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Hey,
everybody. Jeff here, and welcome to one big-ass week of comics. I
was thinking it would have been better if we had had this huge shipment
of comics last week when Free Comic Book Day hit the shelves, but, unlike
Hibbs, I know dick about the comics industry. Maybe it’s better that
we get this kind of shipment this week, so that people who went to the
store for the first time Saturday will find something for themselves
this week. Because there is something here for everyone, that’s for
sure (which is good, because I’ve gotta do something to keep myself
busy until The Matrix: Reloaded comes out). As is the case when
we share the wealth, Brian's work is in this
color, and this is mine.
Also,
if you like what you read here, feel free to paypal some money to brian@comixexperiencecom.
Hibbs is talking about having me replaced with a marmoset who knows
Dreamweaver, and it'd be nice to show him I'm of some value...
100 BULLETS #44: I
dunno. I’m as hetero as the next guy, but I think they should just gone
full monty in the shower sequence. Seven pages of weird lighting and
awkward staging for fear we’re going to see somebody’s Leon Isaac Kennedy
kinda showed the whole issue up for the fraud it is (What’s next, tasteful
prison rape?) A shame because there was something almost poignant about
that four page lockdown sequence in which all the prisoners race to
consume or purge their contraband. Less cutesy than Azzarello’s been
recently, but pretty much in the OK category for me. Again,
I don’t really see what any of this has to do with what the supposed
plot line of this title, but hey, it’s pretty, and I was able to follow
this one pretty cleanly, unlike last issue. OK
100% #5: It might be that the four
(?) months between issues dulled much of my connection to the characters,
but by the time I warmed back up to this again it was almost over. That
won’t affect the eventual trade though, and this is clearly one of the
strongest things Pope has ever done. I also thought that last page was
just incredibly poignant. Very Good. Alas,
I can’t just let it sit at that. I loved every issue of this mini—except
this one. And there may be a dozen reasons for that, none of which
have to do with the comic (as you say, Bri, it might be the distance
between issues). But, although I won’t be sure until I sit down with
the trade, I think this issue just wasn’t paced right. This issue is
the “everything happens” issue and yet it doesn’t seem to fit together
too comfortably—Eloy’s return to his principles and the returning of
the grant happens off-panel, Kim’s accident with the gun has already
happened and she retells it, and despite the gorgeousness of the fight
scene art, I didn’t feel anything while reading it, apart from appreciation
for Pope’s style. And although Pope might insist that what’s important
to him is not the actions of the characters but their psychological
states, it didn’t seem like there was enough psychological insight to,
say, Daisy’s flight, or Kim’s decision, or even John’s romantic angst
to give me a feeling of anything other than Paul Pope wiping sweat off
his brow after checking off the last item on a very long “to-do” list.
The art, and the ambition is such that I gotta give this at least a
very high Good, but I feel this misses being the triumphant breakthrough
for Pope this could have been. I hope the trade paperback proves me
wrong.
ACTION COMICS #803: Wow,
that was just the goofiest… I can’t help but think this was Joe Kelly’s
big Superteam crossover which he now only has one book to pull it off
in—and Thank God, frankly. I mean, putting aside the idea that switching
from a yellow sun to a red sun, if I remember my astronomy, means Earth
would be a smoldering ruin inside the surface of the larger, weaker
sun, the beats were all off on this comic (bottom of pg. 8: Superman
stands under falling nuclear missles, top of pg. 9, Superman blabbity-blabs
to the U.N. about invading Polkastan). Maybe that was because Kelly
wanted us to think it was going to be a dream sequence, maybe? Or maybe
he can’t plot an emotional beat to save his life? Or this was supposed
to be two months of four weekly comics? I honestly have no idea anymore.
It just seems to me that if you’re gonna change up the game on this
whole Zod thing, you should make it something more, rather than less,
dramatic (I know I felt more relieved once Zod turned out to be a disgruntled
Commie stalker rather than Superman’s mirror image. Is there anything
less worrisome to Americans days than envious Russians?) Crap,
and yet so absurdly so, I almost want you to go out and read it.
I don’t think I can add much to that, really.
This absolutely fell into the MST3k range of “so bad it is good”. Absolutely
Crap, but then so are the SuperFriends cartoons, and I
like getting very baked and watching those....
