AVENGERS #6—Bendis Bendis Avengers Avengers blah blah blah. Running out of superlatives for this relaunch. We make it to the end of the first arc, which is slightly anticlimactic in terms of linear narrative, before future Tony drops the whole Ultron Holocaust thing on his present-tense version and we realize that this whole mess has just been the warm-up act. I mean, hell, how much better than BREAKOUT was this arc? And I thought that was a pretty solid beginning. Not crazy about Red Hulk showing up, but I’m sure it’ll be better than I expect. Bendis continues to nail the oral history, taking us through the beginning of Hank and Wanda’s rough patch (i.e. the entire back three-quarters of their relationship, youch).
UNCANNY X-MEN #529—Portacio really pulls it together in this one! We get the spinoff trapdoor for the Generation Hope kids (and what self-respecting PHONOGRAM acolyte can’t jump right on over?), a Fantomex jailbreak, intrigue between Emma, Kitty, and Danger and then, out of nowhere, the best final page on this title in 21 years*. Just a fierce piece of writing, completely nailed everything that I love about this book, or really, want to love, the platonic ideal of this book, the complex tapestry of relationships between the diverse ensemble, all the friendships and loves and enmities and grudging mutual respect that spring up in the unlikeliest of places. I mean, I didn’t care one little bit when Nightcrawler went down, seen too many go and come back to work up the energy to care, or or believe, but those words, man, just leveled me.
SECRET AVENGERS #6—Deodato cranks the art up even more. I’m torn about this one, think I could live with getting it in trade, thanks to the price point, but this certainly isn’t bad in any way and, and I don’t know how to stop buying it! I bet my wife could convince me, but I don’t want her help! Gah!
CAPTAIN AMERICA #611—We knew how this issue was going to end, but Brubaker still takes us on an entertaining journey that feels completely organic, not shaped by the title of the arc. Wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about Acuna on this, but he’s working for me. Refined his style a bit since being over on GREEN LANTERN a few years ago. The NOMAD back-up wasn’t such a stinker.
INCOGNITO: BAD INFLUENCES #1—And the Brubaker hat trick! We all need a bit more of him in our lives. This one comes out swinging. Phillips is just a master. Forgot he did that DARK TOWER arc, going to have to track down that trade. And the essay by Jess Nevins, it probably need not be said, is utterly riveting. This is why we buys the comics, people! That variant cover is stunning, too, wish that one could have been the one I got.
FANTASTIC FOUR #584—All right, now the whole Countdown to Casualty is really cranking every scene in this one way, way up. Because when Reed and Sue say goodbye, we know that there are even odds that they might not lay eyes on each other ever again (or until Hickman leaves or Reed fixes it or whatever, but let me play!). Same thing with Johnny & Ben’s Day Off. Man, that whole montage, yet again, Hickman just nails everything about this book. I can’t believe more people aren’t making a bigger deal about this run, am still working my way through Byrne’s run, but given that I know that he takes a powder mid-arc to go do MAN OF STEEL, and of course depending on what happens in the next few years, man, God bless Waid and ‘Ringo and Uncle Walt, but this one might be gunning for #2 run of all time on a title that’s been pretty consistently excellent throughout its run. Giving it a pass for the 90s, of course. Don’t wait for this in trade!
ACTION COMICS #894—Only DC I picked up this week, but man, it held the line for the company all by itself. Word is that Gaiman made substantial contributions to Death’s dialogue and, I’ve got to say, it reads about as close to the Lex Luthor version of SANDMAN #8 as it possibly could. This is a good thing. Cornell takes the encounter about exactly where you would expect it to go, but he’s got such a lock on both characters that it’s just a joy to be along for the ride, to the point that you’re not even upset when you get to the end and she’s just like, “Nope, I was just checking in on you.” I mean, if that’s a set-up for something crazier in the run, so much the better, but my read on it was that it was just an excuse to get these two together, and I can live with that. Best issue of this run, yet. It will be interesting to see where we go with Vandal Savage next month (give or take a thousand years).
BEST OF WEEK: You know, it’s a really close call. I almost want to give it to Death Doesn’t Take Luthor, but that one feels a bit flimsier on the reread. AVENGERS was excellent, but like I said, a bit anticlimactic in terms of the insane momentum that’s been building since #1. And then there’s that last Fraction page just suckerpunching me, man. No no, give it to Hickman. If only for Ben & Johnny’s early dinner with friends, that one messed me up, too, just the idea that The King would have it in him to break bread with The Man. Comics aren’t supposed to break your heart, King!
____
*And the last one that did that, as if you didn’t know, was #251, which came out maybe right around this time back in 1989, I had been picking up the book monthly (or biweekly in the summer, even? Can you imagine them trying to do that now?) for a little bit longer than a year, while, of course, just devouring every issue before #236 that I could get my sweaty little hands on, but #251, that issue with Logan crucified up on the X and Jubilee finally taking him down just about blew my twelve-year old mind, one of the heaviest things I’d ever read, at least that year. Along with WATCHMEN and Miller’s BATMAN and DAREDEVIL and even, yeah, Jean Grey going down that first time. It was a pretty serious time to be catching up on things.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
10/20/10
This one’s in real time, or as close as we can approximate it! Reactions to issues, and sometimes specific panels, as they are read! Before the rest of the night’s books are consumed! It might be too much to bear!
BATMAN & ROBIN #15—Had this as the headliner but couldn’t resist hitting it first. Can’t believe it’s over with Morrison on this. Insane way to go out, teasing Damian’s deal with the devil for his soul, really thought that was about to happen right in front of us. And we get an about-face from RoBW #5 two weeks ago, I was for the first time positive that Morrison wasn’t jerking our chains and it really was Thomas Wayne as Dr. Hurt, so of course we’ve got to get the inversion. Every panel with Joker was about the best I’ve ever seen with the character, just perfection. Rings so true.
MORNING GLORIES #3— Better than #2. Wonderful madness of opening w/ flashback in 1490. Somewhat diluted by information expositional dump in last two pages. I’m of two minds about hitting sites like CBR and Bleeding Cool, because I like hearing stuff about creators (the Ba/Moon footage at NYC Comic-Con being the most recent example), but then, almost without fail, I find teaser shit annoying and distracting, to wit, the online heralding of this issue’s Appearance of the First Message. Reading the book, instead of being caught up in the flow, I’m just like, Oh, here’s the first message now. Yep, wonder what it means. The hype diluted the moment for me. And, really, is someone not already reading this going to hear that we’re getting a first message in #3 and suddenly run out and buy this book. Hell, maybe they will. #2’s even up to $10 now. Anyway, yeah, better than #2.
KICK-ASS #1—Devastating. The movie was much better than the series, I thought, as great as both Millar and JRjr were, but Vaughan & Goodman just escalated it, I mean, really the best kind of adaptation where it probably transcends its excellent source material, the other three examples jumping to mind being the films The Neverending Story, The Hours, and Wonder Boys. But then Millar comes back just swinging for the fences. Typing this right now in the white hot ecstasy of not having read books subsequently listed, just really pumped with how much higher up he jacked the bar over what the filmed accomplished. The folks across the street should let the shy lad from Glasgow take another swing at the Big Guy. Also, the best text piece I’ve seen from him. Going to have to go back and reread SUPERIOR with a better attitude.
NEW MUTANTS #18—Brutal. Lots of teens and former teen superheroes getting there asses whupped this week, looks to be a trend in the evening ahead. Fun fact, though the New Mutants have only aged a couple of years, it’s been 22 actual years since the babies were abducted, so the 26-year gap in Limbo is almost real time for us. Does this mean . . . we live in Limbo?
X-FACTOR #210—Best single of these in a long long line. Writing and art both at the top of the class. A joy.
DV8 #7—Ha, know a thing or two about that Alan Moore reference on the first page. First Jocelyn page may be the best single piece of writing I’ve seen from Wood, a master, even and especially on that small small scale. Excellent issue, after two or three months of almost too slow burn, the shit hits the fan in a delightful manner. Looking forward to the wrapup. Isaacs is a force.
ADVENTURE COMICS #519—Best Levitz issue yet, on either side. Can’t believe, the way of the world, that it is that rare beast, a child left behind, came out last week, and just almost randomly, I mean I can’t believe it now, feel so guilty, but didn’t pay the extra for it last week, and it’s crushing, a winner, if you had Levitz and, let’s say, Morrison and Ellis, in a room with the charge, “Everyone give us your best Superboy meets Silver Age Legion in Smallville story,” then I can really see it being a three-way tie, just as much as I love and respect all three, and I’d be shocked if Levitz showed up at that particular high noon with anything but this, again. The Johns list being such a key factor. Embracing the relaunch tone, quoting, really, just really too much.
GAAAH! Insane perfectly justifiable Levitz retcon on the last page! Followed by perfect tone-shift next issue blurb! All this before Lemire on THE ATOM! Gorgeous!
And, yeah, then best Ray Palmer pages I’ve always suspected but never actually managed to stumble across until now. Thank you so much, everybody.
LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #6—This Portela guy’s fantastic, as is who- or whatever Hi-Fi is, gorgeous fill-in, the kind that makes you wish they’d shack up here for just the next little bit, see what happens.
(Do you know what the coolest thing about AGE OF APOCALYSE was? I just realized. It was the lack of solicits. Or, at least, my ignorance of them. Was it Harras’s first great act after the Image exodus? It might have been his only one, but it’s a compelling argument for his future across the street. We just saw all that malarkey go down with Storm and Bishop and the rest all stranded back in the early days of Charles & Erik and then Legion’s misfire, then, before you even had a chance to think, “Well, it’s not like this means that they’ll cancel X-Factor or Excalibur or certainly not Logan’s solo title,” then at the end of the issue we find out it’s a line-wide reboot, so effective, stunning in execution. All of this to say, instead of fucking laying it out for us in a series of ads just a very few weeks ahead of the actual conclusion, when Bruce hasn’t actually come back yet or, hey, we don’t already know that Dick gets to keep being Batman in Gotham, really, think about that, that’s a bigger deal to me than any supposed but hilarious long-lasting result/consequence that came out of INFINITE CRISIS, but they couldn’t do me the simple courtesy of letting Grant Morrison’s fucking script reveal that none-too-inconsequential plot development, because I’m supposed to be getting my trousers in a knit about the fact that Tony Daniel’s going to keep writing and drawing Dick’s adventures on the eponymous title. To me, that shows, despite the fact that Morrison’s been getting to somehow do this for five years and running now, a gaping void in editorial logic. Wouldn’t everyone have much rather heard Bruce say it after he got back?)
