The Savage Critic: February 5th 2003
By Brian Hibbs and Jeff
Lester
Welcome back, my friends, to the show
that never ends.
It turns out that last week I DIDN’T
go to NYC for deposition last weekend (gotta love it when you get barely
48 hours notice that their lawyers need to cancel), so I’m actually
going THIS weekend. It’s insane: I’ll be IN the city for barely 20 hours...
and 8 of those I’ll be (hopefully) asleep. I’m actually flying nearly
as much as I’ll be awake in NYC.
I found out about the trip today (Thursday
2/6)
So, really, I don’t have time to do
the Critic. But, since I biffed last week, AND because I gave Jeff the
Stupidly Large Pile o’Comics to review, I guess I’m stuck.
(I COULD just ditch my half and make
Jeff do it solo, but that’d hardly be sporting, would it?) (Hell, no,
it wouldn’t!)
Anyway, expect my entries (in
THIS color) to be stupid, rushed and JUST long enough to not
drive Jeff (in THIS color) as crazy as
Michael Jackson.
ALIAS #19: Bendis
a great balance worked out on this book: Jessica’s revelation about
her feelings on page 3 (pg. 2 after the recap) were just as unexpected
as the book’s first superpowered fight scene (which lasts all of three
panels) and just as enjoyable. I kinda think the final page is a bit
too cute (and I wasn’t too crazy about Ben “Did somebody order some
exposition?” Urich), but damn if this wasn’t Very Good.
Yah, kick ass, baby. Though, I guess we got
TWO “fight scenes”, really. My fave scene was the hospital one. Very
Good.
AMERICAN CENTURY #21: *shrug*
I don’t care, I really don’t – about any of the characters or the situations
or anything here. It’s not that it’s bad, or anything (in fact, it’s
been steadily improving, both on the art side, and the backing away
from the Contracted BJ scene in every issue), but I’m not finding anything
here to bring me back for another issue. Extreme Eh.
As someone who quit reading it six or seven
issues ago because it had gotten so formulaic (I was only picking
the book up for the BJ scene), this seemed a decent enough issue. Maybe,
though, I’m just feeling nostalgic since this had more thought balloons
than the last four years of mainstream comics combined (I keep hoping
the thought balloon makes a comeback after all these years). Those
large-font captions (which I never liked) kinda mess up the last page,
but whatever. I thought this was good.
BATGIRL YEAR ONE #3: This
is one of those stories that can go either way, but fortunately has
some great expressive art to keep it on this side of Good. I
enjoyed it because of the art, which is a relief because there were
any number of things in the story (such as Robin, and Barbara’s reaction
to Robin) that I really didn’t. Oh,
I don’t know, I like Robin-as-a-horny-teenager, myself. I’m enjoying
this just fine, and I concur with your Good.
BATMAN ALIENS II #2: Overpriced,
padded, and far too reliant on the usual “shadowy forces want a bio-weapon”
trope – really the only bit I liked was the Dent/Batman scene in Arkham
(though, hrm, HOW did Harvey
get that shotgun?) Sadly one scene does not a comic make, and I can’t
muster better than an Eh. Remember how silly and absurd, on
the face of it, Superman vs. Muhammad Ali was? That’s how dumb
I think the idea of Batman/Aliens is. But putting that aside,
and putting aside the fact that this is Batman/Aliens 2,
which by definition lacks the simple novelty value of the first book,
there was enough sloppiness I really wanted to stop reading by page
six. I held out, though, and read the next 43 pages in the hopes it
would improve. It didn’t, and managed to miscomprehend just about everything
that makes either Batman or the Alien license interesting
in the process. Awful.
