Deadshirt Is Reading… is a weekly feature in which Deadshirt’s staff, contributing writers, and friends-of-the-site offer their thoughts on Big Two cape titles, creator-owned books, webcomics and more. For more of our thoughts on this week’s new comics, take a look at Wednesday’s Deadshirt Comics Shopping List.
Sarah Register is reading…
Written by Mark Russell
Art by Ben Caldwell (pencils) and Mark Morales (inks)
Colored by Jeremy Lawson
Lettered by Travis Lanham
DC Comics
“Maybe she’s not as dumb as the corndog scars suggest.”
Prez is absolutely the best DC comic this summer—it feels smart and original, and because it has nothing to do with the regular DCU, it has the freedom to be refreshingly experimental. Actually, that’s the general concept of Prez as well; the story presents the idea that a person with no monetary or political ties to either constituents or anyone in power could potentially be a better president than a traditional candidate, even if it’s a teen who became famous for burning her hair in a batch of corndog grease. And now that Beth Ross has been officially sworn in as President, she’s going to go about building her cabinet in a revolutionary way: by appointing “actual smart people” who are legitimately qualified to do the job.
Mark Russell’s approach to this story, which is set in an all too-achievable-dystopian future, is written with enough wry humor and wit that I forget how sad it should actually make me. This issue’s most impressive achievement was Russell’s use of a sexy frog statue to illustrate the state of affairs in our country in a way that feels frighteningly current. From a tech-impaired senior citizen being inundated and influenced with irrelevant sexy frog advertising, to a commerce giant—Smiley Enterprises—that distributes the sexy frog and forces its workers to meet impossible time standards (a jab at Amazon while they just happen to be in the news for creating a hostile employee environment, I might add), all the way to the desk of the President of the United States, this voluptuous amphibian becomes a symbol for the funhouse image that exists in the place of the American dream, like a punchline that falls flat.
Ben Caldwell’s illustrations contribute quite a bit to this concept; from the cuddly, marijuana-distributing End of Life Bear to the American flag-girdled killbots that guard the President, it’s often the imagery present in the artwork that strikes the deepest chord. There’s subtlety too, however, and even some fun Easter eggs which add levity and keep the tone from crossing the line into dismal. This is assisted by the color palette, deftly chosen by Ben Caldwell, which sticks with a lot of blues and silvers that are traditionally associated with futuristic stories but includes bright colors as well so that it’s not too on the nose.
Prez sets a familiar dystopian gaze at the world but manages to give a new perspective with a fresh, teenage everyman who is jaded enough to ask all the hard but obvious questions. For me, it’s the shining light in all the ho-hum content currently churning out of DC post-Convergence.
Max Robinson is reading…
Written by Tim Seeley and Tom King
Art by Mikel Janin
Colored by Jeremy Cox
DC Comics
“Let me guess. Clayface, right?”
Seeley/King/Janin’s Grayson is consistently one of DC’s best books, a cool slice of sexy espionage weirdness that makes good use of the Spyral trappings Grant Morrison introduced in his Batman run. More than that, though, Grayson’s a terrific book because it’s a really excellent character study for Dick Grayson, formerly Robin, Nightwing and (ever so briefly) Batman. (Our own David Uzumeri happened to write a great piece about the series’ initial storyline).
Despite being a 75-year-old character, Dick Grayson has always felt like something of a cipher compared to many of his superpowered peers. Grayson goes a long way toward making the Dark Knight’s former protege more than just “Batman but with jokes” and, interestingly enough, this issue confronts the particular problem of “Dick Grayson The Character” head on.
Framed for the murder of various spy agency officials around the world, Dick finally finds himself face to face with…himself. The bulk of Grayson #11 is a gorgeous hand-to-hand fight between Grayson and a mysterious doppelganger, but really it’s just cool window dressing for Grayson’s own inner turmoil. Seeley and King have incorporated a fair amount of dialogue symmetry in this series so far, and I think it’s used to great effect in Grayson’s fight with himself here. We watch as the real Grayson’s genre-savy quips (Dick wishes that “just once” an evil double would turn out to be Killer Croc) are mercilessly thrown back in his face by the fake Grayson (“What fantastic quip came after Barbara took the bullet?”). You can feel Dick’s self-doubt and stung pride like sweat off the page. Grayson’s mission statement seems to be that it wants to define who Dick Grayson is, exactly. This issue suggests that journey is going to be a painful one.
Janin’s fight choreography in this sequence is impeccable, aided by the visual flourish of a mountain of skulls that adorn the catacombs where the action takes place. Cox’s muted color palette aids Janin’s impressive layouts here, which shift from workman-like clarity into acid trip waviness to signify Dick’s ocular implants getting tampered with.
On its own, the fight sequence that’s the main event of Grayson #11 might have been overbearing, but thankfully it’s massaged with some great humor—Dick critiques his own butt and almost kisses “himself” twice—and a couple pretty intriguing twists in terms of the larger spy yarn this creative team is laying down. Grayson’s a remarkable book, and the series’ second act of sorts is shaping into a doozy.
Joe Stando is reading…
Written by Charles Soule
Art by Leinil Francis Yu (pencils) and Gerry Alanguilan (inks)
Colored by Sunny Cho
Lettered by Joe Sabino
Marvel
“Mr. President, I’m a soldier. I put on a uniform and fight for my country. If necessary, I die for it.”
What a weird book this is. Like many Secret Wars books, Civil War takes its name and premise from an older Marvel crossover event. Unlike those books, though, there’s no winking references to the greater world, or self-aware remixes of older story ideas. The greater Battleworld setup is never referenced, and an America a decade into a superhero-based Civil War is treated with the utmost seriousness. In essence, it’s a dogged attempt to faithfully follow Millar’s story, both in plot points and in tone and style.
The star here is easily the artwork. Yu and Alanguilan’s linework are reminiscent of McNiven’s to the point that you can feel the continuity, but different enough to feel fresh, rather than dated. The premise allows for a little bit of sci-fi flourish, from the Iron Sentinels and other robots of Tony Stark’s nation to the armored, trenchcoat-adorned Punisher outfits of Steve Rogers’ society. It’s a very cool-looking book, with a wide variety of cityscapes, secret bases, and deserts.
From a storyline perspective, though, it’s still a puzzle. The core “safety/freedom” ideological conflict is still technically in play, but at this point the characters have all been fighting so long that it feels mostly out of habit. The characters aren’t particularly likeable, but not in the “love to hate them” edgy way that the Squadron Sinister characters are. There’s also no real stance here in terms of the eponymous war, just a general depiction of the enmity between the groups punctuated with a fight or a zombie Kingpin with Doc Ock tentacles.
Maybe that’s what Soule is going for, a level of exasperation at the characters’ actions, and in that way a critique of the shortsightedness of the event. It would certainly line up with the implication of a shadowy group that’s been manipulating both sides all along. But if so, the message is a little garbled. Civil War isn’t one of my favorite tie-ins, but it might be the most interesting, in the way that it continues to defy an easy read. Is it out of skilled intent, or just conflicting story demands and an unclear vision? I don’t know, but I’m going to keep trying to figure it out.
That’s what we’re reading this week! What comics did you pick up? Leave us a comment below, or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter!