By Brandy Dykhuizen and Arpad Okay. Our Week In Review sums up our weekly comic book coverage while squeezing in a new review or two before it’s all over. Did we miss your favorite books this week? Well. This is where you need to be.
Nowhere Men #11
Image Comics/$2.99
Written by Eric Stephenson.
Art by Dave Taylor and Emi Lennox; colors by Jordie Bellaire.
Letters and design by Fonografiks.
AOK: To read Nowhere Men is to witness the sabre dance. The latest issue continues to pay off leads embedded into the story years ago in a way that creates as many mysteries as it does answers.
We have come to expect nothing less. The mutation turning astronauts into super-beings has gone viral since their return to our planet, and the name of the game has become “containment.” Innocent lives, as well as scientists and journalists and junior executives (often clones), are swept up in the rush of the tide coming in, the aftermath of space station destruction, corporate chaos. The victims become the heroes. Power structures crumble and the unlikely step in to take the reins. Old ghosts and old friends. Nowhere Men is peaking on psychedelics and won’t let go of your hand as it tries to keep its fractured future from falling to pieces.
It is a book devoted to spectacle. Nowhere Men has those literati action film thrills. A race with time, a battle between fantastic creatures, technology on the bleeding edge with ideology to match. But the battle is of wits. The gasps come in the wake of understanding as well as the grotesque. Every factor of the story is aimed at leaving the reader awestruck. Half a dozen locations with a dozen different feels, and things like book excerpts and magazine covers and pop art serve as snapshots of the world, transitions between the scenes that ground their plethora of characters in a shared history. Is this poster they’ve put between the Arctic exploration and the troll under the bridge important for now or is this a clue for the future? Meanwhile, the story’s many threads wind around the maypole, making magic. A busy book. A bullet train, really. Its destination: cult classic.
8 out of 10
Kim & Kim #2
Written by Mags Visaggio.
Art by Eva Cabrera; colors by Claudia Aguirre.
Letters by Zakk Saam.
BD: With a cephalopodic fugitive in tow, Kim & Kim continues its journey of world-hopping adventure, creating rifts in time and space when it can’t reach its destination soon enough. Powerful, creative and mostly self-assured, these brass-tacks ladies serve as fantastic examples of how hard work can always get the job done, while their flippant use of power and occasional lack of confidence remind us that they are still outgrowing that rebellious adolescent phase.
With colors as vibrant as the characters and artwork that refuses to sit still, issue #2 is a superb second issue, throwing us directly into the heart of the action like we haven’t missed a beat. Moments that might feel choppy or frenetic elsewhere are forgivable as the reader feels herself adopting The Kims’ carefree, roll-with-it-and-see-where-it-takes-us attitude, eagerly running from one page to the next to catch up with the craziness.
Overflowing with inventive exploits and infinite galaxies, Kim and Kim are there to remind each other that even they have limits. You can’t expect to butter someone up by calling him a fraud, and you can’t very well fight a skyscraper-sized sandworm with just a guitar and a machine gun, no matter how sweet your amp is. There’s no shame in asking for help, whether it be from each other, the army, or a long-lost aunt presumed dead.
While the Kims don’t take “no” for an answer, they are (eventually) aware of their restrictions and open to listening and learning. Tom Quilty may not be any closer to home yet, but you can bet the girls will invent a way to put as much space between him and the dreaded El Scorcho as an electric guitar and a space van will allow. Quantum jams are go.
8 out of 10
From earlier this week —
‘GLITTERBOMB’ Rains Terror Upon The Insipid And The Sanctimonious
‘SUPERMUTANT MAGIC ACADEMY’ Highlights This Week’s Top Picks
‘RISE OF THE BLACK FLAME’ #1 Is Peak Dark Horse Horror
REBIRTH IN REVIEW: ‘CYBORG’ Starts Over, ‘SUPERGIRL’ Charges Ahead
10 THINGS CONCERNING Rafer Roberts And Valiant’s New Series, ‘HARBINGER RENEGADES’
The Comics We Absolutely Can’t Live Without — CASUAL WEDNESDAYS WITH DOOMROCKET
Barriers Between Art And Artifice Blur In ‘CARVER: A PARIS STORY’
Agree? Disagree? What books are YOU reading this week? We want to know! Tell us about those feelings of yours in the comments section below.
