"No longer like a toad in these foul cellars will I secret the venom of hatred -- for you shall bring me love!" - Erik
|
Home
|
« Comics: February 2013 | Main | Comics: April 2013 » ComicsA taste of things to come By fnord12 | March 31, 2013, 9:28 PM | Comics
& Godzilla | Comments (4)| Link It won't be too long before i wrap up my current backissue add and get to 1986 (yeah, right, keep telling yourself that, fnord. You're only on 1973...) and with that will come the Mutant Massacre. But the impetus for the Massacre wasn't explained at the time, and the subsequent details have been... disappointing. So Nathan Adler at Fanfix puts his mind towards finding a better idea that also ties up a few additional loose ends. Be sure to stick around for the postscript, which gets into Apocalypse and the Celestials. Oh, and guess who helped Nathan out with the screenshots? (No wonder i'm still on 1973!)(Ok, it's not really Nathan's fault. Put away your pitchforks. Or direct them at whoever sends me to this office 5 days a week.) By fnord12 | March 29, 2013, 12:08 PM | Comics | Link All-New X-Men #9 - Remember when Jean Grey used her telekinesis to pick up a bus and threw it at a sentinel? According to Kitty Pryde, that was only "decent" for someone who, in the old Uncanny issues, could barely lift a person for more than a few seconds. I also wish Young Scott wasn't acting quite so belligerent, or that Kitty would be a little more explanatory. "You won't talk to me about Mystique? Why not? Just so you know, she's a shape-shifting villain that has tried to kill the X-Men on multiple occasions, as well as assassinate public figures. Are you sure you don't want to tell me about her?" I did enjoy the raid on SHIELD, but that's why i was disappointed to see Old Scott show up at the end. Focus on one plot at a time, Bendis, and you might actually get to finish a storyline before the year is up. X-Factor #253 - I've gone from my usually zenlike lack of interest in this book to active impatience for this storyline to wrap up. Especially disappointed by Satana's generic personality after liking so much the way she was handled recently in Thunderbolts. Daredevil #24 - Even in disease-drama mode, this continues to be a really great book, and not just because of all the mocking of Hank Pym. Actually Waid handles Pym, and all the characters, really well. Indestructible Hulk #5 Ditto. More and more i'm wondering why i skipped Waid's FF. Mark Waid clearly writes the type of stories i enjoy. Samnee's clean but very dense (in panels-per-page) style is very different than Yu's, but Waid works well with both. Captain Marvel #11 - Well, last issue i liked seeing the classic Deathbird, but now i feel like i'm being mocked since she was apparently so retro and stupid that it was an obvious fake. Having avoided the majority of post-Claremont X-Men was probably a factor here. Otherwise, if we get past the "de-powering your powerful female superhero" problem, i'm enjoying the dialogue and the very stylized art that still shows a lot of detail and action. Not looking forward to a crossover with Avengers Assemble, though. By fnord12 | March 27, 2013, 11:33 AM | Comics | Comments (3)| Link Just wanted to put up these quotes from Silent Interviews after a recent conversation. For those who don't know, Samuel Delany is a really good science fiction novelist; one of my favorites. SRD: For two issues, I think. This was back when National was at the end of its "relevant" phase. They'd been trying to do the relevant bit with a number of standard titles: Green Lantern (with Green Arrow) was, of course, the great success. But now they were trying the same thing with Wonder Woman. Only it wasn't working. Mainly that was because the people they had writing it just didn't have much of a feel for the women's movement. Short of getting a woman writer for the series (Don't ask me why they didn't put some energy in that direction!), nobody could come up with anything. So at one point I said to Denny [O'Neil]: "I think I have more of a sense of this thing. Why don't you let me do a couple? So i did. A couple. GG: This was while Denny was editing it? SRD: Yes. From those two issues there was actually some very nice feedback. But then there was a big change. National decided to put Wonder Woman back into her American flag falsies and bring back the bullets and bracelets bit. For the previous ten years, basically she'd been wearing a gi and was a super karate expert. It was a lot more realistic and a lot more amenable to stories with social bite. But there was this nostalgia surge to take her