Friday, October 14, 2011

Quick Hits

Feeling a bit scatterbrained this week, so let’s keep it simple and go with some of my random thoughts about comics.


Black Panther #524 – Now that is how you do a crossover issue. Uses the Spider-Island premise well enough to make it distinct from other issues, but serves as merely a side story to the crossover. Best of all it advances the book’s next storyarc. Great story from David Liss, who’s getting better every issue, and gorgeous art from Francesco Francavilla. And look at that cover…




That is incredible. Best artist in comics today.

Overdrive! – Superhero comics typically rely too much on characters invented 40 years ago. Overdrive was a great car themed villain from the Brand New Day Spider-Man relaunch. Wish more guys like him would get reused for stories like this. Helps broaden the universe.

Demon Knights – Art’s a little confusing, but god what a fun book. Cornell hits this one out of the park. Dumb jock Vandal Savage is great, Sir Ystin is fun as hell to read about, and Al Jabr is awesome! Never thought I’d be interested in a medieval superhero comic, but here we are. Good work Paul Cornell!

Uncanny X-Force – Well that issue was intense. Genuinely unnerving storyarc by Rick Remender that feels uncommonly epic. And most of the characters are b-list enough to make me wonder who’s going to survive. Really enjoy the use of the Age of Apocalypse characters as well, who add to the proceedings rather than detract from it. Jerome Opena’s art deserves a special mention as its gorgeous.

Sara Pichelli- Good god, what a find this woman is. I don’t think there’s a better artist in comics when it comes to drawing facial expressions and there hasn’t been any artist in comics this good at making people look like they have actual real world fashion habits since Adrian Alphona on Runaways.

Superman’s new costume- I cannot get over how stupid this thing is.

Look at it.



LOOK AT IT.




Its like something that a grim alternate-future-gone-wrong Superman would wear in a mediocre video game. Only with kneepads and a penchant for detailing. It makes one long for electric Superman. It is impossible to draw him in that thing without making him look like a supervillian, which is fine for Wolverine or someone, but not Superman. But hey, at least his underwear’s not on the outside anymore. Fighting for the soul of comics, everyone.

Spider-Island – Reread this thus far over the weekend (and the latest issue today) and its really pretty good. I know Jim was ready to give up comics over it, but its fun stuff. Slott does a great job weaving dozens of different elements from old Spider-Man stories together, most of which sucked the first time around (the Jackal AND the Spider-Queen in a good story? I’d have never thought it was possible), and creates a crazy big enjoyable story out of it. It feels both big and fun. This is a really great time to be a Spider-Fan. I didn’t find a whole lot here to complain about except….

Carlie Cooper – God I can’t stand this character. Almost every story about her involves other characters telling us how awesome she is. It feels so forced. They’re clearly building up to a confrontation between her and Peter about being Spider-Man, I just hope they break up sooner rather than later so Peter can date anyone else. I don’t care if its MJ or DD, just get this Mary Sue out of my book.

Casanova- Is really really good. Completely scattershot book that works on both a “Holy crap that was crazy!” level and an emotional one. Go read it!

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