving in the same way that a bean plant does. First, it is nourished by its own seed. Then it sends down roots and feeds itself. After that it, reaches aggressively towards the sky. All of this is the foundation upon which Beanworld is built upon.”

In this issue, the artists and scientists of Beanworld work to get the Pod’l'pool Cuties, little baby beans, to interact. The solution is typical Marder, unpredictable in a traditional story sense but fitting perfectly into the logic of his fantastic universe. If you’re interested in ecology, globalism, or comic book formalism, I can’t recommend this book enough.

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