Comic Review: Southern Bastards #1

Southern Bastards #1
Story By: Jason Aaron
Art By: Jason Latour
Cover By: Jason Latour
Cover Price: $3.50
Digital Price: $1.99
Diamond ID: FEB140475
Published: April 30, 2014

Welcome to Craw County, Alabama, home of Boss BBQ, the state champion Runnin’ Rebs football team...and more bastards than you’ve ever seen. When you’re an angry old man like Earl Tubb, the only way to survive a place like this...is to carry a really big stick. From the acclaimed team of JASON AARON and JASON LATOUR, the same bastards who brought you Scalped and Wolverine: Japan’s Most Wanted, comes a southern fried crime series that’s like the Dukes of Hazzard meets the Coen Brothers...on meth.

I guess it ought to be a real big hint how the tone of this series is gonna be when the first panel to it shows a dog taking a dump in a ditch just outside of Craw County, the setting for this southern noir tale.

Earl Tubb has a Y'all Haul trailer hitched to his truck and a mind set of packing up his dying uncle's house. He's barely back in his old stomping grounds of Craw County when the memories of his ornery sheriff of a father are drudged up. It's been forty years since his father died, since he set foot in Craw County, and since gave a whit over the folks that still lived there. Like Dusty Tutwiler.

Earl barely gets reacquainted with ol' Dusty for five minutes before he finds himself dragged into an altercation with the Boss' goons. Earl isn't his father, who was one of those walk tall and carry a big stick types, but he does know how to do both apparently and manages to make himself some enemy's quick in the rural backwaters of the south.

If you enjoy southern-fried noir, this series shapes up pretty quickly in this inaugural issue as one to keep an eye on. I wouldn't exactly call it a love letter to the south, but it's not all violence and venom--just most of it. There are pockets of wistful remembrances of a quieter time, a humbler time, but the book helps to show that Chicago mobsters aren't the only ones out there trying to rule the roost.

Jason Latour's artwork offers up a weighty, rawboned portrait of the southern landscape and its residents. Rough around the edges and an even mix of beauty and beast on every page. With these two Jasons working together, I'm keen to see where this story leads.

4 1/2 Sheep

Gef Fox
Genre Mutt
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Image Expo 2013: what's to come!

At Image Expo in San Francisco, Image Comics Publisher Eric Stephenson revealed the much-anticipated new projects from the independent comics publisher, as well as the identity of Image Expo’s “surprise guests.”  A crowd of more than 500 Image Expo attendees in the Lam Research Theater at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts were the first to see art from new titles and learn the identity of the latest creators who are coming to Image.  Two of the new projects announced are by creators who have current titles with Image Comics. VELVET is a dark and evocative twist on the spy genre featuring a female protagonist by Image Expo guest Ed Brubaker (FATALE) and his Captain America: The Winter Soldier collaborator Steve Epting. J. Michael Straczynski (TEN GRAND) continues to expand his Joe’s Comics mini-imprint with two former Marvel ICON titles, rescued from oblivion with new issues from Image Comics: DREAM POLICE and THE BOOK OF LOST SOULS, drawn by Colleen Doran. With these additions all of Straczynski’s creator-owned titles are now published by Image Comics under the Joe’s Comics line. The surprise guests announced by Stephenson included another current Image creator, Matt Fraction, creator SATELLITE SAM with Howard Chaykin (BLACK KISS II) and SEX CRIMINALS with Chip Zdarsky, who is announcing ODY-C, a psychedelic science fiction comic created with artist Christian Ward (INFINITE VACATION). The first issue of SEX CRIMINALS is scheduled to go on sale in September. Stephenson also revealed the return to Image Comics of Rick Remender after three years of writing exclusively as one of Marvel’s “Architects.” Remender is bringing two new projects to the publisher: BLACK SCIENCE, a classic science fiction story scientists adrift between alien worlds, created with artist Matteo Scalera, and DEADLY CLASS, a 1980s flashback set in a school for budding assassins, created with artist Wesley Craig. Another former exclusive Marvel writer and Architect coming to Image is surprise guest Jason Aaron, who is collaborating with fellow surprise guest artist Jason Latour (B.P.R.D.) on the series SOUTHERN BASTARDS. Comic Book Resources has more on this landmark new title. Stephenson capped off the announcements of new projects with the reveal that Image Comics will be publishing the official comic book adaptation of Darren Aronofksy’s upcoming film Noah, which recounts the story of the Biblical patriarch. “Image Comics was founded by and for creators,” Stephenson said. “Whereas the dominant conversations at other companies are about licenses and franchises and the executives steering their ‘properties’ toward success, the conversation at Image – the only conversation at Image – is about the creators.”

