Dark Night: A True Batman Story

Written by Paul Dini
Art by Eduardo Risso

A number of years ago, Paul Dini, who at the time was a writer on the Batman animated series (where he created Harley Quinn), was attacked one night, mugged, and beaten viciously.  Dark Night: A True Batman Story tells the story of what happened that night, and how Dini came back from the depression and self-loathing that event plunged him into.

The book starts with a quick biography, showing us how Dini always related to fictional, cartoon, and comic book characters, with Batman and his rogues gallery playing a very special role in his life.  As a boy, the shy and reserved Dini liked to imagine his favourite characters interacting with him, and this continued into adulthood.

When the beating happened, Dini was not in the happiest of places.  His career was going great, and he was very happy with the outer trappings of his life, but he was lonely.  The girl he thought he was dating let him know that she didn't see him as more than a friend, and he was constantly living in denial of how unhappy he was (even though, we learn later, he had engaged in a strange episode of self-harm not that long before).

After he was beaten, Dini's face was a mess.  He required surgery to repair his skull, and as he recovered, he spiralled into depression and drinking, skipping work, and frequently arguing with the fictional characters in his mind.

This is a stunningly honest book, told from the perspective of years of reflection and a better mental state.  Dini lays himself bare,  and along the way, questions the value of the superhero genre as role models.

Eduardo Risso is surprisingly reserved in his illustrations, reining in his usual penchant for experimentation in layout and perspective.  I've never seen him portray a story this way, and it works exceptionally well with the type of story he is telling.  His work here is gorgeous.

This is a good book to give someone who might be recovering from a similar situation, or who suffers a more general anxiety.  Dini makes it clear that people can recover from any number of bad events in their life, but that it takes a positive support network and a little clarity about a person's situation and feelings.  It's a very good, very unique book.

Prince of Cats

by Ron Wimberly

I'll admit that I haven't read or really even thought about Romeo and Juliet since I was in Grade 10, so I'm sure that much of the innovation and coolness of this book was lost on me.  Even still, The Prince of Cats, Ron Wimberly's adaptation of Shakespeare's famous play, set in Brooklyn and featuring rival sword-wielding gangs, is pretty amazing.

The titular prince is Tybalt, of the Capulets, who spends his days and nights roaming his neighbourhood, trying to raise his status in the Duel List, a ranking of neighbourhood sword fighters.  He's interested in Juliet, but is also happy to spend time with Rosalyn.

Wimberly's characters spill blood on the dance floor, and chase each other through and atop moving subway trains.  His kinetic art propels the story along, often evoking Kyle Baker and Dark Knight-era Frank Miller.

Wimberly does some very cool things with language here, blending Shakespearian English with hiphop slang in a way that ends up sounding natural and not as affected as you might expect.

This entire project feels very organic and cool.  I've heard that Wimberly, who also drew rapper MF Grimm's biographical book Sentences, is currently working on adapting Saul Williams's brilliant MartyrLoserKing album into a graphic novel with him.  I cannot wait to see how that project turns out.

Fairest In All The Land

Written by Bill Willingham
Art by Chrissie Zullo, Karl Kerschl, Renae De Liz, Ray Dillon, Fiona Meng, Mark Buckingham, Phil Noto, Meghan Hetrick, Russ Braun, Tony Akins, Gene Ha, Tula Lotay, Marley Zarcone, Ming Doyle, Chris Sprouse, Karl Story, Nimit Malavia, Dean Ormston, Kurt Huggins, Adam Hughes, Al Davison, Shawn McManus, Inaki Miranda, and Kevin Maguire

I'd gotten pretty bored of Fables and its related properties, but with this hardcover, featuring work by a number of fantastic artists, but telling one complete story from beginning to end, my appreciation of Bill Willingham's work with these characters was restored.

Fairest: In All the Land is a terrific murder mystery that begins in the lost Business Office, and is narrated by the Magic Mirror.  Our narrator is also a participant in the story, as he realizes that a visitor has come into the office, a space that has been set dimensionally adrift, and has been cut off from the other Fables for a long time.  Shortly after this, beautiful Fables, starting with Rose Red, are being murdered.  A list of intended victims is found, and Cinderella is pressed into solving the murders.

