Bought/Thought May 23

[PhotoJones]

Yeah, it definately is a shame. It reinforces the fact that "innovative" books aren't usually rewarded unless they have some A-List team that can sell anything. Like Bendis on yet another Avengers book or something. I agree he oozes enthusiasm and Eric O'Grady/Ant-Man is so much more interesting than some other hero books.

Character growth is a fundamental thing, and it is great to see some writers employ it skillfully (and within a reasonable rate), and appalling to see those who don't.

I just wonder how long it'll be before I log into the Hype and see the "Official Save Ant-Man From Cancellation Thread".

Too soon, I think.

 

[PhotoJones]

American Virgin #15 - Thank you Steven Seagle for turning this book around. This issue kicks off a new storyline, and it could not have come soon enough. The past eight or nine issues have just floundered around with no real sense of direction. I had no idea where Seagle was going with the book, and if you've been reading it, you wouldn't think he did either.

But all that changes with the magic #15. Adam's in Rio with Vanessa and he's wondering what the hell kind of impulsive decision made him hop on a plane with a girl he barely knows. Well, he gets to know Vanessa (as do we), and he finds out he might like her. A lot. In 22 pages of a comic book, we're essentially introduced to a new character, and she's fleshed out so well, that I actually started to fall in "like" with her too. She's an amazing girl, and perfect for Adam; total free spirit, but not in that "hippy, freelove" kind of way. Turns out, she's even a virgin, too.

Adam's still haunted by Cassie's ghost, but he's begining to come into himself more. Again, a character is growing and evolving. Just like I've been mentioning in other posts, it's essential to a book's survival. You have to have growth, and after 15 ****ing issues, Adam's finally being coached along. Thank you, Seagle.

Becky Cloonan's artwork is still a treat. This issue though, it actually looks....even better. She must be feeling inspired by the new direction of the story, as well. It's now being inked by Jim Rugg (artist of PLAIN Janes), and he's got a good handle over her pencils. The colors are bright and vibrant. It's a very attractive book.

I'm not sure where this is at, sale-wise, but I do hope that more readers hop on board. Like I mentioned, it's a new storyline, and Vertigo has even put a blurb explaining as much on the cover. I'm just glad it's gotten better. This was very good in it's initial arc, and I'd have hated to just give up on it. I'm glad I stuck by and gave it a chance.

Oh, and if you're on the fence about picking this up here's an incentive:

If you've ever wondered what Becky Cloonan looks like naked, pick up the book. She's basically drawn herself in as Adam's sister Cyndi.

 

[PhotoJones]

Dynamo 5 #3 - It took Invincible (if I'm being kind) about 10 issues to hit it's stride, and really have it's own voice. Since then it's gone on to become the best superhero book on the stands. I think Dynamo 5 just nailed it on the third issue. It's that damn good.

It all really comes together. With this issue, I cared about the kids I was reading about. Instead of the cliched token characters they were at a risk of becoming, Faerber really gives them each individual voices. They're even getting along much better then they have been, and they're gelling more as a team. And any fanboy knows, there's not much else more fun to read than a team coming together.

The cliffhanger was genuinely intrguing, too. It's the kind of cliffhanger where you get the feeling that Faerber and Asrar know exactly where this book is going, and that's refreshing.

Now go buy it. Dread commands you.

 

[Anubis]

Anubis Ranking system: (from worst to best)
:
meh

sweet!
Freakin' sweet!
Bee p***y!


Got Uncanny #486
So comes Brubaker's Space epic to an end. What happened? Well, Vulcan shot Cosair in the face. So he's dead. Havok is the new leader of the Starjammers, The Prof got his powers back, plus he can walk, again, Hepzibah is stuck on Earth, greaving her man's death with Warpath seriously crushing on her, and the Shi'ar are now involved in a massive civil war.
All in all, I liked this. I hate the X-Men in space, but this I liked. And best of all, Darwin has become my favorite mutant.

The issue gets a

The arc, overall gets: Sweet.

 

[PWN3R]

The only compliant I have about Brubaker's Uncanny is that it could have been a lot less than 12 issues. I think it hurt the title a little by stretching it out so much. Having said that, I enjoyed the arc, and can't wait to see what Bru has next.

 

[PhotoJones]

Elephantmen #9 - I can't resist an hippo that puts baby squirrels back in their trees. And that is why I buy this book.

There's one thing that hurts the book, but it's also one it's more interesting factors. Each issue jumps around to a different Elephantman, and tells a fraction of their story. Most of the time, the spotlight fall on Hip Flask. But sometimes it doesn't, and with stories left half told for future issues, it makes it hard to keep track of everything. I know Starkings and Co. will eventually get around to the loose ends, but you never know when or where.

