What I Read This Week – 1/18/2012

We’ll say it’s late due to snow, yeah, that’s as good an excuse as any.

PROPHET #21

The internet said this was going to be good and indeed it was! You know what this reminds me of actually is a hyperviolent Rice Boy, what with them both beind about an outsider journeying across a weird land to resurrect God. Between this and Spaceman it might be a good time for science fiction comics. Break the superhero’s hold on the direct market! Fight the power! But I suppose a lot of the enduring power of superheroes is that you can take any kind of genre and wrap a superhero costume around it. I mean, Green Lantern is basically 100% sci-fi-action-adventure. Maybe we can see some more quiet and socially oriented science fiction comics, like the New Wave authors of old? No, there is no room for that in comics. It must have explosions! And alien sex!

UNCANNY X-FORCE #20

I actually consider it a sign of a good series when I pick it up in the middle and have no idea what the hell is going on. That means it’s taking advantage of the unrestrained insanity of superhero mythology. The incomprehensible arcana. Something like that. There is Nightcrawler in this now but he isn’t the regular Nightcrawler, instead he is a jerk? I enjoy that. What I do not enjoy as much are those thick, chunky lines which render things visually incomprehensible too. Read the rest of this entry »

What I Read This Week – 1/11/12

FRANKENSTEIN, AGENT OF S.H.A.D.E. #5

Well telling the same story twice from slightly different perspectives is one way to save time while scripting a crossover, I guess. Mark me up as disappointed because I was definitely expecting more insane burly-monster-on-burly-monster action.

STORMWATCH #5

This incarnation of Stormwatch is a little lacking in the transgressive quality that made the original Stormwatch fun, but it’s still a good read. Apollo and Midnighter are just so cute together. They even finish each other’s sentences! Admittedly that’s because Midnighter is such an advanced human being he can calculate peoples’ behavior, but still, I look forward to them again becoming comics’ cutest/most hyperviolent couple. Read the rest of this entry »

What I Read This Week – 1/4/2012

ACTION COMICS #5

Maybe Action Comics hasn’t been the classic I was hoping for, but it’s still quite good with an exuberant sense of energy. And with what appears to be a full spectrum of Kryptonite-powered villains from the future it seems it’s going to be going full-on Silver Age at some point. I’m 100% OK with that.

FATALE

Criminal with tentacles! When I first saw the previews I was afraid it was just going to be a mashup of noir and Lovecraft stereotypes, featuring your typical evil seductress. That’s an archetype I find a bit problematic for feminist reasons, but since it turns out it’s actually A) from her point of view and B) she’s not particularly evil or in command, I feel much, much better about this comic. It almost seems like Brubaker’s going to be deconstructing the occult noir archetype from the inside, which should be really interesting.

Read the rest of this entry »

What I Read This Week – 12/28/11

JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #4

I was expecting more out of this comic, and so far it’s just circling around and not going anywhere. All the characters are all separated from each other, and even though Weird Apocalyptic Shit is happening everywhere, it’s apparently not happening where the heroes are so there’s no sense of impact. I suppose in a couple issues they’re all going to take down the bad guy and team up for good. I’d like to just fast forward to that part now please? Because this prologue is boring.

SECRET AVENGERS #20

So far every issue I’ve read of this series has seemed fun but inconsequential. It’s just a different weird action setpiece each time, and then the heroes defeat the bad guys, who apparently have a master plot but really it’s just a bunch of unconnected doomsday devices that always get disabled. This issue has time travel though, and I do love me a good time travel story. Plus it’s less slight on character than most other issues, it actually takes its time instead of just blowing stuff up while driving cars.

THE FLASH #4

As an artist-written comic this is of a piece with Batwoman, and I’d say that Flash has the better writing and Batwoman has the better art of the two. Flash is lovely of course, but how can you compete with J.H. Williams? By having a pretty keen villain concept. Hopefully this book will keep going to ultra-science weirdness, the kind of science that makes lightning + chemical lab = super-speed. Also more sailbuggies.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #676

This actually came out last week but I didn’t remember to get it until this one. I thought it was bigger than normal, but I counted the pages and the extra space is all ads to compensate for the two-page spreads, because there is So! Much! Bluster! that it needs bigger pages to fit it all in. I hope Doc Ock keeps getting rebuilt into progressively bigger robotic bodies until he’s like Galactus-sized and Sentai Spider-Man shows up to take him down. That’s a book I’d like to read. As opposed to this book which is okay. Spider-Island was really enjoyable but Slott has failed to really wow me, even though I keep reading his stuff. I’ll stick around for the Daredevil crossover but after that, this book’s on notice. NOTICE.

SPACEMAN #3

For whatever reason I thought this was going to be a permanent ongoing like 100 Bullets but then I realized it was only gonna be 9 issues and it threw me for a loop. Let’s hope it can build to something more satisfying in 6 more issues. I suppose the shit’s about to hit the fan (or however they say that in future-slang) so things are probably going to start moving. Risso’s always worth looking at even if it doesn’t work out.

