‘Rock Candy Mountain’ Tops This Week’s Best New Comics

It’s a bit surprising that until now, nobody’s really tried to make a comic out of the fascinating hobo subculture that sprung up between the Civil War and the Great Depression. Kyle Starks’ Rock Candy Mountain (Image Comics), which launches today, changes all of that, and it’s a delightful mix of American folk fantasy and action story.

The plot is really in the title: Jackson, a mysterious hobo, is searching for the Rock Candy Mountain. Yes, the one from the song, although this is the real hobo song, the one with a tragic edge of grown men hoping for a place of rest, not the cute one you sang in grade school. But, of course, there’s an inexperienced hobo, an organized crime ring, and Satan himself.

In truth, Starks is better suited to his material as a writer than an artist is some respects; his thick-lined comic-strip style can feel a little flat for something dealing with the blarney that lies at the heart of American folklore. But the sheer originality of the idea, and his capability with action scenes, give the book a lot of momentum, and it’ll be fun to see where Starks goes with this aspect of American culture.

Cecil Castellucci and Marguerite Sauvage deliver a key issue in their offbeat, trippy book about a girl possessed by an alien that explores just why Shade is so flighty. Turns out, that’s a rather literal thing, in an issue that’s a look about what it means to not belong and search, somewhere, for a place that you do. It pays off with a heartwrenching moment of teenage spite that changes the direction of the book completely, and offers a fascinating take on growing up.

Yes, Claudio Sanchez, the lead singer of Coheed and Cambria, is back, co-writing with Chondra Echert to try and explain what the hell that prog rock album everybody was talking about a decade ago was actually about. You’d be forgiven for thinking Sanchez is admiring his own navel, but the narrative has a pretty good balance between personal drama and pulp cheese, with Rags Morales and particularly colorist Emilio Lopez managing to deliver the grandiose silliness of the album without resorting to van art cliches. It’s all a bit excessive, but it stands on its own, and if you’re a fan of pulp SF, it’s a great read.

Marc Guggenheim, of Arrow fame, and Ardian Syaf take the X-Men back to basics. Deep, deep basics, down to Guggenheim having Kitty Pyrde stroll from the wreckage quoting Wolverine. Whether or not this is a good idea is something of an open question; the callbacks to Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum’s classic ’70s runs aren’t heavy enough to be distracting, but fate has made this “back to what works” approach poorly timed after Marvel’s recent problems with statements about ‘diverse’ books. But on its own, it’s a solid team book and a good start for a new era with Marvel’s mutants.

In the first issue of Extremity, Daniel Warren Johnson admitted the book came out of a deep personal fear he had, as an artist, of losing a hand. That essay really should have been in the front of the book, because it forces you to consider this book in the sense of what happens to a person when they lose a piece of themselves, in both the concrete and spirtual sense. It makes this title, which has a lot of action, a bit heartbreaking and gives this rampage of vengeance real weight. Our heroine has lost a lot more than just a hand, and exploring how that wounds gives what could be a standard story a fresh twist.

Faith #10, Valiant: Valiant’s best solo book takes on the classic idea of villains teaming up against the hero, with its own twists, of course. That this book takes superhero tropes worn threadbare and makes them feel fresh feels like a small miracle, every month, and this new arc is a great place to pick it up.

Savage Things #2, DC Comics: Justin Jordan and Ibrahim Moustafa continue a sharp, worrying thriller about an elite unit of psychopaths out to use US counterterrorism tactics against New York City, and the other psycho used to take them down.

Black Cloud #1, Image Comics: Jason Latour and Greg Hinkle mix together Sandman-style dream logic with a political thriller in a bizarre, but tempting, mix with a lot of promise.

Royalty #1, Marvel: Or, ‘The Inhumans Go To Space’ as basically everyone except Karnak gets in a rocket ship to seek out the future of the Inhumans, with enough twists and ideas to make what might be a good starting place for new readers.

Sovereigns #0, Dynamite: Turok, Magnus: Robot Hunter, and the other Gold Key heroes get another riff in this anthology issue introducing them and explaining where they wind up, centuries from now.

Masters Of Spanish Comic Book Art, Dynamite (Hardcover, $40): European comics have a long, rich, unusual tradition that’s difficult for Americans to learn about, thanks to language and cultural barriers, so this text is a great overview to both comics history and a good starting point to learn about an entire separate comics tradition.

We Stand On Guard, Image Comics (Softcover, $15): Writer Brian K. Vaughn offers an interesting take on the invasion story, where the US invades Canada for its water, and Canadians don’t take it lying down.

Secret Sneyd: The Unpublished Cartoons Of Doug Sneyd, Dark Horse (Hardcover, $15): Dark Horse follows up a quite gorgeous look at cartoonist Doug Sneyd’s career in 2011 with this supplemental book featuring unpublished cartoons from Playboy‘s house stylist.