DC’s solicitations yesterday revealed what seemed to be a cover for August’s issue of Teen Titans, but which DC’s The Source blog revealed to actually be the first page of #72…a coffin with the Titans’ logo on it. Now, leaving aside the fact that several of DC’s recent cover solicitations have featured formerly-dead Titans on the cover, thus calling into question the real “staying power” of deaths in the context of this team…I have to ask who’s left? I mean, it seems to me that just about any character that the average reader cares about on this team has been killed and/or brought back. I’d be willing to bet that if you go all the way back to Infinite Crisis, there’s been at least one Titan killed every six months…and so many killed in “event” stories that you could probably average it out to about one a month. With that kind of track record, and only about 1/3 of them being brought back from the dead, one has to wonder how The Titans will recruit new members.

Cyborg: We want YOU for the Teen Titans.

Some Random Teenage Hero Without A Monthly Comic Of Their Own: No way!

Cyborg: That’s the kind of enthusiasm we like to hear! High five! [Raises hand]

Some Random Teenage Hero Without A Monthly Comic Of Their Own: No, I literally mean that. “No. Way.” I’m not coming within 500 yards of that tower. I don’t need to be cannon fodder! Doesn’t matter how good I am, how powerful I am–I’ll end up in a pine box the next time some alien goes after whatever random hero I’m supposed to be a young proxy for!

Cyborg: …Oh. [Left hanging, waiting for the high five]

They’ve come to the point with Titans deaths that it’s almost like the X-Men/Force/Factor/whatever deaths of the late ’90s. It’s hard to take them seriously anymore becuase you know that before the mourning period is even over–sometimes before the coffin is lowered into the ground–the character will either come back or somebody else will die to trump it.

Agents of Atlas #5: Is this issue a perfect jumping on point? I don’t know, but I’m going to say it is in the hope that it means more of you will try this series out. In this issue, the Agents battle the New Avengers, and since New Avengers has like 70,000 more readers than AoA, hopefully the guest-appearance will lead to more folks checking out this issue and sticking around for future ones. Here’s a six-page preview.

The Big Book of Barry Ween Boy Genius: Otherwise known as “Judd Winick’s good comics.” This Oni Press omnibus collects all 12 issues of Winick’s Barry Ween series in a 375-page, $19.95 package.

Batman: Battle for the Cowl #3: This is it! The one you’ve been waiting for, whether you’re on pins and needles about who the new Batman is going to be, or you just can’t wait for this event to end so all the cool new Batman titles and creative teams that follow it can get started. Here’s my guess: Dick Grayson and Jason Todd are both different, opposing Batmen, Damian al Ghul is Robin ( working with the good Batman Dick Grayson), and Tim Drake is Red Robin (provided he survived having a batarang shoved all the way up his chest cavity at the end of the last issue). Tony Daniel writes and draws this final, over-sized $3.99 issue.

Batman: Mad Love and Other Stories: You know, I have all of these comics and I still find this collection of them awfully tempting. The title story is Paul Dini and Bruce Timm’s excellent Batman vs. Joker vs. Harley Quinn story, and the book is filled out with some of the best Animated Series-style Batman stories, including works by Timm, Glen Murukami, Mike Parobeck, Matt Wagner, Dan DeCarlo and Klaus Janson. It’s $20 for about 200 pages of some of the best Batman comics of the last decade or two.

Boys: Herogasm #1: I fell really, really, really far behind on The Boys when I decided I’d start reading it in trade (I’ve noticed sometimes deciding to wait for the trade isn’t all that different from dropping). Anyone who’s totally up on it know how easy or hard this miniseries might be to follow? (I know Sarah dug it). I can generally trade-wait Garth Ennis comics, but I’ll have a much harder time being so patient when said Garth Ennis comics are being illustrated by his Hitman collaborator John McCrea…

Captain America #50: Ed Brubaker’s universally praised Cap series reaches its fiftieth issue, which would ordinarily be a big anniversary issue in which the writer might want to shake up the status quo by, say, bringing the dead title character back to life or something. However, Marvel has one of their crazy renumbering schemes planned for the title, and June’s issue will jump all the way up to #600, which would make that a bigger, better anniversary. This hopefully over-sized issue (it’s $3.99) will deal with Bucky’s birthday, and will feature his favorite and least favorite birthdays. Luke Ross provides the art.

