Whhhhhoooo is getting married today? Turns out, it’s James’ cousin, which means he’s off in the untamed wilds of Ontario helping preform a good old fashioned Canadian wedding. And before you ask, yes, James is in charge of the seal carcasses.

Also, yes: leaving one of us in sole control of the site is always, always, always a terrible idea, so you have that to look forward to in this week’s column, alongside a touch of correspondance from James himself. Let’s do a thing.

TIME MAY CHANGE ME

Because when all else fails: quote Bowie, the world’s best starman.

Confession: I’m still not sure I understand what Change was all about. At best, I feel like I’m staring at the edges of a big idea, but all of the details are still quite fuzzy. Two different things are at play here. The first: Change was a series that required more from the reader. It wasn’t a book you could sit back and read passively. As your eye travelled through panels and settled on words and pictures, your mind was required to fit the pieces together and follow the narrative as well as you could. By design, you were always a few steps behind. Normally, this method of storytelling doesn’t appeal to me. While I love discovering new shades of nuance upon subsequent readings, I generally like my stories to be quite up front with me, giving me the appearance of something simple while the complexities work their way through the background. By the end of the first issue of Change, it is quickly apparent that whatever linear thoughts you had about the book were completely wrong, and that the ride ahead would be complex and bumpy. Thankfully, Ales Kot had more than enough talent to keep his thoughts clear enough to follow, and lyrical enough to move the eye along the page without force. It is purely a testament to his skill (in this, his second published comic book concept) that the book doesn’t get bogged down in the minutiae and the complexities of what he’s weaving - which is straight up some Grant Morrison level fuckery.

That said, we come to the second reason I’m finding the entirety of Change a little too complex to behold: this is clearly a very personal tale. Much of the story plays with the power of stories, and much of the story ends up fluxing in and out of different planes of reality over the course of the read. In the beginning, in the comic, there is a screenplay. This screenplay somehow becomes something larger and becomes part of the actual how’s and why’s of the main story. This ends up being mirrored through narration, as is begins to bleed outside of the story itself. The implication is specific and vague all at once; much like the screenplay was a message of sorts within the fiction, so too is the narration for the comic.

Change is something. It’s a story. Maybe someone’s story. Maybe the narrator’s story. Maybe it’s a love letter. Maybe it’s an apology Maybe it’s meant to be transformative. Maybe it’s called Change for a reason. Maybe. I feel like the only people who would know helped make the comic. Or hey, maybe only Kot knows. That would be a thing to ask one day.

What I know for sure: Change is a beautiful series. Ales Kot’s words are haunting, and rendered beautifully by Morgan Jeske and Sloane Leong, who take great pains into hammering the narrative into visual clarity. All would be lost if not for their very specific renderings, and they complete their work with momentous aplomb with this issue. If you get the chance, read this book. The trade will be out in June, I believe, or single issues might still be available at your local comic shop. I know for sure they are on Comixology. If anything, take a look at the first issue, and see if it grabs you. In all honesty, it could leave you cold. Regardless, the team has earned our Karma Chamelion Award. Because: Bowie.

Wait, that wasn’t Bowie? I thought everything from the 80s was Bowie. Oh good lord, James is going to murder me when he gets back. (B)

YOU’RE THE MAN NOW, DOG

Wolverine and the X-Men is a series that I often recommend to people based on how many little things it manages to fit into an issue, or how it balances silliness with serious emotion. I’m recommending Issue #26, however, because of how well its script manages to do one thing well: sell a reason why Logan’s brother Dog, thought dead in 1800s Alberta, managed to find himself in the Savage Land with some weaponry that can stop his brother cold. And, of course, a reminder of just why he wants to kill his brother so badly.

I haven’t read Wolverine: Origin, but I was impressed that a storyline in a current comic that is a direct sequel to it was so shockingly understandable and fun to read; Jason Aaron is excellent at distilling all that history into just part of one issue and keeping it fun. As a result, an issue that could have been fan service instead ended up being a wonderful jumping on point.

Better yet, it doesn’t just introduce Dog and his past with Wolverine well; it sells exactly why Dog is motivated to prove himself the better Logan, and why he believes he’s just claiming his birthright. It’s never an easy thing to see a scene of child abuse, but Aaron and artists Ramon Perez and Laura Martin manage to do so in a way that’s viscerally unsettling but not gratuitous. Less skilled hands would have made it unreadable. Here, it feels like it belongs, and the team is just carefully guiding you along. Or who knows; maybe I’m just a sucker for stories about fathers and sons, and how it all goes wrong.

Once again, Perez and Martin do an unbelievable job with the book. Perez’s art is expressive, endearing things as sly or as curdling as they should be. And Martin’s colours are, simply, a thing of beauty, as she mixes effects and palettes to change along with the scene and tone. In an industry where more and more colourists are demanding attention, Martin is ready to show why she’s the one colourist whose name has always been on people’s lips. Without her, the issue simply would not have worked.

Oh, and there’s a big time travel genre-mashing scene that finishes off the book. So maybe it did other things beautifully, too. Emotion and comic book-iness, side by side.

Oh, and there are time diamonds, too. Did I forget that part? Because as far as I’m concerned, that makes Astonishing Wolverine and Spider-Man official canon.

Dudes, just take this week’s Sly and the Family Logan Award. (J)

Sometimes you’re fighting a monster and then get engaged to it. And then have a baby with it? And… then you have to team up with your old partner and take that baby down? Shit, did my Lethal Weapon fan-fic just get real up in this shit?

Meet Uranus and T.A.Z.E.R. One is a drunk-ass former intergalactic space cop what’s been demoted to the NYPD for getting drunk on the job. The other is a straight laced police robot from the 1970s. Together, they are Buddy Cops! Also, they hate each other.

That is the premise behind the three short tales contained within Buddy Cops, a one-shot of hilarity envisioned by Nate Cosby and Evan Shaner. Fun fact: one of them used to be one of the best editor’s at Marvel Comics, and the other is also a robit from the 1970s. Can you guess which is which? Anyhow, I haven’t laughed so hard with a comic since the days of Nextwave, and there’s plenty of reasons contained within the pages of this book that’ll back me up. There’s not a whole lot I can tell without running afowl of ruining all the best jokes, but let’s just say one of these stories ends with Uranus yelling “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuttin’ to Fuck Wit!” as he takes his space sword and deals with a problem. It’s magnificent.

As always, you can find this book at some well stocked local comic shops, or through Dark Horse’s digital comic app.