I managed to get most of the reviews done early today, but I'm missing two or three. I need some food before my brain stops functioning, so I'll get to those later tonight. Even with those couple missing from the pile, I've still put together half a dozen or so reviews for the time being. Check back later this evening. I should have updated with the other reviews by then.Oh, one last thing. June 1st. Mark your calendars. I've got something special planned for you, the readers, that I'm sure you'll all enjoy. With that cryptic warning, enjoy the reviews!
UPDATE - Added Ultimate Spider-Man and Young Avengers Presents reviews.
BLUE BEETLE #27Written by Will Pfeifer
Art by Rafael Albuquerque
Blue Beetle, post-Rogers, has remained relatively the same. It's a fun book about a regular guy with great powers. No, not Spider-Man. I said Blue Beetle.
While this issue was a fair outing for Pfeifer and a fun little done-in-one, the plot kind of goes in circles for the most part as we see repeated attempts by the demon creatures to capture or kill people that have wronged a couple of bumbling college nerds, who summoned the creatures in the first place. All this while Jaime and Traci 13 attempt to have a "normal" date, or whatever passes for normal between alien empowered and magic using heroes.
The only real complaint, outside the spinning its wheels nature of the plot, was the scarab. If you've been following along with Blue Beetle, and I know you have, you know that the scarab can speak to Jaime and we typically see his dialogue in a funky blue, rigid font. It started out almost entirely illegibal and has progressively gotten clearer to the point you can almost make out words and sentences it was saying. It was never impossible to tell what was being said, as Jaime typically narrates his answer for us to guess at the question, but this issue went and threw it all out the window.
The text has been replaced with a blue text box filled with normal times new roman or arial or whatever font comics use. The minute I saw it, I was immediately pulled out the story and could only gawk at the obsurdity of it. It's a small thing, but there was no explanation and not real justification for the change and I don't see why they didn't continue with the evolving scarab text as Jaime became more and more familiar with the scarab.
All-in-all, it was a fun issue, but I think I enjoyed the all-Spanish issue more, even with flipping back and forth. This issue had its moments, such as the discussion on Batman, but for the most part, it was an average outing and, as such, it gets a Check It rating.
Verdict - Check It
GIANT-SIZE ASTONISHING X-MEN #1Written by Joss Whedon
Art by John Cassaday
Is it okay to love so many individual moments from a book, but still consider it to be a subpar offering? Because that's how I feel after having read this final issue by Whedon and Cassaday.
First up, the art is not up to snuff. Cassady uses a lot of repetition with minor changes from scene to scene, far more than he usually does, and it comes off as a cheating to me and I feel I deserve more for my buck. And with a $4.99 price tag, it definitely wasn't a $4.99 performance from Cassaday. He was good for some of the big scenes, but his heart definitely wasn't in it for the rest of the issue.
On the story side of things, if you didn't see the big conclusion coming for this issue a mile away, you need to get your eyes check. To no one's surprise, Kitty ended up just phasing the giant bullet through the Earth. I suppose most didn't think she'd become grafted to the thing and unable to phase out of it, but little details like floating off through space on a runaway planet destroying bullet is very survivable in the grand scheme of things, comic book resurrection-wise.
Another thing that bothered me was the inclusion of all the other heroes. Spider-Man had some witty banter and Whedon had me wishing he'd do an arc for Brand New Day in the future, but, to be fair, none of these heroes really had any place in the book. All Whedon did was waste pages and let Cassaday draw a big two page Spidey splash page so he could sell the original pages and make a nice profit off them. It added nothing to the story and wasn't even particularly great of a splash page.
As for the other heroes, they just space out and have dreams of stopping the giant bullet as drool dribbled down their faces. It's been too long since the last issue comes out and I don't even know what the hell happened to the heroes to make them space out like that and I don't even care at this point. Half an issue to have some random Spidey banter isn't good storytelling.
