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Comic Book Review – The Nice House on the Lake

The Nice House on the Lake (2023)
Reprints The Nice House on the Lake #1-12
Written by James Tynion IV
Art by Álvaro Martínez Bueno

The evocative painted covers of each issue of The Nice House on the Lake hint at a dark horror tale to be unfolded, its spotlighted character standing in a stark scene of the macabre. I wish I could tell you the interior matches this outside wrapping. I also wish I could say I enjoyed this as much as I did Tynion’s The Department of Truth. But honestly, I really disliked this comic a lot. Bloated with so many characters introduced so quickly, I almost immediately lost track of who was who besides maybe two or three of them. That wasn’t a great thing to happen when this is a survival story, and I’m supposed to care about who lives or dies. It also doesn’t help that right away, the book reveals itself as some sort of post-apocalyptic narrative, which was not the story I sat down to enjoy.

Comic Book Review – Shazam: The World’s Mightiest Mortal Volume One

Shazam!: The World’s Mightiest Mortal Volume One (2019)
Reprints Shazam! #1-18
Written by Denny O’Neil, Elliot S! Maggin, and E. Nelson Bridwell
Art by C.C. Beck, Dave Cockrum, Bob Oksner, Vince Colletta, Kurt Schaffenberger, Dick Giordano, Pat Broderick, and Tex Blaisdell

Once upon a time, there was a superhero named Captain Marvel (not that one) who was the most popular comic book character of his time. He was so popular, in fact, that DC Comics sued Cap’s publisher, Fawcett because they believed the similarities between him and Superman were so much that the character infringed on the Man of Steel. So Captain Marvel faded into obscurity in the 1950s, but not before a few other things happened.

Comic Book Reader – Aquaman: Andromeda

Aquaman: Andromeda (2023)
Reprints Aquaman: Andromeda #1-3
Written by Ram V
Art by Christian Ward

DC Comics’s Black Label imprint has produced some of the best work from the company in recent years, and that trend continues with this three-part mini-series, Aquaman: Andromeda. I won’t say this is my favorite Black Label book so far, that belongs to Catwoman: Lonely City, but it is a fantastic science fiction/horror story. My one wrinkle is that it didn’t feel like this was an Aquaman story but rather a story in which Aquaman appears. Instead, this is a clear homage to the work of writers like Michael Crichton, particularly his novel Sphere, but also elements of cosmic horror straight out of H.P. Lovecraft and the psychic manifestations of Solaris. The writing is handled by the insanely prolific Ram V, and the art is handled expertly by Christian Ward.

Comic Book Review – JSA by Geoff Johns Part 7

JSA by Geoff Johns Part 7
Reviewing JSA #73-87
Written by Geoff Johns, Keith Champagne, and Paul Levitz
Illustrated by Don Kramer, David Lopez, Jim Fern, Dale Eaglesham, Rags Morales, Luke Ross, and Jerry Ordway

The issues in this final batch are only partially written by Geoff Johns. Keith Champagne (normally an inker) and Paul Levtiz (an icon at DC by this point) cover a couple long arcs while Johns was writing Infinite Crisis (and Green Lantern and Teen Titans and the weekly 52 series and something else I’m probably forgetting). This also isn’t Johns’ final say on the Justice Society. He’d write the first twenty-eight issues of Justice Society of America, the follow-up ongoing to this one. Johns currently writes two JSA-related mini-series: Justice Society of America and Stargirl & The Lost Children. Because these are in a period of somewhat confused continuity right now, I don’t get the feeling he’s folding in everything that happened way back here in JSA.

Comic Book Review – JSA by Geoff Johns Part Five

JSA by Geoff Johns Part 5
Reviewing JSA #46-58 & Hawkman #23-25
Written by Geoff Johns & David Goyer (#46-51)
Art by Sal Velluto, Leonard Kirk, Keith Champagne, Don Kramer, Wade von Grawbadger, and Rags Morales

I just got impatient. It has been 2 ½ years since JSA by Geoff Johns Book Four was published. After I decided to do this series, I read that DC was publishing Book 5 in March, but I simply didn’t want to wait an indeterminate amount of time for the rest of JSA to be reprinted. Watching that atrocious Black Adam movie made me realize I missed the JSA of the 2000s, so I figured out a way to split the remaining issues into three clusters and read through them. One of my biggest takeaways was how the JSA was unlike anything else at DC Comics. The Justice League are big movie blockbusters (or they should be when written correctly), while the JSA is much closer to Claremont’s X-Men, a story about a diverse family of superheroes, they have their own lives, and these personal elements often intersect with the team’s adventures. I even found myself getting teary-eyed a couple times reading these issues because Johns finds a way to make the most obscure DC superheroes extremely human & so their losses hurt, or when we have to say goodbye, it is bittersweet.