BATTLE OF THE PLANETS WITCHBLADE #1:
I don’t know if this could have been saved with the same great art team,
say, of Batgirl Year One, but because they ran the first five
pages of script in the back of this book, I do know the artists here
hurt this: if you read the script, you’ll see how the artists consistently
ignore details, make basic storytelling errors (some of which make me
wonder if the pages were drawn manga style and are being flipped, or
maybe the artists just aren’t used to the idea of eyes scanning left
to right), murky up panels in order to save time, and generally make
the whole thing worse at every turn. The story isn’t that great to
begin with, mind you, and the writing has cringe-inducing clichés in
nearly every sentence, but it was an eye-opener (for me, anyway) to
see how deleterious bad art can be. I think even fans of the respective
books would find this Awful. An
easy “ditto” from me. Sucky on most every level, this is a Peanut Butter
and Reindeer Eyeball sandwich. Awful.
CLOCK MAKER #1: There
could possibly be something here, though there’s not enough story pages
to really judge. I do have to say that, although I think “collecting”
is generally a poor reason to buy a comic, this is basically the first
book ever that will never EVER have a “mint” copy in existence, and
I think a lot of people will stay away from ever sampling the book because
of that. Eh. I liked the fold-out,
double-sized approach, which was a pleasant surprise, and really gave
those double paged spreads a sense of scope, but it also made every
mistake stand out. And there were a lot of mistakes: the letterer
dropping punctuation marks, misspelled words, and of course, the main
character saying: “You’re bug with no heater did.” Wha? Also, sadly,
it points out Matt Smith’s shortcomings as an artist: Smith uses a
Mignola-esque style to lay on the blacks and get out of drawing details,
which I could maybe forgive if the storytelling wasn’t also abominably
shoddy (that opening sequence makes not a lick of sense). Jim Krueger
does a lot of things that drive me nuts (gratuitous epigrams, labored
puns used to impart thematic concerns, horn-tooting behind-the-scenes
filler) but I think he deserved better than Smith. Awful, although
the fold-out approach has me tempted to bump it up to eh.
COURTNEY CRUMRIN & THE COVEN OF
MYSTICS #2: Apart from Courtney’s ungracious
attitude in the first third, I really liked this. I would’ve liked
it more, maybe, if Courtney’s saving of Skarrow tied in more to the
cat hunt than to next issue, but that’s mainly because Ted did such
a good job with his cat culture (which paid tribute to Saki’s great
Tobermory, the tale of the King of the Cats, and others) I wanted
to see more. I’m giving this a high Good and recommend those
craving a Gaiman fix check it out. I
liked it a lot, too, though I was struck with a large amount of dissonance
about the Mighty Hunter... Mittens? Good.
DETECTIVE COMICS #779: A
solid and effective story, I thought – and I loved the art: clear and
clean. I might have even given this a “Very Good” if it wasn’t for the
head-scratching inclusion of that “Spore” backup. Good.
Yeah, the front-end is top-notch stuff so I
agree with your good. And Spore’s a snore. (Hey, my first
Gene Shallitism!)
DOOM PATROL #17: That
had so little logic to it, I thought I was reading a Flaming Carrot
comic. It’s almost physically painful to see such gorgeous Tan Eng Huat
art on a story that reads like John Arcudi wrote it waiting for his
microwave burrito to cook. A very painful Eh.
I really hated the coincidence piled upon coincidence of the Cliff story,
and the flashes to the other characters just seemed like they were in
there to justify calling this “Doom Patrol”. Damn fine art, but this
is a title without a point other than giving Huat a book to draw. Which
is a noble one, if damned misguided. Eh
EVO #1: I
know it’s immature but this exchange cracked me up: “Your father will
kiss my ass, rich girl.” “It doesn’t belong to you.” “Wrong again,
bitch. The only person it does belong to is me.” “It’s a symbol, a
world treasure, it belongs to everyone.” No, they’re not talking about
her ass, although even if you were reading the book, you’d be hard-pressed
to know. As for the rest of it, the minor resemblance to The Forever
People was the only thing I liked about this book, and, sadly, made
me care about how lousy, sloppy and shitty this was. Before I read
it, I thought it would be Crap and frankly I was surprised by
how crappy it actually was. Ooh, and
that gives me another easy “ditto”.... or should I say “shitto”? Hrm,
OK, maybe not. Crap.
