8/31/11

SECRET AVENGERS #16—I’ve been really looking forward to this since it was announced, as I am in lust with the Ellis and nothing less an acolyte/evangelist for all that PHONOGRAM glory. The script is razor-sharp and suitably mental, featuring a subterranean city built by the Secret Empire containing a skyscraper-scale von Doom time platform set to send Cincinnati into the future and turn it into a bomb, so Beast has about a page to convert an atomic Cadillac into a fissile bomb to save the day. That will do just fine.

Where this one misfires for a me a bit is the art. It’s not bad, it just seems a bit off in places. The anatomy, the framing. Moon Knight, in general. I don’t know. These boys did a great job playing in the Marvel sandbox back on GENERATION HOPE #6, and that double-page spread of Moon Knight gliding over the city is gorgeous, but there’s maybe not enough Kirby in the action sequences? It’s all a bit too clean for me, a style that totally worked with the so so cool kids in the club teaching me about all this great music I never heard of, but the lads don’t inject enough dynamic crackle into this thriller. Pretty pictures, but ultimately more sterile than what was called for. I wish Ellis’s old THUNDERBOLTS collaborator, Mike Deodato could have bounced back over here after sitting out Nick Spencer, but hey, he draws a hell of a Squirrel Girl.

The line about right-hand-drive sounding less sinister for some reason was a corker. And, on the reread, I happened to be listening to this link fresh from Ellis’s site, they synch up pretty well.

THE MIGHTY THOR #5—Odin headbutted Galactus! Oh shit! I think something else happened too, maybe a couple things, but oh shit! He just headbutted him and they plummeted out of orbit. That was . . . shit, that was cool.

ULTIMATE COMICS HAWKEYE #1—Really did not want to support a new $4 Marvel #1, but it was a light week and Hickman wrote it! Had to give it a shot. Like his first ULTIMATES issue, this is tonally right in line with Ellis ten years ago, down to the three assailants who look like they flew up out of The Bleed. I think I heard this one’s going to have some interplay with ULTIMATES, which somewhat defeats trade-waiting. Probably going to hang out for a bit and see how it goes.

ROCKETEER ADVENTURES #4—Well, it is a shame to see this one wrap up, but man, did they slam out some quality month after month, eight-pager after eight-pager. The artists really shone this time in particular. Scott Hampton probably came the closest to the Stevens style, juxtaposing gorgeous shots of Cliff flying around holding a surfboard with just, hey, Betty in a bikini. Tony Harris provides his usual painted brilliance, but the last story is the one that holds the most interest for me. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen Brendan McCarthy not color his own work, which would in most cases be terribly sad news, but is totally redeemed by the fact that they brought in Jamie “Frank Quitely doesn’t need an inker” Grant to do the job. If Dave Stevens has got to go and Laura Martin’s done more than her share in this neck of the woods, this is definitely the move to make. But it’s very much Grant doing McCarthy, everything’s just a bit more saturated and dialed up than Grant normally does it. And a couple of pin-ups from Ashley Wood seal the deal, though I’m damned if I can find the Rocketeer in that second one. Burned about five minutes trying to make that happen. It would be great if they could put out short collections of eight-pagers like this every few years or so, once they stockpiled enough talent, but Dark Horse has set the bar very high with this initial non-Stevens effort.


BEST OF WEEK: Man, I just don’t know. Was positive it was going to be SECRET AVENGERS, but don’t think I can bump that art up over some of the other books. Would it have been so hard to get Lee/Williams/Sinclair over on SA for one issue?

I liked everything I read, but nothing made me just two-dimensional. Let’s mark this week up in the Win column and go on and hunker down for next Wednesday, when Morrison debuts ACTION COMICS #1 along with that whole entire first full blast of New DC goodness, and CASANOVA finally finally returns and then I get to be a single dad until Saturday, because Thursday and Friday are surely the days this year that I am guaranteed to be the most functional and emotionally cohesive.