10/12/11

S.H.I.E.L.D. vol. 2 #3—BEST OF WEEK, no problem. Hickman hits the bench and Weaver/Oback open up nothing less than a six-pack of whupass on the unsuspecting reader. Eighteen pages* of no-dialogue gotime Star Child absolutely amok in the Immortal City beneath Rome with all hands on deck to try to stop him. This includes chrononaut Leonardo da Vinci, SuperMichelangelo, Nostradumus, Electro-Tesla, Tesla’s kid, Howard Stark, and Nathaniel Richards. This book is better than anything has a right to be and not only my favorite thing that Marvel publishes but, with the exception of the title immediately following, for my money the best thing they’ve put out since the halcyon days of Miller DAREDEVIL, Simonson THOR, Byrne FF. Really, really, really good.

FF #10—Kitson is A-list. Reading this, it makes you wonder if he’s on deck for some huge thing. You think he’d have to be. Though we would certainly love to have him aboard here as regular fill-in artist for as long as he cares to stay. Hickman decides not to go all L O S T with last issue’s potentially monumental cliffhanger and instead just shows us what happened next. Huh. I’m so used to disjunctive non-linear storytelling that it was almost jarring. Wait, that’s when/where each one of them just straight up went? Where’s the fun in THAT? As spectacular as the art is, this one’s pretty much a moving-pieces-around-on-the-board sort of issue, still highly entertaining, but in no way stepping to the nonsense that just went down in the Immortal City.

X-MEN: REGENESIS #1—Gillen's work here is crisp, not quite as sharp as it has been in recent works on the flagship, but solid enough. I did find that cavemen fighting by the campfire thing a bit strained and kind of a waste of space. Though I guess Marvel could have cut all of that, only dropped 20 pgs, and still charged $3.99, so I should just be grateful. Tan is hit and miss with me. He seems capable of good-looking work when he puts the time in. The original X-23 mini was gorgeous. He did not put the time in on these pages. After the five great artists in SCHISM, it would have been nice to have the follow-up epilogue not drop the ball. Not a terrible comic, but it could have been much better.

GENERATION HOPE #12—Mm, the cover’s a bit disingenuous. Sorry to see Gillen bail out of this title, as he’s probably taking me with him, but he works in some nice character work on his way out the door and a last scene, last page really, that completely flattened me. Way to drop the mic, Gillen out!

UNCANNY X-FORCE #16—

NEW AVENGERS #17—Bendis really has it down at this point. It’s not like the weightiest entertainment, but if you want to see your Marvel superheroes taking down a giant robot while rat-a-tat-tating dialogue back and forth, it really isn’t going to get any better than this. Deodato continues to make it happen.

MORNING GLORIES #13—Was this a season finale? It sure seemed like one, as the business went down and one of the kids makes it off the island in a fashion that will not disturb the crowd of folks reading this who are still pining for Evangeline Lilly**. But yeah, the events are moving faster than the characters can keep up with them, and there’s no telling where or when we’ll wind up next. Safest guess I can make is that safari guidance counselor had better start reading pilot scripts for next year, she do not seem long for any of this right here.

THE UNWRITTEN #30—And that is how you end an arc. This is going to #50, maybe? These longer Vertigo series that have the chance to run their natural course are almost my favorite thing, just because you still get that serial sequential thrill but, if everyone’s doing their job right, it never thins out and then you get finale closure. Lump THE BOYS in there, too, it might should go without saying. And I guess The Monster, or here, Creature, has just joined the cast? That’s fantastic. Guy’s popping up all over the place.

AMERICAN VAMPIRE: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST #5—Another strong finish. Completely different from a trade read, because you won’t be going from nothing to just laying all the way down on the accelerator from the first page this time out. Murphy and Stewart are of course without peer and, with only 13 issues under their collective belt, one of my very favorite art teams in all of comics, but it’s so wonderful to have them working with writers who are also delivering such strong work. This was a hell of a ride.

FRANKENSTEIN, AGENT OF S.H.A.D.E #2—This one’s just great fun. Lemire and crew do a good job staying out of the way and letting the concept of supersecret agent Frankenstein’s Monster sell itself (just Frankenstein here, but same difference). Of course there’s an ant farm within the ant farm. Fantastic. How did child sacrifices get to be the thing? Who floated that one, and what other options were tried first? Lots of fun, though I gobbled through this thing in under five minutes on the first time, 20 pages starting to feel a bit slight with this one.

DEMON KNIGHTS #2—All right, I’ve made no bones about my assessment of Tony Daniel’s writing abilities, but that right thur is a pretty cover. And old Diogenes Neves does fine work inside. I love that people are still naming their kids Diogenes. Or that one set of parents is, anyway. This is all interesting enough, but I’m not sure it’s engaging enough to keep me on the hook for the long haul. The double-edged sword about this relaunch is that they’re also rebooting our investment. I have no problem just completely bailing out of a series that seemed like it had a good enough hook only last month. We’ll see how #3 goes.

GREEN LANTERN #2—This is such a great idea, Hal and Sinestro buddy-copping around. Mahnke is a machine. Already enjoying this more than the majority of the previous volume.

BATWOMAN #2—More gorgeous work from Williams. When is Amy Reeder Hadley going to start subbing in? Williams is setting the bar pretty damn high, these pages are not to be believed. Just the x-ray punches alone in the first scene. Also, funny to see him drawing himself and Desolation Jones and probably other folks I don’t recognize into the crowd scene at the bar. Only misstep in this one is the last panel. She just, what falls down? That’s not really imbuing our heroine with a lot of prowess.

BATMAN & ROBIN #2—This one is a bit more of a simmer than the tour de force that we got last month, but it’s almost more effective, a well crafted tale of Bruce Wayne suddenly on damage control for his assassin-trained son. The cover really says it all, just hilarious. Less so, Damian killing the bat, that was a pretty screwed up moment, right there. Am a big fan of what Tomasi and company are doing, here.


*well, all right, page 15 has an exchange of word balloons between Michelangelo and the Star Child, but they’re straight up speaking algebra, so call the first 18 pages English-free, at any rate.

**It does seem, all these years later, that Matthew Sweet was prescient.