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Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #5 – Review

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Minhquan Nguyen

By: Jeff Lemire (writer), Alberto Ponticelli (artist), Jose Villarrubia (colorist)

The Story: Man-made monster versus monster made of man!  That might not have made sense!

The Review: I’ll be honest; I made a strict, conscious choice to avoid O.M.A.C. from the moment it was announced.  My reasoning, perhaps unfair, was the idea of Dan Didio working on the writing end of things seemed like a very risky one.  Nothing I read of his work (either on The Outsiders or his Metal Men feature in Wednesday Comics) proved otherwise.  By the time strong reviews convinced me to try out O.M.A.C., it was too late, and it was on its way to cancellation.

So I went into this issue without, as the editor’s caption on the first panel suggested, any familiarity with the events of Didio’s end of the crossover.  Fortunately, you don’t need to read his companion title to enjoy this one.  Lemire starts his story by following Frankenstein from the moment he receives his mission to take down the One Man Army Corps, and at no point do you feel like you’re missing anything crucial.

Even better, the issue is just as enjoyable throughout as it has been all along.  It’s great fun seeing all these various, acronymed organizations in the DCU beginning to intersect, and the tension that naturally accompanies the overlap of authority of such agencies.  Personally, I’d bet my money on S.H.A.D.E.; they may lack the class of the more espionage-oriented Checkmate, but nothing beats their mad-scientist tech, like Palmer’s “recovery nanopires” showing up in virtual reality at the last minute to defeat Brother Eye’s invasion of their computer systems.

Besides, S.H.A.D.E. has the superior cast of characters by far.  Admittedly, I’m not really familiar with any member of Checkmate (besides the infamous Maxwell Lord, still working in good grace at this point, and the less-renowned Sergeant Steel), but come on.  Could anyone really beat the sheer audaciousness of Frankenstein or Father Time?
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Filed under: DC Comics, Reviews | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Superboy #5 – Review

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Minhquan Nguyen

By: Scott Lobdell (writer), R.B. Silva (penciller), Rob Lean (inker), Richard & Tanya Horie (colorists)

The Story: What is it about redheads that gets the best of every male superhero?

The Review: One of my long-running complaints about this series has been its inability to take major steps forward in the story.  A lot of what we’ve seen in the past few issues has been the same type of confrontation or information recycled into different scenes, resulting in very little progress for Superboy’s character development other than a lot of repetitive and vaguely pretentious inner dialogue.  In short, it’s been a rather bland read.

It’s also been a bit frustrating to see Superboy demonstrating few, if any, heroic qualities whatsoever.  Last issue he came somewhere close by defeating “Sweety Bum” and “Honey Bunny,” preventing them from further practicing human immolation, but his choice to confront them felt rather arbitrary, motivated more from boredom than virtue.  It really gave no sign as to whether Superboy was actually starting to grow a conscience or not.

Here, it feels like Lobdell tackles both problems at once.  That earlier taste of heroism seems to have rubbed off well on Superboy, as he goes out of his way to rescue Caitlin Fairchild from her uncertain but surely grim fate with “the Colony,” whoever they are.  It’s especially significant he describes her actions as “sav[ing] me from myself,” indicating he can distinguish between what’s right or wrong (with himself, no less) to some degree.  After all, you can’t be saved unless you’re in danger, and since Superboy’s proven that physically, little can endanger him, that leaves only moral danger for Caitlin to save him from.

It’s also important to note Superboy himself decides to move forward with this plan.  Up till now, he’s been acting, or at least reacting, on the allowance of others.  This really marks the first time he’s conceived an affirmative plan of action and carried through with it, which bodes well for what might happen after his upcoming encounter with the Teen Titans.  But let’s not oversell things; Superboy did get help from an outside force, someone who worked with Caitlin and who’s neither Rose nor Dr. David Umber, who’s tried befriending Superboy in Caitlin’s place.
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Severed #6 – Review

Posted on January 15, 2012 by dfstell

By: Scott Snyder & Scott Tuft (writers), Attila Futaki (art), Greg Guilhaumond (colors) & Fonografiks (letters)

The Story: Don’t follow creepy old men into backwoods tool sheds!

3 Things: 

1. The cat is out of the bag. – The creators have kept this game going for a few issues where the reader knew more about the bogeyman than young Jack did.  Honestly, they managed this suspense about as well as I’ve seen in comics and gave us all these ‘No! Don’t follow the strange man into the _______!’ moments.  But, the creators also knew when to stop the game and just let the story come to its climax.  What I loved about the scene with the shed in the woods is that the set up wasn’t much different than all the other teases we’ve gotten AND this scene happened early in the comic, so I half-expected this to be yet another tease.  However, the one difference in this scene is that Jack knew the bogeyman was a bad man so it really made sense to pop the balloon and move on with the story (even if I DO miss the masterful teasing from the last few issues).

2. Still a lot of little mysteries about the bogeyman. – Who is he?  Where did he come from?  Is he just a cannibal or is he some kind of meta-human?  How did he know Jack’s father?  Is he Jack’s father (in a Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker sort of way)?  Why all the fucking around?  Why not just eat him when they first met?  Is there more to the story with Sam?  How did he get away from the bear trap?  How in god’s green earth is Jack getting out of this mess only losing an arm?  Would the Old Man Jack we saw in issue #1 be able to even walk by an old shed without wetting himself?  I can’t wait to find out.
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Filed under: Image Comics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Pigs #5 – Review

Posted on January 15, 2012 by dfstell

By: Nate Cosby & Ben McCool (writers), Breno Tamura (artist), Kevin Colden & Jordie Bellaire (colors), Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: A bunch of Cuban-born agents are trying to break into a prison to kill someone.

