Random reviews

Northlanders 21: I've bashed the crap out of this comic, but I also have claimed repeatedly that I really do want to like it, so to be fair I gave the new issue a shot.

It was, in fact, very good.

I know, I'm surprised too. I liked it. It didn't blow my mind or anything, but it was a nice, solid issue, with a good mix of science, religion, and cultural paranoia. Good enough that it makes me want to read the next issue, at least. Well done.

Dark Reign: The List: Wolverine: Too. Many. Colons. Anyway, yeah, the Fantomex/Marvel Boy banter was really good, especially the bit where they explain to one another why they're atheists. Marvel Boy's explanation and Fantomex's response in particular were great, with a scientificaly advanced society having factualy proven the non-existence of god. I'm a cynical agnostic, I dig it. The only thing I really didn't like was the idea that Wolverine is, apparently, a religious guy, which I don't see at all. I've always sort of assumed he was either atheist or agnostic. Although, I suppose it would be hard for anyone in the MU to be an atheist, given that they have hard, factual evidence (Thor, Ares, Hercules, Eternity, The Living Tribunal, etc) of the existence of SOME sort of higher/supreme being/beings. But then, that doesn't jibe with Marvel Boy's characterization this issue. I dunno. A collection of cool scenes and cool moments that sort of doesn't work when I think about it too much. The backup story annoys me for similar reasons, and WOW has Aaron improved as a writer since that was first published.

Wolverine: Weapon X 6: I don't normally buy this, but the comic store was having a sale and Jason Aaron taking a stab at psychological horror should sound pretty awesome to anyone who's read The Other Side. This was good - sets up the mood really well, and I though Yanick Paquette actually did a good job establishing the atmosphere through art, which isn't something I'd previously thought of as a strength of his. A nice, creepy mood to start the story. I probably won't buy the rest at $3.99 an issue, but I'll definetly get the trade or eBay it.

Double the letdown

Two Marvel series recently ended big, year long epics with a double sized issues. And both were dissapointments, but for totally opposite reasons.

Invincible Iron Man has been rolling through the huge, year long "World's Most Wanted", and for a while now I (and a few other net critics) have been noticing that every issue has been a bit of the same exact thing, over and over again. Still, despite my general apathy towards a lot of Fraction's current Marvel output (Uncanny X-Men, I'm looking at you), this run started well enough, and he seemed to care about the character enough, that I maintained some hope. A lot was resting on this finale delivering, though. And it didn't.

Think back to what was promised at the start: Stark was on the run, he was going to delete his brain, he lost everything, and Norman Osborn was going to go too far. Fair enough start, good tension to begin a big, epic story. The trouble, for me, is that it ended EXACTLY where the first issue told us it would. No suprises, no twists of fate, no nothing. You could, literally, read the first two issues of this story and get the whole point. This story has just been too damn simple & sraightforward, and the ending is just "and then it ended". Totally vanilla.

I know Fraction claims the idea was to show Tony facing all his mistakes, but honestly, I didn't really see that happening. The only "mistake" he faced was seeing a couple of kids who called him the Harbinger of Death, basically, which is something that's been pointed out a million times recently. And he responded to them in cool, badass fashion, rather than with any remorse, introspection... you know, all that messy "character" stuff that Fraction seems to think is totally optional these days. It's not as if he can't do it - Casanova is all about the characters - so I have no idea what's going on with him.

Fraction has become the Metallica of comic books - his old stuff is brilliant, but as soon as he hit the mainstream he started producing bland, boring crap. Here's hoping he'll bust out his Death Magnetic before it's too little, too late for his reputation. Because the man is capable of far better.

X-Factor #50 is the other enormous letdown after a big 12-month story, but as I said, for the opposite reason. Whereas Iron Man was too simple and obvious, X-Factor was just a jumbled mess, unfortunately. The story started well, and obviously ambitious - David juggled multiple narrative threads, scattered his team across time, and ran concurrent plots that didn't obviously relate to one another for a good few months but, in retrospect, matched perfectly well. It wasn't remotely obvious where it was heading, but for issues 38 - 46 or so, the progression of the story was very organic and upon re-reading, things line up well.

