52 #7 (DC Comics) You’ve probably heard about the new Batwoman, right? About how she’s going to be an out-and-proud lesbian, making her the highest profile gay superhero in mainstream comics? Well, this issue marks the first appearance of her secret identity, Kathy Kane, who openly lesbian, former police detective Renee Montoya interrogates in the detective drama portions of this week’s issue. Meanwhile, in the superhero drama portion, Ralph Dibney unleashes eight months’ worth of pent-up rage at Booster Gold. Plus, everyone grows beards.
All-Star Superman #4 (DC) The Only Superman Comic Anyone Really Needs focuses on Daily Planet features reporter and Superman pal Jimmy Olsen this issue, and Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly continue to distill the best bits of Superman history and recombine them into the perfect Super-comic. Recalling the (incredibly dated) adventures that used to dominate Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen (over 500 pages of which were recently re-published in Showcase Presents: Superman Family), Morrison’s “The Superman/Olsen War” features clever reinventions of Doomsday, Bizarro, the Superman signal watch and Black Kryptonite, with several nods to Jimmy’s past adventures, including his infamous temporary superhero identites and sometimes quite bizarre "disquises" that today we call "cross-dressing."
Astonishing X-Men #15 (Marvel Comics) The new and improved Hellfire Club—including someone called “Nagasonic Teenage Warhead” continue to dismantle the X-Men, taking down Wolverine in a rather amusing manner (Even if Keith Giffen and J. M. DeMatteis did the same thing with Guy Gardner in Justice League decades ago. Writer Joss Whedon’s dialogue remains razor sharp, even if his plots are a little too Chris Claremont-style old school, and artist John Cassady continues to draw the living hell out of the X-Men and their world.
Birds of Prey #95 (DC) Gail Simone concludes her first OYL arc of BOP, in which the two Canaries flip flop back to their old vocations, the damage done to the character of Prometheus in Batman: Gotham Knights is undone somewhat and we learn the origin of torture expert The Crime Doctor. Confidential to the Doctor: Couldn’t you have just cut out your eyes to achieve the same effect without sacrificing your life?
Claw the Unconquered #1 (WildStorm/DC) Andy Smith, the artist responsible for Red Sonja/Claw (the series that pitted Dynamite Entertainment’s Conan-with-boobs against DC’s Conan-with-a-weird-hand), is joined by writer Chuck Dixon for the first issue of Valcan Scaramax’s ongoing series. Fans of Dark Horse’s Conan series should likewise enjoy this as a sort of dumbed down version of that superior comic, as it features very similar storytelling and scenarios, and Dixon remains a reliable if often unremarkable master of distracting enough genre stories. If I were the editor of page 8, however, I think I would have pointed out to Smith that he forgot to draw Valcan’s necklace in that last panel, and to Dixon and Smith that either the dialogue or the art during Valcan’s exchange with the witch should be changed, as they don’t quite match up. She appears almost totally naked, wearing nothing but gold barnacle pasties and panties, and he observes, “A woman of fine birth from the look of your dress.” If that’s how women of fine birth dress in the world of Claw, I can’t imagine what the women of low birth wear.
Conan #29 (Dark Horse Comics) Guest-writer Mike Mignola visits, bringing with him a reconstructed fragment from Conan creator Robert E. Howard. Hellboy fans should be delighted, as this feels as much like a story from Mignola’s other Dark Horse series as it does a REH story. In this opening chapter, Conan faces a rival thief, frogs, frogs, more frogs and a monster frog god. The most exciting part? The next issue box, which promises “Balls-Out Barbarity.” I imagine it was only a matter of time before we got exactly that. Conan’s loincloths have been shrinking from issue to issue, and in this ish artist Cary Nord has drawn his leather panties so small that his testicles could pop out at any second. Apparently, any second happens in July.
Conan: Book of Thoth #4 (Dark Horse) Kelley Jones art = automatic sale.
