If there’s one thing we hate, Internet, it’s good comics! No, wait, the opposite of that. Good comics hate us! No wait again. Okay, I think I’ve got it. Good comics love us!

Oh goddammit, here are some comics we liked last week.

Now, you may notice that a certain Casanova: Avaritia #3 is not on the list. That doesn’t mean we didn’t like it, dear readers! Au contraire, we loved it immensely, but back in October, after calling pretty much every issue since the site began our Best of the (respective) Week, we decided to induct the series into the Anthony Michael Hall of Fame so that we could give other comics a shot and still acknowledge the beauty that is a new Casanova issue. And, let’s be honest, we’ll probably end up writing at least another 1800 words about why it’s the best before too long.

A LIFE OF CRIME CAN BE FATALE

Greg Rucka doesn’t write good mysteries. Or at least this is what he thinks.

For a person who is quite well known for various shades of crime fiction, this seems like a strange thing to believe - but he isn’t entirely wrong. At the Emerald City Comic Con during the Crime Comics panel he was part of alongside one-time Gotham Central co-conspirator Ed Brubaker, Rucka articulated the exact difference between crime as a genre, and what constitutes a good mystery. The two genres feature quite an overlap, but are not necessarily the same thing - a fact that had gone unnoticed (or at least unrealized) by me until he started talking about it.

The main difference is the fact that in a mystery, a good mystery, you are not privy to who is conducting the crime, whereas in a lot of crime stories, or noir stories, you know exactly who the criminal or opposing force is - and you’re merely traveling inside the world, watching the events unfold as they must. There’s very little slight of hand involved in a good crime story. And it was realizing that fact that clued me into why Fatale felt quite a bit different from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ other creator owned works: we don’t know what the fuck is going on.

The shape of the story remains the same. At the core of it all, Brubaker is telling a noir story that’s probably older than the genre itself - a femme fatale story with all the trimmings. Only here, he’s definitely plying a bit of the uncanny, forcing the familiar to become strange and eerie. This technique is even described in the narrative when a certain character’s past is excavated, and we discover the fact that he’s been seeing terrible, unearthly things out of the corner of his eye for his entire life. Recognisable things with something sinister festering just at the side of your vision, gone almost as swiftly as you notice it.

In this issue, in addition to ramping up the creepiness Bru and Phillips are also pulling on the purse strings, and letting all of their players tumble inwards toward a more final confrontation. This act of the story will come to an end in the next issue, but even as everything is put in place for that bloody conclusion, there’s still the question of what’s to come in this epic series - a crime noir with mysterious tenancies. It’s a tough trick to pull off, but dammit, they’re doing it and doing it in style. Thus we give this book, and the hard working team the Fatale Attraction Award. (B)

DOES WHATEVER A DUDE WHO DOES THINGS AND IS ALSO A SPIDER CAN

I am beginning to think that, before it is over, Amazing Spider-Man‘s “Ends of the Earth” storyline might actually kill me. Part of this is possibly because yesterday was Easter and I had an amount of ham and potatoes that can only be described as “frightening,” but at least an equal part of that is the events of Amazing Spider-Man #683, which sees the first direct pitched battle between the Avengers, under Spider-Man’s temporary lead, and the Sinister Six, following Doctor Octopus’ final malevolent plan. And as excited and optimistic as the end of #682 makes the reader feel, #683 jerks the leash back around and reminds us that this story is far from over.

Of course, this isn’t really any surprise - if #682 had ended with Peter Parker shouting, “Avengers Assemble” and the next five issues were just things going incredibly well for them, that would be boring as hell because it would have zero narrative or emotional arc. Intellectually, we know that the villain will get defeated in the end, because these are superhero comics and Spider-Man needs to still be alive when Issue #688 rolls around. That’s why, at their best, comics trick us by getting us to buy into the story so completely that we forget that Spider-Man or Batman kind of have to be okay, because they’re in a lot of comics and both have giant movies and cartoon shows in the works. Marvel is not going to kill Peter Parker, but Dan Slott and Stefano Caselli sure do a good job of fooling us into thinking, for up to 20 pages at a time, that he might. To be fair, that’s certainly helped by Electro declaring that he can “kill with a touch” and then touching a couple of heroes, the Rhino attacking Thor with a weapon that can kill gods or Red Hulk being shot at with a kind of weapon that stops all brain activity in Hulks, but hey, that’s just Slott creating an incredible amount of tension and Caselli doing the best work, hands down, of his career. At the end of this issue, you might believe, for just a second, that Spider-Man might actually die. That’s a good comic. Besides, his personal life could still more or less be utterly destroyed by the end of this, let’s be honest.

For creating such tension and such a quick turnaround in our heroes’ fortunes, we’re happy to give Amazing Spider-Man #683 the Wonderful Whiplash Award. (J)

For me, it began with Disney Adventures.

I had started reading the magazine when it was appropriate for me to do so, during the summer that I turned seven years old. It was a pretty rad magazine at the time, filled with legitimate bits of facts and profiles on folks with interesting jobs, like bee keepers and stunt enthusiasts and whatever. Hell, there was even a science section. But the thing I loved the most, of course, was their fantastic comic book section, that featured original comic book creations starring some of their cartoon stars.

Over time, the mandate of the section changed from showing their current roster of cartoon stars in a series of short and/or longer form stories, and moved to that of an indie comics showcase of sorts. Between strips where Mickey and the gang would be drawn quite off model to completely original concepts, the magazine started doing some absolutely stellar work, with some amazing creators - including the Little Gloomy strips by Landry Q. Walker and Eric Jones. It was a nice little strip about a girl who hung out with a warewolf and a mummy and a dracula and went about conducting shenanigans… and it was great.

Then the pair concocted the incredible Supergirl: Adventures in the 8th Grade book for the DC line - a book perfectly suited to grab a heap of new Supergirl fans from outside of the comic book shop. Of course, this series went nowhere beyond the first six issue mini series (a series had been proposed that would follow her adventures during each subsequent year) and then the pair faded, beyond the odd piece in Batman: Brave and the Bold until that series wrapped. And now? They’re back together creating the fantastic Danger Club - and unlike the rest of their efforts so far, this one? Not so much for all ages.

It’s a book that’s a little bit Watchmen, and little bit Akira and a little bit Brat Pack. Pulling back a little from that ridiculously “inside baseball” description of the series, its about what happens to a bunch of sidekicks when their mentors all go off to space and never return. Things have gotten decidedly Lord of the Flies in the absence of supervision (or should that be… Super Vision… oh ho ho ho…) and the results are… well, they’re a touch bloody. The good guys might win this but how good can a person be in this world? Can it be saved? And at what cost?

It’s a well thought out, well executed book that everyone should be trying to get their mitts on, much like how everyone is still freaking out about Fatale and The Manhattan Projects and Saga and the like. Buy it now, before you can’t.

This is Comics! The Blog. We now commence our broadcast week.