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.
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