by Warren Ellis and Raulo Caceres

Avatar Press

“This is a secret history. Everything I tell you is true.
Ionic air propulsion. Electrostatic levitation. Electrogravitics. The Biefield-Brown Effect and electro-fluid-dynamics. Nothing here is invented. It simply appears to be uchronic, counterfactual, sitting in the break of a time out of joint.
Everything I tell you is true. It is everyone else who’s been lying to you. I am Captain Swing.”

Here we go again, another Warren Ellis comic that sounds like an absolute blast, full of the sort of manic, extreme, sharply dialogued stuff I enjoy from Ellis on themes both he and I find continually and repeatedly interesting; experimental science, crime, law and strange history viewed through a steampunk lens.

But I’m not going to be fooled this time. I think Ignition City taught me something, finally, about Ellis comics; never be taken in by a first issue full of inventive ideas, sparse on plot and dialogue but full of potential. So I’m going to hold off on fully appraising Captain Swing until the inevitable collection comes out – only then will I be able to tell if that early promise was fulfilled in a satisfying story.

(Captain Swing? Possibly. Electrical? Certainly. Whoever it is, he’s way ahead of both types of policemen here. From Captain Swing And The Electrical Pirates Of Cindery Island by Ellis and Caceres, published by Avatar)

Captain Swing certainly starts out as extremely promising, the title comes from Captain Swing, the imaginary leader of agricultural riots of the 1830s but Ellis spins this idea and his Captain Swing appears to be an electrically charged character who the locals mistake for Spring Heeled Jack – another bit of 19th Century English folklore. Throw in the competing law enforcement of the time between the amateur, underfunded and incompetent Metropolitan Police Peelers and the far more professional, armed, dangerous and corrupt Bow Street Runners controlled by the Magistrates and we get an intriguing setup.

(Oh, those text pages just scream Ellis don’t they? From Captain Swing And The Electrical Pirates Of Cindery Island by Ellis and Caceres, published by Avatar)

Then add in all the allusions to secret histories, electricity, scientific concepts way ahead of their times and a “galvanic cell that fell into the sands of Baghdad in 250BC” introduced on the text pages that litter the comic and Captain Swing comes across as a mysterious and interesting, if short, read.

It’s an immediately gripping first issue, supplemented by Avatar standard colour art by Raulo Caceres – which is not bad, doing everything it needs to do with a little style and the occasional iffy panel or figure.

Captain Swing And The Electrical Pirates Of Cindery Island – style over content, certainly, but it’s Ellis’ style and I’m a fan. Whether the series lives up to this early promise….. this time I shall wait and see. And if nothing else, the series does have that great title and a beautiful cover.

Captain Swing #2 is due later this month.

by Warren Ellis and Gianluca Pagliarani

Avatar Press

After choosing Warren Ellis as my favourite author for the 5th anniversary post of the FPI blog I can’t help but feel very let down by him after completing Ignition City. It’s a classic example of the sort of writing he’s sometimes capable of, especially with Avatar, who frankly know they’re sitting on a goldmine with anything he writes for them.

Ignition City obviously started out as a fun little idea in Ellis’ mind to combine his oft mentioned ideas that the human race has lessened itself by it’s isolationist, short term thinking when it turns it’s gaze away from the stars with the notion of doing a “what if Flash Gordon was a pissed off, washed up ex-space pilot for whom it all went very wrong?” type of story.

And that’s Ignition City – Flash Gordon gone to seed and the world a worse place because we don’t go to the stars – all done frontier, Western style. With lasers instead of guns. I liked issue 1 and I have to say I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t make the Flash Gordon references at the time – Lightning Bowman? Really? And then there’s the t-shirt with the lightening bolt across it. Plus we have analogs for Ming, Dale and Zarkov and much more in there as well. Was I asleep when I read the first issue?

