Here it is! Decent batch of books. Madame Xanadu was most interesting…
What else?
I’m holding off on Madame Xanadu until the first trade, which is supposed to be a screaming deal, something like $11 for ten issues.
Elephantmen #17 - I generally love this book but I felt a bit let down by this issue. “Bigots blinded by their own prejudices hunt down the monster who was doing no harm” is an old story and, though Starkings & Co deliver it well, the ending is really no surprise. Very nice framing sequences, though.
Proof #18 - I was surprised that this book held the emotional gut-punch for the week, but between the introduction of Springheel Jack and poor Julia’s debasement, I just could not put it down. The suspense is making me crazy, I swear. This series is definitely worth a look if you’re at all interested in cryptozoology; fans of Hellboy and the BPRD will probably find a lot to like here.
Usagi Yojimbo #119 - Samurai zombies! glee! Also, Sasuke is one badass mofo, oh yeah.
I kind of want to buy the Madam Xanadu trade when it comes out (despite having all of the individual issues so far), just so I can use it to smack people who seriously talk about characters appearing in Vertigo books suddenly becoming unavailable to DC.
After the Phantom Stranger, the Demon, Green Lantern, Zatara, and the Spectre all either appearing or being referenced… It’s clear that it applies to Swamp Thing and John Constantine, only, with some restrictions (though not an outright ban) on the Sandman-related characters (except, maybe, those created by Gaiman).
I just wish that DC would get on the flippin’ ball with trade releases. The occasional deal like this is nice, but yeesh – the lag in collecting their books is just gag-inducing sometimes. No Secret Six trades until September? Fie!
Yeah, the Vertigo divide is bull. Of course, it may be that when Swamp Thing and Constantine got handed over, there was some kind of actual deal between the two divisions, and that any characters handed over since have had a substantially different deal.
In the Marvel department, I picked up Nova, Hercules, and Guardians of the Galaxy this week…
I think the difference is Swamp Thing and Hellblazer, even when they were still under the DC imprint were already straining against the whole ‘sharing a universe with non-Mature Readers titles’ thing, and eventually, after Vertigo had become its own entity had cut the connections completely.
Whereas Doom Patrol, Animal Man, and Sandman never really cut themselves free - Doom Patrol remaining a superhero book (albeit a strange one) to the end, it and Animal Man going right back to appearing in the DC imprint soon after their Vertigo runs ended, and Sandman kept using DCU elements right until the end - though the spin-offs are less so.
And JSA, of course, used elements of Sandman.
I’d be interesting to see what would happen with Shade the Changing Man…if anyone wanted to use him, that is. Probably just ignore the Vertigo series.
Madame Xanadu, I think, isn’t really a Vertigo book so much as it is a Mature Readers DCU book published under the Vertigo imprint. It has an unprecedented density of references to the core DCU.