On March 15, 1937, writer H.P. Lovecraft died. Poor, virtually unknown and riddled with cancer of the small intestine, Lovecraft spent the last days of his life suffering in Jane Brown Memorial Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island. His works would not be rediscovered in any significant capacity until the 1970s. His death marked the end of a troubled and storied life, a life that has in many ways become as much a part of the Lovecraftian mythos as Cthulhu.
Lovecraft’s parents would both be committed to insane asylums. His rich grandfather suffered a run of bad business luck and later a stroke that would leave their once-affluent family in shambles. Add in Lovecraft’s multitude of unidentified health problems, be they mental or physical, and you have the perfect portrait of a tortured artist — someone who gazed into the abyss and saw something they shouldn’t have. In this way, Lovecraft presents a case where it’s difficult to separate the art from the artist. His own questionable sanity adds to the mystique of his work in the cosmic horror genre he pioneered. Decades later, it would elevate him from the lowly status of penniless pulp writer to that of a doomed prophet, a poor soul cursed with knowledge of sinister worlds lurking just beyond our own.
This comic is not an autobiography. It’s a fever dream in which the doomed Lovecraft receives a strange visitor in the waning hours of his life. A man seemingly out of time, one who has an intimate knowledge of Lovecraft’s work. What follows is unnerving. Lovecraft’s visitor, Randolph Carter, alternates between earnest fanboy and brutish interrogator. He’s as eager to praise Lovecraft as he is to mock him. Carter has ire for the would-be aristocrat, the classic refined Englishman dying in relative squalor with no one at his bedside save for hospital staff and Carter himself.
It is not all dressing down but an argument about the power of literature and the malleable nature of reality. How does art inform and shape the world we live in? Art is powerful — after all, we live in an age of censorship and banned books. A world where those in power seek to control the narrative. Lovecraft spoke of a society in decline, favoring aristocracy over democracy. He painted a world in which humanity was but an insignificant speck amidst the vastness of the cosmos, ruled by unknowable beings whose mere presence can shatter mortal minds. He was a sci-fi nihilist who flirted with oblivion and left a canon that a cult-like fanbase would harken to.
This story has less lofty ideas about Lovecraft. Here he’s a dying man with a questionable grip on reality, trapped between the sepia-toned mundanity of his hospital room and the red surreal hell of his dreamscape. Writer Romuald and artist Jakub Rebelka have made Lovecraft the star of his own work in stunning fashion, crafting a beautiful book rife with stream-of-consciousness dialogue and ethereal art that immerses one instantly into the last day of a visionary.
Batman #2
Despite what Zack Snyder may think, Batman doesn’t kill people (even by proxy). That makes Batman unique compared to how we often approach justice in the real world. In this issue, it puts Batman at odds with the Gotham police — specifically one officer who seems less eager to embrace the motto of “protect and serve” than he is to live out a Frank Castle-esque fantasy.
In the last issue’s cliffhanger ending, Gotham PD had Robin at gunpoint. While the police have generally been an ally of the Caped Crusader through the years, they’re currently under new management, commanded by the nefarious neanderthal Vandal Savage, who’s marked Batman and his allies as public enemy number one.
Robin takes center stage in this issue, proving why they call him the Boy Wonder in a heart-pounding action scene perfectly brought to life by Jorge Jiménez’s stunning art. It’s fun to see Tim Drake cut loose and absolutely demolish a police van full of goons. As someone who’s only casually versed in Robin lore, Tim Drake has always seemed to be the most disrespected Robin. He’s not the OG like Dick Grayson, not as brutal as Jason Todd and he wasn’t raised by the League of Shadows like Damian. Knowing that makes the moments between Bruce and Tim that much more special. We get flashbacks of Bruce teaching Tim to drive, and it’s a reminder of just how much these characters need each other. Beyond being a dynamic duo, they’re family.
Fraction continues to take Batman in bold new directions — some serious (i.e., condemning police brutality) and some silly (I could definitely use a pair of Batboots). It’s nice to have levity around the darker moments. This book continues to electrify in its second issue. I can’t wait to see what’s next.
P.S. If you didn’t have enough prep time to snag issue one, there’s a second printing on the 15th. Lock in and join the Batfamily!
Where would Marvel’s merry mutants be without time travel and apocalyptic futures? No doubt they’d be happier, but the books would be boring, so c’est la vie. Age of Revelation takes place X years in the future, in a world where a virus has turned everyone on the planet into a mutant. This world is presided over by original X-Baby Doug Ramsay, who’s been powered up by Apocalypse and has taken the new name Revelation.
“Powered up” is underselling it. Doug’s old power of communication has been amped up to the point that he’s undoubtedly the most dangerous mutant on the planet. He no longer just speaks any language — he can speak to the land itself and control others by command. They say he can even speak to the living cells that we’re all composed of. To put it bluntly, he’s a long way from being the weak link of the New Mutants that he started out as. Unfortunately, Doug’s gone a bit mad with power, and the atrocities he’s committed to build this new mutant utopia have Magneto calling for his head.
