The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys #1

Written by Gerard Way and Shaun Simon
Art by Becky Cloonan

A while back, I skipped reading The Umbrella Academy, the first series by Gerard Way, because all I knew about him was that he's in a band I'd heard of but never (knowingly) listened to.  Later, I went back to that series because of the art by Bá and Moon, and discovered it to be strange and rather wonderful.

Now, he has a new series with wonder-artist Becky Cloonan and co-writer Shaun Simon, and I was not going to miss out again.  On Free Comic Book Day there was a preview of this series, which intrigued me but didn't make a whole lot of sense.  This first issue makes things more clear, but there is still a lot to be explained.

We know that Battery City is not a fun place.  It looks like it's run by a company called Better Living Industries, and that it employs Scarecrows and Draculoids to keep the peace.  The Scarecrows look like astronauts (of course), while the Draculoids are created by putting a white mask over a victim.

Outside of Battery City, in an area that used to be protected by a superhero team known as the Killjoys, people seem to live in resistance to BLI.  We meet a young girl who was a companion to the super-team (in fact, they saw her as some sort of messiah).  She meets a group of rebels, who are quickly found by BLI, and stuff happens.

There is a lot of material in this book, as Way and Simon work hard to establish the strangeness of their vision of the future.  The main story hasn't really started yet, I don't think, but the issue stays interesting throughout, as the reader tries to piece everything together.  I'll need to give this a second read to really absorb anything.

Becky Cloonan's art is fantastic, but then we knew that it would be.  She's great at this kind of dystopian story that uses some aspects of the superhero aesthetic, but is not strictly grounded in it.  This book feels a lot more serious than Umbrella Academy did, and I'm very curious to see where it leads.

The Umbrella Academy Vol. 2: Dallas

Written by Gerard Way
Art by Gabriel Bá

Having just read the first volume of Umbrella Academy, the over-the-top superhero saga drawn by Gabriel Bá and written by some rock star who has become a bit of a comics darling, I quickly decided to read the second volume. 

Dallas would never be able to stand on its own, as very little is introduced or explained here, but it is a pretty enjoyable replacement for Grant Morrison's wonderful Doom Patrol run.

In this book, the surviving members of the team are all in worse places than they were at the start of the series (there is a general sense of lingering injury, depression, and discontent).  Number Five, the member of the team who has returned to the present after a lengthy sojourn in the future, has some unfinished business that soon embroils the whole team in a plot to assassinate (or protect) JFK in Texas in 1963.  The plot is hard to follow, but it does allow for a number of very cool moments.

As with the first book, the main appeal to me was Bá's artwork.  It's interesting how, on a title like Daytripper, he keeps such tight control over his characters' environments, but with this book, he's able to really go wild.  There are very interesting designs, and crazy scenes, like the one where Kraken and Spaceboy fight vampires and a giant mummy in the middle of the Vietnam War.

I'm not sure if this title is going to continue, but I'll definitely be on board for any future installments.

The Umbrella Academy Vol. 1: Apocalypse Suite

Written by Gerard Way
Art by Gabriel Bá

When this series first started, I was interested because of the involvement of Gabriel Bá, as it started just after his stint on Casanova ended.  I read the Free Comic Book Day story though, and immediately lost all interest in the title.  It was not that good a story.  Then, when the mini-series started, it received nothing but accolades in the comics press, and I figured it would be worth checking out some day.

This is a really good book.  Way has written this as a mash up of Morrison's Doom Patrol, and JMS's Rising Stars.  Seven children were born at the same time to women who weren't previously pregnant, and they were raised by a cold-hearted ideologue, who molded them into a family of disfunctional superheroes.

The team is reunited after years of separation in the event of their "father's" death, and their being together causes an old threat to resurface.  This leads to some more sibling rivalry, and the team's betrayal by their "normal" sibling, who has been previously without powers.

The characters, like Spaceboy, whose head is attached to the body of a giant gorilla, are quite original, but the plot is not.  Way's writing is smart, but his plotting is more than a little conventional.  Bá's art is incredible though, and the book has a nice flow to it.  I look forward to reading the second trade.

Myspace Dark Horse Presents Vol. 2

by many people

I mentioned when I reviewed the first book in this series how much I enjoyed the original Dark Horse Presents, and I was very pleased to hear that it is set to return soon.  It was a reliable source of new ideas and creators, as well as short stories from established series or properties.  I didn't always love what was in it, but I usually found something positive in each issue.

This volume of the Myspace on-line revamp didn't work for me as well as the books I remember.  I found that most of the stories in this book were facile and shallow, and they did little to encourage me to pick up related titles, or seek out some of the creators.

There was still a fair amount to like in this book, such as Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá's brilliant 'Wonder Twins Activate'.  I know I'm a huge Moon and Bá fan, so it's no surprise that I would single this story out for praise, but it's a very cool story designed to help explain their collaboration process.  In contrast, Bá's 'Umbrella Academy' story (with Gerald Way) did nothing for me.

I also liked John Arcudi and Steven Young's 'A Going Concern' which is basically Jonah Hex played by a cockroach, but I couldn't figure out what the hell his horse was supposed to be, and it made me hate the story by the end of it.  Gilbert Hernandez's 'Manga' was cute, but short.

Lately I've been working my way through the Mignola-verse, so I was pleased to see a BPRD story by Arcudi and Davis, and while it was good, it was fairly inconsequential.

By far the prettiest and most impressive art in the book belongs to Francisco Ruiz Velasco, with 'Legion of Blood', a flying-alien version of the first world war.  I hope this is something that is going to be developed into a longer project, as it was quite good and visually stunning.

The final piece that impressed me was a Conan story (normally I hate Conan) written by Tim and Ben Truman.  What made this special is that it had artwork by Marian Churchland (read Beast), with lettering by Brandon Graham!  It's a very cool-looking story.

One story that seemed to have a lot of potential but then quickly lost me was the Hobo Fet story by the Matkinson Brothers and Jon Adams.  There was a lot that could have been done with this story, but it fell flat.  Another disappointment was the two-page Rex Mundi story.  Nothing happened, and it just served to remind me that I miss this title.

Anything else in this book doesn't really feel like it's worth mentioning.  There are some things that I know people like - Milk & Cheese, Steve Niles - but it left me cold.  I have Volume 3 on my reading pile - I hope it's more consistently good.