Welcome to The Forecast. Every Monday, Ninth Art's core team of comment writers, the Ninth Eight, will be your guides to the best, worst, weirdest and most noteworthy books on the shelves of your local comic shop.

BOOK OF THE WEEK: BRIT

The ideas come thick and fast in Robert Kirkman's BRIT. Steady pacing is something lesser mortals need to concern themselves with; it doesn't come into play when you've got to shoot the lead character's ex-wife's son into the sun with a huge cannon. Plausibility, characterisation and three-act structures are really only paid lip service amidst all the head-crushing and android sex.

BRIT has been published through Kirkman's original home of Image for the last year or so as a series of one-shots. The original introduced the titular hero, an aging indestructible superhero working for the government. Able to rend alien flesh, withstand super-villain death-rays and get discounts on his winter gas bills. But with each story, the character moved further away from the original premise of a worryingly old superhero who may be on his last legs without any obvious successor.

Now, he's Captain America via Superman with a hint of Hellboy, smashing skulls and forgetting to take names due to the early onset of Alzheimer's. With this third one-shot RED, WHITE, BLACK & BLUE, Kirkman eschews all the fundamental underpinnings of the original volume and goes for full-on gonzo superheroics. It's filled with soap-opera elements so unbelievable that you have to laugh; relationships taken to the kind of natural extreme you wish more superhero comics would try. It's not subtle, but in this genre, why should it be?

Kirkman's joined by Cliff Rathburne, replacing outgoing artist Tony Moore, on pencil/ink/greytone duties. It looks gorgeous and Rathburne is an able replacement, echoing Moore enough so the change isn't jarring, but bringing his own take. The two contiguous double-page splashes of an alien spacecraft being downed is AUTHORITY-level insane. Moore's solid figures and over-the-top gore marked the first volume out, but Rathburne's greytones are far more three-dimensional and, well, comic-book. If you enjoy subtlety, interesting personalities, intricate structuring - go and buy some dirty black and white indie comic. If you like indestructible men snapping the arms off solar-powered gods, pick up BRIT: RED, WHITE, BLACK & BLUE. [John Fellows]

WANT WANT WANT

Like the arrogantly precise metric system or the inexplicable fame of concave-mugged Reese Witherspoon, Mark Millar perplexes the hell out of me. His talent looms in a fairly nebulous area that not many other writers inhabit, and I'd doubt many would want to. Like most outsider art and ignorant music, Millar's work is wonderful and awful in equal shares - touching upon the tender, the heartfelt, and the real moments before twisting your stomach with something new and horrible and bizarre, a unique touch that goes beyond plot-points and gimmickry.

Take, for instance, WANTED (Image). If it actually hits the shelves this week, WANTED #5 will be the penultimate instalment in the strange story of Wesley Gibson, a shiftless, pointless loser whose life is kicked askew after inheriting his father's legacy of violence and villainy. Throughout the story, Millar has successfully crafted a layered and intriguing character worthy of our pathos, our admiration, and our scorn. Regardless of the depths of his depravity, it's difficult to condemn him (though not impossible).

Millar has often been called childish and crude - labels I'm sure he adopts as compliments - and rightfully so: with perhaps the sole exception of Garth Ennis, no other mainstream writer has captured and maintained that delicate balance between the warm and the cruel, the wonderful and the grotesque, and still managed to tell a pretty good story along the way. [John Parker]

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

With the virtual (and unexpected) shutdown in its Eye of the Storm imprint, WildStorm is plugging the holes in its publishing schedule by issuing trades of previously uncollected runs of some of its great, mid-90s titles. Foremost among these is GEN 13, and this week sees the release of Adam Hughes' and Mark Farmer's ORDINARY HEROES trade.

GEN 13, the story of five super-powered teenagers and their secret agent mentor, is a title that a surprising number of people still love. It was pure pop entertainment, without the usual angsty rubbish that some writers feel the need to shoehorn into superhero titles. Screw that; I read these titles for escapism. GEN 13 delivered a pure mainline hit of teenagers, spandex, giant evil robots, nasty spy-types, gratuitous shredding of female characters' costumes - and Caitlin Fairchild, the redheaded supergirl that launched a thousand fanboy fantasies.

