The Weekly Crisis - Comic Book Review Blog

Post-Crisis Comic Book Previews for 11/25/09

2009-11-23T23:59:00.001-04:00

It's the end of the month, so that means Marvel and DC have overloaded this Wednesday, and this editon of the Post-Crisis Previews, with a billion books in some convuluted plot to garner more sales. All I know is I'll be taking home a child crushing sized bag of comics, including the likes of Blackest Night, the conclusion to JMS's run on Thor, Detective Comics and even some Incredible Hercules, among half a dozen or more others.

Hit the jump to find out what Ryan and I will be purchasing this week, our thoughts and expectations for each and, as always, feel free to suggest any books you feel we may be missing out on or just let us know what you think of the books coming out this week.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #613

Written by Mark Waid

Art by Paul Azaceta

THE GAUNTLET continues! His electric abilities waning and waxing uncontrollably while the power of his fame grows, Electro turns to an unexpected ally to seek a cure for his condition!

Ryan: Mark Waid and Company took this series in a very strange direction last week by pushing Electro as the new “hero of the people,” because he is standing up for the disenfranchised during the recent financial crisis. Don’t get me wrong, it was interesting, but I was really hoping we’d see more superheroes versus supervillains action from this Gauntlet storyline.

Kirk: I'm in the same boat as Ryan. Not a terrible outing last issue, but was expecting some actual super heroing instead of Spider-Man getting beat up by New Yorkers for the umpteenth time while the villain looks on.

BLACKEST NIGHT #5

Written by Geoff Johns

Art by Ivan Reis

The moment you’ve hungered for finally arrives! Who controls death in the DC Universe? NEKRON - Lord of the Undead! The dark being behind the undead Black Lanterns makes his presence and purpose known, and our heroes discover they’re not only fighting for their lives, but their after-lives as well. Don’t miss this game-changing issue from superstar writer Geoff Johns and stellar artist Ivan Reis!

Ryan: This could be the defining issue for the entire Blackest Night event. We’ve already seen the shock, the reaction, and now the reveal—but now it is time for the purpose. If Johns and Reis don’t nail this one, it could cast a negative light on the entire event. Considering the fact that so few people know anything at all about Nekron, they’ve got their work cut out for them!

Kirk: With Nekron so promently displayed on covers to the Blackest Night: Flash miniseries, I wonder if he's going to show up and quickly get written out of the main event title to go play with Barry and leaving the main event for Black Hand and the Spectre story to unfold. Would be an odd decision, but the Blackest Night title has been far from essential compared to Green Lantern or Green Lantern Corps in my eyes. Hell, no Green Lanterns even showed up in the last issue and it's their event. However, maybe this is the issue where the rest of the DCU is told to get out of the way and let the Green Lanterns finally shine as we find out more about Nekron and his true purpose.

DARK AVENGERS: ARES #2

Written by Kieron Gillen

Art by Manuel Garcia

The mission becomes personal -- and the stakes get real! Ares gets the opportunity to right one of the great wrongs of his past...and he takes his hand-picked squad of elite troops along for a training exercise. But can even the hardest and sharpest of Norman Osborn's crack H.A.M.M.E.R. troops handle themselves in a battle among gods? Watch a pack of grunts dropped into a clash of the titans, in the explosive new mini-series by Kieron Gillen (BETA RAY BILL: GODHUNTER) and Manuel García (SPIDER-MAN: BREAKOUT)!

Kirk: First issue was excellent and did for Ares what Beta Ray Bill: Godhunter did for Beta Ray Bill. Gillen seems to get what makes these characters tick and writes a story perfectly suited for each. Ares hasn't been this fun to read since he was rebooted in his Ares: God of War miniseries from a few years back.

DETECTIVE COMICS #859

Written by Greg Rucka

Art by JH Williams III & Cully Hamner

Batwoman's origin continues! In "Go!" part 2, Kate Kane is outed and forced to leave West Point. When she lands in Gotham City, she meets officer Renee Montoya and has a fateful encounter with The Dark Knight that will forever change her life!

The case may be closed closed, but questions remain in The Question's co-feature. And Renee won't stop until she has the answers! When a new lead points to the Sicilian mafia, The Question turns to an expert for assistance. But can she trust the Huntress to be professional when family rears its ugly head?

Kirk: There aren't enough adjectives to describe how good Detective Comics has been with Rucka and Williams III on the book. Batwoman's origin story, while only one issue in, is compelling and informative. Should be another great issue from this team.

FANTASTIC FOUR #573

Written by Jonathan Hickman

Art by Neil Edwards

Adventures on Nu Earth! Ben and Johnny have big plans for a much needed vacation in the company of refugees from the future - booze, ladies, misadventures...and two stowaways named Franklin and Val.

Ryan: Jonathan Hickman’s debut arc was an instant classic, so this series has a ton of momentum going into this issue. When you add in what sounds to be a great plot, the only downside to this one could be the fill-in artist, especially after Dale Eaglesham did such great work on the previous issues.

Kirk: Hickman's and Eaglesham's first Reed Richards-centric story arc put the fantastic back in Fantastic Four. Was it a fluke? Can this book really be the "world's greatest magazine" again or will we fall back on familiar tropes and cliches? I'm hoping it's the former.

GOTHAM CITY SIRENS #6

Written by Paul Dini

Art by Guillem March

Now that Mr. J’s secret is out in the open, will the girls’ reaction take them to the point of no return? And will Harley Quinn ever be the same?

Ryan: Last month’s issue was easily the best yet for this title, with the twist reveal of Joker’s long-forgotten sidekick Gaggy being the one who attacked Harley being handled really well. I look forward to seeing Harley’s reaction this week, though I’m really hoping we might get a cameo from the real Clown Prince of Crime.

GREEN LANTERN #48

Written by Geoff Johns

Art by Doug Mahnke

BLACKEST NIGHT continues! Agent Orange and his Orange Lanterns face off against the Black Lantern Corps, and Larfleeze finds himself wanting something he never has before: Help. Meanwhile, Saint Walker comes face-to-face with the one being in the universe he has no patience for – Sinestro!

Ryan: Larfleeze has been one of my favorite new characters to spin out of this event and I’m really excited to see the character taken out of his comfort zone. He’s a character that deserves some depth added to his personality. Plus, after the last few issues and how great they’ve been for the development of his character, I’m simply pumped to see what’s next for Sinestro.

Kirk: Larfleeze and Atrocitus fight over the Orange Lantern. I don't really need to know much else about what goes on in this issue. Green Lantern has been absolutely stellar during Blackest Night and there's really not much else to say other than you should be buying this book.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #20

Written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning

Art by Brad Walker

A REALM OF KINGS story! The Guardians have been to hell and back on a desperate quest to save the past, present and future of the universe itself. But after their monumental efforts and terrible sacrifice, could it be that—due to the end of WAR OF KINGS and the creation of The Fault—the universe is an even more dangerous place than before...and they just don’t realize it yet?

Ryan: The last issue of Guardians of the Galaxy featured the shocking deaths of a number of major players, so I expect that we will see the reactions of the survivors in this issue. This title has excelled through wit and charm, but we should see a whole new side in this week’s issue. Thank goodness a capable artist is back on board after the simply horrible work from Wes Craig on the last few!

Kirk: Really want to read this issue to find out what happens after half the team was killed by Magus last issue. Are they really dead? More time travel to fix it? Magus is set to return in the future, so I hope they all didn't die in vain. I also don't want a convenient resurrection for everyone either, but I can't imagine how they'll continue "business as usual" with so many key players, including Adam Warlock, dead.

IMAGE UNITED #1

Written by Robert Kirkman

Art by Various

THE CROSSOVER EVENT OF THE CENTURY IS HERE! The heroes of the Image Universe are united in order to fight the greatest threat the world as ever faced! You can’t miss this historic event as the original Image Founders draw all the characters they made history with. Each page is an amazing jam piece – it’s a story told in a way never before attempted in comics!

Ryan: I think it goes without saying that this is the big release for this week. I haven’t read a comic featuring a lot of these characters since the initial Image boom, so it will be interesting revisiting them. I’m trying to keep my expectations for this one low so I’m not disappointed. I am, however, applauding the awesome jam-style approach to the artwork. If nothing else, it’s a bold and exciting move.

INCREDIBLE HERCULES #138

Written by Fred Van Lente, Greg Pak & Jeff Parker

Art by Rodney Buchemi & Gabriel Hardman

ASSAULT ON NEW OLYMPUS: Part 1 (of 4) A battle of god-like proportions begins...right now! For months, the signs have been all over the Marvel Universe... The tension has been rising... All pointing to a single question: "What is CONTINUUM?" The answer turns out to be so deadly, so horrifying, that it will alter the course of the MU forever -- unless Hercules and the New and Mighty Avengers can stop it in time... but standing in their way is the fighting-mad ARES, God of War! "And, in our backup tale, there's no love for Venus as Aphrodite's rain of pain continues to pour on the Agents of Atlas!

Kirk: The Assault on New Olympus one-shot was good and read a lot like an issue of Incredible Hercules and failed to really drive home that this is an event you should be reading. However, I'm still pumped for more Hercules and highly recommend taking a chance on the book. Easily the best book Marvel is publishing and probably only behind DC's Secret Six for the best overall.

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #39

Written by James Robinson

Art by Mark Bagley

The BLACKEST NIGHT darkens the skies over the Justice League in this important tie-in issue! Can the team get it together in time to survive the return of the undead Dr. Light? Or will his now-shadowy evil strangle everybody where they stand?

Ryan: James Robinson and Mark Bagley’s debut on Justice League couldn’t have gone much worse than it did, but I’ve been suckered into picking this issue up for the final Blackest Night promotional ring. It’s going to take something seriously impressive for this issue not to be ranked towards the low-end this week.

MS. MARVEL #47

Written by Brian Reed

Art by Mark Robinson

The War of The Marvels is over, but before Carol Danvers can deal with it’s aftermath, she must brace herself as she faces down the biggest mistake she made before her apparent death…promising Spider-Man she’d go out with him. Brian Reed teams with Mark Robinson (SKRULL KILL KREW) to bring you THE AMAZING SPIDER-DATE!

Kirk: I've read Ms Marvel in the past and enjoyed the few times she's interacted with Spider-Man. I even have the issue where they make their informal date that is slated to take place in this issue and it is the reason I'm picking up this random issue of the series.

QUEEN SONJA #2

Written by Joshua Ortega

Art by Mel Rubi

The story of Sonja’s march to the throne continues as writer Joshua Ortega and artist Mel Rubi weave an incredible tale of intrigue and power in the ancient lands of Hyboria!

Ryan: Mel Rubi is one of my favorite Red Sonja artists in recent years; his art on this series is really the biggest draw for me. Considering this solicitation really doesn’t say much about what is happening here, Dynamite is assuming that it will be reason enough for me to buy it. They’re probably right.

SECRET WARRIORS #10

Written by Jonathan Hickman

Art by Alessandro Vitti

The time has come to settle all accounts. What was the deal Fury struck with Ares concerning his son? What does the future hold for the God of Fear? A hall of Gods and the judgement of Phobos...and of course, plenty of that super hero spy stuff you're used to...

Kirk: I'm not exacty sure what's going on with Secret Warriors and this God of War/Godof Fear storyline, especially with what went down in Thunderbolts. I still enjoy it, but welcome a return to the Hyrda storyline and the espionage and Nick Fury focus the book had in its opening arc.

SPIDER-MAN: THE CLONE SAGA #3

Written by Tom DeFalco & Howard Mackie

Art by Todd Nauck

Who is the man called Kaine and what does he want with Peter Parker? Will his deadly endgame mean the end of one Spider-Man...and the birth of another? Plus: baby makes three for Mary Jane and Aunt May's life hangs in the balance! All that...and one haunting ghost from the past returns as Marvel's most controversial book keeps fans guessing!

Kirk: I think most, or at least those that have read it, have been surprised that Spider-Man: The Clone Saga wasn't the train wreck of a story many expected it to be. However, that doesn't mean it's been great either. It's sort of meandering about at the moment, stringing together various plots from the original in an jarring manner. I'm in it for the long haul, but I hope things the dots start connecting and this story starts going somewhere new to warrant the retread.

SUPERMAN: SECRET ORIGIN #3

Written by Geoff Johns

Art by Gar Frank

So long, Smallville; hello, Metropolis! Join Geoff Johns and Gary Frank as they explore a very different Metropolis from the one we currently know – one that has yet to experience life with Superman as its protector. Witness the transformative power one person can have on a city as young Clark Kent joins The Daily Planet, and Superman takes to the skies and gives everyone a reason to look up. Over the years, Superman has come to mean everything to Metropolis, but be here to learn why Metropolis means everything to Superman!

Ryan: I’ve been reading a lot of complaints about this story from various other reviewers, but personally, I’ve been loving it. I can’t wait for this week’s issue, especially with the approach that Metropolis was a very different place before Sueprman became its protector. This is a pretty unique spin on this part of Superman’s origin and I’m very excited to see how it plays out!

TEEN TITANS #77

Written by JT Krul and Sean McKeever

Art by Joe Bennett and Yildiray Cinar

It’s a return of the teenage dead in this BLACKEST NIGHT tie-in issue! There’s certainly no shortage of dead Teen Titans, so when the Black Lanterns come a-calling, old teammates return with a vengeance! It’s a Titan’s worst nightmare come true!

Ryan: Its pretty insane that there have been so many dead Teen Titans that they can fill not only a couple of tie-in issues, but also its own miniseries (Blackest Night: Titans). JT Krul did an awesome job with that miniseries, so I’m hoping he can bring more of that magic to the main series. At the very least, I know it will be better than Felicia Henderson’s horrible work on the last few issues.

THOR: DEFINING MOMENTS GIANT-SIZE #1

Written by J. Michael Straczynski

Art by Marko Djurdjevic

Have the events of this arc not been shocking and gut-wrenching enough for you so far, dear readers?! All bets are off as the curtain falls – will friendly faces and a new, long-lost ally make all the difference for Thor? What are Loki’s treacherous plans for the Asgardians in their new home of Latveria…and does the scheming Dr. Doom have an agenda of Doom’s own? How will the humble, Earth-born Bill aid Balder, Asgard’s rightful ruler…and at what cost? You won’t want to miss this landmark issue of the critically acclaimed, mega-hit, Eisner-nominated THOR!

Kirk: Defining Moments Giant-Size? What is with the title of this issue? Seriously, who thought that was a good idea? They need to take him out back and beat him with a sock full of pennies. In regards to the story, it really feels like things are coming to ahead too quickly after the lumbering pace JMS employed for the first dozen or so issues. I'm really not sure how any of the current plots will be resolved by the end of this, but I imagine, with the behind the scenes nonsense regarding the upcomign Siege and JMS not wanting any part of it, that I may be disappointed with the answers to my concerns.

ULTIMATE COMICS AVENGERS #4

Written by Mark Millar

Art by Carlos Pacheco

These ain't yer momma's super heroes! The streets of Paris will never be the same after America's super-soldier faces off with the darker side of conflict resolution: the mighty AVENGERS!

Ryan: I’m really on the fence about this one. I like the concept of this story and I’m interested in seeing how Captain America can take down the new group of Avengers, but their debut last issue really didn’t wow me and this series has yet to show that it is worth $3.99 an issue. I want to know what happens, but I might have to take a pass on this one.

UNCANNY X-MEN #517

Written by Matt Fraction

Art by Greg Land

Magneto’s return has stunned the X-Men, but that’s not the only surprise they’re in for as a herd of Predator X’s come hungry for mutant tar tar. The hits just keep on coming, but can the X-Men, still nursing their wounds from UTOPIA, deal with all this?

Ryan: I’m really at war with myself over this one. On one hand, I really like the X-Men and I think that Matt Fraction is setting up some good ideas. On the other hand, its traced by Greg Land, so I know that my enjoyment is going to be killed by the art. I’m not sure if I’ll be picking this one up, but I am sure that is one of the single worst covers of the last decade.

Last Week's Reviews...Today!

2009-11-23T18:00:00.002-04:00

I've been falling short on the reviews lately with real life and work related nonsense eating up a lot of my free time. Not wanting to skip out on all the reviews I failed to get out last week (and one or two from the week before), I've opted to throw them together in this mash-up review post. They're a little late, but hopefully still relevant for everyone. Hit the jump for last week's reviews.

BATMAN: STREETS OF GOTHAM #6
Written by Chris Yost and Marc Andreyko

Art by Dustin Nguyen and Jeremy Haun

+ Like the first part of the Christ Yost-penned tale, it's a very simple and easy to understand story with no real need for backstory or other extraneous details.

+ Liked that Father Mark wasn't insane and just playing along with the invisible "voice of God".

+ Nguyen's art helps prop up an otherwise average story.

+ Manhunter back-up continues to hit its stride and is the best and only back-up feature I'm reading that feels like value added content and makes great use of the limited page count.

- The invisible killer/voice of God introduced here was a little hokey, but it is a story with a giant man-bat in it, so I probably shouldn't worry about a little thing like a stealth generator for the villain, even if it seemed tailor made for this one story.

- Huntress knows Father Mark from No Man's Land. Not sure why she acts like she doesn't here.

- Aside from a brief Black Mask appearance, there's very little tying this to the previous Dini stories, which is a complaint I had with the first part of Yost's story. I'm sure Dini could have fed him a couple of small scenes to at least give the illusion that its not just a filler story.

Verdict - Check It. Average story with above average art. Great back-up, though I imagine it would be difficult for those jumping right into it. It kepts Streets of Gotham on our radar instead of delaying it due to other committments on Dini's part, but I can't say I'm not looking forward to Dini's return next month.

BATMAN AND ROBIN #6
Written by Grant Morrison

Art by Philip Tan

+ The conclusion to the Jason Todd arc is the first time I've probably given a crap about his character since he first died.

+ Damian was shot and crippled. Listing it as a positive, this probably makes me a bad person.

- Grant Morrison's love affair with trying to one-up/disprove/counter every Alan Moore story, this time with Killing Joke as his target, is getting old. There's being metatextual or attempting to express certain views and opinions through your work and then there's just using characters as some self-serving vehicle for your own personal motives and beliefs. Tell the story and treat these characters like characters first. Don't treat the story or characters like an afterthought to your message.

- Flamingo shows up, is nigh unstoppable, acts crazy and then gets thrown off a building. They were just in an alleyway a moment ago when Todd was shot, yet this mysterious building ledge shows up for a convenient way of dispatching a villain who's only purpose was to show an extreme representation of the Joker and other parallels.

- The art was absolutely terrible, especially when it comes to the backgrounds. Now, most probably think backgrounds aren't that important, but this is ridiculous. It amounted to someone taking some grey tone and white washing the backgrounds with it. You can even see notes written from the original art about how there should be fire or other things drawn, yet it's just this cloud of grey covering everything.

- The last issue ended in an alleyway. This one has them on top of a building with construction equipment everywhere and then there's a ledge for Flamingo to be thrown off and, in short, it's a complete mess. There were times I thought they were maybe in that cave Todd was in for Battle for the Cowl and others where it shows the city (or a crude representation of buildings) in the background and so on. Just what the hell happened in this issue? If they're on a building, why is there so much heavy machinery up there? You don't put bulldozers and excavators on top of buildings like this, yet Todd uses an excavator to try and crush Flamingo before throwing him off a ledge with it. What's worse is the cops show up on the scene in their vehicles, implying this isn't a building top either, despite Batman being shown hanging from the ledge at one point and the building wire frames (they weren't completely drawn) and the skyline below him.

- Dick Grayson has Batman's corpse hidden in a secret vault somewhere, which completely contradicts the Blackest Night reveal of Black Hand using Bruce's skull or even Morrison's own version from Final Crisis with the body launched away in a rocket and Bruce somehow alive in the past. It's only a cliffhanger, so I'll save judgement for next month, but I'm not sure how to take this reveal right now.

Verdict - Avoid It. It's amazing how this series has fallen so low after a fantastic opening arc. Morrison has let his personal Alan Moore crusade get in the way of telling a story and it shows. Add amateur hour artwork to the mix (Tan is capable of so much more than this) with unfinished art and notes still visible in non-existent backgrounds and it's a disaster of an issue.

DARK AVENGERS #11
Written by Brian Bendis

Art by Mike Deodato

+ Turns out everyone with Molecule Man are fakes he created. Makes sense and saves the headache of trying to figure out how it would be possible to have that many heavy hitters with him.

+ "Angy Water" Bullseye was great.

+ The Sentry "mystery" is pretty interesting. Just what the hell is he? Molecule Man has some interesting comments about what he is before killing him. Again. I wonder if it's just the Void and Sentry is still huddled in a ball orbiting Saturn or wherever he ended up back during Secret Invasion.

+ Mrs Hand's background story was a nice addition. She's been a background character throughout Dark Reign and Norman's right hand woman, but we knew nothing about her. Glad to see her fleshed out a bit.

- First rule of Spider-Man - we do not talk about Sins Past! There is absolutely no reason to ever reference that horrible, horrible blight on humanity of a story again, yet here it is with some creepy Greg Horn computer renderings of a pregnant Gwen.

- Nothing happened. Molecule Man walks us through the various members of the Dark Avengers, has some quick comments and moves on to the next one. We're at the same spot we were last month with the team captured and no real revelations or plot progression or even motivation for Molecule Man, who's only indication of what he's doing is that he used to live near Dinosaur, Colorado and killed people who got near his little pocket reality he's created because he didn't want to go anywhere else.

Verdict - Check It. Entertaining enough issue, but nothing happens in it. Story has stagnated and we're still not really sure where it's going or even why Molecule Man is doing any of this.

REALM OF KINGS #1
Written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning
Art by Leonardo Manco and Mahmud Asrar

Realm of Kings #1 went a long way to dispelling any fears of this Initiative/Dark Reign-like branding of the next Marvel cosmic storyline fizzling out. It was a done-in-one story, as befits a one-shot like this, that tells the tale of Quasar heading into the Fault to check out just what the heck it is on a fact finding mission.

Of course, this being a comic, the fact finding mission quickly goes south as Quasar finds himself pulled into an alternate reality on the other side of the Fault, an alternate reality unlike our own and one that somehow took the energy based form of Quasar and returned it to a physical body again.

Quasar's narrative, along with the ending and Cthulhu theme of this universe, made this relatively standard 'evil alternate universe' story work and added some nice twists to characters outside of the generic 'evil nazi' or other evil cliche evil version of a character. A few examples of noteworthy scenes would be Quasar's reaction at to the monster attacking him and jubilation over the Avengers of this world helping him to take it down only to find out it is actually the Hulk and, finally, the disguest and repulsion over seeing, and being unable to do anything to stop, Iron Man from ripping out Bruce Banner's heart to stop the threat. Another is Quasar's escape where he sees how massive the infestation of the Cthulhu-like presence has on this universe and his likening of it to a cancer trying to metastasis to our universe.

The "evil" Scarlet Witch was another nice addition to this. It helped show just what kind of influence the evil in this universe has and how Scarlet Witch, and likely many others, can't really fight back against it, even if they do not agree with it.