INCREDIBLE HULK #1 Review

Writer: Jason Aaron

Artist/Cover: Marc Silvestri

Synopsis:

Hulk and Banner have seperated once more and Hulk in an effort to find peace has found some form of solace in the caverns of the Subhuman population inhabited by the Mole Man's people. Hulk just wants to be left alone, but as usual he never is.

REVIEW:

Jason Aaron has big shoes to fill taking over from Greg Pak, arguably the best Hulk writer since Peter David penned the Green Goliath nearly a decade ago. Pak's Planet Hulk and World War Hulk rejuvenated the character and made him a palpable menace again as well as a solid part of the Marvel universe, with a character evolution that had not properly been explored since David's heyday at the titles peak in the early 90's. And right from the beginning I was dubious of Aaron's coming on board. Early interviews revealed his decision to split Banner from the Hulk once more (albeit this time at the behest of the Hulk) was a dance that had been done before, in fact repeatedly over the years and it was seriously old. So what else new did the writer have to bring to the title?

Character-wise the Hulk has stayed similar to Pak's interpretation. He's brooding and dangerous; less the man child that he's often been portrayed as over the years, this Hulk is self aware and dangerously so. The opening monolgue gives Aaron the chance to shine in his dialogue but it's the plot where he falls down and this book nose dives. The same old tropes begin to appear and we're suddenly faced with a title relaunch that's giving us absolutely nothing new.

I was initially excited by the addition of 90's superstar artist Marc Silvestri, an Image Founder and the head honcho at Top Cow, but for all his detailed line work his action seems to lack the raw power it's aiming for and seems instead drowned out and overlaid by the colours. While Silvestri captures the characters well, he falls down badly when it comes to the 'SMASH' element that is integral to any Hulk title, and the foreboding cover never seems to deliver the expectations it sets on the insides.

And speaking of the 'SMASH' element: Hulk fights giant monsters, Giant Robots and just generally giant things that prove he's still the strongest one there is. This again highlights the books lack of originality, for while you could forgive these things as elemental to Hulk, whats harder to forgive is the pale characterisation and the slimly defined motivations (although these are hopefully going to be highlighted in later issues) that leave the cast almost palying stereotypes of themselves. This Hulk is just nothing new. Similar to Pak but not as daring, aiming for the psyhoanalysis of David of Bruce Jones but with nothing new to offer this feels more like John Byrnes tired and incredibly lacklustre relaunch in the late 90's than it does a suitable follow up to Pak.

Part of me thinks that Aaron, one of the most promising new writers of the last few years is spreading himself too thin, and is stuck writing new directions for characters that don't necessarily suit them. The writers take on Hulk seems to come from a darker era, a more classic run juxtaposed against the new and what we get is something that just doesn't seem to add up based on all his recent history. Similarly Silvestri has all the artistic chops in the world to draw the character but what we get instead in some very flat looking panels and an almost lack of momentum in what looks more like a canvass panel than a piece of storytelling.

In a nutshell I am not hopeful for this new Hulk. It's writer hasn't quite got a handle on the character yet and nothing about it smacks of a newer bolder direction, while paying attention to the continuity of the old. A lacklustre first issue with serious room for improvement.

2/5

Mark McCann

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