New Beginnings - The Wicked and The Divine #1

by Matt Puddy

On a reasonably regular occurrence the old adage of 'never judge a book by its cover' certainly comes into its own. For me, this week's review is one of those weeks.

The Wicked and The Divine gives absolutely nothing away with its cover. A female figure staring straight ahead with an almost Warhol-esque colouring to it. So far I’m drawing a blank on what it could be.

From the cover I can take some solace in that I know it’s a collaboration between Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie. I’ve really liked Gillen’s work on Iron Man and how he built it up, so there’s promise there. Equally McKelvie’s artwork is akin to the styles I prefer to see, so all looking positive.

So what’s it all about? Opening at the close of 1923, a shadowy gathering of individuals and skulls are preparing to part ways. For one of them the road continues, but for everyone else their fate is sealed in a large explosion. Resuming at the dawn of 2014 we are given a hint at what this could all be about with the name dropping of another Shinto godess, Amaterasu, and shortly after Luci(fer). This is all about gods and goddesses walking amongst us.

Taking the form of teenagers, we meet several deities from different cultures all interacting with human society. They’re very restrained though and miracles are kept to a minimum, but because of this there has bred a large degree of scepticism. It’s only the pivotal moment of the scene that changes this and sets up what I believe to be a central moment for the series. When two snipers try to kill the occupants of the room they are in, Lucifer - with the snap of her fingers - makes their heads explode.

This leads to a court case that  creates a surreal situation. The court is asked to find Luci guilty, but with no weapon and only the snap of her fingers presumed as the cause, what could really be done? It’s only when the judge's head somehow also spreads itself all over the courtroom that things go awry for a multitude of reasons. The obvious one is that Luci says she didn’t do it, but it does point an exceedingly large amount of guilt on her. The bigger question is if it wasn’t her, then who did it? There is dissent amongst the godly ranks.

I want to say that this is a completely original idea, but regardless of how impressed with the story I was, I always had a nagging memory of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods in my head which has a similar 'they walk among us' theme. That said this is still a great idea - although we are not alone they aren’t omnipotent and fall foul of human emotions, as well as the restrictions inherent in possessing a human body, for though they are immortal, they are not invincible. They are also fallible giving a different side to them as well. Even the personalities of the individual gods, born from their respective mythologies, come through to add to their appearance and demeanour, which I liked.

The artwork plays a large part in expressing these characters. This isn’t a cluttered or heavy comic to read, thanks to McKelvie’s strong, clean pencils. I did have to chuckle when Sakhmet, a highly animalistic and sexual god from Egyptian mythology, looked a lot like Rihanna...

Matt Wilsons' colouring is light meaning although it has a simplistic look to it the comic is actually full of information for the reader to absorb.

On the whole I found this a very interesting little comic to add to the Image stable and one I would be interested to see where it goes and how it develops as it runs the risk of slipping into precarious territory. I feel there is a lot more to see and have develop and if Gillen’s current run is anything to go by there will be good things to come.

Matt Puddy is a rock and roll legend in these parts.

New Beginnings - Young Avengers #1

"Young Avengers in its first incarnation was about being sixteen. This Young Avengers is about being eighteen." Kieron Gillen

I was struggling to review Young Avengers #1. Why? The simple answer is it's very, very good. The story, the characterisation, the art, the dialogue - it aligns to make one of the best comics I've seen from Marvel in years (second only to Matt Fraction's Hawkeye).

So unless I devoted 500+ words as to why Kate Bishop clearly has the Midas Touch, I was stuck. Reviews that gush are often dull, sycophantic nonsense. Similarly though, reviews that cynically trawl for a flaw in an otherwise stunning piece of work tend to reveal the underlying bitterness of the reviewer - a failed author swiping at the more fortunate.

Then I read Gillen's editorial piece in the back, in lieu of a letter column, and the quote above helped it all click into place.

I loved Young Avengers. Introduced in the wake of Avengers Disassembled, Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung brought us a book about motivated individuals who aspired to be heroes. Rooted in Avengers lore - but not confined by it - the kids were first and foremost characters rather than components of an ensemble team.

Sadly, it was dogged by delays and concluded after twelve issues and a special. After that Marvel dabbled with a few miniseries, all with different writers, agendas and decidedly mixed results, culminating in the recent Children's Crusade - featuring the return of Heinberg and Cheung, and frustratingly delayed releases.

Enter Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie, the creators behind the wonderful Phonogram. Picking up the best remnants of the old team, Gillen is adding the new Miss America; his own reimagined Kid Loki from Journey Into Mystery; and Noh-Varr - who is quickly shorn of his ridiculous Protector identity and neatly ditches all the nonsense he was saddled with during AvX.

The story contains sex, confusion, defiance, magic, conflict, science fiction, heroics, horror and a loving relationship. Plus the age old struggle between adolescents who are becoming adults and parents who refuse to accept that.

The art work is deceptively simple, with clean pencil lines and neat panel layouts, coupled with a perfect use of colour akin to cel shading in my eyes. The characters are recognisable and yet completely McKelvie, which seems to be so rare in franchised comics these days. Too often a stylised artist distorts a character's look away form what makes them identifiable - particularly Ramos and Allred - or we get an identikit in-house approach to the art that reflects none of the artists' personalities.

