Markley’s Fevered Brain: A Crime in a Flash

Wayne Markley

Wayne Markley


by Wayne Markley

Welcome back. DC just released the complete collection of Grant Morrison and Mark Millar’s Flash in one spiffy trade of all their stories. I am going to look at its pro and cons. At long last there is a new issue of Criminal, and it is no surprise it is excellent. Also I look at the last of Vertigo’s Fables series, The Wolf Among Us and the just wrapped up All-New Hawkeye. It is a mixed bag this time with comics, trades and a magazine with a wide range of quality.

The Flash by Grant Morrison and Mark Millar

The Flash by Grant Morrison and Mark Millar


As part of DCs attempt to get all of Grant Morrison’s backlist into print they recently released The Flash by Grant Morrison and Mark Millar. Almost all of the stories are drawn by the late Paul Ryan and John Nyberg. There are a couple of fill in issues by Ron Garney and single issues of Green Lantern and Green Arrow included here that tie into a trilogy story about Wally, Kyle and Conner all taking a ocean cruise vacation together. (It includes Green Lantern #96, Green Arrow #130 so you can read the complete trilogy, but these two books are not written by Morrison/Millar). Like the Swamp Thing collections, it is not spelled out what is Grant Morrison and what is Mark Millar, or if they both collaborated on everything. It would be so nice if DC could just include a single page with a little backstory about the process behind the collections they publish. The stories themselves tend to be mostly three part stories that feature a wide variety of Flash’s rogue’s gallery, such as Captain Cold and Mirror Master and others. These are straight superheroes stories and do not have any of the truly dark subject matter than M&M dealt with in Swamp Thing. There is the vacation story that ends up as a courtroom drama that took place over three separate Flash issues. There is also a three part story where a pair of aliens show up out of the blue and challenge Earth’s fastest man to a race with their champion with Earth’s fate hanging in the balance. The Flash is chosen to defend Earth’s honor and Wally’s childhood imaginary friend is his opponent. It should be noted his friend calls Wally, Wall-ee, which makes me wonder of the Pixar folk were Flash fans. It is no surprise that the aliens and their world looks amazing like Kirby’s Celestials (Morrison is a big Kirby fan). The final story arc is called Black Flash and is written by Mark Millar and drawn by Pop Mhan. This three parter shows what happens when a member of the Flash family dies and how Wally and his family deal with the tragedy, and with Black Flash (Death, which struck me as bit of a rip off of Judge Death mixed with the Black Racer). This is more along the lines of what you would expect from a Mark Millar story.

Overall the stories are straight forward superhero fare with some science fiction thrown in. The is a lot of Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash, in these stories as well as Max Mercury and Jonnie Quick. Impulse barely appearances here outside of a page or two until the final trilogy. The Justice League, complete with the electric blue Superman, also shows up fairly regularly. The art is very typical for the time period, the 1990s, and is not really that exceptional and at times is clunky as they were trying to catch the flavor that Image had going. I did not enjoy this collection as much as Morrison and Millar’s Swamp Thing or the Flash collections by Waid or Johns. This is a fine collection for Sunday afternoon reading or for the hardcore Flash fan. It is not something I would go back and re-read at any point, but it fit a nitche.

Criminal 10th Anniversary Special

Criminal 10th Anniversary Special


Some of my favorite comics of the modern age are almost always written by Ed Brubaker. Be it Daredevil, Captain America, Sleeper, Fatale, Velvet or my absolute favorite, Criminal. (And let’s not forget his autobiographical book, Lowlife, which he wrote and drew). Recently Brubaker and his long time collaborators Sean Phillips and Elizabeth Breitweiser released the 10th anniversary edition of Criminal. This masterpiece comes in two forms, a traditional comic book and a special magazine called The Deadly Hands of Criminal. As with the last few issue of Criminal, Image has done a comic and a special edition that pays homage to the Marvel monsters/Kung Fu mags from the early 1970s. Amazingly, Brubaker is able to incorporate this idea into the stories as well as the covers of the magazine. This 10th Anniversary is a look back to Tracy’s youth and his childhood with his dad who is also a criminal, and all around a sleazy guy. This is an excellent story that shows insight into what made Tracy the man we knew from the early issue of Criminal. There is also a subplot with Fang, the Kung-Fu Werewolf. There is a brilliant cover by Phillips on the magazine edition with Fang that looks like it walked off a newsstand in 1972, right down to the ad on the back cover complete with a coffee stain. Whenever Brubaker, Phillips and Breitweiser get together it is a treat, and when it is an issue of Criminal it is truly a red letter day. One of the best comics you will ever read. The team will return this summer with their new book, Kill or Be Killed.

All-New Hawkeye #6

All-New Hawkeye #6


All-New Hawkeye just wrapped up with issue six. This new series continued the storyline that Jeff Lemire and Ramon Perez were doing with the previous Hawkeye book. To their credit, Lemire and Perez had to follow Matt Fraction’s amazing run on Hawkeye which,prior to the roadblock they hit, which delayed the book for months at time, was one of the hottest books on the shelves. (The worst thing for a hot book, or any book, is to fall behind and ship late. Sales will always start to drop off with delays.) I did not think that Lemire and Perez’s run was as good as Fraction’s run, but no one’s would have been. To their credit they did a very good story exploring the background and childhood of Clint and his relationship with Kate. I thought there run was getting better with time and they were exploring aspects of the characters that had not been looked at before. There stories included a lot of flashbacks which Perez wisely did in a different style than the stories set in the present day. All of the flashbacks were done in what looks like a colored pencil style will the present day material is done in a tradition comic look. We see a lot of what made Clint the jerk he was in the early Avengers stories back in the 1960s and it went a great way to explain the relationship between Clint and Kate, which it nicely wraps up with issue six. Lemire claims he was written everything he wanted to do with the character which is sad as I thought they were really getting their stride and I was looking forward to what there were going to do next. At least they went out on a high note. A good run of stories that are insightful and fun.

Fables: The Wolf Among Us

Fables: The Wolf Among Us


Fables: The Wolf Among Us finally came to its conclusion. This was an online comic series based on the video game and was collected into monthly comics and trades by Vertigo. It was written by Matthew Sturges and Dave Justus and drawn by a wide variety of people. Each issue was broken into three chapters from the web series (and thus why so many different artists). The story was set in the early days of Fables when Bigby the Wolf was the sheriff and the fairies still mixed with humans. It is a basic crime story with lots of twists and turns as to who the killer is and why. I really liked all of the characters and they way there were used and how they fit into the tapestry of the Fables world. I found the story to be a bit longwinded as there were a number of points where it could have nicely wrapped up but instead it went on and on. Overall this was a good series but I did not appreciate it as much as the main title, Fables, or Jack of Fables or the Cinderella miniseries. For those going through Fables withdrawal this is a good book to get you through it, otherwise I am not sad to see it end.

This wraps up my blog for this time. In the coming months there are a number of titles ending which I will look back on, as well at the constant stack of new titles and collections that come out every week. Everything I have written here are my words. They in no way reflect the thoughts or opinions of Westfield Comics or their employees. I always enjoy your comments the discussions that come out of them, so please comment! I can be found at Facebook under Wayne Markley or you can e-mail me directly at MFBWAY@AOL.COM. As always,

Thank you.

 

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