Lower Decks

This month I’m taking an abbreviated format. Most of these titles and opinions you really ought to know by now anyway. Here’re my favorite comics from May 2010:

As always, the order is alphabetical.

1. Air #21 (Vertigo)
The masterful series from G. Willow Wilson has been cancelled with #24, so now you’re going to have the chance to acquaint yourself with everything you missed in trade paperback form. ‘Air’ really had become the comics version of ‘Lost’ for me. I was surprised that so few people were reading, and even more surprised that there wasn’t even an appropriate amount of buzz around it.

2. American Vampire #3 (Vertigo)
If ‘Air’ has got to end, at least I’ve got this new Vertigo book to replace it.

3. The Anchor #8 (Boom!)
Phil Hester and Brian Churilla’s book comes to an end with this issue, and I lament it almost as much as ‘Air,’ and am baffled for all the same reasons.

4. Atomic Robo and the Revenge of the Vampire Dimension #3/Free Comic Book Day (Red 5)
Fortunately or not, Atomic Robo is in a better position with Red 5 than ‘Air’ or ‘The Anchor’ were with their companies. Featured for the second year in the company’s Free Comic Book Day offering, Robo is still obscure, but he’s also awesome.

5. Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #s 1-2 (DC)
For everyone who failed to appreciate Grant Morrison’s ‘Seven Soldiers of Victory,’ this is more or less the more mainstream version.

6. Batman and Robin #12 (DC)
Awesome at least for the final reveal, the long-awaited return of the Joker.

7. Brightest Day #s 1-2 (DC)
Geoff Johns and Pete Tomasi work a two-man follow-up to the quartet who did ‘52’ (Johns was one of them), exploring the lives of those brought back at the end of ‘Blackest Night.’

8. Daytripper #6 (Vertigo)
Fascinating glimpse into a seemingly ordinary life, and the many ways that it was extraordinary.

9. DC Universe Legacies #1 (DC)
This first issue, from veteran comics master Len Wein, might come off as another of the seemingly endless Golden Age nostalgia projects, but it’s only the first taste of a survey through DC’s history.

10. G.I. Joe: Hearts & Minds #1 (IDW)
From Max Brooks (‘World War Z,’ ‘The Zombie Survival Guide’) comes another excellent G.I. Joe book from IDW, following ‘Cobra,’ following the personal narratives of familiar characters, this issue being Major Bludd and Spirit. Howard Chaykin and Antonio Fuso (‘Cobra’) supply the art.

11. Green Lantern #54 (DC)
It wasn’t until this issue that I finally realized that Geoff Johns has been writing this title with the same panache and momentum as the Superman creative teams of the 1990s.

12. Green Lantern Corps #48 (DC)
There’s only ever really been one really significant Guardian, and with this issue, Ganthet takes on a new challenge, of being another standout Green Lantern.

13. The Great Ten #7 (DC)
Another cancelled book that absolutely doesn’t deserve it, Tony Bedard and Scott McDaniel present the origin of the Seven Deadly Brothers this issue.

14. The Heroic Age: Prince of Power #1 (Marvel)
Fred Van Lente and Greg Pak continue their Incredible Hercules saga, this time with Amadeus Cho, who has been holding his own from the start of this run, no matter what the title is.

15. Incorruptible #s 5-6 (Boom!)
If there was any doubt that Max Damage is worth the redemption he’s trying to gain, then these issues, a culmination of the young series’ counterpoint character Jailbait and her relationship and meaning to Max, really helps drive it home. Mark Waid is one of the great comic book writers, and he proves it again by arguably making the spin-off of ‘Irredeemable’ better.

16. Joe the Barbarian #5 (Vertigo)
Grant Morrison is so understated in this book it hardly seems possible that it’s the same writer who always seems to be just this side of being too clever for his own good. Sean Murphy’s art really helps sell this, too.

17. Justice League: Generation Lost #s 1-2 (DC)
Booster Gold, Ice, Fire, & Captain Atom have been trying to go legit since their heyday in the Justice League International days. This is an appropriate follow-up to ‘Countdown to Infinite Crisis,’ when Max Lord first made that an urgent mission.

18. Legion of Super-Heroes #1 (DC)
Paul Levitz is a comics veteran, but he knows when to adopt modern sensibilities, even when returning to a book that helped make his name. Finally, a Legion book that readers who loved Geoff Johns’ stories can appreciate. Oh, and the Green Lantern Corps in the thirty-first century!

19. The Marvelous Land of Oz #6 (Marvel)
Having recently finally gotten to enjoy ‘Return to Oz’ for the first time, this is a fine issue to bring up the under-appreciated film that closely matched the original appeal of L. Frank Baum’s writing.

20. Power Girl #12 (DC)
Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, and Amanda Conner say goodbye this issue, wrapping up the first year of a great book. Pity they couldn’t stick around for longer.

21. Red Robin #12 (DC)
Another year-end creator finale, as Chris Yost concludes Tim Drake’s dealings with Ra’s al Ghul, who reveals in this issue that Drake has proven himself another potential heir.

22. Scalped #38 (Vertigo)
Jason Aaron has been doing a fine job flipping back and forth in the timeline of this book, and with this issue, he reveals what kind of man Dashiell Bad-Horse’s old man was.

23. Siege: Young Avengers (Marvel)
Probably the most satisfying visit with the team since ‘Young Avengers Presents,’ which is nice, because Allan Heinberg is finally returning later this year.

24. Star Trek – Captain’s Log: Harriman (IDW)
Since his first appearance in ‘Star Trek Generations,’ a lot of attempts have been made to explain the wimpy captain who let Kirk die, but this one-shot is probably the most satisfying, because it allows him to grow, to learn from his mistakes, rather than try to apologize or distance himself from them.

25. Superman: War of the Supermen #s 0-4 (DC)
After a year of New Krypton, this was the one-month event finale, which basically obliterated every single aspect of the arc, if not making it easy to forget, then basically hitting the reset button anyway. Still, as much as I sometimes wonder why everyone seemed to be wasting their time, I did enjoy good portions of it, and there’s satisfaction even from that in how it ends. There’s been attempts to do a comic book Zod in the past, but this is undoubtedly the most successful, and trapping him back in the Phantom Zone isn’t a copout so much as a way to preserve him for future stories, ones that will be as relevant to this arc as the spirit of what Geoff Johns (and Richard Donner) originally envisioned.

I know I usually proceed to vomit a bunch of other comics after the twenty-five, but I’m skipping that this month. Truthfully, and if you’d made it this far or have been reading at all you deserve this, I’m not sure if I’ll be writing much more here at Lower Decks. Things seem to be winding down rather definitively. It may be time to move on, but I’ll certainly let you know where.