Detective Comics #854

My only brush with Greg Rucka came through his work on 52. Where he put a lot of work into the entwined stories of  Batwoman and The Question. So I guess it’s only fitting that I get reacquainted with his work through a book that stars those two characters. Yes I’m aware they had their own post-52 miniseries, but I didn’t read that as, to me , that particular story seemed to have been played out in the pages of 52 already.

At first glance the Kate Kane in this book seems vastly different than that one who appeared in 52. She’s less a socialite and more of an army brat. She’s got tattoos and it’s implied she sleeps (or slept) around. Yes, she’s still a lesbian, and yes it comes up but only in a way to flesh out her “committed to the mission” mindset.

Before this book, id you’d asked me to point out art by JH Williams I woul’dve had no chance. Would not know him from a bar of soap. After reading this book I have every panel burnt out to my brian. In a good way of course. And the panel layout. Wow. There’s one two page sequence depicting that I loved. A series of lightning bolt panels depicts Batwoman talking to Batman then heading back to base and changing back into civillian clothes, underscored by a shot of Batwoman, on her motorcycle, shooting across the page.

There’s this incredible amount of energy that crackles off every page.

Meanwhile over in the Question backup…sorry “co-feature”, Renee Montoya seems to have become DC’s answer to the Heroes for Hire. Using an email account and/or website to solicit investigative work. Her first case pitting her against human traffickers.

It reads like it was originally pitched as a full length story that’s been slimmed down through precise cuts. Nothing is missing really, but there’s no great explanation of the bad guy possible motives, just that he’s the damn bad guy.

Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Utopia #1

After the letdown of an event that was Brian Michael Bendis’ Secret Invasion I harboured a feeling that, given half a chance, Matt Fraction could easy write the next Marvel event. And here it is.

I’m glad it’s not a company-wide thing as I really couldn’t handle another one of those from Marvel. But it does carry the Dark Reign tag, which I cna’t really get enthused about. Even though most of the Marvel side of my pull list involves Dark Reign in some way.

The story seems organic enough. At the end of Secret Invasion, when Norman Osbourne was given the job of…well whatever the hell it is he actually does, he put all mutants on notice. Telling Emma Frost that if they couldn’t control themselves then he would. Or words to that effect.

In this first issue of the indeterminately long miniseries (there’s no “#1 of #3″ on the cover, just “Chapter One”) Simon Trask organises a march on San Fransisco in support of a new law to sterilise all mutants, which of course leads to all hell breaking loose. Really, nobody watched the first 10 minutes of Die Hard 3?

With half of San Fransisco on fire Norman Osbourne makes good on his promise and sends in the Dark Avengers to control things. Which of course they don’t because they’re all psychopaths. Then Norman takes Emma Frost aside reitterates whats he first told her and then promotes her to Leader of All Mutants. Charles Xavier shows up to talk down Cyclops, but it’s revealed to the  reader that the real Charles Xavier is lying in a prison cell with his brain leaking down his shirt. None of which makes a whole lot of a sense.

But, this is only the first issue, and I’ve got enough faith that Fraction will spin out a few interesting concepts before bringing everything to a decent conclusion.

Of  course Marvel get full praise for keeping Greg Land as far from this story as possible. Marc Silvestri handles the art in a passable fashion. It’s a lot more basic than his linework from back when Grant Morrison wrote the book, with most of the humans looking like scarecrows. And a small but significant drawing of a continuity-breaking, male Loki.

Complete List

Detective Comics #854
Green Lantern #42
Astonishing X-Men #30
Avengers: Initiative #25
Dark Avengers #6
Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Utopia #1
Immortal Iron Fist TP Vol 04 Mortal Iron Fist
Ms Marvel #40
New Avengers #54
Runaways 3 #11
Secret Warriors #5
Thunderbolts #133
Uncanny X-Men #512
X-Factor #45
X-Force #16
Wizard Magazine #214

Green Lantern #38

There’s no messing around with the Hal Jordan-as-a-Red Lantern stuff from the end of the last issue. It’s dealt with by the middle of the book, in a way that puts a lot of emphasis on why the Blue Lanterns exist. Of course there’s a  downside in that it unfortunately destroys my theory that Hal Jordan would control all the rings by the end of the War of Light.

There’s a lot to enjoy in this book. The way it jumped from Ysmault to Earth to Qward to the Vega System providing little hooks into future storylines. Like Carol Ferris returning to the Star Sapphires (now Violet Lanterns) after playing a major part in their formation way back in The Sins of the Star Sapphires story arc; Sinestro escaping back to Qward to prepare for his incursion into the Green Lantern Corps book to face off against Mongul for the leadership of Sinestro’s eponymous Corps; and the Controllers heading to the Vega System to remind everyone that the Agent Orange story starts next month.

As the Blackest Night mini-event gets closer both Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps books are picking up a lot of momentum, especially this book. I still remember how slowly Secret Origin plodded along just to set up Atrocitus as the Red Lantern big bad, so I really shouldn’t complain about pacing. I got what I wished for.

X-Force #12

Back in New X-Men Kyle and Yost spun some really great tales featuring the kids versus long time X-Men foes like Reverend Stryker. When they announced the move to X-Force (along with initial character sketches) I was, much like the rest of the internet, immediately skeptical. A year later I’m happy to say that I was wrong. X-Force is good. Better than it deserves to be, for sure, But I like it.

Well ‘liked’ might be a better word. This issue was just very, very underwhelming.

It starts off with the team quickly realising that they weren’t exactly successful in keeping Bastion from the getting his robot hands on the Legacy Virus (as seen last issue). D-grade mutants start showing up in the middle of pro-human rallys, with their powers flaring wildly out of control, killing all the protesters.

