Tales from the Batcave

Some pretty cool creator owned books have come out as of late, and since I haven't talked about comics in a while, I thought I would mention them. I'm actually reading way more creator owned stuff right now than I am regular Marvel and DC stuff. In fact, I think I'm only actually buying two Marvel books monthly. I read more than two, but as far as actually purchasing, I just get Deadpool and Hawkeye. Anyway, the great thing about creator owned stories is the creators have free reign to do whatever they want, without having a moron editor telling them what they can and can't do. The end result is a superior comic book, which they have an emotional attachment to, and we get their absolute best work in it. I'll sign up for that over a Marvel or DC book every time.

East of West comes to us from Jonathan Hickman and Nick Dragotta. Hickman is one of those writers who I've just recently gotten into. He primarily works for Marvel, which explains why I've not read a lot of his stuff. But recently at the store, I've been keeping up with his Avengers reboot, which is surprisingly decent, so I gave this book a shot based off of that. East of West is described as a Sci-Fi/Western, which I suppose is accurate enough. It's set in a distopian future where the rulers of the world are doing everything they can to bring on the apocalypse, only the Horsemen seem to be trying to stop it, they're also trying to assassinate the president. It's kid of hard to really grasp everything that's going on being that it's only two issues in, but what I can tell you for sure is this is going to be a very good read. Solid storytelling through both script and artwork.

Speaking of writers who have recently completely won me over, that Cullen Bunn fella is all sorts of good at what he does. He's become one of those writers whose stuff I read, regardless of what it is. I even read the new Secret Defenders book, which not only features characters I don't give a shit about, but is also a Marvel comic. He's that damn good of a writer. Helheim is his latest creator owned effort from Oni Press. Again, it's a book that falls into a genre that I don't normally dig all that much, fantasy, but he's writing it, so I'm reading it. Another book that's only two issues in, but Helheim is more easily accessible at this point than East of West. A small village is attacked by dark forces, and it's best warrior, a young man named Rikard, falls in battle. He reluctantly returns from the grave, via a spell from a witch who resurrects Rikard into a body she's crafted from the body parts of fallen warriors. It appears her plans are to use him for her own means, but I doubt that's going to be sitting well with him. We'll see where the story goes, but it's off to a great start so far.

Jupiter's Legacy is the latest from Kick-Ass creator Mark Millar, and All-Star Superman artist Frank Quitely. I can guarantee you one thing, when these two work together on a book, it's going to be worth your money. I'm not as big of a Millar-ite as I used to be, as he's made the move to mostly Marvel stuff, but I still read Kick-Ass and whatnot. Frank Quitely is an artist who I will follow anwhere, and I likely always will. If he starts drawing the My Little Ponly monthly from IDW, I'll sign up for it. I love the dude's art that much. My impression from reading Jupiter's Legacy #1 (which is the only issue that's shipped so far) was, it's sort of like what The Osbourne's would've been like if Ozzy and Sharon had been superheroes instead of a rock star and his manager. This book is about the spoiled rotten, lazy, drug addled children of the world's greatest superhero couple. They want nothing to do with following in their parent's footsteps, they'd rather spend their time, and their parents money, partying, doing drugs, and so on and so forth. I have a feeling this is going to be a really special book, provided Quitely can keep it on some semblance of a regular schedule. Fingers are crossed.

Actually have a couple of other new books to talk about in the coming weeks, Chin Music from Steve Niles and Tony Harris, and Ten Grand from J. Michael Straczynski and Ben Templesmith for example. There are also a couple of other things I've gotten into recently worth mentioning, Sex from Joe Casey, Snapshot from Andy Diggle and Jock, and David Lapham's Ferals, but I'll save those for a future post.