I want to be completely honest here. Until very recently I had not read a single issue of Redlands. I’m not sure why this is. It’s been on my list. I own all the issues. Just never got around to reading them. So immediately before reading issue #4, I read all the previous issues. Had to catch up. And I am glad I did. Glad I finally got my head out of my ass and read this thing. Because the book’s fucking great. It’s easily the best horror book coming out right now.
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Savage Town is the book that I have been anticipating most this year. Which is kind of funny when you think about it, mainly because I had no fucking idea what the thing was about before I started reading it. I was mainly excited about it because Declan Shalvey's name was attached to it and as a writer no less. But also it was the name – Savage Town's a great title – and the cover. I mean look at that cover. It's a beautiful fucking thing. It’s a cover that doesn't give one single thing about the book away, but it's also a cover that – for me, at least – leads me to want to know what the book's about. I've said this before in a past review: we're told not to judge books by their cover, but the truth is that we do. I know I definitely judge books by their covers (and I know that the saying is more about people than it is about book, but just run with me here). And this one got me all kinds of excited.
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At first I didn't want to review this one. However, it probably wasn't for the reason you'd initially think. I liked the first issue of Generation Gone well enough that I kind of wanted to keep my reading of the book casual. That way, I could take my time with each issue and not have to immediately jump into the critical thinking. Of course, that would've also likely meant I'd quickly fall behind in my reading of it (I'm already behind on a number of books I'm already reading casually). And since there really wasn't all that much else coming out this week that I felt the desire to review, I decided I might as well just go ahead and do Generation Gone #2. And, you know what? I'm glad I did. Because, now I'm interested in talking about this one.
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If DC had a slogan right now, it would be DC: Bold As Fuck. Seriously, they’re just trying whatever which sounds like a dreadful thing, but it’s not. It’s what the industry has always done, but at some point, the big two were like, Nah, continuity, it’s all about what’s happening in the world. Screw that; I want what ifs and alternate timelines in which Nightwing is a total dick, pun intended. And I don’t need it to be part of the multiverse, just fun comics starring familiar characters for a few months is nice and refreshing.
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DC, man, you're killing me with all these "wars" and "events" and on and on and on. This is the ever-increasing problem I've been having with superhero comics as of late, especially those from DC. They're all trying to do too much. And in the process, we're losing little bits and pieces of the characters. We're losing the things we love about these characters to – what I'm going to call – the Hollywood movie mentality in comics right now. Big stories with action and energy but not much else. What ever happened to focusing on the smaller things. What ever happened to character development. Not everything has to be END OF THE WORLD motherfucking huge. Not everything has to be earth shattering. But I digress.
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My last experience with Ales Kot's work was dropping his series Wolf after issue #7. And, that's actually kind of funny to me. Because, that was the book that got me going back into my local comic shop for the first time in a few years. I had picked up the first issue the day it came out after I saw it advertised in an email from Comixology (which at that point I had only really used to get a few free comics). It was a decompressed and oblique read, but it was still interesting enough for me to want to come back for the next installment. Unfortunately, the more I read of it, the more Kot seemed to prioritize showing disparate elements of the world he'd created over tying together the plot threads he continued to introduce and leave hanging. And when some connections were finally made, it was too little, too late, and not satisfying. So like I said, I eventually dropped it. But at that point, I was already reading a few other books I'd found and decided to pick up as well when coming into the shop for Wolf. So like it or not, Ales Kot played a catalytic part in my relationship with comics. Without him, I very well might not be writing this review right now, and perhaps that's the biggest reason I wanted to look at Generation Gone.
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The South is hot right now, but I ain’t going to lie, it’s wearing on me. Have you been to the south? The only thing it has going for it is the humidity. If in fact vampires, lost gods, witches and high school football coaches are running amok down there then I’ll say on this side of the Mississippi. All incest jokes aside, I am really tired of the backdrop of the South. It’s this year’s dystopian future. All that said, Redlands is worth reading.
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Batman’s back and he’s fighting in a new “war.” This poor guy, he just can’t catch a break. He just goes from one villain to the next. One war to the next. And when he runs out of villains to go through, the cycle just starts itself over again. This time around it’s the War of Jokes and Riddles. So obviously the two villains he’s going to go face-to-face with are the Riddler and the Joker. I know a lot of people hate the Joker as a character, and I’m wondering if that’s just because he’s getting kind of played out. If that’s the case, I can understand. Because I can see that. Personally, I’ve always liked the Joker. But I can see how he’s getting overused in storyline after storyline after storyline. There is an interesting (kind of) twist to his character here so I am going to hold off judgement on how his part in this “war” is going to play-out. I used to review every issue of Batman for this site. And I’ve always read Batman. Sometimes it’s bad and sometimes it’s good. Although after issue #18 I stopped reviewing it because I was basically just writing the same review over and over again every month. But I didn’t stop reading it. And now we’re back with issue #25 and here’s a review of it.
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