The other half of the issue wasn't much better. We had Agent Brand putting the moves on Beast and getting him to join her and SWORD to help keep her in check and so "she can break him like a pony" after hours. Colossus gets overpowered and nearly forced to destroy Breakworld before Ord sacrifices his own, unshielded, body entering the core to help Colossus. This lead to a great scene where Colossus put down the ultimatum about ruling Breakworld if they did not help them stop the bullet. And you already know how it ends with Kitty, so that's about it for the story.
It literally felt like Whedon thought up some great dialogue or action scenes and then strung them all together in some incoherent finale that "killed" off a beloved character, sent another into space for the unforseeable future and, otherwise, left the team the exact same as when the run started. Even Cyclops, who had been incredible in the last half, had his newfound sight taken from him and is relegated to wearing the visor again. Yay, lack of progress in 40 year old characters!
Verdict - Check It
GREEN LANTERN #31Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Ivan Reis and Oclair Albert
Oh, Green Lantern. How the mighty have fallen. While this is probably the first issue of Secret Origins that's actually been the slightest bit interesting, it's still just a rehash that basically retcons Emerald Dawn away and could have been summed up in the recent Green Lantern / Sinestro Corps Secret Files issue. One thing I need to correct is that Sinestro cover. Somehow I ended up uploading issue #32's cover instead of #31. Sinestro shows up on the last page of this issue, so he's not even really in this issue if that cover piqued your interest.
What, exactly, was this issue about? Well, Hal goes to Oa, has some training, makes wisecracks about the yellow weakness and, in general, acts like the young, cocky Hal Jordan going through boot camp.
We do have a small talk with Tomar about Abin Sur, but that, in itself, is just rehashing stuff we learned about Abin in earlier issues, making it a rehash of the only new material we've been given so far.
My only recommendation for this is to Check It if your new to Green Lantern. If you have the slightest clue about him or have read Emerald Dawn, you won't get much from this and there's maybe one page of new material with some army guys being killed by the alien Abin brought to Earth. I keep saying this, but maybe next issue will bring something new to the table. At least Sinestro will be in it for some fun interaction with him and Hal.
Verdict - Check It
IMMORTAL IRON FIST #15Written by Matt Fraction
Art by Khari Evans
One thing I must note is that the final cover for this issue looks far better than the already spectacular one on the left. The colouring and after effects add so much more to the image than that preview version.
This issue is very similar to Immortal Iron Fist #7, which featured the Pirate Queen user of the Iron Fist, in that it is very heavy on the narrative, which befits the flashback story they are trying to tell here.
However, I feel they go a little overboard with it. There's almost no dialogue in this issue and it is almost completely narrative. In comparison issue seven had a nice balance of dialogue and narrative and it meshed well together. I just felt like I was going through the paces reading text box after text box and occasionally glancing at images instead of being drawn in to the story with a combination of the text and imagery.
This is not to say that this was a bad issue. On the contrary, I very much enjoyed. However, it is a flawed reading experience at the same time.
It's a rather simple story. Bei Bang-Wen, the Iron Fist user during the Second Opium War in 1860, is supposed to die in battle, miraculously survives and is taken prisoner by the British. He is somehow cut off from his chi and K'un-Lun and eventually meets another warrior like himself that was captured and somehow cut off from his powers, which are connected to Shiva.
They organize an escape and make way for his new friend's exiled emperor. There, they find him already dead and eaten by Tiger Jani. His emperor dead and no purpose or great sin to atone for, Vivatma's prana realigns and he is empowered once more. He battles Tiger Jani
and kills her, but not before she critically wounds Bei.
Vivatma helps Bei realign his own chi and the surge of power heals his wounds. This marks the end of Bei's journeys as the Iron Fist. He returns to K'un-Lun, relinguishes the power and settles down with a wife and has children.
It's a simple story, but well told. However, as outlined above, I just couldn't get drawn into it like I should have. Too much narrative distracts from the actual story instead of helping it along.
Verdict - Check It
MS. MARVEL #27Written by Brian Reed
Art by Andres Coelho
Ms. Marvel runs around like a chicken with its head chopped off, returns to the mini-carrier, watches the Skrull captive go Civil War Nitro on the carrier, killing most of the staff aboard and injuring the rest and then shacks up with Wonder Man at the end.
