11/10/10

NEW AVENGERS #6—Jericho Drumm eats it as the first arc of this new one comes to a close. From that opening two-page spread with all the George Perez reaction shots, Immonen/Von Grawbadger/Martin display a seemingly effortless technical mastery of layout, composition, and detail that make each and every page one that you can almost take a bath in. Which is a good thing, because I could care less about a few of the folks on this roster (not to mention guest stars, Damon Hellstorm, I’m looking at you). A satisfying enough climax to the first arc with repurcussions for the Sorceror Supreme status quo that will undoubtedly play out in some crazy way as time goes by. And Bendis continues to kill it with the oral history.

AVENGERS PRIME #4—But not nearly as much as he burns it down with this mini. A lot of people are going to write this one off as non-essential and give the $4 singles a pass, and I see where they’re coming from, but this is a hell of a read with solid character beats between the Big Three and art that can go toe to toe with the best on the stands. Davis and Farmer really are top drawer. Definitely give this trade a shot if you’re sitting this one out and are any kind of Avengers fan.

THOR #617—Huh. This isn’t atomizing me like I was expecting the lovechild of CASANOVA and Simonson THOR to. The art is glorious, but the story beats are coming a bit slowly for my taste. I’m not sure that we’ve been given enough motivation for Thor to bring Loki back. Don’t think a simple “I miss my brother,” is good enough. He’s the God of Lies! Who brought about the destruction of Asgard! Maybe I could buy it after like 12 issues worth of a heavy heart building up to it, but just dropping it from the first month on, it’s not feeling right. That said, the idea of bringing him back as a tricksy little boy is an inspired shift in the dynamic. After JMS’s gender jump, it makes one think nobody’s got anything left to say with the classic iteration of the character. That first shot of him coming back, just a hell of a page. I’m enjoying this, but was expecting to be getting flattened a little bit more on a monthly basis, especially for the extra buck. Let’s see what happens in four weeks.

AMERICAN VAMPIRE #8—Ha. Vampires as the secret silent investors of Las Vegas makes so much sense, it’s a shock that no one’s thought of it sooner. This one moves the action along just fine, more of what we’ve come to expect from this book, tightly written scenes, no wasted dialogue, and gorgeous work from Rafael Albuquerque, who certainly deserves to wind up with an Eisner nomination for his work this year on this series. Not too much happens until Snyder blows the doors open with the penultimate scene. I don’t feel too bad about dropping the $4 on these singles, but it sure is swell of them to drop the price starting next year.

THE UNWRITTEN #19—This one continues to entertain as we head into the Moby Dick portion of our program. That single page about the boy who touched the page and got wet ink and story mixed into his blood is really worth the price of admission alone. The art looks a bit rushed here, and not even the fill-in pages. Is the monthly grind getting to be too much for Gross? I’d be happy to see this book take a month off for purposes of quality control, we all know Gross has got the chops, as evidenced in the first year’s worth of stories. Carey certainly hits the acceleration at the end! Tom and Lizzie hook up out of nowhere? Saxon’s a vampire? It’s not exactly deft foreshadowing to have him order a bloody steak like the page before dropping the no reflection trick, you really need a few more pages, or preferably a month or two of space, in my opinion. But that’s all right, it’s all in good fun. This book leads the way as one of the better offerings from Vertigo, an imprint that continually puts out some of the best comic books on the rack, month after month.

****

BEST OF WEEK: THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #6—Scheduling hijinx aside, this is a mind-blowing end to Bruce’s eclipse tumble through time. Full-on Morrison, this one gave me that FLEX MENTALLO/INVISIBLES feeling that I was on quality pharmaceuticals. And Lee Garbett turns in some good-looking pages. Which, I guess makes sense, dude’s had more lead time than anybody else to get these pages done but still needed help. Nice bit of symmetry there, he was the guy who drew those last Morrison issues of BATMAN after R.I.P., so he’s here to close out the second act as well. Even knowing exactly how it’s going to end up (Bruce suits up to help Dick & Damian save Gotham), the ride is more than worth it, featuring dust-ups with Superman’s time squad, the current iteration of the Justice League (which, got to be honest, folks, I am not feeling), and a conversation with the one sidekick who never lost faith in Bruce Wayne’s apparently infinite capacity for survival and adaptation. All of that with Year One callbacks, to boot. Best of all, completely out of nowhere, we get the shot of caveman Bruce killing the giant bat in #1! I almost fell off the couch, think I said that was the only way that #1 could have been more perfect. Actually, best of all has to be the revelation that Hurt/The Black Glove/Thomas Wayne is actually where Darkseid fell after Batman shot him in FINAL CRISIS #6. Think about it, that shot taken at the end of Morrison’s first act sends the New God tumbling back to 1765 where he infects one of Wayne’s ancestors and leads him to eventually become the principal antagonist for both the first and second acts of Morrison’s run. And the Joker killed him? Brain-melting. It’s even crazier with the scheduling thing, reading this as the very last issue, even after BATMAN & ROBIN #16, makes the revelation that much more mind-bending. So, was that bat-thing at the top of #16 actually Darkseid incarnating on this plane? My head hurts. Maybe the two Morrison books next week can help me with that. It is a fine time to be reading Batman. Unbelievers shall fall before the Omega Sanction!