Friday, December 12, 2008

Almost as late as FC #6: Paul reads books from 12/10

Wow, it's been almost five months since anyone's posted on here and that is ridiculous. So here goes:

I only read six books this week. In alphabetical order:

Amazing Spider-Man #580 was a nice little done-in-one by Roger Stern and Lee Weeks, two vets of the eighties and nineties. And that's how it reads. It's Okay but does little to further any larger story and, coming after a great two issues by Mark Waid and Marcos Martin, it left me wanting.

Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Boxes #1 and 2 are nice short stories that shoot off from the current Astonishing storyline and offer brief glimpses into "What If...?" stories, all done by Warren Ellis with four A-list illustrators. And they are Good. Completists, or those looking for really pretty pictures, should check them out. For casual fans, though, they are a bit pricey at $4 for 16 pages of story. Granted, you get Clayton Crain, Kaare Andrews, Alan Davis, and Adi Granov. It helps that Ellis is in top form.

Captain Britain and MI13 #8 is an odd book. While the first arc on this book was a tie-in to Marvel's Secret Invasion, the second arc has yet to really gel into something. I'm cautiously optimistic about this book, and it stands as an Okay book in it's own right, but there's not much "there" there.

DMZ #37 is the start of a new arc, this time with parralels to Nazi Gold/Sadaam's Palaces. I keep think DMZ is going to start to decline soon, that writer Brian Wood cannot push his "Iraq War in New York" metaphor any further, but between the last full arc (Blood in the Game) and the one starting here, it's still a Very Good book.

Final Crisis #5 came out this week, along with word that #6 would be delayed until January 14, 2009. For those keeping score, issue 1 came out May 28th, 2008. It's actually Very Good, too. Worth the wait? I don't know, but definitely worth $4. The art is a bit uneven (what with three pencillers on this issue, eah with a different style), but it's good fun. Morrison is gleefully unpackaging all of the Kirby toys from the 70's with his nods not only to the Fourth World books, but Kamandi, Anthro, and heavy references to the original OMAC (with a pseudo-people factory and faceless global security agents). Plus it has the Seven Soldiers own Frankenstein riding a motorcycle and quoting Milton. So there's that.

Wolverine Flies to a Spider is another one of these Wolverine one-shots that should really just be called an anthology series by now. I'm a pretty big fan of Wolverine, and I like the kick ass and take names version seen here over, say, Origins, but what I don't like is this pervasive notion that Wolverine can't just kill people, he has to right a wrong by killing people. This issue is particularly hard to swallow. If I read it correctly, he reads in the Daily Bugle (a New York paper) about a little girl killed a couple years ago and travels to the American southwest to kill everyone involved in her death. It would have read better as "Wolverine up and heads to Nevada and kills a motorcycle gang", though, because then there would not be the logical ramifications (and just bear with me). Wolverine has no link to the dead girl. While it is a tragedy, he does not race around avenging other girls who are killed, though; he hasn't off'd the Marvel equivalent of Kasey Anthony yet. So why her? And why is she on the front page of the Bugle? In big letters? Still an Okay issue (and far better than last year's holiday offering), but more and more these one-shots feel tired.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Joss Whedon's Superhero Musical Extravaganza Trailer

http://drhorrible.com/index.html

Go check it out and see what went horribly wrong with Dougie.

Then click on the Master Plan button on the Home Page or on the link below to read what it's all about!

http://drhorrible.com/plan.html

My thanks to Marissa Salas for cluing me in to Dr. Horrible.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Youngblood #4 and others

According to the Theory of Relativity, as an object approaches the speed of light (c), the amount of energy required to continue it's acceleration (e) increases because the mass of the object increases (m), so that you cannot reach the speed of light because the mass increases roughly to infinity meaning no amount of energy could accelerate it. And so it is with comics: just as I begin to catch up on my reading, an enormous week like this hits and I'm back to square 1.

Liberty Comics #1(?) is really really good. It's an anthology of short pieces that supports the CBLDF and it costs $4. I think I'm the only person that actually was excited. And for your $4, you get a smattering of decent little stories and one- and two-page bits. Personally, it's all worth it for two features: First, there is a six or so page Criminal short story, and I WILL buy anything by Ed Brubaker, especially with Sean Phillips art. Second, there is a five page Dracula story by Mark Millar and John Paul Leon that is just great. It's Dracula as played by your 75 year old grandfather. Tell Sheldon to order you one. It's for a good cause and totally worth the money.

New Avengers #43 is pretty much what is to be expected. Captain America is really a Skrull (yawn). They reveal some plot points that no one really needed explained to them. What struck me was that they did this big reveal of "Captain America was stranded in a spaceship" in Secret Invasion #1 but they won't follow that up in the main title, but rather jettison it in one of the ancillary books. So one of the main plot points of the series is not concluded in the series. That's just sloppy, Bendis.

War Heroes #1 was decent. It's always odd to see Tony Harris inked by someone new. On Ex Machina they replaced the excellent Tom Feister with Jim Clarke, who continues to make Tony Harris's pencils look gorgeous. Here, though, we get Cliff Rathburn, who imposes his own artistic tendancies onto Harris. It's not that its bad, but if you are fmiliar with Harris's art it's a bit of a letdown. The story, by the way, is a bit slow right now, but I'm sure the next issue will be filled with violence because, come on, it's Mark Millar.

Finally, Youngblood #4. To start, I really like that, even without direct involvement from Rob Liefeld (except covers and those look like they are mix-and-matched bits of old art photoshopped together) this book still ships 3 months late. Anyway, this book is actually pretty good. This issue was a bit weak (there's a "big" reveal about a conspiracy that you won't see coming because you aren't brain dead and therefore were expecting something relevent or at least interesting) but the first three issues were pretty good and its got a strong setup that may help it go pretty far before it turns terrible. The art is very good in the Batman Adventures vein and the story is what you expect from Joe Casey: competent with above-average moments. It's a shame Liefeld didn't let someone with a bit more imagination work on this because some big names (Alan Moore, Kurt Busiek, Mark Millar, Jeph Loeb, Robert Kirkman, even Fabian Nicieza did a pretty good job) have been very successful with Youngblood in the past.

In closing, this week Youngblood was actually a hells of a lot better than New Avengers. Just something to think about.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Driana's recs to Baltimore Sun Read Street

Dear Nancy Johnson:

Just to clarify, our name is Comics Kingdom not Comic Book Kingdom (that is a store that use to be on Hartford Road, I think, and is no longer in business)

My recommendations for you to showcase in Read Street are gleaned from among my favorites and include the Superhero genre, non-superhero, non-fiction, local artist unique, all ages and are as follows:

Weapon X by Barry Windsor-Smith - Superhero
This was my gateway book in to comics from being an avid reader of novels. To this day I still recommend this book as a true integration of the comic art form where the story is told through and interwoven use of words and drawings - you cannot just read or just look at the art to get the full woof and weave of the tale. This is also the story of how Wolverine from the X-Men became Wolverine, so people will potentially recognize the main character from the popular movie.

Watchmen TP by Alan Moore - Superhero
(trade paperback - a collection of comics that cover a story arc or in this case the complete
story of a comic that originally came out periodically)
- Watchmen is the comic book that basically matured the superhero genre by making the superheroes gritty, with real-life problems and personalities. We see the fruition of this movement in movies like Batman Returns with a very dark Dark Knight as well as across comics in general. Since the majority of people who by comics are men between the ages of 18 and 60 this growing up was inevitable to the survival of comics.

Fables vol. 1 TP by Bill Willingham - not Superhero
A very modern take on the world of fairytales. The creatures and people of our childhood tales have been forced to leave their Homeland to seek refuge in our world. The non-human looking "fables" have to live sequestered on a place called the Farm. This is not a book for kids.

True Story Swear to God by Tom Beland -- Non-Fiction
A autobiographical romance about a soon to be comic book creator who meets a lovely Puerto Rican woman in Disney and embarks on a long distance relationship with her that turns his life upside down. This book is sweet and funny as Tom Beland looks honestly at his own human foibles and examines Love from a male perspective. The art is deceptively simple with an amazing amount of facial expression captured with a few inked lines.

Birth by Michael Bracco (and it's sequel Novo) -- Local Artist
Michael Bracco is a local comic book creator who just had his first book, Birth, picked up by Diamond Comic Distributors - the comic distributor for the United States. Birth is an example of a comic told with little or no text and Mr. Bracco has created a visual feast that hits hard at the human core through his uniquely drawn non-human characters. It made me cry. Novo is the powerful next step in this ongoing tale. These are also examples of a Graphic Novel as opposed to a trade paperback. These books are also example of the unique storytelling that is possible only through the comic genre.

Herobear by Mike Kunkle - All Ages
This is a kids book (or all ages book as we call them) that adults will definitely enjoy. Beautifully rendered so that you often see the blue pencil line of the original sketch. The story is sweet without being saccharine about a boy who inherits his grandfather's broken pocket watch and stuffed bear which are more than they seem. The story really captures the awkwardness and magic of childhood. A must read for families.



The strength and interest in comics continues to be stable among our adult readers. Superheroes are not being left behind because the story lines have gotten complex and compelling as human issues are explored through the Superhero. The "Civil War" into "Secret Invasion" story line that runs through many main Marvel titles right now is an example of that relevancy. Superheroes were forced to unmask and register/be conscripted or be hunted down and incarcerated in Civil War. Secret Invasion reveals the replacement of superheroes and key people in power positions by shape shifting aliens. Both story lines deal with terrorism and how far can the government go to keep people safe. The exposure through excellent movies has definitely brought comics back into the mainstream light. Free Comic Book Day, an industry wide event that allows stores to purchase specific comics from each publisher at a small cost to give away free on a specific Spring day each year, also helps expose current and new readers to the genre.

