Figures.
On my first day without my school time-suck I get sick and have to spend the whole thing sacked out on the downstairs couch. Thank God for the Chronicles of Riddick and a girlfriend unafraid to brave the halls of the Silver Snail, where the only female presence is behind the cash register. Seriously, she went in there once in a Wonder Woman T-shirt and that just gave men an excuse to stare at her chest.
But I digress.
This week, the DayQuil infused ramblings of a diseased germ bag, where I promise to limit my reviews of your favourite titles to exactly six sentences.
No more.
No less.
Because that’s just how we role……in short six sentence increments.
Final Crisis #2
It’s impossible to credibly summarize the plot of any Grant Morrison work in just six sentences, much less review the entire issue. But I’ve never been one to let quality stand in the way of meaningless promise. Reading FC is like jumping into your time machine and reading the first forty odd issues of JLA all over again, there’s always hints at a larger evil just off page. This time it’s the Machiavellian machinations of an Earth bound Dark Side and co. I like the idea of making Kirby’s biggest DC creations more accessible to the DC Universe at large. It takes a wonderfully constructed epic mythology, which was previously accessible to only the most powerful of off-world traveling heroes, and transplants it into an urban here-and-now environment which will allow it to interact with just about any hero DC has on the books.
No Hero #0
The creative team behind Black Summer (Warren Ellis, Juan Jose Ryp) return for another look at the personal, political and social repercussions of self made super hero teams let loose in the real world. The series will follow a chemically enhanced 60’s era super-team as they metamorphasize from a bunch of young street-wise idealists, known as the Levellers, into the institutionalized government style group, The Front Line. The driving question behind this title is “How badly do you want to be a superhero?” The idea being that regular people are willing to engage in all sorts of ethically suspect activities and behaviour if it means having an opportunity to grab that brass ring. Parallels can quickly and easily be drawn between these heroes and high paid sports celebrity-types. With issue 0 Ellis has done an admirable job of laying the foundation for an interesting Legacy-hero style story and I look forward to seeing where he takes it.
Green Lantern #32
Finally, a secret origins issue that doesn’t concern itself with re-telling information the reader likely already knows verbatim. In this issue Hector Hammond’s supervillian back-story gets ret-conned. No longer does he gain his enormous intellect and misshapen head from deliberately exposing himself to a mysterious meteor. Instead Hammond is now the victim of an explosion from within Abin Sur’s downed ship. This explosion exposes him to some sort of gas\radiation and he begins to develop the telepathy and the over-sized cranium we come to associate with the character. Coupled with some additional ‘Origin of the Red Lanterns material,’ this is the first time this particular plot-arc has gotten interesting.
Thunderbolts #121
So long Warren, we hardly knew ye. And with Ellis’ swan song on this title I can officially move Thunderbolts into my drop pile. The ‘bolts continue to fight each other, under the influence of some powerful psychics who’s motives are never really explained. After the team manages to neutralize each other into unconsciousness, Bullseye pulls a Deux Ex Machina and shows up to finish off the offending telepaths. An anti-climatic end to a title that was consistently a step or two above average. Rather than impose any lasting change or growth upon the team Ellis returns everything to status quo by writing off the recent throw down as the fault of the powerful psychics.
Ultimate Spider-man #123
I’ve noticed recently that the Ultimate titles have taken a step backwards in terms of the physical quality of the comic book. Gone is the heavy card stock covers and in its place is the familiar glossy pages that I see on every other title I buy. I guess with the news that the Ultimate line is being folded\canceled means Marvel no longer has to splash out on fancy paper. Which is unfortunate. Ultimate Spider-man is the only Spider-title I’ve bothered to keep reading. Bendis, Bagley and now Immonen have managed to take a hero I’d gotten slightly bored with and made him new and interesting again, without having to resort to magically dissolving his marriage.
That’s it for me. Now get off my lawn.
Showing posts with label Green Lantern. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Green Lantern. Show all posts
Thursday, June 26, 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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