Comics Picks For 05.02.2014

On account of traveling to and from India this past week, my comics reading took a back-seat, as did my novel reading incidentally. Very few comics read, but most of them were good at least, a saving grace.

Anyway, here’s another edition of this new feature. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.

Lazarus #6 (Comics Review)

After yet another break, one of Image’s newest titles returned to shelves this past week with its sixth issue. Across the five issues we’ve had previously, writer Greg Rucka and artists Michael Lark and Santi Arcas built up a well-defined post-apocalyptic (of sorts) world around the protagonist Forever Carlyle, a genetically engineered and conditioned woman who acts as her family’s ambassador and head of security. Its been a fairly good series thus far, and I’ve enjoyed what the creators have done. This isn’t the type of story that would ever be told at the Big 2 and Image is a perfect fit for this title.

In the new issue, we continue to get a wider perspective of the world and the setting itself. We are able to see just how the world works and how the Serfs and Wastes are treated by the Families. This is by no means a happy setting, bleak in the extreme actually, and this issue shows that off nicely. In fact, it highlights how ruthless this world is. And the art is quite decent. No big scenes here this time, and everything is more or less a subtle play on the larger themes.

Advent Review #17: Lazarus #5 (Comics Review)

As far as me experimenting with non-superhero comics is concerned, Image has been my go-to publisher of choice. They have an incredible diverse array of books out right now and they continue to add more each month. One of the new properties they added this year is Greg Rucka and Michael Lark’s Lazarus, a post-apocalyptic series featuring a female protagonist. With its 4-issue first arc, the creators set up a really great setting with some great characters and despite the extra one-month break in-between the last issue and the new one, my interest in the series has not dimmed at all.

The first arc ended rather explosively, with quite a few things going down and the new issue picks up where #4 left off so that we see what kind of a fallout those events have had and how the characters themselves have changed and adapted to suit the new status quo. Apart from everything else, Rucka and Lark take us back in to the past with a great flashback, and we get to see even more of the world as it has come to be. Particularly, we see what kind of events have shaped Forever as she is. And that’s a huge part of the fun of the new issue.

Lazarus #4 by Greg Rucka (Comics Review)

Looking for a good non-superhero book for me is not an easy task. Mostly because I love the genre so much that I just don’t take easily to anything that’s not in it. And the same goes for the big property/franchise titles like Star Wars, or G.I.Joe or what have you. These are worlds and characters I’m heavily invested in and thus I want to read more about them rather than anything else. However, into this mix steps Image Comics, who’ve been doing a pretty brilliant job with all their recent titles that I’m following.

Lazarus, by the acclaimed Greg Rucka, is one such book that is totally giving me all sorts of reasons to read non-superhero books. It is brilliantly written with some really great artwork and it is a truck-load of fun every single time. With the new issue, #4, I was expecting some big things since the story in #3 ended rather explosively. And man does Greg Rucka deliver in a really great way!