Another weekend down, another week of sensual comics reading ahead.

What, you don’t find reading comics to be sensual? Well then you’re probably doing it wrong. Or right. I get those things so confused. Let’s forget about all of that and talk about last week’s best comics.

SPOILER ALERT: THE RED SKULL IS A DICK

So how about that last page of Uncanny Avengers #1?

No, I’m not going to tell you what happened - there are more than enough sites around the internet who will gladly ruin your comic reading experience for you for the sake of a cheap internet win - but suffice to say, it was a chilling way to start a new series. The scene itself harkens back to nearly a year ago when the comic book industry did a double take after the Joker cut his face off at the end of Detective Comics #1 - but while that moment was built on a foundation of pure shock, this one is built with much sturdier bricks.

Rick Remender has been writing big books like this for years. His name ended up on the top of many people’s list after taking over Uncanny X-Force and absolutely killing it with his big ideas there. Again, it was a book that could have been more about shock than substance, but every moment was chosen deliberately, and metered out to show the effect it had on the characters, rather than the audience. With Remender, he will often go for the big, crazy moment, but at the end of the day, he’s not playing to an audience - he’s trying to coax the characters he’s writing down certain paths, giving them big moments of crisis, and seeing how they deal with the morality of the situations they are shown. Each shocking action has both immediate and far reaching consequences - which is what the last page of this book will surely bring about in the near future.

Moving backwards from that ending, you can also see just how much care Remender is taking with filling this book with emotion and character. The beginning is a eulogy, not unlike how The Dark Night Rises began - closing one chapter, and opening another. It’s a book that’s very much about healing rather than tearing down and the choice of villain for this opening arc, the perpetually dickish Red Skull, fits nicely with that theme. To use a metaphor poorly, it’s like Marvel’s version of Star Trek. Teams of people who in the past, have never mixed, coming together for a common good, and their opening villain is a man known for his intolerance. A great set up, to what will surely be a great series.

I should also mention that this series sees the return of John Cassaday to monthly comics. While he’s dropped in here and there, Cassaday hasn’t graced the pages of a monthly book since his run on Astonishing X-Men with Joss Whedon, and so seeing his artistic skills here is quite a treat. He’s great at directing a scene, picking shots and angles that work well for the story, rather than the after market of comic art sales. All in all, a fantastic product, well deserving of our inappropriate The Reich Stuff Award. (B)

FANTASTISOMETHING

For the last few years, every month has brought at least one new issue of Jonathan Hickman‘s run on Fantastic Four and its sister series, FF. Each month, it has been one - or more - of the best books on the stands, and with Fantastic Four #611, his final issue on the series, is no exception.

Hickman‘s last issue sees the tying up of several loose threads. Back when a boy and the future version of himself who is basically a god battled demented other gods in order to save everything (don’t ask, just read the collections), Doctor Doom was left behind to hold the fort, with a little surprise from Valeria Richards. Meanwhile, Val’s older version, as well as Mr. Fantastic’s father Nathaniel Richards, are still around. This issue wraps up all these issues, with a special attention for character moments from Hickman and artist Ryan Stegman. Doctor Doom creates an entire universe according to his character, and suffers the consequences. As Doom returns, Nathaniel and Older Val each set off on their own adventures, and what’s best is that every character in this issue gets a very good defining moment. Doom pronounces that his disastrous turn as God taught him that being a deity is beneath him. Val wants to build. Nathaniel wants to be a better father in a way that mirror’s Reed’s own nature. This won’t be the last time we see any of these characters, but if you never read another comic with them in it again, it would be a good ending for almost all of them. It’s a satisfying end to a story whose heart beats with a unifying theme:

Family.

This isn’t some revolutionary idea - Hickman says it plainly in a letter at the end of the issue - but it’s a rewarding one nonetheless. Everything about the series, the characters and this run has ultimately been about families and the ties between us. We’ve gotten the story of Reed Richards not just as a father, but as a son. We’ve learned more about Valeria and what kind of daughter she is. Even ol’ Doctor Doom, one of the most iconic and sinister villains of the medium, gets an affectionate “Uncle” attached to his name. What has made the Fantastic Four so revolutionary for this many decades is that, in the face of everything and despite any number of troubles, they have remained a family. Even in #611, though the last world-shattering crisis is firmly in the rear view mirror, these people find a way to persist as a family even when things threaten to come apart. What a wonderful, humane idea. While we wait for Hickman‘s final goodbye to the run in FF, let’s remember how brilliant this series has been and how badly this issue deserves the Family Stone Award. (J)

Remember when the Joker was this guy?

I do. This Joker was every week night at five pm when Batman would come on YTV. He was face paint on top of a mustache and goofy death traps. While he was still a villain, he wasn’t scary, which as a kid, I didn’t mind. Granted, at the same time, I was also following the adventures of this Joker…

Who (and I will admit to this quite freely) often scared the living crap out of me. Normally I would be fine, but occasionally, there’d be an episode where he’d fill some folks up with Joker toxin, and their face would be twisted into that rigor mortis grin.

It’s an image that haunts my dreams until this day. It sends me into fits deeper than anything he’s done in comics recently, and considering the man had his face cut off last year, that’s saying something. That said, Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo are making a solid run at the championship with their big Death of the Family story, in which the Joker returns to Gotham after… well, after that time he cut his face off.

In a story that could have easily been more flash than substance, the Joker’s return feels oddly… organic. His methods have changed very little, with jokes and levity counter-balanced with acts of chaos and horror, but even for the Joker, he seems a bit off. Before, he often didn’t seem to care, whereas now, he almost has something to prove, and a Joker with that kind of motivation is all the more dangerous.

Set against this agent of chaos is a sense of family. While Bruce often denies the fact that he deliberately tried to build a family, he’s done a good job of adding members over the years. Each are driven to the life for different reasons, and each has a different relationship with their mentor, but they are still bonds that have been forged over the years. In the Joker’s eyes, things were better when the rest of the Bat-brats weren’t around, murkying the waters, and so he’s going to do something about it… which can not possibly end well.

It’s a tense beginning to a story arc that should be interesting to read. In the coming months, it looks as though the story will spill out into the other Bat-titles, but don’t be fooled - you won’t have to read anything other than Batman. The other books certainly might have some interesting stories, but they will be in addition to what’s happening here. (That said, I can’t wait to see what Gail Simone does with the story in Batgirl.)(B)

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