Admit it. You all saw this one coming. While there are some books from 2012 that we haven’t got around to reading yet which could have given some on this list a run for their money (Prophet and Manhattan Projects spring to mind), there was only ever one book that was going to top this list, and that’s Hawkeye. It’s done more in six issues than some series manage in six years.

On paper, this project was in serious danger of being a dud. Fraction’s form at Marvel has been inconsistent at best, Aja was never going to be available for every issue, and historically, Hawkeye has proven unable to support a title. His last solo series died after eight issues, while his recent team-up series with Mockingbird managed only six. Expectations were low. So it was a double surprise when Marvel put out one of the best superhero series, not just of the year, but of the century. If it lasts long enough, maybe even of all time.

That’s because Hawkeye isn’t just entertaining, although it is that. It’s also experimental and aesthetically coherent in ways that few comics are. It’s got all the spirit and originality that Marvel’s best runs display – Lee and Ditko’s Amazing Spider-Man, Gerber’s Howard the Duck, Claremont and Byrne’s X-Men. Comics this good don’t come around very often, and when they do, you cling to them and hope the ride never stops. They’re the books that cast a shadow over everything that follows. There are enough techniques and ideas in Hawkeye to keep an entire decade of writers and artists inspired for years to come. You’re going to see them again and again, and each time you’ll remember where you saw them first.

Somehow, what Fraction has managed to do is metabolise the slicker-than-thou, medium-bending action of Casanova into a Marvel Universe superhero title. Aja displays a complete mastery of the page (it’s tough to imagine anyone else cramming 20+ panels onto a page and still make it look so fucking gorgeous) while guest artist for issues 4 and 5, Javier Pulido, proves that a lighter, Kirby/Steranko-influenced style can work just as well, illustrating a hotel gang war like it was a 40s screwball comedy and somehow maintaining the tone. Colourist Matt Hollingsworth, meanwhile, is the best example of what the right colourist can for to a series, complementing the pencils with deliberately limited palettes, never overwhelming them.

The basic idea behind Hawkeye is a simple one: he’s the man on the street who’s an Avenger in his spare time. Sometimes, that means he’s dealing with extortionist landlords. Other times, it means he’s being abducted from a rooftop cookout by SHIELD. The series reads like an action movie about a street-thug turned secret agent, as the unflappably down-to-earth Hawkeye and his Girl Friday Kate (also code-named Hawkeye) bicker and fight, as much with each other as with the villains they’re trying to defeat. The book’s pace is relentless, but it never seems like a slight read. Every panel and piece of dialogue seems to do two jobs at once. It’s dense, but not fatiguing. Simple but not facile. It’s not a gritty series, but the character study is intense and realistic. When Hawkeye thinks he’s falling to his death, he’s not sarcastic or scared: he apologises, even though no-one can hear. It’s a subtle reminder of the context of everything Hawkeye does. Of his practical, hands-on, one-day-at-a-time approach to achieving the redemption that he doesn’t feel he deserves, and doesn’t realise he’s already attained.

In 2012, Hawkeye released only six issues, but you could pick up any one of them and make a case for it being one of the best individual comics of the year. And that’s why it’s our favourite series of 2012. Realistically, nothing else even had a chance.

We’re pretty wary of putting comics on our “best of” list when they’ve only released a few issues in a year. For us, “best” doesn’t just mean technically outstanding and original, it’s also a measurement of entertainment value as spread over 12 months – and if a series is late, absent or slow, that counts against it. It’s why the otherwise brilliant Avengers: Children’s Crusade didn’t make the cut, for example, or why we felt it too early to put Uncanny X-Men and Wolverine and the X-Men on the list separately.

