This week's comic reviews show us that if you're both writing and drawing a comic, you can expect it to be pretty damn good, as we look at Jonathan Hickman's The Nightly News, Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell 1.5: Human Error Processor #1 and Alan Davis' Fantastic Four: The End #1. Of course, Hulk #100 also shows the traditional writer/artist team-up can still bring home the big results. Also featured are Uncanny X-Men #480, American Virgin #8 and X-Men: Phoenix: Endsong #3.

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The Nightly News #1

Publisher Image • Writer Jonathan Hickman • Artist Jonathan Hickman

There's a writer, I may have mentioned him, named Brian Wood. The first work he published was a creator-owned series called "Channel Zero" which he wrote and illustrated, and which blended design, narrative and politics to create a brilliant piece of work that ranks as some of my favourite fiction ever. In Jonathan Hickman's debut series, The Nightly News, I feel like I may be witnessing the birth of a new Brian Wood.

Every aspect of this comic is a reward for reading it. It has the kind of artwork where every page could be a single piece of art and the kind of writing that has passion and self-belief bordering on - justifiable - arrogance. Much like Channel Zero, it's full or subliminal messages placed in tiny type around the page, and it has a heavy political undercurrent to the plot.Hickman claims he's not that into politics, but when you see the statistics and the sarcastic messages in the narrative telling you not to read them, well, it sure doesn't seem that way. More likely, as he alludes, he's less interested in the minutae of the politics of government, and more in the politics of capitalism.

The story is about a pseudo-religious group plucking a man from literal destitution, putting a sniper rifle in his hand and giving him a cause. That cause is nothing less than war on the media (another theme it shares with Channel Zero.) It's an ambitious comic on every level, and on most of those, it succeeds. Between Phonogram, Local, American Virgin and DMZ It's been a great year for creator-owned comics, and The Nightly News still stands out in a big way. If every comic was this good, we wouldn't need TV at all.
A+

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Ghost in the Shell 1.5: Human-Error Processor #1

Publisher Dark Horse • Writer Masamune Shirow • Artist Masamune Shirow

It's been a year or two since Man Machine Interface, the massively impenetrable official un-sequel to Ghost in the Shell by original creator Masamune Shirow wrapped up. In that time, we've had Innocence, the beautiful if worryingly pretentious quote-a-thon animated sequel to the GitS movie by original director, Mamoru Oshii, and two seasons of the action-filled anime series, Stand Alone Complex. That's a lot of Ghost in the Shell whatever way you look at it, all vying for a same piece of the pie - to tell you what happened after (or occasionally, instead of) the original story in which our heroine, Motoko Kusanagi, met with the emergent life-form, the Puppet Master.

Well, Shirow is back for another stab at the same concept. Sort of. Human-Error Processor is actually a set of chapters that ran at the same time as the initial run of Ghost in the Shell, in-between and after the chapters which were collected as the graphic novel, and this means it's about the closest thing to a genuine continuation of the original work as you can get, even if the author has supplanted it.

As if you hadn't already guessed, Ghost in the Shell continuity is a harsh mistress, and staying on top of it can require a lot of work. The release of these original, virtually abandoned chapters in Ghost in the Shell history are squarely aimed at the most hardcore fans of the series, to the point where for the first time ever, Dark Horse are collecting it with artwork unflipped, so that it is read right-to-left as in Japan.

Despite the target audience, however, this issue featuring everyone's favourite family man Togusa, and Azuma, a blink-and-you'll-miss-him character who joins Section 9 during the manga (and who shows up in Stand Alone Complex: 2nd Gig) is very accessible. It's unsurprisingly right alongside the first manga in tone and style, and ultimately has a good stab at making itself a worthy continuation. Unlike the other sequels, the Major is nowhere to be found, and in this chapter, even Batou doesn't get a look in. It's unlikely to answer the questions left by the climax of the Major's dealings with the Puppet Master, but for anyone itching for new Ghost in the Shell, Human-Error Processor might prove more in line with people's expectations than Man Machine Interface ever was. It's hard to recommend to the casual reader, but for anyone put off the manga by MMI - now's the time to come back to the fold.
A

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Fantastic Four: The End #1

Publisher Marvel • Writer Alan Davis • Artist Alan Davis

Marvel's "The End" series has been pretty hit and miss. The Punisher one-shot managed to wrap up the character brilliantly. The Hulk one-shot, while suffering somewhat from being an adaptation of a prose piece, still gives the character the ending he deserves. Those are the hits. The misses - The 6-issue Wolverine: The End series, the 12-issue Marvel: The End series (which somehow wrote itself into canon thus violating the basic premise of the concept) and the ridiculously convoluted 18-issue X-Men: The End series which failed to provide any kind of end to anything, are far more numerous.

