Colliders # 1 – Vertigo/DCScript: Simon Oliver
Pencils: Robbi Rodriguez
The most anticipated book of the year for me is Collider, and the race isn’t close. About two years ago I wrote a “Whatever Happened To?” blog post about Simon Oliver. You can imagine how much my literary loins ache at this point.
Collider is set in a world very much like ours, the key difference being that the laws of time, gravity, motion, and physics in general are now unpredictable. Time stoppages cause localized traffic jams, because everything on that piece of road just gets stuck. Sometimes a high school will lose gravity, and all the kids will start falling up. When these anomalies occur, (and they’re getting worse) Agent Adam Hardy and the Federal Bureau of Physics come to the rescue.
Like his prior Vertigo series Exterminators, Collider features flawed, blue-collar manly men who dare to go once more into the breach against malevolent forces they can’t possibly understand, much less defeat. That’s the Oliver idiom, and it’s a pretty good one.
Oliver’s work injects eccentric characters into complex high concepts, almost Hickman-esque in scope. Exterminators was punctuated with odd bits of historical research. You wouldn’t think Pol Pot would have much to do with killing bugs, but Simon Oliver worked it in there. I imagine that he’ll be injecting some actual scientific work into Collider.
There’s plenty to like about the first issue of Collides. Oliver laid some groundwork with Adam’s father sending him ominous messages from the future, adding an element of mystery. There’s tension between the FBP and the government bureaucracy that is threatening to de-fund it. (You didn’t really think a comic would get published without a little Lefty medicine in it, did you? Sucker.) These abstract scientific issues are repaired by sealing breaches
, which appear physical on the page and operate as adventure. That was smart, I think. It gives the audience a way to bridge the scientific gap in a satisfying way. Like Ghostbusters, you know? The supernatural is great, and you can solve problems with mumbo jumbo and ethereal abstractions, but Ghostbusters works as an adventure story because they found a way to shoot spirits with guns and put them in physical boxes. Colliders fix breakdowns in science by traipsing into dimensional breaches and then effectively welding them shut.
I know Simon Oliver’s work enough to trust that this already good story is going to get bigger, more absurd, and better. So I’m in for the long haul. I worry that a newcomer might look at Collider # 1 and bail too soon, because nothing in the issue really “popped” to me. The payoff is coming down the road, people. Trust me.
Ballistic # 1 – Black MaskScript: Adam Egypt Mortimer
Pencils: Darick Robertson
Adam Egypt Mortimer and Darick Robertson have created comics greatest imagination bomb, and they call it Ballistic. You want to talk about a comic that “pops”…this is Exhibit A.
The basic hook – Butch is a bored HVAC repairman and would-be gangster with a sentient organic pistol named Bang-Bang. The gun jacks into Butch’s adrenal gland and fires a variety of effects out of his mouth, usually smack-talking as it does so.
Butch takes an air-conditioning gig with a made Asian gangster and ends up pulling some valuable intel on a possible bank job, because of course the AC unit has been looking at everything in the building. Do you see how bat-shit crazy this world is? Butch decides to step up and hit the bank. It’s a high-risk idea under the best circumstances, but what happens when Bang-Bang’s little gun balls shrink up for showtime? You’ll have to read to find out.
Everything about Ballistic has kinetic energy. Mortimer rips through ideas like a .50 caliber rifle, and not all of them are wholly original, but they’re all interesting. We’ve seen biological weaponry synch up with human hosts before. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen characters smoke syphilis, though. Butch takes his date to a restaurant that serves cloned human meat, like it ain’t no thang.
These are the best pencils I’ve ever seen from Darick Robertson. Maybe it’s the subject matter, maybe he’s just ready to elevate. Whatever the case, the visuals are absolutely striking and incredibly detailed. There’s a full page establishing shot where Butch is flying his bat-winged 1950s muscle car over the city that must have taken him six months to draw, and would make Geoff Darrow blush. I’m going to call the coloring by Diego Rodgriguez garish in all the best ways. Ballistic should be garish and in your face – perfect!
If you found yourself attracted to the creativity of Prophet, but just couldn’t hang on to the wispy tendrils of its high concept, you need to get on the Ballistic train. If you passed on this book or your local comic shop didn’t order it because it came from Black Mask, shame on all of you! Go back there, see if they can’t back order # 1 for you, and then pre-order the rest of the series.
Lazarus # 2 - ImageStory By: Greg Rucka
Art By: Michael Lark
I almost took a run at Lazarus a few weeks ago, but decided against it because The Ugly American is already a bit too political in its focus, and I didn’t think the column needed yet another long screed against The Bunnies just yet.
In terms of story, Lazarus is your standard dystopian future where five families have all the money, and everyone else is crying. Each family inexplicably feeds all of their scientific advances into one defender called a Lazarus. The Lazarus in this book is Forever Carlyle,
(I guess the name “On The Nose Carlyle” was taken?) and she's starting to have feelings for the oppressed masses and starting to question the morality of her family.
When I got done reading Lazarus # 1, I was sorely irritated, but more by the back-matter than the actual pages of comics. Yes, I find Rucka’s politics to be laughably naïve and destructively misguided. But the actual story inside of Lazarus # 1 was gorgeously illustrated and worked quite well. The seeds of mystery were planted competently, some more obviously than others. I thought the scene where the scientist sacrifices himself for the good of his family had real emotional impact.
The hard sci-fi elements were also handled in a fairly fresh and entertaining manner. The most efficient way to handle explaining the mechanics of your world is straight exposition. It’s also the most boring. Rucka solved that problem by having doctors walk through the specifics of her healing abilities during Forever’s autopsy. That’s just good writing, is what that is.
So I decided to give Lazarus a little breathing room and picked up issue # 2 as well. And I have to say…I continue to find Rucka’s politics to be laughably naïve and destructively misguided. But I turned a corner on Lazarus for a couple of reasons.
For one, Rucka’s depiction of the head Carlyle is not a moustache-twirling cipher. (although I must admit, the ascot tied around his neck is a little over-the-top) I don’t necessarily care whether Greg Rucka and I agree on everything, but straw arguments and stereotype characters don’t make for good philosophy or good stories. Daddy Carlyle makes it appear as if Rucka is at least attempting to tackle the allegory in a meaningful way. Some people in the corporate world are sadistic pricks, and some aren’t. That feels more like actual reality, and that helps me respect the story a bit more.
Secondly, the actual plot elements are moving along briskly, and I can feel some button-hooks coming. When a lot of stuff happens in an issue, and you would like to see the next bunch of stuff that happens, that’s a good comic book. In my opinion Lazarus has been a very good comic book for two issues, and I’m going to continue with the series until it stops being a good comic book. That sounds fair, doesn’t it?
If not, feel free to comment below.
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