ALIAS #22: I
quite liked the art and coloring on this (especially the sepia toning
on the captions), but there were a few too many coy moments in the plot.
While I thought it was charming that Jen had a secret crush on Puny
Parker that got interrupted by his origin story, I think shoe-horning
DD’s origin in immediately after that was probably a miscalculation.
Quite liked the scene in Jen’s room with the poster (and, no, not for
the reason you think, you fucking perverts!), but I thought this was
supposed to be “Purple”? I didn’t expect an ACTUAL origin for Jen...
because who really cares? I expected any origin talk to be handled in
three panels over dinner, or something. [SCOTT: So....how’d you get
your powers? JEN: Oh, God, not the power talk! SCOTT: Oh, if it’s a
touchy subject or something.... JEN: No, it’s not that, it’s just so...
so cliché, y’know? (A LONG BEAT) Some radioactive shit fell on me. SCOTT:
Some radioactive shit fell on you? JEN: Yah, some radioactive shit fell
on me. SCOTT: Oh. (A BEAT) I stole a helmet that lets me talk to ants.
JEN: Huh. (A BEAT) Why’d you do that? SCOTT: Seemed like a good idea
at the time? QUICK CUT TO:....] Anyway, I thought this bounced around
between OK and Very Good, and settled somewhere in the Good range.
Ha! Pretty good Alias pastiche, Hibbs. And isn’t that whole
“almost got bit by the spider, almost got hit by the truck” bit from
the Jay & Silent Bob book or something? I know I’ve seen
it somewhere, but I don’t think this would have worked much better even
if I hadn’t. I liked the bright primary colors and the closer-to-old-school
panel layouts but, uh, frankly, this is kinda what I thought Alias
might be when I first started reading it and had always been relieved
to be wrong. I liked some sequences, but I’m afraid I gotta go with
Eh here.
AUTHORITY VOL 2 #1: Huh.
I wasn’t really expecting much, and this failed to even provide that.
Seemed like watching a play by viewing the shadows cast by the footlights.
Seemed like a kid after daddy threw up his hands and went “Go ahead,
swear all you like!” “Fuck yah! Fuckity fuck! Fuck fuck you fucking
fuckers! Woo!” Seemed like a weak weak weak imitation of the most surface
of elements of what made the Authority work. Swearing? Check! Ultra-violence?
Check! Over-the-top scenarios? Check! Midnight
and Apollo kissing? Check! Original thought? (*birds chirping*). Crap. Yeah, part of the problem
might be that Ellis and Millar each brought a very forward approach
to their arcs (Millar, bless him, had different fish to fry than Ellis),
and here it seems like an attempt to capture something that’s already
passed. And for a book that had a beautiful run of artists, this issue
was so generic, it felt like a fill-in artist did it. I feel for the
guys who’ve got this gig, but still: Crap.
BATMAN NEVERMORE #2: Quoth
the Raven: kinda dull. Eh. Hahahahahahahaha!
I don’t dare try to follow that one up.... OK
CAPTAIN MARVEL #9: Wow.
Peter David’s train has pulled into Ditkoville, here. So jumbled, barely
coherent and strangely continuity-free I can’t help but suspect David’s
got some “hoax/dream/imaginary story” angle up his sleeve. But, frankly,
I’m not sure I care anymore. This book gets closer to being genuinely
repellent with each issue. Such poorly handled Crap I almost
forgot to mention the high weirdness of seeing Charles Burns’ Altoid
ad. Yah, isn’t that ad like the creepiest
thing ever? I am almost shocked that a company would commission and
pay for that. Absolutely adored that. Anyway, the rest of the comic
was repellent and leaves me rooting for no one (Like you mentioned on
Friday, in the store... Rick is finally back in LA and he’d rather go
watch an execution, then go look for his hot lesbian wife? Muh?) Still,
I think it was closer to Awful, though that may be the Altoids
talking.
DETECTIVE COMICS #782: A
BTAS episode that ran five issues—I don’t think I would’ve minded
if it had been done in, say, two, but if no one uses the Paul Sloan
character again, Brubaker’s got nobody to blame but himself. Eh.
Yah, a little slow, but I still generally liked
the arc. OK for this issue.
