Quick Comic Reviews - October 14th, 2010

With my peed on computer out of commission, I haven't redone the stuff I was working on.  I just don't have the time to go back and fix it all.  I'll keep on trucking with my comic reviews for now.  It just takes me a little more time without Windows Live Writer.  Enjoy the smattering of delicious offerings!

Taskmaster #2 - Written by Fred Van Lente and Art by Jefte Palo.  Fred Van Lente has a wonderful sense of humor and this is a showcase of that.  In this issue we are introduced to the "Don of the Dead" who is dressed up like a crazed marachi singer and a skeleton mask.  We're are treated to several pages of terrific humor as Taskmaster tries to tie pieces of his memory together.  Keep in mind, there's a huge bounty out for our Taskmaster as everyone believes he gave Steve Rogers information on all these secret societies like A.I.M. and Hydra, amongst many others we're introduced to.  The artwork is pretty dead on and gives the issue an added sense of energy.  Sure, this comic probably isn't going to make a huge splash in the Marvel continuity spectrum, but what it does deliver is pure entertainment.  Putting Van Lente in charge of this title was the right move.  Sadly, most comic fans will probably miss this mini-series and they shouldn't be missing out.  This is a must purchase! 

Hawkeye & Mockingbird #5 - Written by Jim McCann and Penciled by David Lopez.  The Final Chapter of Mockingbird's showdown with the Phantom Rider(s) culminates in this issue.  This is your traditional blow-off type issue when you have a major story like this.  Surprises?  There are a few towards the end, but you could almost see them coming.  They were pretty well done though and Hawkeye ends up going slightly overboard and realizing what he's doing.  So there are some great scenes with him in it.  David Lopez does a serviceable job, but some of his action scenes just feel a little stiff.  Like I was saying before though, the scene with Crossfire and Hawkeye (and if you read it, you'll know it when you see it) is a major turning point here.  So overall, a pretty good ending to the story arc and some good twists towards the end to keep you interested with the direction they're going.  I'm still slightly confused at times about all this Phantom Rider stuff, but that doesn't detract from enjoying it.  Once again, another very good issue that's worth checking out and pretty much a must if you're following the story so far!

Justice League: Generation Lost #11 - Written by Judd Winick and Penciled by Aaron Lopresti.  This issue has Fire, Ice and Rocket Red facing off with the Metal Men.  Meanwhile, Booster, Captain Atom and Blue Beetle investigate another site.  I will not lie, I love the Metal Men, so it should be no surprise that I really liked this issue.  No, no.  Loved this issue.  Now keep in mind, the Metal Men don't have their typical banter in this, so if you're looking for it, it isn't really quite here.  But that wasn't the point of it.  There's so much going on here that this issue flew by.  And with the masterful pencils of Aaron Lopresti, this issue just shines.  Everything seemed to work well in this issue.  The only thing I didn't care for was the cover as it kind of ruins a surprise.  I also loved the surprise at the ending, because if there's a character that needs a bit of a redesign, it is this one.  I won't ruin it, but it was needed I think.  So this title has direction, it has hi-jinks and hilarity, along with a solid dose of action and intrigue and... well, it is everything a comic should be.  The best title there is twice a month!  Pick it up, read it, saran wrap it, send it into space for aliens to read and enjoy, because it's great stuff!

Superman #703 - Written by J. Michael Straczynski and Penciled by Eddy Barrows.  After a bit of a delay, we get issue 703 in the "Superman's Walk for the Cure" or whatever they're calling it.  Anyway, in this issue Supes encounters Batman and makes a compelling argument for why he shouldn't be wandering around amongst the normal people.  Certainly he's just inviting disaster.  Cue ominous music and obvious foreshadowing award!  So what happens?  Well, some shards of the planet New Krypton come crashing to Earth and we finally see signs of a plot!  Apparently the stuff makes people Batshit crazy and powerful.  Cue the next 8 months of issues.  It wasn't as bad as I make it seem.  There's a strong play on how super-powered being like Superman would be viewed by normal people.  JMS seems to be riding that out for what it's worth.  Barrows artwork is just ok, nothing note worthy here.  So the issue is ok, it isn't bad, but it doesn't exactly breath new life into Superman.  Still, it's better than most Superman stuff in the past year and a half, but that isn't saying much.  If you skip this, nobody will blame you.