Graphic Novels and Trade Paperbacks have definitely gained in popularity in our store in the last 5 years. Comic book fans love the collection, which can read more fluidly than the monthly. The Graphic Novel has become more mainstream and accepted as the wonderful storytelling tool that it is. Maus/The Two Towers, the host of comics after 9-11, Persepolis, etc. show that comics can be historically relevant and capture something human that words alone cannot.

In our store we make an effort to have a strong, well-lit All Ages section that feels accessible to kids and parents exploring comics. And we have had success in growing this section and helping to create the next generation of comic readers. Have we been successful enough? Hard to say. We love it when we get older adults coming in the store looking for the Classics Illustrated comics that they learned to read on. We work enthusiastically with teachers and schools to get comics in the hands of kids to encourage reading, donating hundreds of comics each year. Will those kids be back as adults? I certainly hope so. Comics offer a beautiful way of telling Story that is now richly being explored by creative minds, it would be a real loss to see it fade.

Please feel free to call me on my cell if you have any further questions: 443-756-7073


Driana Pearlman
co-owner with her husband, Sheldon, of Comics Kingdom
Comics Kingdom
3998-A Roland Avenue
Baltimore, Md. 21211
410-889-6005
www. AmazingSpiral.com
In a message dated 7/7/2008 1:40:22 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, nancy.johnston@baltsun.com writes:
Hi, my name is Nancy Johnston, and I write for The Baltimore Sun's book blog, Read Street. We're focusing on comic books this week, and I was hoping to get a few recommendations from your store that I can showcase this week.

Also, I was hoping to get some feedback about the strength of interest in comic books and graphic novels in Baltimore. Are they more popular than ever, or are people leaving their super heroes behind? Any trends that you've noticed?

I appreciate any information you can share. I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,
Nancy Johnston
baltimoresun.com/readstreet

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

BUY ZOT!

Everyone go buy Zot! right now. Seriously.

Marvel 1985 #3 continues Mark Millar's enjoyable, nostalgic look at the Marvel Universe in 1985. If the payoff is half-way decent (not like Civil War, Chosen, Wanted, Ultimates 2, later Authority...that's not promising) it may make its way to an excellent series. Surprisingly, I like the art. I'm not the biggest fan of Tommy Lee Edwards (he did the worst comic ever: Speeding Bullets), but it seems appropriate for some reason.

Mighty Avengers #16 is really well done. I had lowered expectations for it (given the last couple issues like this), but it turns out really well. Plus, Elektra is a bad ass in it AND it doesn't deliberately undo anything done by Bendis or other creators (it takes place a little after Enemy of the State, or between pages, and just before the New Avengers rescue Echo, near as I can tell).

Ultimate Fantastic Four #56 was awful: terrible art and the plot just didn't make sense. Sure, you can follow it, but it's just dumb. I don't know why I do this to myself.

X-Factor #33 is fine. It seems a stretch to call it a Secret Invasion tie-in, though, because the Skrulls are just tacked on to sell more copies and cross it over with She-Hulk. It could have been any bad guy, but Skrulls are "cool" (as in "tired and a bit annoying"), so they used them.

X-Force #5 is just kinda bat#$%^ insane. So, let's talk about X-Men.
For the first time in 15 years, I'm reading all the big X-Men books (Uncanny, Legacy, X-Force, X-Factor, Young, Astonishing, Cable). This is due to the surprisingly competent "Messiah CompleX" crossover. That crossover seemed to do a few things: first, it (along with Brubaker's previous Uncanny arcs) removed pretty much all of the terrible things that happened to the X-Men in the 90s. It solved the Bishop problem, it killed Xavier AND Cable, it turned Cyclops back into a strong authority figure, took out Sinister, et cetra. It also allowed the creative teams room to stretch by breaking down the tight continuity of the books. No longer did every book with an X have to start out at Xavier mansion: there was freedom.
Now, 6 months later, what do we have? Well, Xavier didn't die, and didn't stay brain-dead for long, Sinister may or may not be back as a chromosome, Cable's back. So really, it put Cyclops in the seat as leader (which had already happened during House of M, and was going pretty well in Astonishing) and it made Bishop a crazy SOB. But, it still shedded some terrible 90s continuity threads.
And then, there's X-Force, which seems to single-handedly be attempting to revive as many god-awful 90s characters as is possible. Archangel? Bastion? Magnus? Donald Pierce (technically Young X-Men, but he was name-checked, so he's complicit)? I guess they really just wanted to clear up all the left over continuity from "X-Cutioner's Song", but anything after that was fair game. And the art careens wildly from pretty-computer-generated pictures to god-awful renderings that make the Baby Jesus cry. It's sloppy, disorganized, and far too in love with itself to be worth anyone's time. Except mine, apparently. I mean, it's still way better than Ultimate FF, and I've been buying that for over four years now.

Monday, July 21, 2008

The pencil reappears. Comics and the Dark Knight.

Firstly, the Dark Knight is awesome. It may very well be the best comic book movie ever made, but it is not without it's faults. The most glaring problem with the movie is that it is a half hour too long. It drags in spots and the constant climaxes diminish the effect of the movie's actual climax. Seriously, while the part in Hong Kong is cool the whole Chinese conglomerate subplot was a plot device given too much screen time. Aside from that little gripe everything else is spot on. Heath Ledger is terrifying and everyone else showed up with their a game in tow. the a stands for acting. Oh, other thing: how are they going to top this one? My vote, as always, is for Bat-Mite. And now, onto the comics.

Mighty Avengers #16 - This one was way better than the last SI tie ins in Mighty. Probably because the whole story could not be summed up in three pages like the Pym/Sentry issues. That's about it. Solid return to form for the Bendis. Oh, and I finally read some of the recent issues of Powers and they were solid as ever.

Dreamwar #4 - It's the one where everyone, pretty much, realizes that whole thing is a giant misunderstanding and rally together to fight a common foe that appears at the end of the issue. Pretty meh stuff all things told.

Amazing Spider-Man #566 - Ah, the amazing adequacy of it all. Nothing wrong with it, but at the same time it won't be a part of the essential Spidey cannon. Middle of the road, but you won't feel cheated.

Incredible Hercules # 119 - As good as ever. Although the swaps and switches may confuse some...that's kind of the point with the SI thing. And everything is still pretty clear regardless so...yup. Moving on.

X-Factor # 33 - Overall it's a decent return to the X-Factor of old...more or less. While the new status quo means they can move past the less than stellar previous arc it's just that you go right into the crossover that nobody demanded with She-Hulk. I'll reserve judgment on the cross over, but it just makes me wonder is all.

1985 #3 - It was pretty good. I'm liking where the book is going, but at the same time I hope that this new super villain isn't named Clyde Wyncham. It would explain some things, but on the other hand...I don't know.

Final Crisis Rogues' Revenge #1 - It's a decent start. And who wouldn't enjoy a DC version of the Wild Bunch with a group of costumed super criminals. Although, it should have started a little while earlier what with Barry being back and all. But, on the same side there's the whole Mirror Master business in FC #1, so it would make sense for it to come out now all things considered.

Joker's Asylum: Poison Ivy - Better than that god awful, and totally off character, Joker one, but not up to the higher quality of the Jason Aaron Penguin one. And that's in every respect including art and all that.

That's about it.

Monday, July 14, 2008

I finally read Hulk #4: Paul checks in

What with parents and booze and yard projects, I've read roughly 15 comics in the past three weeks. I have a stack still of 30 more. So, yeah. This is getting to be like work.

Booster Gold 1,000,000 is AWESOME! Believe the hype! Woo! In truth, it's just really good. A bit sappy at times, but everything turns out pretty well. Plus, someone (a mysterious figure, no less) actually says "Bwa-hahahahaha", which is great. Not looking forward to the Chuck Dixon fill-ins, but this book is just...the bees knees.

Captain Britain and MI13 #3 is great.

Detective Comics #846 is boring. I assume it'll go somewhere, but it's just bland and unappealingly drawn. You know what, I take it back: I'm not sure it'll go anywhere. And if freakin' Trinity is going to ruin Paul Dini's "Riddler P.I." I'm gonna be pissed.

Speaking of which, I just read Trinity #4-6 and, man, what a pile. I mean, when issue 2 is a high point...I just don't know. You know, Alan Moore, through sheer force of will, could write an awesome comic that examined mysticism and the tarot using superhero archetypes (see "Voodoo" or "Promethia"). But it has become abundantly clear that Kurt Busiek does NOT worship a snake god and pretty much learned everything he knows about magic from reading Promethia and Voodoo. And the worst part? I'm probably going to read this whole stupid thing.

Secret Invasion #4 should have been issue 2. If issues 2 and 3 did not exist, no one would be complaining about this book. Or, less people, anyway. It gives me hope.

Then, there's Ultimare Origins #2. Yikes! Ultimate Quasar and Ultimate Watcher and all sorts of terrible Ultimate nonsense. It's just not even ironically funny anymore, just bad. It also illustrates my problem with Ultimate books of late: different writers are picking and choosing the Ultimate continuity, a continuity that has been around for only ten years. It took Marvel well into the 80s to start deliberately ignoring continuity. But I still hold out hope. Maybe it'll become hilariously bad again (I mean, come on, "accidently" creating mutants? Ha!).

Friday, July 11, 2008

Man, Bendis is ******** up.

Keep in mind that I did not buy Powers because I read it in trade. I'm sure it was up to that book's normal level of quality. But, yup, kind of a weak showing from that lovable Black Francis/Bob Hoskins look-a-like that writes half of Marvel's books and is hated on the internet, yet loved when it comes to sales (Why it almost seems like people use the anonymoty of the internet to make ridiculous claims that they themselves don't even believe to be true. Curious?) Anyway, obvious points and desperate bids for humor and reflection aside onto the books.

