By: Brian Wood (writer), Danijel Zezelj (artist), Dave McCaig (colors), Travis Lanham (letters), Massimo Carnevale (cover) & Mark Doyle (editor)

The Story: In this long-form story about the early history of Viking Iceland, one family leader tries to become an honest businessman, but can that ever really happen?

Three Things: 

1. Great series in hindsight. -Who knows why, but I’d always had a blindspot when it came to Northlanders.  This despite the fact that I enjoy virtually everything from Vertigo.  Consider that remedied!  I picked up most of the issues in one batch on eBay (see, THAT is how much I prefer single issues to those yucky “trade” things) and inhaled them…  As in I read the whole thing over the course of a week.  This has been a great series and even though it ends in a few issues at #50, it deserves some attention here.  This series is really a collection of independent story arcs that tell various tales about the people of the north.  Some are basic crime dramas that wouldn’t be out of place in an Ed Brubaker Criminal story, but others have been like the Plague Widow arc that showcased a city that shuts its doors to keep out the plague and the mayhem that ensues behind the walls.  Great series!  Check it out even if you must buy the yucky trades.

2. Compelling, self-contained story. - Don’t be too put off by the subtitle on the cover that says, “Part 7″.  This issue is completely accessible to a new reader because it jumps forward in time from the last issue.  And, that has been the pattern for this story arc that began with the first Vikings coming ashore in Iceland and has followed them through clan warfare, the formation of a city and society and the arrival of Christianity bringing us to this story.  As I mention above, this issue’s story could feature in any modern-day organized crime story.  Basically, you have the male leader of the family who wants to sit on the sidelines of this round of clan warfare and profit by picking up the pieces in the aftermath.  He wants to “go legit” like Michael Corleone in Godfather 3.  But, we all know it never works out that way as he comes into conflict with his son who is more eager to defend the family honor.  We’ve seen this story before, but that’s because this clash between wisdom and bloody emotion is timeless.  Wood handles the conflict very well, gives us a slightly surprising ending and in so doing, shows us how the Icelanders have changed and become a little less savage over the course of this story arc.

3. Zezelj’s art is very distinctive. - I think I first became aware of Zezelj a few years ago on the gritty and haunting crime OGN, Luna Park (wonderful read if you haven’t checked it out) and since then he’s done a few things here and there (notably that great issue of Scalped with the two old Native Americans and an excellent issue of American Vampire).  He’s one of those artists who is skirting along the edges of realism, but is willing to make slight deviations from normal human anatomy when he wants to tell his story.  The trick is to do that without it looking like he just doesn’t understand how to draw and he pulls it off 95% of the time in this issue.  The reason I think it works for him is that he’s very careful about when to deviate and get more stylized and he doesn’t waste those efforts on elements that don’t help to tell the story.  Zezelj also uses full on images of character’s faces more than most artists, in fact, I’d say this is his most distinctive attribute.  There was a with those faces early in this issue where I thought, “Wait a minute, this is the same guy who drew Luna Park a few years ago.”  Those full on faces are so unique because of the focus he puts on the eyebrows, cheekbones and chin.  In case you can’t tell, I really like Zezelj’s art and wish we got to see more of it.  He’s a gifted artist and hopefully the Vertigo editors will keep connecting him with writers.

Conclusion: A very solid issue that basically takes a classic clash between the old man of the family and the young buck and transports it into Viking times.  Wonderful art from Zezelj.  I wish we got more art like this.

Grade: A-

-Dean Stell

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by Brian Wood (writing), Riccardo Burchielli (art), Jeromy Cox (colors), and Jared K. Fletcher (letters)

The Story:  Matt faces possibly the biggest decision of his life.

The Review:  If you’re a long-time reader of Brian Wood’s DMZ, this is the sort of issue that you read it for, the sort of issue that looks at hard, gritty reality, above and beyond all lofty idealism or abstract ideals.

With this issue ultimately hinging on a massive decision on Matty’s part, that being what to do with Parco’s evidence of the US’s charade, Wood is wise to anchor the book around Matty entirely.  He narrates throughout, and not only in the standard way we’re used to.  Wood opens with his usual newscast narration, but in a surprising twist on that, it turns out that the newscast is Matty’s.  That’s really, really cool stuff that showcases the new role that Matty finds himself in.  It also helps emphasize how heavily not just this issue, but the events within and the history that will result, revolve around him, that he’s the one shaping public perception and knowledge.

As I said though, strong, laser-like focus aside, this issue is all about that choice, and it’s expertly done.  Wood puts forth the fact that the pursuit and elevation of capital t “Truth, or similar abstract ideals, often conflict and don’t jive with what’s best.  Bold journalistic integrity clashes with pragmatism and the definition and nature of “the greater good” is challenged and reshaped by Wood.

Most interesting is Wood’s decision to use Zee as the vehicle to deliver this message.  Zee’s often been the beacon of integrity and, at times, idealism throughout this series, so for her to come down on exposing the truth in favour of ending the war as quickly as possible, and pointing out that the two aren’t one and the same, speaks volumes.  It’s a nice twist by Wood.

Ultimately, this is the sort of gritty, heavy issue that you expect from DMZ.  It’s a world, and a comic, where the right thing to do is often also the uglier thing.

