"...are you experienced?"
San Francisco's Premiere Comic Book
Shop
|
If you've come to this page from a link outside our pages, or if you've never read our intro to the Savage Critic, please do so here. (It'll help prepare you!) |
||
|
The Savage Critic: July 18th, 2001 By Brian HibbsWelcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends. Woo hoo, actually getting this one done ahead of schedule for once – I better, too, since I leave for San Diego on Saturday night. Pray for me. This is actually a pretty small week for right before the SDCC... I wonder if Diamond got a little behind. Next week (or the week after) should bring every comic that only comes out once or twice a year – since EVERYONE tries to get their books out FOR the con. What astonished me this time around is that this week’s comics really really really sucked. I mean, I only took home exactly two comics: Cerebus and JSA. That’s horrible (I usually keep about 6 books a week) (The novel, for the six of you who care, has gone better this week – I figured out what happens in the next 4 or so chapters, and I see how that will run me to the end-game. Now its just a matter of finding time to get words on paper – losing 5 days to the con isn’t helping) Garth Ennis was up in SF this week. He’ll also be here after the SDCC. He’s not, however, GOING to SD. I think that’s pretty cool, all things considered. Garth continually makes me think he’s the Nicest Guy in Comics. Never not once have I detected the slightest bit of ego about him, which is pretty damn refreshing. Blah blah, that’s my diary entry for the week – let’s get a savagin’! AMERICAN CENTURY #5: What I found odd was this really didn’t have much to do with the first four... which can either be good or bad, depending on your perspective. Nice Chiarello cover, and I thought it read a little more cleanly than the first arc. Not bad. OK ARIA SOUL MARKET #3: The art is nice, but having to wait umpty-months between issues like this is just about everything that’s wrong with comics. I like it, but who can follow a story that takes a whole year to tell? OK AVENGERS 2001 ANNUAL: I’m not sure I really understood the point of the whole Hank Pym thing... in fact I know I don’t. And that backup of trying to explain the pre-Heroes Reborn Iron Man continuity made my head hurt even more. It is competently done super-comics, and it is "self-contained", but it was still too continuity-derived to be much fun for anyone but a regular Avengers reader. Eh. BATMAN GOTHAM KNIGHTS #19: Ye gods, that was awful. I mean, the premise was cute enough... but it was more suited to be an 8-page backup story than the lead. I read it and went "$2.50? Fuck you!" BROTHERHOOD #2: Awful. No narrative to hold the 22 pages together, and art which left every character being indistinguishable from every other one. This will be the first "New-X" book cancelled. CAPTAIN AMERICA #45: Another stinker. Marvel’s mid-list is such a mess. I also think that having a Mature Readers version of Nicky Fury, and the regular MU version running about at the same time is going to prove a colossal mistake. Garth told me a bit about his Fury project, and he said something very much like "I’m getting away with much more than I ever could have at Vertigo." Can’t wait for that, but odds are it will get some crusader’s panties in a bunch. Anyway, Cap is Crap. Well, OK, just for the rhyme. Awful otherwise. CAPTAIN MARVEL #21: OK. "I have slogged through too many Diamond Previews to give up THIS easy!" is a great line, but I was very confused about who was where and doing what to whom otherwise. CEREBUS #268: Very good. Nyuck-nyuck. Sim proves, YET AGAIN, his godlike skill in doing charicature. I never thought a three stooges comic could work... but here it is. Even if the voices were jarring a bit. CHARM SCHOOL #4: OK, with a slight lean to good. Lesbian romance in the fantasy genre shouldn’t really work, but here it is. A smidge too archetypal for me, but then I live in San Francisco. DARKNESS #40: Y’know, comics are the combination of words and pictures. Why is it then that we get this trend to virtually unreadable lettering (Dark yellow on purple backgrounds; transparent lettering effects)? The story was fine, I suppose, but the lettering made my head hurt too much to care. Eh. DEFENDERS #7: Valkeryie is an odd POV character to choose... since Val really doesn’t have a POV (seven issues in, at that!) The whole curse thing (TPing out in the middle of a battle; the Hulk defeating the new threat between panels with one punch) is all quite amusing, and I smiled several times during the story... but I look at the cover price and go "Noooo. Not worth THAT". Eh. DOUBLE IMAGE #5: Didn’t work for me at all – either story, in fact. Eh. ELECTRIC GIRL #7: Another book I really want to like, and do, in places, but that doesn’t QUITE gel for me. It’s charming, it's well thought out, it's clever in places... but I end up ambivalent. OK. ELEKTRA #1: I’m almost embarrassed to say I enjoyed this quite a bit. Well, the middle at least – the opening was kinda long and pointless, and the end was just too... something (yeah, I’m a GREAT critic, aren’t I?), but it looked nice, and read smoothly. Still, I feel like... like... I’m raping Frank Miller or something. It is just wrong, on just about every level for ANYone to do Elektra besides Frank. It’s really too bad that Gaiman came after Miller – maybe Frank could have gotten the "Morpheus Clause" otherwise.. Its good, but I still feel dirty. Oh, and I might be the only one, but Greg Horn’s art (the cover) leaves me icy cold. GEN 13 #67: The use of Schrodinger is a clever (and well handled) device, but why does this book have to constantly remind us that women have breasts? I have nothing against breasts... in fact, I love them a lot, but "woo hoo