snap judgments

Let’s try DC first, shall we?

Justice #5

It’s beautiful. BEAUTIFUL. I mean, open it up, first page, BAM! Probably the classiest the Elongated Man has looked in awhile. The story continues it’s epic rock god plot as the villains continue to work behind the public scenes to incapacitate or kill the members of the Justice League, bringing in second stringers to the rescue. Second stringers like… the GODDAMNED CAPTAIN MARVEL! Oh yeah! There’s a lot of tragedy and tears in this one, from Jean Lorring’s tears at the hospital bed of the Atom (everybody ‘ooooooh!’), Wonder Woman unable to understand why she can’t help Priscilla, Dinah horrified by the thought of a dead Ollie, even Aquaman lying on a horrifically clean examination table while Braniac and that monkey hover near by… hoo. All really does seem pretty lost here. And when Superman’s only solution is to be THROWN INTO THE SUN, you know you have a quality book in your hands.

Ex Machina Special #1

Okay, folks, help me out: is it ‘Mah-KEY-nah’ or ‘Mah-SHEEN-nah’? I’m going with number one until someone tells me different. Anyhoo. So, what does Mayor Hundred think about the Death Penalty? Let’s tell you in flashback detail! Part of The Great Machine’s super-heroing career apparently dealt with a strange young man who got … powers over animals going a little bit crazy, confronting The Great Machine and giving us all the feeling that this guy’s gonna have to be put down. Then again, this is Ex Machina. They may be trying to tell us something here.

Manhunter #21

Now, I’m not too up on my lawyer specifics, but I think this is a pretty interesting little court case. Chilling in more ways than one. Doctor Psycho allegedly had random passers by at a big heist tear his accomplices, the Hangmen, limb from limb in a bloodbath. Yeah, not something you’d want to defend either, but she does it. She even refutes some evidence brought in by Dr. Midnight, whom later she has to get past armed guard to get to as he heads for the JSA ‘copter. Armed guards for a superhero, whodathunk? Not to mention that they looked like secret service men. Hrmmm. Anyway, there’s going to be some DNA testing done on her to see if she’s a carrier for a disease her father died from which will no doubt also tell us something a little more fascinating. Also in this issue, a jogger gets tranq’d and a cheating man gets a fist put through his chest.

Sgt. Rock: the Prophecy #4

Now, this is how I picture historical WWII comic-ry. Even if the base plot doesn’t do it for you (Easy Company escorts a young Jewish prophet and winds up leading them on through trouble and war atrocities), the art alone is worth price of admission. Solid work from a solid guy. Moments of history, moments of personality and moments of faith. Makes you wonder what’s up with Team Zero. A fine example of storytelling.

Man-Bat #1

Just to let you know ahead of time, I have issues with Mr. Jones. Bruce Jones wrote some of the worst Hulk comics I was ever convinced to buy, so we don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things. So I find myself in a little more level a position this time thanks to the fact I don’t know a thing about Man-Bat outside of the Batman Animated series. The first issue isn’t going to tell us a thing, just show us some creepy and traditionally paced horror stories, one victim after another, all the while looking back at Dr. Langstrom with one eyebrow lifted. Also, we have Hush. Yeah, I know, not the guy I was expecting either, but he takes an interest in the brutal ’serial killer’ reports and goes to see another spooky guy about it. Batman’s more of a shadowy figure in this, background noise to the victim’s gruesome reports on TV, so I figure we might get him more towards the end of the book. Not much to go by, but at least a couple good spooky shots.

Hellblazer #219

I hope we get some confrontation this issue. While I’m not knocking the last issues for taking their time to provide some back story and show the route taken, my internal clock wants some action. Not like Constantine is Bruce Willis, but something. At least they reach their destination, finding the guy’s home to poke about what seems to be painting’s of Constantine’s subconscious. More back story is included and apparently there exists a third place for the soul to go once it’s slipped the mortal coil and it’s ‘Enemy is Empathy’. We have a title, folks! I’m getting the feeling this storyline might be more enjoyable in trade format, where you can link up all the back story at once, follow the office working guy who seems to be behind the evil inherent, the praexis that seem to be heralding something and our man’s journey. It’s good story, just starting to have that decompressed feeling.

