Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Jumpstarting the Brain - Reviews for 09/01/10

So pardon me for the month off, the semester ended the 3rd of August and I took the last few weeks to absolutely shut my brain off. Now as school starts back up, I need to re-learn how to read, write and talk with my big boy voice. Here are two reviews for this week to start:

I Am An Avenger #1: Marvel continues to put out these anthology jam session issues that are usually good for one story out of the 4-5 in them at $3.99 a pop, meaning you can get burnt just as easily as you can be entertained. I picked up this issue specifically for the Duane Swiercynzski Iron Fist story which turned out to be a very relaxed and emotional story that provides a nice cap to his run and bridges to the upcoming series by Fred Van Lente. I also really enjoyed the lead story involving the Young Avengers by Jim McCann and Chris Samnee. The Young Avengers are an important property to me, probably second only to Spider-Man, so I'm always anxious when a non-Heinberg writer takes them for a spin. Thankfully, my fears were unfounded as everything in this short tale sparkled. McCann has a great grasp on the characters and I had never purchased a Samnee drawn comic before, so I was pleasantly surprised, especially with the opening splash of the new Avengers Mansion. The other two shorts were about the Pet Avengers and Squirrel Girl, which were fun to look at but didn't really have any meat. I enjoyed the issue, but would have liked a smaller price tag. B+

Shadowland: Elektra #1: I'm not buying Shadowland or Daredevil as they haven't been very good but that certainly hasn't stopped me from picking up the different tie-ins as various writers and artists wade in and out of the story. Zeb Wells drops in to pen this one-shot, exploring Elektra's relationship with the events of Shadowland and how Matt Murdock's descent into evil is affecting her. Wells is without a doubt one of my favorite Marvel writers and he does a fantastic job of balancing the emotion with the action in this comic, devising some pretty great fight sequences. I know that I complained about Emma Rios's involvement in Shed, but I have nothing but praise for her in this issue, she absolutely killed it in every way possible. She is a rapidly rising talent and I'm very excited to see where she goes next. I grabbed the Dark Reign: Elektra trade by Wells recently and I'm also now quite curious to see if my opinion of this issue changes after I read that. Potentially my Book of the Week A

No comments:

Post a Comment