It's the last few months, and this issue in particular, that are just a total mess. More and more of the story was being explained on the recap page (never a good sign). Characters that were previously supposed to be important simply dissapeared from the book. Minor mid-90's villains are trotted out without explanation. A character who's attempted murder was a major point that kicked off the story hasn't been seen in something like 8 months, and her importance isn't remotely obvious or explained anywhere in the story. There's a character who seems to probably her descendant, or something, in this final issue, but she plays a tiny role and is such a minor, easily dealt with threat to the villains that one wonders why it was so important to begin a convoluted, time-traveling plan to murder her ancestors to avoid her birth.

The bad guys entire evil plot, which bears no resemblance to the printed page, as literally explained in extensive recap form by Madrox, and it is completely, utterly ridiculous. Almost insultingly so. I love PAD's writing in general, and this has been the most consistently high quality x-book for years now, but I sure as hell wouldn't use the last six months to prove that point.

PAD, like Fraction, is capable of far better - and at least, in his case, this was more a matter of massively failed ambition than just sheer laziness. Which is why I'll stick with X-Factor despite this, and why I'm dropping Iron Man for the same reasons I didn't buy Re-Load. PAD's proven himself repeatedly for 20 years; he's allowed a misstep. Fraction, sadly, has more poor work behind him at this point than good. Which is a shame for someone I once thought would be the future of comics. Please prove me wrong.

My Zombie Senses Are Tingling!

Some random semi-reviews of recent comics...

Marvel Zombies Return! #1: The provider of the above quote, and if that doesn't tell you what this comic's about, nothing will. One of the rare comics that actually made me laugh out loud while reading it - it's not exactly high-brow stuff, but the type of humor here is sort of a more groutesque version of the better Simpson's Halloween specials, which makes this extremely highly recommended. Van Lente's mock old-school captions and narrations alone are worth reading for. Awesome. Wish this came out around Halloween.

Fantastic Four #570: Not sure Eaglesham and Hickman are the right team - either one, individually would be a good fit for this book, but together, I'm not sold. We'll see. A lot has been made of Reed's buff depiciton in this book, but I'm more distracted by his rugged manly stuble - I think they're trying to play up the wild adventurer aspect of the character by giving a sort of pulp-hero, Indiana Jones look. Again, we'll see, and I think I generally have some faith in Hickman.

I have a random complaint, though - why, whenever people bring together all the Infinity Gems, do they put them on Thanos' glove? Do they all track down Thanos and steal his glove? Why not an Infinity Necklace? Or just put the damn things in your pocket? And why Thanos' glove? Doesn't it sort of have negative connotations by now? This just bothers me. I know it's a general shorthand fopr the fans so we know what we're dealing with without question, but I'm a dork and I want answers.

Strange Tales #1: I'm not really the audience for this, I think. I thought I would enjoy it, but... no. I'm not gonna bash it or anything, because I realize that I'm just not getting it. I don't really get indy comics at all, methinks. The M.O.D.O.K. story and the Dr. Strange stories are really good and funny, but the rest... like I said, I don't get it. The Paul Pope Inhumans thing was amusing, but I have to be the only person alive who doesn't really care for Pope's art. I liked it in that X-Statix fill-in issue he did, but I always think it looks self-consciously sloppy, like he's daring you to hate it. And then I think of pretentious scenesters who say they like a band that sucks or you've never heard of, just so they can sound cool & different, and I get annoyed. I have a lot of issues. None of that really constituted a point, did it? And can someone explain to me the point/appeal of that James Kochalka thing? That was the only want that actually actively annoyed me.

Iron Man #17: I'm not sure I buy Sark's mental degradation, if only because it's so uneven - he can operate the Iron Man armor, but can't spell the word "felt"? I guess it has something to do with him deleting only sections of his brain. The ending will make or break this story - if it has a strong ending, this will have been worthwhile and it may become a classic someday. Weak ending, I think a lot of people (myself included) are gonna be pretty irritated. Could really still go either way.

Young Liars #18: I didn't really understand the last few issues at all, but I've been too preoccupied with other stuff - work, going back to school, video games - to re-read them or think about them. Luckily, "getting" this comic hasn't been a part of my enjoyment of it whatsoever - just the craziness and the incredible amount of character consistency and nuances Lapham manages to build into it, hidden under the layers of "randomness". I'll miss this book, I will.

Greek Street #3: Still sticking with it out of faith in Milligan, but still also not really being drawn into it very much. I'll stay through this storyline and then we'll see. I really am not crazy about this artwork - the book has a very diverse cast of characters and the art really doesn't do nearly enough to differentiate them, which makes it harder to follow the story and thus care. When I'm wondering "who the hell is that guy?" every other page, it annoys me. I actually sort of like the basic look of the art - it has a little bit of a Walt Simonson influence going, a hard thing to pull off without actually being Walt Simonson. But it needs work.

