Weekly Comic Book Review

Got-dang! There were a lot of comics that came out last week!  Even with all the reviewers at WCBR burning the midnight oil, it’s not always possible to get a full review up on everything when Marvel decides to release all of their Avengers and X-books in one week.  Sheesh!  But, still, we endure….

Uncanny X-Men #532 – We begin the handoff of Uncanny from Matt Fraction to Kieron Gillen.  Fraction had his high moments with the Utopia and Second Coming events, but the rest of his run was pretty uneven and this issue illustrates a lot of the problems that I have.  There are three story lines in this issue, but none feel very important.  First you have Emma, Fantomex & Kitty Pryde fighting with Sebastian Shaw.  I’m very unclear on what this story is supposed to do.  It isn’t interesting and if they just wanted Shaw back in circulation (which is a good idea), there surely are more entertaining ways to do it than this.  Two, we have Lobe and the Sublime Corp who have engineered mutant pills so that regular joes can gain mutant powers.  That just isn’t interesting or threatening and it has a lot of the pseudo-science that Fraction likes to use, but doesn’t pull off very well.  It’s very much what happens when someone who doesn’t know science tries to write something that is very hip about current science topics.  Three we have this Collective Man story that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.  Unclear why this title can’t copy the formula that makes Uncanny X-Force so kick ass.  And Greg Land’s art is just bad.  I don’t mind his art the first few times I see it, but he’s been on this title for a while and we know his tricks now.  Marvel would be best served to just rotate him around their titles.  Grade: D — Dean Stell

2nd Opinon: There’s a clever idea to be found in the character of Lobe, but I’m not sure that it’s being used to it’s full potential.  A character who genuinely doesn’t hate mutants but merely wants to exploit an untapped natural resource is a nice change of pace, but the entire melodramatic quarantine gambit and the cookie-cutter personalities of his wannabe X-Men are somewhat sabotaging a story with lots of potential.  Throw in the obvious space-filler of the Collective Man sub-plot and the going-on-way-too-long side-plot concerning Emma Frost’s mission to disappear Sebastian Shaw (I’mnotgoingtopickontheGregLandartI’mnotgoingtopickontheGregLandart…) and I unfortunately found myself with a strong urge to go reread this week’s issue of Uncanny X-Force. Grade: C- — Joe Lopez

Ultimate Spider-Man #152 – Bendis continues his great second wind on this title this month as we simultaneously discover just what Black Cat was doing during his battle with Mysterio many months ago and , in the present day, watch as Iron Man nearly outs Peter’s secret identity to all of Forest Hills, Queens.  There are plenty of standout moments in this issue, ranging from Aunt May’s reaction to Stark’s entrance gaff to the “Amazing Friends’” reunion with the just-returned Gwen Stacy.  Peter’s conversation with Gwen was particularly touching and felt honest and real in a way that most complicated relationships in fiction fail at.  While I do have to admit to being slightly annoyed that after three months of teasing, we still haven’t seen any actual super-hero schooling, Bendis hits the rest of the notes wonderfully and has gotten me one more invested in this comic’s cast.  Extra kudos have to go to penciller Sara Pichelli whose work here has improved greatly.  I’m not sure if it’s just a matter of her having become comfortable with the characters and their world, but this felt like an issue of Ultimate Spider-Man in a way that is usually reserved for one produced by a more regular artist.  Great stuff.  Grade: A — Joe Lopez

Thunderbolts #152 – This has been a superstar of a title over the last year.  Jeff Parker always keeps the title clicking along at a swift pace.  No drawn out, overly long 6 issue story arcs from Parker.  Here the action builds on a storyline that has been in Hulk (also by Parker) having to do with some mega-monsters that are escaping from a MODOK island and wreaking havoc on Japan.  I love how the Tbolts are all such a neat team, yet you never know when one of them might turn on the others.  Great action in this one as they fight the mega-monsters and deal with a new threat form Hyperion.  Kev Walker’s art is really tight too and perfect for this book with lots of oversized, hulking characters. Grade: B+ — Dean Stell

