Comics Review for August: What I Read

Multiversity #1 (Grant Morrison/Ivan Reis; DC) Cursed comics! Diseased and dying universes! We start with a dying Earth-7, follow an aboriginal superhero called the Thunderer to a meeting with Calvin Ellis, aka President Superman of Earth-23, and Captain Carrot of the Amazing Zoo Crew. The team begins a rescue Nix Uotan only to gain a hint of a menace spreading through all 52 universes represented in the Orrery of Worlds. If you like Grant Morrison's work, you'll love this. Multiversity is the culmination of his career thus far.

Ragnarok #1 (Walt Simonson; IDW) Ragnarok has come and the enemies of Asgard have taken the day. Brynja, svartalf and assassin, is tasked with removing those who will disrupt the lives of those who survived that horrible day. Her current assignment is to kill a dead god. From the man who brought the Norse back to Marvel's Thor.

Storm #1 (Greg Pak, Victor Ibanez; Marvel) Goddess, queen, mutant, thief, Ororo Munroe has been all these things. She now moves to the global stage and becomes proactive in world events. The first issue is a statement of intent and introduction for the ongoing series. Worth keeping an eye on.

Trees #1-4 (Warren Ellis, Jason Howard; Image) Ten years ago, Trees landed on the earth. Tall cylinders, tubes, whatever, stretching high, branching low, and seeming unconcerned about the life forms around them. Trees. Society has been disrupted by their presence. This is the longform science fiction series we've wanted from Ellis. He's writing a large cast, all the better to give us the global scope of the Trees and how they've changed the world, how humanity has adapted to their presence. While there are many Ellis spices in the mix, this is mature Ellis, easily his best work to date.

Low #1 (Rick Remender, Greg Tocchini; Image) Set mere generations away fro the destruction of the earth caused by the expansion of the sun, our protags are a family attempting to protect the undersea cities of mankind and find a way to rescue mankind from future disaster. A family drama with pirates, future tech, and lost tech. Beautiful art. I really want to see where Remender is taking this one.

Supreme Blue Rose #1-2 (Warren Ellis, Tula Lotay; Image) Diana Dane is tasked by Darius Dax with finding out about something that fell from the sky and landed in Littlehaven. Ethan Crane may be connected with the crash in some way. This is Rob Liefeld's Supreme but there is no pseudo-Superman heroics. This is the next step beyond Alan Moore's Supreme but no previous series knowledge is required; we're all confused together. This is Warren Ellis walking around a landscape with pop myths literalized.

The Sandman: Overture #3 (Neil Gaiman, JH Williams III; DC) Beautiful art by JH Williams, but you knew that. This Sandman miniseries tells us what happened to Dream just before Sandman #1. Each issue uses the same story type as one of the longer arcs from the older series. Issue three is the buddy road movie, essentially echoing "Brief Lives." There are hints here and in the old series where we're going even when the path ahead isn't clear. I will follow this path to the end.

Let's Go a'Viking!

There's been some consternation, confusion, and discord on my Facebook friends' list today on how far the Vikings travelled. First, though, viking is what you do when the crops are in, not who they were, not exactly. They're vikings like you're a little league coach. It's usually not a day job.

Let's start with what is recorded in Wikipedia.  The boards for the Straight Dope took up the question but became hung on the Kensington Runestone. The Kensington Runestone is rune covered greywacke found in Solem, Minnesota, circa 1898. Consensus seems to be that the stone dates from the late 19th Century rather than the 14th.

An article in the Smithsonian looks at claims of Thorfinn and speculates the vikings may have found themselves as far south as Gowanus Bay in New York Harbor. National Geographic covers Norse textiles from Greenland found down the coast of Canada from Baffin Island. 

It's a lovely idea that the Vikings made it down to Virginia and even around to the Mississippi River, or possibly through rivers to the Great Lakes and over to Minnesota, but there's no evidence to prove it. It's a god story in fiction and one I love. Mike Grell used it for an issue of Jon Sable, Freelance, though his lost Viking explorer made it down to Nicaragua. Warren Ellis came up with Morning Dragons, a comic that teased the idea of a Viking longboat travelling over to Japan. Ellis mentioned an image in his head (ahistorical, of course) of a Norse battleaxe coming down on and being blocked by one of the Japanese blades of story. Lovely image and idea, unfortunately this project was never completed.

(Side note: According to the Telegraph, young men going a'viking were warned away from Scotland. Heh.)

Has anyone ever written a blog post that mentioned both Warren Ellis and Ray Stevens?

Is my life in danger now? 

Strange As Strange Does

IDW announced a Mister Miracle Artist Edition and a Goon Artist Edition at SDCC. If anything tempts me to find a "real job" (for given value of) it's the IDW Artist Editions. Yowza!

Berkeley Breathed at SDCC on Bill Watterson and setting the record straight. Maybe.

CBR teases us with a few pages from Starlin's Thanos: The Infinity Revelation.

Over at Bleeding Cool, Joe Casey interviews Howard Chaykin.