Incognito #6: Weirdly, I read this the other night and have virtually no memory of it. It can't be that it was boring, right? I wouldn't think so. I must have been tired.

Scalped #31: Another perfect issue, pretty much. The little glimmer of hope Aaron gives Dash here is even better knowing it'll probably end horrifically. Aaron and Guerra build logically on Red Crow's moment of pride & frustration last issue, with a genuine sense of things building to very ugly head. Best comic on the stands, month in and month out. Guaranteed.

Sweet Tooth #1: OK, I was pretty pleasant for once. I saved all my bile for this. This book is everything I hate about indy comics and their fans. Yes, I know it's not really an indy comic, being published by Vertigo, but work with me. A big stack of pretentious cliches, even by the authors own description in his essay: "it's about fathers and sons, it's about redemption, it's about family, it's about the friendships that can form in even the darkest of places...". All a bunch of crap I have read a hundred times, with no indication it will be any different here. There's a decent moment where the kid doesn't even know enough to understand that his dad is dead and rotting, but it's the sort of quiet horror that just seems predictable in a book like this. But I can only imagine all the little arthouse fans talking about quiet power of Lemire's storytelling, or the passionate linework of his art, or whatever other nonsensical non-statements they can string together from their vocabularies. I barely slept last night and I'm cranky. Lemire's art is adequate. There, I said something not mean. I want my dollar back.

Asterios Polyp

I just received this in the mail from Amazon as a birthday present a few days ago, and read it over the course of two days. While I need to re-read it before I can really say anything about it, I can verify that it's really good and deserving of the praise being heaped upon it. My favorite thing about, really, is not so much the story - which is good - but the fact that it embraces the fact that it's a comic book. The story, as told, wouldn't work in any other medium, and really uses the format and language of comics more than just about anything I've ever seen. As an example of what exactly sets comics apart from any other storytelling medium, it's pretty much a textbook. It's really phenomenal in that regard.

My other favorite thing: the logo. Seriously. It's perfect: a set of seemingly random shapes and colors, placed on top of one another in ways that would appear sloppy and random, except that together, they perfectly spell out the title. If you read the book, it's perfect for the story. It's a really, really brilliant design that blows me away the more I look at it.

One other minor note (minor spoiler alert): I see a lot of reviewers mentioning Asterios watching a video of he and his wife having sex at the beginning. He's actually not: he's watching a video of her enjoying a dinner he made for her, which is more appropriate and somehow even sadder - he doesn't miss sex as much as the little moments that made up their life.

Marvel's October 2009 Solicitations

I turned 30 two days ago, so I am officially a crotchety old man. As always, only comments on stuff I actually have an opinion, so not a comprehensive look...

The Marvels Project #3: A book I'd really like to get, but I don't think I'll be able to afford...if it's double-sized, I'll probably check it out, but I'm going to have to stick to my $3.99 rule (as in, not paying it for 22 pages). It looks interesting....even if it didn't, I'd assume it was, since Bru generally knows what he's doing.

Armor Wars: Ellis' Marvel stuff over the last few years has been really awesome (actually, his stuff in general over the last few years has really hit new levels), so I'd like to check this out, but it looks like another "wait for cheap prices on eBay", unfortunately. The old Armor Wars story came out right around when I started seriously collecting comics (Hulk and Iron Man being the first series I collected), so this is extra frustrating for me. Eh, I'll probably cave and buy it (I buy No Hero, and that's $3.99, so I'm full of it anyway).

Spider-Man: 1602: Apparently, the 1602 and House of M's sell well in book stores... may as well go straight to trade with it, in that case, but whatever. Parker can probably squeeze a story out of this, he's good.

Dark Reign: The List: More of me being a big phoney, as I may well cave and get some of these, especially Secret Warriors since I buy it anyway. I've grown to love Romita Jr's art, and I've been a fan of Remender since I discovered Fear Agent, so I may get Punisher as well - especially since I got all the stuff I missed since the first issue of his relaunch, and it's been great stuff. Probably just those two, though.

