Trees Vol 2: Two Forests by Warren Ellis and Jason Howard

Trees Vol 2: Two Forests written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Jason Howard follows on from the first volume, titled In Shadow, which was one of my favourite comic trades ever. After waiting for a long time for Two Forests to come out, I then left it on my shelf for rather a while before I got around to reading it... but at least that means I'm now closer to the eventual (hopefully) release of volume 3?

A survivor of the Blindhail Event looks for signs of imminent global disaster among the megaliths and relics of Orkney, while the new mayor of New York plans to extract his revenge for the awful thing that happened the day the Tree landed on Manhattan.

The first volume had a lot of point of view characters but, due to events, there are fewer in this second volume. The two main story lines follow a biologist who was close to the action in the first volume, and the soon-to-be mayor of New York. We only get a small hint at the end of what some of the other characters are up to (and we don't hear from all of them) and the overall story remains incomplete, as is expected for an ongoing series.

I enjoyed the opportunity to delve into some of the story lines in more depth. It was nice to get a larger chunk of two stories rather than smaller chunks of more stories, which are harder to keep track of when the volumes are so spaced out. (There is currently no anticipated release date for Vol 3 due to the creators spending time on a TV pilot of Trees.) What we are presented with develops both personal stories and the overarching story of the Trees, and what they might be doing — not that any key questions about them are really answered.

I enjoyed this instalment but don't have quite as much to say about it as the first volume — mainly because all the background and basis for awesomeness has already been covered. If you haven't read Trees before, I highly recommend that you do and that you start with Vol 1: In Shadow. This isn't the kind of series you can pick up mid-way and expect to make full sense of. I recommend the series to fans of darker science fiction and comics/graphic novels.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: 2016, Image Comics
Series: Trees vol 2 of ongoing series (with two volumes out so far), collecting issues #9–14
Format read: Trade paperback
Source: Some sort bricks and mortar comic book shop (I have forgotten which country it was in though)

Trees Vol 1: In Shadow by Warren Ellis

Trees Vol 1: In Shadow written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Jason Howard collects the first eight issues of the ongoing comic book series Trees. I read Issue #1 back in May and was intrigued and then picked up the first volume when I came across it in my local genre bookshop. If you read my short review of issue #1, let me just say, the first issue barely begins to scratch the surface of the awesomeness contained within this series.

Ten years after they landed. All over the world. And they did nothing, standing on the surface of the Earth like trees, exerting their silent pressure on the world, as if there were no-one here and nothing under foot. Ten years since we learned that there is intelligent life in the universe, but that they did not recognize us as intelligent or alive.

Trees looks at a near-future world where life goes on in the shadows of the Trees: in China, where a young painter arrives in the “special cultural zone” of a city under a Tree; in Italy, where a young woman under the menacing protection of a fascist gang meets an old man who wants to teach her terrible skills; and in Svalbard, where a research team is discovering, by accident, that the Trees may not be dormant after all, and the awful threat they truly represent.

First things first, there are no chapter breaks in this volume, so it was impossible to tell where issue #1 ended and issue #2 began, which was slightly confusing at first but not a hardship to reread the first issue again. And the issue covers are included at the end so you're not missing out. This lack of structure makes Trees feel much more like a continuous story than a lot of other comics I've read. Even Marvel's multi-issue arcs tend to have little recaps at the start of the issues, something that was completely lacking in Trees. A good choice, I think, lending a sense of coherence.

As I had already seen in issue #1, Trees follows several groups of characters in different parts of the world — a world in which towering alien structures have landed and then done not much else. A lot of the story doesn't directly involve the Trees, but some of it does and, of course, what kind of a story would it be if nothing continued to not happen? (Answer: a boring one.) But Trees doesn't stick to tired tropes when dealing with weird things happening with the alien structures. It subverts tropes and brings the Volume to a close with an unexpected bang. I have no idea what to expect in Volume 2, aside from maybe some of the things a couple of characters were planning.

Genre tropes aren't all that Trees subverts. What I found wasn't at all hinted at in Issue #1 was the scope of the gender issues dealt with in this comic. Most obviously there's the story in the Chinese artists' enclave under a tree, where the new boy a) learns that trans people exist, b) explores his own sexuality and c) deals with everything better than anyone particularly expected him to. I'd say it's worth reading just for those bits (actually, I'd say Trees is worth reading for any one of the individual storylines). There's also a strong feminist story in Italy, where a gangster's girlfriend learns some life skills from an older guy and takes matters (and the town) into her own hands. There was one thing the older guy said to her that particularly struck me. I was going to quote it but looking at it again it doesn't quite work out of context. But it's along the lines of the older guy feeling bad for contributing to a world where women like her (no money, minimal education, etc) are marginalised. He's helping her to redress the balance and has zero interest in her sexually, which I appreciated.

The other storylines involved scientists studying the Trees, which I don't think I can say too much about, a politician in Manhattan who will obviously be relevant in Volume 2, and the president of an African country. The latter story was left on a bit of a cliffhanger and I'm particularly interested in seeing what happens next. Hopefully it will be developed further and, hopefully we will eventually get some answers as to what the Trees want, where they came from and why they're here. I look forward to finding out.

