Friday, December 12, 2008

Comics Out Wednesday December 10, 2008

Final Crisis 5. Jog did an excellent review of this comic, I thought. His point that the issue is by no means great, especially on the art front, but that the second half has a lot of fun madness in it is how I feel about this issue exactly. I know that is completely a cop out as a review on this site so I will add a few thoughts of my own: the Rubik's cube thing was dumb, Mr Miracle popping back to life because he was wearing a vest after last issue's cliffhanger on that point was super weak (he cannot die, fine, that was established in Seven Soldiers, but make him "escape" death in a more interesting way), Darkseid is all talk -- all this stuff about never seeing a New God for REAL is all rhetoric: stop talking man and just fucking DO IT, ya know? Morrison needs J.G. Jones to sell this stuff: his pages here are great and I hope that Morrison will do some work, short but self-contained, with him again. The last page was kind of AWESOME, and I loved it. Overall I am still a little checked out in terms of the series as a whole because of the fill in artists, and the rumored editorial changes to the final issue, but I will keep getting it and basically liking it as a result of diminished expectations,

Punisher X-Mas Special. I read the first Scalped trade and I liked it OK; I thought this was very good too. It's a fun story that does a surprisingly good job being a solid self contained Punisher story and also a Christmas special without going off in a comic vein that would have been really easy given the topic. There is something really admirable about Aaron's ability to take the task of a holiday special seriously and deliver a GOOD STORY rather than an easy joke.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I have heard good things about Aaron and have been meaning to check out his Ghost Rider TPB. I hear it manages to fuse the exploitative nature of a lot of the 70s Marvel books with a grindhouse aesthetic that I love and think could fit well with the character. Maybe something to pick up for the Christmas Eve comics reading.

I cannot say why but this issue of Final Crisis was the best issue of any comic all year for me, even inching out All Star Superman. What Morrison does here is incredible (although I agree with Geoff's "just do it already" point). I am going to think on about why I think this issue is so so good because at the moment I don't know why, I just know I loved every bit of it.

(It is also the most Metal comic of recent memory, including Fraction's issues of Thor).