It was a pretty horrible outing to say the least and I don't really feel like coming back to this again next month. Could be the last issue of this title for me. Might come back one more time to see the conclusion to this Secret Invasion tie-in, but it's a big 'maybe' right now.
Verdict - Avoid It
THOR #9Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Art by Olivier Coipel
Simply amazing is the only thing I can say to describe this issue. While I've expressed concerns about Loki's return to form after expressing wishes of starting over (I expected a less pro-active approach for the new Loki), I still came away quite impressed with what JMS has done with the character in this issue.
Not wasting any time this month, Loki immediately begins by sowing discontent in Balder, Volstagg and several others by expressing her (his? I'm so confused when referring to the new Loki) concerns with Thor's "do whatever you want as long as you do what I say" approach to governing the newly rissen Asgardians.
Most shake it off, but Balder, who has his history retold for those out of the loop (his death heralded the coming of Ragnarok and he fought and struggled his whole life to escape that destiny), lends his ear to the honey tongued Loki and, while not immediately won over, finds himself hunting Frost Giants at Loki's behest while searching for a purpose in his new life.
Unknown to Balder, Loki is leading the Frost Giants and helps Balder kill them to help prove Loki's worth and character, which is, of course, as rotten as ever. Balder is thankful for the assist and, by issue's end, Loki has sunk her teeth into the naive and purposeless Balder by dangling the knowledge that his father wasn't killed by Frost Giants when he was a boy, but is actually Odin and that Balder has just as much right to rule as Thor.
It was an incredibly well done turn of events and you could see the conflict playing out in Balder's mind as the issue bore on, culminating with Thor basically telling him not to leave Asgard without his permission, despite previously telling them all they were free to live new lives now, and Loki revealing the info about his father. My only hope is Loki isn't ousted from Asgard too quickly, as I love the behind the scenes maneuvering and would hate to see him exiled too early in the run.
The issue wasn't all drama with Loki and Balder. We had a return of Sir William, from the nearby town, whereby he came to Asgard to visit the beautiful Kelda. His gifting of flowers to her was easily one of the best moments of the week and consisted of her asking him to throw the flowers all the way up to the top wall of Asgard. After failing the first time, he ties a rock to it and throws the flowers, which smash, off-panel, into Kelda's face, ending the scene with her thanking him and inviting him up as she goes to find a cloth for her face. The two have some more fun as throughout the issue as William tries to explain basketball and the points system it uses to the Asgardians to varying degrees of success.
Verdict - Must Read
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #122Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Stuart Immonen
This was a fun done-in-one issue that fleshed out a long time recurring villain in the series. Yes, the Shocker is, in fact, the villain de jour that gets the proverbial drop on Spider-Man in this issue and he does his best to take revenge on the insult hurling and joke cracking hero that's been sending him off to jail every other week.
Surprisingly, for a Bendis plot, this story's pacing is incredibly good. The way it cuts in and out of scenes and flashbacks just really jelled together in this issue. Immonen's art has been fantastic lately and he's really hitting his stride, too.
Another "shocker" was the fact that Peter atually gets unmasked by Shocker in this issue. It's just some random punk kid to him, so no real risk or big deal about it, but I was surprised a villain was actually smart enough to do that for a change.
Most of the issue deals with Shocker explaining his origin, if you can call it that, and building up the long running Roxxon Corporation subplot, of which I believe started sometime around Omega Red's first appearance, maybe earlier. Seems Shocker developed weapons for Roxxon, a drug company, and Spider-Man stops him mid-rant to try and get him to explain why he was making weapons for them. We don't find out all that much, but Roxxon is definitely going to be playing a bigger part in the future of this title.
In the end, Peter manages to escape when Shocker takes his torture tactics too far and the chains snap, but Kitty shows up just in time to stop Peter from doing something he'd regret as he nearly loses control in taking revenge on his captor. I'm not some super feminist type of person, but it was a little odd how they showed all this build up for Kitty and MJ tracking down Peter's whereabouts, Kitty storming the place with the cops and then having Peter, the big strong male lead, busting himself out. Just seemed like the story should have ended with Kitty and MJ saving him for a change.
