The PopCult Bookshelf 

It’s all Cool Comics in this week’s PopCult Bookshelf

The High Ways #1 and #2
written and drawn by John Byrne
Four-issue Series
IDW Publishing
$3.99 each

I’ve been a fan of John Byrne since his days at Charlton Comics almost forty years ago. He’s spent time as a “hot” artist, and in the 1980s was such a sought-after talent that DC Comics hired him away from Marvel to revamp their Superman titles.

In the years since, Byrne has fallen out of favor with the “Big Two” publishers. A series of feuds and changing editorial tastes drove him to places where his talents are better appreciated, with IDW being his home for some time now. This is good for folks who still enjoy reading comics, because Byrne, even when I’ve disagreed with elements of his treatment of established characters, has always been a top-notch story-teller.

Now that he’s concentrating on his own creations, we get to see Byrne unleashed. With total creative freedom he’s doing what I consider to be some of the best and most entertaining work of his career. The High Ways (and his previous series, “Trio”) have been pure fun, with a creator wallowing in the joy of comic books. These works rival his 1980s run on Marvel’s Fantastic Four as the most enjoyable work Byrne has produced.

The High Ways is a noir space opera. Set on a cargo spaceship, The Carol Ann, the first two issues of this series introduce us to the three-person crew, Eddie Wallace, the new guy, Marilyn Jones, the grizzled veteran, and Cagney, the quirky hard-edged Captain. A planned routine run to Mars is changed to an eight-month voyage to Jupiter’s Moon, Europa, at the last minute. That’s just the beginning of the mystery.

The High Ways is a true “Mystery In Space,” with an atmosphere not unlike the Sean Connery movie, “Outland,” the twists, turns and and double-crosses come when you least expect them. Half-way through the story, Byrne still has me on the edge of my seat.

Byrne’s art is still very sharp. His style has evolved from the ultra-slick sheen of his early work, and now has a more realistic, mature look. His layouts are still among the best in the business, while his finished art is crisp and swimming in detail. A few years ago, when Byrne started inking his own pencils after many years of providing only pencils, his finished art had taken on a sketchy quality that didn’t always serve his pencil art well. I don’t know if he’s deliberately changed his style, or if he’s just gotten his inking chops back (or maybe it’s the higher-quality paper and printing), but the finished art on The High Ways (and on Trio) has been some of the best solo work of Byrne’s career.

We are only half-way in to The High Ways, but if you can track down the first two issues, you’ll enjoy the ride. I’m sure that IDW will collect this series, too. Rumor has it that these series will somehow all connect and tie-in with his creator-own series, The Next Men, which is due for a revival at IDW later this year.

One other cool thing that I forgot to mention is that some of the characters are African-American, and it doesn’t matter, nobody mentions it and it’s no big deal. A quiet sign of progress in race relations in the future.

A sample page from The High Ways first issue

Deadpool #4
written by Brian Posehn and Gerry Duggan
drawn by Tony Moore
Marvel NOW!
$2.99

I’ve always been primarily a DC guy, but with my growing disinterest in DC’s “New 52,” I decided to sample some of the Marvel NOW! offerings. Among them is Deadpool, a comic book starring a character about which I know nothing. I gave this comic a try for only one reason, I am a huge fan of its co-writer, comedian, Brian Posehn.

I’ve been told that Deadpool was created by Rob Liefield, the man responsible for the dumbest, worst comic books ever created anywhere in the world. A double-threat, Liefield is inept as both a writer and an artist, and thankfully he has nothing to do with this revival of his blatant rip-off of DC’s character, Deathstroke The Terminator, only with super-healing powers.

I don’t know at what point it was decided not to treat Deadpool in a serious manner, since I’d never read any stories of the character before, but Deadpool is easily the funniest book Marvel has published in ages. Issue four finds Deadpool still in his first story arc. The apparently insane Canadian assassain has been drafted into S.H.I.E.L.D. as a special agent in charge of eliminating the reanimted corpses of dead Presidents of the United States.

Deadpool takes on a reanimated Abe Lincoln in a UFC ring

In the first issue, a Tea Party-type amateur necromancer starts reanimating dead presidents in the hope that they can lead the country back to its glory days. This all goes terribly wrong when the reanimated ex-Commanders In Chief all determine that the country is so far gone that it must be destroyed so that we can start over. After Captain America is photographed beheading the zombie Harry Truman in the first issue, it’s decided that S.H.I.E.L.D. can’t waste such valuable assets on such an unseemly mission, so they bring in Deadpool to hunt down and eliminate the undead presidents.

Again, I’m not familiar with how the character was handled prior to this series, but with Posehn and Gerry Duggan writing him, he acts like DC’s Ambush Bug, spouting an endless stream of non-sequitors and breaking the fourth wall to talk directly to readers. In this issue, just before he goes on a president-beheading spree, he suggests that the reader crank up Pantera’s “Five Minutes Alone” for background music.

This is not what is usually meant by “churning through a bunch of dead presidents.”  Music by Pantera

This is the most that I’ve laughed at a Marvel comic in years. Posehn and Duggan are clearly having a blast, and the art, by Tony Moore (co-creator of The Walking Dead) manages to be serious and hilarious at the same time. Not every artist could pull off William Howard Taft flying around in a bathtub he calls “Sudsy.”

As long as Posehn and Duggan are writing this book, I’m here for it. Deadpool is the most fun comic book to come out of Marvel in a long, long time. It’s sick, absurdist comedy at its best.

In this sample page, Deadpool dresses as a zombie Marilyn Monroe so he can take out the undead JFK. Later he tries to get S.H.I.E.L.D. to pay to dry-clean the dress

The standard cover for Savage Wolverine

Savage Wolverine #1
written and drawn by Frank Cho
Marvel NOW!
$3.99

Wolverine is Marvel’s A-lister, their version of Batman. Every book with him on the cover sells. That he would get at least one new title under Marvel’s “Marvel Now!” semi-relaunch, is a no-brainer. That it stars him wearing his old-school yellow outfit, while battling dinosaurs on a mysterious island is a bit of a surprise.

Meet the real star of the book

That the series is written and drawn by Frank Cho, one of the top “good girl artists” working in comics today is also a bit of a surprise, until you realize that Savage Wolverine co-stars Shanna the She-Devil. Shanna was Marvel’s 1970s entry into the jungle girl genre. She roamed the jungle in a very, very tiny leopard skin bikini. She was a minor character until Bruce Jones teamed her up with Ka-Zar (Marvel’s Tarzan knock-off) and told stories of their domestic life in the Savage Land back in the early 1980s. That series remains one of the best-written depictions of a relationship in the history of Marvel.

A variant cover shows that Shanna should get equal billing

Cho previously wrote and drew a Shanna mini-series for Marvel, but they made him re-draw all the panels where her bikini fell off. As I said before, Cho excels at drawing scantily-clad, voluptuous women.

Another variant cover, by Milo Manara, shows who the real star is

In this book, we see Shanna lead a crew of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to a mysterious island where they crash land. It should be pointed out that, while the agents are all dressed head-to-toe in tactical outfits, even in the aircraft,  Shanna is barefoot, wearing her tiny, tiny leopard-skin bikini. After they crash, Wolverine randomly  falls from the sky, the last S.H.I.E.L.D. agent gets killed, and talking pterodactyls attack.

Not the most coherent of stories, but it’s clear that this series exists so that Cho can draw Shanna wearing her tiny, tiny leopard skin bikini. Cho’s art is beautiful, and his Shanna is stunning.

Wolverine is also in the book.

A sample page that shows pentration in a Marvel comic! Alert the authorities!