DOOM PATROL #20: Ooooh,
Rick Geary. That’s super cool! Didn’t flag him on the cover though,
which is a super shame. I quite liked this as a stand alone issue, I’ll
give it a Good. Here’s where
I paraphrase Bri: ever read an issue that’s just a one-off and you
find yourself wishing this is how it’d been handled all along? That
was this issue for me. As you said, kind of a drag Rick Geary didn’t
get credit on the cover, though. Very Good.
ELEKTRA #23:
Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about, dammit. I would’ve appreciated
a slightly better twist at the end (I was expecting the security guys
to be Elektra’s real marks, the reason why she keeps letting the rich
guy go) but Rodi’s got the right idea (male self-pity, sexy ninja death)
and Chen stepped right up to bat—I loved that monitor shot, where Elektra’s
crouching in the band of static—particularly since following a Sienkiewicz
Elektra cover is a little bit like following Sinatra. Keep in mind
my pro-sexy Ninja death bias, but I thought this was Very Good.
Whereas I can take or leave... well, we need
an acronym by now don’t we? SND. See, I do rather think that there’s
only so much you can do with SND, because that’s about all there is
to it. You add supporting characters, or emotional arcs to Elektra herself,
and it won’t work because it takes away from the elemental force that
makes E interesting to begin with. Essentially, I think that the very
things about E and SND that you like the best are exactly the same reasons
E and SND can’t possibly sustain a quality monthly series. Basically,
I think the only way you can do it is to have the stories revolve around
the VICTIM, and I suspect there are only so many ways you can do that
and keep anyone’s interest, including the creator’s! Still, I think
Rodi did it to great effect here, and I’ll go with the very high end
of Good.
EXILES #26: Interestingly,
my thoughts last month on “Wait, what’s the moral difference between
Weapon X and the Exiles?” are somewhat addressed here. Still, given
that we have to assume that the underlying premise of the comic CAN’T
be wrong (that is to say, whatever the motivating factor behind the
Talus IS clearly understands cause and effect, and so, correspondingly,
is going to send the “good” team or the “bad” team based upon the proper
criteria... otherwise, why even have a “good” team? Why not just have
2 “bad” teams? Or 20, for that matter?), it’s almost a false plot point
to structure a story around. But, whatever, I liked it fine. A high
OK. The Exiles premise
always works best when you don’t think about the why of it, something
Austen makes essentially the focus of this issue. I’d like to hope
it’s because he’s got a clever spin or some actual insight into the
set-up, but I think it was just a way to kill some time while setting
up the big fights. Still, a pretty OK issue because, I dunno,
I like Iron Fist or something.
FIGHT FOR TOMORROW #6: Well,
I think we’ve established some basics with this miniseries. (1) Fight
for Tomorrow is a great name and should have been used in the script
as much as possible; (2) the Denys Cowan/Kent Williams team should be
getting more work; (3) I’m an arbitrary enough critic that if you had
put, say, Iron Fist in this, I probably would have liked it; and (4)
It is possible to suck all the fun out of a Kung-Fu movie. Pretty
much an Eh from start to finish for me. I’ll
second your premises and conclusion, except for #3. I’m arbitrary too,
but not in that way. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.... Eh
FILTH #10 This
was even better than the Giant Attack Sperm! “I have such a focused
consciousness that I can actually manifest words in a cloud above my
head!” Hahahahaha. That was awesome. I still have no idea if this all
adds up or means anything, but I enjoyed this month’s ride a lot. Excellent.
Jeezis, takes the superhero myth and pulls inside-out
through its own asshole, making it hilarious and poignant and great
reading. I’m not sure if Morrison is going to pull off the Dennis Potterian
switcheroo (if he even intends to) that’ll make this series more than
just a kaleidoscopic piss-up, but I’m so buzzed by the high weirdness,
I almost don’t care. A high Very Good.
GREEN ARROW #25: I
love how this issue is part of a multi-part story and yet also completely
self-contained—in other words, I wanted to rip my own eyes out just
as much from reading this issue alone as I would have if I’d read all
the previous parts. I also love how it’s five parts in and Charlie
Adlard still can’t figure out how to draw Green Arrow’s hat, and how
everything Amon Sur says is suitably ominous and yet makes not a single
lick of sense in context with what other people are saying, and how
Ben Raab seems to have confused Green Arrow’s speech patterns with Ben
Grimm’s. Crap. Well, I’ll go
with Awful rather than all the way into Crap territory, but otherwise,
yah. The real tragedy I think, is just how textbook the whole plot is.