Speaking of heads, this comic starts off with a bang as Glob Herman ambushes one of Revelation’s agents in a sneak attack that leaves the Chorister (Choristers amplify the powers of other mutants) Topaz decapitated via plasma rifle. It’s a shocking beginning and sets the tone for where these future X-Men are at — given that the Glob of X years ago was mostly concerned with perfecting his recipes.
Cyclops and Beast are here as well, the unwilling victims of some time-travel nonsense (it’s comics, I mean “nonsense” affectionately) I won’t spoil here. Cyclops will no doubt be fun to watch in this new world. Scott Summers has always been the boy scout, so seeing how he’ll move in a world that is in many ways the dark version of Krakoa should be interesting. Beast is no stranger to darkness — I hear he went mad with power on Krakoa after all — but as the X-Men’s resident genius, they’ll need him for the fight ahead. They’ll have to lead a hodgepodge assortment of X-Men to victory against impossible odds.
It’s the gritty future the X-Men always fought against, but it’s also the funnest apocalypse I’ve read yet. This world of Revelation is full of potential, and with roughly a million X-titles going on sale this month, you’re bound to find something to pique your interest.
Editor’s note: There’s not really a million titles. It’s actually 16. Here are the ones the author’s most excited about:
- Expatriate X-Men
- Longshots
- Rogue Storm
- X-Vengers
- Cloak or Dagger
- Remember though, you have free will, so read whatever you want.
Spider-Man Noir #1
It’s wheatcakes and walloping Nazis in the thrilling return of Spider-Man Noir! Fresh from the multiverse, the Depression-era webslinger comes home to pick up where he left off — solving cases and fighting the good fight against the mob and fascists alike.
In a post–Nicolas Cage in Spider-Verse world, Spider-Man Noir has undergone some changes. Here he’s much less the grim, dark and brooding hero we met in his debut almost 20 years ago. Instead, he’s a much more familiar wall-crawler — quipping, punching out bad guys and even contemplating hanging up his pistols. No doubt some fans may be disappointed by the softening of this hard-boiled hero, but I’m happy to report that despite a few tone changes the story remains fun and engaging. It’s a journey back in time full of period slang and dress. One could call it a reskin of the contemporary Amazing Spider-Man, but they’d be doing this book a disservice.
This is a detective story, and private eye Peter Parker has just taken a job that seems poised to uncover a conspiracy. It might be more than he bargained for, but Spidey still has rent to pay. This is broke-boy Spider-Man at his best. Even during the Great Depression, the Parker luck has him standing out from the crowd as especially down bad.
Lucky for Peter, he still has his Aunt May, and their relationship in this series is the definition of wholesome. Peter’s going to need that support system too, because when Gwen Stacy comes to him with a murder case, it’ll take all his wits to solve it.
Roots of Madness #1
Forbidden knowledge is the best kind. It can upend the status quo, shake society and reveal pathways we never imagined. More often than not, it’ll get you hurt — whether you run afoul of its gatekeepers or you’re driven mad by its revelations. Forbidden knowledge is not something to trifle with. It always comes with a price. A curious chemist is about to find that out.
Roots of Madness is a textbook example of my personal belief: always judge a book by its cover! Juliet Nneka’s immaculate artwork is the perfect thesis statement for this story — a scholar intently studying the unknown, slowly consumed by their thirst for knowledge while blissfully unaware that the unknown has crept into them, changing them in ways they never conceived of. The abyss gazes back, but they’re too busy daydreaming to notice.
Enter Etta Knight, a scientist looking to continue the family tradition of healing ailments. Etta makes salves and healing mixtures just as her mama taught her to. Because of that instruction, she’s become the best chemist in her city and a paragon of her neighborhood. That kind of small-town fame attracts attention, though, and when a mysterious client who claims to know Etta’s mother and the forbidden knowledge she never shared arrives, Etta is thrust into a world unlike anything she’s ever known.
This book is great. Daring and iconoclastic writer Stephanie Williams weaves a world of gruff realism and mystical wonder with ease. It’s equal parts tender family drama and Southern Gothic suspense — the kind of story that ropes you in with the promise of a grand mystery.
It’s a story unlike any other and further proof that Ignition Press is a publisher to keep on your radar. In the meantime, make sure to pick this one up. It’s a comic that has the makings of a classic.
I've worked at Dr No's for just less than a year and I've been patronizing them for half my life. I like comics, video games, music and sometimes sports.
I’m a GSU graduate, veteran sandwich artist, and aspiring writer. Ask me about the X-Men or my anime car sometime.
I think all comics are good they're human expression, dreams put to a page through days, months and years of dedication. They're windows into other worlds, aspirations of all we can be, warnings of what we may become and everything in between. Above all I think comics can help us understand the things we often don't consider.
That's what I want these reviews to do, help folks understand maybe even appreciate something they haven't seen before, but yea lemme wrap this up I got books to file. Happy reading!
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