Secret Invasion #4 - It really was better than three. Pretty much same formula as the last few. A little chatting, Skrully mind games, ten pages of punching and yelling and then someone shows up at the end to change the tide next issue...maybe? It's probably because issue 1 was so good, but damn all of this rising action. (And on a side note, the thing I've noticed this summer is that seems to be like Crisis on Infinite Earths vs. Secret Wars all over again, even though they didn't come out at the same time. On the one hand you've got mainstays getting killed, worlds collapsing and broad ideas that loosely tie into actual scientific theory like string theory. And on the other you've got a cloud of talking gas, Titania, the Wasp winning over the Lizard, the Wasp dying and the Wasp getting better, and Jehri curls in the sequel. Oh, and the Wasp making out with Magneto. Rant over)

Ultimate Origins #2- Hey, let's re-tell the origin of Cap...again. But this time he's reading about aliens while training. Oh, and Ultimate Project Pegasus. Because that's what we need. You know, because when you want to streamline a line of books the best idea is always including late silver to early bronze age concepts. Oh, Ultimate Jocasta, one day you will be a reality. But anyway, this just seems forced, unnecesary and silly. Pretty much after the whole Canadian government creating mutants in a Dept. H basement in a botched attempt to create super soldiers thing kind of soured me on this series. Oh, and Dr. Cornelius looks pretty good for 103 in Ultimate X-men Vol. 2 I guess. Seriously, am I the only person reading these things anymore.

Final Crisis Requiem - Pretty decent for a tie in. Touching and violent all at once and Mahnke. Glorious Mahnke. Oh, and it had enough of the what are they called...words, to justify the four buck price tag...unlike certain summer event books that shall remain nameless. I'm giving it the thumb up.

Joker's Asylum: Penguin - This is a dramatic improvement over last week's offering...which I would have told you not to buy if I wasn't at a family reunion. But yup, Aaron writes a solid one and Pearson's art is reminiscent of a young Chris Bacchalo. I dig Chris Bacchalo. Just clearing up the confusion. Anyway, solid read and stays way truer to the character than the Joker one from last week.

Young Liars #5 - This comic will sodomize your brain and make your soul cry tears of blood. Seriously, this is possibly the most abhorrent comic book I've read since...last week's issue of The Boys. Now, usually that sort of disturbing and lurid for the sake of it thing is right up my alley. I mean Preacher is one of if not my favorite on going of all time, but the difference with Preacher was that it was grounded with characters that you fell in love with, social commentary , wit and the over top violence and adult situations. Problem is that they seem to be relying solely on shock to get the numbers. But, I am kind of curious to see where this is going. God, I'm a hypocrite.

Captain Britain & MI 13 #3 - I really think Matt covered all of this. Go, buy this. Now. It's awesome.

Guadians of the Galaxy #3 - It's a fun read. And you can get into if you didn't read any of the Annihilation books. I didn't. So, there you go.

Last Defenders #5 - At this point does it even matter. You're either with it or not. I do dig the whole Bizzarro Defenders being the team that was always meant to be and all angle. And I'm always down for some Son of Satan. Mainly because of Ultimate Son of Satan, but I digress. It's a decent mini all things considered.

Captain America White #0 - This is seriously the best thing that Jeph Loeb has done in the past few years. It may be the fond memories of past Sale/ Loeb collaborations (probably is), but this was the superior retelling of the Cap origin story of the week. Good stuff.

Amazing Spider-Man #565 - Apparently all it took to make Spider-Man fun again was to ignore the rest of the Marvel Universe and just let him do his thing. And get rid of JMS. Although a customer brought up an interesting point, was it Loeb or editorial that was mucking up the works for the past few years? I mean the first couple JMS arcs were pretty good. Anyway, this new arc with girl Kraven is alright. Not life changing not god awful. Middle of the road stuff. I'm sure the apathy is leaping off the page right now.

Invincible Iron Man #3 - Oh, that Matt Fraction spins a lovely yarn. Great stuff all over, and he also teaches a class on how you capitalize on the movie. Buy this for serious.

Booster Gold #1,000,000 - It's as continuity heavy and treacly as ever. Seriously, it's a cute book with time travel. I personally like time travel and elseworlds stories so I like the book. And I've always liked Booster, and I always preferred semi-competent Booster so there you go. It's like a slightly more masculine Hellcat meets Sliders with the same number of hugs and less use of the word golly.

Young X-Men #4 - Well, *SPOILER ALERT* Cyclops is not a Skrull, because that would have made so much sense in this context, but well, it's just stupid, and obvious. Moreover, this book is just so...underwhelming. And, for god's sake can we all stop saying cuzin'. God, this book makes my brain hurt. And, I mean you have this big twist in at the end of the first issue, that, while totally illogical and out of the blue was at the least bit interesting. Instead, you go for the obvious twist in this issue that negates the initial draw of the book.

Action Comics # ??? - I left this in the store, but it was pretty solid. And yes, Supergirl is terrifying as rendered. I think Matt already hit the majority of the bases. Solid Johns writing and Gary Frank doing a majority of things right. Except for Supergirl, who looks like Kara Zor-Hell. (God, that was a lame joke, but I had to do it.)

Goon #26 - Oh, it's on now. After some meandering here and there between arcs this new one is off and running. There's action, humor and what else do you want? It's got action, humor the same consistent art and everything else that has made this book a critical darling. And as a critic it is my darling.

Lost Boys #3 - This is seriously made for fans of the movie with three dollars to waste on a, frankly, asinine tie in. Seriously, The Widow Johnson? Just, gah. Why do I keep doing this to myself? Oh, well, see you next week. Take it easy internet

If comics get reviewed in a forest and no one is around to hear - Matt on 6/10

Hey, remember those other guys who used to post here sometimes? They seemed nice. I wonder what ever happened to them. Also, the two people who used to comment. Ah well. Comics!

۞ Okay, I've mentioned how much I'm enjoying Batman R.I.P., right? Like, in a non-ironic, non-negative way? Because I really, really am. So why is nothing even resembling that storyline showing up in this ostensible crossover with Detective #846? I'll admit that I think Hush is a monumentally stupid character, so I'm prejudiced against this from the jump, but this is ... Look, in a vacuum this would be okay. Ish. I guess. But trying to tell me that this has ANYthing to do with the clever, complicated stuff Morrison's doing over in the main book is setting the bar a bit high. Forgettable, and I'm not going to be sticking with this storyline.

۞ Batman Confidential #19 is part three of the storyline, and more of the same: a solidly entertaining flashback story from Fabian Nicieza with exquisite artwork from Kevin Maguire. They've worked together as a creative team before, and they mesh well. Fun stuff.

۞ I know, I know: I swore I was done with Booster Gold. And I hate buying things just because they're part of a crossover -- it makes me feel like a sucker. But I LOVED DC One Million back in the day, so sending this book retroactively into the crossover was reason enough for me to buy it.

The level of disappointment I feel is suitable punishment for letting myself be tricked like this. Hey, DC: it's ISSUE #1,000,000, not the YEAR 1,000,000. It's the year 85,271, as you correctly note on the cover. And if you were going to go to the trouble of matching the cover, why not include the stupid CGI title page that was on all the 1,000,000 issues as well? Seriously half-assed as a One Million tribute, and still meh as a comic on its own. Fool me once, etc.

۞ Secret Invasion #4 is better than Secret Invasion #3. Damning with faint praise? Maybe so, but it's what I've got.

۞ Invincible Iron Man #3 is fantastic. Matt Fraction's script seems carefully designed to be equally applicable to modern Marvel Universe continuity or to Iron Man movie continuity, and it's such a good Iron Man story that I found myself not caring either way. The strongest Iron Man's book has been since ... I dunno, since I was, like, 12. Nice showcase for Larocca's art, too. Much more appropriate than newuniversal.

۞ Okay, okay, a little bit more on Secret Invasion: it feels to me like Bendis is just hitting plot beats, like he just re-read Robert McKee's STORY and is following all the rules on this one. This is the middle issue, so we find out more about the Invasion plans, the heroes begin to regroup, sort of, and ... yeah, it just all completely fails to come alive for me. Oh well. Maybe next issue.

۞ Although I do have to wonder why the whole thing feels so much better in the tie-in books -- Captain Britain and MI-13 #3 is what I want from the MAIN miniseries: a plot with enough energy and momentum to carry itself past its own stupid points; characters who seem different from one another, and invested in the moment; some humor, some wit, some flair; heroic moments that feel genuinely heroic ... this is worth checking out even if you're ignoring SI altogether.

۞ Action Comics #867 does a nice job continuing the Braniac story. It's shaping up to be another nice Geoff Johns-written DCU book and the best Superman's been in a while. But... well, how to put this.... Ah, heck with it, I'll scan in the image, but let's do it in bits and pieces first. This is from the book's splash page. Can you guess what Supergirl is doing?


If you guessed "vomiting," "recovering from a brutal hangover," "smelling something awful," or "appearing in a Warren Ellis comic," you think along the same lines as me. You're also wrong; she's examining a Braniac drone and is meant to be looking frightened.

Here's another bit of the image that irritated me.


Yes, the left side is a bit deceptive as the shadow cast by her arm makes her appear even more unhealthily skinny, but even with out that ... why is Supergirl emaciated? Look at her ribs jutting out -- it makes me want to send her fifty cents a day so she can get away from Sally Struthers.

So let's put together those two images with the rest of it and see what we get...


Yep. It's Paris Hilton: Supergirl. I can't wait for my daughter to be old enough to enjoy this with me.

GET IT TOGETHER, GARY FRANK!

Monday, July 7, 2008

Where is everyone? Matt on 6/2

I was out of town at a wedding! What the hell is everyone else's excuse? Anyhow, here's some belated thoughts on all things comicky for June 2nd.

