Tag Archives: captain midnight

Pick(s) of the Week: Collider #1 and a Whole Bunch More

COLLID_Cv1_PRINT_3pncuy4wjo_Normally, I’d choose the “Pick of the Week” by which comic was on the most of our lists, but out of the slim choices this week, there was actually only one comic on more than one list. So, I’m going with executive privilege and choosing this week’s pick, Collider #1 by Vertigo.

It started small: temporary gravity failures, time reversal loops, entropy reversals. With much fanfare a new government agency was formed with a mandate “to prevent and protect.” Its official title: The Federal Bureau of Physics. Humans, if nothing else, adapt to the changing parameters of their existence. What was extraordinary soon became ordinary, a part of people’s daily lives. They move on and do what people have always done: survive. But even that new status quo is now under threat. Things are getting worse, and it falls to Special Agent Adam Hardy and his FBP team to figure out what’s going on, before it’s too late…

Um, how can you not get this? Vertigo has been kicking as as a publisher, and this latest release I’m sure will be just as solid.

Check out below for the full list from some of the members of the Graphic Policy team.

Andrew:

Batman Annual #2 (DC) – Of all of the various Batman comics out there I read Snyder’s religiously. He’s got huge shoes to fill and Zero Year hasn’t let down.

Five Ghosts: The Haunting of Fabian Gray #5 (Image) – If you’re not reading this series…you’re wrong. It’s phenomenal.

King Conan: The Hour of the Dragon #3 (Dark Horse) – The plot of this latest run pays homage to earlier Conan storylines and includes fantastic artwork by Tomás Giorello.

The Wake #3 (Vertigo) – Snyder’s deep sea thriller is exceptional. I want to know what the creature is, where it came from, and whether there are more.

Brett:

Top Pick: Collider #1 (Vertigo) – see above. This series just sounds too cool to not choose.

Ghost Town #2 (Action Lab: Danger Zone) – The first issue of the Action Lab: Danger Zone series was awesome. Mixing time travel and terrorism, it truly was a series that you had no idea what was coming. The second issue, more of the same when it comes to that.

Guardians of the Galaxy #5 (Marvel) – Angela makes her first comic since Age of Ultron. Want to find out what Marvel’s plans with her are? Well, here you go. Expect this one to sell out.

Liberator #2 (Black Mask Studios) – Politics + comics = awesome! The series that follows animal liberators is a unique voice in the comic industry right now.

Skyward #1 (Action Lab) – Kick ass women in a kids comic is a specialty from Action Lab. This series adds to their varied and family friendly releases. A great comic the whole family can enjoy.

The Wake #3 (Vertigo) – Scott Snyder and Sean Phillips’ series has been amazing so far.

TPB of the Week: 39 Minutes – A winner of Top Cow’s Pilot Series, and one I really dug. ROBBING A BANK IS EASY, IT’S THE GETAWAY THAT’S HARD. The bank is surrounded by police officers, alarms are blaring, customers and employees are screaming, and the streets are blocked off. So what’s the solution? Kill everyone in town!

Sean:

Top Pick: Captain Midnight #1 (Dark Horse) – after a look at Captain Midnight #0, which utterly blew me away, I can’t see how the ‘first’ issue of this pulp hero rival could be anything but incredible. They’ve sure been marketing the hell out of it, so are you in? $2.99.

Akaneiro #3last of this Brian Wood mini-series based on American McGee’s game; let’s see what happens with Kani and those demons! $3.99.

Amala’s Blade #4 – this series by Horton and Dialynas is in my opinion Dark Horse’s best mini-series of the year; the ending is a must have! $3.50.

Batman, Incorporated #13 – Morrison’s titanic series comes to a crashing end as Batman “saves the world and loses everything.” Morrison’s been building this series for years, and now we’re getting it’s conlusion…or are we? $2.99.

Daredevil #29 – Waid and Samnee’s Daredevil is not only my favorite DD run, but also Marvel’s top series right now (followed by Hawkeye and Superior Spidey). And Samnee’s back on the art after a short hiatus. Woohoo! $2.99.

TPB of the Week: No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics (Fantagraphics Books)—the wonderful reprint collectors over at Fantagraphics are putting out an anthology that promises to be a collection of the worlds greatest LGBTQ comics. It’s definitely worth a look if you want to explore a little more about the social issues driving and driven by our favorite medium here at Graphic Policy. $35.00 (but 20% off online retailers like TFAW.com or Amazon.com).

Review: Captain Midnight #1

22880Here at Graphic Policy, we’re pretty excited about Captain Midnight #1, a comic that’s been the benefactor of one of Dark Horse’s larger advertising campaigns. Mostly because he’s a big damn hero, in more ways than one. Last month we got the chance to take a look at the prequel, Captain Midnight #0 (my review actually got quoted by Dark Horse on their Facebook advertisement!) and I was immediately hooked. It promised in those 28 pages to be a great pulp superhero, and a classic one actually reborn from the pulp age, too!

With Nazis, a nemesis named Fury Shark, time travel, a castle in the North Pole, and, y’know, Captain Midnight, this book is sure to catch some buzz among the comic reviewing elites. Joshua Williamson and Fernando Dagnino, aided by colorist Ego, provide a fascinating follow-up to the zero-issue from June, developing the intrigue of the Fury-Midnight dispute and following-up on the pursuit by the U.S. military of a time-travelling genius!