This is best hammered home by Matty’s encounter with his father, which was such a strong scene due to its complete lack of emotion or significance.  Matty’s dad praises him for doing something monumental, his eyes tearing up in pride.  But the scene is so brief and Matty’s response so non-existent, that the whole thing feels hollow  Matty’s dad has never really approved of him, and as such, seeing him all teary-eyed should conjure up some emotion in the reader, yet it feels pointless.  That’s strong writing on Wood’s part, to be sure.

Art-wise, it’s Riccardo Burchielli on DMZ.  You know what to expect.  His characters look solid, his take on the city as good as ever.  The president’s looking like Bush threw me off a bit though.

Conclusion:  This is what you signed up for when you added DMZ to your pull-list, whenever-a-go.

Grade: A -

-Alex Evans

New York Five #4 - Here is an early contender for “miniseries of the year” and I’m going to be highly pissed when it gets left off those lists in favor of a bunch of miniseries that end in December because comic fans have the attention span of a mosquito.  This whole series has been a really touching slice-of-life drama as we follow these young ladies in the spring semester of their freshman year at NYU.  This issue brought things home in a major way.  For one thing, someone dies and the characters are left to ponder on the transitory nature of their lives: They’re all moving on in life and the little group of friends is moving apart.  We’ve all been there and had friends who seemed like the most important things in our lives before something changed because someone took a new job or moved or signed up for classes at a different time of day from you, and you just drift apart.  That’s life and Brian Wood really nails that sentiment.  I’ve gushed on Ryan Kelly’s art before (and own an original page from issue #1), but not only does he do a tremendous job on the young ladies who are the center of this book, but he also makes “The City” a co-starring character itself.  This is a “must read” for everyone and especially so for anyone with any affinity for New York.  Grade: A 

Velocity #4 - Oh la la!  Kenneth Rocafort is a beast!  This series wraps up a very good and straightforward tale of Velocity racing against the clock to save her Cyberforce teammates from a deadly virus.  Every panel that Rocafort draws of Velocity just oozes energy.  She just looks fast even when she is standing still.  He’s got a really powerful understanding of human anatomy and muscle groups.  Sunny Gho does a pretty nice job of coloring too.  Even though the story was really simple, I think Ron Marz deserves some credit.  It’s almost like he knew that this series would take almost a year to come out and kept it simple so that each time all you had to remember was “race against the clock to save teammates.”  If you’re an art fan, this is a must-buy in collected form.  Grade: B+

Morning Glories #9 - This title continues to be confusing, but in a very good way.  Sometimes I get highly annoyed by books that are being mysterious and opaque (see: Batman, Inc.), but I think Nick Spencer is pulling off the confusion because we actually have a hope of learning some answers.  In this issue, we follow one of the students, Jun, and see his back story, how the Morning Glories Academy became interested in him and what lengths they were willing to go to in order to get him as a student.  Yikes!  Once again, I can’t wait for next month.  I’ve heard a lot of folks complain about the art in Morning Glories, but I really don’t get it.  It’s true that it isn’t JH Williams or Mike Kaluta, but I think Eisma is doing a wonderful job with telling the story in terms of his panels and layouts.  Grade: B+

FF #2 - The story here is pretty top notch as the FF has to fix Doom’s brain damage and it has all the moralistic tropes where there are opportunities to kill Doom that are passed upon.  Fortunately, Hickman doesn’t spend too much time dwelling on the morals because the idea of the FF seriously killing Doom is just preposterous.  And, we get a pretty cool cliffhanger ending featuring Valeria who is having a really nice run as a character under Hickman’s pen.  The only thing holding this back for me is Epting’s art.  It isn’t that I think Epting is a poor artist, but I just don’t think his realistic style is suited for FF.  I’d rather see Epting illustrate a crime story and let us have an artist who is more cartoonist on FF.  It doesn’t have to be outlandish cartooning. Let’s just have someone like Dale Eaglesham.  Grade: B

Avengers #12.1 - This was a pretty good .1 issue that features the Avengers sending a team to Antarctica to check out an odd energy signal.  Turns out that the Intelligencia has found a fallen Galadorian Spaceknight, and after a struggle Ultron pops out.  Well, you knew he would be back, right?  Not only does this issue establish a new story arc, but it ties into the huge “map of the future” that Tony Stark found in the first story arc of Avengers.  I loved that “map of the future” and wonder how long Marvel will be faithful to it.  The writing in this issue is strong and clever; Bendis doesn’t even write a “bad” issue.  He might have a story line that you don’t care for and it might take too long for things to happen, but he is a really strong writer.  Here’s a problem though: Even though this is a good jumping on point for new readers, why publish this issue now when Avengers are going to be sucked into Fear Itself for the next few months?  Why not just publish this issue in July or something?  The art by Bryan Hitch is fine.  Grade: B