۞ So there's apparently been some kind of fooferaw over Batman #678, partially because of the blatant use of the stupid "magic negro" trope, partially because some people find it incomprehensible, and mostly because it's becoming clearer and clearer that to fully understand Morrison's Batman run, one is going to have to have read (and remember!) thousands of seriously obscure Batman stories. (So far, "Batman -- The Superman of Planet X," "Robin Dies At Dawn," possibly a few issues of World's Finest, and Batman #47. Great.)

But here's the thing: I'm LOVING this. Yes, the art is atrocious (although I like it much better than I did the Kubert who started the run off). Yes, Morrison is writing in a deliberately elliptical and allusive style. But it's FUN. It's interesting. It's somewhat challenging, I suppose, but mainly in the sense that I'm honestly curious about what's going to happen next month. In other words, it's that rare comic that I enjoy in EXACTLY the same way I enjoyed Transformers off the 7-11 spinner racks when I was a kid. I don't expect everyone to agree, but, there you go.

۞ On a different end of the spectrum is Angel Revelations #2. I'm enjoying this -- Aguirre-Sacasa needs to give up on the more action-y stuff and just accept that drama is his metier -- and Adam Pollina's art is fluid and lovely. But if it disappeared from the shelves tomorrow, I don't really think I'd notice. That said, if you haven't given this a shot, check it out; it's good to reward Marvel when they actually try something interesting and different.

۞ And then there's Astonishing X-Men #25, which ... exists, I suppose. It's easy to forget that Warren Ellis wrote Excalibur for 20-odd issues back in the nineties (especially easy as Marvel hasn't ever bothered reprinting them), but ... yeah, I feel like I saw all of this back then. In those days, it was Moira MacTaggart's coffee, which was terrible. Now it's Beast's coffee, which is apparently terrific. Ellis appears to have decided that the way to humanize superheroes is by having them shill shade-grown organic beans. (Actually, Planetary starts with a coffee discussion as well, as does Ellis's novel Crooked Little Vein. Maybe I'm onto something here.)

Back then Pete Wisdom was the sardonic British character who managed to enliven and poke fun at the mutant team tropes. Now it's Emma Frost (who is not actually British, I don't think, but don't tell her last three or four writers).

It's all good enough, I guess, helped along by Simone Bianchi's van art on steroids. We'll see what Ellis does with it long term, I suppose. I know I've been finding a lot of his recent stuff, from newuniversal to Doktor Sleepless to Black Summer to even Nextwave, MUCH better when read as a chunk. It's like he's abandoned writing for the individual issues altogether.

Anyhow, blah blah blah Warren Ellis-y.

۞ Some of you might remember that I really liked Top Cow's Pilot Season: Genius, and that I encouraged everyone to vote for it in the official Top Cow Popularity Contest Of Popularness. Let's just say that I'm a little cooler to Pilot Season: Alibi, which reads like either the pilot episode of a really dull Alias/24 knockoff or like the first issue of a really mediocre Boom! Studios comic that's clearly being pitched to Hollywood.

Nothing here engages me, nothing makes me want to see where the story goes, and, really nothing here is worth wasting any more time writing about.

Monday, June 30, 2008

A Special Comment on Marvel's Preview Books, by Matt

So, you know, I review these preview books all the time, right? Each week, I read through the envelope and give my pithy thoughts. Usually, these consist of "_______ was pretty good!" or "______ is on a down week, but I look forward to future issues," or "Wolverine Origins is just a terrible comic." But, see, here's the thing: who cares?

Not rhetorical: who actually cares? Once in a great while, I can do some good -- say something like, "Hey, that SKAAR book is better than it sounds," or "Holy crap, Guardians of the Galaxy is good even if you don't like Annihilation." That's a nice feeling, even if only six of you are reading this. Less frequently, I can warn you off some kind of horrid abomination, although usually it's just another issue of Wolverine Origins.

This week, though ... this week, Marvel really irritated me. Here's what we got in the preview pack, along with my incredibly terse (and always spoiler-free!) review:
  • Amazing Spider-Man #564 - Fine. Not nearly as clever as it thinks it is, but fine.
  • Avengers Invaders #3 - I find this unreadable, but those of you that are liking it will probably continue to do so.
  • Cable #5 - Eh. It's ... readable. Fine. Inoffensive. Wraps up the storyline adequately.
  • Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #41 - I'm not the fan of the Marvel Adventures books that some are, but this is decent enough. Does what it sets out to do, anyhow.
  • Punisher War Journal #21 - My love of Matt Fraction is on frightening public display in my other posts here, and I've worked hard to sell his other awesome work (buy the THOR thing! It's TERRIFIC!) so I feel totally fine saying that this is, um, far from his best.
  • Squadron Supreme 2 #1 - Continues Straczynski's work accurately in tone and pacing, which means that I want nothing to do with it. But that's a personal issue more than anything else. Supreme Power fans should be very happy.
Okay, so that's five perfectly adequate comics that may or may not please existing fans of the title/character/creator, plus a first issue that's pretty much a continuation of a recently cancelled title.

Meanwhile, here's what was NOT in the preview pack:
  • Astonishing X-Men #25 - Because god forbid I be able to confidently recommend Warren Ellis's first issue, right?
  • Patsy Walker Hellcat #1 - No doubt Marvel is so confident in the built-in Hellcat audience, there's no reason to let word get out if this thing is actually good or not. Yep, all eleven Hellcat fans nationwide are just LOCKED IN TO BUY.
  • Secret Invasion Front Line #1 - The Front Line books have been frankly abominable for the last two big events, but they've put a new, more appealing creative team on this one ... so why not give retailers a chance to put the word out if it's better?
Look, seriously? What's the POINT of these preview packs? If it's just to give people like me a chance to read Cable a week early, well, fair enough. But it's an OPPORTUNITY, a chance for me -- and people like me around the country -- to tell our customers when there's something out there that they're not picking up. And, realistically, that's not going to be mid-storyline in Cable, Punisher War Journal, or anything else, even if those books were better than they actually are.

I dunno. Is anyone actually reading these things of mine? If so, does anyone find them helpful? Because this week's previews depressed the hell out of me, and it had nothing to do with the quality of the books involved.

Good night, and good luck.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Matt hurries through comics for 6/23

So I have, like, eleven billion other things to do, most of which I'm even being paid for, so of course I'm doing this to procrastinate. But I'm going to make it quick, though! In, out, comment, done, bam!

(I also previewed a bunch of this week's Marvel books a few days ago but can't be bothered finding the link. Scroll down a bit.)

Here we go!

۞ What If This Was The Fantastic Four: A Tribute To Mike Wieringo is a review-proof book, really, because what kind of jerk would complain about paying five bucks to donate to the HERO Initiative in honor of a really terrific artist...? Okay, fine. I'll do it: this isn't a great comic. Wieringo was one of my favorite superhero artists, he brought a real sense of fun to his work, and his death really is a tragic loss for the comic book community as well as his family and loved ones ... but this isn't his strongest work by any stretch, and it's in service of a Jeff Parker story that's ... well-intentioned, anyhow. The tributes in the book are genuinely moving, and I'm glad to have bought it for charity purposes, but as a comic book, it's really only so-so.

Annnnnnnnnnnd that's me going to hell, I suppose.

۞ No Hero #0 from Avatar is an interesting book, Warren Ellis hammering his particular vision of superheroes onto a Marshall McLuhan/Timothy Leary type. Could go either way, but ... did Black Summer ever finish? I don't remember an ending, but can't see Ryp and Ellis starting something new with that still uncompleted. Yes? No? No time for questions! Onward!

۞ Oh, look, it's eleven thousand Secret Invasion crossovers! Runaways/Young Avengers is actually really strong; it captures the voices of both teams, and has some strong artwork from Spidey Loves MJ mainstay Takeshi Miyazawa. New Avengers #42 and Mighty Avengers #15 are both Bendis showing us what's REALLY been going in his books, and they're good if you're into that sort of thing.

I'm kind of tired of Bendis feeling compelled to actually show me whole entire scenes again and again, because I know something slightly new now, but whatever. It's not like I have to pay for it again each time or anythin-- wait, I do? Oh, well THAT'S annoying.

۞ My Matt Fraction love continues unabated with his work on Young Avengers Presents #6: Hawkeye. (And, seriously, the last issue of a mid-selling miniseries is suddenly written by Matt Fraction and drawn by ALAN DAVIS?!? What the hell?) The double entendre on "god, he moves so fast" alone is worth the cover price on this one. Great stuff. Make Sheldon try to reorder it for you.

۞ I'm going to be honest about this, even though I hate reviewers who say this sort of lazy crap, but I literally fell asleep during 1985 #2. Just dozed right off. Not a reflection on the book, I don't think -- I really am juggling a whole bunch of stuff right now, and it's tiring -- but ... yeah, I'm not really qualified to say. I don't like the art very much, though, so there's that.

۞ Meanwhile, over in the DC books....

You know, cutting all the DC books that I haven't been liking really makes their output seem much stronger to me. Green Lantern #32 continues to be an excellent (if somewhat unnecessary, maybe) retelling of Hal Jordan's origin -- I'm really liking this run on GL through and through. Pity about Green Lantern Corps, but I think I've already covered that.

۞ And the big one: Final Crisis #2 I loved it. Just loved it. It feels less like a stupid, continuity-heavy crossover "event" and more like one of Grant Morrison's better efforts on JLA. (Also, I didn't read Countdown or any affiliated books once I realized how terrible they were, so I couldn't care less about the continuity hiccups, which might help.) Anyhow, yeah, good, packed issue with a real sense of menace for the heroes and some characteristically great throwaway ideas from Grant Morrison. (Bullet shot through time indeed.) This one seems to be getting better with each page, unlike the whell-spinning Secret Invasion on the other side of the store. I'm optimistic.

Okay, back to real work. Bye.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

I take no solace in being right all of the time.