Three Things: 

1. I feel like I missed an issue! – This isn’t necessarily the writers’ fault.  I’m pushing 40, read a lot of comics and have a bajillion things going on in my life.  So I DO lose the plot thread of comics sometimes and it isn’t the writers’ fault.  That being said, I’m kinda lost and I’m sure I’m not the only one.  Here’s what I know about the series [SPOILERS]: The President’s arm gets cut off at some point and last issue these Cuban agents were killing a Congressman and his mistress.  So, I don’t understand why – in this issue – they’re trying to break into a prison to kill an inmate.  What does this have to do with the plot?  And there’s this Nazi inmate who seems important, but I don’t think I’ve seen him before.  When I harp on this kinda thing, there is always someone who pops up to give the answers in the comment thread and I’m not debating whether some people can keep track of the plot, but the writers need to do a better job of recapping the action if they want to sell this as a single issue comic.  I’m sure it’ll read better in collected form, but if you’re selling it to me as a single issue I must review it as a single issue.

2. I want to know about the severed arm, dammit! – This is mostly an issue with pacing of the series.  The first issue had that awesome reveal on the final page where we learned that somehow these Cuban agents had chopped off the arm of the US President.  That’s the mystery I want answers to.  I don’t really care about how some of the agents are more committed to the cause than others or any of their personal dynamics.  Further, I don’t see how this story is leading us toward the President.
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Filed under: Image Comics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Wolverine & The X-Men #4 – Review

Posted on January 14, 2012 by jmiddle3

By: Jason Aaron (writer) Nick Bradshaw (artist) Justin Posner (colors)

The Story: It always sucks to be the new kid.

What’s Good: While I was sad to see Chris Bachalo leave this series, rest assured that the art is in good hands with Nick Bradshaw. His round, friendly lines make the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning just as wonderful as Bachalo did, and his attention to detail is incredible. From the picture of Cyclops on a dart board, to Quire’s copy of the Art of War, to Glob’s papers sticking to him, every panel feels rich and resplendent. The change in art style also reflects a change in tone. The faculty are no longer fighting off external forces that threaten to destroy the school, but are still burdened by the day-to-day difficulties of managing and teaching twenty super-powered adolescents. As such, the atmosphere has lightened, and things no longer look ready to come apart at the seams. There are some truly beautiful shots of Angel against the sun, and everyone’s body language is as expressive as their dialogue.

One of my favorite parts of this new series has been just how well  Jason Aaron has been able to capture the dynamic between the students and the teachers, while keeping everyone in character. Wolverine and company are truly teachers, not team leaders or mentors as they’ve been in other books featuring young mutants, and this relationship informs nearly of their interactions.

The story in this issue centers around the introduction of Angel and the Kid-Apocalypse Evan, who calls himself Genesis. The two  face very different challenges; Evan will have to decide his fate, whether to be savior or destroyer. Worse, he will have go through puberty, bullies, high school drama as figure it out. This has me concerned for his treatment by writers: it will be only too tempting to repeatedly pen stories about him “going evil” only to “redeem himself” in endless and unsatisfying cycles. I’m really hoping that Jason Aaron has a very specific character arc in mind for him, and that he can convince editors and future writers to try to adhere to as tight a story as possible. For Angel, on the other hand, I think the struggle will not so much be about finding himself as it will be about convincing others that he is a very different person than the one they remember. This, I like. At the very end of the Dark Angel Saga, I was concerned that all that the only reprecusion was that he had developed amnesia, and that after maybe a few months, we’d get a story line about him regaining his memories. If the changes in him are as far-reaching as they are implied to be here, the writers have been braver than I would have dared to hope. There’s a lot of potential for some very interesting stories here, not only for this new character, but also for all of Warren’s friends as they adjust to his “condition.”
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Filed under: Marvel Comics, Reviews | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Batgirl #5 – Review

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Minhquan Nguyen

By: Gail Simone (writer), Ardian Syaf  & Vicente Cifuentes (artists), Ulises Arreola (colorist)

The Story: As if Gotham doesn’t have enough problems without an Occupy movement.

The Review: Back in the days when I was blithely pursuing an English major, totally ignorant (or at least in denial) of the fact that I had no idea what to do with it once I got it, I took a class focused on modernism and post-modernism in literature, during which I was introduced to the stream-of-consciousness narrative style.  Frankly, I’m not a fan.  It really takes an unpredictable voice to make it work, otherwise it just drones and rambles and grows horrible monotonous.

Unfortunately, quite a bit of what I’ve read on this series and also The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men (Simone’s other title) has done just that.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Simone just doesn’t write this internal narrative stuff with the same dazzling energy as she does dialogue.  So much of Batgirl’s commentary feels more like repetitive, redundant blather than insight, either into her character or the situation at hand.  A good sample of what I mean is when she witnesses a mafia boss headshot his three sons: “His family.  His sons.  These were his sons.  Okay.  It’s Gotham.  Crazy lives here on a long-term lease.  That’s Gotham.  But this…I don’t know what this is.  I think I’m gonna be sick.”

The core problem of all this is that it breaches one of the fundamental rules of storytelling: show rather than tell.  Taking the sample I’ve given you, Batgirl spends a lot of time and text trying to convince us how awful it is that a father would kill his sons in cold blood—and on its face, it is pretty awful—but the fact is our acquaintance with these men last no more than a few pages, and we never see a sign of affection between them the whole time.  In fact, if Batgirl didn’t tell you their blood relationship, you’d think they were nothing more than common partners in crime.

About the only time Batgirl’s narration gets some zip is when Simone lets Babs reacts to what others are saying rather than doing.  There’s a simple reason for this: since comics are a visual medium, we can already see what people are doing; we don’t need it described to us.  But since characters can’t exactly express out loud everything they’re thinking as others speak, it’s quite fun to read their unsaid thoughts.  When Babs’ mom tells her how she wants them to be friends, Babs’ “And it’s allll about what you want, right?” captures her resentment and sarcasm perfectly.
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Filed under: DC Comics, Reviews | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

The Shade #4 – Review

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Minhquan Nguyen

By: James Robinson (writer), Darwyn Cooke (penciller), J. Bone (inker), Dave Stewart (colorist)

The Story: A cover on Life magazine?  You’ve really made it.

The Review: It’s not usually my style to start off a review with bias, but I’ll make a rare exception to say that this series has one of the freshest voices of all the titles coming out of any publisher right now.  A lot of it has to do with the unique qualities of Shade himself: erudite, wry, witty, and not a little bit of a romantic, a mix you don’t often hear from comics characters.

