EXTRA EXTRA! MANHATTAN GUARDIAN'S TRUE SECRET!

There's a lot of good comics out there. But that doesn't impress me much anymore. As I've said, I want GREAT comics. Great comics hold up under more scrutiny. There's more to them. They're more entertaining, enlightening, or both. And The Manhattan Guardian is a great comic (Shining Knight must have been, too, being only the second fantasy thing not involving me, Angelina Jolie, Nao Oikawa, and Audrey Tautou that I've ever enjoyed . . .but that's a tangent).

Now I could go on and on with a review of the book. I could talk about the cool, fun plot. I could talk about, living here, knowing the exact places in which it is taking place. I could talk about pirates, about a black hero who isn't some white-assed writer's horny dream of a gangbanger. I could talk about the number of ideas just jizzed out in the first issue.

Ideas. See, something struck me about this issue. Something felt . . .different. I re-read it, I looked up the discussions on awful message boards ["Does it erase previous continuity? If so I HATE IT drool drool drool fnyaaaa!" (it doesn't)]. But it just came together. Sitting here, with that comic on one side of my desk and an FF book on the other side.

The Manhattan Guardian is a Marvel comic. Rather, it is THE Marvel comic. To wit: Marvel comics take place in Manhattan. Marvel comics feature a flawed-but-striving hero. Much of the comic takes place in the large building in which a populist publication with stories of wild happenings and craziness are featured: it's the House of Ideas. The House of Ideas is also run by the electronic spirit of a man who created the wonders, including four elemental heroes. Stargard even LOOKS like Jack Kirby (who, of course, also created The Guardian). And forget not the most obvious tell-tale sign of Being-Created-By-Stan-And-Jack . . .an alliterative real name! Jake Jordan is everything that's good about Marvel comics, transplanted into Morrison's grand experiment in the DCU.

Oh, yeah, and it's beautifully drawn.