Clover Omnibus: It’s been a good long time since I’ve read any of manga-collective CLAMP’s Clover, but I didn’t care much for the two volumes I tried. The art was typically great, and they were really nice well-designed books, but the storyline was amorphous to the point of incoherent. I thought it worked out okay as a heavily illustrated mood poem, but not so much as a comic book. But like I said, it’s been a while, and you may think I’m full of crap anyway. It deals with a government agent of some sort charged with rescuing/escorting/hanging around a young girl who is sometimes kept in a cage like a bird, and there are lots of delicate illustrated images of birds, cages and clockwork technology. This new Dark Horse edition collects the whole shebang in a 500-page, $20 softcover collection.  You can preview the first few pages here.

Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance #1: Of the quartet of Final Crisis Aftermath books DC is in the process of rolling out, this one seems like the most natural extension from the original series, as it stars the Super Young Team, the Japanese fan version of the Justice League that creator Grant Morrison set-up as a new, modern version of Jack Kirby’s Forever People. Joe Casey writes, ChrissCross draws and however it turns out, at the very least you can go in assured that it definitely co-stars a character named Most Excellent Super Bat, whose super-power is being rich.

G-Man Vol. 1: Learning To Fly: Chris Giarrusso, the man behind the Mini-Marvels, has his own humorous super-characters, and you can catch them in his creator-owned G-Man comics.  This $10, 100-page trade collects the G-Man one-shot, Christmas special, plenty of comic strips and more.

Johnny Hiro Vol. 1: I sung the praises of Fred Chao’s amazing comic book about two young people living in New York facing the various giant monsters, gangs of blade-wielding kitchen staffers and other obstacles to their love in this space back in January, so I won’t go into it all again here. This trade collects the first three issues, which AdHouse Books released as comic books, and adds two more issues worth of material at the end, adding up to a $15, 190-page collection. You can dowload several previews of it here.

The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders: This seems interesting. The war that is doing the tearing in Afghanistan isn’t the current conflict involving the U.S., but was the 1980s one involving the Soviet Union. A French photojournalist went into the country with the titular non-governmental organization, chronicling their journey with his camera. This First Second collecion of the original French releases features an unusual mixture of Didier Lefèvre’s photos with comics panels created by Emmanuel Guibert (Alan’s War). You can read an excerpt here, and an interview my colleague Michael C. Lorah did with Guibert back in March here.

Pluto Urasawa X Tezuaka Vol. 3: Everyone’s reading this, right? Everyone should be reading this. It’s Naoki Urasawa loosely adapting Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy story “The Greatest Robot on Earth” in his own style, and it is something else. The volumes have been coming out at a quick clip too, so there’s very little lag time between volumes.

Skrull Kill Krew #2: Okay, so it’s a revival of a short-lived 90′s concept only really notable for its writers (who aren’t involved this time), and a spin-off that keeps beating the Skrull-fighting horse months after Secret Invasion has ended and everyone’s totally sick of Skrulls. On the other hand, here’s what Tyler Kirkham’s variant cover looks like for this particular issue:

Andrew Felber writes, Mark Robinson draws, and Marvel asks for an extra dollar.

Tiny Titans #16: Based on the cover, this issue apparently features a race between Supergirl and Kid Flash, and. Based on DC’s Source blog, it might also contain the “Battle for the Cow.” If you need to chatch up, this week also bring Tiny Titans Vol. 2: Adventures in Awesomeness, a $13, 144-page book collecting such tiny titanic tales as report card day, Blue Beetle’s birthday party, the one where Beppo steels Zatara’s wand and turns everyone into monkeys, Batgirl and Supergirl’s tea part, lunch lady Darkseid’s “Finals Crisis,” Deathstroke and Trigon’s “Faces of Mischief” team-up and many, many meetings of the Tiny Titans Pet Club.