Echoes #5 - The mystery is revealed in this issue. In the first issue, we saw the protagonist get a disturbing death-bed message from his dying, demented father: [paraphrasing] “I put the little girls in the basement.”  The protagonist checks out the basement and finds hundreds of little dollies made out of the bones, skin and hair of murdered little girls, which causes the protagonist to begin to lose his mind and think that perhaps he too is going to start killing little girls too– just like his father.  Along the way, he runs into a helpful police detective who wants to get to the bottom of several recent missing girl reports.  The resolution is both clever and pretty depressing, but in a good way.  It sure won’t make you want to give any money to the police benevolence association!  Rahsan Ekedal again carries the day with incredibly creepy, black and white artwork.  Everyone who likes horror should be sure to buy the collected edition.  Grade: B

Haunt #15 - I feel as if this title has a funeral march air about it with the news that artist Greg Capullo is leaving to go draw Batman comics for DC (which is ironic because I had just chopped most of the Bat-books off my pull list and now I’ll be adding at least one).  He may be leaving, but he surely isn’t mailing it in on his last few issues of Haunt.  Everything in this issue is just want you’ve come to expect from Capullo: vibrant characters who just bristle with energy, incredible detail, imaginative layouts and beautiful women.  He’s a true pro!  I just hope that DC has some top-flight inkers lined up because I’ll be pissed if they get some scrub inker and they mess up Capullo’s awesome linework.  The story itself carries on the attack of the Apparition who is some otherworldly force that is coming to drag the ghost of Kurt off to the abyss.  Chaos ensues!  Grade: B

Spider-Girl #6 – This is kinda what I want Spider-Girl to be: Spunky and taking on enemies that are slightly too big for her.  The new Hobgoblin is a bit of a tall order for an unpowered teenage girl, BUT part of the charm of Spider-Girl is that she doesn’t know that Hobgoblin is a bit much, and therein lies some of her power.  As long as it doesn’t get her killed, she can go a long way with having a little bit of irrational confidence.  My only two little quibbles with this series are that I don’t like Spider-Man guest-starring (over-exposed?) and that I wish we’d get to see a big more of Spider-Girl’s training (show us how she is able to hang with big time villains).  One thing that held this series back (since I think it’s cancelled after issue #8) is the lack of a regular artist.  It isn’t that I don’t like Clayton Henry, but he’s a LOT different than Matthew Southworth who did last month’s issue.  I just wonder what the hell Marvel is thinking when they launch a series with a D-list character (I LIKE Anya, but she is D-list) and then don’t give the series a regular artist.  Does that sound like a recipe for success in this soft comic sales market?  Grade: B-

Incredible Hulks #627 - I reread the Planet Hulk saga a few weeks ago and it enticed me to jump back onto Incredible Hulks (which I had dropped during the dreadful “Dark Son” arc).  This isn’t a great issue, but it does have a few things going for it.  For one thing, it is a fun little story of Hulk and his ex-wife fighting and then teaming up to prevent the unleashing of Pandora’s Box.  So, he’s not smashing dinosaurs or anything like that, but it’s fun and you do get to see Hulk wearing a tuxedo again (thanks to unstable molecules).  For another, we get art by Tom Grummett who I really like.  He never does anything very flashy, but his style is just old-school, superhero goodness and no new-fangled short-cuts like dot-overlay.  There should be room in all of our lives for a Hulk comic.  Grade: B-

Osborn #5 - This was a satisfying end that saw Norman Osborn escape from his underwater prison, but then quickly surrender himself to law enforcement.  Ol’ Norman is a kinda compelling character as it seems that he really just wants to have his day in court, where he can talk about all the despicable things he knows about people and the US government.  And really… what’s the downside for him: The prisoners love him AND he can probably bust outta prison anytime he feels like it.  The only downside is that it got a little to tied up in the political intrigue for me.  I really don’t want to see many pages of US Senate hearings in my Marvel books.  I’m fine with it in my non-Big 2 comics where serious topics can be handled better.  Anyway, even though Norman is locked up in prison, they sent him to the Raft and hopefully that means that Jeff Parker will get to play with him in Thunderbolts.  Becky Cloonan helps out Emma Rios on art here and the result is very pretty.  Grade: C+

Marineman #5 - Ironically, this series isn’t tickling me nearly as much now that we’ve gotten into the meat of the story.  I liked this series better when we were just focusing on Steve Ocean as fun-loving, blond-haired, blue-eyed, broad-shouldered and extremely nice American man.  That part of the story put a huge smile on my face.  But, now that we’re into the story, it just doesn’t have as much magic to it.  I still LOVE the art and coloring (which look like nothing else on the shelves right now), but don’t really care that much about Steve Ocean’s parentage.  Grade: C+

The Mission #3 - I honestly was surprised to see this on my pull list because I thought I’d dropped it after being underwhelmed by the first issue.  The joy of pre-ordering is that you’re often “stuck” with the first three issues before you’ve even read the first one.  Gotta love this Direct Market system, huh?  Sometimes getting “stuck” with these issues is good because the series turns things around in the second and third issues, but that didn’t happen in this case.  The Mission isn’t bad, but it just isn’t good enough to stay on my really long pull list.  The basic story is that an everyman is approached by a mysterious older guy and told to murder a stranger.  As you can imagine, mysteries abound, but I can live without getting to the bottom of this story.   Grade: C

