FUTURE’S END #21 — These DC weeklies were slamming this
week! First, Cully Hamner shows up to regulate all over this one. The deal with
this issue is it’s like 95% exposition and still wonderful as we finally fill
in a whole gang of blanks about what happened when The Big War finally went
down. Though I have to say, I don’t see some random Parademon taking Cassie
out. Basically, this entire issue is first the Earth-2 Red Arrow Ollie and then
our Ollie laying it all out for Barda, and then on the last page, she snarls
and is all ready to kick ass in the way that only she can be. And it’s a
treasure.
BATMAN ETERNAL #25 — And then R.M. Guera destroys it over
here! As many people as have already kicked ass on this title in the past 24
issues, Guera arguably manages to outdo them all. I dug Jason and Tim giving
each other The Business while visiting Alfred in the hospital, great character
dynamics, there. I’m maybe almost okay with Jason being alive again, is what
this makes me realize. It only took, what, a dozen years? I was also into the
Batman/Penny-Two back-and-forth. This was pretty much a perfect issue until
they fumbled it on the one-yard line with that “We’ve got this,” business there
in the last damn panel. I hate that phrase and can let it slide if it seems
in-character, but Tim is too smart to be messing up English like that. Alfred
damn sure taught him better.
BEST OF WEEK: CHEW #43 — Whoa there, Layman! That is some
evil shit to pull, now. I mean Toni-evil. Terrific issue highlighting yet
another permutation of this not being the Tony Chu Adventure Hour but instead playing
around in a universe where several very entertaining combinations of characters and premises are possible. Who doesn’t want to read a book about Olive, Colby, and Poyo
doing their thing with Mason and Cesar in cosplay disguise gently shepherding
them through the mission? Even worse than FABLES last week, though, which was awful, I
got lulled into this peaceful calm and then just ripped up by the uncaring
capriciousness of a soulless scribe. So rough. Hoping it’s a trick. Guillory
drew real pretty pictures again.
LOW #3 — Wow, I’m glad I hung with this. Remender takes a
real chance here, dragging out the premise set-up of the entire series until really the last
scene of this third issue. But, it’s a hell of a beautiful moment and
definitely has me now all-in and on board to see what’s going to happen to these people next.
Greg Tocchini again just knocks it out of the park. You really can’t believe
this kind of thing is happening in regular sequentials. Breathtaking visuals.
SAGA #23 — BKV is a well-oiled machine at this point. He
knows how to spin up that oh-so-ironic double-meaning dialogue Alan Moore
business where there’s this heartbreaking tension between the caption and the
visual and our knowledge of what’s to come because our baby narrator already
told us in her patented Fiona-scrawl. I’m simple enough that I was engaged with
the narrative to the point that I was simply waiting for Marko to stick it in
because that’s where the signposts have been for months and I wasn’t hunting
around for any tricky deals. But there turned out to be a twist! Oh, clever
BKV! All of the Eisners are for you.
NEW AVENGERS #024 — We open with a very interesting dinner.
Dr. Doom and Kristoff are entertaining Namor, which gives the two most
prominent nemeses from the early days of Kirby FF time to riff off of one
another while Namor sneaks in a little bit of exposition to catch us up on how
it’s been going for the past eight months. It turns out that putting together a
cabal that’s halfway composed of the folks who were responsible for INFINITY
was a pretty bad idea; they’re a bit of an unruly mob to control, which the
following scene does a fine job of illustrating for us in the present tense. Then,
there’s a whole deal with T’Challa and his sister, and I guess it doesn’t look
really good for her, though the one pitfall of having all of these
alternate-reality heroes die is that it’s hard to make myself feel like this
one actually counts. Ha, which I know is a ridiculous statement. Hickman is
smart to not let The Cabal steal the show but remember that the best villain in
the Marvel multiverse is not Thanos but Doctor Doom. This final scene sets him
up as a major player in all that is to come, no matter how much other crazy
shit is going on.
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