Do you see the problem here, people? It’s called the Hundred Penny Press because they’re charging you a dollar. So how in the hell is that “priceless stories for UNDER a buck?” In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya…”You keep on using that word…I don’t think it means what you think it means.”
Now, a well-adjusted human would simply look at that and be thankful that a publisher was gracious enough to offer product at a nice promotional rate. I, however, cannot seem to get past the part where the laws of mathematics are being treated like Marcellus Wallace in Zed’s basement. $1 is just never under a buck. Not even in comics. If you have any questions on the matter, just ask a six year old – they’ll straighten you right out.
The person who wrote that ad makes more than I do, by the way. Anywho. Enough of that.
All day today I’ve had the Beatles “Hello, Goodbye” running through my head, so I took it as a sign and built a column around it. You should always be assessing your pull list and cutting out the chaff so you can latch onto something else that’s more inspiring to read. This week I’ve decided to say goodbye to a title, and hello (again) to an unlikely new steady. Let’s start with goodbye, shall we?
Goodbye, Young Avengers!
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Before you boo and hiss me, understand that I’m not suggesting that Young Avengers is a “bad” book. It’s not. In fact, it’s got an awful lot going for it.
For one, it’s a big ball of really pretty kinetic energy. Jamie McKelvie’s figures are just gorgeous. Everybody is impossibly beautiful, and things are moving along at a neck-snapping pace. Every issue has some kind of innovative panel layout, some new trick to pull out of the artistic sleeve. There’s a palpable sense of exuberance about Young Avengers.
Some of the characters are exceptional. Gillen’s Kid Loki is a modern marvel, although this isn’t strictly his book, and must share the spotlight with a lot of other shiny stars. Gillen’s even brought Leah back, after a fashion. Not sure exactly how I feel about that after losing her in JIM felt so punishing. There’s some joy there, yes, but it frankly cheapens how I feel about Journey a bit. And that’s sad. One thing it’s not, though, is boring.
Then there’s David Alleyne, aka Prodigy. I like smart characters, and now the twist is that he’s also bisexual because his power is to absorb just about anything outside of super-powers. It’s a clever consequence, and opens the door for a lot of other intriguing possibilities. If he can take on sexuality, why not psychosis? Isn’t hanging around Loki inevitably going to make him duplicitous? Hmmmm…lots of good stuff to be mined out of that character, and Keiron Gillen has the goods to extract it.
Why good-bye then, you ask? I’ve given Young Avengers nine issues to teach me what it is and what it does, and this is not a book for me. I’m an old man, and quite happy to be so. This is all emotion and urgency and hipness. I don’t necessarily need to identify with characters in order to find them interesting, but mostly I’m here on earth now to shout at these kids to get off my lawn. Reading these exploits feels exhausting, mostly. I think if this comic had been published in 1991, it might be my most favoritest thing ever, because how could it not be? When you’re 19 years old, things are either the coolest thing you’ve ever seen, or soul-crushingly horrible. When you’re 41, you can look at a book like Young Avengers, entirely appreciate it for what it is, and then leave it alone without any hard feelings at all. So that’s what I’m doing. Good-bye, Young Avengers!
Helloooooooooo Sex!
And then when Sex # 4 arrived at my LCS, curiosity got the better of me and I picked it up again. My thing is, I desperately need to understand things. Sex was (and remains) difficult to put into a neat box. I looked at Sex # 4 and thought – “I might be a little lost here, but I’d really like to get a feel for what kind of butterfly this is turning into.”
To be honest, I think Joe Casey has similar feelings about the comic. I have zero indication that Casey has a concrete plan for how he wants to develop this series, which is equal parts intriguing and off-putting. I can promise you, you don’t know exactly where Sex is going. The reason I know that is because Joe Casey doesn’t know where it’s going.
There is a driving force propelling things, and it basically goes like this:
What if Batman got old, stopped obsessively feeding his Vengeance Demon, and tried to have a real life as Bruce Wayne? What if he dropped the cowl for good and actually tried to integrate into life by paying attention to WayneCorp and other human beings on a personal level?
That’s the hook for Sex – the personal consequences of a life spent avoiding real human connection. In Sex, the guy is Simon Cooke, and the alter ego was The Armored Saint. Simon is a middle aged man with absolutely zero social skills and personal agency. He’s spent the last 25 years of life looking at people as marks and assets. He doesn’t know what he wants, because he gave it all to The Mission.
So what Sex amounts to is a hyper-talented invalid failing miserably at life, in the most awkward manner possible. Here are the actual activities of Simon Cooke, broken down for the last three issues of Sex:
Chapter 4
• Silently watches old videos alone
• Tosses and turns in bed
• Dresses up like Fidel Castro then sits silently alone at a seedy bar
• Awkwardly talks about mid-life crisis feelings with his friend Warren, who looks like he should be played by that guy from East Bound & Down
Chapter 5
• Fails miserably at double dating with East Bound & Down
• Gets knob polished in bathroom any way
• EB&D carries him to bed where he passes out
• Takes a meeting with an empty suit the next morning
Chapter 6
• Passive aggressive awkward conversation with Mayor Sedgewick
• Stares silently over balcony, then has uncomfortable conversation with his assistant about her dating Sedgewick’s little lapdog
The Armored Saint is the ultimate inaction hero. You might be wondering where the sex in Sex is. There is some, but Simon Cooke isn’t getting any, at least not yet. Zero social skills for that kid. East Bound & Down is getting some, and the really puerile stuff generally happens when the wrinkled old villain of the book is on screen. There was quite a lot of ass rape in issue # 6, as I recall.
This book is more about the consequences of leading an unnatural life as a superhero. You don’t know how to talk to girls. You have no clue how to run your business, or relate to your co-workers. Annabelle Lagravenese ( the Catwoman analog ) is going blind because of the night-vision goggles she used to wear. The superhero life has consequences, and Sex is built like a documentary about them.
I’m almost ashamed to admit this…but I’m interested in that shit. I’m sort of rooting for Simon Cooke to grow into something more healthy as a human being. One gets the feeling that he might just end up transporting all that obsession he had for vengeance into sensory indulgences, and that would be bad. Might be fun to watch, though!
It also feels like Annabelle might be able to help him pull through. She has her stuff a little more together and could guide him through his transition, and he’d understand her on a level that other people just can’t, so that might work. Needless to say this is not how things generally work in The Avengers. It’s just a different kind of a book, and different is attractive to me.
They’re still doing that bizarre “lets color code certain key words in each word balloon” thing, which is really best left for dead. What would be the rationale for continuing with that other than artistic obstinacy? I guess the good news is that I’m mostly able to just tune that nonsense out at this point. It’s not a deal-breaker. On the plus side, you’re getting those fantastic Joe Casey commentaries on the back end.
People often wonder about the magic behind Walking Dead, but honestly Kirkman spelled it out in the beginning – what happens after the zombie movie? I think what people are responding to is that deeper plumbing of the Unhappily Ever After, that never really had been explored before. Sex is at least attempting to add similar depth to a tired old horse by asking – what happens after the superhero series? So far, it’s a lot of odd reclusive behavior and awkward conversations…but for some reason that seems to have me hooked.
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