The Savage Critic: August
20th 2003
By Brian Hibbs
Welcome back, my friends, to the show
that never ends...
For once, FOR ONCE, I’m actually AHEAD
on writing the Critic (I was 85% done on Saturday night, needing just
a small polish on Sunday morning) and what happens? The server goes
down, and the people who can repair it are out of town for 2 weeks.
Terrific.
Well, we’ll just post this when it’s
back up and you can see I’m not skipping out on ya’ll!!!
AGENT X #13: Gail Simone returns to
wrap up the book – I was more amused than I was before, but $2.99 seems
a lot to pay for this. OK
ARROWSMITH #2: There’s a lot of care
being put into this, and I am attracted to the world being built here
– but I find the characters to be a smidge thin. Not great, but Good
BATGIRL #43: I get a little annoyed
by stories where Bruce Wayne goes somewhere he shouldn’t be, then when
Batman saves the day no one, for even a second, seems to wonder. This
is certainly made worse when he travels with a female companion, and
Batgirl happens to show up, too. Other than that, I’d give it an Eh.
BATMAN ADVENTURES #5: A nice solid
issue – I like how Deadshot isn’t pulling his shots here for once. This
isn’t for kids any longer though – the morality is all far too gray
for that. OK
BATMAN LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #170:
Batman versus Beavis continues; what a strange choice that was... Eh.
BIRDS OF PREY #58: I’m enjoying this
story well enough, but the over-pumped art style is starting to get
on my nerves. I also don’t think I mentioned it before, but I really
hate that Jim Lee Huntress redesign... OK
CAPTAIN MARVEL #13: At least the scummy
nature of this incarnation is well-used in this thinly veiled statement
about American intervention in Iraq. Good.
CINNAMON EL CICLO #1: Not what I expected
– modern times isn’t what I think of for the character. The art was
fairly stiff and unwelcoming to my eyes. And if the whole store is dialogued
in Spanish, one doesn’t need to put “language brackets” to indicate
“translated from the...” – those should have been put on the ENGLISH
in this story. Otherwise, the scripting was fine. Eh
DAREDEVIL #50: Great stuff. Not sure
if Bendis is going to actually follow through with the suggestion at
the end of the issue, but if so, this could be a drastic, yet logical
new direction. I also really adored the subtle use of guest artists.
Very Good.
DH GOON #2: Funny funny stuff, with
fabulous art – what else do you want? Very Good.
EXILES #31: Vampire Avengers seems
a little bit too much like Technorganic Avengers, but at least there
are different character interactions this time through. The twist on
the myth at the end was neat, but needs to be explained right quick
in the next issue. Eh.
HUMAN TARGET #1: Follows immediately
from the GN, FYI. If you liked that, you’ll love this. I think I’m going
to need another issue or two to decide whether I think this’ll work
on an on-going basis. A tentative Good for now.
HUMAN TORCH #5: Not actively offensive,
but pretty flat and slow. Eh.
JLA SCARY MONSTERS #6: *shudder* This
really devolved into typical Claremontisms. These kinds of things really
don’t work with the DC characters, for the most part. I have no real
idea how the civvies ended everything except for some nebulous mumbo-jumbo
that was all Tell, Tell, Tell throughout the story, so when it’s finally
Shown, you’re all “Uh.... What?” It opened well enough, but this was
a really Awful ending.
JOHN CARPENTERS SNAKE PLISSKEN #2:
A bit... dunno, stiff, or something, but otherwise a perfectly serviceable
Plissken story. OK
LUCIFER #41: A wonderful stand-alone
issue. Have I said lately that this is my favorite Vertigo on-going?
Well, it is. Very Good.
NAMOR #5: ...the fuck? Wait a minute,
first Sandy can just swim down to Atlantis any ol’ time she wants,
bringing friends along? (It’s apparently only a couple hundred of feet
out at sea if she can make the journey herself – and, of course, no
one noticed before now, no) And then they build an oil derrick in...
sheesh, two days, according to the captions? This book is very very
very sloppy, as well as being astonishingly emotionally flat. Awful.
OUTSIDERS #3: All the baddies seemed
a smidge or more out of character to me – Grodd getting all whiny in
the middle, Lex acting like Thunderbolt Ross, and Joker... well, his
voice was all wrong to me. I liked the Nightwing/Batman scene at the
end, but otherwise, I thought it was fairly Eh.
POSSESSED #2: Nice-in-places, but completely-over-the-top
art matched with a pretty 2-D script. The twist at the end is vaguely
intriguing, but I dunno if I would throw down $3 for this. OK
ROBIN #117: Yuck. I disliked the whole
concept of Future Alfred, and dislike how the whole thing turns on Tim
keeping info from Bruce, which I don’t think he’d do in this circumstance.
Awful.
RUNAWAYS #5: And, still, they’ve yet
to “run away”. They should call this book “Stayarounds”. Didn’t like
this issue much at all – mostly seemed to be a procession of “...and
this is MY power! Ha ha!” A big Eh from me.
