It's Thursday and that means it's time for the Weekly Crisis Quick Shot Reviews! These are the shorter, more condensed reviews of the assorted books I didn't get a chance to do a full review in yesterdays Weekly Crisis Comic Book Reviews. Make sure you check out those if you missed them and be sure to be back here tomorrow for the Comic Book Moments of the Week! When you're ready, hit the jump for today's reviews.
COUNTDOWN TO ADVENTURE #3 - This was probably the weakest outing from Adventure. Most of the Starfire / Animal Man / Strange story felt like filler. Everyone is going insane from the Lady Styx virus, but still no explanation for it. Aliens are still coming to purge Earth of it. Rann is still rioting, similar to Earth. We're exactly where we were last issue for all intents and purposes.On the Forerunner side of things, we get to see the magic based Earth-33. Always cool to see these alternate versions of our heroes and it was interesting to see Forerunner's first actual loss in battle. Only problem is with the introduction of the Dark Angel villain as she just shows up as the Oracle out of no where with practically no build up whatsoever. Hopefully next issue will give us some background info.
Verdict - Check It.
DYNAMO 5 #8 - The first arc of this series was pretty good. I liked the team dynamic and varied power sets given to different archtypes, like the jock with telepathic powers and so on.However, this issue just felt a bit generic. It's just a random super hero vs super villain slugfest that spends way too much time on a rather boring fight.
There's some seeds for a future plot, but based on this issue alone, there's not much to see here. Little to no character development as well. I hope the next issue can return to the much more enjoyable style and tone of the earlier issues.
Verdict - Skip It.
THE DEATH OF THE NEW GODS #2 - Well, this was a waste of time. Scott Free gets to turn emo with his new dark and brooding attitude and costume.Orion and Superman spend half the issue tearing up New Genesis fighting each other for no other reason than to have a fight in the issue and the Death of the New Gods plot has not moved in the slightest. And why did they have to include Superman? This is about the New Gods. Stop sticking Superman or Batman into random stories when they have nothing to do with it just to sell a few more issues.
Little tip for DC. Don't make long ass mini-series if all you have to offer is filler issues.
Verdict - Skip It.
JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #10 - I can't see what the delay was for this issue. It reads ridiculously fast. Couple minutes flat and very little happens. The art is fairly average and pretty much in line with every other issue, as well. Not sure if it was held back by DC for marketing reasons or what. And while some might appreciate the painted Kingdom Come splash pages, they didn't really bring anything to the actual plot.I was looking forward to the Power Girl interaction, but she was kept off panel the entire issue. Only really decent part of the issue was the interaction with Starman, which was hilarious, and the rest of the JSA in the opening 3 or 4 pages. Rest of the book felt like filler.
Also, was there a reason for the generic super hero fight as KC Superman went to save the suicidal girl? Could he not just say there's someone about to die and he has to go? Why did he bust out through the door into all the heroes when he could have just went out the side of the building, avoiding all the JSA? Resorting to cliched 'misunderstanding fights'? Johns is better than this.
Verdict - Skip It.
ULTIMATE POWER #8 - There's a serious dip in the quality of this series in the last few issues, most likely due to Loeb, but let's share the blame with Bendis and JMS as well for posterities sake.I'd really like to know why every second person talks in THEIR LOUD VOICE with random speech bubbles full of caps and bold text. IS THERE A REASON FOR THIS? Or is it just some new form of emphasis?
And Dr Doom was a Doombot? WTF? He was kicking everyone's ass when they had that big cliffhanger reveal of him and now he's just a robot? Yeahbuwha?
And the random duplicate Squadron Supreme? Ya, they just go around repeating every word said by the Supreme Power team and give Land another excuse to reuse his traced images from this same issue.
Did I mention nothing happens this issue except for a few porn 'Oh faces'?
Verdict - Burn It With Fire.
52 AFTERMATH: CRIME BIBLE - FIVE LESSONS OF BLOOD - Can we have a few more subtitles for this book? I don't think the title is long enough yet. All joking aside, this was a fairly good start to the Crime Bible mini-series. I like the art and that cover is incredible.However, the opening pages were just a wall of text with the excerpt from the Crime Bible and those crazy cultists followed up by the boring author's spiel. I thought I was going to have to just put the book down, to be honest. When Montoya (I refuse to call her the Question) finally shows up, the pace and tone of the book gets so much better.
Not sure where Rucka is going with this mini-series though, as the issue reads almost like a one shot with a rather definitive ending to this little mystery issue. I'm sure we'll see more of the cult from the opening pages in the following chapters though, but this issue feels like a throw away one-shot or filler at this point in time.
Verdict - Check It.
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JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #10 - Wow, you didn't like this issue? I think the art is quite good, there is actually nothing to quibble about compared to other books. The splash page may be seen as overkill but without Alex Ross' art the pages about KC-Earth would look odd. As I read it, KC-Sup couldn't just fly around in his pyjamas. He didn't learn about the girl during the brawl, he heard her whisper later, while evading his pursuers. The interaction between Jay and Wally and the evocation of Barry's cosmic treadmill was pretty cool, and Obsidian's chat with KC-Sup, Batman lost in his own thoughts, Kara still mourning her cousin, the Goth mystery (Surely I am not the only one wondering what is going on with Dr. Midnight?), the few intersperced scenes about the New Gods… The whole thing was interesting IMHO.
It's not that I didn't like the issue so to speak. It's more along the lines that anyone that was interested in getting JSA based on the KC Superman hype should skip it as there's not much offered to them.
Obviously, JSA fans will still like the book. I was a little disappointed with the issue as a fan of the JSA though and I felt that the issue just didnt live up to expectations and rated it as such. Let's just say it's better than other books, but not as good as previous issues of JSA. Kind of like it was rated against itself.
As for the art, I wasn't saying it was bad art, just that for the amount of delays for this issue there wasn't much of an improvement over the usual work. I like the art and think it's great and was only commenting trying to figure out why this book was delayed so long.
And I'm not saying they should have got someone else to do those Alex Ross pages. I'm saying they didn't have any purpose and added nothing to the story. They were just pin-ups stuck in the middle of random pages as far as I can tell.
Oh ya, I don't think that's a New God plot going on. It seems more like someone is killing off characters with god complexes. As far as I know, Goth and Chroma aren't New Gods, but I could be wrong. Goth would have died and had a whole in his heart area if it was the same killer. Same for Chroma.
And it looks like Dr Midnight is going to turn into his smokey appearance from Kingdom Come if the smokey cough is any indication.
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