(though, of course, it must also be said that no one’s more pumped for BATMAN, INC., Snyder & Jock on DETECTIVE, and Williams/Hadley on BATWOMAN, and Finch/Williams on THE DARK KNIGHT than me, which actually got me thinking, something has been really rotten in the heart of Denmark when I haven’t been obligated to pick up BATMAN/DETECTIVE & SUPERMAN/ACTION every single month. I mean, someone’s messing something up when I don’t just have to, because I just realized that that should probably be and have been a given in my life and never has been. And I refuse to take responsibility for this gap, this lacking between ideal and actual.)
And wow, then also this is the best Levitz single of this issue, too, now so pumped to read them right together, but wait! It’s Jiminez!!!!
This is the first one where they get it right. Since Levitz returned, as great as the newcomers have been, I’ve always had the sense that it’s a shame not to have Giffen or Perez or Maguire or Jiminez on monthly duties, but of course, I see the problem there already, but man, just so right, getting Jiminez back here on these pages.
And we get to vote for Legion leader. Incredible. This one’s looking pretty much like the #1, here, BESTOF, fix it later.
BRIGHTEST DAY #12—Wow, what a dopey panel when the JLA show up, why not have Reis have drawn that? The Deadman & Dove panels were Reis, I guess. Best ones, anyway. That JT Krul editorial page is even worse than the ARSENAL shit, man, I mean, my God, I knew what I was getting into when I started reading it but then actually started boiling some water in a pot after, to scald my eyes out with. And the hands that held the page. DC’s refusal to attempt to simulate the Johns reboot model and hire A- or even B-list talent on the Titans franchise is galling, but putting tripe like this up on the page this week is way past insulting, not even counting the fact that this guy’s got this job, still, hasn’t been pulled like Stuart Townsend from that Jackson production. Absurdity.
FABLES #99—Lapham was such a delightful surprise at the top of the year, but Inaki Miranda is the best infusion of delight to hit these shores since Buckingham showed up in the first place. Willingham fires it up just as high as he can, yet again.
STEVE ROGERS: SUPER-SOLDIER #4—A fast and insane way to shut it down tonight. Pity the CAP readers who sat this one out. More later. Maybe. M’tired.
BATMAN & ROBIN #15—Had this as the headliner but couldn’t resist hitting it first. Can’t believe it’s over with Morrison on this. Insane way to go out, teasing Damian’s deal with the devil for his soul, really thought that was about to happen right in front of us. And we get an about-face from RoBW #5 two weeks ago, I was for the first time positive that Morrison wasn’t jerking our chains and it really was Thomas Wayne as Dr. Hurt, so of course we’ve got to get the inversion. Every panel with Joker was about the best I’ve ever seen with the character, just perfection. Rings so true.
MORNING GLORIES #3— Better than #2. Wonderful madness of opening w/ flashback in 1490. Somewhat diluted by information expositional dump in last two pages. I’m of two minds about hitting sites like CBR and Bleeding Cool, because I like hearing stuff about creators (the Ba/Moon footage at NYC Comic-Con being the most recent example), but then, almost without fail, I find teaser shit annoying and distracting, to wit, the online heralding of this issue’s Appearance of the First Message. Reading the book, instead of being caught up in the flow, I’m just like, Oh, here’s the first message now. Yep, wonder what it means. The hype diluted the moment for me. And, really, is someone not already reading this going to hear that we’re getting a first message in #3 and suddenly run out and buy this book. Hell, maybe they will. #2’s even up to $10 now. Anyway, yeah, better than #2.
KICK-ASS #1—Devastating. The movie was much better than the series, I thought, as great as both Millar and JRjr were, but Vaughan & Goodman just escalated it, I mean, really the best kind of adaptation where it probably transcends its excellent source material, the other three examples jumping to mind being the films The Neverending Story, The Hours, and Wonder Boys. But then Millar comes back just swinging for the fences. Typing this right now in the white hot ecstasy of not having read books subsequently listed, just really pumped with how much higher up he jacked the bar over what the filmed accomplished. The folks across the street should let the shy lad from Glasgow take another swing at the Big Guy. Also, the best text piece I’ve seen from him. Going to have to go back and reread SUPERIOR with a better attitude.
NEW MUTANTS #18—Brutal. Lots of teens and former teen superheroes getting there asses whupped this week, looks to be a trend in the evening ahead. Fun fact, though the New Mutants have only aged a couple of years, it’s been 22 actual years since the babies were abducted, so the 26-year gap in Limbo is almost real time for us. Does this mean . . . we live in Limbo?
X-FACTOR #210—Best single of these in a long long line. Writing and art both at the top of the class. A joy.
DV8 #7—Ha, know a thing or two about that Alan Moore reference on the first page. First Jocelyn page may be the best single piece of writing I’ve seen from Wood, a master, even and especially on that small small scale. Excellent issue, after two or three months of almost too slow burn, the shit hits the fan in a delightful manner. Looking forward to the wrapup. Isaacs is a force.
ADVENTURE COMICS #519—Best Levitz issue yet, on either side. Can’t believe, the way of the world, that it is that rare beast, a child left behind, came out last week, and just almost randomly, I mean I can’t believe it now, feel so guilty, but didn’t pay the extra for it last week, and it’s crushing, a winner, if you had Levitz and, let’s say, Morrison and Ellis, in a room with the charge, “Everyone give us your best Superboy meets Silver Age Legion in Smallville story,” then I can really see it being a three-way tie, just as much as I love and respect all three, and I’d be shocked if Levitz showed up at that particular high noon with anything but this, again. The Johns list being such a key factor. Embracing the relaunch tone, quoting, really, just really too much.
GAAAH! Insane perfectly justifiable Levitz retcon on the last page! Followed by perfect tone-shift next issue blurb! All this before Lemire on THE ATOM! Gorgeous!
And, yeah, then best Ray Palmer pages I’ve always suspected but never actually managed to stumble across until now. Thank you so much, everybody.
LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #6—This Portela guy’s fantastic, as is who- or whatever Hi-Fi is, gorgeous fill-in, the kind that makes you wish they’d shack up here for just the next little bit, see what happens.
(Do you know what the coolest thing about AGE OF APOCALYSE was? I just realized. It was the lack of solicits. Or, at least, my ignorance of them. Was it Harras’s first great act after the Image exodus? It might have been his only one, but it’s a compelling argument for his future across the street. We just saw all that malarkey go down with Storm and Bishop and the rest all stranded back in the early days of Charles & Erik and then Legion’s misfire, then, before you even had a chance to think, “Well, it’s not like this means that they’ll cancel X-Factor or Excalibur or certainly not Logan’s solo title,” then at the end of the issue we find out it’s a line-wide reboot, so effective, stunning in execution. All of this to say, instead of fucking laying it out for us in a series of ads just a very few weeks ahead of the actual conclusion, when Bruce hasn’t actually come back yet or, hey, we don’t already know that Dick gets to keep being Batman in Gotham, really, think about that, that’s a bigger deal to me than any supposed but hilarious long-lasting result/consequence that came out of INFINITE CRISIS, but they couldn’t do me the simple courtesy of letting Grant Morrison’s fucking script reveal that none-too-inconsequential plot development, because I’m supposed to be getting my trousers in a knit about the fact that Tony Daniel’s going to keep writing and drawing Dick’s adventures on the eponymous title. To me, that shows, despite the fact that Morrison’s been getting to somehow do this for five years and running now, a gaping void in editorial logic. Wouldn’t everyone have much rather heard Bruce say it after he got back?)
(though, of course, it must also be said that no one’s more pumped for BATMAN, INC., Snyder & Jock on DETECTIVE, and Williams/Hadley on BATWOMAN, and Finch/Williams on THE DARK KNIGHT than me, which actually got me thinking, something has been really rotten in the heart of Denmark when I haven’t been obligated to pick up BATMAN/DETECTIVE & SUPERMAN/ACTION every single month. I mean, someone’s messing something up when I don’t just have to, because I just realized that that should probably be and have been a given in my life and never has been. And I refuse to take responsibility for this gap, this lacking between ideal and actual.)
And wow, then also this is the best Levitz single of this issue, too, now so pumped to read them right together, but wait! It’s Jiminez!!!!
This is the first one where they get it right. Since Levitz returned, as great as the newcomers have been, I’ve always had the sense that it’s a shame not to have Giffen or Perez or Maguire or Jiminez on monthly duties, but of course, I see the problem there already, but man, just so right, getting Jiminez back here on these pages.
And we get to vote for Legion leader. Incredible. This one’s looking pretty much like the #1, here, BESTOF, fix it later.
BRIGHTEST DAY #12—Wow, what a dopey panel when the JLA show up, why not have Reis have drawn that? The Deadman & Dove panels were Reis, I guess. Best ones, anyway. That JT Krul editorial page is even worse than the ARSENAL shit, man, I mean, my God, I knew what I was getting into when I started reading it but then actually started boiling some water in a pot after, to scald my eyes out with. And the hands that held the page. DC’s refusal to attempt to simulate the Johns reboot model and hire A- or even B-list talent on the Titans franchise is galling, but putting tripe like this up on the page this week is way past insulting, not even counting the fact that this guy’s got this job, still, hasn’t been pulled like Stuart Townsend from that Jackson production. Absurdity.
FABLES #99—Lapham was such a delightful surprise at the top of the year, but Inaki Miranda is the best infusion of delight to hit these shores since Buckingham showed up in the first place. Willingham fires it up just as high as he can, yet again.
STEVE ROGERS: SUPER-SOLDIER #4—A fast and insane way to shut it down tonight. Pity the CAP readers who sat this one out. More later. Maybe. M’tired.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
10/13/10
A weekend in New Orleans followed by a crushing MAD MEN finale have held these words at bay just a little while now. Maybe the latest review yet, the new books are on the shelves but here’s last week’s reviews. Come on, now!
