8/11/10

STEVE ROGERS: SUPER-SOLDIER #2 – This is nothing less than Brubaker and (it’s so hard not to type Epting there, E and p really almost made it out), Brubaker & Eaglesham, I mean to say, dropping a definitive Steve Rogers arc on us. I really haven’t enjoyed the character this much since Brubaker’s first insane year+. I really can’t imagine what he’s got planned for the back half of this, given the caliber of the two cliffhangers we’ve been given. Fantastic work, all around. If this is how we’re going to roll with the character in this mini, AVENGERS: PRIME, SECRET AVENGERS and in, you know, the ongoing periodical entitled CAPTAIN AMERICA, then I really don’t care if he’s inherited that nigh-infinite ubiquity mantle from Logan and Stark.

THE INVINICLE IRON MAN #29 – Larocca’s art kind of bothered me on this one. The cover is great, but his characters’ body language and facial expressions came across as stiff throughout, and the layouts seemed lazy. If the look on Tony Stark’s face conjures up Boss Ford delivering the clunkiest of Lucas’s dialogue, we’re not in a good place, you know? Not that it’s so dire. Fraction’s narrative, as ever, seems to be picking up steam. And I love where he leaves it. This is still probably my favorite Iron Man run and counting. Just need a bit more dynamic from the art.

JUSTICE LEAGUE: GENERATION LOST #7 – Isn’t it Lopresti’s week? Bennett was serviceable, as ever, but I was looking forward to the former’s more delicate and balanced touch. Can’t decide if I’m more annoyed by the new Rocket Red or those THE EVENT ads (though I’m actually leaning pretty hard toward the latter). This series really seems like it’s going somewhere, I just hope it actually does in the next couple of issues.

ADVENTURE COMICS #517 – I don’t think Sharpe is a good fit for this book. I don’t want early Image comics anywhere near the back of my mind while reading a title set during the early days of the Legion. And that doesn’t even count the insane development that happens at the book’s end, that, if it came from anyone but Levitz, I would simply dismiss as total hack work, but given that there probably isn’t anyone living who can better lay claim to the title of Writer of Legion of Superheroes, I can only protest but grudgingly allow into my own personal legionnaire canon this story that climaxes with (SPOILERS? Is anybody even reading this?) a cop dying in front of Saturn Girl, who responds to said tragedy by getting drunk, sleeping with Cosmic Boy, then waking up first and wiping the entire encounter from his mind. If JT Krul had written it, I would just say, Of course, but the fact that the authority drops this pretty much straight-up IDENTITY CRISIS-style retcon in here, literally right before the kids go make their first appearance in DCU continuity, really just disturbs me. The first misstep of what’s been an enjoyable franchise reboot.

(Digging the writing on THE ATOM second feature, cool comic book science. The art, less so. Why not have Lemire draw it?)

BEST OF WEEK: DAYTRIPPER #9 – This would be the first issue to hit after INCEPTION. Um. I loved it. Dave Stewart is a god. The THE EVENT ads really drove me insane, here. What’s with the paper stock? Why is it less glossy? I maybe like it better, for this one, right here. I love that the first time you realize it’s a dream within a dream, it’s from the kitchen sink overflowing, repeating that INCEPTION water motif. I maybe still love that movie too much to talk sensibly about this comic book at the moment. There’s already a huge lump in my throat about #10 coming out next month, and I’m lusting after the trade paperback of this that doesn’t even exist yet.

Important work done right here, people, quickens my heart. Yours, too, if you let it.