(Mary Raven gets the bad news about her father and sets off to the wilds of Ignition City. From Ignition City Volume 1. By Ellis and Pagliarani, published Avatar)

So the basic story is that the daughter of a noted space ace finds herself washed up at an early age, space programs are closing down all over and she’s going to be cut off from the stars, a dream she always shared with her big space hero father since she was a babe in daddy’s arms. Daddy meanwhile, has been up to no good in Ignition City – last big space port and operating on some kind of frontier mentality, with the dive bars and corrupt marshalls of the old west. Hell, there’s even old fashioned style gunfights occasionally, except those guns don’t pump lead, they fire lasers.

When Daddy ends up dead it’s up to the daughter to head into Ignition City and get his body back. Except she’s just the sort of girl who’ll get herself involved and start extracting revenge for her father’s death and discovering that he may not have been the man she thought he was. And when she does that she accidentally discovers the big, big secret of Ignition City. And then it’s the end.

(Zarkov Dr Vukovic comes to the rescue. Very Ellis. From Ignition City Volume 1. By Ellis and Pagliarani, published Avatar)

There’s good stuff in Ignition City, for any fan of Ellis’ style of writing, it’s snappy, full of great characters, loads of over the top dialogue and a fair bit of good old fashioned action. All done extremely well, but like so much of his recent work, there’s just not enough meat on the bones of his story to make it feel really satisfying. It’s really just half a story and from a writer that I love that’s just a big letdown. The art by Pagliarani is nice, very much in what has become the Avatar style, with a few panels that are great and a fair few that aren’t so great. But overall he does the flimsy story more than justice.

No news on whether there’s a second volume, but there’s always a good chance that there will be with Ellis and Avatar. Fingers crossed that there’s more to it next time than a host of interesting ideas and great moments.

Last spring we even discovered that media company Cision had ranked us 31st in their top 50 of all UK blogs, the only one of its kind among the others on that list, right up there with such blogs as the Guardian and the BBC’s. That was a bit of a gobsmacking moment to think our little blog had grown up to that level – not just because it was impressive and satisfying – the only comics site on that list – but because it meant that a lot of readers clearly enjoyed what we posted up and their readership and links to us had put us into that position. Now that, that is really satisfying, knowing that it means people want to read what we’re talking about and that more get in touch to let us know about comics they’ve been involved in, events they have organised. Its been a great five years – frankly we’ve been spoiled for good works to talk about and if all five of us did nothing but try to cover all the comics and SF out there every day we still couldn’t keep up with it, its so diverse.

And that diversity is one of the aspects that keeps us all enthusiastic – there are so many fine comics, books and graphic novels we’ve seen over those five years, from big names like Alan Moore and Bryan Talbot to folks doing their own comics, planning them, writing them, drawing them, publishing them, selling them, even organising their own comics festivals. I’m really pleased that we’ve managed to discuss some great comics from so many different avenues in the graphical world, from the independent publishers to the big guns, to the self published and to comics from outside the English language world. I’ve found new writers and artists I’d probably never have come across otherwise and my reading is much the richer for it and if we’ve pointed some of you to new writers who have enriched your reading then that makes us very happy. Yes the FP blog is part of our huge webstore but from the start we’ve always seen it as far more than a simple corporate blog; we read what we sell and like many of our brother and sister geeks we love to share what we enjoy, we love to celebrate good art, we think good writers and artists should be celebrated and that’s really what drives us to post here.

So now we are five. How to mark it… Something involving the number five. Have all the contributors dress up in costumes from Babylon 5? Maybe we could form a tribute band for the Jackson 5? Perhaps we could have a guest comic strip called the Jackson 5 but its actually about the five top operatives working secretly for Stonewall Jackson during the American Civil War? Or perhaps we should stick to what we hopefully do well and have all five of our regular contributors select a favourite comics creator and to recommend one title by them that they think any reader should have on their shelves. Yes, that sounds more like us, although it immediately puts us in that hellish position of having to choose just one creator and one title. And you all know that we have an awful lot of favourites, how to pick just one… Nevertheless we have – Richard, Pádraig, Matthew, Wim and myself have all picked out a comics creator who has meant a lot to us. Although I think, on reflection, I should say favoured rather than favourite because really none of us could ever restrict ourselves to just one and there’s always a different writer you turn to depending on your mood and what you need, but that said, here’s what the five of us went with:

Richard: I’m torn, so many to choose from, but Joe wants us to choose just one creator. I could name three easily: Seth, Grant Morrison and Warren Ellis. But it has to be just one. So not Seth, no matter how much I adore his work and not, much to my own surprise, Grant Morrison, even though he came along at exactly the right moment when I felt myself drifting away from comics and filled my world with some beloved works.

