The Top Five Comic Books For the Week Of July 13, 2022
This was a pretty good week for comics
It’s that time of the week yet again. Time for my weekly top 5 comics. I cheated a bit and included a book from last week that showed up at my local comic shop a bit late. It’s my list. I can cheat if I want to. Without further ado, here are the books
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Rogues #3. DC Comics Black Label. Written by Josh Williamson. Art by Leomacs. This issue feels like it has been a long time coming. Issue number two came out way back in April. I was worried that the wait might have caused the quality of the book to drop. Thankfully, that’s not the case. Issue #3 might be the strongest yet. It’s a DC Black Label book, which gives the creators room to play around without having to worry about 70+ years of continuity.
Leomac’s art initially struck me as a bit too cartoony for a superhero book but the more I look at it the more it fits. Their style is similar to Chris Samnee’s, but more subdued. The panels are gridded nicely and you’re never confused as to what’s going on. Colorist Jason Wordie does a great job with a muted palette that helps emphasize the serious nature of the story. And while it is serious, it’s not without some funny moments. This is the strongest writing I’ve read from Josh Williamson. He portrays Captain Cold as a brutal, bitter cold-hearted (get it?) old man who wants revenge on, well, everyone. Issue #3 is where the actual heist setup in the previous issues takes place. Like every good heist story, something goes terribly wrong. I’m looking forward to reading the final book of the series. If it wraps up well this book will truly be something special.
Saga #60. Image Comics. Written by Brian K. Vaughan. Art by Fiona Staples. This is my cheater book. It technically came out last week. I don’t care. It’s worth writing about and was one of the best comics I read this week. I haven’t read all of the first 50 issues of Saga, so there are a few moments in this book where I was unfamiliar with plot details and characters. That didn’t detract from my overall enjoyment of the book. It’s a quick read but manages to be both poignant and lighthearted.
Fiona Staples’ art is, as always, fantastic. Vaughan’s writing shines in this issue. It’s a series of smaller moments and a bit of downtime for the main characters. That downtime leads to a break for them and a bit of a breakdown. Both of which felt natural. That’s not an easy feat to pull off. Every issue of Saga that I have read has been consistently great.
Mullet Cop: The Flavor Of Danger one shot. Written and drawn by Tom Lintern. Mullet Cop is an over-the-top satire that combines the follies of American consumerism and the evils of giant corporations with a splash of 80s action movies thrown in for good measure.
Lintern’s art has a tight, thin line work that’s somewhat similar to that of Geoff Darrow, albeit a lot less detailed. HIs color palette leans towards the pastels, which serve to elevate the humor in this book. It’s funny. It’s violent. It’s stupid. There’s a helicopter / Segue chase sequence. It was a comic I didn’t know I needed this week. The only real downfall is that it’s $6.99. It does have a higher-than-normal page count, but that’s still a bit steep. At least it teaches you how to make a microwave burrito
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Moon Knight #13. Marvel Comics. Written by Jed McKay. Art by Federico Sabbatini. A transitional issue that does the heavy lifting of setting up the next arc, most of this issue is narrated through the eyes of the Taskmaster. It’s mostly him describing how much of a badass Moon Knight interspersed with scenes of Moon Knight being a badass.
Sabbatini does an effective job as a fill-in artist. He doesn’t have the dynamism or angular fluidity of regular series artist Alessandro Cappuccio, but he’s serviceable. I don’t always love Jed McKay’s writing (his Strange mini-series, for example), but his Moon Knight is probably Marvel’s best ongoing series. It’s not groundbreaking or revelatory by any means, but it’s an entertaining superhero book
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Above Snakes #1. Image Comics. Written by Sean Lewis. Art by Hayden Sherman. A tale of revenge. A talking vulture. All set in the wild west. What more could you ask from a comic? The protagonist, Dirt, is on a mission to revenge the death of his wife, Dorothea. The solicits call this ‘a world where Deadwood-style Westerns collide with the fantasia of Neil Gaiman’. That’s not really accurate. It doesn’t have the dense, story-telling structure of a Gaiman book or the gravitas and dark humor of an episode of Deadwood, but it’s a solid first issue.
Sherman’s art is reminiscent of Paul Pope. He has a loose, fluid style that works well with the story. The story itself is fairly straightforward with a fairly predictable twist at the end, but it has the action and heart to keep me interested enough to read issue number 2.
That’ll do it for this week. As always, you can watch my reviews of every book I read over on my Youtube channel.
Oh, and if you’d like to support what I do, you can buy t-shirts and other merchandise over on my website at taylorwinder.com
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