Even more than that, the title offers a great combination of different tones and running plotlines, making it a grab-bag of genres that can’t be perfectly qualified as just one.  Over the course of the series, we’ve had bits of spy-thriller, romance, supernatural, sci-fi, pulp, mystery, and drama, all of which Robinson weaves together with wonderful credibility.  Furthermore, Shade’s long-lived existence allows for a wide range of periods and settings as well.  In short, this book has the opportunity to tell almost any kind of story it wants in any way it wants.

This time around, we get a WWII tale of conspiracy and patriotism, involving not only the already surprising intervention of the Shade—given his general indifferent to greater world matters in general—but also the two-gun, motorcycle-riding Vigilante and the cross-dressing Madam Fatal, also known as one Richard Stanton.  You’re never going to have a weirder set of characters than that, and that alone makes this issue a standout from the year’s releases thus far.

Honestly, the plot is nothing much, being one of your typical “Who’s the mastermind scheming to kidnap/kill the Figure of Importance in question?”  The reveal of this individual also proves a bit cliché and predictable, both as to his/her identity and how it happens.  What makes it an entertaining read is Robinson’s use of Vigilante and Madam Fatal (and if you’ve never heard of either before, I imagine the surprise will be even greater), and the timing of Shade’s appearances.
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Filed under: DC Comics, Reviews | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Amazing Spider-Man #677 – Review

Posted on January 13, 2012 by dfstell

By: Mark Waid (writer), Emma Rios (art), Javier Rodriguez (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Ellie Pyle (assistant editor) & Stephen Wacker (editor)

The Story: Spidey teams up with Daredeveil and Black Cat.

Four Things: 

1. Black Cat always makes the story better. – There’s no better way to start a heated comment thread than to suggest a preference for one of Peter Parker’s many ladies over the others.  So, this may be kicking over a hornets’ nest, but I really like Spidey/Peter with Black Cat.  The best part of any Peter Parker romance is the courtship phase and he can never get out of that phase with Black Cat because she isn’t about to be tied down.  So, all we get is fun banter, chasing around town, hijinks, Peter making non-optimal decisions because she’s HOT…  As always, in this issue Black Cat has other things going on (unlike Peter’s other love interests who exist mostly to get kidnapped by villains) and as always, it’s unclear whether she is good or bad.  Ambiguity is good!

2. Nice team-up with Daredevil. – You know what I loved about this team-up????  I loved that it wasn’t preceded by 2 pages of Spidey and Daredevil fighting before the team-up started.  I mean, jeez, these guys have known each other for over 40 years and they’re teammates on the Avengers, so they should slip right into a comfortable camaraderie.
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Filed under: Marvel Comics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Batwoman #5 – Review

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Minhquan Nguyen

By: J.H. Williams III & W. Haden Blackman (writers), J.H. Williams III (artist), Dave Stewart (colorist)

The Story: Screw the Ghostbusters—Batwoman’s on the case!

The Review: Kate Kane as Batwoman faced a lot of scrutiny from the moment she came into existence, and although her sexual preferences were the most controversial, I think even if she’d been straight as an arrow, people would still look at her with a doubtful eye.  Anyone who takes on “Bat” in their name is bound to have tough comparisons made on them, and since she presumes to hold herself as the female equal to Batman, she has even more to live up to.

So it’s been a great pleasure to see her doing just that.  While her methods and attitude to the work have obvious differences, she’s shown just as much of a hyper-competence and willingness to do the most radical things to get the job done.  You may have been wondering how she planned to grapple with the Weeping Woman; ghosts aren’t exactly within the Bat-family’s usual line of work, after all, not even with the Dark Knight himself.  And it must be said, the spiritual tactic she uses to figure out what’s to be done, and her execution of it, is both surprising and brilliant, something Batman would do in his most esoteric, probably the best praise of all.

And like any great Bat-story, Batwoman’s confrontation with the Weeping Woman has just as much dramatic depth as it does action.  What really makes the scene sing is how it shows Kate as both human and superhuman at the same time.  If we can take the theory that every Batman rogue represents some different aspect of the hero’s character, and apply it to Batwoman, the Weeping Woman represents Kate’s grief and guilt over the loss of her sister.  While she will probably always think of Beth with regret, Kate makes it clear she will no longer feel guilt over what happened, as it was not her fault.  The Weeping Woman, however, can’t say the same.

I won’t spoil the sequence for you by describing the specifics, but I can say that in addition to showing Batwoman’s ability to be both unmoved and compassionate at the same time, we also get a name drop of her next mark, one the D.E.O. also want to take down.  While Chase and Bones describe Medusa as a “criminal cartel,” that begs the question: what the heck kind of criminal cartel can summon demons to possess stray spirits and compel them to kidnap kids?
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Filed under: DC Comics, Reviews | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Batman and Robin #5 – Review

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Minhquan Nguyen

By: Peter J. Tomasi (writer), Patrick Gleason (penciller), Mick Gray (inker), John Kalisz (colorist)

The Story: Damian, I’d say you have a bright future as an artist—for S&M fetishists.

The Review: Way, way back in my review of Batgirl #17, I talked about how Damian Wayne, for all the different interpretations he’s been given under various writers, generally projects a bratty, arrogant, and condescending personality.  While the manifestations of all these traits are quite diverting, they tend to cover up his grossly violent and twisted upbringing, and ignore how such a form of nurture can have a lasting impact on his psyche.

Tomasi has gradually peeled back the confrontational layers of Damian’s attitude to reveal a deeply disturbed soul housed in this ten-year-old boy.  While it’s obvious to anyone who’s been reading that Damian’s indifference to life has been gnawing at him for a while, it’s not until Alfred and Bruce’s horrific discovery of Damian’s stash of vicious doodles that we fully understand what he’s been repressing all this time.  What’s brilliant about the moment is how even as it fills you with revulsion, a wave of pity strikes you too as you realize how sincerely, in his own way, Bruce’s son has been trying to live up to his father’s principles all this time.

