Home From the Wars: Reviews of 11/30 Books...

Whew. I crossed the Nanowrimo finish line last week and it looks like it did what it was supposed to: not only did I get a chance to bask in my 50,000 words of crap but I'm still working on it past the deadline, making my hopeful I'll be able to actually finish one of my crappy books and begin the process of revising and crap removing. Naturally, I celebrated my literary ways by playing lots and lots of Resident Evil 4 for the PS2. Oh, man. There have been a lot of exceptional games for the PS2 in the last twelve months and this is right up there. Shooting Lovecraftian European villagers in the brain just never gets old....

Oh, and I read a few comics. Unfortunately, so did Graeme and we tend to post right next to each other so don't miss his critical savagings just below, yeah? (And if you put our reviews right next to each other, you can pretend you're reading them in 3-D....)

Oh, and you know about the spoilers, right? Lots of spoilers.

ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #646: Unlike my esteemed colleague, I thought this was one of the better issues of AoS I've read in a long time. It's chock full o' nits, however, many of which I can't help picking--Supes has some throwaway line like, "I can't believe Professor Hamilton has turned evil again!" which, uh, you know, if I was being taunted by a superpowered guy who claimed to be someone close to me, I would start checking this list, you know, with the people who have an evil track record. (And when the hell was Prof. Hamilton evil?) But it was nice to see some of the threads on this title finally get sewn up, and seeing Mxy as a bum with a funny hat is cheap sentimentality, but effective. I'm going lowish-Good here.

BATMAN #647: A little loosey-goosey with the big fight scene (I find it hard to believe Captain Nazi didn't just break Red Hood's neck) but this also worked for me. The Bat-sonar thing is the sort of thing a big ol' Batman geek like me has been waiting for, and the Red Hood stuff is still interesting. Like Brube's "Winter Soldier" story over in Captain America, it's paced much more slowly than I would expect (at the end of each issue, Batman makes an "important decision" about The Red Hood that has him act more or less the same next issue), but Christ knows, the milking of storylines in comics isn't exactly new. Good.

BLACK PANTHER #10: Generally enjoyed it (as an enjoyable Luke Cage story) until I realized where it was going: a Black Panther/Storm romance, like the Superman/Wonder Woman thing that seems to get broken out over at DC every so often, just seems to me like a bad idea. Particularly now that it seems like Storm has had a failed romance with everyone in the Marvel Universe but The Mad Thinker. As long as you don't mind watching thirty years of continuity take it in the butt, OK.

DOOM PATROL #18: So at the end of this, everyone's alive, Robotman's happy and in love, the Chief is jolly, and a new generation of heroes is already lining up to be trained--I'm surprised Byrne didn't go all the way and change their name to "The Sunshine Squad." J.B. is like those programs you submit your text to that strips all of the program-specific formatting out: he creates the comics equivalent of ASCII text. Bleah. Awful.

EXILES #73: Bedard's fondness for the New Universe is almost infectious, and whether or not Mimic is actually dead, taking him out of the picture for a good, long time is probably smart. Depending on how long you've been a Marvel fan, but you might also find it Good.

FEAR AGENT #2: Back in the day, I used to show up at the shop on Wednesday, read a big stack of comics, write the reviews with the books in hand, and return them all to the shop for my Friday shift. Kinda wish I did that, so I could actually tell you what I liked about Fear Agent #2. The press I'd read positioned it as a mix of the E.C.'s war, horror and sci-fi books, but what I read reminded me of Firefly, if there'd just been Mal and nobody else (which I guess means it also reminds me of Cowboy Beebop, too). Funny, and with a lot surer grip on characterization and pacing than I see in Remender's other book. It didn't exactly lodge in my brain, but it made enough of an impression that I'll be checking out next issue. Very, very OK.

FELL #3: Interesting to read without Ellis's back pages explaining every little thing--it actually held up, which was a distinct relief. As someone pointed out in an earlier thread, Ellis can actually talk a good game so reading an issue that, although more laid back, continued to deepen the book's themes and fine-tune the very dark humor makes me more confident about where this book's future. Thought the last page was a bit of a cheat, however, although I can see where everything wrapping up peacefully would have been anti-climactic. Still, quite Good.

GIANT SIZE INVADERS #2: Christ, putting Vince Colletta on Frank Robbins? No wonder I hated the art on Invaders back when I was a kid. (Although Robbins, let's face it, was completely and utterly lost in a post-Kirby universe--our heroes look like a bunch of goosestepping hunchbacks.) And the new story was extraordinarily lame with FDR acting like an asshat just to get any drama going (when Namor the Sub-Mariner is reduced to pushing a car out of a pond, you've come a long way from the mighty Marvel era of over-the-top action.) And the book was pricey to boot, so I'm giving the whole thing an Eh, although I bought it, read it and enjoyed it: I'm a fetishist, and doubt I could expect anyone else to feel the same.

IMAGE COMICS HC: This book is a crowbar to the brain on nearly every level. And did Todd McFarlane make a deal with the devil that he'll be fiscally solvent as long as he never draws another full page of comics again? Considering this work supposedly held up the publication of the project for three full years, it's worthy of any derision one can muster. Throw in a very cowardly "I'm-gonna-use-Miracleman-but-not-in-any-way-that-opens-me-to-litigation" tactic, and you've got a neat little summary of why McFarlane's Spawn work sucks. The rest of this I found unreadable, except for Larsen's Savage Dragon origin which I only wish I hadn't read. Awful.

INCREDIBLE HULK #89: So, check it: this issue has Nick Fury explaining to Banner why they need his help, and Banner gives lots of reasons why he shouldn't and the dramatic hook, one would assume, is whether Banner agrees to help. So how does this issue start? With The Hulk being shot into space as part of the job, of course. Daniel Way may be part of Marvel's Tangy Ten or whatever, but unless the Ten are rated by their willingness to shamelessly pad, I'm not seeing it. Plus, as Hibbs pointed out: why would you ask Banner, when you need The Hulk? Just because Banner agrees to something, that doesn't mean the Hulk's gonna do it. Eh.

KEEP #2: Getting a Mignolaish artist to work on Wilson's tale of Nazis and vampires-or-are-they? seems a smart move but Smith has some real weaknesses with movement and lighting that lead to static sequences. And Wilson's adaptation of his own work is impressively brisk, but, in tandem with those art problems, make this a pricey Eh.

LIVING IN INFAMY #1: Decent high-concept (trouble brews in a town of supervillains in a government protection program) biffed by some unfortunate storytelling--except for the Tony Soprano riff, nothing is conveyed about any of these characters' psersonalities and some of the scenes are short on believability. As Hollywood option bait, it'll probably do the trick, but as an actual book, I'm leaning to the very bottom of the Eh.

NEW AVENGERS #13: Hmmm, so Echo, who is deaf, is actually Ronin? Too bad there are scenes in this very issue (if not earlier--didn't Matt Murdock pick up a phone and call and ask her to help out? Just the sort of stuff one shouldn't share with one's teletype assistance people...) like Iron Man facing away from her and saying stuff, and her responding. I won't even get into how this is the third book with Silver Samurai in it this week, and how he's completely different characters in each one, and moreover suffers from Bendisitis something fierce. Very, very sloppy. Eh.

NIGHTCRAWLER #12: The acknowledgments page from Robertson and Aguirre-Sacasa was very, very sweet--almost to the point where I forgot how incredibly dull and misguided this whole series was. Thank goodness the dull and misguided Mephisto stuff was there to remind me. Should be Eh, but considering the wasted potential of the book, let's go to Awful.

PLASTIC MAN #19: The jabs at the Infinite Crisis were pretty decent, but the R'as Al Ghul "shirtless fighting" sequence was hilarious. Couldn't they have tried to see how these would have done as Digests before axing this book? Good.

SEASON OF THE WITCH #2: Rolled along okay as whasshername learns and hones her skills until suddenly at the end where she's suddenly beheading traitors and it reads like someone dropped in the ending from the next issue by mistake. What the fuck? Eh.

SECRET VOICE #1: I liked the earnest and strange Dr. Galapagos story, and The Smog Emperor stuff was fun and odd. And I miss the days of early Eightball and self-published Optic Nerve, where a cartoonist did a bunch of stuff they found interesting until something stuck. So although Zack Soto's book doesn't really cohere, and he may have a lot longer road ahead of him (compared to Clowes and Tomine) until his style and his subject matter really clicks, I thought this was highly OK and want to see more.

SENTRY #3: Must be a drag when another writer groks your own concept better than you do--as it stands, I'd say Bendis's take in New Avengers is a jillion times better than this mess. Jenkins is either too stingy or too timid to push his metafictional conceit into overdrive, and so this just reads like a Marvel writer who's barely bothered to read Marvel books. Dull and Awful.

TAROT WITCH OF THE BLACK ROSE #35: Just when I thought Jim Ballent's book couldn't skeeve me out any more, I got to the pictures of his wedding where he's dressed up like Darth Vader and his bride's wearing a Slave Leia outfit. Bless his heart, it may be this unembarrassed willingness to embrace his passions that makes Tarot the intriguingly fucked-up read it sometimes is, and the essential triteness at the heart of those passions that make Tarot the rather depressing piece of work it always is.

PICK OF THE WEEK: Oy. Um, Batman #647? Kinda lame, but there you go.

PICK OF THE WEAK: Image Comics HC is like being mugged by your old coke dealer--the nostalgia is tempered by the fury, which is tempered by the relief of that lifestyle being long behind you.

TRADE PICK: Maybe mighta woulda been the Red Sonja trade except I thought something horrible happened to the line reproduction that made it look pretty crappy. I was just glad to get my hands on Sgt. Frog Vol. 10 TPB--a series that Hibbs openly derides me for every time I buy a new volume. Too bad, he's missing some funny stuff.

And you?

Infinite Crisis is killing comics: Reviews of 11/30 and 11/23 books.

The terrible thing about catching up on everything after taking a week off is that there’s always much more to catch up on than you thought. Take this week: I wanted to read the two holiday books that the big two had put out (Marvel Holiday Special and Teen Titans Go), but instead I figured, why not leave those until closer to the actual holidays? And then I read other books and realized that the answer to that question was, Because almost all of this week’s books suck. So now you know.

ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #646: Let’s face it, there are probably some stories that just don’t need to be written. For example, Mister Mxyzptlk’s losing his powers and memory as told in black and white and first person narration by Mxy himself. Especially when the narration is along the lines of “Oh, this is gonna hurt. A lot. Shouldn’t complain. Feeling something’s better than feeling nothing, right?” The first of this week’s “Whatever Happened to Greg Rucka?” comics, this is just a mess. When we’re not reading Rucka giving Mxyzptlk narration that’d make Frank Miller think twice, we’re getting the pay off for two long-running subplots, one of which is almost entirely reliant on readers having also read Wonder Woman and The OMAC Project for it to make sense (It’s also a subplot that doesn’t really resolve as much as say “Hey, there’s going to be a Checkmate series next year!”). Karl Kerschl’s weird and wonderful art aside, there’s nothing here to make this comic any more than an Awfully misguided experience. You know the comics that Geoff Johns is complaining about in Infinite Crisis? I think Greg Rucka is writing things like this on purpose to give Geoff more grist for his mill.

EX MACHINA #16: Okay, so this came out last week, but I didn’t review anything then, so you’re getting it now. Normally I’m a big fan of this book, but everything seems off this issue – Brian K. Vaughan’s dialogue seems forced (especially the awkward, heavy-handed “everyone lies” climax), the plot feels entirely artificial, and Tony Harris goes through the motions without his usual flair. I’m guessing that this current storyline is foreshadowing for later events, because otherwise, the revelations about Mitchell Hundred’s parents gets dealt with remarkably quickly and without as much weight as you’d expect it to have. It’s OK, but hopefully the book will get back to former glories now that the characters are back in New York.

THE FLASH #228: Does anyone remember when Val Semeiks could draw? There was awhile there, back when he seemed to be DC’s “Well, if we need someone to draw JLA special projects” guy, when his work was… well, not as horrendous as it is on certain pages – the opening four, for instance – in here (Since when did Mirror Master become the Joker with worse teeth?). Maybe it’s the inking? Storywise, there are some nice ideas here that are buried by the execution and overall crapness of the larger plot – I’d have been more interested to see a story where Wally has to deal with his neuroses about being a superhero and a new dad for real, instead of finding out that he’s the victim of an evil plot that involved him being thrown into illusionary possible worst case scenario futures. Also, any plot which relies on the main character being a complete and utter fucking idiot (“Someone’s tried to steal this incredibly dangerous weapon, you say? And we don’t know who that is? Well, I don’t have time to think about that – I have to give it to these people that I met yesterday who say that they want it for nice reasons even though I know nothing about them!”) gets my dander up at the best of times, so it’d be fair to say that I’m finding these last few issues of the current Flash run to be Crap. The fact that this book, and JLA, are ending their current runs with fill-in creative teams headed up by DC editors (or Bob Harras, who was always a fan of the editorially-mandated storyline back in the day), is probably some kind of sad comment on where DC’s head is at, these days.

LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #12: Just like Ex Machina, something smells foul in this particular state of Denmark these days – Maybe I’m just being cynical, but the fact that both this and last issue of the current version of DC’s “Teens Go Wild – In The Future” book have had pointless back-up stories, that this issue doesn’t start with the usual “We were so sick of it, we could scream” opening, and that the big storyline doesn’t finish until #13, which just seems strange in this day and age of six-issue-long trades, that suggests that there may be deadline problems going on in the 31st century. Or maybe I’m just being ridiculous, and upset that the pacing of the series – one of the strong points of the book for me so far – seems to be losing focus with the last couple of issues. All of that said, the main story in this issue steams towards the big finish with a couple of unexpected moments resolving plots and injokes from the run so far, and the dialogue still sparkles when needed. This issue’s back-up, the first not written by series writer Mark Waid (Firestorm’s Stuart Moore handles the writing chores, instead) misses the lightness of touch that Waid’s brought to the book so far, as Lightning Lad spends some time explaining why the Legion exists in a very worthy and dull manner, apparently with the aim of getting into Saturn Girl’s pants. Which is an interesting seduction technique, to say the least, but you know kids these days and their dedication to democratic ideals. Overall, the book is OK, but if I were you, I’d skip the back-up and have fonder memories of the whole thing.

SEVEN SOLDIERS: FRANKENSTEIN #1: Yes, this is from last week as well, and I’m sure you’ve all read it by now. But, still. It’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer meets Dan Clowes meets that Frankenstein book that the Matrix people are doing. But better than all of those – There really was something kind of disturbing about the book that I didn’t expect, which was kind of the point, and at times it seemed like a mainstream version of ideas that Morrison was using in The Filth and The Invisibles. So, you know, it was Excellent.

SEVEN SOLDIERS: ZATANNA #4: You know what I enjoyed more than Frankenstein, though? This. Sure, it didn’t really make that much sense and it’s, what, two months late or something? But I loved it as I would love a curiously forbidden ugly child that I loved dearly. In one fell swoop, Morrison explains more of the entire Seven Soldiers mythology as well as tying up the mystery set-up from the start of the series, curing Zatanna of her powerlessness, and making the whole thing seem like stupid amounts of fun. New bad guy Zor, alone, would’ve made this book one of the greatest things ever published with dialogue like his response to Zatanna’s “You have a stupid beard” comment (“Liar! It’s a magnificent beard and I know you want one! Hahahaha!”). As with the other Seven Soldiers minis, we get a definition of what makes a hero, but it was what made Zatanna a more believable character throughout the series – the mistakes, the sense of humor, the love of dressing-up – that made the series so enjoyable. In a perfect world, Morrison would get to write an ongoing Zatanna series once everyone’s done with this Infinite Crisis nonsense. Another Excellent book.

WONDER WOMAN #223: Now that we know that this book is getting cancelled in February (only to get relaunched later in the year with Adam-Hughes-lite Terry Dodson on art chores, thereby reuniting the Amazon feminist with cheesecake fans the world over), people like me who picked up the series when Greg Rucka took over as writer can finally accept the fact that none of the long-running subplots that Rucka has set up will get resolved to any degree of satisfaction, now that the series has been completely overwhelmed with fallout from The OMAC Project miniseries. Veronica Cale, the odd-apparent-new-nemesis for WW? Disappeared into the background with Circe, apparently to plot something about six months back, before Wonder Woman killed Max Lord. Zeus being deposed by his daughter as ruler of the Gods? Hey – OMACs are attacking the Amazons, so who cares? Amazon Island being dropped just off the coast of the United States, thereby making America paranoid that there was going to be an invasion, leading to a military stand-off with the US about the attack the Amazons? Didn’t you hear what I said about the OMACs? Ferdinand the Minotaur being in love with the doctor whose name I can’t remember? Well, that’s way too minor to deal with now, unless he’s a Minotaur OMAC. To see almost everything that Rucka had spent two years building up being thrown away with almost no thought purely to service DC’s mega-crossover - and knowing that the series will end before there’s a chance that any of it will be dealt with - is more than a little frustrating.