back to her fifties incarnation. DC used a chance comment Gloria Steinem dropped while being shown through National offices to throw out all of Wonder Woman's concerns for women's real, social problems. Instead of a believable woman, working with other women, fighting corrupt department store moguls and crusading for food cooperatives against supermarket monopolies - as she'd been doing in my scripts - she got back all her super powers... and went off to battle the Green Meanies from Mars who were Threatening the Earth's Very Survival... I wasn't interested in that. So I pulled out. Personally, i have no problem with Wonder Woman having super-powers and fighting aliens. I think a karate expert fighting a corrupt department store mogul could be good; i'm just not sure it's a Wonder Woman story. Later, on a different topic. You know, it's funny about overwriting in comics. They've apparently reprinted Wonder Woman's relevant period in trade form, so we may be taking a look at this stuff eventually. By fnord12 | March 24, 2013, 2:14 PM | Boooooks & Comics | Comments (1)| Link A few call outs: This seems to be the usual order of second issue drop for the major Marvel Now titles. ... 46. YOUNG AVENGERS Good god. I know it's first issue collectors and variant cover stuff, but those are pretty devastating "standard" drops. Some titles are leveling out after that. But not Gillen/Land Iron Man: 11/12 Iron Man v6 #1 - 116,529 (+215.1%) I'll also note that Avengers Arena is currently coming in around #65 on the chart and dropping 10% a month. So much for shock value. By fnord12 | March 19, 2013, 3:38 PM | Comics | Link Wolverine #1 - With Wolverine appearing... everywhere, i really didn't need to collect his solo series. But i'm contractually obligated to get all Marvel books that Alan Davis draws. And with Paul Cornell writing, i was ok with that. This issue was a content-free prologue introducing an alien-looking gun that possesses people, and there really wasn't enough there yet for me to form an opinion, which would usually result in me forming a negative opinion and dropping the book. Secret Avengers #2 - Well, there's that AIM island that they were talking about in Hickman's Avengers. It almost seemed like it was just getting introduced here but maybe that's because they heard me complain about it. Then there was Bagalia, a city populated entirely by super-villains? I can't believe they're still using Pink Pearl. I was honestly done with this book after the first issue but min wanted to give it a longer try, so here we are. Fearless Defenders #2 - First, something's wrong with my issue. I tried to take out my Dani Moonstar action figure to play with it and i just ended up ripping the cover. Unfortunately the interior isn't nearly as cool as that cover, but it's still a decent book. I now get the concept of the series, which is that Valkyrie is supposed to be rebuilding the Valkyries (confusing!) with modern female super-heroes, and that's a good excuse for a Defenders title (which has really always been more of a group team-up book than a real team). There was some major goofiness in the first issue but this (less action oriented) issue was a little better (unless you count Misty Knight trying to flying-kick Hela). I see that Wonder Woman's mom is going to join the team under a code name previously reserved for a Nazi; that should be interesting. Avengers Spider-Man #18 - OK, did i miss a memo? What is going on with Thor recently? Is this a movie influence thing? Yost is a good writer and i continue to enjoy his depiction of Doc Ock in Spidey's body, but it's a bit ruined by the way Thor is written. If i hadn't already seen it in Hickman's Avengers, i'd be flipping out at Yost, but instead i'm just... sad. Avengers Arena #6 - This is great. Let Hopeless kill all his own characters and leave everybody else alone. Thunderbolts #6 - I was pretty disappointed by the two-page spread of Madman that was pretty unimpressive looking (it was a two-page spread of Madman's shoulder, basically). But i'm still enjoying the book; i like the dysfunctional character dynamics. By fnord12 | March 19, 2013, 1:35 PM | Comics | Link I'm a bit late with these this month cause i was busy with things. Newsarama was a bit lax with crediting all of the cover artists this month and half of the artists don't seem to be signing their work, so i will do my best with guessing which artist goes with which cover. If there are mistakes, let me know so i can fix them. Clicking on the link will take you to the cover. 