Comics Roundup 17/10/2008

Air #3, by G. Willow Wilson & M.K. Perker

I was saying last time that this seemed to maybe have become a bit less interesting than the first issue suggested. I think they recovered well with this one, which features such exciting things as psychic travel and making countries disappear through the power of thought. I continue to like the angularity of the art.

The Age of THE SENTRY #2

Normally I give as authors of a comic whoever gets their name on the cover. There are no names here (apart from a guy who has signed half of the cover illustration), while the interior stories have different writer-artist teams on each. So it is all a bit complicated.

Anyway, I bought this comic because on the cover it has a Very Fierce Bear running rampage. He turns out to be Ursus the Ultra Bear. This title is one of those ones like 1963 or The New Frontier, where people write a comic in the olde style of the early 1960s. This Marvel title has guest appearances by various Marvel Universe characters, drawn in an appealing Kirby/Ditko pastiche style. The main character, though, is the new (to me) hero, The Sentry.

The stories themselves are total genius – in one, a bear (Ursus the Ultra Bear, as noted) is given superpowers by the evil Cranio (the man with the tri-level mind). The Sentry is initially unable to defeat Ursus, and so is mocked in print by Truman Capote. In the next, The Sentry is all sad because the other superheroes seem to be avoiding him, leaving him with only Watchdog (the hound of courage) for company. Why are they avoiding him, and what is the secret of Area B? All is revealed.

This is easily the greatest comic issue I have read this year. I am a sucker for that kind of retro comic action, but when it comes with a dog character as well realised as Watchdog I simply cannot resist. This comic also implies that all is not quite what it seems, with the 1960s setting masking… something, so I reckon this could appeal to people who like meta-fiction as well as more straightforwardly up-and-at-'em titles.