No, the one creator I choose is Warren Ellis. Since when he’s right on top of his game, he’s the most thrilling, inventive and readable writer working in comics today for me.

You want examples? There’s the manic gonzo sci-fi of Transmetropolitan, the hope filled space love letter that is Orbiter, Ministry of Space, Global Frequency, Stormwatch/Authority. Ellis writes these things like a man possessed, with incredible energy and invention and they’re all books that will be enjoyed over and over again.

I come to Ellis’ books to escape, to thrill, to be amazed, to be thoroughly entertained. And to pick just one Ellis book is a very easy choice – Planetary. A book I’ll never, ever grow tired of revisiting; a wondrous exploration of comics and genre fiction all wrapped up in a perfect mystery thriller. 27 issues collected as 4 volumes with mystery archaeologists uncovering all the incredible secrets of this amazing world; wonderful, amazing, bewildering things. Things that the secret rulers of the world don’t want uncovered. Secret rulers who will slowly, tentatively, brilliantly be called to task.

So it’s happy 5th birthday to the FPI blog, a very happy home for some of my writing for 3 of it’s 5 years. Thanks to Kenny and Joe for inviting me along and welcoming me in and most of all thank you for reading, for commenting and for loving comics in all their wonderful forms.

Matthew: I’ve been asked by Joe to name my favourite comics creator in celebration of the fifth anniversary of the Forbidden Planet International blog. My choice is Paul Grist, but I’m afraid I’m having trouble articulating why. Not because I can’t think of anything to write about this fabulously gifted cartoonist, but because I’ve got too much that I want to say. Grist, the man behind Kane, Jack Staff and numerous other wonderful comics, deserves a lengthy essay extolling his many talents, rather than a brief missive.

However, under the circumstances, the following will have to do:

Paul’s name was the first that popped into my head when asked to name my favourite comics creator simply because it is his work has given me most pleasure in the entirety of my comics reading life. His comics are fucking awesome!

Happy Birthday to the Forbidden Planet International blog. Thanks for encouraging and supporting the British small press scene for the last five years. The comics-sphere is a better place for your existence.

Oh, and Paul, should you happen to stop by and read this, thanks for ten years and counting of happy comics reading for yours truly. The Kane: Greetings from New Eden trade paperback from Dancing Elephant Press brought a jaded fan boy back into comics at a time when he thought he’d given up on them forever (too many crap super hero comics will do that to even the most ardent comics reader).

Pádraig: Alan Moore is the greatest writer of comics that has ever lived. I can almost prove this scientifically, but it’s also an almost mystical belief on the part of not just myself, but many others. His work over the past nearly thirty years has led the way in transforming the comics industry, often against the wishes of the corporate entities trying to control it. His body of work represents the very finest the medium has to offer: The Ballad of Halo Jones, From Hell, Promethea, V for Vendetta, and a number of other titles.

Undoubtedly Moore’s finest work, his most influential and important work, and probably the single greatest achievement of the comics medium, is Watchmen. Every single aspect of this comic is perfect. The characters are all believable, and their motivations, although often dark and twisted, are also entirely human. The storyline unfolds slowly and beautifully, a master-class in how to use comics to tell your story in a way that no other medium can offer. There is real emotional depth in the book, something that certainly was not seen as a priority in comics up to that point. All this is complimented by Dave Gibbons’ brilliant artwork, again probably the finest storytelling artwork in any comic, ever. Watchmen is the product of two fine creators at the absolute top of their game, and will probably never be surpassed.