William Shatner, the actor-turned-spokesman-turned-comic book mogul-turned-whatever-else-can-make-him-a-buck, has launched a new series of cartoons calledThe Gavones on YouTube and spoke about them with People Online today. He describes the series as “a comedic soprano family, but the more interesting element of the interview to me is his suggestion that we’ll see numerous promient Italian Hollywood stars guest-appearing, because “We can get anybody we want with the flick [of a pen].” Now, depending on how that’s handled, it seems like the whole project could collapse under the weight of Martin Scorcese suing over likeness rights.

Brendan McGinley of Bankshot Comics has announced that the Dose comics anthology, which has featured talent from all walks of comics life in the first couple of issues, will be publishing those books online for free.

Readers can also get a free copy of DOSE by inviting ten friends to read one of the Bankshot titles: Dose, Heist, Hannibal Goes to Rome or Invisible, Inc. Simply use the ShareThis button at the bottom of each entry to invite others to read.  Make sure to CC Brendan@indeliblecomics.com on the email with your mailing address. 

Well, damn. Writer Paul Cornell confirmed on his blog today’s speculation that Captain Britain and MI-13 has been cancelled. I find this to be particularly depressing news, since it was, in my opinion, one of the most entertaining books that Marvel’s been doing (along with Incredible Hercules and Guardians of the Galaxy). Cornell assured fans that the remaining issues would indeed tell a full story. And while that’s great, I’m sure that’s probably cold comfort to fans that enjoyed the book because of its offbeat tone.

If you like what you’ve read so far (c’mon, how can you not?) totally check out more super cute comics at:www.sosuperduper.com!

It’s nearly summer, which means that it’s crossover season. Last year, Lucas Siegel and I tracked the Secret Invasion in a series of columns that we called Damn Dirty Skrulls. This year, we’ve decided to follow the events surrounding The Blackest Night. That’s right; Damn Dirty Zombies is here!

Today, we’re going to kick-off with a “What We Know Now”. Based on previous information and yesterday’s full DC Solicitations, we now know that the following characters will see hellish second lives as Black Lanterns.

So, yeah, Spoilers On.

(more…)

Senator Kelly and William Stryker will be furious to hear the news.

The Onion reports that President Obama has vetoed the Mutant Registration Act:

I personally think this is a pretty good thing.

I mean, it’s not like mutantkind is building an army in San Francisco, or creating black ops killer teams that could potentially rend the space-time continuum, right? Right??

That said, I’m hoping Obama’s act doesn’t open up worser things for mutantkind. Time will tell, right?

Outsiders artist Lee Garbett has posted some images on his Twitpic account, including one showcasing the Creeper at work:

I don’t know about you, but I’m actually pretty enthused by these pictures — not only is there a real smoothness and fluidity here, but for heaven’s sake it’s actually giving the Creeper something to do! He’s certainly been sitting in the shadows during much of Pete Tomasi’s run on Outsiders, so I’m glad we’re getting to see him lash out once and for all. What say you, Rama readers?

Despite zombies being en vogue after Marvel Zombies (volumes 1 all the way through 4, natch) as well as DC’s upcoming storyline Blackest Night, I’m pretty sure nobody saw this toy coming:

Aw yeah. Zombie Solid Snake, from Metal Gear Solid. Or as I propose we call him, Rotting Snake.

I can pretty much see him at work — he’s sneaking up on someone under his trademark cardboard box, when suddenly a security guard is like, “jeez, what is that awful smell? It’s like somebody left the garbage out in the sun or something.” And then Snake’ll jump out and yell, “I have a condition!!!”

This toy’ll be available for order starting in October (appropriate, I guess) for about $79.99. There’s also a more “realistic” version of Zombie Snake available here.

[Link spotted via Ryan Penagos]

I’ve been meaning to write about The Boys again for a while. Readers of Best Shots know that I’m a die-hard Garth Ennis fan, and it’s not just because I too have the sense of humor of a 12-year-old.  That helps, but the difference that I see between Ennis’s over-the-top physical humor (and the artists who take it to the next level, particularly Steve Dillon and Darick Robertson) and some other writers is that it’s almost always gross-out humor as parody. There’s a point to be made with it.