The ham-fisted execution doesn’t help any, but at least a plot could
have been developed that wasn’t based around SUCH a hoary chestnut as
Amon Sur’s?
HAMMER OF THE GODS HAMMER HITS CHINA
#2: I found myself flipping pages during Hammer’s
stories, and that sudden abrupt ending (felt like a page was missing)
leaves me with a very weak Eh.
Yup, although I’ll bump it up to a low OK because I was kind
of enjoying the Norse edumacation.
HAWKMAN #15:
I actually never knew how incomplete my sexual fantasy life was until
I saw that cover: mmmm, Hawkgirl-on-Hawkgirl action. As for the insides,
I kinda thought the old “well, who can be sure if it’s really a friend
or a foe under the mask, so lemme try to pound the crap out of you first”
greeting went out with Marvel Team-Up. At least Johns is considerate
enough to offer a second reason (“Thanagarian greeting”) in case we
didn’t buy the first one. I think it’s probably a mistake to explain
every single confusing piece of Hawk-continuity (I think the readers
are more than happy to just pretend the Hawk Avatar never existed),
but whatever. At least the art manages to remain gorgeous. A low Good,
just because I’m a pervert. Well, you
hit the nail on the head. No, not the pervert part. What’s with you
people today? This does, I guess, “explain” what happened in the last
few incarnations, but I had thought we’d sworn to never ever talk about
any of that again? I would have been even happier just to have quietly
erased Shayera from continuity, even though she’s my fave hawk-character
EVER – because her very presence means you’ve got to have this long-winded
conversation anytime she comes into the room. Having 2 Hawkwomen hanging
around the same universe is just plain asking for trouble. A low Good
from me, too... but only if you have a massively anal knowledge and
passion and understanding of DCU heroes. Otherwise, probably an Awful.
JSA ALL STARS #1: Whereas
continuity is used to good effect here. Now, this is all set up (Back
in the day in All Star Comics, this would have been 8 pages,
tops), but I’ve expressed my insane bias towards the JSA a million times
before, and I don’t need to do it again – this looks like it will be
a fun series. Good. A little
too speedy (it took longer than 8 pages but felt just as jammed together),
and I’m not sure why the other JSAers would fall for the gimmick of
the mini (80% of what the Spectre does these days is escort people on
boring inner journeys. Wouldn’t they catch on when all he does is flex
his exposition muscle and then take off?) but the JSA team has
proven me wrong before. OK.
JUSTICE LEAGUE ADVENTURES #19: Kinda
like those old public service announcements from the SuperFriends:
“Hey kids, Aquaman here. Always make sure you wait an hour after you
eat before you start swimming so you don’t get cramps. Or I’ll have
my jellyfish sting you blind!!” Dull, but makes a good point to those
of us ready to go out and beat people to death with our fists. Eh.
Amother perfect summation, Jeff.. Eh
from me, too. Hey... why does Aquaman in SuperFriends ride a
JET SKI anyway? I mean “Swimming” is practically his only power. That’s
like Superman operating a crane in order to pick up and throw a car
at someone, isn’t it?
LANSDALE & TRUMANS DEAD FOLKS#2:
I liked it. It’s not deep or meaningful, but
it has plenty of Sexy Nun Death, and it’s told with enough joy and tongue
in cheek as to be fun. Strong OK. Just
like reading an issue of Heavy Metal from 1978, and I mean that
(mostly) as a compliment (Disney satire may have hit its expiration
date around then). Kind of a shame that such talents as Lansdale and Truman want to just
goof around but, hey, if this is what they want, this is what they want
and they do it well. Good.
LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN VOL
II #5: I think it maybe took a bit too long
to get to this point, but all the various pay-offs in this issue were
worth it (I laughed out loud at that scene—you’ll know the one I mean—with
Hyde). Not a lot to say here: this was Excellent stuff, plain
and simple. Yah, absolutely on-form
Moore
work, even this one issue makes that LXG trailer look even that much
more inane.... Excellent-plus
MR GUM ONE SHOT: It
didn’t really go anywhere, and took a long time to get there, to boot,
but I suppose I should be pleased that I’m getting any Madman, in any
form or dose whatsoever. OK. Not
me, my friend. Madman is Madman only when he’s drawn by Allred. There’s
some things to like about J. Bones’ work but the Jack Cole-isms
really point out the stiltedness I see in his work. And very, very
thin for $2.99, I think. Eh.