Cavewoman Snow #1 - This is kinda a guilty pleasure book.  Written and illustrated by Rob Durham, Cavewoman proves to me that there should always be a place for beautifully drawn, black-and-white, scantily clad jungle-girl comics.  There really isn’t a whole lot to the story of this issue… It’s just a chance to see Durham do his thing, drawing the beautiful Meriem as she and her adopted town are faced with a snowstorm and fuel-shortage.  Thankfully, Meriem doesn’t have a problem wearing a bikini in the snow.  In sticking with Cavewoman tradition, this book is mostly a tease as naughty things are implied, but rarely shown.  I honestly would hope that every red-blooded male comic fan could find one stinker of a superhero book and support Cavewoman.  C’mon, it’s way better than Secret Avengers or Batman!  Grade: B

Age of X Universe #2 - Well, the main Age of X crossover ended with a real wet fart, so you wouldn’t expect much of the tie-in series.  Given that the ultimate resolution to Age of X was that one of Legion’s personalities had created a universe where everyone was attacking them and only Legion could save the day with the Force Wall around their Fortress X compound…it is a little hard to figure how these other heroes fit into that story.  For the main X-Men, you can kinda say that they were on Utopia with Legion and got pulled into Legion’s reality via psychic power.  But, it just doesn’t make any sense that all of these other alt-versions of Marvel heroes would be anything other than figments of Legion’s imagination (in the fake universe), especially when Age of X established that there was nothing beyond the Force Wall (ostensibly because creating something beyond the Wall would have been too much work for Legion).  So, in light of that, Legion still created a fully fleshed out background for all these alt-heroes?  I call bullshit!  Grade: D-

-Dean Stell

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By: Brian Wood (writer), Ryan Kelly (art), Jared K. Fletcher (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)

The Story: A few of our freshmen co-eds at NYU have life-changing experiences.

What’s Good: Again this month, New York Five is really a showcase for Ryan Kelly’s art.  The story is good too, and I’ll get to that in a minute, but the art is so good that it overshadows the script.

Kelly is just a beast drawing architecture.  NYC comes alive under his pencil and pen and that is vitally important because The City is as much a character in this story as any of the young ladies.  I would love to know more about his process and if he is using some sort of photo-assist.  I wouldn’t hold it against him if he was because the end-result is incredible, but the only other option is that he doesn’t sleep because I can’t imagine how this could be a monthly book with this level of detail.  Or….it was all “in the can” before they solicited it?

The other great thing about Kelly’s artwork is that he can get his characters to act and emote without resorting to a cartoony art style.  Cartoony would never work with his buildings and architecture, but most artists who go for a more realistic style get more wooden characters and also have the stray panel where someone just looks funny.  This never happens with Kelly’s characters and he nails their faces and bodies from just about every angle possible.  Just amazing!

This reviewer is such an art whore that the story almost becomes an afterthought, but Wood is doing good work here too.  I’m a sucker for these young-women-coming-of-age, and if you like those types of stories, you’re going to love these characters.  They are all so lifelike and will all remind you in some way of people you’ve known in your life as these girls struggle with the transition from childhood to being an adult while also adjusting to life in the city.

What’s Not So Good: Well, it is a little angst-filled.  If you don’t like teen-angst, just stay away because that is the main course here.  I like these types of stories, but if you aren’t happy when you’re not seeing Wolverine chopping someone up, you’re probably not going to be happy.

I also have some questions about where this story is going to be after issue #4.  This isn’t a story that has a typical three-act structure.  We’re just kinda watching these young women go through their lives as if we were voyeurs.  This story supposedly takes place during the second semester of their freshman year, but it isn’t even going to cover the whole semester.  I doubt it’ll even get to spring break!

Conclusion: This was another tour de force by Ryan Kelly with a very capable slice of life story by Brian Wood.

Grade: A-

-Dean Stell

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New York Five #2 - Wow is Ryan Kelly a great artist!  The story here is solid, slice of life stuff as we follow our four college freshmen as they adapt to life in NYC, but the star of this issue is Kelly’s art.  His character work is really strong as young ladies are all cute and express appropriate emotion, but his attention to the city around them in just incredible.  The city just feels alive. I really need to track down New York Four and I encourage everyone to check out this Vertigo series.  Kelly and Tommy Lee Edwards (on Turf) made a LOT of artist’s backgrounds look like dog food this week.  Grade: A-  — Dean Stell

X-Men: To Serve and Protect #4 – All I ask of an anthology series is to give me one really memorable story.  I almost don’t care if 3/4 of the issue is crap as long as I get that one stellar tale.  This issue has a BIG mission accomplished for Jed MacKay and Sheldon Vella’s story of Dazzler, Misty Knight & Colleen Wing engaged in roller derby death match involved a really wacky version of MODOK (Mental Organism Designed Only for Roller Derby!!).  Vella’s art and colors are just amazing.  Toss in a good finale to the Rockslide/Anole story that has woven through this anthology series and you’ve got a winner.  I love the X-office continues to publish these anthologies.  Grade: B+  — Dean Stell