Now that I’ve gotten that rant out of the way, I can tell you that this issue, like the last, and the one before that for that matter, is full of action and melodrama that feels entirely uninvolving. Kyle Baker’s Plastic Man is currently taking the piss out of this kind of writing marvelously, with captions like “What comic book this month contains more shocking revelations and cataclysmic permanent changes to the DC Universe?”, and it’s probably a bad thing that Plastic Man had more dramatic tension than anything this book has seen for months. Really, sadly, Ass.

X-MEN #178: Does anyone remember the first page of Grant Morrison’s run on this title? It was Wolverine on top of a Sentinel, clawing away at it, with Cyclops standing on the ground, saying something like “You can stop doing that now.” It was a fairly clear message from Morrison to everyone, saying that all of those old X-Men stories that you’d read a million times before were going to stop, because, you know, they were old and done a million times before. The cover of this issue of X-Men is remarkably similar to that first page, except this time the message seems to be “All of those old X-Men stories that you’d read a million times before? We’re doing them again!” It’d be depressing, if I wasn’t more depressed that I can remember what the first page of Grant Morrison’s run on X-Men was like even though I haven’t read those books for two years or something like that. And don’t even get me started on this whole “Deadly Genesis will explain who the third Summers brother is!” thing that Marvel are doing right now, either. Ass, anyway.

YOUNG AVENGERS #9: Has no-one even done a Kree-Skrull War 2 before? Wasn’t there one in Steve Englehart’s Silver Surfer, waybackwhen? And wasn’t the unfortunately-named (and soon to be reprinted) crossover Operation Galactic Storm all about a Kree-Skrull rematch as well? The reason I ask is that Allan Heinberg is gearing up for some kind of Kree-Skrull War 2 (or possibly 3, or maybe 4) over here, and starts off by bringing back the Super Skrull. God, I love the Super Skrull. I love Young Avengers, as well, when Jim Cheung’s drawing it – Andrea Di Vito filled in on the last couple of issues, sadly forgetting what people look like as he did so – so everything that happened in this issue was fine with me. Heinberg keeps up his good balance of over the top soap opera – My mom isn’t really my mom! And she’s an alien! – and old-school superhero action, making this feel both contemporary and old-fashioned at the same time, which is Good for me. Who would’ve thought that this would be Marvel’s best title when we were all making fun of it at this time last year?

PICK OF THE WEEK is cheating, because it’s from last week: Seven Soldiers: Zatanna. Please add your own “talking backwards” joke in here, because I’m fresh out. PICK OF THE WEAK is Wonder Woman, but that’s purely because I’m cranky and annoyed that the first couple of years of Rucka’s run has been unceremoniously dumped to make way for more OMACs. As for TRADE OF THE WEEK, I can’t help you – The only trade I even looked at this week was the Maximum Fantastic Four Omnibus thing that Marvel put out last month, where they print a panel to a page for no immediately apparent reason other than showing that Marvel’s designers should consider things like page binding and composition much more often.

Next week, I’m going to be reading holiday comics, and there will be caroling and much jollity. Just you wait, ‘Enry ‘Iggins.

Jeff Ducks Out--Mea Culpa for the Nov. 23 Books...

Good Thanksgiving for everyone, I hope? Mine was great until the food poisoning kicked in--I was the only one affected, praying for death to strike me as my insides staged their own fierce rebellion inspired by a charismatically undercooked piece of fish. In other exciting news, I am five thousand words shy of my fifty thousand word deadline and my craptacular novel is so incredibly dull, I might as well be typing a cookbook or a self-help book (How to Win Friends and Influence The Small Intestine).

Also, chewable Pepto-Bismol tastes like Double Bubble bubble gum. And turns your tongue black.

So, sadly, I must take a pass on reviewing any books during Thanksgiving week. There was some good stuff this week, but it's up to MC Hibbs or MC McMillan (or MC MC as I call him) rock the mic this time around.

My Pick of the Week? SEVEN SOLDIERS FRANKENSTEIN #1 was deeply, deeply odd, a strange cross between an old Steve Gerber comic and KILL YOUR BOYFRIEND and I really liked that. Plus, the more out-of-control Morrison's captions get, the happier I am. But, technically, SHE-HULK 2 #2 is the "better" book, with a story that's both fun and formalistically satisfying. Get 'em both.

Pick of the Weak? It wasn't the worst book out, but I thought WALKING DEAD #24 was easily the most disappointing. I can't tell if Kirkman is in too much of a rush to hit his retailer-screwing deadlines, or if his original notes really called for a splash page explanation of the series title as the big climax but I hurt my head rolling my eyes so hard. Calling this issue overwrought is being kind.

No Trade Pick since I only got halfway through JEW GANGSTER A FATHERS ADMONITION HC. Black and white Kubert is always great to look at, but it's little more (arguably less, in fact) than an E.C. crime story with the second person captions removed.

And you? Since I have no idea if anyone else is going to be chiming in, feel free to use the thread for your reviews.

All-Star Fawning: Graeme's reviews of the 11/16 books

Apparently Thanksgiving is coming up, which is always strange for me, being non-American and all. Oh, sure, I know what Thanksgiving is meant to be about, but I still get kind of freaked out by the whole “Macy’s Parade means that Christmas has officially started” part of the whole deal. Not that I’m not thankful for the time off work to spend reading comics and catching up on TiVo, mind you, so I guess I’m getting close to the spirit in some way. Still, happy Thanksgiving, if I don’t end up saying it closer to the time. What’s that, you say? You want reviews?

ALL-STAR SUPERMAN #1: Yes, Lester got here first and wasn’t as impressed with this as I was. But still, there are far too many things that I loved about this book. The opening three pages, which condense the usual backstory into eight words in four panels on one page – because it’s Superman, for God’s sake, and everyone who’s interested in Superman already knows the basic set-up – before giving us a wordless double page spread of the character looking not angry or angst-ridden or weepy, but concerned and determined. The way that Grant Morrison seems determined to try and make the dialogue for each character not only seem in character, but also introduce the character (Lois’s “I always write the Superman headlines before they happen, Steve,” for example, or the difference between the way that Clark speaks and Superman speaks). Frank Quitely’s stunning artwork, with the layouts giving the book it’s own special pacing, and moments like Clark’s accident-prone entrance to Perry White’s office, or the off-panel accident that Clark saves the passer-by from at the end of the book. The “DC” rating for the book in the credits (“Pulse-pounding, rip-roaring action to be enjoyed by all”). The over-the-top new character, Leo Quintum (“Only nothing is impossible, Flora.”). A million miles away from what the regular Superman books are full of, this version of the character isn’t full of self-doubt or about to be mindcontrolled and sent to beat Batman up (and I think that this is being created as an alternative to the regular books, and as such is meant for people who don't read Superman right now, which is why I don’t have some of the same problems that Jeff does), the lack of moral ambiguity from anyone should probably make it feel like a much more childish book, but it’s all done with such abandon that it all just feels right. It’s very much what you’d expect from Morrison and Quitely: Optimistic, imaginative and human. I loved it, in case you can’t tell. Taken on its own terms, this was Excellent.

(One of the reasons why I loved the book so much may have been because it has the same take on the characters, in a way, as the Tom DeHaven novel I just finished earlier this week. If I get more time on my hands, I might try and write more about that at some point, instead of just mentioning it in passing like I normally do. Still, between ASS, the DeHaven novel and the Superman Returns teaser trailer, it's been a bit of a Superman week, hasn't it? Even Smallville did the Zod thing, finally.)

BIRDS OF PREY #88: Meanwhile, back in the regular DC Universe, I can’t work out if Gail Simone is meaning to point out where these versions of the characters have gone wrong or not. I mean, the bad guys are supposed to believe that the Justice League have sold out and are working for the mob now? Is that some kind of comment on the general “the heroes have lost their way” thing from Infinite Crisis, or just very dumb bad guys? There are still enough nice moments in here – Gail really should be writing an ongoing Black Canary book, if you ask me – to make the whole thing an OK read, but, like Jeff, I feel like the series is missing a main plot right now, and playing for time until everyone gets to jump One Year Later at the start of next year.

BOOKS OF DOOM #1: If there’s one thing that Ed Brubaker can do, it’s origin story monologues. Sleeper was full of them, perverse little short stories that explained how the bad guys got their powers and why they’re bad guys. Maybe it was all of those that made Marvel’s head honchoes look to Brubaker when they wanted someone to do Victor Von Doom’s life story. He doesn’t really disappoint here, even giving Dr. Doom a voice somewhere between his traditional over-the-top melodrama and Brubaker’s more realistic dialogue, although the issue suffers from “first issue syndrome” – Doom is telling someone his life story (they even reply at one point), but I doubt we’ll find out who it is until the final issue, and I’m not sure what’s going on with the other viewpoints apparently presented via videotape – and an overabundance of continuity retrofitting that stretches credibility these days. Artist Pablo Raimondi does a fine if occasionally flat job, but the cover is the art star of the book – Paolo Rivera doing the best looking Doctor Doom in years. Overall, it’s a Good start to what could’ve been a very bad idea.

LOCAL #1: So, I already said in my review of DMZ last week that this is the kind of Brian Wood book that I prefer: it’s quieter and feels more honest than the explosions and bombast of DMZ. It was Demo that made me realize that Wood was a much better writer than I’d been giving him credit for, and I think that Local is going to turn out to be a better book than that one, based upon this first issue. It’s using a similar framework of one-off stories that feel like scenes from a much larger story, but – this issue, at least – without the occasional disconnection for the reader that Demo’s stories suffered from; Using a fragmented series of (imaginary) scenes that play out the same scenario in different ways, Wood sneaks in all you need to know about the main character to give the end of the story its weight (The main character from this issue is, according to the text piece from Wood, going to be a recurring character in the entire series, with each issue taking place roughly a year after the previous one. That may also give each story more of a context than the Demo pieces). Ryan Kelly provides art that’s not unlike a more mainstream Paul Pope at times, but maintains its own flavor. Great.

MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN #20: Actually, not just this issue – Part 5 of “The Other – Evolve or Die” crossover – but all of the crossover so far (which means FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN #1 & 2, MK SPIDER-MAN #19, and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #525 as well), which I read in one sitting to know what’s supposed to be happening. I haven’t really paid attention to a Spider-Man book in a long time, so I figured that I might as well try to have something resembling an informed opinion. Imagine my surprise when I found out that this feels like Spider-Man’s own House of M: A long-winded excuse for some editorial retooling of the character and concept, with the previews of upcoming issues talking about evolution beginning, the foundations of the Spider-Man mythos being shaken for years to come, and the character being redefined. So far, all we know is that Spidey is apparently dying, except, you know, obviously he’s not going to. Five issues of false jeopardy, then, with the only apparent point seeing how the writers have the characters – who don’t know that (a) Spider-Man is Marvel’s biggest licensing earner, and (b) their mythos are going to have their foundations shaken, redefined and evolved for years to come – are reacting to the news of an apparent possibly death. The answer to that seems to be ridiculously. How ridiculous, you ask? “Aunt May and Mary Jane in Iron Man’s old armors, using Doctor Doom’s time machine to go back and look at Peter Parker as a kid” ridiculous, I reply.

Yes, that ridiculous.

Still, at least the writers are having fun. Reginald Hudlin, the poor bastard who gets to write the dull middle chapters of the crossover where nothing happens, seems to be having a ball, throwing guest stars galore into his issues and having Aunt May make odd-sounding jokes about how Iron Man armor helps her get up and down stairs. As a result, the crossover feels both pointless – we’ve all heard the “Nothing will ever be the same again!” line too many times before to believe it this time – but kind of fun, as if the writers know that and have decided to make jokes about Doctor Strange getting his mystical artifacts at Sharper Image instead. I’m sure it’ll get much more self-conscious and serious when JMS takes over for the last three issues, but for now, it’s pretty much Eh.

SUPERGIRL #4: Infinite Crisis is still here! Who knew? Yes, dear readers, it’s Supergirl, which continues the Infinite Crisis trend of metacriticism of other DC books. This time, Outsiders gets called out as dumb and full of characters hooking up with each other all the time. Which is kind of fair. Not that Supergirl is any less dumb, as the plot of this issue seems to revolve around Lex Luthor beating Supergirl up and making comments about the size of her breasts. Well, a comment, but still. Earlier on in the book, a character points out that Supergirl’s only fifteen years old, so it’s still something that stands out as “Jeph Loeb, please don’t say things like that, even if it is through the mouth of a supposed evil mastermind.” Oh, and at the end of the issue, Supergirl dies and then comes back in a black costume and is pissed off. I really enjoy Loeb’s Superman/Batman – don’t hate me - but reading this, I completely understand why he’s got the reputation he does. Awful.

X-MEN #177: Okay, who is this person pretending to be Peter Milligan? I remember Peter Milligan – He wrote things like Strange Days and Johnny Nemo and Skreemer and Shade the Changing Man and Enigma and even Human Target fairly recently. Apparently he’s either been in a terrible accident that’s left his writing abilities paralysed, or he’s been killed and replaced by Chuck Austen wearing his skin and using his name, because I have no idea who this Peter Milligan who writes exchanges like “Logan! Y’all be careful!” “Too late for that, darlin’” is. Also, going by this issue, Marvel’s heavily-hyped “new status quo” for the X-books seems to be “Remember the X-Men books from the late ‘80s? So do we!”. Some Sentinels are fought, onetime government liason Val Cooper returns, and there’s a lot of internal angst and shitty dialogue. It’s as if Grant Morrison never existed. Or even Joss Whedon, for that matter. Really, really Crap.

PICK OF THE WEEK is easily All-Star Superman #1, with PICK OF THE WEAK being X-Men #177, particularly because Peter Milligan should know better. You wrote Hewligan’s Haircut, Peter! You helped make Deadline great for years! What happened?TRADE OF THE WEEK is the first trade of Mark Waid and Barry Kitson’s LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES reboot, TEENAGE REVOLUTION. Yes, the title is more than a little embarrassing – A book called “Teenage Revolution” should be drawn by someone more (a) teenaged and (b) revolutionary than Barry Kitson, for one – but I’m a massive fan of the latest version of DC’s super-team of the future, mostly due to Waid’s writing, which balances nostalgia for the original version of the characters with humor, plot driven by characterisation and pacing that feels like a good TV show: each issue offers a story with a beginning, middle and end while still moving the overall plot forward. That, and I’m a sucker for the name Cosmic Boy.

Jeff's Reviews of 11/16 Books....

Huh. I know Brian had a Tilting to do and just got back from the RRP and Graeme's job is horrifying in the amount of time it devours, but I kinda thought I'd be person no. 3 on this site reviewing All-Star Superman, you know? Keep in mind I just finished writing close to 8,000 words for the latest CE newsletter so I may well be a tad comix-intolerant by this point. Hopefully, it'll make my writing only slightly more bloated and gassy than usual.

ALL STAR SUPERMAN #1: You ever have spiked punch when you were a kid? It was sweet but there was an unexpected bite to it, and you had a suspicion (affirmed the more of it you had) that there was a pay-off you weren't quite capable of appreciating in that very first taste, that very first glass? That's how I felt reading All-Star Superman #1; although I enjoyed it overall, there was something so structurally hinky about it I can't help but feel a bit suspicious. And nowhere is that more apparent in the last two pages where Clark reveals himself as Superman to Lois Lane--for people who haven't been following Superman comics for the last ten-plus years, the surprise is in the action of the characters. For people who have been following Superman comics for the last ten-plus years, the surprise is in the action of the creators, which is the sort of meta-structural gambit I guess I should have expected from Morrison. I think I'm a little bummed out, though: does this mean Morrison's run on the book is going to be a rip-roaring Superman book for people who don't read Superman, while the rest of us are mainly going to walk away with an appreciation for some amazing art and a cleverly encoded argument by Morrison about what things are necessary for a good Superman comic, and why? Or am I just rebelling against the slight bitterness of the booze, and by issue four I'll be just as intoxicated as everyone else? Art, execution and price easily vault this into Very Goodville, but I'll be curious to see if and how some of the issues raised get played out.

BANANA SUNDAYS #4: About the only fault I can find with this is Root Nibot's afterword arguing for the need for fun comics, and mainly because it's so superfluous: the mini itself makes the case far more persuasively. Between that and the pseudonym, I think Nibot's still got some issues to work out about the pull between fun and serious art, but I'm just glad that struggle didn't play out in the work itself. I enjoyed myself all the way through, and thought this was a Very Good miniseries. More, please!

BATMAN AND THE MONSTER MEN #1: Suffers a bit from long project-itis--the Batman warehouse scene, I'm sure, was conceived of long before Batman Begins, precisely because nobody would so blatantly put a scene so similar in their book after that film--but it's Matt Wagner doing a very well-executed Batman 101, and the more you love Wagner's art, the better you'll like it. I thought it was Good; you might like it more.