I would have liked to add that Alan Moore is also a fine and entertaining interviewee, a funny guy, and a damn fine dinner companion, but this would surely be seem as boasting!

Wim: I don’t like lists, at least not the kind that force you to kill your darlings: Your Favourite Books Of The Year, The Best Movie Ever, Top Ten Burgundy Reds of All Time, that kind of thing.  Desert Island Discs?  Pur-lease!

Still, the FPI blog’s first lustrum is a good enough reason to throw your principles overboard, so no MacManus, no Jijé, no Franquin, not even a Herriman or a Walt Kelly.   If I can choose only one author to spotlight, it has to be Hergé.  Hergé was the one who got me hooked on comics with “Objectif Lune”.  He taught me to read pictures as well as text.  From his earliest books onwards, he took an already blossoming artform and distilled it into a perfect pictorial narrative language.

Hergé’s importance and influences can hardly be underestimated.  His studio nourished talent like Roger Leloup, Jacques Martin and, of course, Bob De Moor.  Together with André Franquin and Jijé, Hergé defined the look, the subject matter and the atmosphere of comics for decades, with his own work, and as editor of Tintin Magazine.  European comics went through many waves of growing up and maturing, but Hergé’s adagium never faded, and was taken up by new generations of cartoonists again and again: always be as clear as possible when you’re telling a story, whether it’s in your art or your narrative style.

Hergé’s masterpiece, of course, is Tintin (although Quick & Flupke have their charms as well).  Yes, before it was a fashion brand or a property that was being turned into a movie, Tintin was one of the best, if not the best comic that Europe ever produced.  And the best album, in my opinion, is L’Ile Noir (the Black Island) – it’s an self-contained story that you can read without really knowing the whole Tintin back history, it’s full of intrigue and suspense, it’s got bandits, monsters and stunts with airplanes, and it’s got some of the best comic scenes in the series.  For Tintinophiles, however, it is above all the best example of Hergé constantly refining his art, redoing parts of the book again and again (and in the sixties having Bob De Moor creating a complete new version from scratch).

That the book is set in Scotland, is only fitting in this occasion, this fifth anniversary of the FPI Blog.  After all, how else to thank and honour Joe, our beloved editor?

Joe: Of course now I am asking myself just why I put myself into the position of picking a single writer. There are so many that I admire and more than a few who often call to me from my overflowing shelves and demand that they be re-read once more, even although I have many new works waiting for attention. Yes, Mr Moore, how often have Watchmen and V For Vendetta called me irresistibly back, interrupting my reading of new work? Mr Ellis and his Transmetropolitan which is a series always worthy of reading and re-reading. Mr Ennis and his fine expletive filled Preacher. The works of John Wagner and Pat Mills who have shaped and warped my imagination since tender childhood. Alex Robinson. Paul Chadwick. Mike Mignola. Grant Morrison.  Bryan Talbot. Joe Sacco. Chris Ware. Some creators I didn’t even know before I came here, like Alison Bechdel or Jeff Lemire. Too many to list – and I haven’t even started on the wonderful SF&F novelists I read every week too! Truly there is treasure everywhere.

But I said I’d highlight one name from the world of comics and I will and those who know me will not be surprised that it is Neil Gaiman, nor that, if pointing someone to only one body of work of his it would be the Sandman. I grew up with comics. Every week in the 70s like literally millions of other British kids I’d have the Beano, the Dandy, the Topper, Warlord, Action and then something wonderful and new, 2000 AD, back when the year 2000 really did seem so distant, the science fiction future age of jetcars and robot butlers. And when I got into my late teens and early 20s I struggled. I still loved comics but finding work that appealed to me at an older age (I’d hesitate to use the term mature since that infers qualities I don’t always have!). Oh there had been some – Miller’s Dark Knight, Spiegelman’s Maus, there was Revolver and Deadline and Crisis too. But I found The Sandman one day in the Glasgow Forbidden Planet and I was drawn back in, every month I was back in the habit of waiting impatiently for the next issue (and those of you who have only known it in collection form must remember, we had to wait each month for years and years to follow it all originally). And because of that and because of the new Vertigo imprint that sprung up around it and Hellblazer I explored more comics each month. Which lead me in meandering paths to try all sorts of works I’d never have read otherwise from other publishers like Fantagraphics, D&Q, Top Shelf…

