Shared Universe

Don't Do Drugs.

2011-12-17T02:07:00.001-05:00

"batman and superman
couldnt decide who was more baller, so they had to form a league of ballers
where rather than debate who was the most baller
they could agree each was as baller as they, without harming their egos
and that my friends
is why the vision shouldnt be on the avengers"

Brief Thoughts on Absolute Batman and Robin

2011-12-15T23:08:00.000-05:00

DC continues their War on Bookcases with this announcement and at this point it is clear that they have tapped into the last great fetish of the comic book collector: The Hardcover. Between this, Absolute Final Crisis, an Invisibles Omnibus and the just recently announced Sinestro Corps War, DC’s Trade Department has realized that comic fans constantly drool over high priced hard covers and are constantly willing to double or even triple dip to get them as evidenced by Batman and Robin first being hardcover, then soft cover and now an absolute.

Although the in-shop price tag will be high at $99.99, you need to remember that a majority of us will be purchasing it through Amazon, Thwipster or another similar service, giving us the book for around $75.

That said, is this book going to be worth the purchase? Definitely. Batman and Robin was one of the best runs the character has ever seen and as Luis said, was lucky enough to feature some of the top artists in the business. One thing I do disagree on is how necessary reading The Return of Bruce Wayne will be to following the story. Hardcore fans of the run will no doubt want to read it, but having just recently been through the issues myself, I enjoyed Batman and Robin much more without it. Someone buying this will already have any idea of where Bruce is during the story and his return at the end can simply be attributed to him being Batman.

Compared to other stories that have gotten the treatment lately such as Absolute Green Lantern: Rebirth or the upcoming Absolute Dark Victory, Batman and Robin is more than worthy, and will most certainly be worth your money. I have little doubt that the design, and quality will both be top notch, making it a gorgeous package at essentially the price of the three hard covers anyways.

Some Final Thoughts on One Moment in Time

2010-09-10T18:58:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned a few weeks back, I'm a Mary-Jane Watson fan-boy. Where there are plenty of people who think that Gwen Stacy is supposed to be Peter's true love, I'm Team MJ and as far as I'm concerned, she has put in more than enough time to be considered his designated other. While I can't deny that for the most part One More Day was not a very good story, the true victory for it lay in the fact that even though OMD was an editorially mandated move to split up MJ and Peter, it ended in a way that reminded readers of her strength and worthiness to be Mary Jane Watson-Parker, she was the hero in that story.

Now OMIT has been released to fill in the blanks after two years and erase the continuity gaps and for the most part I had no qualms with it, at least until this final issue. Peter convinces Tony Stark, Reed Richards and Stephen Strange to help him conceal his secret identity, only to again be portrayed as an emotional wreck who drags Mary Jane along for the ride, forcing her to keep her memory intact as well.

Where the story fails is that Quesada's reason for them splitting isn't because of real legitimate reason or something that has grown out of the story, but because he just simply wrote it out. The truth of the matter is that Mary Jane has continually been a rock for Peter, patient, loving, understanding and while more than occasionally frustrated, still devoted. After all the garbage of the 90s, Aunt May getting shot should have been a walk in the park, instead the story stomps all over OMD by having Mary Jane confess that she isn't strong enough or brave enough to be with Peter, when history shows us that it is clearly the other way around.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation: Darwyn Cooke

2010-09-09T02:05:00.000-04:00

My relationship with Darwyn Cooke is a weird one. I wouldn't describe myself as a huge fan of his even though I absolutely adore his style. I liked New Frontier well enough and after that, Cooke just sort of dropped off my mental map unless someone showed me a sketch they had obtained at a show or something like that. Last summer, I came across Cooke's first adaptation of Richard Stark's Parker novel and while I wanted to read it, I continued to put it off until recently. When I finally purchased The Hunter, I also grabbed Cooke's "Batman: Ego and Other Tales" which happened to include the graphic novel "Selina's Big Score."

Batman: Ego is a great story where Bruce Wayne faces off against his Batman persona in an examination of the life the two of them are living and questions whether or not it is truly worth the cost. While not a fresh tale by any means, Cooke does a fantastic job of portraying the Mental Batman in a grotesque way that really helps convey just how heavy the burden of being the Caped Crusader must be.

Selina's Big Score may be one my favorite stories of the summer. I've been enjoying a number of heist storylines lately between Parker, Inception and the Black Cat mini going on over at Marvel but I enjoyed this one quite a bit. Cooke does an excellent job of framing the story across four chapters, allowing each of the important figures to have a role and a viewpoint, speeding along the narrative by also having them involved in different aspects of "The Job" while also dealing with events of their own. The total number of Catwoman solo stories I've read prior to Selina's Big Score was 0, so I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Ms. Kyle as a slick, capable and intelligent heroine who carries the weight of her choices while constantly moving forward with her life. I may actually check out the Brubaker book now, having read this.

Parker: The Hunter is a fantastic revenge story and Cooke perfectly paces it and allows the art to do a majority of the heavy lifting. In fact, the first probably thirty or so pages feature no dialogue at all, with the pages broke down into a variety of panels and splashes that introduce the hero. I had absolutely zero exposure to the work of Richard Stark before I picked up this book but as a standalone work, I found it to be quite good. Each character has a clear voice and look which helps the barely colored art. If I have one complaint it is that the book is far too small. Cooke's art is absolutely gorgeous but far too smushed onto the page. If you like stories about bad guys getting revenge on bad guys, Parker is for you. I read it in a single sitting and I am drooling in anticipation for the next book.

Jumpstarting the Brain - Reviews for 09/01/10

2010-09-01T20:28:00.000-04:00

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

S.H.I.E.L.D. Notes #1: "The Unholy Resurrection of Leonardo da Vinci"

2010-08-03T02:31:00.001-04:00

I mulled over doing some of these but honestly had no clue if there would be any interest in them. All credit goes to David Uzumeri of Funnybook Babylon fame for the original idea and format with his Batmannotations and the dudes of the Something Awful Comics Board for saying they actually wanted to see this. Let's see what we can come up with:

Issue One

Page 1: Enter Leonid. Described by Hickman as "The Eternal Dynamo... the great engine of the human machine. He represents progress, the advance of society and all that other cool stuff." He is cosmic in origin but human in form which gets explored more in issue #2.

Page 2: Panel 1 is Agents Richards and Stark, Fathers of Iron Man/Tony Stark and Mr. Fantastic/Reed Richards.

Howard Stark: I don't believe his appearance here is considered a retcon given that most of the stories he appeared in were set in the World War 2 era. I'm also not certain how this time line is going to work here with Marvel's sliding time scale. Tony originally became Iron Man around the period of Vietnam, which has now been retconned to Afghanistan, given that S.H.I.E.L.D. begins in 1953, we may or may not see this touched on.

Nathaniel Richards: Already known in the 616 universe for being a time traveler, his appearance here working for Shield isn't surprising given the book and organization's population of ordinary men who have stepped outside of the world in order to better humanity.

Useless trivia: I'm about 60% certain their car is based on the 1955 Thunderbird, and would certainly make sense as the prototype for S.H.I.E.L.D. flying cars. Although suicide doors are making a comeback, they were last popularly used on the 1971 model.

Panel 4 is our first glimpse of the cosmic powers of young Leonid.

Page 3: "I was taken to Rome." This isn't the first Hickman comic involve the city of Rome, his comic Pax Romana featured a Catholic Church that utilized time travel to try and shape the future of the world.

Page 4: The Eternal Place probably refers to the longevity of Rome through time. The Immortal City may or may not relate to the book, "Rome, The Immortal City" as well as the film, "The Immortal City" which appropriately features the tagline: "Where The Destiny Of The World Was Decided!"

I wasn't able to track down an origin for the headpiece the various councilmen are wearing. They may be original design by Dustin Weaver, but they do look similar to the headpiece work by Noh-Varr in issue three of the Grant Morrison/JG Jones comic, Marvel Boy. They may simply be an evolution of the headpiece worn by Imhotep as we see later on.

Page 5: Panel 1 "Rome is built atop an older Rome and even more ancient layer lies beneath.." I don't know if there is a city that has been destroyed and rebuilt more times than Rome, from the fires started by Nero, to the sacking by the various barbarian tribes during the Dark Ages.

Panel 2 "The Immortals" or the High Council of The Shield clearly aren't immortal barring some sort of Secret Warriors/Fantastic Four reveal.

Panel 3 I'm not sure what the appropriate name for this machine is, it is either an early typewriter or something that is recording the conversation. This is Howard Stark speaking into the machine however, what the ultimate goal is remains uncertain. The quote "Everything begins with an idea." has probably been spoken a thousand times over across the history, but is officially attributed to motivational speaker Earl Nightingale.

Page 6: A flashback to 2620 B.C. What we're seeing is the arrival of The Brood, created by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum. Their first appearance was Uncanny X-Men #155 (March 1982). Brood implant eggs much like the Aliens we all know in love and when the egg hatches, it takes over the host's body.

Page 7: The introduction of the first of our Action Philosopher (copyright Fred van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey of course!) Imhotep. To his right is one of the early incarnations of the Moon Knight, avatar of the Egyptian God, Khonshu. To his left, a young En Sabah Nur.

"This is not how the world ends!" is truly the mantra or motto of this comic and may or may not be a play on the T.S. Eliot quote, "This is the way the world ends" from his poem The Hollow Men. The poem dwells on the troubles of holding onto hope and was written after World War 1 which at that time had been the worst conflict the world had ever seen. Given that S.H.I.E.L.D. is a sort of sermon on the power and the ability of the mortal man to overcome adversity in a world of creatures and Gods, the two phrases juxtapose well.

Pages 8-9: This is just awesome.

Pages 10-12: Transition from Imhotep's shield to 1953 Rome. The shield is placed at the center of a diorama of our solar system, no doubt reflecting the believed importance of the agency. The quoted subjects by the councilmen are probably considered important components of the human intellect, but admittedly I don't know what to make of this quite yet.

Page 13: Flashback to 114 A.D. Zhang Heng, while having a palace is a statesman, not the Emperor. The Shield and Spear refer to Imhotep's weapons when he defeated the Brood, and the division of East and West is not uncommon throughout history, and began with the splitting of the Roman Empire by Diocletian, if not even earlier. What is he facing is one of the Celestials, created by Jack Kirby in his comic, The Eternals. This particular Celestial might be, Ashema the Listener, created by Peter David and Salvador LaRocca. Note the bird symbol on his chest piece.

Pages 15-17: Florence, 1495. The readied device is a early telescope for looking at the sun. What Leonardo da Vinci and his assistants are seeing is the impending arrival of Galactus, Devourer of Worlds, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. In the workshop on the wall is Imhotep's shield again, and a clockwork dog. The skull on the desk makes me wonder if da Vinci's desk is supposed to be the scene of this promo image:

Pages 18-20: Forward 8 years, da Vinci and his team have finally perfected what I could only describe as a one man flying spacesuit or maybe even a chronosuit for time travel. A better look at the workshop shows us several things: Imhotep's helmet, the headpiece being worn by the councilmen, a prototype airplane, and plenty more. I had originally predicted that the golden orb was early vibranium but that is probably not the case. Again, "This is not how the world ends."

Pages 21-23: 79 years in the future and it falls now to Galileo to stop Galactus.What they've constructed is an early version of the Ultimate Nulifier, the only weapon capable of intimidating Galactus. The weapon was first utilized by the Fantastic Four during the "Galactus Trilogy." The herald in this spread could possibly be Gabriel, the Air Walker.

Page 26: 1956 in Rome. The first appearance of The Night Machine, Leonid's father. We previously saw doves on page 15 at da Vinci's workshop. Given the last page reveal, The Night Machine and da Vinci are working together, the dove has a greater significance. I read a theory somewhere, it might have been David Uzumeri's Twitter, that predicted The Night Machine is actually Nikola Tesla and looking at their mustaches, I might have to agree.

Page 30: Richards and Stark utilizing some self-assembling Stark/Shield Tech and gravity boots. This is the first time in the story they're identified by name. If The Night Machine is Tesla, the "Aren't you supposed to be dead?" would refer to Tesla's death in 1943.

Page 32: Panel 3, the E that is top middle of the page is the constellation Cassiopeia, to the right of it is the Big Dipper, and on the bottom left is Andromeda. I doubt there is a deeper meaning here, just a portion of the sanctuary.

Extra Material: I'm not certain what I can say about this stuff. Section Four: The Source, I believe is a reference to Leonid, the Human Engine. If his purpose is to "stand in the gap" as Page 12 tells us, then he is what will allow humanity to bridge "the gap" towards Section Seven, "The Death of Chaos / Tomorrow" or simply, the future.

The Vitruvian Man is supposed to encompass the perfect symmetry of man, and thus the universe. Leonid would be the connection between sections three and five. What that means, I have no clue.

Brain Stew: SDCC Aftermath

2010-07-25T19:54:00.000-04:00

So the San Diego ComicCon was this weekend and there were plenty of huge announcements that are going to shake some things up and may or may not make some people happy. Here are three big ones that caught my eye:

Batman Inc.: Definitely the biggest announcement and the one I had been waiting for was the reveal of this title, the next chapter in Grant Morrison's Batman epic. From what Grant and Dan Didio have said, the key idea of this book is about "franchising Batman" and will feature multiple Dark Knights. Admittedly, I can't help but feel pleased as back in April I mentioned this:

"Another outcome is to revisit something Tony Daniel touched on during his Battle for the Cowl mini: Multiple Batmen. The potential for artistic confusion seems infinite, but Bruce and Dick in differing costumes, prowling the city, if executed well could be a lot of fun."

Grant also mentioned that this will primarily be a Bat-Family team-up book like The Brave and the Bold which will no doubt be a ton of fun. Definitely one of the best things to come out of the con.

Amazing Spider-Man goes from a Brand New Day to the Big Time: Awhile back, Bleeding Cool News posted a story that the BND era of Amazing Spider-Man was coming to a close and this weekend Marvel confirmed it. After two years of thrice-a-month shipping with a brilliant rotating team of talent, ASM will switch to a bi-weekly schedule, written by Dan Slott with art by Marcos Martin, Paulo Siqueira and Humberto Ramos. Some of the teased bits included Spidey in a Fantastic Four outfit, plenty of costumes, the return of impact webbing and Mac Gargan's devolution into the Scorpion.

My first thought on this was to abandon ship but I think I may give it a shot. Dan Slott isn't Zeb Wells, Joe Kelly, FvL or Waid, but he has still done some fun things with the book and admittedly New Ways to Die is what got me buying ASM again. It looks like his primary goal is to make the book fun and take it somewhere fresh, especially with all the people asking why Peter is broke if he is on the Avengers and stuff. I'm down for a Peter that is more Batman than Booster Gold and the artistic talent is still top notch.

Power Man and Iron Fist On-going: I may have lied when I said that Batman Inc. was the biggest announcement, as I definitely went nuts when I read this. An Iron Fist title has been absent for over a year now since Duane Swierczynski's run ended and while I knew there was going to be a Power Man and Iron Fist mini tying into Shadowlands, the news that it would be a pre-cursor to a new on-going is fabulous news. What's even better is that it is going to be written by Fred Van Lente who is one of my favorite writers in the industry right now. I have no clue what direction this is going to take or even how much I'm going to like the new Power Man but I'm still very, very excited.

Brain Stew: Red Mass for Mars

2010-07-24T20:59:00.000-04:00

After two years of waiting, the last issue of this series finally came out this week and much like the Christian Bale screaming at the dude on the set of Terminator: Salvation, I have no clue what could have caused such a delay. The final issue was a quick read so unless Ryan Bodenheim had some kind of artistic troubles, I imagine this issue just sat on someone's desk for a long time.

