3 out of 5

It was a winning combination from afar but kind of a mish-mash up close.  Mark Waid’s Brave and the Bold reboot started when the writer was having a pretty snifty finding-of-self in comics – this was the year before he would move over to Boom! for a lot of creator-owned works, which would then lead into 2011/12, which found him back at Marvel on an amazing Daredevil run while still successfully mixing it up in the indies.  Waid’s career has often flowed along a path of ups and downs, moreso, I think, than most other writers whom tend to stick to an overall positive or negative style evolution over time – there are periods from Waid’s writing history that I enjoy and unenjoy for various reasons, and it’s not a linear progression.  In 2007ish, the interesting but failed experiment that was the world of 52 seemed to re-spark some of Waid’s fanboy enthusiasm that brought him to projects like J.L.A. Year One, and this in turn morphed into compelling “classic” feeling takes on Legion of Superheroes and Brave and the Bold.  I would say this was the template for then branching off into destroying this world with his Irredeemable title and rejoicing in its pop-colored flash on DD, but Legion and BandB were necessary stepping stones to get there – good titles with great elements and awesome first or first few issues, but not expressive enough as the series would go on for Waid to fully get his kicks.

Lotsa b.s. from me on this, yeah?

True nuff.  The two series are tied together in another way – they are incredibly cluttered with overly complicated storylines that end up hiding simple concepts and resolutions, and amazing artists who wow your eyes from issue to issue until something just changes with the art – a fill-in artist, or maybe they’re just doing layouts all of a sudden – and tons and tons of characters to fill in the gaps of story.  For BandB we had George Perez, who really shit tons of fucking gold all over the first few issues of the series, just a pristine example of how to load your pages with intensely unique layouts and pack each panel with detail, rendering people with anatomical consistency, and yet somehow keep everything looking clear, and readable, and understandable, and looking like a classic comic.  It’s breath-taking stuff.  And I don’t mean to knock the story – Waid’s initial tale (broken into two 6-issue arcs) of a book in which is written all future events – which is stolen by people whom shouldn’t have this info – starts out as campy fun, a run around the universe with our favorite characters, puns and wackiness a’flyin’ – and builds in a great feeling of “what the heck are we gonna do?” before stalling on a conclusion (which is when it gets to the second 6-issue arc).  While he drops a pretty wonderful deus ex machina at issue 12, something starts to feel off in the plotting – it’s not zipping by anymore, it’s starting to feel a bit more mechanical and plodding, then Perez is gone – fine, he’s busy – and we get some great artists to continue but it’s too late, a dash of magic has been lost.  And if you re-read these things in one sitting, it’s a bit more obvious.  All that seemingly crazy plotting is just one long runaround, a lot of bluster.  It’s great looking bluster, and worked month-t0-month, but the story becomes much less gripping once you know where it’s going and when read in a sitting.

Waid turns in a few more interesting issues of a similar “feels great but something’s lacking” vibe before, presto, he’s off the book.  His decision?  Sales?  Editorial?  Who knows how these things work.

I think this era of Waid should definitely appeal to his fans that are more of the capes-and-triva crowd, who like a lot of distraction with their distraction.  To me, I’m glad to have read it, but more glad to see it as Mark getting some kinks of out his writing game to move on to an amazing batch of books post 2010.