NEVERMEN STREETS OF BLOOD #3: So
minimalist, it was like it was barely there. The art’s lovely, and
I think I understood what the creators intended me to feel at certain
points, but it actually reads to me more like the comics people read
in comics, if you get what I mean: those excerpts in David Boring,
or Unstable Molecules, that are broad and colorful and meaningless
without a larger context. Very low Eh. Wow,
I was just going to say “Dunno, way too much going on here, and I don’t
see why I should care,” while your comics in comics thought proves you’re
the one with the fancy college degree and all. Damn fine analogy! Eh.
NODWICK #20:
Funnier than usual, which sounds like a put down, but really isn’t.
OK. I’ll go that one better.
A story with clever spins, and characters with both depth and humor
to them easily puts this book in the upper tier of gamer comics. If
this issue could have been self-contained, I would have given it even
higher than a high Good.
PVP #2: If
you haven’t read this material before, I think you’ll be amused—and
it’s a good deal for the money, being about a month and a half of strips
for three bucks. And yet, for me, I don’t know, there’s just something
I’m not loving. I don’t know if it’s the Liberty Meadows format
or what, but despite reading PvP online everyday, I’m still kinda
resistant to the book and I don’t know why. A high OK.
I suspect it’s the reading it online (for,
y’know, free and all) that has spoiled you. I don’t read it on-line,
so that didn’t happen to me, and this month some of the jokes were especially
funny. I, as a retailer, intensely dislike the format though – looks
craptastic on the racks. Good.
RELOAD #2: I
really really enjoyed this except for the bit where Bill Hicks’ line
was stolen about the grassy knoll... A strong Good, that would
have been Very if there had been more gunplay and explosions.
I always like how Ellis will toss about the darkest theories about American
history in his comics most seemingly constructed for mass consumption.
The first two issues read like stuff he could have done in his sleep,
or maybe did. It’s OK, but there’s no reason why it couldn’t
be better. There are too many strong comics out there to rate Ellis
and Gulacy on auto-pilot any higher.
SENTINEL #2: Second
issue is as good as the first — unlike Brian, I think I like that it’s
a Sentinel because the machine has an air of genuine threat to it.
I’m a little worried that it’s just going to end up being Iron Giant
in the Marvel Universe, so I hope McKeever and Vedder prove me wrong.
Good. I am not a gun. I am, however,
a mutant killing death ray. Actually, here’s a thought, the Sentinels
aren’t a secret to the Marvel universe any longer, are they? Even if
they’re a “secret”, I still suspect 30 seconds of Googling would provide
all the kid needed to know.... I quibble, though. This is solid, and
entertaining so far, and McKeever writes younger kids naturally. Good.
TONY MILLIONAIRE SOCK MONKEY #1: I’ve
never been a huge Millionaire fan like some other CE folks, but I really
quite enjoyed the atmosphere and looniness of this self-contained story.
Very Good. I was surprised when
the ads for the “new” Dark Horse horror line came out and Sock Monkey
wasn’t listed. After all, there’s at least two or three squirmy moments
for me in this issue, from the seahorse tied to the milk wagon to that
final, haunting page. There may or may not be some deeper message about
whether the cruelty of childhood is actually an extension of the cruelty
of nature or not, but it doesn’t matter. This is still Very Good.
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #40: Geldoff
seems kinda silly for a potential villain, but the rest of this issue
was top-notch Spider-Man fun. I think I’d have preferred a little more
characterization (I feel like I’m missing something about Peter and
Gwen’s relationship) and a little less shtick. But, still: Very
Good. Yup, nothing to say other
than Very Good.