Given that the entire thing was written probably back in late 2007 - early 2008, it is very hard to align the current incarnation of Hickman with the underwhelming script of Mars. It is certainly an interesting concept: a Superman raised by "vikings" versus two good hearted farmers but was done much better by Mark Millar with his Red Son story. But while the plot is weak, plenty of Hickman's strengths still shine through, particularly his talent for world building which is some of the best in the industry. Also present are Hickman's potent monologues and dialogue and ability to write bad asses in general. Jonathan has single handedly revitalized Nick Fury for Marvel and although everyone associates him with science fiction properties, I would love to see him take a real shot at Captain America, be it Bucky Barnes or Steve Rogers.

Bodenheim's work is gorgeous, detailed and packed on the page, although the storytelling is quite basic but will certainly develop with practice. I can't help but wonder how this book would look without the signature Hickman colors however. After months of looking at full colored Marvel work, I had forgotten that Hickman's independent works are often colored solely in blacks, whites and earth tones to denote the present while reds and blues are used to accentuate or for flashbacks.

As a rookie project, Red Mass for Mars is a good early work and there are plenty of devices within that have clearly been harvested and refined for other works. It certainly isn't a must read and I doubt I could see myself pushing it on other people who weren't already interested in his work, but I didn't feel I was wasting my time either.

"One Moment in Time Part One" -- A Review and Discussion

2010-07-22T01:21:00.002-04:00

I'm going to abandon my no-spoilers policy because I want to talk about this book in a little more depth, so if you haven't read the issue yet, move on please. Otherwise, join us down a bit.

Amazing Spider-Man #638: So here it is, after the conclusion of "The Grim Hunt" last week, Joe Quesada, Marvel's Editor-in-Chief steps in to walk us through the fallout of the "One More Day" storyline, and reveal what happened to save Aunt May's life and establish the Brand New Day status quo. Picking up the threads from a two year old story, "One Moment in Time" is going to be a lot of things to a lot of different people. For the haters who have been hating on ASM since 2008, in their eyes, this is probably going to justify their hate. For those who joined the book recently, there is going to be a lot of confusion and for those who are willing to see it through to the end, hopefully there will be satisfying answers.

Personally, I think I fall into the latter category even though I am a total Mary-Jane fanboy. I caught the Spidey bug with Maximum Carnage, at age 7, so it took me years to truly understand who Gwen Stacy was, and why it was so important that she showed up during the Clone Saga. Because of that, I've never been a fan and Mary-Jane has always been my gal, so while I, like so many other people, were super critical of dissolving the marriage, I can't deny that the ends have certainly justified the means. Let's break the issue down a bit:

While we knew that the secret of Mary Jane's whisper was going to be a reveal, I, like I think a lot of people, were caught off guard by how minor it turned out to be. A number of theories I've read believed that Mary Jane was the architect of everything and so far that doesn't appear to be the case. There is still more to be revealed so the potential is there, but we'll have to wait and see.

I was also very surprised to see a lot of Quesada art haters come out of the woodwork for his framing pieces. I'm not a huge fan of the first Mary-Jane page, but everything else was at least decent, although the people who've written pages about Joe Q being obsessed with Peter to the point of drawing him to look like himself are just off the rails.

If there is one group of people I want to hear from when this is over, it will be those who suggested that this should have been released as a remixed version of the Wedding Annual issue, which is essentially what they've done here. I wasn't shocked that they cannibalized it but was actually anticipating Rivera simply re-drawing a lot of the issue, rather than them actually replicating pages of the comic.

That said, Rivera's art really is gorgeous here isn't it? It is like the perfect blend of modern and classic and does a fantastic job of supplementing the annual pages, capturing the Silver Age feel while bringing quality storytelling to the additional parts. He colors his own work and his mastery shows, this is probably the biggest project he has had to date and I hope it lands him something huge in the future.

So through one issue, the whisper is revealed and the wedding failed to happen because Mephesto as a bird managed enact some Butterfly Effect, releasing a criminal and allowing the resulting actions to lead to Peter being knocked unconscious and missing the wedding. It is definitely going to be interesting to see where things go from here, as this first issue ends in unison with the annual. Everything after this is off the map so to speak, which means full time Rivera but everything written is from Quesada.

Overall, a solid issue. I do think that this is going to be a story that relies more on the whole than the sum of the parts however. If I had to rate this issue on its own, I would probably give it a B-, but I'll give it to the conclusion.

"I saw it on the "youtube."" Reviews for 07/21/2010

2010-07-22T00:31:00.000-04:00

No Bendis or X-Men this week! Taste it Second Coming!

Dark Wolverine #88: One of the best things to come out of Marvel's Dark Reign event was putting Daniel Way's character, Daken, in the Bendis-written Dark Avengers, and letting Way push a Dark Wolverine book. As the son of Wolverine, the character continues the Snikkiting and invincibility of his Old Man, but has a much more devious and self-centered attitude, as well as pheromone powers. During Dark Reign's "The List" mini-event, Osborn used Daken to kill the Punisher, kicking off the Frankencastle storyline and now it is time for Round 2. In terms of plot, the comic is straightforward. Way and Liu set up a great bit that ties into their current long-form story and giving current DW fans some scenes to enjoy that do an excellent job of introducing Daken in a more personal way for Remender readers. After that, Frank hits the pages and it is pure action. Nothing visually crazy, but a very enjoyable beat-em up with some decent dialogue as the two banter back and forth now that the field is a little more even. I wish there was a bit more plot here, but I honestly wasn't expecting much more than 4 issues of violence from this story. At this point, the potential to surprise is there but I'll continue to enjoy this story the way I enjoy Michael Bay flicks, from a purely popcorn and entertainment perspective. B-

Brightest Day #6: Last week I threatened to drop the book after this week and clearly someone listened to me. Or maybe the quality of the book is just inverted to the amount of pages that the Hawkpeople get. It also helped that the issue primarily spotlighted my two favorite characters, Martian Manhunter and Firestorm. The evidence continues to build for my theory that the revived people are still Black Lanterns and that their quest will be to complete some task to purge them, and apparently we'll find out in two weeks. The book remains gorgeous, as it should with all the talent on it but I, like everyone else, am totally over the amount of pointless murder in this series. Johns and Tomasi need to find some ways of generating cliffhangers that don't rely on violence and maybe start interacting with the wider DC universe. This book has the potential to go great places, but I honestly don't know if it will. What I can definitively say is, I will be dropping this for sure after the next issue as that will be where the first trade ends, unless it absolutely blows me away. B

Heroic Age: Prince of Power #3: This continues to be one of the best books on the stands and with the team on it, how could it not? Man, that is almost verbatim from the quote on the cover, but it is so true. Pak and Van Lente continue to shine, producing a comic that crackles with wit, sparks with action and remains full of plot and forward progress to a story that is closing in on 50 issues. Cho and Thor continue their search for the Book of Thoth, battling their way through Mythology to a semi-predictable end, meanwhile Athena and Cho's Gorgon-girlfriend work to escape from the Olympus Group prison. These stories are so well researched and enjoyable that it almost makes me wonder if College Mythology courses are going to start teaching with them and what kind of progress could be made. My only qualm with this book is how often it taps into pop-culture and current trends, I saw a quote somewhere that said, "As soon as you refer to something real, you've dated your book." and I can't disagree. And yet, how can you not love a comic that refers to Indiana Jones, Terminator 3, and Lolcats in an original and hilarious fashion? The art team continues to kill it on this book as well, the characters look great, the action is crisp and the layouts and storytelling are top notch. This book is a classic case of one that I always find drifting to the middle of my stack, but as soon as I read it I realize it has made a very, very solid case for potential book of the week. A must-read series. A+

Deadpool #25: At long last, another Deadpool anniversary issue. While Way hasn't recaptured the magic of Deadpool vs Bullseye from last year, he continues to write enjoyable, zany adventures for DP to embark on. The stories aren't anything particularly special, but the biggest credit I can give them is that they're fun, fairly witty and do an excellent job of balancing Deadpool's insanity with his skills and plotting of a trained mercenary. This month resolves Wade's pitstop in Las Vegas on his journey to become a hero with the expected results. Carlo Barberi has really surprised me with his pencils, for the longest time I had considered Paco Medina to be my "definitive" Deadpool artist, but I may rescind that if Barberi continues on the book. The biggest surprise was the bonus story, by personal favorite Duane Swierczynski and features art from Phillip Bond. The 10 page quickie also features "3-D glasses" that help you simulate DP's vision in the tale, which just happens to be non-existent. A fun extra where a blind Wade faces off against some villains, the plot is barely present and really just let's these two creators have some fun. Swierczynski continues to be my favorite Deadpool writer, having produced a great story in Deadpool #900 last fall, a mini called Wade Wilson's War that is on-going at the moment, and a fabulous Origin story that came out last week. The way he handles Wilson's inner dialogue continues to improve with each issue and his imagination for crazy situations is a perfect fit. If Way ever gives up the book, I really hope they'll consider bringing him in. Until then, I'll take it where I can get it. As I told Mr. Bond earlier in the day, him and Duane plus + "3-D glasses" = A+

I wish I had made this at the end of Blackest Night

2010-07-21T21:46:00.002-04:00

The first rule of X-Force is, you do not talk about X-Force. (Reviews for 07/14/10)

2010-07-14T22:41:00.000-04:00

X-Men Second Coming #2: It is with great, great pleasure that I review this book, primarily because it ends my sixteen week marathon of reviewing X-Books and also because it was actually a fair solid bookend. Where Second Coming #1 was the launch title, #2 is a nice little anthology that wraps up the remaining plot threads while laying out the new status quos for the X-Books. The reveals here aren't anything surprising, but the writing is solid through and through. Way back in like week six I complained how Matt Fraction handled the funeral interlude and Mike Carey's bit here further exposed its awkwardness. The last page of this issue concludes a storyline that has been on-going for five years now and it is definitely going to be interesting to see not only what comes next, but how we look back at world where there were "No More Mutants." While the mystery surrounding Hope Summers is slowly becoming clearer, the future of the X-Men remains murkier than ever. The new X-Force looks like it could be highly entertaining though. B+

Avengers Academy #2: Two issues in and I really love this book. I've been a strong proponent of Christos Gage for awhile now and it is good to see him finally penning a series that clearly has his fingerprints all over it. I'm digging the new characters and while there are already some strong voices, each one is unique and fresh enough to not fade into the background just yet. The kids are definitely the hook for the book, so it is hard to keep in mind that the mentoring Avengers are also important figures here as well, and Gage brings them to the forefront here addressing some of Quicksilver's drama in a fun way. A lot of credit to Gage too for keeping this book interesting by doing a lot of different things. A nice mix of character interaction, action, flashbacks and forward movement blend well to produce an excellent second issue. Although admittedly I'm a bit nervous that they are launching into a crossover after 2 issues, but Jeff Parker is a talent, so we'll see what happens. Mike McKone continues to guide this book with his talents as an artist and as a storyteller, constantly keeping the pages moving in different ways and keeping the eyeball engaged, even if his faces can get a little wonky. They can cancel Atlas all they want, but I don't know how they could even dream of canceling this book. The first three pages of Avengers Academy alone will haunt JT Krul and Joe Casey's dreams for years to come. A-

Invincible Iron Man #28: Sometimes I wonder if I could just trade Matt Fraction $2.99 for a copy of the script instead of the issue. I love comics but I'd almost prefer the novella considering I only read the words. Larocca draws perfectly suitable Iron Men and Iron Men action scenes, but a majority of the book is usually talking heads and they always look goofy. I've heard that the fault lies primarily with D'Armata, the colorist, but my problems tend to be with the entire visual package. Regardless, whatever has gotten into Fraction recently has been fantastic. I didn't particularly enjoy World's Most Wanted or Stark Disassembled but I am absolutely loving Stark Resilient: it is funny, action packed, developing Tony's new status quo in a significant fashion and really reads a comic featuring a science action hero should. It always seems to drift towards the middle or bottom of my stack, but Iron Man continues to be some of the best treatment the character has received in recent memory. B

Batman #701: I love Grant Morrison. His Batman run continues to be one of the best stories that has been produced in comics and I cannot even imagine what will have come to pass by the time it is all said and done. Revisiting the conclusion of the R.I.P. storyline from Bruce's perspective almost two years after it wraps, G-Mo continues to frame some of the recent Batman and Robin threads that people have been theorizing about since the Return of Bruce Wayne began by showing us that Bruce actually knew about some of them even if Grayson and Co didn't. Admittedly this issue is a bit shallow for those whole have been pouring over the issues, but excellently spells out the ending of R.I.P. for those who had some difficulty with it, however it is still enjoyable even though it feels like some practice work for Bruce's return as Bruce. Tony Daniel's art continues to improve and looks worlds better than it did at the time of R.I.P. I've been a slow convert to his work and now that he'll be continuing on the book as both the writer and artist, I can look forward to his next arc. Overall, another superb chapter in one of the best Batman stories ever told. B+

Amazing Spider-Man #637: Holy Geez this book was insane. The final issue of The Gauntlet/Grim Hunt was definitely a doozy as Joe Kelly wraps everything up in an explosive fashion. For some reason I find a weird enjoyment in the stories where Peter gives in and becomes "The Spi(y)der" and this was no exception. Pushed to the limit by Kraven's clan, he finally has enough and goes off the rails to end this once and for all. I won't say too much as I try my best to stay committed to my "No Spoilers" policy, but this issue was absolutely top notch from beginning to end. Michael Lark killed it, and Kelly wrote a bonkers script. A worthy successor to Kraven's Last Hunt indeed. A+

X-Force - Sex and Violence #1: Over a year after its announcement, this book has finally dropped and while the plot is paper thin, it is definitely one of the most beautiful comics I have seen this year. Gabriele Dell'Otto's talent as a painter and storyteller puts DC's painting talent to shame and even though his pace is slow, his work is GORGEOUS. There is not a page in this comic that isn't amazingly illustrated, colored and rendered. A perfect summer popcorn comic. The art alone gets it an A- even though Michael Bay movies have more plot.