And that, to me, is the mark of a good comic or book and of a fine writer – not just that you read their work and feel satisfied, but that you are left with the urge to read more. Not just of their work but other works. I’ve always been a reader and it is always such a joy to find an author who inspires that love of the printed page and leaves you wanting to read more, more, more, try different works, works you’d never have picked up before. Yes, I could talk about Neil’s ability to layer his tales so wonderfully, delicately lacing them with myth and folklore and references to world literature, or how his Sandman unfolded over years, new chapters connecting with past events, like Straczynski’s Babylon 5 multiple small parts coming together and recombining into new aspects of a greater tale. But that’s all been said and at greater length before. The reason I’m picking it is simply because it made me want to read more. I can say nothing better of any writer than that. And I think really its why we write here; in our own, humbler way we want to encourage readers to pick up good, new works and celebrate those talents and share them with others. That’s what it’s about. We hope sometimes we’ve lead you to a book you might not have picked up otherwise and you’ve loved it. And we thank you for joining us.

Cyclops and Storm seem somewhere about 7ft tall, Storm appears to have forgotten most of her top and, from that waistline, hasn’t been eating properly either. And poor Emma Frost has suffered from some really bad plastic surgery that’s taken at least 2 ft off her height. Kaare Andrews is normally a pretty good artist, but this is just pretty awful.

This “Astonishing X-Men:Xenogenesis” relaunch from issue 1 marks the start of a new Astonishing line from Marvel, followed swiftly by “Astonishing Spider-Man/Wolverine” by Jason Aaron and Adam Kubert. According to this solicit information:

“They are firmly set in Marvel continuity but also accessible to new readers,” said Marvel Senior VP of Sales and Circulation David Gabriel. “If you’re looking for big changes and character developments or a place to start reading if you are new to comics, this is where you come. Thanks to Joss Whedon and John Cassaday, the name Astonishing is synonymous with excellence. That’s what this line is all about, from the creators to the characters.”

Hang on, “accessible to new readers“, isn’t that what the Ultimate line was touted as? Except Astonishing is “firmly set in Marvel continuity but also accessible to new readers“. Is that even possible anymore?

However, based on just those two titles, Astonishing should be a big hit. I did enjoy Ellis’ first Astonishing X-Men storyline and by all accounts, Jason Aaron’s Ghost Rider series from Marvel was a highlight of 2009 from the company. But after that, the almost inevitable wave of Astonishing titles, the crossovers, the major events and everything else that just seems to dilute good, simple, old fashioned storytelling may do to Astonishing what it managed to do to the Ultimate line.

Just how long before someone makes a working model of this? And then how long before Ellis sticks it on here?

by Warren Ellis and Simone Bianchi

Marvel

I enjoyed, and wrote about the first issue of this storyline when it came out here and this collection basically gives us more of the same, which is to say more of Ellis’ voice through the medium of Marvel’s mutant team. Everything you’d expect to find in an Ellis book is on show in spades here; all the sarcasm and cutting dialogue, all the tech heavy plotlines, all the excitement he can generate when he’s even mildly on form.

After finishing Ghost Boxes I realised that what made it feel good and comfortable and enjoyable was the familiarity I felt, not only with Ellis’ writing but in the situations and characters he’s using. Essentially something like Ghost Boxes is a nostalgic look back at the X-Men for those of us who grew up enjoying the heyday of the title. Everything that my teen self found entertaining and enjoyable then is here, just written for the older, more world weary self that I am now. It’s fanboy fiction for an older generation.