UNCANNY X-MEN #423: 25
cents, presumably for new readers brought in by the film (And let’s
digress here, wasn’t X2 just a terrific little movie? Really
capturing the right elements from the comics without being either too
slavish or too silly. We’ll give that one a solid Very Good),
and I think by and large it works fine for them. There’s the proper
amount of melodrama, and while there probably could have been the smidgest
more explanation of who was what and why, it certainly would leave anyone
to run screaming from the comic shop like the equivalent title from
the last movie. I probably would have been harsher if it wasn’t a quarter
and the film was so good, but this was Good. Yeah,
X2. Four-fifths of it, for me, were absolutely Very Good,
but the fifth of it that didn’t work (the big climax just seemed to
lose more and more energy, mainly—like they needed something that wouldn’t
make The Hulk’s climactic hairwashing scene look too bad). So
I’m kinda bummed to see what looks like Austen retconning Kurt’s faith
and priesthood into anti-religious jabbity jab (Nightcrawler’s faith
was one of the best parts of X2). But for a quarter? At the
very least, OK.
VENOM #1: Funny
how Venom was really born out of McFarlane’s exaggerated style which
he took, in part, from manga, and yet Francisco Herrera’s new manga
style just seems all wrong for this; it’s about as gritty as an issue
of Little Archie. And it felt padded—can you imagine going to
a horror movie where you paid $2.25 for little more than the scene where
the person wanders around in the scary setting going, “Hello?” Seems
pretty Awful to me. Wow. Well,
huh, I guess I disagree... not really with the “this isn’t scary”, because
Suspense is one of the few forms that’s basically impossible to do in
comics (I typed “Horror” first, but Horror doesn’t have to be Suspenseful
necessarily – it can take it’s charms from being shocking or gory) –
I think this large has to do with the 2-D, silent nature of the page,
but that’s a topic for another day. I thought that, generally, the work
was done about as well as it could possibly be done – but that any attempt
to do Carpenter’s The Thing can’t end up as better than storyboards
for The Thing, y’know? So, from just the angle of the work itself,
it’s flawed, but I’d never consider going worse than Eh. What
really was weird though, was “who the heck is this aimed at?!?!” I mean,
the people who are into Venom pretty much just want a freaky Spider-Man-looking
guy running around wasting people and saying “I want to eat your brains”,
and shit like that. That’s an absurd generalization, of course, but
it’s not really all that different from you wanting SND in your Elektra,
right? So, the editorial choice to not have Venom, or, for that matter,
a single, no matter-how-obscure character from Spider-Man appear
on a single page of this comic (and no, the one panel of “goop” doesn’t
really count) to be a very odd one. More than almost any comic that
I’ve read from Marvel lately, this seems like it was paced PURELY for
the 6-issue TP coming 7 months from now, and is extremely unlikely,
in and of itself, to find many customers willing to come back for another
round in the face of the sheer avalanche of titles coming from Marvel
these days. How’s that for a run-on sentence? Anyway, like I said, Eh.
VERTIGO POP BANGKOK #1: Sex
and sleaze in Bangkok.
I’m not quite sure if this had enough of a through-line of characterization
and plot as the other VPop’s did – but I liked enough about the
storytelling and dialogue to give it a tentative Good. Kind of a problem with tone,
a little bit. Plays funny with some things that are very dark and doesn’t
quite pull it off. But it’s different from what’s out there, and seems
willing to honestly look at some shitty stuff so, yeah, shaky Good.
WOLVERINE DOOP #1: You
know, I was kind of hoping this wouldn’t be an Idea that Peter Milligan
pulled out of his butt, or that his knowledge of Wolverine extended
past what Axel Alonso told him in a bar when they were both high on
glue…on the upside, it’s only a two issue crossover (I think…can’t Marvel
even put info like that in the book, anymore?) which Bruce Jones would
have dragged out to twelve issues, and the art’s good. Good enough,
I could say that I barely mind the whole “That’s right, Wolverine/Doop
may be suffering from the recessive False Dilemma-X gene!” Sadly, I’d
be lying. The art would have to be freakin’ gorgeous for me to not
mind that. Eh. Yah, it was fairly
stupid, but... charmingly stupid, I guess. Eh from me too.
WOLVERINE SNIKT #1: Hey,
it’s an ACTUAL manga artist doing a manga book. Like most manga, it
passed through me like a breeze (sorry, I gots mostly western tastes),
but for what it is, it’s decent enough. OK. Not
as padded as Wolverine: Xisle (at least so far), but I’m having
a little trouble figuring out what’s what in all the “Fwooosh!!” panels.
