It snowed at least six inches where I was, but I still braved the tundra for my weekly installment of comics. Now, that's dedication! As always, check out my Examiner page for reviews first. They pay me, so I type there first. Also as always, full spoilers/rants ahoy.
Dread's Bought/Thought for 2/10/10:
BOOSTER GOLD #29: The last issue with a Blue Beetle second feature/back up strip, which means the last issue that is $3.99. I liked the Blue Beetle strip, as I bought all 35 issues of his ongoing series, and I must say I'll be sad to see it leave. This was one case where I felt the package was worth the extra dollar. I have no intention of buying TEEN TITANS so in a way this seems like it really will be farewell from Jaime Reyes and his cast, at least barring a relaunch of his series (which is possible; series that last 3 years usually get at least one relaunch). At least outside TV's BATMAN: BRAVE AND THE BOLD.
There's a Booster main story, of course. He's still knee deep in trying to make sure that the evil of Cyborg Superman plays out in DC history as it should. He once again is combating a rival time-traveler intent on mucking up the time stream, but this time she doesn't appear to be an outright villain, like Rex Hunter or Black Beetle are. She's Capt. Sondra Crain (any possible relation to Johnathan Crain, the Scarecrow?), she's a government agent from eighty years in the future (basically, the end of the 21st century, but still at least 200 years from Booster's home time), and she's been sent back to deliberately prevent the massacre of Coast City. Having failed to prevent Cyborg Superman's birth, she now is left with the task of evacuating the city. Her only problem? Turns out even 80 years in the future, government sources/technology is crap, and instead of days, she barely has hours. While still angry at Rip Hunter's strict philosophy of maintaining the time line, Booster still upholds his rules to Sondra...until she seems to convince him otherwise. I mean, this was the guy who was willing to mess it all up for Ted Kord, right? Unfortunately, Cyborg's assault begins, and both are swept up in it. Mixed into the mess is Booster's sister, Michelle, who has found herself and her "non-action boyfriend" Drew in the middle of this as well. Her attempt to flee from Rip's time meddling and sort out of the terrible, horrible knowledge of having been saved from death (which is certainly worth flipping out and running away from friends/family over, sarcasm alert) may have backfired, and she may end up dead after all. As always, Dan Jurgens is kicking rear on art as well as telling a solid time story. I could do without Booster's narration recapping his mission every single issue, especially since the summary over each issue's official title EXPLAINS ALL THAT IN FINE DETAIL, but beyond that, this is a more suspenseful issue than the last. Norm Rapmund, as usual, helps on the art chores.
I like the idea of Booster's morals being questioned not by some fanatical time villain, but a rival who genuinely thinks she is doing the right thing for selfless reasons, and she may be correct. There's still that weird subplot of Booster being Rip's father even though Rip looks older, which is kind of like the deal between Cable and Cyclops, but it doesn't reach any absurd level or anything.
Reyes' strip wraps up the subplot of Jaime's scarab once again being controlled by the Reach, albeit perhaps a bit too quickly. After "rebooting" his scarab at the end of his ongoing series, Reyes finds himself fighting the control of the alien more and more. Now led to the ancient Reach ruins once again, he becomes enslaved to the aliens' will completely, and turns against his friends. Fortunately, Peacemaker returns to either free Reyes from the control, or kill him. Which he would prefer, as usual, it never known. The Reach pyramid is quickly blown up, Reyes is freed and all it well. While I'm hardly a fan of decompression, I imagine that Matt Sturges could have done more had he another ten pages to work with. Mike Norton, as usual, knocks the art out of the park. There is a bit of an in-joke when Paco laments that his favorite comic book has been canceled, and dismisses the character popping up in team books as "not the same". I feel your pain, Paco, I feel it indeed.
Even though future issues will save me money, I'll miss the Beetle strip, and can only hope the character gets a relaunch. I'll take him over another run of THE FLASH that crashes and burns in 18 months any day.
