8/26/15

EAST OF WEST #20 — The art on this book is consistently stunning. Dragotta/Martin tear it up every chance they get with iconic jaw-dropping business. Hickman’s just not making these people come alive for me, though. With the exception of Xioalian and the little brilliant Genesis VR dude who’s on the cover but not in this issue, I absolutely do not care about a single member of this massive spanning ensemble. It’s a very strange corporate vs. creator-owned dichotomy because of course his FF run is one of my favorite things ever and while alllll of those massive ideas and ever-escalating plot engines were more of the deal in his AVENGERS leviathan than any sort of calm human interaction between any of those 18 + 6 people, both of those runs were fairly to completely riveting. But then you get this crew here, and the THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS gang to a lesser extent, and the more time goes by, the more I feel like Hickman needs to dial up the empathetic characterization aspect on whatever massive charts he’s making to keep all of his shit straight (I know that there’s no chart for THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS, but still). I want to be all-in on these titles. I just can barely be bothered to remember these characters’ names. The art is slamming, but we need more.

LOW #9 — On the other hand. I DID NOT REALIZE THAT DELLA WAS A CAINE DURING HER PREVIOUS DONE-IN-ONE APPEARANCE. I also skipped the Previously… this month, which I usually don’t do. Therefore, it wasn’t until Tajo crashed in wearing the Helm Suit that it all came together for me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. That shit was devastating! Remender is knocking it down to the ground. Strong strong character work. Again, he made such a good call bailing on the corporate situation. This is clearly where he needs to be. And Tocchini/McCaig continue crushing it, seemingly surpassing themselves month after month. Serious respect for what’s going on here.

OLD MAN LOGAN #004 — I guess it was only a matter of time before our old man here started berzerkering through the zombie symbiotes, which of course Sorrentino draws the absolute hell out of. Nice crossover here with Jennifer from A-FORCE, that’s called Brand Synergy, boys and girls! This series has overall been pretty light fare from a plot standpoint but a visual delight, which I suppose is a solid fit for (and extension from) the original source material. I was completely all right seeing the TO BE CONCLUDED . . .  on the last page, though, it certainly does seem like this train’s gone far enough the tracks and it’s indeed about time to shut it on down.

S.H.I.E.L.D. #9 — New Kirby! I mean, it’s really a couple pages of old pre-Steranko Fury Kirby that Steranko actually inked as an editor’s test to get the STRANGE TALES gig in the first place, but it’s the first time I’ve laid eyes on it. And Waid spins up some magic out of that fifty-year-old artifact from the King’s imagination, in one fell swoop reconciling Hickman’s engrossing expansion of the S.H.I.E.L.D. mythos several years back right into the Coulson era, even managing to work in an allusion to one of the last episodes of THE PRISONER. Pretty impressive work, right there, making for a very interesting set-up going forward. Lee Ferguson delivers perfectly serviceable sequentials, though you wish they would have signed up some A-list talent to mark the occasion. Overall, an excellent lead feature. The Ewing-scripted pilot/preview (?) for THE HOWLING COMMANDOS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. was garbage, though. It’s a bit late to be ripping off the actual Creature Commandos, boys and girls. Far too late. This is all mitigated, however, by the reprint of the first-ever S.H.I.E.L.D. story that eventually saw the light of day in STRANGE TALES #135 with pencils by Kirby, natch. I’ve also never laid eyes on those pages and that first splash of the helicarrier is just as stunning all these years later and having seen it hundreds of times by now. There was never, will never again be anyone like Kirby. Rest in peace, King.

GRAYSON #11 — Janin is just scary. The pages open exceptionally enough, but that psychedelic swirl weirdness there toward the end is completely out of control. Terrific nemesis scripting, as well, that guy really knows how to break our boy down. And then, wow, once again, the writers are delighted to not as much upset the apple cart but straight-up pulverize it to smithereens there in those last couple of scenes. This is such a good damn book all by itself but makes for a lovely pairing with the further adventures of the Burnside Barbara, see: following.

BATGIRL #43 — What else can I say? Every four weeks, they keep pumping out the loveliness like clockwork. Upgrading Frankie’s situation is a very good call, not even counting her suddenly getting all flirty with “Qadir, cutie.” The writing is terrific, but Babs Tarr is starting to freak me out; she’s only getting better and better. As dynamic as the action scenes are, I think I dig our heroine in overalls just putting her hands on her hips and looking all “What the f@#k?” even more. This title is the uncut loveliness and everyone needs to be reading it for always.

SUPERMAN #43 — So of course Lois wasn’t an evil opportunistic story-breaker at all but was just doing the best she could for her friend at the time. HORDR_ROOT’s little cell-phone-screen robot who jumped out of the toilet is the Sensational Character Find of 2015 (!). Yang is really carving out a nice little chunk of the mythos for himself here only three issues in. His characterization imbues the entire cast with a vibrant three-dimensional life that makes them jump off of every page. And of course JRJr. continues to smash shit up with his best Son of Son of Kirby efforts, blood lineage be damned. I keep saying this, and I’m going to say it again down below, but it is so satisfying and delightful to have strong talent working on the titles I care about most.

BEST OF WEEK: JLA #3 — Grar, Hitch continues to be a raging cage-beast of art picture-drawings. I counted Hal punching 44 dudes in that one panel. 44! But of course that’s only scratching the surface. This is nothing less than magnificent. I am obviously loving the hell out of what Johns & Fabok are doing over in the main title, but then Hitch is just dominating over here all by himself. The art is as stunning as ever, but when you take into account that he’s writing this whole deal as well, this really is pushing right up against being some career-best-level type business for the level, which is really saying something. I could do a laundry list of highlights in this issue alone, but that’s so reductive, I’ll just mention that that’s the most spot-on conversation I have seen scripted for Bruce & Clark in quite some time. And of course, the mega-Lantern punch over to the right, here. Massive respect to Hitch for all of this, and of course Henriques/Sinclair are up in the whole deal slinging their own respective fire. Strong strong work and a pleasure to consume.