Fallen Son: Iron Man
Written By Jeph Loeb
Art by John Cassady
The last of the Fallen Son issues hits stands, after making a mild appearance in the mainstream media. Yes, this is the one with the Captain America funeral. Yes, it's about the same as any other super-hero funeral ever. It's got the trite emotionalism, the yank-on-the-heartstrings-so-hard-they pop out of the vascular system style speech, and the requisite wide-open door ending, just in case you're still one of those who believe that Cap's never coming back. Considering it's a Captain America funeral, the jingoistic tone is set somewhere around Defcon 5, or Threat Level Midnight, but no one can claim that John Cassady doesn't make the whole thing pleasant to look at. Although one wonders if the closing pages is really accurate--would ole Cappy really want you to chuck his body into the freezing waters of the Arctic? Really? That's what he would have wanted? Why would anyone want that?
Nightwing 134
Written by Marv Wolfman
Art by Jamal Igle & Keith Champagne
Yet another sure-to-be-poor selling and poorly remembered copy of Nightwing shows up on the shelves, headed towards whatever future debacle DC has in store for the character. As has become standard for Nightwing's solo comic, he has a few moments where he beats people up out of costume, new and absolutely uninteresting villains are introduced and a mysterious ally arises, this one taking the name of a long-dead character. (A long-dead character, the poorly named Vigilante, that DC already failed to revitalize once in the past year.) A mild amount of controversy arose last year when Dan Didio, DC's Senior VP, revealed that plans to kill off the Nightwing character had been scrapped at the 11th hour. At this point, it seems that maybe old NW would've
been better off if they'd stuck to their guns--no one seems to have any interest in making any use of the characters stay of execution.
Ultimate Power 6
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Art by Greg Land & Jay Leisten
Yet another week in mainstream comics rolls by, and yet another cheesecake cover having absolutely nothing to do with the story held inside. No, regardless of what Greg Land would have you believe, the Invisible Woman never licks her fingers in these pages, nor does the Wasp pump her keister out for the world to see. If you're buying the comic because you expect more of what the cover promises, you'll be sorely disappointed. You're simply buying a "fight issue" where the various heroes fight their alternate world counterparts. Don't worry though--at the end a bad guy shows up who they'll certainly have to team up to deal with. Predicatibility can be fun, yes, but not three dollars worth of fun.
Marvel Zombies Vs. Army of Darkness 5
Written by John Layman
Art by Fabiano Neves, Fernando Blanco & Sean Phillips
It's funny how people at comics shops act somewhat embarrassed regarding purchasing this mini-series--as if somehow, plunking down massive amounts of coinage for the last few years of DC's interminable event comics is somehow more deserving of respect than purchasing a hackneyed cross-over between Bruce Campbell's Evil Dead character Ash & a bunch of zombiefied Marvel characters. If anything, this is probably the most clever thing Marvel has done in a while--they've continued to capitalize on the success of a short mini-series by splitting the cost with Dynamite Entertainment & merging the story with one of comic-dom's more favorite waste of time: that being the cheesy horror movie. Considering that there's people on the DC comics message board clamoring for a cross-over between the Supergirl character & George Orwell's 1984, maybe this is the beginning of a trend. Not like an iPhone level trend, but maybe something along the lines of all those people who watch Two and a Half Men.
Y: The Last Man 57
Written by Brian K. Vaughan
Art by Pia Guerra & Jose Marzan, Jr.
It was always a bit easier to plow through Y when the end was nowhere in sight--now that it's a mere few issues away, it's become a little more difficult to enjoy it. Sure, Y sells, and if there was ever an argument for Vertigo comics, it's always been a good one. It's stories are solid, entertaining pieces of fiction that wouldn't work in the regular DC universe, the trades and single issues seem to sell relatively well to people who wouldn't regularly pick up mainstream (read: superhero) comic books--all in all, it can stand alongside Transmetropolitan, Preacher, 100 Bullets and Lucifer as successful Vertigo. The only bone of contention one really has now that the story is coming to a close is that it's never really gone anywhere. Much like it's main characters, Y has merely meandered around the world it's central premise created: a world were only one man survived a massive plague. The cleverness of the beginning stories, where Republican wives fought to take their dead husbands place in US government now that a majority of Democrats controlled the country, or where Israel immediately became a military superpower due to it's role in enlisting females, hasn't been maintained or explored. Instead, the comic has tread water for about thirty issues or so, throwing out six-issue arcs (perfect for Vertigo's trade market,) arcs that did little more to show what the world looked like on a boat (now that all the men were dead) or the space program (since all the men were dead) or stopping off in Japan (you know, because ninjas were mostly men, and all the men were dead.) While it's certainly never been lacking in creativity, somewhere along the way, it started lacking plot--and nowhere will that be more clear than here, as it nears its upcoming climax.