YOU WANNA TALK ABOUT ROBINS? YOU WANNA TALK ABOUT CROWBARS?? -- Reviews for 07/08/2010

2010-07-08T21:50:00.000-04:00

Batman and Robin #13: When Batman and Robin first launched a year ago, there was a lot of talk about how the old Adam West show and the bizarreness of the 70s would be felt in this book. Arcs would be shorter, deeper, and interconnected on a huge scale and now 13 months removed from that, it is definitely fair to say they've succeeded. The new arc "Batman and Robin Must Die!" is the closing arc to Batman and Robin Year One and if you consider the Blackest Night month off to be a mid-season hiatus, BaRMD is definitely the beginning of a season finale. Morrison lays all the cards out on the table, explaining the truth behind "Sexton"'s role over the last year, the mystery of the Domino Killer and how The Joker has been affected by Bruce Wayne's absence. G-Mo also turns the dial up to 11 and all the various threads and scheme enter the next phase as we finally see the return of Professor Pyg, his Dollotrons and the Viral Addiction of the first arc, on top of inching closer to finally revealing what Simon Hurt's master plan truly is. Frazer Irving handles the art for this arc, and while I wasn't too keen on it for Return of Bruce Wayne #2, it is much better here. Irving's Joker is especially great, a splendid blend of pathetic and frail, creepy and menacing and will no doubt be featured more in what lies ahead. I love this book more and more each time it comes out. A

X-Force #28: With only a week to go in Second Coming, I am absolutely bored and unimpressed. The storytelling has been decent but the story itself just stopped being interesting around the time of Nightcrawler's funeral. As you've certainly guessed, the good guys have won by this point, the sacrifice has been immense and what causes Hope's powers to manifest is something that we all predicted months and months and months ago. An explanation is pending, but there is only so much that can be left to the imagination when Mike Choi draws the ever familiar Phoenix Force around her, but what a Phoenix Force he draws. The Choi/Oback team remains one of the best in comics, just absolutely gorgeous, gorgeous work. I've reviewed this story every step of the way, and quite frankly I'm glad the ride is just about over. C+

Brightest Day #5: Johns and Tomasi have finally gotten the idea that it is OK to not feature everyone in every issue. The hurdle they now need to overcome is trimming the fat on useless plot points. The week's development for Hawkman and woman and Aquaman and Mera was great, but the pages of Aliveman in the graveyard trying to do various resurrections just felt excessive. My chief problem is that each week continues to feel like the characters are simply moving from plot point to plot point and their personalities fall by the wayside unless serve the greater narrative. The art is great, everyone on board is doing excellent work, however I wish Brightest Day had someone on staff to serve in the Giffen capacity, providing layouts that would help these guys maximize their layouts and storytelling a bit. Ultimately the series continues to be just alright, I really want to see something fresh, not Aquaman handling the BP Oil spill. One more issue and I'm off if things don't pick up. C+

Amazing Spider-Man #636: The Grim Hunt has been one of the darkest and most intense Spider-Man stories maybe ever and this week provides a brief respite for everything. A brilliant issue that actually features very little Spider-Man, Joe Kelly re-focuses the spotlight on the Kraven family and the fallout of their patriarch's resurrection for them and the world at large. While there were no surprises how everything played out, it has been great to see someone exploring the JMS totemology a bit more and do some interesting things with it. Next week's finale is super-sized which will no doubt more than make up for this slow but solid issue. I'm praying for some of the Spider-Spikes myself. B+

Scarlet #1: I honestly don't know what to make of this comic. Like S.H.I.E.L.D. I feel like I know it will be good in the long run and there is a powerful undercurrent of quality to the book but nothing in this initial issue grabbed me and screamed in my face. The premise can definitely go some places, but Scarlet feels like another Bendis woman, disillusioned, disenchanted and plain bitter with the world and her dialogue feels a lot like Jessica Drew's from the Bendis/Maleev Spider-Woman joint. Talking at your reader is cool, breaking the fourth wall is cool, but it isn't like it hasn't been done before, maybe I just expected something other than what I got, I honestly don't know. Maleev kills in this book though. Alex was an acquired taste for me originally and so his new style has taken some getting use to, especially with his reliance on a model, but I'm totally down with it. I enjoyed this comic in a loyalty to Bendis way but it feels like a weak effort after how good his last few issues of Avengers and Ultimate Comics Spider-Man have been. I think I'm going to litmus test it tomorrow on a friend from out of town, and will maybe come back to it in a bit. If you like Bendis or Maleev, at least check it out. B-

Young Avengers: The Children's Crusade #1: April 2008. That is how long I have been waiting for another issue of Heinberg/Cheung Young Avengers and I know there have been people waiting longer than me and thankfully, this comic does not miss a beat, at all. After sitting on the back burner for almost 4 years now, Heinberg and Cheung return to continue the development of Patriot, Hawkeye, Hulkling, Wiccan, Vision, Stature and Speed and resolve the mystery of what happened to the Scarlet Witch. Although it is a bit slow to start, this is still an absolutely fantastic issue: Allan continues to write the kids faithfully, handles the grown Avengers wonderfully and although this script was obviously written ages ago, remains entirely appropriate even for the current Marvel setting. Even better news is that this is finally the return of Jim Cheung to comic book interiors. The guy has literally been sitting around waiting for this for months and hasn't had a serious project since Brian Bendis tapped him for New Avengers: Illuminati back in like 2007. He's been doing cover art for Secret Avengers since then but it just hasn't been the same. With Children's Crusade, Cheung is back in action and it is quite easy to see why he was tapped to be one of Marvel's Young Guns Artists a few years back. The guy draws fantastic faces that teem with emotion, great action scenes and I love how humanly alien the he draws Hulkling. These guys are truly superior storytellers and Children's Crusade is really going to be a special project once it finishes.... in a year and a half. A+

Quick Thoughts on Jeff Lemire's The Nobody

2010-07-04T01:18:00.002-04:00

I picked up Jeff Lemire's The Nobody on a whim at the comic shop a few weeks back and have only now gotten around to reading it. I read The Invisible Man back in College for a Science-Fiction English class and while I didn't dislike it, I didn't really enjoy it all that much either. I've also got Lemire's Essex County sitting on my shelf to read, so when I saw it on the rack, I picked it up without knowing anything about it.

While the class approached the book with an intended reading about the idea of "The Other" and how society deals with entities that are alien to it, Lemire's take approaches the story in a similar fashion, but changes the story in a fairly significant way. While Wells' Invisible Man is actually the villain of the story, Jeff's Griffen is the hero, even though the stories are about 85 to 90% identical.

With the addition of a sixteen year old girl who befriends Griffen, her sympathetic narration and Lemire's clever writing casts The Nobody as a sympathetic protagonist even in the fact of doing some fairly horrible acts. I was actually sort of surprised that I was upset with the conclusion given that at that point, The Invisible Man has killed at least two people and wounded another.

Really a great narrative tweak that refreshes an old favorite while remaining loyal to the original material. I'm sure there is a lot more to say and I may come back to it once I finish Essex County and get a better handle on Lemire as a writer.

Revisiting Casanova

2010-07-02T12:58:00.000-04:00

After two years of inactivity, Casanova is finally returning to Comic Shops this next week and I could not be happier. Casanova is a comic unlike any other I've read in my 20 years as a comic fan. Created in 2006 by Matt Fraction and the twins Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba, it is slick, intelligent, witty, packed with action and stuffed to the gills with swagger, the book radiates pizazz. For two years, Casanova slid into stores, a cult hit with vision before its time. Now, with the clout of multiple Eisners, Fraction/Ba/Moon have prepared to re-launch the book under Marvel's Icon Imprint. While two volumes have been published and the first was the only one to make it to trade, the series will launch with re-prints of the first two stories before starting a third arc. These won't be the standard green/white/black/purple colors that older readers are familiar with, instead we'll be getting total re-colors, brand new covers and some additional material provided by the creative team.

My discovery of Casanova was perhaps the best diamond in the rough story of my life. Back in 2008, when I was first getting back into comics, I purchased the first volume of the Immortal Iron Fist on a whim. As probably the best run the character may ever receive, even a born again rookie like myself was able to see the quality infused on every page of that comic and I used it as a springboard to find more books. While Ed Brubaker was already a known quantity at the time, Matt Fraction was still a fairly up and comer, but he was set to launch the brand new Iron Man series and would be joining the creative team of Uncanny X-Men when issue #500 dropped. A quick journey to his Wiki page and I was given a resume was much shorter than it is now. A few issues of The Order, a Spider-Man annual, and Iron Fist were all books I recognized, but Casanova was something I had never heard of, nor had anyone else I talked comics with. I had no clue who Gabriel Ba or Fabio Moon were, I was a kid who hated Batman, loved the Clone Saga and hadn't touched a non-Marvel book in ages. But armed with a gift card, I took a gamble.

When I popped the book open, with the very first page, I was blown away. From the very first words, Fraction's dialogue and imagination crackle and pop with a creative electricity that I had never experienced before. As a tights-and-flights reader until that moment, I had no clue how to handle a science-espionage-epic-standalone and I was loving it. From a staring match versus a 3-in-1 monk to a city seemingly powered by sex, the adventures of alternate-dimension kidnapee antihero turned hero Casanova Quinn were everything I had been missing from comics and never even known it. Ba's pencils were both strange and amazing to me. I was used to the excessive Liefeld and Lee styling of the 90s and once my eyes adjusted and learned to read the pages, I had no problem understanding why the man is an award winning artist. If Matt is a butcher, Ba is a master chef, turning the script into an experience that is both read, AND seen.

In a sense, Casanova was my Rosetta Stone. It was my first non-Alan Moore/Neil Gaiman comic. It was my first real non-Marvel experience, my first attempt at trying to follow along with a long form story and my first real taste of a genre away from Spider-Man. For fifteen bucks, Matt Fraction handed me a cipher to better understand what had come before and what is yet to come. Since then I've gone on to not only read, but understand and appreciate works like Promethea, Grant Morrison's The Filth and David Mazzucchelli's Asterios Polyp, all amazing works that I might have never gone near while clinging desperately to Iron Man. In fact, now that I think about it, Fraction's Invincible Iron Man #1 was also the first comic I ever reviewed, perhaps I should thank him for this blog as well.

Before I sat down to write this, I dusted the book off the shelf and went through it again, enjoying as much, if not more than I did that first time. Two years of analysis and practice have sharpened my reading abilities immensely and I found myself rewarded. I noticed things I had missed twice over, appreciated ideas that had made their way into other comics, like the ancient Japanese war machine that feels vaguely reminiscent of the Russian Jetpack Bear headed team of the first two issues of The Order, and was in general able to just appreciate the series and the experience again with a more mature and removed view.

I absolutely cannot wait to get to the store this Thursday to pick up the first issue of this re-launch and if you're reading this, I hope you will too. I rarely double dip on material I already own, but I know for certain that this will be worth every single penny. To the Misters Fraction, Ba and Moon, I wish you guys incredible success this time around, and I am salivating for a chance at Volumes 2 and 3. To everyone else, I implore you, please, please, please, give this a chance. I do not think you will regret it.

Some Musings About Wonder Woman's New Costume

2010-07-01T00:11:00.000-04:00

First off, the image is compliments of DC's The Source. Surely by now you have heard that Wonder Woman is undergoing a costume change, away from the blue panties and breastplate and into this new, more "urban and stealthy" garb. While I consider myself a Wonder Woman fan, I haven't found any enjoyment from her main title in sometime, settling for sustenance via my favorite author's runs over on the various Justice League books. When this dropped, I didn't think I was going to have any particular opinion about it, but after talking with Shelley from Bat Romance and Andy from I live sweat, but I dream lightyears.. I realized that I did.

While not a fan of the blue panties specifically, I always dug the iconic nature of Wonder Woman's costume. It is recognizable in a way that very few heroes are, much like Batman, Superman and Spider-Man. A few weeks back, Mahmud Asrar posted this rendition of Diana that he did that I absolutely fell in love with:

Image is from Mr. Asrar's Twitpic account, findable here.

I absolutely dig everything about this. The boots are updated to a more military look: the bracelets are full out bracers, the panties are replaced with a skirt, the breastplate is more armored looking while the split cape evokes a bit of ancient general/warlord/Xena feeling that still translates to the superhero world. Yes, there are no straps on the plate, but given the magic nature of the costume, I'm willing to suspend some disbelief and imagine that the chest piece is magically fitted. It preserves functionality, looks cool, maintains the iconic nature of her costume and does away with seeing her gluts.

This new costume... just doesn't do it for me. Like Superman, Wonder Woman to me is all about the bright colors, and adding black leggings, a black choker and a leather jacket just makes it too Black Canary for me. I do dig the gauntlets, but everything else just feels so muted that the pros seem few and far between. I understand that there are some story motives that went into this design, and I'm willing to wait until I see a few more artists draw it before I turn in a final judgment, but if I just glanced at this picture, I would have never known it was supposed to be Diana.

"You can't swing a dead cat without hittin' someone wearing a power ring!" Reviews for 06/30/10

2010-06-30T23:42:00.000-04:00

Green Lantern #55: This issue must have been the easiest bit of Green Lantern that Geoff Johns has ever had to write. I can think of about five different bits of dialogue that feel like they were ripped straight from the Internet, but it makes sense given that the issue focuses on the Ultimate Troll, Lobo, who is really only in this story as a plot device. While ultimately nothing new happens, it was still worth the $2.99 to watch Mahnke kill it on the art. Dex-Starr squares off against Lobo's dog, and we get some killer spreads as well. Also included is the Secret Origin of Dex-Starr, which no one really asks for, but was a fun little thing to read. I imagine this was probably a bit of a breather issue for Johns, given how much he has on his plate right now and while the plot doesn't advance too much, the issue still exudes quality. B+, would be higher with some forward plot motion although the J.T. Krul joke makes me want to give it an A.

Invincible #73: Another great issue from Kirkman and it has been great to see him picking some things up as a writer. No real surprise how last month's cliffhanger plays out, but what made this issue so enjoyable was how the fallout is handled. I remarked either in a review or to someone a while back that now the Viltrumite War is here, no one really cares because there are so many other interesting things going on with the book and I think the creative team agrees. The structure of this issue allows for plenty of plot to be on-going while also dedicating plenty of time to fleshing out Oliver, who has been apart of the book for almost two years now but never really gotten face time, and letting him interact with Nolan, developing their father/son bond. With some clever narration, our boys are already ready to return to what will no doubt be the climax/deciding moment of the war and the story can go forward from there. Ottley really is a great artist and this issue was an excellent break for him to just draw characters and backgrounds without having to pour so much detail into the hyper-violence that has been so prevalent in the series lately. I really look forward to this book each month and highly recommend it. A-

Secret Avengers #2: The Avengers family is so hot right now that it may be the best franchise in comics. Academy is highly enjoyable, Bendis is in rare form in the main book and New Avengers, and Ed Brubaker's fresh take on a "stealth" Avengers continues to be both fresh and refreshing. Continuing right where SA #1 left off, Cap's team continues the search for Nova and clues to understand what is going on on Mars. Meanwhile, back on Earth, Sharon Carter deals with the fallout of last month's cliffhanger. Secret Avengers across two issues has been the perfect blend of action, dialogue, mystery and plot that so many books strive for, but to few seem to reach. My only complain is that Valkyrie disappears in this issue, but given that she is primarily there as muscle thus far, I can forgive it. Artistically, Mike Deodato is drawing absolutely out of his mind. His layouts are great, his action is awesome and although his art is often heavily shadowed and darkly colored, it still looks spectacular. I'm also really digging his Beast, giving him the perfect blend of cat, ape and man. This series is only two issues in, so I really hope people are hopping aboard. It is accessible, fun and continuity free. A

Flash #3: I really dig Geoff Johns on the Flash. I had no interest in the character before I read his Wally West run, and so I was stoked to get the opportunity to follow a second run as it happened. Johns does a great job of handling the time travel and of writing the Rogues, so seeing him merge those two to produce the Renegades has been very enjoyable, especially with Francis Manapul's art. Each Renegade looks immediately evocative of his particular Rogue, but the designs are fresh and different enough to set them apart. Likewise, their tweaked abilities are also a lot of fun and will be curious to see what else this new police force has up its sleeve for dealing with Speedsters. My biggest complaint though is that while everything has been about speed thus far, the plot hasn't actually moved anywhere. The Mirror Monarch died in issue one, and we're no where closer to understanding how or why it is going to happen. There is still a lot of story left to go and no doubt there will be plenty of clues as we build towards Flashpoint. So while I'm a little disappointed, I'm not giving up yet, especially with Fran Man on art. I absolutely love what this guy does, from his little details, to his action scenes, to his fantastic use of splash pages. It is put together brilliantly, and looks top notch. It feels good to be buying The Flash each month, but I wasn't in a rush to read this issue. B

Wonder Woman #600: The third anniversary issue to drop this month, Wonder Woman is the tie-breaker to whether or not these have been a success, and after reading it, I definitely wish I hadn't. While Batman #700 had the luck of being written by Grant Morrison, the Superman and Wonder Woman issues have been giant anthologies of snippets and quick stories to illustrate why these heroes are so great. Admittedly, I only purchased the issue to get a taste of JMS's upcoming run and the Diana's new outfit, which I'll comment on elsewhere and was a bit nervous to see that 20 different people are credited on the cover. A collection of five stories and a handful of pin-ups, the stories ranged from a lot of fun (Amanda Conner's story which is a bit of a prologue to her work on Power Girl) to groan worthy (Gail Simone's Diana is great! story) but didn't really leave me satisfied in any particular capacity. The JMS prologue has me interested enough to buy the first issue, but I'm going to be disappointed if these pages are replicated. I was expecting a great deal of "cheesecake" in the pin-ups, but even Greg Horn and Guillem March managed to keep it fairly reined in. My biggest disappointment was the inclusion of some preview pages for Cornell's upcoming Action Comics run. It is just a personal gripe but in an issue that is supposed to be a celebration of the character, I would think everything in it should be included to ensure some bit of timelessness and tribute to it, so that it can be picked up in 2010, or in 2040. Overall, not real great, but not absolutely horrible. My only regret was paying $4.99. C+

