5/04/11

FEAR ITSELF #2—The art’s gorgeous. The story’s still falling a bit flat for me. Maybe that’s because, again, any serious development that happens in this issue is already revealed ahead of time. The White House getting blown up was on the Coming Next Month page last month, and the Hulk and Juggernaut getting possessed is on this month’s cover. And, granted, these aren’t really even like insane developments, as far as events like this go, but they were the craziest things that happened in the issue, and they had already been revealed to me, even though I go out of my way to not run into details like that ahead of time. I’m still thinking the back end of this is going to be pretty crazy, but Fraction hasn’t given us enough yet in the first two issues to make us care. Dude has just set such an unreasonable standard for himself with CASANOVA. But we must hold him to it!

THE BOYS #54—Man, no one makes an expositional infodump conversation more riveting than Ennis. What happens in this issue? The founder of The Boys continues his conversation with Hughie, connects some dots and fills in a few more blanks. That’s it. This entire arc looks to be pretty much just this one conversation, but Ennis is such a great writer that he makes it compelling. No mean feat. It’s kind of disingenuous to put Robertson’s name in the titles on the cover when his only contribution to this book is that cover.

HOUSE OF MYSTERY #37—Why is the paper grade so much more terrible in this book? I don’t really mind, just wondering. As usual, I had a little bit more fun with the story-within-a-story than the main narrative. Which is so great, you never know what you’re going to get with this title, but it’s always quality.

WEIRD WORLDS #4 & 5—Well, they forgot to pull #4 for me last month, so we get two for the price of two this month! No real surprises this time out, I continue to be impressed with the overall quality of the writing and art on this anthology. Ordway’s just killing those Lobo pages and Maguire’s Tanga is a lot of fun.

ADVENTURE COMICS #526—Mm, I think I might be dropping the Levitz Legion books. They’re not bad, just not terribly compelling either, and there are two of them. Not really caring about any of the characters. The past year has fallen short of the bar set by Levitz/Giffen back in the day and even the altitude where Waid and Kitson were cruising for a couple years in the early part of the 00’s.

SUPERBOY #7—We need to get Gallo back on art. Marco Rudy does an interesting job playing with a few different styles, but the overall effect comes off a bit haphazard, it doesn’t really cohere. Though we can probably find this week’s coolest moment right here, future Tim decking future amnesiac Conner in a shot that’s a straight homage to Miller’s classic THE DARK KNIGHT FALLS. And in other stripmining-the-80s news, Lemire brings back a permutation of the Black Mercy from that old Alan Moore SUPERMAN annual that came out twentysomething years ago. Hey, if you’re going to crib some ideas for a DC superhero book, those two guys are where you want to go. Come back next month, Pier Gallo! I want my book back.

****

No BEST OF WEEK, it was a pretty average pile this time out. But, hey! This marks the one year anniversary of this blog. Every week, without fail, bringing you the reviews that fill up your heart and make light shoot out of your eyes and, before long, all of your pores. Thank you for taking part in Wednesday Night Mass.