The only negative I really had with the issue is that the implied threat of this universe destroying Cthulhu-like evil is that we never really get a clear idea of what it is or, in actuality, anything about it other than that the residents of this alternate Earth were completely overtaken and subverted by it and that it may or may not be coming to our universe. There's no indication of how it spreads or what kind of entity or entities it is or anything other than that final page showing Quasar "infected" by it. However, my impression was that Quasar overlapped his energy form on the alternate reality Quasar's body and they now share the same space. Time will tell on that.

Verdict - Buy It. It's a creepy tale unlike anything we've seen from the current cosmic titles and it makes for a great change of pace. The focus on Quasar was a brilliant move and he made for a great point of view character. While there are many questions regarding Realm of Kings, the Fault and, now, this alternate universe, I find myself even more excited about the future of the Marvel cosmic universe.

REALM OF KINGS: INHUMANS #1
Written by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
Art by Pablo Raimondi

Unlike Realm of Kings #1, which dropped at the same time as this Inhumans issue, I got everything I expected from this issue and more. It is the perfect follow-up to the end of War of Kings in that it shows the fallout of the war, Black Bolts' "death", the effects all of this had on the Inhumans and Kree alike as well as the continued upheaval and attempts of the Inhumans to secure their rule in the Kree Empire.

What really makes this issue work is the character driven aspects of it. There was the prerequisite fight sequence so as to not bore readers, but even that served a purpose in showing that the Kree people have taking a liking to their war heroes and saviours, the Inhumans, and, in particular, the brash and public bravado of Gorgon, who, while has no designs for the throne, Karnak points out to Medusa the people would be in favour of him as a replacement for Black Bolt.

Speaking of Medusa, she seems to be the focus of this miniseries as we learn a great deal about her state of mind and how she is handling Black Bolts' death. Much like how Crystal had an expanded role in War of Kings, Medusa seems to be receiving the same treatment in this opening issue. Her monologue on how she is happy that the Kree love the Inhumans because she hates what they are doing was a great scene. Her reactions to Karnak's advice and speculation on the future of the throne was also a welcome scene as it shows she is up to the task of stewerting the Inhuman Queenship until Black Bolts's and her son is old enough to rule.

This led to a scene with Maximus, the formerly mad and brother to Black Bolt. He's had many attempts at taking over as king and, when asked by Medusa's son why he doesn't play king any more, he only replies that this is a game some adults still like to play, implying he is not so fond of his place as the mad scientist and lackey he has been playing of late. I rather liked the dynamic of him not being the insane brother after the throne anymore, as that is a story that seems to get repeated in every other Inhumans tale, but it was a well written scene that does not directly state that is his intention, but heavily implies it. Hopefully, this is not the case, but I trust Abnett and Lanning can at least bring something new to that story if they go in that direction.

Verdict - Buy It. Very entertaining Inhumans story that is more of a direct follow-up to War of Kings than any other Realm of Kings tie-in thus far. While it's not the Inhumans ongoing series I wanted, it's the next best thing with this miniseries.

R.E.B.E.L.S. #10
Written by Tony Bedard
Art by Andy Clarke and Jose Villarubia

REBELS is a series I took a chance on when it launched, but gave up after the first issue before the promising and much talked about Starro the Conqueror story began. It's also a title that people have been begging us to give another shot and, as I was picking this issue up for the Blackest Night tie in, I was disappointed I did not get a chance to review it when it originally came out a few weeks back for the simple reason it was quite good and I regret not getting a chance to tell people about it when it came out.

The premise of the issue is that Adam Strange, after hearing the Flash's Black Lantern warning sent out in Blackest Night #3, has come to warn Vril Dox and the other resistence to Starro the Conqueror trapped within Vril's force field, which is keeping Starro trapped within a sector of space. It's a relatively simple setup that works well for those coming in off of Blackest Night, making it a very easy to read story for new readers to the title.

Helping with the new reader friendly story is the Black Lantern memory download opening sequence told by Vril's deceased wife, Stealth. It acts as a LEGION/REBELS primer (LEGION was the previous series from the 90's that starred Vril Dox) and recaps the key plot points required for new readers of this issue pertaining to Vril's and Stealth's past together. The conversations with Adam Strange help catch REBELS readers up with Blackest Night without being overbearing or requiring them to read Blackest Night either, making this a rather organic tie-in, unlike many of the others which seem to be tie-ins for the sake of increasing sales. This may also be helped by the fact REBELS is a cosmic book and should have been tied into Blackest Night just for the sake of consistency.

The best parts of this issue, coming from my vantage point as a new reader jumping in for the Blackest Night connection, are the parts that had nothing to do with REBELS. By this, I mean the parts dealing with Vril, how he reacts to the Black Lantern threat, his random insults about the Green Lantern Corps and, by issue's end, his joining the Sinestro Corps. I know of Brainiac-2 and its a great portrayal of him by Bedard, making me actually want to read more of his run on REBELS just for the Vril bits. However, the lengthy sequence with Starro's minions capturing Vril's son left a little to be desired. I wasn't familiar with the situation and felt a bit lost as to why they were running away from Vril, who seems to be the only one with his head on his shoulders, and why the cop-out on why Starro's men should spare the others and only take Vril's son rang hollow to me.

Verdict - Check It. Those were only small complaints for an otherwise great issue, but it is worth noting that the REBELS storyline took a backseat to the Blackest Night parts in the issue and, of the little I saw of it, the Starro storyline failed to impress me. I recall the recent REBELS Annual being praised quite a bit for its Starro reveals and backstory, so I may track that down before making a final judgement on whether to continue with REBELS post-Blackest Night or not, but the REBELS-centric bits of this issue didn't do enough to sell me on the book, though I did enjoy it as a Blackest Night tie-in. If you are looking for more Blackest Night, this is a good issue to check out.

SKY DOLL: DOLL’S FACTORY #1 (of 2)
Written by Barbara Canepa
Translated by CB Cebulski
Art by Alessandro Barbuci

Ryan and I mentioned Sky Doll: Doll's Factory in our previews a few weeks back and how we were unsure if we'd be reviewing it based on the belief that it would end up being what the solicit described - a simple sketch book "extras" type of feature instead of having any substantial new content.

In regards to this first issue, I can tell you that any doubts I had going in were washed away after reading the Birth of Noa original story included. It serves as an origin story of sorts for Noa, showing how the Miracolatore created her, her eventual escape and what led her to serving "God" as a doll at a car wash that the original series started with.

However, as this is only a short story, roughly 14 pages long, and moved through the story beats rather briskly, it lacked a lot of the subtleties and depth that the original work entailed. I'm not saying that this is a bad story or anything, just that it is straight forward in telling Noa's origin, going from point A to point B with little else.

Of note, I'd recommend reading this after the original series as I find it robs the opening and subsequent mystery behind Noa's origin of its impact.

All this brings me to the negatives of this issue. The most glaring of which is the price - $5.99 US. That's a tough pill to swallow for so little new content. Even the extras in the issue were lackluster, amounting to reprinting the first issue of Sky Doll in black and white. I was expecting a detailed sketch book with character designs, maybe some creator interviews (there's a one page oddly formatted Q&A type thing asking the creators their favourite songs, books, etc, but nothing substantial), discussions on the political and religious aspects of the story and so on, but there was nothing of the sort. Just that lengthy reprint of the first book and the new shorty story.

Verdict - Avoid It. The new content is fantastic and Sky Doll diehards will love it, but at $5.99, it's just not worth it for the majority of people. To be honest, the new content should have been in the trade and I'm not sure if I'll even buy the second part of Doll's Factory since it looks to be even less promising with no new content set to be included.

S.W.O.R.D. #1
Written by Kieron Gillen
Art by Steven Sanders

SWORD is a title I had very little interest in when it was announced. Kieron Gillen, while a name I knew, had only his indie work on Phonogram and an enjoyable Beta Ray Bill miniseries to his name when this was announced. As SWORD had been poorly used everywhere but the original introduction in Astonishing X-Men, I just didn't see the point to giving it its own series.

To its credit, SWORD #1 goes a long way to redeeming the SWORD concept and selling me on the need for a book like this. While this is not a perfect issue and I still have some doubts about the long term sustainability of this book, I think this first issue hit a lot of the right notes and fills a niche in Marvel's line up that no other cosmic book is covering currently.

However, that's where some concern is levied. With so many ties to the X-titles, even being solicited with them, it suffers from the same problem things like X-Men: Kingbreaker and the other "cosmic" X-titles had - it wants to be a cosmic book, but is held back by the need or desire to appeal to X-fans at the same time. If the book is allowed to take these X-characters and do some new and exciting things with them then, yes, this could be a fantastic book. If it's constricted by the need to stick to the standard X-Men tropes and themes, as well as editorial mandates about characters like Beast or Lockjaw, then it's probably going to stagnate and fall into the same patterns that many X-titles do. Time will tell if it's an X-title trying to be a cosmic book or a cosmic book trying to be an X-title or something completely different, but I'm hoping Gillen is given the leeway to have fun with the concept and tell some unique and original tales without too much interferance.

Getting back to the issue at hand, there's a lot to like about this issue. The Brand and Beast relationship is a lot of fun to read, though seems 'softer' than the Joss Whedon versions of it. There's still the banter between them and I love how they play of each other, but it's a feeling that something is slightly off, but still close enough to be right at the same time.

Another interesting bit is the introduction of Peter Gyrich to the SWORD team. He's a character that can be annoying or an excellent 'love to hate character' for a book depending on how he's written. Often times, it's the former, but, with this issue, it's very much the latter. His position on the repatriation of all aliens currently reciding on Earth is a valid standpoint and something I could see happening in light of the Skrull Invasion, among other alien-based catastrophes. His personality also clashes well with Agent Brand's, offering a lot of promise for future encounters.

Which brings me to one problem I had with this issue - it gets caught up in trying to be a fast paced action drama with Brand being pulled in a million different directions at once while still having time to go off gung-ho on missions to stop random aliens. It passes up a lot of opportunities to explore the new cast of characters on the SWORD space station, known as the Peak, in favour of Brand flying by the seat of her pants.

For one example, she's off galavanting instead of at a key meeting where Gyrich is proposing the repatriation of aliens. Gyrich set up the excuse she needed to not be at the meeting, but it would have been great to see the two butt heads at that key meeting. There's also the new cast members, many of which go unnamed, such as the counciller speaking with Lockhead over his drinking habits or the prisoner in the maximum security cell, who has a Mr Rogers meets Hannibal Lecter quality to him.

I realize it is only the first issue and they want to engage readers without overloading them with characters and a dull "get to know everyone" story that many team or ensemble cast books seem to do for their first issues, but 'a day in the life of Agent Brand' as she deals with the seemingly endless diplomatic problems associated with being the cosmic branch of SHIELD/HAMMER may have been a better choice than having her off kicking ass and taking names. As it is, I was wondering if we're supposed to care about these other characters or if they'd even be recurring characters or if this is just a Beast and Brand book.

Verdict - Check It. There's a lot of potential for this series that I'm hoping comes through with subsequent issues, but, at this point in time, it's simply potential and goes unrealized. Tell us more about SWORD, a relatively new agency, and the people that work there. Give us an idea of what SWORD does besides having its director play Buck Rogers instead of being a desk jockey. Some action is eventually required, but we need some reasons to care about what happens and context behind it outside of just throwing people into these crazy adventures and explaining it later.

The Curious Case of Death's Head

2009-11-23T16:04:00.001-04:00

The above panel is from the first issue of S.W.O.R.D., the new ongoing series from Marvel by Kieron Gillen and Steve Sanders. As you can see, that character there is called Death's Head, probably one of the silliest names ever. Now I haven't read many comics in which he appeared, and I don't know much about it, but with that kind of name, you remember every one of his appearances. And the one I did remember, was somewhat conflicting with this most recent one, hit the jump to see what I mean.

You can't quite see it in the above panel, because Death's Head is appearing through an hologram, but once Beast and Abigail Brand sneak into his ship, we find that Death's Head is actually very, very big.

Kirk mentioned in last week's Moments of the Week that he used to appear in the old Marvel UK Transformer comics, which explains the size. I'm not British, so I have never read said comics, but I have read another series in which he made an appearance: Captain Britain and MI 13 by Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk. Take a look...

That's Death's Head on the bottom, but he looks wildly different and appears to be human sized (it's hard to tell because of the perspective, but in another page he also looks the same size). More importantly, is that he appears to be in the service of the UK, as opposed to being a space "freelance peace-keeping agent" (a.k.a. a bounty hunter).

What was even more puzzling to me is that a character appeared two different times in wildly contradicting manners, in two books that had the same editorial team (Nick Lowe and Daniel Ketchum). I was ready to start the editorial lynch mob, lighting the torches with the fires of fanboy rage, and grabbing the pitchforks of righteous statements... but first I decided to look up the character in Wikipedia. I'm glad I did, as it cleared up quite a lot.

Death's Head character history and it's creation is somewhat complicated, having appeared in a bunch of different titles including the aforementioned Transformers, Doctor Who, Fantastic Four, She-Hulk etc. Along the way he was revamped three different times, and it seems that all three different versions of the character have the tendency to have little appearances like the ones above. For example, another version appeared in the Planet Hulk storyline, and the recent Project Pegasus storyline in Nova. The fact that the character can time travel and dimension hop means that any of his appearances and returns from death can be easily explained away.

There is no bigger moral to this story, but I know I was confused about this, so hopefully I cleared it up for someone else as well. Now if someone can explain to me why he says "Yes?" every time he talks, I'd be all set.

Cover of the Week - Wolverine: Weapon X & Supergirl

2009-11-22T15:41:00.003-04:00

It's Sunday, and that means it is time to look at some of our favorite covers in yet another edition of Cover of the Week. It looks like Ryan and I are part of a bigger hive mind, as we seem to have gone with similar the similar motif of "people holding heads in the air". Alas, poor reader, you are going to have to hit the jump to see what I mean.

Matt's Cover of the Week - Wolverine: Weapon X #7

Matt: What an incredibly creepy and bloody cover by Adam Kubert! It's very eye-catching and shocking, the kind of stuff that causes congressional hearings and gives Fredric Wertham nightmares.

Ryan's Cover of the Week - Supergirl #47

Ryan: In a week full of excellent covers, this one really stood out to me. I absolutely love the personality of the piece. Joshua Middleton has put together a really compelling cover here.

Runner-ups: Nomad: Girl Without a World #3, Mighty Avengers #31, Dark Avengers #11

Comic Book Moments of the Week for 11/18/09

2009-11-21T23:59:00.002-04:00

Some late night Moments of the Week for everyone this weekend punctuated by plethora of Invincible moments, most of which make up my personal moments of the week and I didn't even buy the issue! I'm regretting the switch to trades on Invincible more and more with each of these recent issues, which have really picked up from when I made my switch to trades. We've also got moments for Realm of Kings, Deadpool, Adventure Comics and more, which you can see after the jump.

Adventure Comics #4

Oh, there's some rage on my end alright.

Amazing Spider-Man #612

Wow, who thought this was a good idea? It was stupid to have him get "drunk" in the first place, but this kind of back peddling is just groan inducing. Just ignore it and move on next time. What's more is that the letters page was ten times worse than this with the Spider Office trying to back peddle on the Chameleon as Peter "kissing" Michelle and how it wasn't rape and other things. Couldn't find a scan of that or you'd be reading it as well.

Batman: Streets of Gotham #5

Dick Grayson is the biggest man whore in the DC Universe. Is there no woman he won't date/hasn't dated yet? Oh, for those wondering, the woman is Manhunter, the star of the back-up in Streets of Gotham.

Dark Avengers #11

That is angry water. For some context, Molecule Man turned Bullseye into water as a solution to his more violent tendencies.

Ugh, bad dialogue is bad.

Deadpool: Merc With A Mouth #5

Ahaha, Bill: Agent of AIM doesn't quite have the same ring to it as Bob: Agent of Hydra. I wonder if this is actually Bill or Bob just pretending to be someone else or just some mad 4th wall breaking nonsense. Whatever it is, I'm in favour of it.

Jar Jar wasn't that bad in the third movie when he helped put the Emperor in power and pretty much screwed over the entire universe.

Flash: Rebirth #5

So, let me get this straight. Liberty Belle is now a speedster and, when prompted to imagine her new costume so Wally can magically make it appear out of the Speed Force, she pictures Hooter's style hot shorts, a boob job and takes Power Girl's boob window costume to new extremes. Got it. Oh, and Wally's daughter somehow stole the Speed Force from her brother and then became Impulse for no reason whatsoever. Did she even know Impulse? I thought he died before she even returned from the future or whatever retcon that was. It's also weird that someone that predates, timeline-wise, Impulse is now wearing his costume, which would technically make her the first Impulse. My head hurts.

But wait, there's more! He also pushed Barry down some stairs when Barry was younger and kicked his dog and stole his lunch money and is basically Nelson from the Simpsons with speed powers. I was expecting a big ol' HA HA at some point.

Invincible #68

Oh, dinner and a show. I wonder what they'll do for after meal entertainment...

...Wow.

And Mark's reaction to the father/boyfriend "talk".

Oh, and Conquest woke up. Oh fu-- indeed. Not sure why he leaves Earth though.

And Eve is pregnant with, I assume, Invincible's child. Pretty heavy stuff for comic books these days. I think the last time a comic has tackled any modern issues was with the "oh, look, look, it's a lesbian/gay character!" or way back with Speedy or Harry Osborn on drug issues.

Mighty Avengers #31

This is the first scan from Mighty Avengers that I've seen with a Hercules moment that reminds me of the same Herc from Incredible Hercules.

Eat it Quicksilver! I'm glad someone finally called him on his Skrull story and it couldn't have been better than with his own daughter, Luna.

Punisher #11

Frankencastle for those interested. Morbius is the vampire thing in the foreground and the one responsible for reviving Frnak.

Realm of Kings #1

The Iävengers of the Cthulhu-verse. Not specificaly named that in the comic, but I'm stealing it from Golden Yak on the Penny Arcade forums who coined the name based on Cthulhu lore and naming conventions. It was so perfect a name, it had be shared.

Speaking of the Cthulhu-verse, this is what it looks like and how Quasar described it as he tried to leave at the end of the issue.

And it looks like either Quasar merged with the Cthulhu-Quasar or he brought back the taint of that universe with him to ours. Don't know where Abnett and Lanning are going with this story, but I'm definitely intrigued.

Realm of Kings: Inhumans #1

Really liked this monologue by Medusa. Seems fitting for some reason. Definitely mirrors my thoughts on Black Bolts final plan, too.

Damn it, Maximus was so much better as the mad scientist. Don't want him playing mind games and trying to take over the Inhumans again. Just put him on the Guardians of the Galaxy. Him and Groot get along fine.

Medusa's, "What?", is exactly what I said when I saw the Mighty Avengers show up. However, after seeing the crystals being delivered by Quicksilver in scans of Mighty Avengers this week, I'm guessing it has something to do with that?

Wolverine: Weapon X #7

Oh god, this was great. I can't help but picturing Jason Aaron (the writer) as the mad scientist giggling with glee about how amazing a man with chainsaws for hands is (and it really is) while his editors are the two gangsters tyring to figure out what the hell their looking at.

That looks completely sane to me.

Thoughts on Solicitations for February 2010

2009-11-21T16:02:00.001-04:00

Every month, Marvel, DC, Image and everyone else in the comics industry submits their solicits for the upcoming months to Diamond. Thoughts on Solicitations is our monthly column devoted to covering these solicits, picking out books that intrigue us/boggle the mind and, in general, discuss the future of the comics. It is not a "future pull list" or any indication of what books we may or may not buy - merely commentary from everyone at the Weekly Crisis on the comics or trades that caught our eye as we went through the various solicits.

In regards to the month of February, trades seem to be the talk of the town with Planetary, Wednesday Comics, Strange Tales, Invincible Iron Man, a Nextwave ultimate collection, a Daredevil omnibus and more all getting trade treatments. If you're a trade waiter, the wallet wil be hurting based on these solicits.

On the comics side of things, Blackest Night continues to roll along with a media blackout on covers for most of the titles involved. This often times indicates potential for spoilers, but they have full solicits up for each issue making me wonder if it's an indication of possible delays on the horizon with artists unable to complete work on time, especially since it's post-skip month (no BN in January) for the event. Siege is also hitting big that month from Marvel and even Image is getting in on the action with Spawn #200, Image United #0 and Invincible Returns #1.

Hit the jump for thoughts on all the solicits for the month of February.

DC ENTERTAINMENT

BLACKEST NIGHT

Blackest Night #7

Matt: A fitting cover, the blackest one! *looks closer* Oh wait, never mind, it's just a classified cover.

Ryan: The secret that could tear the universe asunder? Why do I have a feeling it has something to do with a horrible choice made by the Guardians a long time ago? Oh, wait, that’s the source of nearly every problem the Green Lanterns have ever faced.

Adventure Comics Starring Black Lantern Superboy #7

Matt: Top Secret? You kind of spoiled it there in the title, DC.

Blackest Night: Flash #3

Kirk: Does that mean Reverse-Flash dies in Flash: Reborn or am I getting Zolomon and Thawne mixed up?

Black Lantern Green Arrow #30

Matt: Alright, now this is getting confusing. Did they just add "Black Lantern" to every title that is having a Blackest Night tie-in?

Ryan: It cracks me up that DC has to put in the solicitation “This issue is actually Green Arrow/Black Canary #30.”

Green Lantern #51

Ryan: I’m willing to wager that Hal becoming the oft-speculated “White Lantern” is going to involve unleashing the avatars of all of the Lantern spectrums, starting with Parallax. If so, that’s a pretty awesome way to show how big the powers of these entities really are.

Secret Six #18

Kirk: I was wondering if we'd see the Manhunters in Blackest Night, but didn't expect to see them in Secret Six. I imagine this is a random decomissioned Manhunter Waller had in storage and not the Cyborg-Superman led versions.

Green Lantern Corps #45

Matt: Kind of weird that this is STILL about the battle Oa. It's been about Oa since the Blackest Night tie-in started, I figured they would have moved on by now. This becomes even more noticeable when you compare it with the main Green Lantern title, where Hal Jordan has gone globetrotting around the universe.

BATMAN TITLES

Azrael #5

Ryan: I’ve had no interest in this series from the get-go, but seeing Fabian Nicieza tackling interesting topics like Palestinian/Jewish conflicts and bringing in Ragman as a guest-star has caught my attention. I might just check this one out!

Batman and Robin #8-9

Matt: Alright, I chuckled at the "Blackest Knight" title. I must have missed that the last time we did these Solicits commentary.

Ryan: The phrase “in hopes of attaining his heart’s desire” has me really nervous about this storyline. Grant Morrison is known for completely disregarding the history of a character to serve his own bizarre plot choices and so I’m not looking forward to whatever drastic retcon is implied here.

Batman and Robin Deluxe Edition HC Vol 1: Batman Reborn.

Eric: Da-na-na-na-na-na-na-Batman! Batman! BATMAN! Yes, I am excited about this. Why do you ask?

Gotham City Sirens #9

Matt: "Is Edward Nigma friend or foe?" Sounds like someone didn't read the last issue of Tony Daniel's Batman!

Red Robin #9

Ryan: If there was any doubt that this series is one of the most important books in the DCU before this, the solicitation confirms that you need to be reading this book—especially if you are interested in seeing how Bruce Wayne makes a comeback.