BIRDS OF PREY #88: I really appreciate Simone's eagerness to dig into the character's psyches and see what makes them work, and, if you care, you'll find probably about the best explanation of the whole Black Canary/Green Arrow relationship ever put forward. But sometimes this book feels like all B-story, while perfectly good A-stories are left as simmering sub-plots that are finally removed from the stove just a little too late. OK, but only that.

BOOKS OF DOOM #1: Jesus, forgive me while I get stridently structuralist twice in one entry. Dr. Doom isn't cool because he's the gypsy son of a sorceress who married black arts to science in order to save his tribe--all that other stuff is cool because Dr. Doom is cool. In other words, readers appreciated Doom long before we learned all the stuff about Boris and Valeria, and persecuted gypsies, and etc. Spinning it around and telling the story of Doom in a linear, documentary fashion (even with some smartly crafted storytelling choices) leads to some potentially fatal cart/horse confusion. I expect Brubaker's going to have a few good twists up his sleeve, but the more psychologically valid Doom becomes as a character, the sillier all the gypsy/Boris/armor/cape/"Richards!" stuff tends to become. Good, but probably fighting a losing battle.

DAREDEVIL VS PUNISHER #6: Lapham actually comes the closest to replicating some of that great "Holy Shit, everything is fucked" tension I'd get from reading Miller & Mazzucchelli's collaboration. (I guess because Lapham really understands how to up the elements in a regular panel layout to dramatically increase tension? Or something?) But flat characters and an almost criminal ignorance of continuity keep this buried between Eh and OK when it could have been a good deal more.

FANTASTIC FOUR #532: The good thing about this issue is, now that he's helped create the universe and imbue it with balance, this should be the apex of creative adulation and ass-kissery for Reed Richards, right? The bad thing is, this issue is so weighted down in sentimental slop, it ignores its own darker implications. By thinking such cliched hackney thoughts about the gang, Reed imbues the cosmic rays with the specificity that will give them their powers--which means that not only is Reed really the reason why Ben turns into a monster, but after thirty some odd years or promising Ben he would try to cure him, when put in the position where all he has to do is remember that, he still turns Ben into a monster, and gives himself a super-stretchy size-changing penis to boot. Reed Richards, creator of the universe and asshat. Christ. Awful.

FANTASTIC FOUR IRON MAN BIG IN JAPAN #2: Really wonderful and absurd, and the most fast and loose Marvel's been with their characters since the early Quesada/Jemas days. Zeb Wells' written story may have tried to walk a careful tightrope between absurdity and seriousness, but Seth Fisher's art shoves that walker screaming into the abyss of ridiculousness and it's quite fun. Makes the build-up to next issue very weak (except in a "how insane if Fisher going to get" kind of way) but that's about the only problem I had with it. Very Good, if you'd like a change of pace from all the seriousness.

GREEN ARROW #56: I think working on a kids' show is doing dangerous things to Judd Winick's libido: this is the second issue of his in as many weeks that made me feel kind of crawly, what with Dr. Light's whole "yeah, you're fitting really well into high school, you hot little former teen prostitute." On the one hand, yes, right, Dr. Light's background, Mia's background, okay, fine. On the other hand: ick. Throw in some pretty dumb plot twists and it's barely Eh.

GREEN LANTERN #5: This issue starts with a lovingly drawn wrist stump on page 1 and just goes from there. It's a deeply creepy issue, filled with body parts, lovingly drawn carnivorous sharks, fucked-up alien eyeballs, and it's probably all wrong for the direction the book was previously striving for. On the other hand, it wasn't dull which is a huge step up, and those were some fucking gorgeous sharks. Good, in a 'nad-retracting kind of way.

HERO SQUARED #3: If you like Giffen/DeMatteis shtick, you'll like this. But even better, the superhero/supervillain/boyfriend/girlfriend romantic quadrangle is more than just fun: it's a clever way to comment on the conflicts between perception and self-perception in a romantic relationship. I hope they can continue to find new ways to use that to their advantage when the series returns in 2006. I"m looking forward to it. Good.

LOCAL #1: Warren Ellis compared this to a perfect pop single; if so, then reading afterward that Hope Larson and Bryan Lee O'Malley did the lettering is like listening to the song and finding out that Richard and Linda Thompson were sitting in on tamborine and zither. Or something. Ryan Kelly's art is strong and Brian Wood's script has an enjoyably smart twist and I look forward to the next one. But, dang, how'd they get Larson and O'Malley on the tamborine and zither? Good.

SEA OF RED #6: Some keen art and a sharp plot reversal made this very, very readable. But the twists work better the more you care about the main character, and he's never been anything but a hastily sketched outline to me. OK, but I wish I could care more.

SIMPSONS COMICS #112: They should have shelved this for a while, I think. All the gumbo ha-ha in the first story fell flat every time I read the word "New Orleans" and involuntary remembered all that destruction. But maybe I'm overly sensitive. Eh.

SUPERGIRL #3: Was there a point to this, other than to give the people writing Nightwing fanfic a new subject to over-explore? Barely eh.

THING #1: Exactly what I was hoping for from Slott: fun with lot of thought put into what makes The Thing work, and how to bring that out in his current circumstances. And the art looks like it's right out of the heyday of Marvel Two-In-One, and that's also a good thing. Good and with a lot of promise, so let's see where it goes.

TOMORROW STORIES SPECIAL #1: As is the problem with this title, there's some great stuff here but not nearly enough to justify the price. I've always loved the Jack B. Quick stories, and the Greyshirt tribute is winning and moving; if it'd been just those two stories and a $2.99 tag I'd probably be all over this. But throw in a Cobweb story and a one part clever/two parts migrainey Splash Brannigan story and a $6.99 price tag and, well, it's kinda OK, sorta.

PICK OF THE WEEK: If you like all-ages material, Banana Sundays #4; if you gotta have a cape fix, All-Star Superman #1.

PICK OF THE WEAK: FF #532 which wasn't just shmaltzy and sappy, it was self-contradictory, to boot. Really lame.

TRADE PICK: A lot of good stuff this week--the Death Jr. trade, the collection of the recent Legion issues--but because Ed Cunard mentioned Moxie, My Sweet in one of the comment threads, I checked that out and really dug it. It helps if you look at it as an inexpensive trade (80 pgs. for $6.99) rather than a pricey indie book, but either way I was really charmed by Mark Campos's writing, and the way the anthology led slowly into its more fantastic tales--particularly that story drawn (if I'm remembering right) by Elijah Brubaker that shifts subtly from from possible slice-of-life to bit of whimsy to full-grown fairy tale. Most of the pieces here are good stuff, and having many artists but a single writer gives the collection a unity frequently mssing. Definitely check it out (and thanks for mentioning it, Ed!)

Speaking of trades, I had a great moment at the store yesterday where a kid in the twelfth grade stopped by and picked up--The Push Man and The Night Fisher. How cool is that? (I kinda had a moment where I worried whether he was old enough for some of the material in The Push Man but figured it was okay--hopefully, his parents will, too.) You can't throw a rock in the blogosphere without hitting a site that does comic reviews, but if the most influential source for bringing new readers into the field turns out to be The Onion A.V. Club, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

Twelve more days, 20,000 more words...Wish me luck!

Who? What Where? And Other Questions About The 11/9 Books...

For those of you dropping by for the first time today, Graeme's got reviews just below this so make sure you check 'em out. As for me, I'm supposed to be at 24,000 words today in my crappy novel and I'm about 1,000 words short. However, since I can't stand dwelling on my own crappiness for one minute longer, here's just a few reviews while the self-esteem tries to recharge: ABC A-Z GREYSHIRT AND COBWEB: Veitch's story starts clever and works its way back into tedium--it tells us everything one might want to know about Greyshirt but, uh, honestly, does anyone really want to know much about Greyshirt? (As if to support my point, the colorist gives Greyshirt a lovely brown eye color when the caption for that panel specifies "blue." Whoops.) On the opposite end of the coloring spectrum, Jose Villaruba tries valiantly to make Melinda Gebbie's art on Cobweb's calendar story look anything other than amateurish and succeeds about 25% of the time. The more time goes on, the more I wonder what Lost Girls, provided it ever gets published, will look like. Overall, this little experiment in editorial drawer cleaning was pretty Awful.

ACTION COMICS #833: There's a nice balance between serious and fun being struck here, which is probably why this team is getting the boot: fun doesn't seem to be selling too well in the DCU these days, does it? Highly OK.

BATMAN LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #197: Lovely work, but is it just me or does Chris Weston make everything look very U.K.-ish? Part of that may be the fact that his narrator has an eerie resemblence to Bill Nighy in some panels or that Batman's got a very stiff upper lip, or something. Lacking a certain urgency for the reader perhaps, but still on the very high side of OK--maybe higher depending on Part 2.

DECIMATION HOUSE OF M THE DAYAFTER: Didn't read it, but Graeme spent a lot of time excitedly telling me that the Blob's no longer fat. He was so amused by what sort of epic sweep this indicated for the rest of the book that I kinda want to read it...

DMZ #1: Brian Wood's first issue breaks open the premise from Escape From New York and repurposes it for a commentary on how invading governments and their media dehumanize the people caught in the middle. Wood has a great collaborator in co-artist Riccardo Burchelli, who manages to solidify Wood's conception while keeping its evocativeness, and I'm interested in seeing what changes a never-ending war makes to Manhattan's areas. Unlike Graeme, I think Wood's at his worst when he's trying for ambiguity, so I found this a pretty promising start. Good.

EXILES #72: Bedard does a pretty hilarious job of nailing the essential cheesiness of the New Universe. While admittedly nothing groundbreaking, if you were reading those books back then (and don't care where The Pitt and The War and The End fit into this), you'll probably also find this issue Good.

FANTASTIC FOUR WEDDING SPECIAL: The lead story by Kesel & Co. shows a love and affection for the FF mythos but, unsurprisingly, the reprint story by Lee and Kirby, even looking a little slipshod in its reproduction, has a million times more wit and verve and charm--in part because they don't treat the Reed and Sue's nuptials as anything more than an excuse to show lots of people slugging stuff. Although it was wise not to revisit that territory (and get trounced by their betters), the new tale lacks any kind of bite, and its slight charm burbles away long before it hits its conclusion. OK overall, but for the buck, not nearly enough bang.

FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN #2: Newsflash: Mike Weiringo draws pretty! And, when faced with a hero's potential death, the superheroes of the Marvel Universe treat finding a possible cure with all the breeziness of parents searching for the Tickle-Me Elmo of somebody else's kid. Eh.

GHOST RIDER #3: Too bad Dazzler isn't tied to Hell and everlasting damnation (except through the critical faculties of most readers, that is) because Clayton Crain seems far more adept at dramatically presenting light than motion. And that photo-realistic bus...I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I think Ennis seems uninterested in the material and Crain seems mismatched. I'm at Awful with this one.

GOTHAM CENTRAL #37: I thought this was going to end up somewhere far more interesting (two partners possessed by the Deadly Sin of Lust having to deal with the repercussions of that) than where it did (so guy who was an atheist on page four is praying on page 20? Heavy.) Lieber always lends Rucka's work an understated verisimilitude, however, so this still rates pretty squarely in the OK category.

HAWKMAN #46: Hey, an OMAC! There's something we haven't seen before! And because this is set six months before everything else in the DCU (it leads into Rann-Thanagr War #1), Hawkman and Hawkwoman actually catch an OMAC and Dr. Midnight manages to isolate the nanotechnology that controls the change. To which I heartily say: Nope! I disbelieve! I'm sure this sort of stuff is a bitch for Editorial to keep track of, but isn't that the point of the whole enterprise? Awful because I really wouldn't have cared, even if they had.

INCREDIBLE HULK #88: Hmmm, so the entire State of Alaska is filled with predatory date-rapists, eh? (Except for the undercover SHIELD agents, of course.) Good to know. I think a more TV show-ish approach to the book has some appeal, but this was mighty Eh.

INFINITE CRISIS #2: Graeme wanted me to review this simply because of the preposterously fanboyish defense I offered of Phil Jimenez's art (which, if I remember correctly, was something embarrassing like, "If you managed to split George Perez through the Eclipso diamond, you'd get the good half, which is Phil Jimenez, and you'd get the bad half, which is Rob Liefeld. But they'd both inherit some of Perez's failings, which in Jimenez's case is absurdly overabundant musculature and rubbery, over-emotive faces.") Separate and apart from that, I thought this was highly OK, because, by and large, it did what it was supposed to do: give me some crucial background on what's going on, and focus attention on where my attention should be drawn next. And those of us who followed Power Girl's arc in JSA Classified got the emotional resolution here we should have gotten there--which is kinda assy, now that I think of it, but I like that Johns is trying to give some sort of emotionally resonant beat with each issue--even if he has to shortchange one of his other books to do so. Yeah, highly OK.

LUBAS COMICS & STORIES #6: Between this and last week's Optic Nerve, I'm starting to think alt-cartoonists should be banned from seeing the work of Todd Solondz. This was disjointed and bitter to the point of cruelty. And although interesting to contemplate what, exactly, Gilbert is trying to work out with the character of Fritz, I found this just kind of a depressing, deflating read. As a Beto fan, I can't go lower than OK, but maybe I should.

MARVEL KNIGHTS 4 #24: I liked that Aguirre-Sacasa basically outed himself in a Fantastic Four title; that was pretty cool. But although very cute, very light stories are why The Impossible Man's still around, I don't see why the writer, the writer's roommate, and the writer's editor are in the book, other than to fluff out the pagecount of a very, very minor story. Nice cover, but Eh.

MICHAEL CHABON PRESENTS ADV O/T ESCAPIST #8: I think Vaughan and Bond's front story was very, very enjoyable, far closer to the spirit of Chabon's novel than probably any other story printed in this title, and has loads of potential to get even better as it continues. (Also, although part of me thought a few pages of this ripped off tricks from Chris Ware and Grant Morrison to far lesser impact, I'm just glad to see those very cool tricks being used at all.) The rest of the stories, however, present peak creators dashing off minor pieces with maybe only the possible exception of Harvey Pekar's story that ignores the Escapist and cuts straight to anguished bitching. As anguished bitching it was engrossing reading; as a story, calling it "minor" would be very, very generous. I'm going with OK, although Graeme calling the whole package Eh is probably more accurate.

NIGHTWING #114: So if you were able to swallow the last half-dozen issues of impossible things, you'll probably enjoy this issue: the idea of Dick walking Batman's fine line between good and evil, while on the side of the bad guys, to serve good is very entertaining, but one issue of nuance doesn't make up for the racket of all those plot hammers. OK, but I expect it'll all fall apart before too long.

PULSE #12: I didn't pick up last issue but didn't it show, you know, Luke Cage holding up a baby? And here we've got Jessica just having her water break? That kinds seems like a cheat to me. Maybe next issue can have a cover of the still not-quite born baby graduating college. Grrr.

TEEN TITANS #29: This must be the next stage of Infinite Crisis now that most of the OMACs are taken care of: The Red Hood shows up and kicks ass, then disappears. Either that or Mr. Johns consulted his months-old master outline and saw what was supposed to happen here but couldn't quite remember why it was important. Also, I'm sorry, the Red Hood ripping off his outfit so we can have some hot Robin-on-Robin action was dumb. More or less Awful.

WALKING DEAD #23: I think the lack of zombies caused Kirkman to lose his nerve a little bit, and over-rev his otherwise well modulated personal relationships. Or maybe the "all yelling, all slugging" issue trend is on the upswing. Also, I kinda hope Hibbs decides to weigh on Kirkman's letter page where R.K. announces that they're going to be shipping biweekly so that they can get the hardcover out by Christmas and says, "Sorry retailers, but it's got to be done." Uh no, dude, it doesn't--not if you're interested in being more than a money-grabbing flash in the pan, that is. Eh.

PICK OF THE WEEK: DMZ #1? I guess, but if Vaughan and Bond's The Escapists had been its own equivalently priced book, it would have taken the title.

PICK OF THE WEAK: Ghost Rider #3, because I was sure we'd get more out of this than a fat man and a skeleton awkwardly positioned under a photorealistic bus.

TRADE OF THE WEEK: I didn't actually take any home and start anything (although both Iron Wok Jan Vol. 14 and that Golden Age Human Torch HC are in my sub box) but I made it through the first two chapters of Iou Kuroda's Sexy Voice and Robo and it's very clever and fun. The Harriet-The-Spy-As-Phone-Sex-Operator angle probably will keep this out of the hands of young ones and that's both a blessed relief and a damned shame because so far it's winningly good-natured.

Whew. Back to my kinda terrible stuck-in-first-gear, I'm-calling-in-the-ninjas-if-nothing-happens-soon "masterpiece."