The realization isn’t lost on Bruce either, as you see him in a rare moment of self-loathing for ignoring his son’s needs.  That’s the thing with Batman; most people see him as the cold, calculating antihero, but if Bruce has proven over the years that he’s always had a very vulnerable soft spot where his Robins are concerned.  Over the years, he’s played father to quite a few youths, and he reveals here how genuinely he takes to that role: “I know we’re never going to throw a baseball in the back of the Manor after a tough day—but I’d be lying if I said a small part of me wouldn’t enjoy that mundane existence even for just a moment.”

The devotion between father and son forms the spinal theme of this issue.  It’s no coincidence Tomasi introduces clear parallels between Morgan (AKA Nobody) and Henri Ducard and Damian and Bruce Wayne: the son worshipping the mostly absent father, even betraying his mother for the sake of it; the father teaching and training his son in his footsteps; the budding resentment and rivalry between the sons of the father’s blood and his adoption.
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The Unwritten #33 – Review

Posted on January 12, 2012 by dfstell

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (co-creators, writer & pencils), M.K. Perker (inks), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: Tom Taylor goes on the offensive versus the Cabal now that he’s all powered up by the belief of his fans.

Five Things:

1. Finally an action-filled, quickly-paced issue. – Things happened in this issue.  Whether it was Tom/Tommy (the distinction is becoming meaningless) fighting his way through Cabal minions with his spells (which are wonderfully illustrated by Gross) or the revelations coming from inside the Cabal, we were always getting either important bits of new information OR forward action in the series.  I love this series, but it needs more of this, especially as we’re reaching a climax in the action.

2. Pullman remains the most interesting character. – Tom and his buddies aren’t uninteresting, but they’re mostly tools to figure out what the Cabal is all about.  But Pullman is really intriguing.  On one hand, he’s the hired muscle for the Cabal.  But, he’s also really old (as we’re learning from the .5 issues of The Unwritten) and the members of the Cabal seem afraid of him.  He’s kinda third-party in all the action that just happens to be aligned with the Cabal.  Furthermore, he seems like he really understands this whole system whereby reality is warped via the mass belief of the people, and he understands it in a deeper way than the Cabal’s leadership does.  The true nature of Pullman is THE big mystery that I want to know about in the second half of the series.

3. Interesting reversal by the Cabal. – This is slightly SPOILER-y, but it was very interesting how the Cabal defused Tom’s powers.  They just kinda fired up a bullpen of writers to write stories about Tom and then read them aloud.  And….since the readers were in close proximity to Tom (which Pullman had taught us was important), it screwed up the power of the public to feed power into Tom.  Maybe there was some deeper meaning to the passages being written by the bullpen, but it seemed like they were mostly tossing a monkey wrench into the gears.  This power of the people to warp reality via story and the implications it has in the real world for the use of propaganda is fascinating.
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Filed under: Vertigo | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Green Lantern #5 – Review

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Minhquan Nguyen

By: Geoff Johns (writer), Doug Mahnke (penciller), Mark Irwin, Keith Champagne, Christian Alamy, Tom Nguyen (inkers), Alex Sinclair & Tony Avina (colorists)

The Story: Instead of power rings, maybe it’s best the mob goes back to pitchforks and torches.

The Review: It’s a funny thing about people.  We spend a great lot of our time figuring them out, usually to no success, and then we end up pinning semi-arbitrary labels on them anyway.  We hold onto those labels far longer than reasonable, even with all the evidence to the contrary, and then at the drop of a dime, we switch out those labels for new ones, sticking to those just as fervently and with just as little support.

That’s pretty much what’s happening between the people of Korugar and Sinestro in this issue.  In a few blinks of the eye, they go from readying themselves to waste him to shouting hoorahs in his name.  In their defense, Sinestro does accomplish exactly what he set out to do, which is to free his homeworld from the corps he created, and it’s mostly the impressionable children who look at him adoringly, while the adults seem to have no idea what to make of him now.

But that’s completely understandable.  As this series has gone on, it’s gotten harder and harder to remember that Sinestro is considered a villain in the grand scheme of things.  He’s just so darn competent that objectively, you can’t help admiring the guy to some degree.  In fact, as you watch him coolly whip out back-up plan after back-up plan, executing each one with perfect precision, you get vibes of Batman, master of prep-time himself, and you understand why Hal seems to rub against both men the wrong way.

I suppose it’d be poor form to talk about an issue of Green Lantern without mentioning Hal at some point.  Really, though, he’s been so overshadowed by his “partner” these issues that he’s become a sidekick in his own title.  In a way, he deserves that status.  The first issue saw him down on his luck, with no job, no house, no mode of transportation, mooching dinner off his girlfriend, who he can’t bring himself to commit to, all of which makes him seem like the boy who won’t grow up and throw down some roots.
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Scalped #55 – Review

Posted on January 12, 2012 by dfstell

By: Jason Aaron (writer), R.M. Guera (artist), Giulia Brusco (colors), Sal Cipriano (letters), Mark Doyle (associate editor) & Will Dennis (editor)

The Story: The big throw-down between Dash and Shunka is here.  Bring it on!

Five things [SPOILER WARNING]:

1. Good lord this is a violent and gritty fight. - Most comic fights are highly stylized like something you’d see in an old Jean Claude Van Damme movie where everything is rippling muscles and beautifully executed roundhouse kicks.  This is something else.  There is shooting, stabbing, biting, eye gouging, penis kneeing, punching, kicking, choking, and scalping!!!!  I mean, this fight goes on for pages and pages and pages.  It is BRUTAL.  You can really hear the grunts and groans.  You can just about smell it.  I also really liked how the fight was resolved.  It was a good ending that was respectful to all of the characters involved.  My only quibble is that I don’t quite understand how the winner of the fight turned the tables with one solid punch after all that back and forth brutality.  Was it a liver punch?

2. Shit gets real at the end. - Here’s the big spoiler.  At the end, Dash announces himself as FBI and arrests Red Crow.  That is kinda the moment that the whole series has been building towards.  Finally, after everything, Dash has eyeball proof of Red Crow committing a murder.  And, making the scene emotionally difficult is that Red Crow had just saved Dash’s life and has started to see Dash as a son, which is highly ironic given the relationship between Red Crow and Dash’s mother.  What should’ve been a “Hell Yeah!” moment leaves you feeling badly for Red Crow.