HAUNT #5: This has perhaps been Robert Kirkman's most timely Image title within the past five months; it hasn't missed a month yet. Surprisingly, it's quickly become one of Image's best selling ongoing titles, outselling even WALKING DEAD (for now). This will be Ryan Ottley's last issue as co-artist, which was inevitable. He likely got two months of lead in time during the Cory Walker run of INVINCIBLE, and now the schedule has caught up, and he can't work on two books at once; INVINCIBLE has run nearly a month behind at this rate. Greg Capullo will take over on full art chores next month, which likely will be fine, as this fits his SPAWN credentials. Robert Kirkman still writes, and Todd MacFarlane still inks (and partly edits). This professes to be the end of the first arc, and while many questions have been answered, there still are many more.
The biggest is why, exactly, Kurt and Daniel Kilgore not only gain super-human powers by being "a haunt", and why these powers manifest as a spandex suit that shoots webbing/symbiote tendril type abilities. Technically, Kurt is the haunt, a spirit that remains on the earthly plane longer than he should because he is linked to his live brother. But, it seems many Kirkman books, whether ASTOUNDING WOLF-MAN or INVINCIBLE, don't reach a major crux until sometime between issue 7 to 14, so I imagine some of this could come up at a later date. At any rate, we learn more about Kurt's final mission that went wrong, which includes another mistress of his, Mirage, a faction-less double agent. Hurg, the Kingpin-type boss man of the series, escapes the issue's bloody gunfight, but Haunt manages to retrieve the notebook that Kurt died for, containing the notes to a new biological weapon. Unfortunately, Rhodes reveals her status as a mole, and severely cripples the organization that Kilgore works for. This turns out to be a boon in a way, because whatever is left is more willing to work with him/them.
Dan and Kurt have another emotional exchange about life and whatnot, which I suppose is par for the course when you're stuck with the ghost of the brother you hated (and the ghost is stuck with the live brother he hated), and by the end Dan actually seems used to his ordeal as Haunt and willing to delve into the black ops lifestyle. Part of me is wondering if this may become like ALIAS, only instead of a main character who is an "action girl" who often changes wigs, we have a supernaturally powered Venom knock-off who has his own guardian ghost. While Dan was a conflicted man, it does seem a bit weird that he now all of a sudden kind of wants to be a supernatural monster agent. Then again, I suppose it beats being a chain-smoking assistant priest who only trusts a local hooker. Kirkman (and MacFarlane) have two brothers who are both very flawed and have their share of skeletons, but the point is together they are stronger than apart. The concept is actually so close to Brother Voodoo, whose title, DOCTOR VOODOO, was vastly outsold by HAUNT and whose 5th issue will be it's last, that Marvel should frankly be embarrassed. At any rate, I've now read the first arc, and what do I think?
It's not as good as INVINCIBLE, or ASTOUNDING WOLF-MAN. It's roughly on par with CAPES or TECH-JACKET, only more ultra-violent and self-important, which almost makes it seem more absurd, because it has less of a sense of humor. Still, it's not as dire as Kirkman's ULTIMATE X-MEN run was. Nor was it good enough to make Ottley run weeks behind on INVINCIBLE, frankly. I'll still continue to buy it, as I enjoy it enough that I do anticipate it, and I don't mind paying $3 for it, now that I am five issues in. I am genuinely curious where Kirkman is going with this. The irony is while in the letters pages, both Kirkman and MacFarlane have vowed to keep Haunt apart from the rest of Kirkman's "Image Universe", the tone does fit that of Astounding Wolf-Man a bit, as another supernatural being. At any rate, I'll continue to "Haunt" my shop for more issues when they come out.
That was bad, wasn't it?
INVINCIBLE PRESENTS ATOM EVE & REX SPLODE #3: Finishing late as well, this is the end of the sequel mini seeking to flesh out the life of Atom Eve before she became involved with INVINCIBLE. In practice, though, this title was more about Rex Splode's origin. Eve showed up by obligation, and because the characters were intertwined anyway as each other's first love. This issue sees the evil government man Erickson, who is responsible for creating Eve as well as killing her birth parents, try to salvage the leftover technology of the evil Radcliffe, who created Rex as his personal assassin before being blown up by him (when Rex refused to kill Cecil Stedman, since killing someone in the Pentagon didn't pass his smell test). This leads to a showdown between the titular heroes and Erickson's armored grunts, a battle that is quickly won when Rex manages to completely blow up the rest of Redcliffe's stuff.
