The Best Comic I Read Today Is . . . Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier #3

If you haven't been reading Ales Kot and Marco Rudy's Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier for fear that it would be a one-dimensional ex-KGB spy thing, then you belong in a gulag.  This book is anything but.  Picking-up where old school Nick Fury left off in Original Sin, Bucky Barnes is now "The Man on the Wall", protecting Earth from all threats both cosmic and otherworldly.

And this creates the backdrop for one of the more thoughtful books being created right now.



There are three reasons this is such a good read:

1 - The fully painted art of Marco Rudy is beyond breathtaking and sets the cosmic mood and tone that a book that features a drug dealing Loki from the future demands.  The eye is guided through each panel, page and splash with a fluidity missing from most mainstream comics.  For this issue, Michael Walsh, Kot's accomplice on Secret Avengers, added a 4 page "cameo" to shift the perception of both some characters and all readers.

2 - While I'd read this book for the art alone, it's Ales Kot's scripts that have me coming back each month.  There is a mystery here, a story behind the story that he is revealing piecemeal, and a characterization of Bucky that I haven't seen before.  This book is taking Bucky beyond his tortured former assassin past and hurling him into new psychological territory, a difficult thing to do with a character that has been around since the 1940's.

3 - Finally, Wikipedia.  This is a book that you should read with a browser open so you can cross reference all the names and "inside" jokes.  Look at the cover - "Ventolin" and "Xtal" are both songs by Aphex Twin.  The planet Bucky is heading toward is "Mer-Z-Bow", named after the Japanese noise musician, and "The Great Reznor" should be pretty obvious.  Half the fun of reading this book is looking for clues based on the source material for whatever Kot decides to call the next alien race or MacGuffin.

Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier is a fun, beautiful book that banishes clichés to Siberia.

- Aloha -

The Best Comic I Read Today Is . . . Zero #11

Zero, written by Ales Kot, is the story of Edward Zero who “was a secret agent.  He quit the Agency.  This is the story of his life.” This is also one of the best comic books currently being published.



Zero is a book that I always want and need to read twice, and this month’s was no exception.  However, this month I also needed to go back and read issue #10, paying special attention to the dates.  Issue #11 takes place four years after the previous issue, which is nothing new as the story jumps through Edward Zero’s life in an apparently random nature that is carefully plotted by Kot to serve the overarching premise and theme of the work.

The first six pages, taking place over three days, set the tone. Edward appears to have found happiness, which is amazing if you’ve read the previous ten issues and understand what this man has seen and done.  Then the situation begins to acquire a feeling of menace on “Day Four”, leading to a well paced action sequence and a two word final page that makes it difficult to wait until next month.  Of course, knowing the nature of the storytelling devices being employed, next issue will probably be a tale of Edward’s youth, and that will only heighten the drama of what occurred.

This month’s chapter was illustrated by Ricardo Lopez Ortiz, who captures the tone of this installment beautifully. Zero is a disjointed narrative, employing a different art team for every issue, and each individual artistic style reflects the theme Kot is conveying through a minimalist narrative, followed by instances of verbose philosophical exploration.

Zero isn’t a book you can just “jump into”.  It is dense and cinematic and cerebral and well worth the multiple readings each issue demands.  Please, I beg you, read the first collected edition, An Emergency, that reprints issues 1 – 5.



You won't be disappointed.

- Aloha -