Rachel Maddow was on Late Night with Seth Myers recently, and to my surprise among the topics they discussed was Greg Rucka’s Queen and Country.
I knew that Myers was a comics fan — his Twitter icon is a Kevin Maguire sketch of Myers as Blue Beetle in the Justice League International days. Yet it was still bizarre to hear Maddow segue from a mention that she’d written the foreword to a collected edition of DC Comics’ Batwoman written by Rucka to hearing her and Myers both profess love for a smart, gripping but — in the grand scheme of the superheroes that still dominate the marketplace — relatively obscure series from small publishing house Oni Press, followed by Maddow stating, “I have given copies of the Queen & Country comic book to members of Congress, suggesting that they ought to read it.”
Not having read all of Queen & Country, it’s hard for me to recommend unreservedly, although it’s likewise hard to go wrong taking a chance on anything with Rucka’s name attached. His and illustrator J.H. Williams III’s Batwoman is very good; Gotham Central, also written by Ed Brubaker and drawn by Michael Lark, Stefano Gaudiano,
et al., is excellent. Ditto Whiteout, created with artist Steve Lieber, which obliquely birthed Queen & Country’s focal character of UK special operative Tara Chace. I’ve read the first of Rucka’s Atticus Kodiak prose novels, Keeper, but not found the time for more.
The entirety of Queen & Country, including the Declassified spinoff, is now available in four omnibus editions.
Related: Unread by Me • His Story • Rounds of the Night Table
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