If you liked Books of Magic, The Sandman, Wisdom or any other comic title presenting the Fairy and its odd inhabitants you might have heard of the upcoming release of Vertigo’s new hard-cover title, God Save the Queen. Well I don’t know what you’ve heard but this one’s a bit different than what we’ve encountered before:
The story is set in modern London where a bored, rebellious teenager, Linda, starts hanging out with a group of wild fairies. They introduce her to the ultimate fairy drug, Red Horse, a mixture of heroin and human blood and quite the dangerous high, and she soon finds herself drawn in a civil war from the alleys of London to the fields of Fairy, a fight between Queen Titania and her mad predecessor Queen Mab. A grasping story with cameo appearances of other Vertigo characters, what more would you ask?
The story seems extremely interesting of course but the element that captured mostly my attention was the creator team. Written by Mike Carey (Hellblazer, Crossing Midnight, Lucifer) and illustrated by John Bolton (the person who first designed Tim Hunter’s face in the Books of Magic, he has a strong resemblance to his older brother) this could be nothing less than a masterpiece, both of them carry along a big piece of recent comics history. Especially Carey, a living legend in comic narrating, is a creator whose work I try to follow closely, check out for instance the recent issue 229 of Hellblazer, a beautiful story about why you should never do a friend a favor. Now, if this one’s going to be as good as their previous books, I don’t know but the clues point that way, you can bet I’ll buy it the moment it’s released though (that would be April the 25th). Punk/fairy is here to stay (cool name for a new gender)!
Nope, Spidey’s not performing AC/DC songs, this is even more unbelievable as the most popular character of Marvel the last half century goes dark once again in many years! After the cataclysmic events of Civil War and the changes in the Marvel Universe (the much, much more realistic changes than the House of M) Spider-Man returns in the black outfit, the symbiotic alien suit we knew all these years as Venom. The very few info released by now mention that Peter Parker is left in a dark place where he meets the shadow of his past, and from there things are only going to get worse for him.
So is this an actual turn in the development of Spider-Man or just a publicity stunt for the upcoming movie, where the story of the black suit will be told once again? These last years there have been so many changes in the Marvel Universe that promised long term effects and very few of them lasted more than a few months, is this also going to be one of them? No matter, for many readers, including myself, Spider-Man’s dark alter ego was the most interesting part in the character’s evolution, a time when he had to face his wildest instincts and a look more stylish than ever! If this is an attempt to promote the upcoming movie, a branch of the Civil War story or a totally different matter that may grasp us with its own advantages, nobody knows. The next 4 months will show, for now this is the Checklist for March:
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #539
FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN #18
NEW AVENGERS #28
SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN #36
It is a common policy in the comics industry to treat the best-selling characters in a way, let’s say discriminating. It’s not just that they have series (limited and ongoing) based on them or that they appear in almost all the others through those (usually annoying) crossovers, they also get their own annual issues! There have been comic books in the past with unbelievably good annuals (like Hellblazer, almost every one was a tremendously well written and pretty large issue) and others quite indifferent, in which category you will include the second annual of Batman’s former sidekick, that’s up to you!
When Dick Grayson left Batman and his role as Robin, he did not become a lawyer as he first considered but another masked crime fighting hero, a much darker and more mysterious one, Nightwing. His name has its origin in a story Superman told him to inspire him when he felt lost, an urban legend (or not?) of Krypton about a man who dreamt of a better world and tried to help forging it. Nightwing worked on his own for a period, he was the protector of Blüdhaven (the economically degraded neighbour city of Gotham), then joined the Teen Titans as their leader and even later he led the Outsiders, a group of heroes created both by Teen Titans and Young Justice. Youngest son of an acrobat family, Dick saw his parents getting killed by a mafia boss extorting money from the circus (the incident that was credited to Two-Face in Batman Forever, the movie by Joel Schumacher) and dedicated his life in fighting crime and protecting the innocent.
In this annual issue we follow Nightwing after the incidents of Infinite Crisis that almost got him killed (during the Battle of Metropolis Alexander Luthor almost assassinated him while he was trying to save Batman’s life, DC admitted that their original plan was to kill Dick Grayson and they abandoned it in the last moment) and learn more about his relationship with Oracle (Barbara Gordon), the woman he offered his heart to one year ago. I must confess that the storyline confuses me, especially after Infinite Crisis and One Year Later, and the characters are not my favourite but many people that I know swear it’s really interesting; I might give it a try!
First post, time for introductions.
Welcome fellow comic reader, graphic novel fan, superhero freak or anything else between. This blog will be updated daily in a futile attempt to contain even a fragment of the total comics experience available only through cheap pages and ink-smeared fingers, await new issue reviews, character presentations, news about the most remarkable creators, classic story arcs that changed our favorite universes and many many more.
And thus it has begun!
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