Eternals #1 (Marvel) Jesus, why didn’t anyone think of this before? If assigning Neil Gaiman to recreate a late-Kirby creation like the dream-monitoring, nightmare-fighting superhero The Sandman lead to one of the greatest literary achievements the field had ever seen (Gaiman's Vertigo series by the same name), why not give the guy another late-Kirby creation to play with? In this case, it was Marvel that had the brainstorm, and they unleashed Gaiman’s imagination on The Eternals, which bear more than a passing resemblance to Kirby’s other pantheons, Marvel’s Thor and the Asgardians and DC’s New Gods of the Fourth World characters. The results are intriguing thus far, as is the decision to pair Gaiman with John Romita Jr., the most Marvel-ous artist in Marvel’s stable. Their unlikely team-up makes the story read like something extraordinary for the company’s superhero line and typical of it at the same time. One complaint: There are just waaay too many variant covers on the book.
Giant-Size Hulk #1 (Marvel) Okay, so the title’s a tad redundant, the contents are anything but: Three superior stories featuring the Jade Giant, a steal at just $4.99. The book is book-ended by stories by definitive Hulk scribe Peter David. In the first, Hulk does accidental battle with the Champions, the only Marvel super-team that makes less sense than the Defenders (although after reading this story, I’d certainly buy a David-written Champions monthly series). In the second, Hulk: The End sees reprint, and we see Bruce Banner living in his own personal hell and Hulk living in his own personal heaven—quite possibly one of the best Hulk stories. In the middle is a “Planet Hulk” story by Greg Pak, which is mostly just a fun little dream sequence, full of allusions to other recent Marvel stories (and jokes at their expense). Certainly the best value of the week.
JSA: Classified #13 (DC) Writer Stuart Moore and penciller Paul Gulacy give us a last page which is an absolutely perfect story about immortal caveman-turned-villain Vandal Savage: five pointed panels that paint a more compelling portrait of the character than the preceding four issues in their entirety have. And for God’s sake, that’s four issues in a row where Alan Scott is wearing the wrong goddam ring!
Justice #6 (DC) Pretty amazing what a fresh coat of paint does for the Superfriends, isn’t it? Alex Ross and company re-invent Legion of Doomers Giganta and Toyman, provide another good argument for why Captain Marvel should be on the Justice League and destroy Red Tornado (That’s the fourth time he’s been destroyed this year, by my count). Also in this issue: A guest appearance by The Metal Men, Jean Loring acting sane and non-murderous and the Joker’s worst disguise ever.
Marvel Adventures Avengers #2 (Marvel) The best Avengers title on the stands! Writer Jeff Parker writes pretty much the entire line-up as if they were the exact same character, and the plot is strictly Superhero Comics 101, but he does a nice job with both Spidey and the Hulk, and Hulk villain The Leader. Parker also manages to pack more action and character development (if only for the Hulk) in this one-issue story than any whole arc of New Avengers. Quote of the Week: Now, Abomination…administer the beatdown.”
The New Avengers #20 (Marvel) And speaking of New Avengers… Brian Michael Bendis finally wraps up some plotlines he left dangling in House of M, but I can’t make heads or tails of how this relates to Magneto and “Xorn” from Morrison’s run on New X-Men. Here, you’ll probably need to check this out to understand what exactly is going on. Continuitiverse comics like those set in “the DCU” and “the 616” Marvel Universe are necessarily written by committee, but I fail to understand why so much energy has gone into un-writing Morrison’s New X-Men, especially considering the stories replacing it’s status quo with a new one are almost always much, much worse ones.