Cindy's skills lean more towards espionage than detective work, and so it takes her a while to figure things out.  The Mirror has an idea of what's going on, but isn't able to communicate with anyone, trapped as he is.

This story ranges across the history of Fabletown, and involves a number of supporting characters showing up for a bit to play their part.  I'm not sure that someone new to Fables would get a lot out of this, but for a long-time, lapsed, reader, it was a treat.

Willingham was assisted by a remarkable list of artists.  I'm not sure what I found more exciting - to see up and comers like Tula Lotay, Ming Doyle, and Marley Zarcone represented, or to see actual interiors by Adam Hughes.  There are a few artists here who are unfamiliar to me, which is also pretty exciting, as the art is consistently great throughout this book.

Having finished this, the only Fables left for me to read is the last volume; I'm going to have to get around to that some time soon.

Fables: Werewolves of the Heartland

Written by Bill Willingham
Art by Jim Fern, Craig Hamilton, Ray Snyder, and Mark Farmer

As Fables came closer and closer to its conclusion, I began to get interested in the series again (although, interested does not always mean invested in or entertained by), and picked up Werewolves of the Heartland, the standalone OGN that spotlights Bigby Wolf that came out in 2012.

Bigby is out searching for a new possible location for Fabletown (this is in the era when Mister Dark had taken their home from them), and stumbles across Story City.  The name intrigues him, but he is even more interested to learn that the entire town is populated by werewolves that view him as their god (although that doesn't put them above wanting to kill him).  Even more surprising is the appearance of an old war companion of Bigby's, and an ex-Nazi villainess.

There is a lengthy flashback to Bigby's WWII days, and his mission in Castle Frankenstein, which actually takes me back to the earliest issues of Fables that I read, around about the mid-thirties.

As the story progresses, Bigby comes to realize that there is a lot going wrong in Story City.  A cabal has been plotting to overthrow their leaders (who happen to also be their parents, for most of them) and see Bigby's arrival as a good chance to do that.  This leads to a big battle, and lots of killing, as none of these werewolves have any clue just how powerful Bigby really is.

This book really eschewed the 'Fables' aspect of Fables, not taking any cues from folklore.  It also read as more mature than the parent Fables series has for years, although that is mostly due to copious amounts of non-sexual nudity (and a bit of sexual nudity, as a young woman tries to seduce Bigby).

The art in this book is nice, but the combination of Craig Hamilton and Jim Fern is an odd one.  They are both fine artists, but they have very different styles (even though Fern handled layouts for the whole book).  Hamilton's pencils, especially when he is the one inking them, are very detailed and realistic, while Fern tends towards the slightly more abstract.  I found the switch from one to the other to be jarring at times.

The Unwritten: Tommy Taylor and the Ship That Sank Twice

Written by Mike Carey
Art by Peter Gross, Kurt Huggins, Al Davison, Russ Braun, Shawn McManus, Dean Ormston, and Gary Erskine

I've had a complicated relationship with The Unwritten, the long-running Vertigo series by Mike Carey and Peter Gross.  The first arc or so didn't do much for me, but I stuck with the title out of faith in the creators, and it soon became one of my favourite Vertigo titles.  Somewhere, along the way though, I lost interest in the comic, as it became a little too lost under its own weight.  A disastrous cross-over with Fables (that wasn't actually a cross-over, since it only happened in the one series) followed by a relaunch with a price increase was enough to get me to stop reading the book.

Somewhere in there, this graphic novel was published, but I guess I didn't even notice.  This is an interesting book, clarifying one aspect of the series, and diving into another aspect which has been largely ignored.

This book is split between two stories.  Wilson Taylor, author of the Tommy Taylor books, and father to Tom Taylor, writes in his journal about the first couple of years, when he managed to have his first novel published on the same day as his son's birth.  We learn about how he managed to manipulate his mother into leaving Tom's life, and how he arranged to keep his real son tied in the public consciousness with his fictional son.

