Happy New Year and welcome back to PopCultureShock’s Picks & Pans. Since we’re catching up from the holidays, this week’s P&P’s also includes a few books from last week. Ringing in the new year we have: Adan Jimenez (Adan’s Aztec Musings), AHR (Geekanerd), Erin F. (NinjaConsultant) and Katherine Dacey-Tsuei (Kate no Komento).

PICK: Avengers: The Initiative #8

This issue of The Initiative has a new drill instructor, a new batch of recruits, a new storyarc, and a fifty-foot three-way brawl. It’s pretty damn fun.

Slott and Gage give us more on the kids’ personal lives (though I would have liked to see a little more Slapstick than just on the cover), which has thus far been more interesting than any of Gyrich’s secret plans or any missions the kids have actually been on. The scene with Hardball and Komodo is as touching as the big brawl is hilarious. Yeah, you feel for Cassie, but O’Grady’s quips are really funny, and the Taskmaster’s way of ending the fight is even funnier. Slott and Gage have shown that they understand the character of Eric O’Grady just as well as Kirkman did, and I hope to see more of him in future issues.

The actual storyarc, that of Gyrich’s desire to clone a bunch of MVPs who then apparently go insane, is only meh, though the setup was good. Gyrich has a long history of overreacting, and, normally, I would have been surprised to see Pym go along with it, but the opening pages, showing that the Fifty-State Initiative was Pym’s idea, certainly explains why he strives so hard to make the Initiative Program work. Sometimes that means making stupid decisions for the sake of your ego, or your sense of worth, or just to not let your peers down. This is especially true for someone like Pym, who has so many past mistakes to make up for.

Another solid issue of The Initiative with great character moments, marred only by the desire to shoehorn in a story about crazy clones (did we learn nothing from the “Clone Saga”).

Shock Value: B -Adan

Countdown Presents: Lord Havok and the Extremists #3

This is merely another installment of another mini-series that is actually part of the multi-tentacled Great Old One that is Countdown, which takes place in the recent past (really recent, like three months ago). But there is one significant difference here:

Zombie Gordon!

Amid Tracer’s predictable origin story (did any of these guys not come from that Super Soldier program carried out in the Experiment House?) appears Monarch’s strike-force sent to put Tracer down after Lord Havok’s refusal to join his army (why doesn’t he just kidnap the whole lot and make them fight to the death like he did with a bunch of other heroes like he did in Arena? does the top-most left tentacle even know what the middle right tentacle is doing anymore?) consisting of Herr Superman (who looks nothing like his previous appearance in Countdown to Adventure), Green Sinestro, Bizarra, Robin Olsen, Linda “The Flash” Park, Bat-Soldier, and Zombie Gordon. I don’t know which worlds these guys come from, but I hope there is a “DC Zombies” world among the 52 worlds because that would be hilarious. Still not worth this atrocious series, but hilarious.

And finally, does that Mongul page (where he has three colored rings and the word “Domination” is at the bottom) hint at an upcoming storyline, or is it just a spoof of those “Perseverance”-type posters? If it’s an ad, then good job DC Marketing Department. You’re currently doing a much better job than your Editorial counterparts.

Shock Value: F (Shock Value for Ad: A) -Adan

PICK: Dan Dare# 2

After reviewing the first issue, the second installment of Dan Dare builds towards a major confrontation with the Mekon who look to enslave the human race. Every panel that Dare is in, he’s commanding it and Ennis really understands how he needs to be written, and get real reactions from his surrounding cast. And even though they appear “on panel” very little, the Mekon feels like an alien race to be reckon with. Let’s hope the payoff is as good as the build-up. Dan Dare is solid sci-fi (with a little military) affair and again, just a fresh direction for Ennis that should please his followers as well as longtime Dare readers. Shock Value: B+ -Ernie

PICK: Doktor Sleepless #4

“Doktor Sleepless” needs more love. I know there are a lot of hurdles in the way of a growing readership for the book: It’s published by Avatar, and a lot of people won’t read Avatar; the art isn’t terrific – panels are often well-composed but the perspective is not always convincing and the figures often awkward or stiff; and the book seems far less interested in its own plot than it is using that plot as a delivery system of a mass of ideas and concepts. Actually, for this reader that last point isn’t a hurdle, but an attraction. The actual plot of the book is the slow burning mystery of ‘Who is Doktor Sleepless?’, but this is just skeleton on which writer Warren Ellis can graft the real muscle of the book: the mystery of ‘Who Stole the Future?’, a poignant question for those of us now living in the 21st century, which was promised to us with images of flying cars and interstellar travel, and instead arrived with 300 cable channels and Viagra. The graffiti on the wall in Doktor Sleepless echoes our great futuristic malaise, and demands to know: “Where’s my Fucking Jet Pack?”