Reviews for the Week of 06/23/2010

2010-06-23T23:09:00.000-04:00

An uninspired choice of title, I do apologize as I'm a bit fried but let's get to the reviews:

Secret Warriors #17: This book hangs in the balance. Already shaved down from 60 issues to 30 or so, the lead artist has left for other projects and sales are hanging in the mid to low range. Admittedly, it is impossible to initiate anyone into this book without having them start at issue #1 and very few people are willing to do that right now. I can only hope that Hickman keeps his head up and keeps writing the hell out of this book. He is such a talent and when this all wraps up, it is going to be a huge part of his bibliography for years to come. Each issue has been fantastic and this one is no different. Beginning the new arc, "The Last Ride of the Howling Commandos" we begin to see the final pieces get into place as Nick Fury's PMC unit celebrates one last time before what may potentially be their final mission. Also great to finally see some of the other caterpillars for the first time in over two years. These combined with a great last page are why I love this book so much. Fantastic dialogue, excellent characters and incredibly deep plot. Vitti has become the new lead artist here and his work is solid. but Casseli is definitely missed. My only real criticism is that after more than two years of having one of the most recognizable covers on the stands, Marvel broke away from that to showcase the Heroic Age banner. B+

Avengers #2: I don't know what has gotten into Brian Bendis, but I'm damn glad of it. For three weeks in a row now I've read a Bendis book that just absolutely smashes it out of the park. I was initially critical how rushed the initial issue was but those concerns fall away as the writing keeps the narrative tightly focused on the adventure at hand rather than worrying about ironing out continuity. Plenty of standing around chatting by the heroes, but also loads of great dialogue, especially from Tony Stark. I know plenty of people are upset with how Marvel Boy is being handled and I agree that "Protector" is the most ham fisted naming ever, but after an issue, I'll let it slide. Fantastic stuff by JRjr here, I really dug the 2099, Days of Future Past and Age of Apocalypse nods and the cliffhanger spread is absolutely awesome. I didn't think it was possible but the Avengers stock continues to rise and the next issue will only get better. A

Amazing Spider-Man #635: Anyone buying singles right now but not buying Spider-Man, does not like good comics. It is absolutely insane how good this book is. After how powerful #634 was, I had no clue how Joe Kelly was going to top himself, but he did. The plot on this story is absolutely off the rails providing homage to Kraven's Last Hunt, The Clone Saga, JMS's run, The Gauntlet and all kinds of crazy stuff. The involvement of the "other Spiders" makes perfect sense and you can't help but fist pump and pep talk Peter as he goes through this issue. Michael Lark continues to bring his A game to the world of Spider-Man and I'd expect nothing less. The bonus material is alright, it is frustrating to only get 2 Marcos Martin pages a week, and Fimura brings his unusual style to another stale "lost tale." Neither outshine the main book, but given that ASM is in the middle of its best run maybe ever, that isn't surprising. A+ (It is pretty hard to talk about this book without delving into spoilers, but good lord just read it.)

X-Men Legacy #237: I want so badly to just write, "Was ok" and move on, but that wouldn't be fair. Another chapter that hits "good" on the solid factor but just isn't that great. The dire threat of the Nimrods is wrapped up quickly with out X-Force ever really feeling like it was in danger and the last page cliffhanger is only a cliffhanger because I was so bored with the plot that I never bothered to put the time into figuring out how that particular thread would work out. Greg Land manages not to wreck things too badly again and even manages to put together a decent spread page. Two chapters left by Kyle and Yost, hopefully they end this with a bang. B-

Reviews Whatever Has Spider-Man (for 06/16/2010)

2010-06-16T18:44:00.000-04:00

Amazing Spider-Man #633: Shed concludes this week and by now you know that I've been passing out the kool aid to anyone who will listen about how great this story has been, and the final issue did not disappoint. It was however a lot quieter than I had anticipated, which wasn't bad at all. The evolved Lizard is going to be an interesting character for writers to use in the future now that it is clear Curt Connors is officially gone and a potential journey towards hero-dom could be quite interesting. A lot of credit to Zeb Wells for opting to conclude this arc with a lot of emotional power versus a giant fist fight, especially with ASM double shipping this week, those final pages were a subtle and powerful bridge into Joe Kelly's Grim Hunt story. Bachalo is as brilliant as ever and after three weeks, I don't have much more to say about what he brings to the table. A lot of love also to Emma Rios, whom I was skeptical of at the beginning, but performed admirably, especially in the final pages. This story was absolutely stellar and I do not regret my pushing it so hard in the least. A

New Mutants #14: Second Coming marches on this week, inching its way towards the finale and after 11 weeks, it really can't get here fast enough. I'm over rallying speeches, I'm over dramatic moments and I'm through with pointless deaths. Bring on the final confrontations, bring on the manifestation of powers and let's end this thing. At this point, I'm going to really need to be blown away by the finale, because with three issues to go now, I'm not sure how they're going to confront Bastion, save the city, save the future, resolve this three year Hope story and not have it feel like a rush job. At this point however, I fully expect Cable to die in the future, which will cause Hope to jump start the X-gene and rather than be an ending, Second Coming will only be the beginning of the next phase of X-stories. Plot complaints aside, this issue did have some enjoyable scenes, Legion was used in a very interesting fashion and it was great to see Colossus actually victimized, rather than simply off panel. The art was also handled well, given that it was comprised of 6 members, they kept everything looking uniform and solid. B-

Amazing Spider-Man #634: This is it. What everything has been building towards since last June. The Grim Hunt, and holy cow is here in a big way. Starting the story off a few days after #633, Peter is at rock bottom, adding swine flu to his list of burdens. I can't say too much about the plot because things take off from the very first page, including some serious call backs to the Clone Saga, JMS's run and some hints that have been dropped over the last year or so. Some serious care and energy went into this story and it shows. Joe Kelly has really kicked things off with a bang and has turned in one of the best ASM issues of the year, the last few pages alone were probably some of the most difficult and tear jerking panels I've read since.. well since I Kill Giants. Truly heart-wrenching stuff. Was great to see Michael Lark back on the pencils, his faces look goofy on occasion, but he absolutely killed this stuff with his fluid movements and subtle touches that really brought the story to life. The back-up features were alright, I don't think anyone particularly cares about another "Secret Kaine story" written by J.M. DeMatteis, but it was fun to see Max Fiumara back in Spidey's world. I was a little disappointed to find out that the Stan Lee/Marcos Martin joint is only 2 pages a week, but I'll take Marcos however I can get him. I have no clue how they're going to trump themselves next week, but I have every confidence that they will. A+

Brightest Day #4: The instant this story stops being a stream of blue-balling cliffhangers, it is going to take off in a huge way. There is so much talent in each issue that it is absolutely frustrating how poorly paced it has been. Things are slowly picking up, with Martian Manhunter's story missing in action and the Aquaman pages were re-purposed for the new Aqualad. Thankfully the biggest gains were made for Aliveman, who at this point is probably the main character of the story, but my largest frustration comes at the lack of Firestorm pages, primarily because I'm anxious to know if my theory about the revived heroes being converted Black Lanterns is correct. All things considered, the art is great in these issues, but with Reis, Syaf, Clark and Prado, who can be surprised by that. At this point you are either buying this or not, depending on how it all turns out, trade waiting may be the best idea. B

New Avengers #1: It is insanely frustrating how enjoyable this book was. Last week I remarked that I couldn't understand how Bendis wasn't translating the quality of his Ultimate Spider-Man comics into his Avengers work and it looks like he decided to show me the business. New Avengers was everything Avengers wasn't. Organic, natural, fluid, and filled with characters that felt like themselves instead of being puppeted around. I'd almost dare say that half the reason this issue was so good, was because Spider-Man and Wolverine barely do a thing. Luke Cage in the front and center is really the key here and his interactions with Victoria Hand especially let Bendis's talent for dialogue shine. Even the unrevealed enemy-as-driving force feels less forced than last month's encounter with Kang, as the tension builds in juxtaposition with the blossoming New Avengers. Carrying over from the last volume, the team of Immonen, Von Grawbadger and Martin continue to do fabulous things: this book looks great, reads great and flows fantastically. I think it will be difficult for even those who dislike JRjr over on Avengers to dispute that this is a visually impressive book. Overall, my only complaint is that there is no credit to Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction for the lifting of the great idea to elaborate on Doctor Voodoo's spells and where they came from. A+

The Black Cat #1: In a week with 4 Spider-Man comics, this was actually the one I was most looking forward to. Jen Van Meter and Javier Pulido set up a Felicia Hardy story that is running concurrently with the Grim Hunt, and while those details are still developing, the inital story is still fantastic. As a long running member of Spidey's supporting cast, I may be wrong but I don't think Felicia has ever received the level of background that Van Meter provides here, generating a supporting cast of the Cat's own: from the women who handle her gear to the men who provide her with information. It was great to have a look past the "independent woman"facade she is always written with, for a better look into her life. Everything about the story feels genuine, the dialogue is natural and the events of the book are perfectly suited to a street level hero with a more minor super-power. Visually, this comic pops. From the people I've talked to, Javier Pulido tends to get lost in Marcos Martin's shadow, but as an individual talent, he is just as skilled as Marcos, if not more. With a fantastic use of panel construction and unique layouts, Pulido's talking scenes feel just as fluid as the action, eliminating any chance for a dull moment to even exist. I was very surprised at how lengthy this comic felt, even more so than the other Spidey issues this week. With Shed having been concluded, this may be my new Spider-Man comic to push on everyone, as it was absolutely fantastic. A

Light Reviews for 06/10/2010

2010-06-10T00:00:00.000-04:00

I've been a bit overwhelmed with school but I caught some time tonight so I figured I'd throw down a few quick reviews:

Batman #700 Typical DC managed to false advertise the hell out of this book, making people believe that it would be more of an anthology and less of a consolidated story and while it is, it really isn't. I know a lot of people were also expecting this to be a huge moment for the Return of Bruce Wayne story that is on-going right now, but we didn't get that either. However, a lot of credit to Grant Morrison, who gets a bad rap for being inaccessible, for turning out a fantastic, one and done story that (if I can use the ever cliche phrase) rewards longtime readers but is also a fun tale for first timers. Anyone who has ever heard of Batman knows that there is always going to be one, and that is really the only piece of information you need going into the story. The art teams all shine on their respective Batmen, although Scott Kolins out of nowhere was very surprising, especially the style used for his pages. As David Uzumeri mentioned on his Twitter, Kolins normal Flash work would have fit in just fine, instead his pages possess a glossy feel that makes everything feel fuzzy. I absolutely love Kubert's Damian Batman as well, but that is just personal preference. The only thing I can really be unhappy with is the additional 4 pages of "Batcave" material which should have really just been a re-print of Jim Lee's All Star Batman and Robin gateway spread which really is all one needs. From a critical eye this issue could have trimmed some fat and been priced at $3.99, but from a celebratory perspective, it succeeds. A-

PunisherMAX #8: I don't consider myself a Punisher fan, but I love this series to death, if only because each month tells you a little bit more about how absolute insane Jason Aaron actually is. Aaron's take on these characters continues to dwell in the land of excess: graphic violence, absolutely insane situations and a true sense of never really knowing what can come next and yet it all feels very natural to the book. His mastery of these characters keeps everything flowing and Dillion's art remains as solid as ever. I'm going to end this portion now because I find it terribly difficult to review without foul language, but that is just the nature of the beast. B+

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #11: Reading this book each month continues to make it more and more difficult for me to dump $3.99 into other Bendis titles because his Spider-Man is just so good each month that it baffles how he isn't translating this stuff to his Avengers work. While no actual webs appear in this issue, that doesn't mean there isn't plenty of action as the fallout from last month's Kitty-focused drama segues right into something brand new that I would have never expected if I didn't keep an eye on the solicitations. Strong dialogue, solid art and an enjoyable plot both keep this title in the upper tier of comics and reminding us of how quickly time flies (ASM's similar story was a year ago last July and the iPad was announced in January, but appears here). A

Uncanny X-Men #525: Uncanny has continually been the weak-link in the Second Coming chain, even factoring in Greg Land artwork elsewhere, lacking the necessary urgency and cohesion the other titles have had. At this point the plot really needs to be advancing, and instead readers get yet another collection of character moments that don't really go anywhere. Everyone gets it, Scott is carrying a heavy burden, mutants are extinct in the future and outside the dome everyone is crashing into it just to shut up the occasional "Where were the Avengers?" fan. Let's get on with the story, and don't even get me started on the Watchmen joke. At least The Dodson's are doing what they can. I'm ready for Second Coming to wrap-up so we can finally put this Messiah business to rest. B-

If Only Every Week Could Be This Great: Reviews for 05/26/2010

2010-05-26T20:55:00.000-04:00

Secret Avengers #1: This is the book that Avengers #1 should have been. Strong character voices, intriguing situations, and excellent pacing make this not only one of the best books of the week, but a strong candidate for best book of the Avengers franchise. It is only one issue but I'm tremendously impressed with how Brubaker structured this book. Popular characters are left only to their introductions while characters that may be more unfamiliar to new readers. Figures people may not know like Moon Knight or Ant-Man are the subject of short yet poignant flashbacks that both explore their motivations for joining the team and relating to their actions in the present day, subtlety illustrating why Steve would want them on his team and Ed would want them in his book. Mike Deodato is providing stellar work, hot off of Dark Avengers and he continues to deliver. His action scenes are paced well, his layouts and storytelling remains top-notch and while his normally shadow-heavy and darker style of art is perfectly suited for the book, the brief taste of Mars we got with his pencils were satisfactory as well. If you are buying one Avengers book, it needs to be this one. A

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #2: Grant Morrison's masterpiece Batman run continues here and I don't use the word lightly. Grant is the absolute king of comics writing right now and no one comes close. No one else matches his imagination, his scope, his plotting and his eye for details. Casual readers will certainly enjoy this issue of a Puritan Bruce Wayne battling the narrow minding zealots of the Salem era Witch Hunters but for fans of G-Mo and stronger readers there is a deeper end to this pool. No longer limiting himself to the story threads of his Batman and Final Crisis works, there are a number of references to older Morrison works including Animal Man, 52, Seven Soldiers and potentially All-Star Superman as well. Grant is both an absolute genius and totally nuts, elaborating on space, the multiverse and laying out intense concepts about the construction of time. The Puritan story is solid as well, it was fantastic to see Bruce's detective skills on serious display after a long time away and while it remains fairly predictable, it still manages to generate some further questions as we move towards Wayne's inevitable return to the present. Irving's art is solid, fantastic in some areas and questionable in others. I'm not the biggest fan in the world, but I can certainly understand why people like it and try not to let it affect my perception of the comic negatively. Another strong issue and I'm looking forward to Batman and Robin in a few weeks. A

Amazing Spider-Man #632: In all honesty, I was VERY, VERY tempted to simply place a page here and let that stand as my review, but at the end of all things, I do try hard to avoid spoilers and this particular piece is just so absolutely bonkers and key to the whole Shed arc that to do so would ruin a lot for anyone looking to check it out. That said, I ranted about this arc before it began, I continue to do so week after week. This is the best Spider-Man story in the middle of the best Spider-Man long-story in forever. If you have a vague interest in Amazing Spider-Man, please, please, please, pick up this arc. A+++++

