Small Week, Small List

Red Robin #12: Chris Yost’s year on Red Robin comes to a close this week and the end is surprisingly solid. With arguably the most difficult character to deal with in the fallout of the Battle for the Cowl, a few months of rockiness and a new artist were all it took to smooth out the feathers. In a final showdown with Ra’s al Ghul, Tim Drake completes his journey from sidekick to hero demonstrating all of the planning and mental power of his mentor with some fundamental differences. Marcus To also continues to shine as the ongoing artist. While still developing his style, To does the characters justice and you can tell he is really beginning to get comfortable with the book. His combat scenes are a bit stiff but I imagine that is something that will come with time and experience. Overall my time spent with Red Robin has been enjoyable and I look forward to the next year of comics. B-

Batman and Robin #12: Grant Morrison continues to prove why he is a master of his craft as the last page of this issue dictates a re-read of at least two arcs of this series. Continuing to move all the pieces into place for Bruce Wayne’s return this summer, Grant still finds ways to develop his characters and move the plot forward even in an issue without an excessive amount of action. The issue is filled with lots of great moments for the whole Bat-team and some nice callbacks to stories that still require some resolution. The downside of the issue is Andy Clarke’s art of which the best I can probably say is that it is consistent. Everything is serviceable but there is barely any imagination in the storytelling, thankfully everything is straight forward. B+

Astonishing Spider-Man/Wolverine #1: This may be the Spider-Man/X-Men book that gets overlooked this week. Launching Marvel’s new Astonishing line-up that is supposed to be reader friendly and billing top talent, and it does not disappoint. Jason Aaron is quickly becoming the master of team-ups and his Peter and Logan looks to be his best to date. With a mixture of strong dialogue both spoke and internal, Aaron starts the issue with a fresh hook and does not let up until the end. With Aaron delivering some of his strongest writing, Adam Kubert is equally up to the task. His pencils are beautiful, detailed and well thought out with story telling that conveys Jason’s scripts perfectly. The layouts are quite standard but when Adam does break away from the norm, he absolutely beams. With five issues to go, I cannot wait to see where this leads. A+

Amazing Spider-Man #630: It was almost unfair having to read Astonishing Spider-Man/Wolverine after this because Shed did not fail to deliver. I’ve spent weeks ranting and raving, writing and pleading with people to pick this up if they weren’t reading ASM and I was not disappointed in the slightest. Zeb was absolutely top notch, the characters spot on and the Lizard/Connors dialogues were even better than I could have ever hoped for. On top of that, Chris Bachalo, good lord did he kill it. He just absolutely owned this issue from the opening page, his goofy cartoon Spider-Man next to a stylish, super cool Black Cat conveys their relationship perfectly and his last three pages with the emergence of the Lizard are just absolutely masterful. It may be too early to say but this is shaping up to not only be one the best Gauntlet story, but also one of the best Spider-Man stories in at least the last two years. If you are reading this and not reading ASM, I’m begging you to pick it up. A++