So, I had a dream the other night where I met Brian Michael Bendis. It was one of those traditional disorientating dreams you know something is wrong, but can't quite put your finger on it... In this case, I was at some sub-San Diego con thing, and someone had introduced me to Bendis, and I was trying to think of something nice to say to him. The best my dream-self could come up with was "Secret Invasion doesn't suck so much if you read all three issues at the same time..."

Yeah, I know; smooth. I don't think he noticed, though, because he seemed happy enough as he showed me how to operate his new home theater set-up with his supercharged remote control.

But that's enough about me. FINAL CRISIS #2, anyone?



Here's the thing: The second issue of DC's Big Summer Event book is Very Good, taken on its own terms. If you ignore Countdown to Final Crisis and all of the lead-ins and other books (except maybe Grant's own Seven Soldiers: Mister Miracle series) and forget that it's supposed to be this big "event" book, it works really well - It's definitely still in "slow build" mode, but it works nonetheless; seeing Dan Turpin slowly realize that something is wrong with him (and getting odd hints that what's wrong is that he's slowly turning into Darkseid, oddly enough - but then, we know from the first issue that bodies wear out quickly for the New Gods), watching the DC Universe get more corrupted... It feels creepier and more effective because it is happening relatively slowly, as opposed to the big "And then the Skrulls invaded New York! So much for that 'secret' invasion!" take of Marvel's summer smash. Not that nothing's happening here, of course; if anything, Morrison's guilty of too much happening, too much taking place between the pages or without proper explanation just yet (I would've liked to have seen more of what happened to John Stewart, for example - Why wasn't he killed? Surely leaving him alive means that his attacker will be identified?).

That compression, the choppy style of storytelling that needs the reader to both be patient and also to pay attention, also feels like the downfall of the book, in a strange way. Like I said, taken as a book in and of itself, it's great. But as "The Summer Event" for DC Comics, it doesn't deliver, yet; it's too slow, too fragmented, maybe too smart to do what we've come to expect from these big summer flagpole series. It's not just that it doesn't do explosions, like I said when talking about #1, it doesn't really do anything that we think a book like this should do. Even the by-now-traditional death of a superhero is treated in a more quiet, subdued and serious way than usual - No tearful declarations of revenge or a stranger picking up the mantle here, just three panels of a funeral and then a sober investigation. Don't get me wrong; it's a better read because of that, I think... It's just that it's something that feels more like something that a smaller audience would appreciate, rather than the simplicity and lowest-common-denominator appeal of a Secret Invasion or Crisis On Infinite Earths. In a way, it's brave of DC to have give such promotion and status to what is, essentially, Grant Morrison's sequel to Seven Soldiers (which the opening of this issue, with the introduction of a whole new subculture of superheroes, really felt like), but in another way, it's almost setting themselves up for disappointment.

Labels: Graeme

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Reading FINAL CRISIS #1 after having read some advance reviews of it (and listening to the opinions of friends who’d read advance copies both obtained legally and otherwise), I fully expected to be disappointed by it; I kept seeing that it sucked, was too confusing, that nothing happened, and so on and so on, and I was convinced that it’d be another product of the Morrison mind that knows what it wants too well, so much that it sometimes skips telling other people what’s going on. Instead, I came away from it thinking that it was a Good opener, and wondering if most people these days just want simpler, explosion-filled, stories.



First things first; Am I the only person who read it and thought that it felt as if Countdown To Final Crisis and all the related spin-offs had been reverse engineered from the initial script way back when? There are the Monitors, talking about the destruction of Earth-51, after all, and there’s Orion, dying… but none of it really hinges on the Countdown events, and in most cases, works better when you ignore them altogether (Especially the Monitor scenes, which suggest that the independence of the Monitors has been around for a lot longer than less than a year, considering they seem to have constructed a legal system of sorts. Also, Nix is being punished for… what, exactly? Being somehow responsible for the destruction of Earth-51, when he definitely wasn’t, from what we saw in Countdown). Despite some complaints, I found it less confusing to approach the majority of this issue as if I’d not read Countdown or Death of the New Gods, because you get all the main things you actually need to know in the (somewhat melodramatic; Jog’s right, this is definitely Morrison channeling his JLA run again for good and bad, all broad strokes and epic scale) dialogue.

Overall, I liked that it was scattered and frenetic, which I’ve seen complaints about – There’s still a sense that it isn’t entirely random, despite the different pieces (We see the first and last boys on Earth getting messed with by Metron in different ways, interestingly enough; is this a comment on some baseline humanity tinkering that the New God is up to, or a throwback to the shrinking of time at the edges from something like Zero Hour? More easter eggs for longtime fans that can be read without that knowledge by everyone else, just seeing a caveman and a boy in some post-disaster New York City), after all, and it opens up the story and introduces the themes while keeping things fairly grounded. What it lacked, however, was what Secret Invasion #1 provided in spades: Big explosions and immediate threat for our marquee heroes. I don’t care about that – I liked the slow burn threat and creepiness of anti-life children, crystal Metron and serial killing of superhumans well enough, thanks – but I can’t help but wonder if a lot of the complains about this first issue come from those who expected more of a direct competitor to Marvel’s louder opening issue. Never mind the quiet, depressing murder of J’Onn J’Onzz (which was somehow even worse for the almost off-handed manner in which it took place), I wonder whether some people would’ve been happier to see Snapper Carr betray the League to Libra and blow up the Hall of Justice again…

(The worst thing about the book is, for me, the art. Oh, don’t get me wrong; parts of it are glorious, but the scene with Vandal Savage talking to Libra seemed oddly rushed and/or inked by someone else entirely… It stood out, and not in the way it was probably intended to. Is this the dreaded deadline doom hitting in the very first issue… or something much more sinister?)

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Thank God for that holiday weekend, which allowed me to… what’s the word? Oh, yeah, breathe. Perhaps it’s the ancient curse of May that’s been making myself and everyone I know so busy over the last couple of weeks, or maybe it’s that downturn in the economy making everyone work harder so that they keep their jobs. All I know is, there’re reviews once you hit that “More” button.



AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #560: Marcos Martin may be the ideal Spider-Man artist around these days whose name isn’t John Romita, judging from his work on this and the last issue, but that doesn’t really help this book break out of its only-Okay rut. I feel guilty for not liking this as much as I could; Dan Slott’s script is fine and built off of some fun concepts (I like Peter Parker as paparazzi, and find his holier-than-thou friends kind of amusing, if confusing, in their response to his new job), but it still feels like a solid but unremarkable issue from the mid-70s, you know? Having a cliff-hanger that won’t be resolved until after the skip week is a new, and somewhat unwelcome, twist; it just emphasizes how random the “three times a month” schedule actually is – Why not just do it weekly, if you’re going to all that effort anyway?

THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #13: As Mark Waid’s run starts winding down, we get the first truly done-in-one issue without running subplots, and it’s… Okay. The problem isn’t the interplay between the heroes (which is well done, and I like seeing the less-dickish Batman), but the threat, which is – perhaps necessarily, considering the fact that it has to be introduced and resolved in one issue? – cardboard and unconvincing. I’d be happier if Waid just got to do 22 pages of Jay and Batman sitting around, having a chat, I think.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #38: After spending the weekend reading Essential Captain America volumes 3 and 4, I felt properly ready to read the return of (spoiler!) the crazy 1950s Cap. That said, reading those books also made it much clearer how well Ed Brubaker is updating the book and concept while remaining true to its history; you can see the Steve Englehart influence all through the current issue when you know where to look, and I mean that as a compliment. I’m still not sure entirely where he’s going with this storyline – partially because, the more we see of him, the more I like Bucky as Cap – but if he keeps up the Very Good quality, I’ll stick around to find out.

FANTASTIC FOUR #557: It’s like listening to someone trying to sing a song that they’ve never heard, but have read the Wikipedia entry of, isn’t it? You kind of know what Millar and Hitch are aiming for, but they’re just…not getting it right. I can’t even really put my finger on why, either… It just reads too… I don’t know, calculated? Cynical? There’s a lack of genuine joy in it, for some reason, and lack of momentum, as well. Awful, then.

THE FLASH #240: Meanwhile, this book seems to be getting back on track after a shaky last few issues. Freddie Williams’ art takes a turn for the Art Adams (It’s got to be the appearance of the giant ape that does it), and Tom Peyer seems to be getting more of a grip on the characters (and why they may have been out of character earlier on)… I’m not convinced about the new Darkseid appearing out of nowhere and snatching the Flashkids, but I guess we have to have our Final Crisis tie-in somewhere… Okay.

IRON MAN, DIRECTOR OF SHIELD #29: Stuart Moore takes over the book for a guest-stint and it’s weirdly familiar after reading Matt Fraction’s new Iron Man a couple of weeks ago – Again, we have a villain who’s as smart as Tony that he’s responsible in some way for creating. Nonetheless, it works; Moore’s take on Stark is less hero-worshipping than regular writers the Knaufs, and regular artist Roberto De La Torres’ art is, as ever, beautiful to look at. Dean White’s colors are worth pointing out, as well; he matches the line art’s look wonderfully (He also does a great job in Mighty Avengers this week). Another Good tie-in to the enjoyable movie? Who knew?