Echoes #3 - The creep-fest that Echoes has been chills out a little bit in this issue and that’s to be expected because it is the middle issue of a 5-issue series.  Basically, this issue consists of the cop we met in the last issue being onto our main character over the disappearance of the little girl.  Rahsan Ekedal has a couple of just killer pages in this issue and I love that this artwork is all black and white (which sells the creepiness much better).  I am very excited to see how Fialkov brings the action home because you just know that the conclusion won’t be anything straight forward.  Grade: B    — Dean Stell

Turf #4 – Tommy Lee Edwards is a beast!  Between this issue and Ryan Kelly’s art in New York Five, it was GREAT to see two artists who show such dedication to drawing all the little stuff that makes a scene.  I love all of Edwards’ drawing of architecture and other things in the environment.  My only hang-up is the story.  I can keep the basic plot organized: Vampires are trying to take over the world and are being opposed by a bunch of gangsters and an alien in Prohibition Era New York.  But, I just can’t keep the minutiae of the plot straight due to the time between issues.   This will definitely be worth a re-read after it is done as I’ll bet the story will be tighter.  Grade: B   — Dean Stell

The Mission #1 - Lots of mystery in this first issue.  The basic set up is that an everyman character is approached by a strange dude who tells him that he has 48 hours to kill a stranger and that his very life depends on it.  The issue is well written and this series is going to sink or swim based on the plot twists.  I enjoyed the first issue, but the only problem is that when you are expecting plot twists, they just don’t hit you quite as hard.  Needless to say, our protagonist has some standard navel gazing after getting some bad medical news and then wonders why he should kill this innocent man.  Clearly, not all is as it seems and this series could go either up or down from here.  Grade: C+  — Dean Stell

Uncanny X-Men #533 – The writing in this issue took a big turn for the better.  All the dialog and banter seemed a LOT crisper and more humorous than the first few issues of this arc.  The story itself is pretty standard interstitial fare for the X-Men, and that’s fine as the X-franchise surfs from Second Coming last summer to MMXI this summer.  My only quibble with the story (entrepreneur patents the mutant genome so that he can sell mutant pills over-the-counter) is that when you try to make your story contemporary, hip and “grounded in today’s headlines” it lowers the reader’s sense of wonder for the whole story and you start to question all sorts of things that don’t even enter your mind during a more fantastical story.  There’s also the problem that what is contemporary and hip to the general public is old and dated to people in the know.  And, Marvel really needs to move Greg Land to another family of titles.  We X-fans have seen these exact same faces for several years now.  It isn’t that his women have ugly faces, it’s that Emma Frost, the new/fake Angel lady from this arc and Chimera from the Sisterhood arc (~#508), and countless other women over the last couple years all have the same face. Bonus points for snappy dialog.  Negative points for the art.  Grade: C+  — Dean Stell

X-23 #6 - I kinda enjoyed, but didn’t love the resolution to this story that shows X-23 and Gambit doing battle with a kinda-Mr. Sinister in an underground lair.  The good thing is that it is continuing to showcase the evolution of X-23 as she struggles with her status as a clone and whether she has a soul.  The bad thing is that it had to incorporate Gambit and his Mr. Sinister baggage.  Conrad’s art is pretty tight.  This story also didn’t need to be 6 issues long.  Grade: C+  — Dean Stell

Punisher: In the Blood #4 – We’re getting close to the end of Rick Remender’s run on Punisher and I wish he was going out a little stronger.  I’m not an old time Punisher fan, so I spent a LOT of the issue thoroughly confused by the two bad guys who both have sliced up faces.  One is Jigsaw, but I really didn’t know which one.  And there is this weirdness with Frank’s reincarnated wife who is running around in S&M leather gear.  It just didn’t seem very street-level to me.  Maybe this is just an example of how the Punisher has a hard time working in the Marvel U.  I just want to see the guy kill drug dealers.  Grade: C-  — Dean Stell

Iron Man / Thor #4 – This wasn’t a bad miniseries, but it is still one I’m sorry I bought.  The story was fun as we ran into the High Evolutionary and Diablo who were trying to create a new God for the 21st century and the art by Scott Eaton was very good.  But, I need my Marvel comics to “matter” a little more than this one.  There might be a little bit of carry over with the High Evolutionary into the Silver Surfer series, but unless you are a huge High Evolutionary fan, that’s going to be pretty hollow take-away.  My general problem with this miniseries comes down to what I expect from Marvel comics.  I want them to matter and advance the soap opera in some/any direction, but I’ve read more than enough Iron Man and Thor stories in my life and don’t need one more good story with these characters.  If I just want “good story”, I’d rather read something wholly new.  Grade: C  — Dean Stell

Power Man and Iron Fist #2 - They say that there are no bad characters and that if you don’t like a character, it is only because the right writer/story hasn’t come along yet.  Well, I seriously doubt that is true in the case of the new Power Man because if Fred Van Lente can’t make this punk kid enjoyable, I don’t think anyone can (unless they give him a personality transplant).  I’ve heard people compare Power Man to Damian Wayne, but he has none of Damian’s charm and spunk.  He’s all hostility, false-bravado and annoyance.  And, he’s dragging a great character like Iron Fist down with him.  Danny Rand has much better things to do than hang out with this kid.  Character issues aside, the story is well written and it is well drawn, it is just very hard to get past the dislike of the central character.  Grade: C-  — Dean Stell

by Brian Wood (writer), Riccardo Burchielli (art), Jeromy Cox (colors), and Jared K. Fletcher (letters)

The Story: We get back to the present day, as Matty Roth finds himself as the eyes and ears at the vanguard of the US invasion of the DMZ.