Bite Club: Vampire Crime Unit #1

A return to Howard Chaykin’s vampire world last seen in th Bite Club mini from a year or some back. It’s got grit, I can tell you that much. There’s drugs, murder, sex, dirty cops, the works. Warning, though, when you do read it your head will be full of swear words for awhile after. Blue language is littered liberally throughout the book so thickly that you have to say a few of the word bubbles aloud to make sure you know what they’re trying to get across. Do not read in polite company. A woman is killed at a ironically named Vampire Club and there’s foul play suspected from page three. The woman on the cover is some terribly hip mafia head who’s also a very sexy lesbian, a stone cold bitch stereotype and a vampire to boot. There’s a naive cop who’s totally falling for her hook, line and sinker and some double crossing dealing between cops and crooks. 100 Bullets, but more fangly and a lot less subtle. Howard Chaykin I hear is ‘The Man’, but maybe I’m not reading the right work first.

Iron Man #7

Hey! I remember this book… at least they didn’t start renumbering again with this new creative team. Recap is once again appreciated at the beginning of the book and reminding me that Tony’s now got a special link between himself and ‘computers and any digital system worldwide’. Plus he’s ‘biologically integrated’ into the Iron Man armor. No, when Warren Ellis took over the book six issues ago, he did say that Iron Man should update his tech for the times, and I agree. But… ‘biologically integrated’? I’m sketchy. In fact, I’m sketchy all through this issue before I get an idea I hope they wanted to give me. We see a spooky hooded figure logging into what I assume to be a secret net work and ‘executing’ a list of names. Something kills the person on the list and, for all intents and purposes, it seems to be Iron Man. Iron Man, who’s gotten to be quite the douchebag as he’s multitasking during a brawl with the Crimson Dynamo, not to mention mocking him openly. The Avengers are put off by Tony’s ‘tude, not to mention SHIELD and Nick Fury, who’s not up for taking that kind of crap. It seems Tony Stark might be more ‘under the influence’ of the Extremis Virus than we thought. I think another issue should settle things in.

Daredevil #84

Well. when the title character can’t get to his rogues’ gallery, we bring the rogues’ gallery to the title character. In a very cheesy, but strangely well played intro, it looks like Brubaker’s bringing Bullseye into the mix, completely with Hannibal Lechter faceplate-thingie. Daredevil continues to play ‘innocent little blind lawyer’ during the day and total ninja bad ass under cover of night. The fact that no one seems to be calling him on this seems to be odd until you remember that one, this is storytelling here, unclench, and two, well Matt Murdock is a lawyer and can put himself in situations that wouldn’t be admissible in court and strikes enough fear into the already weakened prison staff, so… I buy it. It’s a good story. Trying to find out who did in Foggy takes him right up to Hammerhead, through the Dick Tracy-esque crime boss and to ‘Ivan Murphy’, tangling the plot in with the Kingpin. On the outside, Dakota North gets similar info and takes Ben Ulrich to investigate. (When he expressed his thanks for the tip, Dakota North tells him to join her fanlisting. I looked it up: she doesn’t have one. Now’d be a good time to start, though… Just sayin’.) And just when you thought Ryker’s couldn’t get any worse or complicated… the Punisher shows up. I have to admit, Marvel puts out a fine street level crime story these days. Maybe it says something that capes aren’t exactly a mainstay. Maybe it makes things more grounded.

