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« Comics: December 2011 | Main | Comics: February 2012 » ComicsSuperMegaSpeed Reviews X-Factor #230 - I put Peter David in the "not good anymore" category after Chriscross' art turned me off of Captain Marvel and PAD's return to the Hulk was less than great. I also tried his She-Hulk but didn't love it. So i have been skipping his X-Factor despite good reviews. But due to the terms of a recent donation from the Wanyas Foundation, i am now collecting this series. Via the same arrangement i now also have all the back-issues, but i don't know when i'll get to them. So, this issue: really good! Yes, it was just an issue of people standing around talking, but it was well-written dialogue. There was the Peter David bad humor element that i'm overly sensitive to, like the bit where Pip was standing behind Strong Guy, and the "you just got trolled" follow-up, but i was braced for it and i survived. The art seems pretty good too (we'll see how it is with action sequences when there are any) and there's interesting stuff going on with Madrox and Strong Guy. So i basically had to be forced to read this book, but i'm glad i was. New Mutants #36 - I think this issue addressed various random concerns i've seen floating about, like the Mutants having left Doug behind, and the way the band seems to be able to just move from gig to gig despite the disasters they have been leaving in their wake, but it does leave me with a very important question: was that or was that not a baby Shuma-Gorath? It sure looked like one, but it was never actually said that it was. Which, if it was, was kind of cool; the New Mutants stumbled upon and resolved the threat of an extension of Shuma-Gorath without actually knowing what they were dealing with. Entirely feasible, and i'm still enjoying this series. (And everyone had eyeballs, and they were all the right sizes, too!) Thunderbolts #169 - Yeah, like i said, Parker can send these Thunderbolts back to any time period he wants, for as long as he wants, and i'll enjoy it. Avengers #21 - The art could be a lot better, and Bendis had better be prepared to put the genie back in the bottle regarding the ability for Hydra/Aim/Osborn to create duplicates of the Avengers, but this was a good issue. I enjoyed Spider-Woman trying to bluff her way past the Hulks, and New Avengers #20 - Same here. Good fight, and this issue has the benefit of Mike Deodato art. "Oh great they have a Thor" is a reference/homage to "They have a cave troll" in Fellowship of the Rings, right? Avenging Spider-Man #3 - Good fun! Captain America #7 - Mad bombs. Serpent squads. Very good Alan Davis art in the interior (i thought Cap's face on the cover looked kind of bad). Can't ask for much more than that. I see we're kind of building towards a "Cap's loss of faith in his country equals loss of powers" which is an interesting idea. Alpha Flight #8 - Sad that this was cancelled but as long as Van Lente and Pak stick around, it'll be ok. Eaglesham's art kind of grew on me; i thought it was a little stiff but i'd be happy to see him take over, say, the Avengers. Avengers Academy #24 - I wouldn't know! By fnord12 | January 30, 2012, 8:55 PM | Comics | Comments (1)| Link By fnord12 | January 30, 2012, 10:26 AM | Comics | Link I have mangled one of my fingers in a blender, so i apologize if there are (more) typos (than usual). Hulk #47 - Parker has done a great job making me like the Red Hulk, so we'll see if he can do the same for Red She-Hulk, but so far it hasn't happened. Betty comes off particularly unlikeable (one might say Harpy-ish) and the way she was written didn't leave a lot of room for character development. But it's only the start of this arc. Speaking of characters Parker has convinced me to like, i'm enjoying the Zero/One plot. I really liked the "Why has he come? I abandoned hostilities with him." line. I also like that Machine Man seems to have joined the cast of this book (still waiting for a reconciliation with the Warren Ellis personality). Avengers annual #1 - The previous installment of this came out in September(!), where it became clear that, whatever Bendis' intentions, Wonder Man had essentially no case, and nothing in this issue contradicts that, making the crazification of Wondy the only lasting effect of this story, especially since the rest of Wondy's group folded with no resolution to their complaints (and the characterization of Erik Josten seems terrible, but i'm probably missing Thunderbolts issues that make it ok). The idea that he's really only a construct of the Scarlet Witch or that his resurrection was somehow tainted feels like a knock on the Busiek story that i don't think was warranted. If i recall correctly, Wonder Man appeared along with a Legion of the Unliving, but Wanda detected that unlike the others he wasn't really dead and she was able to hex him back to full life. If she was just re-writing reality, she would have brought back Dr. Druid and the rest too. The whole complaint seems to be based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the Scarlet Witch's powers; something that it looked like the Children's Crusade might be addressing but with one issue left i'm not so sure. Anyway... rambling. The art was a bit disappointing as well. I remember liking the painted look of the previous annual, but this issue seemed... i don't want to say rushed about a book that they clearly took their time putting out. But you had that completely wasted two pages with a giant spread of Wonder Man and Iron Man facing off, and then, in the very next panel Iron Man is holding up the defeated Wonder Man-ball. When i start checking to make sure pages weren't stuck together, that's bad storytelling. Villains for Hire #2 - Yeah yeah yeah! Good stuff! And i don't just mean Paladin getting his ass kicked. Thunderbolts #168 - I feel like the cover is very specifically advertising Luke Cage as a selling point as if he were Spidey or Wolverine, which is interesting. Not a bad thing; i've always liked the character and i'm glad he has a higher profile nowadays, but it's amazing what an Avengers membership can do for you. As for this issue, i've never loved Mr. Fear/Nightmare/D'Spayre stories where scary montage scenes substitute for actual character development, and the Back To The Future II "homage" was a little silly (especially since it seems to answer the fun time travel philosophy