The first 2.0 reviews

Didn't get much read last night, but let's see what I have so far. (Just about the only way to get through all of the comics for the week is to power through the "bad" ones first, with the "good" ones acting as the carrot. Bear that in mind.)

(Though, I do need to intersperse a few "good" ones in the middle to reset my palate)

ROGUE #1: I'm not sure if Rodi really "gets" how Rogue's powers work, or if they're changing it for this series, or if the editors are so overworked they don't care, but I kept getting super annoyed by the dumb stuff like her absorbing Remy's blindness, but not Juggy's heart attack. The core of the story, once you get past that, isn't so bad, but this is a really unnecessary book I think. This is the dark side of "Reload". Eh.

DOOM PATROL #2: #1 was a complete and utter train-wreck (nested flashbacks? I thought Johnny knew how to tell a clear story?) but this one was a lot better. I really enjoyed the first 5 pages, with the "revised" origin of Negitive Man (Though.... Rita is a flight technician and not an actress? Muh?), but then we went back to the dumb vampire leftovers from the JLA story. Thankfully it wrapped this issue. I really really REALLY hate the "new" characters, and I hope they die quickly. And I absolutely did not understand the last 2 panels -- was there an extra "not" or maybe one missing or something? Still, this was at least competent, and, perhaps, now that the "Crucifer" story is done maybe this can go somewhere fun. A low OK

GREEN LANTERN #179: Huh? Major Force has consistently been portrayed as an insane psychopathic killer -- he murdered Kyle's girlfriend, for god's sake, and chopped her up and put her in the fridge -- so why the fuck would John Stewert be defending him? That makes zero sense. Zip. Zilch. Unlessssss...... Marz had 4 issues schedualed and only 3 issues of story. Awful

VENOM VS. CARNAGE #1: It's written by Pete Milligan so I was hoping for at least a little wit, and cleverness. Nope, none of that here. The art was kinda nice except it looks like it printed way too dark, such that there's panels I can't tell at all what is happening (Nor can I read the captions in some palces with white-on-black and white-on-red), and there's some wonderful peril to a pregnant woman, which is always charming to read. On the other hand, there's a tit-alicious apearance by the Black Cat which doesn't appear to have anything to do with the story (wouldn't that be cool if it doesn't? She just showed up every 12 pages or so to show her breasts off so there could be some sex with the violence?), and some 12 year old boy, somewhere is going to be very happy for that. Or a 42-year old cat's ass man. Either way. The old CBG used to say something like "If you like this kind of thing, you'll like this" which is probably fairly accurate in this case. I don't like this kind of thing, though, so Awful from me.

JLA #102: The "Everyone Cries" arc continues. This issue: the Flash cries! It's not *bad* per se (Actually, it's well told), but I can't take 4 more issues of this -- wake me when it's over. OK

CITY OF HEROES #3: I love how the comic really has no relationship to the game whatsover, and doesn't really work as a comic on it's own. The only bit I leked was the War Witch in the astral plane thing at the very end, but that's not worth $2.95. You get this free if you subscribe to the game, which I suppose is a nice gesture, and almost certainly places this book in the top ten of circulation of American comics (the game has "well over" 100k subscribers) Anyway, Awful

Hrm, Ben's awake, time to take care of the boy. Back with more, later....

-B

Defeated

Wow. Comics have nearly beaten me.

I just got back from the store, where I finished dealing with the new comics (We're the San Francisco drop point for Diamond, so we get the books on Tuesday -- though we don't put them out for sale until Wednesday), and I don't think I've seen a single week packed with so much comicy goodness since the late 90s. Well, badness too -- but the point is there's a FUCKING LOT OF COMICS THIS WEEK.

We had next to no restock in the main shipment this week, and still we recieved 60% more boxes than normal.

There is just no way that anyone can buy everything they want this week. You thought last week was heavy? Ha!

Blame San Diego, I guess, as every publisher under the sun puts most of their line out this week (I sorta understand with the small press, but why the fuck do Marvel and DC do this? It's not like they are selling books to individuals), which brings to mind the old joke: How can you tell it's a convention week?  Supernatural Law was released!

(OK, you can substitute "A dozen books from Fantagraphics" in the above, too)

Anyway, my ass has been kicked, and I need to lay down -- you'll get a review or three tomorrow.

-B

 

Right, so...

Welcome to the Savage Critic blog. As some of you may remember (depending on how you got here), I used to do a weekly review column (aided and abetted by the affable Jeff Lester) of which you can find the archives here.

Once the wonderful Benjamin Alexander Friedman-Hibbs was born, I realized I couldn't keep up with the old format any longer -- I just didn't have that big block of time any longer!

So, again, thanks to Jeff Lester, we have the new cutting edge SavBlog where I can do shorter, but theoretically more frequent, updates / reviews.

I will probably be posting something daily (let's hope), but will not limit myself purely to comic reviews -- I'll also probably babble about being a dad a bit, as well as covering comics industry topics from a retailer's perspective. At least that don't fit into my monthly Tilting at Windmills column up at Newsarama.

(Matt Brady still needs to update the index)

(You can also find a lot of older, Pre-Newsarama Tiltings here, as well as purchase a copy of IDW's collection of the first 100 Tiltings here)

Anyway, this is just a "welcome" message -- we still have to add links, and do a lot of tweaking, but here I am, alright?

-B