Wolverine: Origins #1

I’m going to borrow something from Star Trek V, if you can forgive me for a moment. You see, the intro (which is very well written and a nice place to start if you never caught ‘Wolverine Fever’ and want to take a peek) tells us that now that Wolverine remembers the majority of his life thus far, he wants payback on all those that did him wrong. To aid him in this mission, he has a blade of ‘unimaginable power’, a Muramasa katana. And as Kirk once asked, ‘What does God need with a starship?’, I pose to you this question: ‘What does Wolverine need with a magic sword?’ I mean, really. Adamantium cuts through near everything, right? He’s sort of made a living off of being a one-man army, a scrapper who can take them all himself, a loner, Dottie, a rebel. And now… he needs a magic sword? Oh well. Dum Dum Dugan takes center stage for most of our tale, playing narrator and SHIELD director while Fury’s gone (wait, isn’t he back in another book? Editor?), demanding answers when Wolverine and someone else attacks the White House. The President’s evacuated, of course, but Wolverine’s only there to shake down Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. Stopped from getting a straight answer out of Condi by the sudden appearance of a ‘Shiva’ robot, designed by Weapon X to ‘neutralize and take down rogue agents’. I hope these are a new development because it doesn’t even scratch Wolverine, but does turn Dr. Rice to ash. Wolverine takes down the robot and continues on his dark hunt. Everyone calls up SHIELD to tell them they’re being played, but not really how or by whom exactly. I’d say the story feels a bit crowded, just too many elements on what could have been a very streamlined and direct plot. The sword, the robot, all the stuff unsaid but hinted at, all I really want is Wolverine is doing what he does best. Steve Dillon is great for that kind of stuff (see Preacher) and I fear might not jibe well with the type of story they’re wanting to tell. Ah, well. It’s only issue #1.

Captain America #17

A quick recap of everything we’ve already figured out from last issue (the town Sharon and Cap are in is a secret underground AIM base, Crossbones and Lady Sin are here to do evil) from a escaped AIM agent who fears this new splinter group that our two villains have hooked up with: RAID (Radically Advanced Ideas in Destruction). Our heroes call for backup and go in to what is obviously going to be a big trap and fight sequence, during which the ‘MODOK Squad’ is unleashed. Sharon has just enough time to explain that they used to be human and now they’re just weapons, letting Cap give the G. Gordon Liddy line of ‘Aim for the head’. Many things are beaten. Cap explains his ability to dodge bullets comes from the fact he sees faster. The bad guys are to be confronted just yet, so they get an escape. Before chase is given however, our two heroes go to check on the Bucky storyline, and it looks like he’s visiting the girl from the 65th Anniversary issue. And by visiting, I mean paying respects to her grave and freaking out her daughter. It seems the Winter Soldier villain Lukin is next on his list and he just wanted to say goodbye. Seeing how Lukin also killed the Red Skull, Crossbones and Lady Sin want to see him too. They’re on a collision course to wackiness.

Annihilation: Nova #1

No Giffen on this one, we’re on our own. Richard Ryder gets woken up by the Xandarian Worldmind, the collection of the entire world’s history and culture and intelligence (plus keeper of the Nova Force). It needs to get off the world before the Annihilation folks get to it and Nova is an entire civilization’s last hope. So what does he do? Well, he gets tired, angry, cocky, makes two huge mistakes and tries to balance the right thing to do with all the stupid, foolish instincts that come with being human. Well played and well written. Seeing how he finds Drax the Destroyer at the last page, I really think it’s going to be a terrible shame if people miss out on the Annihilation books in the wake of Civil War.

Avengers Power Pack Assembled #1

Second verse, same as the first; if you remember how the Power Pack X-Men books went, you have general idea of how these Avengers books are going to go. Captain America is in town to visit an old folks’ home full of his old war buddies, when he runs a favor for Tony Stark and checks in on an alarm at the local Stark Industries place. Turns out Taskmaster’s been hired to take something important and fights Captain America to make his escape. Power Pack, visiting their local library, sees the battle overhead, joins in and … gets mocked mercilessly by Taskmaster. He becomes the MVP of the issue as he’s not only beaten down by Captain America, but Power Pack and the old timers that Cap was going to visit in the first place. Poor guy. He does escape though, gets his job done for AIM and everyone learns a little something in the end. Kind of funny, kind of cute, good for the really small set.