Comic Book Review – Seven Soldiers

Seven Soldiers (2010)
Reprints Seven Soldiers of Victory #0, Shining Knight #1-4, Guardian #1-4, Zatanna #1-4, Klarion the Witch Boy #1-4, Mister Miracle #1-4, Bulleteer #1-4, Frankenstein #1-4, Seven Soldiers of Victory #1
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by J.H. Wiliams III, Simone Bianchi, Cameron Stewart, Ryan Sook, Mick Gray, Frazer Irving, Pasqual Ferry, Yanick Paquette, Serge LaPointe, Doug Mahnke, Billy Dallas Patton, Michael Blair, and Freddie Wiliams II

I will not be able to fully unpack Seven Soldiers in this small setting. This is a book worthy of its own full-length book detailing the references, symbolism, and meaning that Grant Morrison has packed into it. I will spend this time talking about how much I appreciate and enjoy this book, touching on some thematic and structural aspects as we go. This cannot be an exhaustive deconstruction of such an overwhelming piece of comic art.

Seth’s Favorite Comics of 2022

2022 was the year I dropped reading monthlies. After decades of reading them, whether buying them myself, reading my college roommate’s copies, or consuming them digitally, I decided it was time to get off the ride. This happens to all comic fans when they reach a certain age. It comes from frustration with the cyclical nature of superhero books. Most of the best stories for a character have already been told, so everything between now and the next great authorial genius coming along is just spinning wheels.

Comic Book Review – Batman: Killing Time

Batman: Killing Time (2022)
Reprints Batman: Killing Time #1-6
Written by Tom King
Art by David Marquez

I don’t think this is a controversial opinion, but here goes: The most interesting thing about the Batman mythos is his villains. If you had to compare Batman to another superhero based on everything surrounding the character, Spider-Man is your best bet. Yet, Spider-Man is a character often more interesting than many of his rogues while still having some fascinating baddies in the mix. Batman, on the other hand, is a one-note character for me; of course, it all depends on who is writing. I’m always eager to see what the villains are up to, though, and this mini-series by Tom King focuses mainly on two of them, a pair we don’t see too often: The Riddler and Catwoman.

Comic Book Review – Catwoman: Lonely City

Catwoman: Lonely City (2022)
Reprints Catwoman: Lonely City #1-4
Written & Illustrated by Cliff Chiang

In 1986, Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns mini-series reconceptualized Batman by telling an out-of-canon story. An aging Bruce Wayne retired from being Batman years earlier, but now Gotham City is falling into a deeper cesspool than ever before. Mutant gangs run rampant, and The Joker has resurfaced. Wayne must become Batman again, this time with Carrie Kelly by his side as Robin. The Dark Knight Returns, while ground-breaking & compelling, is a politically questionable book. Miller has always been reactionary to one degree or another, and TDKR is very much indicative of this mindset to not examine but react with emotion. Miller is a passionate guy, and that fervor has gotten him into much-deserved praise and trouble. He’s apologized, but the man is so entrenched in his mindset that it would be hard to pull him out. But 2022 is not 1986, and the reactionary Death Wish-driven media of that era just doesn’t fly these days (unless you’re a big Daily Wire fan, I suppose). Cliff Chiang is here to tell us another story of a future Gotham, which is far more coherent and sets up a conflict between the criminal and the authority leading us to question if those labels are being accurately applied.

Comic Book Review – Aquaman by Geoff Johns Omnibus

Aquaman by Geoff Johns Omnibus (2017)
Reprints Aquaman #0-19, 21-25, 23.1, 23.2 & Justice League #15-17
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Ivan Reis and Paul Pelletier

In 2011, DC Comics took a bold move by relaunching its entire comics line under the banner of the New 52. Geoff Johns was already one of the people creatively at the company’s helm, so he could keep his Green Lantern run going pretty much intact. In addition, he was given the prized title of Justice League to revamp and then took it upon himself to also try and reignite enthusiasm over Aquaman. Over the preceding decade or more, Aquaman had been relegated to a joke character. In shows like Family Guy or Adult Swim’s Robot Chicken, if the character was referenced, it would be to state how useless his power set was compared to the more “impressive” heroes in DC’s catalog.