TheCorpulent1
SHAZAM!
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2001
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- 154,474
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Avengers Academy: Another fantastic issue of this fantastic series. This feels like a bold new start even though there's very much a continuation of what came before. Any doubts about the focus shifting too much from the Academy's remaining first class members is immediately dismissed by the ending of this issue, which promises they kind of have to still be at the epicenter of everything in this series. Clever way to keep them relevant when it would've been quite easy to just cast them aside or have them get lost in the shuffle (which the first Initiative class sort of did in Avengers: The Initiative). The full-on brawl between the kids and the adults in the middle of the issue was a bit of overkill in my opinion, but it wasn't too bad. I'm glad Hawkeye will be sticking around. Something about a west coast team without Hawkeye just seems wrong to me. If only we could get the new Vision in as a Lightspeed/White Tiger-style teaching assistant now...
Action Comics: To Mr. Grant Morrison, bald demigod and all-around Scottish badass: I apologize for ever doubting you. This series just gets better and better. The core of Morrison's idea for making Superman more relevant by tapping into his Golden Age blue-collar appeal is still there, but this issue is pretty much exactly what I've been waiting for from the start: the inevitable backlash. The more Superman puts himself out there as a proponent of bullying and thuggery as effective tools of social change, the bigger (and easier) the backlash against him, engineered by Glenmorgan's media spin and a few acts of strategic philanthropy. It's clever and makes sense all at the same time. There's also plenty to keep this series living up to its title, too: Brainiac makes his return/debut simultaneously on Earth and Krypton via flashbacks. I'm normally not a fan of seeing two artists mixed together in one issue, but Ha's work on the flashbacks and Morales' work on the present-day stuff complement each other well.
It's hard to judge this latest iteration of Krypton from just a couple of pages, but it's definitely not Byrne's sterile, loveless version. More than anything else, it resembles the upper-crust society of today to me; Jor-El is still doomsaying, as always, but Lara's sister is focused solely on her parties while her husband treats Jor-El's science as merely academic, eloquently refuting his claims with competing theories. It seems kind of like a society that's become too fat and lazy--an alien Roman Empire that's reveling in the spoils of past greatness while denying its present decline.
Brainiac is presented much like Johns' reinvention/combination from the previous Action Comics series. We never actually see the alien being himself; rather, he attacks through robotic drones, turning whatever indigenous technology he can find against its owners. In Krypton's case, that's all kinds of impressive alien tech. In Earth's case, it's a train manufacturer's automatons and a certain government-sponsored experiment involving one John Corben. Speaking of which, a mysterious voice on Clark's phone leads him to the aforementioned train manufacturer as a potential lead in his ongoing efforts to expose Glenmorgan's corruption. I'm not sure, but I'm thinking the voice might be John Henry Irons, since we saw him obviously position himself against government/big business corruption and torture in #2. That'd be a neat new tie to strengthen the Superman/Steel relationship.
Fear Itself #7.1: Happy now, oh ye of little faith?
So yeah, Bucky survived after all and is going off to deal with his lingering Winter Soldier business from the shadows. Good concept for a series starring Bucky without turning him back into Cap's sidekick or one of the many Cap-derivative heroes while Steve takes back the Captain America moniker. I'm certainly looking forward to it. I don't know if I'll be able to justify Captain America & Bucky if that keeps going, though. I'll probably wind up dropping that to make some room for Winter Soldier, since I'm far more interested in present-day stuff than what is essentially a whole series built on WWII flashbacks. Guice's art is more Kirbyesque than ever here, which I'm kind of sad to see. It's technically excellent work, as usual, because the guy's just a straight-up master comic artist; but it's lost a lot of the identity I associated with Guice's art in recent years and is turning the corner into "derivative Kirby clone" territory.
Swamp Thing: Good issue. The Rot is taking shape and becoming an interesting, entrenched part of the Swamp Thing/Animal Man/Green/Red corner of the DC universe. Abby Arcane returns (in total badass Sarah Connor style) and reveals that her and her family's heretofore unexplained mystical powers were actually a result of their innate bond with the Black/the Rot. It's an interesting retcon that's about as neatly surgical as you can get; it handily explains why Anton Arcane embraced necromancy and Frankensteinesque genetic engineering so readily and excelled so well at it--his whole family has this background tied to this universal force for the perversion of life. It enhances the Arcane line without trampling over anything that's come before. Pretty cool. It also sets up a potential return for Anton Arcane, who was always a great villain for Swamp Thing. I'm not too keen on Abby's new little brother, since her parents should both have been dead (or at least beyond reproduction) long before they could have given birth to the little bastard, but I suppose I can chalk that up to the DC universe's new, abbreviated history. I guess all of the stuff from Moore's day and before might've only happened 4 or 5 years ago in this new continuity. Awkward, but whatever; I guess it technically fits. Paquette's art continues to be gorgeous.