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #21: Ahhh, so that whole “Sightings” banner is going to be used on pointless filler issues that set up other storylines in uninspiring ways? Good to know. Don’t get me wrong, Carlos Pacheco’s art is nice to look at and Dwayne McDuffie’s dialogue is snappy enough, but still – Was there some point here beyond “Hey! These guys are going to be important in Final Crisis #1!” that I missed? A low Okay for the craft alone.

JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #15: The pluses: That last page teaser, returning from the first issue. The minuses: Are we still doing this long, seemingly aimless, Gog storyline? Eh, I guess, but I wish this had some sense of heading in any direction whatsoever.

THE MIGHTY AVENGERS #14: Secret Invasion is turning out to be a very strange thing, much more enjoyable in theory than in practice. Take the Avengers tie-ins, for example; the idea of using the books to fill in backstory not necessary but useful for the core title is a good one, but everything we’ve seen so far has had an air of indulgent uselessness – Does it really take an entire issue to have the Skrulls realize that the Sentry is mentally unstable and easy to trick? There feels like there’s much more interesting backstory out there to be mined (When exactly did the Invasion start, for example? Who were the first to be replaced? What has happened to those who have been replaced? Why did the Skrulls not act during Civil War or World War Hulk?), but that’s probably all going to be handled in the main book, leaving these issues to be filled with stories like this one, or the slow “Nick Fury gathers together another team of Teenage Superheroes” of the last issue of New Avengers, that are just… Eh.

(And because I wasn’t around to talk about it at the time, Secret Invasion #2? Was there some kind of “Well, things happened in the first issue, so I’ll make sure nothing happens in this second one so that I don’t exhaust the fans” thing happening there?)

STAR TREK: ASSIGNMENT EARTH #1: IDW, I don’t know if it’s you or John Byrne or whoever, but someone needs to take more care scanning that art in so that it’s not as pixilated and jaggy as it is here. Also, if someone could take some time and maybe get a colorist who’d be willing to add some kind of complexity to Byrne’s mostly-backgroundless art, then everything would be much better. Also also, if you could rewrite the book so that it wasn’t so generic and Awful, that’d be great as well. Kthanxbai.

Coming this week: Final Crisis! Marvel 1985! And the potential disappointment that is Joss Whedon’s last X-Men issue!

Labels: Graeme

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He may have the biggest movie opening that isn't a sequel this side of Tobey Maguire - and, no, I haven't seen it yet - but that doesn't guarantee that Iron Man's new books are going to be any good. With both the blatant movie tie-in (IRON MAN: VIVA LAS VEGAS #1) and more subtle tie-in (THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #1) released this week, it's almost as if Marvel's trying to, you know, get fans of the movie to buy comics or something. It's a crazy world of multimedia marketing and no mistake these days.



Thing is, the one that's going to grab most of the movie-hungry eyes is easily the worst. That's not just complimenting Matt Fraction's new Tony Stark-centric book; VIVA LAS VEGAS, Jon Favreau's comic debut, is really pretty shitty. Never mind the lifeless, static art of Adi Granov - his men in armor can't be beat, but his real people are scarily devoid of any life - and go straight to the appalling script that jumps from scene to scene choppily, has generic dialogue and really, seriously, opens on a skit that suggests that French people are - are you ready for this - apologists for terrorists who hate Americans! I know! Hilarious! And timely!

On almost every level, this book feels like a misfire, the result of normally more sensible heads being turned by Favreau's Hollywood glamor (Tom Brevoort, how could you really let this go out with your name attached?). It's not even interestingly bad, it's just kind of dully embarrassing, and pretty much all out Crap.

Much, much better is INVINCIBLE IRON MAN. You still have art that's not really firing on all cylinders (although I think Sal Larocca's work looks better - and less photo referenced - than it did on newuniversal, for what it's worth), but Matt Fraction manages to do everything you want it to do - Introduce the threat in an interesting way and show that he understands the main character while he's at it, making his take one that you'd want to read more of. I don't know if it's my particular political stance, but I find this kind of flawed, redemptive Tony Stark much more interesting to read than the more obviously heroic version in his Director of SHIELD book (it also seems more in tune with the character's history, what with Armor Wars and, you know, his origin and all of that). Giving him something to legitimally feel guilty about - and the Son of Stane villain definitely seems to be able to do that - feels like it's the hook for the reader to actually care about the character and the story, instead of either/or for once. This book both feels lighter and more modern than the other regular book - faster, more ready to reinvent itself - and it's something that I hope will continue past this first arc, however long that may be; I'm surprised to want to read the second issue as much as I do, and would like to be able to say the same for the second year, if possible. Very Good.

Labels: Graeme

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The strangest thing about SECRET INVASION #1 actually had very little to do with the book itself. I mean, sure, it’s Okay, it does the job relatively well and Mark Morales’ inks bring a nice shine to Lenil Yu’s pencils that I haven’t seen before, but reading it after having read all the spoilers about it online, I was kind of surprised that not one plot point had escaped being revealed ahead of time.




The feeling of déjà vu wasn’t helped by Marvel having previewed half the book online ahead of its release, either, but I’m not really complaining about that (DC did it first for Countdown’s first few issues, didn’t they? It’s obviously the way to get people talking about your book); at least that déjà vu was earned by actually having read the thing before. But reading the rest of the issue, with all of the intended-to-be-surprise events, after having had every single one of them spoiled ahead of time was a weird experience. It kind of took you out of the story and made you focus on the execution, instead, and… well, that’s not the best thing to think about on a book like this.

Don’t get me wrong. Like I said earlier, the book looks great – the cleaner Yu art, along with Laura Martin’s colors, works a treat, Morales’ inks filling in for some of Yu’s traditional shortcuts and making it look more… well, more mainstream, really, the kind of muscley, glossy thing that you’d expect to see in a Marvel crossover book. But the writing works on the momentum of plot more than anything else, and when you remove the intended “oh shit” moments, all you’re left with are choppy scenes of characters given no real introduction doing things that are given no real context within the book itself other than “aliens are attacking” (Mind you, how much more context do you need?). As the first issue of a series that’s intended to draw in readers who haven’t been reading Marvel books for years up to this point, it’s terrible.

That said, as the first issue of a series building on the recent Marvel Universe exploits? It does the job you expect it to. So, overall? It’s Okay. I’ll just make a point of avoiding spoilers for the next few issues, I think.

Other comics! Quickly!

ACTION COMICS #863: By this point, Geoff Johns has worked out how to play almost entirely to the existing fanbase while making everything so basic that anyone can understand what’s happening – “Superman is in the future with his childhood pals fighting for tolerance? Sure, that makes sense.” As a complete Legion fanboy, I loved this storyline as much for the optimism of the heroes as they dealt with the dystopic future as for the nostalgia of the whole enterprise, and the “Legion of 3 Worlds” tease at the end make me stupidly excited. Good stuff.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #555: Hey, Steve Wacker? Here’s how you solve the continuity problem you ask about in the letter column: Ignore the complaints. Zeb Wells writes a fun script that, unlike all the other Brand New Day writers so far isn’t too retro, and Chris Bachalo’s art is clear and chunky and fun. Pretty Good, surprisingly.

CASANOVA #13: Post everything exploding, Fraction takes a step back for an issue of exposition, surprising reveals (Me, I’m sad that he isn’t dead, myself), and flashbacks showing that Casanova Quinn was kind of an awesome influence on those around him for a self-professed asshole. As we hurtle towards the end of the second album, it’s the small things in this issue that shows once again why this book is Very Good on a continual basis.

(And, on a side note, Fraction, Brubaker and Aja leaving Iron Fist? Very sad news indeed.)

KICK ASS #2: Mark Millar knows what he likes, and part of that really is some strange lowest common denominator stuff. It’s as if Millar really dislikes his audience but on some level recognizes that he is that audience, the way that he writes down to them but with such love. This book is entirely Eh to me; it feels as if it’s being written for an audience entirely alien to what I’m used to. Nice art, though.

YOUNG X-MEN #1: Talking of being written for an audience entirely alien to me, I can’t help but wonder what the thinking is behind this latest version of the New Mutants/Generation X/New X-Men idea: “They’re young heroes in a dangerous world! So they have to become soldiers… who kill!” What, really? There’s something so depressing and hopeless about that idea – and about the fact that the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants are the original New Mutant team – that I can’t help but hope that there’s going to be some “surprise” reveal some time soon that shows that everything isn’t as oppressive as it seems. As it is, this first issue was Okay; written fairly generically, but with some nice art.

This week: Surprisingly, no Secret Invasion books. You do all that hype and then let momentum drop the very next week, Marvel? What’s that all about?

Labels: Graeme

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April at last. After the endless slog that was March, it’s time for a new month of optimism, happiness and… Wait, what’s that you’re saying about Jim Mooney...? Oh, crap. Comic reviews and only one April Fools reference under the jump.



ALL-STAR SUPERMAN #10: As if he’s been holding back for the last few issues, Grant Morrison gives us the perfect Superman here, one who’s so in love with humanity that he spends his dying days making sure that we’ll all be okay without him. I can’t help but compare this to “Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow?” and this, I have to admit, seems better to me in almost every way - This is the “End of Superman” that I want to read, one that’s… well… more kind, really. And now all the Alan Moore lovers will come to my house and beat me up. Sorry, but this was really Excellent.

COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #5: Yeah, yeah, I get it: It’s the secret origin of Kamandi. And yet, done in such a way that it’s really, really dull. What was the point of destroying another Earth with a plot that doesn’t seem to connect to anything? Will Final Crisis answer this question? Am I a patsy for even caring at this point? Crap.

GANGES #2: This, despite appearing in the same week as both All-Star Superman and the fourth Jack Kirby Fourth World Omnibus, is easily the comic of the week. Despite my normally going on and on about his writing – and I’d happily do so again, based upon the evidence here; a wonderfully wistful, melancholic short story that feels true and familiar in the best ways – it’s the impact of the opening pages, a silent sequence all about design that introduces iconography to follow in the rest of the book, that sticks with me days after reading. Kevin Huizenga remains a creator unlike most, with an eye for the little things that don’t have any names, but are important nonetheless. Really, incredibly Excellent.

GREEN LANTERN #29: From the sublime to the… Well, not ridiculous, but, man, do we really need another chance to read Hal Jordan’s origin? It feels like this is one of the more traveled parts of Green Lantern history, and even though it’s being done well – Taken on its own merits, this is easily a Good book – it still feels tired and unnecessary. That said, I prefer “Secret Origin” than “Year One” as a brand name for this kind of thing, just because, so there’s that.

MIGHTY AVENGERS #11: Finally, this series meets its potential, with a well thought-out issue that mixes old school action and characterization with a plot that makes sense and doesn’t rush between nonsensical events as if there is a race to put everything in place before the next big crossover. Oh, wait. “April Fool.” This is not just the lesser of the two Avengers books, but just a mess of a book on any level – I just don’t get what this story was all about, because it kept switching plots without any rhyme or reason like a hyperactive child: “Okay, so the ‘vengers are fightin’ lots of Venoms! No! Wait! They’re fightin’ Doctor Doom! No! They’re going back in time! No never mind, it’s Doctor Doom again!” Here’s hoping that Secret Invasion brings this book somewhere back to coherence. Crap.

NEW AVENGERS #39: Meanwhile, over with the other Avengers, there’s an issue of filler that only would be interesting if Doug’s theory about it turned out to be true. Part of it is that Echo hasn’t really been shown to be an interesting character in this series yet, so having Wolverine and Hawkeye both flirt with her seems Mary Sue-ish, but the other part is… the Skrull thing just wasn’t that interesting here. Worth looking at for all the art “homages,” though. Eh.

POWER PACK: DAY ONE #1: See, Geoff Johns, this is the way you do origin retells. As much as I loved the Louise Simonson/June Brigman originals, this new version has a much friendlier, faster tone and makes me want to see an ongoing book from the creative team. A Good start, even if Jack is now a Skrull imposter.

This week: Is there any doubt that it’s all about the Skrulls? Secret Invasion starts, and we all get to see just how much of it has already been spoiled online. Personally, I’m holding out for those Luke Cage rumors to be 100% true...

Labels: Graeme

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Between sickness, work craziness and deadlines for everything under the sun, it’s surprising that I’ve had any time to read comic books. Add in the fact that Brian Hibbs got me addicted to Death Note, and it’s even more surprising that I have anything to write about under the jump apart from “Light Yagami is messed up, dude.” And yet, commentary about superhero books await you if you click that “Click here to read more”...



AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #554: Now that we’re three quarters of the way through Brand New Day – it stops having that branding after all the writers have been introduced, right? – it’s worth noting that we seem to have established this quality level that could best be described as Okay And On Time. None of the BND issues have been stunning when taken on their individual merits, but there really is something comforting about the almost-weekly nature of the book and the fact that it’s not that bad, really. Bob Gale somewhat overdoes the knowingly-retro flavor in this issue (Overall, Marc Guggenheim’s been the most satisfying of the writers so far, but I’m hoping for more from Dan Slott’s second go-around, when he doesn’t have to introduce a status quo), and Phil Jiminez’s art just doesn’t really seem Spider-Man-ish enough for me, but at the same time, it swings by in a completely inoffensive manner, so it seems good enough, if that makes sense…?

CAPTAIN AMERICA #36: Call me irresponsible, but I’m really hoping that the reveal at the end of the issue lays groundwork for a return of Steve Rogers. Captain BuckyCyborg is a much more interesting character, and it’s a lot more fun seeing him try (and fail) to live up to the legacy of an icon than seeing the icon in action. Which is, in a way, my way of saying that this was a Good issue, and yet more proof that Ed Brubaker doesn’t need his characters alive to write compelling stories about them.

DEATH OF THE NEW GODS#7: There may be something wonderfully old school about the melodramatic “You didn’t expect this!” nature of this issue’s cliffhanger, but seriously, what actually happened at the end there? Starlin’s writing has a great old school crassness about it that really fits on this project, but his art just feels out of place – It doesn’t have either a modern look or the sheer graphic power of Kirby’s work – making this book even more of an oddity than it would be otherwise. It’s like a strange guilty pleasure, but the guilt comes from not really knowing why I’m enjoying it.

FLASH #238: Well, that’ll teach me to have high expectations for a book. As a big fan of Tom Peyer’s Hourman as well as his blogging, I was pretty excited about the idea of him stepping up to take over the Flash following Mark Waid’s too-soon departure. Finally, I thought, a writer who will be able to bring back the Silver Age weirdness of the book and also bring some humor with bite… and, to be fair, he’s done both of those things, but at the price of characters seeming out of character in service of plot, and jarringly so. Wally’s non-sequitur about feeling stressed because of lack of money to a reporter at a disaster site may have gotten the story moving, but was enough to stop the reader in their tracks in terms of “Doesn’t he, you know, know better?” Maybe there’ll be something later in the story to explain suddenly-grumpy Wally, but right now, this was a fun-but-flawed Okay first issue to Tom’s run.

FX #1: Hey, suddenly it’s 1986 again! Considering the incredibly generic script, the lazy John Byrne artwork (and, really, it’s very very lazy) and the pricetag, there’s really only one thing to recommend this Crap: John Workman’s lettering. Now there’s a creator who never lets you down.

TANGENT: SUPERMAN'S REIGN #1: Is it wrong of me to have really, really enjoyed this, especially Ron Marz’s back-up about the history of the Tangent world? There’s nothing particularly new about it, after all, and it’s not like DC isn’t already full of alternate Earths, but stil... Something (Perhaps Matthew Clark’s artwork, even though the series was trailed with Jamal Igle attached?) clicked for me, and I ended up wanting to read more to the point of almost buying the Tangent Comics trades. Luckily, I stopped myself before going too far, but still; who could’ve expected this to be so enjoyably Good?

This week? Man, if you’re not picking up the Fourth World Omnibus with remixed Hunger Dogs, then you hate life. It's that simple.

Labels: Graeme

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There’s something to the way that your workplace reacts to someone having a heart attack in the middle of it, I think; whereas other, “lesser,” places than my dayjob would shrug off the sight of four medics asking questions of, and sticking all manner of IVs in, a near-comatose woman in the middle of the office, right now it’s like someone’s dropped a special Unnerving Bomb. Everyone here is freaked out and wondering when it’s going to be their turn.

Well, except for everyone who’s already been through that kind of thing. Not the most healthy of places, my work.

Anyway, comics?



CABLE #1: Yet another attempt by Marvel to redo Lone Wolf and Cub (Really, Nomad wasn’t enough?), this time with added cybernetics and the smallest baby in the history of the world. It’s almost as if Ariel Olivetti has never actually seen a real baby, but instead is working off some photos and a vague idea that “babies are small”. Storywise, this is pretty generic “I am in the future, it is bleak. I am a man. I have a mission.” stuff, but I’m sure that someone, somewhere, probably has never read this kind of thing before. Pretty Eh.

ECHO #1: I never read any of the Valiant comics, back in the ‘90s – There was something about them that felt as if they were the generic fill-ins for 1980s Marvel books, but that they were like that every single month – but the feeling I got from this new Terry Moore book was that it’s a Valiant revival in spirit if not name. It’s not that there’s anything particularly wrong about it (Well, aside from the pacing, perhaps, but I’m willing to let that slide), but more than there was absolutely nothing compelling or even that interesting about it. Sure, it’s not just another Strangers In Paradise, and therefore good for Moore, but on the other hand, Eh. Who cares about something like this?

JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE NEW FRONTIER SPECIAL: Now this, on the other hand… Mmmm. Visual candy from start to finish, especially the design work on the back-up “And this is how we made the movie” pages. Which is good because, storywise, this was amazingly slight. It’s understandable, really; Cooke probably said all that he wanted to say in the original series, and so there probably wasn’t much more to add beyond the mix of injokes and references that pepper the plots of the three short stories herein, but at the same time, I’d kind of been hoping for something that had a little bit more meat to it in terms of writing (My favorite of the stories, in terms of writing, was the Wonder Woman/Black Canary short, which may be because it was the most intentionally comedic and throwaway). That said, even with the lightness of the stories, it was still Very Good indeed.