The majority of this book tells that story that is in that first Tommy Taylor novel.  We learn about his parents' death, and how he ended up being raised in the kitchen of a school for wizards.  We learn that he doesn't have the 'Spark', the precursor to a magical education, and we meet his close friends.  Eventually, the Conclave, a group of powerful wizards, decide to raise the ship that his parents died on, as they tried to transport wild magic to the school.  Bringing the vessel also brings with it Count Ambrosio, an immortal vampire.  It goes without saying that it's up to Tommy and his friends to save the day.

The dual nature of this story is interesting, but I'm not sure that a reader new to these characters would have much of a clue as to what's going on in the Wilson Taylor sections.  Although there are passing nods to Leviathan, the whale-spirit that lives off fiction in the regular series, no mention is made of the Cabal, or why Wilson is immersing young Tom in a sensory deprivation tank.  Long-time readers are rewarded with this fleshed-out timeline, but I think the Wilson sections of this book would feel inconsequential to anyone else.

The Tommy story is enjoyable, in a YA kind of way.  It does help to understand the bigger picture of this whole series to know Tommy's story, and see how it parallels and differs from the Harry Potter stories that it was clearly roughly based upon.

I found the approach to art in this book pretty interesting.  Peter Gross provided layouts for the whole book, and gave it a consistent look, but the various finishers added their own voices to the mix.  The only pages I found I could identify were Dean Ormston's, as his work is always pretty individual.  This approach worked well to distinguish the Wilson pages from the Tommy ones, and to set apart different sections of Tommy's story.

I'm glad I read this book, and it does have me interested in picking up the last half-dozen or so issues of the second volume of Unwritten.  Carey and Gross do great work together; I just wish this series hadn't gotten so bogged down that it lost me.

Scene of the Crime #1-4

Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Michael Lark

Some times I look back on some of the mini-series I've missed over the years, and I've had to wonder what I was thinking passing some things over for other things.  The first issue of Scene of the Crime is cover-dated May 1999, so I would have been in my last year of university, working on my second degree.  Money was tight, but my time was even tighter in those days, so I can understand how I may not have picked up this gem, but when I look at the checklist in the back, and realize that I was buying Peter Milligan's The Minx instead, I have to wonder (although, strangely, that was drawn by Sean Phillips, so maybe I should have read both of these books together).

Anyway, Scene of the Crime has recently been re-released in a nice new hardcover edition, but I came across a complete set of the comics, and decided I'd rather read that.

This series came very early in writer Ed Brubaker's career, and from what I can tell was his first mini-series (most of his earlier work appeared in anthologies like Dark Horse Presents).  Artist Michael Lark had been around for a while, but hadn't really made much of a name for himself (although I have fond memories of his issues of Shade the Changing Man).  It was still kind of new for Vertigo to tell a straight-up noir story, without any fantastical elements at play.

The story is about Jack Herriman, a private investigator who is a lot younger than the usual archetype character we find in stories like this.  Herriman lives with his aging uncle, who is a famous crime photographers (who'd once punched out Weegee in an argument), and they sometimes collaborate on his cases.  When Jack was young, his police officer father was killed in a bomb blast that was meant to take out another cop, Paul Raymond, who has spent his life looking out for Jack.  When the series opens, Paul has sent a new client to Jack.

The young woman is looking for her sister, who has gone missing.  It doesn't take Jack long to track her down, after discovering that she'd spent some time around a commune-like group (the story is set in San Francisco) that also makes their money growing weed.  Jack and the missing sister have a nice conversation, and Jack leaves her, having completed his task.  The next day, he discovers that the girl was murdered, and his sense of justice demands that he investigates further.

The story works very well, as Jack and a couple of his friends and accomplices investigate the hippy organization that the girl had briefly lived with, and find connections between it and another group whose commune had been destroyed in flames years before.  Brubaker tells these types of stories very well, building up the characters into familiar types, (I was, at times, reminded of the 70s arcs of Fatale) but still keeping the story feeling fresh and interesting.

Lark is a very good artistic choice for this kind of story.  His approach to realism is never flashy or attention-seeking, and he furthers the story quite well.  He has a very good sense of personal drama about his characters.

This was a solid read that, with the exception of the rarity of modern personal electronics, has aged very well.  That hardcover is worth getting a copy of.

