The Most Interesting Comics of the Week

Every Wednesday, I preview the most interesting new comics hitting shops, Comixology, Kickstarter, and the web. Feel free to comment below if there's a comic you've read recently that you want to talk about.

1. Miracleman #1

Written by Mick Anglo and "The Original Writer" (whose name rhymes with Halan Shmoore); art by Garry Leach and others
Marvel Comics

This release is the long-hoped-for return of one of the great lost classics of comic book history. It was one of the first revisionist, realistic takes on superheroes, written by two of the greatest writers to ever work in that genre: Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman.

In 1982, Moore revived what was then called Marvelman, a 1950s British superhero created by Mick Anglo as a blatant ripoff of Fawcett Comics' Captain Marvel in a series of short, black and white stories for British anthology magazine Warrior. Eclipse Comics picked up the series and changed the name to Miracleman to avoid a lawsuit from Marvel Comics, although this would be just the beginning of Miracleman's vast legal troubles. 

The Miracleman series was written by Moore around the same time he was writing Watchmen and  is a similar deconstruction of the genre, dealing with the more terrifying aspects of how superpowered beings might interact with human beings. Many readers consider it to be just as good and just as important as Watchmen. Moore wrote the series until issue #15 and then passed the reins to newcomer Neil Gaiman, who continued to write it into the early 1990s while also beginning work on The Sandman for DC Comics. 

Gaiman and artist Mark Buckingham were in the middle of a climactic 18-issue storyline to bring the Miracleman saga to a close when Eclipse Comics went bankrupt in 1994. Gaiman and Buckingham had actually completed what would have been their next issue, #25, but it has never seen the light of day. The legal wranglings of the following 20 years are too much to get into here, but you can read a detailed account of it here. The upshot is that Marvel Comics (with Gaiman’s help) acquired the rights to Miracleman from Todd McFarlane (like I said, it's a long story, just read this) and will now release remastered (re-colored and re-lettered) editions leading up to Gaiman and Buckingham finally getting a chance to finish their story. Moore wants nothing to do with the project and requires that his name not be associated with the reprints, hence the credit to "The Original Writer."

Many comics purists will object to the modern coloring applied here but Marvel seems to be taking great care to introduce this series in the best way possible to modern audiences while also looking to compile the most definitive collection possible. As a result, this first issue contains only about 10 pages of Moore's story while being filled out with extras and some necessary precursor stuff from the Mick Anglo years. This is an important piece of comics history whose legend has grown enormously due in part to the small number of people who have actually been able to read it. It will be interesting to see whether or not this classic can stand on its own today without the veil of mystery that has always surrounded it. And we’ll see whether new readers will be able to appreciate a comic that has previously influenced so much of what they have now taken for granted over the past 20 years.

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2. Black Dynamite #1

Written by Brian Ash; art by Ron Wimberly and Sal Buscema
IDW

The latest offering from the partnership between IDW Publishing and Cartoon Network is an adaptation of the popular Adult Swim series, Black Dynamite, which itself is adapted from the 2009 film of the same name. Black Dynamite is both a parody and a celebration of "Blaxploitation" films of the '70s. Its titular hero is an ex-CIA, Vietnam vet who uses his kung-fu skills to clean up the streets, squaring off against drug dealers, ninjas and, his arch-nemesis, Richard Nixon. 

The new mini-series is written by Brian Ash, a writer and producer of the animated program. He previously wrote a Black Dynamite graphic novel in 2011 called Slave Island. Here, he's collaborating with artist Ron Wimberly who originally designed some of the characters for the TV series.
Much like how the film emulated the look and feel of low-budget, one-take '70s blaxploitation films, the comic takes on the look of comic books of that era and even employs veteran comic book artist Sal Buscema to ink over Wimberly's pencils.

The preview for this looks really fun.

It's a big week for Ron Wimberly fans. He also happens to have some work in this week's issue of Brandon Graham's Prophet from Image Comics.

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3. D4VE

Written by Ryan Ferrier; art by Valentin Ramon
Monkeybrain Comics

A middle-aged, suburban husband dreams of his glory days while toiling away at a corporate job that is sucking the energy out of him. We've seen various mid-life crisis fantasies played out in everything from American Beauty to The Incredibles, but in the new 5 issue digital series from Monkeybrain Comics, D4VE, there's a fun new twist. The hero of this story is a robot who was once a warrior in the AI revolution that brought about the extinction of mankind. Now, he’s just a middle management cog in a corporate machine. The robots, in taking over Earth, also took on all of man's characteristics, habits, neuroses and failings. And now that the robots have become as lazy and complacent as their human predecessors, an alien threat has arrived to take control of Earth from them.

In the second issue, which came out last week via Comixology, D4VE finds himself saddled with an obnoxious teenage son named 5COTTY that his wife “ordered” for their family, unbeknownst to him. Plus, S4LLY, his wife, gets fed up and leaves him, his job gets even suckier and, oh yeah, aliens are invading. But that may actually be his best hope at salvation.

This is some pretty funny stuff and it seems to be quickly building a devoted audience. Ferrier brings some of his own personal experience (working dead end jobs and having existential crises) into the material and he and Ramon also put in plenty of clever visual and verbal gags that make this a delight to read.

You can pick up both of the issues that have been released so far for 99¢ each on Comixology.