Doktor Sleepless is a futurist turned actual Mad Scientist who may or may not exist, and who mysteriously reappears in his former home town of Heavenside in a near-future which might be called a quiet dystopia – no wars, no plague, no robot overlords, just the slow grinding of people towards their own self-involved, apathetic anticlimax. The book functions as a place for Ellis to place all of the weird research and scientifictional speculation that he so obsessively collects, and he has begun to blur the line between fiction and reality by setting up a sprawling wiki for the book which extends the dialogue begun by the text-pages in the back of the comic itself, as well as an actual future-watching website on which different real people serve the same function as the fictional characters apparently did in the recent past of the story: tracking “outbreaks of the future”, inventions or moments or movements which might point towards where the world is heading. The comic itself seems at times to be no more than a physical placeholder for the intangible web of thought and communication that Ellis is spinning into existence under the broad heading of “Doktor Sleepless”. Things are only going to get more interesting from here. Shock Value: B+ -Jason

PICK: Dr. Slump, Vol. 14

If you’re still in touch with your inner eight-year-old–the part of you that loves a good fart joke and believes that all science laboratories resemble Dr. Frankenstein’s–you owe it to yourself to check out Dr. Slump. This kid-friendly series is an early work of Akira Toriyama, best known to American readers for penning Dragonball and Dragonball Z. The artwork has a decidedly different feel from his better-known shonen titles. The characters look more cartoonish, with squat bodies and enormous heads that are rendered in thick, black lines. (Suppaman, Toriyama’s Bizzaro-World take on the Man of Steel, looks like a refugee from a Makoto Kobayashi manga.) Not much happens in a typical volume of Dr. Slump; most of the stories are built around a running gag, usually involving bathroom humor, a simple misunderstanding, or the evil Dr. Mashirito’s schemes for world domination. Toriyama employs a kind of child logic throughout the series, populating its pages with talking pigs, potty-mouthed cherubs, mad scientists with crazy hair, cute robot tykes, and dinosaurs… who don’t speak. (Because they’re dinosaurs, I guess?) In short, Dr. Slump is a jovial, whoopie-cushion of a comic, bringing a refreshing blast of naughty humor to the manga aisle of your local bookstore. Shock Value: A- -Kate

PICK: Northlanders #1 & #2

Brian Wood’s take on Vikings in the Orkney Islands is a fresh take on a very basic tale of a young man whose inheritance has been taken from him by his uncle. He returns to his homeland only to see that he must start from scratch and take what’s rightly his. Everything has been written on a level where the old English has been taken out of the script so it reads like its set in any time, really, but Wood has thought it through and made this choice based on the fact that Vikings didn’t really speak in the same tongue as Shakespeare, at least not in this region. What it does is take off that awkwardness that can bring down books like Thor and just get you directly into the flow of the story. By the middle of the second issue, we’re in for the ride, as Sven realizes it may be harder to mount an attack in a place he’s not familiar with and with no men at his side. And the women? They’re just as nutty as the men but they sure are fine. Read the first two books for a curve-ball in your regular reading. Wood has a way of presenting street-level stories in a big picture way and Northlanders is no deviation of this. As his vast worlds get larger and larger, you’ll want to know every single little detail of them. Shock Value: B+ -Ernie

PICK: Sand Chronicles, Volume 1

I’ve been reading the Sand Chronicles in Shojo Beat magazine. I’m not a girly-girl; I don’t usually cry at movies, let alone manga, but this is a tear jerker. Junior high protagonist Anne has been dealt a shitty hand in life; Since Anne’s mother committed suicide, Anne lives with her grandparents in a small town. She loves her boyfriend Daigo and friends so much Anne wants time to stop. She carries around an hourglass her boyfriend gave her on the night of her mother’s death. Anne loses the hourglass at summercamp! There is literally a cliff and blood in this story! This series touches my ice-cold bitchy heart. I plan to write a longer review of volume one later this month. Shock Value: A- -Erin

PICK: Teen Titans: Year One #1

This book is well worth picking up simply for Karl Kerschl’s art, who for my money is the most exciting young artist working for DC. His clean, cartoonish style is put to excellent use in a book that seems determined to let the Titans actually look and act their age. An extraordinary coloring job pushes the energy even further, most impressively in an underwater sequence with a gobsmackingly awesome purple seahorse. The writing is less exciting but still entertaining. Each Titan gets a fun slapsticky introduction, except Robin. Instead, the boy wonder (looking more vulnerable than ever with his tiny feathered speedo and gangly limbs) is faced with some highly traumatic events concerning an overzealous Batman. These events would more obviously indicate a mind control storyline if DC weren’t currently publishing a title that has Batman acting like a child abusing psychotic for reals; for a minute I feared The Goddamn Batman had somehow punched his way out of All Star to show up in more innocent books. Highly traumatic indeed. Shock Value: A- -AHR

PAN: VB Rose, Vol. 1

VB Rose is one of the girliest titles around; A high school girl’s unexpectedly pregnant older sister is planning a wedding and the dressmakers are two hot dudes! Protagonist Ageha (her name means butterfly!) offers to help sew the wedding dress when she injures one of the guy’s hands. It’s a good thing Ageha sews purses as a hobby! Unsurprisingly, the guys look like girls. Between the fashion, wedding planning, and sparkling effects, there is a touching story of two sisters’ love. Ageha gets a job by storming into a store and destroying a bunch of stuff - this also worked in Ouran High School Host Club and The Knockout Makers - I’m totally trying destruction on my next job hunt. Shock Value: C+ -Erin

PAN: Wallflower Vol. 14

In the days of Buzzscope.com I reviewed the Wallflower Volumes 1-2 (audio here). I really regret giving it such a favorable grade. I hate myself for buying the series up through volume 12. Volume 19 is out in Japan, and I think it’s still going! I was willing to forgive the missing backgrounds and the (almost) stick figure drawings for six or seven volumes before I woke up and realized the guys are not hot enough, and the jokes are just not funny enough to make this series worthwhile. I was totally fooled by Dallas Middaugh’s sales pitch. (P.S. The anime also sucks). Shock Value: C- for the whole series (not specific to this volume) -Erin