Get Jiro!

Written by Anthony Bourdain and Joel Rose
Art by Langdon Foss

I don't follow celebrity chefs or the whole 'foodie' movement, so I didn't pick up this comic because Anthony Bourdain's name was on the cover.  I grabbed it because Vertigo graphic novels are reliable, and because Langdon Foss's art looked intriguing.

Get Jiro! is set in a near-future Los Angeles where social and political power has been placed in the hands of two competing chefs.  Bob is at the centre of a massive conglomerate of restaurants, and is one of those chefs who cares little for minor concerns like species endangerment in his quest to cook what he wants.  Rose, on the other hand, is a firm believer in eating locally and sustainably (at least, in public).

Between the two is Jiro, a sushi chef who operates a tiny restaurant on the outskirts of the city.  After slicing off the heads of some customers who have ordered California Rolls and dipped their rice in soy sauce, Jiro finds himself on both super-chefs' radars.  As they try to enlist him, he in turn sees an opportunity to disrupt the power structure and give more independent chefs freedom.

The book is pretty entertaining, and at times quite bloody.  The writers give just enough exposition for the setting to be clear, and let things roll out at a good pace.  Langdon Foss's art is terrific.  He has the detail of a Frank Quitely or Geof Darrow, but with a more animated style.

I really wish Vertigo made more OGNs like this.

King David

by Kyle Baker

I'm not sure how it is that I never knew that this book existed, as a new Kyle Baker release is usually something that gets a lot of press, but this Vertigo graphic novel that was released in 2002 completely missed showing up on my radar until just recently.

King David is Baker's take on the Biblical figure, who fought Goliath, earned the enmity of King Saul, and eventually became a terrible leader for Israel.  I am woefully ignorant of the details of pretty much all Bible stories, and so much of this was new to me (or vaguely familiar).  For that reason, I can't say to what degree Baker was taking liberties with his story, but I did enjoy the way he used contemporary vernacular in the historical setting.

Baker's art is both wonderful, and wonderfully odd.  He has constructed many of his backgrounds digitally, and has put an odd amount of detail into them.  His character work reads and looks great, but there are some pretty big issues with the pacing of the book.

In all, this is a very odd project, but I enjoyed it for that reason.

American Vampire Anthology #1

Written by Scott Snyder, Jason Aaron, Rafael Albuquerque, Jeff Lemire, Becky Cloonan, Francesco Francavilla, Gail Simone, Gabriel Bá, Fábio Moon, and Greg Rucka
Art by Rafael Albuquerque, Declan Shalvey, Ivo Milazzo, Ray Fawkes, Becky Cloonan, Francesco Francavilla, Tula Lotay, Gabriel Bá, Fábio Moon, and John Paul Leon

When American Vampire first started a few years ago, despite its coming out in the middle of the vampire-related glut of the post-Twilight world, it really stood out as a well-considered, and excellently-executed new approach to the genre.  I liked how Scott Snyder (and early collaborator, Stephen King) grounded the vampire, and other mythological creatures, in biology and history.  There was a strong emphasis on character, and under Rafael Albuquerque's pencil, the book looked terrific.

As the series continued, as new characters were added to the mix, and as spin-off mini-series became more exciting than the main title, I felt that things needed a bit of a shakeup to keep my interests.  I wasn't all that upset when I learned that the series was going on hiatus for a while, as I was considering dropping it.

Now, though Snyder and Albuquerque have headlined this anthology, which has gotten me excited about the property again.  First off, just look at the talent involved in this book, with names like Cloonan, Bá, Moon, Lemire, Francavilla, Rucka and Leon showing up on the cover.  In their numerous short stories, many of which were too short, they explored other aspects of this world, and I loved it.

Jeff Lemire and Ray Fawkes took us up to James Bay to see what the Canadian Vampire would look like, while Jason Aaron and Declan Shalvey revisited the early colonial days of the United States in a similar tale.  Regular series artist Albuquerque writes a story about a small town in Kansas, which is painted by the very interesting Ivo Milazzo.

