In the wake of Convergence, a giant crossover that briefly sucked all its comics into an alternate universe, DC has just launched a splurge of new titles to freshen up its line. The revived properties include Prez, in which a 19-year-old girl with a rabid Twitter following becomes US president, and Section Eight, an incompetent, Viz-worthy superteam featuring the return of Dogwelder, a character whose only power is the ability to weld dogs to things. There’s also a solo series spotlighting the young black hero codenamed Cyborg that, at first glance, seems like the most corporate-led directive. Vic Stone, AKA Cyborg, has been around since 1980 as part of the Teen Titans but the character – blown in half by a lab accident but saved after fusing permanently with some mysterious alien tech – was recently promoted to the Serie A of comics, bringing some much-needed diversity to the Justice League. In the form of actor Ray Fisher, Cyborg will cameo in Zack Snyder’s upcoming Batman V Superman before headlining his own movie in 2020, so it’s a good time to reposition the character as a hero in his own right. But if DC was looking for something bland and safe, it shouldn’t have hired David Walker, the writer behind a recent Shaft prequel comic that was gritty, militant and highly entertaining. The first issue of Cyborg debuts later this month, and judging by Walker’s current round of promo interviews – discussing Cyborg being a black teen in the context of a seemingly endless wave of US police shootings – he seems determined to make the former team player both more relevant and worthy of his top billing.
Most comic-book publishers will stick a #1 on anything if they think it will help shift a few copies. But last Wednesday saw a genuinely historic relaunch. After a previous run of 666 consecutive issues, Archie #1 introduced a surprisingly fresh new take on one of the world’s most iconic comics characters who doesn’t wear a cape. The cartoonish art style that has defined Archie for decades has been overhauled by Fiona Staples, the artist behind the gorgeous, subversive space opera Saga, arguably the best new comic of the past five years. Her ability to render mind-bending alien planets and gigantic space troll scrotums isn’t much in evidence in her redesign of Archie and his pals in the all-American town of Riverdale, but it’s a streamlined, modernised look that still feels expressive. Staples is collaborating with the veteran comics writer Mark Waid, telling a new origin story for the perpetual teenager, enlivened by some Ferris Bueller-style fourth-wall breaking by Archie, who has just broken up with his high-school sweetheart Betty. It’s a sweet, tender, funny reintroduction to a classic character, and after a few recent PR missteps by Archie Comics – which cranked up Kickstarter campaigns to quickly relaunch other modernised versions of some of its classic titles, before abandoning the idea after complaints from fans and industry professionals – looks like a solid launchpad for its 75th-anniversary celebrations.
Anthology comics are a great idea in theory – you get a buffet of content in bite-size chunks. But waiting at least a month for the next five or six pages of story can be frustrating. Island, a new anthology published by US company Image but showcasing a tonne of European and international talent, solves that problem by going large. For each 112-page issue, editors/artists Brandon Graham and Emma Ríos curate substantial chunks of storytelling from their friends and peers, and the result combines the feel of a hip scene zine with the highest quality of art and imaginative storytelling, along with text pieces on comics craft and – proof that Island’s guiding principles aren’t particularly commercially minded – even poetry. The first monthly issue is published this Wednesday and features the reactivation of Graham’s own cult hit Multiple Warheads, an organ-smuggling/werewolf epic sent in an alternate Soviet Union, as well as new post-human tale from Ríos. With 15 different stories already good to go, it looks like being one of the most distinctive and surprising titles of the year.
