Mindless Ones

Writer, Absolute Green Lantern (with Jahnoy Lindsay, 2025 – ), Metamorpho (with Steve Lieber, 2024 – 2025), The Immortal Thor (with Alex Ross & Co, 2023 – 2025). Ace podcast guest. Superstar DJ. All round sound human being.

Can you remember the first time you thought about alien intelligence?

Probably last week. I’m doing at least one book about alien thought processes and how an alien philosophy might differ from our own… while still cheating it all completely by having that different alien philosophy say things about very real and destructive human philosophies that we can’t get away from. That said, I always enjoy a nice New Wave of SF story about navigating alien systems of being, so there’s plenty of that in the DNA.

What are the chances of anything coming from Mars?

A million to one, they said! The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one – but still they come!

You once said it was important for Metamorpho to have a sincere relationship with the audience. Which element do you have the most sincere relationship with?

I’m incredibly sincere about the element oxygen. I think that’s the one you really can’t fake a relationship with. Eventually, of course, I’m going to have to break up with oxygen – but not by choice.

Can you say anything about the future of Absolute Green Lantern?

The further along I get with it, the more it reveals itself to me. Every issue from here will bring new and strange revelations until the tangled timeline of the book is entirely filled in… at which point, having untangled time, we tangle space and take a detour to the other end of the universe. I’m writing that one now.

In your dreams, are other worlds still possible?

I still dream, both literally and figuratively. If I were to believe that other worlds were no longer possible, I’d have to drop comics and become an op-ed columnist.

What’s next for you in this world?

Life’s a bit of a Red Queen’s Race at the moment – I’m running full tilt to stay where I am – but some future plans are starting to make themselves known in the present. Big things are manifesting in the world of Thor, for example. Meanwhile, in the personal realm, I’m DJing again – that might go somewhere exciting, or stay at the level where it’s a comfortable night out with friends.

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From secret staging grounds on two of Cybertron’s moons, the valiant MINDLESS ONES prepare to draft some short comics reviews…

Metamorpho: The Element Man #5 – Steve Lieber (art), Al Ewing (script), Lee Loughridge (colours), Ferran Delgago (letters)

Issue after issue, Ewing and Lieber find new ways to turn the language of groovy “educational” comics into an invitation to play. My favourite individual example of this so far is in issue #3, a two page spread drawn like a maze puzzle for kids/timefuct beatniks, with inserts showing our heroes blundering through a series of traditional perils.

Without this fundamental conceit, and its perfect extension of “a solid chromium foot… one of the hardest substances in the human body” into a bespoke absurdist aesthetic, some of this comic’s barbs against “A.I.” would have felt like mere prompts for applause. As it is, they’re of a piece with the Mad Mod’s monologues, or this issue’s grand duel between solar avatars – carefully arranged incongruities set in opposition to the banal ones our culture is producing en masse.

Resistance is all about finding the space in between the circuits, you see. Easier for Element Woman and Andor than you or me, but don’t let that stop you trying, Metamaniacs!

Batman/Superman: World’s Finest Annual 2025 – Dan McDaid (art), Christopher Cantwell (script), Mark Waid (story), John Kalisz (colours), Steve Wands (letters), Dan Mora (cover)

Let me pay this comic one of the highest compliments I know: having read it, I don’t need to read any of the other issues in this series. This despite the issue in question being part 3 of a 6 part crossover between this comic and Justice League Unlimited. Writing an entertaining single issue under these conditions is a distinct formal challenge, and Cantwell and Waid have a lot of fun with it here, loading up a villainous plan with a twist that is both skilfully foreshadowed and compelling in its own right.

Artist and friend of the blog Dan McDaid has been doing some great work over at DC comics lately, finishing up extended runs on Kneel Before Zod (with Joe Casey) and Shazam! (with Josie Campbell). Zod provided plenty of opportunities for McDaid to flex his big boy drawing arm while depicting rugged action against a series of classic sci-fi landscapes. Shazam, meanwhile, showed that he could provide moments of formal play and true menace in an otherwise amiable fantasy.

This World’s Finest annual is all about the villains, though, and its chief appeal – beyond the old school comics writing craft mentioned above – is the amount of fun McDaid has drawing these goons. My favourite moment comes in this panel, where Bizarro, Cheetah, Lex and the Joker contemplate their own dark futures.

I don’t know which detail I’m most fond of here, Bizarro looking like he am no shat his pants, Lex and Cheetah’s duelling eyebrows, or the Joker’s stream of consciousness slowing to a trickle as he doubts his life choices and the company he keeps.

The annual is full of wee bits like this. Plastic Man swamping the villains and the page itself; a fun collision between Superman and Bizarro; some impeccable disdain from Lex. The art of providing familiar pleasures is easy to underrate until you realise how seldom it’s done well.