1. Age of Ultron #5 by Bryan Hitch It's surprisingly and disappointingly pretty sketchy for a cover. The three guys in the front - Hawkeye, Wolverine, and Kazar(? Kamandi? random loincloth guy?) have moderately detailed faces, but everyone in the background has just got the very basic 2 eyes, 1 nose, 1 mouth and no discernible expressions. I realize they're in the background and ofc will be less detailed than foreground characters, but except for Captain America's and Storm's heads, the remaining three unmasked characters all seem to have enough face for a little more than just marking off the relevant bits. So, nothing really particularly good or bad with this cover. I just wanted to show it to you so i could say how it bugs me that they put Black Widow in front of a giant B and W so that you would know it was the Black Widow because it's so hard to distinguish one chick with long hair from another nowadays. These are my stupid reviews. I can nitpick if i want. I am disappointed by this Deodato cover. You can usually count on Deodato to draw people well. But on this cover, something's wonky. First off, you've got Cap and Wolverine with biceps of ginormousness. Nobody's biceps should be greater than or equal to the size of their heads. Unless they're a Hulk. Or an alien. Then it'd be ok. Then you've got Scarlet Witch in a very bizarre pose. It's like it's trying to be a sexy pose but it's failing miserably and instead makes her look like she stumbled just as the photo was taken. Now, if anyone can draw a chick in a sexy pose, it's gotta be Mr. Cheesecake himself, Mike Deodato. So, what happened here? And lastly, why is Captain America about 10-12 inches taller than everybody else (who's at normal human height)? Well, everyone except the Invisible Woman's hair. I get that Steve Rogers is a big guy and Wolverine is short. But since when does Hawkeye only come up to Cap's nose? Ok, who doesn't love a Thanos cover? I like this cover alot. I like the post-apocalyptic setting. I like that each character is exuding attitude that is both similar and also fitting for each individual. My only problem is that Kitty Pryde seems to have been de-aged to her 14 year old self. The art is good in that proportions seem to be correct. Two major problems, though. I totally approve of the bubblegum-chewing Jubilee, though.
Is that supposed to be the Beast? Is it? Cause if it is, Quinones needs glasses. And if this is supposed to be what Beast looks like now, wtf? Look, i didn't say anything when you turned him into a tiger, but this is just awful. At least being a Tiger-Man was kinda kewl. This is caveman brow ridge, big chin unkewl.
I enjoy a technical spec drawing. I also enjoy a detailed drawing of the old school Iron Man costume.
*sigh* I just love Jimenez. His people are fantastic. He's able to convey any number of emotions from his faces. Their proportions are always great. His detail in everything. *squee!!* And nobody's metal boob covers are on their clavicles.
Not reading Fantastic Four (can't call that FF anymore. jerks. *shakes fist*), but i like this cover. The image of the FF huddled on a rock, protected by the Invisible Woman's shield is nicely detailed, contrasting with the stark nothingness of the background.
I feel like Thor is often drawn in this pose where he's got the right arm pulled way back and one leg forward. I don't have any actual proof of that, so i'm throwing it out there so you guys can either back me up or tell me i'm crazy. But here's a perfect example of a superhero whose costume has shifted due to movement. I'm pretty sure Thor didn't want those round plates to cover his pecs quite like that. They are prolly originally a bit off to the side when he's standing straight. But now that he's fighting, it's all shifted over. Now imagine the costume malfunction that would occur in many of the female costumes (e.g. Storm's costume as mentioned above in X-Men #1).
That is a good Thing.
That is a beautiful drawing of Magick with the black, white, and red Sin City-esque coloring. She's got the long strands of hair whipping around while she blocks her crotch with one sword, her weight distributed slightly to the left as she prepares to bring the left sword slashing down. It's great.
So, either Iron Man's legs are fused together or somebody was lazy and only drew half of Iron Man and copied the mirror image for the other half. I also think it's hilarious just how much muscle definition is drawn on what is supposed to be a metal suit. McKone's not the only offender on this point, but it's even more obviously bad when the muscle definition suddenly stops at the point of fusion on Iron Man's legs.
