Blackest Night Wonder Woman #2 : Great issue although the whole 'surprise' was kind of ruined if you read issue 6 of Blackest Night. Still a great issue and the appearance of
Bruce
was pretty cool.
Cinderella From Fabletown With Love #3 : Awesome issue and the last panel was sexy....
Greek Street #7 : Story is a slow burner, but for some reason I'm still very much interested in following it.
Sweet Tooth #5 : Dear lord this one left me sad. Please tell me someone else is reading this story. I'm not looking forward to next months issue
Deadpool Team-Up #897 : Solid work. The bearded lady was hot.
Haven't read:
Siege (Marvel) #1
Siege Embedded #1
Spider-Man Noir Eyes Without A Face #2
Pretty "meh", i found. Definately missed opportunity with Sentry V. Thor. Copiel's art wasn't as strong as on Thor. It's definately missing that sense of grandeur that he excelled at portraying. I wonder what Loki's game is and assume this happens after the current Thor storyline since they're all still in Latveria in that book?
x-factor: Nation-x
Maddrox says what everyone's thinking: utopia can't last. Much like New Krypton, Atlantis, Asgard, Attilan...these cities of outsiders always end up as failure...its their purpose in the stories. It'd be nice to be proven wrong though. Also, was PAD horny when he wrote this? Entertaining book if for nothing else than PAD's banter.
OH. MY. GOD. HOW. MUCH. DID. I. LOVE. BLACKEST. NIGHT. WONDER. WOMAN?
...
A whole damn lot.
First off, if there was ever any doubt, this is Greg Rucka practically saying "to hell with DC editorial" and writing Wonder Woman his way, as if everything post his run doesn't count. And I loved every second of it!
The internal dialogue, as Diana fights the ring's possession even as externally she batters a clearly outclassed Mera was just wonderful and full of tense emotion.
Visually, you'll notice that the internals of the Black Lantern ring impose themselves over Wonder Woman's until the moment when
the doomed Mera says "we used to be friends" and spits in her face;
after that, Diana's thoughts and the ring fight for dominance over each other, perfectly reflecting what's going on with the page. Then when Diana
regains control almost long enough to sever the hand bearing the ring, it mirrors Diana's willingness to sacrifice her vision to stop Medusa in Rucka's Gorgon arc.
Matter-of-fact, "greater good" Wonder Woman at work.
Then... the moment. THE moment. Well, the first one.
When the black ring reasserts control and Diana rips out Wonder Girl's heart my jaw dropped; I thought for sure Superboy was going to be the one to attempt that.
It stayed dropped when Diana then turned on
Black Lantern Donna Troy and hacked her to bits... Even as her thoughts fell into depsair, the violence of the act again echoed Rucka's past run with the character; she's a warrior who pulls no punches, on her sidekick or her sister or even her mother, yet every act carries a greater emotional weight than she ever lets on.
And then... THE moment, part deux. When that
batarang came across her face and Batman appeared to save Hippolyta, I thought immediately that it was Dick. BUT it wasn't Dick, it was Bruce! BRUCE! And Batman and Black Lantern WW are at each other's throats, and Diana's internal monologue is expressing disbelief that turns into love and suddenly they're KISSING and I was going F*CK YEAH!!!
It was all phony, of course, but I had a damn big grin on my face at that moment because Rucka
ships the Diana/Bruce relationship, Nemesis be damned!
You should read some of the reactions going around on the boards regarding this particular moment, they are hilarious.
The icing on the cake was the appearance of
Aprhodite as Rucka envisioned her in his run on WW, without any of that "spaceborne Olympian refugee" bullsh*t that Simone concocted on her run; she calls upon Athena to help her early on, too, yet in current WW storylines she's supposedly renounced them all.
Rucka's interpretation of the Olympians was one of the things I enjoyed most about his run, and one of many things sorely missed, so seeing that return was a real treat. Of course,
the Cassie/Donna/Polly/Bruce moments were an illusion created by Aphrodite to allow Diana's emotions of love to emerge so that the Star Sapphire ring could reach her.
Next up: Diana Prince, Wonder Woman...
Welcome to the Star Sapphires.
...
On a totally unrelated note, TToB... the moment I thumbed through this week's issue of The Savage Dragon and saw that it's a cover-to-cover, nonstop, city-destroying slugfest between two Dragons I had to have it. I have no idea what's going on, but the fight sold me.