Sunday Morning: Reviews of 11/9 books

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends. Remember when Hibbs always used to start his Savage Critics that way? A fairly dull week for me, this week – I didn’t even manage to pick up a copy of Decimation – House of M: The Day After to read properly after quickly scanning the first half, so that I could make uncomfortable fun of a non-fat Blob. I’m hoping that next week brings some kind of relief in the form of some really, irrideemably terrible comics. DMZ #1: Yes, the ongoing comic adventures of the rapper and star of such hit movies as “Coach Carter” begin with this double-sized origin iss… No, wait, I’m getting confused. This is the “New York City is a warzone, no, literally” book, isn’t it? The one by Brian Wood? I’m convinced that there are two Brian Woods. One writes Demo and Local and likes his ambiguity and subtlety, and the other writes Channel Zero and Couriers and his characters tend to be all “FUCK YOU, THE MAN!” attitudes. Sadly for me, DMZ seems to be the work of the second Brian right now, which was especially disappointing considering how much I liked the first issue of Local (out next week from Oni, fact fans). This is the set-up issue so lots of things go wrong, but I’m still wondering why I’m supposed to care at this point. Right now, an Eh, but I’m going to stick around until the end of the first arc because I have the feeling that it'll get better.

FANTASTIC FOUR 40TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL: The cheap shot review of this would be something along the lines of “Now this is one celebration that I should’ve RVSPed and said that I couldn’t attend”. But snappier. I should’ve liked this a lot more than I did; Karl Kesel is a writer who normally gets the Fantastic Four for me, and I’m a massive sap for romantic stories, so a special one-shot about the relationship between Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman should be what you Americans call a “slam” “dunk”. Sadly, this is just OK, as we get flashbacks (and –forwards) to the courtship of Marvel’s premier couple, including the not-entirely-settling thought of the Richards spending their honeymoon in The Watcher’s house. What we don’t see is what makes the two of them such a good couple, apart from a couple of throwaway lines. As if to make up for the disappointment of the main story, the book closes with a reprint of FF Annual #3, the issue where Reed and Sue tied the knot in the first place, in a tale that calls itself “The most sensational super-spectacular ever witnessed by human eyes!!” Okay, it’s not that good, but still: It’s almost the entire Marvel Universe circa 1965 trying to save the day for true love! Why can’t today’s Marvel Superhyperepics be about that kind of thing, I ask you. Burt Bacharach was right.

GOTHAM CENTRAL #37: A crossover-that’s-not-really-a-crossover with Infinite Crisis, as Allen and Montoya deal with Gotham going to Hell when the Seven Deadly Sins drop in for a visit. Greg Rucka deals with everything from their perspective, so there’s no explanation about what’s going on and, surprisingly, it doesn’t really feel that you’re missing half the story without one. Steve Lieber does his usual fine job on the art, and the only thing that ruins the book for me is the end of the next issue blurb: “From here on, all roads lead to THE SPECTRE: DEAD AGAIN!” Because that’s what this title needs: to be the launchpad for a new Spectre title. Good for the issue, but Awful for the apparent plan to take the book away from its original idea as a ground-level view of the DC Universe.

INFINITE CRISIS #2: Maybe it’s just me, but Phil Jiminez draws really weird people. They have these really strange, over-emphasized and out of place muscles, and their faces are overly-rendered. It’s very distracting. Meanwhile, Geoff Johns continues to write the most fanfic-esque comic the world has seen since Green Lantern: Rebirth. Earth-2 Superman gets all “Kids these days are so glum” and might be setting himself up as accident fallguy for the villain of the piece, Crisis On Infinite Earths gets recapped in about eight pages, one of the dual Lex Luthors has a headache, and Booster Gold returns from the future to save the world. Yes, Booster Gold. I still have no idea what this series is about apart from Geoff complaining that DC Comics haven’t been any good since he was a kid (although, if the preview pages for Paul Levitz’s JSA arc are a hint, it looks like Earth-2 is coming back in some form or another at some point), but I’m still enjoying it. Good, but your mileage may vary depending on your DC fanboyishness.

JLA #122: Oh, just make it stop already. I don’t know whose idea it was to turn this book into mid-90s X-Men, complete with subplots from other books (Flash is sick? Why? Who is Manitou Dawn and why should I care about her?), bad dialogue (“Did we choose to forget that human beings are fragile things, no matter where we come from?” You tell ‘em, Black Canary) and barely competent art, but I’m hoping that it’s all just some cunning way to make us all miss the real JLA so that their inevitable return seems better in comparison. Completely and utterly Awful.

MICHAEL CHABON PRESENTS THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF THE ESCAPIST #8: Or, as I call it, Brian K. Vaughan and Philip Bond with some back-up stories for an extortionate nine dollars. Vaughan and Bond launch their ongoing “The Escapists” series, and it’s really rather good – a spin on the Kavalier and Clay story from Chabon’s novel, with two wannabe creators trying to relaunch the Escapist comic book. The art is amazing, with Bond’s usual stumpy greatness supplemented by amazing coloring by Dave Stewart (he of the equally amazing coloring in Darwyn Cooke’s New Frontier last year. And, yes, I am pathetic for noticing the coloring in a comic. Thanks for asking.), so it’s a shame that Bond’s gone from the strip already next month (Steve Rolston is taking over). The line up of talent contributing to the rest of the issue – Andi Watson, Harvey Pekar and Dean Haspiel, Jeff Parker and Paul Hornschmier – sounds impressive, but the whole thing feels fairly throwaway, with Pekar and Hornschmier’s stuff in particular being really disappointing. Overall, it all just feels kind of underwhelming for nine dollars, which may just be my stereotypically Scottish stinginess coming into play. “The Escapists” on its own is Good, but the whole package? Kinda Eh.

Y THE LAST MAN #39: And talking of Brian K. Vaughan, here’s the book that made it all happen for him that isn’t called Runaways. I’m a fan of Vaughan’s, in general – He writes stories that keep moving and have great cliffhangers – but I’m not sure if he’s making everything up as he goes along on this book. Everytime it feels as if we’re getting close to some kind of closure or something major happening, something ridiculous happens to mess things up again. Like, for example, Beth going to Paris for some mysterious reason just after everyone’s gone to Australia to get her. Bah. Mind you, this is my wife Kate’s favorite book, so here’s what she has to say:

“I’m getting a little tired of him in the burka and they’re heavy on the eyebrows in this episode.”

Hear that, Vertigo? That’s your audience speaking right there. There’s also a preview of The Exterminators, a new series by Simon Oliver and Tony Moore, which screams “You know how you were interested when you heard about the idea about this series? Well, just save your money.” Y itself, though, is still pretty Good.

So, I’m saying that Infinite Crisis #2 ends up being the PICK OF THE WEEK for me, because I’m a massive DC geek who really liked Booster Gold when I was twelve years old. PICK OF THE WEAK ends up being JLA #122, because it was balls. I have no idea what the TRADE OF THE WEEK is, because, well, not only didn’t I get any new trades this week, but the list of everything released this week seemed kind of weak (I did get Scott Pilgrim versus the World, though). Me, I spent the time catching up on The OC on TiVo, instead. That Sandy Cohen, man. That’s who I want to be when I grow up.

Le Petit Sauvage: Very Few Quick Reviews From Jeff...

Wow. Graeme knocks it out of the park like the Barry Bonds of comics-related blogging (twice already!), Brian does his longest batch of reviews in a long time, and me? I've been sweating it out with Nanowrimo, and am 15,000 words into a very, very crappy novel. But to keep from feeling left out (and to give everyone a shot of red-letter text), let me mention:

BLOOD OF THE DEMON #9: Almost worth reading for that insane summary cover page ("...and then some farmer hits Etrigan with a shovel! Has the world gone mad?"). Almost. Pretty darn Awful, and yet kinda irresistable if you're sufficiently masochistic.

DETECTIVE COMICS #813: Kinda reminds me of that great ol' "Batman vs. The Monk" story from Detective Comics #31 & #32, with its attempt to infuse a lot of mysterious creepiness into a Batman story. However, that old yarn was short, dumb, and fun. This one is long, also dumb, and dull. Sadly, very Eh.

FLAMING CARROT COMICS #4: Fumetti comix really don't fry my burger, but the touch of it here has me kinda looking forward to next issue's all-photo approach. Also great fun is reading Bob Burden's advising struggling writers to focus on finding the essential dramatic core of a story in the same issue he has Carrot spending six pages trying to find his soap duck; it's kinda like listening to George Lucas talk rhapsodically about the power of myth while you're watching Jar-Jar get his tongue caught in an engine--except it's genuinely funny here, as opposed to depressing and cringe-inducing. Was Good, I thought.

TOP SHELF CONVERSATIONS #2: I thought this was much better than the first issue, although it's still in the egregiously overpriced category. Interestingly, the weakness here seems to be Kolchaka who comes off as particularly happy to put forward strident declarations and particularly hapless at defending them--which pretty much defeats the point of the whole thing, doesn't it? Eh.

As for trades:

I really agree with Brian on the 676 APPARITIONS OF KILLOFFER GN, but I think I'm even more frustrated than he was because I'm in absolute awe of the artist's way of leading the reader's eye (James Sturm's school could use it as a textbook on that very purpose) through pages without panel borders and with constant duplication and triplication of identical images. It makes the 'Z' pages from this week's Powers look like a Family Circus cartoon by comparison. And yet, Twenty-six bucks? You really gotta be a hardcore comix fan to plunk that down. Unless you're rich, format drags this down to OK.

Far less of a showstopper, but a far better bang for your buck, is NBM's TRAILERS HC by Mark Kneece and Julie Collins-Rousseau, two faculty members of the sequential art department of the Savannah College of Art & Design. Collins-Rousseau's drawing style is kind of a cross between Terry Moore and Carla Speed McNeil with all the depth of visual characterization and body language that suggests, and Kneece's story, although a little less than subtle with the symbolism, crafts a well-placed tale of a teen caught in a terrible situation. While far from perfect, at eight dollars less and probably more than four times the length of KILLOFFER, I found this a highly Good read that's worth seeking out (in fact, although I read it this week, it shipped back on 10/25).

Okay, back to my Silence of the Lambs meets Spinal Tap quality "thriller."

Hibbs reviews 11/2

Again, if you're just checking the blog for the first time in a bit, scroll down to meet our newest Savage Critic, Graeme McMillan! W00t! In no particular order, here comes what I thought about this week's books:

HOUSE OF M #8: Hokey smokes. Wouldn't it be nice if big events like this were actually good? I really want to write the review where I say "Wow, that was excellent, everything I ever wanted in a crossover!" That won't be happening this go 'round though.

HoM might have been good as a 3-4 issue series -- at 8, however, it became a big, chaotic, unfocused mess. I actually enjoyed perhaps 2 issues of this: #4 and 7, I think it was?

I really really disliked this issue, however -- mosty because it veers all over the map, is wholly illogical, barely edited, and doesn't even answer any of the questions it raises.

Starting at the top, I don't get how Wanda's powers/wishes were meant to work? When she first changes reality, she does it retroactively -- she changes the very past so that things "always were" like that. Given that she can do that, and given that the goal behind her "no more mutants!" proclaimation were that she was sick of how her own family was destroyed, right? So, then, why didn't it become "NEVER Any Mutants!"? Her problems started way back in UNCANNY X-MEN #4 -- shouldn't have things rebooted back to that point, given the thrust of the rest of the series?

But, OK, RetCon isn't the Mighty Marvel Way, I guess I can live with that. What about the current scope of events? Apparantly the X-People who are "spared" are like that because they were at "ground zero", protected by Dr. Strange, yadda yadda.... I can accept that.

So.... then why does Cerebro show mutants all over the world? (At least, I guess it is the world -- it isn't like Copiel shows any indication that he can even draw the EARTH. I'm not sure what land masses those are supposed to be, but it sure doesn't look like any earth I know) They weren't there! In fact, there aren't 198 mutants there at all. In fact, Magneto IS there, but he "loses" his power (the surest sign that a reset will happen again) -- how did THAT happen?

But what really sealed the deal for me was the STUPID INSANE little speech that Hank Pym gives at the end meant to, I guess, set up the next crossover -- that nonsense about "energy can't be destroyed". Now, while that is probably true, that's about as logical as saying "If you cut off my finger, another finger will appear somewhere else" (Actually, Lester made a comparison to gasoline that is probly more apt, but I forgot his exact wording). Mutants aren't "energy" in that sense -- they CONTROL energy, sure, but they AREN'T energy itself. But then, anyone who listens to the wife-beating, too-many-identities, created-his-own-worst-foe Hank Pym should probably be smacked in the first place....

Don't get me wrong, I'm ALL for simplifying and streamlining the X-universe, making it so there are far fewer characters, etc. But this execution of that was extremely inept, and really not at all entertaining. AWFUL.

SPIDER-MAN: HOUSE OF M #5: Here's the weird thing, I really liked this end up, and the whole series, but did it have ANYthing to do with HoM? This doesn't appear to be the Spider-Man who appears in HoM? Putting that aside, I'll go with a lowish GOOD.

FIRESTORM #19: I think I feel really bad for Stuart Moore -- has he even had 2 issues in a row to be able to move the story of Firestorm himself forward at all? The page-here and page-there of the supporting cast and whatnot all seems so sad because, wait! There goes 'stormy off into space. Why? No one seems to know -- never explained to anyone, or the audience, but Donna's Striketeam is going off anyway. *sigh* There's nothing bad here, but I sorta fee like that the star of the book won't be the actually star until, what? issue #25? Later? Making this extremely EH.

POWERS #14: They printed the wrong cover price on this, BTW -- we were invoiced at the proper $2.95, so if your LCS charged you $3.95, they owe you a buck. Another very strong issue, but I'm going to deduct points for the "Z" page. We read left-to-right, top-to-down, and that page just sent my eyes going in the wrong directions. Downgrade this to "just" GOOD.

JONAH HEX #1: I don't expect much from a Jonah Hex comic, and I got just what I expected. Absolutely nothing wrong with this, and it was created with some craft, but I don't imagine that I'll ever really care about the book or the character. A solid OK, but not much else -- unless you loves you some Jonah, then you'll probably rank this higher.

I also got an email from a customer this week wondering how they got away with lifting this story from another Hex tale -- I wasn't clear if he meant Hex's first story, first issue, or Fleischer's first story or issue, but he ran down an amazing number of plot points, etc., and said "How can this not have a notification, or a 'based on'or something?" A quick fllip through the Showcase presents TP didn't find me what he was talking about, and any more research is well past what I have time for this week...

DESOLATION JONES #4: Really really liking this -- crisp writing, splendiferous art -- it is an easy-peasy VERy GOOD.

OPTIC NERVE #10: I think Tomine is a helluva draftsman, and I think he has a good ear for dialogue and naturalistic pacing. I know several of these characters, even if Graeme doesn't! A solid GOOD.

One other note -- I wouldn't expect most comic shops to have this for a few more weeks. We JUST turned in the order form last Tuesday where Diamond listed this for the first time. I beleive Diamond has a December ship-date on this, while Cold Cut and Last Gasp have had it for the last week or two. That's where we got OUR copies.

SUPREME POWER NIGHTHAWK #3: I didn't think I'd enjoy a pastiche this much, but I am, so there you are. Creepy view of the Batman, but solid, GOOD material.

MARVEL TEAM-UP #14: or, as I call it, INVINCIBLE #32.5. The funny thing is that #27 hasn't even been released yet... I thought this was cute and charming and a good intro, and the strongest issue of MTU yet, and Kirkman basically won the lottery here. So GOOD show there, sir! I'm guessing this won't be in an INVINCIBLE TP though, so get it now while you can. The sad thing, of course, is the indicia is wrong (first thing I checked), unless there's some really weird contractual shit going on here. Hopefuly Kirkman has a good lawyer who is going to defend his rights properly here....

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #85: Bendis is on his game here again, I've really been digging this arc. I especially like the fact that THIS Elektra is really an amoral asshat that she can't be in the "main" Marvel U. SOlidly GOOD material.

CAPTAIN UNIVERSE HULK: Er, talk about misunderstanding the concept. He's "The hero who could be YOU!" So, making Captain Universe the Hulk or Daredevil or X-23 (sheesh!) really really really undercuts the premise. Except for that, I guess this was adequate, but I can't muster anything more than an EH.

SUPERMAN #223: I've told you what a massive hard-on my 2-year old has for Superman -- it just isn't abating at all! Ben tears through my piles of comics each week begging for even a glimpse of Superman. So I'm kinda bugged by the on-camera throat-slitting scene in this issue (on page 1, no less!). Yep, that doesn't belong in a Superman comic. Also: "Ned"? WTF kind of name for a superman robot is that? Plus: Supergirl's own comic isn't even up to issue #3, and they're already throwing her off into space with Donna Troy? Huh? I don't get DC editorial these days.... EH

OUTSIDERS #30: Same here, this features characters appearing in the TEEN TITANS cartoon for God's sake -- and the villain is using sex and sexuaity as a weapon? There are references to incest? This doesn't belong in a mainstream DC comic, at least not with this level of detail and specificity. I'm all for dealing with mature subjects in comics, but this is tittering "Heh heh heh" stuff, and I think it really isn't appropriate for a regular DCU book at all. AWFUL.

JSA #79: These Ross covers are all starting to blur together, aren't they? More blah blah in the 5th dimension, and while it is just fine, it feels like marking time to me. EH.

