5/11/11

FF #3—That invitation is a hoot. Hickman is still firing on all cylinders with this one. The only slight misfire is trotting old Uatu out, but that’s only because Bendis and Fraction have done the same thing in the past couple of months. If he shows up every month, you get diminishing returns on us believing that this is an oh noes! very big deal, fellas. Glad to get follow-up to what went on with Val and the alternate Reeds. “Sol’s anvil” is just a hell of an epithet, perfect for Reed. I’m a little bit confused on the timeline, we start out in the present and have the council, Val finishes her story, then we flash to MONTHS LATER, with the various Reeds running around setting up all manner of tomfoolery, then we cut to NOW, with three of the Reeds who were just running around wondering where the fourth Reed is from the last scene. Seems like NOW would be a jump back to the present after we got a glimpse of what’s to come. Regardless, this book is still a hell of a ride.

FLASH #12—Out of time, indeed. I just have no idea what they think they’re doing here. The first six issues was a great reboot, setting up a premise that could have lasted for years by taking Barry back to his forensics roots with a healthy dash of Steve Rogers-style man-out-of-time pathos. Six issues later, we’re cancelling and doing another reboot? Why should we invest in something that’s just going to be tossed aside in a few months? Which brings me to . . .

FLASHPOINT #1—This seems like a really ill-conceived event. Another watered down riff on Age of Apocalypse-style alternate universe hijinx. Just dumping an extra two dozen titles onto the rack for a few months does not seem like the way to go, I imagine most folks are just going to blow off the majority. There wasn’t a single hook in this issue to make me want to go track down what’s going on with would-be tyrants Aquaman or Wonder Woman or even Lois Lane behind enemy lines. So, clearly Zoom changed everything. I guess? We’ve certainly been given enough information in the FLASH monthly to assume that, but it would have been much more entertaining to get an Oshit moment analogous to when Legion fried Xavier instead of Magneto. I can definitely hang with five issues of this core title drawn by the always great Andy Kubert, but I’m afraid the tie-ins are going to just bomb.

THE UNWRITTEN #25—The story continues. Carey & Gross keep it entertaining. The endgame for this should be pretty great, whenever they get around to it.

JOHN BYRNE’S NEXT MEN #6—What is Byrne doing? I’m still enjoying these singles, but I have no idea what kind of a master plan he has for this. Yet another wtf last page, which I’m coming to expect, now.

NEW AVENGERS #12—Not too much to say about this, it’s more of the same. Deodato, Chaykin, Deodato, Chaykin. A bit stylistically incongruous, but they’re getting it done. Huh, just realizing that there was no oral history for the first time since these relaunched. It wouldn’t surprise me if Bendis just finally couldn’t keep up with the word count, he has really been pumping it out here, this past year.

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #623—Marvel pulled some serious alchemy here, taking the solid work JMS/Coipel were apparently doing and teasing that out into two series that are both quite compelling. Gillen gives us a Loki that remains true to the character, but who we can actually root for, no mean feat. And Braithwaite/Arreola’s art is lush and breathtaking. It seems like this book should have gotten more of a push this month, in particular. Maybe an initiative like buy it with Fraction’s THOR and save a dollar or something. Very entertaining. And hopefully yet another small step down the path that will end with Icon putting out PHONOGRAM vol. 3. Dare to dream, Wednesday night masses!

****
BEST OF WEEK: BATMAN INCORPORATED #6—By my count, this is the fifty-sixth issue of Morrison’s run that has spanned six years and counting and launched two new series. And just when it doesn’t seem like it could get any better, they find a way to blow the roof off and jet into the stratosphere. This monster team-up issue functions like a mission statement in action for the notion of Bruce running around setting up a global franchise for his anti-crime brand. The first five issues, as enjoyable as they were, now seem like nothing but set-up, we’ve arrived, the pieces have finally been set in motion and the game is afoot. The pacing on this thing is masterful, with several single-page scenes, giving us eleven different scenes splashed across the twenty-page issue. Which makes sense, is really the only way we can begin to grasp the challenge of setting up an infrastructure of this scale, one acolyte at a time. And the new character designs are intriguing. There isn’t as of yet a clear breakout star that you’ve just got to know everything about, but there are several cool spins on the old dark avenger archetype, and we haven’t yet met a new character that I wouldn’t happily check out in their own title, provided the creative team was up to snuff. It would be cool if Morrison would jam out a six-issue anthology of done-in-ones, each starring a different new character. Like Marvel did with YOUNG AVENGERS a couple years back. Cornell or Casey would also be good go-to guys for that, they’re the only two I’ve seen who haven’t fumbled Morrison’s ideas out of the gate.

And Chris Burnham. I really enjoyed his work in #4, and he does an even better job here, has got a very well-developed hyper-detailed sensibility that gives the pages a European look that’s a great fit for the scope of the story.

Simply put, I could not have enjoyed this issue more. There isn’t a wasted beat, panel, or line, everything packed in tight as can be in service of rocketing the narrative forward, and it is a thrill.