Comic Book Review: Oni Press Starter Pack 2016 by various
While I spend many of my comics-related posts on this blog talking about the Big Two’s superhero comic books, there are a number of worthy small press comics companies that put out interesting material every year. Oni Press has put out an affordable collection of seven first issues from various series they’ve printed over their existence.
Leading off this trade paperback is The Sixth Gun by Cullen Bunn & Brian Hurtt. This horror-western about a collection of cursed firearms is as it happens something I have reviewed before. I won’t repeat myself here, but note that the series lasted eight collected volumes in its main storyline, with three extra graphic novels of spinoff stories. Pretty impressive!
Letter 44 by Charles Soule and Alberto Jiménez Alburquerque is science fiction. When incoming president Stephen Blades reads a letter left for him by his predecessor, he learns that many of the bizarre actions taken by Francis T. Carroll were based on information not shared with the American people.. It seems that there are aliens doing…something…in the asteroid belt. President Carroll felt it was most important for America to arm itself just in case the aliens are hostile, thus his warmongering activities on Earth that have made a mess of foreign policy while neglecting domestic issues that are coming to a head.
The United States also sent a secret manned space mission out to the location of the alien activity in an effort to learn more; they’re just now coming close to their destination. The astronauts have concealed certain information from their Earth-bound mission controllers…among other things, one of them is pregnant.
There are some pretty clear parallels to the Bush/Obama transition, with mentions of lies about weapons of mass destruction, and a white conservative president with a bad reputation on the economy and war being replaced with a darker-skinned liberal. But as the series progresses, the special circumstances lessen those similarities as President Blades tries a very different approach to the same situation President Carroll faced.
Meanwhile, the astronauts learn the truth behind the alien presence, and we learn the backstory of their mission.
The Bunker by Joshua Hale Fialkov & Joe Infunari starts with five recent college graduates going out to the woods to bury a time capsule. Except that they find themselves uncovering a bunker with four of their names on it. A bunker that contains items alleging to be from the post-apocalyptic future, including letters from their future selves.
It seems that by their actions, the quintet will bring about the near-extinction of the human race. But not doing so might create an even worse future. It’s not clear if the future selves are trying to create a time loop, or avert one.
This was a double-sized first issue, so a lot goes on. This does include nudity and on-page sex, as well as some nasty violence and strong language. The last page twist is foreshadowed, but still pretty shocking.
Stumptown by Greg Rucka and Justin Greenwood appears to be the first issue…of the third series. Private detective Dex Parios participates in an amateur soccer match (her team loses) before going to a professional game of footy with her brother Ansel and friend Mercury. It’s hometown Portland vs. Seattle, and autographs after! But afterwards, Dex and Ansel find a badly beaten (maybe dead) Mercury in the bushes. Is it hooliganism or a crime unrelated to sports?
Greg Rucka is well known for his crime comics, but the soccer elements took up most of the issue for a slow start.
Helheim by Cullen Bunn & Joëlle Jones takes place somewhere up North during the Sixth Century. A stockaded village is caught in a war between witches. A raiding party is chased by warriors of the witch Groa who soon become the undead. A man named Rikard keeps having visions of himself weeping tears of blood. When the village itself is breached, Rickard is beheaded, but that’s not the end of his participation in the war. Especially if his lover Bera has anything to say about it!
Rikard is relatively nice for a Norseman of the time, not happy about abandoning comrades or turning over loved ones to the enemy as a peace offering. His father is made of sterner stuff, but neither of them is fully prepared for what happens next.
Kaijumax by Xander Cannon is a considerable change of pace. The world has long been infested with monsters who ran rampant over the human civilizations. But now the humans have developed a way to give themselves giant superpowered forms (ala Ultraman) and have been capturing the kaiju they see as criminals, placing them on an island prison.
One of the latest inmates is Electrogor, who claims to have been just out looking for food for its children. Alas, the humans take poorly to kaiju eating their power supplies. Electrogor knows the humans are after its children, and it appeals to E68FE3 (“Hellmoth”), a monster that’s about to be released on a technicality, to help the kids out.
E68FE3 wants a return favor though, and the resulting altercation puts Electrogor in solitary confinement. It’s only then that a guard lets Electrogor know that the “technicality” Hellmoth was released on is that there are no living witnesses to its crimes. Especially the children.
Despite the cartoony art and many jokes, this series is a commentary on the American prison system and the abuses rampant within it. So Not For Children.
We finish with The Life After by Joshua Hale Fialkov & Gabo. Jude sleepwalks through his life, every day seeming exactly like every other day. Perhaps a little too much exactly like every other day–how many times can one woman drop her handkerchief on the bus? But today is different. Today, Jude picks up the handkerchief and tries to get it back to the woman.
It seems like the world is out to stop him, and it starts getting much weirder, but Jude eventually does catch up to the woman, and seemingly breaks her out of her routine as well. This disturbs secret watchers who say that no one has escaped in two thousand years.
Shortly thereafter, Jude meets Ernest Hemingway, who believes that everyone in their city is in fact a suicide, and this is the afterlife.
Some nifty use of panels and other art tricks, reminiscent of the Franco-Belgian style.
Content note: the woman’s flashback includes on-panel prostitution, gore and childbirth as well as suicide.
There’s a wide assortment of genres represented here, and this is a good choice to pick up if you’re unfamiliar with Oni Press and want to know which series you might like. Based on these first issues, I’m least impressed with The Bunker which skews even more cynical than I have a taste for.
