"No longer like a toad in these foul cellars will I secret the venom of hatred -- for you shall bring me love!" - Erik
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« Comics: April 2014 | Main | Comics: June 2014 » ComicsSuperMegaSpeed Reviews Electra #2 - Alright, you've sold me. The new villain is bizarrely interesting. I like the use of the semi-random group of assassins, noting that Taskmaster and Sabretooth are otherwise occupied but bringing in Lady Bullseye and Scalphunter. Who has a YOLO gun; why does he have a YOLO gun?! I admit the giant turtle was the turning point, though. Del Mundo's painted art that recalls Bill Sienkiewicz and David Mack to a degree is nice too. Captain Marvel #3 - The art here sucks, though. Mainly i'm talking about that incomprehensible space battle in the beginning. Random scenes with spaceships floating in space, no sense of motion or any indication of the kind of hide and seek tactics that were described in the script. And of course despite the lack of anything going on in them, the panels are these giant honking things that spread across two pages. Tons of wasted space with no content. And sometimes you read across the two page spread and sometimes you go down one page at a time. Just terrible layouting. It gets better with the downtime stuff, and Captain Marvel's little fist fight with the alien guy is better. But if the setting of this series (or maybe just this arc?) is outer space, you have to be able to draw space battles. Plotwise, it seems ok but it's all in the aftermath of this Builders story that i know nothing about and the story doesn't try to explain. Like, why is this random alien such a Spider-Woman fangirl? Just because it's funny because S-W and CM have a friendly rivalry? Hulk #3 - Well i guess i don't have to care about this story anymore, since Waid is off after next issue. Not sure if this story will all be wrapped up super-quickly next issue or if whoever is coming on board will be continuing it, but i hope it's the former, because of the master villain being introduced as someone who was there when the Hulk was born and knew Banner before he was the Hulk. Unless it's Igor Drenkov or General Ross or Betty Ross, i don't really want to hear about that, but i'd trust Waid to handle it over someone else. Anyway, i do like how the premise is evolving here and i liked Zombie Abomination and the Avengers guest appearance (even if Captain Marvel is currently in space for some indefinite period of time), so i was enjoying this. Too bad it doesn't matter anymore. Iron Man #25 - Iron fillings and a fan! That's how you defeat Dark Elves. It's like back in the old days, when Iron Man would pull out a horseshoe magnet or something and screw it into place. I'm of two minds regarding Iron Man's fight with the Elves. On the one hand, i thought the fight was cleverly done and i liked Iron Man confounding these archaic creatures with science. But on the other hand, it really seems like Iron Man ought to not be doing so well or acting so confident in a mystical setting; it seems like he could clean up all of Asgard's problems for Thor in a few days, and that's not right. But that's all out of my mind anyway because it was replaced with "Oooh, Mole Man's got a Mandarin ring!". I know Gillen is leaving this title but we're further along in this story than Waid is on the current Hulk run so i'm more confident that it will wrap up satisfactorily. Daredevil #3 - Always good. Nice work making the Owl scary. I admit i had to do some online research regarding Julia Carpenter/Spider-Woman II/Arachne; didn't know that she was ever romantically involved with the Shroud or was missing. Footnotes, people! Not that it was critical to the plot, but why not provide a little more info and promote your books? But anyway, oh hey, look who's still alive! P.S., when is part II of Road Force Wrecked & Ruined coming out? I want to find out why Thunderball is wearing that hat! By fnord12 | May 27, 2014, 8:41 AM | Comics | Comments (1)| Link By fnord12 | May 21, 2014, 4:56 PM | Comics | Link These two ads were across from each other in my Hulk #343 (May 88) comic: Poor Doc Ock. Everyone thinks he's talking about Spider-Man, but he's just sick of that kid with his Rush 'N Attack poster. That wasn't even a good game. By fnord12 | May 21, 2014, 4:30 PM | Comics