Most importantly, the teens in GEN 13 looked and acted like real teenagers. They squabbled about music, had fights with their boyfriends/girlfriends, and generally behaved like an episode of MTV's REAL WORLD. It's actually incredibly rare to see comic writers and artists get teens right, which is hilarious considering comics are so often intended for teenagers. It's staggering how few artists bother going down to the mall or to a gig to see what teens actually dress like (yes, Mark Bagley, I am looking at you).

Although the peak of the series was Adam Warren's run (which still stands as one of the best teen-oriented runs ever), Hughes and Farmer's issues were among the top of the rest. The Scott Lobdell run, especially the abysmal Issue 50, is to be avoided, as is the reboot by Chris Claremont, who missed the point of the series and gave us z-grade sub-X-Men angst. [Alex de Campi]

GOTHAM CITY ONE

THE BATMAN/JUDGE DREDD FILES, due in stores soon, is the first trade from the team-up between DC and Rebellion, and it's understandable that they've opted to publish a collection of the various crossover stories between their most famous and most marketable characters. Marketing aside, it's also a good thing for readers, in that the majority of the stories included here are of a good standard. The writing by sometime regular Batman scribe Alan Grant and Dredd creator John Wagner is lively and cracks along at a pace that may be unfamiliar to US readers who have yet to experience many 2000AD strips.

The meetings of Mega-City One's immovable object with Gotham's irresistible force are fairly predictable affairs, as crossovers go - initial antagonism, then uniting to dispatch common foes - but when both characters' sizeable rosters of villains are combined, the effects can be hilarious and innovative in equal measure. Well, with two straight men as the leads, there's plenty of scope for a Joker - or indeed a Mean Machine.

The art is from some of 2000AD's finest talents of the 90s, from back when every other story was fully painted and sumptuously illustrated, and the likes of Simon Bisley, Carl Critchlow, Dermot Power and Glenn Fabry were among the biggest names in the UK industry. Work from all of the above appears in this book, among others, and should provide reason enough to purchase the book - that is, if the combination of the Law and the Bat hasn't already convinced you. [Lindsay Duff]

THE SHIPPING LIST FOR SEPTEMBER 9th 2004:

Shipping details come courtesy of Diamond. Visit the Diamond website for the latest information, as the list is subject to change.

DARK HORSE

JUL040054 BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL #93 (MR) $2.99
JUN040022 GO GIRL VOL 1 THE TIME TEAM TP $5.95
JUN040027 GRENDEL DEVILS REIGN #4 (Of 7) (MR) $3.50
JUN040050 SPYBOY FINAL EXAM #4 (Of 4) $2.99
JUN040057 STAR WARS EMPIRE #24 $2.99

DC COMICS

JUL040686 100 BULLETS #53 (MR) $2.50
JUL040597 ACTION COMICS #819 $2.50
JUL040576 BATMAN LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #183 $2.50
JUL040590 BATMAN WAR DRUMS TP $17.95
JUL040688 BITE CLUB #6 (Of 6) (MR) $2.95
JUL040610 BLOODHOUND #3 $2.95
JUL040613 CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN #4 (Of 6) $2.95
JUL040692 FABLES #29 (MR) $2.50
JUL040617 FALLEN ANGEL #15 (MR) $2.95
JUL040675 GEN 13 ORDINARY HEROES TP (MR) $14.95
JUL040595 GOTHAM CENTRAL #23 $2.50
JUL040621 GREEN ARROW #42 $2.50
JUL040631 JLA #105 $2.25
JUL040633 JSA #65 $2.50
JUL040577 NIGHTWING #97 $2.25
JUL040661 SCOOBY DOO #88 $2.25
JUL040601 SUPERMAN MAN OF STEEL VOL 3 TP $19.95
JUL040651 TOUCH #6 $2.50
JUL040668 WHITE LAMA VOL 1 REINCARNATION TP (MR) $17.95
JUL040653 WONDER WOMAN CHALLENGE OF GODS TP $19.95

