Greg Pak and John Romita Jr.'s World War Hulk 4 (of 5). This issue seemed badly made physically -- the transfer from the originals to the printed page seems a little muddy. That could just be my copy. The art is pretty fun, and the story is serviceable. And I like seeing Reed with a mace. But the ending beat? I wish they had gone with something they had not been telegraphing from issue one. Plus -- did I mention I do not care bout the Sentry?
Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba's Umbrella Academy 1 (of 6). The guy from My Chemical Romance teams up with the artist of Casanova. I felt like I HAD to get this. I really enjoyed the Myspace Dark Horse Presents free Umbrella Academy thing. This was pretty good too -- great art and lots of fun stuff. But I felt maybe the slightest hint of staleness here. The opening page with the wrestler taking down the space squid is great -- the Squid reminded me of the aliens on the Simpsons, especially with the Chuck Jones cartoon art, which I love. But I feel like, I don't know, this kind of absurdity is becoming, or will shortly become, a little predictable? The device of "and all these superpowered children were born at that exact moment, coincidentally" is something from novels like Gravity's Rainbow and Midnight's Children, -- a replacement of causality with coincidence. I don't hate it, but I have seen it before. Sir Reginald's body guard is Sachelle's bodyguard from Casanova, yeah? I like the newspaper heading and the title filling in for narration, but the superhero/spy kids who call each other "number 1" and "number 2" is right out of Codename: Kids Next Door on the cartoon network. The Eiffel tower bad guy is very much out of Steampunk, or something I cannot put my finger on -- League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? Five Fists of Science? Something. I love the monkey space suit, but the girl who wrote a book about her life on the fringes of this superteam is very Watchmen, or the Whip from Seven Soldiers, or something from Powers. The talking monkey -- included because of the assumption that talking monkeys are always great? -- is OK, but I am exhausted every time I see a comic book with a faux encyclopedia page, or "historical material" in it now. Too much of that. I am going to stick with this cause I like the art, and am trying not to be a jerk. I feel like with a slight tweak I could be really excited about all this, maybe. Could just be a grumpy day for me.
Geoff Johns and Grant Morrison et. al's 52 volume 3 TPB. I have not read this yet, but Ping33 and Matt Fraction said 52 is great so I continue to try to see what they see in it.
In comics news Jeph Loeb and Joe Madureia's Ultimates will be five issues. People are really mad about that, apparently. Plus people are not that happy about the device of killing a character in the first issue. I can see that, but am not feeling that passionate about it today. There was other stuff I am sure, but that is the only one I read about this week. Let me know if there was anything I missed.
[I seem to be phoning it in a bit this week. Maybe teaching took too much out of me today. Sorry]
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4 comments:
should have written "monkey body/spacesuit thing" above.
Finally read the first two issues of the new series of Casanova yesterday... is it just me or are they FAR more tame and linear than anything in the first run?
On a similar tip... anyone else watching the new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm? Both eps have seemed MUCH more contrived than the show has done previously... WAY more like Seinfeld Part 2. Not that I'm disliking either... just that the edges seem a bit dulled.
To anyone who does the DCBS thing... the current previews solicits the long awaited Badger V1 TPB... The Badger is the first comics series I got really into and I would still put its first 20 issues up against anything ever. How can you not love the adventures of a 13th century Welsh Druid who has the power to control the weather and his bodyguard who has the split personalities of: A broken VietNam Vet, a 7 year old girl, a French-Canadian Axe Murder and a Kung Fu Superhero.
Ex Machina and Tales Of The Sinestro Corps Presents Parallax #1, are the only books I'm REALLY excited for this week. I'll once again break my self-imposed Ennis Ban to get JLA/Hitman though...
I may be the only one actually happy about U3 being only 5 issues - that gets U4, with McGuinness to us that much sooner. I don't care much for Joe Madureia's work - couple that with the fact that after two years, he's got less than 3 issues done and I can actually wait for the trade on this one. Like Loeb's got a snowball's chance of writing a better story than Millar. Sure, Millar wrote Civil War, but Loeb's never written something like Swamp Thing 140-171 or Wanted or Red Son. "Hush" and Superman/Batman 1-25 (but especially 1-6 and 14-18) came damn close but there's no contest.
Got rooked on the Green Arrow wedding thing. How stupid does Winick think we are?
World War hulk is losing me. When I was reading Planet Hulk in HC, I couldn't wait to get to the next page. Now I can't wait for this to be over. Maybe they'll kill him and just be done with an ultimately USELESS character.
On the positive side, New X-Men continues to look great. The Norman Rockwell riff on the cover was truly inspired.
Finally read Dr. Thirteen: Architecture and Morality over the weekend. Basically, that book is to Infinite Crisis/52 what Morrison's later Animal Man issues were to the original Crisis, a massive piss-take on the whole concept.
I love who the Architects in Dr. Thirteen end up being. It's so obvious but yet so much fun.
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