3. Great moments in the art… - Guera has a really strong issue with the details.  After a few issues of just showing us that Dash has a huge band-aid on the side of his face, in this issue, Guera goes to great length to show us the wires holding his mouth shut.  That becomes a big deal in the fight with Shunka and also in the climactic scene at the end.  And there are lots of other little things, like showing us a framed display of Native American arrowheads a few panels before Shunka picks it up and smashes Dash in the face with it.  The art also does a wonderful job of showing pain during the big fight.
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Filed under: Vertigo | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

WCBR’s Top Picks

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Ray Hilario

Dean’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Rachel Rising #4 – This was kinda a “blah” week for comics with Marvel shoveling up a big, fat pile of “okay” and that gives an opportunitiy for some interesting choices like Rachel Rising #4.  Nothing that remarkable happened inside the pages of RR; we didn’t begin a new plotline and there were no “startling revelations”.  But, Terry Moore did start to tie some separate pieces together in this issue and give us glimpses of what his story will be about.  And of course, this creepy story of a girl who rises from the dead is beautifully illustrated.  Not many artists could pull off the intricate and delicate linework that Moore gives us every month.  Trust me: Pick up Rachel Rising now because the next thing you know, it’ll be issue #15 and you’ll feel you’re too far behind.  Runner-up: Vescell #5

Most Anticipated: Scarlet Spider #1 –  You know who is really good at comics?  Ryan Stegman.  The guy is super-talented and improving all the time, yet for some reason Marvel has been putting him on miniseries and things that are doomed to be cancelled early.  This is really annoying considering some of the mediocre art that comes out of some parts of Marvel (ahem….X-office).  FINALLY, he gets a shot at an ongoing that should have some legs.  We got teases of what he could do on a Spidey-themed book in Amazing Spiderman early last summer and he nailed it.  And, it’s being written by Chris Yost who rarely does a bad story.  Personally, I’m not a big fan of all the clone crap in in my Spidey stories, but with these creators Marvel makes it impossible to say “no”.  Check it out.

Other Picks: Batwoman #5, Scalped #55, Unwritten #33, The Activity #2, Severed #6, Amazing Spider-Man #677, Secret Avengers #21, Wolverine and the X-Men #4

Alex’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Swamp Thing #5 – Yanick Paquette may have only left for one issue, but man did I miss him!  A gorgeous book with great storytelling from both creators, great monsters, and great character moments.  Oh, and Alec Holland finally kicks some ass.  A great book.  Not just that, but Swamp Thing and Animal Man are really showing the right way to build up to a crossover.

Most Anticipated: PunisherMAX #21 – The penultimate issue of Jason Aaron’s run is here and finally, Frank and Fisk are going to throw down for real and, if the solicitation is right, someone’s going to die.  Readers of PunisherMAX know that this fight has been a LONG time coming.  The build-up has been amazing and it’s gone beyond personal; it’s been brutally inevitable since issue 1 and now, it comes down to this.

Other Picks: Batwoman #5, Demon Knights #5, Frankenstein #5, Green Lantern #5, Wolverine & the X-Men #4, Wolverine #300, Incredible Hulk #4, Journey into Mystery #633, New Avengers #20, Captain America #7, Amazing Spider-Man #677

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Thunderbolts #168 – Review

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Minhquan Nguyen

By: Jeff Parker (writer), Matthew Southworth (artist), Frank Martin, Jr. (colorist)

The Story: As it turns out, this particular man does have a name.

The Review: I spread a lot of DC love around here, and I think it’s time Marvel gets some of that as well.  Now, DC has given a lot of big talk about promoting diversity and highlighting minority characters, but at the end of the day, the most prominent non-white hero in its roster is probably John Stewart, honorary Green Lantern, whose popularity is mostly cultish.

Meanwhile, Marvel has several minority characters who’ve actually reached iconic status, like the highly beloved and respected Storm and, as of late, Luke Cage.  It’s really quite amazing how since his entry into the New Avengers some years ago, he’s made a meteoric rise to becoming one of the most prolific heroes adventuring in the Marvel Universe today.  Even so, for a long time, he still tended to be the “black” voice of the teams he works with, rather than a fully-formed personality of his own.

This issue shows how much he’s grown since his early proto-Mr. T. days.  As he grapples with Mr. Fear’s unexpected attack, we essentially get to see Parker break down Cage’s tough guy exterior, the one he relies on to command the respect of his peers and the loyalty (or, at least, obedience) of the Thunderbolts.  Once all that bravado and rough talk (“One day I’m going to bust in and hear: ‘Luke Cage?  Please don’t beat me like a cheap drum!  I surrender!’…  No time soon, I hope) disappears, we get a very different, vulnerable, and tortured sort of Cage.

At some point in every superhero’s life, they encounter a plotline where they must confront their deepest fears, either actually or via delusion, as Cage does here.  Either way, the experience is actually more valuable to us than anybody else, as we get to see the things that haunt and worry our heroes, and thus what makes up the backbone of their characters.  For Cage, we see not only his determination to escape the stigma of being a criminal, but his hope that others will do the same, as part of his hallucination involves the Thunderbolts giving into their worse selves.

Parker cleverly ties in this gnawing concern with the sequence where Songbird and Mach V confront the bureaucrats who commission the team.  In a neat twist, these suited-and-tied individuals are several times more pragmatic and ends-means oriented than the people they employ, coming off colder and more ruthless than the supposed criminals at work.  They make no apologies, however, and make it obvious they only care about the function of the team.
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Static Shock #5 – Review

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Minhquan Nguyen

By: Scott McDaniel (writer & penciller), Andy Owens (inker), Guy Major (colorist)

The Story: Folks, it’s never a good idea to mess with a guy’s sister.

The Review: In my experience, the end of a love affair—and of course I’m talking about comics here—always comes into two flavors: bittersweet or bitter.  Admittedly, my fling with Static Shock started out less than moony, gradually growing more and more disenchanted with each issue, but there’s still enough feeling in the relationship for me to say that even at the end, I still think it could’ve worked, had things been a little different.