Benito Cereno writes this (as well as the last mini) and does a solid job imitating Kirkman's style and tics for the series, to the point where if you didn't know it was Cereno, you'd assume Kirkman was writing it (he edits). Nate Bellegarde does the art, and while his style is different from that of Cory Walker or Ryan Ottley, it still matches the tone of the universe both created well. He does a nice job of Rex's official costume as well as one Eve "made" for him.
Some might question the point of revealing more about Rex when he's been dead for months in the parent title, but not me. He was Eve's first boyfriend so while Eve was a secondary character in this mini, knowing how she met Rex and whatnot helps to understand her a little better. The three issues missed schedule often and stretched out a bit, but that didn't really hurt the story much, just make the series easier to forget on occasion. Shops barely ordered any of this, so I had to chase down past issues. At any rate, it wasn't a bad ride, although I am curious if the next Invincible Presents will be more Eve backstory, or something on Allen the Alien, arguably the most popular supporting character in Invincible.
MARVEL BOY: THE URANIAN #2: Jeff Parker continues on his mini fleshing out Bob Grayson of the Agents of Atlas, whose origins stem from 1950's era, when Cold War paranoia was at a peak and superheroes were taboo on the streets as well as in comics. Felix Ruiz is on art, and his style is very scratchy; it isn't bad but I am not sure whether it really fits the tone of the series well, as it isn't dark at all. Val Staples does the color art and he does a lot to bring Ruiz's art together.
Grayson continues to operate on Earth as a superhero and an ally to local police and government, in this issue foiling the terrorist plot of a Communist agent. His cover is that he helps Timely Comics craft comic books about his adventures, albeit with heavy alterations. This "comic within a comic" angle is clever, straddling the line between the real Marvel Boy comics of the 50's (which are reprinted in the issue) and the fantasy of Modern Marvel Continuity. The Uranians on Uranus, however, are unhappy that Grayson has seemed to forget his "real" mission to act as an ambassador for their return to earth after centuries on Uranus; they feel he is becoming too loyal to Earth, where he was born. So they poison his father to convince Grayson to return suddenly to Uranus, at the end of a hot date in fact. They outfit him with new gadgets and abilities, and he returns to Earth a year later, new and improved. But is everything as it seems?
While I like Agents of Atlas stuff and Jeff Parker has some clever ideas, as well as writes Marvel Boy with distinctive dialog, this isn't quite the most compelling back-story I have read. Compared to the INVINCIBLE PRESENTS ATOM EVE stuff, it isn't as entertaining or compelling. While the 50's color reprints are interesting to read, it might have been better for this to have been as close to $2.99 as possible. At any rate, I'm still enjoying the stuff, but it's hardly the best Agents material or Parker written material around.
VENGEANCE OF THE MOON KNIGHT #5: Skipping the start of the year to ship now, this continues the relaunch of Moon Knight from Gregg Hurwitz and Jerome Opena, with colors by Paul Mounts. Both DOCTOR VOODOO and SWORD, which launched near the same time as this, have been canned with issue #5; both don't sell more than 15,200, at least as of December. Moon Knight has been solicited until April at least, but this title in Dec. '09 officially sold outside the Top 100, at #101, with under 21.5k sold. While it will outlast those other launches, it seems not enough time elapsed between the end of the last volume of Moon Knight and this one to build THOR like demand. I'll be stunned if this survives to issue #12, considering how cancel happy Marvel is this year. Which is actually a shame; while Hurwitz and Opena aren't remaking the wheel, and they're even adding fuel to the fire to those who criticize Moon Knight as "a Batman riff", they are providing a solidly drawn and paced superhero action comic book. Maybe asking $4 for a #1 issue for a C-List character isn't the best way to attract retailers. I mean, jeez, even infomercials make a "too good to be honest" deal in their customers' favor to get a sale; Marvel won't even do that for a PET AVENGERS title. You want people to try it? Make it cheap.