The thing about Casanova is that in only two issues, it’s managed to do more than some comics manage in a lifetime – not just in terms of technical skill, but in its tapestry of concepts, characters and plots. Written by Matt Fraction and drawn, in this instance, by Gabriel Ba, the best compliment I can offer Casanova is to say that it’s truly a comics-readers’ comic. It panders to no-one, dares you to keep up with it, doesn’t look back if you fall behind. At a time when the world’s creative industries are obsessed with providing accessible material with as much popular appeal as possible, it’s refreshing to find a creative team willing to treat its audience as if they’re as intelligent and enthusiastic as they are.

It’s tough to decide what the real strength of Casanova is. Its pace and density. Its originality. Its humour. If I had to pin down the one thing about Avaritia that gave me most pleasure, it would be the meticulous control of the comic’s tempo. Where some writer-artist teams get you raving about a fantastic spread or plot twist, this one excites you with details as minute as a page transition. Turning from a 20-panel action sequence set in 16 different realities where universes die in the gutters, to a languid post-coital splash. It’s the kind of reckless gear change that should make a story flip over itself, turn into a fireball and skid roof-first across the tarmac. But somehow, it doesn’t.

Perhaps the strangest thing about Casanova: Avaritia is that in a year where Fraction’s Marvel output has ranged from “disappointingly pedestrian” to “complete misfire”, it somehow manages to be the absolute best work of his career. We could speculate why, but the fact remains that we saw two Matt Fractions in 2011. The writer of Fear Itself, Thor and Iron Man, a reasonably good creator struggling to live up to even those mild terms, and the writer of Casanova: Avaritia, an absolute genius deserving of mention alongside the likes of Morrison, Ellis and Gaiman.

If I were a professional comics writer, I’d utterly hate Casanova, if only because every issue would make me think “great, another brilliant storytelling device that I’d never have thought of, and which I can’t use for another decade without looking like a cheap imitation.” As a reader, I’m just happy to see those ideas put down once. It’s really only being kept off the top spot by the technicality of having delivered only 2 issues in 12 months – but the fact that merely the first half of the third arc is enough to make us call it one of the best reads of 2011 should tell you how strongly we both feel about this comic. Outstanding stuff.

We’re up to Part Six of Second Coming, and that means the seventh instalment of our weekly, increasingly nerdy look at the crossover! So nerdy, in fact, that I began the numbering from zero. That’s just a little programming joke, there.

Read the rest of this entry »

The news that Matt Fraction, Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon’s Casanova – something we’ve already described as one of the best comics of the last decade – is moving to Marvel’s Icon imprint later this year is spectacularly good. Not that I particularly care who puts the thing out (and nor is it a massive surprise that Marvel should want to keep another of their hot writers sweet by letting him play in the creator-owned imprint), merely that it guarantees that a third volume will be on the way around August/September. Splendid.

It’s also great to hear that volume two, Gula, will finally make it into trade – I managed to track down the individual issues after an extended hunt last year (having not been smart enough to have been into the series when it was actually coming out), so it’s nice to know that it’ll be available in a much easier-to-obtain format (and it also means that James might finally get round to reading the damned thing, as he refuses to do so until he can actually own it in trade).

But the third main aspect of the C2E2 announcement is one that I’m slightly more apprehensive about – the news that in their new editions, volumes one and two will be recoloured. It’s one of those where you wonder if it’s strictly necessary – there’s nothing wrong with the two-tone palettes used in either volume, they certainly don’t hamper the reading experience (although, granted, they’re probably slightly offputting to someone picking it up and browsing if they’re unfamiliar with just how bloody good it is), and I’m never sure how keen I am on the idea of going back and “fixing” comics just for the sake of it. On the other hand, if future volumes are going to have more colour (and there’s no denying that the brothers’ work looks even more beautiful that way), it makes a bit of sense to unify things a little. And, more importantly, if you look at the samples that have been released, it’s clear that it’s not a move to full colour, just adding a few more tones. And it’s hardly to the detriment of the thing – quite the opposite, in fact.

So, mark me down as excited for this one. Even if it does mean I’ll end up with two copies of Luxuria on the shelf. It looks like late 2010 is going to see something of a Casanova blitz, and it’s about time.