This is a 21st Century comic book, with style and substance despite the issue's bold title. It's diverse without feeling like it wants to be a banner pole for diversity.

Bryan Lee O'Malley variant cover!

It's about being 18 and all the wonder, pain and intensity that brought with it. There's a passion for music within, but moreover there's a passion for the Marvel Universe and these young characters within. There's no clumsy exposition here to artificially pull them together; in time you can trust their lives will force them together.

That and Loki's machinations no doubt.

And above all it's very, very good. ;)

 Ben Fardon is tired but glad that a few things have clicked into place.

Five By Five - Comics, week 3: Phonogram

Last weekend, because I am both rock and roll and hardcore, I went to a nightclub with the express intention of losing myself in the music. (Eminem references: I’m still totally down with the kids).

I know what you’re thinking: Me and several hundred thousand other people right? Pubbing and clubbing on a Saturday night is pretty much a great British pass time; so much so that it has its own associated mini-rituals (even if they do primarily involve a donner kebab and a friend willing to hold your hair back for you as you weep into the gutter about the sheer existentialist absurdity of your own right shoe. Or is that just me?)

The truth is, fast food, projectile vomiting and girls who think that layers of fake tan are an acceptable alternative to clothes too often define nights out. We all want that transcendental moment when the DJ really does save your life, but it’s rare, and dependent on a magical alignment of people and place and beat.

It’s possible though, which is why we return to these sticky floored churches week after week in the hope that God will eventually show up.

The idea of it is endlessly compelling, and this week’s graphic novel series Phonogram takes it even further, as an entire pantheon shimmer and echo around the festivals, nightclubs and other music venues of the UK.

Phonogram takes place in a universe very much like our own; except that music really is magic here, and it chooses its own acolytes, sometimes without a great deal of discrimination. It might seem like an odd thing to say, but barely pages into ‘Rue Britannia’, the first offering in the series, I was as sure that I loved the story as I was that I hated the protagonist; pretentious, chain smoking David Kohl.

Of course, hate can be a complex emotion, and Kohl is a character with self-knowledge if nothing else, combined with an acute awareness of the powerful and ambivalent responses he can elicit. In possession of a strange mix of angst-ridden self-loathing and a misogynist’s swagger he declares himself a ‘white man in clitoris palace’ at the start of the story...

Before a well-timed and satisfying ass-kicking from a goddess.

Deities abound here and the metaphors are thick, fast and not always subtle. They don’t feel clumsy or forced though, because so many of the ideas they give form to have a ring of truth about them. From the fallen goddess of Brit Pop (once great, now best left buried), to the ‘memory palaces’ built from our collective impressions of a time, a place, a musical zeitgeist, Phonogram works because music is so close to metaphor anyway. A bunch of carefully arranged vibrations shouldn’t be able to make us laugh or cry or want to get laid. But they totally do. It’s only a hop, skip and a jump from here to giving these vibrations form and personality. And of course, we’re all slaves to the music sometimes. It’s just that here, there are phonomancers, touched by this sound magic, to make the influence explicit.

Phonogram's other obsession - very much in evidence in the collection of short stories in its second offering ‘The Singles Club’ (see what they did there?) - is identity, and the ways in which music allows us to belong, to rebel or to reinvent ourselves. It’s a whistle stop tour through one random indie night during which a host of phonomancers swirl past each other, each living out their own personal dramas. The interesting thing about it is the extent to which this is ‘inside out’ writing. In every single scene we’re allotted a protagonist  guide who invites us inside their head (and in one rather splendid case tells us to get the hell out again). There’s nowhere for them (or us) to hide from the insecurities, the jealousy or the spite that abound in every human heart and yet there’s something undeniably attractive about it all. We’re invited into the conversation and inevitably we wind up colluding with it.

It’s a dichotomy expressed perfectly in the recurrent character of Emily, a phonomancer of considerably greater power than David, who glides through the pages like some pierced medusa. You know you shouldn’t look but you do anyway. She’s undeniably a bitch, but she’s clever and insightful and just, well, *cool* as well. And as readers we’re granted a strange intimacy; the chance to see the old self she has abandoned to reinvent herself through sheer force of will.

For those interested in that sort of thing, it’s also worth noting that it all looks pretty damn sexy too. Where ‘Rue Britannia’ is noirey and printed entirely in black and white, ‘The Singles Club’ embraces a new palate; reds and oranges for that point in the evening when the air itself seems to sweat; moody blues and greys for more contemplative moments.  Jamie McKelvie draws human faces with a great deal of attention and even love, but the background detail is pared right down - it’s the *characters* that matter here. And the look of it isn’t the only additional dimension breathing life into Phonogram; there’s a sort of silent soundtrack that accompanies each scene, and for music lovers it offers dual opportunities for geeking out. (Kieron Gillen really knows his stuff and there are extensive notes on the music behind it all at the end of each book).

Perhaps the heart of it is that Phonogram celebrates the sheer, breathless, hedonistic, nihilistic thrill of sex and music and youth; of dark corners and wild parties and the exhilaration of existing in a perpetual state of not giving a fuck. It makes for a strangely unsettling read, but also an appropriately spell-binding one.

Because if magic exists anywhere, this is where it would be...

This week Kate is experiencing her annual bout of spring restlessness.