That said, I kind of like opening up every issue not knowing what to expect. This one opens up, and basically follows an injured (see past issues) Hip Flask around town as he grocery shops. That's it; that's the issue. And yet, it's fun to read. He's a hippo-man in detective clothes. That's really all you need, anyway.

The backup features a "silent" story about Trench the zebra Elephantman. It introduces a new character, a human, who alludes Trench and kills a lot of people. I'm assuming that character will play some kind of role in upcoming issues.

I'd seriously buy this book for the covers alone.

 

[GNR]

Anubis Ranking system: (from worst to best)
:
meh

sweet!
Freakin' sweet!
Bee p***y!


Got Uncanny #486
So comes Brubaker's Space epic to an end. What happened? Well, Vulcan shot Cosair in the face. So he's dead. Havok is the new leader of the Starjammers, The Prof got his powers back, plus he can walk, again, Hepzibah is stuck on Earth, greaving her man's death with Warpath seriously crushing on her, and the Shi'ar are now involved in a massive civil war.
All in all, I liked this. I hate the X-Men in space, but this I liked. And best of all, Darwin has become my favorite mutant.

The issue gets a

The arc, overall gets: Sweet.

Dang,so Havok isn't going to be in Uncanny anymore?I was considering picking up the Extremist arc,but Havok is gone now.

 

[GNR]

Captain America #26 - Well, this one's got me a little nervous. First of all, a lot of things take place off panel. Things like Falcon's speech, Tony's speech and the entirety of Steve's funeral. They're all referenced by characters in the issue, and in the case of Sam's speech, referenced many times. That must have been one hell of a speech. Where is it?

Going along with that, I have to wonder that if those scenes are shown in future issues, then where are we going? At this point, Steve's dead, and it's time to advance the plot. If I'm going to read Sam's eulogy, I wish I could've read it now, and not in the next issue or two. Basically what I'm saying is that I don't want to still be dealing with the immediate aftermath of Steve's death in three or four months. It wouldn't advance the story, and the impact would definetly be lessened.

Other than that, there's not much to complain about. Sam meets the New Avengers after hours, before having to up and leave due to a conflict; he's a registered hero now, you know. The conflict turns out to be Bucky who tore apart an entire bar because one of the patrons bad mouthed Steve. The issue ends with Bucky vowing to kill Tony Stark.

Not bad. But not nearly as good as the book has been. And not even close to what last issue was. Obviously, I'm interested to see where it goes from here, but like I said, I don't want to dwell too much on Cap's death. I know that's the whole storyline, but it's not either at the same time. If that makes sense.

I do want to mention that other than the cover, Brubaker, Epting, Perkins and D'Armata's names are not in the actual interiors. I can't tell which pages were Epting's or which were Perkins, and I think that's a good thing. There's no jarring switch between artists, and the issue flows extremely well. Epting and Perkins are doing their best work in this run, by far.

I don't think that's avoidable though.Brubaker said many times,and even recently in the Wordballoon podcast,that the book is going to be dealing with how Steve's loss is effecting everyone from his allies to his enemies.Sure Bru has a plan,but I don't expect the story and all of its little sideplots to advance that quickly.I fully expect Steve's death to be a constant dark cloud hanging over the book for a long time.

Plus,this is a 9 parter,or 12 I think.

 

[PhotoJones]

Pick of the Week!

Gutsville #1 - If you want to read the most original book of the year, it came out today. It's called Gutsville. You'll want to check it out.

What this book actually is, is about half of what I thought it was going to be. Based on the previews, I knew it took place during colonial times. It does, but it doesn't. I'm not sure if it's present day, but it's at least within the last 50 years. I know this because of the last page.

I don't know how to review a book like this. Here's the gist:

For a 157 years, people have been living in the belly of a giant sea creature. They were originally colonists, but they obviously never made it the land set for colonization. So, they've built a town in the belly. It's named Gutsville. And there are elephant sized rats and other mutant creatures. And everyone is dressed and the town looks like Jamestown, circa the 1600's.

There's a guy, Albert. He's an artist, and his father, John, was the Ratcatcher. His job obviously, was to kill the mutant rats. He's killed by...something. Albert goes through his dad's stuff and finds maps. The maps were drawn by John during his rat hunts. One map shows of a second belly. The second belly could lead out of the beast. Albert decides to leave.

Then the creature swallows something. Like many, many, many times before, the townsfolk close their doors and windows to keep out the bile that rains down. But this time, the creature has swallowed something huge.

A Russian submarine splashes down into the belly.

I don't how anyone could read what I have written and not want to run out and pick up this book. It's written by Simon Spurrier and illustrated by Frazier Irving (Silent War).

It's probably a work of genius.

 

[Darthphere]

i did buy it, i just find it lame that they're going with the obvious bucky vs tony

Probably the saddest thing I've ever seen on these boards. I am dumbfounded that you took so many steps just to somehow prove me wrong. Which you really haven't yet. There's no way in knowing that's not your buddy's copy of the comic. Nice try though.

