Lazarus, Finally.

On my way back from jury duty, I bought comics. I bought the new issues of Brian Azzarello's Wonder Woman, Matt Fraction and David Aja's Hawkeye and Kieron Gillen's and Jamie McKelvie's Young Avengers.

These are all critically acclaimed comics, though Hawkeye more than the others, but I also bought one more: Greg Rucka and Michael Lark's Lazarus.

My friends on Twitter who also like comics are new to comics and are committed to Hawkeye and Young Avengers in a way that gives me hope. Both series are anchored by creative teams that are absolutely essential to the premise. Without Matt Fraction writing or David Aja drawing most of Hawkeye, I'd be out. Not interested. Ditto for Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie on Young Avengers. When they leave, I'm out the door too.

Gillen's hinted that his end is in sight, and Aja's talking on Twitter about how he'd like to do something creator owned with Matt Fraction after Hawkeye wraps up.

Though, if Aja leaves and Fraction stays on then I can be persuaded to stick around, if Steven Wacker can keep finding new, excellent talent to pencil the comic. Mr. Wacker being an editor that keeps emotive and imaginative pencillers up his sleeve, that's a meaningful consideration. Hawkeye and Young Avengers are proudly superhero comics and that's what powers them. There's conflict and loss and fear without the appalling "grittiness" that invades a post-Brian Azzarello comics industry.

And that's not me taking a swipe at Azzarello. His Wonder Woman is a great comic. It's strange, and a friend of mine argues it has terribly little to do with Wonder Woman and I still am not on board with the Amazons being praying mantis style murderers, but it's Wonder Woman being written by an A-list writer that isn't being pushed into crossover hell. I'll take it.

That this is the best of all possible worlds in DC brings me to Lazarus.



The first image of Lazarus is a pistol being discharged and the second image is the bullet impacting a woman. The first double page spread is of said woman lying on the ground, bleeding out at least two quarts of blood.

Lazarus is not all-ages.

I talked to a different, dear friend, who I have to plead with to get him to read Global Frequency, I told him that Lazarus (or at least its first issue) was about family and money and power. And I was right, but I wasn't being terribly precise. Sure, it's about family, money and power, but it's mostly about manipulation, control and violence.

Two people get shot in the head in Lazarus and I suspect a lot more will further down the road. Words are thrown around, but the people who live their true value tend to die real quick.

I tried to read other comics after i finished Lazarus. I could only stomach Young Avengers because of the baleful twist at the end, with entire swaths of Hawkeye's dog issue being lost on me. Hawkeye #11 is a masterpiece of virtuosity from Fraction and Aja. It didn't entirely land with me. I respect the hell out of it, since I can see the work that went into it, but that's as far as it goes. As for what happened in Wonder Woman, I straight up cannot remember. Lazarus leaves me with a chill beneath my skin, sinking into my bones.

I do not believe the Twitter crew would be so excited for Lazarus as they are for Hawkeye or Young Avengers. Lazarus is Greg Rucka writing for penciller Michael Lark with a point and letting his anger power his storytelling. Lark, the co-creator is methodical, precise and not flashy. What they concoct is vile and perhaps even corrosive. Put another way, I don't think Tumblr's feels are ready.

Lazarus is 100 Bullets one hundred years in the future. It's a hard sci-fi comic about a handful of families that control the world's wealth and spend most of the their time scheming over how to take other people's money while jealously guarding their own. This gives Lark a chance to pencil what he's known for: conflicted people with handguns and also lets him do design and world-build. What I see looks plausible, sadly, and even accurate.

In 2011, I read Rucka's novel Walking Dead as I rode along the Amalfi Coast. Whatever joy I was supposed to take from the gorgeous scenery was obliterated by Rucka's exacting, unswerving vision of the global web of sex slavery. I didn't enjoy the book, it wasn't meant to be enjoyed, per se, but it was pernicious and it was precise. Between now and then, Rucka published another novel called Alpha and was given an offer he couldn't refuse by Steven Wacker to write the Punisher, but neither of those works, despite also featuring men with guns, had the same kind of tone. (We pass over Stumptown, since there's too much humor.)