NEW AVENGERS #5—Bendis & company continue to lead the charge. This art team is just maybe the least bit better than over on the other book, I think, but that’s probably splitting hairs. Worst ad placement was behind those two pages with Brother Voodoo’s brother in fractal white space where you can see the logo from the wrestling action figure ads on the flip side of the page. Not cool, editors! Best panel of dialogue was when Logan called Parker “Webs,” tht whole exchange is vintage. It’s really asinine not to have Bendis scripting Spidey for the big screen. But, hey, I still think Morrison should be writing a Superman movie, what do I know? Meanwhile, in these very pages, we get a solid fanboy’s wet dream setup to take us into what’s surely the last issue of the arc. I want to not pay $4 for this in singles but don’t know how to stop. The oral histories really do make it pretty well worth it.
THE UNWRITTEN #18—Ah, it’s the old V FOR VENDETTA trick. I guess Morrison trotted it out for WEAPON X, so why can’t Carey have a whack at it, as well? Another single before the next arc kicks off. One gets the feeling that Carey & Gross are still just barely getting started, even a year and a half in. In a way that’s maybe not a bad thing.
GREEN LANTERN #58—Yeah, this whole multi-hued thing is getting pretty clustered up, here. It’s still for the most part working for me, but it must be just a hell of a thing to plot. It feels like Johns is going to have no problem making it to #100, and then, man, I’d have my eye on Bendis’s USM record. Not that that’s even over with. Nice to have the guest star cameo at the end feel like it’s going to matter or, I don’t know, count? since he’s written by the same guy. This book hasn’t been blowing me out of the water for a while now, even on the level of, say, Johns & Manipul killing it over on FLASH, but it’s solid, and you have to respect Johns’s long game.
SUPERIOR #1—I liked this better than I thought I would, picked it up more for the Yu art than Millar premise (just really sick of the self-promotion, almost hilarious to not even be surprised to find the guy pimping a movie role for this out to Don Draper the very day the first issue hits the stands, just something really undignified about it). The MS thing came off as a bit of tearjerker shorthand, like he didn’t have to try any harder to characterize the kid as anything more than the same fanboy mold as old Dave Johnson, except Now With MS, Making the Whole Magic Wish Thing That Much More Poignant. Sure was happy to see that space monkey show up, though. I think I would have tried to do this without all the Vertigo language in the dialogue, the kind of story that seems like eight year olds should maybe be able to get their hands on. Nobody wants to hear Billy Batson talking like a sailor, but hell, maybe that’s the kernel that got Millar on this in the first place. I figure I’ll pick up #2 if it’s a light week, catch up on the trade eventually if not. Cool of them to make it $2.99, that was probably the creators’ call. Millar does hook his artists up, a very cool thing.
FRACTION HAT TRICK!:
THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #31—I’ve decided that this one probably reads better in trade. Maybe the movies are spoiling me, but I feel like we’re inching along and not getting enough of a complete story every month. It’s all very well done, of course, the chapters just aren’t quite as satisfying as they could be. Like watching Downey, Jr. in six-minute doses. Great work, but then it’s over right when they’re about to get to the next good part. Not to say I’m not stoked for next month, as ever.
THOR #616—This, too, was more of a slow burn than I expected. And, of course, I’ve still got like stratospheric expectations for this brought about by the delays plus mainlining Simonson’s Surtur Saga right before we got going. Ferry’s work is breathtaking. I don’t see why the ad for the damn Red Hulk in THE AVENGERS can’t be on the right side of the page and not break up the momentum leading to such a momentous last page, not really a time you want to hiccup the flow. Editors! It also seems strange putting a LOKI #1 on sale next week, but I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised. Final verdict, enjoying this, but it’s taking a little while to get off the ground. But hey, they basically had to perform the equivalent of introducing Beta Ray Bill in the first issue to live up to the hope and hype.
CASANOVA #4—And just like that, Luxuria comes to an end. I am curious what someone who’s never hit it before thought about it in this concentrated colored dosage. I really like what Cris Smith did. And can not get enough of the Ba(Moon)! Hit PIXU just a couple weeks ago. Just waiting to find that DE:TALES for cheap, now. Looking forward to the next arc because I reread the hell out of this first one and remembered more beats than not, whereas I always meant to go back and do the same with #8-14 and never did, so should be a treat. Seems ill-advised to build a three-month gap in between now and the next arc, though. Monthly, people! I want this book to do as well as it possibly can. Really just can’t wait for #9, to be perfectly candid. The interview with Chaykin (heh, almost typed “Flagg” there) was interesting, but it seemed like Fraction went to the F-bomb a few times too many, as if that was automatic cred or something. I mean, like five or six times in a row. It loses weight through repetition, Boss! It got to the point where I was just expecting retorts like “Fucking fuck AMERICAN FLAGG, fuck me.” Ah well, I suppose I can really criticize his interviewing technique after I get Chaykin on the line myself. One thing it did accomplish was inspire me to finish tracking down the rest of that first run of AF in singles, so that’s surely going to improve my life.
And this would have been a footnote, since we’re all the way off the Quinn family now and already at the bottom of the page, what’s the point? But talking about AMERICAN FLAGG, I’ve been hitting some classic runs in singles that got by me in the first place, am two years into Byrne on FF, now about to lock it up with ALPHA FLIGHT and hit those side-by-side, month-by-month, and still need to knock out the remainder of Simonson’s THOR and the last year and change of Milligan/Allred on X-STATIX, (all of these are stacked up in my nightstand drawer, just waiting), then I still need to track down #37 of JLI (or I think it’s A by then, but you know what I mean, Giffen/Dematteis) to finish that one up, then yeah, let’s do Chaykin and maybe finally round up all those old Miller DAREDEVILs. And need to finish up CEREBUS and start LONE WOLF & CUB back up from the beginning now that I’ve got all those, too. Really no surprise that I’m not hitting that much prose these days, no.
NEW AVENGERS #5—Bendis & company continue to lead the charge. This art team is just maybe the least bit better than over on the other book, I think, but that’s probably splitting hairs. Worst ad placement was behind those two pages with Brother Voodoo’s brother in fractal white space where you can see the logo from the wrestling action figure ads on the flip side of the page. Not cool, editors! Best panel of dialogue was when Logan called Parker “Webs,” tht whole exchange is vintage. It’s really asinine not to have Bendis scripting Spidey for the big screen. But, hey, I still think Morrison should be writing a Superman movie, what do I know? Meanwhile, in these very pages, we get a solid fanboy’s wet dream setup to take us into what’s surely the last issue of the arc. I want to not pay $4 for this in singles but don’t know how to stop. The oral histories really do make it pretty well worth it.
THE UNWRITTEN #18—Ah, it’s the old V FOR VENDETTA trick. I guess Morrison trotted it out for WEAPON X, so why can’t Carey have a whack at it, as well? Another single before the next arc kicks off. One gets the feeling that Carey & Gross are still just barely getting started, even a year and a half in. In a way that’s maybe not a bad thing.
GREEN LANTERN #58—Yeah, this whole multi-hued thing is getting pretty clustered up, here. It’s still for the most part working for me, but it must be just a hell of a thing to plot. It feels like Johns is going to have no problem making it to #100, and then, man, I’d have my eye on Bendis’s USM record. Not that that’s even over with. Nice to have the guest star cameo at the end feel like it’s going to matter or, I don’t know, count? since he’s written by the same guy. This book hasn’t been blowing me out of the water for a while now, even on the level of, say, Johns & Manipul killing it over on FLASH, but it’s solid, and you have to respect Johns’s long game.
SUPERIOR #1—I liked this better than I thought I would, picked it up more for the Yu art than Millar premise (just really sick of the self-promotion, almost hilarious to not even be surprised to find the guy pimping a movie role for this out to Don Draper the very day the first issue hits the stands, just something really undignified about it). The MS thing came off as a bit of tearjerker shorthand, like he didn’t have to try any harder to characterize the kid as anything more than the same fanboy mold as old Dave Johnson, except Now With MS, Making the Whole Magic Wish Thing That Much More Poignant. Sure was happy to see that space monkey show up, though. I think I would have tried to do this without all the Vertigo language in the dialogue, the kind of story that seems like eight year olds should maybe be able to get their hands on. Nobody wants to hear Billy Batson talking like a sailor, but hell, maybe that’s the kernel that got Millar on this in the first place. I figure I’ll pick up #2 if it’s a light week, catch up on the trade eventually if not. Cool of them to make it $2.99, that was probably the creators’ call. Millar does hook his artists up, a very cool thing.
FRACTION HAT TRICK!:
THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #31—I’ve decided that this one probably reads better in trade. Maybe the movies are spoiling me, but I feel like we’re inching along and not getting enough of a complete story every month. It’s all very well done, of course, the chapters just aren’t quite as satisfying as they could be. Like watching Downey, Jr. in six-minute doses. Great work, but then it’s over right when they’re about to get to the next good part. Not to say I’m not stoked for next month, as ever.
THOR #616—This, too, was more of a slow burn than I expected. And, of course, I’ve still got like stratospheric expectations for this brought about by the delays plus mainlining Simonson’s Surtur Saga right before we got going. Ferry’s work is breathtaking. I don’t see why the ad for the damn Red Hulk in THE AVENGERS can’t be on the right side of the page and not break up the momentum leading to such a momentous last page, not really a time you want to hiccup the flow. Editors! It also seems strange putting a LOKI #1 on sale next week, but I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised. Final verdict, enjoying this, but it’s taking a little while to get off the ground. But hey, they basically had to perform the equivalent of introducing Beta Ray Bill in the first issue to live up to the hope and hype.
