Thursday, June 17, 2010

6/16/10

Bloomsday. 616. Marvel can’t help but win, but everybody does pretty well for themselves this week.

ATLAS #2 – This one’s hitting on all cylinders. Makes last month’s even better, we just did the whole origin POV thing again from a fresh three-dimensional perspective, but turns out he’s just the new guy and here the hammer drops. Mr. Lao’s presence was always what most of all did it for me about this book, and it’s simply wonderful to see him take the spotlight for a few pages before slinking off. The Hardman/Breitwieser combo is on fire. Simply, everything that’s good about comics. Bonus points for not having the Heroic Age banner splayed across the top. Doesn’t need it. Head of the class. Devastating backup, as well. When your dear friends run up to you frothing at the mouth and screaming about this book, take it and thank them so much.

NEW MUTANTS #14 – The art styles were a bit inconsistent, but man, that lock and load page with Hope and Rogue, the ‘Win first, Cry later’ bit, more than I’ve enjoyed an X-page in just a little while now, and that’s coming from a huge fan of Fraction’s run, whoever drew this killed it. Really thought Colossus was toast again for a minute, there. And felt bad for talking shit on him earlier this evening to the wife (the breakup with Kitty, #183, just reminiscing and taking her through it for the first time, yeah, it really is like that at my place). That ad for the second issue of ASTONISHING SPIDER-MAN & WOLVERINE is really making me feel like an asshole for daring to trade-wait when confronted with the Aaron/Kubert/$3.99 tag. Mistake! The Wolverine/Hank/Sentinel scene maybe should have ended the book instead of Magneto, such another great page, but well done, all around. Oh! ESPECIALLY Sunspot’s line about being strong but not invulnerable. In the past few months, I’ve been working my way through the entire first volume of NEW MUTANTS, starting with that old original Marvel Graphic Novel #4, and you just cannot believe how many times Claremont puts that in there, it’s impossible to tell when or if it becomes a joke to him, or if it’s all Weezie. But Mr. Zeb Wells hammers it to pieces tonight, could barely keep it together, have fantasized for really months about landing that exact kind of single-panel three-decade punchline. Well played, sir.

BRIGHTEST DAY #4 – Somehow even better than what’s come before, at least in the first third. The 4-5 and 6-7 double splashes are really just more than anybody has a right to expect, given the biweekly tag team set-up. Incredible. I wish I hadn’t happened today upon Johns’s burning urge to explain exactly who the new and eventual Aqualad is today as opposed to tomorrow or Friday, don’t really understand the need to hype usurping the importance of letting the narrative breathe. No pun intended. But did he really think more people would buy this book if they heard that the latest legacy hero was going to make his first cameo in its pages? It’s better when we don’t know, when we’re like, “Well, what, who’s this guy?” Instead of, “Geoff Johns told us this is the new Aqualad who can’t swim, what a concept, but we’re not going to have to worry about him eating up any more pages for the next twelve weeks, thank you Twitter or DC Source blog, wherever it came from first.”

Not to seem like a curmudgeon. I enjoyed the issue. Just probably need to stay off CBR.

THE BOYS #43 – Man, I have to say, I flinched at the price point, just the random, let’s go ahead and call it this crew and it’s not like I’m bailing out now, and hell if our guys don’t serve up a classic. I do find it unfortunate that Hughie’s being shunted off to another mini-destined-to-be-served-up-as-THE BOYS Vol. 8-or-what-not, but this was such a great read, I will pay four dollars every single Wednesday to watch the Butcher and Mother’s Milk scream at each other, cheers.

FABLES #96 – And then still, man, so on top of its game. This book might have achieved sentience during that interminable Flycatcher arc in the 60s, or maybe since, or maybe way way back before any of us had any idea, but I’m almost positive that it’s just using Willingham, Buckingham, Leialoha, everybody, as nothing but pure conduits, has revealed itself, shown them the true face, and none of them care, are honored. This is as good as this book can be. And that’s way way up there. The panel about island archipelagos and dark towers. You’ve got to be kidding me, and Series Best.

DV8 #3 – Wood! I’m getting more freaked out about him every day, now, am haunting Half Price Bookses for NORTHLANDERS vol. 3 with this increasingly glazed sickness about me. Sven the Diseased. But this book, everything I said in last issue’s review times ten. It’s just such a pleasure watch him building something in an almost mainstream set-up instead of crushing us 22 pages at a time. This one was better than the last two and has shot up my expectations for this entire endeavor. Rebekah Isaacs continues to thrill and delight.

****

BEST OF WEEK: THE NEW AVENGERS #1 – Bendis! I had pretty astronomical hopes after getting uppercut by the adjectiveless relaunch three weeks back, but this one still managed to smash me down into little bits. Stuart Immonen has long deserved to be on a book that’s selling in the Top 5, and here at last we are. The man is flawless. Bendis has also never been better, at the top of his game, after putting out hundreds and hundreds and thousands of pages of cutting dialogue, there just isn’t a line or beat wasted, almost running at a Mamet/Milch/Weiner rhythm here, and you get the feeling he’s holding back. The oral history is incredible, Bendis is a master at honing in on every little beat with an electron microscope and just making it sing.

Again, Marvel is in such good hands, such talented stewards.

Viva 616. I said Yes.

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