By min | March 19, 2013, 11:51 AM | Comics | Comments (1)| Link After reading 10,000 comics, and reading Mail-Order Mysteries, you'd think there'd be nothing left to surprise you in these types of ads. But wait, what's this? Why did the government have all these giant balloons? And now they don't need them anymore? What would anyone do with them? Fill them with helium?!? Float to the moon? I wonder if they came with a warning that said "Do not inflate indoors." By fnord12 | March 15, 2013, 3:39 PM | Comics | Link Three week's worth, so let's get to it. Uncanny Captain Marvel #10 - I liked the stylized art, i liked the script, i liked the story, i liked the Deathbird. From a sales perspective, i question the decision to de-power Carol but i guess the series is already the lowest selling in-continuity book that isn't already cancelled, so what does it matter. Uncanny Avengers Uncanny Avenging Spider-Man #17 - Fun, wacky issue. If i had a complaint, it's when Octo-Spidey says that the young cloned Wizard is like him at an early age. I think Doc Ock's personality is more... complicated than that. He was a successful scientist who went crazy when he got his powers. He wasn't a born super-villain. Anyway, minor quibble and unreliable narrator for sure. A little off-putting to see Death's Head showing up here and in Iron Man but it's alternate dimension time-travel stuff so no problem. What i like about this book more than anything is the internal monologing from Octavius where we get to see his opinions on all the people he meets. Saying that Mr. Fantastic is "one of the few who recognizes that my own brilliance is superior to his" (a twisted reference to the time Reed asked him to help with Sue's pregnancy), calling Medusa "acceptable" after bashing the other new FF members, etc. Uncanny Daredevil #23 - A consistently good book. Uncanny FF #4 - Very cute. I'd rather they shuffled off Future Johnny Storm completely and just did these types of stories. Uncanny Guardians of the Galaxy #.1 - I don't have the very first Starlord story but i have one that covers his origin in about a third of the space and i'd argue that this offers only minimally more characterization (and it's generic Bendis characterization). I'm not too worried about variations between this origin and the original ( Uncanny X-Factor #252 - It's fine for what it is. Uncanny Indestructible Hulk #4 - I really like this status quo for Bruce/Hulk and this was another good issue. Waid needs to back down just a bit from the super-genius angle. "In less time than it takes to solve the Poincare Conjecture by deforming a manifold using the Ricci flow" is far too quippy, especially for internal monologue (i could read it maybe as Bruce showing off now that he's had time to get his head together thanks to the way he's got the Hulk under control, but it makes no sense as narration). But that's not a big deal. I generally don't like Leinil Yu. His first few issues were actually not bad, but with this issue i'm back to not liking the art again. It's less the usual problems, though, and more the way he makes Hulk look like a Frankenstein monster that's nothing like the classic version of Hulk (and no, not like the early Kirby version either). I do love how in the lettercol they're just straight-up soliciting for nominations for villain of the month; Waid is writing a character story about Bruce/Hulk and... well, i don't want to say he doesn't care about the villains in the book (i liked his Attuma story here; he was a real threat), but it's clearly secondary to him. Uncanny Punisher War Zone #5 - Ok. Good story. Nice fight against the whole team at the end. And you could argue that if it wasn't for Wolverine's help the Punisher wouldn't have fared even as well as he did. So... good series. But i can't believe this didn't end with a set-up for Thunderbolts. It would have been one thing if the Punisher had just escaped at the end. But to have him in what Iron Man describes as a very sophisticated prison... then how does he get out to be recruited by the Red Hulk. Such an obvious tie-in opportunity, but blown completely. Uncanny Thunderbolts #5 - Loving the complete breakdown of the team. Loving Deadpool. Uncanny Uncanny Avengers #4 - Man, Scarlet Witch is a badass, huh? I really loved the way the Red Skull tried to tear down Captain America's belief in the American dream (heck, i was buying into it; "an uneducated population fixated on competition, material wealth and voyeurism" as the art shows a bunch of sullen people in a dismal big box parking lot). Nice scene at the end with Thor and Wolverine, too. I hear there are some complaints about the wordiness of this book? I'm not seeing a problem. Uncanny Uncanny X-Force #2 - An big improvement from issue #1, i'd say. Psylocke using a random bystander to fight for her, and giving him Punch-Out visions, was brilliant. The situation with Bishop is interesting (Demon Bear?). Nice