Someday I’m going to write about THAT issue of The Boys, bust out some academic theory, and send it off to a journal or something. For today, I’m here to introduce you to Herogasm, the first Boys spin-off miniseries. It comes out tomorrow, and you won’t want to miss it.

Readers of The Boys know the story already–the superheroes in this world are (very) thinly veiled parodies of known and loved Marvel and DC heroes, and Ennis has peeled back any layers of civility to show them as depraved, selfish wankers who do what they do just to get recognition in the pages of comics. The superheroes are all property of a faceless corporation who just keep them around to make money. It’s metafiction and a statement against corporatism and a poke in the eye of overzealous superhero fans and a laugh at military spending and dick jokes–lots of dick jokes–all at once. No wonder I love it.

Herogasm is what happens when all the superheroes team up to fight a massive enemy–except they don’t actually team up, that’s just a gimmick to sell comics. Instead, they fly off to a hidden island somewhere for some rest, relaxation, and, well, you can figure out the rest from the title, even if you haven’t gotten the pattern by now.

Ennis spoofs all the big-named crossover events in Marvel and DC history and sets new artists John McCrea and Keith Burns up with some expansive sex scenes to draw–this book is in no way safe for work–but underneath it we get some good old-fashioned intrigue, introducing a new bad guy to the scene. The superheroes, for all their powers, are just pawns being shuffled around by corporate entities. A commentary on the comic book industry, or the world at large? It’s probably both.

Slow scenes of a one-sided telephone conversation aboard Air Force Two are intercut with epic splash pages of poolside, er, relaxation, and as usual, Annie is out of her depth but playing along to keep her job. Meanwhile, the Boys are up to no good in their own way, doing surveillance, but this time their eyes are on the real superpowers. And the Homelander has a rather big secret to keep.

Ennis is setting up something big and potentially explosive here. Strangely, you can feel the tension because for all the debauchery in these pages, it’s rather tame. It’s par for the course perversion that we’ve grown used to over thirty issues of Ennis and Robertson set free to try anything. I suppose that can be the problem with a book built on taking that joke just too far, skating the line between alienating and fascinating readers. You’ve got to keep coming up with something new, something crazier.

It’s not immediately clear why this is a spinoff and not just an arc of The Boys, and that’s the other reason I know something huge must be coming. After all, we can trust these guys not to give us a spinoff just to sell comics, right? That’s exactly what they’re parodying here.

Either way, you know you want to read it, even if it’s just for the…art! That’s it.

(Don’t worry, I won’t tell.)

Old Man Winter and Other Sordid Tales

Written and Drawn by J. T. Yost

56 pages, 6 5/8″ x 10 1/4″, $6.95 US

www.birdcagebottombooks.com

An old man in the inner city living a lonely and desolate existence not much removed from the young people he tries to befriend is the lumpy little frame that J.T. Yost hangs his social commentary on. The old man, quite an unlikely hero, is up to the task and shines with humor and character in this Xeric Grant winning comics collection, Old Man Winter and Other Sordid Tales.

Yost states that the old man character is loosely based on a customer who frequents the art supply store where he works. Having worked in an art supply store myself (mandatory or inevitable for many an artist), I appreciate the details and cadences captured here: the monotony and need to create stories out of anything around you.

Within just a few panels, Yost brings to life a little drama taking place in the space of a couple of neighborhood blocks. Down to the pigeons and flies lingering over a garbage bag, a perfect gritty tale is told. A new tale that sets the tone for other previously published works.

“Old Man Winter”  leads you to “All is Forgiven,” a tale about the abuses of lab animals. A bit heavy-handed for some and probably spot-on for just as many, the actual story and execution is credible. The same can be said for a story about the darker side of circus life which has solid design sense. “Roadtrip,” a tale about the abuses of the meat industry, proves disturbing but it is also a masterful interplay of the story of a girl and the fate of a cow.