What I Read This Week – 12/21/11

If you know me, it goes without saying that there’s gonna be spoilers sprinkled in these. I just don’t believe it’s really possible to have a critical discussion without SPOILERS. Especially where Stephanie Brown‘s involved.

BATMAN INCORPORATED: LEVIATHAN STRIKES

I was really enjoying the whole Leviathan arc. It was kind of a slow burner at first, but once it got going it was every bit as nice and weird as I want from a Grant Morrison Batman book, all Borgesian and spiraling in on itself. Did it lose that mental momentum by not putting out an issue in months? A little bit. But we’re at the center of the spiral now, and it circles around faster and faster the closer it gets to the end.  The evil schoolgirls issue up front is fun too, but rather hurried. That’s Morrison’s superhero stuff though, just spitting out ideas at lightning speed with no time to get into them.

DAREDEVIL #7

Daredevil’s been excellent and all, but this is just a somewhat inconsequential one-off. Children in danger notwithstanding, there’s not much drama there. Stuff happens, then it’s resolved in a moderately heartwarming way. Oh, and Matt Murdock is all smooth with the ladies. Aww yeah.

TALES DESIGNED TO THRIZZLE #7

I remember thinking the last issue wasn’t up to the usual standard of extreme hilarity (which is I suppose kind of a tough standard) but this one’s back up on top, featuring bathtubs, shouting, and a sequel to Reservoir Dogs.

INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #511

I’ve always wanted to enjoy this series, but mostly it just doesn’t do it for me somehow. I loved the Fear Itself arc, which was impressive since Fear Itself itself was 95% dullness, so I promised I’d stay on board as long as the drunken swearing dwarf was around, and he’s still here. Looks like things are ramping up for some ultimate evil plan, but aren’t they always in comics really? I’d be enjoying this book more if it was about Stark Resilient trying to build a utopian society around superhero tech than if it was about guys in hi-tech suits punching each other in the air.

S.H.I.E.L.D. #4

Well this is certainly building towards something, isn’t it? I guess? You tell me. So far it’s epic in scope but shallow in character. Also this issue has the same three pages repeated three times which is a nice multiple-timelines trick but a waste of writing space when you could’ve done it in one or two pages instead of six. I still enjoy it, don’t get me wrong.

VENOM #11

Venom’s unexpectedly my favorite Marvel comic. It’s like Breaking Bad, you know it’s gonna all end in horrible tragedy, you get that bad, bad feeling in your gut. And this is maybe the most gut-wrenching issue yet. Most supervillains these days are all over-the-top violence and psychosis and while Remender’s Jack-O’-Lantern is definitely that, he’s just done so well. So charismatic that when the nastiness comes out – and this issue is top-grade nastiness – it just makes you feel icky for kind of liking the guy. That is some real sociopathy on display there. Though maybe I’m just a softie when it comes to violence against cats.

DEADPOOL MAX II #3

It’s just not the same without Kyle Baker on visuals. It’s the usual maximum bad taste grossness, but without the Baker pizazz. Still good dirty fun though. I must say I wasn’t expecting the morbidly obese hooker to be given so much respect, but I suppose Lapham knows the difference between being in bad taste and being a bad person. This is sort of the South Park of superhero comics isn’t it?

B.P.R.D. HELL ON EARTH: RUSSIA #4

The Hellboy books are the one superhero comic that actually feels like it’s building to an end and it’s gonna stick with it. But with one issue to go I doubt Johann is permanently dead, plus, you know, he’s already dead so what more can happen? There’s the requisite amount of gross creepiness in here because Hellboy/BPRD are dependably good. Not always great but definitely good.

JUSTICE LEAGUE #4

At this point in the series we’ve pretty much settled in to the formula: new member shows up each issue, shows off their talents in some badass way. I don’t ordinarily like Geoff Johns but he’s running a pretty tight show here, now that he’s just working with the basics and can’t get distracted by all that continuity crap. Justice League is just a generic superhero story, with the most generic version of Darkseid ever, but it’s a tightly-polished generic superhero story. If they ever make a Justice League movie, you hope it’d be like this. Well maybe you could hope it’d be better than this, but they’re never going to make a mainstream superhero movie as good as you want it to be.

BATMAN #4

So far this is solid Batman but it hasn’t really become great for me. The continued presence of creepy owl masks might help with that though. Also maybe if the artist learns to draw more than one face. Sometimes I have a hard time telling Bruce apart from, well, any other adult white male in the book.

WONDER WOMAN #4

I just wish they’d make a Wonder Woman series that doesn’t bother with all the Paradise Island family drama. I mean, I suppose all that is out of the way now and we can get back to the mytho-horror. And those gods are proper bastards aren’t they? I hope Azzarello gets to take his time with the plot, because obviously he can do great things with convoluted power plays. Diana still doesn’t have much of a personality but at least the supporting cast’s likable.

Also turns out there was an issue of Amazing Spider-Man which I forgot to buy and am considering just not buying to pick up one of the new X-series instead. Even though I’ve said multiple times that I was “done with X-Men.”