WILDSIDERZ #2: This is a pap. Pretty pap, yes, but pap, nonetheless. Grade is upgraded a bit, though, because of the excellent summary inside cover. Nice synopis of what came last, as well as clear head shot/descriptions of the principals. All comics should look at this and emulate this "get up to speed" tactic. OK

INSOMNIA, BOABOAB, and INNOCENT ONES: All enteries in the "Ignatz" format from FBI/Coconina, and let me sort of deal with these in a single swell foop. All are pretty, oversized Euro comics, but, sheesh, 32 pages for $8 is a bit much to swallow, isn't it? Having said that, I really thought INNOCENT ONES was very nice story, playing strongly against my expectations, and is worthy of being in your collection. I'll go with Eh, OK, and GOOD, respectively for these three books. Hard to see this format having really long-term legs though.

SEVEN SOLDIERS BULLETEER #1: better art would have pushed this much higher, as I thought there was a lot plot/story-wise to value here. I especially liked the idea of becoming suicidal over getting super-powers. A solid GOOD.

676 APPARITIONS OF KILLOFFER GN: Very VERY nice looking book, and it is especially good once it converts to pantomime (the lettering on the wordy section is virtually unreadable), but, sheesh, $25.95? There's nothing here that demands this paper quality or the absurdly over-large size (I'm probaby going to have to end up "racking" this on the floor because my racks are designed to max at at a 15" tall book). I'd be enthusiastically recommending this in a more standard format, and, say, a $10-max price. At $26, I can't muster more than an OK. Shame, because this IS good comics -- just stupidly over-priced.

Alright, that's about it for time today -- comics shoud be here any sec, so I have to go get ready for that. The quick wrap up, then....

PICK OF THE WEEK: I'll go with DESOLATION JONES #4, k thx bye

PICK OF THE WEAK: Sorry, HOUSE OF M #8

BOOK/TP OF THE WEEK: It either goes to worthy-as-TOP-TEN spinoff SMAX, or the sicky funny tWISTED TOYFARE THEATRE v6. Both are well worth your coin.

I was a little surprised that the OMAC PROJECT TP *gave away the reveal of "Sacrifice" before the story gets there*!! That's pretty fucked up, ain't it?

OK, I'm outtie, but what did YOU think, huh?

-B

Please Be Nice: Reviews of 11/2 books from the newbie.

You know what would've been great? If I had somehow managed to post something immediately after Brian's "Countdown" post, as opposed to hours later when I'm not only at a computer, but have already written a lengthy post, only to have it eaten by Blogger. And yes, I know that I did my own blog for a couple of years and should therefore know about very basic things like that. What you all need to know to explain this is that I am, apparently, very stupid indeed. Anyway, hello. My name is Graeme, and I'll be your Savage Critic in Training for this evening (text color pending). To start with, might I recommend a review?

HOUSE OF M #8: Remember when Joe Quesada compared House of M to Infinite Crisis, and said that the difference between the two series was that you wouldn't need to read a lot of books to understand House of M? That's obviously the kind of thinking that led to the only double page spread in this final issue getting split in two by a four page ad insert making sure that you have the complete checklist to all seven new books and five currently ongoing series that will be spinning out unresolved threads from the book you hold in your hands. And, boy, do those books have a lot of unresolved threads to pick up on. Wanda's "No more mutants" thing has depowered thousands of mutants worldwide, but we don't know how - something that Emma Frost brings up in the book itself, which suggests that it's not something that is supposed to be swept under the carpet. We also don't know if it's supposed to be permanent or not, but the fact that Magneto is one of those depowered suggests that, hype to the contrary aside, it'll probably only last until X3 comes out, whenever that is. We also don't know why all mutants weren't affected, although it may have something to do with Doctor Strange, who appears to feel guilty about everything being his fault, which must make him fun to be around at parties ("My duties as master of the mystic arts are simple. Protecting your dress from your 'gimlet' is one of them. I failed. Completely."). We also also don't know if Hawkeye is really back from the dead - and if so, we don't know how that happened, which isn't really a surprise by this point - or whether someone else is going around pinning his costume onto walls with arrows. Perhaps most importantly, we don't see anything about Pietro, the guy whose fault this whole House of M thing was supposed to be, in the entire last issue, so there's that whole "resolution of overarcing plot" thing out the window. We do get to see Wolverine threaten Magneto again, though, and that's never been done before.

What the whole series ends up being is an eight issue McGuffin - six of which were one long What If? - all created with the purpose of depowering a whole bunch of mostly-forgotten characters (Magneto aside, the only named depowered mutant that we see is Iceman. Iceman, for God's sake. Clearly, nothing will ever be the same again) to create a false sense of shock new status quo under which lots of new series can be launched. Business as usual for the X-Books, then, and fairly Awful business at that.

JONAH HEX #1: Ah, the Western. Where men are men, women wear big puffy dresses, and plots are telegraphed from a mile off. The latest relaunch of DC's weirdy-faced cowboy arrives under a decieivingly pretty - well, as pretty as Jonah can be - cover by Frank Quitely, hiding the static and Greg Land-ish artwork of Luke Ross within, a man who's quite clearly been watching a lot of spaghetti westerns to research just how closely he can get Jonah's good side to resemble Clint Eastwood in his prime. The story centers around kidnapped children, cardboard bad guys and dog fighting, and spends most of the time reading like a censored Vertigo pitch ("And then the bad guy gets eaten by his dogs! While the doctor watches!"). If I liked westerns as much as the next man, I'd probably have dug this more, but as it is, it all felt pretty Eh to me.

MARVEL TEAM-UP #14: The "Please Buy My Image Book, Invincible" issue. It even ends with "Invincible's story continues in INVINCIBLE #33," just in case you missed the earlier footnote plug for the same issue. That said, the issue ends up being a lot of fun, as Robert Kirkman uses his creator-owned character's guest appearance as an excuse for lots of jokes at Marvel's expense (Iron Man on the Avengers' recent exploits: "When's the last time we did something even remotely cosmic? I don't even remember. Does the Kang stuff count? We were in space a little bit for that."). There's not really a story in the issue - Invincible shows up, meets Spider-Man and the Avengers, and then leaves, more or less - but it's all done with speed and humor, and even has me wondering what's going to happen in Invincible #33 after all. That's what I get for reading something Good, I guess.

(Interestingly, the indica for the issue still says that "All characters featured in this issue and the distinctive names and likenesses thereof, and all related indica are trademarks of Marvel Characters, Inc." Kirkman, fire your lawyer.)

OPTIC NERVE #10: Let's get the obvious out of the way: Adrian Tomine sure does draw purty. Shame that his book is full of self-obsessed whiny bastards, really. Even though it seemed like Tomine was working out all his misogynistic issues through his... interesting portrayal of women at first, by the time you get to the end of the book it's clear that the one male character in the entire thing is just as much of an asshole as everyone else. There's probably some kind of artistic genius at work here that I'm somehow managing to miss, but right now, the whole thing seems more than a little Awful to me.

That sound you hear? That's the death of any indie cred I once had.

SEVEN SOLDIERS: BULLETEER #1: In which Grant Morrison returns to the theme of the zero issue of the whole shebang: What's the difference between a hero and a wannabe with a superhero fetish? This wins the Seven Soldiers title most likely to be mistaken for an issue of The Ultimates Award, given the unfortunate Millaresque quality of the set-up and characterization as well as Yannick Paquette's Bryan Hitch meets Kevin Nowlan art, which might not be the negative in your book that it is in mine. For me, it's OK, but here's hoping that it picks up next issue when we find out what happened in Miracle Mesa.

STRAY BULLETS #40: David Lapham, fresh from his sell-out success on Daredevil/Punisher (as in, the success he got from selling - Oh, okay, you were there before me), returns with another Public Safety Announcement for the world at large. This time, we learn that, while it may seem like a good idea to keep your hearing aid turned off around crime scenes both known and unknown, there may be the occasional drawback to that theory. In other words, more of what you'd expect. It still feels like Dan Clowes doing some European crime comic, so if that's your bag, you'll find it all well and Good.

I know what you're thinking - Just what else have I been reading this week? Tom DeHaven's new novel, It's Superman, turns out to be well worth however much a reputable bookseller would charge you for it; for those who need more of a comic context than "It's Superman in depression era New York, with Lex running for political office and Lois in journalism school", there's a Chris Ware cover for your troubles. I also finally read SCOTT PILGRIM'S PRECIOUS LITTLE LIFE this week, because I always find value in being 18 months behind the zeitgiest, and Goddammit if it really isn't as good as everyone said it was. It's an easy, if somewhat cheating, pick for my TRADE OF THE WEEK. My non-cheating pick would be ESSENTIAL MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE, purely because it teams the Thing not only with Luke Cage, but also the Guardians of The Galaxy and Black Goliath (Yes, I do loves me some not-even-second tier Marvel characters from my childhood, why do you ask?). Marvel apparently own my soul this week, as MARVEL TEAM-UP wins my first ever PICK OF THE WEEK, and HOUSE OF M my PICK OF THE WEAK. Somewhere, Joe Quesada is laughing maniacally.

But then, he does that anyway.

10/26 Comments from Hibbs

Don't have time to do anything like a full review column this week -- it was order form week, and I had to prep the November subs list, and, of course, Halloween and taking Ben out sucked up all my time this week, but I think I can pull off a summary style thing, like Jeff did. PICK OF THE WEEK: Just like Lester, I thought Mike Allred's SOLO #7 was the hands-down winner of the week: Fun, charming, thoughtful, and joyous. What more could you want from a comic book, really? Top notch, fully EXCELLENT work, and why I love comics.

PICK OF THE WEAK: I thought this week's weakest book was FLASH #227 -- any book that opens with a dream sequence is almost always a dreadful mistake, and the whole issue just felt like a time filler until they figure out who is actually writing the book in the long run. Bored bored bored. This issue was AWFUL.

JSA CLASSIFIED #4 almost made the top honor, because there wasn't any "story" there at all -- just some info dump, then the book just.... stopped. Ah, but the Amanda Conner artwork was a joy to look at, wasn't it? OK

I was also really disapointed with PARIS #1 because the art just wasn't up to capturing the art of the period. I thought it was a very odd choice to overship this issue by 200% when it was so weak. A really really low EH, and a clear case of reach exceeding grasp.

I also was deeply disapointed that YOUNG AVENGERS #8 reduced the black character to a liar and a junkie and a thief. Jeff opined in the store "Well, would you rather it be one of the women, or the gay characters?" and, hm, had to think about that for a minute. But... yes. Also a deeply low EH, which is sad for a book that started so very strong.

TP/GN OF THE WEEK: Nothing really leapt out and throttled me with greatness in the book department this week. I thought NIGHT FISHER to be an OK debut, but not the second coming that some people have suggested.

I picked up the HC of TRAILERS from NBM, and paged through it -- looks terrif, though I haven't actually READ it yet, so I can't say for sure.

So, let's go with the much-better priced IDW publishing SC of Richard Matheson's I AM LEGEND. Terrific art, and a solid adaptation, though the final act is pretty weak, really.

A "real" column next week... and hopefully some news? We'll see....

What, if anything, did YOU think?

-B

Excuses, Excuses, and Picks for 10/25 Books

Hibbs didn't sound like he was doing reviews, but I'm getting out of town for my birthday weekend, so I'm not going to be much help either. I may do full reviews later in the week because there were a lot of books that merited commendation and/or discussion.... but don't count on it. So lemme just go with: PICK OF THE WEEK: Mike Allred's Solo, no question about it. I particularly loved the hilarious, yet thought-provoking, "Batman A-Go-Go," co-written by Lee Allred, that reads like it was written by people who've thought about Batman and his legacy and really have something to say, but the "Doom Patrol Versus Teen Titans" was also wonderful, simply by virtue of its delightfulness. This is the issue to get this week.

PICK OF THE WEAK: JLA #121. Not nearly as embarrassing as last issue, but with lines like "You're my android, not my mother!" still in the realm of the really awful.

AWARD OF DISTINCTION: Zombie Tales: Oblivion and Jenny Finn: Messiah since Ross Richie was enough of a mensch to send review copies of the former. ZT:O does this thing of self-contained stories with continuing characters that kinda works and kinda doesn't, but the truly self-contained stories work quite well. If you like the stuff coming out of IDW, you should definitely check this anthology out. And I'm freaking thrilled to have all of Jenny Finn, finally.

TRADE PICK: The Night Fisher GN looks beautiful, but it suffers from first novel syndrome--it vividly captures a time and a place, then peters out as it follows a presumably autobiographical trail of events. A talent to watch out for, but not necessarily a book to pick up.

Actually, I thoroughly loved Vol. 2 of Beck Mongolian Chop Squad, even though it veered away from nearly every character introduced in Volume 1 and focused on the lead's apprenticeship to the book's version of Yoda, "a porn-loving 44 year old bachelor whose only friend is his pet parrot." The series is well-written, well-drawn and enjoyably profane. March, 2006 can't come soon enough for me.

Many Thanks, and Reviews of 10/19/05 Books

First, I really want to thank everyone who posted to the previous thread--it really helped get a handle on what people's preferences were for the use of color on this site. And if you haven't commented yet, feel free to do so: I'm not ruling anything out, and it's always good to hear from people who read the site. Special thanks go to Steve Pheley for being the first to suggest tweaking the template--whether we stay with color or not, we've got a byline now right after the post title. I wish I had thought of it. I also want to thank our long-lost pal Hayden who amused Edi for hours with his "Way to lock that down" comment, but, really, anyone who took the time to comment, be it on the color or the content, I want to thank you. It's a +10 to our morale, at least.

Finally, before getting to the reviews, I wanted to address what Craig and others asked about on the thread: the dialogue posts, where Brian and I would each post on the same books, and there was a lot more give and take. We would love to do more of those, as they get the most positive feedback by far, but it seems very, very unlikely for the immediate future. It took buttloads of my time back when we did them, and at the time I was single and Hibbs was Benless. We also did it in Word and Dreamweaver in a very time-consuming way (for me), and I'm not sure there's an easy way in Blogger to replicate it.

All that said, I'm kinda sorta looking into this year's hula-hoop, podcasting, as a way for us to try something like that: get a Griffin iTalk (or maybe that Belkin thing) for my Ipod, bring it into the store on a Friday, and get us gabbing. Maybe for 2006, we'll see.

And as for this week at the racks:

AMAZING JOY BUZZARDS VOL 2 #1: I spent a lot of time second-guessing the art choices for Volume I because a lot of it seemed unclear and clumsy. I'm happy to report I found Volume II a vast improvement in this regard: storytelling choices were clean, similar looking characters were given identifiers to make one another stand out, and only a few areas where perspective seemed flattened out. In addition, the transition of the race sequence to diagonal page layouts was playful and smart. Really fun. I was a bit more put off by the writing, in that the opening sequence in particular tries to bite off more than it can chew (and there's a bit of extra 'splaining quickly jammed into an inside front cover) but this what I was hoping the first issue of Volume I would be, way back when, and consequently I'm giving this a very, very high OK. I'll be back for issue #2 and my hope is this title will continue to grow.

AUTHORITY REVOLUTION #12: This had the cruel and clever wit and enjoyably absurd one-upsmanship of impossible situations of classic Authority stories; unfortunately, it comes at the very end of what felt like a far-too-long arc. If this whole thing had been compressed down to between three and six issues, there's a chance I would have really enjoyed it. But as it is, it's a pretty Good ending to a pretty less-than-Eh run.

BANANA SUNDAYS #3: Storywise, this is the issue where the padding happens, as every question important to the reader isn't answered, and no new ones are put on the table. But I didn't care because the mix of witty (if a bit clunky) writing, and clever and assured cartooning, make this a continuing pleasure to read. A high Good.

BATGIRL #69: Since The Comics Shrew is pretty high on Andersen Gabrych's run on this, I gave this book another shot and, ultimately, liked it. While the current staus on the Lazarus Pits, like everything else in DC continuity these days, keep yo-yoing all over the place (The pits are opened, the pits are closed, they only work once, except this one, etc., etc.) I can accept it here since it's used with the end of bringing back Mr. Freeze's wife, something that I don't think *has* been done. (Fire up those correcting emails, DC fans.) I'm giving this issue only an OK because it's still part of an arc that had a hog-headed biker several issues back, but I found this a pleasant surprise and will try to keep an eye out for future issues.

BATMAN #646: I think I mentioned in a previous entry I really got into DC titles through reading Wolfman and Perez's Teen Titans, so I always thought Deathstroke the Terminator was pretty cool. However, Identity Crisis made him this year's Macarena; he's everywhere now, unavoidable, and growing more annoying each time he turns up. Maybe there's some sort of "Where's Waldo" contest going on with him I don't know about. Between his anticlimactic appearance here, and the (hopefully temporary)change in art team, I gotta go with OK.

BATMAN GOTHAM KNIGHTS #70: The Clayface virus was, uh, interesting, I suppose (although a Clayface performing the murder in the form of Alfred would have been more satisfying), but between static art, major plot-hammering, and a bunch of other complaints, I gotta go down to Awful. Too bad because some of the cops' dialogue was nicely Bendisish. I could see someone really loving this stuff, but they'd have to be doing a better job at it than the creative team is at theirs.