EXILES #22: Well-crafted
twists made this an enjoyable read, despite the absence of Mike McKone
who did great work on this title. There’s still a lot of head-scratching
caused by the premise (I have no idea how saving one timeline can repair
another) but this is a Good book for a recovering Marvel zombie
like me. The other thing I like is that
the quo is not Status at the end of this – they got rid of the ONE character
I was absolutely, positively sure they would never EVER get rid of.
It’s like how in Suicide Squad, you KNEW Boomerang would always
survive – he wasn’t theirs to kill off. That little trick, all by its
lonesome, makes this book Good.
FANTASTIC FOUR UNSTABLE MOLECULES #2:
This really doesn’t have anything to do with
the FF in any way shape or form, and, in fact, thinking about the FF
kinda takes away from the story for me. But I have to give them this:
without that “FF” in the title, there’s almost no chance that Marvel
Comics (of all publishers) would publish a study of unhappy housewives
in the late 50s. Or have it sell-in over 21k copies, at that. This was
Very Good. Huh. See, although
the art makes this a classy production, this whole thing seems to be
a mistake: not only does the comic within a comic really belabor the
obvious this time out, I was also aware of how atypical it is compared
to the actual comics of the ‘50s. And as Hibbs pointed out about The
Truth a few months back, even without firsthand knowledge, I have
a hard time believing people (in this case, Susan’s coffee klatch) were
actually that stereotypical and shrill. The Namor analogue was cute,
but I thought only Davis and Sikoryak kept this from dropping below
eh.
FUTURAMA COMICS #11: I’m
not really interested in these characters anymore (thanks, Fox) and
I’m not a big fan of seeing snot fly (which is about 40% of the fun
in this issue) but it still seemed a solid enough plot with enough twists
grounded in the Futurama continuity. Verrone’s jokes and ideas need
polishing — they’re just a little off a lot of times — but otherwise,
this issue was pretty strong. Nowhere near the gold standard (Ian Boothby,
of course) but still fans of the show would find this Good.
Whereas I thought this was stupid and mostly
unfunny. Eh
HAWAIIAN DICK #2: I
wish I could say exactly why, but this issue didn’t work for me. If
my brain wasn’t fried in advance from the NY trip I could probably be
cogent, but I’ll just sound off with an Eh, and hand it over
to Jeff. Jeff? I’m not sure I can help
you, Bri. I was aware of not enjoying this issue as much as the first
(I think it falls victim to “colorful characters and setting” syndrome:
the main character seemed really passive which can suck the tension
out of a narrative. I was also kinda disappointed they had to import
voodoo and the ol’ zombie angle—like Hawaii’s mythology wasn’t interesting
enough on its own or something). The art is still very solid (I really
like this book’s color palette), so it was more of an OK experience
for me.
HELLBLAZER #180: I
missed all but part one of this, but I liked all the Kali cult info.
A little dodgy on what happened with Gemma, and Fruisin’s art was much
rougher than I think I’ve ever seen it, but it was Good.
Gemma was the one thing Delano did right during his original run, so, yah,
this was a little hinky. I also liked it better when it was called Mobfire.
Sorry, I’m lower than you: OK
JUSTICE LEAGUE ADVENTURES #16:
Is “I saw that coming from page 2” a fair criticism of what’s meant
to be a children’s comic? Yeah, I think so. I was surprised to note
this was written by Scott McCloud – usually he’s more clever and subtle
than that. Eh. I enjoyed Scott
McCloud’s earlier run on Superman Animated Adventures way back
when so was looking forward to this. Sadly, I just couldn’t buy the
“wait for the invasion” premise the book spins around, making it just
a very competent eh the whole way through.
MAGIC WHISTLE #8: I
keep wanting to talk about how great the extended Chugbot story
(is this the longest piece Henderson’s
ever done?) was, but in fact I didn’t really laugh that much at it.
The Brube cameo was great (and the wall of panties was hilarious) but
for me, the whole story just seemed to reinforce how thoroughly Henderson
has worked this material previously. Surprisingly, I gotta give it
an Eh.
Ah, the power of Ditto. Eh.