Also, you don't write the date, you take the picture next to today's newspaper. Haven't you seen how the terrorists do it?

 

[Assassin]

Probably the saddest thing I've ever seen on these boards. I am dumbfounded that you took so many steps just to somehow prove me wrong. Which you really haven't yet. There's no way in knowing that's not your buddy's copy of the comic. Nice try though.

Also, you don't write the date, you take the picture next to today's newspaper. Haven't you seen how the terrorists do it?

heh, i was bored, besides, you should show the pic to your sister, she'll tell you that my room from the sheets

j/p

To tell you the truth, i didnt rea dthe whole thing, I didnt read any of my comics yet, I just skimmed through it in the car. and F4 is under it as proof that I do read other Marvel books.

 

[Marcdachamp]

I just wonder how long it'll be before I log into the Hype and see the "Official Save Ant-Man From Cancellation Thread".

Too soon, I think.

Well, at least there's no WORD of cancellation, yet. That's gotta be worth something, right?

 

[BrianWilly]

Wow, a seriously slow week.

Countdown #49
Well that was...unexpected, I suppose. And it's been a good couple of weeks since a comic has truly been able to surprise me. A couple of people otherwhere have suggested that Elastic Jimmy isn't elastic due to hidden Gingold as the instinctive theory might be, but that he's displaying the sort of wacky random Silver Age powers that he used to sprout every once in a while, apparently including elasticity. That's a really good theory and the one that I'm agreeing with; at this point I think we've established clearly that Countdown is going to be all about the multiverse, and multi-powered Jimmy is clearly multiversal material...could be interesting.

Piper and Trickster's story is still pretty good. Still letting out that sigh of relief that Piper's history hasn't been forgotten and that he's just faking the whole villain thing. Karate Kid story is moving far too slowly, but considering the ungodly amount of pages he took up last week, I'm not exactly complaining. And, heh, "wax off." Oh, Roy.

I highly doubt that the Black Adam Mary meets is actually Black Adam, and not just because he has his own mini starting soon stating that he doesn't have his powers back yet. The title of this issue, after all, is "Stretching the Truth." Anyway, Mary's story is a little better this week, but I'm still not seeing a distinctive personality for her yet. Morever, what's up with her influx of ******ation?

Madame Xanadu: "Whatever you do, don't go to Gotham City!"
Mary: "I'm sorry, I like totally don't understand your cryptic occult message or whatever." *goes to Gotham City*

Nothing much to about the Monitors scene, though I do think we've gotten the point by now and that they should actually start doing something instead of just standing around talking about what they do.

I personally have no need whatsoever to read this "History of the Multiverse" tomfckery in the back. But I tell you what, I'm glad it's in here,because here's the thing: if you're not reading this book, I don't wanna hear any babyish whining about how confusing all this multiverse stuff is because you're not even reading it anyway so, really, how would you know? And if you are reading this book, I don't wanna hear any babyish whining about how confusing all this multiverse stuff is because all you're really saying is "I'm too lazy to read A)Wikipedia or B)four pages in the back of a book telling me in precise detail everything I would ever need to know about the story in question."

Noticeably better issue than last week. Let's hope it continues.

(7.3 out of 10)


Wonder Woman #9
This...

...

...this wasn't bad. Oh it's still got a lot of bad, not the sort of bad that I'd expected.

The Amazons are still completely, wildly out of character. How now? Well they talk about monarchy and Diana usurping the throne or whatever...except that Themyscira hasn't been a monarchy for years now and Diana isn't the princess anymore. Where are Phillipus and Artemis, the two people who actually rule Themyscira? No mention whatsoever, despite them being important figures to the Amazons for the last...five years, give or take. This is, really, just blatantly ignoring continuity so that a lame, half-baked story idea would work.

And then they disregard overt messages from their gods telling them that they're all being incredibly stupid. Hippolyta tells them all, "We don't need [the gods'] help" and they're all just, oh, okay, whatever. Wait, what? These are the same women who built their entire existence out of faith? Clearly not.

Speaking of Hippolyta, yes, she is portrayed on a completely ludicrous scale. She's a raving, illogical, spoiled, barbaric caricature of a character who -- at the end -- threatens her own daughter's life. Which, oh yeah, completely invalidates her motivation of doing all this just to protect her daughter which was the motivation that these writers gave us in the first place. Good consistency, guyz. I mean, she discovers first-hand that Circe has been lying and using her all along, and she...goes on doing exactly what she's been doing. What? She's so out of whack with her prior adventurous JSA-member self that Picoult herself spells it out for us repeatedly in the story; "That can't be my mother! She doesn't act anything like her! This makes no sense! It has to be a dupe or possession or something! My mother wouldn't attack people like this!" When your characters themselves are so bewildered by this person acting so out-of-character that they'd rather believe it was a clone or mind-control, your story has officially crossed the line from inconsistent into self-parody. On that note, why doesn't Diana just wrap her lasso around her mother if she's so worried that it's a fake??