DAREDEVIL VS PUNISHER #5: Weird how things work. I think Lapham's art can be satisfying and, if not sophisticated, at least somewhat nuanced in Stray Bullets, but here, maybe it's the coloring or something, it seems stiff and very awkward. Now that I think of it, the final Miller/Janson issues of Daredevil did too, but the stories were compelling enough one could ignore that sort of thing, and this just isn't. Bummer to be giving it an Eh but there you have it.

JUSTICE #2: Jim Kreuger has a very set way of taking a hero or villain's defining characteristics and spinning them (I still remember, for example, his explanation as to why they call Sue "The Invisible Girl") which can be either pleasantly surprising or annoyingly pat--and, because I can't decide which, this issue, with its attribution of The Riddler's M.O. to a bit of childhood abuse, is a bit of toss-up. Also, in case you've forgotten, I live in San Francisco and got my B.A. in P.C., so a scene of natives of a foreign country bowing down and calling The Flash a god and offering him all forms of tribute seemed embarrassingly anachronistic, in tandem with the fact that The Riddler's gang were multicultural but you only saw Batman beating up the African-American henchmen, made me a little uneasy. So, uh, OK, I guess? You'll probably rate it higher if you really like Ross's art and don't come with the same unfortunate kneejerk hardwiring I do.

MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN #19: Pat Lee does better work here than I've seen in some time, which means he only partially causes the story to crap out, rather than trashes it entirely. (The emphasis on Mary Jane makes me wonder if David wrote the script thinking, I dunno, Frank Cho might end up on it.) Although, now that I think about it, the violent stalker fan angle seemed pretty cliched and kinda crappy without any help from Lee, so I dunno... The parts of David's script I liked, I really liked: the stuff I didn't like (and there was more of that here than in FNSM #1), I really, really didn't like. So maybe it could have been a medium OK if it hadn't been for Pat Lee's art (maybe?), but I'll go with a straight Eh.

MARVEL MONSTERS FIN FANG FOUR: Of course, that one wordless page where The Thing watches Elektro ask the FF's robo-receptionist out is pure Roger Langridge, but the rest of this seems to be a very smooth collaboration between Langridge and Scott Gray (who if I read this interview on Spurge's Comics Reporter correctly, had a hand on piecing a lot together on the Marvel continuity end of things). I found it very enjoyable, although the menace seemed kinda silly and unthreatening, which was the only offnote in a piece that blended whimsy and seriousness with a nice balance. I may have enjoyed this even more than Powell's Devil Dinosaur/Hulk issue, because it was longer and gave the characters more of an "arc." Again, my kneejerk P.C.ness would have appreciated an introductory context about the Fin Fang Foom reprint but that's just me. A high Good.

MR. T #2: Goddammit. I bet we only got one copy of this for the racks (maybe two) and it was gone before I made it to the store Friday. Rats.

NICK FURY HOWLING COMMANDOS #1: Oh, man. I was actually pitying the poor sonsabitches who preordered this three months ago and then still had to buy it after reading those awful preludes printed in every Marvel book for the last three weeks and then, of course, at the end of the day, I realized one of those poor sonsabitches was me. This book was an enormous slipshod piece of Crap, with lousy, ugly amateurish art, garish, painful coloring, and dull, stilted writing. The last part really stings since I, like probably everyone else, pre-ordered this on the strength of Keith Giffen's previous work. I mean, don't get me wrong, I think the art really killed this, and made reading it a fucking horrible exercise in eyerape, but looking at the elements of the script separately, I think only a very good artist could have made this a decent read: it starts with a lot of action, but, by the end, only Clay Quartermain (introduced in the second half) is anything other than a cipher. This is the kind of book one's embarrassed to have in their collection. I can't even think about it without wincing. Heinous, heinous Crap.

ROBIN #143: Why did I pick this up? I haven't been following this book at all, but if they're all like this, they should change the title of the book to OTHER PEOPLE (GUEST-STARRING ROBIN!) That alone puts it at Eh, but the rest of it is nothing to write home about, either.

SEVEN SOLDIERS KLARION THE WITCH BOY #4: There's a whole narrative leap there (Klarion merging with his cat) that I didn't follow at all (and maybe also that very abrupt opening) but man, I really enjoyed this issue, and this whole mini overall. I admit Morrison made his villain a little too Millarish (i.e., very "Would you like some RAPE with your RAPE?" in his dialogue), but so far, this was only second to Guardian. Let's go with Very Good.

SHAOLIN COWBOY #4: Motherfuckin' yes. I didn't finish this, but unless the last eight pages featured the Shaolin Cowboy and his mule sitting around knitting (and maybe even if it does) this kicks extraordinary amounts of ass (pun unavoidable). The art is so impressively crafted and drawn, it elevates its innate stupidity into some previously uncharted realm of genius, all the more because Darrow is doing so very deliberately. I can't think of the appropriate metaphor to describe this (it's like if Richard Wagner was resurrected and staged an opera based on Three Stooges shorts? Or if Alejandro Jodorowsky was hired to write new Bugs Bunny cartoons for Warner Brothers?) but don't let my sputtering ineptitude dissuade you. If extravagant absurdity is even remotely your thing, then this is your thing. Very Good, for sure.

SHE-HULK 2 #1: This is also Very Good work, in a very different way from Shaolin Cowboy (just as SC #4 is from Klarion #4 above it). I'm kind of in awe of Slott's scripting here--he squeezes a "don't wait for the trade" argument perfectly into his previously established meta-commentary; he simultaneously critiques and integrates She-Hulk's behavior in Avengers Dissembled into his series; and makes a book about a superpowered lawyer both packed with comic book action and comic book law. Equally good is Bobillo's art, which is delightfully expresive and sympathetic. I hope that, similar to how Runaways picked up readers in its reboot, this book does the same and gets a genuine chance in the direct market. It deserves it. As I said, Very Good.

SUPERMAN #222: Oh, come on now. That's really, really dumb. Even if I buy all the other Infinite Crisis related plot hammering, am I really supposed to believe that Superman, fearing for his lack of control (or whatever), replaced himself with robot and didn't bother to mention it to his wife? I'm kinda stunned that this is the same Mark Verheiden who's been working on Battlestar Galactica this season (although I thought the episode with his name as scripter was easily the worst of the season to date) because that show goes to some pretty great lengths to make the characterization seem natural, and this--well, this really doesn't. Awful.

SUPREME POWER HYPERION #2: I skipped issue #1 of this, and thought issue #2 kinda screwed the pooch: JMS went to such great lengths to introduce superpowers throughout the regular series that introducing (at least) three people with them at the same time, out of nowhere, really kills the atmosphere he was going for. Now it's just a superhero book with swears (swears to leave soon, I guess). Plus, the art, by Dan Jurgens and Klaus Janson, makes this look exactly like an issue of The Defenders from the mid-'70s, and although that's actually a compliment in my book, I know that won't hold true for hardly anyone else. Bottom of the Eh.

ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR #24: The people behind the Ultimateverse seem aware that the Marvel Universe had a disprorportionate amount of orphan superheroes, but I wish someone other than Mark "hatched from an egg" Millar had handled the return of Sue and Johnny's mother: her characterization isn't flat, it's frickin' concave. Maybe it'll all pan out if Ultimate Submariner has some of the innovation of Millar's recharacterization on The Ultimates, but this left me even more underwhelmed than the zombieverse story of last arc. Eh.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #84: By contrast, I thought this came very close to perfectly paced--a big ol' punch-up scene contrasted with a humorous phone conversation and a surprise change 'em up. Bendis and Bagley's Spider-Man is starting to remind me less of the "regular" Spider-Man and more of Bugs Bunny, but that's not such a bad thing, somehow. Hard to believe this book might be back on track, but this pretty Good issue suggests that might be the case.

WALKING DEAD #22: Even though Rick had a pretty good point about everyone being deeply unhinged and about ready to off themselves, he still came off as a sanctimonious asshat. I'll give Kirkman credit that he did so deliberately since Rick himself is also one of the deeply unhinged, but taken on its own terms the scene was pretty flat. The story is at a point where the more sophisticated he can be in detailing everyone's deterioration, the more satisfying it'll be when everything really hits the fan. I'll go with Good, but reservedly so.

X-MEN #176: Didn't read any of the previous issues but this perfectly sums up the strengths and weaknesses of Peter Milligan's characters: the better-known the characters are, the duller and more out-of-character he writes them (The Black Panther--chatty? Ororo--prissy?), whereas the lesser-known the characters are, the more interesting and closer to in-character he writes them. The talking hypno-baboon not being able to count to five, and Red Ghost and his two Super-Apes (where the servile Super-Apes able to see the failures of communism far better than the zealous Ghost) were terrific (credit should go to Larroca's art, which really sells the Apes' scenes). Get these guys off X-Men and put 'em on a Red Ghost and The Super-Apes miniseries. Eh, but worth flipping through.

PICK OF THE WEEK: Hmm, I guess the real standouts for me were all in the esses, but of the three I'll go with Shaolin Cowboy #4 for doing so much with so little.

PICK OF THE WEAK: Nick Fucking Fury and His Fucking Fucking Howling Fucking Commandos #1, fucking fucking fucky fuck.

TRADE PICK: I'm looking forward to sitting down with the Chiaroscuro TPB, one of my very first "wait for the trade" mistakes, but the Black Hole HC is the book I keep picking up, again and again, kind of in awe at its actual presence. And I've also got Plastic Man Archives Vol. 7. Good stuff.

Hmm. Okay, so hopefully we'll get Hibbs' take on some of this stuff on Tuesday; a few of my reviews this week seem suffer a bit from the "this book has too much blue in it so I give it an Eh," maybe. Let's see what he has to say.

Reviews of some 10/12 books

Once again, in no particular order. Really fighting the deadline this week -- lost a bunch of time this weekend, and had a longer-running than it should have doctor's appointment this morning (waiting room, nothing to do with me) We're going to have some really terrific news for you in 2-3 weeks, as a Mysterious Personage has agreed to join the Savage Critic team, and I think you're going to be damn happy with the snark and resources they'll bring. I know I am anxious to see how it works out.... but soon on that, not today.

So, as fast as I can....

HOUSE OF M #7: Judged purely on the 22 pages between the covers here, I pretty much thought this was a success. With a few exceptions of storytelling in the battle sequences (who did what to who now?), this moved along like a rocket, happily setting up the next bit of the story. I do think Bendis has problems with things spiraling out of his hands (a of that talk about "kids gloves coming off", but it didn't seem all that different than a "normal" fight to this reader), and, had this been issue #3 of the comics, I think we'd all be cheering for how good it was.

On the other hand, this was issue #7.

Still, I'm down with trying to "stuff the genie back into the bottle" -- the X-Franchise *has* spiraled completely out of control in the last decade, and anything that can make it more compact and accessible is a good thing. On the other hand, launching 2 new monthlies and 5-6 mini-series out of the aftermath of this does seem a bit counter intuitive, doesn't it? I like Phil Boyle's joke that there will be 198 mutants left, and each one is going to get their own title....

Still, I'm pretty curious about how the mechanics of this are going to work out -- Wanda evidently had the power to CHANGE HISTORY (still not sure about how *that* worked, really), so one might logically assume that any "No More Mutants!" wish would have gone into effect retroactively, but I can't really see how that could work with current continuity.

(From the "retail intelligence" POV, we sold 107 copies of INFINITE CRISIS #1 as of 11 am this morning, but only 69 copies of HoM #7. Also, our generic X-MEN sales are at their lowest point in the 16 years I've had my own shop -- we're down to below 40 copies of some issues of the main 2 titles in the last quarter, which is frighteningly sad. Hell, when Morrison was doing the book, we were selling in the 120 copy range. ANd that's not even a historical peak or anything.)

Anyway, I liked these 22 pages enough to call it a middling GOOD, though the entire min-series is stil probably lingering in the EH range.

JLA #120: This is the way to celebrate a tenth anniversary, isn't it? With a wholly putrid piece of shit masquerading as a Justice League comic book. It's hard to imagine a more bungled or boring issue, with a lot of standing around and blabbing and moaning about why they should put the JL back together. Um. You're all standing right there, guys, why are you even saying it broke up in the first place? If that wasn't bad enough, there's some sort of hoopty-ass touchy-feely ceremony bullshit where they're dropping sand in the wind or some shit. Who the fuck wants to see super heroes act like a bunch of middle aged attendees of a New Age festival? But the cake has to be taken by the fifth- or sixth-stringer Raven Manitou Dawn (or whatever the fuck her name is) having some sort of bullshit vision of J'onn. I mean, first off, what's she even doing here, second off why would j'onn contact HER of all people, and third, I'm surprisingly unconcerned about the where abouts of the invulnerable, shape-changing, able-to-go-intangible Martian Manhunter. Clearly, there's not a chance he actually blew up on the moon. This is what comics-by-committee yield, and I guess shouldn't be much surprise that this piece of tripe was foisted upon us by Bob Harras, the lead man for the absolute nadir of X-MEN continuity of the 90s. Here's my best example of the editorial ineptness of this whole package: someone breaks out of jai, all shadowy darkness and foreshadowing... but we're never told WHO it is within the actual pages of the comic. Instead, we have to learn from the next issue box that (be afraid!) The Key has escaped. Even Morrison wasn't able to make him an actual threat of anything against anyone. This comic was so bad that it gets my below-CRAP rating: this was ASS. It's not just crap, it's where crap COMES from.

HAWKMAN #45: As long as I'm being pissed off by bad comics, I want to thoroughly object to the ridiculous bait and switch involved here with "Oh, sure, Dr. Fate teleported me away, and created an illusion" bullshit. That's not playing fair with the AUDIENCE, guys. AWFUL.

100 BULLETS #65: I've lost the main thread of the plot (at least a year back, maybe more) though confusing character shifts and byzantine plot mechanisms, but I still look at this every issue because of Risso's fucking fabulous artwork. Which is good, because I really thought this issue was terrific and made me have a great deal more faith in Azzarello's writing ability. Top notch material, and really gripping: VERY GOOD.

VILLIANS UNITED #6: I have to say that I can't, for the life of me, figure out the two Luthors thing, or what any of that is supposed to be (At least back in the day there used to be some physical differation between multiple-earth variants of a character -- even if it was "Yellow Circle"/ "No Yellow Circle"), but despite that this twist seem ed like less of a twist than a gyre, I thought this was the only one of the Countdown mini-series that provided a strong and compelling story in and of itself. I liked it: a solid GOOD.

METADOCS THE SUPER ER: I review wayy too many DC and Marvel books, I think -- so I'm going to try to be conscious of that over the next few weeks and offer up a bit more of a mixture if I can (though slight this week because I'm almost out of time for the day). This is a very nicely done stand alone comic about a Super Emergency Room -- it got bogged down, I think, in some of the medical terminology and such, but the characters were reasonably compelling and the art serviced the story well. A very strong OK, and if you're looking for something super, but different, this might be the thing for you.

7 DAYS TO FAME #1: this really could have been exploitive and crappy (the premise is a reality show that shows suicides), but I thought this eluded many of the pitfalls better than I thought it would, and found a nicely human core to do the idea. Not great, but a solid OK.

Annnnnd... I'm out of time. 10 minutes until teh delivery truck shows up with the NEXT batch of comics, sheesh. Sorry I didn't cover more....

So, PICK OF THE WEEK: Take your pick from 100 BULLETS #65 or FABLES #42 (Which I didn't specifically review) -- both were very solid, and crisp and pretty.

PICK OF THE WEAK: Oh come on, no contest: JLA #120.

BOOK / TP OF THE WEEK: 3-way tie on ASTRO CITY: LOCAL HEROES TP, DOOM PATROL v3 TP, or GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH HC. All super-stuff, but all very different approaches to the genre, and all well worth your coin.

More in 7 more, and another step closer to our Big Announcement (which will become anti-climatic once it comes, probably, because I've built it up too much. Well, I think it's cool, at least.

As always, what did YOU think?

-B

PS To the Comics Shrew: Jesus, get out of my head, girl! I made a point of not reading any IC #1 reviews until I typed mine up, and hers are almost word-for-word mine. Scary! The Comics Shrew is MY personal favorite reviewer that isn't on this site, so that's either very very good, or very very bad, your call...

Jeff's Reviews of 10/12/05 Books....

Not trying to steal Hibbs' thunder (like that's possible!) by posting right after him, but he said I shouldn't read his review of IC until I post mine. And I figured as long as I was at it.... ACTION COMICS #832: Guh? Reads more like an inventory story than anything really tying in to Day of Vengeance (or a holiday issue crafted a looooooong time before all the Infinite hoo-ha came around), which is fine, I guess, but could have used a bit of finetuning. Also, kinda bummed that a really nice hook (the appearance of Lois's dad, whose mortality status was a nifty dangling thread from Loeb's Superman run) got used to such spectactularly cliched effect (Lois hollering "nothing I ever did was good enough for you," or some such). Just an Eh, but easily could have been better if editors acted more like editors and less like air traffic controllers.