Doctor Voodoo: Speaking of Remender, this should be good. He does better on the slightly off-kilter projects, and voodoo witch man/surgeon/superhero seems like it'd be up his alley. This should be a good series; good to see Remender's stock rising - hopefully this will be another Fear Agent/Gigantic in quality. Also, when you saw "Artist to be revelaed at SDCC", didn't you assume it'd be someone you'd, like, heard of? I'm sure Jefte Palo is good and all, and his preview art looks nice, but still. Am I just clueless?

Fantastic Four: Jonathan Hickman writing Reed Richards Solving Everything. Seems like a match made in heaven, though Eaglesham, while a great artist, doesn't seem like the right fit for that concept. Then again, I haven't seen it yet.

Incredible Hercules: If you're not reading this, you're stupid and I don't like you.

Invincible Iron Man #19: Holy Crap, this story is finally ending? I think I was still in pre-school when it started. Why do I save all my most snarky comments for Fraction, anyway? What the hell did he ever do to me? For the record, I LOVE a lot of the guy's output, and I tend to get frustrated when I dislike his comics BECAUSE I love most of his stuff so damn much. Also, I'm a jackass. Fraction, if you ever read this, know that your comics will always hold a place in my heart because you named a character after a Black Sabbath song in the same comic that you made a Rocky 4 reference. How's that for a tangent?

Mighty Avengers #20: Slott's Mighty Avengers has gotten better by the issue. I wasn't crazy for the first part, but he combines retro fun with a modern intelligence & story logic that I find very appealing.

Secret Warriors: Another really great series, and I notice Bendis' name is off it entirely, in the solicits. Interesting.

Vengeance of the Moon Knight #2: I'm not buying this, because I don;'t care about Moon Knight or the writer, but I wanted to remind you that Jerome Opena is awesome and will be the next big art star at Marvel, and should damn well be a "Young Gun" or whatever in 2010. I look forward to seeing him on an Avengers or X-Men book.

Strange Tales: This will probably be worth it entirely for Peter Bagge's Hulk, if nothing else... and that Red Hulk variant cover is brilliant.

X-Men: Legacy #228: I stopped reading this a few months back, right after the book turned crappy immediately after I wrote a blog praising it. Dammit. Daniel Acuna's coming on board as artist, and while I'm still not a fan, I recently read his Green Lantern story from a couple years back and have to admit that his art works really well on the right story - a fun, light hearted story like that played to his strengths. This won't actually be the right story, given the tone of the comic, but I'm tryingto be moere positive.

X-Babies: If this were by Fred Van Lente and Skottie Young, I'd say "brilliant". It isn't, though. I love how gigantic Young draws Baby Cyclops' visor on that cover.

Why the hell are they repinting THAT in HC? Marvel's bizarre hardcover release of the month is The Thing: Project Pegasus, an obscure run of stories from (I think) the late 70's, notable for introducing the world to Quasar. I'm sure this story has its fans, though, and it's not nearly as insane a release as "Mephisto Vs." from last month. I would say it shouldn't be a hardcover, but then, noone under 40 is buying this anyway, and we old dorks do like our hardcovers.

DC's October Solicitations

Where have I been? Jet skiing around Lake Tahoe; reading comics and not writing about them; playing Smackdown vs Raw 2009 and Super Mario Brothers 3 obsessively; wondering why I appear to be the only person who still cares about things like logic and well told stories that don't rely on "kewl!" factor, hence the all-new, all-arrogant headline up there. By the way, I did not get laid off and still have a job, in case you are the only person who remembers me mentioning that and actually care.

On to the solicits...

Blackest Night #4: I probably would be buying this if I could afford it. That is kind of an ugly cover, BTW. Reis is a great artist and I obviously get what they're going for with the coloring, but it kind of ruins it. I really want to know what's up with Bruce Wayne's skull, since we know that isn;t Bruce Wayne.

Blackest Night: Superman #1: Uncomfortable Fact - James Robinson is not a great writer. His dialogue is often very awkward an forced, and he relies far too often and purple, bloated narration that Stan Lee would cringe at. I thank him, though, for Cry For Justice #1, as it finally allowed other people to see what I see when I read his comics. People, the collective reaction to that comic was pretty much my reaction to The Golden Age. Anyway, yeah, not buying this either.

Green Lantern #47: I'm glad Mahnke managed to finally get a regular, high-profile gig, because he's really an awesome artist and has been forever. He deserves the profile.