CASANOVA #4—And just like that, Luxuria comes to an end. I am curious what someone who’s never hit it before thought about it in this concentrated colored dosage. I really like what Cris Smith did. And can not get enough of the Ba(Moon)! Hit PIXU just a couple weeks ago. Just waiting to find that DE:TALES for cheap, now. Looking forward to the next arc because I reread the hell out of this first one and remembered more beats than not, whereas I always meant to go back and do the same with #8-14 and never did, so should be a treat. Seems ill-advised to build a three-month gap in between now and the next arc, though. Monthly, people! I want this book to do as well as it possibly can. Really just can’t wait for #9, to be perfectly candid. The interview with Chaykin (heh, almost typed “Flagg” there) was interesting, but it seemed like Fraction went to the F-bomb a few times too many, as if that was automatic cred or something. I mean, like five or six times in a row. It loses weight through repetition, Boss! It got to the point where I was just expecting retorts like “Fucking fuck AMERICAN FLAGG, fuck me.” Ah well, I suppose I can really criticize his interviewing technique after I get Chaykin on the line myself. One thing it did accomplish was inspire me to finish tracking down the rest of that first run of AF in singles, so that’s surely going to improve my life.
And this would have been a footnote, since we’re all the way off the Quinn family now and already at the bottom of the page, what’s the point? But talking about AMERICAN FLAGG, I’ve been hitting some classic runs in singles that got by me in the first place, am two years into Byrne on FF, now about to lock it up with ALPHA FLIGHT and hit those side-by-side, month-by-month, and still need to knock out the remainder of Simonson’s THOR and the last year and change of Milligan/Allred on X-STATIX, (all of these are stacked up in my nightstand drawer, just waiting), then I still need to track down #37 of JLI (or I think it’s A by then, but you know what I mean, Giffen/Dematteis) to finish that one up, then yeah, let’s do Chaykin and maybe finally round up all those old Miller DAREDEVILs. And need to finish up CEREBUS and start LONE WOLF & CUB back up from the beginning now that I’ve got all those, too. Really no surprise that I’m not hitting that much prose these days, no.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
10/6/10
Man. These books showed up for October, I’ll tell you what. This week was dark, people. I mean, really, on every level. Witness:
NEONOMICON #2 – I read this last, by candlelight, just like the previous issue. Moore’s got the headliner spot anytime he shows up. But ah God, just . . . it was very well written. That’s what’s so horrifying about it. Moore does such an effective job of bypassing all your defenses and dialing you right into his characters’ heads (and, yeah, here, bodies) that what transpires in the back half of the issue is all the more just scratch-out-your-eyes unbearable, because these are not images on a two-dimensional plane, these are really people and what’s happening to them should not be happening to anyone. It’s not so bad, not AS bad, just to describe the plot after the fact to somebody, you know, I mean, at this point, we’re all pretty jaded. How many SAWs have they made now? But right there in the middle of it, when those characters are breathing and screaming and begging, incarnate from the spellcraft of the Great Wizard of Northampton, man, that shit sticks with you and it is not a good thing. I really spent most of Thursday trying to wipe the images from my mind, not as much what was on the page but the business that my mind filled in in the gutters. The work of Jacen Burrows’s career, mind you. Wondering what could possibly be on the slate for the back half of this series. But, I can wait. You boys take your time, there.
THE BOYS #47—And then Ennis just gives us both barrels. That cover is much more of a damn shame after reading the issue. Everything in here makes perfect sense. Old Butcher came off as a few shades less subtle than I expected, especially given the deft touch he had with events last month, but I guess Hughie’s not exactly really paying attention at the moment. Nice bit juggling the scale there, we care so much more what’s going on with two people at a park than every superhero holding a clandestine stratospheric meeting, didn’t even realize we didn’t make it back up there until some time after finishing the issue. Sorry not to see Robertson hammering these nails into place on a coffin he did so much to build, but you can’t find fault with Braun. A riveting read, month in, month out.
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #37—No! Xander & Dawn, don’t you realize that you are in the middle of a Whedon season finale? If there is one thing you never never do at that time, it’s nose up against the satisfying end of a character arc or, really, declare your undying affection for someone who might be your true love, and you really really don’t want to be talking about just getting away from all of this and on with the rest of your lives, just after this last mission is over. I like the retcon on the Season One Big Bad being the Hellmouth’s protector. If they’re not messing with us, nice of them to knock any speculation I might have re: the majority of this post by showing us the cover for next month, and, really, putting that on the cover in the first place. I swear to God, these people.
AMERICAN VAMPIRE #7—This continues to be an excellent read even without any help from up north. No shortcuts here, just solid character work grafting vampire mythos onto actual history with Rafael Albuquerque destroying page after page. Was feeling all right hitting this at $4 a pop, delighted they’re rolling it back after I guess the next couple of issues.
HOUSE OF MYSTERY #30—Um. I’m not even sure what happened. But this series is still killing it after two and a half years and I think we might have gotten the best story-within-a-story yet. All praise be to Sturges.
BLACKEST NIGHT #9/BRIGHTEST DAY #11—But so you see? Two Vertigos, THE BOYS, BUFFY, all pretty creepy stuff. I figured the one bright patch would, you know, be this. Cue the inexplicable and completely uncalled for return of the Black Lanterns. Um, this might have been a little cooler or more jawdropping if the thing with them hadn’t just gotten resolved like in this same calendar year. As little as I really care about the participants of both conflicts in this issue, it was an entertaining enough read. Looks like I’ll probably hang out for the back half of this one, unlike that old JUSTICE LEAGUE book, the title of which I’m not even going to spell all the way out again.
BEST OF WEEK: S.H.I.E.L.D. #4—Ah, a mainline of the good stuff. This is another one of those that’re going to read so much better in trade, just because every single advertisement is an affront against whatever page of sequentials it’s opposite. Were Newton and da Vinci speaking in actual Egyptian hieroglyphics? Would love to know what they were saying. And, uh, what the words sounded like. We finally get to find out how the world does in fact end, information it’s been strongly implied since the first issue that somebody actually has. Does that last scene make Nostradamus the Big Bad? Loved the starbirth of that baby Celestial. Am just horribly impressed with every aspect of this series. Weaver is a force.
NEONOMICON #2 – I read this last, by candlelight, just like the previous issue. Moore’s got the headliner spot anytime he shows up. But ah God, just . . . it was very well written. That’s what’s so horrifying about it. Moore does such an effective job of bypassing all your defenses and dialing you right into his characters’ heads (and, yeah, here, bodies) that what transpires in the back half of the issue is all the more just scratch-out-your-eyes unbearable, because these are not images on a two-dimensional plane, these are really people and what’s happening to them should not be happening to anyone. It’s not so bad, not AS bad, just to describe the plot after the fact to somebody, you know, I mean, at this point, we’re all pretty jaded. How many SAWs have they made now? But right there in the middle of it, when those characters are breathing and screaming and begging, incarnate from the spellcraft of the Great Wizard of Northampton, man, that shit sticks with you and it is not a good thing. I really spent most of Thursday trying to wipe the images from my mind, not as much what was on the page but the business that my mind filled in in the gutters. The work of Jacen Burrows’s career, mind you. Wondering what could possibly be on the slate for the back half of this series. But, I can wait. You boys take your time, there.
THE BOYS #47—And then Ennis just gives us both barrels. That cover is much more of a damn shame after reading the issue. Everything in here makes perfect sense. Old Butcher came off as a few shades less subtle than I expected, especially given the deft touch he had with events last month, but I guess Hughie’s not exactly really paying attention at the moment. Nice bit juggling the scale there, we care so much more what’s going on with two people at a park than every superhero holding a clandestine stratospheric meeting, didn’t even realize we didn’t make it back up there until some time after finishing the issue. Sorry not to see Robertson hammering these nails into place on a coffin he did so much to build, but you can’t find fault with Braun. A riveting read, month in, month out.
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #37—No! Xander & Dawn, don’t you realize that you are in the middle of a Whedon season finale? If there is one thing you never never do at that time, it’s nose up against the satisfying end of a character arc or, really, declare your undying affection for someone who might be your true love, and you really really don’t want to be talking about just getting away from all of this and on with the rest of your lives, just after this last mission is over. I like the retcon on the Season One Big Bad being the Hellmouth’s protector. If they’re not messing with us, nice of them to knock any speculation I might have re: the majority of this post by showing us the cover for next month, and, really, putting that on the cover in the first place. I swear to God, these people.
AMERICAN VAMPIRE #7—This continues to be an excellent read even without any help from up north. No shortcuts here, just solid character work grafting vampire mythos onto actual history with Rafael Albuquerque destroying page after page. Was feeling all right hitting this at $4 a pop, delighted they’re rolling it back after I guess the next couple of issues.
HOUSE OF MYSTERY #30—Um. I’m not even sure what happened. But this series is still killing it after two and a half years and I think we might have gotten the best story-within-a-story yet. All praise be to Sturges.
BLACKEST NIGHT #9/BRIGHTEST DAY #11—But so you see? Two Vertigos, THE BOYS, BUFFY, all pretty creepy stuff. I figured the one bright patch would, you know, be this. Cue the inexplicable and completely uncalled for return of the Black Lanterns. Um, this might have been a little cooler or more jawdropping if the thing with them hadn’t just gotten resolved like in this same calendar year. As little as I really care about the participants of both conflicts in this issue, it was an entertaining enough read. Looks like I’ll probably hang out for the back half of this one, unlike that old JUSTICE LEAGUE book, the title of which I’m not even going to spell all the way out again.
BEST OF WEEK: S.H.I.E.L.D. #4—Ah, a mainline of the good stuff. This is another one of those that’re going to read so much better in trade, just because every single advertisement is an affront against whatever page of sequentials it’s opposite. Were Newton and da Vinci speaking in actual Egyptian hieroglyphics? Would love to know what they were saying. And, uh, what the words sounded like. We finally get to find out how the world does in fact end, information it’s been strongly implied since the first issue that somebody actually has. Does that last scene make Nostradamus the Big Bad? Loved the starbirth of that baby Celestial. Am just horribly impressed with every aspect of this series. Weaver is a force.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
9/29/10
Small week, this fifth Wednesday, but certainly not lacking for quality. I deeply loved everything I bought and managed to get out of the store for under $20. Win and win! Let’s get into it.
