By fnord12 | September 13, 2013, 4:17 PM | Comics | Comments (3)| Link

SuperMegaSpeed Reviews

Iron Man #15 - Ooh, Carlo Pagulayan! Or rather, "Ooh, not Greg Land!". But i did come to like Pagulayan from his Red She-Hulk issues (and looking online i see he's drawn other stuff i've liked too, like one of the Agents of Atlas series). He seems to be making an attempt to mimic Land's style a bit here but by actually drawing stuff he can't help but be better. This Secret Origin of Tony Stark arc has been weird from an art perspective. After Land handled the previous arc, Dale Eaglesham started this arc, but then the last two issues were by Land, and now we're finishing with Pagulayan. Probably just regular scheduling problems (is Land too busy photocopying faces for Mighty Avengers to photocopy faces for this book?) but i hope no one is actively trying to fit Land in and these other, better, artists are considered fill-ins. Storywise, still enjoying this and hoping there's still time to confirm that the "Secret Origin" is a load of hooey.

X-Factor #261-262 - We had some scheduling hiccups which is why you are seeing two issues of some books. As i've said, i'm less invested in this End Of arc than those who've been reading PAD's run from the beginning, but these seem to work fine for closure. I liked PAD's "deus ex machina from my own personal deus" quip.

Avengers AI #2-3 - Not nearly enough Doombot. I think the art in this book - a little more cartoony, definitely more detailed and action packed - helps this book seem a lot more focused than writer Sam Humprhies' Uncanny X-Force. Of course, i liked the initial X-Force arc too, so we'll see how this goes. But so far, i think this is pretty good.

X-Men #4 - The art here, unfortunately, was pretty sad. I hope the idea is that we're looking at things from Jubilee's perspective, which is why Wolverine looks like a middle aged man with a paunch. Because he's Jubilee's father figure. But i suspect i'm being overly generous with that and he's really just wildly off model. The story was a nice retrospective on Jubilee, although definitely on the sentimental side. I don't know if this is good or bad, but it's funny how the book really just focuses on stuff that *i* know about Jubilee, i.e., her early appearances, the fact that she's a vampire, and the stuff that happened in this book. So the fact that i completely skipped Generation X in the 90s didn't come into play. On the one hand, it kept me on familiar territory and i got all the references. On the other hand, something detailing how she's grown over the years in those later books might have helped me learn more about the character. In any event, this felt a lot like the Scott Lobdell downtime issues that took place in between the incessant 90s cross-overs (like the one where Xavier could briefly walk following X-Cutioner's Song) which were actually some of the better post-Claremont moments.

Daredevil #30 - Loved everything about this. Perfect art. Daredevil controlling the Silver Sufer's board. The jokey idea that he might not have been "sober" back in Daredevil #28 (original series) (he was insanely maintaining a dual identity as his twin brother Mike at the time). An interesting alien with interesting persuasion problems. A nice tie-in with the Surfer's cosmic awareness and Daredevil's radar sense. Basically, this is everything i want from a comic.

Indestructible Hulk #12 - Also good except of course it doesn't have Chris Samnee on art. And continuing min's complaints about the dinosaur from last issue, here the colorist can't even seem to keep it straight. You'd think i'd love me a dinosaur + cowboy + tyrant from the future comic, but i've never been big into time travel stories. I'm more interested in the ramifications of the continuity destruction that i was angsting over in last issue's review than the specifics of the Hulk meeting cowboys (or medieval knights next issue). I enjoy Banner-bot's antagonizing of the Hulk but i hope Waid stays on the book long enough to turn that around and show that it has long term negative effects on the Hulk/Banner relationship. Overall, definitely a fun book, though.