Every Wednesday we take turns to delve into our trusty longboxes, pluck out a dusty back issue, and give you our thoughts. We’ll also try and place it in the context of the time it was originally published.

Dusting Off’s been fairly X-heavy of late, but with Ed Brubaker hastily moving pieces into place for Astonishing X-Men #25, it’s worth taking a look at the last time Warren Ellis was asked to bring something different to Marvel’s mutants. As part of the X-Men’s 2000 re-launch, Marvel hired Ellis to take control of three of the line’s under performing spin offs, and re-conceptualise them under the banner “Counter-X”. The writer took an extremely critical look at each of the titles, stripping them back to their unique storytelling elements. Ellis co-wrote eight issues of each book, before handing over to the series’ permanent writer, in this case a pre-DMZ Brian Wood.

Unsurprisingly, given its promotion as a jumping on-point for new readers, Ellis makes his all-new villain a key part of the issue, choosing to open with an introductory sequence in which Coffin, a “war-criminal for hire” demonstrates his abilities and viciousness. In creating this opponent, the writer has clearly focussed on what made this part of the X-franchise distinctive. Coffin is not interested in mutation, which only features in the story as the means by which Generation X are able to fight him. The “Warden” is a disciplinarian, running a sci-fi/ horror young-offenders institution for the culprits of thought crimes. No punches are pulled in establishing this setting, with the Columbine shootings explicitly mentioned in the dialogue. However, what should be an unforgivable lapse in taste is made much more acceptable by Steve Pugh’s restrained art, which is just as easily able to illustrate decades old cyborg-children as comical exchanges between Jubilee and Chamber. Wood’s scripting also impresses, with some extremely natural-sounding dialogue given to each of the teens. He also finally manages to blend the lighter and darker sides of Emma Frost’s personality, which had been only shown alternately since the character was brought over to the side of the angels.

In hindsight, what proves most striking about the issue is the ruthlessness shown to the comic’s previous incarnation. In a move somewhat ahead of its time, Generation X’s Academy had functioned as an actual school, well before either 20^th Century Fox or Grant Morrison applied the same approach to the X-Men themselves. Ellis clearly decided to strip the cast down to a skeleton crew of its iconic figures, with the titular generation reduced to its four most interesting members. We rejoin the students in an almost ruined academy, and dialogue makes it clear that some of the missing have died off-panel since the previous story. Although missing the high-concept driven approach that has characterised the writer’s more famous work, there isn’t a shortage of new ideas here, with the paradoxes of government illustrated in a throwaway line. Roots of Ellis’s current preoccupation with communication technology may also be glimpsed, with Paige discovering Coffin’s activities through newsgroups.

It’s almost disturbing how clinically Ellis cuts away vast parts of the book’s previous identity. The “superheroes-in-training” approach that has always characteristed books of this sort is discarded; leaving its cast attempting to find ways they can actually change the almost-real world they’ve been placed in. Deliberately confining himself to a tiny periphery of the X-universe, Ellis still manages to create a compelling story, making his forthcoming centre-stage role an even more intriguing prospect.

It’s been a while since I looked at DMZ, and there’s a lot to say about this issue, the second in the latest arc, “Blood in the Game” which, after a series of done-in-one character spotlights, returns the focus to Matty and his new friend - the Che Guevara-meets-Hugo Chavez figure, Parco Delgado.

There’s an uneasy ceasefire in the DMZ - something the series has never seen, which creates an immediate sense of tension. Matty can’t believe his story about Delgado has been rejected, but Zee explains why, calling it a “press release” - seems like Matty has lost his journalistic objectivity, and we later see that Delgado is willing to exploit that. However well-meaning he might be, you just know this isn’t going to end well.

After all Matty has been through, his simplistic view of the situation in the DMZ has been shattered and put back together so many times that he’s lost the plot a little. Delgado seizes upon this, encouraging Matty to actually choose a side once and for all, and Matty literally embraces the certainty he craves. It’s to his credit that despite all this, Wood remains detached from the situation - the reader is never lead to believe one way or the other whether Matty’s doing the right thing or not.

With Matty having chosen Delgado’s side, the still-unaware Liberty News once again tries to get his father to talk to him - you might remember that, at the start of the series, Matty was a spoilt rich kid who had to struggle out from under his father’s shadow. I saw the big cliffhanger twist coming only seconds before it arrived - the issue ends with Matty’s MOTHER getting in touch. Once again, the sense of family and what that means proves to be a strong theme in Wood’s work.

Seeing Wood take on a specific kind of political figure in Delgado may well prove the high point of the series. DMZ’s complicated politics have set it well apart from the herd. The dissection of characters and situation is as incisive as any broadsheet, if not more so. It’s almost hard to believe this kind of story is coming from someone who, as far as I know, has never been in the military at all. Still, Wood is always serious about his research, and between this and Northlanders, he’s displaying a range that would make some writers gnash their teeth in envy. At this rate, DMZ is going to make a lasting impact in the comics landscape, and deserves some serious recognition from the wider media as well.