Breasts!" gets pretty damn tiresome every month. Eh GHOST RIDER HAMMER LANE #2: Two issues of middle, with no start, and, seemingly, no goal for the end. Awful. JLA #55: I really couldn’t think of a writer more suited for JLA than Mark Waid... but his JLA has left me cold. Icy cold and frigid. Plus, you know there’s something wrong when I think "Another city destroyed, oh well". Just like "grim n’ gritty" went too far, I think we’ve officially hit the stage where there is too much "widescreen" in comics. Awful. JSA #26: OK. JSA is my sole guilty superhero pleasure. I’ve said that before, I think. MONARCHY #5: Eeef? Bendix’s secret origin, I guess... and I could have lived without reading it. This is exactly the kind of book you do if you want to kill a franchise. Awful. ORION #16: I must need a blanket this week, because here’s another book that left me cold. Eh. OUTLAW NATION #11: The plot ALMOST comes together. But just almost. Eleven issues in and I’m still trying to find a reason to care. I’m going to stick with "cancelled by 16", because I just don’t see how it can be saved. Eh. PANTHEON #8: I kinda liked the earlier issues, with the clever villains and the main-characters can die thing going on... But the last few issues have seemed to me to be treading water rather than moving things ahead, and it only comes out quarterly or so, and this issue has THREE different artists. And there goes any interest I might have possibly had. Awful. PETER PARKER SPIDER-MAN #33: Nice character study with Uncle Ben and Mets games, and not a punch getting thrown. It had heart. Good. QUEEN & COUNTRY #3: I’m real iffy on the art, but I’m enjoying the story well enough. Probably more suited to be a TPB though. Good. ROBIN #92: More and more and more this book seems to be writing itself into "It is no longer rational for Tim to be Robin". I simply don’t see how it is possible any more. I also think the whole Spoiler thing is way out of character for Batman. If it wasn’t for the book not at all working, however, I could almost recommend it. Its competent, and there is humanity of a sort in this issue. But the plot is absolutely broken. Eh. SANDMAN PRESENTS DEAD BOY DETECTIVES #2: Paced wrong. Should have been three issues (max), and I thought the backstory flashback felt horribly padded. Page counts and all that I guess. Still, it is charming and well done. OK. SIMPSONS COMICS #60: First issue of a Bongo comic in many moons that nearly made me laugh as much as an episode of Simpsons does on TV. Trap Door Repairman: We found the clog. It’s the actress who played Flo on the 1970s TV show "Alice." Mr. Burns: Yes, I remember! Well, Polly Holiday, who’s kissing whose grits, now? HA! The backup story really sucked though. Still, the lead was lots of fun, and if you haven’t read the Simpsons comic (or read it and went "not as good"), then you might want to check this issue out. Good. SLEEPING DRAGONS #4: I keep hoping this will get as good again as the excellent first issue. This one read better than 2 or 3, but I still can’t muster better than eh. SLOW NEWS DAY #1: What kept me from loving this was... well, I don’t even know really. Lat night when I put it down, I thought it was because the art was too "loose", but looking at it again this morning I don’t see why I thought that. If anything, the flip test makes it look too dense to me this morning. Maybe I should have my glasses checked again? Anyway, my morning-after feeling is still "not as good as Breakfast After Noon", which is still praise. Good. SUPERBOY #90: Awful. Some clever dialogue, but it just all so labored. SUPERMAN THE MAN OF STEEL #116: Right, so Ma and Pa Kent are dead, Aquaman is dead. Yet it is Steel that Supes wants to fight the Black Racer for? Please. I fear OWAW has irreparably hurt my ability to enjoy Superman at all. I mean, this is worse than the Spider-Man clone story. Feh. Awful. THUNDERBOLTS #54: Heh, the revelation of what was in the coffin was clever enough. Well, in the text pages, yes... but in the comic itself? THAT was two+ years build-up? Otherwise it is just piles of characters that I’m having a hard time caring at all about. Eh. TITANS #31: Am I the only one who doesn’t CARE who these kids the Titans found are? Man, I wish they’d finish this story soon. Awful. USAGI YOJIMBO #50: Very good. But then, it usually is. WEASEL #4: Man, Dave Cooper is a sick fuck. Hey, and for Mignola fans, theres four pages of excellent and tasty Mignola art in here. This book is always a treat to look at, but damn if it doesn’t make me feel all dirty and icky afterwards. Good. X-MEN HIDDEN YEARS #22: pretty solid job in cleaning up all of the dangling plot lines in 22 pages, actually. Not that I cared about those plots much, but still, that’s a solid professional job there. 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!], and 5) Things that looked SO bad on the racks that I didn’t bother. But not always. Sometimes I’m just not in the mood to read, say, Witchblade. 10TH MUSE #5 And, for even MORE completeness sake, here’s a list of books, TPBs, GNs, and magazines 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 #1246 This Week’s TPB recommendation is: See? ‘s even a mediocre week for trades. Nothing grabbed me by the neck and said "pick me!" this week, so let’s give it to Metropol v3. Ted McKeever is a fab artist, and I’m sure most of you haven’t checked this out. |
||
|
Pick of the Week: Geez, I dunno. Usagi Yojimbo #50, I guess. Which is about time, really. Pick of the Weak: Again, nothing stands out
SO much this week. I’ll give it to The Brotherhood #2. |
||
|
|
All Material on this page:
© 2001-2005 by Comix Experience (except the graphic, which was appropriated
from Tales of Suspense #21,
and is probably
© Marvel Comics). Reproduction without permission is expressly
forbidden.