Batman: Reborn Series 1 Action Figures

Ryan: As pumped as I am to get an action figure of the new Batgirl, I’m a bit confused at the choices here. Azrael and Batgirl make sense, but the Jason Todd Batman seems like an odd choice, though not quite as bad as the Two-Face Batman. I mean the latter appeared in only handful of panels as a hallucination. It would make more sense to get a Damian-as-Robin or Tim-as-Red Robin figure first.

DC UNIVERSE

Hardware: The Man in the Machine

Ryan: I’m glad to see DC is FINALLY releasing the Milestone books in trade format. $19.99 is probably too expensive for casual readers to give it a look, but for folks like me who just want to revisit these old stories, it’ll be worth it.

Milestone Forever #1

Ryan: I really hope that Dwayne McDuffie has a good recap page on this one. It has been years since the Milestone books were dropped, so to return to wrap up those long-lost storylines seems like an odd way to kick off their introduction in to the DCU.

Justice Society of America #36

Matt: Isn't it kind of a faux pas to put a giant Nazi swastika on the cover? It seems every time they do, they end up changing it for the international (namely the German) versions.

Supergirl #50

Matt: Wait a minute, a Michael Turner cover? Did they just have this laying around waiting for the right moment or is this a cover/art being reused?

Ryan: The only thing weirder than seeing a new cover by the late-Michael Turner (whose work I miss dearly) is the fact that the backup story in this is “written” by Helen Slater. Actually, I take that back. The weirdest thing about all of this is the idea that DC would want us to remember that the Helen Slater Supergirl movie exists, despite how horrible it was.

Tiny Titans #25

Eric: I expect copious amounts of death, dismemberment and carnage. Don't let me down Johns!

Ryan: Geoff Johns is co-writing Tiny Titans?!

Wednesday Comics HC

Eric: And thus begins the waiting! This is why I both love and loath the fact that DC advance solicits all of their collections. Also, advantage trade waiters!

Kirk: I didn't think Wednesday Comics was worth following in newspaper format for a variety of reasons that had nothing to do with the quality of the writing or art, but this hardcover solves all of those problems and is a definite purchase for me.

Matt: Extra features? Sucks for the people that actually supported this title on singles. Also, look at the measures this collection has "11"x17.5". Is that relatively the same size as the actual page?

Ryan: I’m now kicking myself for buying this in the single issue format. Not only is this collection similarly priced to buying all twelve issues (and will be much cheaper at online retailers), but its going to be easier to read in the oversized hardcover format and comes with a bunch of extras. If DC does a sequel to Wednesday Comics, I think I’ll wait for trade this time!

VERTIGO/WILDSTORM/ZUDA

Absolute Planetary Book One & Two

Kirk: With Planetary recently wrapping up after, what, a two year or longer delay, it was inevitable for a second Absolute volume to come out to collect the second half of the series. Thankfully, DC was smart enough to print the ridiculously scarce Book One to coincide with it. Only problem I see is that this will be one big dent in the wallet with both coming out at the same time.

Area 10 HC

Eric: I've generally enjoyed what Marvel and DC works from Christos Gage that I've read so I'm interested in seeing how well he can do on a creator owned project. I also like the premise so I'll probably get this at some point.

Ryan: Christos Gage and Chris Samnee teaming up for an original graphic novel? As of right now, this is THE book that I’m looking forward to in 2009. I just wish I didn’t have to wait until April!

Greek Street Vol 1: Blood Calls For Blood TP

Eric: Although I've heard mixed things about the series I'll still be getting this plus it's another one of Vertigo's $10 intro trades which is more than enough reason to try it out.

Mysterious The Unfathomable TP

Eric: Been waiting for this to be solicited for a long while. This is definitely near the top of to get list.

Night Owls Vol 1 TP

Eric: Another Zuda collection. I'll get it since it sounds like something that could be very enjoyable.

Northlanders Vol 3: Blood In The Snow TP

Eric: Another collection I've been waiting for. Northlanders is definitely my favorite current Vertigo series and this collection has issue #20, which is a done-in-one about Sven, the main character from the first arc, so this is another must buy for me.

Tom Strong Deluxe Edition Book Two HC

Eric: Nice to see that DC is going to release the whole series in these collections. I'll definitely pick these up now.

OTHER PUBLISHERS

DARK HORSE

Devil #1

Eric: Despite my utter loathing of Vampires, I'm pretty interested in this series. I'm very curious to see how a group of Japanese creators does turning out a Western-style comic. Should be very interesting. Never read anything by the writer but I have watched, and enjoyed, the anime listed that were created by the animation stupid doing the art.

Rapture TPB

Ryan: I’m glad to see that Dark Horse is moving so quickly to get this out as a trade paperback. Husband-and-wife team Taki Soma and Michael Avon Oeming garnered a lot of praise for this one, even if it was pretty hard to find for a lot of fans. I look forward to checking it out.

DYNAMITE

The Legendary Talespinners #1

Ryan: The solicits are basically calling this the next Fables of Stuff of Legend, which is a bold statement—but, it does sound pretty incredible and like an interesting commentary on the lack of imagination in our world. This could be the first big sleeper hit of 2010.

Red Sonja: Wrath of The Gods #1

Ryan: Every time I read about the Norse gods (Thor, Loki, Odin, etc) showing up in non-Marvel comics, I immediately picture the Marvel characters transplanted into that story. That being said, while this story sounds pretty good, Red Sonja against Marvel’s Loki sounds way cooler.

IMAGE

Chase Variant One Shot (Is All I Need)

Ryan: Rumormonger Rich Johnston’s sense of humor is usually a lot of fun, so the idea of him taking a shot at the excessiveness of comics—and from the looks of it, 90s comics—should be worth checking out.

Colt Noble and The Megalords

Ryan: How is it that I’ve never heard of this before? This sounds hilariously awesome! “Will he use the powerful body to save his world from the forces of darkness, or will he just try to get laid?” is now the coolest thing I’ve ever read in the solicits.

Image United #0

Ryan: Don’t get me wrong, I’m still pretty excited about Image United, but throwing up a #0 issue in the middle of the story makes it pretty clear that they really do want to revisit every gimmick from the 90s on this series.

Invincible Returns

Eric: Only in superhero comics is a return to an older costume something worth celebrating. Well, probably not only in superhero comics but man, they like to hype like nobody's business. Anyway, I'll probably get this out of sheer morbid curiosity.

Loaded Bible Book One TP

Eric: This sound so stupid it might end up being awesome. I'm interested in this but it's definitely not a must buy for me.

Mice Templar: Destiny #7

Ryan: The more complex the story gets, the better Mice Templar is. It looks like we can expect more layers of awesomeness in February.

Spawn #200

Ryan: The fact that it has been 17 years since Spawn first launched makes me feel incredibly old. I’m glad to see that McFarlane was able to bring in a lot of major talent for this issue though. For better or for worse, Spawn’s debut was a major milestone in the industry. My only question, though, is if McFarlane will actually be drawing it or just doing finishes like on Haunt.

MARVEL

SIEGE

New Avengers #62

Ryan: I wish Marvel would save us all the trouble by renaming this series “Hood Comics” already.

Siege #2

Kirk: I wonder if Bendis has the balls to kill Hawkeye again. That would be pretty damn funny. Also, with like 8 or 9 different Avengers teams running around, this could be a Dark Avenger, Dark Young Avenger, Young Avenger, Mighty Avenger, New Avenger, Pet Avenger or Baby Avenger. Should have just said "someone dies" to avoid the confusion.

Thunderbolts #141

Ryan: Ant-Man vs Stature? Hmm…

COSMIC TITLES

Guardians of the Galaxy #23

Kirk: Who out there isn't buying this comic based on that cover alone? This could be epic.

Matt: Oh crap, Magus is alive? You mean half the Guardians of the Galaxy died for nothing?

Ryan: I really see no reason that Wes Craig be continued to bring his horrible art to the awesomeness of Guardians of the Galaxy. That just seems like a bad choice.

Nova #34

Kirk: Black Bolt? Did I miss a solicit where it said he returned/was confirmed as alive?

Ryan: I can barely process how great this issue sounds. It looks like Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning will be really stepping it up here!

Realm of Kings: Son of Hulk #1

Kirk: Son of Hulk is a part of Realm of Kings? Really? I don't see how this solicit or the Son of Hulk relate to Realm of Kings. I can see why Marvel might want to try and attach it to the event/branding, but it feels like a cash grab.

DEADPOOL

Deadpool #20 / Hitman Monkey #1

Matt: I freaking hate talking ape/monkeys. HATE THEM. The only exception is Gorilla-Man from Agent of Atlas.

Ryan: I’m really ashamed to admit exactly how excited I am by this. Monkeys with guns will never get old to me.

Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth #8

Matt: "Bill Agent of A.I.M." What the hell? What happened to Bob Agent of H.Y.D.R.A.?

Deadpool Team-Up #896

Matt: Haha, the Highwayman? I bet the next team-up is going to be with NFL SuperPro. In other words, ridiculously awesome.

Ryan: Giant raccoons with guns, but no mention of Rocket Raccoon? This is a wasted opportunity, Marvel!

ULTIMATE UNIVERSE

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #7

Eric: "But what side of the coin is Rick Jones on? Is this the birth of a new hero? Or the birth of an ultimate…enemy??" AARRGGGHHHH!!!!!

Kirk: I love that cover. Really digging this Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends dynamic that's been set up in the book. Was one of the things I missed when they went with the whole Ultimatum nonsense.

Matt: Weird that David LaFuente seems to be taking a break from this title. It's probably for this two part story arc.

Ryan: Takeshi Miyazawa on Ultimate Comics Spider-Man? Kick ass!

Ultimate Comics X #1

Eric: So I guess we will find out his identity by 2014, if we're lucky.

Matt: Here is Jeph Loeb's success in a nutshell: this comic has FIVE covers, features an incredibly talented artist, is going to take forever to come out (at least this time it is planned as a bi-monthly), and features a MYSTERY character that appears to be another popular character but there probably won't be any actual clues, just thousands of red herrings. My guess? It is going to sell above 100,000 units.

Ryan: Now that I’m really into the Ultimate Universe, the premise of this story sounds awesome and I always dig Art Adams’s work. But, it is written by Jeph Loeb…

X-MEN TITLES

Cable #23

Ryan: Either Marvel is finally ready to admit that Hope is the Second Coming of Jean Grey or this is one major swerve. I look forward to seeing how they deal with Cyclops’s one true love (I’ve never bought this garbage with Emma Frost) comes back from the dead as his time-traveling adoptive granddaughter.

S.W.O.R.D. #4

Matt: That's a very surrealistic cover right there, like something Dali would do if he had ever done comic books.

Uncanny X-Men #521

Ryan: What is Magneto doing, you ask? My guess is a sit-in protest over the fact that Greg Land is still allowed to draw this book or any book. Wait, did I say draw? I meant trace, sorry about that!

Wolverine: Weapon X #10

Eric: Best. Wolverine cover. Ever.

X-Men Forever #18

Eric: Change the way I look at Cyclops forever? Sorry, Grant Morrison already did that in New X-Men.

X-Men: Legacy #233

Kirk: Proteus? Whoa, might have to jump in on X-Men: Legacy for this one.

X-Men: Pixie Strikes Back #1

Kirk: This sounds like all kinds of fun. Will be nice to see these characters treated like the high schoolers they really are instead of the over-sexed portrayals in Uncanny of late. Seems like a good fit for Kathryn Immonen, too.

Matt: I like Kathryn Immonen, she did a great work on Runaways, but I do not like Pixie enough to spend 3.99 on this four issue mini series.

Ryan: I’ve never really understood the draw of Pixie, but after reading their amazing run on Runaways, I might pick this one up just for the creative team of Kathryn Immonen and Sara Pichelli!

MARVEL UNIVERSE

Hulk #20

Eric: I need to stop reading these solicits. I really do. Just when I think they can't get any dumber, they do.

Incredible Hulk #607

Ryan: I was really hoping not to have to pick up any Hulk books until after Fall of the Hulks (hopefully) sorts out the mess they’ve become since World War Hulk, but this does have a back-up story with art by Ryan Stegman. Damnit.

Invincible Iron Man #23

Matt: Is this a Siege tie-in? It sounds like it should be, but it doesn't have the same cover style as all the others, and it doesn't mention anything in the solicit.

Ms. Marvel #50

Matt: Canceled. Lasted twice as long as the previous Ms. Marvel series from the 70's. I dropped this series a while back, but it still sucks that it is canceled, as it was one of the few ongoing titles from Marvel featuring a female super hero in the starring role.

Marvel Heartbreakers

Kirk: Nextwave? Nextwave? NEXTWAVE! Okay, it's not by Warren Ellis, but I feel like I have to buy it just for the opportunity to tell Marvel I want more Nextwave.

Mighty Avengers #34

Ryan: I’m probably focusing on the wrong part of this solicit, but it says someone is off the team. Please tell me it’s US Agent. That character is so seriously useless.

Tails of the Pet Avengers

Matt: Hey, cool, an ongoing title of the Pet Avengers. Awww, yeah!

COLLECTIONS

Daredevil by Ed Brubaker & Michael Lark Omnibus Vol 2 HC

Kirk: 19 comics or 464 pages for $75 counts as an omnibus these days? The first volume of the Brubaker omnibus was 604 pages for the same price. How is that remotely fair?

Invincible Iron Man Vol 1 HC

Eric: I'm actually tempted to buy this. It's oversized and I've been thinking of getting the World's Most Wanted arc as well but it's a little pricey and there a lot of other comics that I'd rather buy.

Kick-Ass Premier HC

Eric: Bought. I've been waiting for this for a while now. Can't wait to get my hands on it.

Nextwave: Agents of HATE Ultimate Collection TPB

Eric: If you do not already own Nextwave in one form or another you A)are a very bad person and B)should buy this.

Kirk: TPB? WHY MUST YOU MOCK ME MARVEL? WHY? Just give me the oversized hardcover complete collection already. PLEASE!!! I want to give you monies. Why won't you take my monies???

Spider-Man: The Complete Clone Saga Epic Book 1 TPB

Eric: I want to buy this and, at the same time, I really don't want to buy this knowing where it all ends up.

Kirk: Epic indeed, ahaha. I won't try and deny my love for the original Clone Saga. Not perfect by any means, but not the lowest point in Spider-Man's history or worst story ever like others would have you believe either.

To be honest, this trade is actually quite good based on the issues included and I'd recommend it to everyone simply for the Lost Years collection, which was a JM DeMattais and John Romita Jr tale of Ben Reilly's and Kaine's "missing" years in a Daredevil: Man Without Fear-like tale. Very good and something many probably missed out on.

The other issues included are good, too. Much of the Clone Saga pre-Maximum Clonage was great and sales actually increased across the board for the titles as people actually liked the story.

So, ya, think about picking this up. For the content included, the price is quite good and on Amazon, it'll be like $10-15 cheaper.

Strange Tales HC

Eric: Definitely buying this. Not sure what the non-Strange Comics are but this is an oversized collection and the Strange Tales issues are probably worth the price alone.

Kirk: Bought the single issues and am buying the oversized hardcover. A book this good deserves it. I hope Marvel gets the message I want more of it.

Ultimate Comics Iron Man Ultimate Collection TPB

Matt: Looks like Marvel is retroactively renaming series. This used to be "Ultimate Iron Man", but now it is "Ultimate Comics Iron Man".

Crisis on Infinite Arts - David Lafuente's Ava Destruction

2009-11-20T18:22:00.004-04:00

Ava Destruction is one of the characters from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' series, Incognito. Ava underwent a "live-fast-die-young" procedure that besides granting her superpowers, it made her look constantly like a teenager, despite being close to 50 years old. This is a pin-up that David Lafuente did of the character.

David Lafuente (Twitter | DeviantArt | Home Page) is an artist with a relatively short career in American comics. Originally from Spain, he illustrated several comics both in the Spanish and French comic industry. Eventually he made the jump to the other side of the ocean with a couple of short stories for Marvel, and he also collaborated with Kathryn Immonen in the mini series Patsy Walker: Hellcat.

Lafuente's biggest and most important gig, however, came when he was chosen as the new ongoing artist of the Ultimate Spider-Man relaunch. He is currently working in Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man, alongside with comic superstar Brian Michael Bendis. Lafuente's rise has been a fast one, and I am sure his career is going to be a long and fruitful one. Hit the jump for some more of his artwork.

A panel from Patsy Walker: Hellcat

A pin-up of Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl.

A cover of Runaways, featuring Molly and Wolverine.

A cover of Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, featuring the book's extended cast.

Comic Book Review Power Rankings for 11/18/09

2009-11-20T00:47:00.003-04:00

The Comic Book Review Power Rankings are coming to you a bit later than usual this week, but that won’t stop me from doing what I came to do—countdown the best comics of the week, from the barely readable right on down to the books you absolutely need to add to your collection this week. Since we’re already a few hours behind schedule, there is no sense wasting any more time—so make with the clicking already and let’s get started!

For the uninitiated, the Comic Book Review Power Rankings is a countdown from worst-to-best of my weekly comic book haul. Before reading the issues, I preRank them based on the creative team, previous issues, solicitations, and gut instinct. The final Ranking number is based upon how the issues actually turned out. I attempt to keep everything as spoiler free as possible, but keep in mind that there may be the occasional minor spoiler that I overlook. As always, I can be reached via responses to this thread or at ryanreviews@gmail.com.

It’s on the Rankings, but I did pick up Tiny Titans #22. It’s the usual goodness and shouldn’t be missed. I also picked up last week’s issue of Titans on the recommendation of a friend. I’d highly recommend that you check that out as well. It is probably the best use of Roy Harper since the Gene Ha issue of Justice League of America a few years back.

10. ADVENTURE COMICS #4

Lead Written by Geoff Johns and Sterling Gates

Lead Art by Jerry Ordway, Bob Wiacek, and Brian Buccellato

Lead Letters by Steve Wands

Backup Written by Geoff Johns and Michael Shoemaker

Backup Art by Clayton Henry and Brian Reber

Backup Letters by Sal Cipriano

Cover by Jerry Ordway

preRanking: 09

• My purchase of Adventure Comics is one more example of me falling prey to DC’s Blackest Night rings promotion, though it did have the added bonus of satisfying my curiosity on how Geoff Johns was going to handle folding Superboy Prime into the event.

• After he was transported back into the “real world” at the end of Legion of 3 Worlds, Prime returns here as we see him getting angry about the events of Adventure Comics #4 and storming off to his local comic book shop only to be attacked by the Black Lantern Alexander Luthor of Earth-3.

• Sound stupid? Well, that’s because it is. This is, by far, the most forced tie-in to Blackest Night yet. The story itself is nearly unitelligble, especially Luthor’s choice to give Prime his armor back just so he can “harness more rage.”

• It doesn’t help that Prime has been played up as a whiney villain for so long that its hard to rally behind him in this situation. Honestly, I could care less if he gets his heart ripped out at this point.

• Johns and co-writer Sterling Gates do very little to salvage this mess by writing some of the stiffest and dullest dialogue I’ve seen from either man.

• Jerry Ordway’s art here looks incredibly dated. His designs, his approach to storytelling—everything just screams “old comic.” I don’t mean that in a good way.

• Of course, Ordway is poor choice for this story to begin with. The setting of this is supposed to be the “real world,” yet Ordway’s style is very cartoony (especially with his over-the-top expressions), which really breaks up any sense of realism that could make this issue that much more interesting.

• I honestly can’t tell you what happened in the back up. I tried reading it, found it far too inaccessible for new readers and gave up. Had I been reading this series all along, I might have been able to put something together, but I haven’t so, I can’t.

Verdict: Avoid It. I only picked this issue up for the promotional ring, so I guess I got what I paid for. However, considering you can buy the individual rings at http://www.midtowncomics.com/ for half the price of this debacle, I could’ve saved myself the trouble. This story is a mess from beginning to end and should be avoided at all costs.

09. X-MEN: LEGACY #229

Written by Mike Carey

Art by Daniel Acuna

Letters by Cory Petit

Cover by Mirco Pierfederici

preRanking: 05

• Do you, by chance, remember the plot of the last issue of X-Men: Legacy? Well, this issue is basically the same story (Rogue hunting down Emplate in his hidden base), but with the added wrinkle of Gambit getting angry and returning to his Death persona.

• There really isn’t much story here at all and what little story there is what already happened last issue.

• There are a few neat character beats, such as Gambit’s concern for Rogue, but they are few and far between. It’s mostly fluff and repeats.

• The Gambit/Death thing never sat well with me in the first place and seemed like a lazy reinvention of a character that didn’t need it in the first place. This time around? Its really not any better and is killing my interest in the character.

• The art by Daniel Acuna is pretty humdrum. There are lots of weird things going on here, especially when Rogue infiltrates Emplate’s base, which is where Acuna is at home. However, when it comes to the regular characters, especially Gambit, the art was somewhere between spotty and simply horrible.

Verdict: Avoid It. As excited as I was to get back into reading this series regularly, the dullness of this storyline and the fact that Mike Carey is trying to stretch five pages of story into several issues is killing a lot of the interest I had in the book. Something needs to happen—anything, even if it isn’t interesting as long as it is something new—and needs to happen soon if there is any hope of this book remaining on my pull list.

08. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #612

Lead Written by Mark Waid

Lead Art by Paul Azaceta and Dave Stewart

Lead Letters by Joe Caramagna

Backup Written by Joe Kelly

Backup Art by JM Ken Nimura

Backup Letters by JM Ken Nimura

Covers by Adi Granov and Marko Djurdjevic

preRanking: 06

• The much-anticipated Gauntlet storyline begins this week with Spider-Man facing a very unusual threat—down-on-his-luck villain Electro is rallying a mob of angry taxpayers against Dexter Bennett over his successful lobby for federal bailout money for struggling newspapers.

• I really didn’t expect this storyline to go this direction. On one hand, its really interesting to see a villain take a working-class stance and use that as the “cause” of his villainous deeds. It makes sense for Electro to fill that role, so this is a cool twist.

• On the other hand, the plot of this story is highly political and borders on preaching against the federal bailouts. It seems out of place and heavy-handed—it’s almost like the story is being used to push an agenda more than anything else, even if the mouthpiece is a vaillain.

• I really did not care for the scene between Peter and Michelle. It was extremely forced and didn’t add anything to the story other than to remind readers of their situation, despite the fact that this is pushed in nearly every issue of the seires.

• I liked the very “old school” feel of Paul Azaceta’s art. He is definitely channeling the Kirby/Ditko end of the spectrum in this issue. This worked especially well whenever Spider-Man was in costume.

• Unfortunately, in the moments where he wasn’t, the inconsistent facial designs and uneven expressions killed any momentum the art was building.

• I did not care at all for the backup story that was little more than a rumination on the relationship between Spider-Man and Black Cat.

• Joe Kelly’s writing here was very rambling and unfocused. It was so bad that it made Kelly’s Spider-Man/Deadpool nearly incomprehensible team-up last week look intricately plotted by comparison.

• Having seen some of JM Ken Nimura’s art from I Kill Giants, I can say with some certainty that he is a very talented artist. However, whether it is simply the fact that the tone of the art did not fit the story or something else entirely, this was just not the write art for this one. It’s not bad per se, but it is bad for this book.