& Video Games | Link She-Hulk #4 - Part of the reason i've been a little hesitant about this after initially really liking it is because i don't recognize this Kristoff at all. He's not at all like the Kristoff i know even as of the relatively recent (2010) Spider-Man/Fantastic Four mini-series. If i've missed something, which is entirely possible, i think an explanation is needed (per my "if i don't know about it, you're wrong" policy). But even beyond that, i don't really like this version of Kristoff. I know we're not supposed to like him, but i don't even like him as the guy that we're not supposed to like. As far as i can see, Dr. Doom would disintegrate this guy or at least subject him to another personality implant. For that same reason, i didn't like the ending to this issue (although i did like the "Do not wreck this gigantic Doom" line). But i still like the general tone of this book. I liked the visit with Daredevil in the beginning, and i'm hoping i'll start to enjoy the book unequivocally again now that we're past the Kristoff plot and into this Blue File story. Black Widow #6 - I didn't love Noto's art when this started, but i think i'm watching him grow. His action sequences - Black Widow's escape in the beginning of this issue and her fight with Molot - were much better, i think. Or maybe i'm just getting used to his style. Ending the fight with a ball shot is a bit cliche, but that's probably Edmondson's fault, not Noto's. Storywise, i definitely think the larger plotline has helped, and i definitely think it's worth sticking with this. Also, having still not started with the Hawkeye solo book, i think it's funny that what passes for inter-book referencing these days is having background scenes of Hawkeye getting beaten up. New Warriors #4 - A big fight sequence, clearly drawn, with everyone getting some moments and lots of quippy dialogue? And of course a larger plot involving the High Evolutionary, the Celestials, and some kind of unified theory on Marvel's various branches of humanity? This is perfect. Marcus To has a style broadly similar to Mark Bagley; classic but still modern looking. Quickly becoming my favorite current book. By fnord12 | May 20, 2014, 11:23 AM | Comics | Link This is the current featured cover at the GCD: And i am not immune to the appeal of car driving gorillas. So i thought i'd see what was going on on this cover. And with that, i'll share my failures as a human being: One thing that seems likely is that the title of this series is A Great Maid. And searching online, it seems to be a Mexican comic book (it even says so on the GCD's front page, which i missed at first), so i don't know why Google is auto-detecting Portugese and Romanian. The title is actually Clarita Goes To The Chapultepec, which is a park in Mexico City. I still don't know what Clarita (i assume!) is saying, though. By fnord12 | May 18, 2014, 11:13 AM | Comics | Comments (3)| Link By fnord12 | May 17, 2014, 4:01 PM | Comics | Link Looks like they are going to come out with a short series starring Peggy Carter to fill out more of the Marvel Universe outside of the movies. I hope this does well and helps with disproving the "nobody's interested in action films starring women" belief. In other words, i really really hope there's very little focus on the "single woman" aspect. I don't need to see 13 episodes of Peggy Carter moaning about not having a man. By min | May 9, 2014, 11:34 AM | Comics
& TeeVee | Link Really awesome picture from a 1969 comics convention. Lots of familiar names, but all so young and so well dressed! You can click on individual sections of the picture to zoom in and see the names. By fnord12 | May 9, 2014, 7:56 AM | Comics | Comments (5)| Link It's always possible that in our universe, mutant powers manifest at over the hill instead of adolescence. By fnord12 | May 6, 2014, 4:35 PM | Comics | Link CBR has data on Marvel's relaunches and how they affect sales (or, ultimately, don't). It's kind of sad to see that steady, almost unstoppable decline on every book (i do wonder how much of it is made up by digital sales, though). Not the main point, but the article also gets to my personal bugaboo; the reason i bother to gripe about this: It's not just new readers on comiXology. It's an annoyance for any reader trying to locate some story arc that they've missed; it's been a challenge for me in the past on several occasions. And then there's the admittedly minor nuisance of cataloging this stuff, not just for my Timeline project but even just my personal list of comics i own. I think that's the sort of problem a lot of long term fans will run into but it's not one that Tom Brevoort has any sympathy for. By fnord12 | May 6, 2014, 11:56 AM | Comics | Comments (3)| Link Quiet week for us: Hulk #2 - I was pretty geared up for a Hulk/Abomination fight drawn by Bagley, and i guess i got one, but it felt like background noise to the goings-on with SHIELD in the small town. I'm still in wait and see mode on this, hoping the plot develops into something. Seems like it could become interesting, but we're not there yet. By fnord12 | May 5, 2014, 11:20 PM | Comics | Link Someone should let Cap know he can stop wearing that corrective helmet. It's too late to fix the problem. From the age of 6 months, half of the infants were required to wear custom-made closely fitting helmets for 23 hours a day for a 6-month period. The remaining infants had no treatment at all. On measuring the head shape of all infants once the babies reached 2 years old, the team found that the infants who wore the helmets showed no significant improvements, compared with those who received no treatment. By min | May 2, 2014, 12:44 PM | Comics & Science | Link |