Because honestly, the story so far has not been bad.  Rozum and McDaniel (and now, just McDaniel) have done a fine job weaving in a number of different plotlines, breaking up the story to keep it from being sedentary.  And in fact, in this issue, a lot of those plotlines actually come together to form a fairly cohesive picture of where this title might be going.  It’s just frustrating that it took this long for it get its act together.
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Penguin: Pain and Prejudice #4 – Review

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Minhquan Nguyen

By: Gregg Hurwitz (writer), Szymon Kudranski (artist), John Kalisz (colorist)

The Story: It’s only fair, Penguin, that you give Hitchcock credit for half your evil plan.

The Review: Like the vast majority of comic book villains, Penguin lacked much of the depth that made so many of his brethren standouts.  He had a recognizable appearance, and a very clear theme, but strip all that away and character-wise, he really was nothing more than your common mafia boss with mercenary values.  Notice, however, my use of the past tense.

Because right about now—and I can’t believe I’m writing this—Penguin has become one of the most intriguing villains on the new DCU.  While he’s not nearly on par with Joker or Luthor, those paragons of criminals, Hurwitz has given him such complexity in this mini that he’s easily more compelling than most the other evil-doers running about in other comics.

While this story has produced some great dramatic sequences with Oswald Cobblepot, perhaps no other scene better defines his point of view than when he speaks directly into the three-way mirror during his interrogation.  After pointing out the atrocities of his victims, he asks, “Am I any better?  Of course not.  But I’m not any worse.  Do you ever question it?  Why you protect them?  And why you drag me in here…?  Of course not…  You know why?  Because they look like one of you.  And I…I look like one of me.”

I quote a lot of this monologue for several reasons.  One: it has that perfect mixture of defiance and vulnerability that makes him contemptible, admirable, and sympathetic all at the same time.  Two: it gives you some food for thought not only about the story at hand, but about our own grayish outlook on who’s a “bad” person and how we treat them in the real world.
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Guide to Comic Binding

Posted on January 11, 2012 by dfstell

What is comic binding?

Comic binding is an interesting sub-hobby of comic collecting where you take a collection of (usually) 20-25 single issues comics and have them bound by a book bindery into a custom hardcover collection that can sit on your book shelf.

Why bind your comics?

There are a number of reasons to bind comics, including:

  • Readability: We all have notions of actually re-reading our old comics sometimes, but how often do you actually read single issue comics that are in bags and boards?  Because of the hassle of locating the issues, remembering where a run starts and stops, TAPE, etc. most of these treasured issues never escape the long box.  Once you bind the issues, they’re on your bookshelf and easy to grab for a quick 15 minute escape into a story you love.
  • Portability: Again, the bagged-boarded-longbox system makes single issues difficult to take with you.  Can you easily take 5-6 single issues to a doctor’s office to entertain you in the waiting room?  NOPE!  But, you can easily toss a bound hardcover into your backpack.
  • Lendability: You probably have friends who are slightly interested in comics.  You might even want to lend them some of yours to try out.  Handing someone a stack of 30 single issues in bags and boards is really off-putting.  Just the bags and boards imply that they are somehow valuable and precious (when they’re probably worth a dollar each).  Not to mention that your friend has to keep them in order, that the stack of comics is always toppling over, that they worry that their kids will spill juice on them.  Not a problem with a hardcover.
  • Space savings: All comic fans have space constraints and comics reproduce like rabbits.  Just the act of taking them out of the bags & boards reduces the space by ~50% and if you also remove ads and back covers, you’ll save even more room.  25 issues bound into a hardcover takes up about ~2 inches on a bookshelf.
  • Respectability: Some fans care about this and some militantly do not, but I’ve always noted that non-comics people somehow find comic binding to be a “respectable” hobby.  Perhaps it is odd and quirky, but it seems to escape that geeky/deviant tag that we sometimes get nailed with.  And, regular comic reading seems to be able to hide under the halo of the comic binding.

Doesn’t it “destroy” the value of the comics?
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Scarlet Spider #1 – Review

Posted on January 10, 2012 by jmiddle3

By: Chris Yost (writer), Ryan Stegman (artist), Marte Gracia (colors)

The Story: Marvel is going to feel pretty stupid when ripped-sleeved hoodies TOTALLY come back in 2012!

The Review: Marvel is certainly wringing Spider-Man for everything he’s worth. Amazing, Spectacular, Ultimate, Avenging, and with guest appearances on Future Foundation and one of the Avengers teams (I can never keep them straight), it’s clear the brand is doing well. Heck, they even have the dark anti-Spider-Man in Rick Remender’s Venom ongoing. So is there really room for Scarlet Spider? Maybe, but it will need to have a clear, compelling difference from the other existing books to justify its presence on the stands. After reading this issue, while I think the creative has a good reason for their book, I also think they need to do a better job of communicating it.

Right away, the opening did not impress me. The comic opens with several narrow, full-page vertical panels that zoom in on a nondescript port. This hardly takes advantage of the opportunity to showcase Houston, a location never previously explored in Marvel Comics. What follows feels like it was lifted straight from the scene in the Narrows in Batman Begins. Neither of these things are bad, exactly, but they aren’t very inspired.

The first three pages are crawling with spiders. Or perhaps I should say “sprinkled” with spiders. They spiders cast no shadows, and don’t seem to make contact with any surface. They are all similarly positioned, none appearing to scuttle or spin webs or indeed do anything at all. They simply hover between the reader and the story going on inside the panels. After three pages of this, the spiders crawl into the panels, and assemble en masse for our first look at Kaine before disappearing for the rest of this issue. I know what Stegman was going for here, and in the hands of a more experimental artist, this could have been really cool. But Stegman’s work is fairly traditional, and the comic looks for all the world like a preschooler stuck spider stickers all over it.

