One of the things I did whilst sick over the weekend and Monday is graze through some old graphic novels/TPBs from the shelves.
Young Justice: A League of Their Own: Collected YJ #1-7. This was the initial stab at creating a youth/teen team to replace the ever-aging Titans. Peter David -- abetted by Todd Nauck -- pegged so much of it perfectly, combining teen angst with humor, along with plenty of intergenerational conflict and the occasional dark tragedy to leaven the many lighter notes. That said, YJ never quite gelled, perhaps because the sidekicks were always getting yanked around by their main titles, perhaps because it was just too many characters.
Young Justice: Sins of Youth: A 12-issue cross-over event around the DCU, this collection is a mess. Most of YJ is turned into adults; most of the JLA and JSA are turned into kids. Subplots and villains abound, but this one seems to have everything (and everyone and every writer and artist in the DCU) but the kitchen sink, and, after a surprisingly short time, listening to the JLA/JSA kids being brats just gets dull.
Captain Marvel: Vols 1, 2, 3, 4: The four volumes of the latter part of Peter David's relaunch of CM, starring the original Mar-Vell's son, Genis. The series explored the whole idea of Cap's cosmic awareness, the madness that would follow from being aware of the implications of nearly everything, coupled with the power that would also follow. David plays around with questions of morality, good, evil, religion, God, justice, love, insanity, and about any other high concept you can imagine on a cosmic level. It turned out a bit too cosmic by the end for most folks taste, or perhaps things just dragged out a bit too long, and you can see David trying to quickly resolve plotlines and change the course of the book before its cancellation (which, to be fair, leads to one of the more amusing and poignant final issues I've seen).
Whiteout and Whiteout: Melt: Greg Rucka's intro into the comics world, ably assisted, art-wise, by Steve Lieber. Grim and gritty crime dramas in the Antarctic, where the environment is as great a danger as the criminals. Great scenes and ideas, but in both cases only fair and sometimes muddled plots to hang them on. Rucka's grown a lot since then, but you can see how much promise he showed already in this series.
Midnight Nation: Joe Straczynski, with Gary Frank's art, takes on a metaphysical journey into the side of the world that we choose not to see, where the forgotten and outcasts exist alongside those corrupted -- or perhaps liberated -- by the growing darkness. Full of great explorations about good, evil, sacrifice, duty, humanity, and freedom, alongside plenty of action, mystery, and horror. This is one of those worth pulling off the shelf on a regular basis.
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