AVENGERS: PRIME #3 – This, right here on its own in five little issues, is more of an event and more impressive than SIEGE, or really anything like that that I’ve seen from Bendis. Davis & Farmer cannot be contained. I mean, from that first two-page splash, they own you, body and soul. We’ve got Thor getting smote, naked Tony Stark on horseback fleeing a dragon before yukking it up with Steve, all flirty in a way that somehow manages not to be homoerotic, and then our boys in hell? Killer plot, but Bendis’s dialogue remains the star of the show, just sings here sweeter than ever. Dude is really at the top of his game right now, and I’m not even reading whatever they’re calling ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN anymore. And I can’t go on enough about how great the art is. This could totally be a filler mini-series, but like I said, it’s getting it done for me better than every event we’ve seen from Marvel in the past decade. Great great work and, yeah, totally worth the $4.
CAPTAIN AMERICA #610 – Brubaker, Guice and company knock this one out of the park. I loved those first 25 issues so much, the best Cap run that I’ve ever run across, but hell if I don’t like this stuff with Bucky even better. Really glad that he got to keep the shield even after big man came back. Wonder if Brubaker’s got an exit strategy lined up, or is just plotting ahead for the next couple of years with no end in sight. Man, I do not envy the guy who has to follow this act.
ACTION COMICS #893 – Yeah, this really is too good. Cornell just nailed it, setting up android Lois as Lex’s foil, because we totally need that interplay, but it would ring just the least bit false if the real woman was actually globetrotting with her husband’s nemesis. Which actually freaked me out pretty good this time, the globetrotting. I jammed the first volume of BATMAN: BLACK & WHITE a couple of weeks ago (which I can’t recommend highly enough, amazing stories in there, top-drawer talent), but all those succinct 8-pgrs set my brain firing and I had to exorcise an idea about the weekly Monday morning pool game that Bruce and Clark always play at sunrise before clocking in as their secret identities for the start of the week, just a couple of bros blowing off steam, but on the last page, Bruce asks about Lois and Clark mentions that she’s off in Uganda working on a piece, and lo and behold, two nights after I first typed the words, we’ve got Lex and android Lois on safari in Uganda, which freaked me out pretty good. But enough about unsolicited spec fanfic, this is another solid slab of Luthor goodness. Sean Chen does excellent fill-in work. Don’t know why he’s not working more, he killed that FF: DARK REIGN series to start out Hickman’s run early last year and this is the first I’ve seen of him since. Really excellent job. Incredibly annoyed with DC for announcing it and myself for reading it, because if I’d hit that last page not knowing what was already coming for this title, think I would have just started running around the room screaming. So great to see her again, after all these years. She really is just the best friend you wish you could hang out with forever and always. Which, I guess eventually you can.
CASANOVA #3 – This pair of issues didn’t just bowl me over when they first came out, but they still make a cracking good read, especially served up side by side and in gorgeous living color. My favorite panel is probably the one when Cass goes native. Kal’laa yourself, guy! After getting flattened last month by the Chabon/Fraction backmatter, I couldn’t wait to see what my man had in the hopper this month and was pretty stunned to find an interview with Mike Doughty, late of Soul Coughing, about addiction and recovery. Fraction is an alcoholic and an addict?!? CASANOVA was conceived of and written under a state of total sobriety? It cannot be? Pretty shocking, I completely had him pegged as a put-the-kids-to-bed-then-light-up-and-jam-out-some-madness type of fella. Guess I got the personality type right, but he’s moved on. Well, good for him. Pretty compelling reading, the best on this topic I’ve seen, this side of INFINITE JEST, which reigns supreme, once and forever.
BEST OF WEEK: ATLAS #5 – I think I’d feel this way even if it wasn’t the last issue. But we’ll never know! Parker/Hardman et al have had a fantastic run on this series across almost thirty different issues worth of mini-series and truncated ongoings, but this has been my favorite arc of the entire batch. For all the mind-blowing Big Plot exploding across the pages, Parker never loses sight of the little beats that define character and are the glue that holds a team book like this together. This really is a cast of nobodies, C- and D-listers, and he does a fine job of making us care about them, as individuals and as a family. I adored the text pages. That first double-shot, especially, made total sense in the context of what was going on, and dude’s nailing the voices of his characters when he can just drop an entire scene on you without dialogue tags and you know exactly who’s talking from the cadence of their speech. Also, the text is a nice nod to this title’s pulp roots.
But, oh, those last three pages! Over the moon insanity. “May there be many before you ride with us on the steppes,” ayeGod, that line in context just completely blows the doors off of this series and makes Woo one of the most compelling characters in the entire Marvel Universe, at least from where I’m sitting. Amazing last page, perfect last panel. If we never get another page of this book, they could not have gone out on a higher note. If it ever comes back, Jeff Parker sure as hell better be the only person who writes it. But now the entire team’s off to HULK? I . . . I don’t care about HULK, I don’t want to read HULK! I must. Did it come out this week? I might have to trudge back and take a look. Plus, I hear that BRAVE & THE BOLD is amazing. Maybe not such a small week after all. But first, let us raise a glass and bow our heads and say a little prayer of thanks to Marvel Comics, Jeff Parker, Gabriel Hardman, Elizabeth Breitweiser, Ramon Rosanas, and everyone else involved in making this dream a reality. A wonderful, wonderful series that will be missed every single month.
ATLAS. It was about Jimmy Woo.
AVENGERS: PRIME #3 – This, right here on its own in five little issues, is more of an event and more impressive than SIEGE, or really anything like that that I’ve seen from Bendis. Davis & Farmer cannot be contained. I mean, from that first two-page splash, they own you, body and soul. We’ve got Thor getting smote, naked Tony Stark on horseback fleeing a dragon before yukking it up with Steve, all flirty in a way that somehow manages not to be homoerotic, and then our boys in hell? Killer plot, but Bendis’s dialogue remains the star of the show, just sings here sweeter than ever. Dude is really at the top of his game right now, and I’m not even reading whatever they’re calling ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN anymore. And I can’t go on enough about how great the art is. This could totally be a filler mini-series, but like I said, it’s getting it done for me better than every event we’ve seen from Marvel in the past decade. Great great work and, yeah, totally worth the $4.
CAPTAIN AMERICA #610 – Brubaker, Guice and company knock this one out of the park. I loved those first 25 issues so much, the best Cap run that I’ve ever run across, but hell if I don’t like this stuff with Bucky even better. Really glad that he got to keep the shield even after big man came back. Wonder if Brubaker’s got an exit strategy lined up, or is just plotting ahead for the next couple of years with no end in sight. Man, I do not envy the guy who has to follow this act.
ACTION COMICS #893 – Yeah, this really is too good. Cornell just nailed it, setting up android Lois as Lex’s foil, because we totally need that interplay, but it would ring just the least bit false if the real woman was actually globetrotting with her husband’s nemesis. Which actually freaked me out pretty good this time, the globetrotting. I jammed the first volume of BATMAN: BLACK & WHITE a couple of weeks ago (which I can’t recommend highly enough, amazing stories in there, top-drawer talent), but all those succinct 8-pgrs set my brain firing and I had to exorcise an idea about the weekly Monday morning pool game that Bruce and Clark always play at sunrise before clocking in as their secret identities for the start of the week, just a couple of bros blowing off steam, but on the last page, Bruce asks about Lois and Clark mentions that she’s off in Uganda working on a piece, and lo and behold, two nights after I first typed the words, we’ve got Lex and android Lois on safari in Uganda, which freaked me out pretty good. But enough about unsolicited spec fanfic, this is another solid slab of Luthor goodness. Sean Chen does excellent fill-in work. Don’t know why he’s not working more, he killed that FF: DARK REIGN series to start out Hickman’s run early last year and this is the first I’ve seen of him since. Really excellent job. Incredibly annoyed with DC for announcing it and myself for reading it, because if I’d hit that last page not knowing what was already coming for this title, think I would have just started running around the room screaming. So great to see her again, after all these years. She really is just the best friend you wish you could hang out with forever and always. Which, I guess eventually you can.
CASANOVA #3 – This pair of issues didn’t just bowl me over when they first came out, but they still make a cracking good read, especially served up side by side and in gorgeous living color. My favorite panel is probably the one when Cass goes native. Kal’laa yourself, guy! After getting flattened last month by the Chabon/Fraction backmatter, I couldn’t wait to see what my man had in the hopper this month and was pretty stunned to find an interview with Mike Doughty, late of Soul Coughing, about addiction and recovery. Fraction is an alcoholic and an addict?!? CASANOVA was conceived of and written under a state of total sobriety? It cannot be? Pretty shocking, I completely had him pegged as a put-the-kids-to-bed-then-light-up-and-jam-out-some-madness type of fella. Guess I got the personality type right, but he’s moved on. Well, good for him. Pretty compelling reading, the best on this topic I’ve seen, this side of INFINITE JEST, which reigns supreme, once and forever.
BEST OF WEEK: ATLAS #5 – I think I’d feel this way even if it wasn’t the last issue. But we’ll never know! Parker/Hardman et al have had a fantastic run on this series across almost thirty different issues worth of mini-series and truncated ongoings, but this has been my favorite arc of the entire batch. For all the mind-blowing Big Plot exploding across the pages, Parker never loses sight of the little beats that define character and are the glue that holds a team book like this together. This really is a cast of nobodies, C- and D-listers, and he does a fine job of making us care about them, as individuals and as a family. I adored the text pages. That first double-shot, especially, made total sense in the context of what was going on, and dude’s nailing the voices of his characters when he can just drop an entire scene on you without dialogue tags and you know exactly who’s talking from the cadence of their speech. Also, the text is a nice nod to this title’s pulp roots.
But, oh, those last three pages! Over the moon insanity. “May there be many before you ride with us on the steppes,” ayeGod, that line in context just completely blows the doors off of this series and makes Woo one of the most compelling characters in the entire Marvel Universe, at least from where I’m sitting. Amazing last page, perfect last panel. If we never get another page of this book, they could not have gone out on a higher note. If it ever comes back, Jeff Parker sure as hell better be the only person who writes it. But now the entire team’s off to HULK? I . . . I don’t care about HULK, I don’t want to read HULK! I must. Did it come out this week? I might have to trudge back and take a look. Plus, I hear that BRAVE & THE BOLD is amazing. Maybe not such a small week after all. But first, let us raise a glass and bow our heads and say a little prayer of thanks to Marvel Comics, Jeff Parker, Gabriel Hardman, Elizabeth Breitweiser, Ramon Rosanas, and everyone else involved in making this dream a reality. A wonderful, wonderful series that will be missed every single month.