MARVEL DOUBLE SHOT #4: Rucka
and Klaus Janson are just about the least suited team to do Iron Man
– the character doesn’t play to either of their strengths – and while
I liked the payoff, it was a smidge telegraphed. Michael T. Gilbert’s
Dr. Strange story was fun in a “wink to the reader” kind of way, but,
like JLAdv above I knew the end on the second page. Plus the
“David” punchline was far too cutesy. Still, seeing Gilbert do Strange
bumped this up to a strong OK.
I think I was just blinded by Gilbert’s early, early Ditko take on Dr.
Strange (like “first two or three Dr. Strange stories” early). And
I thought the Rucka/Janson Iron Man was good—like Rucka finally found
a new way into the melancholy of the Iron Man character. In other words,
your strong OK becomes my weak Good.
POGOSTICK #1: I
found this to be a horrible mess on all levels — I’ve worked in offices
for a long, long time now and I found nearly every take on it in Pogostick
inauthentic (a real shame because an early scene where the night employee
eats everyone’s labeled food was actually on the money about passive-aggressive
dynamics in the workplace). Only if the narration is being deliberately
unreliable could any of this come remotely close to being realistic
(nobody’s really going to laugh at a fellow employee stumbling around
with their penis out), and even then I didn’t buy the scene with the
nurse, the scene in the mental hospital, the scene with the boss: I
didn’t buy any of it. Maybe Columbia and Persoff did this as anti-art, or unpleasantness
for unpleasantness’ sake, but if they were trying in any way to create
any emotion other than disgust, I’d say they failed in a pretty big
way. Awful. Plus
it had that terrible Photoshop-created art that looked like it took
all of 10 minutes to “draw”. Me, I’m personally more upset because Rob
talked me into ordering a big pile of these because people are always
asking for Columbia’s stuff at the store.
For a guy who draws as little as he does, he has a huge following. It
might decrease sharply after this. Pretty universally bad in every particular,
I gotta go all the way to Crap.
PUNISHER #21: Garth
has a hell of a facility for writing “Good” characters who do very Bad
things, and he uses that talent here to very nearly making a wife-beating
sack of shit into a likeable character through the middle of the story.
If you had told me in the 1990s that I would have rated a Punisher
comic as Very Good I probably would have laughed so hard I’d
have had a heart attack or something.
I don’t have much to add to this: it seemed good rather than
very good (something about the cop going, “No, no, the coke!” just didn’t
ring true to me) but I still enjoyed it a great deal.
QUEEN & COUNTRY DECLASSIFIED #3:
I liked Brian Hurtt’s work on this a helluva
lot better than I did on Skinwalker. Pass because I didn’t
read the first two issues, but it seemed strong enough: at worst maybe
too understated. You should still rate
it – that’s our function, bubbie. I thought this was strong, but since
I don’t understand a lot of the lingo and procedures, and great portion
of Q&C is lost on me. Still, I can give it a very strong
OK... which in this case isn’t a pan at all.
RAWHIDE KID #1: Thanks
to the wonderful magic of our subs more than tripling AFTER the preorder
cutoff date, I had all of 4 copies for the rack. I read a copy after
getting the books up, before I headed home. Jeff didn’t get a copy at
all (besides, I think, his own preorder – but I didn’t think to check
for that), so in other words, this is a solo review. Actually I didn’t
loathe it: The spine of it was a decent enough Western (though, I don’t
see how the father thought his son thought he was a coward) and God
himself loves John Severin’s art. It only got bad when the title character
came on screen, and all of his dialogue read in my head in total Screaming
Queen voice. Charles Nelson Reilly or something. I actually think that
Zimmerman’s Curse worked in his favor on this one – it’s like seeing
a movie that you just KNOW is going to be horrible, and you walk into
the theatre thinking “This will be the worst movie ever!” and because
of that it turns out that you think, actually, it’s really not all that
bad, and there was a clever bit over there, and two or three actually
funny lines. Y’know? In other words, I expected Crap, and actually ended
up with a (very low) Eh. On the other hand, if John Severin hadn’t
been the artist, I can’t imagine that I would have gone above Awful.