Secret Warriors #16: Hickman kills on this book but it should be a sin that it only comes out once a month. There is so much going on sixteen issues in that you almost HAVE to re-read the previous parts of the arc just to stay on your toes. This is going to be a guaranteed omnibus when it finally finishes, an absolute tome of espionage, intrigue, and action that is filled with crosses, double crosses and crosses that you've never even heard of. Keeping up with the BKV tradition of always closing on a cliff-hanger, Secret Warriors does everything in its power to keep you interested, guessing and reaching for old issues. Jonathan has a hold on these characters, Nick Fury especially that no one else will likely ever be able to match and it will be very interesting to see what project he moves on to next. If the book has one weakness however, it is in the art. Until this point, Vitti and Caselli have been the only pencillers to have worked on the title but it looks like time has caught up with them as this month's issue features fill-in work by Gianluca Gugliotta who was selected for a style that matches the other two and while he gets the story told, it is not visually impressive by any means. Next month concludes "Wake the Beast" and it is going to be huge for sure. B

X-Force #27: Funny what a difference a week can make. 7 days ago I was terribly down on Second Coming, the story was slowing a bit, Greg Land was on art and things were fairly boring. Then I popped open X-Force this week and was quite impressed. Mike Choi and Sonia Oback handle the story telling for the first ten or so pages to the point that I almost wondered if there was a printing error. There are no words and there is no real need for them either. The art team is by far the best of the crossover and they've handled the strongest bits powerfully. Given that the story has really been the brain child of Yost & Kyle, I expected them to bring no less than their A game and they did not disappoint. The plot has begun moving again, the characters are interacting well, the mood is as grim as expected and the mandatory amount of Young X-Men were properly harmed. All is well in the Mutant World again. B+

Green Lantern #54: It is an absolutely insane week when Green Lantern is like the fifth or sixth book getting reviewed by me. That isn't an indication of its quality just that it somehow got lost in the stack. Continuing the Spirit Animals arc of the new Brightest Day status quo, the book continues on as wonderfully as always. Things are progressing at a satisfactory rate as Sinestro continues his task to gather the New Guardians while the original Guardian continues hunting down energy beasts. I have a few qualms with the writing, particularly some of the Johnsian Literalism (copyright David Uzumeri 2010) found throughout and the last page left me scratching my head but I'm curious to see where it goes for sure. Doug Mahnke continues to shine with his absolutely awesome art, capturing both human and alien flawlessly and is perfectly suited in every way for this book. One thing that has stood out to me is that the Green Lantern franchise is really turning into just that as some threads from Green Lantern Corps are picked up here and some of the characters will no doubt be featured in the other books as Johns, Bedard and Tomasi expand the Lantern Line into something that may potentially rival the Bat books. All in all, another solid outing. A-

Ultimate Enemy #4: This book has frustrated me beyond belief. I understand that it is part of a trilogy of minis, but the last page has The End. on it. With a period. Then right underneath it, it says "TO BE CONTINUED!" how does that work? How do you put "The End." on a cliffhanger? If you consider this to be just another issue in an event book, it is a lot of fun. Populated by plenty of great character moments and dialogue it carries on the standard quality of a Bendis book, but in the end it has been four issues and the heroes only have the vaguest idea of what they're dealing with. Rafa Sandoval continues to dominate artistically, visually solid, Sandoval continues to prove himself as an excellent storyteller and it is quite clear why Bendis would enjoy working with him. Frustrations aside, I have been enjoying this series to a degree, maybe not a 3.99 degree, but to a degree. A finished trilogy will no doubt cast some better light on this story, so I'll definitely anticipate re-reading it in the coming months. B+ as en event issue. C+ as a miniseries.

Is Jeph Loeb Responsible for ASM's Gauntlet Storyline?

2010-05-24T01:42:00.000-04:00

A few days ago, I was in my local comic book shop and came across a bundle of single issues for Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s Spider-Man: Blue for $6.99. I had heard the story was excellent and as trades usually run in the price range of twice that, I had no qualms about throwing it into my pile and heading home. I had the opportunity to sit down and read the story and while I thought it was a very fun and solid story, something about it and its relationship to the current ASM storyline was bothering me. A day or so later in the shower I realized that the reason Blue felt so familiar to me, was because of how similar they two storylines are. Everyone has heard the phrase “there are no more original ideas” at least once in their life and as I began to count the coincidences, I have to on some degree acknowledge that Jeph Loeb may in some ways be responsible for ASM’s “The Gauntlet” storyline.

Spider-Man: Blue is the re-telling and re-purposing of some older issues of Amazing Spider-Man and the Silver Age love story of Gwen Stacey and Peter Parker. The project has all the features of an enjoyable Loeb tale, emotion, solid dialogue and both a diverse cast and a multitude of situations for the lead character to participate in as the story evolves. These situations are rarely developed in a significant way, and in the case of Blue, are primarily action sequences to give Spidey some monologue time. It was a quick six issues that told a great story and was over with.

The Gauntlet: Beginning with Amazing Spider-Man #600 and running into June of 2010, Spider-Man’s gallery of villains have been returning, one after another, re-tooled and deadlier than ever to make Peter Parker’s life a living hell. The stories themselves have been fantastic, original, deep and have made the book probably the best it has ever been.

SPOILERS FOR BOTH SPIDER-MAN:BLUE AND THE LAST 40 OR SO ISSUES OF AMAZING-SPIDER-MAN BELOW

In summary, Spider-Man: Blue IS the story of how Gwen Stacey and Peter Parker fell in love, but against the back drop of a larger story. Across six issues, Spider-Man is forced to face several of his villains, who either receive help during the battle, or are set free by a mysterious figure who is revealed to be Kraven the Hunter. Kraven has been studying Spider-Man’s battles to prepare himself to eventually hunt and kill Peter Parker, fulfilling a contract given to him by the Green Goblin. It should be noted that Blue’s timeline has been liberally re-arranged and Kraven’s role in the story modified for Loeb’s goal.

The Gauntlet is the story of Kraven’s family, desperate for revenge against Spider-Man and his allies, preparing themselves for Kraven’s potential return in The Grim Hunt story that is set to occur shortly. Like Spider-Man: Blue, Spidey is fighting these battles one after the other with very little time to rest. He is also unknowingly dealing with the Kravinoff family who has abducted Madam Webb and is using her foresight to ensure Peter is constantly losing battles or experiencing pyrrhic victories. In a sense, The Gauntlet is all about taking the story in the opposite direction than what audiences have been trained to expect from their plotlines.

What kicks off both stories, are encounters with Norman Osborn. Blue hits a story point early in Amazing Spider-Man, around issue thirty-three or so, when Osborn briefly loses his memory and forgets that he in fact is the Green Goblin and that Peter is Spider-Man. The Gauntlet was preceded by the Goblin story, “American Son” where Norman wanted Harry to join his Dark Avengers, and Spider-Man was forced to go undercover to try and help Harry. Both stories get Osborn off the grid for a time, freeing up Harry to be part of the cast and develop his friendship with Peter.

The first villain to appear in Spider-Man: Blue is the Rhino. Set free by Kraven, the Rhino goes on a rampage in downtown New York, looking to get revenge against Spider-Man. During the battle, Spidey manages to break a piece of the Rhino’s hide free and with the help of Curt Connors, creates a modified webbing that allows him to remove the Rhino’s costume and ultimately defeat him.

The Gauntlet’s two-issue take on the Rhino is a similar but very different fashion. More in-depth and focusing primarily on skin/hide as identity rather than power, Joe Kelly introduces a second Rhino that is being funded and trained by the Kravinoffs. In order to prove himself, he is convinced he must defeat the original Rhino and take his “skin” in order to ascend and earn the right to be called the Rhino. Despite Spidey’s best efforts to keep Aleksei Sytsevich out of costume and away from this new Rhino, tragedy wins out and the two Rhinos die in a final battle.

This panel stands out nicely, especially when contrasted with this one from Spider-Man: Blue:

Although featuring Vultures instead of Rhinos, Blue also features a take on legacy villainsn with the inclusion of Blackie Drago’s origin as the Vulture. Poisoning Adrian Toomes in order to find out where he has hidden his wings and armor, Drago escapes from prison and while nearly defeating Spider-Man, fails to kill him, which prompts Kraven to save Toomes and allow the two to battle for the right to be The Vulture, eventually involving Spider-Man.

With Curt Connors’s appearance in the story, it was almost guaranteed that the Lizard would appear in Blue. Maintaining the formulaic story of a one armed doctor trying to re-grow the limb, keep his family together and find scientific success turning into a monster, Blue keeps the story lighthearted. With Spidey’s help, Connors returns to human form in the nick of time, preventing his family from seeing him as a reptile.

The Gauntlet specifically avoids that story by acknowledging the formula exists:

With Madam Webb in their possession, the Kravinoffs are able to obtain knowledge of the future and take action to turn events towards their favor. A story that should have ended normally, if not happily, instead takes a terrible turn that ends with the actual consumption of Billy Connors.

Even some of the minor story beats feel familiar. During Spider-Man’s first battle with Drago, he passes out in the snow and winds up sick, having to go into battle ill a few days later:

The Grim Hunt looks like it will feature a similar moment, as some leaked preview art shows an unhealthy Peter Parker answering a knock at the door:

In the end, my implications here may just be coincidence. It is certainly hard to compare 6 issues versus 36 issues and not expect any overlap. But given the thematic similarities and the involvement of many of the same characters, it is certainly worth taking a look at the two series side by side and mulling it over. Many consider Loeb to be a hack these days, but it is certainly curious to wonder if he unknowingly laid the ground work for one of the best years of Spider-Man ever.

Trade Review: Jamie McKelvie's Suburban Glamour

2010-05-21T01:02:00.001-04:00

Like so many others, I was introduced to Jamie McKelvie via his collaboration with writer Kieron Gillen on their Image published project, Phonogram. I had heard the hype, read the praise and was finally ready to take the plunge and see what this duo was up to and I was not disappointed. The story sang, the visuals rocked and the comic wormed its way into my heart, infecting me with some type of incurable fever. In my first outing with their Singles Club trade, I read cover to cover five times in twenty-four hours, a feat yet that I have yet to repeat with any other piece of entertainment. Months later, not a week goes by where I don’t pick up my copy of The Singles Club and at least page through it a few times, discovering some new detail in McKelvie’s panels or making some new connection to a band I’ve just exposed myself to. To say I’m a fan is putting it lightly and having consumed their current works, my hunger led me to an Amazon search where I quickly came across a copy of Suburban Glamour, both written and illustrated by McKelvie.

For fans of Phonogram, Suburban Glamour doesn’t stray too far from the path. A coming of age story about a young woman named Astrid; human and magic intertwine as she lives out her teenage years amongst her friends and family, trying to understand her place in the world. The plot of course evolves from there as one might imagine and while the end results are predictable, there are a number of twists and turns along the way that help keep things fresh.

For his first real outing as a writer, McKelvie doesn’t get ahead of himself, keeping the script fairly light and trusting his pencils to carry most of the weight. The world of Suburban Glamour feels incredibly human, with realistic situations, believable dialogue and strong personalities. Even with a limited four issues of space, and minimal world building, the level of detail and planning that has gone into the story emanates from the page. Each character is quick to establish him or herself, staying memorable without being obnoxious. One of the biggest credits I can give to the book is how natural the dialogue feels. You would think it easy to write a seventeen year old accurately but that rarely seems to be the case anymore.

Where Suburban Glamour really shines however, is with its visuals. One of the things I especially love about Jamie’s art is its flexibility. While building a reputation for figures that are fairly grounded in realism, his style allows for the inclusion of all types of magical and fantastical creatures that possess their own unique look and yet never feel out of place in the world they’re interacting with. As mentioned, McKelvie’s artistic talent allows him to use the script as an outline, rather than a guide. With a masterful use of space, the panels and page layouts guide the eyes much easier than the words do, controlling the pace of the story. A master of perspective, Jamie’s panels are most often narrowly focused on the subject, but that doesn’t stop him from occasionally pulling the camera outwards and reminding us just how skilled he is at using his art to subtlety feed us emotional cues. My favorite use and one that has definitely stood out to me has been the use of size or vastness to evoke frustration from the characters. Compare these two panels, one from Marvel’s Siege: Loki one-shot, and one from Suburban Glamour:

The size and vastness of the cities overwhelm our protagonists, objects of rage for them and reminders for us that while these characters may be the focus of the story we are reading, they are but a tiny piece of a much larger system, an organism that will continue to exist long after they are gone. Major credit also goes out to long-time McKelvie colorist Matthew Wilson who does a fantastic job bringing the pencils and environment to life.
This isn’t a book that is going to reinvent comics for you, move mountains or change your world, but it is cheap, fun and a fairly quick read. If you’re a fan of Phonogram, or even just fantasy stories in general, there is plenty to enjoy and loads to love. I’ll definitely be coming back to this story fairly soon. B+

Entering the Heroic Age: Reviews for 05/19/2010

2010-05-19T21:35:00.000-04:00

Age of Heroes #1: The first of Marvel's four issue anthology focusing on a number of character across in the world as the Heroic Age begins. The first thing that caught my attention was the talent on hand: Kurt Busiek, Rick Remender, Chris Samnee, Paul Cornell, Leonard Kirk, Dan Slott and Blog-Favorite Marko Djurdjevic all feature in this issue, putting together four stories featuring J. Jonah Jameson, Doctor Voodoo, Captain Britain and Spider-Man. The second thing that came to mind was how underwhelming this issue is. The biggest story is the most uneventful but also provides an interesting perspective into the conclusion of Dark Reign. JJJ strolls through the city, internally complaining to himself that heroes are really terrorists and failing to see why the common people cannot grip that. While this isn't unusual behavior for JJJ, Busiek handles the dialogue realistically enough that it is easy for the reader to understand why and how people may have turned to Norman Osborn and what lies they are willing to tell themselves in the face of his outing. The real surprise of the story is Marko D on art and how mediocre it looked. I personally thought that Marko absolutely killed on Dark Reign: The List, and it may be the coloring and lack of inking here but his art just looks ugly and undetailed, I found it be to very disappointing. The Doctor Voodoo story could have potentially been something good with some more room, instead Remender is forced to cut down the conflict to illustrate how Jericho Drumm is forced to navigate his real life and the duties of Sorcerer Supreme. A nice little snippet and I'm always glad to see Remender on Voodoo again, but this story doesn't do much to celebrate "The Heroic Age." Dan Slott's Spider-Man feature made for an ok-one and done page comic, but I'm so tired of "x state of mind" riffs. The Captain Britain story is the biggest victim here, the team has been missing in action for almost a year now, and was definitely one of the major draws for picking this issue up. While the two pages of Steve Rogers and the Mi3 cast interacting is fun, it only serves as little more than a painful reminder the book probably isn't coming back any time soon and to remind you to go back and read the run again. At 2.99, Age of Heroes may have been a worthwhile pick up, but at 3.99 I cannot justify picking up another issue. C

Enter the Heroic Age: Where Age of Heroes is about telling stories that aren't worth a full issue, Enter the Heroic Age is the equivalent of watching four or five versions of the bank robbery trailer from The Dark Knight. The big promo issue for the new Heroic Age titles, I must admit it served its purpose well. Each one of these stories was entertaining but tantalizing on its own and may actually inspire me to pick up a few of the titles. The big draw for me was the Kelly Sue Deconnick / Jamie McKelvie Black Widow joint, I love Jamie's art and have two more Deconnick penned issues on my stack so I was very excited to see what they'd come up with and I was not disappointed. Natasha is perfectly characterized, strong, in control and possessing that flexible spy mentality that seems to make James Bond so appealing. I must admit that I was also drawn in by the Hawkeye & Mockingbird story, I'm not a fan of either character, but the pages were entertaining enough that I'll at least pick up the first issue. Overall, I think Marvel learned its lesson from the Dark Reign: New Nation one-shot where they quickly re-printed all the stories in the appropriate #1s so there may be some small appeal in collecting material they may not be available elsewhere. I recommend this if you're on the fence about Atlas, Black Widow, Thunderbolts, Hawkeye & Mockingbird or Avengers Academy, but if you're certain you'll buy them, you can more than likely skip these. B+

