Review time! Spoilers ahoy!
And, since I'm stuck in my hometown and particularly bored, I'm going to grade the titles as well, with a system cheerfully stolen from Jeff "Moriarty" Meyer's old Usenet reviews:
A - One of the best of the year. i.e. Morrison and Quitely's WE3.
B - A very good issue, one of the best of the month (usually 6/month).
C - A well done, entertaining issue. Satisfying. i.e. Ultimate Spider-Man.
D - Rather boring, or a few good spots mixed with more bad ones.
E - Boring AND stupid or childish. Example: Liefeld's new X-Force mini.
F - Actually offensive. i.e. The low points of Chuck Austen's X-Men run.
I'm reviewing two weeks worth of comics at once, and a particularly heavy two weeks at that. I'm also reviewing in the order I read my comics - favorites last. So, here we go:
Wonder Woman #210 -
C I was on the verge of cancelling this title a few issues back, but thought I'd stick it out through the end of the "Stoned" storyarc. Glad I did - this was a solid conclusion, and Wonder Woman's suprise tactic (as it were) is an interesting twist. Not that it's going to last, mind you. I also liked the reactions to folks watching the battle over television, even if parts were a tad over the top.
Birds of Prey #76 -
C- In which the Birds kick off their new globe trotting strategy, starting by hunting down vigilante types. Thus, we get an angsty (though, admittedly with good reason) goth girl hanging out with her Wicca coven and killing drug dealers. Her powers are fun, if improbable, but some of the plot twists are lame. And, speaking of lame, dialogue like "I'm not a bad person. I just did a bad thing." doesn't help. Still, good overall, with an interesting Babs plot twist thrown in. If you haven't been reading BoP, this is a good self-contained issue to start with.
Ultimate Fantastic Four #13 -
C+ Ellis is starting to hit his stride, with plenty of good FF characterization, some decent gags, and a fairly improbable sales pitch by Reed. Okay, so the later is a bit of a stretch (ahem), but nothing deal breaking. Hell, even the technobabble is entertaining.
Ultimate X-Men #53 -
C- As
Paul O'Brien mentioned in his own review, it's a shame the Ultimate line feels the need to slavishly follow so much of the source continuity, 'cause Gambit and Rogue hooking up here is more than a bit forced. On the other hand, there's plenty of angst (the cornerstone of the teen hero book) and Ultimate Dazzler (who really looks like she should be Ultimate Lila Cheney) is a lot of fun.
Ultimate Spider-Man -
C+ A particularly good issue, with great intereaction between Johnny Storm and our boy Spidey. It's nice to see some hope thrown in amongst the aforementioned teen agnst. It's also nice to see Bendis doing two-part storylines; hopefully Marvel has gotten past it's recent impulse to stretch everything out into a six part storyarc.
New Thunderbolts #2 -
C Nothing says "continuity" quite like an appearance by The Wrecking Crew. In true T-bolts fashion, we spend a lot of time focusing on villians trying to become heroes, with more than a few secrets lurking in the background and waiting to cause the whole thing to blow up. Can't say I'm entirely sold on the Great Game plot, but I'm cautiously optamistic.
The Pulse -
D I don't mind that they're doing a tie-in storyline with Secret War. I just wish the first issue wasn't basically a Secret War recap. If you've been following SW, you've already read 2/3 of this issue. Sure, things will pick up now that the setup is out of the way, but the setup was rather less than exciting. That said, if you haven't been reading Secret War, feel free to bump this up to a C or so.
Tom Strong's Terrific Tales #12 -
D+ This spin-off series goes out with a bit of a whimper. Alan Moore doing Peter Bagge is remarkably dull, even with Bagge providing art duties. (Caveat: Can't say I'm a Bagge fan.) Young Tom Strong suceeds in bridging the final continuity gap between Tom's early years and his arrival in Millennium City; alas, it fails in making this interesting. And, Jonni Future is incoherant, but makes up for it with loads of gratuitous cheesecake. Overall, TSTT has been fun, but this was disappointing. I'll miss Jonni Future, though. Perhaps they'll make a mini-series...
She-Hulk #9 -
B+ As usual, this is, hands down, Marvel's finest title. Naturally, it's getting axed, but thanks to it's impending re-launch I don't have to drive to New York and physically assault some editors. Instead, I can hang out at the comic shop with a baseball bat and "encourage" the fanboys to give this title a try. What, you want to know about the content? What's to know? It's fucking awesome, with extra awesomeness provided by Awesome Andy's awesome Doop shirt and Hercules' drinking song antics. John Byrne, eat yer heart out.
