Comics is a medium, not a genre. And as a medium, comics can be used to tell all kinds of mature stories, from powerful biographies (Maus, Persepolis, Fun Home, Stitches) to fascinating historical and journalistic accounts (Brought to Light, Pyongyang, Safe Area Gorazde, A Treasury of Victorian Murder) to realistic tales of human drama and comedy (Exit Wounds, Mister Wonderful, Bad Houses, Stuffed!). The one type of stories which is most associated with comics, however, is crazy action-adventure that draws on childish and adolescent fantasies – this is what critics are referring to, for example, when they say that a movie ‘feels like a comic book.’
Of course it frustrates me how the whole medium, for all its diversity of content and sophistication, is still so narrowly perceived by many people. That said, I have no problem admitting that there is a kind of over-the-top ‘Hell yeah!’ pulp adventure that comics, with their dynamic visuals and daring ideas less restricted by budgetary concerns, often deliver better than any other media – the kind of stories whose joyous exuberance can both stimulate our imagination and condition us to a state of arrested development. In short, the kind of stories Batman often finds himself a part of, especially when he’s being written by the likes of Grant Morrison or Alan Grant.
And if you enjoy Batman’s wildest adventures, here are some other ongoing or more-or-less recent comics that are even wilder:
ATOMIC ROBO
This series about the rip-roaring life of a robot created by Nikola Tesla who fights his way through the weirdest threats of the 20th and 21st centuries is everything an all-ages comic should be. Chockfull of hilarious dialogue and super-science, Atomic Robo is clever and exciting enough to appeal to anyone who likes pulpy fun, as it follows 5 basic promises from creators Brian Clevinger and Scott Weneger: no angst, no cheesecake, no reboots, no filler, and the main robot will punch a different robot (or maybe a monster).
What’s more, the series grows awesomer with each new volume. The Fightin’ Scientists of Tesladyne jumps back and forth between tales of an evil genius, giant insects, and mechanical mummies. In The Dogs of War, set during WWII, Atomic Robo fights Nazi super-soldiers and walking tanks. In The Shadow From Beyond Time, he faces a Lovecraftian hyper-dimensional creature across different eras. Other Strangeness shows us a typical week in the life of Atomic Robo, complete with a vampire invasion and an undead Thomas Edison.
The Deadly Art of Science is a bittersweet yarn of gangsters, vigilantes, and mystic skulls in the 1930s. The Ghost of Station X ends the very first page with NASA telling Robo: ‘We have astronauts trapped in orbit. They’ve got seven hours to live. You are their only chance.’ – and it doesn’t freaking slow down for over 100 pages… The Flying She-Devils of the Pacific features a secret militia of rocket-pack flying women trying to stop a rogue Japanese counter-attack against the US in the early 1950s and, unsurprisingly, it reads like a sensational, cartoony serial (even if it oddly disregards the Korean War going on at the time). The Savage Sword of Dr. Dinosaur features the series’ most ludicrous villain while still managing to be ingeniously imaginative and relentless as hell. And wait until you see Robo kicking butt in the old west, in The Knights of the Golden Circle!
Additionally, Clevinger has launched the anthology Real Science Adventures, which totally includes a team-up between Atomic Robo and Bruce Lee.
BITCH PLANET
When the patriarchy deems some women inconvenient, it sentences them to an Auxiliary Compliance Outpost, by which I mean it sends them to a freaking prison planet where they are expected to play a deadly sport on live TV. If this sounds like grindhouse material, it’s because it proudly is. Valentine de Landro’s grungy art clearly draws on blaxploitation aesthetics, to the point that one of the protagonists even looks like Pam Grier.
Yet Bitch Planet isn’t a mere pastiche. Writer Kelly Sue DeConnick, after having put her own spin on the western genre with Pretty Deadly, is now taking the clichés of 1970s’ low-budget cinema (the graphic violence, the racist douchebag, the lesbian shower scene) and turning them into shameless feminist exploitation. The final product has the iconoclastic defiance of a punk Susan B. Anthony. What a kick-ass comic!
BRAIN BOY
A sci-fi/espionage series about a telepathic, telekinetic agent of the US Secret Service (technically, a subcontractor from a shadowy private company run by an eccentric mutant who compulsively tests new technology on herself), Brain Boy mixes political intrigue and thrilling supernatural action. For example, there is a story in which the titular spy is assigned with protecting an ersatz-Hugo Chávez and damn it if he doesn’t soon find himself fighting against a horde of possessed U.N. diplomats!
The main character was originally created at the height of the Cold War era, in the early 1960s, but he was rebooted a couple of years ago. And since the comic is now being written by Fred Van Lente, it goes without saying that the whole thing is smart, fast-paced, and highly entertaining, with Brain Boy using his telepathy in various cool and inventive ways.
CASANOVA
Despite a successful career writing Marvel superheroes, Matt Fraction’s coolest work has always been in the indie scene (go ahead, call me a hipster!), with stuff like The Five Fists of Science (a witty steampunk version of Ghostbusters, starring Mark Twain) and Sex Criminals (a charming sex comedy/thriller with splashes of magic realism). And sure enough, Casanova is Fraction’s masterpiece, a spectacular-looking extravaganza of psychedelic dimension-hopping and twisted family dynamics.
Like Brain Boy, this is a sci-fi/espionage series with a lead who engages in psychic combat, but Casanova has a whole different attitude. Matt Fraction sacrifices lean narrative for sensory overload, packing each page with as many mind-blowing concepts as he can (often delivered as asides, with the characters addressing the reader) and frantically changing the hero’s allegiances, timelines, and even his gender. Casanova Quinn is sometimes an agent of E.M.P.I.R.E. (Extra-Military Police, Intelligence, Rescue, and Espionage), other times an agent of W.A.S.T.E. (an anagram whose meaning changes every second), or both at once, or none at all. His missions include, for example, destabilizing a Brazilian town that runs on wireless sexual energy and stealing a pop illusionist-turned-god.
The comic helped launch artists Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon, whom you may also know from the surrealist The Umbrella Academy or from the more realistic and deeply moving Daytripper. The two brothers draw the hell out of Casanova, with pencils that can be at once racy, light as a feather, and totally rock & roll.
So, can it possibly get any better? It can: the latest volume has backup stories written by Michael fucking Chabon.
DEFOE
2000 AD has given the universe its fair share of avant-garde adventures, from violent satire involving the proto-fascist Judge Dredd to the misanthropic Flesh, where time-travelling futuristic cowboys are chased by a vengeful T-Rex (and you find yourself rooting for the dinosaur). Of all the glorious contributions of this British anthology, though, a personal favorite of mine is the series about zombie-slayer Titus Defoe, set in a steampunk 17th century London (technically pre-steam, but so infested with celestial technology that it doesn’t make much difference). Channeling writer Pat Mills’ typical anti-authority motifs, the best bit is that Defoe is a committed Leveller who hates the royals and aristocrats he works for almost as much as he hates the zombies.
Mills and artist Leigh Gallagher sculpt a detailed world of palace politics and magical lore, inhabited by actual historical figures alongside eccentric creations such as a secret agent called If-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Wouldst-Be-Damned Jones and a gang of outcasts tasked with suicidal missions, appropriately named The Dirty Dozenne. In fact, one could say that the comic takes some time to establish all the intricacies of this alternate world and the very large cast of characters, but once it finally gets rolling, it’s one hell of a ride!