Green Lantern #58 - Written by Geoff Johns and Penciled by Doug Mahnke.  We start off with an interesting scene involving Sinestro and Atrocitus as they're hunting down the Rage entity.  We also clean up the stuff involving Carol and the Star Sapphires.  We get a heaping helping of Larfleeze and we get to meet the Blue Lantern entity Adara.  All-in-all, it ends up being a pretty good issue.  We have more great Larfleeze moments, some outstanding Atrocitus stuff, and some background bits that are very interesting.  Mahnke's art is pretty decent this issue, with the exception of the last page when he draws the Flash like an emaciated teenage kid who hasn't eaten in a month.  He must be hanging out with Mark Bagley too much.  They continue to present a lot of characterization, but the main flaw is that we're all over the place and not getting to stay with any one character too long.  Sometimes that can be a blessing, others a curse.  Johns seems to juggle it pretty well this issue, but it does become hard to keep track of what each character is doing.  Geoff has created a lot of interesting characters and not enough pages to fill them with.  That's part of why we're up to 3 Green Lantern titles a month (sometimes more).  A pretty good issue that any Green Lantern fan will want to pick up.

Quick Comic Reviews - October 14th, 2010

Quick Comic Book Reviews–August 13th, 2010

More catching up and more fun today!  This time around we have some pretty good stuff and only a few duds.  Also, in Friday’s Sioux City Journal there will be an interview with me, so check that out!  On with the show!  (I just did an old comic book thing, put exclamation points at the end of everything!  Again!  Wow!  Ok, just stop.)

Captain America #609 – Written by Ed Brubaker and Penciled by Butch Guice.  We continue to see what’s going down with Baron Zemo’s master plan of revenge on Bucky Cap.  And this time Zemo leaves a message for Bucky and he’s off, knowing that he’s probably walking straight into a trap.  It kind of has an old movie feel to it where the villian tries to play a head game with the hero and sets up traps.  So the cat and mouse game comes to bear this issue.  The artwork is pretty solid with this issue and the story works pretty well.  Nothing groundbreaking here, but it’s pretty decent.  We also have a back-up Nomad story as well.  Written by Sean McKeever and Art by Filipe Andrade.  Nomad mulls over starting training with Steve Rogers and joining him.  Of course, this could have profound implications for the Young Allies team.  Very appropriate that Sean McKeever is the writer in that case.  A lot of inner turmoil going on here and Steve Rogers helping out.  This is a good back-up story.  Overall, pretty solid issue, nothing spectacular but very solid.

Batman #702 – Written by Grant Morrison and Art by Tony Daniel.  Well, leave it to DC to come out with an issue that deals with how they’re going to explain-away the eventual turn of Bruce Wayne.  And they do owe that much to the fans.  The explanation I find lacking though.  Grant Morrison has been hit and miss with me.  While I’m a huge fan of his Animal Man and Doom Patrol work, this explanation leaves me feeling completely unexcited about the return of Bruce Wayne.  DC has pretty much always let it be known that eventually Bruce Wayne would be back and it was just a matter of time.  They continue to handle it a lot like how Captain America was handled by Marvel.  Neither time did I buy it, but the end result of Steve Rogers returning in a different role was good.  I’m hoping this pans out along those lines as well.  The artwork has a very sketchy feel to it and it wasn’t too bad.  There were spots where it was excellent, actually.  I think this might be a good issue if you don’t know what happened to Bruce Wayne and want to find out what occurred, otherwise the story isn’t anything interesting.

Curse of the Mutants: Storm & Gambit #1 – Written by Chuck Kim and Penciled by Chris Bachalo.  This issue in the crossover event of… whatever, brings us to the adventures of… guess who!  Storm and Gambit, just like the cover states!  This one-shot gives us the tale of the quest for Dracula’s body.  And guess what?  The story is actually pretty interesting!  Storm and Gambit form an interesting team that I didn’t think would be all the good, but it was.  Despite the artwork being a tad too “manga” for my taste, I couldn’t deny that the artwork also helped with the ebb and flow of the issue.  In some aspects, “manga” style sometimes leads to some simpler but more fluid artwork, and it really worked well here.  There are a few “mystery” pages where it looked like they were just suddenly scribbled together.  I’m not sure if that was entirely intentional or not.  I loved seeing Storm have to rely on something other than her weather manipulation powers, it was a pleasure to see.  Some hard choices have to be made this issue as well.  The best book in the Curse of the Mutants crossover yet.  That may not be saying much, but this is a very good issue and enjoyable!