Avengers #1: So here it is, everything the Heroic Age is all about, in one consolidated form, today is Avengers day and the new Avengers book is.. alright. Like Siege #4, I don't think there was a way this title was going to live up to the hype, it certainly tries hard, but just doesn't get there. The biggest reason is that the current Marvel status quo needs a lot more world building than it has received so far. Steve Rogers is still referred to in title as "Top Cop," with no real explanation yet as to what kind of institution he is putting together or what his plans for the future are. Instead, he basically re-assembles the New Avengers, swapping Ms. Marvel and Luke Cage for Thor and Iron Man, tells them they're all great guys and the adventure begins. What should have been an introduction to the new world order and a relaxed issue full of character moments, something Bendis is normally excellent at, is instead quickly pushed through to begin the latest Avengers Adventure. The always great art team of JRjr, White and Jansen does what it does and puts together some fantastic panels, some alright panels and some downright ugly panels but in all turns in a great issue. In the end I don't think there are or should have been any surprises with this issue. It is Bendis writing the Avengers as he has been writing the Avengers for years now, some parts of it are great, some parts of it fall flat. It sacrifices some quality for accessibility but that is to be anticipated for a new number one issue. B-

X-Men Legacy #236: Continuing my trend of reviewing each chapter of Second Coming each week, I have to say I'm a bit disappointed. For a story that started off fairly quickly with huge potential, it has quickly degenerated into a formula where one big thing happens each issue and the characters respond to it. Things still appear to be dire for the X-Men, although they don't feel that way. Bastion has degenerated from a calculating mastermind to a standard mustache twirling, "our finest hour," type of villain and much of the threat has left with it. Greg Land again finds the fortitude to at least the art decent while Mike Carey does a suitable job with the script. At eight chapters in however, a lot more needs to be going on than what is. This is a story that has been in the works for a long, long time now, so why does it feel like it is dragging? I wish I had an answer. C+

Brightest Day #2: One thing is for certain, this book will definitely not be the next 52. I almost didn't want to review this book because while I find it entertaining, I have to agree with a large number of people that it is mindlessly so. Each week continues to be a spectacle of murders, revenge, and poorly written characters that seem pasted together by an occasionally solid character moment. All I can really say is that at one point, a hero threatens to transmute a vault door into jello shots and then asks his floating head companion, what flavor he likes. At least Peter Tomasi wrote a nice Manhunter moment compared to the absolutely bizarre Thor moment that Paul Jenkins wrote last week in Fallen Sun. D

Legion of Super-Heroes #1: I almost didn't buy this book because quite frankly, the Legion terrifies me. There are like 9000 of these dudes across multiple iterations and I got about three different nosebleeds trying to read Johns/Perez's Legion of 3 Worlds. I gambled however, and I'm really glad I did. Paul Levitz launches this series with a story that is both incredibly accessible but also appears to be fairly respectful to recent Legion stories. With excellent pace control and the incredibly solid pencils of Yildray Cinar, each character becomes quickly recognizable and memorable. Exposition is carefully planned to be both informative and sound realistic and the plot flows quite fluidly. Levitz's dialogue needs a bit of work, but I'm confident that will return with time. The Legion is definitely one of the most continuity heavy franchises I have ever encountered, if not in comics, but this issue is a fantastic jumping on point and I highly recommend it, potentially my issue of the week. A

Ramblings: The Effect of the Internet on Comics

2010-05-19T11:56:00.000-04:00

I’m prefacing the following by saying that my editing and reviewing of the following is fairly non-existent, but I jotted this stuff down randomly and figured I’d better throw it up before I forgot about it and lost it.

This last week was huge for Marvel’s Avengers franchise. After more than five years of stories, Brian Bendis got to wrap up the long running epic he had begun with Avengers Disassembled, resolve the threads and story arcs that had been in the works for years and bring a conclusion to the Dark Reign status quo that occupied all of 2009. With Siege #4, Dark Avengers #16 and the New Avengers Finale, he did everything that he set out to do and in true comic fan fashion, the Internet was not impressed. The primary complaint: predictability. “The Void died, Osborn was removed from power, Steve Rogers is king again,” and while it was solidly written, it was everything that people had been anticipating and yet they still felt let down.

Which leads me to ask: is being a comics fan on the Internet a good thing? It use to be that every week you would go down to your store, pick up your titles, race home and really experience the stories for what they were, the next chapter in your favorite character’s life, events were something significant and every cliffhanger was something to be discussed for days. Now, fans exist in an entirely different world.

We now have access to everything vendors do: order forms, promotions and solicitations, tools that those of us who read and debate often usually have no problem utilizing, hypothesizing, dissecting and unraveling these snippets, turning six lines into an educated guess that more often than not proves accurate.
Message boards and Twitter also give fans the opportunity to interact with creators, following their favorite writers or artists and learning about their day to day activities. Occasionally though, things slip and the Internet descends to feast on the error.

Back in the fall, artist Billy Tan mentioned that he would be working a “street level comic” called Shadowlands. Given that Tan at the time had just finished work with Andy Diggle on “The List – Daredevil,” it didn’t take much to put two and two together and begin hypothesizing about future Daredevil storylines. Sure enough, a few weeks into the New Year, Daredevil began holding corrupt cops prisoner beneath New York City and ordered the construction of a prison, called Shadowlands, seemingly confirming the future arc.

A few months back, unintentionally via Twitter, Andy Diggle, the current writer on Daredevil, mentioned in a tweet that he had just wrapped up the script for Shadowlands #1, accidentally confirming that not only would Daredevil continue to run, but there would also be a companion mini. With the knowledge that a mini was pending, I went ahead and put together some predictions for companion issues that would come out along side it.

And sure enough, the Shadowlands announcements dropped this last week and while I did predict the Power Man and Iron Fist, Thunderbolts and Spider-Man tie-ins, I did fail to guess that Dan Slott would only be writing a Spidey one-shot, I was almost positive it would be Brian Reed handling a 3 or 4 issue mini. I also failed to predict a Moon Knight story and some additional tie-ins that will no doubt fluff up the series a bit while increasing visibility for other characters.

But if it is so easy to predict these stories, why bother buying the comics? While I hate to be cliché, at least from my own perspective, it really is about the journey more so than just knowing the plots. While I do occasionally feel underwhelmed, I love these characters, enjoy the writers that I follow and certainly enjoy the friends in the community that I do debate and discuss with, which may be the biggest benefit that the Internet can give.

Comics are my primary hobby and while I’m absolutely rabid about them, I don’t know a single person in my proximity who shares my passion. With the Internet, I’m able to surround myself with interesting and intelligent people who not only love the genre, but may also know more about different aspects or characters than I do.

Message boards and Twitter allow me to get recommendations, debate, discuss, learn, re-consider and re-think my views on a variety of comic topics. Jonathan Hickman, who is one of my favorite writers at the moment, was passed onto me via a recommendation for his book “Red Mass for Mars,” which while not finished, has led me to his other fantastic works like “Pax Romana” and “The Nightly News,” as well as his work for Marvel.

Similarly, comic journalism does a fantastic job of working with companies, especially the Big Two, to keep press flowing on new and important books. It isn’t unusual to see an important issue get a number of articles of coverage: usually a cover preview, then some pencils or unfinished art and then an official preview a few days before the actual book is released. These articles help bring attention to books that may not ordinarily get it, and companies are really learning how to tap into this and use it effectively to boost a title. These sites help keep me informed and organized, making sure I know exactly what I want to buy and allow me to spend my money effectively.

In the end, the pros of the Internet definitely outweigh the cons. The interaction, community and increased promotional materials all outweigh the brief disappointing that may come from an issue, a disappointment that quickly fades as it is replaced by excitement for the next big story.

Further Reviews for the Week of 05/12/10

2010-05-14T03:22:00.000-04:00

Prince of Power #1: The Incredible Hercules saga continues as this Amadeus Cho focused mini launches for the Heroic Age and for all intensive purposes, is another spectacular issue of the long running story. Pak and Van Lente are a well oiled machine at this point: the standard comedic catch up page and then launching right into the story. The team earns my consistent praise week after week with the fresh styles of narration, excellent control of voice, effective collaboration with other Marvel storylines and of course, keeping the narrative moving and the reader guessing. One of the few gripes I have with the series is that the art team is changing constantly. I don't know if that is because the team writes so far ahead, but until now, I don't think an art team has yet to do more than one arc at a time. Reilly Brown steps back into the world of Herc to pencil this issue and with it having been awhile since I'd encountered his work, I was impressed. Brown has fantastic control of the page, capable of packing it with panels without losing clarity while also able to place a spread that conveys the needed material perfectly. His characters also look fabulous, both human and myth alike. The cliffhanger feels a bit inconsistent, but I'm sure things will pan out in the next issue. A

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #10: As I may have mentioned during the last review for this series, I am finally a believer in Lafuente. Without sacrificing the original appeal of his art, he has tweaked his style to get a better handle on how round everything felt previously, giving it a sharper image while still maintaining it's flair. Bendis pens yet another solid issue and continues to embrace the status quo changes brought about by Ultimatum. Given how opposite everything is in the Ultimate World in terms of tone and plot, Bendis's writing is doing a stellar job of really making those differences feel poignant and important and his grasp on all of these characters is top notch. What is disappointing is that his USM issues are much better written than the 616 comics where he is the primary architect of Marvel's world. USM is consistently good and while seemingly not building towards any giant event or big moment, each issue can be savored and enjoyed as just another piece of the brilliant tapestry that has been Ultimate Spider-Man. B+

Web of Spider-Man #8: Van Lente week continues and I need to lead off by saying that it is a real shame this book wasn't advertised better. Web of Spider-Man has been a mishmash of Villain origins and Spider-Girl stories since they re-launched the title, but with this issue, FvL takes over telling fresh stories in Spidey's universe. Given that van Lente has already told some fantastic stories in Amazing, it is no surprise that the script here is equally good. A story about a brand new villain, van Lente uses the opportunity to take some light hearted jabs at the "event stories" of the past few years and goof on the concept of the Heroic Age a bit. The issue feels a bit longer but I attribute that to FvL's excellent use of Peter's supporting cast and even manages to work in Flash and his recent disability plotline without making it "inspirational" like it has been treated in the past. Joining Fred is Javier Rodriguez who is absolutely brilliant. I actually had to look him up, he is a colorist/artist whose art is very similar to Marcos Martin and Javier Pulido's and for being as far as I know, fairly knew to the Big Two, his work is top notch. Rodriguez does it all from big spreads to style swaps and while the story doesn't call for too much Spider-Man yet, his characters are evocative and his Peter Parker, perfectly goofy. 3.99 also nets you a Ben Reilly back up story, which is alright, the type of story you can expect when the Spider-Clone is the focus, but I would be thrilled if they cut that and let this book run free at 2.99. If you're looking for the more traditional and light hearted Spidey stories, this is your place. B+

Batman #699: Pssst, hey. Hey guys, it's me! It's me, Bruce! Dick needed the night off, so I told him I'd step in and solve this crime! Man, how the hell does he back flip so much? I think Tony forgot he was writing Bruce in this issue. At least March killed it. C+

Justice League International - Generation Lost #1: I had some qualms about picking this up as I currently have four JLI trades stacked up on my bookshelf ready to be pursued and was concerned I may need to get familiar with the story before I dove in here but that is not the case. Giffen and Winick make the story easily accessible for anyone who may pick up the issue, filling in the origin story of the JLI as well as why Max Lord is now considered one of the most dangerous men on the planet. There are still somethings that need to be clarified in the back story, specifically what has happened with Ice since her resurrection and experience during Blackest Night but everything proceeds along nicely and does a great job of fleshing out the scene that Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi put together in Brightest Day #0. Aaron Lopresti mans the pencils here and while the last time I encountered his art was Planet Hulk, his work here is solid, limited primarily to tights and flights with a healthy amount of realistic looking people. The method used to get the four characters who can remember Lord together is a bit contrived and the fallout of this issue certainly conflicts with the "one and done" nature that Winick was promoing for the series, but it is certainly interesting enough to warrant the purchase of the next issue. B+

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

2010-05-12T23:30:00.000-04:00

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.

The Best Things You Haven't Read: Matt Fraction's The Order

2010-05-10T13:39:00.000-04:00

In the fallout of the Civil War event, Marvel used the new status quo to launch and re-purpose a number of new books under “The Initiative” banner. With every state needing a super hero team, Brian Bendis launched The Mighty Avengers, Dan Slott headlined the official Avengers: the Initiative title, Warren Ellis took over the villain turned hero Thunderbolts and Matt Fraction spawned a new take on The Order.

Of the four titles, The Order was the best in quality, but somehow fared the worst in sales. With a superstar art team of Barry Kitson, Mark Morales and Dean White, Fraction scribed the adventures of title-team The Order, assigned by Iron Man to be California’s hero designate slash public relations expo. In a time where other writers were exploring the transformation from hero to soldier in the Marvel landscape, The Order went in another direction. Armed with a single recognizable character, Tony Stark’s assistant Pepper Potts, the title focused on normal people who sought to give back to their community, exchanging a year of their life for a year of super powers in government service.

With a diverse and brand new cast, popcultureophile Fraction immediately established a solid narrative formula for each issue, a mixture of reality television confessional and Lost-esque flashbacking, with character commentary mingled with past events depending on what was occurring in the present. Also aped was the structure of Warren Ellis title Nextwave, with miniature arcs running two issues at a time while weaving longer running plot threads and mysteries throughout.

Although the art team changed periodically during the run, Barry Kitson turns in some of the best visual storytelling of his career, using consistent and well structured layouts to help readers navigate the constantly shifting elements. The pencillers shine in the creation and execution of these brand new figures, making them recognizable just pages after their initial debut and turning Fraction’s bizarre villains into memorable monsters. Combined with a fantastic control of action and stellar work from Morales, White, and a team of others, the artistic elements enhance the story well beyond what one expects from an average comic.

The highlight of The Order’s ten issues however, is the characters. If there is one thing Matt is good at, it is inventing crazy new properties and one can only hope that being able to build a team of super heroes from scratch must have been at least half as fun for him as it is to read. It is easy to dissect the team down into familiar archetypes, for instance, matching up former Teen of the Year, Aralune to the Hulk/Thing/muscle type, Fraction’s ability to provide simple, quirky and endearing characterization easily helps her break away from the generic and establish herself as a unique character.

The efforts go both ways, as the villains receive just as much attention as the heroes. Taking further cues from Nextwave, The Order is populated by off the wall enemies who seem more likely to appear in cheap science fiction novels than the Marvel proper. Zobos (Zombie Hobos), giant radiation enhanced animals, shadowy men in black, and fan favorite, Jetpack Bear make appearances in the ten issue run and provide a light hearted energy to the more serious drama that occurs throughout.

While billed as a series about team super-heroics, The Order is really a comic that focuses on humanity, and exploring what it means to be thrown into a world full of mutants, villains and aliens. Going beyond the notions of power and responsibility, The Order is a study on why not everyone can be Spider-Man, the power of celebrity and how being able to fly changes everything. While not a dark and gritty look at people as heroes, The Order does try to take a rational look at how real people might respond to a higher calling, asks questions like “How could a sex-tape affect the Invisible Woman? What makes a team a family? and Is revenge truly worth it?” In the end, The Order is an exploration of people, and how they would respond to the chance to make a difference in the world.

What Does the Return of Steve Rogers Mean for Bruce Wayne?

2010-05-08T13:37:00.000-04:00

Over the last few years Marvel and DC have put their most iconic heroes through the ringer. With different methods and different reasons, Grant Morrison and Ed Brubaker have forced Captain America and Batman through difficult journeys, battling powerful foes with the ultimate goal of conquering death itself. But while these two characters have walked similar paths over the last few years, their futures could not be more different. With Steve Rogers having already returned for Siege and Marvel’s Avengers plans set for the new status quo, the plans for Bruce Wayne remain unclear as he begins his journey home this week. However, by examining the plans for Rogers and exploring the editorial visions of the two companies, it may be possible to generate some potentially accurate predictions about the future of the Bat-Family.