IMAGE

DEC031310D CASEFILES SAM & TWITCH #10 (MR) $2.50
JUL041756 DEEP SLEEPER #4 (Of 4) (MR) $2.95
JUN041359 GRAY AREA #3 (Of 3) $5.95
JUN041415 STRYKEFORCE #5 (Of 5) $2.99
JUL041779 SWORD OF DRACULA #6 $2.95
JUN041416 TOMB RAIDER #45 $2.99
JUN041381 VICTORY VOL 2 CVR A SANDOVAL #1 (Of 4) $2.95
JUN041382 VICTORY VOL 2 CVR B CRUZ #1 (Of 4) $2.95
MAR041434D WANTED #5 (Of 6) (MR) $2.99

MARVEL

JUL042022 CAPTAIN AMERICA #31 $2.99
JUL041978 DISTRICT X #5 $2.99
JUL042035 IDENTITY DISC #4 (Of 5) $2.99
JUL042013 MARVEL AGE HULK #1 $1.75
JUL041977 MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN #6 $2.99
JUL041976 PULSE #5 $2.25
JUL042031 SHE HULK #7 $2.99
JUL042025 SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #19 $2.25
JUL042048 THANOS VOL 5 SAMARITAN TP $14.99
JUL042036 THE PUNISHER #11 (MR) $2.99
JUL042033 THOR SON OF ASGARD #8 $2.99
JUL041986 ULTIMATE X-MEN #51 $2.25
JUL042042 ULTIMATE X-MEN VOL 9 THE TEMPEST TP $10.99
JUL042028 WARLOCK #1 $2.99
JUL042005 X-FORCE #2 $2.99
JUL042003 X-MEN THE END BOOK ONE DREAMERS AND DEMONS #3 (Of 6) $2.99

OTHER PUBLISHERS

JUL042512E APOCALYPSE MEOW MANGA VOL 2 TP $9.99
JUN042220 ARCHIE AND FRIENDS #85 $2.19
JUL042786E ARMAGEDDON BOOK 1 GN (Of 11) $9.99
JUN042406 ARMY OF DARKNESS ASHES 2 ASHES #2 (MR) $2.99
JUN042122F BAD MOJO GN (MR) $12.95
JUL042545E BEAR #6 $2.95
JUL042513E BOSS MANGA VOL 3 TP $9.99
JUL042902F BUSH JUNTA GN $18.95
JUN042583 CANDYAPPLEBLACK #3 (Of 7) (MR) $3.50
JUL042757F COLONIA #10 $2.95
JUN042468I DFE ARMY OF DARKNESS ASHES 2 ASHES PHOTO CVR #2 $6.99
JUL042814E GI JOE RELOADED #7 $2.95
JUL042816E GI JOE VS TRANSFORMERS VOL 2 #1 CVR A $4.95
JUL042817E GI JOE VS TRANSFORMERS VOL 2 #1 CVR B $4.95
JUL042708E GOLDEN CAIN GN (A) $15.99
JUL042958F JANES WORLD #15 $5.95
JUN042098 JINKI EXTEND MANGA VOL 2 TP (MR) $9.99
JUN042226 JUGHEAD #160 $2.19
JUL042709E KIZUNA BONDS OF LOVE BOOK 1 GN (A) $15.99
JUN042228 LAUGH DIGEST #196 $2.39
JUL042819E MEGACITY 909 CVR A #1 $2.95
JUL042820E MEGACITY 909 CVR B #1 $2.95
JUL042790E NADESICO BOOK FOUR TP NEW PTG $9.99
JUN042896 SHONEN JUMP VOL 2 #10 OCT 2004 $4.99
JUL042517E STEEL ANGEL KURUMI MANGA VOL 8 TP (MR) $9.99
JUN042078 STRANGERS IN PARADISE VOL III #68 $2.95
JUN042430 STREET FIGHTER CVR A #10 $2.95
JUN042431 STREET FIGHTER CVR B #10 $2.95
JUN042432J STREET FIGHTER CVR C POWER FOIL #10 PI
JUL042518E SWEET & SENSITIVE MANGA VOL 2 TP $9.99
JUL042519E THOSE WHO HUNT ELVES MANGA VOL 7 TP $9.99
JUL042826E VOLTRON VOL 2 TP PARADISE LOST $9.95

The Ninth Eight are Matthew Craig, John Fellows, Kieron Gillen, Alistair Kennedy, Zack Smith, Andrew Wheeler, Ben Wooller and Bulent Yusuf.

This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution by private individuals on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.