Closing the Doors on the Avengers: Reviews for 05/12/2010

Amazing Spider-Man #631: Shed continues here in an absolutely spectacular fashion. The Lizard is back in a big way and Wells keeps the pedal to the floor with a very surprising cliffhanger that leaves you one-parts sick, one-parts mortified and one parts stunned. I feel a bit bad for Emma Rios, she is a developing talent getting some significant attention via her collaborations with Mark Waid, but it must have been killer being paired up with Bachalo. Her pages are consistent and solid but they're really just a salad before the main course. Chris absolutely kills for the second week in a row, blowing the script away and absolutely nailing the finale. I still maintain that last's week's finale three pages are unbeatable but the vision here is superb. I don't know what it is about these slim, face only panels like this one:



but Bachalo is doing a fantastic job at making the Lizard feel both so incredibly alien and yet conveying all kinds of emotion. We still have two more issues to go and I'm 1000% confident that Shed is going to live up to my promise as the best story from The Gauntlet. A+

The Return of Bruce Wayne #1: Bruce's trek back to his time kicks off this week and Caveman Batman does not disappoint. A fairly straight forward adventure, the standard Batman symbols are all there: a proto-Robin, the ever familiar pearl necklace and even a character named Joker appears. Grant ties in several of the plot threads from the end of Final Crisis and wastes no time keeping the story moving. My only criticism is a personal one, I spent the whole winter defending accusations of "Quantum Leap Batman," positive that there would be a logical method for Bruce's time travel but that does not seem to be the case. It is a minor complaint, however, so I'm not too concerned. The big surprise for me here was Chris Sprouse on the pencils, I've never encountered his work before but it was quite solid, I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for him in the future. In all, a good start to what will no doubt become a fantastic story. B+

PunisherMAX #7: Every issue that goes by of this book is another month that I'm convinced that hell is being trapped in Jason Aaron's imagination. Continuing the Bullseye storyline, Aaron moves forward with his "reality based" take on the character spending much of the issue focusing on the various methods Bulls uses to "get in touch" with his victims, and just when I think it has mellowed out for a moment, the next depraved action begins. I give Aaron a lot of credit though, in a time where some comics are choosing to be excessive in their violence, PunisherMAX seems to walk the line of being horrifying but not graphically, it is often the idea of the act that disturbs much more than the imagery. That said, Steve Dillon is as great as ever and I'm dying to finally see the Punisher and Bullseye have it out. A-

Siege #4: A mediocre but necessary end to Marvel's last big storyline for awhile. I wish there was really more to say, but everything that you expected to happen to get things ready for the Heroic Age, did. Everyone saw both pieces of the ending coming miles away and I think this was a perfect example of a skip month absolutely destroying all of the momentum the storyline built since January. Copiel has upped his game to one of the highest levels however, so at least everything looks beautiful. The panels flow well and his use of border breaking characters are attractive to the eye but not destructively so. A lot of explosions, a lot of grimaces and dramatic faces, but also a lot of gorgeous stuff. Depending on the price, I may consider double dipping for Siege if it gets released in the over-size format. B-

Siege Epilogue: Fallen Sun I saw someone use the word masturbatory to describe this book and I really cannot disagree. The creator of the title character has returned once more to tell us about a number of adventures that were never actually written and for the most part have not jived with how the character has been presented over the last five or so years. Combined with some very awkward scenes and a generic playout, this issue was anything but satisfactory for anything but the most easily pleased fan. Please let the record also indicate that I am absolutely tired of The Wrecking Crew. At least it looks good I guess. D+

Dark Avengers #16: It is going to be tough letting go of this book. For sixteen issues it has been one of my favorite Marvel comics, with Mike Deodato absolutely killing on the art as well as being the recipient of Brian Bendis's love and affection since it was the most important Marvel book for the last year or so. Wrapping up the tale of Osborn and his handpicked Avengers, each member of the team takes the stage for a moment to either resolve their tale or plant the seeds for their role in the new status quo. After the review I did of the Secret Warriors tie-in for Siege, I was pleased to see Bendis give Ares's moment to Phobos in a much more controlled and logical fallout. I don't know what else I could say about Mike's art, he is one of the industry's best right now and he is going to continue to produce absolutely amazing content for Secret Avengers. This book is over, but it's importance will still be felt for a long time. B+

Birds of Prey #1: I wasn't impressed with this book. A lot of people have been squeeing and squealing about Gail's return to the series alongside Ed Benes and I just didn't feel it. It may be that because I've never read an issue of Birds before that I wasn't feeling the energy but nothing about this book felt fresh to me. After the opening sequence, Canary's monologue only served to take me out of the book. Benes artwork is serviceable but tame, nothing spectacular but not too bad. This is a book that really fell by the wayside for me, I didn't love it but I guess I didn't hate it either. C+, if you're potentially interested, I do recommend maybe giving it a shot.