Not too say all of Stegman’s work is bad. The two-page spread explaining Kaine’s backstory was clever and actually made it sound fun. The vistas of Houston, when we finally get to them, are fresh and warm, and the action flows and bubbles with energy. But first impressions are important, and mine was not enthusiastic.
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Carnage USA #2 – Review

Posted on January 10, 2012 by jmiddle3

By: Zeb Wells (writer), Clayton Crain (artist)

The Story: The calm before the storm.

What’s Good: This miniseries is beginning to me remind of the nineties Spider-Man crossover Planet of the Symbiotes, or rather, what that event should have been. Planet, while mostly remembered as a failure today, actually had some decent ideas. All of New York City, invaded by violent, parasitic aliens? After the success of Spider Island, you can’t tell me that couldn’t have worked. Plus, the possibilities of exploring the structure of a society made of symbiotic life forms really got my inner sci-fi geek revving. However, that series failed because of lazy and unimaginative writing, inconsistent artwork, and action that settled for schlock instead of reaching for real scares.

Carnage, USA by contrast, is actually attempting to be something more than a punch-fest. Zeb Wells and Clayton Crain sell the horror of a bloated symbiote bonding to nearly the entire population of a small town effectively, and the scenes featuring Cletus Kasady playing the “family man” with some of his hostages are outright chilling. Last issue, Crain’s work was uneven, but here he seems to have found his stride. Characters look and stand more naturally, the lighting is simplified, and the storytelling more streamlined. He plays up the motif of Kasady as a puppet master, and illustrates him conducting the madness. It’s outright insidious, and is a good contrast to the portrayal of the other symbiotes in this book.

The first symbiote we meet is Scorn, a spawn of Carnage.  Scorn, who first bonded to a prosthetic, never learned the difference between flesh and machinery. Subsequently, she can manipulate machinery in much the same way Kasady manipulates the townsfolk of Doverton. While Scorn seems to be stable, the military brass are wary of relying on symbiotes in general—and rightly so after being burned by Venom. So the other symbiotes, originally united as Hybrid, are traumatically torn from their host, partitioned from one another, and then trained to act as power-ups for the Green Berets. It’s frankly disturbing treatment, though logical when the symbiotes are viewed from a militaristic perspective. As a result, there is no threat of them bonding with their new hosts, and no threat of the hosts going AWOL. I hope that Wells follows up on this idea, and examines the ethics of using these creatures as weapons of war. Crain captures all the symbiotes well, painting Scorn as elegantly deadly, while the special forces symbiotes are pitifully incomplete, more like equipment than life-forms. I was concerned that the art for this mini would be a mess of tendrils, but Crain’s restraint here has restored my faith.
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Uncanny X-Men #4 – Review

Posted on January 9, 2012 by paladinking

by Kieron Gillen (writing), Brandon Peterson (art), Justin Ponsor (colors), and Joe Caramagna (letters)

The Story: The Phalanx returns and the X-Men race to stop its rapid consumption.

The Review:  What a strange issue… I really don’t mean that in a bad way at all.  In fact, I wish more ongoing series did this.  Uncanny X-Men #4 is something a one-shot, and Gillen really makes the most of the opportunity, using the done-in-one format to tell a rather different kind of story with a very different focus.  It’s told from the perspective of a member of the Phalanx, marooned on Earth, and the result is a surprisingly intimate comic.

Gillen’s goal with this comic is to make the unrelatable relatable and to make something utterly alien, and generally construed as evil, into something sympathetic.  That’s no easy feat, yet Gillen does accomplish it.  The Phalanx becomes comprehensible.  It’s logic is still completely at odds with humanity, but that there is a logic operating is clear.  More than that though, while Gillen never shies away from just how different, and thus how opposed, the Phalanx is to humanity, he does a great job of giving it legitimate emotions, feelings of loneliness and affection that are surprising.

Really, Gillen boils the Phalanx down into something that is simply incompatible with humanity.  It feels and it loves, but simply put, what it sees as good and affectionate, humanity sees as murderously destructive. The result is something of a bizarre story that ends up being somewhat chilling.  At the heart of Gillen’s script is an entity that simply doesn’t want to be alone, while also wanting to express its affection, but its means are repugnant.  What you end up with then, is an isolated freak, killing out of love and loneliness, wracked by his conscious, but flailing about lost.  It’s thoroughly unsettling, but Gillen crafts a comic where you actually understand the incomprehensible and feel legitimate sympathy for a creature that commits mass murder while garnering that sympathy.  It’s a morally challenging comic, to be sure.

Of course, the downside to all of this is that in delving into these complexities, Gillen does end up being guilty of overwriting the book a bit.  There is a LOT of narration, so much so that it does slow the book down at some points.  At times, that’s acceptable – it gives the book an ominous tone – but that pace is constant, irrespective of when that ominous tone should be at the forefront or not.  I think Gillen’s biggest crime with all this narration is that he does fall prey on a few occasions of telling rather than showing.  I realize a great deal of characterization was necessary in an issue like this to establish the required intimacy, but Gillen should’ve allowed the art to do a little more of the talking.  I don’t think the reader needed quite so much hand-holding.
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Uncanny X-Force #19.1 – Review

Posted on January 9, 2012 by jmiddle3

By: Rick Remender (writer), Billy Tan (artist), José Villarrubia (colors)

The Story: The X-Men of the Age of Apocalypse make a last-ditch effort to relocate into a different X-Men crossover event.

The Review: The Point One initiative at Marvel has been an odd little duck. Supposedly, issues with the “.1” label were meant to be “perfect jumping on point[s] for Marvel’s flagship series, while dropping hints for each series’ next year of stories” (from Marvel’s Website). Few actually deliver that promise. Sometimes, they’ve been character studies (Iron Man #500.1), others simply self-contained stories with no connection to past or future issues (Thor #620.1), and still others magic “undo” buttons for inconvenient plot elements (Fear Itself #7.1). Uncanny X-Force has actually already had one, just fourteen issues ago; as Alex pointed out in his review of it at the time, it actually did a pretty good job of acting as a jumping on point, so it’s fair to wonder why another one would be needed now, less than a year later.