The Review: I cannot begin to express how relieved and overjoyed I am that Brian Wood has returned the focus to Matty Roth and the main, present-day narrative of DMZ.  Usually, I really like Wood’s in-between short arcs, but I found that the last couple of issues just didn’t grab me and reading this issue, I know why.

The past couple of months lacked a compelling protagonist and the solid character work that Wood excels at.  With Matty back at the helm, all of that’s changed and DMZ has gone back to being the emotionally gripping read that it usually is.  It’s grim, gritty, and desperate, but now that Matty’s back, it also feels intimate and personal in a way that we readers actually feel attached to.  Roth’s narration returns as well, always bluntly honest in message and emotion with hints of self-loathing and cynicism.

The tension this month, heading into this new arc, is certainly palpable and Wood’s doing his best to showcase the bizarre new/old position Matty finds himself in.  It gives the series a good taste of familiarity while also feeling fresh, if not darker.  There’s something uncompromisingly bleak about Wood’s series right now that makes for a unique read.

While it’s good to have Roth back, it’s also good to have Riccardo Burchielli back on art, as this truly is his book, as defined by him as it is Wood.  The big splashes of barren, broken cityscape are as awesome as always, as is Burchielli’s janky take on modern military technology.

Despite all of these positives though, the issue is dogged by the same flaw that tails much of Wood’s work, especially at the start of arcs.  Basically, it’s that Wood, even more than most writers in this all too frequently decompressed age, clearly writes with the trade paperback collection in mind.  Quite frankly, not a whole hell of a lot happens in the 22 pages Wood has to work with, at least up until the cliffhanger at the very end.  While DMZ is once again carried by strong, introspective character work and dark, desperate atmosphere, there’s no avoiding the fact that as far as narrative progression goes, this is pretty glacial.  At times, it’s hard not to notice that pages aren’t used particularly economically.  More than that though, I can’t dismiss that, stripped to its base level, the actual events of this month basically boil down to Matty wandering around a deserted city with a group of grunts.

But hey, that cliffhanger is pretty damned awesome.  We all knew it’d be inevitable, but that doesn’t stop me from being any less interested in what’s to come as a result.

Conclusion: Slow, but nonetheless a return to form in content and quality.

Grade: B

-Alex Evans

By: Brian Wood (writer), Ryan Kelly (art), Jared K. Fletcher (letters) & Shelly Bond (editor)

The Story: A bunch of young women who are freshmen at NYU deal with life in the city.

What’s Good: What a breath of fresh air this was!  You know how crummy you feel if you eat junk food for 4 days straight and then eat a nice fresh salad? New York Five is that salad.

This comic introduces us to four young women who are freshmen at NYU.  They’re sharing an apartment as they begin their spring semester and adapting to life in NYC.  These characters have all the issues and hang-ups that are typical for kids that age: boy problems, problems at school, family issues, home-sick, being almost-but-not-quite grown up, etc.  But rather than becoming a kinda comic version of Sex in the City, everything is presented in a much more real and down-to-Earth fashion.   Wood does a great job of portraying how important some of these problems can seem to a kid that age while also making it clear that none of these issues are life-and-death.  It’s all relative and most of us can remember when getting a bad grade in English was the end of the world even if it seems like small potatoes now.  I’ve never been shy admitting my love of comics about teenage girls coming of age (too many women in my life, I guess), and if you enjoy comics on the superhero side like Batgirl, Supergirl or Spider-girl or enjoy things like Love and Rockets you’ll love this issue.

I shudder to think how many pencils Ryan Kelly went through to illustrate this issue because it is sick how much detail is in these panels.  The outside panels show trees with intricate branches and all the cracks in the sidewalk.  The kitchen is full of cereal boxes, dish towels, magnets on the fridge, overflowing trash cans and such.  The architecture in the city is FULLY rendered.  My god is this art detailed!  And….it is black and white which is a huge bonus for me in a comic like this.  This is a realistic comic and things like bright RED hair or a GREEN sweater would detract from the story.  A few colorists might add to this story (Val Staples), but most would just screw it up.  Plus, when you have B&W art, the line work is just more detailed because the artist has to handle all of the contouring and shading themselves.  The girls are all cute without being over sexualized and that’s important because we’re supposed to care about them…. not be having fantasies about them.  This comic would be worth buying just for the art.

What’s Not So Good: While not remotely required due to the excellent intro page, this is a follow on to a story by Wood and Kelly called New York Four.  I haven’t read it and didn’t feel confused, but it would probably add to my enjoyment to hunt that down (and I plan to).  The only other slight complaint is how the issue ended.  It just didn’t feel like an end because it left some of the girls kinda hanging in their stories…  Some of that is to be expected given the level of realism in a comic like this: real-life problems don’t necessarily distill into 22 page chunks.

I also wonder how this comic is going to come out monthly with the level of detail that Kelly puts into his pages.  I don’t really mean this as a criticism, but as I was reading I thought, “No way can this keep up with a monthly schedule because the art is too good.”