Verdict: Check It. While there are some problems with the lead story (mostly with the art), this issue would have Ranked considerably higher if it did not contain the backup story. It serves almost no purpose and is so haphazardly crafted that I’m really not sure why Marvel would want to print it at all. I’d much rather have paid the standard price for this issue and only received the story that actually made sense.

07. REALM OF KINGS

Written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (DnA)

Art by Leonardo Manco, Mahmud Asrar, and Bruno Hang

Letters by Cory Petit

Cover by Clint Langley

preRanking: 01

• Spinning out of the War of Kings event, the Realm of Kings one shot follows Quasar on a mission to the other side of the mysterious rift in space known as the Fault, where he fints an even version of the Avengers that seem to have been corrupted by a dark force.

• This issue is a really weird mix of the usual DnA sci-fi action with Lovecraft-style monsters and mayhem. This is definitely a departure from what readers may be used to.

• I’m really not sure what is being set up here or how it will affect the other Marvel cosmic books. Unlike the other even prologues which set up a clear story path, this issue doesn’t do much more than introduce the Otherside Avegners and possible setup a corrupted Quasar (or his Otherside counterpart).

• The dialogue in this issue is really stiff and there isn’t a ton of personality shining through. A lot of effort is put into world building, but not so much into the characters.

• The art chores are split between Leonardo Manco, who handles the art once Quasar enters the Fault, and Mahmud Asrar, whose work covers the universe we are used to.

• Asrar’s art is surprisingly weak. The details run together and the anatomies are very awkward. This doesn’t resemble his earlier Marvel work or his Dynamo 5 work at all, which makes me think that either we are seeing him in the middle of a style shift or this is just an uncharacteristically poor issue for him.

• Manco’s work, on the other hand, was very solid. His style is very detailed and bold. It reminded me a lot of Frank Frazetta or any other artists whose work would be at home in a fantasy book or the cover to a Dungeons & Dragons guidebook. Its great looking, but very stiff.

• The designs for the Otherside Avengers were very cool, though I didn’t care much for the design on the Scarlet Witch—mostly because she looks almost exactly the same as she does now.

Verdict: Check It. This issue is a fun read that sets forth some interesting premises. Fans of Marvel’s cosmic books and the brilliant work that DnA has done on them may be a bit shocked to find that this is very different than anything they may be used to. The execution isn’t as strong as I expected, but the concept is interesting. I can’t say that I’m not disappointed by the quality, but I’m digging the ideas.

06. BATMAN CONFIDENTIAL #37

Written by Royal McGraw

Art by Marcos Marz, Luciana Del Negro, and David Baron

Letters by Sal Cipriano

Cover by Marcos Marz

preRanking: 10

• I picked up this week’s Batman: Confidential on a whim after checking out some sweet preview pages on DC’s blog, The Source. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that this was part two of the story, which finds Lady Blackhawk and Batman teaming up after the original Blackhawk’s grave desecrated and exhumed.

• Interestingly enough, despite missing the first chapter of this story, I wasn’t that lost. There are clearly bigger things going on with the villain that I missed the lead-up for, but as a whole, this was surprisingly accessible.

• I really liked how fast-paced this issue is. Despite some twists and turns, this is a fairly simple story and Royal McGraw doesn’t try to make it any more than that.

• The character interaction here was great. McGraw’s Batman is more a detective than anything else, which is the angle I prefer on the character. What really impressed me though was his fun take on Lady Blackhawk.

• The villain is a bit one-dimensional, though the twists and turns make up for it. There is never a dull moment in this issue.

• Marcos Marz’s art features some awesome designs and a great sense of storytelling. It fits perfectly in line with the one of the script and the characters look fantastic.

• The problem is that it is ridiculously stiff. There is no energy or sense of motion in the issue, which really undercuts the quality of the book, especially since it is so fast-paced.

Verdict: Check It. This is fun little adventure comic with some great character work. With all of the overlapping stories and mega-events going on in the regular DCU, its nice to have a story that doesn’t aim to be something larger than it needs to be. Plus, its great to see Lady Blackhawk again; since Birds of Prey has been cancelled she’s been out of the spotlight, which is a shame since she is such a great character.

05. OUTSIDERS #24

Written by Peter Tomasi

Art by Fernando Pasarin, Scott Hanna, Prentis Rollins, and Brian Reber

Letters by Travis Lanham

Cover by Tom Mandrake

preRanking: 07

• Much like this week’s Adventure Comics, I only picked up this week’s Outsiders for the promotional ring, but unlike Adventure Comics, I found myself really enjoying this issue.

• Spinning out of her recent run-in with the Titans, Black Lantern Terra is the main focus of the first half of this issue as she infiltrates the Outsiders headquarters to confront her brother, Geo-Force. Meanwhile, in the latter half of the issue, Halo and Katana are attacked by Black Lantern versions of Katana’s husband and children.

• The character writing in this issue is exceptionally strong, which fuels how powerful the events are. This is one of the most emotionally resonant Blackest Night tie-in issues.

• The tension in the issue is also built very well, due in part to the strong character work, but also to the methodical pacing, especially in the second half of the book.

• The formula to this issue is the same as nearly every other tie-in, so readers that are getting sick of that cut-and-paste approach might be a bit annoyed here.

• I’m a bit annoyed that the Outsiders had no idea what the Black Lanterns are when Terra shows up, despite the havoc they are running all over the universe. It would be different, but this is AFTER the Titans have been attacked by Terra. You’d think by then someone would sound an alarm or make a phone call or something.

• The art in this issue really carries the story. It’s amazing how much detail Fernando Pasarin packs into each page without taking away from how strong his expressions were. This is definitely one of his best issues.

• The only problem with the issue is that not a lot really happens. We get some good setup, but for an oversized issue, it would’ve been nice to see more meat here. In terms of craft, it is superb, but the end, you are really only getting the amount of story that you’d get in the first few pages of the other Blackest Night tie-ins.

Verdict: Check It. This issue just barely missed out on the Buy It plateau. There is great character work and Fernando Pasarin’s art is top notch, but in the end, there really isn’t enough story here to justify the increased page count and price. If Peter Tomasi could’ve scaled this back just a bit and included a bit more of the aftermath of the characters meeting the Black Lanterns, this would be that much stronger of an issue.

04. DR. HORRIBLE

Written by Zack Whedon

Art by Joelle Jones and Dan Jackson

Letters by Nate Piekos

Covers by Kristian Donaldson

preRanking: 08

• As part of Dark Horse’s “One-Shot Wonders” initiative, the Dr. Horrible one-shot dropped this week and simultaneously please fans of the original Joss Whedon-directed musical and serve as a good gateway to anyone who’s been curious about the property but hasn’t checked it out.

• This issue, which follows Dr. Horrible’s “origin”—the villainous act that inspired him to be an evil genius and his first encounter with Captain Hammer—captures the wit and charm of the original film. Writer Zack Whedon does a splendid job with the character voices (which makes sense considering he co-wrote the film).

• The story moves at a great brisk pace and has a very fun tone. It never takes itself too seriously, but isn’t complete camp either.

• Its absolutely hilarious that Dr. Horrible’s main goal wasn’t to defeat Captain Hammer, but rather just to get noticed—this is perfectly in line with the original story.

• Joelle Jones’s art is a great fit. It’s very cartoony, which matches the tone, but has an unexpected touch of realism that bridges the gap between the cartoony antics and the film.

• I was really blown away by how well the expressions of Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion translated in the art. Jones perfectly captures their mannerisms and facial quirks. Felicia Day’s character (Penny) and Horrible’s henchman Moist (Simon Helberg) looked good, but weren’t captured quite as perfectly as Fillion and the NPH.

• I was a bit disappointed by the uneven distribution on backgrounds. One or two panels per page will have great backgrounds, while the rest are mostly dull, single-color fills.

Verdict: Buy It. Fans of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog should absolutely love this quirky one-shot. Zack Whedon’s quality script and the art by Joelle Jones bring the characters alive and perfectly capture the magic that made the original film so much fun. The biggest problem? It’s just a one-shot and with quality like this, you’ll wish it were an ongoing.

03. SUPERGIRL #47

Written by Sterling Gates

Art by Matt Camp and Nei Ruffino

Letters by Jared K. Fletcher

Cover by Joshua Middleton

preRanking: 04

• Following up on the recently completed Hunt for Reactron crossover with Action Comics, this week’s Supergirl focuses on the trial of Reactron on New Krypton and the divisive effect it has on the Kryptonians. Interspersed with this story is a touching recount of the courtship between Kara’s parents, Zor-El and Alura.

• Sterling Gates does wonders to develop the character of Alura in this issue. This is honestly the first time in recent memory that she hasn’t been presented as completely one-dimensional. She retains her personality, but we see her in a more well-rounded manner her.

• Much of this comes from the very natural very sweet, and very telling courtship scenes. These are amongst the best scenes that I’ve ever read from Gates.

• There are a ton of non-marquee characters in this issue that all weigh in on how Reactron should be handled, but the lack of personality from tehse characters makes it a bit hard to follow at times. The big picture makes sense, but following who thinks what can be a bit troublesome at times.

• I really like the set up of “What would Zor-El do?” that runs through this issue, especially since it is mainly done so that it could be twisted in the end. It eventually only matters what Zor-El would want or do so that Alura could do the exact opposite.

• The art by Matt Camp took some getting used to at first. He uses thick outlines around his characters, but not around their individual features, making them appear very flat at first—they look more like filled-in outlines than complete drawings.

• However, as you grow used to it, the strength of his designs and expressions were just fantastic. I’m not terribly familiar with Camp’s work, but after this issue, I’m definitely a fan.

• The art wouldn’t be nearly as effective, though, without the gorgeous and lush colors by Nei Ruffino. She is seriously one of the best young artists in the industry and this issue is a prime example of why.

Verdict: Buy It. This issue was very, very close to make it to “Must Read” status, with the adjustment towards the art and the confusing background characters really being the only major problems that stood out to me. After being bogged down by crossovers through most of the year, this is the type of issue that can put Supergirl back to the status it held in the latter part of 2008. This is definitely my favorite Super-book in some time.

02. MIGHTY AVENGERS #31

Written by Dan Slott and Christos Gage

Art by Sean Chen, Craig Yeung, Mark Morales, and John Rauch

Letters by Dave Lanphear

Cover by Marko Djurdjevic

preRanking: 03

• In the conclusion to the current story arc, Avengers of all sorts team-up to take down the Unspoken in one of the most action packed issues of the year.

• This issue does a great job of solidifying the Mighty Avengers as a team (except US Agent, who remains pointless), but also brings Hank Pym back to his brilliant likable self once again.

• There are a ton of characters in this issue and the writing team of Dan Slott and Christos Gage do an amazing job of handling the voices of all of them, from the major players like Pym down to the characters with only a handful of lines like Captain America.

• This story had the feel of an old-school Avengers story, something that has really been lost on almost every mainstream continuity Avengers story since before Avengers Disassembled.

• Sean Chen’s artwork is the perfect complement to that. His approach is basic with clean designs and lots of energy. It just screams “classic superhero.”

• Chen’s storytelling was great here. I really enjoyed his panel progression, as well as his mix of wide action shots and reactionary close-ups. This really helped control the pace and tone of the story.

• The only problem is that some pages are lacking in details while others are overflowing it—it gives certain parts of the issue a very rushed and incomplete look.

Verdict: Must Read. Mighty Avengers has steadily gotten better over the last few months, all building up to this very impressive issue. The writing team of Slott and Gage bring back the fun that superheroes are known for without sacrificing the action or the impact of the story (the latter is especially true in the highly emotional epilogue). This issue will remind you what made the Avengers so addictive for the last several decades.

01. BATMAN: STREETS OF GOTHAM #6

Lead Written by Chris Yost

Lead Art by Dustin Nguyen, Derek Fridolfs, and John Kalisz

Lead letters by Steve Wands

Backup Written by Marc Andreyko

Backup Art by Jeremy Haun, John Lucas, and Nick Filardi

Backup Letters by Sal Cipriano

Cover by Dustin Nguyen

preRanking: 02

• This week’s Streets of Gotham dropped in a big way this week with not one, but two fantastic stories. In the lead, Man-Bat and Huntress fight for their lives after being captured by a seemingly demented priest, while in the co-feature, Manhunter faces the threat of Two-Face in her non-heroic persona, but comes face-to-face with her ally Dylan while busting some of Two-Face's goons while stopping a robbery.

• This issue is a great mix of fun action and strong character work…in both stories.

• I really like Chris Yost’s take on Huntress and Man-Bat, especially with how hot-headedly Huntress reacts to him.

• I really didn’t see the twists coming in the lead story, which made the read all the more satisfying. Yost shows amazing control of the tension in this story.

• As odd as it sounds, I’m glad to see that Batman takes merely a supporting roll here. He’s had a major presence in this title, even though it seemed like he wouldn’t. Its pretty cool seeing some of his great supporting players taking the lead.

• Dustin Nguyen’s art is fantastic. It’s full of life thanks to his stellar expressions and tight designs. He keeps things simple, yet manages to convey so much.

• His perspectives were equally as impressive. I love how he places with angles of sight and shifting distances to emphasize certain parts of the story. His panel choices have come leaps and bounds over the last few years.

• Marc Andreyko continues to show a great sense of comfort in working with the shorter page count of the co-features. This is something he really struggled with early on, but those problems are completely absent here.

• I absolutely loved the interaction between Kate and Dick Grayson. Having them meet and immediately flirt was an interesting choice, but it worked really well thanks to how skillfully Andreyko builds chemistry between the two. I’m a die-hard Dick/Babs fan, but this is something I’d love to see play out a bit more.

• Jeremy Haun’s art is really solid here. His sense of realism is a perfect fit for the “adult” nature of this story—Manhunter is generally a more mature, more focused, and more realistically toned (even with the crazy superhero stuff) than most books, so having Haun take this approach is just a great choice.

• I’m really impressed at how well Haun managed to convey that sense of realism while remaining very comfortable with the superhero stuff—it’s not something most artists with this type of style can pull off.

Verdict: Must Read. This issue really brings the goods on all levels. You get two fantastic stories with solid plots, great character writing, and simply superb art. There is very little to complain about in either stories, which makes it all the more impressive. What really sealed the deal for this issue though was how much fun I had reading them. These were just solidly entertaining stories and the superb craftsmanship is icing on the cake that earned this issue the Book of the Week honors.

Reader Question - Did You Buy Any Blackest Night Tie-Ins Just to Get A Free Power Ring?

2009-11-19T11:12:00.003-04:00

Just a quick reader question to kick things off for today. As most shops, including my own, are reporting sell outs for two times, three times and even higher order levels for the Blackest Night tie-ins associated with the free power rings, I was curious how many people have bought one of these comics solely for the power ring? Anyone enjoy the comic enough to stick with the series or are you happy with your ring and never buying the book again? Do you plan to buy other ring promotion books in the future? Let us know in the comments below.

Weekly Crisis Comic Book Reviews for 11/18/09

2009-11-18T23:59:00.001-04:00

Just a short set of reviews for you for tonight's edition of the Weekly Crisis Comic Book Reviews, featuring a quick shot review for Adventure Comics and a full fledged review for Amazing Spider-Man. If you can't tell I started writing my reviews alphabetically and just ran out of time, so, instead of holding off on them until I had more done, decided to post them for you. I'll update this tomorrow with the rest of the reviews. For now, enjoy the first two reviews of this weeks comics!

ADVENTURE COMICS #4

Written by Geoff Johns and Michael Shoemaker

Art by Jerry Ordway and Clayton Henry

+ The Super "fanboy"-Prime meta commentary by Johns seems to be approaching near-Frank Millerian All Star Batman levels of absurdity. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing, so put a plus next to it.

+ The Legion back-up finally showed some promise (didn't care for the Sun Boy and Polar Boy centric ones) with some great character work with the White Witch and Blok and how their relationship compares to Wildfire's and Dawnstar's.

- Superboy-Prime needs to die or someone has to step in, tap Johns on the shoulder, shake their head and tell him it's time to stop.

- The Legion has to die. Wait, don't close that window yet! Let me explain. The Legion works and I like it, but having three seperate Legions active at the same time is madness. I couldn't figure out what was going on with the Final Crisis comic books that Brainiac had until I realized this was a different Legion than the one that had been showing up in Adventure Comics up until now. The art didn't do many favours in distinguishing the minute differences in the various Legions either, but that's no excuse. It was streamlined until Johns decided he wanted a Silver Age Legion. But, being Mr Continuity, he needed to "fix everything" and now we have three Legions and ridiculous pre-Crisis-like nonsense with multiple iterations of characters confusing people.
- Did I mention how much I hate Superboy-Prime and the entire meta commentary on the people paying for the books he appears in? How he is nothing like an Ambush Bug or other meta/parody character? No? Well, I do.

- For all the Blackest Night and Superboy-Prime returns hype and ring promotion attached to this issue (I recall hearing it labelled as Blackest Night #4.5 at one point or another and to order heavily), nothing happens. Prime rages about having to wait a month to find out what happens in Adventure Comics #5, rages on the internet about how he can't get spoilers, Black Lantern Alexander Luthor informs us that the internet is the source of great rage in our universe and, in short, anyone that uses it needs their heart ripped out (okay, maybe it doesn't outright say that, but that's the general picture). I don't even really understand how Luthor crossed over into our world or what purpose killing Prime in another universe serves in reviving Nekron other than to have a tie-in in Adventure Comics.

Verdict - Avoid It. Things were going so smoothly for Adventure Comics with some nice, if not the meatiest, stories following Superboy and Legion related offerings. Shame Blackest Night rolled up and brought Prime into the mix.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #612

Written by Mark Waid & Joe Kelly

Art by Paul Azaceta & J.K. Niimura

Amazing Spider-Man #612 is the first part of The Gauntlet storyline and deals with the electric punching bag Electro. What was odd about the use of Electro or, maybe, the labelling of this issue as The Gauntlet is that the people responsible for the so-called Gauntlet, Sasha and Ana Kravinoff, the wife and daughter of Karven the Hunter, do not appear in the issue and have absolutely no connection to Electro or his current shenanigans. So, how is it a part of their gauntlet for Spider-Man if they have nothing to do with it?

Oddities of the premise aside, the issue started out quite strong by showing a nice frame of reference for Electro's current state of mind and how his powers have been working of late (as in not so great).

However, from there it just goes south as the story tries to draw parallels to current affairs with bail out packages and other economic woes by having the government give the DB a bail out package. Just the DB. No other newspaper received a stimulus package. Electro decides he's had enough and draws parallels to his origin, how the electric company screwed him of any benefits after his accident that gave him his powers and this somehow leads to Electro becoming a YouTube sensation leading the crusade against the DB and public spending. I could not make this up if I tried. The people go so crazy for his gospel that they start attacing Spider-Man by issue's end. I think I would have preferred a rubberized webbing boxing gloves fight that these Electro match-ups usually turn into compared to this and I hate those Electro fights.

But wait, there's more! On the Peter Parker side of things, we get a groan inducing scene with his psycho roommate, Michelle, that reveals he did not actually get black out drunk over seeing his ex-girlfriend at Aunt May's wedding. No, Peter doesn't drink and have sex with strange women. Apparently, she swapped out his drinks with gingerale and Peter just thinks he got drunk and had sex with a complete stranger. I really don't know what is worse. I'm not even going to touch the two page long letters page that tries to explain away Chameleon Peter Parker not having sex on the kitchen floor with Michelle. That was just painful to read.

"Kirk, surely something good came out of this issue?", you ask. To this I say, don't call me Shirley and that, yes, yes there was. The Electro bits at the start were quite good and, contrary to my tone, the rest of the issue wasn't terrible - it was just average. A decent Spider-Man story you can pick up and read. Few will outright hate it, but I doubt anyone will call it an instant classic.

However, the real joy of this issue comes in the surprise (to me at least) back-up tale by Joe Kelly and J.K. Niimura. You may remember these two names from our I Kill Giants giveaway for our Two Years Later giveaway or any of our various I Kill Giants reviews. As soon as I turned the page and saw the artwork, I nearly did a double take as I wondered if there was a mix up at the printers.

But, to my ever increasing surprise, it turned out it was actually a Black Cat and Spider-Man back-up story and a good one at that. I had issues with the previous Black Cat appearances in Amazing Spider-Man and her 'Brand New Day' persona that flew in the face of other recent characterizations, but this back-up story had none of that and read like a very good Black Cat/Spider-Man tale with some refreshing and wonderful artwork to tell the story. It's only a short little tale, but has some great word play between Spider-Man and Black Cat and played off the dual nature of his Peter Parker and Spider-Man lives. I'm not sure how it relates to the Gauntlet story or if it is even supposed to, but I loved it and it turned a decidedly average issue into a great one for me, simply on the strength of these two talents.

Verdict - Check It. I'm not sure how many people would be willing to buy a book simply for a short back-up story, so I'll leave it as a Check It, but I, personally, would buy it simply for more Joe Kelly and J.K. Nimura Spider-Man. A pleasant surprise that caught me off guard and really made the issue for me whereas the Gauntlet story went south quickly.

Digital Comics Done Right

2009-11-18T09:20:00.001-04:00

Recently, Marvel announced a deal with iTunes that would allow them to distribute Marvel comics to iPhone and iPod Touch. I can certainly understand the appeal, and why Marvel would want to enter that market: anything that Apple releases these days is bound to become a hot item.

Marvel is not the first publisher to distribute comics through the iPhone, but the fact that the biggest American comic publishing company is using this method of distribution is a pretty big deal, especially since they have their own digital service and are opting to utilize iTunes as well.

Many feel that this is the next step in the evolution of comic distribution, but to me it feels that it is not properly planned, and that customers are the ones that could end up paying the price. Hit the jump for some more thoughts about the deal, and the future of digital comics.

The Available Apps

Marvel's recent announcement of their decision to start distributing comics through the iTunes store revealed the fact that you could buy their comics through FOUR different applications: Comixology, iVerse, Panelfly, and Scrollmotion. Additionally, other companies have already started making headway in releasing digital comics in their own way, such as with Longbox.

The only problem is that none of these share a common file type, or even a common player (to my knowledge at least, stop me if I am wrong), so what you buy for one phone (the iPhone, for example) won't work if you decide to change it for another one. Even if you don't change phones, what you download in one app won't work with another one. If you can't see why this is not very good, maybe you can ask the people that bought HD DVD players, UMD movies for the PSP, or Zip Drives.

I know there's bound to be these kind of problems with any new and emerging technology, but I like to think we have learned enough from the music and movie industry to not make the same mistakes. Take a look at what Marvel's Executive Vice President of Digital Media, Ira Rubenstein, said in an interview about the brand new deal:

"We want to give the consumers the choice to decide what's best for them. Each software has a world of difference, and each company has a different approach. By going with multiple companies, we're letting the consumer decide."

Despite what I am sure are good intentions, someone is going to end up getting the raw end of the deal. Some of these companies are going to crash and burn, close down shop and stop updating their players, making them obsolete as the iPhone keeps updating their OS.