Welcome to this week’s instalment of our regular look at the current X-Men crossover, done for no better reason than the fact that I’m a bit of an X-Men nerd. This week: Uncanny X-Men #523. You can also go back an read last week’s deconstructions of X-Men: Second Coming #1 and Second Coming Prelude if you’re so inclined.

Synopsis: While Cable and Hope hide out up in a motel, the Alpha Team complete their interrogation of the Sapien League, during which time Nightcrawler is shocked to learn of the existence – and methods – of X-Force. Meanwhile, Bastion – who is tracking Cable’s techno-organic virus – sends Stryker and his Purifiers to kill Hope. Cyclops sends the New Mutants to Cameron Hodge’s facility in St. Louis to destroy his cache of anti-mutant weaponry, but not before Cypher is able to point him in the direction of a disturbance near Westchester. The Purifiers attack Cable and Hope, pinning them down, but thanks to the intel provided by Cypher, the Alpha Team arrives, ready to free them.

Mini Review: The second chapter of Second Coming feels a little less urgent than the first, despite dealing with all the same plot threads. Although Dodson is generally one of the best artists on the X-Books, his style isn’t a natural fit for dramatic action scenes, especially in the wake of David Finch who – despite his weaknesses – can do that sort of material more justice. Elsewhere, Fraction’s versions of Cable and Hope are slightly one-note, which would be find except it’s not the same note we’ve seen in any of their previous appearances. In particular, the scene where Hope stares longingly at a pink hairbrush seems utterly bizarre, given her previous experiences of growing up in a post-apocalyptic future. It seems more likely that she’d be confused at what it was even for, rather than wish to own it. Although the tone of the issue didn’t quite work for me, I did, nonetheless, enjoy the plot developments, which were tightly considered. Not a huge amount happened, but for a story on a weekly pace, it kept enough ticking over that things shouldn’t get boring.

Commentary

Let’s start with Hairbrushgate:

As you may have noted from the review above, I’m not a particularly big fan of this scene. Hope has been living exclusively in a post-apocalyptic world, so the idea that she would stare longingly at a pink hairbrush of all things seems a little unlikely, unless we’re supposed to believe there’s some innate gender attraction at work. And I hardly think Matt Fraction would go there.

On the other hand, I really like this moment for Colossus. He’s probably as outraged and disappointed as Nightcrawler, but he takes a more pragmatic view of the situation in the short term. It wouldn’t surprise me if he later had his own angry chat with Wolverine and/or Cyclops, but for now, he’s focusing on the good he can do in the immediate future.

For those wondering, Cyclops did raise Cable – although he was in a different body and several thousand years in the future at the time. Let’s try and be as concise as possible, shall we? Nathan Summers, son of Cyclops and Madelyne Pryor, was taken into the future by the Clan Askani so that he could be cured of the techno-organic transmode virus that Apocalypse infected him with. As a safeguard, the Askani created a virus-free clone of Cable, who later grew up to become Apocalypse’s apprentice and intended vessel, Stryfe.

Meanwhile, in the past, Madelyne Pryor went insane and was revealed as a clone of Jean Grey (who had recently returned from the dead) then killed herself. Free from the shackles of his first marriage, Cyclops eventually wed Jean. On their honeymoon, however, their consciousnesses were pulled into the future by Mother Askani and implanted into imprecise reconstructions of their own bodies, assembled from the genetic material of their descendants. They lived for about 12 years as “Redd” and “Slym”, raising the young Nathan after the Askani were scattered by Apocalypses forces. Eventually, the three killed Apocalypse, at which point Scott and Jean’s minds were pulled back to the present. Leading the resistance against Apocalypses remaining forces, Nathan grew into the man called Cable, and eventually returned to our time where he unfortunately ended up drawn by Rob Liefeld.

Yet more wrongness. Hope has always been shown with something of a defiant streak – but never before has she been this frivolous, especially when stuck in a hostile and unfamiliar environment. I can see that Fraction’s attempting to give Hope a sense of immature wonder at the opulence of modern living, but to me, it doesn’t ring true to her character at all. Immaturity is a character flaw that Hope has simply never had the luxury of.

