Fall is here, but I’m still sitting out on my balcony in sunny San Diego reading books. Lots of graphic novels and collections this month, including an admission that I’m kinda “Thor” from reading so many Thor collections, but, oh that Jack Kirby art … not even Vince Colletta can ruin it, although he tries awful hard to do so.
The Waiting by Michael Connelly • 5 stars on Goodreads
Each fall, I look forward to the new Michael Connelly book. Sometimes it’s Harry Bosch, sometimes the Lincoln Lawyer, and sometimes—like this time—it’s a new Renee Ballard and Bosch book. Only this new one brings in a different Bosch—Maddie—as a volunteer in Ballard’s open/unsolved cases group. Maddie is now an LAPD patrol officer, but she joins Renee’s group when she stumbles upon a startling discovery in a storage unit: Photos of what may be of L.A.’s most notorious unsolved murder: the Black Dahlia. Meanwhile, Ballard has her gun and badge stolen and has to go on a down-low quest to find them; to reveal the theft to her superiors, she’d risk being fired by an already hostile group out to get her. She recruits Harry Bosch to help her, and together they uncover a terrorism plot. I think this is Connelly’s best Ballard and Bosch book yet, and one I hope they adapt in the new Ballard Prime series at some point. I’m also happy to see Maddie stepping up to the plate and becoming more like her namesake in the books. One small quibble though: the name-dropping of John Lewin, the real-life L.A. prosecutor who was so obnoxious in The Jinx Part 2. Every other city official in The Waiting is fictitious; why Connelly decided to include this bozo is beyond me. If it’s for verisimilitude, it backfires, at least for me. Each time he’s mentioned, I’m taken outside the otherwise mesmerizing story Connelly has so expertly weaved.
Take Down by james Swain • 3 stars on Goodreads
When I started this book—the first in a series about Las Vegas casino cheater Billy Cunningham by author James Swain—I was really into it. I always like discovering a new (to me) writer who has a series with a few books under its belt, and while I’ve only ever been to Vegas twice, I find the city as fascinating as it is repellent to an introvert like me. But Billy’s story—about taking down a fictional casino called Galaxy, run by a corrupt and borderline insane couple, while avoiding a crazed drug lord and Nevada gaming commissions agents—goes down so many side roads it gets confusing and annoying. While I like Swain’s style of writing and his characters, this 432-page book would have been much better at a lean 350, with some of the unnecessary characters and incidents judiciously pared away. Why bring in the beautiful con artist who is Billy’s unrequited crush from the past … she does next to nothing to advance the story. Why go into a long and involved sting on one of Billy’s team member’s bookies … it just prolongs the wait to get to the big heist that’s the centerpiece of the book, and incidentally, a centerpiece that I found confusing to follow with so many players involved. I bought three of Swain’s books in a package deal on the website that shall not be named, but I’m doubtful that I’ll start the second Billy Cunningham book anytime soon … but hopefully if I do, Billy’s saga gets better. There are three more books in this series.
Atlas Comics Library No. 3: In the Days of the Rockets! by Various • 5 stars on Goodreads
I’m still digging Fantagraphics Books Atlas Comics Library series, which reprints some of the old Atlas (Marvel) books of the 1950s. Publisher Martin Goodman put out a ton of comics in that era, before the Comics Code crashed everything (including almost his entire company), and though he wasn’t fond of science fiction, the world was. Goodman copied trends and at that point on that new–fangled TV thingie making its way into everyone’s homes, sci-fi was king. This volume, edited and compiled once again by Atlas expert Dr. Michael J. Vassallo, collects two Atlas sci-fi series: Space Squadron 1-6 (it became Space Worlds with the final issue), and Speed Carter, Spaceman 1-6. Vassallo’s introduction goes through each book and its artists which include the great Joe Maneely, Mike Sekowsky, George Tuska, Christopher Rule, Werner Roth, George Klein, and even a story by a very young John Romita. The stories are largely unreadable, but the art is great. FB is going to add to their Marvel reprint line with a new series called “Lost Marvels,” debuting next spring with its first volume featuring a complete reprint of Tower of Shadows (issues 1-9) from the late 1960s.
Origins of Marvel Comics Deluxe Edition by Stan Lee, edited by Chris Ryall • 5 stars on Goodreads
It’s hard for me to believe that Origins of Marvel Comics, the first major reprinting of Marvel Comics from the 1960s, came out 50 years ago, in 1974. Gallery13 (a company I’ve never heard of, but evidently it’s the comics arm of Simon & Schuster, who originally published Origins under their Fireside Books imprint), has published this deluxe hardbound, edited by former IDW chief Chris Ryall. It includes a foreword by him, an interview with Linda Sunshine—who was the editor of the original Marvel paperbacks—an essay by Marvel senior VP and executive editor Tom Brevoort on the “Marvel Method” of producing comics, Alex Ross’s new version of John Romita’s famous original cover, with a breakdown of how it was created (spoiler alert: I like Romita’s original cover better and throughout the book, you’ll find his original paintings of the cover characters, which were done individually, so they could shift them around, layout-wise), and other special features alongside the complete reprinting of the book. (There is also a paperback reissue of the original book for a much cheaper price, minus the special features.) This is famously the book where Stan Lee starts to take more credit than he’s due for the creation of the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Doctor Strange. And he’s already making stuff up: Hulk was not a best-seller like FF and Spidey; it was cancelled after six issues, and there’s no way he got the idea for Thor from a radio interview where the interviewer told him he was a modern mythologist—the radio interviews with Stan didn’t come until years later. But it’s also a book that I absolutely loved when it came out, and I bought all the subsequent Fireside Marvel books, whose reproduction went steadily downhill after Origins. This deluxe edition is worth the price, thanks to the new material, which adds to the book’s history and helps set the record straight as to who actually did what to create these comics book heroes who have stood the test of time.
