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Courtney Crumrin in the Twilight Kingdom by Ted Naifeh

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Courtney Crumrin comics never fail to make me happy, except that Courtney Crumrin in the Twilight Kingdom is the last in the series so far. (Outside of a new offshoot series of stories that I haven?t gotten around to reaing yet.) The adventures of Courtney have been my favorite series of comics since I got hooked on Titian. No new ground is broken in this story, but you are introduced to some new characters and it continues the story line from The Coven of Mystics.

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Rex Mundi, Volumes 1 & 2 by Arvid Nelson and Eric J.

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My brother recommended the Rex Mundi series to Pandabob, and I promptly swiped it from him and read it really quickly. The story is right up my alley, with mystery, horrific deaths, witchcraft, evil cults, and commentary of religious zealotry, all taking place in an alternate history timeline.
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Courtney Crumrin and the Coven of Mystics

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Courtney Crumrin and the Coven of Mystics is the second graphic novel in the Courtney story. I had looked forward to getting this next story ever since I finished the first one. I hounded Pandabob for at least a month to get back to Titan comics and get me the next one. I even held on to it a bit after he brough it home, because I was so afraid it wouldn’t be as good as the first story. I wasn’t disappointed at all. In fact, this one is even better than the first.

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Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things by Ted Naifeh

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Meet Courtney Crumrin. She is a little girl who has the problems of most 10 year olds: her parents are unapproachable, she has “weird” hobbies, and the popular kids at school don’t really like her. However, you could say that most 10 year olds don’t have creepy crawlies living in their houses, and most probably don’t have an uncle that is obsessed with the occult. The folks at Titan Comics turned me on to this series, and boy am I glad for it.
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Ultimate X-men Vol. 2: Return to Weapon X by Mark Millar

Back to the land of superheroes in tights for us, since I picked up the second volume of this series for a measly 4 bucks at Target (this is the first time I’ve ever seen a graphic novel that was staple-bound rather than flat-spine bound, which I’m sure accounts for its value). The art is changed slightly, with Adam Kubert taking over entirely (both he and his brother Andy did work on volume 1), but I didn’t mind the change too much since the style is kept largely the same, if not quite as dynamic.

This volume deals with Xavier and his crew’s abduction and involuntary enlistment in a re-imagined Weapon X program, now administered as a sub-branch of an apparently chronically underfunded S.H.I.E.L.D., using mutants to do the dirty work when “regular” agents might not be able to. Speaking of S.H.I.E.L.D., we get to have some fun with Nick Fury in this one, as his mechanically enabled abilities are cut on and off by the second based on what accounting will and will not allow to be expensed. We get to see the X-Men *not* having fun, dealing with their imprisonment and increasingly ethically challenged missions under Weapon X’s sadistic commander Wraith (shadowed by Sabertooth, whose look didn’t really do it for me), and the introduction of a completely non-English speaking but very well depicted Nightcrawler. Hard choices for Marvel Girl in particular in this one, perhaps foreshadowing a future slide?

Although the title implies it, Wolverine’s role is not especially central in this volume but, like in the first, it’s crucial for its resolution. One suspects that Millar et alia are trying not to focus overly much on the character many people feel is most compelling of the original X-men, but can’t help using him to resolve the hairy messes that make up their plots. He’s just too badass to not be used.

If The Tomorrow People worked for you, go ahead and pick this one up. More gritty X-goodness.

Ultimate X-Men Vol. 1: The Tomorrow People by Mark Millar

It appears to be common wisdom, these days, that our youth have somehow changed in caliber so completely that nothing of a previous generation will be considered valid or interesting anymore without enhancing its dramatic potential somehow. Common wisdom, at least, amongst the asinine marketing droids of the world who are responsible for making everything, and I mean everything, EXXXXTREEEEME!!!1!

Unfortunately, sometimes they’re right.

Ultimate X-Men, like all the Marvel “Ultimate” books, is a reimagining of one of their classic franchises so that it makes sense in a more modern setting…for X-men, that means this is set sometime next week for us, rather than sometime next week 40 years ago. This sort of treatment, for the X-Men in particular in many ways, is long overdue. The X-Men was so very groundbreaking in its day, but to a modern reader its controversies seem lukewarm, its political preconceptions archaic, and its squeaky-clean representation of youth unrealistic beyond the suspension of belief required to accept that a human being could shoot frickin’ laser beams from their frickin’ head.

Ultimate X-Men has Bush as the President, reigning over a country held in the grip of terror since Mutants bombed New York. Tony Blair is his counterpart in the U.K. Mutants are killed by Sentinels as soon as they are detected; there’s no build-up there, in fact it’s how the book opens. The young mutants who are soon to become the X-men are outlaws de facto, and before they are drafted into Xavier’s little force they live the lives of outlaws. Storm is a car thief. Colossus…precious, naive Peter in the original, is a hardened (heh) arms dealer. There are similar, but logical ideas in store across the board. The language is more harsh, and more fresh. The sarcasm is heavy and feels like authentic snark. The sexual tension doesn’t stay stretched taut for absurd lengths…many of these “youths” are no strangers to sex, and that becomes pretty obvious pretty early. Loyalties are not certain, and good and evil is stretched even more than they were in the original, with Magneto’s warmth on display and Charles’ cavalier use of some pretty heavy mental alteration in effect.

In short, this is good stuff. Very good stuff. I have to thank Koz for the recommendation on this one, I probably never would have picked this up if he hadn’t praised Volumes 2 & 3. Much obliged.