LOGAN #1: Brian K. Vaughan! Eduardo Risso! And it’s still just a Wolverine comic! I don’t know why I was expecting more, really; the clichés of Wolverine tends to overwhelm so many writers, so I don’t know why I thought Vaughan would get ‘round them… He didn’t, though, and so we’re left with a moderately interesting flashback story with pretty art. It’s Okay, and if you were in the mood for a Wolverine story, you’d probably enjoy the hell out’ve it. Me? I was expecting more, which was my problem.

STEPHEN KING'S THE DARK TOWER: THE LONG ROAD HOME #1: I don’t know if it’s the overly lush art (Jae Lee’s pencils, reprinted at the back of the book, are lovely. But adding Richard Isanove’s colors over them is like Phil Spector adding his special production talents to “Across The Universe”) or the nadsat dialogue, but I just can’t read these comics. I try, but my eyes glaze over and my brain shuts off. I can’t explain it, and I almost feel guilty for having no opinion about the what may be the biggest book of the year, but still…

YOUNG LIARS #1: This, on the other hand, is kind of awesome. Fast-paced and ridiculous, it feels unlike anything else Vertigo is publishing right now just because it feels like the Stooges to the Radiohead of the rest of the line (Well, aside from the Fables books; I haven’t quite worked out which band they are, yet). It’s almost a victim of its own stylings; if it doesn’t burn out and get cancelled within a year, I’ll almost be disappointed, but at the same time, it’s a Very Good first issue.

Next week: Very little of interest whatsoever, thankfully iving me the chance to purchase and finish off the rest of Death Note, my newest addiction... But what did the rest of you think?

Labels: Graeme

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Was it just me, or was February a strange and full month that just overwhelmed everyone else with stuff? I'm used to January seeming like a hangover from the previous year, but there was something about February this time that seemed to take me by surprise. Those damn leap years, man. They take it out of you.

Reviews of last week's books under the jump, for those who want comics.



BATMAN #674: This is a strange book; you get the idea that Grant Morrison knows roughly where we wants to go with the character, but just can’t quite get there for whatever reason. Ideas that should be big and bright and interesting – the trainee Batmans gone rogue, Bat-Mite showing up – fall flat, as if they’ve been rushed out without being thought through, and without art that boosts their potential by dazzling us into submission. It feels oddly like Morrison’s X-Men run, which had moments of wow and genius but felt more and more bogged down in mental sludge as it went on. Okay, I guess.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #35: Over here, however, Ed Brubaker has used the new Captain America to regain focus on another book that seemed to be getting trapped in itself a little bit too much. I didn’t find the Winter Soldier to be that interesting a character, but there’s something about Bucky’s aspiration to be Steve Rogers – and the fact that he’s kind of digging trying, despite the legacy – that I really enjoy. Weird to see Butch Guice doing such a great Steve Epting impersonation, but you can’t fault a book that has such a stylish rotating art team where you can’t see the joins. Very Good.

CRIMINAL #1: Talking of Brubaker, the return of his noir collaboration with Sean Philips is, very simply, Excellent; the writing doesn’t miss a beat or waste a word, and Philips’ artwork manages to be realistic and appropriately melodramatic all at once. The done-in-one format works surprisingly well, given the previous stories’ sprawl, and while the last story lost me slightly with what felt like overdone cruelty, this short piece gripped me all the way through. Really, really good, and easily PICK OF THE WEEK, as we used to say.

DOCTOR WHO #1: Eh, I suppose? It’s a strange book, which comes close to feeling right in a few places, but then veers off to a more cartoony place (in writing as well as art) that is off for some reason that I can’t quite put my finger on. I didn’t dislike it, but I didn’t really enjoy it that much, either. I’d say that it wasn’t what I expected, but I’m not sure that I could tell you what I expected if you asked.

RASL #1: Getting back to what I said about consistency yesterday – This is pretty much not the subject matter nor the writing that you’d expect from the guy who gave you Bone and last year’s Shazam book, and it’s much the better for it (The art, though, is very Jeff Smith; that’s not a bad thing, mind you). Like some kind of karmic doppelganger to Casanova, the main character here is a dimension-hopping thief lost in an alternate dimension that it’s quite like our own, but the execution is different enough to make it its own book. What’s going to kill it, ultimately, is the schedule; this is a Very Good first issue, but I probably won’t remember enough about it when the second issue comes out in three months.

X-MEN: LEGACY #208: Surprisingly strong, even if I find myself far more interested in the flashback/X-Men Saga scenes than the current-day plot about Xavier’s stolen body or Magneto returning, again. Mike Carey definitely has both a love of, and a feel for, Xavier and the old characters, and John Romita Jr.’s art is beautiful work – with equally beautiful coloring – but I wonder just where this is going, if anywhere. For now, a highly Good first issue of the new run; here’s hoping it keeps it up as we go through the history of the team.

But what did the rest of you think?

Labels: Graeme

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There is, I guess, something to be said for consistency of vision. For example, that’s probably the best thing about KICK-ASS #1, which otherwise could be easily described as “everything you’ve already read by Mark Millar in one comic”. Never mind his by-now-traditional unrealistic dialogue that mistakes unpleasantness and swearing for realism; there’s actual thematic threads in here from his other books, not least of which is Millar’s favorite “watching lead character transcend reality, which is mundane and soul-destroying,” this time managed through the power of self-belief and beating up black guys (Am I the only person who got nervous that the first thing the character did as a superhero was go out, find three black kids and call them “homos”? I can’t tell if I was meant to take that as an example that the main character is a nervous white kid with issues or that the writer was one, to be honest).



It’s definitely the ultimate Mark Millar comic, in the same way that The Invisibles remains the ultimate Grant Morrison comic – Something that sums up, demonstrates and exaggerates all of his writerly fetishes and ticks, but without the self-awareness (or, perhaps, the demonstrated self-awareness) that Morrison brought to his series. It’s almost as if Millar sat down and tried to write some genetically-engineered mutant version of everything he’s done before: Want to see Chosen’s unassuming teen protagonist discover the great things that he’s unwittingly destined for, but for those great things to be laced with Wanted’s self-conscious depressive “grim and gritty realism”? Want to see the random pop-cultural references that made The Ultimates so up-to-the-six-months-ago (Seriously, what was with that “I say that as Buffy fan numero uno” scene? What kid anywhere would call themselves anything “numero uno”?)? Want to see the weird, naïve belief in the power of superheroes from Superman Adventures? It’s all in here! And it all plays together relatively well, but none of it is interesting – It’s all just dully nasty, like Michael Jackson had decided to remake “Fight Club,” but make it about super-heroes; we’ve seen it before and there’s no new here to make us care this time around.

(The art by John Romita Jr. is nice enough, but it’s almost too comic-booky for the story that they seem to want to tell – I can’t really buy into the idea that the beating is anything other than familiar cartoon violence, because it just looks like Peter Parker being beaten up really badly by one of his villains. Again, I don’t know if that’s intentional, or whether that confusion is acting against the idea of the book.)

Overall, though, how you feel about Millar will dictate how you feel about the book. If you love everything he’s done, then chances are you’ll love it. Otherwise, it’s just Eh.

Labels: Graeme

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Well, my lesson from Wondercon was “Never believe anything Bill Willingham says.” What was yours?

Also, it's time to test some exciting new potential technology. If all goes well, you'll have to click through to read my reviews for this week. If it doesn't, then I'll have to fix that later somehow... (If it does work, it's all Kate's doing, by the way).



AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #551: This really has settled into a strange middle ground, in terms of quality; it’s always just Okay, but in a weirdly comforting way, as if it wouldn’t make sense for it to be any better than that and on a mostly-weekly basis. Marc Guggenheim seems more self-conscious about the retro tone of the book (Those narrative introductions to each of his issues are just the wrong side of annoyingly smug parody), but he really does his best to make it work. Sal Larocca’s art has almost been good as well, but really, I’m just waiting to see the Marcos Martin issues that’ve just been solicited at this point…

THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #10: Here’s hoping that the rumors of the removal of Mark Waid from this series are wrong, or at least miss out some kind of “and then he gets given a book called Mark Waid’s Awesome Superhero Book Where He Can Do Whatever He Wants” qualifier. Yet again, this is a wonderfully solid, simple reminder of not only why these characters are awesome (Superman traveling through time as if it isn’t such a big deal? That’s the kind of Superman I want to read more of), but how well done short stories can be – the disguised anthology format that the last couple of issues have taken on have been Very Good, and I could happily read this kind of thing for a long time, thank you very much.

HULK #2: I wanted to dislike this much more than I did, I have to admit. Especially when it came to that “Oh, the humanity!” page (which, by the way, what the fuck?). But… I don’t know. Maybe it was a moment of weakness, maybe it was the “Hey, Rick Jones isn’t the Hulk after all… he’s the new Abomination! Called A-Bomb!” reveal, maybe it was Ed McGuinness doing big and bold art again… I just bought into the sheer dumb action of this much more than I had the first issue. It’ll never be the kind of comic that will make you think, but it’s a Hulk comic – maybe smashing and beating up on Iron Man is all you need from that, really. A guilty, but genuine, Good.

THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST: ORSON RANDALL AND THE GREEN MIST OF DEATH: Whereas this was… Okay, and disappointingly so, at that. Perhaps my brain got mixed up and my usual Matt Fraction love got transferred to Jeph Loeb this week, because this seemed like a hastily put-together, familiar story that didn’t have the usual spark that the book has had in the past. The art was uneven, as well; Dragotta/Allred and Russ Heath provided something with personality, while Lewis LaRosa and Mitch Breitweiser’s work was sluggish and generic in comparison. Every now and again, I feel like I screwed up in reading a book because I disliked it, and this is one of those books – Was it really as disappointing as I felt, or should I take another look at it?

JENNA JAMESON'S SHADOW HUNTER #1: This book, meanwhile, was just plain Crap. It’s actually not as crap as it could’ve been, because of the serviceable art and nice coloring, but the plot is generic and the scripting horrific. The worst part about the whole thing, though, is that it’s just bad; I’d wanted something so bad that I could laugh at it, or rant about it, or have some reaction beyond “Well, that sucked.” What has the world come to if I can’t even say that about a Jenna Jameson comic?

MIGHTY AVENGERS #9: Okay, I get that comics are a visual medium and all, but holy motherfreakin’ spit (as Luke Cage would probably say), this book was so lightweight as to almost be insubstantial. Page after page after page of silent double-page spreads of the Avengers fighting generic bad guys, followed by an almost-silent struggle between Iron Man and Doctor Doom that made both of them seem like the most boring comic characters ever created, add up to an issue that felt less like Brian Michael Bendis was thinking “I’m going to give Mark Bagley a chance to shine” – especially because, well, he doesn’t, here. He’s never been the kind of artist who excels in the busy punching that this issue demands from him, and his double-page spreads are just confusing to the eye, with no dynamism or excitement coming from them – but was, instead, rushing to get the issue finished superfast because of a bet or something. That feeling is added to by the plot, which is literally this: “The Avengers attack Dr. Doom’s castle. Iron Man wrestles Dr. Doom, and in the process, accidentally activates a time machine, throwing both of them back in time. The end.” With a lack of dialogue (or, for that matter, any kind of writerly polish) on top of that bare plot – seriously, this review may have more words in it than there are in the dialogue of the entire issue – the whole thing stands out as much more hacked-out than either of the creators involved normally produce. Really, terribly Awful.

THE SPIRIT #14: Aaaaaaand with the addition of a new creative team, the series suddenly reads like the Will Eisner grave-robbing that we were all worried about in the first place. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the book as such, but there’s no reason for it to exist – the story isn’t particularly entertaining, it’s not particularly stylish (in fact, coming after the Darwyn Cooke issues, it’s almost embarrassingly dull), and it feels as if the only reasons it exists are copyright-related. Eh.

Coming tomorrow: Doctor Who! Project Superpowers #1, which has the strangest corporate synergy that I’ve seen in quite some time! And some other books that I’ll probably not have time to read because I bought four Essentials phone books at the convention and currently think that it’s the early 1980s right now (“Dazzler? For $10! I’ll take it!” Oh dear...)

Labels: Graeme

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Hey, Wondercon this week! There’s a sign that there won’t be that much sleep happening anytime soon...

BOOSTER GOLD #0: Wow, this really does take me back; ignoring the guest-shot from Parallax and Extant (Just to remind you just how unusual supervillain names got in the early ‘90s. Was there ever one called Ennui, or was that a missed opportunity?), using the issue to give a recap of Booster’s secret origin before setting up the next storyline captured the tone of the Zero Hour “zero issues” far too well, right down to the fact that it left you feeling as if you should somehow find it a lot more interesting than it actually was. Despite the metatextual shenanigans, though, it’s still Good.

CAPTAIN MARVEL #3: Meanwhile, over at the House of Ideas, everybody’s Skrull-Fu Fightin’. Maybe I’m missing something, but following the reveal of the alien sleeper agent conspiracy, the individual reveals that we’ve seen have all been incredibly underwhelming. “You mean this formerly-dead character that no-one cared about is really an alien?!? Now no-one is safe!” Even the hint that Mar-Vell himself may be a little bit Skrully disappoints, and makes you feel as if this series is entirely pointless outside of leading in to the next big crossover. Did no-one learn from Millennium? Eh.

FANTASTIC FOUR #554: Depressingly, pretty much exactly what I’d expected from the pre-release hype, right down to the stylized dialogue that –like a lot of Mark Millar’s work – reads not like the characters themselves, but like Millar has been told what the characters are supposed to sound like by someone else. Yeah, Johnny’s a jerk and Ben is lovable and Reed is the Big Brain, but none of them seem like themselves; they’re all the Mark Millar Unpleasantverse versions of themselves, instead. Like Doug, I was bored by the lack of new ideas and simultaneous sense that the creators thought that these were new ideas, and scenes like the schoolteacher talking about wanting to fuck a super-hero were just embarrassingly bad attempts at making the book “relevant” from someone who has their finger on the pulse of pop culture from last year. I fully expect Mark Millar’s take on Britney’s Meltdown - but she’s a superhero! – before the end of 2008. Bryan Hitch’s artwork is pretty, but also flawed; his anatomy is getting odd in the rush of the work (What happened to Sue’s arms on the cover? They seem too short), and feels very static and lifeless in all the rendering and crosshatching. It’s depressing; I really wanted to like this, for some reason, but there’s just no sense of either wonder or family there for me. Eh.

FANTASTIC FOUR: THE LOST ADVENTURE: God, for an Interesting, But Essentially Distressing rating. On one level, this is a fascinating book because of all the process stuff included – Kirby’s unfinished pencils (with margin notes), the reprint of the previous attempt to complete the story from the ‘70s – but the finished story itself is (perhaps necessarily) like listening to “Free As A Bird” for the first time; there are glimpses of what made you dig them in the first place, but it’s kind of like unintentional self parody at the same time. Okay, I guess?

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #21: On the one hand, I’m sure there’s an interesting story to be done about the dehumanizing of the Alpha-Lanterns, but on the other, this really isn’t it. There just aren’t really any sympathetic (or even reader-friendly) characters here at all, and so the whole thing is just flat. Crap, worryingly, just when I was getting into the book.

NEW AVENGERS #38: I know that Brian liked this, but it just seemed to confirm every stereotype about Bendis’ writing being meandering and driven by dialogue schtick, especially the cut-aways to the New Avengers finding a new headquarters, which were very Venture Bros for some reason. Also, if Ms. Marvel lets the unregistered super-heroes escape one more time, they might as well give up on this whole “living underground” thing anyway. Eh.

NOVA ANNUAL #1: An annual that recaps the hero’s origin while advancing the plotline of the main series? I can’t believe that that feels so much like a throwback, but still, this was an Okay primer for those who aren’t following the regular book, albeit an amusing one to someone who just finished the Essential Nova collection recently.

WONDER WOMAN #17: Goddammit, I really wanted this to be less frustrating than it was, even though I know that I’m frustrated because I got so involved with the story. The Etta Candy resolution feels like I missed something – She’s Wonder Woman’s alibi? So it is the same Etta Candy as before, and not a post-Infinite Crisis reboot? – and The Circle plot doesn’t so much resolve as get derailed by the Nazi invasion, some fighting, and then get pushed out to some later date. There’s still a lot to like here (Unlike Diana, I think it is a Good), but it doesn’t really fulfill the promise of the previous three issues.

WOLVERINE #62: Reading this and X-FORCE #1 back to back is an unusual experience. Both have essentially the same set-up – Cyclops sends Wolverine (and others) out to kill a bad guy because he just don’t done take no shit no mo’ – that I have a hard time buying because, come on, it’s fucking Cyclops. I know that Messiah Complex was supposed to change everything, but still; it’s as if writers can only ever play him in two modes: Neurotic tight-ass or Bad-ass tight-ass, and we keep swinging between the two. Anyway, getting back to the two new books – which seem to share a set-up with Young X-Men, as trailed in the back of this week’s Marvel comics; apparently “variety” is the watchword of the post-Messiah Complex X-franchise. That and “death” – the difference between the two is that, well, Wolverine is actually pretty Good, whereas X-Force is a steaming pile of Crap. Your mileage may vary, of course, but Wolverine sees an attempt to build a story onto the “Wolverine goes out to kill someone!” set-up, complete with retconning motivation in there, putting in an unexpected reversal at the end of the issue, and generally staying within character for the book’s stars, all wrapped up in some nice Ron Garney artwork. By comparison, X-Force does away with character pretty much altogether (Wolverine’s hilarious “You don’t want to do this. Bein’ a killer is tough. Your friends will look at you funny. You ain’t gonna cross this line unchanged, bub. Okay, let’s go and slaughter lots of people” monologue aside), substituting it with X-trivia (Bastion?!?) and muddy, emotionless artwork to give it the feel of being the comic read by nerds who want to feel very, very serious about their hobby. It’s humorless and kill-friendly, and the fact that it has a “Bloody Variant” cover pretty much sums the whole thing up. If you want to see X-Men want to kill someone, read Wolverine. If you’re fifteen and like the idea of lots of people dying, read X-Force.

But what did you think?