Mighty Marvel Masterworks: The Mighty Thor Vol. 4 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby • 3 stars on Goodreads
This volume reprints Journey into Mystery #120-125 and Annual #1, plus The Mighty Thor #s 126 and 127. By the end of 1965, when the bulk of these stories appeared, Stan Lee finally realized Thor was the star of Journey Into Mystery and renamed the book with #126 to reflect that stardom. This is Jack Kirby’s run-up to what I like to think of as “Kirby Unleashed”—at least in Thor—where the artist/plotter seemed to do his wildest work. JiM Annual #1 introduces Hercules, thus mixing Greek mythology with Norse, and bringing Herc into the Marvel Universe (he would soon after become an Avenger). The other stories involve Absorbing Man, and revisits and re-battles with Hercules, and a more Asgardian locale for the God of Thunder. Thor was not my favorite Marvel comic as a kid; the mythology aspect and all of Stan’s goofy Shakespearean language “verily” much turned me off—as did Colletta’s lazy inking—but now more than ever I sure do appreciate Kirby’s dynamic art, world-building, and far-out plots. But I really wish someone would find a hidden treasure trove of Kirby’s original pencils for these issues, and give them to someone good to ink them. Colletta’s awful inking, coupled with what I’m guessing is inferior reproduction in this volume, all but ruins this collection.
Marvel Epic Collection: The Mighty Thor Vol. 4: To Wake the Mangog by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby • 4 stars on Goodreads
This is a late run of Jack Kirby’s art and storytelling on The Mighty Thor series; this volume reprints issues #154 through #174, the bulk of which is—unfortunately—inked by Vince Colletta, although there are a few issues by George Klein (most famous for inking Superman, pencilled by Curt Swan), and a nice run by Bill Everett. This is really “Kirby Unleashed,” and features his attempt at telling Galactus’s origin (in fact, lots of Galactus in this volume), alongside the “Mangog means Ragnarok” (my title) story arc, plus Thor tussles with “Him,” aka Adam Warlock. Stan Lee’s dialogue and captions are particularly flowery, but Kirby’s art has seldom been more dynamic and there are lots of full-page illustrations and big panels (like four per page seems to be the average). Unfortunately in this time period, Marvel publisher Martin Goodman decreed no more continued stories, so the last few issues of this run are one-off stories and not particularly great ones. In about six months, Kirby would leave Marvel and Thor would be taken over by first Neal Adams and then settle into a long John Buscema run, so this is the King’s almost-last gasp on a character who will forever be linked with his 1960s Marvel work, alongside Fantastic Four and Captain America.
Batman: The Knight by Chip Zdarsky and Carmine Di Giandomenico • 3 stars on Goodreads
I became curious about this 10-issue series written by Chip Zdarsky after reading his latest Batman collected volume, Joker War. In that story, the Joker brings back a couple of people from Bruce Wayne’s past who helped train him, both of which are featured in The Knight, which—I guess—is Zdarsky’s first Batman story for DC. I like Di Giandomenico’s very stylistic art, but the whole story runs a few issues too long; I think it would have been better as a six- or seven-issue mini, with the meat of the story—Wayne being recruited and trained by Ra’s Al Ghul in the final two issues—stretched out over more of it. The whole Bruce Wayne training story has been told numerous times by numerous writers and artists; Zdarsky does a decent job of telling it here and adding some flesh to it, but his work on the regular Batman title is much better, if a bit uneven (Joker War seemed a bit muddled to me).
MAD About the Fifties by “the usual gang of idiots” • 5 stars on Goodreads
MAD magazine was a staple of my reading life in the 1960s and ‘70s and as I grow older, I find myself fascinated with the history of the publication. MAD started as a comic book—created by Harvey Kurtzman—in the early ‘50s, and after all the troubles in that decade brought on by Dr. Frederic Wertham, government hearings, and culminating with the introduction of the Comics Code Authority, EC Comics publisher Bill Gaines eventually decided to make MAD his one and only publication and do it as a magazine, outside of the purview of the CCA. It was the best publlshing decision he would ever make, as MAD became a sensation, becoming its own cottage industry of paperback reprints and various other merchandising items. This volume, published in 1997, reprints both comic book and magazine stories, with commentary (and design) by EC expert Grant Geissman and former MAD editor Nick Meglin. While the ‘60s & ‘70s were my own personal MAD prime time, I’m primarily interested in the ‘50s era, when everything about MAD was new. This volume—easily found (as MAD used to say) “CHEAP!” on eBay—contains both color and black & white reprints and is a great collection, showcasing the first decade of the magazine.
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