Maybe Jeff will update on Sunday (ha!) after he gets to read his copy...
Man, Hibbs has got his nerve, hasn’t he? Playing
the “ditto” card because he’s burnt out from a trip he hasn’t even
taken yet, then (a) capping on me for not rating a book (although
my review is about as detailed as his), and (b) implying I’m not going
to bother following up on a book although I may be actually physically
unable to read it. Brian Hibbs, ladies and gentlemen: this will the
first deposition where I’ll actually pity the lawyers instead
of the deponent.
SANDMAN PRESENTS BAST #2: That
seemed like an awful lot of time and energy to get to something that
I suspect Neil coulda covered in 3 pages, tops. It feels from this side
of the page that the first 2 issues were merely setup for the REAL story
they want to do, which will be in #3. So, Eh, I guess.
Almost against my will, I got dragged into the
book (I’m a sucker for Egyptian mythology and some of the imagery was
lovely) but the violent redneck dad was used so unoriginally (in this
issue at least; I didn’t read issue #1) I couldn’t quite get into it.
And considering it ends next issue just as it gets to the stuff the
book was pitched as, I gotta also give it an eh.
SIMPSONS COMICS #78: Not
up to the usual Boothby standards (the first seven pages seemed a little
too over-the-top, and it’s a shame that Matrix joke didn’t quite work:
there’s something inspired about it having Frink dressed as Abraham
Lincoln) but I thought there was still a lot of amusing stuff here;
how could I not love a story where the Comic Book Guy buys the bones
of Stan Lee on Ebay? Good. Smaller
than the sum of it’s parts or something for me. The middle, with the
bill moving around Springfield were sometimes funny, but it felt to
me like it had already sorta been done on the show (though I might be
conflating the film Twenty Bucks with the episode “22 Short Films
About Springfield” in my head). Anyway, strong OK from me.
SPECTRE #26:
Nope we’re just back to the blathery blab about redemption and hope
and Damn, JM, Don’t You Have ANY Other Topic You’d Like To Address?
I mean, it’s a bloody nice topic, really it is, and I believe in it,
absolutely – but with a steady diet of that, month-in and month-out
it becomes... well, bah, somewhat grating. At least when it’s wrapped
up in the DC “universe” or Hal’s backstory it is, oh I don’t know, more
palatable, maybe? Hope and Faith and Redemption should be thematic backdrops,
sure, but not the ENTIRE POINT. Anyway, I’m grumpy. Eh.
I don’t know, I think I agree what you said
about last issue: it’s kind of a shame that this book seems to be hitting
its stride just at the end. “Relevant” comics make me a little antsy,
but the payoff image here really worked for me and I think DeMatteis
has hit on a good tack of focusing on people at moments of spiritual
crossroads as much as he does on The Spectre. Good.
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #36:
I think Bendis has done almost too good a job crafting Peter as a teenager:
when Pete tells Eddie that he’s told nobody else he’s Spider-Man (apparently
forgetting about Mary Jane in the heat of the moment), I wanted to reach
into the comic book and slap him. Which is a testament, I think, to
how good Bendis is doing, month in and month out, on this book. And
to give Bagley his due, that two-page sequence of Peter at the mouth
of the smokestack was also quite moving. Gotta give this a Very
Good. Y’know, it’s gotta suck to
work with Bendis – Bagley and Gaydos (on Alias) and Maleev (on
Daredevil) almost never get mentioned. They’re all really good
artists turning out top-notch work. Anyway, Very Good from me,
too – Venom actually has (or, I suppose “will have” is the better turn-of-phrase
since that’s next issue I guess) a motivation that makes some sense,
rather than the “Gollum on Crack” version of the “real” one.
