Offered without comment.
Trinity #8
The Brave and the Bold #15
Green Lantern Corps #26
Justice League of America #23
Superman #678
Ultimate X-Men #96
Invincible #51
Gravel #3
Black Summer #7
Green Lantern Corps #26
Mongul II, dead and dismembered? Don’t bet your life on it. In this issue Mongul goes head to head with almost the entire cast of the GL Corps. In a predictable battle, but beautifully drawn by Patrick Gleason, Mongul gets his ass handed to him after one of the Lanterns, Bzzd, sacrifices himself to bring down the new Sinestro Corps leader. A rock’em, sock’em, widescreen space opera that absolutely could not be any more enjoyable, highlighting just how much writer Peter Tomasi is on top of his game. Consistently one of the best comics being published right now, by any company.
Black Summer #7
Warren Ellis’ two year old blockbuster comic event comes to an end, and boy does this thing get talky. The surviving female contingent of the Seven Guns decide that helping keep their city safe is more important than taking revenge on the military for killing Tom Noir in cold blood. Horus, Blacksmith and a not-quite-as-dead-as-we-thought Noir then proceed to jaw at the reader for half a dozen pages in an attempt to justify their actions over the course of this series. A good, but somewhat anti-climatic, end to a better than average story. The incessant moralizing by three of the leads, in order to make their character motivations explicit, really pulled me out the tale. I would have preferred to let their actions speak for themselves and avoid spoon feeding me the unnecessary details.
Invincible #51
The Venom years, only without the sentient costume. For a Jim Lee cover I can’t help but feel like I’m not getting my money’s worth. Invincible’s right hand seems to be twisted into some kind of claw shape and there’s no background to speak of. It’s not a bad cover, just not what I’m used to from JL. Anyway, in this ish Invincible gets a new, darker toned costume, a kid sidekick and a girlfriend to boot. A series that continues to live up to the high standard of comic bookery that it has set for itself, if you’re an Invincible fan you’ll find nothing to hate here.
Superman #678
The latest attempt to repatriate a long lost Jack Kirby creation into the DCU proper continues. Atlas, a former hero type turned planetary dictator, shows up in Metropolis in order to challenge Superman for control of the city. The fists then proceed to fly. There’s a pair of obligatory shadowy figure types pulling various strings in the background and Atlas’ backstory is given an appropriate Kirby style visual treatment. There’s an unfamiliar cadence to some of the dialogue in this issue that’s neither good or bad, but pulls me out of the story nonetheless. An admirable attempt at varying the Superman formula a little bit that will keep me onboard with this title, for no other reason that to see how this story plays out.
Showing posts with label Black Summer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Black Summer. Show all posts
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Thursday, May 1, 2008
NCD #5: Wind ups and winding down...
DC Universe 0
Action Comics #864
Green Lantern #30
Ultimate Human #4
Ultimate X-Men #93
Black Summer #6
DC Universe 0
So, the big news with this issue is that Barry Allen is back.
Maybe.
(Probably)
Granted, it could be some other Flash, Bart perhaps, as we never actually see the character narrating throughout the story. But from everything I’ve seen and heard around the comic blogosphere I reasonably sure Captain Crew is back.
Unfortunately, the character of Barry Allen has more emotional significance by remaining dead than he ever will running around busting up bank robberies and foiling crime. His death represented something truly unique in this business known for shock killings and rebirths in order to drive up sales, permanence. His legacy provides the foundation for the current Flash mythos, the importance of sacrifice in the pursuit of what is right.
Flashes retain heroic value by passing along the responsibility of the name after their leg of the race has been run. So much of Wally’s career is built around living up to his uncle’s name. To bring Barry back is to deprive Wally’s character of his purpose and relevance.
Twenty some odd years on I find it difficult to believe that fans are still clamouring for Barry’s return. We’ve already got a super speedster tearing around in red pajamas. His name is Wally West and he’s doing just fine thank you.
Nothing much else of note in this thing. It reads like an episode recap.
“Previously on the DCU…”
One things that does raise my pulse a littlebit is the appearance of Fernus, last seen, by me, at the end of Joe Kelly's JLA run. I could be way off here as nothing actually identifies the flaming Martian-headed pointy toothed character as actually being Fernus, but the resemblance is definetly there. Seeing as how it's widely rumoured that J'onn is going to bite it during Final Crisis and Fernus was created directly from his DNA I have to think that it makes sense that he's going to reappear in this story.
Green Lantern #30
Interesting enough read, but I wish the story was focused more on Abin Sur than Hal Jordan, as Sur’s story is where all the interesting stuff happens. The “Blackest Night” setup is a story worth telling, rather than redredging the origins of Hal’s superhero career.
The story is perfectly readable, Johns has never had any problems turning in a serviceable GL script. And Ivan Reis’s art is more than passable. I just find it hard to see why I should care about something that Johns has already covered in this same title and I saw again in the New Frontiers movie about a month ago.
