Thursday, January 12, 2012

1/11/12

BEST OF WEEK: SECRET AVENGERS #21—And that is how you do it. Ellis brings his all-too-brief run to a close with his old N.E.X.T.W.A.V.E. collaborator Stuart Immonen back in the fold to deliver the best action movie of the year. All hands are on deck to lock down a Shadow Council mole at the Houston O.N.E. offices and it is a thrill to behold as the clock counts down from 600 seconds. Ellis manages to work a Bad Signal reference into Sharon’s dialogue 40 seconds before the cryogenic flesh portals finally wake up and then it’s pages and pages of glorious giant monstah fighting. Gripping balls-to-the-wall excitement, this wonderful run proves that you can still turn in brilliant work while adhering to and pushing the boundaries of corporate superhero comics. As completely unflinching and unsentimental as these books were, I’m quite sad that the ride has already come to an end. So grateful that it happened at all, though.

NEW AVENGERS #20—Groar, doesn’t Deodato get it done. Quite the opening VS splash, there. But that spider-sense gag with Spidey and the look-at-the-reader-Bugs-Bunny-punchline, priceless, priceless. And great in-battle banter, as ever. The cliffhanger probably shouldn’t feel like a retread of the lamest part of CIVIL WAR, though. Crowded field, that.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #677—I dropped a couple titles and so heart Waid DAREDEVIL, consequently, was delighted to pick this up, not even counting how much I dug Rios knocking it out of the park on that OSBORN mini last year. This is, yeah, just the greatness of Waid’s regular gig shuffled over to one of Wacker’s other titles. Not that Waid didn’t do his share of pinchhitting over here during the massive constant shuffle that was BRAND NEW DAY. The second panel of the second page is as perfect a SPIDER-MAN panel as ever there has been. His hands are maybe my favorite part. All guns firing. Loved DD and Spidey discussing their respective routes. Rereading it, I wasn’t quite as blown away as I was the first time, because I already knew the beats, they weren’t such a revelation, but the magic is still there. Nothing too devastating happens in this one, just a quiet almost poetic motion of character beats and sharp dialogue as people in tights bounce off of each other on the rooftops of New York. Every monthly superhero book wishes it was this good, should be.

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #633—This continues to be one of Marvel’s most underrated quality titles, month in, month out. Nice of them to springboard a fantasy comic off the regular superhero fare. Never seen this Richard Elson fella before he showed up over here, but he does very good work. Wondered how this was going to manage after FEAR ITSELF finally burned itself out, but Gillen seems to be steering the ship in an even more compelling direction, great little family dynamic between Kid Loki and his hellhound and the handmaiden from Hel. And don’t even get me started on that double-page spread of the meeting of the fear gods, so so much going on, there. Fine work, all around.

X-FACTOR #230—Made it! When I finally glimpsed this issue’s cover in the ad blitz a couple of months back, figured the Big Deal that everyone was talking about was that Logan was going to join the cast. Which would of course be hilarious, given that he’s got his solo book, is running the school with Jason Aaron, rocking the black ops with Remender, and still right there whenever Bendis needs him on the A-team. But, no, it was these guys. Who I totally guessed right before the page-turn, only characters it could be from the dialogue set-up. Should be an interesting shift in interpersonal team dynamics, especially if Madrox ever makes it back, more than apparent from just the introductory line about Guido’s haircut. PAD’s ability to keep so many character arcs running at the same time for such duration is pretty astounding, I kind of expected him to start screaming at someone in the letter-column when the reader suggested that Elixir be added to the cast. We’re good! Enough going on, here. More than enough.

THE UNWRITTEN #33—was not pulled for me and sold out. Garbage!

FRANKENSTEIN, AGENT OF S.H.A.D.E. #5—All right, now this book drew the short straw, if only because now it has to tell the story we already read last week from Frank’s point-of-view, only Giffen’s not drawing it. I haven’t had any sort of problem with Ponticelli’s work before this issue, and it’s fine on its own merits, just, you know, a bit lacking in the Absolute Thunder Dynamism that Giffen brought last week. Maybe kind of like getting Sal Buscema to follow Kirby. Nothing against Sal, but, you know, after getting your jaw broken, everything else kind of feels like a light facial massage.

GREEN LANTERN #5—This was great fun. Sinestro continues to be the star of the show. And didn’t lose his title of Lantern of 2814 at the end of the arc! Good show, Geoff Johns, very brave. Also, wonderful series-best interaction between Hal and Carol in just a couple of pages at the end of the issue. Looking forward to seeing where this goes next, especially if we manage to get rid of Hal for next issue and just hang with that pink-skinned totalitarian from Korugar. He just wants to bring order to the universe, what’s so difficult to grasp about that?

BATMAN & ROBIN #5—Okay, yeah, this one slows it down pretty good, there aren’t nearly as many Perfect Moments Between Father, Son, and Surrogate Father/Grandfather/Butler as there were in the first couple three issues, but that isn’t to say this is a bad comic. It just didn’t lay me out like the first few issues. Over a third of the issue is flashback/retcon of Bruce-in-training first running into Henri Ducard and his son, included here as kind of a secret origin for the latter. I’m definitely on the hook to see how far the fall of Damian takes him. Tomasi, Gleason, Gray, all these guys still turning in really great work in a crowded field of Gotham excellence. Speaking of . . .

BATWOMAN #5—I just expected all the arcs to go six issues. It’s kind of nice to see some wrap up early. I think. This felt like enough closure for me, anyhow. Williams continues to astound and delight with his jaw-dropping facility, rendering, layouts, composition, every little damn thing. And, so dense, I totally didn’t get that the Bones guy and his agent in #1 were from that CHASE book Williams did a hundred years ago until they showed up at Kate’s place in this one. At least the skeleton wasn’t eating baked beans out of the can, I guess. I guess Amy Reeder Hadley’s probably going to show up here, pretty soon? Williams is spoiling us.

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