Every once in a while there’s a superhero comic full of love for the genre. Dan Slott’s Spider-Man/Human Torch series is a good example. Godland is full of love too, without any nostalgic value--not that there’s anything wrong with it, but Godland is doing something different. The series is sort of poised on the tip of a needle--on one hand, it’s Jack Kirby homage could turn too fast; on the other, the absurdist visual humor could go too far; on the third, Casey’s making jokes about topical subjects, which sometimes doesn’t fit and sometimes does. But Godland succeeds....
And I can’t figure out why. I’ve read a few Joe Casey comic books before. I’m pretty sure Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, if assigned in a public school, would qualify as cruel and unusual punishment. I don’t think I’ve read anything but that series, which I got on the basis of Casey’s excellent interviews. I haven’t read any interviews about Godland (I picked it up on my shop owner’s recommendation) and I’m not planning on it... I want Godland to stay in its own context.
I can identify a few things that work about Godland, things Casey didn’t do in the other thing I read, a few things I don’t come across very often anymore. Godland’s issues aren’t particularly long reads, but they are dense. I love the way the comic book moves--Casey introduces subplots a few places, but it’s never a chore coming back to them (except when he’s got some omniscient narration). In the second issue, there’s a beautiful moment when the main character tells someone else something the reader already knows, but the other person does not. It’s against the “rules” of drama, but I loved that moment.
It’s not just the writing, of course. Tom Scioli’s art is fun to look at, something a lot of comic book art is currently not. Even when comic book art is good, excellent even, it might not necessarily be fun to closely examine. While it still fulfills the primary function--to tell the story--there’s also something very inviting about it. Even the guy with his skull in a tank. (Scioli’s art isn’t perfect by any means, there are a few perspective problems bad enough you’d think he’d missed the Renaissance).