Williamson’s narrative moves along at a steady pace, bouncing back and forth through time and space quite appropriately, and we get a number of diverse scenes that move along rapidly and tell a rather robust story. Despite this, Captain Midnight #1 suffers from some awkward turns of dialogue. This is maybe a result of characters that are unmotivating, or perhaps there is an unestablished status quo for the tone of this new series. I certainly didn’t recognize anything off-putting in the zero-issue, but I caught myself thinking, “Well that’s cheesy dialogue,” while reading #1. Then again, I guess one might expect cheesy dialogue from a so-called pulp hero book, but the Captain Midnight narrative seems to take itself more seriously than glorified bad writing.

I may have only had one itty-bitty brush with this guy in his zero-issue, but already I’m a fan, and Captain Midnight, for me, is a story made in the 1940s pulp scene of big American heroes and Nazis, not usually something I’m interested in; but transplanting to the story to the present, outside of the WWII setting from which Captain Midnight emerged, is a little strange. Sadly, very little gets seen of Captain Midnight, but he’s instead discussed ominously by various characters to drive home the point that the dude is a freaking genius.

Reading this issue, I started to get the feeling that Williamson may have taken advantage of the Captain Midnight story to insert mocking jabs at Captain America in just the slightest way, after all they keep calling  him “Cap'” and *spoiler* the bad guys at the end are glowing, green-skull-headed dudes in the employ of ageless Nazi Ms. Shark (uh, Hydra, anyone, albeit not red?). Maybe I just read too much into things…

Dagnino’s artistry is the saving grace of Captain Midnight #1, lending an almost mainstream tone to the Dark Horse style, which gives this book credibility as a major superhero undertaking while still retaining its independence from the Big Two (don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing at all wrong with Big Two styles, I would just hate to see Dark Horse trying to reproduce this; they work best at their own thing!).  Dagnino even utilizes what appears to be two subtly different styles between the 1942 timeline and the contemporary one. In fact, the opening bleed panel sets a high tone for the book, and would definitely be my pick for a panel of the week. It’s beautiful and complex, and Ego does some magnificent work on the colors!

Captain Midnight #1 is worth a try, because maybe your sensibilities are different; but I was rather let down. There was a lot to live up to following the zero-issue, and while Dagnino delivered exceptional page layouts overflowing with great art, Williamson’s script detracted from the overall atmosphere of what we got a month ago in Captain Midnight #0. But don’t let this stop you from taking a look yourself. This book could easily become one of the best new series of the year. I’m looking forward to seeing where Williamson and Dagnino take us next!

Oh, and that Felipe Massafera cover is amazing.

Story: Joshua Williamson Art: Fernando Dagnino
Story: 6 Art: 8 Overall: 7 Recommendation: Read

Dark Horse provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review

Around the Tubes

Did folks head to their comic shop yesterday? If so, what’d you get?

Around the Tubes

The Mary Sue – Amazing Spider-Man 2 Declines Jackpot; No Longer Features Mary Jane Watson – I wonder what the story behind this is?

The Hollywood Reporter – Universal Picks Up ‘Locke & Key’ Comic – Can’t wait!!!

 

Around the Tubes Reviews

Comic Vine – Age of Ultron #10

CBR – Age of Ultron #10

Comic Vine – Animal Man #21

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Comic Vine – Batwoman #21

Comic Vine – Bloodshot #12

Comic Vine – Captain Midnight #0

Examiner – Captain Midnight #0

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Comic Vine – Liberator #1

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Talking Comics – Mara #5

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The Beat – The Suitcase

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Review: Captain Midnight #0

CapMidnight0Bermuda Triangle time-displacement, a really long-lost love, a treasure map, an evil Nazi technology company, and a super war-hero from the past! Captain Midnight #0 is sheer awesome, a reboot of the adventure hero’s stories originally broadcast on radio from 1938 to 1949. I’ll admit that I’m new to the character, but doing my research I looks as though Midnight has cast his Nazi-busting shadow across radio, comics, television, and pulp prose. You can still find the Captain Midnight Radio series here.

But more to the point, Captain Midnight #0 is a preview to what’s to come, and it’s expertly written by Joshua Williamson to feel a lot like a more daring, more dashing, (should I say it?!) more kick-ass version of Indiana Jones. Williamson plays easily into the archetypes of the U.S. military present today in our fictional media, with military agents who refuse to believe Midnight’s identity and a lowly soldier who’s somehow more knowledgeable about Captain Midnight’s ‘legend’ then anyone else in the fleet.

Krakoom! (my favorite comic book onomatopoeia) and Midnight bursts out of a time hole and into our modern day, and the story that follows is brought to life such that I felt like I was reading a Golden Age comic with sharper lines, deeper colors, and an attention to background panel detail that characterizes contemporary mainstream comics.

Unfortunately, Captain Midnight is at odds with the military (I don’t think supers have a lot of luck with the U.S. military…) and goes out on his own to find the evil Nazi, who you know has an extra-cheesy name like, oh, Fury Sharks!

I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I cracked open Captain Midnight #0, but now I’m aching to get my hands on the next issue and watch as Dark Horse’s talented artists and writer bring this Golden Age bad-ass back to life.

Story: Joshua Williamson  Art: Victor Ibáñez and Pere Pérez
Story: 9 Art: 8 Overall: 8.5 Recommendation: Buy

Dark Horse provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review

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