Batman & Robin #5: I don't really have an opinion on Philip Tan's art, since I'm unfamiliar with it. Common wisdom on it seems to be negative, so me being a disagreeable ass I'll probably go out of my way to find a reason to like it. I wasn't insanely happy for Morrison's Batman work, although read as a whole it stands up well, but I loved the first two issues of this series. But the, they had the Quitely Advantage, so we'll see. Writing Grayson as Batman seems to have reinvigorated Morrison's take, though. The whole dynamic is so different now that it really opens up the way the stories can be told.

Detective Comics #858: Speaking of crazy good Art, William's work on this book has been friggin' CRAZY ridiculous awesome. Seriously, he's re-writing the book on comic book art.

Strange Adventures #8: I've recently been re-discovering Starlin's work, and though his recent DC stuff hasn't been nearly as good as his Warlock work in the 70's (which was good crazy fun), I kind of have liked it. A lot of it has been goofy, but it's been goofy in an old-school way I can deal with. Plus, I love that his villain's goal is to basically kill & replace God, and he actually has the cajones to write heroes defending this with good, rational logic ("the one we've got doesn't seem to be doing a great job").

Planetary #27: Holy crap, really? This thing has been subject to Youngblood-like delays. I'm sure it will be good. I have to re-read the series now.

Greek Street #4: I was sadly underwhelmed by the first issue, as I'm a big fan of Milligan and really wanted this to be his next great long work, but it was just the first issue. I'll probably stick with this for a little while. I wasn't crazy about the art, either, which made it difficult to tell apart a lot of the younger characters.

Hellblazer #260: And yet, I don't read this, even though Milligan's writing it. I'm weird.

Northlanders #21: You know, I really don't look for reasons to bash things, I don't. I'd prefer to like stuff and be happy. And I remember reading about this series before its release, thinking it sounded like a cool concept and I wanted to like it. So when I say this is a terrible, boring comic, and that it receives completely undeserved praise simply on the basis of being different (and the internet being the equivalent of that guy who hates popular shit but likes to tell you about all the obscure shit you're never heard of because he likes feeling smarter than you), it really does pain me. But it's another Uncomfortable Fact: this is a very bad comic, filled with cliches, one-dimensional characters and predictable as hell. And I keep trying to give it another chance to impress me, because I really want it to be good. That's a nice cover, though.

Scalped #33: This, however, is a really great comic. Possibly the best thing beng published, by anyone. You want to talk about complex characterizations, situations that don't go the way you're expecting, really innovative? This is the book to read.

Shade, the Changing Man volumes 1 &2: Hey, this is finally coming back into print! Come see Bachalo's art back when he was terrible! Only for like 6 issues, though. He improved quick. And even when he was bad, you could see he was onto something really different - a lot of the missteps in those early issues are him sort of experimenting with the tricks he would later perfect. And who can bash that? This is a really good series, and though for my money it wouldn't really hit its stride till about a year in, these are still good stories. Please buy these so they'll publish the rest. Milligan doesn't get enough credit for developing the Vertigo "style" - a lot of the credit (rightfully) goes to Gaiman and Morrison for Sandman and Doom Patrol/Animal Man, but you can really see the Vertigo seeds being planted in the first 2 years of this book. Hopefully, if they actually get the whole thing in print, he'll get some recognition.

The Unwritten #6: I actually stopped buying this after issue 2, but with the plan of eventually getting back issues. Another one I want to like thanks to an intriguing premise and a trusted writer, but the story seems like one that will do more for me in big chunks.

Wednesday Comics? So what?

Am I the only person in Comicdom who doesn't care about this series? And I don't mean that in my usual overly-negative "bitching about stuff like a typical know t all blogger jerk" way. I mean, I have virtually no interest in it, one way or the other. The only story I am particularly interested in reading is the Gaiman/Allred story, because, you know, it's Gaiman and Allred. They'd pretty much have to actively TRY to suck for it not to be good.

I freely admit that this is partially because I am a shallow, mainstream superhero comic loving nerd with only a superficial understanding of the works of people like Kyle Baker and Paul Pope. I'm aware of their work but have never really followed it at all. So I don't care, you know? I appreciate what they're trying to do as an experiment in form and all that, I do. I just don't really care about it.

I do hope it succeeds, if ony to open the doors for some other experiments, and because I have nothing really against it. But am I really the only person not salivating for it? Can I possibly be the only comic fan with a "meh" attitude towards the whole thing? Why am I so goddamn weird?

I really need to do a positive post sometime.