Don't believe me? Some comics already available on the iTunes store won't play unless you have the 3.0 update of their OS, which you have to pay $9.99 to get. Theoretically (again, stop me if I am wrong) the opposite can also happen if these comics apps are not compatible with new updates on the iPhone.

What will happen with the content that has already been paid for? Would readers be able to read their content on other players? Probably not. And so that content could become useless.

A Simplified System

The way to do digital comics the right way is to develop a system and a unified file type for every company to use so as to avoid the trappings I mentioned above. For example, you can play an mp3 file in your computer, your portable player, and as many compatible devices as there exist out there with rare exceptions. This is what the digital comic book initiative should aim for - not a system where it is every man for himself. The comic industry has the advantage of being a relatively small one, at least in comparison to the music, movie or gaming industry, so a consensus should be easier to achieve.

Who seems to be making headway into what I think is the right direction is the Longbox program, which seems to be an iTunes-like program for all three main operating systems (Windows, Mac, and Linux) that seems to have the right idea behind it. The Longbox program is going to have it's own proprietary format, as well as be able to play other types of files, theoretically giving it more malleability and adaptability than the iPhone apps will ever have. Sadly, we still don't have a street date, as the program (as far as I know) is still in Beta testing and trying to work out deals with publishing companies.

The other good aspect of Longbox is that it is going to be aimed at computer users, rather than mobile devices. In my humble opinion, the fact that publishing companies are trying to go after the mobile device market before we have a reliable system in place for regular ol' computers is a case of "trying to run before you can walk".

The argument I have heard is that iPhones are the "hot" thing in the market right now, and a great place to reach a bigger audience, but the number of people that have iPhones pales in comparison with the number that owns computers. Making the images fit and make them scrollable into a tiny three inch screen is a huge challenge that must be tackled on a issue-by-issue basis, making the process incredibly slow, a problem that is not as challenging in a regular computer, where the screen is exponentially bigger.

Quick side note: It's all good and nice to try to fit comics into that tiny screen, and it will work for some comics, maybe a good portion of them, but it will never replace looking at the actual page all at once. Take for example Watchmen, which at first sounds like very do-able, in terms of translating the panels which are all neatly arraigned in square grids, but then the beauty of the "Fearful Symmetry" chapter would be completely lost on the reader. And that is without mentioning complex and detailed splash pages, like the recent work of J.H. Williams III on Detective Comics or a lot of George Perez' artwork, to name a few other examples.

At the same time, I understand why companies are going the mobile device route first. It's a relatively smaller market, allows for more experimentation before moving to bigger fish.

The Piracy "Problem"

I think the main reason that the comic industry hasn't gone ahead with an iTunes-like service for personal computers is that they are afraid of the comics being shared on torrent sites and the like, the same thing that happens to the music and movie industry.

That's why, until now, Marvel's digital comic initiative didn't have the option to download comics - only stream-like material that could be viewed with an Internet connection through Marvel's website in their proprietary Flash viewer.

In this day and age, making something downloadable means that it will end up being shared by people. But here is the kicker (and I doubt many of you will be shocked by this): comics are already shared like that. Every week, a group of people buys and scans pretty much every comic published out there and they are shared by users all around the world.

Another side note: the scanners don't get paid by anyone, and somehow do a better job of scanning and putting comics online, usually with a higher quality of image and in a more timely fashion, than Marvel's own digital service.

The New Numbers

The problem therein lies in the fact that more and more recent studies show that, for example, people that download music end up spending more money on legally purchased music than people that don't download music from file-sharing sites.

This article, for example, notes that sales on the music industry are not going down because of people downloading, but because they are spending that money on games and DVDs instead. This other article indicates that people that download music through filesharing are more likely to purchase digital content legally. And this more recent article shows that people that illegally download content spend more money on legally purchased music than people that don't. Simply put, fear of piracy is a moot point if it's already done on mass, looks better and has more versatility, quantity, timeliness and readability than your paid offering and all for free.

Of note, research hasn't been done on how this relates to comic sales, which I suspect has more to do with the relatively small size of the industry and complete lack of a proper online model, so it is hard to say how an easier way to illegally download comics would affect the industry at large, especially with how easy it already is.

In my humble opinion, comic fans are a reliable and fanatic bunch driven by a collector mentality and I don't think the majority of us would give up their comic buying habits in favor of illegally downloading because we know all too well the bitterness of having titles canceled because of low sales. The way that I see it is that, even if it is through illegal means, digitally downloadable comics could also bring in a larger audience, something this ailing industry desperately needs.

Conclusion

Those are my thoughts on the way digital comics should move ahead in the future, a unified front that should allow readers to choose their platform without having to buy separate files, and without worrying about piracy. Current piracy options include a renamed WinRAR (like a Zip file) filled with high resolution scans of the comic that can be read using a free image viewing program.

Stealing a page from the music industry, they should simply go with the same format and program, much like Winamp and Windows Media Player were originally used for pirated mp3s and are still used for digital downloads and legitimate digital files.

Feel free to let me know if you agree or disagree in the comments section or let us know what your thoughts on the whole digital movement for comics should entail.

Comic Book Moments of the Week for 11/11/09

2009-11-17T17:22:00.002-04:00

A little late, but here are your Moments of the Week for last week's comics. Some funny moments from Amazing Spider-Man and Deadpool as well as a great deal from the much talked about Green Lantern Corps and even Kingpin MAX, er, Punisher MAX gets in on the moment fun. Hit the jump for more.

Amazing Spider-Man #611

Really liked the perspective used in this image. Also, poor Lady Stilt-Man...

...Spidey (with help from Deadpool) reduce the poor girl to tears. It was a homage! A homage! And they terrorize the poor thing. Such wanton misuse of powers by villains like Spider-Man is why we had a SHRA in the first place.

*This is Kirk Warren and I approve this image.

Batgirl #4

Livewire is reduced to a joke by Batgirl and a rubber suit...

Batman #693

Speaking of jokes, here we see what happens when an artist with no previous writing experience (sorry, mustn't forget The Tenth) is given free reign to write. For those wondering, that's the Riddler becoming a badguy again, despite a universally well received and liked stint as a private detective matching wits with Batman on occasion. Why'd he become a bad guy again? He got blown up in a building. I kid you not.

Batman and Robin #6

I was going to write a bunch of stuff about this image, how it's a good representation of what I dislike about Morrison's Batman in general and other nonsense, but let's just go with a simple explanation that this is the same setup that killed Jason Todd the first time. How meta of Morrison.

Another bit of symbology (symbolism for those that want a real word) in an issue filled with parallels to Batman: The Killing Joke. I imagine Talia will just clone new parts or fix Damian up with whatever mad science she's been using to fix him up the other times, making this a rather pointless paralyzation of Robin.

Booster Gold #26

A wired controller? Big screen TV and everything and he can't afford batteries for a wireless one? Oh, and there's no way in hell I'd go to a cat show.

Blue Beetle's Black Lantern costume came out quite nice. One of the better looking ones.

Dark X-Men #1

I like that Nate Grey is back, but wished it was the blue and yellow costume/non-Sun God/shirtless shaman status quo. Really disliked that change up.

Deadpool #17

HAMMER Agents 4 Life! For those wondering at the ineptitude, Osborn wants Deadpool to kill this guy and assigned two idiots to guard detail and told them to keep him company out in the open like this so he'd be killed and the X-Men would look bad.

I always get those two confused as well.

In case you are wondering, this sequence has a purpose...

...and it's proving that Deadpool has Batman-level preptime and intelligence.

Green Lantern Corps #42

Loved this sequence with Kilowog. Favourite part of the issue.

Must...resist...urge to make Power Ranger joke. Aw, screw it, we need the other Rangers to show up so they can form a Zord of some kind to fight back against the oversized bad guy.

Or we can just have Kyle Rayner blow himself up. Whatever works.

Punisher MAX #1

Oh, a fat joke, eh (admit it, you've all been waiting for me to end a sentence with 'eh' ever since you found out I'm Canadian)?

Well, let's just see how you make a fat joke with no eyes!

For a little context, the other mob thugs took eyeless Joe out back and were going to shoot him before Punisher got the jump on them. It then led to him attempting to put his eyes back in his own head and having the worst luck possible.

REBELS #11

Vril Dox, aka Brainiac-2, is almost identical to Sinestro in mentality. He wants to instill order in a cold, calculating manner and is a bit of an egomaniac, though a good guy at heart compared to Sinestro. Would love to see the two butt heads at some point or Vril to keep the ring for the foreseeable future.

Strange #1

Goddamn it, Dr Strange, this is why you can't be Sorceror Supreme anymore! Stop being 'that guy'. You can't even wear a clean shirt or get a haircut you bum and now you're off ruining the ball game for everyone else with all that free time.

SWORD #1

SWORD - the comic about an alcoholic dragon.

Death's Head is a cyborg bounty hunter from the old Marvel UK Transformers comics. He actualy is Transformers-sized for those wondering. The hologram image above is just lacking perspective, to which our heroes find out later.

I don't even know half of those aliens, which saddens me for some reason.

X-Force #21

Banshee's return reminded me of Martian Manhunter's recent return from the dead in Blackest Night in that it showed me he can be powerful and hold his own instead of just being that guy with the horrible Irish accent.

Not the most dynamic of moments, but it shows off part of the sequence of reactions to the ballooning mutant population being revived on Genosha.

Green Lantern Corps - No Fear or No Intelligence?

2009-11-17T09:12:00.000-04:00

In the latest issue of Green Lantern Corps, there was a very shocking moment near the end. A lot of people, including Kirk in his Weekly Crisis Reviews and Ryan in his Power Rankings, seemed to like it a lot. Me? I was just a little bit appalled at stupidity of the situation. But before I go on, if you haven't read the issue, do not keep reading, do not hit the jump for more, do not pass go, do not collect $200, since it's a pretty big spoiler.

If you have read the issue, or if you just don't care, hit the jump for more.

Now, Green Lanterns are not known for being the brightest crayon in the box. Hal Jordan has a long history of acting brashly and stupidly, like in the recent issue of Blackest Night where he decided that the safety of his former lover Carol Ferris was more important than that of the whole Earth, among many other things. Guy Gardner has the tendency to antagonize everyone, including Batman who one-punched him that one time. John Stewart caused a whole planet to die because he was being cocky. So when I saw the death of Kyle Rayner, all I could think of was "What a dumbass!".

Here's how the scene worked: the Black Lanterns have cracked open Alpha Lantern Chaselon, and have taken out the Greent Lantern battery he has inside of him. Kyle is the closest one, so he takes the battery, which is about to explode, away from them and goes flying up.

Eventually the battery does explode, taking out (seemingly) every Black Lantern that was in Oa, and also kills Kyle, who was at the center of the explosion. Before his death, he says goodbye to Soranik and Guy, in a very heartfelt scene.

Which is all well and good, until you realize one thing: did Kyle completely forget he has a freaking magic ring that can do anything he wishes?

Why did he fly up there with the battery himself? He could have just used his ring to elevate it until a certain point, and let it explode when he was at a safe distance. It's not like the Black Lanterns were following him anyway, earlier in the issue they made a point that they were ignoring the Green Lanterns in favor of attacking the central battery, and if the explosion was big enough to take out every Black Lantern in Oa, there was no need for him to be extremely accurate into where the explosion needed to happen.

And to make matters worse, he created a dome which stopped the Black Lanterns from escaping, but he completely forgot to raise a protective shell of his own? You figure that would be one of the things at the top of the "To-Do" list when you are carrying a bomb in your arms and being attacked from all sides by unstoppable killing machines.

And this is without mentioning the fact that up until that point, the Green Lantern's power hadn't been very effective in killing the Black Lanterns, Kyle basically sacrificed himself without knowing if his gamble would work or not. Hell, for all we know, the next issue is just going to be the Black Lanterns regenerating and laughing that stupid Green Lantern's pointless suicide. And there's a bunch of Black Lantern rings hovering over the body of Kyle as the issue ends, so to make matters worse, he's probably added one more soldier to the enemy's army.

Maybe the Guardians should start looking into people with some intelligence, instead of the ability to overcome great fear. Anyway, it's not like I'm going to drop this book or anything, as I enjoyed the rest of it very much, but the stupidity of the situation stole away from the emotional impact it was supposed to have on me. Add the fact that Blackest Night is all about reviving dead superheroes from the grave, and this death didn't resonate a whole lot with me. But for all I know, I'm in the minority in this one, as most people seemed to have enjoyed it. What did you think? Feel free to let me know in the comments.

Post-Crisis Comic Book Previews for 11/18/09

2009-11-16T23:59:00.001-04:00

Time for another round of our weekly Post-Crisis Previews, which is simply a compilation of the books Ryan and I will be buying for the upcoming week and our thoughts/impressions/expectations for them. As always, feel free to let us know what you think of our thoughts or tell us what books you'll be purchasing and, in general, discuss the coming week's comics.

On a personal note, things have been hectic and, as many noticed, the Moments of the Week didn't go live last week. Tried to get them done today, but time was not on my side. I'll have them up tomorrow at some point. And for those that recommended REBELS to me all those times (feel free to recommend us books at any time, we're always open to suggestions, though we can't always pick up every book people ask us to), I did pick it up and I'll try to get a review of it and a couple other books from last week that eluded me for tomorrow as well if things go well.

That said, hit the jump for our previews!

ADVENTURE COMICS #4

Written by Geoff Johns and Michael Shoemaker

Art by Jerry Ordway and Clayton Henry

The return of Superboy! Superboy-Prime, that is! The grasp of BLACKEST NIGHT knows no bounds, and it is now at the doorstep of Superboy-Prime. Believe it or not, Prime has met his match. The Black Lanterns know his deepest, darkest secrets and force Prime to feel emotions he's long discarded. Plus, in the Legion of Super-Heroes co-feature, Dawnstar is on the trail of the person – or people – who have been causing so much trouble for the Legion. But does she get too close to the truth? Her Legion teammate Wildfire comes to her rescue, but are the duo able to discover just who is behind this villainous plot to destroy the known universe?

Ryan: After it was established that Superboy-Prime was now living in “our world” and his power were reduced to complaining on message boards, I have no idea how this story is going to work without massive retcons—which would be odd since Johns himself is responsible for putting Prime in that position. I’m only buying this one to complete my ring collection (I know, I’m a sucker), but I’m not expecting to get much more out of it unless there is a damn clever twist.

Kirk: Technically, Ryan, he was shown with his eyes glowing. We're never really told why he's reduced to living in his parents' basement or if he has powers or not. Still, I'm not thrilled with his return or any possibility of it.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #612

Written by Mark Waid

Art by J.K. Niimura

They’re Hunting Spiders...THE GAUNTLET begins here! The event that redefines Spider-Man's classic arch-enemies one by one starts with one of his deadliest — Electro! Destitute and desperate, conned out of his life's meaning and worth — Max Dillon becomes the voice of the common man against the brutal injustice of a system overloaded by greed. With Spider-Man already looking over his shoulder. Mark Waid and Paul Azaceta bring you the story of a hero with everything to lose against a man with nothing left to gain. Prepare for death’s short, sharp shock. Prepare for Electro.

Ryan: We’ve been seeing the seeds of this story for sometime now with all of the cameo’s by the new Kraven and her mother, which was a pretty cool way to build up excitement. I haven’t been a huge fan of Mark Waid’s work since he left DC, but this story has some great potential—as long as he doesn’t write the new Kraven as a whiney adolescent brat like Joe Kelly did in last week’s issue. Sheeesh!

Kirk: Never been a fan of Electro. I can't say I've read a single story arc with him as the main bad guy that really holds water. He sort of just fills out the Sinister Six as a background player to throw out Spidey. Just never really found him all that compelling to read about. This Gauntlet story seems like it will be a Sinister Six-like throwback, so I'm hoping I won't be too disappointed with his inclusion.

BATMAN: STREETS OF GOTHAM #6

Written by Chris Yost and Marc Andreyko

Art by Dustin Nguyen and Jeremy Haun

Huntress and Man-Bat are held captive by a priest driven to the edge of sanity by Gotham City itself! It's everything Huntress can do to keep the madman from killing them both, because that's exactly what he believes the voice of God is telling him to do in the conclusion of the 2-part “Leviathan.”

And in the Manhunter co-feature, Kate's hot on the trail of Two-Face, but her dear old friend Dylan is caught right in the middle. Can she apprehend Two-Face before Dylan gets caught in the crossfire? And what exactly is Dylan up to?

Ryan: The quality of this series jumped up in a big way with the first part of the Chris Yost-penned fill-in story featuring Man-Bat and Huntress. As long as he can hold on to that momentum and the Manhunter co-feature continues its winning ways this could be a really great issue.

Kirk: I found Yost's fill-in issue to be a serviceable Huntress tale, but it was a bit jarring in how abrupt the story and focus shifted to her. We were just getting places with Hush and the other storylines with Dini and got shunted off to a filler arc. It was a good story, but could have been a bit more organic or at least tried to tie back into what Dini was doing.

DARK AVENGERS #11

Written by Brian Bendis

Art by Mike Deodato

The explosive smash hit series from Brian Bendis and Mike Deodato continues!! The Dark Avengers are pitted against a foe they cannot defeat: A man with the power over every molecule in the world! Norman can't talk his way out of this one as the world gets turned upside down and no joke...someone dies. For reelz!!

Kirk: Someone dying in my comic books? No way. Nice cover though. For reelz!!

DARK REIGN: THE LIST - AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1

Written by Dan Slott

Art by Adam Kubert

Norman Osborn has saved the best for last as he takes on the most personal item on his evil To-Do list. The violent tension between Spider-Man and Norman has grown for years and has been building to a boil for the last few months after Osborn’s last defeat at Spidey’s hands at the end of America Son. Norman can no longer put off what needs to be done. Plus, the story from Pulse #5 outing Norman Osborn as the Green Goblin to the world.

Kirk: Punisher filled the death quota for The List series of one-shots, so I seriously doubt Spider-Man is in any trouble here, but I've enjoyed all of The List issues I've read, so have no reason not to pick this up. Worst case scenario, pretty pictures of Spider-Man by Adam Kubert.

DR HORRIBLE ONE-SHOT

Written by Zack Whedon

Art by Joelle Jones

From the Joss Whedon-helmed webmovie Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog comes the origin story of the next greatest supervillain of all time... DR. HORRIBLE!

In this one-shot comic, Zack Whedon and artist Joëlle Jones (Token) establish how a young, impressionable, but brilliant Dr. Horrible was drawn into a world of crime. Readers are reacquainted with the charming, brawny, crime-fighting superhero extraordinaire Captain Hammer when Dr. Horrible crosses paths with his greatest enemy in an all-out showdown of immeasurable proportions. Special guest appearances include Dr. Horrible’s love interest, Penny; his sidekick, Moist; and a meter man.

Fans of Joss Whedon and the smash-hit musical Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog will not want to miss this! Includes two alternate covers by artist Kristian Donaldson (DMZ, Supermarket) and a pin-up from superstar artist Gene Ha (The 49ers).

Ryan: Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible was one of the funniest and most intriguing DVD’s I’ve watched so far this year, but I’m a little worried about how well the charm of the musical will translate into a comic. I expect they’ll play up the humor, though I hope they don’t go overboard with it as that could quickly take the life out of the concept.

MIGHTY AVENGERS #31

Written by Dan Slott and Christos Gage

Art by Sean Chen

The epic conclusion! The MIGHTY AVENGERS and members of the NEW AVENGERS, YOUNG AVENGERS and the AVENGERS RESISTANCE assemble against the incalculable might of THE UNSPOKEN! Plus QUICKSILVER is reunited with the INHUMANS...now what will they do with him? All this and the strange secret of the Infinite Avengers Mansion stands revealed! This one's got it all!

Ryan: This story has been building since Dan Slott took over the writing duties and I look forward to seeing how it is going to pay off in this issue. I’ve got faith that Slott and Christos Gage can bring a ton of personality to the characters though a lot of the issue’s success is going to hinge on how Sean Chen handles the major action that is sure to be a huge part of the story.

OUTSIDERS #24

Written by Peter J. Tomasi

Art by Fernando Pasarin

Prepare for another mind-blowing BLACKEST NIGHT tie-in. Spinning out of BLACKEST NIGHT: TITANS, the dead rise to dine on the flesh of the living! It’s brother vs. undead sister when Black Lantern Terra comes to claim the still-beating hearts of Geo-Force and the rest of the Outsiders!

Ryan: I was really enjoying Peter Tomasi’s Outsiders series, but dropped it to cut some costs off my pull list, so I look forward to jumping back into it as I get suckered into buying another book just for a Blackest Night promotional ring. After seeing Terra already in Blackest Night: Titans, I wish they would go a different route, but there is definitely an interesting story to be told here.

REALM OF KINGS #1

Written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning

Art by Leonardo Manco and Mahmud Asrar

Exploding out of WAR OF KINGS, what lies in the REALM OF KINGS? The shocking showdown between Black Bolt and Vulcan has created The Fault, a vast tear through time and space through which almost anything can charge into our universe. What secrets does it hold? What dangers lurk within? Will it reintroduce forgotten allies...or unleash ancient enemies?

Ryan: Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning + Marvel’s cosmic characters + Mahumd Asrar = Pure Awesomeness—‘nuff said.

Kirk: I have a feeling this should have come out last week instead of the Imperial Guard issue. This will likely have all the good bits I was hoping to see followed up on from War of Kings that would have got me pumped for that relatively light Imperial Guard read.

REALM OF KINGS: INHUMANS #1

Written by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning

Art by Pablo Raimondi

A REALM OF KINGS series! Now led by Queen Medusa, the battered and bruised Inhuman royal family struggles to maintain their grip on the reigns of power over the Kree empire. Courtly intrigues and external threats are beginning to erode their rule--but the biggest threat may lurk within the family itself! WAR OF KINGS’ Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning unite with Pablo Raimondi (X-FACTOR) for the next chapter in the lives of these classic Marvel characters!

Kirk: If anything, Abnett and Lanning handled the Inhuman royal family perfectly in War of Kings and fleshed out some of these characters more than they had been in years. Here's hoping Crystal shows up as the main focus for this one.

SUPERGIRL #47

Written by Sterling Gates

Art by Jamal Igle

Supergirl has finally brought Reactron back to New Krypton so he can be held accountable for murdering her father, Zor-El. While the debate about what to do with him rages among the people of New Krypton, the planet’s ruler – and Supergirl’s mother – remains unsure. Should Alura have Reactron executed? And will Supergirl allow it to happen if her mother decides to go that route?

Ryan: All of the recent crossover this title has been a part of has really thrown me for a loop. I’m hoping that Sterling Gates and Jamal Igle can return focus to the series with this issue—even if it means yet another issue about Reactron. Blech. At least with Igle on art, we know it will be great to look at!

TINY TITANS #22

Written by Art Baltazar and Franco

Art by Art Baltazar

How many stretchy Super Heroes can you fit in the Tiny Titans treehouse? As many as you like – until they get tangled into knots! Join the search when The Atom’s family lose their tiny bouncy ball. Also, there’s a new janitor at the school, and it’s not who you think! Plus, the Bird Scouts welcome a shiny gold new member!