It's with some trepidation, then, that I pick up Alan Davis' Fantastic Four: The End. Davis' work on the characters is, to my knowledge, confined to a short run on the title that launched the "Heroes Return" event, which in any case he only did the pencils for. I'm relatively unfamiliar with his writing, but he's got enough of a high standard of quality associated with him that I was quite happy to buy this without waiting to see the reactions to it.

Luckily, it's pretty damn good. Admittedly, yes, it's a 6-issue What If and nothing's going to change that, but if you're after the final Fantastic Four story, that's something you have to accept. It looks brilliant, and the scope of the series seems suitably wide, bringing in various other Marvel Universe characters in supporting roles, while keeping the focus on the core cast, and especially Reed in this case. Davis starts the series with the Four having already disbanded, unofficially so, following the deaths of the Richards children, Franklin and Valeria. What will follow, one assumes, is going to be a story of the reunion of the Four so that they can serve one final purpose - probably involving Davis' twisted future version of Dr. Doom. It's hard to predict which side of the fence this one's going to fall on, since it shares a fair amount of qualities with the worst of the other "The End" series - a grand scale, tonnes of guest-stars, and a hefty suggestion that it's not going to be The End of anything - but as an opening issue, it's not done anything to upset me yet.
B+

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Incredible Hulk #100

Publisher Marvel • Writer Greg Pak/Various • Artist Carlo Pagulayan/Various

Calling this issue #100 of the Hulk is a somewhat arbitrary decision, given the nature of the series re-titling and re-launching and who knows what else, but everyone in comics loves to hit triple figures, so Marvel are celebrating in style, with a truly monsterously-sized issue. The lead story, the first part of the latest Planet Hulk arc - Allegiance - pairs Pak up with original Planet Hulk artist Carlo Pagulayan and picks up directly after the events of last issue (unusually so, given that the arc title has changed) and continues the Planet Hulk tradition of axe-kicking, sci-fi barbarian action that's been creeping the title up my read-pile for months now.

The second feature story feature's one of Pak's original creations for Marvel, Mastermind Excello, a character who debuted in Amazing Fantasy (Vol. 2) #15 and wins all of our respect in this issue by getting Reed Richards on the phone, out-thinking him and calling him out on being a bastard for launching the Hulk into space in the first place, as well as pointing out that he never even arrived on the planet they thought they sent him to. It's a brilliant piece that reminds us that the Hulk's presence on Marvel Earth is still felt, and that however Planet Hulk goes, one day he's coming home and someone's going to have to answer for sending him away.

The backup stories are reprints of classic Hulk issues, #152 and #153, featuring a slew of Marvel characters. In total, you're getting around a hundred pages of content for a few quid (or dollars) aroud half of which is entirely new material. It's a fitting start for the new arc and a brilliant value celebration of the fact that the title has hit a century. Sort of. Seems like I can't get enough of Hulk at the moment, and it's all down to Greg Pak.
A

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Flick-Through Reviews

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American Virgin #8 - Seagle/Cloonan
Featuring the most hilarious cliffhanger this side of a Douglas Adams book, American Virgin continues to allay my fears that it might get a bit into retread territory, though the fact that the character responsible for Cassie's death manages to do a runner - as did his associates at the end of he last arc, makes me sort of concerned about whether things are being artificially stretched out a bit. Still, it continues to be an enjoyable and intentionally provocative read.
B+

Uncanny X-Men #480 - Brubaker/Henry
The only thing that could possibly have saved this, a Vulcan solo issue (Vulcan being the third Summers brother and a walking kick in the balls to continuity) would've been if Gladiator, of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard, spent the whole issue beating the fuck out of him. Well, good news! That's exactly what happens. As a result, I enjoyed it. However, that enjoyment is tinged with the knowledge that plot structure dictates that we're going to see Gladiator get payback in spades. It's just a pity he didn't kill Vulcan while he had the chance and spare us all that story.
B

X-Men: Phoenix: Warsong #3 - Pak/Kirkham
While Pak's doing great things in Hulk, it's getting harder to enjoy his Phoenix series. I love the Phoenix concept, I love the Cuckoos, and I love Weapon Plus. So how come it's not working? Well, the revelation that there aren't just 5 Cuckoos, but hundreds, can do nothing but devalue the existing characters and strongly suggests that they'll all be dead by the end of the series. Further to that, the idea that these characters are Emma's "daughters" saddles her character with a severely devaluing situation if they live. It's a pretty sweeping change that doesn't suggest good things in the future. Tyler Kirkham's art ranges from decent to outright horrible within the space of pages, and while I'm usually not too bothered about such things, Silvestri's cover is outright scandalous given that we're dealing with what are assumed to be teenagers, if you can be bothered to go look it out. It doesn't take much to upset the balance of what can makes a good comic go instantly bad (as Ultimate Spider-Man showed us recently) and unfortunately, in this case Pak has managed to upset that. Let's hope he pulls it back next issue.
C-