The story; The X-Men are off investigating a murder in their new home of San Francisco, where the victim turns out to be an artificially created mutant. They get drawn into a pursuit of the murderer, another mutant, and end up in Indonesia, where amongst an alien tech spaceship graveyard, they find the killer desperately trying to activate a “Ghost Box”. He commits suicide before the X-Men can discover much more of his motives or origins. But the subsequent investigation, much to the chagrin of team leader Cyclops, involves Beast’s half alien girlfriend Agent Brand of S.W.O.R.D., who’s had plentiful contact with these Ghost Boxes before:

Brand: “It’s a Ghost Box. You’ve never seen a Ghost Box? What the hell have you guys been doing all these years that you’ve never seen a Ghost Box? A Ghost Box opens gates between parallel Earths.”

And then it all fits into place. The killer had non Earth mutant DNA because he’s simply not of this Earth, he’s a traveller from an alternate universe. The pursuit takes the X-Men to China and a five square mile scanning dead zone – an area of China that no-one, not even the Chinese themselves knew what went on. Turns out this area was home to the Chinese equivalent of the X-men, mutants who suddenly de-powered on that fateful M-day when most of this Earth’s mutants were de-powered. From here we career into a plotline of alternate earth mutants staging a possible invasion of this Earth and an army of artificial mutants being made just to fight back against this invasion by a figure the X-Men know only too well.

(Such an Ellis panel there. Dazzling us with absolute cutting edge science that he’s amazed by and rolling it out for his story; From Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Box. Published and © Marvel)

So in a few short pages Ellis manages to turn a simple murder mystery into a multiverse threatening alien mutant invasion, where the X-Men find themselves in the middle of a war between an old colleague’s artificial mutants and the invading mutants from a parallel Earth. Throw in incredible tech, with a foothold in the here and now but with Ellis’ imagination escalating that real science into sci-fi, verbal sparring between everyone and anyone, and some good old fashioned superhero violence and you end up with a superhero comic with everything that’s good about Ellis’ writing.

Like Morrison with his New X-Men and Whedon with the Astonishing X-Men before him, Ellis dialogues the X-Men as some disfunctional family, all spats, sarcasm and quips. But that’s again just an updating of the classic mutant family idea of Claremont’s time. It’s just that Ellis gets to play to a slightly older crowd. They’ve matured somewhat, but the basic characters are still the same, with the notable exception of Scott Summers. Ever since Morrison’s classic X-Men run I’ve really enjoyed the tension that comes with the idea of Scott Summers and Emma Frost being together, so strangely suited to each other. With this improbable love story Cyclops has developed far beyond the uptight, insecure two-dimensional character he was, and so much of it is down to the incredible Emma Frost – and Ellis gets Emma Frost just right:

(Emma Frost and Cyclops with dialogue courtesy of Warren Ellis. From Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Box. Published and © Marvel)

Or the wonderful dialogue between Emma and Storm, as two old adversaries meet:

Storm: I never knew that guilt-free shopping and constant lovemaking could get so boring
Emma: I don’t want to start some tedious argument , Ororo, but let’s be clear. .. I am sick and tired of old team members denouncing me as an evil witch five minutes after they walk in the door.
Storm: Do you know how far I have to go in Wakanda to find someone who’ll dare have an arguament with me these days? I will drink champagne with you and let you insult me until the sun goes dark, I promise…
Emma: Oh, for God’s sake. Drink your tea and shut up woman.
Storm: Oh, thank you.

It’s delivered at breakneck speed, with a constant stream of clever and plot developing dialogue throughout. This is Ellis obviously having a blast, getting to play with Marvel’s premier team, and it seems he’s enjoying himself. Bianchi’s artwork is a lavish affair, full of painterly effects and organic panel borders. It should be distracting, but once I’d managed to get used to it, it wasn’t so bad; all the show and all the flash was thankfully supported by a good sense of storytelling and Bianchi’s art allowed Ellis’ story to flow in just the way it needed to.

The collection also includes the quick short stories of alternate universe X-men by artists as diverse as Alan Davis, Clayton Crain and Kaare Andrews. Originally released as ridiculously overpriced single issues, here they just act as a pleasant enough postscript to the main story. Interesting enough, but nothing compared to what has gone before.