Robin #151 (DC) In the last few issues, new writer Adam Beechen has been setting us up to think that Cassandra Cain, Batgirl II, one-time sidekick to Batman and Barbara Gordon/Oracle just one short year ago, had suddenly gone bad, becoming a cold-blooded killer, leader of the League of Assassins, personally killing of Nyssa al Ghul, assassins galore and, finally, her father. Obviously, Beechen’s just screwing with us, right? Because there’s absolutely nothing in Cassandra’s past adventures that would indicate this could actually be her. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. Not only has she sworn not to kill and to never follow the footsteps of her father or mother, not only has she passed up repeated opportunities to kill them both before, but she’s certainly not charismatic enough to become a leader of any group, certainly not one lead by an al Ghul—hell, one year ago, she was just learning to talk and read, but here she doesn’t even stutter, and peppers her dialogue with phrases like “smarten up.” Beechen gives no explanation here as to why the random 180-degree turn in her character, the worst treatment a Bat-character has gotten since Doctor Leslie Thompkins became a killer in “War Crimes,” making this a bad story that’s not even finished yet. Other head-scratchingly weird things: Why is Cassandra dressing exactly like her mom now? Why is the world’s greatest fighter having such a problem beating up on Robin? Why doesn’t Robin call Batman when he’s facing an opponent he knows full well would not only tear him apart, but who he knows is likely a match for Batman himself? Why does Cassandra use car bombs and guns when she can kill more easily with her fingers? Why does Tim think he can give a recording of his conversation with Cassandra, in which she uses his real name repeatedly, to the police to clear his name? And, most puzzling of all, why did Beechen and the Bat-office resurrect Robin’s dead martial artist femme fatale Lynx in the “New Earth” continuity rejiggering of Infinite Crisis just to kill her off again, and then turn Cassandra Cain into a martial artist femme fatale for Robin?
Superman/Batman #27 (DC) In one important way, this is a terrible comic, as it appeals to a rather narrow population of potential readers, demanding that you as a reader are either familiar with the Earth-2 continuity that was done away with 20 years ago in Crisis on Infinite Earths or at least have a passing familiarity with it, and that you are reading DC’s nigh-unreadable new Supergirl series, or at least have a passing familiarity with that as well. Of course, if that includes you, then Mark Verheiden’s first issue as the book’s regular writer is a pretty fun read. A cadre of villains including the Ultra-Humanite transfer E-2 Superman’s and E-2 Batman’s brains into their younger, female analogues, E-2 Power Girl and E-2 Huntress. The transfer that will ultimately kill the two male heroes if they can’t find their real bodies before the issue ends. The selling point here is Kevin Maguire’s gorgeous art. His long association with the writing team of Giffen and DeMatteis has pigeonholed him somewhat as a funny artist, but his sense of design and mastery of facial expressions (his “acting,” if you will) is top-notch, and works in any genre. Not that this isn’t also a rather funny story, of course.
Testament #7 (DC/Vertigo) Thinker and author Douglas Rushkoff continues his thoughtful, relevant, near-future political/sci-fi/religious thriller, concluding his origin of the older generation of characters and the two sets of gods’ roles in human history. Here’s hoping that when DC collects this book into trades, they’ll include some endnotes, as I end up scrambling for my Bible every month after putting this down.
The Ultimates 2 #11 (Marvel) Months of waiting broken up with five-to-seven breathless, thrilling minutes and punctuated by “Oh, dayum!” every couple pages. That pretty much sums up the experience of reading the incomparable team of Mark Millar and interminably-slow-but-worth-the-wait Bryan Hitch. In this issue two key players join the fight between the America-conquering Liberators: A bright light visiting Nordic superhero/Christ-figure Thor and a certain scary-ass “hero” who was supposed to be dead. Guest-starring President George W. Bush.
X Isle #1 (Boom! Studios) If we as a society have learned anything in the past year, it’s that people just love stories about mysterious islands where strange phenomena occur. Writers Andrew Cosby and Michael Alan Nelson assemble a team of characters straight from Central Casting (Tough captain, quiet first mate, neglectful scientist father, his attractive neglected daughter, et cetera) to follow mysterious organic flotsam to an uncharted island, populated by something unknown, alive and apparently hungry for human flesh. It’s well-done suspense hinging on an intriguing mystery, and the characters and creatures alike are all well drawn by Greg Scott. And if you’re afraid you just don’t have enough room in your brain to keep the goings on of two mysterious islands straight, don’t worry—it’s a five-issue miniseries, meaning it shouldn’t take quite as long as to figure out what the hell is going on as it has on a certain television show.
No comments:
Post a Comment