It is now 2013, and Lazarus exists. It feels like it should have come sooner, but it's still timely. Alpha was about geo-politics and terrorism scares. The Punisher was about a man keeping his word, however baleful that word may be. But Lazarus is about right the fuck now and what's coming for us down the pike.

Welcome back, Mr. Rucka. We missed you.






I said elsewhere that I wanted to write something that feels like how I feel when I listen to Cursed. I think Lazarus has a very, very good shot of being that piece of media. Below, find  one of my favorite tracks, called Magic Fingers. "When they say amen/they mean I hope you live forever/hand to mouth."

I'm Invisible

I need to clear my head about Wonder Woman #7. I'm going to divide this up into "facts," "analysis/opinions" and "what I'm gonna do." Because this is an issue that ought to be dealt with as precisely as possible.

A bit of a thing, I'm trying to draw a distinction between the characters owned by DC Comics and what our collective imagination of a race of warrior women is. Amazons (TM) is the trademarked, Amazons is the cultural imaginary.

Okay. Go.


Facts:

The most current issue of Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chang's Wonder Woman Hephaestus tells Diana that the Amazons (TM) have produced children by seducing sailors and then murdering those sailors after the lustful men had fertilized the women. After they were pregnant, the Amazons (TM) sold the male children to Hephaestus to make weapons.

Whatever the imaginary was for Amazons, it was based in a culture that hated and feared them and so their stories about them would necessarily be bigoted and prejudiced against them.

The Amazons (TM) (as in the trademarked intellectual property of DC Comics, "created" by Marston) are meant to be something empowering for women, according to their creator.

*exhale.*

This issue is the first in a multi-issue arc.

Diana is the only female character descending into Hell.

In issue #4, the implication was that the entire population of Paradise Island was turned into goddamned snakes and Wonder Woman's mother was turned into a statue, begging for mercy from Athena.

This issue is the first in a multi-issue arc.


Analysis/Opinions:

I'd quote Too Busy Thinking About Comics writing about this, but it should be read in its whole. Smart and well thought out. Also, probably right. What he's saying specifically is that Azzarello turned the Amazons (TM) into two of the most pernicious lies about women, not just that they'll seduce good honest men, but also kill them afterwards. Basically: The Amazons (TM) as honey-traps! That's the DCU in 2012! Women as psycho killers!

Worth mentioning, quickly, that men are also psycho killers in Wonder Woman. They're enabling child soldiers in Africa, murdering three women in the first issue and cheating on their wife. If Azzarello's point is also everybody sucks, it's unclear, so far, that he needs to go to the extent of murder rape to make his point.

Though, given that the difference in truths learned between issues 2-4 piled uncomfortable revelation on top of uncomfortable revelation, there is value in saying "let's wait till the arc is over."

I hope this is a fake out.

Maybe, by having the Amazons (TM) doing the things that men are known to do throughout history, Azzarello is saying, not subtly, that this happens in the real world, to women and not by them? Hopefully? Probably as unlikely as two waltzing mice, but hope springs eternal.

This topic sucks the air out of my love for comics. I'll passionately talk about them with my friends, I'm a fucking evangelical for the medium, but, just thinking about this storyline too long leaves me angry and exhausted. At bottom, I'm disappointed and I didn't think Azzarello would be the one to disappoint me.


What I'm Gonna Do:

Azzarello has enough good faith stored up with me that I'll finish the arc. 100 Bullets earned him at least that much. When you add Joker and Luthor to that mix, I'll give him another half of a Wonder Woman arc. That good faith is being spent.

To try to wring some good out of this, when I go next week to pick up my comic books, I'll pre-order Kelly Sue DeConnick's Ms. Marvel relaunch. That seems like one of the better ways to signal my support for female heroes that are written by good writers. Yes. And, with next week, hopefully comes the long delayed next issue of Casanova.

This feels apropos, of course, because Casanova's writer, Mr. Matt Fraction, is married to Kelly Sue DeConnick.






The origin of the title is hard to pin down but in my mind it comes from the Rocket From The Crypt song "I'm Not Invisible." I don't even know right now. But, man, after looking at Wonder Woman #7, in the DCU, women are being made invisible real quick.