Some of the stories feature characters we've met before, as in Gail Simone and Tula Lotay's 'Hattie' tale, and in Becky Cloonan's exploration of why Skinner Sweet came to Hollywood.  Skinner shows up in Greg Rucka and John Paul Leon's story too, which explains what happened to him after Las Vegas, back in the second or third arc of the series.

Francesco Francavilla looks at the vampires' influence in Hollywood, while Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon take us into a seedy nightclub.

This is a very nice looking book, which has managed to whet my appetite some for the return of the series, which is what it's supposed to do I guess.

Gone to Amerikay

Written by Derek McCulloch
Art by Colleen Doran

I knew going in that I'd be impressed with this book.  Gone to Amerikay is drawn by the gifted artist Colleen Doran, is a historical tale, and the type of graphic novel that Vertigo just doesn't seem to publish anymore (despite the fact that this book is only a year old, it feels like it's from an earlier era of risk-taking and quality work at the DC imprint, one that has been traded in for returns to the well, and Fables side-projects).

The book is set in New York, showing three different eras.  In 1870, Ciara O'Dwyer arrives in the city with her young daughter, coming ahead of her husband who never actually arrives.  Ciara has to learn to make ends meet on her own, although she is soon helped by a mysterious young man she knew in the old country.

In 1960, the newly arrived Johnny McCormack can't wait to make his mark in the music or theatre world.  His close friend (who becomes very close) helps him out in this regard, but their partnership leads Johnny towards some personal problems.

In 2010, Lewis Healy, a very rich Irish businessman, and his wife Sophie, arrive in New York for a trip that Sophie has arranged.  She wants to take her husband around to various parts in the city where McCormack and O'Dwyer lived and worked, seeing as the strange connection between these two is what inspired Healy in life.

Derek McCulloch has put together a very interesting look at the immigrant experience and the history of New York.  The book is meticulously researched and each era is shown with a sense of authenticity.  Doran excels at this type of work - her characters are always very believable, and she has real skill at showing the different time periods.  I especially liked the way that parallels were found between the different stories, with the art often bleeding from one time to the next with a similarly parallel structure.

I wish there were more historical graphic novels of this level of quality being produced.  A truly excellent read.

Trillium #1

by Jeff Lemire

I've missed reading stuff by Jeff Lemire since Sweet Tooth ended.  Sure, he's writing a number of books at DC, but he's not drawing any of them, and they don't really feel like a Jeff Lemire comic.  Trillium does.

This new mini-series is designed as a flipbook that tells two different, connected stories.  Nika is a scientist on a remote planet where the last of the human race, some four thousand people, are rushing to find a cure to a sentient disease that has been targeting the species across the galaxy.  Growing on this planet is a flower, a trillium, that has a property that can combat the disease, but the flower grows in a compound inhabited by the Atabithi, the indigenous people of the planet.  The disease is spreading quicker than expected, and so Nika is driven to extreme measures to try to secure the use of the flower.

On the flipside of the book, we meet William, a veteran of the First World War, who has an interest in the Amazon.  He signs on to an expedition looking for a 'lost temple' of the Incas, which is believed to contain the secret to eternal youth.  William pushes the rest of his expedition to take unnecessary risks, and they soon draw the ire of the locals.

I love Lemire's unconventional artwork, especially when he's being coloured by José Villarrubia.  I especially enjoy the moments in this book, like the last page of each story, that echo each other visually.   I love when books depict the Great War, even if it is just in flashback, and am intrigued in this particular vision of the future (which reminded me a little of David Hine and Doug Braithwaite's excellent series Storm Dogs).  I would be happier were Lemire working on a new on-going series, but I am very pleased with this mini-series.

The Wake #1

Written by Scott Snyder
Art by Sean Murphy

I wasn't too sure how interested I was going to be in The Wake, a new Vertigo mini-series.  The comic's writer, Scott Snyder, has lost some of his appeal in my eyes recently, as his Batman series has not impressed me as much as it apparently has most of the DC fan base, and I found that, prior to its going on hiatus, his American Vampire was also becoming rather underwhelming and tired, which is a good way to describe Vertigo in general over the last couple of years.

The only reason why I preordered this book was because of Sean Murphy's art, especially coming off of his sublime Punk Rock Jesus (check out the nod to the Flak Jackets in this comic!).