There was a fun little easter egg hidden in the issue, which I'm sure everyone saw, where someone who looks like Echo was screaming in the police station, "Who can you trust?". I thought it was funny and it made me chuckle when I read it.
Verdict - Must Read
YOUNG AVENGERS PRESENTS #5Written by Kevin Grevioux
Art by Mitch Breitweiser
While most of these Young Avengers Presents have been enjoyable in that they let me read stories about relatively new characters that I came to care a lot about when they were first introduced, very few of them have managed to capture what made those early YA stories so special. Maybe it's the format of the books or the lack of the team dynamics that is plaguing this series.
Whatever it is, this issue continues the disheartening trend of lackluster Young Avengers specials. Stature is shrinking and no one knows why. The team elects to shrink Patriot with Wiccan's magic (where's Teddy in all this?) and he gets on the microscope slide that they are currently using to see Stature. They have a chat, we find out Stature had a fight with her step dad, got in a super hero battle with the Growing Man, defeated him and the giant robot fell on top of her step dad, nearly killing him. Her mother yelled at her, there were daddy issues with references to Scott Lang and, in the end, it ended up all being psychological and she was shrinking because she was upset. Damn, I hope her puppy doesn't die or something.
It was a very pedestrian read and I felt little emotion and cared even less about the story. It's sad, too, because I love the characters and was so pysched when I first heard about this series and I don't think I've been overly impressed or happy with any of the issues to date.
Verdict - Avoid It
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5 comments:
I just hate the fact that Green Lantern is spending the entire Summer re-telling GL origin. Absolutely anyone who cares already knows his origin. I'm just in it for the tidbits of retcon regarding the various new corps. At this point, I'm just saving them up until the arc is over so I can read them as a trade. They are too boring as single issues.
1) Maybe the Scarab is fully bonded to Jaime now, since the 'Kaji Da' bit of that great final Rogers issue?
2) Bendis sneaks in a little 'teaser' like that for every event. It's always someone being snuck into a police station, dressed as a hero important to an event, screaming something.
HOUSE OF M - Scarlet Witch - "I'm Not Crazy!"
CIVIL WAR - Speedball - "Not Like This!"
Only difference was, the last two respectively appeared in USM Annual #1 and #2.
Regardling Green Lantern, there's a scene in this issue that shows just another example of how DC's editors continually miss the boat with basic continuity, even if it's the little things. Not only does each book have its own editor, but Didio brought in editor Ian Sattler to be a line wide editor to make sure that all the books match up with each other, yet, a scene like the one where the GL ring automatically pulls Hal all the way to Oa against his will absolutely flies in the face of the recent Green Lantern Corps two parter who's VERY premise hinged on Boodika's sister refusing to report to Oa for training when she received her ring, thereby forcing the Guardians to send new Alpha Lantern Boodika to her old stomping grounds to force her sister to come to Oa. If the ring can do to her sister what it did to Hal, then please explain to me how she was even able to refuse this order to go to Oa. This error is even more egregious, IMO, when within the very same title as the Boodika story, GLC, we see other GL's being dragged to Oa against their will just like Hal, regardless of what they were doing at the time, no matter how important it was. In fact, some of them crashed through buildings, which I thought was silly, cause that's dangerous as it endangers people's lives. So, you can't even chalk it up to one book doing one thing and the other something different, as it happened in both books.
I find inconsistencies like this very frustrating, especially when the very premise is used to build a story. Think about it, if the Guardians have such control of the rings, how could Hal Jordan every destroy the GLC like he did. Wouldn't they have been able to force him into inaction by turning the ring off? Or better yet, dragging him to Oa first, then turning it off. I just think they should just do away with that ability of the ring, not that there isn't a logical basis for it, because, let's face it, it would make sense for the Guardians to have that kind of control over these rings as a fail safe and more, but it also creates problems storywise as it limits some of the stories you can tell. Either way, you can't have it both ways. In this issue of GL, it would have worked just the same if the ring told Hal what he needed to do next, and then waited for his OK, and then it took him to the Oan destination.