Eh.
X-TREME X-MEN #25: They
got Scott Hanna to ink the hell out of Kordey, so we have a traditional
looking X-book with strong layouts. That’s a plus. We got Claremont turning most of the Claremontisms down a
tad, another plus. I don’t think it’s going to knock my socks off in
the long run, but I thought this was OK work.
And I also thought as a follow-up to the film this hit mostly the right
notes. OK as well.
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
[this can include being shorted by Diamond as well]; 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. There’s also the occasional “whoops we forgot
it!” in here as well...
21
DOWN #9
ARSENIC LULLABIES JAN 2003 #2
ATHENA INC #6
BATTLE OF THE PLANETS #9
BATTLE OF THE PLANETS THUNDERCATS ONE SHOT
BETTY & VERONICA SPECTACULAR #60
BLACKBURNE COVENANT #2
CLOCKMAKER #3
HARLEY QUINN #32
KARZA #3
LOONEY TUNES #102
MYSTIC #36
MYTHSTALKERS #2
NEOTOPIA #4
OH MY GODDESS #97
OUTLOOK GRIM #1
R A SALVATORE DEMON WARS VOL 2 #1
ROBOTECH #6
SAMMY TOURIST TRAP #3
SHONEN JUMP VOL 1 #6 JUNE 2003
SPIDER-GIRL #60
SUPERNATURAL LAW #37
XIN JOURNEY OF THE MONKEY KING #1
VOLTRON DEFENDER OF THE UNIVERSE #0
WARLANDS VOL 3 #5
WAY OF THE RAT #13
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.
3X3
EYES VOL 1 HOUSE OF DEMONS 2ND ED TP
3X3 EYES VOL 2 CURSE OF THE GESU 2ND ED TP
ASTRO BOY VOL 14 TP
BATMAN CONTAGION TP NEW PRTG
BATTLE OF THE PLANETS VOL 1 KEY COMICS TP
COMIC BOOK ARTIST #24
COMIC BOOK MARKETPLACE #100
COMICS JOURNAL #252
DAREDEVIL LEGENDS VOL 4 TYPHOID MARY TP
ENNIS & MCCREAS DICKS TP
HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND SC
JAX EPOCH AND QUICKEN FORBIDDEN VOL 1 BORROWED MAGIC TP
JIMMY CORRIGAN THE SMARTEST KID ON EARTH SC
JUXTAPOZ TATTOO SPECIAL
KING VOL 3 TP
MAGIC FLUTE HC LIBRARY OF OPERA VOL 1
OH MY GODDESS VOL 16 MYSTERY CHILD TP
ORIENTAL FILM REVIEW #4
PC GAMER MAGAZINE W/CD-ROM JUN 2003
PERSEPOLIS THE STORY OF A CHILDHOOD HC
POISON ELVES PARINTACHIN TP
POISON ELVES VOL 5 SANCTUARY TP NEW PTG
POISON ELVES VOL 6 TP GUILD WAR NEW PTG
PRIVATE BEACH VOL 2 SECRET MESSAGES
R A SALVATORE DEMON WARS VOL 1 TP TRIAL BY FIRE
SANDWALK ADVENTURES TP
SPIDER-MAN BLUE HC
STAR TREK COMMUNICATOR #144
STARLOG #311
SUPER FRIENDS GREEN LANTERN AND SINESTRO DLX FIGURE SET
THOR VOL 3 GODS ON EARTH TP
THUNDER AGENTS ARCHIVES VOL 2HC
VIDEO WATCHDOG #95
This Week’s TP recommendation is:
I’m assuming Hibbs will pick the more-than-worthy
Sandwalk Adventures TPB, so lemme recommend the always-astonishing
Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth now out
in softcover—the other (and for some of us, true) staggering work of
heartbreaking genius. Both of those
are fine fine fine choices, and both fully deserve it...and I would
have defaulted to JC if it hadn’t gotten enough exposure during
it’s life as a HC. I also liked the Spider-Man Blue HC, because
I think that’s a nice format for Sale’s work. But I think I shall go retro-ish and
make my pick P. Craig Russell’s Magic Flute HC. A little
culture now and then does a spirit good. And PCR really is a master
of adaptations, playing to the original’s strengths AND the comics format’s
strengths.
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