Having read this, I'm very pleased that I did buy it.  This feels like the Snyder of early American Vampire, setting out an interesting and sweeping story, without getting too bogged down in details.  The story is book-ended by scenes set in distant times - the first few pages are set somewhere far into the future, at a time when cities are flooded by the oceans.  We meet a young woman and her dolphin or porpoise companion, and know they are looking for something, but we don't know what.  The book ends some hundred thousand years ago.

In between is the bulk of the comic, in a time that doesn't feel too far off from ours.  We are introduced to Lee Archer, a marine biologist who specializes in whale song.  We quickly learn that she is divorced, does not have custody of her son, and at some point got herself in trouble with the NOAA, a government agency.  A representative of the Department of Homeland Security shows up, and plays her a tape of a strange whale song, convincing her to accompany him to a remote part of Alaska.  When she gets there, she learns that she is expected to work with a team, and that nothing is what she expected.

There are high-tech sea-floor oil platforms, specialized subs, and a creature that is not a whale to contend with, as well as a former rival.  The set up runs very smoothly, and while this has elements of movies like The Abyss, and comics like The Vault, there is more than enough to keep my interest, especially given Murphy's wonderful artwork.

Finishing this comic, I felt that I'd been uncharitable in my assessment of its prospects, and I'm happy to have been wrong.  I desperately wish that Vertigo could regain its place as a viable and respectable imprint at DC, and books like this are a step in the right direction.

Saucer Country #14

Written by Paul Cornell
Art by Ryan Kelly

I'm disappointed that Saucer Country, one of the few new series from Vertigo over the last few years to really grab my attention, could not last for more than fourteen issues in the current comic book climate.  There is good news though, because creators Paul Cornell and Ryan Kelly have apparently made plans to continue the series with another publisher soon.

And so, that means that readers who have not checked out this excellent series should be snatching up the trades or recent back issues, because this is a great comic, and my hope is that when this book is being handled by a publisher who is more about promoting creator-owned books than corporate, written by editorial fiat ones, things are really going to take off.  These days it's all about the creator-owned book anyway...

In this issue, the Presidential race comes to its end, with the outcome you have always expected.  Presidential politics take a back seat to the alien stuff though, as Professor Kidd and the Governor's security team uncover the truth behind the two 'magic friends' who have been visiting the Professor since the series began.  This book has always been as much about governmental conspiracy as it has been about aliens (and perhaps those are the same thing), and that paranoid, secretive world gets exposed a little more in this issue.

Originally, this book was supposed to end with a tag line identifying it as the end of "season one", and that feeling is very present throughout this issue.  Cornell isn't wrapping up the story so much as finding a good place to pause it, and I hope it's not too long before things resume.  Meanwhile, and for the first time ever, I'm only reading one monthly book from Vertigo, and that's a strange feeling.

The Unwritten #47

by Mike Carey and Peter Gross

After taking a couple of months off from Tom Taylor and his sojourn in Hades, we return to check in on the main character of this series.  Tom has shown up in Hades, and has met its master, who is none other than Pauly Bruckner, the once man, now rabbit whose adventures we've been following once a year in this title for quite a long time now.

We learn how Pauly came to be in charge of Hades, and we get a sense of how his new servants feel about that.  Tom originally went there to find Lizzie Hexam, his girlfriend, and hopefully bring her back to the living, but since he's drank from the waters of the River Lethe, he has no real memory of himself, or the various shades who have started showing up in Hades lately, all of whom know him in some way.

What's interesting about this issue is the fact that amnesiac Tom is not all that concerned about restoring his memory.  It's like he knows that with it will come a great deal of emotional baggage that he'd rather just skip out on.

This is a solid issue of a pretty solid series.

Time Warp #1

Written by Damon Lindelof, Tom King, Gail Simone, Simon Spurrier, Toby Litt, Peter Milligan, Ray Fawkes, Matt Kindt, and Dan Abnett
Art by Jeff Lemire, Tom Fowler, Gael Bertand, Michael Dowling, Mark Buckingham, Victor Santos, MK Perker, Andy MacDonald, Matt Kindt, and INJ Culbard

I would say that Time Warp is one of the more successful of Vertigo's recent quarterly anthology books.  With the notable exception of the Dead Boy Detectives story (which, in addition to being generally unimpressive doesn't belong in a book about time travel), the different short stories collected here really complement one another nicely.  As well, the book has a good balance between the usual Vertigo stable and some up-and-comers.