Action Comics: To Mr. Grant Morrison, bald demigod and all-around Scottish badass: I apologize for ever doubting you. This series just gets better and better. The core of Morrison's idea for making Superman more relevant by tapping into his Golden Age blue-collar appeal is still there, but this issue is pretty much exactly what I've been waiting for from the start: the inevitable backlash. The more Superman puts himself out there as a proponent of bullying and thuggery as effective tools of social change, the bigger (and easier) the backlash against him, engineered by Glenmorgan's media spin and a few acts of strategic philanthropy. It's clever and makes sense all at the same time. There's also plenty to keep this series living up to its title, too: Brainiac makes his return/debut simultaneously on Earth and Krypton via flashbacks. I'm normally not a fan of seeing two artists mixed together in one issue, but Ha's work on the flashbacks and Morales' work on the present-day stuff complement each other well.
It's hard to judge this latest iteration of Krypton from just a couple of pages, but it's definitely not Byrne's sterile, loveless version. More than anything else, it resembles the upper-crust society of today to me; Jor-El is still doomsaying, as always, but Lara's sister is focused solely on her parties while her husband treats Jor-El's science as merely academic, eloquently refuting his claims with competing theories. It seems kind of like a society that's become too fat and lazy--an alien Roman Empire that's reveling in the spoils of past greatness while denying its present decline.
Brainiac is presented much like Johns' reinvention/combination from the previous Action Comics series. We never actually see the alien being himself; rather, he attacks through robotic drones, turning whatever indigenous technology he can find against its owners. In Krypton's case, that's all kinds of impressive alien tech. In Earth's case, it's a train manufacturer's automatons and a certain government-sponsored experiment involving one John Corben. Speaking of which, a mysterious voice on Clark's phone leads him to the aforementioned train manufacturer as a potential lead in his ongoing efforts to expose Glenmorgan's corruption. I'm not sure, but I'm thinking the voice might be John Henry Irons, since we saw him obviously position himself against government/big business corruption and torture in #2. That'd be a neat new tie to strengthen the Superman/Steel relationship.
Fear Itself #7.1: Happy now, oh ye of little faith?
So yeah, Bucky survived after all and is going off to deal with his lingering Winter Soldier business from the shadows. Good concept for a series starring Bucky without turning him back into Cap's sidekick or one of the many Cap-derivative heroes while Steve takes back the Captain America moniker. I'm certainly looking forward to it. I don't know if I'll be able to justify Captain America & Bucky if that keeps going, though. I'll probably wind up dropping that to make some room for Winter Soldier, since I'm far more interested in present-day stuff than what is essentially a whole series built on WWII flashbacks. Guice's art is more Kirbyesque than ever here, which I'm kind of sad to see. It's technically excellent work, as usual, because the guy's just a straight-up master comic artist; but it's lost a lot of the identity I associated with Guice's art in recent years and is turning the corner into "derivative Kirby clone" territory.Swamp Thing: Good issue. The Rot is taking shape and becoming an interesting, entrenched part of the Swamp Thing/Animal Man/Green/Red corner of the DC universe. Abby Arcane returns (in total badass Sarah Connor style) and reveals that her and her family's heretofore unexplained mystical powers were actually a result of their innate bond with the Black/the Rot. It's an interesting retcon that's about as neatly surgical as you can get; it handily explains why Anton Arcane embraced necromancy and Frankensteinesque genetic engineering so readily and excelled so well at it--his whole family has this background tied to this universal force for the perversion of life. It enhances the Arcane line without trampling over anything that's come before. Pretty cool. It also sets up a potential return for Anton Arcane, who was always a great villain for Swamp Thing. I'm not too keen on Abby's new little brother, since her parents should both have been dead (or at least beyond reproduction) long before they could have given birth to the little bastard, but I suppose I can chalk that up to the DC universe's new, abbreviated history. I guess all of the stuff from Moore's day and before might've only happened 4 or 5 years ago in this new continuity. Awkward, but whatever; I guess it technically fits. Paquette's art continues to be gorgeous.
) show up to fight Brunnhilde. And then vampires attack! It's a little all over the place toward the end, but otherwise it's pretty solid. I'll chalk that up to Cullen Bunn being awesome. Paul Pelletier and Mark Bagley split the art chores on the issue and their styles are similar enough that it's never jarring or anything. Both do a great job with their segments.