Labels: Graeme

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This one is for Ian Brill, who complained to me last night that we here at Savage Critics weren't being timely enough any more. It's true; I didn't mean to disappear for a week, but I got both a cold and swamped down with everything else and left you all to wonder just how good the latest issue of "Brand New Day" was, and I apologize for that. On the plus side, it was a slow week...

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #549: Marc Guggenheim takes over the writing reins on the reboot Spidey and manages to make it even more of a trip in the Way Back Machine. Never mind the return of thought balloon exposition (which, possibly because of my age, worked better for me that caption narration last issue), look at the captions written in fluent 1970s Marvel: "So set your tongue on waggin'"? Really? Nonetheless, it's fun enough, with Sal Larocca's artwork less annoyingly photoreferenced than it was in, say, newuniversal. A high Okay, in other words.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #11: If only for the fake-out with the itchy neck, Good. Luckily, the rest of the book lives up to that scene, with Whedon and Jeanty managing to do a fine done-in-one that also introduces the new big bad of the season. Buffy as a character is much less annoying without the presence of Sarah Michelle Gellar, as it turns out.

CLANDESTINE #1: More old school from Alan Davis, this book fights it out for the title of "Most Chris Claremont Influenced title" with UNCANNY X-MEN #495. Whereas Davis does his best to create intrigue and tension with his cast of mostly cyphers, there's little here for anyone outside of his impressive art; the story is muddled by trying to cram in too much backstory and not enough plot, with dialogue that is Claremont-esque in the wrong way (too stylized, but without his rhythms). Depending on your feelings about Davis as an artist, you may or may not find it as Eh as I did. Uncanny X-Men, on the other hand, sees Ed Brubaker reaching out to a few Claremont/Byrne era ideas (The image inducer for Nightcrawler? The Savage Land?) but using them in such a way to remind you why the series used to be so awesome. Yeah, the speedy reveal that - hey! The X-Men haven't really broken up at all! They're just on vacation! - made me feel, again, like Messiah Complex's lasting effects were all on the marketing side of the franchise instead of story, but this was still a plain old-fashioned, fun, Good read.

METAL MEN #6: In the running for "densest read on the superhero racks" right now, this book feels completely impenetrable when not read alongside earlier issues for the most part... but when it is read with them, it's wonderful, a rare case of something exceeding the Morrison concepts it was built on. When it's a trade, people will love it; as a serial, it's confusing as all hell. Okay for now, then.

TEEN TITANS: YEAR ONE #2: Back when we did Pick of The Week here, this would easily claim the crown. It's not just Amy Wolfram's scripting, giving each of the characters their own personality in a couple of lines (I love the cowardly Aqualad, for some reason) and letting them react to each other and the situation organically, but Karl Kerschl's truly outstanding artwork, cartoony and kinetic, fits the writing and the characters to a T. Really feeling like an all ages book instead of something written for kids and/or fanboys, this is Very Good and something that more superhero comics should try and take a leaf out've.

Next week: Is it wrong of me to be really, really excited by the prospect of Booster Gold crossing over with Zero Hour? Or the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby "Lost" Fantastic Four? And if it is, do I want to be right?

Labels: Graeme

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My, this was a busy week in terms of releases, wasn’t it? And that’s not even including the Essentials books that I read this past week (Essential Defenders – The title may be untrue, but I kind of wish that kind of comic was still being done at the big two today), or the history of the WB and UPN that I just finished last night (“Homeboys in Outer Space”? Really, America?). I've also been "grooving" to the leaked new Gnarls Barkley song, which rocks my world several ways to Sunday, and happily finally getting into The Wire on DVD, just to make my media consumption as vast as possible. But I’m not here to talk about other forms of media. This here is comic city.

ACTION COMICS #861: While I’m not the biggest fan of the slightly goofy “Hey! You guys!” Brainiac 5 we get here, I’m still enjoying this entirely nostalgic trip down Legion Lane more than I should. That said, this feels like treading plot water more than the last few issues for some reason, so I’m hoping that next issue sees faster movement and maybe some things exploding or something. Good, though.

BATMAN #673: I’m genuinely depressed by how bored I’m getting with Morrison’s Batman these days. All the ingredients for something good are in this issue – A near death hallucination where Bruce Wayne deals with his guilt issues and also reveals what happened to him during 52? That should be much more interesting than the flatly-illustrated reference-filled Eh-fest that this was.

DEATH OF THE NEW GODS #5 (OF 8): Wait, so it’s the Source that’s been killing all the New Gods? And behind, apparently, every single DC crossover ever? Because it wants to recreate the entire universe because it’s flawed and, by the way, can talk and explains everything to Metron? (Oh, and by the way: spoiler warning)? I’m not sure I buy it, but at the same time, it definitely gives some kind of scope (and, if the Source succeeds, finality) to Final Crisis if it’s true… Oddly Good despite the nature of the reveal.

MIGHTY AVENGERS #8: Still feeling very much like the unsuccessful attempt to do for the Avengers what Grant Morrison’s JLA did years ago, this big scale adventure reads muddled in execution and uncertain in planning – the symbiote takeover of New York is so rushed that any potential sense of it being a big deal is lost; it just seems more like a nuisance than anything else, and who wants to read about that if it’s not fun? Eh.

NEW AVENGERS ANNUAL #2: That said, even a nuisance is better than the feeling of complete unnecessary cashgrab that this book has. After defeating the Hood’s team in the main book, they escape and… get defeated again. Meanwhile, Dr. Strange turns out to be faking his magic and has to quit the team because… well, I’m not quite sure, but it’s probably meant to be shocking (Maybe he’s really a Skrull and this is foreshadowing). Why none of this could be done in the regular monthly – especially considering how meandering this storyarc was in there, and in need of the little meat that this annual provides – I have no idea, but this was rather Crap. Nice cover, though.

SPIDER MAN SWING SHIFT DIRECTORS CUT ONE SHOT: Almost worth it for the Tom Brevoort-written “manifesto” alone. In fact, those five pages are much more interesting than the main event, which is still a nice enough old-school Spidey story that you shouldn’t have to pay $4.99 for. The manifesto, though, illustrates the thinking behind the necessity for the revamp, and if you ignore your feelings on the whole “breaking Peter and Mary Jane up via the devil” thing, it’s hard to disagree with what is said in there… Okay if you’re a behind-the-scenes wonk like me, really.

SPIDER-MAN WITH GREAT POWER #1 (OF 5): This, on the other hand, is a nicely-illustrated but ultimately unfulfilling or affecting story about a timeframe that most people won’t care that much about. For Spider-obsessives, it’s probably absolutely awesome, but for me…? Eh.

SUBURBAN GLAMOUR #3: There seems enough story left over – especially because there’s not that much actual plot this time around – to make me wonder whether next issue’s end of this series will just set up future sequels (which I would welcome, actually)… Even when he’s not really moving events ahead, Jamie McKelvie’s writing shows nice, quiet, character work that’s matched by artwork that just looks so good in color. I have no idea if this is a “hit” or not, but nonetheless, it’s one of the best new books to have come along in a long time. Very Good.

But what, as the saying goes, did you think?

Labels: Graeme

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Okay, am I really the only person who was wondering just where the whole "Alpha Lanterns" thing in GREEN LANTERN #27 was going before it got to the end, and I got completely creeped out by seeing the characters, post-surgery with their faces flipped open to reveal weird robotic anti-Lanterns underneath? I mean, dude. THEIR FACES WERE FLIPPED OPEN. In a Green Lantern comic. What's the world coming to?

Before that point, the storyline seemed to be a strangely-paced version of the usual "our heroes try to catch their breath and reflect" stand-by storyline; there didn't seem to be much happening, and without knowing what the Alpha Lanterns were, the crumbly visuals from last issue didn't really offer much in the directions of interest. Even as we were getting into the what, midway through this issue, it was still pretty ho-hum. Only at the end of the issue, seeing the Green Lanterns having been turned into some weird monstrous cyborg things and realizing just how out there the Guardians are getting, and also far their "We're not afraid, we're just letting fear influence every action we take" stance is going to go, does the story get interesting... It's a shame, because while I can see that Geoff Johns has a plan, the loss of momentum from the Sinestro Corps War storyline to here is both immediately noticeable and worrying.Okay, and that's entirely down to the creepiness of the final page.

Labels: Graeme

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Speeding through the big time books of the week, partially because I'm pressed for time, and partially because I've already written about two of them over at io9 this week. Yes, that was a plug.

Y: THE LAST MAN #60: While it didn't bring me to tears like it did Diana, I have to admit to being happily surprised by this last issue. Not that I expected it to be bad in any kind of way, but I did expect some kind of last minute reversal or reveal that would cast everything that had come before in a new light, and that idea scared me; not only did I like everything that had come before, but the whole "last minute gotcha" thing would've felt cheap in this series. It wasn't something built on that sort of idea-led/plot-led structure; like all of Brian K. Vaughan's work, it's been the character work and small details that had made the series as good as it was. So, that the final issue turned out to be a series of small, quiet, vignettes with a framing sequence that resolves the entire series in an entirely unresolved, optimistic, manner, came as an unexpected treat. That those vignettes, along with the framing sequence, manage to somehow bring the series to a close that feels right and doesn't shortchange the entire story, makes this last issue a Very Good end to an Excellent series.