APOCALYPSE NERD #2: In a way, that absurdly long delay between issues reinforced the idea that the two jerks have been out in the woods for an extended period of time. On the other hand, like last issue, I don't like the characters and find the whole scenario less amusing than frightening. And, like last issue, I greatly enjoyed Bagge's biographies of heroes from the American Revolution. I can't remember if I went all the way to Awful with issue #1, so I'll keep this tottering at the lowest rung of Eh (with only those great bios holding it there). Bummer.

DOOMED MAGAZINE #1: An attempt to bring back the old black and white horror comic mag of the '70s, with mixed results: Richard Matheson's "Bloodsong" gets adapted by Chris Ryall and Ashley Wood and doesn't quite work (Wood's art makes the story feel allegorical too soon, robbing the ending of some of its impact), F. Paul Wilson's voodoo hollywood story kinda does (although, again, Ted McKeever's art makes this feel too unreal to really have the kind of impact it should) and I didn't get past the page of the naked chick in the David Schow story adaptation. And although the mascot looks lovely, her origin was really dumb and her name (Ms. Doomed) is even dumber. Ms. Doomed? It just sounds awkward. Is there a pun there I'm not getting? If they wanted a dumb name, why not Black Masscot? Count Chickula? Eyepatcherella? Malvella Monovision? Anything's gotta be better than Ms. Doomed. OK.

EX MACHINA #15: Recent arcs seem crafted with an eye toward showing the Mayor as more complex and unpredictable than he appears on the surface. And that's fine, I guess, but I'm not completely on the bus for some reason. That might just be a matter of expectation, as I was hoping for this series to be like a superhero version of Eagle, and instead it's more like, I dunno, a ratings-challenged TV series: currently, there's more of a focus on focus on the character of the mayor, and less on the process of being a mayor(which the first arc or two did very well). It'll probably all change up once we're given enough essential info on Mitchell (and maybe once Vaughan's got enough research done to really immerse us in the politics again) but until then, only an OK from me.

EXILES #71: Has a sense of urgency to it that the last ten to fifteen issues or so have pretty much lacked. With any luck, they'll be able to keep that moving through the arcs from now on. More or less Good.

FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN #1: I really liked the non-crossover parts to this issue--David's Spidey is genuinely witty and the villain seemed sharper and less disposable than you'd expect--but I'm sure it's the crossover parts that will make this sucker sell. And whereas Weiringo's art always looked too comical on Fantistic Four, it suits Spider-Man to a T. I'll be following this title while David's on it (and maybe even pick up the other issues of "The Other" he's writing) but I wish he'd gotten a chance to start this series cleanly. Good.

GHOST RIDER #2: Very much crafted in the "Jemas" style, unfortunately: the majority of this issue consists of the angel telling Ghost Rider most of what he told the other angel last issue. Again, some pretty art but Ennis has picked up some bad habits working for Marvel and this shows off most of them. An Eh at best.

GOON 25 CENT COMIC: I handsold about a half-dozen of these yesterday and could have done more if it'd been a busier day. I mean, it's a full issue of one of the best books on the stands and it's only a quarter! Seriously, if you haven't tried the book before, get this. It's great. Very Good, and unbeatable for the price.

HAWKMAN #45: Pretty much went down as I expected even if I had no freakin' idea who Golden Eagle and Hawkman were talking about, and the fight was much gorier than I expected (broken bones shown jutting out of arms and everything). The whole thing could have been a lot better frankly, but it could have been a lot worse too. OK.

HOUSE OF M #7: I liked the twist, I liked the scenes with Wanda, I liked just about all of this, to be honest (although a lot of the action scenes were astonishingly abstract, and the panel-to-word ratio went absurdly off-balance in a few places). But despite the $2.99 price tag, this issue really costs $20.93 once you include the six issues building up to it. So I'll give this issue, on its own, a Good, (if you keep in mind that you can't really read this issue on its own) and the whole project a very low Eh. Not enough bang for the buck here.

INFINITE CRISIS #1: Back when I was a kid, I'd just started really reading DC titles (going from Claremont's X-Men to Wolfman and Perez's Teen Titans and from an ad in those pages, thank god, to Alan Moore's Swamp Thing) when Crisis on Infinite Earths came along which even to my young eyes, seemed like a noble mess, far better than the flatly panderous bullshit of Secret Wars, but still a mess nonetheless. It was obvious that Wolfman, Perez and DC were trying to address and correct something at the same time they were trying to make fanboys' brains melt at the scope of it all.

I wish I felt a similar vibe coming from Infinite Crisis--the sense that what I'm seeing is a noble mess--but at this point, all I'm getting is that sense of mess, like some four-color version of Los Angeles, the comic book equivalent of urban sprawl. It is, to be fair, a very well-organized mess, with Geoff Johns doing a capable job introducing the ends of four miniseries, staging a dramatic scene with Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, bumping off the Freedom Fighters (but giving me the Human Bomb scene I more or less always wanted), and introducing sub-conflicts a-go-go. (And Jimenez does his best Perezesque moves, although, to be honest, I've thought that Jimenez was always the In-And-Out Burger to Perez's McDonalds: less wasteful and probably better for you overall yet still not quite as satisfying).

But perhaps unsurprisingly, after months and months of plot-hammering in all the different titles, the scene between Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman had no heft to me--of course, they don't get along! They won't get along until they have to, according to page ____ of the Infinite Crisis outline. And weirdly, I guess I'm okay with that if there's the corresponding sense that the plot hammer is being used to do actual construction work, not just knocking square pegs into round holes for the maximum in cheap drama. Is there really a sense that this whole thing is being undertaken to fix something, to correct some little error in the balance of the DCU that keeps throwing things off? Or is it just blood and guts and spectacle and cameos, The Poseidon Adventure with Superman and Batman in the roles of Gene Hackman and Shelly Winters and a universe in place of a boat?

It seems weird to ask those questions (because nobody asks those questions of TV shows or movies--with the exception of Star Wars movies--or books or any other form of popular culture for the most part) but they're important ones to ask--DC and Marvel may be the landlords, but these are the houses of the mind most of us grew up in. Unfortunately, it's too soon to tell if these questions'll be answered or not. Depending on your patience with this type of stuff, you'll find it either OK, or maybe even right in the Good range. It defintely brought enough to the table that you won't feel empty, except in that "I just ate a big plate of junk food" kind of way. We'll see where it goes.

JLA #120: I wonder if the only associations most comic book writers have with the term "break up" comes from their high school relationships, where couples "break up" one day and then, the very next, can be found in the back of a van making out. That would explain a lot, at least in this case: last issue, the JLA broke up, but here they are again, in the back of the van making out. And it's just as embarrassing as high school, particularly with that dust-spreading ceremony. Oy. Eh.

MARVEL MONSTERS WHERE MONSTERS DWELL: A lot more new content than the previous one-shot: Giffen and Allred's story really nails the spirit of things, it's nice to see Arnold Pander's art again although I think he's mismatched with Peter David's script, and Jeff Parker's story actually works as a straight faced update of the Where Monsters Dwell blueprint. But I can't really give it a higher rating than the previous one, because there's no Devil Dinosaur fighting the Hulk, as written and drawn by Eric Powell. Good, if you can clear the price hurdle.

NIGHTWING #113: Ugh. Give Devin Grayson a Nightwing manga title (I'd actually read it) because this is so abbreviated as to be ludicrous. Rose has been hanging out with Nightwing for two issues and she's in love with him, too? I'm always happy to have love triangles within love triangles within love triangles (some strange byproduct of my love of the old Flash Gordon serials and Bollywood musicals) but can't we have a little context for it? Eh.

VILLAINS UNITED #6: In its way, packed with more "What the fuck?!" than Infinite Crisis #1: Luthor as Mockingbird? The Secret Society of Villains Luthor as an alternate worlds Luthor? Last minute supervillain lesbian doublecrosses? Catman and Deadshot all but making out at the end of the mini? What the fuck? And yet, I mean that in more or less a good way. And at least there was some kind of a body count there at the end, so Good.

Y THE LAST MAN #38: Who doesn't like a sexy one-eyed pirate? And the kite flying scene was sweet. But the rest of it, kinda don't care too much--someday, a scholar will make a really interesting argument as to why the vast majority of these stories deal with Yorick being "outed," but it's just not that interesting to me at this point. Eh.

PICK OF THE WEEK: Same as my Trade Pick: D&Q's reissue of John Porcellino's Perfect Example. These stories plucked from King-Cat all take place in 1986 when the author was a teenager, and they perfectly capture that mix of free-floating despair, romantic anxiety, unforced friendship and all the other teen hallmarks with total empathy, yet without any empty sentiment whatsoever. I'd just read recently about Hemingway's "Iceberg Theory" ("If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.") and Perfect Example has exactly the sort of dignity of movement Hemingway writes about. It's great stuff.

And pick up the Goon for a quarter while you're at it.

PICK OF THE WEAK: JLA #120. If the point of Infinite Crisis is to make JLA read like an X-Men book from the mid-90's, you can just let me off here, thanks.

TRADE PICK: See above, but also Doom Patrol Vol. 3 TPB, Essential Werewolf By Night TPB (ends just as Moench comes on board, dammit, but some lovely Ploog work in there), Essential Spider-Man Vol. 7 TPB (the definitive Spider-Man work for me, I have to admit), and Krazy & Ignatz: A Wild Warmth of Chromatic Gravy, which wins the award for porniest title of a highbrow book this year.

Okay, now to see what Hibbs wrote...

Hibbs' thoughts on INFINITE CRISIS #1

INFINITE CRISIS #1: You'd be hard pressed to find a bigger DC fan than me, really -- at least one that doesn't work at DC (because, OK, I can't beat, say, Mark Waid) I've always been a DC fan, even when it wasn't very fashionable. I can recite you Pre-CRISIS continuity up and down and backwards and forward. I can tell you which character came from which earth and the ones who moved and changed, though, really, it wasn't really that hard to keep it all straight. I pretty much liked CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS (although, reread all these years later it is a pretty badly constructed mess), though I didn't, at the time, really think it was very necessary.

Post-Crisis, continuity became a bit of a mess (to understate things) -- even years after Geoff Johns tried to fix Hawkman continuity, for example, I can't really tell you which stories "happened" and to which version of the character. Really, the fundamental mistake they made was in not starting EVERYthing over with a brand-new no-previous-continuity #1, instead doing a "rolling" reboot where some characters restarted and others didn't, and trying to patch holes "on the fly".

So, one might think I would relish the return to pre-CRISIS continuity with multiple earths back in the mix.

One would probably be wrong.

"You can't go home again", they say, and I think "they" are right on target, at least in this regard -- that was TWENTY YEARS ago. Things are different now, and there's an accretion of two decades that almost certainly can't be rolled over, and I think any attempt to recast old continuity today will make the immediately-post-Crisis attempt look like pure elegance.

That's what I think, at least.

I'm assuming here, though, and you know what they say about assumptions -- maybe there won't be a reset of any kind, maybe it will be all forward movement of continuity just with a handful of new ground rules.

But here's the thing: I can't really do much BUT make assumptions because I read the first issue of INFINITE CRISIS #1, after something close to a year of build up, AND I STILL DO NOT KNOW WHAT THIS MINI-SERIES IS ABOUT.

How can you read the first issue of a 7-issue comic (14%!) and not have a CLUE as to what the story is ACTUALLY about? (Well, besides HOUSE OF M, I guess....)

We talk a lot about spoilers and how it "ruins it for the audience" or whatever, but does everyone forget that the "audience" knew a LOT about CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTS before it happened? Not just talking about the cover images being released long before, but even the tagline of the book spelled out the intentions of CoIE very clearly: "Worlds will live. Worlds will die."

All we have here is "The Countdown is over!", but since the "countdown" is referring to the event itself, that's a pretty empty circular loop, right?

To a large degree, not a whole lot actually happens in INFINITE CRISIS #1 -- it is mostly recap of all of the countdown stuff, with a smidge of character stuff. The "big 3" have an argument on the moon, there's a big Mystery In Space post-RANN/THANAGAR WAR, the OMACS are doing something or another, the VILLAINS UNITE to kill the Freedom Fighters (50 cents says they'll be back before issue #7, though), and Gotham is shown, slightly, post DAY OF VENGENACE (did you notice the other ones got double page spreads and build up, but DoV was kind of just "oh yeah, that happened too"?) -- but excepting the last few pages, we're not being shown anything that we didn't already know.

Those last few pages were described to retailers (on the private CBIA bulletin board) by a high-ranking DC person as being "a 12 on a 10 point scale" when we asked (feeling stung by HOUSE OF M #1) "does anything happen", but I don't know about you, but I didn't really think that was much more than a 7 or an 8. ESPECIALLY coming on the heels of VILLIANS UNITED #6 (more about that later), which sort of makes any "they're here!" moment anticlimactic, because they've been here all along.

Certainly, I didn't NOT like this -- things zipped along, the art was pretty (though, I thought it was garishly over-colored, not wholly dissimilar to the way CoIE made our eyes bleed with the flexographic printing), there are good beats here and there (I quite liked the bits with the Human Bomb), and it more or less hangs together.

I just don't know what's happening, and after, what, close to 1000 pages of build-up in all of the assorted "Countdown" stuff, I expected this first issue to have a bit more of a solid direction and point.

The Savage Critic scale is good for certain forms of snark and snapshots, but it's pretty useless in a case like this -- on the seven point scale I'll go with a pretty middle-of-the-pack OK, but that's both too low and too high. I guess a better reaction might be "...that's IT?"

I'll try to be back later today with some thoughts on HOUSE OF M #7, then the rest of the reviews on the "usual" Tuesday.

What did YOU think?

-B

Reviews of 10/5 comics

Again, in no particular order, here are some thoughts on last week's funny books -- 2 in a row, there's no stopping me now (what a joke) SPELLGAME #1: Damn fine cover by Darwyn Cooke got me to pick this up to read, and the insides kept my interest decently. There was a little too much "What the hell is going on?" going on to really give this the big thumbs-up, but it was a professionally produced and executed comic, and I have little qualms giving it a low GOOD.

BATMAN: GOTHAM COUNTY LINE #1: Three books on the stands that have "Gotham" in the title, that's sure smart, ain't it? Even smarter to have 2 of them ship in a single week. I really wish publishers would think just a teeny tiny bit more about thier schedules. "Batman in the suburbs" was how this was pitched, but, except for a Rocket-Pack (!!!), it really wasn't much different than any other Batman story. Damn nice art from Scott Hampton, yes, but that $6 cover price gives me the shivers. A really low GOOD -- woulda have been "Very" had the price been cheaper...

GOTHAM CENTRAL #36: Terrific ending to the arc, first time I didn't mind Batman interjecting himself into the book, really. VERY GOOD.

AQUAMAN #35: And here's the first OMAC crossover that actually added to the book it was crossing over into. Didn't do much for OMAC itself, but that's basically OK. I quite like the moral dillemma, and I was pretty surprised by the conclusion as well. I even liked the Atlantis stuff, which I generally hate in Aquaman stories. Surprisingly VERY GOOD.

FELL #2: What I like best about this book is how it reads as densely as a "regular length" comic, and doesn't feel "short" at all. Spiffy art, crisp writing, low price, my only possible quibble was they need to mix up the design of the "ëxtra" material a smidge -- at first I had thought there was a production error and it just repeated the stuff from issue #1. Going with EXCELLENT heree.

FANTASTIC FOUR IRON MAN BIG IN JAPAN #1: Gorgeous looking, yes, but 28 pages of ads and 22 pages of story for $3.50 does not make Brian a happy boy. I kept being ripped out of the story by the ads, and that's a shame, because this was top notch stuff. Still, there's no way to recommend this as a periodical. I have to say -- and consider the source -- that you should wait for the trade. VERY GOOD for content, EH for packaging.

RETURN OF DONNA TROY #4: Man, that was a waste, wasn't it. Not even a good explanation about HOW she returned, and lots of jibber jabber about mutiple earths and what not. Y'know, when I was 8 (and even when I was 20) I had no problem keeping track of Earth 1, 2 and 3, X, S, and Prime. But this whole "well, some of it sticks and some it didn't" really hurts my brain. There used to be rules, but it feels like it is all exceptions these days. A big AWFUL from me.

CONAN & DEMONS OF KHITAI #1: I tried to care, but couldn't -- I don't even much like Conan on a good day, but at least the main book seems to have a direction and a point. This just feeels like filler to capitalize on the relative success of the main book. Pretty looking, yes, but didn't care. OK.

POWERS #13: Don't care about the main police stuff this issue, but I was thrilled to death with the banter and especially the stand-up scenes. VERY GOOD.

That's enough comics, I think, let's do some trades and stufff...

BONE SHARPS COWBOYS & THUNDER LIZARDS: The cut-throat world of 19th century paleontology is not something that I thought would interest me, but I was surprisingly affected by this story. I had a few problems sorting through who was who (its the beards that everyone in the 1800s had, man), but it was stil both pretty AND edumicational! A solid GOOD, for sure.