Apart from that, not a whole lot actually happens this issue. There is an incredibly awkward exchange between Rahne, in wolf-humanoid form, and some sort of Asgardian wolf-god. But the less said about that the better.

If I was going to choose a shining moment it would be finding out, on the recap page of all places, that Domino has a real name.

Just so I don’t end on a downer I thought I’d mention the colouring. The usual muted grey/brown palette gets a huge kick this issue with the addition bright oranges and pinks of the energy spikes spinning off the Legacy Virus-infected.

———–

I’m off on holiday next week, so no reviews for a couple of weeks. Once I’m settled in I’ll be changing the reviews up a bit. I’m running low of the spare time needed to properly review a books so I’ll just be reviewing the one book each week. I’m going to randomly pick the book out of the weekly pile so it could be the worst or it could be the best.

Complete List

Green Lantern #38
Trinity #39
Avengers: Initiative #22
Mighty Avengers #22
Ms Marvel #36
New Avengers #50
Runaways vol 3 #7
Thunderbolts #129
X-Force #12
Wizard Magazine #210
Angel #18

Final Crisis #7 (of 7)

Well this was certainly something.

If you didn’t read Superman: Beyond before this final issue I would imagine that this would come across as a garbled mess.  Even after reading S:B, it still has a lot of rough edges.

It’s main strength is that it doesn’t play out as a typical event line-wide comic (though it is hindered by misdirected marketing on DC’s behalf). There’s no great universal upheaval that affects every single character. This is Superman’s story and, to a lesser extent, Batman’s. But it is enjoyable, and that’s the main point.

Like all serial minis there’s a lot of questions left unanswered. I could write these down, but instead I’ll direct you to The Final Crisis FAQ project over at Comics Should Be Good. They seem to be doing a better job of it.

Legion of Super Heroes #50

Wow. I take back everything I said about Final Crisis’ empty ending.

I’m well aware that Jim Shooter had to hack at the main plotlines he’d been building for the past year, but this is just ridiculous. What should be a huge monumental battle between good and evil is not much more than a skirmish between seven Legionaries and a handful of bad guys.

The dangling thread about the fate of Dream Girl, something given all of three panels over the last four issues,  is given a resolution at the very end, but with most of the work seemingly handled off panel it just comes across as filler. Then there’s the big reveal last issue of Princess Projectra being the final Big Bad. But that’s completely dropped.

I’ve only read one issue of Geoff John’s Superman and the Legion of Superheroes and the two issues of Legion of Three Worlds, but they’ve been a lot more fun to read than the last year or so of this series. I guess that’s the major problem I had with this title. Jim Shooter forgot to make it fun, and it suffered for that.

Long live the Legion!

Note: I’ve read that Jim Shooter didn’t even write this last issue. Can’t wait to here the story behind that.

New Avengers #49

I sat down to read this fully expecting that the “search for the baby” plot would be stretched out for at least six issues. That Bendis managed to resolve it in under 22 pages, with next-to-no decompression, is nothing less than a small miracle.

If Bendis can keep that pace up for at least half a year then I’ll be a happy guy.

Complete List

Final Crisis #7 (of 7)
Legion of Super Heroes #50
Trinity #35
Avengers Initiative #21
Ms Marvel #35
New Avengers #49
Runaways 3 #6
X-Force #11
Wizard Magazine #209 Dark Avengers Cvr

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #20

Readers of this site and followers of my Twitter account may know of my utter disappointment with anything that comes from Jeph Loeb’s hand. So it was with utmost trepidation that I sat down and started in on this book.

Just a note of warning: this is a book for the hardcore fans only. Unless you’ve been watching the show since episode one you will be lost.

The meat of this book is a flackback to season 2 of the TV show in the style of the animated series that was proposed wayback when.

There’s a couple of decent enough moments in the book, Like Buffy thinking back to Angel’s words of advice and getting them mixed up. But the majority of it is just incredibly bad. Like the “real-life” scenes that bookend the cartoony middle. The characters are written so over the top that they border on parody. They get worse once the cartoon sequence begins.

And Loeb? Points off for using the same lame Wizard of Oz reference that you used in the season finale of Heroes. It wasn’t good then and it’s not good in this book.

Thank the various gods that this is just a one shot. I don’t think I could handle another Loeb issue.

Mighty Avengers #20

When Secret Invasion started way back at the start of the year both the Mighty and New Avengers books were hijacked to provide for filler material.

You could easily class this book as more filler, but the writing, by Bendis, is just so much better than the main Secret Invasion book. I wonder how much better SI would’ve been had Bendis stuck to the small character-focused arcs, rather than resorting to scenes where the Skrulls break out the big guns.

Probably my favourite part was the silent montage of Ms Marvel filling in Hank Pym on the Marvel Universe happenings since he’s been gone. Can’t wait for the inevitable photoshops where Captain America’s death is replaced with pictures of Sarah Palin. If it hasn’t happened already that is.

There’s three artists listed in the credits: Lee Weeks, Jim Cheung and Carlo Pagulayan. I don’t know why they needed three different artists to finish off this book as it’s just a standard 22 pager. No upsizing at all. Which is strange as this is Bendis’ last issue of Mighty Avengers. Dan Slott takes over next month ad for the foreseeable future (hopefully).

Complete List:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #20
Ex Machina #40
Trinity #29
Avengers: Initiative #19
Dark Reign New Nation
Mighty Avengers #20
Thor: God-Size Special #1
Thunderbolts #127
Ultimate Fantastic Four #59
Uncanny X-Men #505
X-Factor #38
X-Men: Legacy #219