ATLAS. It was about Jimmy Woo.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
9/22/10
AVENGERS #5 – Man, how this one keeps doing it for me. They really need to get it together and have trades for sale in the lobby of theaters showing Marvel movies. Just this volume and the first Fraction/Ferry arc next spring after THOR would do some serious numbers, I reckon. This series continues to be—for better or worse, and I’m delighted with it—pretty much the benchmark for 2010 Marvel comics. Bendis is the architect, and Romita, Janson, and White make it a reality. The greatest thing about this issue, if you can believe it, is not Thor VS Galactus across pages 3 and 4, which, come on, but Bendis does this fantastic trick a few pages later where he soaks up all the technique Johns & co. dropped in 52 and BOOSTER GOLD these last few years of using all these cool little foreshadowing bits on Rip Hunter’s blackboard, but here Bendis just completely blows them out of the water, I mean, on the level of Charlie Parker double-timing the “Cherokee” changes and being like, “I call this ‘Koko’.” It certainly might not seem as cool in five or ten years after all of these arcs play out, but right now, calling the long game for the foreseeable future of the Marvel universe Babe Ruth-style in the form of insane timeline scribbling authored by future Tony Stark in an attempt to save the future by hurdling it past the Ultron War, well, it’s just a hell of a trick. My favorite nuggets, not counting the Ultron War (if only because we already got that double-splash last month), are ALL HOPE LIES IN DOOM and GALACTUS SEED. But then, wait, we went back to #3? I’m not even sure how it all lines up, and I almost don’t want to be. This is great big glorious fun, and a Wednesday night treasure.
SECRET AVENGERS #5 – Oh, David Aja, why have you stayed away from interiors for so long? You make me miss IRON FIST too much. This is a perfectly entertaining issue, but they’re stretching me out on the price point, just dropping a preview in the extra pages. Particularly with this title, it’s just begging for Hickmanesque backmatter, secret files and revelations and such, and their absence comes across as lazy. I want to put the next issue on probation for tradewaiting, but the only coming attraction is HONG KONG KUNG FU! so, you know, hard to walk away from.
UNCANNY X-MEN #528 – It feels good to have been buying this title for a few years running, now and again. Like your favorite old pair of mutant pants! Portacio tightens his lines up a bit this month. Is he just like the regular guy now, or on board for the whole arc, or what? It’s kind of freaking me out to get an Image founder three months in a row on this book, yah? I love Namor being folded into this title, the original mutant. (Isn’t he? That sounds right to me from way back, but now I can’t remember why. The little ankle wings?) Fraction writes a hell of an Ororo, but then the plot thickens pretty good on the last page. Oh, you strong Claremont women, it’s nice to see that somebody still loves you, and by that I mean respects you.
FLASH #5 – Yeah, these guys just keep doing it right. I’m not sure that anybody is more in love with DC continuity than our boy Mr. Johns, but he certainly knows what to do with it. Another trial for Barry, yeesh, I bet this one goes by just a little bit faster.
FABLES #98 – Aaaaaand Rose finally clocks back in. Hilarious montage of everyone’s complaints. This one’s been picking up steam for the last few months and I’m very interested to see what the crew’s got planned for #100, that’s going to be just a beast of an issue, no question.
LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #5 – All right, now which continuity is this one, again? I’m starting to get whiplash. Levitz has apparently made the interesting call to turn Earth-Man into pretty much the protagonist of this book, even though of course there’s still the monster ensemble. Or maybe that’s just the way this first arc’s going to go? Or is he even doing arcs? I guess this does seem more like last time, less trade-oriented and just one thing flowing into the next. All right, not the most tightly focused review. I liked this book, nothing mind-blowing but it good.
NEMESIS #3 – This book reminds me of that old Soundgarden song “Big Dumb Sex,” you know it? Pre-BADMOTORFINGER material, really vintage shit, basically parodying and glorifying the trappings of late-80s hair metal sometimes referred to as cock rock (and I’m talking more Whitesnake/Winger, here, Todd, no disrespect to the Leppard!). But I think maybe this book is like that. Millar can’t actually be this ridiculous, it’s surely surely a joke. I mean, the Air Force One stunt in #1 should have been clue enough. Nemesis is sooooo badassssss, I can barely handle it! Again, McNiven draws the hell out of that fight scene. And then Millar drops the Evil High Concept. Involuntary sibling in vitro fertilization. And just when it can’t get any worse, the brother is gay! So wrong! When viewed as satire, kind of hilarious.
ASTONISHING X-MEN: XENOGENESIS #3 – Ellis brings back the Warpies! What a hell of a thing to do on the way out the door. Now, you’re going to start referring to 25-year old Marvel UK Alan Moore continuity? With two issues left to go? Just almost a dick move. But wonderful. This arc kind of reads like Ellis jamming through a few issues of UNKNOWN SOLDIER and deciding to why not muscle that on in here. Which isn’t a bad thing. Andrews’ work is less stylized here, blends into the story a bit better. Though the cover is pretty regrettable. Really going to miss Ellis over in this corner of the work-for-hire.
FANTASTIC FOUR #583 – Ah, Epting. What a delight. Edwards really came along and got to be getting it done, but Epting is simply a cut above. I really don’t go in for all this Who’s Going To Die? hype, hard to get worked up about anything like that anymore, not even counting any momentary dramatic effect that might happen within the course of the story getting dulled by months of lead-in bullshit prior to the actual moment, but I want to think that Hickman’s aware of all that and playing off of our expectations. We’ll see. Either way, even though you can argue that, again, this entire issue is pretty much set-up, it remains cracking good comics, something to mutter incoherently then scream at your friends about when you’ve had half a bottle of fine vodka at a bachelor party, followed by some mead called Viking that causes you to rip a piece of steak in half with your bare hands and devour one of the pieces right there before any of them can close their shocked and gaping mouths. Why do people keep asking me to be in their wedding parties? I feel that I continuously make pretty compelling arguments against inclusion. The exchange between Val and Doom was golden before she muttered “All hope lies in Doom,” and then I wanted to just start smashing walls at the beautiful architecture of it all. And this was later, remember, five days after the bachelor party, though you had better believe that I was spitting that title out at them over the textwaves just as fast as my little fingers could type it.
****
BEST OF WEEK: THOR #615 – Man, have I been waiting for this one. Without really trying or meaning to, I jammed the first year+ of the Simonson run in the past week, the back post-Beta Ray Bill 2/3rds for the first time, and it just worked out that I hit #349 on Tuesday, so that mandated #350 as the first read for tonight, even though it came out like 1,300 and change Wednesdays ago. And I really was going to write up that entire first arc and how it hit me and pertained or didn’t to Fraction/Ferry’s first 22+ pages, and hey, then I was going to rewatch the L O S T finale and finally do the final roundup on that since it was September 22nd, but wouldn’t you know it, my hard drive crashed on the 21st, and I was writing insane chickenscratch in longhand on Legal Pads for days and now all is well and I have my word machine back and didn’t lose anything, but it’s nearly Wednesday again and I think I’m just going to talk about this particular issue, if that’s all right.
Oh, but the mead! I was like three pages into #350 and I remembered that I have a couple bottles of mead that my good buddy Seth Humble gave me like three years ago, and hey, when the hell is going to be a better time to crack one of those open than when you’re jamming #350→#615, so yas, that was in effect, the truth must be told. And since we’re telling truths, maybe I liked AVENGERS #5 better than this. It certainly was swell. But I read it first (well, first after THOR #350, but you see where this is going), and then read this last, and then there was the mead. And Lone Star. As ever. And there were comics? Being read at some point?
I like how Fraction structures this, bookending it with the Volstagg/cosmologist meeting, then opening it up to three striking double-page spreads of doomed inconsequential characters, before breaking it wide open, right there in the middle of the book with the staples and all, to that gorgeous double-splash and just “THOR!” Right, that guy. His name’s on the cover. And if I wasn’t already so on board, hadn’t already convinced myself last April that this was going to be the new and hot ultimate wonderful, Heimdall’s sudden appearance at the end of the issue does the job, hitting just the perfect ominous notes. Have really been digging Fraction’s runs on UNCANNY and IRON MAN, never even mind CASANOVA because that just isn’t fair, but this one here’s going to put both of those to shame, and I’m so glad to have a front row seat next to you to watch it unfold, page by page and week by week, here oh so late at night at the Wednesday night mass.
SECRET AVENGERS #5 – Oh, David Aja, why have you stayed away from interiors for so long? You make me miss IRON FIST too much. This is a perfectly entertaining issue, but they’re stretching me out on the price point, just dropping a preview in the extra pages. Particularly with this title, it’s just begging for Hickmanesque backmatter, secret files and revelations and such, and their absence comes across as lazy. I want to put the next issue on probation for tradewaiting, but the only coming attraction is HONG KONG KUNG FU! so, you know, hard to walk away from.
UNCANNY X-MEN #528 – It feels good to have been buying this title for a few years running, now and again. Like your favorite old pair of mutant pants! Portacio tightens his lines up a bit this month. Is he just like the regular guy now, or on board for the whole arc, or what? It’s kind of freaking me out to get an Image founder three months in a row on this book, yah? I love Namor being folded into this title, the original mutant. (Isn’t he? That sounds right to me from way back, but now I can’t remember why. The little ankle wings?) Fraction writes a hell of an Ororo, but then the plot thickens pretty good on the last page. Oh, you strong Claremont women, it’s nice to see that somebody still loves you, and by that I mean respects you.
FLASH #5 – Yeah, these guys just keep doing it right. I’m not sure that anybody is more in love with DC continuity than our boy Mr. Johns, but he certainly knows what to do with it. Another trial for Barry, yeesh, I bet this one goes by just a little bit faster.
FABLES #98 – Aaaaaand Rose finally clocks back in. Hilarious montage of everyone’s complaints. This one’s been picking up steam for the last few months and I’m very interested to see what the crew’s got planned for #100, that’s going to be just a beast of an issue, no question.
LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #5 – All right, now which continuity is this one, again? I’m starting to get whiplash. Levitz has apparently made the interesting call to turn Earth-Man into pretty much the protagonist of this book, even though of course there’s still the monster ensemble. Or maybe that’s just the way this first arc’s going to go? Or is he even doing arcs? I guess this does seem more like last time, less trade-oriented and just one thing flowing into the next. All right, not the most tightly focused review. I liked this book, nothing mind-blowing but it good.
NEMESIS #3 – This book reminds me of that old Soundgarden song “Big Dumb Sex,” you know it? Pre-BADMOTORFINGER material, really vintage shit, basically parodying and glorifying the trappings of late-80s hair metal sometimes referred to as cock rock (and I’m talking more Whitesnake/Winger, here, Todd, no disrespect to the Leppard!). But I think maybe this book is like that. Millar can’t actually be this ridiculous, it’s surely surely a joke. I mean, the Air Force One stunt in #1 should have been clue enough. Nemesis is sooooo badassssss, I can barely handle it! Again, McNiven draws the hell out of that fight scene. And then Millar drops the Evil High Concept. Involuntary sibling in vitro fertilization. And just when it can’t get any worse, the brother is gay! So wrong! When viewed as satire, kind of hilarious.
ASTONISHING X-MEN: XENOGENESIS #3 – Ellis brings back the Warpies! What a hell of a thing to do on the way out the door. Now, you’re going to start referring to 25-year old Marvel UK Alan Moore continuity? With two issues left to go? Just almost a dick move. But wonderful. This arc kind of reads like Ellis jamming through a few issues of UNKNOWN SOLDIER and deciding to why not muscle that on in here. Which isn’t a bad thing. Andrews’ work is less stylized here, blends into the story a bit better. Though the cover is pretty regrettable. Really going to miss Ellis over in this corner of the work-for-hire.
FANTASTIC FOUR #583 – Ah, Epting. What a delight. Edwards really came along and got to be getting it done, but Epting is simply a cut above. I really don’t go in for all this Who’s Going To Die? hype, hard to get worked up about anything like that anymore, not even counting any momentary dramatic effect that might happen within the course of the story getting dulled by months of lead-in bullshit prior to the actual moment, but I want to think that Hickman’s aware of all that and playing off of our expectations. We’ll see. Either way, even though you can argue that, again, this entire issue is pretty much set-up, it remains cracking good comics, something to mutter incoherently then scream at your friends about when you’ve had half a bottle of fine vodka at a bachelor party, followed by some mead called Viking that causes you to rip a piece of steak in half with your bare hands and devour one of the pieces right there before any of them can close their shocked and gaping mouths. Why do people keep asking me to be in their wedding parties? I feel that I continuously make pretty compelling arguments against inclusion. The exchange between Val and Doom was golden before she muttered “All hope lies in Doom,” and then I wanted to just start smashing walls at the beautiful architecture of it all. And this was later, remember, five days after the bachelor party, though you had better believe that I was spitting that title out at them over the textwaves just as fast as my little fingers could type it.
****
BEST OF WEEK: THOR #615 – Man, have I been waiting for this one. Without really trying or meaning to, I jammed the first year+ of the Simonson run in the past week, the back post-Beta Ray Bill 2/3rds for the first time, and it just worked out that I hit #349 on Tuesday, so that mandated #350 as the first read for tonight, even though it came out like 1,300 and change Wednesdays ago. And I really was going to write up that entire first arc and how it hit me and pertained or didn’t to Fraction/Ferry’s first 22+ pages, and hey, then I was going to rewatch the L O S T finale and finally do the final roundup on that since it was September 22nd, but wouldn’t you know it, my hard drive crashed on the 21st, and I was writing insane chickenscratch in longhand on Legal Pads for days and now all is well and I have my word machine back and didn’t lose anything, but it’s nearly Wednesday again and I think I’m just going to talk about this particular issue, if that’s all right.
Oh, but the mead! I was like three pages into #350 and I remembered that I have a couple bottles of mead that my good buddy Seth Humble gave me like three years ago, and hey, when the hell is going to be a better time to crack one of those open than when you’re jamming #350→#615, so yas, that was in effect, the truth must be told. And since we’re telling truths, maybe I liked AVENGERS #5 better than this. It certainly was swell. But I read it first (well, first after THOR #350, but you see where this is going), and then read this last, and then there was the mead. And Lone Star. As ever. And there were comics? Being read at some point?
I like how Fraction structures this, bookending it with the Volstagg/cosmologist meeting, then opening it up to three striking double-page spreads of doomed inconsequential characters, before breaking it wide open, right there in the middle of the book with the staples and all, to that gorgeous double-splash and just “THOR!” Right, that guy. His name’s on the cover. And if I wasn’t already so on board, hadn’t already convinced myself last April that this was going to be the new and hot ultimate wonderful, Heimdall’s sudden appearance at the end of the issue does the job, hitting just the perfect ominous notes. Have really been digging Fraction’s runs on UNCANNY and IRON MAN, never even mind CASANOVA because that just isn’t fair, but this one here’s going to put both of those to shame, and I’m so glad to have a front row seat next to you to watch it unfold, page by page and week by week, here oh so late at night at the Wednesday night mass.
Friday, September 17, 2010
9/15/10
THE UNWRITTEN #17 – Well, I was real sorry to have read ahead of time what the format of this issue was, because I think if I’d gone in cold, it would have blown my mind, but, knowing, I definitely bumped it up to first read of the night. A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure comic book! Presented horizontally with two little pages per actual comic page. Veeeeeery ambitious, and just a hell of a trip the first time through, because you’re trying not to see flashes of all these other pages as you’re thumbing through the book, and there keeping being all these paths not taken. I guess I chose well, because the first pass through took me all the way to the happy ending on Page 60. Then, going back a second time, it becomes apparent that Carey structures it in this beautiful way in which the story still folds back into other options, meaning if you chose Option A the first time and then the next time went with Option C instead of Option D, then when you take Option B on the repeat, eventually it works its way back to C and D so that you can take that other one, too. But then there are these scenes that are exactly the same no matter what, but are crazy because you’ve chosen different motivations for the characters, so one time, Wilson Taylor is hypnotizing Lizzie for altruistic reasons, the next time, you’re pretty sure he’s going to wind up molesting her because You, The Reader demanded it! But then I started wondering about, say the folks that went with Option A but then D, then on the next pass were B & C, so like they were rocking half of my first pass and half of my second all during their first, but missing the complementary halves. Yes? This makes perfect sense to me, but I don’t blame you for losing the thread, it’s a bit nutty. I thought that I’d hit all options on the first two passes (totaling 35 minutes, if anyone’s curious, quite the $4 reading value), but thumbing through now, I’m seeing some thread about an orderly or janitor somebody hanging himself, so I’ll have to dive back in. Not right now!
The only criticism I have about it, and maybe it’s just the choices I made, but once Tommy and Saxon show up, the choices taper off, so that the back half of the narrative is pretty similar no matter what messed up stuff you chose or dodged to have happen to poor Lizzie when she was a little girl. The back end could have been more elegant, but the issue’s already just a hell of a balancing act. Ryan Kelly’s inks on Gross’s art look great. Best issue yet.
MORNING GLORIES #1 – All right, this is a second printing and it came out a month ago, but my friendly neighborhood LCS ordered about 4 copies and they were gone five minutes after opening and I had no chance and just had to go track it down when I saw that I was about to miss the boat on #2, as well. So, does it buckle under all the $40-on-eBay hype four weeks after initial release? No sir, it does not. Great great first issue. It really feels more like an excellent television pilot, and I mean that in the best possible way. Hard to articulate this, the art’s gorgeous, but the beats, they’re just more TV, you know? Like with CASANOVA, UMBRELLA ACADEMY, CHEW (just spitting out here the most recent first issues I adored that spring to mind), you never forget that you’re reading a comic. And that’s not a bad thing. But, here, I dunno. There was more acting? Somehow? Moving on from that mangled thought, I was real impressed with every aspect of this book. The way the opening scene grabs you but then flips it and slips right through your fingers. The economical 2-page opening for each main character. The meet-cute. The pretty shocking last page. This is definitely a ride to sign up for, dug it so much that I immediately bumped #2 down to the bottom of the night, leaving only Morrison afterward to bat cleanup.
NEW MUTANTS #16 – This is excellent New Mutants work, you get the feeling Wells and Kirk are just barely hitting their stride. I hope these guys hang out through #50. What long-time fan isn’t going to dig the moment between Sam and Dani? Or Illyana’s cloven-hoofed arrival? Or drunk New Mutants riding for days in Limbo? Or the babies from X-Terminators showing up and whupping everybody? Just realized reading this, I started picking up UNCANNY X-MEN monthly with #236, just a couple of months before INFERNO got going, which makes that my first live-and-in-person Big Event. And I remember walking down to the 7-11 on 19th & Quaker half a mile down the road from my house and laying down, I think a dollar (hell, Marvel probably had it up at a buck and a quarter) for X-TERMINATORS #1, a title I just had to have, because it contained Important Plot Guaranteed To Lead Back In to the book that I already enjoyed. God knows how many hundreds of times that’s happened since, but I appreciate Zeb Wells mining that 22-year-old storyline so that I could figure that out.
It felt pretty good to just be able to walk down 19th Street under my own power at eleven years old and buy a comic book. Though, man, still nothing like that little flutter on 34th between Avenue U and V I’d get every time the car would start to slow down to turn left, just before that old yellow sign came into view.
X-FACTOR #209 – Again, they blow a great splash page by putting it on the cover. That would have been a killer beat. PAD and company deliver another solid installment. Though, the best page of any Marvel comic this week is that freaking Thor promo for Fraction and Perry. I’ve been really working myself up over it the longer they’ve pushed it back, and I’m about ready to just start grabbing people in the store by the shirt and screaming at them that the God of Thunder is coming, he’s coming next month, at long last, hail and well met! Even pulled #337 out right before putting the little girl down tonight, fuck it, I’m jamming as much Simonson as I can between now and then. Context, son!