Trees Vol 1: In Shadow was an excellent read and I highly recommend it to all SF and comic fans. In particular, I think readers who enjoyed Saga but are (also) interested in a more down-to-Earth SF read would do well to have a look at Trees. I am very much looking forward to the next volume, which I'm sure will be just as though-provoking.

5 / 5 stars

First published: February 2015, Image Comics
Series: Trees, ongoing series. Volume 1, collecting Issues #1–8
Format read: Trade paperback
Source: Purchased from a physical book shop

A pocketful of issues

Mostly thanks to Free Comic Book Day downloads on Comixology, but also thanks to a few other sources, I recently read a bunch of free-floating issue #1 comics. Also because I was jetlagged and Comixology suddenly seemed like a good idea. I might not want to give the evil empire money, but where's the harm if it's free downloads?

Anyway, so I'm posting short reviews of the issues I read. I'm also dividing them into three categories of interested-in-reading-on-ness.

Definitely going to buy the trade paperback

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #1 by Ryan North and Erica Henderson (Marvel)

This was an issue #1 that a friend bought as a floppy and let me read while we were hanging out. It is awesome. Squirrel Girl can talk to squirrels and has a tail and super strength (the proportional strength and speed of a squirrel)! In this new comic series she is off to college, disguising her tail by tucking it into her pants. Everything about this series looks awesome, including the voice and the art. I am very much hanging out to buy the trade volume when it comes out (though it looks like I'll be waiting till September).


Bitch Planet #1 by by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landro (Image)
 

This has been on my radar for a while but I wasn't sure whether it would quite be my thing. It definitely is. I don't think describing it as "Orange is the New Black in space" is inaccurate. There's a lot of very positive female representation, especially from a body-positivity sense, although the setting is aggressively misogynistic. I mean, women are sent to a prison planet (hence the title) for minor crimes such as not being perfect wives or daring to age. It was quite horrifying, actually, but I'm confident this is going to be a great series and I look forward to the trade coming out in July.

Considering Reading On

Wayward #1 by Jim Zub and Steve Cummings (Image)

An Irish-Japanese girl moves to Tokyo to live with her mother. While still very jetlagged, she wanders around the city, runs into a band of ruffians and also a swarm of cats. The ruffians turn out to be evil turtles and our heroine is rescued by a superhero girl and also discovers super powers of her own. It caught my fancy and I am definitely interested in reading more, just not quite as urgently as the two books mentioned above. Mind you, the first volume is already out, so I might pick it up impulsively if I see it reasonably-priced. Also cats. I want to know more about the cats.


Trees #1 by Warren Ellis and Jason Howard (Image)

Set a decade after aliens come to Earth and leave mysterious cylindrical towers all over the place ("trees"), this series looks like it will be looking at the ongoing consequences in a variety of places around the world. Just in issue #1 we see Rio de Janeiro, Manhattan, somewhere polar, and a weird Chinese artists' enclave. So it seems like it will be a fairly diverse story and, of course, the premise is pretty interesting and I'd like to see where they take it. I'm leaning towards wanting to read this one on more than an impulse buy level.



Batgirl #1 (New 52) by Gail Simone, Ardian Syaf, Vicente Cifuentes (DC)

Promising and whether I keep reading will come down to laziness (or lack thereof). I know they've just rebooted this character too with a new costume (better, though the old one's not that bad) so I'm a bit torn as to whether I'd want to keep reading this version or start with the new one. That said, they did a pretty good job of dealing with the fact that the character spent three years in a wheelchair. Insofar as you can ever magically cure a disabled character well, this could have gone a lot worse. She remembers and acknowledges her time in a wheelchair (and gets rightfully annoyed at her new house mate for suggesting that being in a wheelchair is the worst thing ever) and also suffers from PTSD from the incident which caused her injury, another nice touch. Having written all that, I am definitely interested in continuing this story.


Shutter #1 by Joe Keatinge and Leila Del Duca (Image)

A woman whose father was some sort of possibly-supernatural/superpowered Indiana Jones type character (except an explorer) is lamenting her father's death a decade previously and gets attacked my supernatural monsters. Promising but no idea where it's going. I am intrigued and would be interested in finding out. If anyone has read more of this series, feel free to chime in. It's another one where the first trade is already out, so I might impulsively buy it if I see it, but I'm less certain than with the above two.

Not Interested in Continuing

Alex + Ada #1 by Jonathan Luna and Sarah Vaughn (Image) — Not the worst thing ever but not for me. Dude whose grandmother gives him a female robot for companionship. Eh.

Roche Limit #1 by Michael Moreci and Vic Malhotra (Image) — Too much man pain (even though turns out one of the main characters is female) and baffling physics. Might have potential, but I'm not going to bother to keep reading.

Planetary #1 by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday (DC) — I feel less strongly against this one than the two above. I didn't actively dislike it, but I didn't feel it brought anything particularly new or exciting to the table, so I'm not interested in pursuing it.