I don't know how you can say that. This one starts off with a crowded Soldier Field getting nuked, Obama getting told off, then a freaking war. Secret Invasion started off with a bunch of talky espionage stuff then dithered around for 3 issues.
Also: HUGE missed opportunity with the Sentry/Thor fight. I don't know wtf Bendis was thinking there.
He was thinking wait for issue #4. Come on, there's no way he passes that up as a climax.
Relatively light week:
Blackest Night #6: Meh. I'm glad everyone else is enjoying it, but I felt pretty flat reading it. There's just no way I buy that
you take Barry Allen over Superman if you're looking for who inspires hope, or that Mera is somehow the most pissed off person on Earth, or that Ray Palmer somehow rates in compassion ahead of every Buddhist monk or Christian nun who works to feed the poor.
This whole thing has just started to feel like a Barry Allen commercial, especially with him front & centre on the next cover. Blackest Night has been really hit or miss for me.
Siege #1: Now this, I liked. Coipel is hands down one of my favourite artists working today, and him drawing a widescreen superwar against the Asgardians is great fun. I think I'm going to enjoy this one.
Doom Patrol #6: Giffen's dialogue has gotten way stronger, but this issue being one long history lesson made it just kinda average. He tries to tie together the history of all the various incarnations of the Doom Patrol, which feels like a wasted exercise to me. Just say "their story makes no sense because they're weird" and move on with it. But that's neither here nor there - my main gripe was the way he had no idea whatsoever what the symbolism behind Rebis was about, or what the infamous Aenigma Regis issue meant, so he basically just admitted as much and wrote it off like "and then I went crazy and became a hermaphrodite, the end." That's doing the character a major disservice. It was still an alright issue in the end, but there is just so much to be explored symbolically with this character and I'm a little disappointed Giffen didn't have the chops.
New Mutants #9 As much as I liked Siege, this might have been my favourite book of the week. Paul Davidson is an artist I'd like to see this series keep around - he doesn't do so well with expressions or keeping Cypher & Cannonball distinct, but he did great at everything else. The X-books have forever been self-referential to the point of near incomprehensibility, and this issue comes close to that for anyone who doesn't have a stack of 25 years of Illyana Rasputin comics. But I loved the military unit coming out of limbo, I love Cypher's new characterization, and Wells generally does a fantastic job with the dialogue, so the issue as a whole manages to overcome that. I like that he's doing a slow burn on this series, everything is now starting to fit together right from the first issue, building up slowly but satisfyingly.
New teaser image for the Loeb/Adams debacle-in-the-making Ultimate X, Teenverine stands front and center with what looks like three other characters behind him... long-haired girl, a bird thing of some sort and Human Torch?
He wasn't always one, though. Prior to his son's death, his work was mostly well-received at DC and Marvel. Long Halloween, Superman for All Seasons, Hush, the Marvel "color" books... then he did Superman/Batman, which was pretty far out there, and after his son's death he jumped to Marvel. Ever since, his work's been mixed or terrible, but still sells like gangbusters.
So my friend harassed me and sent me geeky enough pictures that I had to cave and picked up the first two trades of Scott Pilgrim. (Quick note, I don't really like Forbidden Planet organization at times for those of you who visit)
Anyhow, I read the first one and pretty solid stuff. I find it funny and nicely paced, but the art is so odd they just don't come off as adult or young adults to me.
Not Skittleguy; but I've always found Hellboy conceptually and visually interesting. However the stories and writing never really grab me. It always feels like Mike Mignola flexing his exhaustive knowledge of occult and folklore, but never really a cohesive story.
If you're a fan of Hellboy or monster comics; you may also want to give Dan Brereton's Nocturnal's a shot. It's a bit more fully realized and gobs of fun with similarly cool characters:
Spike Spiegel said:
New teaser image for the Loeb/Adams debacle-in-the-making Ultimate X, Teenverine stands front and center with what looks like three other characters behind him... long-haired girl, a bird thing of some sort and Human Torch?
New teaser image for the Loeb/Adams debacle-in-the-making Ultimate X, Teenverine stands front and center with what looks like three other characters behind him... long-haired girl, a bird thing of some sort and Human Torch?
I haven't read it but wouldn't it make sense that it would be the woman that Jackpot took her identity from in order to register? Spidey kind of pushed her at the end of that Annual to become the hero she was meant to be.
Hmm next U(C)SM is penciled by Miyazawa, should be a nice one issue break from Lafuente while keeping in the same general vein of artwork (as in more "kiddish").
