Hello again everyone! Before we start, in case you missed it last week, what with the holidays and all, please feel free to check out my Best of 2007 Comic Book Awards. It was a lot of fun to put together and I'd love to hear everyone's own picks and opinions on the awards.
Also, to make up for yesterday's relatively light Weekly Crisis Comic Book Reviews, I've put together a much more robust Quick Shot Reviews for you today. Again, since this week's comics were released Friday, you can expect the Moments of the Week tomorrow and, hopefully, everything will be back to normal for next week, but with New Years, I expect more delayed comic releases from Diamond. Enough with the doom and gloom, though. Hit the jump for the reviews!
Also, to make up for yesterday's relatively light Weekly Crisis Comic Book Reviews, I've put together a much more robust Quick Shot Reviews for you today. Again, since this week's comics were released Friday, you can expect the Moments of the Week tomorrow and, hopefully, everything will be back to normal for next week, but with New Years, I expect more delayed comic releases from Diamond. Enough with the doom and gloom, though. Hit the jump for the reviews!
ACTION COMICS #860Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Gary Frank
I really feel like I'm missing half the story whenever I read a new chapter in this Legion storyline. I've never followed their exploits, for the most part, and every issue seems to throw more and more new, to me, characters into the mix. Whenever something happens or there's a fight, I need a little cheatsheet to keep track of everyone and I'm left wondering if so and so character was important or just some throwaway in terms of the story.
Despite that, I'm still enjoying this arc. Frank's art is still a little odd compared to his Supreme Power and earlier work, but good none the less. I'm quite interested in finding out what caused all these problems and why Brainiac 5 is now a badguy.
But, for the reasons in the opening paragraph, I still feel like I'm being left on the outside looking in with the overwhelming amount of characters being introduced. On top of that, I have no idea where this fits in established continuity and the number of times the Legion has been rebooted. Heck, the current Legion series doesn't seem to sync up with this one and I don't even think this is the same Legion from the JLA / JSA Lightning Saga from earlier in the year. So, I can't even really look up any information or backstory on these characters as it's most likely wrong.
This month's issue just has Superman and the Legion free some of their friends and finding out that Brainiac already escaped. From here, they head to the underground Legion base where the evil JLA tracks them down. Before they can capture them, the Legion makes their escape as they head to Brainiac's homeworld to find him. There, they find him and he's apparently evil, ending our issue.
Verdict - Check It.
BATMAN #672Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Tony Daniel
To be honest, I liked the first couple parts of this Batmen story that Grant set up after his initial Son of the Bat and the 666 issue was a fun romp through a future with Damian as Batman.
However, the long break didn't do the return to this story any favours. Morrison seems to be throwing out random crap at the wall and seeing what sticks in this story. There is no follow up or reference to the "major Ra's al Ghul event" that took over the books for the past month or two. Doesn't even seem like that story happened.
On top of this, this third Batman seems to be far superior to Bruce and takes him down with little to no effort. In fact, it looks like our Batman is a rank amateur and his heart is stopping at the end of this issue, prompting him to summon Bat-Mite for help. What the hell, Grant? You were supposed to get better as your run on Batman continued, not spiral out of control. The only saving grace in this issue is Tony Daniel's excellent art.
Verdict - Avoid It.
COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #18Script by Paul Dini
Breakdowns by Keith Giffen
Written by Sean McKeever
Art by Scott Kolins
The Search for Ray Palmer finally concluded this week in Countdown. Apparently, he's on Earth-51, where he's replaced that Earth's version of himself, who he witnessed dying in a lab experiment. Since then, he's been shacking up with that Earth's Jean and living the good life as he worked on the experiment that killed that Earth's Ray. It supposedly holds the key to stopping the Great Disaster.
After that brief recap for the Challengers, Bob, the supposedly good Monitor, reveals that Ray Palmer must die as he towers over him with a glowing fist of doom. Every single Monitor has been a relative push over from what I've seen, so I don't really get how Atom can't just shrink out of harms way or how the Challengers can't take him down. If I recall, in the Ion series, Donna and Kyle had pretty much no trouble against a Monitor and the Extremists took out Bob with ease in Countdown, as did just about every other threat they've run into. So, while I liked the little twist at the end of this issue and it did make sense if you think about it, the threat just doesn't seem to match up with what we've seen of these Monitors.
Oh ya, Mary Marvel's powers and story continue to make little to no sense as she overpowers Eclipso with little to no effort. Hopefully they just kill Mary and end all our suffering as we are subjected to that story week after week.
Verdict - Check It.
DAREDEVIL #103Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Michael Lark
The Without Fear story Brubaker has been building seems to have stalled out after the solid opening chapters. The required six issue trade format might be a factor in these last two issues rather sluggish pace.
