New X-Men: Ultimate Collection Volume 1

Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Frank Quitely, Ethan Van Scriver, Igor Kordey, Leinil Francis Yu, Tom Derenick, Tim Townsend, Mark Morales, Prentis Rollins, Dan Green, Gerry Alanguilan, Danny Miki, Rich Perotta, Scott Hanna, and Sandu Florea

It's hard to believe that it's been more than a dozen years since Grant Morrison took over the X-Men, giving the property a conceptual shot in the arm, and setting up some story ideas that have been in use ever since.  I distinctly remember the excitement that came from reading New X-Men #114, when Morrison and artist Frank Quitely launched their story.  Suddenly, the mutant heroes were a "rescue organization", were wearing sensible costumes, and had undergone some pretty sudden changes, not the least of which was a hugely different appearance for Beast.

This pretty solid trade paperback collects thirteen issues of the regular series, and one annual.  In these pages, we meet a ton of new characters like Xorn, Angel, Beak, the Stepford Cuckoos, Glob Hermann, John Sublime, and Cassandra Nova, many of whom are still important characters today.  We see the machinations of Nova, who goes from committing genocide in Genosha, to trying to use the Shi'ar Empire to wipe out all mutants on Earth, while infecting the X-Men with a curious virus.

Morrison's writing in these comics is stellar.  He plays with the original core concept of the X-Men, that mutants are mistrusted and maligned, but updates that idea for a more modern, celebrity-obsessed culture.  He also returns to the original purpose of the Xavier School, to train new mutants and protect them.  

Frank Quitely's art is always wonderful, and it's cool to see him play with some pretty iconic characters, especially since he doesn't draw mainstream superheroes anymore.  Ethan Van Scriver's art is also very beautiful, and Igor Kordey, who was famously given very little time to draw some of these issues, is understandably all over the place.

I'm not sure that many other comics from this era would stand up as well as the ones in this book.  I know that the current stable of X-Books do not look very good in comparison to these modern classics.

The Sandman: Endless Nights

Written by Neil Gaiman
Art by P. Craig Russell, Milo Manara, Miguelanxo Prado, Barron Storey, Bill Sienkiewicz, Glenn Fabry, and Frank Quitely

Back when it was coming out each month, like most readers who were looking for more from their 90s comics than shoulder pads and leg pouches, Sandman was one of my favourite titles.  In a lot of ways, it was Gaiman's series, alongside books like Starman and Sandman Mystery Theatre that kept me going through what I've come to recognize as comics' Dark Ages.  When the series ended, I felt like Gaiman had brought things to a nice, complete close.  A few years later, when the Endless Nights anthology was announced, I felt no need to dive back into his world (kind of like how I feel about Before Watchmen now).  I wasn't sure that there was any need to return to these characters, as anything new that would be said about them would be ancillary to Gaiman's original design and vision.

And then, I completely forgot that this project ever existed, until I saw a copy at a used book store a month or so ago.

While my original assessment, that the book wouldn't add anything necessary to the story of Dream or his siblings held true, it was really very nice to revisit some of these old friends, and to reminisce about how much this comic meant to me at a certain point in my life.

The book holds seven stories, one for each of the Endless.  It opens on a Death story, drawn by P. Craig Russell.  Like most people who read Sandman for the first time in their late teens, I always had a bit of a crush on Death, as she was shown in this series, so it was nice to see her again, in a story that is kind of predictable, but beautiful (thanks to Russell).

The best story in this volume is the Dream one (illustrated by Miguelanxo Prado).  It is set a very long time ago, and does more than any other issue of the series to remind us that the Endless exist in the DC Universe (at least, pre-New 52 they did).  Dream takes a mortal lover with him to a meeting of stars, who have taken human form.  We meet Rao, and the star of Oa, as well as our own sun, although he is still very young.  The story is full of interesting little Easter eggs for long-time readers, but also does a good job of reminding us what a bit of a tool Dream is.

This whole book has incredible art in it, from Bill Sienkiewicz's trippy Delirium story, to Barron Storey's haunting portraits of Despair.  Glenn Fabry's never been a favourite artist of mine, but his Destruction story works quite well, as does Milo Manara's story about Desire (who better?).  Frank Quitely's work on the Destiny story is beautiful, but the tale itself is just an epilogue to the book that isn't necessary at all.  I guess it's hard to write about a character like Destiny.

Anyway, I enjoyed this book quite a bit, and am now very tempted to re-read the entire Sandman series; something I've always wanted to do, but haven't been able to invest the time in.  I'm curious to see how they stand up now.

Vertigo Resurrected #1

Written by Warren Ellis, Brian Bolland, Brian Azzarello, Grant Morrison, Garth Ennis, Steven T. Seagle, Peter Milligan, Bill Willingham, and Bruce Jones
Art by Phil Jimenez, Andy Lanning, Brian Bolland, Esad Ribic, Frank Quitely, Jim Lee, Tim Sale, Eduardo Risso, Bill Willingham, Bernie Wrightson, and Timothy Bradstreet

I don't normally list all the creators in an anthology, but this book has such a strong list of names attached to it (and Bruce Jones), that I felt it was appropriate.

This comic, which collects a number of little-seen short stories from such places as Strange Adventures, Heartthrobs, Weird War Tales, and Flinch, received most of its press for including a previously unpublished, 'controversial' issue of Hellblazer by Ellis and Jimenez that deals with the issue of school shootings.  Strangely, it's just about the weakest story in the bunch, as Ellis doesn't really do anything with the story, and doesn't seem to have a good handle on Constantine.  Also, I don't really see what is controversial about it, other than its timing.

The other stories are more of a treat.  Morrison and Quitely have a cool piece about toys getting replaced, and Seagle and Sale give us a bizarre story about love and surgery.  Brian Bolland's tale about European explorers trekking through Chinese Turkistan is probably my favourite, but I also enjoyed Jones's and Wrightson's story more than I expected to.  Milligan and Risso have a very cool little tale about a woman who falls in love with a dead poet.

I didn't really like Ennis and Lee's story about some SAS guys - it was way too talkative, and Lee's work looks like Scott Kolins.  I would be interested in checking out more anthologies like this (the $8 pricepoint isn't really a barrier, not that I paid that much for it).