A month of comics in three days? Some sort of personal record for me. I might even get up to date at this rate. After the two-week pile up of yesterday, only two comics for this week – talk about imbalance.

Detective Comics #857
Ah, JH Williams, how can I praise thee? Let me count the ways … It’s getting boring to say the same thing: Williams’ art is absolutely phenomenal on this book. His styles, his page and panel designs (I particularly love the double-page spread with Kate and Alice fighting each other, as the central figures combine like a playing card), his action scenes are all outstanding – I hope that other artists look at his work and are shocked into trying harder in their work. The story sees the end of Alice’s plan and Batwoman saving the day, but the art overshadows it all. In The Question, we see a cliffhanger and an indication of the extremes of those who traffick people and their attitude to human live. It’s good stuff, but is outshone by the main feature.

No Hero #7
Well, that was all rather brutal and ugly, wasn’t it? I mean, the highly detailed art by Juan Jose Ryp is very impressive, although it too has a brutality and ugliness to it, but that’s to do with the content. The story seems to be a two-finger salute to the superhero concept – Warren Ellis is known to not be a fan of the superhero genre and its dominance of the Anglophone comic book market, but this seems harsh even for him. The story of our protagonist, Carver, is now revealed as being a seriously disturbed man unleashed by an international effort of people who wanted to bring down Carrick, the creator of FX7. And, of course, this leads to the world going to hell after Carver kills Carrick (and then himself), because there is nobody as a deterrent anymore – which seems to be Ellis’ tenet about superheroes: if you allow them to do what they do, then they are the ultimate force for control. It doesn’t make for enjoyable reading – I’m not sure if I want to go back to re-read the series again to see how it holds up.