Ryan: In a month filled with grim Blackest Night tie-ins and people being oppressed by Norman Osborn, we need the sheer hilarity of Tiny Titans now more than ever. Awww yeah, breath of fresh air!

WOLVERINE: WEAPON X #7

Written by Jason Aaron

Art by Yanick Paquette

The weirdest Wolverine story in recent memory continues, as Logan learns more about his current residence, the Dunwich Sanitorium, and the bizarre man in charge, Dr. Algernon J. Rottwell. The good Dr. Rot seems to enjoy removing people's brains and... doing things with them. And now he has his eyes on Wolverine's noggin. If only Logan could remember how he got here. Or who he is. Or how these claws of his work...

Kirk: First part of this new story arc was slow and left us asking a lot of questions about how Wolverine got into this situation. I enjoyed it, but things need to start moving with this second part or it'll risk killing any interest in the 'mystery' behind this asylum.

X-MEN: LEGACY #229

Written by Mike Carey

Art by Ibraim Roberson and Daniel Acuna

As Rogue continues her mission, Gambit goes on one of his own. His mission will push him down a dark road that will shock X-Fans everywhere!

Ryan: Is there really anything that can shock X-Fans anymore? We’ve seen more teenagers die than any other comic fans. Planets blown up? Seen it. What about zombie mutants? Oh yeah. Massive attempts at genocide? More times than you can count. My guess is that they are going to send Gambit back towards Apocalypse, which was a stupid idea in the first place. If they go back that route one more time, my newfound love for this title will be long gone.

Cover of the Week - Booster Gold, MA: Super Heroes & Amazing Spider-Man

2009-11-15T11:53:00.002-04:00

The Cover of the Week is, as the banner suggests, a look atthe week's best covers and this week had some very nice covers that saw Ryan, Matt and myself pick three different covers for our cover of the week nods. Hit the jump to see each and why we chose them.

Ryan's Cover of the Week - Booster Gold #26

Ryan: There's nothing fancy about this one, but the perspective is good, it's a great tie-in to the story, and it's eye catching. You can't ask for much more than that!

Matt's Cover of the Week - Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes #17

Matt: Man, did the Avengers really need to destroy that sign? Seriously though, it's a very eye catching cover by Niko Henrichon.

Kirk's Cover of the Week - Amazing Spider-Man #611

Kirk: It's a fairly spartan cover, but also a great homage to the extremes of the 90's that birthed the Deadpool character. It's also easy to ignore how good it is with how long and how often we've seen the image, which may have made it lose some impact in some people's eyes.

Runners-Up: Luke Cage Noir #4, REBELS #10 & Green Lantern Corps #42 (Variant)

Weekly Crisis Comic Book Reviews for 11/11/09

2009-11-14T16:35:00.003-04:00

Remembrance Day put the kibosh on the Wednesday schedule this week, but the wait is more than worth it for another edition of the Weekly Crisis Comic Book Reviews. Green Lantern Corps is the talk of the town this week with easily one of the best single issues of a comic I've ever read. Seriously, get out there and buy a copy. Oh, and spoilers below for it. However, it wasn't the only good comic this week. Amazing Spider-Man had a solid showing with the Deadpool team-up, Punisher MAX debuted with a compelling take on the Kingpin and several other books were a cut above the norm. Hit the jump for these reviews and more!

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #611
Written by Joe Kelly

Art by Eric Canete

Joe Kelly returns to Amazing Spider-Man with this issue and knocks one out of the park, something ASM has failed to do for a while - it's had good issues, just nothing outright great - with a guest appearance by Deadpool, a character he is famous for writing in the past.

The premise for the issue is that Deadpool is hired by Kraven's wife and daughter (sidebar - do they even have names or are they simply defined by being Karven's family members? [yes, that's a sidebar joke, you'll understand if you read the issue] [no, I'm not using too many sidebars and, yes, that's another in-issue joke]) to occupy Spider-Man for the afternoon.

Why occupy instead of kill? I'm not sure, but it has something to do with Madame Web's visions of the future and keeping Spider-Man from meeting up with Anti-Venom and Arana (holy crap, haven't seen her in ages), a female Spider-Man kind of character from the 90's that has a cult following (ie: me). This will probably all tie into the upcoming Gauntlet storyline, but is only a minor subplot throughout the issue, which is dedicated to Spider-Man and Deadpool bouncing off each other verbally and physically in a Spy vs Spy type bit of craziness that ends with a 'Your Momma' joke-off. Yes, it's as good as it sounds. I think I knew the issue was going to be something special when Lady Stiltman first appears and the jokes that followed.

On the art side of things, it's a mixed bag. Eric Canete has some real potential. His art is kinetic with a real sense of motion and some dynamic layouts (you'd just have to see the Lady Stiltman splashpage for one example) that, again, has a lot of potential. However, the art looks a bit unrefined with an almost sketch-like appearance. It almost reminds me of an early Steve Skroce or Skottie Young in some ways and, while I personally enjoyed the unique style used, I admit that it might be off putting to some people.

Verdict - Buy It. Very entertaining read that acts as both a done-in-one team up with Deadpool and progresses the overarching subplot with Kraven's family and the upcoming Gauntlet. I just wish more issues could be like this one.

DAREDEVIL #502
Written by Andy Diggle

Art by Roberto De La Torre

Andy Diggle was handed the reins of Daredevil last issue, a book with quite the pedigree over the years with the likes of Brian Bendis, Kevin Smith and Ed Brubaker having handled the writing duties over the years, and with it, an exciting new direction for our resident horn head with Daredevil serving as the new leader of the Hand.

While this is a new status quo putting Daredevil out of his element, it's hard to write a hero acting as a villain believably. Thankfully, Matt Murdock is a character with many different and varying shades of grey and Diggle is doing a wonderful balancing act keeping the character true to his roots while still leading this order of assassins.

His first issue on the title ended with Daredevil offering Master Izo as a sacrificial lamb to prove himself worthy as the new leader of the Hand. I was expecting it to be a fake out cliffhanger ending and it turned out I was right as Izo was revealed to have 'lowered his heart rate' to induce a coma and fool the Hand into believing he was dead. Matt's alligence is also shown to be on the side of the angels and that he supposedly has a plan of some sorts to take down the Hand from within.

While Izo's death and return was predictable, it was entertaining to read and helped alleviate any concerns about how far Matt had fallen However, just when things were in danger of returning to a set routine, the crooked cops working for Norman Osborn subplot from the List one-shot popped back up and Daredevil has the Hand intervene.

What was shocking was the final pages where a crooked cop, ready to kill some drug dealers to frame as a cover up to steal the drugs, has his hand chopped off in an instant and we cut to Daredevil leading an army of Hand ninja into battle with a chilling and powerful cry of, "take them all", which brings us back to the varying shades of grey that make up Matt's character.

I honestly don't know how this will turn out, but is he going to use the Hand to kill these crooked cops? Even that amputation of the hand (Oh, I get it now, it's the Hand cutting off a hand!) scene was skirting the supposed 'hero line'. How far will Matt go? I don't know, but I definitely can't wait to find out what happens next.

Verdict - Buy It. Andy Diggle & Roberto De La Torre are taking this book in a whole new direction and I'm just happy to be along for the ride. Can't wait to see what happens next.

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #42
Written by Peter Tomasi

Art by Pat Gleason

I honestly don't know where to begin with this review. There are few issues in the past few years as good as this issue of Green Lantern Corps and this is easily the best issue of Blackest Night to date by a large margin. In terms of Green Lantern comics, this easily ranks up there with the Sinestro Corps War Special and Green Lantern #25 in terms of impact and sheer OMGWTFBBQ! moments wrapped up in a compelling and tightly paced plot.

If I had to pick a favourite part of this issue, it would probably be Kilowog screaming at all of his fallen recruits, who had given up trying to kill him as the Black Lanterns all began focusing on the Central Power Battery. It is easily the most powerfully written scene in a mainstream comic that I have read in recent memory and a defining moment for Kilowog that will be remembered for years to come. Just the sight of him floating there, his voice trailing off as he states, "Lanterns die", over and over and the grim realization that he's failed so many was enough to make this issue one of the best of the year.

Another fantastic sequence of events was the afforementioned attack on the Central Power Battery. Coinciding with the rings hitting 100%, the Black Lanterns all gave up on antagonizing or eliciting emotions from people and began focusing on the Central Power Battery. I had made known my concerns about why they didn't just attack the battery from the get go and it was nice to see a concrete reasoning behind it. Also, the rings all sounding off with a "DEVOUR WILL" chant over and over after hitting 100% was made all the better with the giant Black Lantern grim reaper construct attempting to destroy the battery.

From here, I could go on at length about the release of the Red Lantern Vice as a berserker-like weapon of mass destruction on the Black Lanterns or how fitting it was to see the Alpha Lantern's steadfast, hardline Guardian rules come back to bite the Green Lanterns in the ass, but I'm going to skip to the end and the shocking death that will more than likely lead to Guy Gardner's impending Red Lantern joining - that of Kyle Rayner.

Yes, Kyle Rayner actually dies in this issue. There was no pre-hype, no early spoilers and no indication he was set to die in any way. In fact, everyone pegged him as completely safe. He and Guy had their niche in this book and the brother-like relationship was a highlight of the Green Lantern Corps title. Kyle even had some great relationship building moments with Soranik Natu earlier in the issue that had me hoping to see more of it in the future.

Instead, he died saving the corps he helped rebuild with a heartfelt, "I love you.", to Soranik and a, "you've been like a brother", farewell to Guy before taking the fallen Alpha Lantern's core and detonating it in the middle of the Black Lantern's, ending that threat on Oa and saving the Central Power Battery. I know it's hard to take a death seriously in an event like Blackest Night, which hinges on the dead coming back to haunt our heroes, but this hit me like a punch in the gut and Kyle was the character that first introduced me to Green Lantern comics.

Verdict - Must Read. It's hard to believe Kyle iss dead, but it capped off a truly special issue of Green Lantern Corps that you absolutely, unequivocally, need to read. Easily one of, if not the best single issue of the year and something you'll be kicking yourself over having not read.

PUNISHER MAX #1
Written by Jason Aaron
Art by Steve Dillon

Jason Aaron and Steve Dillon relaunch the critically acclaimed Garth Ennis Punisher MAX series with this issue and, as someone who has only dabbled in Ennis's Punisher (loved it whenever I read it, but never really stuck around for more than the odd arc for whatever reason), it's pretty much business as usual.

While, yes, Aaron brings in the Kingpin from the 616 universe and transplants him in the more grounded in reality MAX world, this is, for all intents and purposes, more of the same for Punisher MAX and that's a good thing. There's no reason to really mess with a successful formula since Punisher works exceptionally well in this setting where he can do what he does best - punish villains and other would be dirtbags.

The catch with Aaron's relaunch is the addition of the Kingpin. Kingpin doesn't just magically appear. He's not the 'Kingpin of Crime' or sitting in his ivory tower. In fact, Kingpin is just a street level thug/enforcer working for a mobster. It reminds me of the Frank Miller Daredevil origin with Kingpin as the lieutenant feeding the boss information, doing the dirty work and so on.

In this case, Fisk is actually conning his boss into convincing the other mob bosses to help create the so-called Kingpin of Crime as a wild goose chase for Punisher to try and track down with the intent that Fisk will eventually become that Kingpin in reality. It's a clever twist that is enough to hook me for this first arc when I had the intention of going with the trades for this series.

Verdict - Buy It. Solid debut issue that hooks you with a unique twist on a villain everyone is familiar with, but in a MAX setting.

REALM OF KINGS: IMPERIAL GUARD #1
Written by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning

Art by Kev Walker

As I suspected from the solicits for this issue, it really has nothing to do with the fault or major fallout from the War of Kings event. It's merely a 'day in the life of Emperor Gladiator'. I enjoyed it enough to stick with the series, but the branding led me to believe there would be more to this issue than there was and I'm unsure how many new readers will care to stick around after this issue.

The problem with the approach of this issue is that nothing happens. Sure, Gladiator and the Imperial Guard put down some uprising on a random ship building world in the Shi'ar Empire, but it amounted to 'stuff blows up, no one cares'. Seriously, someone on the Imperial Guard died, but I could not tell you who it was, what his powers were or even muster the energy to go double check and see who it was. The uprising on this random planet had no tension or drama to it. It just sort of happens and gets resolved so fast that there's no reader attachment to it and the events lose all meaning.

In fact, the Imperial Guard is the big problem here as they are about as interesting to read as watching paint dry. The only moments where there's any kind of interest popping up is when Gladiator is on panel. He was fleshed out a great deal during War of Kings and I was genuinely interested in seeing more of him, his trials and tribulations as Emperor and where he took the Shi'ar Empire. There was very little of this, though the brief appearance by Talon and his attempts to manipulate Gladiator were noteworthy.

Verdict - Check It. Sadly, the future for this series seems to be more of the same with a decided focus on the rest of the Imperial Guard and Gladiator as a bit player. This intro issue didn't really impress me enough to recommend this a great deal, but I'm giving it a Check It for the upcoming Fault expedition, our first in-depth look at just what it is and entails, and the possibility for more Talon and Gladiator offerings. Fans of Nova and Guardians will enjoy this, but those on a budget can feel safe avoiding it and won't miss anything.

X-FORCE #21
Written by Craig Kyle & Chris Yost

Art by Clayton Crain

X-Force #21 is a direct continuation of the X-Necrosha prologue issue and will leave anyone that hasn't read that yet in the dark as to just what is going on as this issue jumps right into the conclusion of the X-Force part of that prologue issue.

On the whole, I thought this issue did a much better job of amping up the tension and cranking up the dial a notch or two for this event in general, which just sort of sat there in the prologue and failed to engage me or overly sell me on this event in general.

The biggest thing to occur in this issue is the cliffhanger, which sees Eli and Selene resurrecting the entire mutant population of Genosha in an instant. I'll ignore the findings of Beast and how dead mutants shouldn't even technically be mutants anymore for the time being, as we don't know the full extent of what's going on with the techno organic virus they are using since this made for some great drama. I really enjoyed the cuts between the various groups involved in this event, from Selene and company to Cyclops and even to Bastion's cold, calculating analysis of the event.

However, not everything was great in this issue. The biggest complaint I have is with the art I've been a pretty vocal fan of Clayton Crain in my reviews of issues of X-Force that he has drawn, but I can't help but feel this issue is some very sloppy work from him and see why some people dislike the CGI-like digital work he puts out. This is some very muddy work that leaves you wondering just who the hell these blobs of digital ink people are and what is going on in each panel. I'm a longtime X-reader with a predominant 80's/90's background on the characters, so everyone being used here is quite familiar to me with some of my favourite D-list characters coming back into play and I could barely tell who was who, which is saying a lot.

For example, the Hellions all look like generic, faceless blobs of purple and black. I can't tell who is who without the little nameplates that accompany their first appearances. There are fight sequences where I really have no idea what happened and only a vague idea of who is who based on glowing visors or distinctive markings, like Vanisher's or Domino's tattoos and eye spots or Angel's wings. There's one sequence where Angel/Death is taking on several hulking figures, there's some line motions and then everyone is a blob of blood and guts. I can tell he used his wings, but had no idea who he was fighting or killed off. Most of the issue was like this.

Another problem is the number of characters in play. In something like Blackest Night, where they are also reviving dead characters to combat heroes, they have multiple series and lots of tie-ins to deal with the mass amount of what I'll call fan bait for seeing revived heroes and villains. Here, it's like Yost and Kyle attempted to put every dead mutant possible in one issue and we are left with what looks like an endless parade of splash pages with half a dozen name plates and power descriptions for characters for page after page of the issue. You see these people once or twice in the issue and quickly move on and forget about them as they introduce another one and another one and another one.

Verdict - Check It. When the issue settles down and tells a consistent narrative for a sequence of events, such as the return of Banshee or the previously mentioned resurrection of Genosha, it's quite good and an organic series of events. However, poor art and a constant parade of dead characters returning for a panel at a time hurts that momentum.

Comic Book Review Power Rankings for 11/11/09

2009-11-12T19:40:00.004-04:00

Holy new comics, Batman! This week’s Comic Book Review Power Rankings feature a slew of Batman related titles, plus a whole mess of Blackest Night tie-ins, a handful of Marvel books, and one non-Big Two title (hang in there, G.I. Joe #11!). There are a lot of great issues getting reviewed the books; but you know the drill, only one can take home the Book of the Week honor. Hit the jump to find out who the big winner is!

I won’t be ranking this week’s Sky-Doll: Doll’s Factory #1 because there really isn’t enough new material to warrant a full review. However, I will say that it is a must-have for any fan of the original story that Marvel published in conjunction with Soliel last year. It’s worth the cover price for the rough art for the entire first issue, so stuff like the new origin story and various other extras can be treated as bonuses. If you’ve never read Sky-Doll, I highly recommend it. It was definitely amongst my favorite comics released in 2008.

12. BATMAN & ROBIN #6

Written by Grant Morrison

Art by Philip Tan, Jonathan Glapion, and Alex Sinclair

Letters by Pat Brosseau

Cover by Frank Quietly

preRanking: 10

• After much hype and to-do built over the last few issues, the assassin Flamingo makes his debut in this issue, arriving just in time to interrupt the battle between the duos of Batman/Robin and Red Hood/Scarlet.

• Considering how much hype Grant Morrison spewed before the Flamingo’s debut, you’d think that he would have served more of a purpose than to boost Jason Todd’s ego moments before Todd is arrested. The only thing worse than Morrison’s fan-fiction style “development” of the character is how utterly pointless he turned out to be.

• This does follow suit with the rest of the issue though, as for the most part all this issue does is abruptly end what Morrison has been building up without much real resolution or point. Morrison seemed to be building up to a huge payoff, but instead we get Jason in jail, Flamingo defeated, and Scarlet abandoning her life of crime. Blech.

• Then, of course, there is the mysterious Bat-body at the end of the issue. Is it Bruce Wayne? If so, Morrison has apparently gone rogue and is ignoring everything else that the other writers on Bat-books has been doing. Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time.

• Also, Robin calling Flamingo “gay” is simply lazy, stupid writing that not only lacks professionalism on the part of Morrison, but also shows just how much unjustified leeway he is getting from DC Editorial.

• The art by Philip Tan is probably the best thing about the issue, which isn’t saying much as it is also one of Tan’s weakest efforts. It’s chaotic, messy, and features some of the most inconsistent design work I’ve seen in a long, long time.

• There is also a weird hint of Frank Miller in Tan’s work that I don’t think I’ve ever noticed before. If he were to tighten up his work and focus on greater consistency, that might actually for him.

Verdict: Avoid It. After a very, very strong start earlier this year, this title has really started to spiral downward as Morrison continues to fall back on his least impressive ways. After all the buildup in this storyline, I expected a lot more than whining characters and a two-bit villain in a story that backtracks over everything Morrison had been building. Blech.

11. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #611

Written by Joe Kelly

Art by Eric Canete and Andres Mossa

Letters by Joe Caramagna

Cover by Skottie Young

preRanking: 09

• Remember a few years back when you couldn’t pick up a Marvel comic without a guest appearance by Wolverine? Well, that’s the situation with Deadpool and now he brings his wisecrackin’ ways to New York for a confrontation with Spider-Man.

• I’ve been pretty open about the fact that I don’t get the major appeal of Deadpool and I can honestly say that this issue doesn’t do the Merc With a Mouth any favors.

• It’s not that I don’t like the gags or I don’t get the appeal of the humor, I just think that it gets overdone. In this issue, the gags come at such a flurry that it completely overwhelms the story. That’s not good.

• I think it might have been different if Joe Kelly spent less time focusing on the jokes that Deadpool is making and more on building the purpose of his appearance. When it becomes clear that Deadpool is meant to be a distraction, I found myself not caring—even when a Spider-character is unceremoniously killed off in the final pages.

• The nail in the coffin for the writing was how the new Kraven was written. In Kraven’s First Hunt—one of my favorite stories of 2008—she was cool, calculated, and ruthless. Here she iswhiney, childish, and annoying. It’s almost like Kelly either a) didn’t read the original story or b) read it and purposefully ignored it because he wanted to write a vastly inferior version of the character.

• Eric Canete’s art is wildly energetic and keeps pace with the story with relative easy. No matter how manic the script got, the art could keep up.

• The problem is that it is also wildly uncontrolled. There is no consistency at all. From character designs to line widths to perspectives to overall style, Canete is all over the place.

Verdict: Byrne It (For an explanation of this new Ranking, check out Kirk’s Soapbox this week!). If you dig Deadpool at his craziest, even at the expense of a story, then you’ll probably love this issue. If you prefer your Deadpool in small doses, you’ll hate it. In the end, though, if you are interested in the upcoming Gauntlet storyline, you are really going to have to read this one as some important things happen with the Kravens attack on Spider-Man.

10. G.I. JOE #11

Written by Chuck Dixon

Art by SL Gallant and Andrew Crossley

Letters by Neil Uyetake

Covers by Howard Chaykin with Edgar Delgado and Robert Atkins with Andrew Corssley

preRanking: 11

• Things continue to plod along in this week’s GI Joe as Destro is forced to demonstrate his teleportation device to Cobra, Scarlett’s court-martial gets a bit complicated, and the Joes have to face the fact that the Cobra organization isn’t a myth.

• They key to enjoying this series really is patience. Chuck Dixon is providing plenty of action and cool character work, but you want a fast-paced plot, this isn’t the GI Joe story for you.

• I absolutely love Dixon’s take on Scarlett here. I can’t say that I saw what she does coming, but it is perfectly in line with his take on the character and fits well with the core of the character we’ve known and loved for years.

• I’m still really annoyed with the crappy Scottish accents for Destro and his cronies. I appreciate the Dixon is sticking to his guns, but this is something he needs to abandon as soon as possible.

• SL Gallant’s work remains the weakest part of this series. Part of it is that we were spoiled with the work of Robert Atkins in the opening arc, but Gallant’s work just can’t compare.

• The anatomy is shoddy, the lines are far too thick, and the inconsistent amounts of detail form panel to panel are just major disappointment and really bring the overall quality of the issue down.

Verdict: Check It. Chuck Dixon is doing some very interesting things with the writing in this issue, including some great steps forward in the Scarlett storyline as well as some awesome buildup in the mystery behind Cobra. Unfortunately, SL Gallant’s art is so ill-fitting that it cripples the entire operation.

09. R.E.B.E.L.S. #10

Written by Tony Bedard

Art by Andy Clarke and Jose Villarubia

Letters by Swands

Cover by Kalma Andrasofszky

preRanking: 12

• Truthfully, I only picked up this comic because I wanted the Blackest Night promotional ring and I only read it because so many posters have been begging me to. I fell into both traps and while I wouldn’t say I was disappointed, I wasn’t exactly blown away either.

• This issue sees Vril Drox’s L.E.G.I.O.N. battling two fronts as the Black Lanterns run roughshod over the galaxy at the same time that the more immediate threat of Starro the Conqueror remains a major force to be reckoned with.

• I really appreciate the fact that Tony Bedard approached this issue knowing full well that it would fall into the hands of a lot of new readers thanks to the rings promotion. There is a lot of setup here with a full rundown of the L.E.G.I.O.N.’s history as well as an introduction to all of the characters.