URBAN HIPSTER #2: Okay,
I’m stepping out of turn and writing lead on this, because I was adamant
we review this puppy. Y’see, I’ve been a fan of David Lasky for years
now (his Boom-Boom Comics #2 is a work of formalist genius) and
I liked the first issue of UH when it first came out. So, after a long
wait, the second issue is out and it seems, um, OK. It’s got
two long pieces, one I’m assuming by Stump and the other by Lasky, and
several smaller pieces, and, um, well, it doesn’t quite work. I’m happy
to see a book that, like Optic Nerve, tells Carveresque stories
in contemporary settings (and even more happy that UH seems more
in line with Carver’s later, more gentle, pieces rather than the early
bitter ones Tomine’s work seems to parallel) but there just wasn’t enough
oomph here. Of the long pieces, “Four Twenty Five” grows too digressive
and unfocused, and any energy in “Babette’s Feast” feels like it might
have come from being part of a continuum (“Out of Africa” was such a
long time ago I can’t remember anything, other than Chloe and Natasha,
about it) — the ending certainly doesn’t have any punch on its own,
and I can’t tell if there’s more to come. Maybe it’s just me, but this
material seems past its expiration date somehow. But maybe I think
that because it was such a long god-damn time between issues. I wanted
to like this a lot, but really? Honestly? OK, teetering on
Eh. Which is why it wasn’t on
my first pass list of what we’d review. #1 sold very very badly for
us, so I ordered 3 copies of #2... and that’s too few rack copies for
us BOTH to take them home to review. Anyway, that’s sorta my long-winded
version of “I haven’t read it, yet”, so Pass from me.
VERTIGO POP LONDON #4: I’m
always a sucker for a happy ending, even one as essentially unhappy
as this one, and this whole mini was pretty well-done but essentially
just a piss-around. It would’ve been nice if all the significant talents
of Milligan, Pleece and Bond had been used to go somewhere new, instead
of putting some wonky twists and a dash of poignance on the same-old,
same-old. OK. Which means,
I think, you liked it? If I recall correctly you were fairly savage
on issue #1... “Awful”, maybe? Me, I think the “idea” of “Vertigo Pop”
was lost here... despite being SET in London,
this COULD have taken place anywhere (unlike VP:Tokyo)
– I liked the tale well enough, though everyone here has certainly done
stronger work. I’ll give it an OK, as well, albeit a “high” one.
Yeah, I did end up liking a lot of this, purely through the strength
of the talents of all involved: I felt for the characters, despite all
the problems I had (which I still stand behind). So, nyahhhh
to you, Hibbs, is what I'm saying..
WARREN ELLIS SCARS #2: This
will read much better in TP. This was a strong and gripping chapter,
and, unlike most of the rest of WE’s Avatar work, this really seems
like a Tale Worth Telling, but I suspect the impact will be muted by
having 6 months go past from start to finish. Still, a nice solid Good.
I had problems with this, because in an grittily
realistic crime tale, if certain details aren’t right, things just fall
apart. I don’t buy that any homicide detective would ever hit a medical
assistant for being blasé. A book like David Simon’s Homicide
will go on and on telling you how most homicide detectives develop any
number of coping mechanisms to survive with the job, including being
dismissive, blasé, and making inappropriate jokes. I just can’t imagine
anyone doing the job for any length of time being offended. Also, cops
don’t hit cops—they don’t: the “us against them” mentality that forms
in cops, makes cops turning against each other the ultimate no-no.
So, no matter how good some of the scenes were (Burrows is close to
getting over that problem he sometimes has of drawing a face that looks
solid), the histrionics kept me from really being drawn into this, and
kept what should have been a very good book at just an eh.
XIN LEGEND OF THE MONKEY KING #3:
So the entire miniseries was just a set-up?
Nice. And by “nice,” I mean Awful.
Heh. I threw that in the pile just to torture you! I started reading
it and made it, I think, to page 3 before I just started flipping, then
lost interest and went off to do something more interesting. So, Awful,
sure, why not. Grrr....I thought you
were writing reviews this week to NOT drive me as crazy as Michael Jackson?
What happened to that plan?
