Rucka, Greg
About the Author:
Greg Rucka lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, Jennifer Van Meter, and their two children, Elliot and Dashiell.
AVERAGE REVIEW SCORE:
3 out of 5
(5 books)
TOP PICK:
Star Wars: Guardians Of The Whills
Elektra: Everything Old Is New Again
(Art by Joe Bennett, Carlo Pagulayan, Carlos Meglia, Danny Miki, Crime Lab Studios and Victor Olazaba)
The second book of Elektra's Marvel Knights series sees her trying to break free of her past as both a warrior of the Chaste and an assassin of the Hand. However, apprenticing herself to a new teacher, she learns that what she truly needs to break free from is her addiction to violence itself.
There's nothing inherently wrong with this story of a trained killer having to reconnect with her humanity but at the same time there's nothing terribly ground-breaking about it either. This book rolls through any number of cliches as Elektra meets a sensei who initially doesn't want to train her and whilst Drake specifically states that they can skip the painting-the-fence type of training, she still immediately has Elektra help her to repair a children's playground. It's like Rucka was aware of the cliches but couldn't help falling into them anyway.
There are some nicely menacing villains at play here, with the sadistic Hand killers known as Pain, Thought and Shadow attempting to hunt down Elektra and return her to the fold; however, their menace is completely undercut by Carlos Meglia's stylised and cartoonish artwork. I don't hate Meglia's style, but here it feels totally inappropriate to the tone of the story and clashes badly with the art style featured before and after it.
2 out of 5
Star Wars: Guardians Of The Whills
Taking place around 1 BBY, this book focuses on Chirrut Imwe and Baze Malbus; two of the characters introduced in the movie 'Rogue One' (as novelised by Alexander Freed). Former members of the titular religious sect, Chirrut and Baze become increasingly concerned by the Empire's cruelty on their homeworld Jedha. When the rebel Saw Gerrera and his partisans arrive, they seem like natural allies but soon find that their goals are far from the same.
Of all the great characters introduced in 'Rogue One', these two were the ones I found most endearing. It is the curious mix of Baze's cynicism, Chirrut's sense of humour and the clear devotion to one another that makes them so compelling. Rucka tells the story here entirely from their points of view, allowing us to truly inhabit these characters and explore their feelings and motivations. I liked the difference in tone the author manages to achieve when switching between Baze and Chirrut and, in the case of the latter, I don't think I've ever really read a POV story about a blind character before. It makes for fascinating reading as Rucka has to convey situations and events without using visual markers.
I also enjoyed seeing a bit more of Saw and his partisans. Some of the background characters from the movie get a bit of fleshing out, but it is reading the meetings between the Guardians and the embittered Saw that I found particularly enjoyable. Perhaps the best character moment I've seen for Saw so far in Star Wars media comes when he and Baze simply have a drink and a chat together.
A far more engaging book than the comic-bookish cover and 'young adult' marketing would have you believe.
4 out of 5
Star Wars: Smuggler's Run
Not long after 'A New Hope', Han and Chewbacca are persuaded to take on a mission to retrieve a Rebel scout from a world rife with the criminal underworld. However, hot on their tails is the ruthless and relentless Imperial Commander Alecia Beck, who will stop at nothing to capture her prey.
Part of the 'Journey to The Force Awakens' publishing spree, this YA book was one of several that I avoided on principle (I hate what evil Disney have done with the post-RotJ era), however, after discovering that apart from some minor bookend scenes it's set entirely within the Original Trilogy era, I decided to give it a go.
I'll say straight off that this is a well-written and nicely-paced story, which does a perfect job of capturing the characters of the likes of Han, Chewie and Leia. I also really liked Beck as an antagonist; she's not over-the-top evil and she's not vain and incompetent, instead being a cunning enemy who genuinely feels like a danger to the main characters.
What holds this book back is that it all comes across as just a bit too safe. At this point in the timeline nothing too significant can happen to Han or Chewie, the character who links this story to 'The Force Awakens', Ematt, is a background character in the movie and, honestly, doesn't actually show much more personality than that here either and, because this came out so early in (evil) Disney's rebooted canon, there's no significant links to the larger Star Wars universe either.
This is an enjoyable short adventure for Han and Chewie but, honestly, if you skipped it, you wouldn't really be missing out on anything you couldn't find done better elsewhere.
3 out of 5
Wonder Woman: Vol. 1 - The Lies
(Art by Liam Sharp, Matthew Clark and Sean Parsons)
A DC Rebirth book. Diana is struggling with jumbled and conflicting memories of her past and only her old friend-turned-nemesis Cheetah can help her to discover what is true. She is then reunited with Steve Trevor and together they set off in search of Themiscyra and answers.
Straight away I liked the core premise of this book. I despise reboots and the fact that DC reboots their canon every few years these days has always annoyed me, so it's really interesting to see one of the major heroes struggling with the conflicting backstories these reboots have created for them. It's wonderfully (pun intended) meta and it makes sense that someone as imbued with divine power as Diana would be able to sense the changes.
The delivery, it has to be said, isn't quite as good as the premise. Instead of tackling that interesting idea head-on, we're taken on a tangential trip into the jungles of Africa for a fight with, I dunno, werewolves maybe (?) and the cult of a weird plant god. It's not bad, but it does feel like two completely tonally different stories are going on at the same time and the one I was less interested in gets more time dedicated to it.
I can't say I've ever been a huge Wonder Woman fan, but this left me keen to read more of her adventures in this series.
3 out of 5
Wonder Woman: Vol. 2 - Year One
(Art by Nicola Scott and Bilquis Evely)
A DC Rebirth book. A retelling of Wonder Woman's origins in which she grows up as the Princess of Themiscyra but is called upon to leave the island to help Steve Trevor counter the jingoistic work of Ares, God of War.
You've seen the first Gal Gadot 'Wonder Woman' movie, right? (If you haven't, then it's worth a watch - and definitely the best so-called Snyderverse movie, although that's not a high bar). This book largely hits all the same beats as the movie, albeit in a modern setting instead of World War One. There are other differences, of course, but the overall story is much the same. It's a pretty good retelling of Wonder Woman's origins too, but the fact that it's so familiar means that it lacks much in the way of narrative punch and feels a bit redundant at this point (like seeing Bruce Wayne's parents get shot... again).
So, as an updated origin story for the hero it's functional and solid but unremarkable. However, I was pretty disappointed that this second volume of the series went down this route instead of continuing the intriguing story of Diana's memory being corrupted by all of the DC's canon reboots. It felt like a step backwards in that respect. (Also, stop trading off the name of Frank Miller's seminal 'Batman: Year One' unless you're going to release something as good, DC).
3 out of 5
Collaborations & Anthologies:
Batman: Officer Down (here)
Daredevil By Mark Waid Vol. 3 (here)
Dragon Age: The First Five Graphic Novels (here)
Gotham Central: Book One - In The Line Of Duty (here)
Gotham Central: Book Three - On The Freak Beat (here)
Prelude To Infinite Crisis (here)
Star Wars: From A Certain Point Of View (here)
Star Wars: Shattered Empire (here)
Superman: New Krypton - Volume Four (here)
Superman: New Krypton - Volume Three (here)
Superman: Sacrifice (here)
The OMAC Project (here)
Wonder Woman: Her Greatest Battles (here)