Secret Avengers #9 – While the kung-fu pulp element is dialed way down this month, this issue is solid if only because it’s one where the Secret Avengers live up to their namesake.  It’s shadowy superhero covert ops stuff with Steve Rogers and John Steele dueling one another.  In other words, it’s a pretty good time.  There’s even a superhero trade that almost seems like a spy-swap of sorts.  More than that though, Rogers looks particularly clever this month and truly feels like the leader of a covert squad.  If anything, the superspy tone makes for an Avengers book that has its own clear identity and, in some ways, it’s own little corner of the Marvel Universe.  It’s a unique read with solid writing and solid art.  The only thing wrong with it is that I’m finding John Steele a bit bland in concept and appearance as a bad guy.  There’s really just not that much to the guy, and certainly not much at all that we haven’t seen before.  Max Fury is far more compelling.  Grade: B — Alex Evans

Ultimate Doom #2 - While I’d normally be extremely excited about getting two doses of Ultimate Spidey this week, I have to admit that I’m not too involved in this miniseries.  It’s certainly more of an Ultimate Fantastic Four story in plot, and I have to admit to having never been a big fan of that iteration of the characters.  Bendis does deliver a subtly chilling scene that retroactively foreshadows Reed Richards’ sinister intentions at the beginning but otherwise there are just a bunch of characters running around and fighting while lots of things blow up.  Coming so soon after the bad taste of Ultimatum, a big blockbuster Ultimate event is not what I’m really looking for.  Grade: C- — Joe Lopez

Ultimate Avengers 3 #6 – This issue pretty much cemented my inkling that Mark Millar is just writing on autopilot at this point.  Let’s ignore the unfortunate similarity between the X-Men vs Vampires event with this Ultimate Avengers vs Vampires event (Both with Blade, no less!) because that would just be picking on this series.  (Well, I kinda just did there, didn’t I?)  There really is absolutely no character development in this issue, or this entire series, at all.  This comic is literally filled with “bad-ass” moments and action sequences and glaring and gritted teeth from front to back.  I have no clue what happened to the Millar who penned the first two magnificent Ultimates series that managed to juggle Hollywood-like pyrotechnics with emotional development, but he’s clearly on vacation.  At least there was some decent Steve Dillon artwork to stare at.  Sigh.  Grade: D — Joe Lopez

Fables #101 - First things first: the art is awesome.  I was bit bummed upon discover the lack of Mark Buckingham, especially given how well he did with Bufkin’s adventures last time out, but Shanower’s work is really detailed and generally awesome.  His shift between the dark business office and psychedelic Oz is magnificent and his facial expressions are well done.  Yes, Bufkin does end up in Oz this month, which was a real welcome surprise and was just the right amount of goofiness.  The folks he meets there are adorable and, at times, mind-bending.  It also leaves the door open for some really interesting and fun Bufkin related adventures in the near future.  That said, aside from the art and the promise is fun future issues, I actually am sad to say that I found this issue a little, well, boring.  That’s a damned shame given how much I loved reading Bufkin’s exploits in the recent past.  But there’s just not much here.  It’s just a whole ton of yammering in the office, including Frankie pummeling the dead horse that is the “genius” joke.  Even the Magic Mirror seemed off, coming off as strangely suspicious, even malevolent.  But yeah, until the last bit in Oz, this issue ends up being a bunch of fairly dry chatter and this also leads to far too little time spent in Oz.  Grade: C+ — Alex Evans

Skullkickers #5 – Fun!  That’s the best way to describe this issue and comic.  After the final page of this issue is a note from the creators saying that issue #5 was going to be the final issue, but since it has been selling well it is now an ongoing.  That’s nice because we can use more fun from this still nameless duo of huge bald guy and irascible dwarf as the hack and shoot their way through a fantasy setting.  Highlights of this issue include the subtitles for the bad guy who was mumbling incoherently because he’d gotten his teeth bashed in by the good guys and the continued funny notes in the art about what is going on (“Losing grip!”).  Keep it up Jim Zub and gang.  Grade: B — Dean Stell