“Logging Sanjay” is the other story in this book based directly from life. As the title suggests, someone is the victim of something. Set in rural Georgia, this is a confessional of sorts about two teens who repeatedly torment another teen they call their friend. The character development is engaging. Yost has a way with bringing out the more animalistic qualities of humans that is very effective.

If there is one message Yost would want to make clear it is that we humans are more like animals than we’d care to admit. For more on J.T. Yost, please read on to my interview here at Newsarama.  

J.T. Yost recently won a Xeric Grant for his book, Old Man Winter and Other Sordid Tales. He is an emerging talent with a lot to say. For those of you interested in how one cartoonist on the rise, out in Brooklyn, keeps it together, read on.

Blog@Newsarama: I appreciate all the stories in your collection. Each is different, created at different times, but part of a whole as it came together for this book. Your vision appears to be to look at life head-on and expose the truth. Is that the voice you intended for your book?

J.T. Yost: With the exception of “Old Man Winter”, all of these stories were created within a framework of “rules”. For instance, “All Is Forgiven…” was for an anthology called BIZMAR. Each story had to include six familiar icons of comics: Bunny, Insect, Zombie, Monkey, Alien and Robot. I had an idea of what most of the stories submitted would be like, so I wanted to do something diametrically opposed. I worked the icons in subtly so that it could work as a stand-alone comic, and since I knew most of the subject matter would be humorous I attempted something more serious.

Animal welfare and vegetarian/veganism is extremely important in my life. I’m not a very confrontational person, so I use comics to convey what I believe to be an important message. Critics have faulted me for including so many comics dealing with these issues in one collection, but I believe I approached each in such a different manner that it doesn’t detract from their impact.

I spend a lot of time researching factory farm conditions, slaughterhouse practices and other facets of meat processing, and although I am surely biased I do try to present a truth that some may not be aware of. I have been accused of lacking subtley, and I suppose I am guilty to an extent. That’s actually something I’m working on in current comics. It’s difficult to present these horrible truths so close to my heart without coming across as preachy. (more…)

I’m not making any judgment on the relative validity of the complaint, but Tony Moore, noted artist of The Walking Dead and XXXombies, took a pot shot at Arthur Suydam, arguably one of only two or three more arists in the industry more closely associated with zombies than Moore, for apparently cribbing an image of his for an upcoming Deadpool: Merc With a Mouth cover. “a note to Arthur Suydam, start drawing your own covers, plz,” Moore “tweeted” last night.

The images can be seen side-by-side below:

This is, to me, what’s the most wrong with Twitter; it boils everything down to the lowest common denominator, where context is lost and an observation like this seems remarkably–well, bitchy. Whether that’s Moore’s intent or not, and whether or not he has a legitimate gripe with Suydam and Marvel, the airing of dirty laundry in a public forum has always seemed a little unprofessional…but at least back when people did it on blogs and message boards, we were able to appreciate a complete thought. When readers pressed for his thoughts on the matter–particularly since even the original cover was an homage to the famous Jaws movie poster–he responded with, “I think it’s one thing to homage a cover and change an element, but another to take that homaged cover, chage yet another thing and call it new.”

Edgar Wright, the director of Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, has posted several great photos from his upcoming Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, on his website. Take a peek at this tantalizing pic of Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona Flowers, the object of the title character’s affections:

Plenty of coolness abounds at the blog, including a look at Scott’s rivals, the band The Clash At Demonhead (love that name) and star Michael Cera in costume as Scott Pilgrim.

Like everyone else who is a fan of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim graphic novels, I have high hopes for the movie. Edgar Wright knows how to make a good popcorn flick, and he’s put together a hell of a cast. I’m especially interested in watching Cera’s performance. He can be a great comedic performer, as evidenced by his breakout role as George Michael Bluth on Arrested Development. (I’ve always thought that Cera had the toughest role on the series, as he had to get laughs almost solely through reacting to his castmates’ antics. His character wasn’t written to be as broadly goofy as David Cross’s or Will Arnett’s respective characters, for example.) But he seems to stick with playing the same character in every role he’s had since then, especially in Juno, Superbad and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, where he was essentially playing George Michael with different names in each film. And judging from the trailers for the upcoming Year One, it doesn’t look like that trend will be ending anytime soon. He really needs to prove his acting range goes beyond sensitive and perpetually exasperated before the backlash and career flameout begin.