STAR WARS: KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC #25: Maybe I'm the only person outside of Dark Horse who feels that a year-long storyline running through all of the Star Wars books is a big deal, but as someone who'd never before read a DH Star Wars comic, I have to admit: I was sucked in pretty quickly by this opening issue. As I said over at io9, it's not just that the issue hits a lot of Star Wars tropes, but that it also feels pretty much like "Jedis do Indiana Jones" at times. John Jackson Miller's writing manages to make this relatively unfamiliar setting (I know Jedis and lightsabers, but everything and everywhere else... Not so much) easy enough and recognizable enough to understand for first-timers, and the art is weirdly similar to a cartoonier Yannick Paquette, which is pretty enough for these eyes. I'm not sure where the overall plot is heading - or even if the quest is going to turn out to be anything more than a McGuffin that threads throughout each series - but right now, it's fun enough that I'm not sure that I care. A high Good.

PROJECT SUPERPOWERS #0: Jesus, can someone invent a time-machine so that Alex Ross can go back in time to when he's actually happy with the superheroes of his youth? Despite this looking like the start of yet another "heroes from the past come back to show these whippersnappers how it's done" story (Hey, it's Kingdom Come! But with public domain characters!), I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that... uh... it's actually surprisingly not that bad. Highly Okay, in fact, and that's with my complete distaste for this type of plot. As much as anything, I liked the McGuffin of Pandora's Box and also the idea that our point of view character is a superhero who was the only one who could save the world, except he was completely wrong and instead screwed everything up. That isn't to say that it isn't going to turn into turgid referential and reverential nostalgia down the road, but for now...? Worth reading.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #34: Dammit, just when I thought I was getting bored of the Cap-less Cap, Brubaker goes and lets the bad guys make their move and Bucky turn out to be a more interesting character now that he's trying to live up to Steve Rogers' memory in a more literal way than before. Mixing pop and politics in a way that'd make Billy Bragg happy, the idea of a corporate undermining of America amuses in a somewhat perverse way, and also gives the new Captain America an enemy that he can't just shoot (or perform fun new shield tricks) to stop... Reading this makes me wish that the whole Skrull Invasion plotline could've been held off for enough time for Brubaker to really play out his grand plan on a larger scale, but I'll take what I can get if what I can get continues to be as Very Good as this. That said, if anyone at Marvel wants to try and talk Brube into taking over the regular Iron Man book, that'd be great.

Tomorrow: What was the creepiest moment in this week's comics? The answer may shock you, as they say.

Labels: Graeme

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Making it to the finish line just in time...!

ASTONISHING X-MEN #24: This series has become some strange theoretical exercise – when something this slow takes this long to get done, at what point does everyone stop caring at all? In both lateness and terms of decompressed story, this really does seem like a throwback to the Marvel of a few years ago, and the execution of the whole thing makes it seem as if the creators’ enthusiasm didn’t make it through to 2008. Dull and Eh.

COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #14: See, I like Evil Dick Superboy (Yeah, yeah, Superman Prime, whatever) pretty much as a character when Geoff Johns is writing him as Fanboy Extreme, but even the sudden, re-write-smelling, addition of him to this series fails to inject that much interest into what’s going on here, because he’s being played as generic omnipotent bad guy, adrift in a sea of generic bad guys fighting with each other. I can’t quite tell how any of this is going to end up tying in with the Final Crisis series, but that doesn’t make me want to read any more of this series; it just makes me want it to be over, already. Crap.

SUPERMAN CONFIDENTIAL #11: Hey, it’s the oft-delayed last part of Darwyn Cooke and Tim Sale’s secret origin of kryptonite storyline! And it’s... not really worth the wait! It’s not really the fault of the creators, because this was clearly meant to be a fairly low-key conclusion that could never stand up to a six-month wait, but at the same time, for the creators involved, this was sadly underwhelming. Maybe it’ll read better in the trade. Eh.

WORLD WAR HULK AFTERSMASH: DAMAGE CONTROL #1: Surprisingly enjoyable, in large part because of the art, which looks as if Steve McNiven and Ariel Olivetti had a particularly cartoony baby, and manages to make this comedy look as if it fits in the current, grimacing, Marvel Universe. Dwayne McDuffie plays the concept relatively straight – well, as straight as it could be, anyway – and it’s still a good concept after all these years. It’s definitely not the kind of thing I’d want to read on a regular basis – too much self-referencing in-jokery is never a good thing - but as a refreshing change from the mighty Marvel sturm-und-drang that’s never ending, it’s a Good thing.

X-MEN #207: And talking of mighty Marvel sturm-und-whatever, I definitely cannot be the only person who feels as if the ending of Messiah Complex not only came from nowhere, but also is exceptionally pointless and sensationalistic if Professor Xavier isn’t actually dead as a result. “Look! He’s been shot! We have to break up the X-Men because his dream is dead!” Wait, why, exactly…? It felt as if, instead of this crossover having any kind of ending that fit the story, it was rewritten at the last minute to set up something else down the line, robbing the crossover of any sense of climax or meaning. Eh, sadly; the rest of the crossover was better.

Next week, of course, is a biggie: New Captain America! Last Y: The Last Man! Big Star Wars crossover! Alex Ross tells us that Golden Age superheroes are the bestest one more time! Can you handle it, Earthlings?

Labels: Graeme

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While I’m talking about things that wowed me in the second issue after an initial disappointment, I’m sure that I should mention Gail Simone’s Wonder Woman – I wasn’t too down with the first issue, which seemed to be trying too hard for my tastes, but the second was exactly what I’d been looking for: An almost effortless tying together of the mythical with the superheroics, and a story that seemed true to the character and that it could only be told with this character. A shame, in that case, that WONDER WOMAN #16 is (like ASM #548) a third part that isn’t quite as good.

A lot of that, sadly, comes from the fill-in art in the middle of the book. Ron Randall is a fine artist, but his strengths aren’t the same as Terry Dodson’s, so seeing him attempt to take on some of Dodson’s chunkiness (and stylistic touches – Check out Etta Candy’s nose when she appears, which is very Dodson), or fail to bring the same heft and power to the fight scenes, makes for an uncomfortable and awkward break, especially when the switch occurs mid-scene and you’re left with the more delicate art for the splash page promise of carnage. The switch takes the reader out of the story, and the switch to that particular artist robs the scene of the dynamism and plain, dumb, oomph that it should bring.

Elsewhere, the story suffers from external pressures that really aren’t its fault; people who read Countdown know the outcome not only of the battle for Paradise Island and also of the issue’s cliffhanger, because we were already told that this story takes place prior to what’s happening in the weekly series. It’s frustrating – and, to be honest, almost moreso when you consider that this threat to the island is more interesting than the one happening in Countdown – because, taken on its own merits and away from the context of the greater DC Universe, this is a good story, and the cliffhanger a great one, considering the recent history between Diana and her mother.

After a first issue that still, upon re-reading, feels too eager to please, Simone has found her footing with the series and the script for this issue is a pretty good slugfest-middle-issue that keeps plot and characterization up there along with the punching Nazis. If you ignore inappropriate artist switching and a lot of the tension gone because of plot spoilers, then it’d be something to tell people to track down and read, if they’d rather their Wonder Woman wasn’t on the cover of Playboy. Even with those things taken into consideration, it’s still rather Good, after all.

Labels: Graeme

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Maybe I’ve been dosed with the Kool-Aid, but I can’t help but admit that the 70s retro Spider-Man revamp has grown on me. Part of it really is the frequency of the thing helping offset the lightness of each issue (by which I mean “almost rushed, throwaway nature,” not lightness of tone) – Something that 52 excelled at, and maybe one of the lessons that Steve Wacker brought to this project: Keep up the momentum and it almost doesn’t matter if the issues are good or not on an individual basis – but there’s also just something nostalgically agreeable about not only this particular version of the character, but also seeing the character treated in a light-hearted manner and given stories that aren’t “This time around: SPIDER-MAN IS ON THE EDGE AND HE’S GONNA MESS YOU UP,” like, oh, the last year or so of Amazing. So, on the whole so far? Brand New Day = Win.

That said, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #548 was weaker than last issue, and I think at least part of that is down to the same thing that made the first part of Brand New Day so disappointing – Dan Slott is either too aware, or makes his readers too aware, of how important Brand New Day is for the book, character and franchise, in terms of relaunch. For the most part, he handles it well (The Spider-Mugger storyline isn’t really that involving right now, but the Maggia deciding that Spider-Man is one of them could be fun down the line, and if nothing else, a lot has happened in the last three issues), but then you get something as clunky and show-stopping as the narration at the end of the book:

“Did you catch all that? Back in costume for one day... The cops think I'm a killer, a new super crook wants me dead, the only people who like me are the mob... And, on yeah, I didn't get pictures of any of it! Aw, who am I kidding? This isn't just the Parker luck! I've got a gift for this! Can't wait to see what I do for an encore!”

