I wanna talk about two guys who are not household names
writing fantastic books, and, honestly, doing it pretty consistently. I’ve
referenced Greg Rucka in the past. Those keeping score know that I think
Lazarus is a top flight book (#2 on my list atm). Rucka has worked on huge
titles like Punisher and the X-Men in the past, but is more focused on indie
books at this time, and good for him. Mark Waid has had a long and varied
career. I guess he’s probably best known for preceding Geoff Johns on The Flash,
but has recently worked for Marvel writing Hulk and Daredevil to great effect.
I’m not going to cover things like Lazarus here (I’ve done that elsewhere) or
Kingdom Come (Waid’s opus on the DC heroes that nearly everyone has read). I guess the theme here is yeomen – guys that
you don’t hear much about, they’re not known for their defining runs, but that
do great comic book work. They deserve some word of mouth too.
Greg Rucka should be well known. He wrote one of DC’s best
books of the last ten years, Gotham Central, along with a now mega-famous Ed
Brubaker (Velvet, Criminal, Fatale, etc.). Gotham Central is the spiritual
basis for the Gotham TV series, a street-level Batman-free Gotham police book.
It’s as good as that sounds like it would be – awesome. You know Batman is out
there, you see the signal, a cape, etc., but the big footprint of Bruce is
basically outside the panel. It’s excellent. I super highly recommend it to
anyone that missed it.
His series Whiteout, collected as two graphic novels, are
fantastic, gritty crime stories set in the Arctic. The protagonist is written
spectacularly well, a fully-fleshed out and failed human up against incredible
odds in a harsh environment. Tonally, few books capture the title as well as
this one does. I think fans of Criminal and other modern noir will really enjoy
these books. It’s a unique take on a gumshoe story in a radically different
setting.
Rucka just finished two mini-series: Cyclops & Veil
(Cyclops later became an on-going, with Jonathon Layman of Detective Comics
taking over writing duties). Cyclops is a fun space romp, a father/son story as
only Scott and Corsair Summers can do it. If you’re like me and enjoy the old
Starjammers and sort of like the newly young Cyke, you’ll get into this book.
It’s light hearted but has some heavy material on unresolved family matters,
obviously. Veil is an other-worldly mystery. It’s hard to say much other than
that without spoiling the story, but it’s delivered very well. I’d say this
should definitely be read in trade format. Fans of Lucifer or Constantine, and
even harder modern comic book horror material, should really feel this book. It’s
better than Wytches by Scott Snyder, if you’re reading that.
Rucka is perhaps best known to those in the know for his
work on his own on-going at IDW, Queen & Country. To be honest, I haven’t
read it yet. It’s on my bookshelf. Maybe I’ll do a special post once I’ve
plowed through it reviewing the book. At any rate, the word on the street is
overwhelmingly positive.
Waid, like Rucka, should be well-known for his DC work in
the early 2000’s. He was rehabilitating the Flash title prior to the book being
taken over by Geoff Johns, who later became a lead editor/VP at DC. His work on
Flash was great, very old school, standard comic book fare. He had a real eye
for long-term development, expanding and renovating the Rogues and improving
the Flash’s entourage, all ideas that Johns is largely credited with today, but
that really started with Waid.
Flipping through Waid’s 90’s and early 2000’s credits shows
a wide range of modern art talent he worked with: a young Humberto Ramos on
Impulse, Mike McKone on various titles, Tony Daniel, Bryan Hitch, Leinel Franci
Yu, Stuart Immonen, Frank Quitely, and even the great Alex Ross (on Kingdom
Come, of course). In fact, Waid teamed up with Greg Rucka (and Grant Morrison
& Geoff Johns and various artists) on the DC weekly series 52. This guy has
worked with many of the very best in the industry.
Waid’s Hulk was good, not great. Let’s be clear: Hulk sucks
to write. He’s Marvel’s Wonder Woman. Great people work on this book and very
few of them see any commercial success. Waid was telling complicated stories
about political intrigue mixed with the personality crisis that is the big
green monster and doing so at a really high level. I don’t think this book has
run its course yet, but I enjoyed it for its initial series and dropped it to
make some more room for indie titles. If you’re a fan of the more modern Hulk
but don’t know what to read, I’d check up on the Waid stuff.
Mark Waid’s Daredevil has been a special book. Let’s plug
this in for a second: Daredevil has had the longest uninterrupted streak of
being good of any comic on the stands. It’s had no major dip since the
beginning of the Kevin Smith era. That’s 15 years ago. Part of the success of
this book is that Marvel has not at all been totalitarian about their approach
to this character. They’ve allowed the writers to introduce radical changes.
That’s been the case for Waid’s run for sure. I won’t give away resolution of
any of these issues, but we’ve dealt with Daredevil’s public identity, Fooggy
(his best friend) getting cancer, and Matt leaving Hell’s Kitchen for San
Francisco. These are some big changes for a rather simple setting based
character. I’ve been impressed with his story-telling. This book has no like
alien power shifts or clone stories but manages to grasp the imagination each
month with great characterization and solid story-telling chops. You know the
guy, ya know. That goes a long way.
Waid will be taking over a book sure to make a big splash
next week when his S.H.I.E.L.D. book premieres. This book will follow the cast
of the hit TV show in the comic book world, allowing these heroes to take on
situations TV won’t allow for. I expect to see them interact with the heroes
and villains of the Marvel U. on a much expanded scale. If you’re a fan of the
show, or the organization, or just of great comics, you should pick this book
up. Handling the interiors will be Carlos Pacheco, a great match artistically
for this book. I’m really psyched about it. I’ve been a Fury fan for as long as
I can remember and, as a result, love S.H.I.E.L.D. and everything it’s about. Pick
one up.
A couple of Mark Waid gems you might not know about are
Irredeemable and Ruse. Irredeemable was a Boom! Studios book that’s basically a
“superman gone bad” story. It is raw and makes no excuses for the behavior you’ll
see the capes pull off in this book. It’s basically his Superman version of The
Dark Knight. I loved this book, although it fell apart after a couple of arcs.
I’d definitely give the first trade a read. Ruse was a Crossgen book, so it may
be a pain in the ass to find (they’re defunct). If you can, I’d grab it. The
pencils are Butch Guice, who I love, and the concept is basically Sherlock
Holmes with a different set of stylized rules and expectations. This was the
highlight of Crossgen imo and one of the better books around when it was coming
out. It’s mostly a series of one-off stories so there’s no real need to have
every issue to enjoy it if you see some in 50c bins. It was a real gem.
So, that’s what I’ve been thinking about Waid and Rucka. I
wanted to introduce people to these guys and give folks some sense of what’s
out there from them. These guys are great comic book writers that never really
seem to generate much heat but deserve to. When I see them writing something, I
generally pick it up. You should too.
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