Eureka Productions has announced the seventeenth volume of Science Fiction Classics, which will be the first color volume of the series.

This book is set to contain adaptations of War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells, A Martian Odyssey, by Stanley G. Weinbaum, as well as the rare Jules Vernes story In the Year 2889.

The 144-page book is $17.95. You can learn more by clicking here.

I liked this review: X-Men x-pert Paul O’Brien reviewed the new New Mutants on his blog, and did so by framing it in the greater history of Marvel’s mutant comics. As that’s a real blind-spot in my comics knowledge, I appreciated the take on the comic, and I enjoyed reading the review despite not actually having read the comic being reviewed.

But I don’t love prequels: Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr waxes on about the appeal of prequels in an article headlined “Backstory: Why we love prequels.” He talks about nerd movies of the moment X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Star Trek, dubbing this the “summer of the prequels,” and he even namedrops “Lil’ Archie” in there. You know,  I don’t think I’ve ever heard Lil’ Archie referred to as a prequel before.

The Man of…coal?: A staff writer for a local Pennsylvania newspaper writes about a 25-year-old comic in which Bob Rozakis and Kurt Schaffenberger had Superman save a fictionalized version of the town Centralia.

Yes, I know I just linked to him last Monday: But I have to link to Tom Spurgeon’s Sunday interview again this week, as it’s another doozy. Spurgeon talks with Craig Yoe about his recent books Boody and Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster. I thought it particularly significant since Yoe has been getting a lot of ink from the mainstream media regarding the latter, and it was refreshing to hear him talking about it with an interviewer as well-versed in comics as Spurgeon, instead of simply with whatever daily newspaper arts feature writer got assigned the interview.

If you thought you’d seen the last of Kate Spencer or Marc Andreyko around here, you apparently haven’t been paying attention for the last few years. We read the book, DC cancels it, we whine about it, and it comes back a little while later. That’s the arrangement that we Manhunter fans have come to be comfortable with. And while last year’s issues #37-38 featured a story set in the future that writer Andreyko envisioned as Kate Spencer’s “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” equivalent, answering a number of questions about the characters’ long-term future, that isn’t to say that the status quo can’t be shaken up quite a bit: transplanted from the West Coast to Gotham City, Kate Spencer is the new Gotham City district attorney, following the murder of the previous one (that does tend to happen in Gotham, doesn’t it?) by, apparently, another previous one (Two-Face). And that, of course, is where it starts to get interesting. Here, we’ll talk to Andreyko about what’s coming next, both in terms of what we’ll be touching down on from the book’s past and the new stuff we’ll be looking forward to.

Blog@Newsarama: Will we be dealing with the long-teased abortion story?

Marc Andreyko: That’s going to be left dangling. I don’t know if you read the new issue of Final Crisis: Escape, but Cameron Chase is a character in it and I spoke with Ivan Brandon before that and said, “Hey, don’t worry about her being pregnant. That’s going to be addressed at a later date, you don’t even have to mention it. So hopefully someday either Manhunter will get her own book back or maybe if I generate enough goodwill, I’d love to do an original graphic novel of it because that allows a level of freedom—if you look at Brian Azzarello’s Joker graphic novel, that has a little more freedom of content than a regular monthly comic would. (more…)

Geeks are shooting three for four on the bubble shows. Chuck, which has been in the ether for the last few weeks after its “change everything” season finale, has now been confirmed as picked up for a third, 13 episode season, according to Hollywood Reporter and EW.com. No word on whether it has the option of more episodes, but it is currently reported as being on the fall schedule. The show will be making budget cuts, including less frequent apearances by much of the supporting cast. Doesn’t seem like too big a deal, though, as the finale lent itself to some new story telling, with Chuck moving on from the Buy More and his best friend moving to Hawaii.