Firstly, man, Jeph Loeb is (expletive deleted) up. Just had to throw that out. Which brings me to the title of this week's post. It pertains to the identity of the red Hulk. And now they have finally made it even more obvious so I'm going to call it a win. Barring some left field red herring developments. Now, I, personally find this development to be obvious, banal and a slap in the face of years of characterization. And it may make logical sense given the Bruce Banner is a puss so he has the bottled up aggression angle vis a vis this character being a new age puss...you get the idea. Anyway, just thought I'd get that out there. As for Hulk #4 - The only redeeming parts are the first three pages. Also, I dig how they've chosen to totally get rid of the smarter WWH Hulk in favor of the classic "savage" Hulk. Sarcasm is harder on the internet sometimes. Not like my opinion matters on this one though. Oh, and McGuinness looks a tiny bit off of his game too. Which saddens me to no end. This leads to the next bit of mind scrubbing compliments of Mr. Loeb.

Ultimates 3#4 - This may have been the worst comic I've read in years. It's just silly. And it's got this whole Secret Invasion meets Ultron gimmick thing going on that is just...wow. It's all been leading up to this. Really? They're replacing everyone with robots. . It's just silly and uninspired. And what the hell does Magneto have to do with anything? Glad to see Joe Mad getting work though. Wish it was something less insipid. Like my opinion matters on this either. (begin rant) And does anyone in editorial bother to check up on what characters are where? Pyro in the Savage Land? Mastermind out of prison? And I'm PAYING TO READ THIS. That's right. This is not my job, but I can keep all of this inconsequential BS straight in my head. Is it that hard? Apparently so. (end rant)


Final Crisis #2 - Um, right. I'm so conflicted on this book. I guess my only real qualm with it is that I'm looking for the book to really gel into a cohesive thought. I mean it's not as all encompassing as Infinite Crisis, but it still seems a tad scattered to me. That's my only real qualm with the book. I'm also curious to see how the events within transition into the DCU proper. What with the shocking dearth of tie ins (comparatively). But, two points for Sunny Sumo when all is said and done.

Mighty Avengers #15 - The weakest of the Avengers tie ins this week in my opinion. I don't know there's nothing really wrong with the art or the characterization it's just that it took so long to get to the meat of the story, and frankly, the method of removal of Pym is pretty obvious from the get go. The one thing I will say is that the bit on the last page does raise an interesting question. Wholly, better than last issue.

New Avengers # 42 - It was alright. I'm a sucker for Jimmy Cheung so that helped. Okay, so this issue pretty much connects all of the dots since the beginning of New Avengers until House of M. It's neat stuff, but some of the dots should connect themselves given the prior information doled out in other recent issues of NA. There's nothing wrong with this book, and I guess some of the revelations are huge if you're not that great at ratiocination, I don't know. I am however really excited for next issue...because I'm curious about how they explain that one.

Avengers: Initiative # 14 - I was always a big "They Live" fan. That is probably going to influence my opinion of this book seeing as the main element in at least part of the SI tie in arc is centered around a pair of magic goggles that well...you've either seen the movie or not. And I also dug the Pym flashback moments so all in all I thought it was entertaining. Anyway, this is totally on par with the rest of the Initiative run so go get it. Now I've just got to wait for Mondo vs. Paydirt. Unless they're the same guy..?

Runaways/ Young Avengers: SI #1 - Better than the Cvil War crossover one in my book. Seems a little less forced given the established Skrull presence on both teams. And I dig the manga style so there you have it in a nutshell. As far as unnecessary tie ins go this one doesn't seem totally abhorrent.

Young Avengers Presents # 6 - Just as hug filled as the rest of this series, but less cloying given the input of Matt Fraction. Best of the run in my opinion. And with the incomparable Alan Davis on the pencils it's all the better. That's really all there is to it. An entirely entertaining confection. I hope they don't kill off Kate Bishop in SI...or make Clint Barton a skrull in SI. That'd be a pretty big dick move now that I think about it. Anyway, tangents aside, if you have to get one of the YA mini books it should be this one.

Fantastic Four # 558 - I'm sticking with it after the underwhelming, in my opinion, World's Greatest arc and I think that I may have made the right decision. I don't know this new arc seems to have some of the dimension hoping fun of Millar's tenure on Ultimate FF. And given the reveals towards the end of the issue well, my interest has been piqued. All in all I'd say it's a solid improvement. Part of my does think that the Invisible Woman in question is actually the nanny i.e. an older reality hopping Sue Storm.
Thunderbolts #121 - I'm kind of sad to see Ellis and Deodato leave the book. And the issue in question is overall a success with keeping the characterization, mean spiritedness and the violence all on the level I've come to expect. And yes, the resolution is a tad Deus Ex-Machina, but it's fitting in the pre established realm of character's and their proclivities. Also, it's comics I mean the Deus Ex-Machina is a pretty well respected trope. All in all thumbs up. Oh, and points for a young Edward Norton making an appearance in two Marvel properties in one month. (You'll know it when you see it.)

Immortal Iron Fist # 16 - Nooooooooooo!!!!! God, I hope the new team doesn't mess this one up. Pretty much, this one is a nice bookend for the run (one of the finest in recent years) and sets things up for what could be a rebirth of the classic Power Man and Iron Fist of yore, but with less dated writing...jive fool. Anyway, it's a great send off to Fraction and Aja, but god I'm going to miss them. Just as long as this doesn't degenerate to Cable quality when the regime change goes into effect next issue I'll be good.


Captain America # 39 - I don't think I have anything else to say about this book. I think it may actually be the most consistently high quality book in years. This issue is no different. Intrigue is mounting, tension keeps rolling and yeah. It's all good over here. My only question is how they're going to top this "Death of Cap" epic. I mean damn.

X-Men Legacy #213 - This is, currently, the best X-book on the shelves and it doesn't really lose any steam this month. Although, part of me has some qualms with the ending of the issue...at least Carrey is trying some new ideas that fit perfectly into the pre established X-Mythos. So, thumbs up and go buy it. Actually the only real fault I could find with the book is, as previously mentioned, you have to be up on your X-Men lore to really get the full effect. But I am, so it doesn't really matter.

Uncanny X-Men #499 - Is not the worst X-men book on the shelves these days (Young X-Men), but it's close. Anyway, this issue wraps up the SF/Russia arcs and sets it up for the big 500. And with Matt Fraction jumping on the book I only have high hopes for it getting up to the level of Legacy. Anyway, the issue itself just feels inconsequential. There's nothing terribly wrong with the art or characterization it's just not very interesting is all. Yeah, that about sums it up.

Ultimate Spider-Man #123 - Since the clone saga this book has been back on it's grind as the kids say. This issue is no different. Decent framing devices, a good glimpse at Ultimate Venom for newcomers and if I'm not mistaken it may incorporate some moments from the Ultimate Spider-Man video game from a few years ago. Overall, it's as solid as ever.

Trinity #4 - Why am I still reading this? I think that says it all.

Black Panther # 37 - I forgot that I hadn't been getting this one pulled for a couple months. And hey, much like some of the books on here it's consistent. Interpret that for yourselves.

Green Lantern #32 - Go buy it. I mean seriously, this is one of the best books in the DC super hero line.

Marvel 1985 #2 - It's a good read. Solid art, and a good pacing overall. Millar does know how to write the kids and write them he does. It's some decent rising action. I don't know it's issue two of six. That's about it for me. You can highlight the space after my FF review when everything is over to see if I called that one too. Or not. Is anybody out there? Oh, well. Take it easy internet.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Holy crap there are a lot of Marvel books this week - Matt pre-reviews for 6/23

There are a ton of books in the Marvel Preview Pack, an absolute TON -- and even more of them on the advance shipping list. It's a HUGE week, Marvel Fans, and a suprising number of the books (the ones I've read, anyhow) are really good. Anyhow, given the volume of books and the always SPOILER-FREE nature of these preview reviews, let's see how quickly we can knock these out.

۞ Uncanny X-Men #499 - Wraps up the SF story and the Russia story adequately, and clears the decks for an interesting run with the updated creative team. Perfectly sound.

۞ X-Men Legacy #213 - Very interesting twists here. I'm really growing to dig this storyline a lot.

۞ Runaways #30 is so late that I have no recollection what's happening, but I get the sense that I would really like it if I did. Stupid late books.... I'm NOT looking forward to the new creative team, though.

۞ Wolverine First Class #4 - Fun. Not my usual cuppa tea, but if you like this sort of thing (Kitty Pryde transformed into a cat warrior, for example), this is a well-executed version of it.

۞ Ultimate Spider-Man #123 - Not quite as appealing to me as last issue, but a suitably creepy introduction to this storyline, and one that has me at least a bit intrigued.

۞ Thor Reign of Blood One-Shot - This is the second of three linked Matt Fraction Thor one-shots, and, like the last one, this one is AWESOME. Captures the violent, sleazy tone of true myth and just goes to town with it.

۞ Captain America #39 - Consistent like the sun, taxes, and traffic. This is good stuff.

۞ Thunderbolts #121 - A lively but slightly rushed wrap-up to the Ellis run. Good, but I was hoping for something sublime.

۞ Fantastic Four #558 - Promising start to the new storyline, this feels like a much denser read than the last one. I hate the fuzzy panel edges, though. Not sure why that drives me so nuts, but it does.

۞ Immortal Iron Fist #16 - Snif. Matt Fraction bids goodbye to Iron Fist the way it deserves. Great stuff. I'll give the new creative team a shot, but they've got a lot to live up to. (And, if there are any other Fraction junkies out there, he's the writer on the Young Avengers Presents issue shipping this week also.)

۞ Wolverine Origins #26 - I'm predisposed to hate this book in general, but replacing the dependable Steve Dillon with a much lesser artist (think Lenil Yu + Mark Texiera + someone who has no clue how to layout a page) really takes it to alarming new lows.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Blah blah blah about 6/18 from Matt

Last week, I proudly declared that I was going to chop books to save money and then only found two books to get rid of. I can guarantee that number jumps by one this week, but let's see how we do.