Conclusion: Another great comic from Vertigo.  Nothing new about that.  If you are looking for a change of pace from superheroes or if you just have little sisters who you love, I urge you to check this out.  The story is interesting slice-of-life stuff that a lot of people can identify with and the art is incredible.

Grade: B

- Dean Stell

Thunderbolts #151 - This was a great little story that tells the origin of Ghost (for those who care of such things).  Again, Jeff Parker smashes an incredible amount of story into a normal sized comic.  Goodness do I wish he could rub off on some of his fellow Marvel creators (e.g. Fraction, Matt).  At the end, you’re crystal clear on why Ghost hates corporations and you really don’t blame him.  Very nice art by Kev Walker! Grade: B+ — Dean Stell

Doc Macabre #1 – Why buy this odd horror comic from IDW?  Well, it is drawn by Bernie Wrightson and that is reason enough for me.   Wrightson is a Hall of Fame-level comic artist who still has his fastball.  This comic looks great!  As for the story, it is about some young ghost hunter guy (Doc Macabre) who uses his wizardry and gadgets to get rid of ghosts and zombies for money.  Story is entertaining, but nothing spectacular.  Worth buying if you love beautiful sequential art.  Grade: B — Dean Stell

Captain America: Man Out of Time #2 – By Mark Waid (writer), Jorge Molina (pencils), Karl Kesel (inks), Frank D’Armata (colors), VC’s Joe Sabino (letters) I’m already on record as loving the premise of this book, and this issue has me loving the execution right along with it. Although Cap’s wild and rather exaggerated mood swings could have very easily come across as silly or out of character, Waid brings out just the right note in each episode to not only keep them realistic, but to use them to reinforce Steve Rogers’ essential humanity. (After all, who WOULDN’T go just a little bit nuts after being unfrozen, time-traveled, and brought face to face with an alien in the same two or three hour time span!) Special note has to be taken of the short but very sweet scene where Cap discovers his personal proof that he is not trapped in a dream. Moments like that, while possible in other mediums, are what make comics so special. A perfect marriage of a single, powerful static image and piece of dialog that packs (a rather unexpected) emotional punch. Very well done, and well worth picking up.  Grade: B — SoldierHawk

Star Wars Legacy: War #1 - Even Dark Horse is susceptible to the “new #1!” bug.  As they have basically renumbered Legacy that ended a month or so ago with a new #1 that continues the previous story.  I love Star Wars, but generally don’t enjoy the comics much as I have no interest in reading “forgotten stories” from the era of the films and I have ZERO interest in the Old Republic stuff.  The Legacy universe is very different: It feels like Star Wars.  So I urge you to give it a chance.  This is a very good new #1 as it recaps very nicely, establishes who the characters are, etc.  I didn’t think the art was quite as good as Legacy has been as the characters looks stiff to me.  I tend to blame the inker for that, but what do I know?  Grade: B — Dean Stell

Black Panther: The Man without Fear #513 – Black Panther is taking over the numbering of Daredevil after the events of Shadowland.  The story follows a Black Panther who has lost his powers (I think as a result of Doomwar, which I didn’t read), but who has decided to become the protector of Hell’s Kitchen in Daredevil’s absence.  The story (which is standard DD fare)  is just okay and is written by relative newcomer David Liss.  I’m actually surprised that Marvel would give a higher profile title to such a newcomer.  As with many newer writers, the biggest problem here is that it is overly wordy and that sometimes corrects itself within a few issues, so it’s worth sticking around if you’re at all interested.  The art is by Francesco Francavilla and is very pretty and fits this type of story.  If I were to offer constructive criticism to Francavilla it is that I like his single panels better than his sequential art.  But, he’s a newer comic artist too.  I guess the upshot is that this one has a few rough edges, but it appears to have raw talent and I’ll be sticking around.  Grade: C+ — Dean Stell

Meta 4 #4 - I want to like this comic book, but I just can’t.  The story is just too difficult to follow.  Maybe I’m dumb?  The basic premise of Meta 4 is that an amnesiac astronaut and some odd muscle woman named Gasolina are doing something to try to figure out who he is.  At least I think that’s what is going on.  The art is very pretty and there are clever elements in here, such as how Gasolina “speaks” in symbols that kinda make sense but are also open for interpretation.  This comic is kinda like a Rubik’s Cube: If you can figure it out, you’ll have something to brag about to your comic reading friends.  I’m going to keep getting it and may reread after it is all done.  But, for now…. Grade: C- — Dean Stell

John Byrne’s Next Men #1 – This was not good at all.  The story was a jumbled mess.  Perhaps if you have read every single issue of Next Men’s previous runs, it would have made sense.  I have not read them and I was thoroughly confused.  I will often stick with a story if the art is great, but I’m just not sure Bryne has it anymore.   The art isn’t “bad”, but there is nothing special about it either.  Skip it.  Grade: D — Dean Stell

by Brian Wood (writer), Danijel Zezelj (art), Jeromy Cox (colors), and Jared K. Fletcher (letters)

The Story: We learn what happened to street artist Decade Later since we last saw him.

