It’s Wednesday yet again, and that means another comic book day is upon is. This week, we have the very welcome return of one Mike Allred to the pages of Marvel, after a stint last year drawing the replacement Fantastic Four in the pages of FF. We also have the long, long awaited second issue of Neil Gaiman’s return to the world of the Endless in Sandman: Overture. And finally, we’ve got some classic DCU superhero action with Aquaman. Any and all of these puppies are a good reason to run over to your local comic book shop and throw down some of your hard earned money. So lets get started, shall we?

Top Picks

Silver Surfer #1/Marvel/Dan Slott/Michael Allred/Laura Allred

I’ve always liked good ol’ Norrin Radd, a/k/a The Silver Surfer, mostly because he’s so shiny, not to mention that as a child of the 80’s, I got a kick that he was a surfer with an actual last name like “Rad.” But I mostly just liked him in a supporting capacity in other comics, and not so much in his own adventures, for a variety of reasons. Well, in just one issue, writer Dan Slott (Amazing Spider-Man)and artist Mike Allred (Madman, X-Statix) have made me a fan of the solo adventures of the Silver Surfer, when no one could do it before. This issue manages to do what I don’t think any creator till now has managed to do — they’ve made the Silver Surfer a pretty funny book, and they’ve done it without changing who the character is. No, Norrin isn’t cracking jokes or being sarcastic and glib here, he’s still the same Stan Lee tortured character who shouts to himself out loud, but the world around him is irreverent in a way I don’t think it’s been portrayed before, and it’s very refreshing.

The issue doesn’t start out with the Surfer at all, in fact, but over a dozen years ago with two little girls who are twins, Eve and Dawn, who live with their Dad in Anchor Bay, a fictional New England town. One night, they wish upon a shooting star (who, it turns out, is really the Silver Surfer streaking along) and in their wishing, their basic personalities are displayed; Eve wants nothing but to travel the world and see everything there is to see, and Dawn just wants to stay home in lovely Anchor Bay. From there we cut to the deepest reaches of space and to the present day, where the Surfer is saving a micro planet from destruction, atoning for his years of servitude to the planet-eater Galactus. It’s here that he’s contacted by the minions of “The Incredulous Zed”, steward of the Impericon, an “impossible” planet that looks like the love child of sixties-era Jack Kirby and M.C. Escher.

Impericon is a place where anything can happen, a fabulous pleasure planet where the luxury suites have their own moons, and those moons are nightclubs. Someone wants to destroy Impericon, and the Surfer has been enlisted to be that world’s champion by Zed. As this is going on, we cut to the now-adult Eve and Dawn; Eve is traveling the world, and Dawn has remained home helping to run the family business. The parts with the two sisters are maybe the best parts of the book, and although we aren’t entirely sure how the ordinary world of the two girls on Earth ties into the Surfer’s adventures quite yet, it’s still fun to read, as Slott and Allred paint a picture of two people who are identical on the surface, but totally different otherwise, and yet both still likable.

This book is classic Dan Slott, and I feel he is channeling a little bit of the ireverrence from his days writing She-Hulk. And Mike Allred’s art is amazing as always. After what seemed like a long absence from Marvel, Allred came back with last year’s FF book, but so far this Silver Surfer project seems a better match for his talent, especially since the Surfer is such a sixties character, and no one channels the pop art era better than Allred. The pages showcasing the planet Impericon alone are the kind of stuff only Allred can do. Marvel is very much on a roll right now with most of its new series, and I can definitely add Silver Surfer to that list of great new takes on classic icons.

Sandman: Overture #2DC-Vertigo/Neil Gaiman/J.H. Williams

While there are many books coming out this (and every) Wednesday, I would say most are going to be hard pressed to look as strikingly beautiful as Neil Gaiman’s Sandman: Overture. Artist J.H. Williams, known for his work on Alan Moore’s Promethea as well as an incredible run on Batwoman, brings his A-game to this book in a big way. There was a six month delay between issues one and two of this series, and while the delay made a lot of fans angry, when you look at the artwork, you’ll understand why it was worth it. This isn’t the kind of thing where you get a fill in artist to make a release date, you wait for the artwork to come in whenever it comes in because the details and page layout are just so damn good. And writer Neil Gaiman has had no trouble getting back into the groove of writing this character, fifteen years later or not. Reading this issue, it feels as if not a day has passed.

This issue opens in the present, in a prologue with the current holder of the title Dream, Daniel, but then quickly flashes back to 1915, where we last left Dream of the Endless, who is meeting various aspects of himself from across the universe. This presents an interesting issue that I’ve always wondered about; if the Endless are representations of human attributes from the beginning of time and for the whole cosmos, shouldn’t that include alien races? And if so, shouldn’t they look different for every race that’s out there? In the scene where Dream meets the other aspects of himself, it allows for Williams to go nuts in redesigning Morpheus in dozens of new ways; we get totally alien, non humanoid versions, robot version, a version that’s a cat, and even one dressed as Superman, which I presume is how Kryptonians perceive Dream (a nice touch, as the Sandman series originated as part of the DC Universe proper.) The reason for this gathering of the Dreams is that one of the aspects of himself has been killed, and Dream now has to figure out just who killed him. Or part of him, I should say.

If I have any complaint about this series, it’s that it has taken the better part of two issues to properly even set up the premise (Dream tries to solved his own murder), but it’s all so beautifully written by Neil Gaiman and drawn by J.H. Williams that it really doesn’t matter, it’s just a joy to read. Whether you were a fan back in the day, or weren’t even born yet, I highly suggest picking up The Sandman: Overture.

Aquaman #29DC/Jeff Parker/ Paul Pelletier /Sean Parsons

One of the titles that benefited the most from DC’s New 52 reboot was maybe Aquaman. Originally written by DC superstar and COO Geoff Johns, he recently left the book in the capable hands of Jeff Parker, who has been doing a great job for DC with his Batman ’66 book.  Artist Paul Pelletier also joined the book around the same time, and although his style is totally different from Ivan Reis’, it’s a pretty great match for Aquaman. At the start of this issue, Aquaman and his wife “partner” Mera (she actually refers to herself as his partner this issue; Even one of the most famous queens in the DCU is now just “the girlfriend” because of DC’s dumb no-marriage rule) have called over the local Amnesty Bay police to report a very important missing object: Aquaman’s trident. Which villain stole King Arthur’s most precious royal weapon??

Well, it turns out it wasn’t so much stolen as “borrowed” by a local scientist, who sees the trident as a key to opening a portal between our world and the kingdom of Atlantis. Of course, things don’t go as smoothly as he’d like, and not only do a lot of big, giant nasties come out of the portal, but so does a character who has had yet to show up in the New 52 DCU: Hercules. Are DC positioning Herc as a villain for Aquaman? And how will that effect Arthur’s relationship with Wonder Woman, who is now technically Hercules’ half sister? This issue leaves things in an interesting place for Aquaman. While the book still isn’t as good as when Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis were doing it, Aquaman still remains a solid, fun read, and one worth recommending.

Pull List
DARK HORSE COMICS

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COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS

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What’s on your pull list this week? Let us know in the comments below.