۞ The book that's gone is Trinity. I know this is a bit strange, as I was just singing its praises last week, but I realized with issue #3 that I just kind of don't care. The art is painfully static, the writing more than adquate but still not particularly interesting, and the plot unremarkable. Ironically, I think the weekly scheduling is working against the book -- I'd pay three bucks a month for this, but 12 bucks every month? For 12 months? I'd rather buy Wii Fit, or Rock Band Wii, or a palette-load of diapers at Sam's Club. Sorry for misleading y'all before, but I'm done.

۞ Glad I got that off my chest. Now we can turn to ... hmmm ... yeah, let's do another negative one before we get happy. I'm done with Flash. My go-to line on the book has been that I'll buy anything with Freddie Williams II art, but, well looks like I was wrong about that. I really hope DC can figure out what to do with this title, though, because I loved the character back in the mid-90s.

۞ On to happier things! (Happier things which, perhaps not coincidentally, include NO futher DC books. Hmmmm.) Still loving the Incredible Hercules. Last week I called Captain Britain the best thing to come out of Secret Invasion, but the God Squad here is pretty entertaining as well. Hell, writers Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente also manage to do something vaguely interseting with Nightmare, that depressingly dull knock-off of Neil Gaiman's Sandman. (Down to the word balloons, no less. Good lord, Marvel. Have you no shame?) Nice last page twist, also.

۞ My goodness, but the cover for X-Factor #32 is ugly. And dull. I think we should have a word for that. Dugly? Ull? I'll work on it. Anyhow, yeah, ugly cover but some really nice interior art from Valentine De Landro, and Peter David manages to keep building on the story he's telling here -- he's done an incredibly good job of rolling with the various crossover punches and still letting his story feel organic. Good book, hideous cover -- feel free to send Glenn Fabry back to Vertigo where he fits in a bit better.

۞ Although I have an avowed fondness for Mark Millar's writing of young kids, he's pretty clearly at his best when he's A) working in his Big Dumb Action Story mode, and B) he doesn't need to rely on a bunch of other writers making his ideas make sense. (I think B is what really crippled Civil War at points; Millar wanted to write creepy, vaguely incenstuous dialogue for Johnny Storm and Sue Richards, and the Fantastic Four writers had actually read the characters before.)

ANYHOW, Wolverine #66
sets off Millar's big Future Wolverine In The Bad Marvel Future story, and it looks like it's going to hew pretty close to his strengths. Still plenty of time, as always, for Millar to give in to his more puerile impulses ("...and then in issue #69, the villain has sex with the corpse of Wolverine's children!" or something like that), but he's set himself off to a very strong start.

۞ My favorite book this week, though, was one that most people probably missed: Genius #1, from Top Cow. It's part of their Pilot Season thing, where they release a whole bunch of first issues into the wild with virtually no publicity, and everyone votes on what should become an actual series. (Where "everyone" equals "all seven people nationwide who are aware of the promotion," I guess.)

Genius is a pretty clever book, though -- the high concept seems to be "What if the 21st century's military genius were born into an L.A. gang, and used her military tactics to band the gangs together to declare war on the cops." It works much better than it sounds thre, and the art is stinkin' GORGEOUS, somewhere between cel-shaded animation and Adam Hughes. This Afua Richardson girl is going to be big at some point, I suspect. (Unless she becomes big for her music, which is not entirely impossible either. Good, big voice. God, I loathe talented people.)

Anyhow, all of you should pester Sheldon to order this for you (Diamond Order Code: APR082211, I believe), and then vote for it to become a series, and only then will I accept your gracious thanks.

۞ And I also bought the final trade of Y The Last Man to read, having remained remarkably unspoiled as to the ending. Hopefully I'll get to that today, but I'm pretty confident it'll be fabulous.

Ain't no party like my Nana's Tea Party: Paul flips through 6/18 books

This week was pretty light, just picking up a few random and unexciting books. What we get is:

Trinity #3 was not as good as #2 and I don't know if I can handle that let-down. The "Trinity", because this is a book that will star the three biggest DC characters, get about three pages of exposure in the weak lead. It reminded me of Secret Invasion #2 and 3, actually, where it was just people you didn't care about fighting. Then the back-up, which was decent last week, was boring as all get-out this week. Just a character who, I assume, will be important reading tarot cards and watching gang members get filleted. After last week, I didn't think I'd say this, but you get two more trys to turn this ship around.

Amazing Spider-Man #563 was another let-down after a strong issue last week. Still, good stuff. Fun, breezy, enjoyable entertainment. Mike McKone's art is still strong, but Bob Gale's writing is proving to be the weak link in the "Brain Trust"'s chain.

Ex Machina #37 was good. It's hard to talk about a book that's a long, continuing story like this because it defies normal jumping-on points. Though, I will say this: mayor's in New York City are elected for four years and we know Mayor Hundred will only last one term (it said so in issue 1). So how did Journal tell her sister something "years before she died" if Journal herself died a year after finding out that bit of information?

Ultimate Fantastic Four #55 is a very strange book. The story is okay, if underwhelming, and it seems to be heavily padded to have "gotcha" moments that lack punch. They might mean something if similar things happened in the "real" Marvel Universe (kill me now for writing that...), but in the Ultimate Universe, where Ultimate Namor (spoiler?) has appeared in a whopping three (bland) issues that failed to generate chemistry between him and Ultimate Invisible Woman, it just sits there. Plus the art is dreadful. I thought it reminded me of Top Cow house style, but I was wrong: with this issue's atrocious inking and coloring, it reminds me more of Awesome Comics, one of Rob Liefeld's publishers. Back in the 90s, guys like Chris Sprouse, Jeff Matsuda, Joe Madueira, Roger Cruz, and a whole bunch of others slummed it there and turned in stuff that looked, well, a lot like this issue: badly colored and trying to impersonate the great Rob Liefeld. And if you can imagine Ian Churchill aping Rob Liefeld with colors by Mack Yackey (assuming you know who all those people are), you get a good idea of what this book looks like: crap. Or Lionheart.

Wolverine #66 is a decent start to what I'm sure will be a decent run on Wolverine for Mark Millar and Steve McNiven. I liked it a lot: there were nice bits, it was dialogue heavy, especially for a Wolverine comic, and the characters dialogue was all surprisingly natural. One gripe: if, on page 1, you say that no one knows what happened to Wolverine, that he just vanished, you should not have every character in the issue know that Logan is Wolverine. Maybe have them NOT call him Wolverine every time they see him. Maybe have them call him "Logan" once or twice. But, no, instead we get everyone from next door neighbors to gamma-irradiated thugs calling him Wolverine and reminding us (because we're reading a Wolverine comic, so we may not know who he is?) that he used to be a bad-ass. But if you skip the first three pages, it's really good. Oh, and the back cover.

Finally, The Spirit #18, well, landed with a loud thud this week and, finally, I figured out the problem here: Mark Evanier used to write Scooby Doo. And when he was told to co-write Spirit, he just picked up a few old Scooby Doo scripts, hit find and replace, and turned them in. Because the last five issues have all read like Scooby Doo episodes: lame twists, globe-trotting, talking dogs. Actually, that last bit would make these loads more enjoyable. As it is, we get a series of half-baked adventures that so little but remind you how great Darwyn Cooke was at capturing the essence (spirit?) of the Spirit. In conclusion, don't read this. Actually, if you thought to yourself, "I like Scooby Doo, but I wish it had more fighting and murder and double entendre's and a main character who is a complete and utter tool", then brother this is the book for you! Otherwise, terrible, terrible stuff.

So, I like, what, three of the six books I read this week? Nice. I'm as bad as Matt.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

I don't even know any more.

The book that caused my feelings of unease and self doubt is Ultimate X-men. It started out really kick ass when Mark Millar, author of Kick-Ass, was working on it. And it was still good when Bendis was working on it. And then there was Vaughn, who had some ideas that I didn't gel with at the time, but in retrospect were pretty inspired for an Ultimate book. And then there was Robert Kirkman who should frankly only write his own creator owned books and Marvel Team-Up. (Ant-man was alright, but more so salacious than irredeemable) And Kirkman pretty much dropped a huge, for lack of a better term, deuce on the book. And now we've got Aaron Coliete doing his thing. And while it's less silly and over blown it's still pretty silly and over blown. Just this whole team of suer duper powered hardasses/D.A.R.E created characters are just aren't compelling. I don't know it's just silly, and retcony, but less silly and retcony than the whole Cable-rine/ Sini-lypse thing. So, I'm going to say that it's slightly better, but still crap. Oh, and a lot of people's jacked up powers are just silly...mainly Beak/Angel as well as energy blast dom-Nightcrawler. It's better, but still ass is what I'm trying to say...why do I even care? And then the rest.

Ghost Rider # 24- More of the same it would seem. I'm fairly sure I know where this new arc is going, but I don't know if I care anymore. It would seem that the book has gone into a a perpetual loop of murderous apostles, judgment stare repeat.

X-Factor #23 - Finally, things are happening again in this book. There's a new status quo, there's no stand up comedy and no Arcade with the Arcade mask over the robot mask which coneals the fact that it's actually Arcade. (It seems sillier when you write it out.) Anyway, I'm just glad that the book has gotten out of it's stagnant post MC arc and can continue to be the book that we all remember fondly. (Although the She-Hulk/SI crossover makes me wonder.)

Incredible Hercules #118 - Keeps the high quality of the book. And oddly enough it's the skrull reveal in this book that I actually find to be the most troubling out of any of the prior ones. I'm bein one hundred percent serious. I just like this character more than Hank "Five Across the Eyes" Pym. But that aside you should be reading Hercules.

Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four #2 - I'm a huge sucker for summer crossovers. Even though this one is less compelling than Civil War, but not as inconsequential as WWH I still found myself purchasing this tie in. Personally I know that if I didn't work in a comic book store and take the majority of my pay in comics I would not be picking this up, but I could do worse. Pretty much this book is likable enough piffle. It stays true to the characters, keeps a decent pace and the art's alright. You could do lot worse with your mega event tie ins is all I'm saying. (I'm looking directly at you The Conversation.)

Wolverine #66 - It's probably going to be a pretty good arc. Millar brand fun through and through. I don't know I think everything has been previously covered.

Amazing Spider Man #563 - The best part of this issue is the cover. I think that should sum it all up. Oh, and Spoiler Alert there is no bumper car chase. Bacchalo's on the next arc, I think, so I'll stick with it.

The future - Uncanny X-Men - Is an improvement. Captain America - Is just as good as ever. X-Men Legacy - Keeps the quality, but I fear that the Fonz is revving his motorcycle at the end of the issue. It makes sense (for comics) though, but I don't know how to feel about it. But I'd imagine it's going to stick for as long as Xavier getting skull caped or Darkseid getting space punched or whatever. And the new arc in FF seems to be more entertaining than the last one. Even if it seems to be one of them cross dimensional things that Mark Millar is so fond of. Take it easy internet.

Friday, June 13, 2008

That's why they're called "Business Socks"

I was not looking forward to this week, but it actually turned out okay in the end. I'm not NEARLY as pessimistic as Matt. Which is weird because I tend to be hard on my books. So, what'd I read?



We'll start with Trinity #2 which is just a great book. Allow me to justify that a bit, though. The story itself, along with the writing, plotting, and art, are okay. Mark Bagley's storytelling and page layouts are more safe and less interesting than his work on Ultimate Spider-Man and Kurt Busiek is kind of on auto-pilot. What makes it great is the way the series is expanding. See, with 52, DC published a weekly comic and had no idea what to do with it so they purposely set up every DC book to not cross over with it by making them all fast forward a year (terrible idea). When 52 turned out to be really good, DC scrambled to kind of tie into it but the titles didn't hit until the last few weeks.

So then Countdown came along and DC went out of its way to tie that into EVERYTHING, from "Green Arrow"'s "wedding" (which, I mean, REALLY?) to the death of Impulse (spoiler?). And it failed because it became more a summary of what was happening in other books than a book on its own (weak) merits. Even to the end, you had four spin-off series running with Countdown. So that didn't work.

So what does Trinity do? You can't have it tie in to nothing because then there may be alleyways you want to explore but can't. You can't have it tie into everything because then people feel ripped off that they have to buy a dozen books just to decode what is going on. So Kurt Busiek TIES IT INTO ITSELF! Rather than say "Go buy [book X] to understand why Green Lantern is fighting a grazed Grape Ape", the book gives half the book to the "Trinity" and the other half to filling in the blanks that you just missed. It doesn't interupt the flow of the main narrative by flashing around among dangling plots, it acts as an appendiw, it's own tie-in mini-series. Which is great, which is why I say it's great.

Not so great: Superman has a solar system appear in Metropolis, Wonder Woman fights giant robots, and Batman deals with mass hallucination in Gotham (?!?). And Superman actually says something like "Clearly all of these events are related to that dream we all had." How did he come to that conclusion exactly? It's such a Superfriends line ("An earthquake? In California? Clearly Lex Luthor is involved!") I lose a little respect for Kurt Busiek. Still, really good.


Booster Gold #10 was all kinds of good. Again, I like time travel, so I'm biased. But this answers unanswered questions from the original series like "Whose flight ring does Booster have?" "How does he have Brainiac 5's tech if Brainiac 5 is from 500 years in the future?" It's just great. And, if you weren't aware that those questions existed, the BEST way to spend 16 dollars is to pick up Showcase Presents Booster Gold, which collects all 25 issues of the original series plus crossovers plus his story from Secret Files. Totally worth every penny.


Amazing Spider-Man #562 has really great art by Mike McKone, who should just rotate with Marcos Martin on every issue of Amazing from now on. He's great, and he's not strickly DC and if ever there were a book that felt like it needed McKone's art, this is it. (Kevin Maguire would also be nice.) I like where its going and I hope that, well, the Spider-double becomes Spider-Man's full-time sidekick, because THAT would be something.

Now, my problem with the issue: at the end of the issue, there is a blurb about two associate editors who are leaving Marvel. Molly Lazer (who I swear has been there since the 80's) gets a very nice "We'll miss you." Then, Aubrey Sitterson (who's been with Marvel since the mid -90s) gets the shaft, being blamed for everything that went wrong with Amazing Spider-Man over the last five years, especially "One More Day". They also make fun of the poor guy because he's working for the WWE (which I can guarantee pays better than Associate Editor for Marvel). It's a very mean-spirited send-off to someone who, I'm sure, worked hard and gave a couple years of his life to Marvel.


Captain Britain and MI-13 #2 is really good for most of the reason's Matt already mentioned. It looks like this may be an ongoing (I swear it was solicited as a 3 issue mini) which has me excited. I will disagree with Matt, though. First, I don't think it's a spoiler to say Captain Britain (or at least Brian Braddock) dies in the last issue. It would be a spoiler, though, to say that the, I think, Pakistani woman is going to be the NEW Captain Britain, which is weird not because she's female or Pakistani, but because the title is called "Captain Britain", but it's not the Cap we've seen for 30 years. Second, it's a fun book that's well-written, well-illustrated, and may actually surpass the event it ties in to. Plus, as mentioned last month, it benefits from having a solid plot rather than a list of ideas cobbled together. And, to top it all off, it has competant, consistent art. Just go buy it. Now.


Secret Invasion: Who Do You Trust is another one of those anthology one-shots I enjoy. Beginning to end, this is good stuff. Even the Captain Marvel bit (which is actually the According to Hoyle definition of "superfluous") is engaging and does a better job explaining that bit than the mini did. (though, if I may rant, at this point everyone knows the new Captain Marvel is a Skrull so, really, why bring him back with all the fanfare just to reveal it was all BS?) The other stuff, though -- Agents of Atlas, Agent Brand from Astonishing X-Men -- were just good. Well, except maybe the OTHER Cpatain Marvel bit (the Grant Morrison-ified one), which was decent but drawn well. Definitely worth buying for anyone reading the main series.


The Twelve #6 is WAY better than Avengers/Invaders. That is all.


X-Force: Ain't No Dog is a Wolverine one-shot that didn't make the last batch with a neutered Warpath story tacked on. I know Scalped is good and all, so why did Jason Aaron turn in such a watered down story for the only active Native American superhero? Maybe he's waiting to do a mini-series about the guy from Thunderbolts that put Bullseye in a coma.

Guy Ritchie's Gamekeeper: Volume 2 #4 came out this week and it was prompt. The most exciting thing, literally, is that there is an add for Virgin Fest on the back cover, which takes place in Baltimore.


Local #12 came out, too. If the rest of the series had been as good as this, it would have justified the three years it took to produce. Megan redeems herself while the book keeps its super-depressing tone in place. Despite that, this is still a good series and anyone who hasn't been reading it should definitely get ahold of the recently-solicited trade (pre-orders preferred, I'm sure).


And finally, Doktor Sleepless #7. I really like Doktor Sleepless. I'm not really sure if its an ongoing (as originally proposed) or not because this issue says "To be concluded", but I dig this book. If anyone has read Mister X, this is more or less the same premise: crazed genius returns to a city that he built from the ground up and does crazy future-science stuff. This book, along with Black Summer, are interesting, too, because up until now, Ellis's Avatar stuff has been atrocious (yes, even Black Gas, and especially Black Gas 2 with its zombie-orgy scenes). he now seems to have his own id in check, producing random, bizarre books that are more like what he would produce for Marvel if they made a mistake and let him be himself. So, again, if you are coming late to this, look into the trade that will be out...eventually. It's pretty good stuff.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Matt buys back some time - 6/11 books

I think it's getting to be about time for me to trim my buying list -- I find myself reading an awful lot of these books and thinking, "Hey, that was meh ... just like last issue." Which is both financially irresponsible AND a waste of my time, especially as I have a new baby that's more intriguing to me than mediocre comic books. Also, I don't want to feel like Negative Review Guy, which is what happens when I read a bunch of books that don't thrill me. Here, then is my public declaration of what I'm not reading

۞
Booster Gold #10 is my last issue of this book. It's perfectly adequate, but it's not dazzling me enough. I feel like the ideas are intriguing at their core, and I like the issues when they're described to me ... it's just that actually reading them consistently leaves me cold.

۞ I'm buying Green Lantern Corps as I eagerly await the forthcoming crossover, but issue #25 ends that. I confused Peter Tomasi and Stuart Moore last month, which makes me feel dumb, but they both write perfectly good space opera that fails to engage me. I'll stick with the core book for now. (I maintain that this book would be much awesomer if it were called Green Lantern Crops and were about interstellar farming, but what do I know?)

۞ Somewhat surprisingly, the current run on Batman Confidential remains on my purchase list. I just adore Kevin Maguire's art, and Fabian Nicieza is, er, playing to his artist's strengths here. (ie, Issue #18 features an extended sequence in which the original Batgirl fights Catwoman naked in a hedonist club. If that's not playing to Maguire's strengths, I don't know what is. Also, probably not a comic to read at work, or around children, or in public, or anywhere else where you might be embarrassed.)

۞ Trinity #2 makes me think I'll stick with this as well. I've got a lot of time for Kurt Busiek, who is competent even at his worst, and this nice, slick, mainstream superhero story is far from his worst. Feels more "comic book-y" than the semi-novelistic sweep of 52, and more "good" than the horrifying disaster of Countdown.