Detective Comics 834
Written by Paul Dini
Art by Don Kramer & Wayne Faucher
Paul Dini continues his run of short story Batman with a mildly formulaic Joker tale that also serves to kill a vestige Batman-don't-trust-Zatanna subplot still dangling from the now 2 year gone Identity Crisis min-series. All in all, it's not Dini's best tale so far on his run on Detective, but it's still the best Detective has been in years. Here's hoping for a new artist--Don Kramer & Wayne Faucher are clearly from the school of cheap as fucking possible.
Outsiders 49
Written by Greg Rucka & Judd Winick
Art by Matthew Clark, Ron Randall & Art Thibert
The crossover between Outsiders & Checkmate concludes, never really able to shake the forced economics of the project--neither book is a best-seller by even the low comic book expectations, and it seems evident that the story was designed to give as much of a crash course as possible to readers of either. It was also designed to bring about the upcoming revamp of the book, which will see the Outsiders return to the leadership (and increased sales) of Batman. Following an onslaught of weekly titles in July, the comic returns to it's old-school 80's title, Batman & the Outsiders, a team that contained such storied members as Katana, Geo-Force and...well, some other people. A black guy with an afro and a blonde with a tight bodysuit. Did they have a robot too? Didn't all those 80's teams have robots?
The Exterminators 19
Written by Simon Oliver
Art by Darick Robertson & John Lucas
Vertigo threw Darick Robertson to Simon Oliver this month, clearly in hopes of increasing the readership of Exterminators, a comic that for no good earthly reason has been stuck with low sales since its inception. Every month, Oliver writes another brilliantly entertaining (albeit ghastly) story, utilizing every variance on archetypal characters under the sun, and every month, more people choose to buy Moon Knight. Considering the amount of bitching and complaining that comics fans are notorious for, Exterminators will, if it suffers cancellation, always make for the best of insults: you motherfuckers had gold at your fingertips--and you chose to eat shit and beg for more.
Action Comics 851
Written by Geoff Johns & Richard Donner
Art by Adam Kubert & Dave Stewart
Donner & crew haven't exactly set any records for being timely with their Last Son storyline in the Action title, but sales doesn't seem to have suffered. As has come to be expected with this creative crew, Donner & Johns seem to pride themselves on long, operatic panels, creating storyboards for a Superman movie that's far too nerdy to ever be made, and far too action-y to be taken seriously. It's entertaining stuff, and that's what super-hero comics are (reportedly) supposed to be--but if there was ever a need for an example of how Superman and his entire supporting cast are dull ciphers of characterization, Last Son would work perfectly. Relationships are doled out in the simplest of terms, and evil is never bad enough to be washed away when the story ends. Oh, and if you spent the extra dollar for the 3-D cover, and you're not a 9 year old, shame on you. There are kids starving in one of those sad countries.
All-Star Superman 8
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Frank Quitely & Jamie Grant
It's not just the best Superman comic on the stands. It's the best Superman comic that's been published in the last twenty years. (And that's an estimation based on what our office can verify, but as soon as we find somebody who will go on the record for this being better than the 70's Superman, we'll amend our praise.) While it would be wonderful if it came out on a more regular basis, it would be a travesty to have it come out and not consistently live up to it's own high standards. Simply put: All Star Superman is the best superhero comic book that everybody should be reading, if they aren't already.
Tucker Stone forgot to mention to you that you should've bought the latest issues of The Boys & Criminal last week, 2007
Comments