Note: I really liked the explanation of why Abin Sur needed a spaceship to come to Earth, he was worried about his ring failing him, as he normally would have just whipped up a standard lantern bubble to travel. Not once in all the years I’ve been reading comics have I have twigged to the inherent contradiction of a GL needing a space ship. Which goes to show you how…slow…I am.
Black Summer #6
This is the only comic I bought this week that wasn’t winding down from something or setting the groundwork for its next ‘real’ story.
Warren Ellis take on the ultra-gory citizen\solider superheroes is about as fun a read as you’re ever going to get. It gives you the bare minimum of expository plot before cutting away to a blood soaked battle scene. (When he feels like a change Ellis merely open with the fight and tacks the exposition on the end.) In this issue we have an interesting two page splash where pencilier Juan Jose Ryp has spent and awful lot of time inserting children’s cartoon characters into the firefight.
I was curious as to why Bam-Bam would be a part of such a high octane fight scene until I stared at the page a little longer and other characters started to stand out from the rubble.
Ellis and Ryp seem to have spent a fair amount of time trying to deliver a realistic take a on a superhero smack down, a la Alan Moore and Miracleman. Body parts get ripped off, (most) characters who are shot go down and never get back up and very few characters are safe from being written off by virtue of their importance to the title. This isn’t a sanitized showdown in the streets of Metropolis, but a bloody battlefield fracas that takes no prisoners.
Action Comics #864
Green Lantern #30
Ultimate Human #4
Ultimate X-Men #93
Black Summer #6
DC Universe 0
So, the big news with this issue is that Barry Allen is back.
Maybe.
(Probably)
Granted, it could be some other Flash, Bart perhaps, as we never actually see the character narrating throughout the story. But from everything I’ve seen and heard around the comic blogosphere I reasonably sure Captain Crew is back.
Unfortunately, the character of Barry Allen has more emotional significance by remaining dead than he ever will running around busting up bank robberies and foiling crime. His death represented something truly unique in this business known for shock killings and rebirths in order to drive up sales, permanence. His legacy provides the foundation for the current Flash mythos, the importance of sacrifice in the pursuit of what is right.
Flashes retain heroic value by passing along the responsibility of the name after their leg of the race has been run. So much of Wally’s career is built around living up to his uncle’s name. To bring Barry back is to deprive Wally’s character of his purpose and relevance.
Twenty some odd years on I find it difficult to believe that fans are still clamouring for Barry’s return. We’ve already got a super speedster tearing around in red pajamas. His name is Wally West and he’s doing just fine thank you.
Nothing much else of note in this thing. It reads like an episode recap.
“Previously on the DCU…”
One things that does raise my pulse a littlebit is the appearance of Fernus, last seen, by me, at the end of Joe Kelly's JLA run. I could be way off here as nothing actually identifies the flaming Martian-headed pointy toothed character as actually being Fernus, but the resemblance is definetly there. Seeing as how it's widely rumoured that J'onn is going to bite it during Final Crisis and Fernus was created directly from his DNA I have to think that it makes sense that he's going to reappear in this story.
Green Lantern #30
Interesting enough read, but I wish the story was focused more on Abin Sur than Hal Jordan, as Sur’s story is where all the interesting stuff happens. The “Blackest Night” setup is a story worth telling, rather than redredging the origins of Hal’s superhero career.
The story is perfectly readable, Johns has never had any problems turning in a serviceable GL script. And Ivan Reis’s art is more than passable. I just find it hard to see why I should care about something that Johns has already covered in this same title and I saw again in the New Frontiers movie about a month ago.
Note: I really liked the explanation of why Abin Sur needed a spaceship to come to Earth, he was worried about his ring failing him, as he normally would have just whipped up a standard lantern bubble to travel. Not once in all the years I’ve been reading comics have I have twigged to the inherent contradiction of a GL needing a space ship. Which goes to show you how…slow…I am.
Black Summer #6
This is the only comic I bought this week that wasn’t winding down from something or setting the groundwork for its next ‘real’ story.
Warren Ellis take on the ultra-gory citizen\solider superheroes is about as fun a read as you’re ever going to get. It gives you the bare minimum of expository plot before cutting away to a blood soaked battle scene. (When he feels like a change Ellis merely open with the fight and tacks the exposition on the end.) In this issue we have an interesting two page splash where pencilier Juan Jose Ryp has spent and awful lot of time inserting children’s cartoon characters into the firefight.
I was curious as to why Bam-Bam would be a part of such a high octane fight scene until I stared at the page a little longer and other characters started to stand out from the rubble.
Ellis and Ryp seem to have spent a fair amount of time trying to deliver a realistic take a on a superhero smack down, a la Alan Moore and Miracleman. Body parts get ripped off, (most) characters who are shot go down and never get back up and very few characters are safe from being written off by virtue of their importance to the title. This isn’t a sanitized showdown in the streets of Metropolis, but a bloody battlefield fracas that takes no prisoners.
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