“Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” one can almost hear Jerry Seinfeld remark on reading DC’s teaser copy for Doc Savage #10: “It was the war that changed everything and brought Clark Savage, Jr., and Ronan McKenna together. But the things those men had to do as soldiers would one day tear them apart!” Um…yeah. As ever, the issue features a handsome J.G. Jones cover, reminiscent of the work of J.C. Leyendecker, as well as some acceptable interior visuals from Phil Winslade, but it otherwise suffers from a wretched, sanctimonious script from Ivan Brandon. (On the penultimate page, an incidental character informs the title titan, “This isn’t one of your adventures, Clark.” Do tell!) Still, this fiasco has served some purpose by prompting DC to schedule, for June, the publication of Showcase Presents: Doc Savage. Reportedly, that trade paperback will compile the eight-issue black-and-white Doc Savage magazine released by Marvel in the mid-’70s, which boasted some of the best comics adventures ever to star the Man of Bronze—including two pencilled by John Buscema.

 

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the gamma ray machine… As previously remonstrated, one of Marvel’s oldest series has become one of the mainstream’s biggest bores by adding an s to its title and packing its cast with verdant berserkers or wannabes. Now, with Incredible Hulks #620, writer Greg Pak, penciller Paul Pelletier, and inker Danny Miki unthinkably top themselves by introducing…Pap Hulk. Yes. As part of an emetic four-month “event” involving 19 comic books, Pak and his posse temporarily resurrect from the dead the abusive father of Bruce Banner, the title character’s milquetoast alter ego. However, as helpfully established by a pair of supporting players—also dead, reflecting the growing necrophilia at the Big Two during the past decade—Banner’s ongoing rage and fear have made daddy-o big (!) and green (!!) and eeeeevil (!!!). Puh-lease. Even by the lenient standards of the mainstream, Incredible Hulks offends. Especially given its $3.99 price and semimonthly schedule, the time has long since come to drop this drivel from the pull-and-hold list.

 

To new comic books not starring or otherwise involving marquee characters, the recession has dealt a double whammy, disinclining even the most conscientious retailers from ordering or stocking such comics in depth and discouraging even the most adventurous consumers from preordering them for three or more issues through Diamond for a P&H. One can only hope that creators like writer Nick Spencer and artist Christian Ward persevere and continue to publish promising oddities like The Infinite Vacation #1. With breezy chutzpah, this new Image series approximates a multiversal Marx Bros. murder mystery. In Spencer and Christian’s Robert Sheckleyesque romp, more specifically, a corporation has commercialized the Everett-Wheeler many worlds hypothesis for über-P2P psychotourism—all effectuated, naturally, by a smartphone app. Troublously, though, the series’ slacker protagonist has learned that an improbable number of his own others have been dying of late, often bloodily, and then he falls for a snappish deadender (“the reality Amish”—wonderful!), and then— Oh, hell. Just book passage on The Infinite Vacation, will ya? It gives every indication of going places.

 

In this economy, not even a pop icon can treat his position like a sinecure, but you’ve been doing just that—so if you would, follow the bronzed colossus and the jade giant to the exit. Ack! Thpft! Sorry—catnapping. Where were we? Oh, yes: Superman #707. Here, as did Phil Hester on Wonder Woman three weeks past, scriptwriter Chris Roberson inherits J. Michael Straczynski’s contrived extended plot (which should feel relevant…er, resonant to anyone who’s read Green Lantern #76 from 1970). Similarly, Allan Goldman joins the growing roster of pencillers not yet professional enough to handle this assignment—from panel to panel, he can’t even decide if Superman’s cape falls to the ankle (page 2) or knee (page 15). What an exercise in despair! It seems almost as if the powers that be at DC had resolved to leech from its flagship character all joie de vivre—everything bold and bright and, yes, beautiful about that character. For the nonce, the average tombstone would provide more pleasurable reading than any given issue of Superman.

 

With The Unwritten, writer Mike Carey and penciller Peter Gross, with inker Vince Locke, are crafting one of today’s finest mainstream comic books. Given the dependability with which raw sewage swamps comics shops each Wednesday, one cannot sufficiently stress that fact. For just a moment, though, let’s reflect on a felicity of this Vertigo title independent of Carey and Gross: its covers from Yuko Shimizu. As (no pun intended) illustrated by The Unwritten #21—wherein the series’ protagonist hilariously wreaks havoc aboard a whaling ship christened the Pequod—Shimizu contributes strikingly muscular compositions that never stint on elegance; for inexact comparatives in the medium, her work recalls that of Michael Wm. Kaluta and Paul Pope. A native of Japan now living in New York, she teaches at the famed School of Visual Arts and likewise contributes to numerous noncomics publications with quite high profiles; the January/February issue of The Atlantic, for example, includes a puckish winter-related “Gallery” illo from her. For The Unwritten in specific and comics in general, Shimizu’s continuing involvement constitutes a coup. | Bryan A. Hollerbach

 

Click here for a preview of Infinite Vacation #1, courtesy of Comic Book Resources.