Jarrod Beauchamp reviews Sex.

Jarrod Beauchamp reviews Sex.

Image Comics, Sex Book 1: The Summer of Hard is the most interesting Batman story currently on the shelves

Sex, written by Joe Casey and art by Piotr Kowalski tales the story of Simon Cooke, a now retired superhero living out his life as a billionaire playboy, enjoying his life of extravagance and running his multi-million dollar company. However as a retired superhero, Mr Cooke finds himself with a lot of free time. As he can no longer spend his nights getting dressed up in leather and rolling around in the dark with mysterious unnamed people, he now realises he must spend his nights getting dressed up in leather and rolling around in the dark with mysterious unnamed people.

Simon himself has the possibility to go on to become a very interesting character, during the first book, we see a man realise that he has nothing to go on from being a superhero. A man who has no personality or identity of his own. He is a man made up of his now retired Superhero identity and a view of birth name given to him by the press and the upper class of society. What we have is a backwards origin story. It's Batman creating Bruce Wayne after Batman is over. The Batman of this story is known as The Armoured Saint, who is briefly seen in flashback and mentioned in hush tones by the hero’s former villains. Former villains who each are an allegory for various members of Batman’s rogues gallery.  Including a major supporting role for the book version of Catwoman known as Annabelle Lagravenese, who has also took up retirement and now spends her day running a strip club come brothel. The only true remaining superhero left in the city is the book's stand-in for Robin, Keenan who continues to fight crime without the aid of his mentor. Keenan, like Cooke, has thepossibility of going on to become a very strong character in his own right, especially within the context of the book. Keenan not only manages to remain a superhero to some degree but he also manages to maintain a sex life and relationship, presented in such a way to bring to mind the love scenes between Mookie and his girlfriend from Spike Lee’s film Do the Right Thing. In a world of fake smiles and downtrodden inner monologues of Simon Cooke and Annabelle Lagravenese. A reader will realise how important Keenan is. Not only is he the last remaining stand for vigilante justice in the city but he is possibly the only upbeat character in the book.

The book standing as almost an alternative history for Batman is both its biggest strength and weakness. Very, very quickly you will realise that these are Batman’s heroes and villains under different names in a city that brings Gotham a little too far into the mind. The city even has blimps hovering above its sky line of towering skyscrapers. Casey uses this to his advantage; he does not spend long periods of time setting up the main cast as we already know who they are. Anyone who has ever read a Batman story (or watched Chris Nolan's adaptations) will be able to pinpoint who these characters are meant to be, but for copyright they cannot be that. There is nothing overly wrong with this is an age old comic technique, used is everything fromWatchmen to Astro City. The difference is in those titles in never gets to a point of been distracting, A sense is given that at one point there was a meeting at DC about the possibility of this actually being a Batman story that ended in the words ‘’absolutely not’’.  However if DC are unwilling to be open to the concept of opening the door to superhero sex lives in their line-up it is good that it still found its foot hold. At the end of the book the mind does begin to wonder onto why such a thing has not happened previously. We have had violent, dark and brooding Batman titles for years (Since 1986, let's be honest) but how come Batman hasn’t broken down the door to see The Joker and Harley Quinn getting down and dirty with each other. It’s an interesting thought, like cinema before it. Violence has been wildly accepted in the medium for decades, yet still we hide away from the topic of sex. This leads to the biggest issue with the book. The pattern of every issue follows the same structure, some interesting plot and character development for a few pages, instantly followed by a sex scene that doesn’t have anything to do with the conversation at hand. Or there will be a sex scene going on during a conversation, and it is paid little to no attention.  It shares this in common with Alan Moore’sLost Girls (The one title he never has to worry about turning down film money from). The Story is interesting but can never go long enough with the sex interrupting it, the purpose is clearly to keep the thought of Sex in the mind of the reader and in a sense the mind of Simon Cooke.

The fact that all characters are so open to the concept of Sex except Cooke leads to an interesting crossroads for the reader, a crossroads which the writer is yet to push us down on emotional path. Readers can either feel sorry for Cooke for his inability to open to the concept of sex and embrace it as a part of day to day life, to acknowledge and embrace it in everything from advertising to displays of power to an explanation of why people wear the clothes that they wear. Alternatively you can choose to sympathise with Cooke and his difficulty to accept this force change in life style. As that basis of the story is a man giving up an addiction and attempting to replace it with a socially acceptable one. Casey would be a smart man to leave the reader at this cross roads for the length of the books run, though with the way this book ends. It is difficult to determine which direction the book will be heading in the future.

The Highlight of the book however, is the art work by Piotr Kowalski. Welcome to the most stylised story of repression you are every likely to read. The contrast of images drawn is vast and wide all with absolute attention to detail. The point of the art hitting its true stride is during a scene in which Annabelle Lagravenese masturbates to memories of been chased across rooftops by The Armoured Saint. There is very little dialogue beyond that of moans to carry the scene. The art work tells the entire story, not only does it tell it well but manages to make it a pivotal and dignified moment for the character. Brad Simpson however is the unsung hero of this book. The colourist manages to make no two pages have the same palette, board rooms filled with deep moody blues, night clubs filled with warm alcoholic hazed oranges and an orgy filled with hot reds and yellow. The colour work makes the book feel at times like a satire of a 1960’s spy film and at times like an icy thriller but, needless to say, each panel is coloured to perfection.