Whew. Lots of traffic and positive response to that Ultimates v3 “review” we posted earlier this week - hope some of you are choosing to stick around! Just in case, I thought I’d give a brief overview of the site’s raison d’etre for anyone new: The goal is to have one comic reviewed every weekday for either discussion or perusal. On Wednesdays, we review a back-issue in a feature we call “Dusting Off.” On Thursdays, we review the first of the current week’s new comics, and on Saturday we rest. On Sunday, we post this column. We call it “The Sunday Pages”, and the idea is we use it to talk about the industry news and rumours which have shown up over the previous week.

This week, we’re thinking about JMS canning his exclusive deal with Marvel and what he might do at DC, the new Secret Invasion teaser images, the Foo Fighters’ fight with Marvel and the news released regarding a few of the various comics movies. Enjoy! Continue reading »

In this week’s column, there’s an update on speculation about Pixie’s status in the post-Messiah Complex X-Men, some stuff about the new Invincible Iron Man ongoing, and speculation about what Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan might be up to… Continue reading »

DMZ #27 once again features guest art from Nathan Fox, and continues the “Hidden War” non-arc concentrating on various new and supporting characters from around the DMZ. Under the spotlight in this issue is the DMZ’s own club DJ, Random Fire, who finds himself just angry enough with the world to make some seriously bad decisions.

At the start of the issue, Random Fire’s set is bumped in favour of DJ Grendel, a celebrity DJ who has moved in to the DMZ to do a “dangerous” live webcast. RF discovers that he’s manipulating the situation for his own popularity, planning to stage an atack during his set, and he’s just angry enough that when the chance arises to stop it, he jumps at the chance. As ever, the politics are vivd and the characters realistic in their motivations and decisions. A large part of DMZ’s appeal is the well-realised world it’s taking place in, and the recent issues have exemplified that by telling stories largely removed from the main cast.

Wood’s solo issue, #12, which was a magazine-like “guide” to the DMZ in the style of say, Timeout, has clearly proven a goldmine for ideas, as club Rezurrection, which appeared on fliers in that issue, finally makes a grand entrance here as the focal point for the action (and my nerd credentials would be at stake if I didn’t mention that it’s got the same name as the club from Wood’s debut work, Channel Zero.)

Still, it’s also fair to say that the ongoing plot of DMZ is also a big draw. This arc has been great, and next issue about the Central Park “Ghost” has me particularly excited because they were always a neat concept, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t ready to pick up Matty’s story and see how the larger series arc is shaping up. Granted, everything contributes in its own way, but with an arc focussing on a DMZ Guevara/Chavez analogue around the corner, it’s hard not to get excited for a return to whatever passes for normalcy in this series.

If you’d told me a year ago that I’d consider a Viking comic one of December’s most anticipated new releases, I’d probably have been fairly sceptical. More so if you’d told me that it’d be coming from Brian Wood, who’s made his name writing a mix of hip indie, street-level blockbusters and the odd politically-tilted piece of speculative fiction. And yet, here we are. Northlanders #1 is the latest attempt by Vertigo to show they’ll go where other publishers probably wouldn’t dare. It’s certainly got a credible name on it, but since the only other viking comics I can recall are Groo and Hagar the Horrible, it feels like a fairly risky move.

Of course - no-one need have worried, because Wood simply goes from strength to strength and hasn’t had anything even resembling a flop since his first Vertigo mini, Fight for Tomorrow,scooted neatly under everyone’s radar after a fairly big launch - and even that was almost 5 years ago. If anyone can make this work, it’s him. Northlanders is Vikings done by way of TV’s Deadwood - even the hero of the piece is hard-talking, lustful and violent, and while he doesn’t talk like a viking, the curse-filled and blunt tone of the writing echos the spirit of the time, if not the letter of it. The first arc, Sven the Returned, focuses the titular hero, a cosmopolitan young Viking who returns to the home he abandoned to collect what’s rightfully his - his dead father’s money. When he gets there he finds his uncle has taken control of the village and with it, Sven’s money. After receiving a severe beating from his uncle’s goons, Sven vows to move on with his life and forget the past he feels no connection to. What are the odds that’ll happen?

In a way, this is the most out-there comic Wood has ever written, yet on closer examination, it’s actually not that different from his others. Wood’s signature themes are all present - family, homecoming, honour and obligation - these are things you can find as the subtext in a lot of his work. Perhaps, then, that’s why Northlanders works so well. It’s not simply concerned with being “the viking comic” but with telling good stories about good characters who also happen to be vikings.

Art comes from Davide Gianfelice who, I believe, makes his US comics debut. Wood has collaborated with European artists before, notably on his other vertigo series, DMZ , and it brings his comics a unique flavour. It seems that the language of comic art from mainland Europe is as different to their American counterparts as Italian is to English, and just as I never tire of Burchielli on DMZ, I can imagine the art in Northlanders will continue to delight with each new issue.