Garney art. Interesting team dynamics. Uncanny Young Avengers #2 - It's hard for me to get past the premise that Wiccan is really dumb enough to think that pulling Hulkling's mom from an alternate dimension was a good idea. But since that happened last issue, i guess you can say in isolation that this was a fun version of a creepy twilight zoney (or maybe Buffy-y) story, with really smart dialogue and good art, and some out of the box (ha ha!) panel layouts. Uncanny Age of Ultron #1 - Ok, so it's just an alternate universe story. I don't need it, and we can drop it. Which is good, because i was getting pretty pissed off with the panel flow, and i had some questions about why Ultron would be interested in letting ANY humans alive, or why the Owl and Hammerhead think that an apocalyptic evil robot world-takeover is a good time to be selling MGH. These types of things should be established in issue #1. But, i fortunately do not have to care. I know, i know, the book will tie in with the real Marvel Universe at some point, but with a Captain America in his classic costume and a non-Octo-Spidey, it can't turn out to be all that relevant. Uncanny All-New X-Men #8 - I don't know what's going on with Angel currently so a lot of this issue was lost on me. But i did think Iceman and Kitty's mock Cap/Beast conversation was funny, and i really liked the way Young Cyclops came up to Cap and impressed him at the end; Cyclops has always been a character in the mold of Captain America so it was a really good scene. Marvel Girl's mind-control thing is certainly intriguing, too. I thought this series was more "the young, innocent X-Men react to the modern world gone bad" in a flip of the usual future dystopia stories, but "the young, innocent X-Men are corrupted by the modern world" is an interesting subset of that. Uncanny Iron Man #7 - So i tried to quickly look up info on the Rigellian Recorder to see if the one that regularly appeared in Thor and elsewhere was the same as the Recorder 451 appearing in this series, but i got sidetracked when i saw that the dude's name has changed from Recorder to Analyzer and then Deus Ex Machina over the years. So i'm still not sure. Hmmm? Oh, the issue. Well, as far as Gillen/Land pairings go, Gillen's script wins out this time, but just barely. The whole "fight to prove your innocence" idea was a fun play on an old trope. I love how the fight sequence layout was designed to make sure all the actual action happens just off panel. Do i find the plot plausible? That these sort-of proto Shi'ar (who hated Phoenix) Bird People worshiped the Phoenix and fed off of its energy? Eh, sure. It's a big universe. Uncanny Red She-Hulk #63 - As always, i think this is really a Machine Man book that the Red She-Hulk happens to be in, but that's fine with me, and it's a lot of fun from that perspective. I loved the Hulk tie-ins, especially seeing the Mad Thinker. Betty's expression when a bunch of guys with guns showed up to stop her has hilarious. Bonus non-Marvel book! Amala's Blade #0 - I wasn't all that excited by it, honestly. And that's taking into account the fact that the book had pirates, a monkey, steampunk (supposedly; we don't really see any steampunk) and an ass-kicking heroine with a blade. By fnord12 | March 13, 2013, 4:23 PM | Comics | Comments (2)| Link Really fun interview with Ann Nocenti and Louise Simonson talking about writing and editing comics in the 80s. By fnord12 | March 11, 2013, 3:47 PM | Comics | Link Here are the comics i brought on my trip. It's all the comics i can fit in my "personal item" (when you don't check your luggage, you can have one carry-on suitcase and one personal item). In the back are the comics that i read on my six hour flight in. The smaller pile (about a third of the larger one) is all i have to read on my way back. Which clearly means i didn't bring enough comics and now i'm going to have nothing to do for two-thirds of my flight home. Normally i bring more comics in my carry-on suitcase and swap them out for the trip home. But this was a particularly long trip so i had to fill my suitcase with stupid unimportant things (i.e. clothes) instead of comics. The good news is i had plenty of opportunities to escape my corporate masters and review comics, so i don't have as big a backlog to review when i get back. By fnord12 | March 6, 2013, 11:02 PM | Comics | Comments (1)| Link While reading a Ghost Rider reprint published in 1992: Oh god it's one of those coolometers those were so annoying i shouldn't even look at this i can't help myself wait isn't that upside down why is uncool at the bottom hrm it's the last one that's good let's see here kool and the gang is definitely cooler than kool moe dee you have to factor in their early funk stuff wow i didn't realize calvin coolidge was that cool WTF WHY IS KULAN GATH SO LOW ON THE CHART YOU ASSHOLES HOW DARE YOU?!?!?! By fnord12 | March 1, 2013, 9:49 AM | Comics | Link |