But, I digress. This issue continues things as they have been written previously. Moon Knight, with the persona of "Jack Lockley" still in charge, continues to try to redeem himself as a proper superhero, stopping criminals without maiming or killing them. Khonshu's avatar continues to goad Specter into slipping back into slaughter sprees, and grows impatient with his holding out on the blood. In the meantime, Bushman is alive again, and has unleashed a horde of mental ward crazies, as well as Scarecrow, into the city to lure out Moon Knight. It works, although Scarecrow's murder of crows complicate Frenchie's support in the Moon-Copter. Probably the coolest sequence is when Moon Knight locks his carbonadium armor into place to hold up a wall of a building, only to slip out in his mask and boxers to take down a half dozen thugs. It's paced and drawn well, and actually looked very cinematic. Scarecrow naturally gets his butt kicked, although Moon Knight was a lot easier on him than Hellstorm and Jaine Cutter we in GHOST RIDERS: HEAVEN'S ON FIRE. Bushman is still out there, and Specter is still having to use all his will to not lose control and slit throats. Spider-Man shows up to help at the end, and seems to have no faith that Moon Knight will succeed. Moon Knight, to his credit, seems to believe that an unwavering ability to "go grey" on personal codes is what led types like Osborn to power, and he's not exactly wrong.
The angle of Moon Knight tackling an army of escaped mental ward patients in a city is too familiar to "BATMAN BEGINS" for comfort, but I get past it. Opena has done a great job of redesigning Moon Knight's costume for functionality without going too far like Bryan Hitch does; if Moon Knight is ever designed for a cartoon or movie, the character designers would be unwise to disregard Opena's take.
There is a part of me that thinks Moon Knight is being wasted in his own ongoing apart from the rest of the Marvel Universe, and that Hurwitz has done enough rehab that he could actually be more interesting on an Avengers roster again. If he winds up as one of the "SECRET AVENGERS" in May, I wouldn't mind. Still, this has been a solid relaunch; more solid than a lot of the last volume in fact, and I'll be in until it ends.
UNCANNY X-MEN: FIRST CLASS #8: The trade dress doesn't say it, perhaps to fool retailers, but this is the final issue of this 8 issue mini. The series hasn't been solicited in a while, there's no stop-gap one-shot or new mini coming up, so this may be it for the First Class franchise. If so, it's had a good run (including the Jeff Parker issues, almost 40 issues of material) and sparked interest from Fox studios. It's provided some fun adventures, and proved you can sell a few more all ages comics if you don't slap "MARVEL ADVENTURES" on the cover (like a few thousand more). The subplot of this mini wrapped up last issue, so this is actually more of a one shot story than some of the previous issues. It is another one focused on Sean Cassidy, with other X-Men (Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Colossus) there more out of functionality and obligation than adding anything really major. There's an amusing bit when Nightcrawler gets to meet real goblins, which he is often called as an insult, but beyond that the X-Men are there just because the title says so.
I must say the cover is very misleading. The crux of the story is that Sean is trying to solve a leprechaun murder mystery at Cassidy Keep, and while the tone of the story is no more grim than a typical episode of "MATLOCK", the cover makes the story seem more of a comedy than it is. I know cover artists aren't always given much data on the story interior, but doesn't the editor even know to say, "it is a leprechaun murder mystery"?
There is a risk of things getting too stereotypical; Banshee being the one who deal with Irish folklore creatures and whatnot. However, prior 70's and 80's stories from Claremont already established this, so Scott Gray isn't inventing the idea. Plus, Marvel is a world where European gods and demons are real, where Greek gods and monsters are real, where Norse gods and creatures are real; so, why not Irish ones? A beloved leprechaun turns up dead in the Cassidy Library, and while it seems like suicide, Sean isn't convinced. He ultimately is proven right when the murderer is a half-leprechaun, half faerie whose class has been mocked to the point where he has become twisted. The issue ends with a short lecture on tolerance, and things end well. It is a bit of an odd issue to end the run on, but here we are. The artwork is by Fernando Blanco, whose style doesn't match the cartoony stuff of the cover either, and he does a fine job. The ending is on a somber note as the X-Men convince Banshee that they have many years of life yet, and we all know that Sean will die (only to come back in X-Blackest Night, I mean NECROSHA). Not the worst issue of Gray's run, but not the best either, and not as thrilling as #7 was last month. Still, not a bad read, just not an exceptional one. It is good to get a simple little Banshee story (or two) out of this run; I always felt he was an oft under appreciated X-Man out of the "new X-Men" of 1975, at least after GENERATION X ended.