When you think about time travel story potential, there are a few standard stories.  There is the story about the person who wants to go back in time to save a loved one, or to fix great evil.  We also see the story of the person who meets him or herself, or the person who wants to utilise time travel for personal gain.  That's basically what we get here, but the book contains a few interesting twists.

Many of these stories are based on technology as the gateway for time travel, but in Gail Simone's story, it is through chocolates and other confections that one can revisit their past.  In Peter Milligan's, technology can't bring back your lost love, but it can provide you with a pretty good holographic likeness.

Adolf Hitler is a recurring character in this book, as we see a story (by King and Fowler) about the world had he been killed by a time traveller near the front of the book, and another about the time travellers who need to protect him from other time travellers at the end (re-teaming the amazing New Deadwardians team of Abnett and Culbard).

I particularly enjoyed the Rip Hunter story by Damon Lindelof and Jeff Lemire, and Matt Kindt's story about warring cultures that expend great capital to fight over a planet rich in natural resources.  I also thought that Simon Spurrier and Michael Dowling's story of scientific rivalry would make a good companion to the Image series Nowhere Men, and enjoyed the suggestion that science is becoming too fame-oriented in our celebrity-obsessed culture.

In all, this is a solid book, and well worth the cost of two issues of a Marvel NOW! comic for four-times the content.

Saucer Country #13

Written by Paul Cornell
Art by Ryan Kelly

With time running out on this series (I think there's only one issue left before it's getting canceled), Paul Cornell just keeps upping the stakes, and making things ever more interesting.

It's election day, and all signs are pointing towards Governor Arcadia Alvarado walking away with the White House.  This has all sorts of people nervous, as the GOP contacts her most trusted advisor to reveal that they know about her belief in UFOs, although they aren't ready to act on that knowledge.  This raises some interesting questions about the veracity of Alvarado's running mate's assertions that the President is himself an alien.

As well, the Bluebirds, a group of engineers who study alien technology, reach out, although their overture does not receive the response they expected.  Most interestingly, Professor Kidd is led on a hunt by his tiny otherworldly advisors, although he seems to know more about them than they would have expected.

Cornell crams a lot of stuff into this issue, and its amusing to realize that, while all of this is going on, people around the country are at the polls voting.  Ryan Kelly is doing some incredible figure work in this book, and I can't wait to see how it all turns out.

The Unwritten #46

by Mike Carey and Peter Gross, with Dean Ormston

This issue continues the two-part storyline featuring Australian Detective Didge and vampire Richie Savoy, who are investigating a pair of zombie attacks that they believed were caused by the writing of a young boy.  Savoy suspects that Leviathan, the wounded creature that has the ability to make stories real, is involved in what's happening, and he seeks out Madame Rausch, the 'puppet lady' for some answers.

Since the Cabal was taken apart by Tom Taylor a while back, this title has been casting about for a proper villain.  We got a cult leader for a little while, and have never been too sure where Rausch stands, although this issue suggests that she clearly has her own plans.  This issue introduces the idea that Leviathan is not the only creature of his kind, and that other such beasts, fed by more modern stories, are in competition to fill its place in the story-ecosystem.

This book has always been interesting, and I like the way that Carey and Gross give the spotlight to a pair of characters who don't often get much play.  The dialogue between the two works very well, and I always think it's nice when Dean Ormston provides inks over Gross's pencils; it changes the feel of the book a great deal.

Saucer Country #12

Written by Paul Cornell
Art by Ryan Kelly

It really is unfortunate that Vertigo has pulled the plug on this excellent series as of its fourteenth issue, because Paul Cornell is really hitting his stride here, and the book becomes ever more enjoyable.  He has said in interviews that he intends to continue the series in some way when the rights revert to him and other considerations make it possible.