Update him indeed! I don’t know what these towers are, but it’s never good when villains start building towers, is it? Last time I remember robots building towers in the X-books, it was during the Phalanx Covenant storyline. Which, in a probably unrelated coincidence, was one of the last times Hodge and Lang showed up until they were revived by Bastion.

OF COURSE the Internet is going to seem rudimentary if you insist on using a dial-up connection. I believe that’s a only a 1200 baud left arm he’s got plugged in there. Also, you missed out “sarcastic comics reviews” from the list of things the Internet is used for. Idiot.

Predictionwatch

In which I catch up with some of the predictions I made in Chapter Zero of this article series.

Nightcrawlerwatch: It has come to my attention over the last week that the recent X-Men Origins: Nightcrawler one-shot was billed as a “Second Coming Tie-In” for no obvious content reason. Assuming it wasn’t an error, the logical assumption can be made that this is because Nightcrawler dies in Second Coming, and Marvel think retailers might therefore want a few extra copies of the Nightcrawler comic kicking around for the brief period of time that people are talking about him.

Also, he’s in the new teaser image, released this week. One of these X-Men will die! they say, with a strange sense of bloodthirstiness. If we assume this death isn’t going to be a repeat performance, we can rule out Colossus and Magik, and Iceman was already alive in the scenes from “prelude”, which haven’t happened yet. This leaves us Cable, Nightcrawler, Frost and Angel. At this points, odds greatly favour the former two – but Wolverine’s reaction in the Prelude story suggests Nightcrawler or, at a push, Angel – a character he’s responsible for under X-Force. Personally, I think things don’t look good for everyone’s favourite German.

Aaaaand that’s it for this week. Back here in a week’s time (ish) for a look at the events of Chapter 3 of Second Coming as found in New Mutants #12.

This week saw the release of a charming, if far from perfect, issue of an intriguing series. Unfortunately, Seb has beaten me to the punch on Joe The Barbarian, and so for the second month in a row, Comics Daily is going to take a look at events off the coast of San Francisco. Then again, there are worse fates than being forced to dwell on an engaging and thoughtfully-characterised, if well-established, book…

Matt Fraction’s assembling of a distinctly oddball cast continues, with Wolverine, Psylocke and Colossus’ trip to the big apple turning up another of the franchise’s misfits as the continue to pursue what’s superficially Nation X’s a-story. Meanwhile, the remainder of the cast continue to cope with life on their artificial island one day at a time. The writer does a good job of retaining the high0flying tone of the book from his more sci-fi initial issues, while still doing justice to the ‘trapped in exile’ scenario. As with last month’s outing, it’s a slid grasp of the iconic core cast, stripped of the superficial irony of the SFX arc, which provides the backbone of the title.

If there’s one part of the book which isn’t quite ringing true, it’s Magneto’s rebirth as an altruist. Previous issues struck a nice balance, with the character’s admiration for Neo-Cyclops managing to square the circle and deliver a compelling reason for Erik to take up residence in the book. Here, however, Magneto is depicted as being somewhat put-upon, with his good intentions distrusted by the other inhabitants of Utopia. Fraction is presumably seeking sympathy for the anti-hero, in order to gain the readership’s acceptance of his addition to the cast, but even considering the retconning away of Grant Morrison’s take on the character, it’s hard to buy him being as completely selfless as is shown here. The solicits have made clear just what his grand gesture of redemption will be, but while the revelation hasn’t spoilt the story in the same way as recent Buffy publicity materials, it calls for a further suspension of disbelief. The other misfortune affecting the book is artistic inconsistency, with the need to give Greg Land and Terry Dodson both prep time for the forthcoming Second Coming event sadly forcing a breakdown in the hitherto-successful policy of rotating the pencillers on alternate arcs. The material frankly deserves better than the resultant relay approach.