Henry10This Week's Comics
October 22nd 2006 10:08
THE AMAZING SPIDER-GIRL #1 by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz
This is the relaunch of Spider-Girl, and as promised it's quite accessible. May is Spider-Man's daughter, and she's inherited his powers, but for the last few months she's not been doing the superhero thing. But with the Hobgoblin lurking in the background, it's not long before she's back in action.
Still, the action is pretty sparse, and the focus of the issue is more about setting up the relationships between May's supporting cast. It's not bad, but it's not doing anything new or exciting. It's a dull old retread of the classic Spider-Man formula, without the pathos of guilt that made that character appealing.
BLADE #2 by Marc Guggenheim and Howard Chaykin
This one's a damn lot of fun. Doctor Doom pops up to guest star, but he's got more on his mind than gratuitous villainy - he's there to forcibly recruit Blade into saving his mother in the past. I'm an absolute sucker for stories involving time travel, especially those that don't involve changing the past or the future. I'm not altogerther conviced that playing up Blade's super-hero aspects are the way to go, nor am I convinced that the character can sell comics in any great capacity, but this series has been fun so far - and self-contained too!
CABLE AND DEADPOOL #33 by Fabian Nicieza and Reilly Brown
Yeah, I know, it's got a Rob Liefeld cover. Don't let that fool you, this title is great as usual. After Cable's little chat with the President of the US during Civil War, the Pres has decided to retaliate by destabilising Cable's power bases. His tools? The Six Pack, a group of mercenaries that Cable used to run with. It's got all the good stuff this comic normally has (action, humour, political commentary, etc.) and the best cliffhanger of the week.
52 WEEK 24 by Lot's o' People
With the introduction of what might possibly be the best JLA line-up ever, versus an indisputably awesome line-up of villains, this is the best issue of 52 in a while. Hell, the JLA has got the Bulleteer and Ambush Bug. Also, forget what I said about not caring for Super-Chief - he wears a giant buffalo head, so all is forgiven. The villains are throwaway, I assume, but among there number stands THE TORNADO NINJA! Tornado Ninja, I bow before your coolness. Please come back to fight people in the future. Oh yeah, developments continue with Black Adam, Intergang and Checkmate as well. All far less important than the TORNADO NINJA!
GHOST RIDER #4 by Daniel Way and Mark Texeira
Four issues in, and Way has finally set up the premise of the series. Like most of Way's comics there are good ideas here, but he ekes them out so slowly that they mean nothing. Thankfully Mark Texeira is on hand to make the interminably sluggish happenings look impressive. Hopefully he can stick around for a while, because it would be a crap series without him.
MARVEL ADVENTURES THE AVENGERS #6 by Tony Bedard and Shannon Gallant
Aw. I've been lovig this comic, but then they hadda go and change the writer on me. It's still decent fun, with the Avengers beating up the U-Foes, but lacks the humourous byplay of earlier issues. Plus it's version of Wolverine is way off-character. Bring back Jeff Parker!
MS. MARVEL #8 by Brian Reed and Roberto De La Torre
Civil War tie-in. Is anyone else sick of these? Ms. Marvel and Wonder Man, with trainee Arana, are still hunting down Arachne, the former Spider-Woman. It goes through the standard Civil War motions - heroes have to do Something Bad in the name of the Registration Act, and they feel bad about it afterwards. It would be nice if we had just one of the heroes supporting the Act without a shred of remorese, just to give some balance. Even Iron Man has had his doubts in a few places, but there's no shortage of good guys who are convinced that it's wrong. It's hardly a balanced portrayal as Marvel seems to think.
RUNAWAYS #21 by Brian K. Vaughan and Mike Norton
Honestly, what's the big deal about this comic? I'm trying my best to like it, and there's nothing to actively dislike about it, but I just can't get excited about it. The characters are stock-standard teenage stereotypes, and I just can't see what's so great. Maybe I'm missing out by not having read from the start. But anyway, the Runaways fight a big monster while Chase is trying to resurrect his dead girlfriend. Cliches ensue.
FLASH #5 by Danny Bilson, Paul Demeo, and Ron Adrian
Five issues, and the Flash (or should I say Flashes) are still fighting against the Griffin, would-be superhero who is actually a dangerous menace. There were three issues in this plot, tops. At least Bart has finally accepted the mantle of the Flash, but he's far less entertaining and interesting now than he was as Impulse.
ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR #35 by Mike Carey and Pasqual Ferry
The FF are battling against interdimensional guys led by a dude called Gallowglass, and Thanos is about to wake up, and it all still feels like the FF filtered through a Vertigo lens. Take out the pretentious faux-alien-speak that the bad guys have, focus on the FF a bit more, and you'd probably have a good comic. Reed Richards has about six lines in the whole thing, which is hardly enough for the team leader. It seems to me that Carey is more interested in his new characters than the main cast of the book.
UNION JACK #2 by Christos Gage and Mike Perkins
Union Jacks, to quote an incredibly annoying phrase, roxxors my soxxors. About the time that he went smashing through the front windscreen of a jet liner, I decided that he was the coolest. Terrorist organisation RAID want to blow up London, and they've hired a whole gang of C-list Spider-Man villains to get the job done. This naturally leads to a whole issue of Union Jack kicking the living crap out of C-list Spider-Man villains. This is undoubtedly my Pick of the Week.
WILDCATS #1 by Grant Morrison and Jim Lee
I love Grant Morrison. I love Jim Lee. Once upon a time, I loved the Wildcats (or should that be WildC.A.T.s?). I lost track of the characters about the time that Alan Moore left, and this issue does little to fill me in on where the characters have been in the interim. This is a franchise that I'm certain Morrison can do a lot with, but I haven't been grabbed so far.
WOLVERINE #47 by Marc Guggenheim and Humberto Ramos
This is the end of Wolverine's Civil War tie-in, which has been Big Stupid Fun. This issue Wolvie's tracking down the guys in charge of Damage Control, who used Nitro to blow stuff up so that they could make money rebuilding it. (Hey, it makes sense if you've been reading Civil War.) A big fight results, Wolvie cuts some guys to pieces, and makes a choice at the end that ties up the arc quite nicely. It's been one of the better Civil War tie-ins, and I'll be interested to see where Guggenheim pops up next - he's been doing some good work on a few titles. If only Ramos hadn't pencilled it - I can't deal with his manga stylings on American superhero comics.
X-FACTOR #12 by Peter David and Renato Arlem
I've gotta admit, I was expecting more from this issue. Like a wrap-up to the whole Singularity Investigations storyline. Alas, no - it's just the opening arc in a long-running story, which is a dangerous way to operate in the current comics market. It's up to the usual standard that Peter David provides, which means that it's quite good indeed, but I can't help feeling a little disappointed by the lack of a conclusion.
X-MEN: FIRST CLASS #2 by Jeff Parker and Roger Cruz
The original X-Men (remember, this is a flashback series) go to Florida for a vacation, and naturally they have a run-in with the Lizard. I've been loving Parker's stuff on Marvel Adventures The Avengers, and he doesn't disappoint here either. Sure, the characters aren't quite portrayed exactly as they were back in the 60s (especially Cyclops) but you couldn't do that these days without making the X-Men into total nerds (especially Cyclops). Plus, I totally mark out for hero/villain battles that I've never seen before. If it weren't for Union Jack being so awesome, this would have been my Pick of the Week.
| 48 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog
Comment by JoshZ
Haven't touched the civil war series yet. Hoping they do something like what they did with Universe X.
Hey, I posted some stuff about V for Vendetta, interesting in your input.