The Sensational Spider-Man #25

There was a ‘The’ in that title? Must have not noticed before. So, Spidey and the Black Cat bust in on Reed Richards and Sue Storm, apparently in evening wear. They’ve got the little boy who was shot last issue (the Lizard’s son), pop him in a Bacta Tank and start in on the explications of ‘weird animal ju-ju’. Reed demands ‘tests’, which is comic lingo for ’stall the characters’ and so we cut to MJ and Aunt May waiting for and then getting attacked by Man-Wolf. Thankfully, Aunt May comes to the rescue, thankfully losing that ‘old biddy’ routine she was in last issue and rescues her daughter-in-law, not to mention turns on the Avengers Tower security. Delay over, Spider-Man gets a Spider Sense that something’s wrong at the homestead and runs away to show up right at the nick after the nick of time. Changing into the Iron Spidey duds, he heads off to find out what’s going on. Black Cat figures there’s no reason to stay with the guest stars, also ditches. Last pages leads us to believe they’re bringing back Madame Web. Wow.

X-Men #185

The quick version: Shock continues from last issue’s revelation (Gambit’s new job as ‘Death’ Horseman for Apocalypse), Rogue takes the stereotypical route of ‘there has to be a part of mah Remy still in there!’, there’s some fighting, Cyclops save Emma Frost from the Horseman ‘War’ with the blood chilling phrase ‘Get away from my girlfriend’ and a well placed optic blast, Sunfire is ’saved’ from Apocalypse’s brainwashing and the latest session of the UN is interrupted by our favorite Egyptian madman demanding that 90% of the human stock be ‘culled’. With a dramatic sweep of his cape (or lack thereof), he leaves them in shock and we later hear that some countries are CONSIDERING IT. ‘Some leaders would quite happily do away with most of humanity.’ says a mysterious word bubble talking with Val Cooper. The O*N*E Sentinel squad out of commission, we get two new robots. And the Horseman ‘Pestilence’? Polaris! There’s even a little back story at the end to let us know that Apocalypse turned down the Leper Queen for the job! ‘She wanted it too badly’. Man, it must suck to be Loran Dane.

Spider-Woman: Origin #5

Some days, I wish I was kalinara, so I could get my point of about poorly portrayed female comic book characters across in that ‘hit the nail on the head’ style she’s got. But, I do the best I can. From the wikipedia entry on Mary Sue - Characters most commonly labeled Mary Sues are often characterized by their unusual and dramatic traits and experiences, … and, most especially, the trait of extreme superiority in comparison to other characters.. Just thought I’d share. Anyhoo, Spider-Woman! Her father doesn’t really love her, just sees her as a project. Spider-Woman! Her mother died a ‘noble’ death by fleeing the nasty Hydra and getting assassinated tragically without ever getting to prove herself as a real character. Spider-Woman! She’s so brain-washed and confused, she just has to beat up everyone all by herself. Even the other ‘Athena Project’ subjects (obviously not as good as she turned out), they don’t get mercy, just a fist to the face, but only long enough for SHIELD to blow the whole thing to smithereens. Which she survives. As she pleads pitifully for death, SHIELD makes the big arrest and the big rescue. And in the end, she doesn’t want Nick Fury’s lame-o ‘lecture’ about how ‘pushing yourself to that point’ just shows how super-strong she is, she doesn’t need a frikkin’ engraved invitation into SHIELD and a surrogate father through Fury. No. She’s a goddamn Mary Sue and now she’s gonna be a detective all by herself. As far as I’m concerned, this book hated me first.

Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. #4

… But this book brought me flowers and candy and rubbed my shoulders and stayed over all night watching quirky movies on the TV with me. Ah, Nextwave. What would I do without you? From the quickie primer in the front, you know this book is for you. The evil cop guy from lst issue continues to get cooler by turning into an evil giant robot cop by eating through a junkyard. All of Nextwave make many many many things explode. The Captain is explained and it’s so very simple. Eventually the explode limit is reached (could there even be such a thing), the evil cop guy left bare and Tabitha and Machine-Man kick him in the street. Chastised by their team leader, they stop and let other people do it for them. In the end, ‘Nextwave would like to remind the audience that dragging, insane, corrupt police officers who change into giant killer robots into an alleyway and shooting them a lot is very bad and not the Marvel way. And still illegal in most states.’ And I would like you to remember that Nextwave is pure love.

Happy Wednesday everybody.