In the two year duration between Steve Rogers’s death and resurrection, the landscape of Marvel’s universe has changed considerably. Cap’s passing marked a sharp decline into a period of bureaucratic heroism where the government and law constantly interfered with justice. Meanwhile, a race of shape shifting aliens invaded and splintered the community of heroes further, ultimately allowing for a collective of villains to step in and become the ultimate authority in the land.

In Captain America’s main book, what was supposed to be a brief absence for Rogers turned into a 25 issue break, as Ed Brubaker’s commitment to the title and the creative flexibility of Marvel’s editorial team and fan support allowed Bucky Barnes, former Captain America sidekick, to don both the costume and the shield, taking up his friend’s cause and place in the Avengers.

Now, with the Avengers set to re-unite officially and bring the status quo into a brighter, more “Heroic Age,” the question “What role does Steve Rogers play in the future?” really becomes important. The answer is surprisingly simple, Rogers will continue to do what he has always done, lead the Avengers going forward, simply in a different costume.

With the franchise stronger than ever, Rogers will be pulling double duty as both an important member in Brian Bendis’s Avengers flagship title, while also leading his own team in Ed Brubaker’s Secret Avengers. Through death, Steve will have actually increased his exposure, to three monthly books and will no doubt feature in more as he continues to act as the chairman of whatever agency will replace H.A.M.M.E.R./S.H.I.E.L.D.

It is a huge win for Marvel, whose commitment to laissez-faire writing has allowed authors to produce both quality books and organic stories, as they are now pushing the character into the spotlight, right as anticipation for the Captain America movie begins to spike.

Though the plans for Rogers, once announced seemed kind of obvious, the results of Bruce Wayne’s journey through time are anything but. Grant Morrison’s run has been the ultimate love letter to Batman, exploring every facet of the character by forcing him through a gauntlet of nightmares, mysteries, villains and even ethical violations that led to Bruce’s “death” and catapulting through time.

Even in a book featuring a Batman, Wayne’s presence continues to haunt the series as former Robin-turned Nightwing, Dick Grayson has donned the mantle of his adopted brother and works to keep Gotham safe.

As with Bucky Barnes, fan reaction to Dick as Batman has been fairly positive, although his time under cowl seems finite. In some recent interviews, Morrison announced that he has one more chapter in mind for what he considers his definitive Batman story, although he gave no hint about how long that chapter would be. He does mention two very important things however, the first is that what he has planned for post-Wayne’s return is something he considers a brand new, never been done before in the Batman franchise. The second is a grim reminder that he understands when he writes for the big franchises, at the end of everything, Bruce Wayne will need to be Batman.

It is no secret that DC is constantly editorially involved in the work of their authors, and as they are currently clinging to the Bat-franchise like a life preserver, it seems unlikely that anything drastic will happen. There are still at least three issues of Batman and Robin and six issues of The Return of Bruce Wayne to get through before a new status quo can be established, so equipped with the knowledge that Bruce Wayne will inevitably be Batman again, the only real questions left are surrounding the Bat-Family. Of the 9 or so Bat-books currently on the market, a Batman factors into at least four of them and often cameos in the others, so yet another mantle change would shake-up that line-up as well.

Bruce Wayne has given up being Batman before during the Knightfall days when Azrael took over for a time as Gotham’s prime defender, so the idea of leaving Dick Grayson under the cowl for a longer period is an option. Another outcome is to revisit something Tony Daniel touched on during his Battle for the Cowl mini: Multiple Batmen. The potential for artistic confusion seems infinite, but Bruce and Dick in differing costumes, prowling the city, if executed well could be a lot of fun. The Steve Rogers option also remains a possibility, Bruce Wayne becomes an Oracle-esque figure, running all of the different aspects of the Bat-Family in some capacity, but this seems unlikely. The most obvious occurrence simply seems to be Bruce as Batman, and Dick returning to his solo role, reviving the Nightwing title.

With the return of the mantle to Bruce, his pairing with Damian Wayne, his son via Talia Al Ghoul, seems likely. The character has become a favorite to some, a pest to others but a staple of the Bat titles nonetheless. A Wayne/Wayne dynamic duo would allow writers to experiment with Bruce in a paternal role, rather than big brotherly and could lead to some fun holiday specials. Damian looks to be set as Robin for some period, as Tim Drake, after having defeated one of Batman’s arch-nemeses is now too grown for the sidekick role, and will continue on as Red Robin.

The ripples of Bruce’s return will probably reach Batgirl in some small way, perhaps resulting in a move out of the Batcave for Stephanie and Barbara, but given how loosely associated Batwoman is with the family already, I anticipate barely any change for that title. Likewise, Gotham City Sirens will probably remain untouched.

It is disappointing, as Dick Grayson’s time as Batman represented an opportunity for DC Comics to take a serious chance on something fresh and it just doesn’t seem like that will stick. Their constantly narrow vision will no doubt have the Bat franchise in a state of stagnation or chaos mere moments after Grant Morrison steps away from the title. It is on-going with their 42+ issue crossover in the Superman family, and the Wonder Woman title continues to flounder without direction. Combined with a failure to obtain quality talent in the writing and artistic departments, the future for the Bat titles seems quite dim.

Small Week, Small List

2010-05-06T01:04:00.000-04:00

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++

Get Ready to "Shed" With Spider-Man

2010-05-03T10:12:00.000-04:00

It is finally time for the Amazing Spider-Man story that I have been drooling over for months now, the return of the Lizard, penned by Zeb Wells and penciled by Chris Bachalo. “Shed,” the arc's title, is a four-parter taking us into the month of June. Here are five reasons why you need to be more than excited for this Wednesday:

5. This is the final finger of The Gauntlet: For 29 issues now, Spider-Man has been running through wave after wave of his villains, revamped, stronger and deadlier than ever. Without a break, Spidey has gone through Doctor Octopus, the Chameleon, Electro, the Sandman, Mysterio, two Rhinos, the Juggernaut, a number of encounters with Mister Negative, Morbius, and a brand new Vulture in succession. But while he has survived each one, the list of causalities are vast, including his job with the Mayor's Office, the destruction of Aunt May's home and even her own yet to be resolved corruption by Mister Negative. With Shed as the final lap before the Grim Hunt can begin, expect no punch to be pulled as everything than can be done to run Spidey through the grinder.

4. Zeb Wells: No stranger to the webs, Zeb has been the brains behind a number of Spider-Man stories about a number of characters over the years, Wells will bring his filmmaking vision, sense of humor, bizarre mindset and incredible talent to put the finishing touches on what has been one of the best Spider-Man mega-arcs in recent memory, if not ever. His experience writing Venom and the symbiote will also come into play here as the prologue pages in last week's ASM gave us a look into both the rational and scientific voice of Dr. Connors and his monstrously creepy alter ego.

3. The Lizard: 90s symbiotes aside, The Lizard is perhaps my favorite Spider-Man villain. Curt Connors, Parker's occasional mentor and friend is also experiencing his own Gauntlet, reduced to working for Phelcorp in order to make ends meet and maintain visitation for his son. Look for the events of Shed to push him towards desperate measures. Unlike the other villains whose animal resemblances come from the outfits they don to gain their powers, Curt Connors, like Peter Parker, is the closest in tune with his "animalistic totem" in that he will always be The Lizard, it is part of his genetics and when he transforms and The Lizard battles The Spider, the encounters are primal, intense, close combat fights that push both participants to their limits. Given that these stories have been all about making Spider-Man's foes deadlier than ever, expect Wells to utilize all of the Lizard's abilities, including his control over reptiles and to put him in situations that will allow for some creative storytelling.

2. Chris Bachalo: If Mark Millar is the Michael Bay of Marvel, Chris Bachalo is the Tim Burton. With a gorgeous exaggerated and quirky manga-ish style that is perfectly suited for the cartoony but occasionally dark world of Spider-Man, Bachalo does it all: phenomenal and inventive layouts, detailed backgrounds, kinetic action, fantastic character designs (as the initial previews of Bachalo's Lizard take reveal) and flawless interpretation of the script. Bachalo is a master storyteller, as comfortable with a multi panel page as he is with a spread. Shed will be his fourth stint in the post-Brand New World day of Spider-Man, with his latest work being Brian Reed's Sinister Spider-Man. Expect him to translate the strange and intensely alien work he put into Venom towards Connor's Lizard.

1. The Chemistry: The last time Wells and Bachalo partnered, the team managed to stop the bleeding and give pause to the feeding frenzy of Spider-haters who were loathing the flagship title's new direction. The mixture of action, dialogue and plot helped stem the tide of doubt and gave the Webheads a chance to re-focus, leading the vanguard towards the New Ways to Die event that righted the ship for the brand. It has been a year and a half since the duo has worked together last, and they have both come a long way, with Bachalo even going on record with how impressed he was with the advancement Zeb has made in his writing. This is a story that has been in the works for a number of months now, with plenty of time allocated so there will be no delays or need for fill-in artists. The longest arc since last spring's American Son, Shed is set to kick off the Spider-Summer and will do so in tremendous fashion. You can anticipate fun, action, excitement, and no doubt a terrarium full of horror.

How Frankencastle would deal with the Shadowlands

2010-05-01T02:27:00.000-04:00

In-Depth Review: Siege - Secret Warriors

2010-04-30T22:54:00.000-04:00

Jonathan Hickman's Secret Warriors is in my opinion, one of the best titles Marvel is putting out right now. Rich with characters layered with plots and masterfully planned so that each story moves all the pieces forward towards a definitive ending. With each issue so tightly controlled, there is little room for Nick Fury and his crew of caterpillars to interact with the rest of the Marvel Universe, which makes these one shot opportunities so crucial, giving us a chance to hit the pause button and explore the characters in a more significant way.

With the Siege: Young Avengers issue that came out a week earlier, the bar was set high for this issue of Secret Warriors. Although discredited for not moving the plot forward in any significant way and not really doing a whole lot with the team, the issue was still fantastic for what it was, an occasion to spend time with characters who are not currently in an on-going comic, and getting to see them respond to a catastrophe that is way out of their league. It is fair to say that expectations were high this issue would be similar, especially with the questions surrounding how Phobos, one of the title's important characters, is the son of the God of War, who was murdered earlier in the event would respond.

Hickman addresses these, but in a way no one really anticipated. Framing the issue with a moment between Ares and Phobos, that reflects on the nature and requirement of revenge, the issue focuses primarily on Phobos's quest to hunt down the President of the United States, who appointed Osborn the head of SHIELD and then HAMMER. Periodic moments of Nick Fury comedy allow us moments of pause from the Kill Bill antics of the comic, but aside from two characters featured in a single panel, the rest of the team is not even featured in the issue.

To say this one-shot was a disappointment is an understatement. My initial unhappiness came firstly, from the perceived pointlessness of taking the action away from Asgard, to focus on The White House, the character with arguably with some responsibility, but the least importance to the Siege storyline. However, after re-reading Dark Avengers #9, and reflecting on the perception Phobos has been written with, I can understand the going after the President bit a bit better, as it jives more with his going after the root of the problem attitude. What I'm still conflicted over is that everyone involved with the story knew what Osborn was, Ares especially, and yet he continued to serve with the Dark Avengers, only finally turning on them when they dared to threaten sibling gods. In truth, Ares got himself killed and it was really his own fault, how does this require any type of revenge aside from that against The Sentry, his murderer?

I also take issue with Phobos's sudden choice to murder a number of innocent Secret Servicemen. His whole reason for joining Fury's crusade and the Secret Warriors was to become a hero/good guy/make a difference in the world, his bedroom at home is a shrine to the superheroes of the Marvel universe, and yet he just cuts through a number of these guys on his way to see Obama.

While I did agree with the plot and direction of the issue, Hickman continues to prove his writing excellence. The dialogue is fun and he continues to work Nick Fury's voice effortlessly, while also capturing the sophistication of the young God of Fear, expressing his eloquence and wisdom beyond his years that he possesses.

Artistically, this issue is just a mess, as Vitti's pencils look rushed if not grotesque in some areas. Backgrounds look sparse and undetailed, and at time the characters border on bizarre in appearance. Even the action seems choppy and lifeless, which is the chief failure, given how much of the issue relies on it. There were probably time constraints that went into this book, but even then, that isn't an acceptable excuse.

I can't fault anyone for liking this issue, but unless I see some kind of fallout from what is essentially a terrorist attack on the President, or a reflective Phobos in later issues, I can only label this issue a loss. What should have been a fantastic companion piece to the Secret Warriors main series is only a trailer piece for the upcoming Last Ride of the Howling Commandos arc.

D-

In The Defense of Loeb and the Millar Ascension

2010-04-21T23:33:00.000-04:00

A year ago, Jeph Loeb was one of the most criticized men in comics. After turning out such gems like "Ultimatum" and "Red Hulk sucker punches The Watcher," more than a few people were calling for his retirement, declaring him the worst writer in the genre and dumbfounded at how he continued to sell books and work with such prized talent. But now with Kick-Ass receiving so much media praise and Loeb's decent work on New Ultimates and Ultimate X, he has been able to escape back into the reader's unconscious as the spotlight shines on Mark Millar.

It is no surprise that Millar sells comics. Free for the most part write anything he wants and partnered with any number of superstar artists, Millar continues to crank out hit after hit. And you can't blame him, he has quite a knack for turning off the wall ideas into fun and entertaining things for both pencillers to draw, and fans to look at. On a Millar book, an artist has no time schedule, able to take as much as required to complete the project, which is perfect because they are truly the engines of Millar's success, making his comics much more of a visual experience than an actual blend of image and words.

For example, let's break down today's (04/21/2010) issue of Ultimate Comics Avengers #6. In a comic with 24 story pages, 3 of them are single spread pages with no extra panels on them and 2 pages are a double page spread with a singular extra panel. Of the 24 pages, 5 of them have less than 4 bubbles of dialogue and throughout the issue and all the sound effects that have made books like Incredible Hercules shine, have been replaced by the victimized character vocalizing their pain. Combined with a majority of the pages having three panels and toss in one pop culture reference that will eventually become an anachronism, and you have a rather typical Mark Millar script.

That isn't to say the issue isn't enjoyable however. It is certainly the Avengers story that Millar promised us, though months late, and failing to live up to "Event Book of the Marvel U" tag line, Ultimate Comics Avengers delivers Captain America badassery, Nick Fury espionage and everything you'd expect from a "Nerd Hulk."
What will be interesting is where Millar goes from here. Having walked a similar path to Loeb, they have both contributed a number of fantastic standalone stories that will be remembered for both companies of the Big Two. Unlike Loeb, who seems to be more interested in adding something important to the legacy of a character or franchise as he continues to work with the Hulk alongside Greg Pak, Millar appears to be ready to strike out on his own. Rumor has it that he has almost completed his agreed upon 18 issues of "Ultimate Events" for Marvel, and with his exclusivity contract almost up, a majority of people are expecting him to go entirely independent. I anticipate however that Mark will probably remain with Marvel but only putting out books through their Icon line. Where Jeph Loeb offers artists the chance to draw whatever characters they want, with the success of Kick-Ass, Millar can now offer them something better, the chance to make a boatload of cash. I don't know how contracts with Marvel work, but I highly doubt that Millar is going to bail on the chance to mine talent like John Romita Jr., Steve McNiven and Leinil Yu for his future works.