• Unfortunately, though, much like most of the other Blackest Night stories, the success of it is hinged upon the emotional connect the reader has to the characters. I really don’t have any attachment, which doesn’t help, but more importantly Vril Drox is such a jerk that I couldn’t bring myself to care for what happens to him, his kid, or his team even if I tried.

• I did really enjoy the twist with the Sinestro Corps in this issue, as well as the appearance of Black Lantern Harbinger, though. Those were major surprises, but really helped keep my interest in the latter half of the issue.

• Andy Clarke’s art is solid. There’s no major issues that stuck out to me, though his style is a bit bland and his story telling is very by-the-book.

Verdict: Check It. Tony Bedard does his absolute best to make this accessible and enjoyable for new readers, but in the end its clear that this one is really meant for hardcore fans and hardcore fans alone. Or, at least I hope that is the case, because if not, I see no reason why anyone should care about the adventures of a total jerkbag and his crew of less-than-interesting comrades.

08. BATMAN #693

Written by Tony Daniel

Art by Tony Daniel and Sandu Florea

Letters by Jared Fletcher

Cover by Tony Daniel

preRanking: 05

• Dick Grayson’s quest to take down both the Falcone family and Black Mask’s gang intensifies in this issue as he attempts to balance his costumed and non-costumed identities.

• First and foremost, I’m glad to see that Tony Daniel is showing how important his network of allies is to the success of Dick Grayson as Batman. This has been majorly ignored in all of the other post-RIP Batman stories, despite being something that was set up in a big way during the Battle for a Cowl mini-event.

• Daniel’s take on all of the characters is very strong. I especially enjoyed the tension he builds with Huntress showing some “affections” for Dick and Barbara’s reaction to it. That was a very cool moment.

• I didn’t care for his take on the Riddler, though. He’s more obnoxious than clever and the twist of him returning to his villainous persona will hopefully be short-lived. Paul Dini did such a brilliant job reinventing the character that I would hate to see that take on the character wasted.

• I found myself a little let down by Tony Daniel’s art. He is one of my favorite active artists, but there is just something that feels a bit “off” in his art this week. Part of it could be that I really do not care for his take on “Bruce Wayne,” though I think it is most likely linked to how stiff the art was.

Verdict: Buy It. Tony Daniel is really starting to come into his own as a writer and this issue is a great example of how far he has progressed since Battle for the Cowl. His take on the characters and his plotting is very strong. I’d still consider him a better artist than writer, but he is on his way. Oddly enough, as great as his writing is here, I wasn’t as thrilled with the art as I normally am. Let’s hope that is not indicative of what’s to come as I’d hate to see his superb art suffer for the sake of his bourgeoning writing career.

07. BATMAN/DOC SAVAGE SPECIAL

Written by Brian Azarello

Art by Phil Noto

Letters by Clem Robins

Sketchbook by Rags Morales

Cover by JG Jones

preRanking: 06

• DC’s “First Wave” pulp universe kicks off in this issue which finds a brash young, gun-toting Batman squaring off against the legendary Doc Savage as the former investigates a mysterious murder that seems to be connected to a shadowy organization.

• This issue reminds me a lot of Batman: The Animated Series in its pulpy adventure approach and the “timeless” designs—but with a considerably larger amount of violence.

• The version of Batman that Brian Azarello presents is very much in line with the Batman we know and love, but with a distinct edge that makes him more suited for this world—such as the use of guns (something Batman did use in his earliest comic adventures).

• I find it interesting that Doc Savage is clearly meant to be analogue for Superman based upon his interaction with Batman and how he is treated by everyone else. This makes him an excellent foil character and makes it easier for readers who are unaware of the character’s history to get into his adventures.

• While the plot is exciting and the interaction is fantastic, the story does drag on a bit, especially given the limited number of characters that appear. This does allow Azarello to take his time to world-build and develop the relationship between the title characters, but it does get to be a bit much at times.

• Phil Noto’s artwork hits a wide range in terms of quality here. He brings a fantastic energy to the story with strong designs filling his big, bold panels.

• Unfortuantely, there are some very strange things going on with the depth and lighting thanks to some odd coloring choices. At times this means that characters look like they are floating off the ground, while at other times their facial features seem to disappear.

• As a bonus, the issue comes with a great sketchbook by Rags Morales with annotations by Azarello that teases what is yet to come for the First Wave universe. This was a really neat touch that helps build excitement for the upcoming miniseries.

Verdict: Buy It. This one is going to be a hard sell due to the $4.99 price tag, but the creative team does their best to make it worth the high price. Azarello’s work is very strong as he introduces readers to this new universe and his new take on the classic characters. Unfortunately, the unevenness of Phil Noto’s artwork does hold the issue back at times, despite the fact that there are a handful of simply jaw-droppingly awesome panels in the issue.

06. RED ROBIN #6

Written by Chris Yost

Art by Marcus To, Ray McCarthy, and Guy Major

Letters by Sal Cipriano

Cover by Marcus To and Ray McCarthy

preRanking: 07

• Tim Drake’s uneasy alliance with the League of Assassins this week as he attempts to trick the Council of Spiders out of hiding in an action packed issue of Red Robin.

• This issue full of big action and fierce confrontations that come across really well thanks to the superb pacing of the issue.

• I really like the way Tim’s dilemma is presented here as he needs to help the League despite disapproving of their actions and purpose. This is a great follow-up to how dark his actions weer becoming in the first few issues of this series.

• Chris Yost’s take on Tim is still central to what makes this series so great. Every line of dialogue and every bit of monologue is full of personality and comes across very naturally. I’ve said it before, but its worth repeating—Yost just “gets” the character.

• The Council of Spiders get a lot of attention here and I’m glad to see that they are getting some fun designs and interesting back stories. This is a major contrast to the faceless ninjas of the League of Assassins and really helps build credibility for the Council.

• Marcus To makes his debut here and does a tremendous job from the get go. Right away it becomes clear that he can fix the biggest problem that Ramon Bachs had—he can draw Tim both in and out of his costume as a young man and not a grizzled veteran superhero.

• To’s work has a ton of energy that helps carry the action. His choreography of the fight scenes came across especially strong as well.

• I was disappointed by the lack of backgrounds during some of the action sequences, though. This was very distracting and really took away from the action in my opinion.

Verdict: Buy It. Marcus To’s debut as the new ongoing artist for this series is incredibly strong as he brings a lot of life to this action-packed issue. When you add in the strength of Chris Yost’s character writing, you’ve got a great issue. The only drawback is the plot doesn’t move forward much and forgetful readers might be a bit lost on why the League of Assassins is at war with the Council of Spiders as there aren’t many context clues to remind readers of the events of the last few issues.

05. GREEN ARROW/BLACK CANARY #26

Written by Andrew Kreisberg

Lead Art by Mike Norton, Bill Sienkiewicz, and David Baron

Backup Art by Renato Guedes, Jose Wilson Magalhaes, and David Curiel

Letters by Sal Cipriano

Cover by Ladronn

preRanking: 03

• This week’s Green Arrow/Black Canary has all sorts of explaining to do after last issue ended with a second Green Arrow showed up.

• The lead story follows that second Green Arrow—the real one—as he has a hallucinatory encounter with a younger version of himself on the island where he became a hero. This is an awesomely introspective story that not only pushes the plot forward, but also bridges today’s Green Arrow with his origins as presented in Andy Diggle and Jock’s awesome Green Arrow: Year One miniseries.

• The backup, on the other hand, was an emotionally intense roller coaster that featured Andrew Kreisberg flexing his character writing muscles as the Green Arrows fight to prove to Dinah who is the genuine article in a twist that harkens back to the earliest issues of this series.

• I absolutely love Ollie’s devotion to Dinah in this story. After the last few months of roughness for their marriage, I’m glad to see Kreisberg really tap into what makes them so great as a couple. Plus, hopefully this means their adventures won’t be split for much longer and the co-feature in this series will follow what Speedy has been up to!

• The art in the lead story was great, with Bill Sienkiewicz’s scratchier art finishing up on Mike Norton’s layouts. This is a great fit for the hallucination, especially since Sienkiewicz tightened up his work once Ollie woke up.

• It was very cool to see Jock’s designs from the Year One stories again. It was a great move from Sienkiewicz to pick up on these.

• The art in the second story is your typical fare for Renato Guedes. The female designs are rough, the anatomy is in consistent, and the perspectives make the characters look like Colorforms pasted on a premade background.

• There are a few moments that worked really well, but every time he would do something awesome, Guedes would follow up with five things that would make me cringe.

Verdict: Buy It. This is a great payoff for fans who were patiently waiting by as things got rougher and rougher for Dinah and Ollie, which means I suspect that Kreisberg will attack the next storyline, which is also set up here, with renewed vigor. The character work here is simply superb, as is the art the lead story. Unfortunately, Guedes’s art in the back up is just too inconsistent and holds this one back—otherwise this definitely would have been a Must Read issue.

04. BATGIRL #4

Written by Bryan Q. Miller

Art by Tim Levins, Lee Garbett, Dan Davis, Aaron Sowd, Trevor Scott, and Guy Major

Letters by John J. Hill

Cover by Phil Noto

preRanking: 02

• After officially taking over the role at the end of the last issue, Stephanie Brown has her first night out on patrol as the title character in this week’s done-in-one Batgirl story.

• This is a great “slice-of-life” story that is a solid jumping on point for new readers that strengthens the status quo of the book and provides some insight into how Stephanie will handle being the new Batgirl and what type of guidance Oracle will be providing her.

• I’m so glad to see Barbara Gordon in a major role again, especially since Bryan Q. Miller has such a great take on her character. It may not be as marquee as a role as she had in Birds of Prey, but its great to see her again.

• The character work in this issue is much more important than the plot, so some things get glossed over a bit just to put the players in the right position—which is fine for this type of story as the plot holes are fairly inconsequential, so the ends justify the means.

• I love the sense of humor that Miller injects into this issue. The exchange between Livewire and Batgirl, as well as Commissioner Gordon ribbing Detective Nick for his crush on Batgirl were both fantastic.

• I would have expected the art to be much more inconsistent that in was since it was coming from two pencilers and three inkers. There are a few design inconsistencies with Batgirl’s cowl and Barbara’s hair, but otherwise Tim Levins and Lee Garbett’s styles blended very well together.

• Otherwise the art is pretty middle of the road. It looks alright and it gets the point across without many major errors, so I can’t really complain.

Verdict: Buy It. This is a great introduction for Stephanie Brown as Batgirl that is an excellent jumping on point, but should be just as much fun for people who’ve been following along since the series debuted. The art isn’t much to write home about, the character writing is simply superb. Bryan Q. Miller has found a winning formula for this series and I can’t wait to see where he takes it from here. There really aren’t enough books like this that are just plain fun. In all honesty, with issues like this, this series just needs a slight improvement on art before it could potentially become one of the best comics on the stands.

03. BOOSTER GOLD #26

Written by Dan Jurgens

Art by Dan Jurgens, Mike Norton, Norm Rapmund, and Hi-Fi

Letters by Sal Cipriano

Cover by Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund

preRanking: 04

• The main and co-features in this week’s Booster Gold combine for the issue’s Blackest Night tie-in, which features the return of Blue Beetle Ted Kord…as a Black Lantern. As expected, this causes all sorts of problems for Booster Gold and the current Blue Beetle, Jaime Reyes.

• A good chunk of this issue is spent on Booster going back in time to the superhero memorial service that was given to Ted Kord. Through this we get Booster’s “euology” of sorts, which is long overdue, but incredibly heartfelt. Dan Jurgens does a brilliant job of balancing Booster’s self-centeredness with a genuinely heartbreaking sense of loss into an absolutely beautiful scene.

• It’s fun to see Skeets teaming up with Blue Beetle to check in on Booster’s ancestor, Daniel “Supernova” Carter. This broadened the scope of the issue and also provided some unexpected, but very fun interaction.

• I was a bit disappointed by how over the top Jurgens’s Ted was. I’ve always preferred him to be a mix of seriousness and “bwa-ha-ha,” but here we are only getting the jokes.

• I was very pleased with how Jurgens handled Blue Beetle. Jaime is one of my favorite characters and I’m always a little protective of how he is presented, but Jurgens does a fine job.

• The art in this issue is fantastic throughout and I think a huge amount of credit is owed to Norm Rapmund for that. He really stepped up his game in this issue to unify the work of Jurgens and Mike Norton. There are shifts between the artists that can be identified, but Rapmund’s finishes kept hem from being jarring.

• The design for Ted Kord’s Black Lantern uniform is easily my favorite Black Lantern design yet—beating out even the supremely awesome Firestorm design.

• The gorgeous memorial spread and the 3 x 3 grid of reacting heroes that follows it are easily my favorite pages of the week. They are simply gorgeous and powerful.

Verdict: Must Read. This issue really has it all—superb character work, gorgeous art, and a gripping plot. I’ve been complaining a lot about how stale the Blackest Night formula has become—Black Lantern comes back, hero is shocked, hero is overwhelmed in fight, rinse, and repeat—but this issue shows that even a very tired concept can be made fresh with quality craftsmanship. This could very easily be the best issue of Booster Gold since the heartbreaking Killing Joke issue and that says a lot!

02. GREEN LANTERN CORPS #42

Written by Peter Tomasi

Art by Pat Gleason, Rebecca Buchman, Tom Nguyen, Randy Mayor, and Gabe Eltaeb

Letters by Steve Wands

Cover by Pat Gleason, Rebecca Buchman, and Randy Mayor

preRanking: 08

• The Black Lantern attack on Oa continues this week with some interesting twists as a member of the Indigo Tribe joins the fight, a Red Lantern is unleashed, and a major Green Lantern falls.

• This issue is nothing but non-stop, super intense, and tightly plot big time action. This is one of the biggest action books of the year.

• In the midst of this, though, is some great character work, both in terms of highly emotional reactions, such as Kilowag lashing out at the formerly-Green but now-Black Lanterns, and great “in the trenches” quipping.

• When the Red Lantern Vice was unleashed upon the unsuspecting Black Lanterns, it was one of the coolest and most unexpected moments of the week—which made the even more unexpected response by an Alpha Lantern all the more powerful.

• I was completely blown away by how this issue ends. The sacrifice made by one of the most important Green Lanterns makes perfect since in retrospect to what Peter Tomasi has been building and it comes with heavy weight despite how quickly and unexpectedly it happens.

• I’m not sure how permanent this is going to be, but it brilliantly shows not only how heroic this character really was, but also the harsh realties of war—no one is safe and not every death is glamorous or comes after months of hinting. This is probably the first majorly shocking moment I’ve seen from DC since the death of Ted Kord.

• Pat Gleason’s art is simply awesome and perfectly captures the intensity of the action from beginning to end with tons of details, awesome energy, and major impact. The action never lets up and neither does Gleason.

• Gleason’s storytelling and choreography keep this one from becoming a total mess when the action becomes chaotic and he accents that well with simply awesome expressions.

• There is an amazing spread featuring all of the Black Lanterns on Oa simultaneously attacking the Central Power Battery that is simply unreal.

Verdict: Must Read. We’ve seen some pretty great moments and some strong issues over the course of the Blackest Night event thus far, but this issue is really the game changer. I say that not only because it features really the first death of any consequence (no offense to the links of Hawk, Hawkman, or Hawkgirl—coincidence?) but also because it is, hands down, the single best issue in terms of quality and entertainment of the entire event. This issue might not have capture the Book of the Week honor but it is certainly of that level of quality. You’d be a fool not to check out this issue.

01. ENDER’S GAME: COMMAND SCHOOL #3

Written by Chris Yost

Art by Pasqual Ferry and Frank D’Armata

Letters by Cory Petit

Cover by Pasqual Ferry and Frank D’Armata

preRanking: 01

• This week’s installment in the Ender’s Game adaptation takes on one of the most emotionally powerful moments in the entire original novel—Bonzo Madrid’s attack on Ender and the aftermath of what transpires.

• Chris Yost does not miss a beat in this issue. He picks-and-chooses the most important moments of the sequence to maintain the maximum accessibility for unfamiliar readers while still rewarding longtime fans—all while perfectly capturing the gravitas of the situation.

• It also would seem that Yost is lifting key bits of dialogue out of the novel, which really helps convey how powerful these moments really are and shows his dedication to accurately adapting Orson Scott Card’s original work.

• Pasqual Ferry’s artwork remains absolutely perfect for this story. He absolutely nails the mood and tone of the story with his atmospheric approach and clean sci-fi designs. This issue looks exactly as I would imagine it while reading the novel.

• Where Ferry really steps up his game, though is in his expressions. They’ve been good throughout the run of this miniseries, but they are simply amazing here. He perfectly sells how emotional and powerful these scenes are—from Petra’s concern to Ender’s breakdown to Bonzo’s anger, it’s all here and superbly conveyed.

• The only problem I had with the art is that Bonzo seems a bit shorter than he should be. In the dialogue, he is described as having twenty centimeters” on Ender, which is likely to be an exaggeration, but still, there isn’t much reason for Ferry to draw them as being close to the same size.

Verdict: Must Read. I really cannot put into accurate enough words exactly how great of an adaptation this issue is. Chris Yost and Pasqual Ferry perfectly capture what Orson Scott Card had original created, but actually enhance the original story by emphasizing the importance of certain story beats and bringing it to life through gorgeous artwork. This is simply stunning craftsmanship and something that should not be missed by anyone, whether they be fans of the original novel or not!

Crisis on Infinite Arts - Nova Gallery

2009-11-12T12:49:00.003-04:00

For this edition of Crisis on Infinite Arts, we're taking a break from spotlighting individual artists and putting the focus on a particular character. That character, as you can see, is Nova. Hit the jump for a look at various sketches, paintings and images of the Human Rocket!

Sketch by Jim Lee.

Sketch by Ethan Van Sciver, of Green Lantern fame.

Cover image by Daniel Acuna.

Cover image by Alex Maleev.

Cover image by Francesco Matina.

Image by Mike Deodato.

Cover image by Gabriele Dell'Otto.

Image from Annihilation #6 by Andrea Di Vito.

Inked pencils from Nova #13 by Wellinton Alves.

The Mighty #1-6 Review

2009-11-11T17:44:00.004-04:00

Every now and then I’ll overlook the first few issues of a comic book that might have flown under my radar and, by the time I realize how awesome the comic is, a large number of issues have come out and I find myself scrambling to play catch up. This is the case with The Mighty, an often-overlooked non-DCU superhero title for DC Comics that is nearing the completion of its first twelve-issue “season.” I was able to snag the first six issues of the series for a fair price at a recent comic book convention and, I must say, it is well worth tracking down. Hit the jump for the details on why The Mighty could be one of the best comics you aren’t reading!

THE MIGHTY #1-6

Written by Peter Tomasi and Keith Champagne

Art by Peter Snejbjerg, Chris Samnee, and John Kalisz

Letters by Rob Leigh

Covers by Dave Johnson

The Mighty tells the story of a Gabriel Cole, the designated “Captain”—i.e. handler—of Alpha One, a former soldier who was caught in a horrific accident that granted him powers, making him the world’s only superhero. Cole is thrust into the role when the previous handler is mysteriously murdered and must immediately take on the responsibilities including handling public relations, doing follow-up on Alpha One’s activities, and keeping the hero grounded.

Alpha One immediately takes to Cole, who had become a bit of a cultural phenomenon when Alpha One saved him as a child, and strikes up an incredibly intense friendship. Though Cole attempts to stay level-headed, his awe and admiration of Alpha One only fuels the hero’s actions. This often causes problems between Cole and his wife, who recognizes something unhealthy about Cole’s hero-worship and the way Alpha One is behaving.

As Alpha One’s behavior gets darker and more obsessive, Cole begins looking into the background of the previous Captains and takes notice to the fact that Alpha One’s immense power and obsessive behavior has put him in more danger than eh could have imagined. As the first half of the series comes to a close, the pieces are in motion for a major confrontation between the two that does not bode well for Cole.

From the get-go, Peter Tomasi and Keith Champagne put on a clinic with their character development. Stories about heroes gone rogue are all the rage these days, but the writing team sets The Mighty apart through the unique personalities and drives of the characters. By only really focusing on a handful of characters, they are able to develop everyone fully—none of the major players can be described as one-dimensional, which makes the story all the more compelling.

The relationship between Alpha One and Cole is perfectly put together and the arc of it is incredibly natural. Given their history, it makes sense that Cole would delve directly into hero-worship the moment that Alpha One initiates the friendship; but what really impressed me is how well this flowed into becoming more about male bonding before Alpha One’s behavior takes a dark turn in the final few issues that I read. This puts an interesting twist on the story, especially since the only other major person in Cole’s life is his wife.

Speaking of which, Cole’s wife Janet may be the most interesting character in the entire story. She is a perfect match and foil for Cole. I could immediately relate to their interaction and the complexity of their relationship—like most wives she plays a multitude of roles in Cole’s life. Because so much attention is given to their relationship, she becomes one of the most non-marquee female characters I’ve seen in a long time. She isn’t merely relegated to being a background plot point—she is a driving force in the story and a major player in Cole’s life. It’s a very refreshing take on what could have easily been a drab archetypical character.

I really dig the plot structure of these first six issues. While the end of issue six is a natural “break point” in the story, it isn’t really the end of anything as there are aren’t any mini-arcs or major storylines beyond the overarching story of the relationship between Alpha One and Cole. The plot is complex and continuous without any stopping-and-starting miniature storylines that are common place for twelve issue miniseries. Every issue flows into one another and only serves to make the single story that much more complex. Its an approach unlike anything you’ll see in most other comics, especially in today’s “writing for trade” climate in comics.

The downside to this is that some story points may get lost on casual readers. Every beat contributes to the story at large, but isn’t necessarily focal to any “act” within the story. Characters and concepts come-and-go, pushing the story forward whereas in most comics they might even be contained to their own specific story within the larger structure. This may mean some backtracking on the part of the reader, but I think in the end that it’s worth it because of the refreshing nature of the narrative.

Peter Snejbjerg takes co-creator credits for the series and handles the art chores for issues #1-4 while up-and-comer Chris Samnee takes over at #5. Both men employ a similar style that has one foot in a pulpy-realism that is a great fit for the tone of the story, while the openness of their designs keeps the art from alienating the superhero elements of the story. John Kalisz is the colorist for both men, which helps bridge the two as well.

Of the two, Snejbjerg is the weaker link. His work is very consistent, especially in terms of his detail work and the balance of more realistic and fantastic elements. He is certainly a competent artist, but towards the end of his run, these elements really start to cause major issues with the overall look of the stories. The interesting thing about this is that there seems to be a progression of his consistency issues that peaks in his final issues—issue one is considerably stronger than two, which is in turn stronger than three, and so on.

When Chris Samnee jumps in at issue number five, the quality of the art picks up in a big way. His work is considerably more controlled in all aspects. His strong expressions fit perfectly with his pulpy designs. His use of heavy blacks and varying line widths add a lot of depth to the story and are used with clear consideration for the situation in the script—he only veers from his “standard” style at times that make sense.

Dave Johnson rounds out the art team with a series of brilliant covers. From his simple, mysterious covers for the opening issues to his more involved issues towards the end of the set, they are all incredibly bold and eye-catching. Best of all, they make sense with what is going on in the issues. Too often if the cover designer isn’t doing the interior art, there seems to be no correlation between the cover and the interior, but here Johnson’s work not only fits with the story, but is a great way to kick off the stories themselves.