Punisher: In the Blood #3 – Punisher has discovered that his wife has been resurrected and is basically the sexual plaything of the Jigsaw brothers.  Even worse, it seems she’s going along with everything willingly (I can’t wait to see how they’re going to explain that!).  So, Frank does what pretty much exactly what you’d imagine he’d do.  He wages holy hell on the criminal underworld in order to find the villains.  And therein lies the problem.  We’ve read this too many times before.  Frank is wronged, goes ballistic on everyone and finally finds the baddies.  Sure, there’s a cliffhanger so it doesn’t end there, but by that point I was already disenchanted.  Say what you will about the whole weird Franken-Castle storyline, but at least it was different.  This?  This is same ol’, same ol’.  Pass. Grade: C — Joe Lopez

Proof: Endangered #2 – This was another enjoyable issue of Proof.  The first issue of Volume 2 for Proof mostly was a reminder of who the characters are and this issue was mostly arranging the game pieces on the board, so this wasn’t a bad issue, but it’s just hamstrung by where it falls in the story.  Rossmo’s art is again awesome and a huge attraction for me on this series.  He has this unique rough and visceral style that is very unique.  Plus, how can you fail to have fun when you have a Bigfoot ripping the head off a huge Mongolian Death Worm?  I’m expecting big things from this issue next month.  Grade: C+ — Dean Stell

Magneto #1 – Howard Chaykin decides to tell a “lost tale” of Magneto’s first trip to New York City, before he decided to start recruiting sociopathic criminals and trying to murder high school teenagers and handicapped guys in wheelchairs.  Basically, when he was just a man who was on the fence about whether he’d be a “villain” or a “hero”.  There’s the germ of an interesting story here, as Chaykin seems to want to explore whether or not Magnus could have just as easily become a super-powered protector and not a terrorist, but instead he allows himself to be distracted with giving the guy’s costume an origin  (Because we needed that!) and having him fight giant creatures created from the mind of a little girl who – You know what?  I actually have no clue how what was going on with that monster and that little girl.  He then hits on his seamstress (Yeah, seriously.)  and after getting shot down, walks off, presumably to go become the scourge of millions.  I mean, can you blame the guy?  Getting shot down can be pretty harsh.  Believe me, I know. Wait, what was I talking about? Grade: B — Joe Lopez

X-23 #5 – I want to enjoy X-23 because I like the idea of the character, but this series has been close to the chopping block for me.  I’m hanging in there because Ryan Stegman is coming on to do art for an arc in a few issues and I don’t want to miss that.  But this was a MUCH better issue than the previous four.  There was a lot less introspection, some action, some mystery and the reveal of the Big Bad.  I think there is a good story here, it just needs a shot of adrenalin.  Probably not Ms. Liu’s fault as Marvel is notorious for these 6 issue stories that really should have been 3-4 issues.  The basic story of X-23 and Gambit coming into conflict with Ms. Sinister has promise to lead into a whole bunch of interesting stuff about the nature of cloning.  I thought the art was really sharp, but Ms. Sinister is flashing a little more skin than I like to see in a Marvel comic.  I read non-Big 2 comics for that stuff.  Grade: C+ — Dean Stell

X-Men: To Serve and Protect #3 – This is the 3rd of 4 issues in the latest X-Men anthology series.  The X-Men are a perfect place to have a semi-regular anthology series because even though they have 5 main ongoing titles, they all kinda focus on the same characters, so an anthology is a great place to catch up on the Rockslides and Anoles of the world.  This issue has another installment of the aforementioned Rockslide and Anole fighting crime vigilante style in SF and this is the highlight of the issue.  Another interesting bit is that we learn that Blink is still alive after the events of Necrosha over a year ago.  Who knew?  The biggest problem is that this issue just has 4 “solid” stories.  What I’m looking for in an anthology is that one singular story from an creator you may not be familiar with that makes you say, “Wow!  I want more stories from that guy.”  None of that in here, but solid.  Grade: C — Dean Stell

