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Good Comic Book Week: Nova, Eternals, Civil War, and Cable & Deadpool

This week's comic review:

Nova #4
Another Annihilation mini-within-a-mini comes to a close. This one was quite good. It started off a little shaky, i thought. The idea of Nova absorbing some ultra-powerful computer didn't sit right with me, and i was afraid that the introduction of Drax and Quasar was going to be distracting, but it all worked out very well in the end, with a nasty fight that showed what a bad-ass Annihilus was but still let Nova eek out a (minor) victory. The fact that the big bug man showed up personally definitely made this story seem a lot more meaningful to the main Annihilation story in a way that Super-Skrull didn't. I didn't have high hopes for a book written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, known to me as the guys who wrote about a million bad Marvel UK stories as well as Force Works, but i may have to re-evaluate my opinion of them (and get all the Force Works issues... yeah!). The art was really nice, too.

Eternals #2
I've read reviews from people saying that this is is too slow, but i've been enjoying it. The exasperated, "i know it won't work but i'll try it anyway" attempts by the Deviants (<-- i assume?) to kill Ikaris are pretty funny, and the rest of it strikes a nice balance between tongue-in-cheek silliness without being goofy and earnest plot development. I'd think this would be of interest to any Gaiman fan. My only concern from a Marvel fan perspective is that it really hasn't been that long since the Eternals have been active in the MU. Gaiman's plot seems to have the Eternals as amnesiacs for some time, so it makes me worry that Gaiman is writing this as a direct sequel to Kirby's original without acknowledging anything that's happened since. It's only issue 2, so there is still time for everything to be explained, and in fact it shouldn't be explained yet... i'm just antsy. I wasn't paying that close attention, but i'm pretty sure that Gaiman was claiming that 1602 was in Marvel continuity, and if he really thinks that, from what i've seen of 1602, i think maybe he doesn't have such a good grasp of the concept... But none of that should detract that from the fact that this is a good story that is just starting, with great art from Romita to boot.

Civil War #3
Wooooooooooo! I'm so conditioned by the current trend of "decompressed" stories that i would have never expected a fight between the two groups to have occured as as early as issue #3. This is a very fun story, and is probably the best crossover Marvel has done this side of Secret Wars (is it too early to say that yet? Sorry, i'm just excited!). I was surprised to see Spider-Man and the Thing (and to a lesser degree, the Invisible Woman) showing up as part of Iron Man's team based of developments in their own books, but i'm sure that's all accounted for. It's interesting to see the X-Men sidelined in this cross-over; very unusual, in fact. I was also shocked by the super-secret shock ending of this issue; i would have never expected him to not support Cap. Can't wait to see where it all goes.

Cable & Deadpool #30
I just started reading this last issue when i heard that Cable had taken over his own country (after leading a rebellion against cheesey Mark Gruenweld character The Flag Smasher), so i was ready for a continuation of that plot and the examination of Cable in this new role. Instead we got a Civil War crossover, including a fight with the Great Lakes Avengers, who i've always hated. So i expected to be annoyed by this issue, but instead i really liked it. FabNic created Deadpool (essentially), but i thought he was funnier in the hands of Christopher Priest and Gail Simone. I thought that by throwing in the GLA, FabNic was substituting real humor for plain goofiness, but Deadpool was actually very funny here. Even better, i like Cable and the way he is working for Cap but trying to get him to withdraw from America, and the distinction between Deadpool and Cable's attitudes towards the Registration Act was well played out. Very good stuff, and making me reconsider my evaluation of FabNic as a B level writer. At the very least, i am tempted to go back and pick up the rest of this series, and i'll certainly keep it as an on-going.

By fnord12 | July 24, 2006, 10:17 AM | Comics


Comments

Re: Eternals

it's going slow, but i'm not minding it. i don't care so much for the romita jr. art, though. his mouths are too wide. like they all took the joker formula or something.

Re: Civil War #3

ofc he shows up at the end. Oooh. what a freakin' goddamn surprise. they only started using him as the surprise ending last issue. and it went over so well, i hope they keep doing it in every issue after. also, spider-man was a complete jerk in this book. assholes.