In not-so-great geek TV news, however, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles won’t get the chance to ride on the coattails of the next Terminator feature film, Terminator: Salvation, as it has been officially cancelled, EW also reports. The show saw steadily plummeting ratings in its sophomore season, having shared Friday nights with Dollhouse, which defied the odds and did pick up another season. A possible new pairing for Dollhouse, now, is DC Comics adaptation Human Target, coincidentally also a show about constantly changing identities.

Reading and re-reading League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 3: Century #1 (Top Shelf), I experienced the usual jumble of emotions—confusion, admiration, awe, frustration, bemusement, dread at the thought of writing about it—but the overwhelming one was relief.

I was relieved that Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s latest go at the LOEG fell closer to the model established in the first two volumes, rather than the Black Dossier hybrid graphic novel. Black Dossier certainly had its charms, and was clever as hell, but Moore made it difficult to appreciate it as anything other than an interesting exercise, the chance to watch an extremely talented writer demonstrate his ability to imitate a variety of styles.  I mean, I like Alan Moore’s writing, and I like Jack Kerouac’s writing, and the idea of Moore imitating Kerouac sounds intriguing, but actually reading pages and pages Moore’s prose echoing Kerouac’s is something I didn’t need to read, particularly in the middle of what was a comics narrative a few pages ago.

In Black Dossier, Moore seemed to take the “What if all fiction occurred in the same world, and the characters and narratives could interact and cross-pollinate” too far away from the original concept of a Justice League of Victorian literature adventure heroes, even abandoning the comics medium for too-long stretches of it.

Century isn’t like that. It’s all comics for one, is set closer to the original time period of the previous volumes, and focuses on better-known characters and works of fiction, although still some much more obscure characters than the ones appearing in the works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.

The format is similarly something between the two previous models; it’s not a six-issue comic book series, nor an original (hybrid) graphic novel, but a series of three original graphic novellas, each set in a distinct part of the 20th century.

This one is set in 1910, and one-time Dracula victim Mina Murray still leads the League, which now consists of the now-young Allan Quartermain, William Hope Hodgson’s Thomas Carnacki, E.W. Hornung’s gentleman thief A.J. Raffles and the legendary sometimes gentleman/sometimes lady immortal Orlando. Led by Carnacki’s prophetic dreams, this dysfunctional League tries to unravel half-understood clues to stop a massacre on the docks and a plot by Aleistir Crowley analogues with apocalyptic aspirations.

That storyline is intercut with two others. One involves the extremely old Captain Nemo’s daughter, who runs away from her legacy and calls herself “Jenny Diver,” and the other is, an, um, musical staring “Mack the Knife” and a prostitute named Suki who sing their scenes, using reworked songs from Threepenny Opera (Or so I’ve heard; these were among the allusions lost on me).

Not lost on me was Moore’s alternate Ripper theories, and the fact that not only does he revisit From Hell through re-examining the Ripper killings (Following Eddie Campbell’s 2008 Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard, now both of From Hell’s creators have revisited that work in amusing ways within the last year), but also by exploring that bigger, denser work’s concept of the 20th century being brought about by magical rituals, and the Whitechapel murders coloring the nature of that century.

It all works about as well as could be hoped—musicals, obviously, don’t translate too well into the silent medium of comics, although O’Neill draws some funny dancing scenes—and Moore provides plenty of action, city-destroying mayhem and colorful, humorous characterization to balance out some of the more obtuse references (I could read a Moore/O’Neill Orlando monthly comic forever, I think).

I was also relieved to see so much of O’Neill, as reducing his contributions to illustrations in certain sections of Black Dossier was another of the things that rankled me about it. O’Neill’s work is enormously rewarding, and the reason I can go back and read and re-read these stories so many times. Each panel is packed with so much visual information, layered behind the most significant actions of the panels, that one can take any given panel in as is, or read it layer by layer for additional sight gags, visual allusions and subtle details characterizing the protagonists and their settings.

And, while this has nothing to do with the work itself, I was sort of relieved on Moore’s behalf, since his new publisher must certainly offer him a less tense relationship than his previous one, and it seems both the creators and the publishers have found a way to continue LOEG in a way that is at once unequivocally Moore and O’Neill’s comics and a Top Shelf production.