Comics Out June 25, 2008

Young Avengers Presents Hawkeye. A very nice little Matt Fraction yarn. Absurdly, I never noticed until I saw him drawing Avengers how much Brian Hitch owes to Alan Davis. (Is that right? How old is Hitch?). Anyway, Fraction's plan to surpass Morrison continues in his ability to get great artists to team up with him consistently.

Thor: Reign of Blood. Have not actually gotten around to this yet. But it looks pretty good.

Iron Fist 16. Does anyone in the comics industry have more heart than Fraction? The guy has a big heart, and does heartwarming really well. Nice to see Aja back for a whole issue two even if it is light on the ass-kickery. A nice end. The final page image from the next issue by the new team, however, does not look that promising.

Runaways 30. It was the lackluster art, with its dowdy figures, rather than the publishing schedule that made this series unpersuasive -- in spite of the fact that I am always really open to the tragic view of fate that made of the moral of this little story .

Final Crisis 2. The first page is a genius direct address to the reader, and "Spirit into Toy" is one of my favorite exclamations ever. But the various plot threads here still seem really fractured to me -- and not in a good way, and in my copy the reproduction of the art seemed wonky. Blurry maybe? Libra continues to bore, and the Alpha Lantern twist may have meant more to me if I knew who she was. The preacher bad guy New God continues to seem like a weak irony to me, and the imagery on the last page seemed odd, though I know someone is going to tell me the spacial relationships and perspective is SUPPOSED to be weird since they are bending space and time. I don't care; I don't buy it. I did really like when one character referred to the "boom tube" in quotes however -- that really captures the scene, as the New God condescendingly calls it what they pathetic Earthlings would call it. That was a nice detail.

In comics news, I hope to have a friend review Wanted as soon as possible, cause it will probably be Monday at the earliest that I get a chance to see it. And it is coming after Wall-E.

Comics Out April 29, 2008

DC Universe 0. I really enjoyed this. I love the concept of a comic book framed by narration -- which is itself the big twist -- that is basically a preview for other comics (hence the in-house adds, which are nicely designed), like trailers in front of a movie -- trailers that often turn out to be better than the movie you are about to watch, and better than the full length features they are advertising. Some of the snip-its were weak -- Superman's, Batman's, and the Specter's in particular -- but they are over so quick you barely notice. The Green Lantern preview was the standout, and the Libra bit was pretty good (though the obvious reversal of Christianity in the Bible of Crime is an almost tragically weak idea I have hated since I saw it in 52) -- Jones seems sold for Final Crisis, even if his layouts are a little dull. The final image was big and weird and striking but almost subtle. There was some real magic on that final page, and I hope I get the Morrison I want for Final Crisis -- the JLA Morrison -- rather than the Batman Morrison I have come to loathe.

Iron Fist 14. I am incapable of seeing anything other than the absence of David Aja. I probably would love the book if he had never been a part of it, but there you go. The guy is so good he has ruined me. As for the script -- the ending was really touching, and I loved all of the crazy names for the fighting moves. Fraction must come up with a slew when he started this book and now that he is going to be gone, he must have emptied his notebook out. That was fun.

The Order 10. You have to admire the confidence that Fraction has, choosing as one of his epigrams "I had in mind to do something big and I did it." The Order get a kind of a happy ending that is not entirely persuasive, but is also not supposed to be since the book was sort of abandoned/cancelled. Smart, on Fraction's part, was the promise that these threads will continue in his Iron Man run.

Thor: Ages of Thunder. Like a Classics Illustrated with way too much talent. Not my genre, and I wonder how the thing would have read had it been written with the ironies of Iron Fist 8, but pretty good.

Glamourpuss 1. I sort of never got into the whole Cerebus thing, and I randomly thought I would get in on the ground floor of Sim's new project, even though, I think, it is about women and he -- am I getting this right -- thinks all women are Satan's Handmaidens. I was expecting something offensive and pretty, but what I got was an essay on comics coming out of the mouths of women who were drawn to illustrate a technique. Not really the kind of thing I want to read for fun, I think. Seemed like his audience was more professional artists.

Not exactly comics related, but one of my favorite TV shows, Avatar, will finish with straight to DVDs released May 6 and July 29.

I have not seen Iron Man, and might not for two weeks. You are welcome to review it here, and I might promote your comment to its own blog post.