PUSH MAN AND OTHER STORIES HC: Didn't realy work too well for me -- clearly Tatsumi is a skilled creator and its nice to see this colection of his work, but I felt there was a pretty significcant sameness and lassitude to the stories, and by about the hafway point I was just flipping through to get to the end rather than geniunely enjoying what I was reading. OK... or maybe, just maybe, a low GOOD, but I'd be more enthusastic for a presumably cheaper SC edition. (Not that $20 is insane or anything)

PYONGYANG A JOURNEY IN NORTH KOREA HC: WHile, on the other hand, I thought this was just super spiffy -- I was affected both by the outsiderisms, as well as the strong look inside a cuture I know little about. Like PERSEPOLIS beefore it, I walked away from this work feeing like I knew more about our world while still getting that people are people. Super-terrific material, and, despite the HC status, I thought it was EXCELLENT.

QUITTER HC: Haspiel is a good match for Pekar's storyteling style, and I thought this was pretty good stuff -- but I also felt I've walked this road many times before. By the time I got to the last 20 or so pages I found myself reallyy hoping that this was fiction and not auto-bio, and that the story could have actually gone somewhere and said something than "just" being "American Splendor #0" (as it were). Perfect for someone on the cusp of understanding what comics can do, but if you're already there, relatively slight and wholly unsurprising. A solid, if low, GOOD,

Okie dokie, out of time this morning, that's what you get.

PICK OF THE WEEK (comics) will go to FELL #2 -- a nicely executed, inexpensive complete story with pretty art and crisp writing.

PICK OF THE WEAK: of what I reviewed, RETURN OF DONNA TROY #4: I don't *really* understand how she returned, or, more importantly, why -- other than "Jimenez has a crush on her". Anti-Harbinger my ass.

BOOK/TP OF THE WEEK: Easially goes to PYONGYANG, but that's a hell of a field of competition, isn't it? Great stuff, go get yourself a copy.

What did YOU think?

-B

The Long Goodbye (and The Longer Hello): Jeff's Return and 10/5 Books

Getting married is great. Having a long honeymoon is fantastic. Coming back from a long honeymoon and having to return to your job, your cluttered apartment and a short box full of comics you haven't read but have to buy? Ai-yi-yi. I'll save the picture of the short box, a link to Robson's short blog of the wedding, and the like, for next entry. Right now, I should get back into the reviewing of the books: my vague understanding is the point of this whole "savage critic" enterprise is actually critiquing, or savaging, or something. This'll be short, because most of my time at the shop was spent catching up on books I missed and I just wasn't grabbed by a lot of the non-TPB stuff out this week. I'm starting slow, in other words.

AMAZING FANTASY #13: I like new characters. When I was a kid, I used to love titles like Marvel Premiere and Marvel Spotlight that would introduce them. So it's kind of a shame that this title isn't doing well in the marketplace. Having said that, this new character, Vegas, was so dull I didn't make it past page six. Also, naming your character Vegas and then having the first issue take place in Austin is such an obvious misstep I don't know where to begin. I can't tell you the exact rating, but I'm afraid it's sub-Eh.

BLOOD OF THE DEMON #8: The closer Byrne's work comes to being utterly insane, the more I like it. This should have been a paint-by-numbers "hero realizes they're trapped in an illusory realm controlled by supervillain" story, but the contrast of Byrne's workmanlike ways and what I perceive as his inability to control those ways, made this an unpredictable read. If I'd been twelve and read this, it would have scared the shit out of me because bad art made by crazy people is scary. Plus, bonus points for the speed with which the faceless women/vagina dentata monsters became enormous evil penis monsters. That's some mighty fine craft right there, yessir. OK.

BONEYARD #19: Like Powers below: even when I don't care too much about a storyline (let's face it, spoofing Friday the 13th movies is far from timely, particularly if there's going to be 3+ issues of it), the strength of the characters keeps me happily reading. Because of that, even though I should really just give this an OK, Good.

FELL #2: Another top-notch issue and, again, the concision of the format keeps everything very lean and powerful. Also, to then read how Ellis thought out and solved the pacing problems made me feel like I'd watched a very satisfying magic trick and then got to see how it was done. Very Good stuff. You should be buying this.

FRESHMEN #3: Overambitious, I think. There's too many characters so no one gets enough "screen time," so when one of them finally dies, I just didn't care. I could see where this might work as a TV show or something, where an actor's charisma can do some of the work the scripts aren't, but overall, I'm just embarrassed I bought into the hype and got this. A low Eh.

GOTHAM CENTRAL #36: A pretty good end to the arc, and, frankly, a pretty good end to the series since it's the closest the department comes to learning to love the Bat. Why, then, was I kind of bored? Could be post-vaction blues, or it could be that the whole hostage-stashed-away-and-time-running-out is kinda cliche and, despite all the other dead Robins, kinda tensionless. A reserved Good, but Good nonetheless.

JSA #78: Again, fine and lovely and interesting, but also kind of dull. And, again, it's probably because it's not like lying on the beach in Cancun next to one's newly wedded wife. But maybe it's also because the Battle for the Fifth Dimension is abstract enough that it's hard for me to care, and the art representing the Fifth Dimension as just a funny background color and some dirt kind of compounds the abstraction and the don't-careness for me. Also in the reserved Good category.

MARVEL MONSTERS DEVIL DINOSAUR: Yes, I read this and dammit I really liked it. Powell draws a terrific Hulk (no surprise there) and the story was light and fun. I will admit to being baffled by the scale gradations (I guess the moon people are really tiny, so Devil Dinosaur can be Hulk-sized for convenient Hulk-smashing?). I know not everyone is like me and will happily pay this much money for a not-long Eric Powell story and an old stinky Marvel Monsters reprint (featuring Xenmu, whose entertainingly awful story where he becomes an evil children's show host was recently reprinted in Essential Defenders) but if you are, you'll find it Good.

MARVEL TEAM-UP #13: I'll concede that having both of the stories presented in MTU #12 be fake is clever, but the pacing still kills this. And having a supervillain trick everyone by crushing his own head? Even when this book turns out to be only half as inept as it originally seems, that's still far too inept for me to be comfortable with. Awful.

OUTSIDERS #29: I read it and can barely remember a thing about it, other than the idea of a team book where the characters are forbidden from congregating or fraternizing is kind of interesting. Is this the issue where the whole Shazam/Rock of Ages subplot kind of comes out of nowhere and suddenly there's a superpowered demon guy at the end threatening to kick everyone's asses? I honestly can't remember. Sorry. No rating.

POWERS #13: All hail the strength of well-crafted characters--I don't care one lick about the homicide Pilgrim and Walker are investigating, but I'll happily read page after page of their conversations. So, a high Good just on the quality of some very enjoyable yakkity-yak.

TRUE STORY SWEAR TO GOD #15: Kind of a nice transition issue, as we see things slowly start to change for Tom. Again, like the other books I really enjoyed this week, the characters, not the events, were what kept me engaged. (I suspect I might be suffering from "Company-Wide Eventitis.") Good.

WILL YOU STILL LOVE ME IF I WET THE BED GN: One of the things I first enjoyed about Hibbs' reviews, and which I try to keep aware of when writing for the Critic, is factoring in the price of a book when reviewing it. It can make me uncomfortable, though, when encountering work I like and want to encourage is in a format that keeps me from doing so. Liz Prince's very cute anecdotes about her and her boyfriend are really sweet and charming, and this would have made a really great two dollar minicomic. But as a seven dollar GN, it feels like a bit of a burn: Prince's work uses a sketchy style (a la Jeffrey Brown) to capture very sweet, slight moments from her relationship with her boyfriend (a la James Kochalka). But Brown's sketchy style helps accentuate his stories' emotional rawness, and Kochalka's cartoonish style lend his slice of life bits an iconic weight. Prince's work is that of a cartoonist just starting out, openly showing her influences (kind of like Brubaker's first issue of Lowlife from way back when), with enough charm and talent to deserve encouragement and support. But seven bucks worth of encouragement and support? I know I suck but, really, that's just too rich for my blood. Eh.

PICK OF THE WEEK: Fell #2, a perfect blend of strong work at an unbeatable price.

PICK OF THE WEAK: A lot of the stuff I didn't like I either didn't finish or suppressed all memory of, so let's go with Freshmen #3. It wasn't horrible, but I bought into the hype and now have three issues of steak-dwarfing sizzle cluttering my longboxes.

TRADE OF THE WEEK: A lot of really keen stuff this week: both Push Man & Other Stories and Pyongyang: A Journey In North Korea are gorgeous looking hardcovers of substance. I thought Push Man, like some recent retrospectives, suffers from offering comprehensive work of an artist better introduced to the market with a more varied sampling, but enough of Tatsumi's stories in the collection are devastatingly great to make this worth the purchase. And I haven't read Pyongyang yet, but Hibbs said it was great. I also picked up Absolute Watchmen which I admit is crazily expensive but look at it this way: considering it's too unwieldy to lend out, I'll be saving money in the long run. I figure I've bought a copy of Watchmen at least once every three years due to people borrowing it and never returning it.

Some reviews of stuff, whoa!

So, really, I'm still catching up. It is ugly. I really thought I'd be out of my pit of work by now, but I forgot I was going to lose all day Thursday and Friday of last week because Sue is out, and Jeff wasn't back from his honeymoon yet. My bad. I've made a Mysterious Offer to a Mysterious Personage, and while tentatively the answer was yes, we're waiting for the final word; if it stays that way we've got some terrific news for the Savage Critic, but I'm not counting any chickens before they, y'know, hatch.

Anyway, I'm still not up to speed yet to do a full load of reviews, but I have want to get at least SOMEthing up so you all didn't go writing us off...

JLA #119: So INFINITE CRISIS is 2 weeks away (or here, if you believe the cover blurb), and, still, really, I haven't any idea what it is ABOUT. Even going after to the (forced feeling) cliffhanger here, I don't have clue one where this is going. I don't know, every character feels like a little action figure being pushed around and asked to spout this line or that because that's what they need to do to advance things to the place they "need" to be.

Like, when Hal opened his mouth I was all "what? What do you mean Batman quit? All he said was "get out" or whatever. He says shit like that ALL the time, man."

But, OK, the JLA is "broken up" -- leaving us with Aquaman and J'onn: the masterminds behind JL Detroit, right?

I don't know, it wasn't awful or anything, but it felt... felt... oh, I don't know, all resigned, maybe. A big ol' EH from me.

OMAC PROJECT #6: Also terrifically problematic. It sort of felt like the last 10 minutes of a weaker episode of STAR TREK TNG -- "If we insterpositate the ramenfraz on the hyperperambulator, then the megahynadyne of the whathefug will zamriffian!" Problem introduced and (mostly) solved snicker-snack, snicker-snack.

I thought that was a pretty ball-less solution, actually -- the landmine of there being 1.2 million metahumans (or whatever the number was) running around the DCU is still there, and while we saw a few minor deaths (presumably) (and, wow, got rid of the Supermen of America and the Demolition Team -- should be a massive fucking outcry over that, huh?), this could have been a great excuse to wipe a number of slates clean.

But, still, there's over 200k of the Omacs still running around -- moving from completely inane to just insane, I guess, and not really resolving much of anything.

If I was bugged by one thing more than anything else, it was the leaden last page with the Big Broadcast. To me this was pretty weak storytelling -- I was actually expecting this to be the first page of issue #4 (propaganda being the best tool of control of all) -- it waas like Rucka knew he couldn't end on the kiss, and since there's no actual resolution to the events, he had to drop that in.

Ultimately I think I'll go with an OK, and leave it at that -- this should have been much better, but it was all plot-hammers, and ended up with no room for explanation or actual story.

DAY OF VENGEANCE #6: This one, on the other hand, was really stinky-bad -- it had even less resolution that JLA or OMAC, if that's possible. Correct me if I'm wrong, but absolutely nothing was accomplished by the "Shadow Pact"(what a lousy name for a group) -- Spectre and Eclipso are still running around trying to "destroy all magic", or whatever their ill-defined plan actually was, and the "destruction" of Gotham was dealt with in such a basically off-hand manner, more like "well, my plot memo says this happens, so sure!" rather with any meaning or depth. I get the feeling that this will be sorted out like the "Clark nearly kills Bruce" thing -- one artist draws Bruce in a full body cast, with tubes coming out of his nose, while in the next issue he's just got a little bandaid on. But, I don't know, I tend to think if you drop an exploding mountain on a city, that's got to be a legitimately big deal. Why Gotham, anyway? It didn't work when they tried it with an earthquake and a plague.... DoV #6 was truly AWFUL.

NEW AVENGERS #11: I'm pretty damn annoyed this shipped the WEEK after #10 -- honest to god, if you're trying to make up your production schedule, doing so on the backs of the retailers isn't the way tto go. First week sales on #11 are 17% less than first week sales on #9 or 10, and three guesses who has to eat THAT in the long and short terms. "Who is Ronin"? My response is generally "who cares?" because I'm much more about the "Magnificent Seven" style approach to team books than introducing New Hot Characters. Having said that, I generally liked this issue -- it doesn't feel a whole lot like an Ävengers" comic book, but it seems like it is making a decent enough use of the Marvel U as a backdrop, I guess. I'll go with a really low GOOD, muchly for the art.

ULTIMATE SECRET #3: I barely remember what happened in #1 & 2, but overall that doesn't matter as this is reasonably self-contained. Fairly crisp hero writing, kinda meh-ish art, it was still solidly GOOD

YOUNG AVENGERS #7: with the really great origin story out of the way, here we go with "now, what's the point of this book?" portion of the show. Sadly, I'm not really sure WHAT the point is, at this stage -- these are alright characters, but it feels pretty much like, I don't know the New Warriors or something. I'm not sure what makes them Young AVENGERS, per se. Plus the art was pretty bland. And, while I'm willing to give a benefit of the doubt, I was pretty distressed that the single black member of the team was "pulling a Speedy" there on page 22. Let's very much hope that's not how it seems, because that's pretty yucky. A solid OK, but nothing more.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #83: Yeah, liking this arc -- feels like the "good days" of the book are back. Solidly VERY GOOD.

INVINCIBLE #26: Hm, solid solid stuff, but I'm not too sure that I buy Mark's father little transformation there. Feels a bit happy-coincidence, if you know what I mean. Still, a low GOOD.

LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #10: I dunno, I really don't. I'm not invested in this world, or these characters, especially when freed from the Bonds of Nostalgia. Trying to do Big SPace Epic is all well and fine, but there's no POV character that lets the audience RELATE. Plus I miss the drawn lettercol. That was really nice and charming. A modest OK.

VIGILANTE #1: Full of mood, and nicely drawn, but I didn't CARE. At all. Definitely the wrong week to launch this, sales speaking -- too much competition on the shelves, and we sold through poorly on mediocre orders. Can't really picture this extending into a second mini-series, based on this launch. EH.

AUTHORITY: MAGNIFICENT KEVIN #2: The first issue was pretty odd, with the pie throwing genie yelling "vagina!", and all, but this was solid character-study stuff in this issue. Worth your coin, and VERY GOOD.

BLACK WIDOW 2 #1: Er, this is BLACK WIDOW 4 isn't it? Plus the indicia calls it that, but the cover doesn't. Odd. Bill Sienkiewicz inking Sean Phillips is a strange mix (they kind of merge into Klaus Janson, if you ask me), but I thought this was a solid debut issue. AN easy GOOD, I think.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #524: The hydra story is resolved, mostly, off camera, while this sets up (and up and up and up....) the "Others" storyline. I was, largely, bored. So, call it an EH.

That's about all I have time for this week -- more next I promise. I also hope to give you that Mysterious News I hinted at above by this time next week. But... we'll see.

My PICK OF THE WEEK was.... well, hm, not really sure. Probably ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #83, but there wasn't a clear unbeatable Must Have this week.

PICK OF THE WEAK-wise, well I didn't do a full write up, but what I liked the least was probably HULK DESTRUCTION #3, a book I simply don't get the point of.

For the BOOK /TP OF THE WEEK there are a number of choices... SPX 2005 is a GREAT contender (I especially liked Jesse Reklaw's piece), but I have to deduct WTF points on that cover -- basically impossible to tell what the hell it was, or why you should care. It's a rare book that becomes MORE commercial by going spine-out.

So that means I'm going to go with either of the volumes of SHOWCASE that shipped this week -- SHOWCASE PRESENTS SUPERMAN or SHOWCASE PRESENTS GREEN LANTERN. 500+ pages for $9.99? Yes, sir, sign me up!! If you make me pick one, I'll edge over to SUPERMAN, me thinketh.

What did YOU think this week?

-B

Reviews of 9/21 comics

Donnie Sticksel had what I thought was a good idea -- since Jeff is still away, and I'm trying to get caught up from vacation (oh, isn't it ironic....), we should still start a thread to let YOU say what you thought of this week's comics. So, let's try that -- the comments section is open, have at thee!

-B