BRIGHTEST DAY #10 – My interest in this one’s been flagging, but they reeled me right back in with the Firestorm Matrix Big Bang retcon (killer bandname, there)(or, more likely, a song by those Kirby Krackle fellas up north) and then the sheer stupid ridiculous audacity of that last page. And the knowledge that this will probably sell more than Bendis’s AVENGERS again this month. Yeah, sheer stupid ridiculous audacity sums it up for me. Entertaining, though far from transcendent.
DV8 #6 – Mm, I need to go back and read these in one sitting, I guess in two months to get ready for #8. I haven’t held on to my grasp of who these characters are, though I remember it being pretty well laid out in #1. But I was more like, “Now who’s Hector?” than dialed into the scene. Maybe Isaacs’s best work, though, she can certainly make a redhead locked up in a room for 8 issues look amazing.
I hate myself for not buying NORTHLANDERS in singles.
STEVE ROGERS: SUPER-SOLDIER#3 – Brubaker/Eaglesham are killing it. This has been a great idea, showing how much of a hero Steve is, even without the formula coursing through his biceps. Makes me miss the first couple of years of Brubaker/Epting, but plus ca change . . .
SUPERGOD #4 – All right, this is another that came out forever ago, but I just got my sweaty little hands on it, and I’m glad it went this way, much better to have a longer break in between #3 and #4 than #4 and #5. Um, Ellis is still a snarling madman and we should probably just creep on by lest he hear us. Gastonny is really making it happen, as well, easily some of the best interiors I’ve ever seen from Avatar, smokes everybody except Ryp, I’d say. Ah, though Burrows was great on that first issue with Moore. The three panel shot when Perun activates his hammer, followed by, well, really just call it the whole opening six pages, that’s worth the $4, right there. Can’t wait to see how this one ends up. Ellis gives you more concept density in a single-digit run of creator-owned mini than you get in years worth of most serialized entertainment from the Big Two. Hickman’s FF being the notable exception.
MORNING GLORIES #2 – And now we’re back to you, my lovelies. This one was entertaining enough, though not quite such a concentrated blast as the first one, though I’m thinking we can chalk that up to a standard page count (not checking that, though). That RA Pamela chick is pretty damn annoying. And I guess this is the next day? We kind of need a caption at the top, it totally seems like it’s still their birthday, the day they showed up, but then everyone’s in detention and we get all of this NIGHT BEFORE flashback business, even though they would have had to keep Casey overnight in between issues for all of that to make since. Some rookie continuity malarkey, there. The covers are gorgeous, but it seems like colorist Alex Sollazzo should get his name on the cover before the guy who, yeah, drew an amazing picture. End of the day, a slight dip after the focused glory of #1, but still very engaging, and I’m in for the long haul.
****
BEST OF WEEK: JOE THE BARBARIAN #7 – It’s been quite a little while since #6, yes? More than worth the wait. Really quickened my heart to get that double-shot of Superman there on the opening splash, knew that the ALL-STAR chasm wasn’t about to open up or anything, but we can always hope. Totally made me miss the Dynamic Duo on the first pass through. We’re racing through pretty fast here, now. For insane panels this week, I’m pretty sure this book takes the top five. You’ve got the They’ve got zombies! call to arms, the hilarious cut to Smoot’s dad’s blue crab Renewal of Kingship ordeal, and every other one that Robin’s in. Sheer brilliant madness, I’ll be quite sad when it’s over, but so so grateful for all of the imagination fuel. Sean Murphy is a force.
The only criticism I have about it, and maybe it’s just the choices I made, but once Tommy and Saxon show up, the choices taper off, so that the back half of the narrative is pretty similar no matter what messed up stuff you chose or dodged to have happen to poor Lizzie when she was a little girl. The back end could have been more elegant, but the issue’s already just a hell of a balancing act. Ryan Kelly’s inks on Gross’s art look great. Best issue yet.
MORNING GLORIES #1 – All right, this is a second printing and it came out a month ago, but my friendly neighborhood LCS ordered about 4 copies and they were gone five minutes after opening and I had no chance and just had to go track it down when I saw that I was about to miss the boat on #2, as well. So, does it buckle under all the $40-on-eBay hype four weeks after initial release? No sir, it does not. Great great first issue. It really feels more like an excellent television pilot, and I mean that in the best possible way. Hard to articulate this, the art’s gorgeous, but the beats, they’re just more TV, you know? Like with CASANOVA, UMBRELLA ACADEMY, CHEW (just spitting out here the most recent first issues I adored that spring to mind), you never forget that you’re reading a comic. And that’s not a bad thing. But, here, I dunno. There was more acting? Somehow? Moving on from that mangled thought, I was real impressed with every aspect of this book. The way the opening scene grabs you but then flips it and slips right through your fingers. The economical 2-page opening for each main character. The meet-cute. The pretty shocking last page. This is definitely a ride to sign up for, dug it so much that I immediately bumped #2 down to the bottom of the night, leaving only Morrison afterward to bat cleanup.
NEW MUTANTS #16 – This is excellent New Mutants work, you get the feeling Wells and Kirk are just barely hitting their stride. I hope these guys hang out through #50. What long-time fan isn’t going to dig the moment between Sam and Dani? Or Illyana’s cloven-hoofed arrival? Or drunk New Mutants riding for days in Limbo? Or the babies from X-Terminators showing up and whupping everybody? Just realized reading this, I started picking up UNCANNY X-MEN monthly with #236, just a couple of months before INFERNO got going, which makes that my first live-and-in-person Big Event. And I remember walking down to the 7-11 on 19th & Quaker half a mile down the road from my house and laying down, I think a dollar (hell, Marvel probably had it up at a buck and a quarter) for X-TERMINATORS #1, a title I just had to have, because it contained Important Plot Guaranteed To Lead Back In to the book that I already enjoyed. God knows how many hundreds of times that’s happened since, but I appreciate Zeb Wells mining that 22-year-old storyline so that I could figure that out.
It felt pretty good to just be able to walk down 19th Street under my own power at eleven years old and buy a comic book. Though, man, still nothing like that little flutter on 34th between Avenue U and V I’d get every time the car would start to slow down to turn left, just before that old yellow sign came into view.
X-FACTOR #209 – Again, they blow a great splash page by putting it on the cover. That would have been a killer beat. PAD and company deliver another solid installment. Though, the best page of any Marvel comic this week is that freaking Thor promo for Fraction and Perry. I’ve been really working myself up over it the longer they’ve pushed it back, and I’m about ready to just start grabbing people in the store by the shirt and screaming at them that the God of Thunder is coming, he’s coming next month, at long last, hail and well met! Even pulled #337 out right before putting the little girl down tonight, fuck it, I’m jamming as much Simonson as I can between now and then. Context, son!
BRIGHTEST DAY #10 – My interest in this one’s been flagging, but they reeled me right back in with the Firestorm Matrix Big Bang retcon (killer bandname, there)(or, more likely, a song by those Kirby Krackle fellas up north) and then the sheer stupid ridiculous audacity of that last page. And the knowledge that this will probably sell more than Bendis’s AVENGERS again this month. Yeah, sheer stupid ridiculous audacity sums it up for me. Entertaining, though far from transcendent.
DV8 #6 – Mm, I need to go back and read these in one sitting, I guess in two months to get ready for #8. I haven’t held on to my grasp of who these characters are, though I remember it being pretty well laid out in #1. But I was more like, “Now who’s Hector?” than dialed into the scene. Maybe Isaacs’s best work, though, she can certainly make a redhead locked up in a room for 8 issues look amazing.
I hate myself for not buying NORTHLANDERS in singles.
STEVE ROGERS: SUPER-SOLDIER#3 – Brubaker/Eaglesham are killing it. This has been a great idea, showing how much of a hero Steve is, even without the formula coursing through his biceps. Makes me miss the first couple of years of Brubaker/Epting, but plus ca change . . .
SUPERGOD #4 – All right, this is another that came out forever ago, but I just got my sweaty little hands on it, and I’m glad it went this way, much better to have a longer break in between #3 and #4 than #4 and #5. Um, Ellis is still a snarling madman and we should probably just creep on by lest he hear us. Gastonny is really making it happen, as well, easily some of the best interiors I’ve ever seen from Avatar, smokes everybody except Ryp, I’d say. Ah, though Burrows was great on that first issue with Moore. The three panel shot when Perun activates his hammer, followed by, well, really just call it the whole opening six pages, that’s worth the $4, right there. Can’t wait to see how this one ends up. Ellis gives you more concept density in a single-digit run of creator-owned mini than you get in years worth of most serialized entertainment from the Big Two. Hickman’s FF being the notable exception.
MORNING GLORIES #2 – And now we’re back to you, my lovelies. This one was entertaining enough, though not quite such a concentrated blast as the first one, though I’m thinking we can chalk that up to a standard page count (not checking that, though). That RA Pamela chick is pretty damn annoying. And I guess this is the next day? We kind of need a caption at the top, it totally seems like it’s still their birthday, the day they showed up, but then everyone’s in detention and we get all of this NIGHT BEFORE flashback business, even though they would have had to keep Casey overnight in between issues for all of that to make since. Some rookie continuity malarkey, there. The covers are gorgeous, but it seems like colorist Alex Sollazzo should get his name on the cover before the guy who, yeah, drew an amazing picture. End of the day, a slight dip after the focused glory of #1, but still very engaging, and I’m in for the long haul.
****
BEST OF WEEK: JOE THE BARBARIAN #7 – It’s been quite a little while since #6, yes? More than worth the wait. Really quickened my heart to get that double-shot of Superman there on the opening splash, knew that the ALL-STAR chasm wasn’t about to open up or anything, but we can always hope. Totally made me miss the Dynamic Duo on the first pass through. We’re racing through pretty fast here, now. For insane panels this week, I’m pretty sure this book takes the top five. You’ve got the They’ve got zombies! call to arms, the hilarious cut to Smoot’s dad’s blue crab Renewal of Kingship ordeal, and every other one that Robin’s in. Sheer brilliant madness, I’ll be quite sad when it’s over, but so so grateful for all of the imagination fuel. Sean Murphy is a force.
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