Chaos War: X-Men #2 – Ugh.  This was really bad.  Probably one of the worst stories that I’ve read in the last year or so.  The story was just confusing as Thunderbird, a few Madrox dupes, Banshee and some dead Cuckoo girls end up on Muir Island to fight the Carrion Crow who is in league with the Chaos King.  The story was just incoherent and didn’t matter at all to the Chaos War event at all.  The only saving grace was that Doug Braithwaite’s art looked really nice.  Why does Marvel keep having Chris Claremont write X-books to fulfill his lifetime contract?  It’s clear that just isn’t happening for him anymore, so why not let him take a whack at something else?  Let him go make up a new hero or something.  It couldn’t be worse than this. Grade: D- — Dean Stell

Twilight Guardian #1 – This comic focuses on a slightly mentally ill young woman who is patrolling her neighborhood Kick-Ass style.  She has no powers, but wants to do something good, so she dons a mask and hoodie and wanders the streets at night.  This issue is really well written, but the problem is that it is boring and nothing happens until the final page.  That is a possible harbinger of better things, but this issue by itself just wasn’t anything special.  The art was pretty nice.  I’ve noticed a lot of folks online and in the podcast community giving this raves, but this was one time where I shook my head and wondered if they were getting free copies or are close friends with one of the creators because I just didn’t get it.  It isn’t remotely anything bad and has a promising ending, but the issue itself is a bit drab.  Grade: C- — Dean Stell

New Mutants #21 - This title is always teetering on the brink of my pull list and it is because of issues and stories like this one and that’s a shame because Zeb Wells was really trying to do something epic with the New Mutants and tie up a lot of old continuity at the same time.  I’m usually a fan of that, but in this case it didn’t click because… well… it’s the New Mutants.  The biggest problem I have from with the story is the perception that the New Mutants are the B-list, minor league team for the X-Men.  They’ve never shed that image in my mind, so it seems wrong for them to be facing dangers that threaten the whole Earth.  It would be like watching your local minor-league sports team suddenly win the World Series.  New Mutants are supposed to fight muggers and B-list villains and promising members can outgrow the team to get called up to the X-Men.  That’s what I want to seem from a series like this.  I feel like we need to see them “graduate” to taking on this level of threat, but they don’t do that when the X-Men show up at the end and then Legion comes along as a plot device to save the day.  This was another story line that was longer than it needed to be in order to fill up a trade paperback. Grade: C- — Dean Stell

Filed under: Image Comics, Marvel Comics, Vertigo Tagged: | Alex Evans, Alex Grecian, Bill Willingham, Chaos War, Chaos War: X-Men #2, Chaos War: X-Men #2 review, Chris Claremont, Chris Yost, Craig Kyle, Dean Stell, Ed Brubaker, Fables, Fables #101, Fables #101 review, Greg Land, Image, Jeff Parker, Jim Zubkavich, Kev Walker, Kieron Gillen, Magneto #1, Magneto #1 review, Marjorie Liu, Marvel, Matt Fraction, Mike Deodato Jr., New Mutants, New Mutants #21, New Mutants #21 review, Proof Endangered, Proof: Endangered #2, Proof: Endangered #2 review, Punisher: In the Blood #3, Punisher: In the Blood #3 review, review, Riley Rossmo, Secret Avengers, Secret Avengers #9, Secret Avengers #9 review, Skullkickers, Skullkickers #5, Skullkickers #5 review, Thunderbolts, Thunderbolts #152, Thunderbolts #152 review, Twilight Guardian, Twilight Guardian #1, Twilight Guardian #1 review, Ultimate Avengers 3 #6, Ultimate Avengers 3 #6 review, Ultimate Doom #2, Ultimate Doom #2 review, Ultimate Spider-Man #152, Ultimate Spider-Man #152 review, Uncanny X-Men, Uncanny X-Men #532, Uncanny X-Men #532 review, Vertigo, Will Conrad, X-23, X-Men: To Serve and Protect, X-Men: To Serve and Protect #3, X-Men: To Serve and Protect #3 review, Zeb Wells