SIMPSONS COMICS #85: Not as funny as
The Boothby Standard, but not that bad either – the backup was fairly
amusing. OK.
SMAX #1: Had a buncha people whining
in the store on Thursday that the art wasn’t Gene Ha. Bah! Zander is
more cartoony, sure, but he’s just as good, and there are just as many
background gags going on. Plus that Cherub joke had me rolling... Very
Good.
SPIDER-MAN & WOLVERINE #3: Story
is pretty much going nowhere, and the artist doesn’t seem to be learning
any better anatomy as the series progresses. In areas, the art is near-brilliance,
but in others it is decidedly sub-par. OK
STARTLING STORIES THING LAST LINE OF
DEFENSE #1: Ron Zimmerman is back this week in force. The first of his
two comics. I’m reminded, somewhat, of an issue of What th--?!
from some time back – John Byrne’s Superbman versus the Fanatical Four,
I think it was, where Byrne wrote a caption that said something like
“It’s impossible to parody the Thing’s dialogue”. I think I’d like to
coin the inverse of that, to whit: It is impossible to screw-up the
Thing because his dialogue is so straight-forward. This is my round-about
way of saying that this was well-scripted... but that it seems like
it would be hard to not write it well. Now, the plot, on the other hand,
is this strange meandering thing that jumps from circumstance to circumstance.
Art was nice, however. Eh
SUPERMAN METROPOLIS #7: I really really
like Teddy Kristiensen’s art. I imagine he’s an acquired taste for the
rest of you, but at least I know the end of this mini is going to look
fabulous. Good, for the art alone.
TEENAGERS FROM MARS #7: I was raised
to think guns are abhorrent things. So I didn’t like this one much.
Eh
TOM STRONG #21: Moore’s clearly
having fun here, but I’m finding the time between issues has drastically
reduced my enjoyment. Good.
ULTIMATE ADVENTURES #5: Captain
Marvel will be at #14 or 15 by the time this gets to #6 and the
end of “U Decide”. I think Peter won. This was actually decent enough,
but it was a huge mistake making it an “Ultimate” book – it neither
fits that line nor lives up to it. OK
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #45: Gotta love
Bendis. 22 pages of “Aunt May Visits A Shrink”, and I was gripped all
the way through it. Very Good.
WONDER WOMAN #195: The best issue of
Wonder Woman I’ve read in... well, since the Perez days, at least.
Rucka makes the fine choice to focus on the Ambassadorial side of Diana,
and it really really works. I hope this augurs a good, long run. Excellent.
Y THE LAST MAN #14: Another solid enough
issue. Good.
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...
ARCHIE AND FRIENDS #74
BEELZA BOB #1
BETTY #129
BIG BANG SUMMER SPECIAL #1
CANNON GOD EXAXXION #16
CREW #4
DRAGONS LAIR SINGES REVENGE #1
FIRST #34
GI JOE FRONTLINE #12
GO BOY 7 HUMAN ACTION MACHINE#2
GRENDEL GOD & THE DEVIL #7
LUFTWAFFE 1946 #12
MYSTIC #39
OUTLOOK GRIM #2
POWERPUFF GIRLS #41
R A SALVATORE DEMON WARS VOL 2 #4 EYE FOR AN EYE
RAVEN #2
SHADOWS #3
STAR WARS JEDI AAYLA SECURA ONE SHOT
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES #11
TERMINATOR 3 EYES OF THE RISE#3
TOMB RAIDER #32
WAY OF THE RAT #16
XIN JOURNEY OF THE MONKEY KING #3
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.
3
X 3 EYES SHADOW OF THE KUNLUN TP
ACME NOVELTY DATEBOOK
ATHENA INC VOL 1 MANHUNTER PROJECT TP
BLACK RUST
COLERE NOIRE GN
DAILY DELIRIUM VOL 1
FORGOTTEN TP
FRIENDS OF LULU PRESENTS BROAD APPEAL GN
ILLUSTRATION MAGAZINE #7
INVINCIBLE VOL 1 FAMILY MATTERS TP
JIST CREATING THE DC UNIVERSEBOOK TWO TP
JLA THE OBSIDIAN AGE BOOK TWOTP
MAAKIES UNCLE GABBY PVC FIGURE
NEIL GAIMANS CORALINE TP
POPPIES ADVENTURES VOL 1 GN SERPENTS IN PARADISE
RED STAR COMPLETE COLL VOL 1 TP
REMEMORY ART OF BILL KOEB HC
THOR LEGENDS VOL 2 WALT SIMONSON BOOK 2 TP
TOMARTS ACTION FIGURE DIGEST AUG 2003 #113
WILDCATS VERSION 3.0 BRAND BUILDING TP
WOLVES IN THE WALLS HC
This Week’s TP recommendation is:
Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean’s Wolves in the Walls was
note perfect. It’s astonishing to me how much McKean’s art keeps growing
and strengthening. This is absolutely loverly work.
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