What this tells us is that Cornell will not be coming close to finishing off the storyline in the next two issues, and I'm okay with that.  As it is, it does feel as if he's condensing the story somewhat, seeing as how two issues ago, Governor Arcadia Alvarado was stuck in the middle of a heated primary fight, and now she's reached the final few days before the Presidential election which could put her in the White House.  That means we missed out on any number of good stories set on the election campaign trail, which is unfortunate.

There's not much sense of time having passed, but some changes have set in for our characters.  Professor Kidd has finally revealed to Arcadia that he is often visited by the tiny figures from the Pioneer space probes, and of course, she's now decided to keep him at more of a distance, a decision he does not take well.  We also learn a great deal about what Arcadia's former rival, Senator Kersey, experienced at the hands of some very different aliens (think of the ones from V).

This has been a very unusual comic, blending modern politics with alien abduction mythology, and I for one, have found it to be an amazing read.  Ryan Kelly returns to the art for this issue, which makes me very happy.

The Unwritten #45

by Mike Carey and Peter Gross
Inked by Dean Ormston

The last issue of The Unwritten ended with the surprise appearance of a character I didn't expect to see again for until issue 48 (which probably gives away the surprise for any long-term fans of this series).  As if to acknowledge that things were happening a little early, Mike Carey and Peter Gross use this issue to start a two-part story that doesn't feature regular series star Tom Taylor at all, but instead focuses on a couple of the supporting characters.

Richie Savoy has settled himself in Australia for the time being, although he doesn't seem to be doing more than hooking up with some of his fans.  The police Detective, Didge Patterson is stuck investigating a horrible crime scene, where an older couple have been ripped to pieces in what looks like an attack by multiple cannibals.  The only clue she finds is a school book filled with a story written by a young boy.

Didge being dyslexic, she turns to Savoy for help with the case, and that leads them to young Jason, who seems to be able to create reality with his writing.  He described perfectly the death of the folks who watch him after school, and later it happened the exact same way.

The Unwritten has always been about the power of story, and now it seems that Carey and Gross are taking us into another aspect of that.  The kid's abilities play out poorly for his father, who probably is beginning to regret feeding his son's enthusiasm for zombies.

This is a solid issue.  I always like it when Carey moves the series away from Taylor for a little while, and I'm also always happy when Dean Ormston pops by to ink an issue or two.  His addition to the proceedings always gives the book a darker look, and makes it feel different enough to feel like the story is special.  It also makes me appreciate Peter Gross's own inks more, as I like seeing how differently some penciller's work appears with different inkers.

Saucer Country #11

Written by Paul Cornell
Art by Mirko Colak and Andrea Mutti

It was announced recently that Saucer Country, like every Vertigo book that I enjoy not called The Unwritten, is going to be ending in a few issues.  Knowing that, and knowing that Paul Cornell doesn't have the space to tell the end of the story the way he would like to, I would have expected the pace of these last few issues to pick up, but that is not the case here, as he instead introduces a completely different element to the series.

Michael is Governor Alvarado's ex-husband, her close friend, and the person that was with her when she was abducted by aliens.  We've seen him as a self-pitying drunk, and we know that he has been manipulated to believe that he was behind the recent assassination attempts on Alvarado and her security team.  What we didn't know is that as a child, he saw and spoke to fairies.

This issue opens with Michael and Arcadia visiting the farmland in Colorado where he grew up.  He talks about how he and his older sister made up imaginary stories about fairies, and how one day, the fairies appeared to them as real creatures.  Their appearance also helped solve a different problem for Michael's sister.

This is an odd issue.  I'm not sure how it fits into the larger story, which has dealt with alien abduction and governmental conspiracy.  Paul Cornell makes a thematic connection by discussing how the 90s were all about recovered memories of child abuse, while the 10s appear to be about conspiracy at higher levels as a way to explain society's and individual peoples' problems.

This issue is drawn by Mirko Colak and Andrea Mutti, who have a very different style than regular series artist Ryan Kelly.  The book looks very nice, but I do prefer the way Kelly draws Arcadia, with a little more weight and gravitas behind her.

I'm sad to hear that this series is ending soon, but I know that I'm going to enjoy what's left of it.