Well, as it turns out, it’s because this is one of the weirdest .1 issues yet; it’s a launching pad for a completely different book with a completely different creative team.  Marvel fans may remember a similar scheme from the Amazing Spider-Man #654.1 reveal of Flash Thompson as the new Venom, but this issue is unique in that it doesn’t even reference the main cast of this series. Instead, this issue from Rick Remender and Billy Tan, takes place entirely in the Age of Apocalypse, and sets up the ongoing series David Latham and Roberto de la Torre will be helming. I know that series will be building on some ideas Remender introduced in Uncanny X-Force, but still, this is an oddly labeled issue.

On to the issue itself. We start the series by meeting a new character called the Prophet, a human leader of the resistance against the ascended Weapon X, and an ally of the AoA X-Men. And this Prophet guy? Total badass. His opening monologue about growing up in this world, and his role in it as a prophet who puts his faith in humanity rather than God, is stirring and chilling. I was initially critical of his character design—a cross between Jason Todd and Azrael—but after watching him single-handedly take out a sentinel in a wonderfully rendered sequence from Billy Tan, I pretty much forgot my complaints.
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Vescell #5 – Review

Posted on January 9, 2012 by dfstell

By: Enrique Carrion (writer), John Upchurch (art) and Rafael Diaz (letters)

The Story: Agent Barrino gets called in to investigate a mystery with WWII ties.

Four Things:

1. Pieces clicking together. – I’ve been a pretty unabashed fan of this series, but the one thing that bugged me was how we seem to have many disconnected story pieces.  For example, in issue #1 we learned how Agent Barrino’s girlfriend had been banished to a demonic limbo and he was on a mission to get her back.  Well, that plot thread wasn’t fiddled with much over the next several issues as we just watched Barrino solving cases, having sexy time with the ladies and establishing the world of Vescell.  So, it was really nice to see the girlfriend plotline come back in this issue.  It wasn’t the A-story, but there was enough attention devoted to it that I feel better about the coherence of the whole Vescell story.

2. Love the series of done-in-ones. – The storytelling style employed by Carrion is great.  Each issue has a fully resolved major plot (this one relates to a woman who was turned into a vessel for Hitler using a Nazi-era technology) and Carrion uses that A-Story to better establish his world and the characters that live in it.  Everything feels fast paced.  We’re only five issues into this series and I already feel like I know a LOT about these characters, especially when I compare Vescell to a lot of the Marvel stories that I read where it takes 6 months for anything to happen.  You never pick up an issue of Vescell and have to worry too much about remember intricate plot details from the last few issues.
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Stormwatch #5 – Review

Posted on January 8, 2012 by Minhquan Nguyen

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Miguel Sepulveda (artist), Allen Passalaqua (colorist)

The Story: You won’t believe what a liar he can be.

The Review: Sooner or later, Cornell had to address one of Stormwatch’s pet conceits: the premise that it’s been around since time immemorial, protecting Earth from all manner of threats from beyond the planet itself, resourced and funded by a mysterious, all-knowing group.  If Cornell really wants to sell this to us, he has to make the folks behind Stormwatch as impressive as he rumors them to be, otherwise Stormwatch as a whole loses credibility.

You see, the team itself is so chock-full of strong, take-no-nonsense personalities that whoever calls the shots on them has to be pretty powerful, both in ability and manner, to be taken seriously.  So it makes perfect sense when from out of nowhere, a supposed Cabinet man arrives, takes the team to task, and reorganizes them within the span of a few pages, with nary a care to their protests.

He doesn’t throw his weight around with just words, however.  Though we only get a glimpse of him in action, he seems capable of performing physics-bending feats almost negligently (“Let’s see, do I remember–?  Death pit, death pit…”), as when he sentences Adam One to death.  Don’t worry—as it turns out, death in the Stormwatch world is considered a kind of promotional stepping stone, a fact which tells you quite a lot about the exact nature of the Shadow Cabinet.

In assigning new leadership to the team, the Cabinet man spends some time musing over each member’s background.  While most of this is an annoying summation of everyone’s powers and abilities, which we’re pretty well-acquainted with by now, we do get some novel bits of info, some more useful (“[Jenny Quantum’s] father is a high-ranking military man, who still thinks she was murdered by terrorists.”) than others (“[Jack Hawksmoor] has sex with wells.”).

The most brilliant twist in the issue is the choice of who will ultimately be Stormwatch’s new leader: spoiler alert—Projectionist.  There’s poetry in this development for a lot of reasons.  Since #1, she’s bemoaned how no one appreciates her, and how all she wants is recognition, which may explain her rather dramatic past (“…there was the life of crime, the suicide attempts, the murders—”).  Now that she has all the attention she can hope for, it’s entertaining to see her overwhelmed in her new position (“…an emergency?!  Already?!”).  Great choice.
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Rachel Rising #4 – Review

Posted on January 8, 2012 by dfstell

By: Terry Moore (story, art, letters…)

The Story: The pieces of Rachel’s “death” start to come into greater focus.
Four Things: [Minor SPOILERS]

1. Rachel’s condition is starting to become clear. – Okay, she clearly cannot die or she is at least very hard to kill.  In the beginning of the series we saw her rise from a shallow grave.  Now we’ve seen her reanimate after falling off a building.  Maybe this isn’t perpetual since we do get her vital signs this time and they suggest that she’s barely got a heartbeat.  Maybe it’s like she has 9 lives or something.  But, there is clearly something weird going on that keeps her moving.

2. A few other pieces start clicking together too. – There was a whole interesting nexus of plot threads in this issue.  It was all kinds of weird (in a good way) that after we saw the guy finish burying his fiancée in a shallow grave that the little girl who killed her sister comes lurching along, smashes into his car and basically says, “Dude, you gonna help me or not?! “  And the dude just kinda shrugs his shoulders and helps her dispose of the body.  It’s a surreal scene all around… “Oh well, I did just kill my fiancée and buried her in the woods.  Might as well help this little girl who I don’t know bury her dead body too.”  And, it was interesting that the burial spot seemed to be the same place where Rachel was buried.  I’ll talk about the mysteries below, but Moore is smart to connect a few dots even at this early stage because fans bitch about series that leave everything unresolved (think Morning Glories after about issue #10).
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