Overall Sex: The Summer of Hard, is a good start to what hopes to be a great series going forward. Starting with the unnamed Batman characters in issue #1 by issue #8 they begin to take on their own identities and hint towards and bright and intelligent future. Carried on by breath taking art and a concept that mainstream comics are so devoid of, the book is well worth your time and money.

SEX VOL 01: SUMMER OF HARD 

available now

SEX VOL 02: SUPERCOOL

in stock Wednesday 27th of August

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Daniel Dearlove reviews Justice League Dark #23.2

Daniel Dearlove reviews Justice League Dark #23.2

Any comic with Dan Didio in a creative capacity is going to attract a certain degree of cynicism if not outright derision, with the suspicion that he could give himself any assignment he wanted. His writing during the New 52 era has been as sparse as it is spotty. OMAC was generally well received despite low sales, but seemed widely assumed to be more the work of co-writer Keith Giffen. His Challengers of the Unknown serial in DC Universe Presents was a strange thing, showing every sign of being truncated with no room for the plot to breathe. And the debut issue of Phantom Stranger was possibly one of the worst comics I've ever read.

So it feels a bit unnatural to report that Dan Didio's Eclipso story is... Not bad. Just not bad. It's a fairly low-key tale setting up Eclipso's bonding with his apparent new host. In keeping with the theme of the month, no heroes show up to do battle. Eclipso gets his hooks in the disgraced entrepreneur Gordon Jacobs, and one unfortunate victim falls along the way. (A magazine glimpsed on page one identifies Jacobs as "Architect of the Great Solar Disaster", easily misread as "Great Disaster". Could it be...? Didio does seem to love his Kirby motifs.) The script isn't hugely ambitious but works on the level of an old-fashioned DC horror story. 

However, what makes this issue worthwhile is seeing an artist realise his potential. Philip Tan's prior work has been mostly undistinguished. His art on Final Crisis: Revelations didn't progress much beyond standard house style, even when given some potentially spectacular Spectre sequences. But here, the nature of Eclipso gives itself to some striking, ethereal imagery and inventive page layouts. Standard square panels dominate on the early pages, but by the climax their rare reappearance signals the intrusion of normalcy into Jacobs' warped existence. It doesn't hurt when the jagged, dreamlike art calls to mind the Bill Sienkiewicz of the mid-eighties, a likeness that never fails to make me say "This looks like Sienkiewicz, here is my money".

Mikel Janin's cover is one of the more effective of Villains Month, with Eclipso's gem acting as an appropriately shiny focal point (as much as it calls to mind one of DC's more ill-considered enhanced covers of years gone by). It's not immediately clear where Eclipso is supposed to go from here; the pages of Justice League Dark perhaps, but it's apparent that the title on the cover isn't to be trusted where these stories are concerned. The character has had a strange journey through the New 52, the Black Diamond making appearances in titles as diverse as Demon Knights and Catwoman, with Eclipso's most recent role as the big bad in Sword of Sorcery's Amethyst, all of which is touched on here. My interest is piqued enough to wait and see what's next.    

Lazarus #1-4 by Greg Rucka and Michael Lark

Lazarus #1-4

by Greg Rucka and Michael Lark

(Image Comics, 2013)

Dystopian future sci-fi.  Neo-feudal commentary on class divisions. Kick-ass lady with a sword.

Image comics description of issue #1:"FAMILY," Part OneIn a dystopian near-future government is a quaint concept, resources are coveted, and posession is 100% of the law. A handful of Families rule, jealously guarding what they have and exploiting the Waste who struggle to survive in their domains. Forever Carlyle defends her family's holdings through deception and force as their protector, their Lazarus. Shot dead defending the family home, Forever's day goes downhill from there....

Forever Carlyle, known as Eve, is the Lazarus of the Carlyle family.  She appears to be able to recover from any wound (the cover to the first issue shows her with a gunshot wound to the head). In these issues we are introduced to the various members of the family and the internal power struggles which seem very much like those in A Game of Thrones.

The population of any given place we are shown is referred to in three categories: family, serfs and waste. This shorthand gives a strong sense of how the world works. You are either a part of the family, work for the family or you are utterly unimportant.

The first issue sets up this world and introduces us to Forever and some of her family.  The second issue shows us more of the family and how they interact, the third introduces us to family Morray and the relationship between them and Carlyle.  In the fourth we really see what the Lazarus can do and a big can of worms is opened.

I have been a fan of both Rucka and Lark together and separately for a while, They collaborated with co writer Ed Brubaker on the excellent Gotham Central, Rucka wrote the excellent British spy drama Queen & Country and Lark, with Ed Brubaker writing took on and lived up to the unenviable task of following Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev on Daredevil.  Their work here is equally good. While some comics writers write as episodes of a serial (Brian K Vaughan in Saga comes to mind as a current comparison) Rucka’s pacing here seems more like chapters of a book.  It really takes a few chapters to get a proper feel for the series but it is very worthwhile. By the end of issue #4 we are at the end of one of those episodes of a serial.

Issues #1-4 are available now and then first trade paperback, collecting these four chapters, will be released on the 9th of October.

The series has an official Tumblr run by Rucka, http://familycarlyle.tumblr.com/.