Superman: "That...doesn't make any sense."
Batman: "None of this does."

Yeah, seriously.

But...for all that narrative inanity...ironically, the writing has improved. A lot. This issue has pretty much the best pacing and most solidly-built plotting of all of Picoult's work to date. Diana's banter with Nemesis is oddly well-structured, and her internal monologue is leaps and bounds above the abstract emoness that Picoult began with and actually seems to resemble things that she actually would be thinking about at the moment. I know, crazy right? Nemesis, meanwhile, is coming along reasonably well as a character. The action scenes do make sense and support the story. I hate this story like I've never hated any other story in my life (lie), this is all pretty much my abject nightmare version of anything Wonder Woman-related...but I can't deny that Picoult is noticeably improving, and the problem was likely never really hers in the first place, but whatever editorially-demanded BS from DC and Pfeifer that makes this overall story suck ass like it does. If only Picoult actually did know this character. If only this entire storyline wasn't decided in committee. Maybe we'd be seeing something very different. This gets slight plus points from me, for that at the least.

(6.8 out of 10)

 

[PhotoJones]

I've been thinking about doing video reviews in addition or maybe instead of written ones. Would you guys be interested in watching something like that? Or is that just a waste of time?

 

[Darthphere]

Waste of time.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

BW: I think the Black Adam Mary meets is indeed the real Black Adam. I saw nothing in that preview to indicate that he even had powers. He tears that one guy apart off-panel, meaning he could've used anything to do it. He jumps down from the rafters at Mary, without anything to show he's flying. He's killed a bunch of people in some gruesome and awful ways, but he was a consummate warrior in ancient Egypt for years before becoming Teth'Adam. Anyone who's watched 300 or HBO's Rome knows how ungodly bloody and savage those ancient warriors can be depicted. I think Black Adam's gone a bit bat-**** and is just hiding out in the remains of Khandaq's embassy in Gotham.

Or, I guess it could be the Earth-Charlton-characters (I don't remember the number) Black Adam. That Earth seemed a lot more wholesome, though, so I don't know if their Black Adam would be dismembering people.

 

[Eros]

I've been thinking about doing video reviews in addition or maybe instead of written ones. Would you guys be interested in watching something like that? Or is that just a waste of time?

 

[Darthphere]

Anyone who's watched 300 or HBO's Rome knows how ungodly bloody and savage those ancient warriors can be depicted.

Pullo.

 

[PhotoJones]

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Pullo.

Among others.

 

[Eros]

I was just so confused and shocked that you would make video reviews for comics, you can't possibly have that much time on your hands.

 

[PhotoJones]

I was just so confused and shocked that you would make video reviews for comics, you can't possibly have that much time on your hands.

It would take all of ten minutes record and upload. I think I could find ten minutes throughout the week, yes.

 

[Eros]

It would take all of ten minutes record and upload. I think I could find ten minutes throughout the week, yes.

But dude its not that serous to be doing that man, not even close. 10 mins by yourself in a basement, talking to a camera about a comic book you just read, I dunno man thats just alittle to far.

 

[BrianWilly]

BW: I think the Black Adam Mary meets is indeed the real Black Adam. I saw nothing in that preview to indicate that he even had powers. He tears that one guy apart off-panel, meaning he could've used anything to do it. He jumps down from the rafters at Mary, without anything to show he's flying. He's killed a bunch of people in some gruesome and awful ways, but he was a consummate warrior in ancient Egypt for years before becoming Teth'Adam. Anyone who's watched 300 or HBO's Rome knows how ungodly bloody and savage those ancient warriors can be depicted. I think Black Adam's gone a bit bat-**** and is just hiding out in the remains of Khandaq's embassy in Gotham.

Or, I guess it could be the Earth-Charlton-characters (I don't remember the number) Black Adam. That Earth seemed a lot more wholesome, though, so I don't know if their Black Adam would be dismembering people.

That'd be Earth-5, actually the Whiz Comics 'verse. And that's an interesting theory; I wouldn't put it past them at this point to pull something like that.

The thing is that I reeeeeeally didn't get the impression that this Adam was powerless. I mean, even though we didn't see it happening, Mary did, and the exact phrase Mary used was "The mugger flies apart in more pieces than I can count." That's not just something some kung fu trick with a crowbar or something, that's blatant superstrength.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Mary saw a figure in the darkened rafters of a very high-ceilinged embassy at night. She wouldn't know exactly how the mugger flew apart anymore than we do. Plus, she might've been exaggerating.

And yes, I meant Whiz, not Charlton. Sorry about that.