#jason aaron

[kryptonbabe]

A boy, his dog and their doomed planet

From Absolute Superman #2 (2024)

[lostsoulincssea]

Superman and Lois in Absolute Superman #2

[vertigoartgore]

2011’s Wolverine & the X-Men Vol.1 #2 cover by Chris Bachalo and Tim Townsend.

[1dreamsareweird1]

Do we like these or no?

[cosmosrebellion]

Wanda: "I say with all the love a friend can muster, Stephen: You are a whore."

[draconian62]

Absolute Superman (2024-)#6

[wwprice1]

Incredible preview art for Absolute Superman!

[mikyapixie]

𝐀𝐛𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐞 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 #𝟕 𝐂𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫

[daily-bruce-wayne]

[literary-illuminati]

2025 Book Review #16 – Southern Bastards Book 1 by Jason Aaron and Jason Latour

My goal of reading a non-mainstream-superhero comic book hardcover a month is very rapidly exceeding the number of non-mainstream superhero comic books I’ve ever actually heard of. So this was a recommendation from a friend on tumblr, opened with absolutely no expectations of what I would find inside. And going in with zero expectations, this was a good read! The end of the first arc genuinely took me by surprise in a way not much fiction does these days, and the general atmosphere and character work is all great.

The story opens with the middle-aged and disillusioned-about-everything Earl Tubb returning to his father’s ramshackle home in the rural and impoverished Craw Country, Alabama, to pack up his belongings and clear the place out after his uncle had a stroke. His father was the town’s former sheriff, who took the job far too seriously and got himself killed over it. Having run away to join the army, Earl is returning decades later only under duress – but despite his best efforts, finds himself sticking his nose into the rot and crime that now defines life in the county. The end of the first arc is his feud with Boss, the coach of the universally beloved high school football team, and the crime lord and uncrowned king of Craw County. The second arc then jumps back a few decades to show just where Boss came from and how he clawed his way up to where he is now. Throughout, there’s a constant drumbeat of brutal violence, bigotry both petty and grand, and football. So, so much football.

The heart and soul of the story is Craw County itself, and the whole sort of rural southern region it represented (one where Birmingham Alabama is ‘the big city’). It is a portrayal that is so cynical and on the nose my initial read was that it was more mean-spirited satire than attempt at real representation – but, while it’s certainly a bit exaggerated, the letters section of the end of each issue is always bursting with lifelong southerners talking about how familiar and compelling a setting it is and how close to home it feels. Which just adds a whole extra layer to the reading experience, really. In any case, the extremely unsentimental betrayal of just how casually bigoted (racist, homophobic, etc) everyday life is makes me curious how Earl’s biracial daughter (who looks set to be a major character in the next arc) will be handled going forward.

This is a crime story, to an extent, but really it’s character drama that happens to be in a place where crime and corruption and violence are just the rules of the game. Though maybe it’s better to call it a collection of tragedies – the two arcs so far have been a man utterly destroyed by his virtue and pigheaded stubbornness in an act of totally futile valor, and one consumed and bled of everything admirable in him by his ambition and his spite. In neither case does any sort of karmic justice or outside authority setting things aright seem likely. Which I adore, to be clear – this sort of establishing someone’s basic character and then watching it ruin them over the course of four issues is catnip to me.

This is I believe the least ‘genre’ comic book I have ever read – no ghosts, gods, superheroes or aliens to be seen! A setting that is ostensibly our own world (and a very run-down and washed out portrayal of it, at that)! - which is a bit ironic, really. It’s not like ‘crime melodrama’ isn’t one of the archetypal lowbrow sorts of fiction ‘genre fiction’ was initially used to denigrate. Might as well be reading a cowboy story. And you can very much see the debt and lines of connection this owes to the superhero stories that both author and artist seem to have made their career on – the first arc centring on Earl, especially, is just a mask and a happy ending from being an origin story. There’s an iconic, history-freighted and serendipitously acquired weapon he starts wielding as he takes up his father’s metaphorical mantle! Hell, the crime lord’s anonymous muscle all wear anonymizing costumes, even! (Football uniforms with the helmet on, in this case). The story is overwhelmingly concerned with the heroic drive to set yourself against what seems like the whole world, and the violence that unfailingly ensues when you do. I’m deeply curious if the second book will build up to a more positive vision of it, or keep the tragic sensibility.

This is not, visually, a particularly beautiful book – but I don’t really think it’s trying to be. The art does an excellent job making Craw County seem dingy and run-down as it’s introduced, and honestly I can’t really say if most of the cast is ugly or if this is just the first comic book I’ve ever read with a realistic variety of body shapes and senses of fashion, and characters with less-than-perfect skin. In any event, the effect is very worn-down and lived in, except for the very stylized moments of high contention and violence (and/or football), where the composition gets much more interesting, the art much more symbolic, and the blood extremely plentiful.

Anyway, all in all an odd little number. Recommended if you like comic books and crime dramas, or are just sick and tired of costumes and capes. Or even if you’re only apathetic to comics but really love character drama and brutal violence (and high school football) in the rural south.

[kryptonbabe]

Textless 4x4 icons of emo Kal-el in Absolute Superman #1 (2024) by Rafa Sandoval

[lostsoulincssea]

Superman and Lois in Absolute Superman

[vertigoartgore]

2016's Doctor Strange Vol.4 #9 (LGY : #363) cover by Chris Bachalo & Tim Townsend.

[nickfuryagentofsword]

Avengers 25 (2019) by Jason Aaron & Stefano Caselli

Cover: Alex Ross

Marvels 25th Variant

[cosmosrebellion]

Wanda deckded out in magical artifacts, which include a hellfire shotgun, is an amazing visual.

[crisisofinfinitemultiverses]

Absolute Superman 5 (2025) by Jason Aaron & Rafa Sandoval

Cover: Rafa Sandoval