Ellis’ Astonishing X-Men really is a modern day updating of all the stuff we loved as teens, just written with a cutting edge sensibility. Whether it’s designed to hook in new readers is doubtful, but as a nostalgic piece of modern superhero work it had me smiling.

Richard Bruton.

Warren Ellis already has his Wildstorm series’ Red (with Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman) and Ocean optioned and in development with film studios but neither of those movies will feature Ellis in any writing capacity. Instead, Ellis is getting his first crack at transferring his characters from page to screen with one of his lesser known titles….

From Variety:

“Legendary Pictures plans to delve into the world of the occult with “Gravel,” picking up the rights to the comicbook series created by Warren Ellis and published by Avatar Press. Project revolves around the character William Gravel, a soldier in the British S.A.S. who uses his skills in dark magic to moonlight and battle supernatural beings for clients in order to make some extra cash. Ellis introduced the character in a 1999 limited series of graphic novels published under the title “Strange Kiss.” He will pen the initial draft of the screenplay for the pic and serve as executive producer on the project.”

Yep, Avatar do it again. They really are the little company that thinks big aren’t they? Strange Kiss and the various follow up series and then the Gravel books have been strong and steady sellers over the years and have a simple and instantly cinematic storyline. They’re just the sort of thing that you can see transferring to screen really well, especially if Ellis’ first draft makes it through the film-making process relatively unscathed. Of course, it could all go horribly wrong – after all, I can still remember the excitement when we heard that Frank Miller was going to be scriptwriting for Robocop2. It would certainly be interesting to see how Hollywood copes with Ellis’ booze, Red Bull and fag dependancy. Coke they can handle, but someone wanting to light up in public – that may be too much.

And that’s five minutes of your day gone. Hope you enjoyed it.

Over at the Previews site, Warren Ellis has a little introductory essay for his new Avatar series: Supergod. Now, anyone reading the reviews over the years will realise I have a love/love/hate/disappointment relationship with Ellis’ work. Most of the time he’s good, sometimes he’s great, sometimes it’s just not good enough. And it’s his Avatar work that I often find myself most disappointed with. Now Avatar know a good thing when they see it and having Ellis’ name on anything he throws their way is going to mean sales and profile. But all too often I get the impression he throws out an idea and a series is quickly developed for Avatar.

However over the last year or so, the hit rate for his Avatar series has been very good indeed, with things like Aetheric Mechanics, Anna Mercury, Ignition City, Crecy, Freakangels and Black Summer being very good indeed. So here’s his latest series: Supergod. Which, as with most of Ellis’ series for Avatar, has a really strong hook. But it’s always about how that hook tranlates into actual reading that the comics stand or fall. But based on the hook and his recent strong showing, this essay makes me think I’ll be picking it up:

Supergod is the story of what an actual superhuman arms race might be like. It’s a simple thing to imagine. Humans have been fashioning their own gods with their own hands since the dawn of our time on Earth. We can’t help ourselves…. Stewart Brand once paraphrased Edward Leach: “We are as gods and might as well get good at it.” And, perhaps, there’s still that little scratchy voice in the middle of the night: I don’t want to be alone. I want there to be something bigger, something that moves in mysterious ways and wants only the best for us. And I will forgive it, the disgusting state of this world, and all the things in it that want to crush and kill me, and have faith that something incredible and invisible and unknowable will make things better. And so (in Supergod), just to make sure, I will build it and keep it by me. I will pretend it’s a weapon, a defensive capability, a computing object or a construction machine — but really it is a Messiah.

But the Messiah, remember, is a very naughty boy.

And that was the line that had me spluttering out the coffee over the keyboard and made it worthy of sharing. Supergod #1 ships in October.

And on the subject of Ellis, he’s also announce a new 4 issue series for January 2010 and this is one of those that just pushes all of the right buttons for me: Captain Swing & The Electrical Pirates Of Cindery Island.

by Warren Ellis & Facundo Percio

Avatar Press. Available as a hardcover and softcover edition.