۞ I like newuniversal shockfront also -- it builds nicely on the basic NU concept, but is another strong mainstream showing from Warren Ellis. Every so often it seems like he recharges his batteries and starts churning out really solid work again; he's in one of those phases now. I'll keep buying this...

۞ ... and Doktor Sleepless as well, for most of the same reasons. I wish the art in Doktor Sleepless were a little less generic Avatar house style, but it's perfectly readable, and this book makes a great venue for Ellis's obsession with the intersection of science fiction and our contemporary reality. Good stuff.

۞ I really enjoyed Captain Britain and MI13 a LOT -- it's an improvement on the first issue, and one of the best things to come out of Secret Invasion so far. I'll definitely keep picking this up ... BUT it also points out one of the main problems with modern superhero comics, althoug I'll have to bury discussion of it behind whited-out spoilertext. Highlight between the brackets to figure out what I'm on about. [Apparently, we were meant to believe last issue that Captain Britain (or at least his human host) really died. Like, tragically sacrificed himself. This issue is all about starting to play up the ramifications of that, and it does that well ... except that I never, ever, ever, ever even considered that at the end of last issue. I saw the explosion, thought "well, I wonder how he escapes from that," and moved on. It was a bit jarring to find that everyone here is taking it so seriously -- don't you all know you're in a comic book?] Aside from that minor complaint, though, a fun book.

۞ Secret Invasion: Who Do You Trust is pretty good for one of these one-shots. I really like Mike Carey's work at Marvel, and Christos Gage is becoming a reliable mainstream writer. And there's some gorgeous Timothy Green III work, which is nice to see. Worth picking up if you're following Secret Invasion, actually. I don't regret buying this at all. (I absolutely abhor the title pages for the SI books, though -- it's like generic Photoshop Backgrounds for Spastic Beginners 101 stuff. Just hideous.)

۞ I love Action Comics #866 -- when Geoff Johns is on, he is ON. And this is the strongest thing to appear in a Superman book in some time. Genuinely creepy, ominous, and fun to read. I'll be buying this, moving forward.

۞ And Locke & Key continues to be the best thing being published this year, by ANY comic book company. Not only will I continue buying this (for the one remaining issue), I'll buy the collected edition, and anything else Joe Hill writes. Fantastic horror comic. Really.

So after that dramatic intro, I cut a whopping two books. Great.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo

So, you know what I'll be doing later...or not. And I got deadlines on some contests so I'm going to make this quick for now. Firstly, the old business, every person that I have talked to about Ultimate Origins (Spoiler that appears in the ads) agrees that: the Canadian government creating mutants in a basement in Dept. H as an answer to super soldiers is just silly. You really have to say it out loud though to get the silliness of it all. Or write it out. Now, onto the new business in no particular order this weeks books. Oh, and for those wanting the quick fix things were greatly less crappy this week.

Booster Gold #10 - Decent wrap up. Questions answered logically. Competent artwork. So close to being a haiku review, but anyway that about sums it up. I dig this book and it's awe inspiring adequacy. And I would wholly recommend it to any fan of the DC universe at large, people with fond boyhood memories of Dan Jurgens or anyone who loves the totally un-ironic naming of Skeets.

Lost Boys: Reign of Frogs - Hmmm...How do I put this? This book is really only for hardcore fans of the movie, Cory Feldman and the late 80's. The art is straight ass. The story is fairly ludicrous. And the dialog is...thankfully anachronistic...I mean they don't say radical that often so small favors and all that. But, my inner masochist is curious about the ending so I'm going to finish it up. God knows I've continued worse runs for the sake of completion.

Secret Invasion: Who Do You Trust - Thoroughly better than Civil War: Choosing Sides. Seriously, you get gregarious Beast, a mercifully short Capt. Marvel bit (I just think this whole resurrection psych out bit is a travesty), Marvel Boy actually does something (although when the hell is this happening in the time line? Because he takes the cube during Civil War I think, which Bendis obviously didn't read I can't keep this stuff straight anymore) Anyway, typical Marvel issues of space time notwithstanding it was a decent little anthology I thought.

Locke & Key #5 - Go buy this book already. It's that good. This issue was probably my least favorite yet, but that's only because it's setting up that climax. Good stuff.

Goon # 25 - Read above comments. Except that it wasn't my least favorite issue. Pretty much if you're already on the train stay on, and if you're not on get on. It'll improve your cred.

Young Liars #4 - This book is spilling over with vitriol. The characters are repellent. But somewhere in this anarchic hug free zone I'm digging it, cautiously. It's probably because of the uneven quality of some of the books at Vertigo in the past couple of years *cough* American Virgin *cough* that has made me reticent in praising it, or recommending it and the like. I guess it's that I'm beginning to wonder if this book is just going to rely entirely on attitude or if this story is going to amount to anything terribly interesting. So, they've got me on style waiting on substance.

Amazing Spider-Man #562 - Fun. Makes me wonder if it's the BND or the regime change that has made this book enjoyable again. It's probably a little of both. And I also think that it's a bit surprising that it took so much silliness to make Spier-Man fun again.

Trinity #2 - I am bowled over by this books competence. That is all.

Titans #3 - Why am I reading this? Eh, I kind of like the art. I grew up in the J. Scott Campbell years. That's all there is to it. It looses a bit of it's charm when you read the words though.

Captain Britain and MI 13 #2 - So...how is it that this tie in is better than the main book? I mean things happen every issue. Characters sound different from each other. They develop. Um, there's no Daisy Johnson (they should just call her Chick-tor...once I get the copyright of course). My only real problem with Daisy is that she just sounds like if Ultimate Spidey and Deena Pilgrim had some sort of snarky baby together or something. Tangents aside, Capt. Britain may be the best thing coming out of SI.

Salvation Run #7 - This book really should have come out on time. Kind of takes the punch out of it now that it's all been said and done...for like a month or two. Although, in fairness, it's not like the ending wasn't a forgone conclusion. Just like the events in another oft delayed book that reemerged recently. It was fun while it lasted though.

Skaar Son of Hulk # 1 - Decent read. Shame it's done in four minutes. Hence the super short review.

Green Arrow/ Black Canary #9 - The only thing redeeming about this book is the artwork o Cliff Chiang. Without said Chiang, I just lose interest. I don't know that's a tad harsh...but pretty close to accurate. I guess the main problem with this book is the tone. It was fine during the first arc because it was a wacky escape from Paradise Island. But a global search for a brain dead Connor Hawke seems like an odd place for all of the attempts at the Bwa- Ha-Ha.

That's about it really. Still got a couple more books to read so I'll probably be back on at some point to finish things up. Take it easy internet.

One last time

So, to wrap up last week,

Avengers/Invaders #2 was weird. Not in a bad way, but it's really weird that things like Bennett buying the Daily Bugle in Amazing Spider-Man are continuity now in other books. It's jarring to see "The DB in other books." And there's other odd bits of continuity thrown in at random that pull you out of the story a little, which is not that good a story to begin with. I like time travel (you'll see when I get to Cable), but here...it's like The Twelve but lacks any meaning or relevance. If the Invaders traveled to the future in the past, why don't they remember it in the present? Bucky got ALL his memories back in Captain America #13 or 14, so why doesn't HE remember at least? And if there is a mystical (or other) reason for not remembering, then why bother telling a 12 issue story about all of this to begin with? Will it affect the Avengers in the long run? (Doubtful since it is not strictly a Marvel book, but a co-venture with Dynamite, and things like that are rarely relevant). And, why is Alex Ross even involved in this? Hopefully these questions will all be answered by the end, but I doubt it.

Cable #4 is weird for different reasons. I am enjoying the story so far. I like Cable though, and tube guns, and time travel, and a baby in an armored Baby Bjornn being carried by a time-traveling Cable with a tube gun. So this is written specifically for me. Plus it has Cannonball and hints at his long ago dropped continuity of being an immortal, which is nice. Then there's the art: Ariel Olivetti does some things well, and I do like his style, but his interiors are barren. There's a scene where Bishop is holding a guy over a deep fryer. So he's in a kitchen. The deep fryer does not look like a deep fryer (only the dialogue gives it away) and there is NOTHING ELSE in this kitchen. Of a restaurant. Nothing on the counters, no flour or spoons or baskets for the deep fryer. Nothing. Still, I liked it and get a kick out of the crazy time travel stuff. But the art is just a hinderance at this point. They need a Butch Guice on this, someone bleak and shadowy.

Criminal is the best non-superhero book ever. Just read it. This issue, despite one or two rough lines from Ed Brubaker (trying a little too hard), is great. Just great. Go read it. Seriously.

Invincible Iron Man #2 is not as good as issue 1 (despite MODOG, the Mental Organism Designed Only for GENOCIDE), but still holds your attention. Good, super-slick art, good writing, and a good cliffhanger.

Wolverine: Dangerous Games is another Wolverine One-Shot (because he's an under-used and under-appreciated character). This time, he fights fox hunters, I guess. Fox hunters have an odd stigma for me since The Invisibles, so I always expect the worst when I see them. But this is fine. Then, there's another short with Wolverine in Japan, also fine, I guess. Just a bland book, though, with the writing and art barely managing average.

Now, let's talk Young X-Men #3: this book is just a bizarre mess. I feel bad for Marc Guggenheim because I think he has some ideas. But he's saddled with the rejects from New X-Men and he just fumbles around trying to do anything. Then there's the art: Yanick Paquette's style is more open and cartoony here than it was on, say, Codename: Knockout (under-rated) or even Ultimate X-Men. Mostly it looks rushed. There better be a killer twist coming (and not the one in this month's issue, which barely counts) because this is barely hanging on.

Oh, and Amazing Spider-Man 561 was good. Still just solid superhero-y stuff. More people should read it.

Tomorrow: Lots of bad books to review! Woohoo!