THIS WEEK ON FOC:
Pre-Millenium Tension! Gotham Hits the Sauce! "Don't Ask, Don't Te—Ah, F It, I'll Be a Superhero Instead"! The Grimsaddest Taskforce that Could!
PLANETARY COMPENDIUM
Planetary was a strange baby born into weird, millenial times.
Launched in 1999, the series was Warren Ellis and John Cassaday’s big swing at the history of superhero comics. Along the way, it roped in a dizzying range of pop culture, from Sherlock Holmes to the Hong Kong action movies of the 90s.
The story follows elderly, cryokinetic Elijah Snow, who’s recruited by a mysterious global agency known as Planetary while drinking dog piss–flavored coffee in the desert. He, blockbuster Jakita Wagner, and taciturn technopath The Drummer criss-cross the planet, exploring the mysterious, fucked-up detritus of the twentieth century.
Which is to say: This is peak Warren Ellis.
“It’s a weird world. Let’s keep it that way.”Planetary is very much a collaboration between Ellis and artist John Cassaday, who perfectly captures the spite, wonder, and befuddlement on faces confronting the weirdest stuff in the world. And the unsung hero of the series might be Laura DePuy, whose colors lend a slightly lurid, dream-world saturation.
The Planetary compendium collects all 27 issues of the original run, plus the odd lil’ crossovers Planetary/Batman #1, Planetary/JLA #1, and Planetary/Authority #1.
You’re up, Bat-nerds! For those who imbibe, let’s brace ourselves with a drink.
The Batarang!
- 3 mint leaves
- 1 oz. gin
- 1 oz. blended scotch
- .5 oz. fresh lemon juice
- .5 oz. simple syrup
- Dash orange bitters
3 mint leaves 1 oz. gin 1 oz. blended scotch .5 oz. fresh lemon juice .5 oz. simple syrup Dash orange bitters Blend ingredients, shake, and strain into shot glasses. Sip it if you’re classy.
The Gotham City Cocktails HC is packed with seventy high-concept recipes like this one, covering fancy Bat-cocktails and bespoke snacks (Batarang Brownies!) based on Gotham and the characters you know and love. Look, I know at least a few of you have always wanted to drink “The Dark Nightcap.”
All set, then?
Good. Let’s settle in and get our minds blown by the
BATWOMAN OMNIBUS (New Edition)
“That fancy layout in your favorite comic? Thank J.H. Williams III.”
“That fancy layout in your favorite comic? Thank J.H. Williams III.”You’ve seen Walt fanboying over the new Batwoman ongoing. Now go back and rediscover the masterpieces that set it all up.
It all begins with Elegy, Greg Rucka’s storyline in Detective Comics #854–863. It's incredible, and one scene alone is worth the price of admission: Kate Kane, a lesbian, is faced with expulsion from her beloved Army if she doesn’t lie about who she is.
In lesser hands, this might have been a perfunctory scene for one of DC’s few gay characters at the time. But Rucka makes us feel the full weight (and heroism) of the life-defining choice.
And then there’s the art. THE ART! On many levels, Batwoman is simply J.H. Williams III’s masterclass. The heady, unpredictable mix of Art Nouveau layouts and lines with the psychedelic and supernatural often suggests Windsor McKay dipping in and out of a serious fever.
But there’s more to it than the stained-glass layouts. Williams frequently switches up his style to underscore the contrast between Kate’s (barely) daytime life and her adventures as Batwoman.
Williams's range—and his savvy, story-oriented deployment of it—are truly astonishing. No wonder that in the Batwoman ongoing, Williams also began co-writing with Trevor McCarthy.
DC FINEST - SUICIDE SQUAD
The Nightshade Odyssey
John Ostrander’s Suicide Squad isn’t the quippy, fun crew of loveable miscreants we’ve seen onscreen. They’re just Task Force X, a rotating, truly expendable cast of prisoners doing black ops as essentially forced labor.
God help me, it’s awesome.
Ostrander’s tense, taught depiction of people forced to repeatedly make impossible decisions in terrible circumstances is, in its own way, weirdly compassionate. In quiet moments, we see the toll these decisions take.
“No one does that heady, intimate cocktail of guilt, resignation, and “just doing the job” like John Ostrander.”In this context, we start to empathize with the plight of some truly awful people—even, at times, the exquisitely rendered low-life misogynist Captain Boomerang. Plus, Ostrander gave us Amanda Waller, possibly the bleakest depiction of government pragmatism ever to appear in a comic.
Following the first volume of Ostrander’s run in DC Finest: Suicide Squad: Trial by Fire TP, this volume collects issues from several different series. It follows Task Force X across a clandestine mission against a drug cartel, a confrontation with the Justice League International in Russia, and an other-dimensional encounter with Shade the Changing Man. For starters.
WHERE'S THE FOC!?
Looking for the FOC collection? We made it eas-ier. You can now find all our FOC collections on one dedicated page:
And this week’s FOC is waiting for you here:
Wednesday is the official deadline for low pre-order prices (but we never change prices before Friday... shhhh it's a secret!)
See you,
Don