I’ve already reviewed Anna Mercury twice; (issue 1 and issue 2), so I’ll be quick here. This is some of what I said about issue 2:

With Anna Mercury #1 I put forward the hope that this was going to be one of the good ones and wasn’t going to repeat Black Summer’s trick of a great first issue followed by a huge comedown from issue two onwards. Certainly there were enough good moments in that first issue to raise my hopes. And enough hints in the book that this wasn’t going to be as straightforward a tale as some of his Avatar work.

And thankfully, with issue 2, I can safely say that this is definitely shaping up to be something very good indeed. The setup throughout issue 1 has paid off nicely, with Anna revealed to be acting as some cross dimensional secret agent type racing around trying to save the planet from some form of all out destruction. This is the big show and tell issue, with Ellis setting out the peculiar science behind the world in the first few pages of this issue. In fact it’s all conveniently explained, complete with easy to follow diagrams to the prime minister of the day by the head of Anna’s department. it seems that Anna works for a department tasked with keeping everything in order. Because Anna’s earth sits in the middle of the constellation project:

“Nine half constructed worlds hanging in invisible orbit around Earth. All of which have human beings on them. None of whom are aware of the other worlds or the existence of Earth. This constitutes the greatest mystery, and the greatest secret of our time.”

And with that reveal, Ellis makes Anna Mercury far more interesting than anything he’s written for Avatar so far.

(Anna Mercury in her best Matrix style leap. Ellis is back on form and the art by Facundo Percio isn’t bad either.)

And everything above written for issue 2 certainly holds true for the remaining three issues included here in the Cutter. In fact, once issue 2 is over, with Anna trying to figure the best way to prevent a one city’s super-gun wiping out the other city on this particular half constructed partial earth, the rest of the book is a hyperactive rush to finish, lots of racing around, lots of shooting things, kinetic artwork flowing freely. There’s only one major bit of downtime in the second half of the book as Anna and her boss sit down to brief the new Prime Minister on the situation he’s just walked into. Just like the conversation between the Prime Minister and Anna’s boss in issue 2, this time is used by Ellis to allow all his exposition to be thrown at us at once, detaching it from the action sequences in a simple yet effective way:

“In 1943, The USS Eldridge – three hundred feet long and twelve hundred tons of electromagnetically active metal – appeared right in the middle of New Ataraxia. It was kind of hard to miss. And it sat there for at least twenty minutes. Ataraxian society was irrevocably warped. God turned up in his own sailing boat and changed everything.”

Yep, the USS Eldridge. So you can see the sort of thing Ellis is going for here; this world gets royally screwed up when the Philadelphia Experiment works too well and with nine of these partial earths to play around with one wonders what famous conspiracy theory or mythical tech experiment Ellis will use next time. (I haven’t picked up any of  the second Anna Mercury series yet).

(Pretty much the entire series in one page thematically: Anna running, fighting and swearing. Her boss and the Prime Minister having a chat about everything that’s going on. It’s a cliched formula for getting your story out, but it works in Anna Mercury. Art by Facundo Percio)

In the end, Anna Mercury is just pure fun escapist sci-fi spy thriller, very Matrix like but without all of the cod philosophy. Ellis is having a blast writing every sci-fi cliche he can think of lately throughout the various books he’s doing but it seems to be on Anna Mercury where it all comes together and works best. Similarly, the artwork by Facundo Percio, although very much “Avatar house style” (and if you read more than 3 Avatar books you know exactly what I’m talking about) and even though he takes a little while to settle and does have a few stumbles along the way, is some of the best colour work that’s graced Ellis’ Avatar material yet.

It’s by far the best thing he’s writing right now, yet even here there’s still the feeling that he’s not really stretching himself. On one hand it’s a sickening realisation that he’s got so much more in the tank. On the other hand I find myself getting frustrated with Ellis’ inability to really push himself to make truly great comics. Anna Mercury is bloody good stuff, but even here, I think Ellis can give us better. But for now, Anna Mercury will certainly do.

Richard Bruton.