X-MEN UNLIMITED #41: What
I do is take the comics home and read them on Wednesday, then, unlike
Jeff who writes-as-he-reads, I turn to something else and get around
to writing reviews on Friday (sometimes) or Sunday (more likely). However,
I am somehow doing this on Thursday night. Which makes it even more
astounding that I cannot, for the life of me, remember what I wanted
to say about this. I had a legitimate and cogent thought on the Chuck
Austen Exiles story, and now when I’m trying to think about it, all
I can remember is it has Wolverine in it. Everything else has evacuated
my mind. Nor can I remember what the other two stories were. I think
I am going senile. I’m pretty sure I was going to give this a soft OK,
but maybe I should abstain because the comic has been flushed away.
Which is bad, considering it has been less than 24 hours. Jeff has notes,
maybe he can do better than I... Well,
lemme see here. I thought that first Chuck Austen Exiles story was
utter crap for a lot of reasons, mainly that the reader had to
infer every meaningful piece of the story other than Blink and T.J.
really like Wolverine. Knowing Hibbs, his complaint might be something
like how Judd’s Exiles stories run pretty close to the classic
What If stories by taking one derivation in Marvel history and
extrapolating a new, fucked-up timeline from there, and this story has
more than one derivation, unless Wolverine has ended up in jail as a
result of Uncle Ben being, I dunno, an avatar of the Spider-God or something:
or maybe he didn’t like the tone of the story which seemed “blucky”
rather than “grim.” Anyhoo, as for the other pieces: despite the
great Allred art on the second story (and the fact that I love A
Hard Day’s Night), it really had no oomph, and was neither faithful
enough to either the movie or to the X-Statix to be satisfying
in any way (an eh, I guess); and finally, the third story kinda
left me going “so?” I didn’t even care enough to pick it apart, which
makes it an awful, and considering it was written by Jamie Delano,
also kind of a bummer.
YOUNG JUSTICE #54: So
Young Justice get their butts hauled in front of the Justice League
when they’re suspected of wrongdoing, but they can’t go to them to try
and stage an assault on Apokolips? Why not? I know that’s a hyperfanboy
way of looking at it, but the one panel JL cameo begs the question.
It’s a shame David’s run on this series is going to go out with a whimper
rather than a bang (I generally enjoyed many of the issues I reviewed
much more than I would have thought) but I guess I can’t blame him.
Eh. I’d say it is because there’s
only 1 issue left, and he has to wrap everything up for the one character
who didn’t exist in any form before he launched the book. But yes, certainly
this feels like a bit of a whimper. Eh.
ZERO GIRL FULL CIRCLE #4: I have no idea what to say. It is pretty,
but I’m not really sure what’s going on. Eh, and that makes me
done for this week. Same for me, and
in line with my previous reviews: pretty, kooky, wacky, arbitrary,
eh.
For Sake
of Completeness, here’s a list of all of the OTHER comics that CE got
in this week, that I did NOT read (and, therefore, am unlikely to review!).
Note, that in most cases this is limited to 1) Manga, which I try to
read as it is collected; 2) “Kids” comics like most of the Archies;
3) titles that were subs-only, either by design or accident; 4) Porno
[oh, like you need me to REVIEW it!], 5) Things that looked SO bad on
the racks that I didn’t bother, and 6) stuff that I’ve assessed before,
and I care so little about that I don’t want to waste my time reading
anymore. You decide which is which.