I just get frustrated with inconsistencies like this, and DC does it way too much. Hec, look at Final Crisis #1, it's so full of 'em, I don't know what's what. Again, this is what the editors are for, especially Ian Sattler.
Even little things like how when Hal goes to Oa for the first time and they comment on him being human, you know, there are a lot of other planets out there with humans on them, or at least what looks like humans, even if they aren't exactly the same- Krypton, Daxam, any of the planets that most of the Legion are from, hec, most of the New Gods look human, so, are they differentiating between Earth human? Is it that their ring can tell the difference between a human from Earth, or a planet like Earth where they have absolutely no powers, and say, Krypton, where they are not only clearly not the same as Earth humans beyond their appearance, but they are also an extremely advanced race? Granted, Krypton is no longer, but there are plenty of other examples, such as Rann and Thanagar. Most Rannians and Thanagarians look human, and both planets are not only advanced, but they are a part of universal politics. And I am not sure how different Rannian humans are from Earth humans, at least there aren't differences that I am aware of. Were there comments about being only human when GL Vath of Rann first showed up on Oa? So, again, whenever a GL makes a crack at the Earth GL's for being human, and this happens quite a bit in the book, I always scratch my head. I try not to get caught up in these little things, but sometimes I can't help it as it just snaps me out of the story. Anything that stops you from seeing these stories and characters as part of a shared universe with consistent rules and such just prevents you from fully believing in this fictional universe. Perhaps it's just me, but somehow, I doubt it.
@swintronix - That's my biggest gripe. Such a waste of story telling potential. They could have did an easy flashback to the Atrocious / Red Lantern / Sector 666 stuff and left out the complete filler of his origin and been done of this in one issue.
@salieri - 1) I assume it's been fully bonded, but it just seemed so abrupt to have it like this now. It went from almost making out words to plain text in a blue box and overly verbose. They couldn't keep it to the blue jagged font, but make it more readable? He's stilla r ookie with the scarab and it oculd have reflected that for a little longer.
2)Ya, I remember those ones, but I still like pointing it out for those that didn't read the issue. I love little things like that.
@heatvision38 - I know what you mean about the ring's authority over the user. I didn't understand how the GLC members were forced, regardless of what they were doing, to return to Oa against their will, even so far as to nearly injure civilians, yet they couldn't pull Boodika's sister back or stop Hal way back when.
My only guess for Boodika's sister is that the Guardians wanted to test Boodika's Alpha Lantern capabilities and resolve by sending her to retrieve her sister,b ut that's stretching it as well. Chalk that one up to fill-in writer and bad editors.
For Final Crisis #1 inconsistencies, I hate that I spent money on Countdown for it to be ignored, but it was so bad, I'm kind of grateful it's pracitcally been retconned already and ignored by Morrison.
And the Hal / human thing for training is kind of nitpicking, but I see where you are coming from. I know there's lots of a "humans" on other planets, but we could assume they knew what sector he's from (they knew immediately he had Abin's ring) or aliens could "see" things differently than us or the ring could have told them he was human.
Kirk, I reread the issue with Boodika's sister (well, just the scenes where the Guardians talked to her about the mission), and it does actually work better than I had thought. It does seem as if they didn't force the ring to bring her sister to Oa to use it as an opportunity to test Boodika who is both her sister, and a newly minted Alpha Lanten. On top of that, the Guardians mentioned that her sister showed strong willpower to be able to resist the ring's attempt to bring her to Oa.
So, I imagine that her sister was able to resist originally due to her willpower, but had the Guardians wanted to force the issue, they could have, but instead decided to let Boodika take the mission. So, it didn't wind up being the stretch that I also thought it was before rereading that section. It still doesn't explain how Hal was able to do what he did when he was Parallax, but perhaps being Parallax made him to powerful for the Guardians to do anything about. But really, tell me it makes any sense that they wouldn't be able to just turn the ring off anytime they wanted to. Oh well.
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