Gee, thanks, Mr. Exposition. I might have missed something, if you hadn’t just recapped the story I’d just read. Don’t get me wrong; some kind of summing up of the new status quo, I can see the point of. But to do it in that unsubtle a way, and ending it with a variation of “And just wait to see what we have for you next month!” felt cheap and, well, kind of desperate. It’s a shame, because the majority of the rest of the issue was fun enough, if rushed; for every smart turn-around (the poison is keyed to particular DNA, so Spidey’s okay!), there was something that felt off (Mr. Negative’s secret identity reveal came way too early – It’s a very Stan Lee Spider-Man idea, sure, but it didn’t work this time out because we didn’t care enough about either identity of the character for it to be a surprise, or even for it to be that interesting). There’s obviously a lot of enthusiasm and excitement amongst those working on the books, and equally obviously, a lot of love for the character and good ideas… It’s just that, right now, that’s kind of overwhelming the talent of those involved when it comes to making great stories. This is Okay, but everyone involved has done better.

Labels: Graeme

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Man, Heath Ledger, huh? That really depresses me, for reasons I'm not entirely sure about. If nothing else, he was so young. CNN are, apparently, already hinting that playing the Joker contributed to the whole thing on air, which is both tasteless and the kind of thing that Warner Brothers marketing are both cringing and excited about simultaneously. Shall we think about comics, instead?

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #547: The cheap joke would be to leave it at “Well, at least Spider-Man shows up this issue,” but that aside (And it really does feel like a cheat, the way the whole “I’ve quit being Spider-Man, even though I keep wearing the costume under my clothes! Hey, now I’m Spider-Man again!” thing is done so off-handedly, as if the only reason it was there was to keep Peter out of the outfit for the first issue to build suspense), this was more enjoyable than last issue for the most part – Slott does good Spidey dialogue, and the bad guys are enjoyably forgettable, which felt like a nice throwback. The story fits the weekly pace, as well, and so the whole thing seems enjoyably Good.

ANGEL: AFTER THE FALL #3: Wait, what? Admittedly, I missed the second issue, but someone seems to have had a word with artist Franco Urru, because everything’s actually easy to follow this time around… well, artwise, at least. Plotwise, I’m still lost, especially with that last page cliffhanger. That said, it still reminds me of the TV show’s weird off-kilter aesthetic more than the Buffy comic, and still seems pretty Okay to me.

COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #15: Things continue to happen! And I continue to not care! Eh, if only because the ideas here should be much more compelling by this point.

THE FLASH #236: The first couple of issues of this revamp were wonderful, wonderful superhero comics with an energy and sense of purpose to them… So why did I find it hard to care about this final part of the storyline? Part of it may be down to the shift in art (I have no idea why I find Freddie Williams’ stuff less appealing here than I did when he was doing Mister Miracle, but I do), but it’s also that the stop-start nature of the threat – and the tenuous way it was revealed to be linked to the retconned piece of the Flash legacy that’s only been mentioned in the back-ups over the last few months – seemed to undermine any momentum the story tried to build for itself. I loved the character interaction, and the idea of the superheroing family is still fun, but almost everything else about this run seemed to slow down from a running start to this faltering, uncertain, Okay finish.

I still look forward to Tom Peyer’s run, though; I loved Hourman, way back when.

NEW EXILES #1: Finally, Chris Claremont has a book where he can recycle all his favorite character bits and fetishes without having to deal with continuity or what anyone else is up to! I’m not even that sarcastic in saying that; there’s something perversely compelling about seeing just what he’ll end up doing with this new team made up on pet characters and characterizations (C’mon, this Sabretooth is really just mid-80s Wolverine but taller) given relatively free reign. Also interesting/depressing: He really wrote a good Fantastic Four for those couple of pages before they died. Does that mean I’m stuck in the past? Nonetheless, more Okay than I would’ve expected. Almost Good, in fact.

STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION: INTELLIGENCE GATHERING #1: It’s as if someone at IDW had said “Take Graeme’s least favorite two ST:TNG characters” – Yes, I really do like Deanna Troi more than Data. I’m sorry, all – “and make a slow, but nicely illustrated mini-series starring them.” Reading like one of those dull filler episodes that you’d watch because nothing else was on at the time, but with cartoonily wonderful art, it took me a couple of minutes to remember that I haven’t liked Star Trek comics since Peter David did 'em. That, alone, has to be worth an Okay.

What did you all think?

Labels: Graeme

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BOOSTER GOLD #6 is a surprisingly depressing book, considering that the good guys end up winning. It's so heavy with foreshadowing that there's no way to actually enjoy the fact that it achieves what was set out as a goal way back in the first issue of the series, and so oddly paced that it doesn't really feel as if it has achieved anything at all.

Okay, that last part first; what's with the end of this book? It just kind of... stops. There's no real sense of climax, and the last scene isn't even a cliffhanger (Why someone didn't suggest that they push the two-page interlude with Daniel and Rip to the end of the book to at least give some kind of dun dun DUN to the finish, I have no idea), it just... stops. Underplayed scenes, I'm happy with, but this was slightly too underplayed; it feels like the book just ran out of room and finished a scene or two before it was meant to. Coming, as it did, immediately after the big battle, I felt cheated of some sense of the good guys having won, even if that was fleeting. I'm not saying that I wanted a full end of Star Wars moment or anything, but still.

That kind of gets back to the foreshadowing. It's not enough that we had an entire issue last issue to tell us that what appears to be done this issue is impossible, we also had a character tell us that again this time around (Rip's "The future is open, but the past can't be changed." In fact, he's the voice of foreshadowing for the start of the issue in almost everything he says: "Use your head. It's entirely too convenient. Three Blue Beetles from across time just suddenly show up like this?"), we also have the one person who leads this mission impossible being a mysterious masked man that we know nothing about. Give it three issues and he'll be revealed to be some kind of equally mysteriously bad guy: "Evil Beetle" or "Dark Beetle" or something (We've already got Supernova as "Booster Dark" after all, so why not "Dark Beetle" to match the Blue and Gold team?).

It's an odd switch for this book, to move away from the light-heartedness in favor of something so clearly pointing towards gloom, and doing so in such an obvious mannner. On the one hand, good for planning, but on the other hand, knowing that something is just going to end up depressing you makes for a pretty Eh reading experience.

Labels: Graeme

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I'm oddly upset that '76 #1 didn't work so well for me; I like the basic idea, and there's nothing really wrong in the execution. It's just that... it doesn't gel for me, for maybe the stupidest reasons possible.

The writing is clearly influenced heavily by Quentin Tarantino's movies - especially Cool (Jackie Karma is Tarantino by way of Power Man and Iron Fist, which is a fun enough idea, but there's not enough in this first issue to get you completely involved in the story - The split book idea again seeming nice and retro, from Marvel's playbook in '76, but it works against both stories here, I think) - but the visuals don't have the stylization or slickness that Tarantino's movies have. There's nothing bad about the art, but I can't help but wonder whether something less scratchy and, well, rounder - think Byrne and Austin's weirdly-disco Uncanny X-Men run - would've felt like a better fit. It also doesn't help that both stories feel like pastiches instead of stories in their own right, ironically-distanced exercises in nostalgia that aren't meant to evoke 1976 as much as the 2008 idea of 1976 as seen through the lens of the movies and comics of the period; you can't get that into the stories because they have too much of a hipster feel without the substance or humor to back it up.

The strangest thing about the book, though, is that it's the things other than the writing or art that let it down the worst. The lettering, for example, is stiff and inorganic both in terms of the typefaces and the balloons, drawing attention to itself instead of the sinking into the background, pulling you out of the story instead of letting you dig a character being called Cherry Baum that little bit longer. Likewise, the non-comic pages of the books are downright ugly, undesigned things that could've been used to evoke more of that '70s comic aesthetic (Imagine a Bullpen Bulletins look, instead of the bell-bottomed headline being squished on the second page of the interview)... Maybe I'm just being a former art-student design snob - the covers, in contrast, are really nice, and makes me wonder what happened elsewhere - but, still.

(While I'm nitpicking; wouldn't it have been great if this hadn't had glossy heavy pages, but newsprint? Me and my tactile experience theorizing...)

It's a frustrating book - too much focus on surface, and too little space to give us something more meaty, but not focusing on the incidental aesthetic details that can make and break the experience - because I want to like the book better than I actually do. I want it to be more than just Okay, but it's not there yet. Maybe by 1977?

Labels: Graeme

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Wow, so that wasn't exactly a banner week for comics, was it...? Or maybe I'm just more bitter and twisted than usual...

COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #16: I'm really tempted to make some kind of snarky "And it only took eight months for something to happen!" comment, but even with something happening, I'm not that involved in the book. Am I really supposed to be invested in a big war between two cosmic entities that I still don't really understand the motivations of or care that much about? Still, at least Pete Woods is getting work. Okay, but I'm pretty much ready to skip to the end and get Grant Morrison involved already.

GREEN ARROW AND BLACK CANARY #4: After three issues of my feeling better about the book than most people on this site, I think I've reached my limit of superhero angst with this go-around... Maybe it's because the comatose-in-hospital angle is a little too touchy for me right now, or maybe it's just that it's as if the book can't take a step forward (I really like the casual sense of superheroics displayed here, if that makes any sense) without taking one back (Can people stop dying/being presumed dead/being depressed, please?) - It's as if the book wants to be a light-hearted adventure book, espe