Some Bought, Some Sought, Some Thought (Reviews for 04/21/2010)

2010-04-21T19:06:00.000-04:00

Green Lantern #53: Hot off the conclusion of Blackest Night, Green Lantern dives right into the Brightest Day with the beginning of the "New Guardians" arc that introduces the next big threat to the universe. With Green Lantern Corps and the Guy Gardner book on the way, it looks like Green Lantern is going to become the Light Spectrum ensemble book, as this particular issue continues to follow plot threads involving Larfleeze, Hal, Atrocitus and the rest of the Light brigade. Johns has hinted that this story will revolve around the emotional entities explored briefly in Blackest Night and begins to nurture those seeds by showing us where exactly Parallax was taken after Green Lantern #51. Mahnke continues to absolutely dominate with his pencils, immediately capturing the alien feel of our new hidden enemy, re-defining the grotesque Hector Hammond and of course giving us some fantastic action sequences, both with planes and with Lanterns. While his portrayal of Sayd's new situation may be the most difficult thing to cope with that Johns has presented us yet. Brightest Day is off to a fantastic start. A+

Siege - Spider-Man: Once a year I take a risk and buy a Brian Reed comic and once a year I am disappointed. While I can't fault the guy for being a fan, he has once again managed to get his hands on the character and proceeds to shoe-horn everything he has written recently into the issue, which means a supporting role for Ms. Marvel, making Venom the enemy of the book, and constant references to stories he has written for each, including his push for Spider-Man and Ms. Marvel to date. Toss in some internet one-liners and you have the makings of a fairly mediocre comic that does absolutely nothing to tie into Siege, and doesn't really touch on anything not related to "The Sinister Spider-Man. The real hero of the issue is Santucci who doesn't have a lot to work with, but certainly puts in the effort, doing a fair job of keeping up with the constant kinetics that Reed's script calls for. I didn't buy Siege: Captain America, so I'm not sure why I felt obligated to pick this up, I'm sort of unhappy I did. C

Hercules - Fall of an Avenger #2: Pak and FvL continue to put out one of Marvel's best books. Funny, full of wit and incredibly well written, Incredible Hercules has been one of the most under celebrated long runs in comics over the last few years. Continuing on with it large cast, Herc this week carries forward the transition of Amadeus Cho from nerd to Prince of Power while including some references and plots from other comics in a non-obtrusive manner, providing a highly entertaining read that although feels a bit shallow, is necessary to carry the story to the next step. Even Ariel Olivetti, with his usual computer-painted style, turns in a fairly solid issue, carrying the story quite well and keeping the goofy faces and animations to a minimum. If you have any interest in the character, I highly recommend starting at the beginning and following the journey of Amadeus and Hercules to what feels like a fairly natural conclusion. B+

Ultimate Comics Avengers #6: I've prepared a piece to discuss what I feel hypothesize is the next step in comics for Mark Millar, and this issue was very much the catalyst for that. Incredibly shallow plot wise, UC Avengers continues Mark's tradition of delivering some explosive summer action movie fun on one page, and then making you palm your face on the next. What was supposed to be the event book for the Ultimate Universe has been anything but that. Pachco of course does all of the heavy lifting in this issue and while his work is beautiful, it isn't anything impressive. I don't know why I'm surprised, but at 3.99 a pop, I expect a lot more than I've been getting. Hopefully volume 2 with Leinil Yu delivers. D

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #9: On the other hand, Bendis's Ultimate Spider-Man has been quite solid since the Ultimatum re-launch, but this issue really takes things to the next level, primarily with the help of David Lafuente. I have to admit, I was amongst those who were absolutely scathing in my critique of Lafuente's art early on, but the tweaks to his style make things more streamline, slim and less round and it flows incredibly. One of Bendis's strongest scripts in awhile, combined with some imaginative layouts and panels make this one of the best books of the week. A+

X-Men Legacy #235: One of the primary reasons I hopped off the Uncanny X-Men bandwagon was the absolutely horrible art from Greg Land. Land of course is a topic of constant controversy for various tracings, swaps and such that he has performed over the years, and turned me off from the book quite quickly, so you can imagine my horror as I picked up Chapter 4 of Second Coming this week and saw his name on the cover. Thankfully, everyone involved with the project so far has upped their game in a significant fashion, and even Greg has managed to control himself, pulling his art from "goddammit" to "serviceable." Mike Carey continues the great writing by the X-Staff, although constantly writing Rogue's accent wore on me after the first few pages. I'm sure that is normal for her, I just haven't read a comic with her in sometime. Plot wise, Second Coming has started to ramp up in a serious fashion with the X-Men of course having survived the initial onslaught and now get ready for their counter attack. There is still a long way to go, so while anything can happen, I'll wait patiently for Nightcrawler to eat it. B+

Amazing Spider-Man #628: Normally I would be thrilled for a week where I buy three Spidey comics, but this issue of ASM just doesn't do it for me. With Michael Lark and Chris Bachalo coming up to run out "The Gauntlet" and "The Grim Hunt," I know those guys needed some breathing room, but this "Something Can Stop The Juggernaut" story isn't it. Almost completely abandoning the dark and overwhelming feel of The Gauntlet stories that have come before, Stern taps into the older days of thought balloons and Spider-Man constantly webbing guys in the face for a not quite light-hearted, but neutral toned story. After two issues I'm still not certain why these dudes are feuding, and this issue felt like little more than an extended and drawn out chase scene for no reason other than filler. Luckily, Lee Weeks and Dean White put together an absolutely gorgeous book for us to look at, almost channeling JRjr at times and White reminds us of why he is one of the best. The extra story from Mark Waid was entertaining enough, but nothing really special or worthwhile unless you needed a reminder that Peter is unemployed, broke and webbing costs a lot of money. I'll sigh and grit my teeth here, but only because I've guaranteed to people that the upcoming Lizard story is going to be absolutely fantastic. C+

Guardians of the Galaxy #25: For two years now has been one of my favorite team books. DnA have put together one of the most fun groups of characters in Marvel's stable right now and while the story is often in flux due to the constant stream of cosmic events, it has never wavered in its quality. The lead in to the upcoming Thanos Imperative, this week's Guardians continues to explore the damage being done to the universal time line, as well as reuniting the team after the split of recent events and getting everything into place. Artistically the book has always been shaky, but Brad Walker does some solid work, although there are some inconsistencies that stood out fairly easily. It would be fantastic if DnA would lock down a singular art team though. My chief problem with this book however is that even after 25 issues, the book is so swamped down by events that it may be impossible to read this book on its own, something I hope will be corrected as Marvel Cosmic heads into the Heroic Age and all the cosmic books go on hold for The Thanos Imperative, a perfect time to iron everything out and let the Guardians start to flourish on their own as a standalone title. If you aren't reading this yet, wait a month and check out The Imperative, if you are, I think you may agree with everything I've said so far. B

Front of the Book, Back of the Line

2010-04-21T11:39:00.000-04:00

Eisner time is here and everyone has their own opinions on who should or should not have been nominated in each particular category. The talent in comics is certainly diverse and while the Eisners do have a history of favorites and long time streaks, the most interesting contest this year in my opinion is for Best Cover Artist.
With James Jean stepping down from Fables, his six year lock on the award has come to a close and the pool of nominees has never run deeper. With the vacuum caused by Jean's absence, the field has opened up considerably with nominees coming from almost every publisher and genre. While Salvador Larocca continued his tenure as the artist for Iron Man, JHW3 took superhero comics to yet another level with his work on Detective Comics. Sean Phillips continued to produce outstanding painted work for Incognito and Criminal with Ed Brubaker and handling cover duties for some of the 28 Days Later issues. Meanwhile the ever powerful Alex Ross and John Cassady likewise went outside of the Big 2, producing quality covers for budding publishers Boom and Dynamite. But while these five are some of the most talented men doing covers in the industry, I can't help but feel like the biggest snub for a nomination this year was Marvel artist Marko Djurdjevic.

Chances are high that if you purchased a Marvel comic last year, Marko either did the cover or a variant cover for the issue. Looking at the numbers, Djurdjevic did roughly fifty different covers for Marvel in 2009, including a stint on Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark's celebrated Daredevil run, the wrap-around covers for both Daredevil #500 and Thor #600, and a collection of variant covers for Marvel's 75th anniversary. A number of his covers were also recycled to serve as covers for various trades and collections put together and released throughout the year.

While not a medium changer like JHW3 and lacking some of the ability to generate a truly iconic cover like Cassady, Marko brings a flexibility and talent to his covers that sometimes outshine even the interior artists within. Working on over fifteen different books across the year, Djurdjevic brought his paints and skill to team books like Mighty Avengers, to Asgardian Space Horse Beta Ray Bill, to even the Amazing Spider-Man, providing the first three covers for the well received "The Gauntlet" storyline that is still on-going.

With covers ranging from simple to packed full of life, (anywhere from 2 to 30 characters on them at any one time) Marko remains the most prolific and consistent cover artist in the business. With his mastery of color and ability to convey both action and emotion, it is no surprise that he has quickly become Marvel's go to artist for their big name projects, already providing all five covers for the collection of Siege One-Shots that are filling the Siege skip month, a gorgeous wrap around cover for Marvel's high profile Secret Avengers, and an absolutely stunning collection of 6 interlocking variant covers that will cover the Avengers family of books in the coming months.

Having been left out of the nominations this year, I am confident that it is only a matter of time until the awards spotlight begins to shine on his work in a serious fashion.

If I get a letter from Barry Allen, is that a Flash Fax?

2010-04-20T18:56:00.000-04:00

PunisherMAX #6: Jason Aaron makes Garth Ennis look like Walt Disney. A+++

New Mutants #12: Second Coming Chapter 3, the weakest chapter so far, but also the most action packed. Zeb Wells has a harder task than Matt Fraction did last week, as his bit here is to choreograph two major fights and plant some seeds for the Hellbound mini series. Wells is a talented writer and hits all the beats, but from a reviewers note, this issue just doesn't have a lot of meat. We're still building some tension, but Second Coming needs to pick up the pace significantly. B

Ultimate Enemy #3: Ultimate Enemy is going to be hard to judge until we get all 3 pieces of the trilogy. Typical Bendis fare, but it is hard to guess at what comes next when we are getting absolutely no clues. Luckily Sandoval is rocking the art, plenty of great characters to work with and tons of action, he is certainly upping his game to the task. But as a fan, how are we suppose to chat and hypothesize for a month about a villain that literally says nothing? Good dialogue but poor pacing, only the standard Ultimate Spider-Man excellence is keeping me buying this. C+

The Flash #1: Regardless of your feelings about Geoff Johns, it feels fantastic to be buying The Flash again, especially with the absolutely gorgeous art of Fran Man and he just wrecks it. Tons of fabulous splashes, and fantastic panels, the WANTED layout was especially great. I could probably rant for awhile on that. Everything else is what you'd expect from Johns as he returns to the city that made him famous. Plenty of seeds being dropped from the upcoming Flashpoint story, I'm just glad the Speeders and back. A+

Siege: Loki: Kieron Gillen should have just become the new ongoing writer for Thor. The dude has such a grasp on the dialogue, the characters, the mythology, everything that JMS used to bring writers into the world of Asgard, KG continues to utilize the further extrapolate on the Siege story. Writing from Loki's perspective we get a glimpse at some of the motives into the God of Mischief and can begin to understand the real reasons behind the Siege of Asgard, as well as visiting some of the scenes from Siege: The Cabal and last weeks New Mutants tie-in. Joining KG on art is the always splendid Jamie McKelvie who continues to turn fantastic work. For those uninitiated to Phonogram, I would probably compare McKelvie's art to Steve Dillion, before Garth Ennis perverted those pencils into tools of violence. A

Deadpool Team-Up #894: Deadpool Team-Up has been hit and miss, with FVL turning out a pretty great Herc/Deadpool issue but the rest have been just alright. However Ivan Brandon drops in to give us a fun tale of Deadpool on a mission of revenge against Frank Castle, who is now Frankencastle. Brandon does a fantastic job with both characters, keeping the plot and dialogue 100% loyal to what Rick Remender has going on in the Punisher main book. Joined by Sanford Greene who turns in some excellent work that really jives with the book, this is probably my throw-ass, read in the bathroom issue of the week. If you like either one of these characters, check it out. B+

Siege: Young Avengers: I won't deny right off that this a filler issue, it is here to keep the Young Avengers fresh in people's minds and get them some exposure and I'm happy for it. We've been waiting forever for Heinberg and Cheung to come back to these kids and it really can't be soon enough. McKeever and Asrar do a splendid job of giving us a tale about what it is like to be a posse of kids just trying to do the right thing during an Adults' War. The writing of the Young Avengers is spot on and once Heinburg moves on, I really hope they maybe let McKeever take the team out for a joyride. The pencils are solid here, nothing fancy or out of the ordinary, just a strong, touching story. B+

The Return of Bad Taste Begins Here!

2010-04-20T18:52:00.000-04:00

Cable & Deadpool #25: Duane Swierczynski is probably the most under appreciated and underrated guys in the Marvel X-Stable. He stepped into comics as a rookie with probably the hardest job of all: shepherding and maturing the most important character in the X-franchise. For two years now he has had to entertain and keep readers interested in Hope's story with a stable cast of three people and at long last he has been relieved of his burden. A finale issue, D-Swyz brings in the ever popular Deadpool (who I think he writes fantastically) to tell a Michael Bay-esque prologue/epilogue to the two year old Messiah Complex story. Although a bit thin on actual plot, Paco Medina (who is quickly becoming my favorite Deadpool artist) and plenty of action keep the issue going in a highly entertaining way. Although it is a story not too many people care about at this point, it feels like a reward issue for all D-Swyz's hard work, and he makes it rewarding for the reader. A-, you'll already know if you're buying this or not.

Weapon X #12: In one issue, Jason Aaron beats Old Man Logan to death and moves on to tell an awesome dystopic future story. After an excellent part 1 that included Logan and Steve Rogers on a bar crawl, this issue keeps the action going in a serious way, utilizing plenty of flashbacks in an almost Lostish fashion to move the story forward while still fleshing out the characters. Aaron's mastery of Wolverine at this point is unparalleled, allowing him to maximize Wolverine's involvement in the story even while the focus is on other characters. Garney's pencils are solid, although the art does get a bit muddy at times. At 3.99 an issue, if you aren't buying this in floppies already, seriously consider the trade. B+

Uncanny X-Men #523: Second Coming is the most X-fun I've had since Age of Apocalypse. It is only two issues in, but it is great to see things moving quickly, with plenty of great moments across a lot of characters. As someone who was critical of Fraction's earlier Uncanny work, he is fantastic on this script, which may stem from everything being more streamlined and his gaze more limited. The Dodsons continue to turn in fantastic work as always, and the colors really pop and help ease the eye pain of Finch's art from Second Coming. Things are starting to come together in a serious way, and while it is still early out the gate, once we go through the full rotation of X-writers, we should know the final quality of this cross over. B+

Invincible Returns #1: I absolutely adore this book. Spider-Man with Superman's powers, this issue is an obvious jumping on point for the upcoming Viltrumite War and does a great job of helping you review and learn the cast while feeling fresh to the long time reader. Ottley and Walker continue to turn in solid work and while I enjoyed the issue, I'm really ready for the War to get going. If you're interested in trying Invincible, check this out. If you're already a fan, I'd give it a B-

Red Robin #11: I'm love Tim Drake so I buy this book purely out of loyalty and while it is fun, it certainly isn't anything but a good time. Yost is turning in serviceable scripts and the stakes are "high" but nothing feels like a genuine threat or anything that will contribute to the overall Return of Bruce Wayne mythology. Niczea takes over soon, so hopefully he'll get us back on track. Marcus To is the best thing that has happened to this book, he keeps Tim looking young and slim, just the way he should. C

SHIELD #1: The boner jam of the week, no one rocks it harder for Hickman than I do and I was not disappointed. Setting up some neat stuff here and giving a quick taste of all the wild stuff he has cooked up was great, combined with Weaver's stellar art and decent coloring to produce a top notch book. This is going to read fantastically in trade, it is just too bad the trade won't be out until 2011. A

Spider-Man Fever #1: I'm sure I'll take some shit for this, but the book just didn't do it for me. I wanted to dig the Dikto-acid kung-fu hands Doctor Strange, but the dialogue was just shoddy, complete with cliche black dude who has to be a criminal. I understand there is a certain amount of Silver Ageness to this and that the "story is just a vessel for the art" but I think I'll pass on the next two. Take a look at the preview and decide for yourself