Verdict: Buy It. Based upon these six issues, The Mighty is one of the most intelligent and finely crafted comics out there right now. It has an excellent premise that sets its apart from other books in its subgenre of superhero stories that is accented with some of the best character work that I’ve ever read from Peter Tomasi and Keith Champagne. It starts off a bit slow, but by the time I reached issue six, the series found its niche and the individual issues were hitting the Must Read plateau. I am a bit disappointed that Chris Samnee wasn’t the artist from the beginning, as his work is a major force behind the success of the later issues—this might have even bumped the first six issues as a whole up to Must Read. As it stands, though, The Mighty #1-6 is a series of issues that are definitely worth checking out and have me chomping at the bit for remaining six issues in the story!

The Complete Persepolis Review

2009-11-11T09:09:00.000-04:00

Persepolis is one of those books that you sometimes hear about when people praise the comic medium, along the likes of Maus or American Splendor, but that I had personally never read. I knew it was a greatly praised autobiographical work, that it had been turned into an equally acclaimed animated film (which was nominated for an Oscar), and that it's author, Marjane Satrapi, was related to Iran, but little else. Luckily, my local library had a copy of The Complete Persepolis, which collects the four original books that make up this series, that allowed me to check this series out. Hit the jump for my review of it.

THE COMPLETE PERSEPOLIS
Written and Art by Marjane Satrapi

Like I mentioned above, the book is divided into four sections that follow the life of Marjane Satrapi as a child, a teenager, a young adult, and an adult. At the same time, each section is divided into small stories, usually revolving around interesting anecdotes or important and life changing events of Marjane's life. The book is in chronological order, but time changes sometimes happen without little indication as you pass from one story or section to the other, but it's never hard to follow.

(A quick side note, in my reviews I usually refer to authors by their last name, but after reading a whole book about people talking to or about her using her first name, I can't help but think of her as "Marjane", not "Satrapi". )

The first book is about Marjane as a child in the late 70's and early 80's, just about the time the "Islamic Revolution" happened in Iran. Marjane has to start dealing with the new changes that this means for her and her family, such as the one she opens the book with: before 1979, she did not have to wear a veil to school. Marjane comes from a wealthy and rather liberal (by Iranian standards) family, so it struck them particularly hard to have to deal with these changes put in place by the new religious rule. Still being very young, Marjane does what all child do, play with other kids, ask a lot of questions to her parents, and have conversations with God. Yes. Although it's all very child-like, and not as crazy as it might sound. Two relatives of here were killed in the societal upheaval of the time, and the book ends on a very traumatic note as Marjane angrily denounces God for his cruelty and the war between Iran and Iraq breaks out.

The second book deals with Marjane as a young teenager living in a literal war zone, and all the problems that such a thing entails. Marjane has to deal not only with the dangers of living in Tehran (the capital of Iran), which is bombed regularly, but with the increasing zealotry of the Guardians of the Revolution who enforce the laws of the Muslim religion. At the same time, our protagonist becomes more rebellious, listening to punk music, carrying her veil improperly, and at the end, having her first cigarette and suffering another personal tragedy in one of the bombardments. Her parents cannot stand that their daughter is in such peril, and decide to send her to study in Europe. With all the confusing feelings that such a change invokes, Marjane leaves her home country, and the second book ends.

While the first two books explain heavily what Iran is like, so the readers (presumably, people from other countries) would understand the culture and lifestyle of the people beyond what they would see in TV, the third book switches gears as Marjane experiences Europe through the eyes of an outsider. The outsider theme is one that is heavy in this third chapter, things that are commonplace to people in the Western world, shock Marjane as she makes new friends and acquaintances with all kinds of people. While still rebellious by nature, Marjane goes through some major changes, both physical and personality wise, but not exactly for the better. Eventually, Marjane becomes involved with the wrong kind of people and starts doing drugs, which along with some relationship drama, sends her off in a downward spiral that almost kills her. This (yet another) traumatic event induces another important change in her life, as Marjane decides to go back to her family in Iran.

The fourth book takes place, once again, in Iran, where Marjane finds herself to be an outsider too: her experiences in Europe make her an outcast from all her former friends and family. Many see her as decadent and she feels equally exiled by the changes the Iranian society has suffered in her absence: the religious fundamentalism is stronger than ever, and the long war with Iraq has left a huge toll in the population and the country. This eventually leads her to a depression and a failed suicide attempt that ultimately forces her to change her outlook in life. While obviously changed by the many events of her life, she is still attempting to stay true to herself, rebelling against injustice and closed minds. Marjane is now an adult, enrolls in an art college, and meets what would later be her first husband. Despite starting on very good terms and many attempts to make the relationship work, it eventually falls apart and Marjane divorces him. As the book ends, Marjane decides to leave for Europe again.

Despite what sounds like an incredibly depressing life story, which is indeed full of personal tragedy, Persepolis is actually a very funny book thanks to the many anecdotes and some great comedic timing in part of the author. This is a true drama, full of laughter and tears, and it is incredible sincere. You can't help but bond with the author as she opens up her life before your very eyes. She even includes parts of her life that she hadn't told her parents (her time in Austria), and the connection to the historical events makes it an even more compelling read. The art is simple, in black and white, and resembles the illustrations you would see in a children's book, but very expressive when it needs to be, and gets extra cartoon-y when the situational comedy calls for it.

The book is a real eye opener about how life in Iran is really like beyond what you see in TV. I'm a pretty world-y guy (having lived in three different countries and cultures so far), but I was surprised at my own ignorance of Iranian culture. If that doesn't sound particularly appealing to you, the author explains it simply and sometimes funnily enough that you find yourself caring and understanding more of how the Iranian society works. And even if that doesn't sound particularly interesting to you, you will still find plenty that will resonate within you. We have all had those anarchist friends that you later realize were kind of dumb, or those childhood stories that in retrospect have very different connotations. If you have fallen with the wrong crowd at some point of your life, or if you ever fell like an outsider, or if you have had trouble with relationships, you will relate with what Marjane goes through in this book. Her unique worldview is just an added bonus that makes the book more compelling.

Verdict - Must Read. Persepolis is a great autobiographical book that should be in everyone's bookshelf. It will make you laugh, maybe cry, and it's sincerity will definitely open your eyes and your heart. I cannot praise or recommend it enough.

Interested about Persepolis? Purchase The Complete Persepolis or the Persepolis DVD through Amazon and help support The Weekly Crisis!

Top 10 Tuesdays - 10 Songs That Best Describe A Character

2009-11-10T23:59:00.001-04:00

This edition of the Top 10 Tuesdays takes a lighter tone than usual and looks at 10 Songs That Best Describe A Character. Simply put, we take a character and match a song that best describes them or boils down to what makes them tick. You can view my picks with embedded YouTube music videos below, but feel free to throw out your choices in the comments, too!

1. THOR

Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song

Lyrics That Best Sum Up Why It Was Chosen:

We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.
The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands,
To fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!

Kirk: It was a tough choice picking a song that suits Thor as there are so many songs perfect for him, from Ride of the Valkyries to Twilight of the Thunder God to MC Hammer's Hammer Time. Okay scratch that last one, but you get the picture. In the end, Matt reminded me of the original Viking metal song - Led Zepplin's Immigrant Song.

2. SPIDER-MAN

Presidents of the United States - Dune Buggy

Lyrics That Best Sum Up Why It Was Chosen:

Squishy transmission was caught in drive
Spider-Man was squintin' at the sand and the sky
Spider-Woman in the front seat screamin' go go go
He's ridin' the accelerator down to the floor with his fuzzy little toe oe oe oe oe

Kirk: This choice has one caveat and that is that it only applies to Spider-Man when he is driving the Spider-Mobile. All other times, we can go with Streetlight Manifesto's Down, Down, Down To Mephisto's Cafe for the following lyrics,

We're going down, down, down to Mephisto's Cafe
Down, down, down to Mephisto's Cafe (We're going down)
And the gears will spin and the sinners sin, but at least we'll give them hell
And the righteous few will spit on you, so bid them all farewell
We're going down, down, down to Mephisto's Cafe

Fitting, no?

3. THANOS

Meat Loaf - I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)

Lyrics That Best Sum Up Why It Was Chosen:

And I would do anything for love, but I won't do that, I won't do that
Anything for love, oh I would do anything for love
I would do anything for love, but I won't do that, oh I won't do that

Kirk: If this song doesn't describe Thanos's obsession with Death, going so far as wiping out half the universe, than I don't know what song does.

4. IRON MAN
Black Sabbath - Iron Man

Lyrics That Best Sum Up Why It Was Chosen:

I am Iron Man!
Has he lost his mind?
Can he see or is he blind?
Can he walk at all
Or if he moves will he fall?

Kirk: A man has a vision of the future on the brink of destruction and tries his best to stop that coming catastrophe only to be, in the end, the actual harbringer of said destruction. Iron Man and the Super Hero Registration Act in Civil War? No, that's actually the story told throughout Black Sabbath's Iron Man song. Feel like I'm cheating using this one it's so damn perfect.

5. NEKRON

AC/DC- Back in Black

Lyrics That Best Sum Up Why It Was Chosen:

Back in black
I hit the sack
I've been too long I'm glad to be back [I bet you know I'm...]
Yes, I'm let loose
From the noose
That's kept me hanging about
I've been looking at the sky
'Cause it's gettin' me high
Forget the hearse 'cause I never die

Kirk: If Back in Black isn't the song being played when Nekron returns in Blackest Night #4, I don't know what is. I was tempted to quote the whole damn song for the lyrics that best sum up why it was chosen, but couldn't due to space issues.

6. BLACK HAND

Rolling Stones - Paint It Black

Lyrics That Best Sum Up Why It Was Chosen:

I see a red door and I want it painted black
No colours anymore I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes

Kirk: Just as Back in Black was Nekron's song, Paint It Black is hands down the only song that fits Black Hand. It even has the colour changing theme to show how much he hates the other spectrums with the wanting to paint it all black.

7. SENTRY

Lazlo Bane - Superman

Lyrics That Best Sum Up Why It Was Chosen:

I know what I've been told
You gotta know just when to fold
But I can't do this all on my own
No, I know I'm no Superman
I'm no Superman

Kirk: Sentry is no Superman.

8. KA-ZAR

Guns N Roses - Welcome to the Jungle

Lyrics That Best Sum Up Why It Was Chosen:

Welcome to the jungle
We got fun 'n' games
We got everything you want
Honey we know the names
We are the people that can find
Whatever you may need
If you got the money honey
We got your disease

Kirk: What more is there to say? If you're scoring a girl like Shanna the She-Devil and have a pet sabertooth tiger, you're probably rocking out to Welcome to the Jungle in the Savage Land, too.

9. BOOSTER GOLD
Dr Hook - Cover of the Rolling Stone

Lyrics That Best Sum Up Why It Was Chosen:

And we keep getting richer,
But we can't get our picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone

Kirk: Booster Gold is all about being famous and getting his picture on the cover of magazines. What better song to fit him than Dr Hook's Cover of the Rolling Stone and the trials and tribulations of trying to get on the cover of the world famous magazine.

10. VENOM

The Brain - The Parts of the Brain

Lyrics That Best Sum Up Why It Was Chosen:

BRAIN STEM, BRAIN STEM!

Kirk: BRAINS!

Kirk's Soapbox - A Collection of Random Thoughts, Vol 2

2009-11-10T15:50:00.004-04:00

Eric's stepping down from the soapbox for the week and, aboring a vaccuum, I quickly jumped up to let my voice be heard. This edition of A Collection of Random Thoughts touches on the "heroes don't kill" rule, the much talked about Apple Tablet, Achilles's sexual orientation, sales data and more. Hit the jump to read about these and more.

Heroes Don't Kill (Unless You're an Alien, Robot or Non-Human)

David Brothers over at the 4th Letter! tackled the subject of how heroes don't kill in a series of two posts explaining the reasoning behind no kill policies in the past (Comics Code Authority, simpler times), the escalation of crimes and evil of these villains and why it's getting to the point of absurdity that they haven't killed some of these villains yet. It's a good read that I agree with completely. You can read the first and second post on the topic here and here.

To mirror David Brothers's thoughts on the topic, I do not believe heroes should kill each and every two bit mugger and thief they come across. That would be out right murder and vigilante street justice. But killing someone in the heat of battle, where they are actively trying to kill you, your loved ones or random civilians? God yes. Cops shoot to kill in extreme situations. They don't try to disarm gun toting maniacs. Super heroes, an extension of police, should not try to disarm super villains, who are doing much the same thing. Police can't stop them, civilians can't stop them, no one can stop them but the super hero. Hell, the Avengers are government sanctioned and should have the right to kill.

The worst part of this no kill policy is the hypocrisy of it, particularly over at Marvel. During the Skrull invasion, the heroes literally massacred the Skrulls. Ms Marvel took one Skrull up to space and watched him die. She didn't just drop him there and head back down to save people. She sat there, in space, and watched his head pop with a smile on her face and inner monologue about how much she was enjoying it. This same person says she won't kill Norman Osborn because she's better than him. Osborn is clinically proven to be insane. What's your excuse for the depravity Carol and why is he actually doing a better job at hero than you?

Again, I don't want heroes killing everyone they see. Spider-Man or Batman shouldn't be snapping necks of random muggers they can take down without breaking a sweat. Superman can probably get away without killing anyone ever. He's just not capable of it. But most heroes shouldn't have a problem with killing in a battle so long as it's not a consious thought - ie they aren't going in with the intent to kill people. Invincible is a good example of this for me. The way he killed Angstrom Levy (he got better) by turning his face into pulp after he attacked his family was perfectly acceptable to me and I could see Spider-Man tearing into Norman Osborn the same way if he ever touched Mary Jane or anyone in his life again.

The Apple Tablet, Comics & You

The Apple Tablet is getting a lot of talk recently and I wanted to touch on it briefly. To set the record straight, there is no Apple Tablet. It doesn't exist. It wasn't announced by Apple, it isn't confirmed by Apple and that image that's floating around is a mockup by some random non-Apple related person that took an iPod Touch and stretched it to a tablet-like size.

While Apple is notorious for staying tight lipped and can even roll out a new product at the drop of a hat without big announcements leading up to it, that doesn't change the fact that this so-called tablet does not exist at this point in time, is not coming out in September (note how it's November now) and should not be hyped up as the comic book revolution it will never be. Want to know why? Let's go over some numbers:

iPod Touch (from Apple website)

Size: 4.3"x2.4"x0.33"
Capacity: 16GB, 32GB or 64GB
Cost: $199, $299 or $399

Apple Tablet Rumoured Specs (from links compiled at Wired.com)

Size: 10.7" diagonally
Resolution: 720p
Capacity: Unknown
Cost: $700-900

The kicker with the cost for an Apple Tablet is that I can't see it being sold for less than $999. Why? An iPod Touch costs more than a PS3. It's a fraction of the size of a 10.7" tablet. The tablet would be as large as a small LCD TV, which go for about $300-500 range, has touch screen capabilities, built in wireless and, the kicker, will need several hundred gigabytes of space to store any kind of image based media.

Don't believe me? The average comic book scan, at the full resolution people post online, is about a megabyte for each image. I shrink them down in the Moments of the Week to a hundred kilobytes or so, but they are usually double the resolution (aka big). A full comic book is 22-pages. That's 22MB, give or take, per issue. Take Amazing Spider-Man #600, which was about 100-pages of content. That's 100MB right there. Are you telling me you want a $1000 comic book reading tablet that can only hold a fraction of your comic book collection and whose harddrive would fill within a year's worth of reading? No, it's going to require a lot of storage space, which Apple, like Microsoft and the Xbox 360, is notorious for overcharging on.

This doesn't touch on motion comics, video or other high capacity content that Apple would position for a tablet. You won't get several hundred gigabytes from Apple for $700, so that rumoured price range is a pipe dream or there will be rioting over the iPod Touch being so goddamn overpriced as it is.

This doesn't even touch on how hard it is on the eyes to read comics/books/etc for long stretches of time on the computer. The Kindle and other eReaders use electronic paper that burns the text into the screen, giving it a paper-like quality that is easy on the eyes and just like reading a book. It's why they are black and white (for now, might change in the future). The tablet will use an LCD-like screen that will cause that burning, itching irritation in the eyes after long periods of reading. Joy.

The question then becomes, how many comic book readers will be buying a $1000 tablet to read comics that are currently selling on iTunes for $2.99 instead of just paying $2.99 or $3.99 for a paper copy? Anyone? You in the back? Oh, just stretching? Thought so.

October Sales Data

Based on the numbers posted by IGN Comics, DC dominated the charts for the month of October, claiming the top six spots on the chart and nine out of the top fifteen. That's some impressive work. The kicker is that five of the top six are all $2.99 comics, Blackest Night #4 being the only $3.99 offering.

1 - Blackest Night #4 - $3.99
2 - Batman and Robin #5 - $2.99
3 - Green Lantern #47 - $2.99
4 - Blackest Night: Batman #3 - $2.99
5 - Green Lantern Corps #41 - $2.99
6 - Blackest Night: Superman #3 - $2.99

Is this a sign that readers are finally voting with their wallets and saying no to the pricier $3.99 offerings that had been dominating the charts or just the Blackest Night Effect propping up sales on these tie-ins? Even if it is just Blackest Night fever, I would have expected some drop off in sales for these titles, not increases that push them ahead of Dark Avengers and other perennial top ten comics. Maybe more people are taking chances on the tie-ins due to the lower price and smaller committments (only three issues per miniseries).

However, the only question I really have about the sales data is what the heck is Web of Spider-Man #1 doing at the number 20 spot? Marvel must be laughing all the way to the bank on the rebranding of the Amazing Spider-Man Family title.

The Brian Bendis Twitter Chronicles

Brian Bendis had a Twitter marathon going the other day, doing an impromptu Q&A with his followers that was so frequent he was temporarily frozen from posting by Twitter. Robot 6 summed up the juicier bits of info on their blog, but there were a few things I wanted to talk about here.

Cosmic Level Avengers Stories New Year

@BrianMBendis - oh yes!! RT @popculturezoo: @BRIANMBENDIS Any chance of some cosmic-level Avengers stories next year?

At first, I was tempted to scream out, "NO! YOU STAY AWAY FROM MY NOVA AND GUARDIANS YOU BASTARD!", but, once I calmed down a bit and realized the potential of this, I realized that Bendis tackling cosmic stories means more people will read cosmic stories. More people reading them means we have no worries about potential cancellations or other bad things happening to Dan Abnett's & Andy Lanning's little corner of the Marvel Universe. It also means higher profile and more everything. That's a good thing.

More Alias

@BrianMBendis - we'll do an alias mini next year if the stars allow RT @ashwinpande: @BrianMBendis also, you and Gaydos teaming up again anytime soon?

Alias is arguably some of Brian Bendis's best work and eventually led to Jessica Jones and Luke Cage getting together, joining the Avengers and all that fun stuff. I would be thrilled if we see more of it, but I'm hoping it goes back to its MAX roots.

Verdict System Explained

A few people have noticed we've started using a new rank in our verdict system for reviews recently that I've yet to fully explain. In fact, I don't think I've ever come out and fully explained what the verdicts mean and I'm going to take a moment to do so here.

Avoid It - Books that you shouldn't bother with for any reason. A bad book is a bad book. There are no varying degrees of bad. However, on occasion, a book can be deemed Avoid It for specific reasons, such as being a complete filler issue or cash grab by the publisher that, while has some technical merit, may be labelled Avoid It. The review will make clear the distinction.

Byrne It - Named after the term coined by John Byrne's condemnation of reading comics in the shop/on the rack, the term Byrne It refers to books that have some merit, but are mostly subpar. May contain a major event or status quo change that is worth seeing, but the quality of the issue is suspect, making it not worth purchasing for those events or changes. We haven't actually used this one yet as we weren't sure if it was a good fit or not.

Something like Secret Invasion's conclusion would be a good Byrne It candidate as the issue was rather bland, told in flashback, threw out the entire Secret Invasion concept and resorted to fisticuffs in Central Park. However, it featured the death of the Wasp and Norman Osborn's Cabal origins, so is something you'd want to be kept abreast of, hence Byrne It at the shop, but don't buy it.

As I said, we haven't used this one yet, so it may not get put in the rotation. I believe Ryan uses a Read With Caution verdict in its place for the time being, though it has slightly different meaning.

Check It - Good books that are entertaining, but aren't very sharp on their craft. You probably won't be disappointed, but you might not love it. Typically something fans of the book will love, but not something that will sell you on the book.

Buy It - Books that excel in terms of both enjoyment value and craft, but still have glaring errors. For example the art might blow me away, but the dialogue is very stiff and repetitive. This may also apply to extremely well done books that may only appeal to a niche audience. In the end, something we feel you should buy, but not a perfect book either.

Must Read - Books with very few flaws of any kind, if any. These are books that generally most readers will really enjoy regardless of genre, creator or any other determining factor. Books you must read in some way, shape or form.

There you have, our verdict system explained. Currently, it's a four tiered system with Avoid It, Check It, Buy It and Must Read. If or when we decide on that Byrne It verdict, we'll adjust it for it. We've added the Buy It to the verdicts to add diversity and impact to a Must Read verdict again, as many books were claiming that ranking with only the original three tier system. You'll see less Must Read ratings these days and Buy It's or Check It's replacing it. When you do see a Must Read, you can be asured it's a must read book.

Wonder Woman's Achilles Is Gay

Apparently, Gail Simone confirmed that Achilles is gay. No, not the bi-sexual ancient Greek-like gay, but full on, "no women" gay. It seems the only indication of this orientation is through the brief dialogue with Alkyone from Wonder Woman #36 (I believe, couldn't find confirmation) that went as follows:

Alkyone: There will be no physical congress.
Achilles: Of course not. I would NEVER... I don't even....

I have no real opinion on the matter. It doesn't even phase me to be hoenst, but I was sure there'd be a shitstorm on the internet over DC having a gay character. I actually can't think of any gay characters from DC of the male variety. Gail had this to say about the character and his sexual preferences:

It's just part of who he is. DC has a ton of lesbians, but not that many gay heroes or even anti-heroes. He's not meant to be a token, I think he's a pretty cool character on his own and if he gets a chance to shine, I think we'll see that--up til now it's mostly been potential.

Twitter, Comics and Lists Oh My

Twitter recently introduced the concept of Lists for making following people on Twitter easier. I created a Weekly Crisis List for those interested in an easy to follow list of Ryan, Matt, Eric and my Twitter feeds, but iFanboy has gone one step further and taken their master list of comic book related Twitter links and turned them into a variety of handy Twitter Lists.

Comic Book Binding Podcast

The Comic Addiction featured David Banks, the man responsible for my brother's and my addiction to comic book binding and owner of Single Bound Studios, on a podcast recently and, aside from some interesting bits about comic book binding, he made mention of my brother's recent order. They even use images of his Flash comics, issues which are not available in trade format, for the banner of the podcast. For reference, he went with a softcover like binding for these Flash trades, but his past bindings were in hardcover format.