questions that were raised in previous issues), but i still think this is my favorite book right now. Oh, and what the hell: what idiot thought they should kill off Montana? Do i have that and missed it or what? You can't really have an Enforcers without Montana, and you need to have an Enforcers. Well, i guess we're on like Ox IV, so i guess we'll just have to have a Montana II. By fnord12 | January 10, 2012, 10:06 PM | Comics | Comments (3)| Link The madness never ends. See also here and here. By fnord12 | January 4, 2012, 11:57 PM | Comics | Link Annihilators: Earthfall #4 - This series was such a waste. I read it and all i can see is the potential for increasing the readership of Abnett & Lanning's space stories getting flushed down the toilet. Well, i see that, and i see this: Eaaaaaagh!! How did this not end with a revelation that everyone in the series was attacked by Masque from the Morlocks? Captain America #5 - It's a good story, but i'm disturbed by the fact that half the book is drawn very nicely by Niven and the other half is this weird sketchy stuff by Camuncoli. But... it is a good story. And luckily... Captain America #6 - ...here's some more of it, and this time with great art by Alan Davis. I do like this alternate-dimension Hydra queen, and the fact that she and the Bravo guy (Do i have to call him Codename: Bravo? Is that his full name?) are pointing out actual real-world problems with the politics in the US and using that against Cap. Shades of Englehart; it's something that should be done more in this book. Similarly, it's nice to see the reference to interactions with this world's version of Hydra and the fact that "Queen" Hydra is successfully recruiting away goons on the basis of her more political message. Avengers: The Children's Crusade #8 - I really was going along with this book, but it's issue 8 of 9 and i don't know where it's going. I thought this was going to be a restoration of the Scarlet Witch and an undoing of House of M, but so far it's been a lot of the Young Avengers standing around on the sidelines while the X-Men and Avengers fight things and/or each other, so even if the series does accomplish those things in the final issue, it's going to feel somewhat out of nowhere. And if it's not going to do those things, i don't understand the point. It sure wasn't to spotlight the YA characters. Also, Doom referencing the time he stole the Beyonder's power was not a good move, because this issue's plot really was a re-hash of that, and despite the fact that Doom says that he's even more powerful now than that time, it's worth remembering that in that Secret Wars issue he annihilated the combined hero forces with a single action. No one had an opportunity to shrink down to ant size and buzz around in his ear or anything. He was actually omnipotent then, not just really big and talking a lot. Oh well. I had high hopes for this series. Oh and why is everyone, like, wet and covered in mud or something? Alpha Flight #7 - Readers, i didn't even notice that Heather had four toes. Ok? And i didn't breeze past the panel. I stared at it, asked myself, 'why are they showing me this panel? is she drawing a message in the sand with her foot?'. So take all my reviews with a grain of salt; i'm clearly not qualified to review anything. But i did enjoy this. Fun, funny, nice turnabouts, great to see the hero's scheme working out, "Squatch smash puny Canadians", and decent-to-good art (i generally like it and think the storytelling is good, but something about the character poses and faces feels a little stiff, like maybe there's too much of a reliance on posed reference photos or something?). By fnord12 | January 4, 2012, 12:39 AM | Comics | Comments (1)| Link Min and i had a Bad Marvel Movie Marathon during our holiday feasting, and here's some quick thoughts on the movies. We watched them in order of anticipated watch-ability, so that as we got more tired the movies would get better to compensate, but that's not quite how it worked out. Ghost Rider - This was surprisingly watchable. Deliberately campy, but that's a good thing. Took a little too long to get started with the kid Johnny Blaze instead of Nicholas Cage, but any movie that Sam Elliott narrates can't be that bad. Ghost Rider looked awesome, in my opinion. I don't know why they resisted making Blackheart look just as true to the comics. Fun. I won't wait so long to watch the sequel. Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer - This was absolutely awful. After giving it maybe 20 minutes, we watched the rest in fast forward, hoping for a cool Surfer/Doom fight or something but no such luck. We knew that Galactus was just going to be a big cloud (why??) but i wasn't prepared for Dr. Doom to walk around maskless the entire movie. Still, this wasn't just untrue to the comics, which at this point i'm used to, but it was just a bad movie. The director obviously thought he could get a lot of mileage out of things like the Thing burping, Mr. Fantastic dancing, a camel leering at the Human Torch after a pratfall, etc. etc., but it just made the whole thing feel like the worst type of super-hero movie from the 80s and 90s. And the whole Reed/Sue relationship thing was done so poorly. X-Men Origins: Wolverine - I thought this one started off really well. Even the stuff from the Origins comic was done decently, and then the strike force team was introduced well and the break-up played out ok too. Deadpool (in the first half of the movie) was a standout character. Then it got a little campy with the Blob, and then when Wolverine goes to the island it got a little slow. It seemed like he just kept standing around trying to decide what to do while people kept revealing secrets to him. Not very Wolverine-y. Finally, the return of Deadpool and, ummm... that was stupid. Take the mouth away from the funniest guy in the movie? And turn Deadpool into Mimic... why? So overall, mixed feelings on this one. X-Men First Class is next on the queue, and min has never seen the 1990s Captain America movie... By fnord12 | January 4, 2012, 12:14 AM | Comics
& Movies | Comments (1)| Link I was invited to write a guest post at FanFix. My post is about bringing Reed Richards back down to non-godlike intelligence, but be sure to check out the regular How Would You Fix...? posts as well as there's a lot of interesting ideas. By fnord12 | January 1, 2012, 6:05 PM | Comics | Link |