We, basically, see a lot of exposition and 'Daredevil patrolling' scenes. Milla is still sick and shows no signs of recovery. Matt tracks down the Ox after a long sequence showing him beating on some thugs and, later, the villains' version of the Night Nurse. This set up what I consider the best part of this issue - DD's capturing of Ox. He runs down the fleeing Ox with a taxi cab and then chains him up in an abandonned factory. Forgoing the typical interrogation methods, the issue ends with Matt lighting up the welding torch in one of my favourite moments from this week.
However, one excellent scene doesn't make up for an otherwise decompressed and boring issue and keeps this issue from being a Must Read for me.
Verdict - Check It.
ULTIMATE POWER #9Written by Jeph Loeb
Art by Greg Land
When the hell are they going to ban Jeph Loeb from writing comics? I can't think of a single issue he's written since probably his last collaboration with Tim Sale that I would consider even remotely decent.
Honestly, I could probably write a 10 page essay on how bad this story was, but I'll keep it short here. Most of the opening pages consist of giant word balloons recapping previous events. Yes, that huge opening recap page wasn't enough for him, he had to beat us over the head for several pages with random people spouting stuff that happened in earlier issues. This is actually the best part of this issue.
The entire issue was dedicated to beating up the Hulk. In the end, Spider-Man webs his eyes shut, Sue Storm puts a bubble on his head and the Thing knocks him out with one punch. Despite the fact the only 'injury' he's sustained is Wolverine stabbing him before nearly having his head ripped off by Hulk. So, one punch from the weaker Thing seems like it would do the trick.
Wait a minute, what about that virus that was killing this world and stuff? Well, with the Doombot destroyed, it looks like Nick Fury was the bad guy behind all this. Ya, the guy who recently lost an arm defending America in Ultimates 2 (and mysteriously has 2 arms here) was the villain who tried to take over the Supreme Power world by killing everyone with that spore and blaming it on Reed Richards. Yeahbuwha? On what planet does that even make sense? After this retarded revelation, Nick stays behind on this world as the villain of this horrible, horrible series and in exchange, Zarda comes back to the Ultimate Universe to make sure we don't plan to attack their universe again or something.
Goddamn it, Loeb.
Verdict - Return For Refund.
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #117Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Stuart Immonen
I don't even know how some of these things line up with the ending of Ultimate Power anymore. Spider-Man was freaking there when Nick Fury was captured as a badguy and knows why he isn't leading SHIELD anymore yet doesn't want to deal with Carol Danvers because she's not Nick Fury and he doesn't trust her. What the hell?
Ignoring the random shit Loeb has messed up with his ending to Power, this was a solid ending to the Death of a Goblin story. While I feel Bendis rushed to his conclusion by throwing Harry in at the end of the last issue and basically killing both him and Norman off in this issue, it was still a relatively satisfying conclusion.
However, Immonen's art seemed a bit rushed in this issue. Just felt a lot more frantic and scratchy, if that's a word to describe art, and nothing like his Nextwave or the Hellcat stuff he's been doing in Marvel Comics Presents or even his previous USM work. It was not bad by any means, but just felt like it wasn't up to snuff compared to earlier issues and left me, for the first time, wishing Bagley was still on the book.
Still, a great book and USM remains one of the most consistent books on the market and a guaranteed solid read.
Verdict - Must Read.
Follow each of us on Twitter:
2 comments:
Every time I read a DC book, I feel like I missed an issue. This happens most often with Action Comics, Green Lantern Corps, Batman and Superman.
Is it the lack of a recap page? Bad pacing? Little to no exposition? I can't tell for sure, but it's lead to be dropping Action, Detective, Batman and Superman all together.
On Ultimate Power #9
I'm not going to comment on Loeb. I'm not going to comment the character exchange program.
I’m not going to comment on Spider-man hitting on Invisible Woman. I’m not going to comment on that dialogue between Iron Man and Captain. I’m not. Seriously. Like you said, 10 pages. Front and back.
No, right now I’d like us all to look around and ask: What was Nick Fury’s crime? What will he stand trial for?
On Ultimate Power #7 (which has the same writer of #9 – God knows we can get lost in this MINI-series) Burbank explicitly states that the ‘organism’ was created by him, for his government. No Fury. He was the fall guy. And the heroes know. Richard knows and somehow, he calls Fury ‘co-conspirator’.
Fury bugged Mr. Fantastic’s little flying metallic ball thingys. Which he [Fury] very likely owns anyway. That’s all. And what those two do with their metallic balls in their own universe is no business of Hyperion’s.
You know, I was resigned to the idea of Fury moving from the able hands of Millar and Bendis to the able hands of Straczynski. We were told that somebody was going away, and Ultimates v2 #13 and the Death of a Goblin arc pointed to Fury. But not like this. And who the heck gets Zarda? –Gulp- not Loeb, right? Oh, man…
Ok, I know, I lied on my first two statements (Loeb/Character Exchange program), but the rest is sadly true.
Thanks for letting me vent,
Corinto
Post a Comment
Thanks for checking out the Weekly Crisis - Comic Book Review Blog. Comments are always appreciated. You can sign in and comment with any Google, Wordpress, Live Journal, AIM, OpenID or TypePad account.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.