Sleeper, Season Two #6 -
C And Sleeper continues to be rock solid. I'm not entirely sure if Faghag's origin story is hysterically ludicrous or just ludicrous, but it's certainly, er, something. And it's glad to see the conspiracy widen just a bit.
Powers Vol. 2 #6 -
B- And the first post-hiatus story arc wraps up with all manner of ass-kicking, with particularly good art from Oeming. Okay, so having a full range of color return along with the heroes wasn't exactly subtle, but who cares. Oh, and Pilgram's plot thread is developing very nicely. Terrific stuff all around. Oh, and for those keeping score at home, not a single woman shows up in the personals this time around. I know, shocking ain't it?
Dork Tower #29 -
B Kovalic takes a break from the geek humor to finally bring the saga of Matt's love-life to a breaking point, and it's one helluva issue. While I'm all for Dork Tower's general format of some plot, followed by several short gag strips, it was nice to see Kovalic do a long form story that's light on references and heavy on characterization. Hell, it's even got references to Blue Monday thrown in. An excellent pay-off, with the promise ("...Dork Tower is plotted out through issue #50...") of plenty more to come.
The Walking Dead #13 -
C+ Hey, look, it's Dawn of the Dead. Can't argue with that. Kirkman's Zombie saga kicks off a new status quo, and it's rock solid as ever. The twist isn't exactly a major suprise, but that's not really the point and I'm looking forward to see where the new storyline goes. For those of you who dug the first collection, the second volume just came out, so go buy it. For those of you who have yet to read an issue, for the love of pete, just go pony up the ten bucks for the first collection already. Sheesh!
Ex Machina #6 -
B+ I could rhapsodize about the excellent backstory moment (giving our hero a chance to show off his powers), but I'll just skip ahead to what you're really here for - gripping school voucher debates! Which are actually quite fun but have nothing on the introduction of Hundred's newest challenge. Hint: it's the key mayoral issue of our times. Throw in grisly antics in the subways and a hint of romance and you've got the best new ongoing title since Y the Last Man. Go, Vaughan, go!
Frank Ironwine #1 -
A- Don't let the #1 throw you; as mentioned, this is one of Ellis's Apparat Singles Group one-shots. The result is beautifully self-contained, and makes me long to see this evolve into the ongoing series it pretends to be. Ellis provides extensive notes in the back where he professes his love of Columbo and explains the high concept: a contemporary American title from a world where superheros never happened. In particular, Frank Ironwine rolls with the pulp detective story, and does it phenomenally well. The proceedural is great, but what really makes this are the characters (Ironwine is a bit of an Ellis cliche, but it's such a good riff that I can't be bothered to worry about it, and the rookie performs her role as foil admirably), bang-up dialogue, and several nice moments where Ironwine waxes eloquent about New York City's bloody past. However, what really puts it over the top is Carla Speed McNeil's typically exceptional artwork. Seeing Ellis take a break from his usual slower, manga-style storylines to do an issue crammed full is just gravy. Worth every penny of your $3.50; go buy it right now.
Please Save My Earth Vol. 7 -
C+ PSME continues to chug along, reaching up to around the end of OVA 5 for those of you who saw the anime. Which means that all this is just dandy (in that late-80s shoujo SF sort of way), but will be even better once the manga reaches parts of the storyline I don't already know. At this rate, we should be there any volume now, and I can't wait.
Bosom Enemies #4 -
B I didn't even see this solicited, and was very pleasantly suprised to see it show up in my bag. I was also suprised to see Donna Barr bring her sporadically published saga to a close. Fortunatly, she did so with flying colors, especailly for a title about a German officer and an American GI in WWII finding themselves trapped in a world where the horses are more like people and vice-versa. In this final volume they find themselves back in human form in San Francisco circa 1970. Relatives are met, pot is smoked, there are multiple transitions back to their half-horse forms (with shades of her title Stinz showing up), and, finally, a happy ending. As always, no one on the face of the planet is doing comics quite like Barr; thank god it looks like she'll be publishing more sporadically from now on. Who knows, with Bosom Enemies wrapped up we might be seeing more Desert Peach in our future.
Whew. Man, that was a lot of comics. I still need to snag Ojo #3, which will have to wait until I find a copy of Ojo #2, and I haven't gotten to Five Star Stories #23, which belatedly showed up this week. Eh, that's plenty to write about just this moment.
Let me know if y'all enjoyed the reviews. If so, I'll try to have another batch together by next week. Now I'm off to dig into a pile of Matt Wagner's Mage comics that I picked up recently and have been meaning to read for positively ages.
FnordChan
