OTHER BOOKS OF NOTE
Batman the Return of Bruce Wayne #2 (of 6) – This is Grant Morrison at his “trippiest” best. This is way out there with cosmic strings, time flux monsters, witch hunts and all the rest. Frazer Irving’s art is very dark and while I’m a fan of his work I could hardly tell who was who at times. Maybe the ending will redeem it or maybe it will just be one of Grant’s odd books.
Green Lantern #54 – Some great dialogue with Hal, Carol and Sinestro that made me laugh. I loved the scene with the kitty cat Red Lantern, for some reason he just cracks me up. This series is still re-establishing where it is going since Blackest Night ended, but it is well done and enjoyable. Lobo at the end was a little bit of a WTF moment.
Justice League Generation Lost #2 – A good issue and I enjoyed how they are showing that all four of them are discredited in one way shape or form. Not only will no one believe that there is even a person called Maxwell Lord, but now no one is inclined to believe them as their reputations are sullied.
Madame Xanadu #23 – Probably the one book I could move to the best category as I loved the story and the art, but the problem was it took too long to get to the ending. I know that the back story on Nimue was part of the story, but I thought it could have been done as a separate arc and allowed the main story to move at a quicker pace. The art, as alway
s, was a thing of beauty.
Mystery Society #1 – I love Steve Niles work, but I have grown tired of all of these great characters he has created for mini-series and that is all we ever see of them. We have seen the Ghoul, the guy From Dead She Said, a vampire from a Dark horse series and now this. I‘m tired of characters that are one time things, I want a series of mini-series or an ongoing or I may have to pass on the next Niles mini-series.
Power Girl #12 – A solid ending to this run by this creative team. The problem was it did wrap up a lot of things a little too fast and felt more like the series was ending instead of just going to a new creative team.
Secret Avengers #1 – One of the better opening issues on the market. It set-up the premise for the team, introduced the members of the team, set why some of them are on the team and started the first adventure. Captain Rogers running around in the Fighting American outfit did not work for me as this is supposed to be a covert operating team.
Seven Psychopaths #1 (of 3) – Seven whack jobs are being pulled together to assassinate Hitler early in WWII. It was a great start as four of the team members were pulled together, but this is only a three issue mini-series, it feels like too much story for only 2 more issues.
The Thanos Imperative : Ignition – This was a little odd to have a one shot to set-up the mini-series. Still this book pulled together all the series that have been cancelled (or on hiatus) for this mini-series. It pulled together Realm of Kings, Nova and Guardians and set up the premise for the war between life and death. Unfortunately life is the Cancerverse and death is Thanos, who do you root for in this showdown? In our case it looks like we are lining up behind Thanos.
Thunderbolts #144 – Luke Cage is running the group that is set to take care of stuff left over by hammer. It was a good start and the ending with Baron Zemo showing up was a nice touch.
War of the Supermen #4 (of 4) – It all wrapped up everything in a neat package. Superman needs to get interesting right away as this series has fallen on hard times. The War ended the way it had to, but that means there was no real reason to have Kandor be restored.
X-Force #27 – Second Coming Chapter 9 – This story is moving along at a great clip and is holding my interest. Loved how Cyclops sent a team into the future with no way back. One of the best X-Men stories I have read in a long time.
BOOKS THAT MISSED AND WHY
Fantastic Four #579 – I tried to give Hickman a chance and the series showed some initial promise, but it appears to me that Hickman has a rather longish idea of where he is going with this book and it has bored me for the last few issues. I know the FF is more than an action/adventure series, but some action would be nice. Add into that Neil Edwards being the main artist for this arc and there is a drop off in the quality of the art also. Finally the reality that Johnny is forever 25 and no one can grow or change was very evident in this run on the book and I think I may have read all the FF stories I need to read if ultimately nothing changes.
This was a shorter than normal column and I could have pushed Madame Xanadu into the best category and maybe even Power Girl. Of course my desire to reduce my list may have had me being a little harsher than normal. Anyway in the words of many “it is what it is.”
Dropped FF a few months ago...maybe it'll get good again around issue #600. Baron Zemo in Thunderbolts -- now THAT seems VERY interesting!
ReplyDeleteYou want Niles to keep bringing back characters from mini-series but you want to have Marvel and DC move on with characters to new players. Aren't these positions a bit contradictory?
ReplyDeleteThomm, how are those contradictory?? DC and Marvels characters have been around since before I was born and Niles work is pretty recent. He can still tell a lot of new stories with the same characters and has a chance to more fully develop them. DC and Marvel keep having to revamp characters because they refuse to move on.
ReplyDeleteThomm - What Gwen said.
ReplyDelete