New Mutants #16 – Written by Zeb Wells and Art by Leonard Kirk.  A quick word of warning, this issue does not feature the actual New Mutants at all.  Instead, it focuses on General Ulysses and the history of his group in Limbo.  So we see a lot of weird stuff going on here and why Ulysses is so peeved right now.  It’s more of a military viewpoint and really, some interesting stuff.  I like the fact that Zeb Wells is willing to basically make this a New Mutants free issue of New Mutants.  He understands that the backstory does have to be told for everyone to understand what is driving this General.  And better yet, there are some mysteries that could come from all of this.  There is a great surprise at the end of this issue as well and boy was I stoked to see it.  I liked what I saw, I won’t ruin the surprise though.  The artwork by Leonard Kirk was solid as always and he drew some very interesting scenes quite well.  I’m not sure a lot of artists would have taken this task on quite so well.  Zeb really is doing a fantastic job of setting major things up!  Honestly, this is a pretty great issue and if you’re a "Marvel Mutants” fan, this is an issue I highly recommend.

Wonder Woman #602- Written by J. Michael Straczynski and Penciled by Don Kramer with Eduardo Pansica.  Well, our second full JMS issue of Wonder Woman and we’re treated to Wonder Woman returning to help save the Amazons from the terrible invading army that’s trying to kill them.  I can’t quite figure out why the soldiers are so hell bent on killing the Amazons, but whatever.  We get a glimpse at some back story and some moral issues that Diana must face.  So what do we really get?  Well, you get to see Wonder Woman kick some butt and wax about the choices she must make.  Nothing too spectacular.  I honestly get tired of always having to see what the Amazons are up to.  I would rather JMS have just ditched the Amazonians and made Diana deal with the world we live in and integrate more into that.  He, however, just keeps bringing us back to this.  The Amazonians are the reason I never found Wonder Woman that interesting.  It kind of continues to be that way, so I guess, nothing has changed.  It is alright for what it is, but nothing very special going on here.

Wolverine #1 – Written by Jason Aaron and Penciled by Renato Guedes.  When I first heard the concept of Wolverine going to hell, I was skeptical.  We have vampires going on over in the normal X-Men series and now we have this to boot?  Well, I was wrong about this one.  We start off with Wolverine visiting Wraith and them talking about things like faith.  We then end up seeing a much different Wolverine and apparently some minions from Hell going after Wolvie’s girlfriend.  I’m really interested in knowing what exactly happened to Wolverine and the implications this has.  The only thing I’m disappointed in is the continuity that Marvel has.  When I say that, all the other X-issues will probably have Wolverine acting normal and everything and never even mention that this happened.  That gets annoying in a shared universe how nothing ever ties into anything else until it’s time for the big crossovers.  However, I did like this issue and the artwork is very well done.  The back-up story with Silver Samurai wasn’t very entertaining though.  Worth checking out and seeing what the heck is happening with the world’s favorite mutant.

Taskmaster #1 – Written by Fred Van Lente and Art by Jefte Palo.  The Taskmaster finds the repercussions of his recent actions come bearing down on him.  He has managed to anger the entire underworld of evil henchmen, like Hydra, A.I.M., and Secret Empire.  Boy do things go downhill for our non-hero fast!  I’ve been a real fan of Taskmaster as of late.  Van Lente seems to know how to write him well too.  The character has been really interesting and I like that they gave him a mini-series.  I really like how the explore how his memory works as well.  This can only lead to bad things though.  The artwork is pretty solid and fits in well with what’s going on.  I might not have liked it so much if not for the spectacular color job on it.  It was also interesting to have a dossier at the end of the book that told about these teams like Hydra, so it’s a pretty decent jumping on point.  I really thought this was some great stuff, check it out!

Shadowlands: Elektra #1 – Written by Zeb Wells and Art by Emma Rios.  Two issues I’m reviewing this time that were done by Zeb Wells.  This time we see some background on Elektra and her past involvement with the Hand. She has these half-hallucinations going on through-out.  Honestly, where Zeb Wells hits homerun with New Mutants, here he fails miserably.  I think that has more to do with the material requested of him than anything else.  Listen Marvel, there is no reason to even publish this issue besides trying to make more money off the tie-in.  The story isn’t terrible, it’s just completely unnecessary and useless.  Couple that with the fact that I wasn’t interested in the least by this and you’ve got a real dog.  The artwork was just kind of bland and Elektra looked like she might have taken Anime meth or something.  Add this one up and this issue is better off being sent in to the recycling center than anything.

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Quick Comic Book Reviews–August 13th, 2010