THE BLACK BEETLE IN: KARA BÖCEK

A Mystery Tale by Francesco Francavilla
Letters by Nate Piekos of Blambot

When I looked at Francesco Francavilla’s first “Black Beetle” adventure, NO WAY OUT, near the end of the year, I admitted that perhaps I was missing something. The story had received rave reviews from both the comics press and comics professionals, but I found it kind of an unnecessarily confusing and somehow simultaneously simplistic mystery. The artwork was gorgeous, but the story didn’t grab me, much as I wanted it to.

I now wonder if part of the problem was in the story’s length. NO WAY OUT was an adventure told in five full-length issues, and I didn’t really warm up to it. KARA BÖCEK, on the other hand, was serialized in DARK HORSE PRESENTS as a series of five six-page installments, for a total run-time of (carry the one...) thirty pages! Basically a single comic’s worth of material. And I find this story to be far more exciting, fast-paced, and all around appealing than NO WAY OUT.

(I should note again, as I did at the time, that NO WAY OUT featured a prologue chapter, unrelated to the main story, which featured the Black Beetle fighting Nazis at the Colt City museum, and that I found that prologue way more engaging than the subsequent storyline, so I really think I’m on to something with this idea that the Black Beetle works best in shorter, tighter-paced adventures.)

SPRINGTIME GRAB BAG

It's that time of year again, where I look at a few random items from the "to read" pile in what has become known (at least to me) as the Springtime Grab Bag!

All of the upcoming reviews will be digital books purchased in various Comixology sales. First, we'll look a couple pulp-influenced offerings from Dark Horse: THE BLACK BEETLE IN: KARA BOCEK by Francisco Francavilla, and CONAN AND THE JEWELS OF GWAHLUR by P. Craig Russell.

After that, we'll jump over to Image for a mini-series I've wanted to check out for quite some time, but just never got around to, MADAME MIRAGE by Paul Dini and Kenneth Rocafort. And then we'll wrap things up with a visit to IDW for a look at their BATMAN/TMNT ADVENTURES mini-series, a crossover between the definitive animated incarnation of Batman and one of the many animated incarnations of the Turtles.

With the Black Beetle, Conan, and Batman and the Turtles, I have some idea of what to expect, but I really don't know what Madame Mirage has to offer, so this should be an interesting few weeks. I hope you'll stick around to see how it all unfolds!

THE UNBOXING - FEBRUARY 2018

Nothing in physical format this month, but we do have the "Digital Unboxing" to enjoy. A couple weeks ago, Amazon had another of their bargain basement Marvel sales, and I took advantage to pick up a few collections dirt cheap: BLACK PANTHER: PANTHER'S QUEST, INVADERS CLASSIC: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION volume 1 and volume 2, and IRON MAN EPIC COLLECTION: DOOM. Also, in a Dark Horse sale I grabbed THE BLACK BEETLE IN: KARA BÖCEK by Francisco Francavilla, and in a Conan-specific Dark Horse sale, I picked up CONAN AND THE JEWELS OF GWAHLUR by P. Craig Russell.

(It was announced recently that Marvel has regained the Conan license, and presumably they will begin publishing Epic Collections, Omnibuses, etc. of their original Conan material when the transfer takes effect in 2019. But I recall that when Dark Horse lost the STAR WARS license, they had a massive, insanely discounted sale near the end of their final year, and I'm holding out to see if they do the same with Conan later in 2018. I only picked up JEWELS OF GWAHLUR because it looked cool and was pretty cheap to begin with.)

And now a surprise: The Unboxing Junior Edition! I love to read to my son, and we have a ton of little simple readers for him to enjoy. But recently I started reading him a MICKEY AND MINNIE STORYBOOK COLLECTION which is a little advanced (he's only nineteen months old, after all), but which he still seems to really like. Thus I checked to see if there was a Marvel equivalent, and came across three such books on Amazon! The books all come in an earlier and a more recent edition, and since the covers of the recent ones aren't very uniform, I went with the lovely matching prior printings (which also happen to cost less on Amazon).

So now we have an AVENGERS STORYBOOK COLLECTION, a SPIDER-MAN STORYBOOK COLLECTION, and a MARVEL SUPER HEROES STORYBOOK COLLECTION to read. And the best part -- and one of the major reasons I'm mentioning these here -- is that these books were printed before Marvel stopped promoting certain characters whose rights belong with Fox, so the SUPER HEROES book actually includes a Fantastic Four story and a Silver Surfer story. In addition, the collection goes deep with certain characters you don't normally see in these kids' books, like Daredevil and She-Hulk.

The second reason I decided to spotlight these books is that, even though they were published within the past few years, they present the more classic versions of the characters (albeit usually in 2000s-era costumes). So the SUPER HEROES book, for example, has a story about Professor X's younger days, which covers his encounter with Baron Strucker alongside Magneto, his first meeting with the Shadow King, and even his battle against the demonic Lucifer (!), as well as a story about the original X-Men and even one covering the "All-New, All-Different" team's mission to Krakoa! That's some relatively obscure material for a kids' book, when they could've taken the easier route of Magneto and the Brotherhood all the way through.

Anyway, I won't gush too much over these things, but for someone like me, it's great to have the ability to read kids' books to my son which cover the actual, authentic backstories of these characters as originally conceived in the comics. I don't intend to be one of those parents who tries to force his interests onto his child -- in fact it would break my heart if my son grew to resent Marvel simply over my pushing him into it -- but I do want to introduce him to Marvel, and I would prefer to do that via the original continuity and characters, then let him branch out into whatever he likes going forward.

THE BLACK BEETLE IN: NO WAY OUT

A mystery tale by Francesco Francavilla
Lettering by Nate Piekos of Blambot | The Black Beetle created by Francesco Francavilla

I got into this one in a weird way. At some point last year, I think around September, an artist I follow on Twitter -- I believe it was Paulo Rivera, though I could be mistaken -- retweeted a writer -- and I can't recall who it was, unfortunately -- who posted a photo of the new releases he'd picked up for the week. Among these was a graphic novel called THE BLACK BEETLE: KARA BÖCEK, a mystery tale by Franco Francavilla published by Dark Horse Comics. I thought the cover looked really cool; the Black Beetle was clearly based on old pulp heroes, and Francavilla's art style greatly appealed to me.

A little research uncovered that KARA BÖCEK was the second Black Beetle story, following from NO WAY OUT, which was available digitally from Comixology. I added it to my wishlist and figured I'd pick it up at some point down the line, but then, just a few weeks later, the New York Comic-Con took place and Comixology offered a Dark Horse 50% off coupon. Thus I picked up NO WAY OUT sooner than expected, read it within the week, and slotted it in for a post at the end of the year.

Which, as it happens, is now.

So here we go!