What’s Good: While I enjoy all of Brian Wood’s work, I’ve long held the opinion that it’s in the shorter arcs and one-shots that he truly excels.  Given this, I had expectations for Collective Punishment which had, sadly, not been met.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s been good, but it just hasn’t been great.  Something didn’t quite click with me or hit me as hard as Wood’s shorter stuff normally does.  This month, though, Wood finally finds his groove.  The penultimate of Collective Punishment is by far the strongest and finally hits that outstanding level Wood is capable of.

One of the biggest differences here is the quality of the main character Decade Later’s narration.  Unlike the other issues of this arc, I felt that Decade Later’s textboxes really got me inside of his head.  I came to understand the man’s psyche, his motivations, his personality, and his emotions.  As a result, this issue really managed to pull me in and it felt highly personal and, as a result, much more meaningful.  This ended being a very intimate book, and because of this, it completed avoided feeling like just another 22-page comic book.  It involves the reader and you really get to know, even inhabit, a very compelling character and it’s hard to ask for much else from a comic, or narrative in general.

Much of this month’s focus is on Decade Later’s ties to art and how art is both a part of him, and also a function of his as essential as breathing or eating.  That sounds contrived when I type it, but it feels honest and sincere in Wood’s comic.  Art is more than just a mode of expression, it’s a compulsion, a required act, and it is, for all intents and purposes, tied to Decade Later’s soul.  The pictures themselves are secondary to how they not only represent, but are, pieces of Decade Later himself.  It makes the book contemplative and also all the more personal and riveting.

I’m a huge fan of Danijel Zezelj’s artwork and was thrilled to see him on board this month.  As always, his artwork is brooding and dark, but always contemplative.  There’s a constant sense of gloomy meditation to his work.  His complete shift in style when he lets Decade Later’s work take over the comic itself is elegant, natural, and literally feels like the street artist himself has taken over the comic book, allowing the character to directly contact the reader.

What’s Not So Good: This happens once in a while in DMZ, but I didn’t particularly enjoy Wood’s depiction of the United States Army.  They were nothing more than faceless, irrational thugs who are only ever shown delivering physical torment without any set rationale.  As a result, I felt like Wood made them into two-dimensional and unrealized bad guys and, to some extent, straw-men for his story.  Due to the fact that, fictional setting or not, it is United States Army, I can’t help but feel a bit uncomfortable around what suggests a kind of political leaning on Wood’s part.  However, even if it wasn’t a real world organization being depicted, I still would’ve been dissatisfied at such a simple and poorly realized depiction of a story’s core antagonists.

Conclusion:  Brian Wood gives me what I’m looking for: thoughtful, heart-wrenching, hard-hitting comic goodness.

Grade: B+

-Alex Evans

by Brian Wood (writer), Cliff Chiang (art), Jeromy Cox (colors), and Jared K. Fletcher (letters)

The Story: Amina recovers an abandoned baby in the streets of the DMZ, forcing her to grapple with motherhood, her history, and an end to her solitude.

What’s Good: Through this issue, Wood makes it painfully clear how different standards of morality and ethics are in the DMZ.  At times, so different are these standards that it’s tempting to write them off entirely and believe that they’re either non-existent or drastically lesser than our accepted social rules and conscience.  Of course, while events may have us lean in that direction, Wood’s excellent work with main character Amina’s narration quickly chastises us for this consideration; it puts a human face to the situations of this issue and the moral and ethical choices that play out.  The narration complicates things a great deal and makes it clear that morality and ethics are in play, they are simply those of people who are fundamentally damaged and thus they are of a more malleable sort, both forgiving and resigned.  It’s complex and very heavy stuff.

The motherhood side of the issue is also reasonably dealt with, if only because the baby provides an anchor to the otherwise ever-changing Amina.  The situation helps to make the character at least somewhat relatable and sympathetic.  It also allows Wood to analyze and showcase her emotions and her humanity.  There’s both a tenderness and a desperation here that has always been the meat of DMZ.

Cliff Chiang’s art is a natural fit for DMZ.  Though his work is quite as scratchy or scraggly as what we get from series mainstay Riccardo Burchielli, the more defined and polished look serves to give Amina’s tale it’s own unique spin on DMZ that feels cleaner and more digestible.

What’s Not So Good: While I’ve generally loved Brian Wood’s one-shots, I can’t help but feel that the page count is the enemy here.  I just don’t think that Wood was able to do as much with Amina’s relationship with the baby as he could have.  The motherhood dynamic and Amina’s ownership and relationship with the infant are never fully established.  It seems as though the issue comes to its conclusion right when she starts to get closer to the child.  The impact of the ending would have also been far stronger had this connection between Amina and the baby been more developed.  Wood just didn’t get to spend enough time getting us to invest in the relationship, nor did we get to see enough of a change in Amina as a result of the child’s entering her life.

Amina herself is also a difficult character to really get into.  The problem is that, as the character herself points out, Amina has gone through so much in her life and has completely transformed herself so fully and so frequently that ultimately, the character we encounter this month bears little resemblance to the Aminas of the past, and thus it’s hard to really feel any real familiarity with the character.

Conclusion: A good issue, but I expected a little more.

Grade: B -

-Alex Evans