21 DOWN #6
ARCHIE AND FRIENDS #67
BETTY #122
BETTY & VERONICA DIGEST #136
BIG DADDY DANGER #7
BTVS #53
CODENAME KNOCKOUT #21
DEEVEE MOLOTOV
DRAGON ARMS #3
FATHOM #1/2
FIRST #28
JUGHEADS DOUBLE DIGEST #92
JUNGLE FANTASY AL RIO CVR #1
LOONEY TUNES #99
LOUIS RIEL #8
MARVILLE ORIGINVILLE #5
MY MONKEYS NAME IS JENNIFER #6
MYSTIC #33
NINE L0VES OF EL GATO CRIME MANGLER
NEOTOPIA #2
POISON ELVES #71
R A SALVATORE DEMON WARS TRIAL BY FIRE #3
ROBOTECH #3
SHONEN JUMP VOL 1 #3 MARCH 2003
SHOULDNT YOU BE WORKING #1
SMALL FAVORS #7
SPIDER-GIRL #57
STAR WARS EMPIRE #5
STEWART THE RAT #1
STORYLINES #1
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES #8
THINGS FROM NOWHERE #1
THOR #59
TIGRESS HIDDEN LANDS #1
TIGRESS TALES #5
TOMB RAIDER #26
WAY OF THE RAT #10
And, for
even MORE completeness sake, here’s a list of books, TPBs, GNs, magazines,
and other things that CE got this week. I generally haven’t read any
of this by the time I post these reviews. Though I generally attempt
to give at least one recommendation amongst the TPBs each week, since
I HAVE read the material at SOME point.
2000
AD #1322
2000 AD PROG 2003
30 DAYS OF NIGHT TP
ALTER EGO #21
ANIMATION MAGAZINE MAR 2003
APACHE SKIES TP
BARRY WEEN SYMBOLS CENSORSHIPT/S XXL
BATMAN BRUCE WAYNE FUGITIVE VOL 2 TP
BONDAGE FAIRIES FAIRIE FETISHCOLLECTION TP
CASA HOWHARD VOL 2 SC
CINEFANTASTIQUE FEB MAR 2003
COMICS JOURNAL WINTER 2003 SPECIAL
COSMIC ODYSSEY TP NEW ED
DARK SIDE #100
FORTEAN TIMES #167
GAHAN WILSON GRAVEDIGGERS PARTY TP
GOON VOL 1 ROUGH STUFF TP
GREEN LANTERN CLASSIC HAL JORDAN ACTION FIGURE
GREEN LANTERN CORPS GUY GARDNER ACTION FIGURE
GRENDEL PVC SET
HICKEE ANTHOLOGY TP
HTDM MAKING ANIME
JIMMY CORRIGAN VINYL FIGURE
JUDGE DREDD DAY THE LAW DIED DLX HC GN
JUDGE DREDD INNOCENTS ABROAD GN
JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE #20
JUXTAPOZ MAR APR 2003
LIBERATORES WOMEN HC
MAD MAGAZINE #427
MYSTIC VOL 4 TP ALL NIGHT
NIGHTMARE ALLEY SC
NOTES FROM A DEFEATIST GN
OH MY GODDESS HAND IN HAND TP
REMEMBRANCE THINGS PAST VOL 3HC WITHIN BUDDING GROVE PT 2
SFX #100
SILENT CITY & REGISTRY OF DEATH SET
SPYBOY YOUNG JUSTICE TP
STAR WARS TALES VOL 3 TP
TANK GIRL VOL 4 GN ODYSSEY
TRANSFORMERS GN FALLEN ANGEL
TRANSFORMERS GN RAGE IN HEAVEN
VIDEO WATCHDOG #92
WARREN ELLIS STRANGE KILLINGSTP
WITCHING HOUR TP
WORLD WAR 3 ILLUSTRATED #33
This Week’s TP recommendation is:
Gotta take a pass here but I will admit
to being tremendously underwhelmed with what I’ve read so far of The
Comics Journal Winter Special 2003 — most of the comics
seem sub-par for a change and a lot of the other features don’t justify
the large-scale format, if you ask me. I’m looking forward to eyeballing
the Nightmare Alley SC (finally!), the first Goon
trade (I was surprised by how much I liked the color special a few months
back), and Nat Gertler’s reprint of the Gerber & Colan’s Stewart
The Rat book. I’d like to say
that Peter Kuper’s strip in the TCJ Winter Special almost made
the whole thing worth it... but, ack, $22.95, so I can’t say that at
all. Still, it’s, a pretty wonderful piece that takes advantage of the
full wide-screen format of the TCJ specials, and is worth singling
out. Otherwise, I have to say that my favorite TP/GN of the week is
Joe Sacco’s Notes From a Defeatist.
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