Crime Bible: Five Lessons of Blood #5 - Rucka is a king of details, and this last issue is no exception. Once again the text of the Book of Crime wraps itself intricately with the story, exactly as you'd expect of a good prophesy. A large amount of the book was spent on the fight between Renee and Flay, but honestly I think the book suffered for it. If this were an arc of an ongoing I'd certainly have the opposite opinion, but there's basically no denouement at all, leaving us rather cold. At the beginning of the battle we're told it can end one of two ways, and without spoiling anything all I can say is it did, but that just brings up more questions than answers. On some level I suppose that's appropriate, given the internal name for the series, but without a continuation coming up in the near future I'm not sure what to think. The whole arc is Recommended, but not as highly as I'd have thought.
Batman # 674 - As always, Morrison's ideas make perfect sense after he's finally decided to explain them, and as usual they're more straightforward than we were assuming. Morrison has a bit of a (not altogether undeserved) reputation for insane ideas, and that has a tendency to trick people into over thinking things. As usual, the writing is also brilliant, but it's hard to imagine the guy who gave this interview writing anything but a spot-on depiction of Batman. Like most of the DC books I read the art wasn't praiseworthy, but it was very far from bad. I guess you'd call it effective enough, if not the sort of thing you'd write home about, which I can't complain about. This issue, as Morrison's whole run, comes Highly Recommended.
Blue Beetle #24 - The end of year two is here, and it's explosive. We get a pair of fights on different fronts, as Jaime proves himself more than worthy of the legacy of the Blue Beetle in more ways than one. All of Rogers' plots through the series thus far start wrapping up together as the major showdown against the Reach continues, and as always with the excellently human dialogue we've come to expect. The art, however, is as stylish and effective as always, fitting the series perfectly rather than not getting in the way. Just like last month, as soon as I finished I had to ask if it was next month yet, as we go out on a cliffhanger again, and it's a doozy. Can't Recommend Strongly Enough.
Captain America #35 - I always have problems talking about this book without basically falling into a play-by-play, as the same exact praise for any issue of this book can be used for any other. Well, most of the time that is, you can't talk about Epting/Perkins' pencils this month since Butch Guice was handling all the pencils (not for the first time either) for this issue, though Mike Perkins did some of the inking and Frank D'Armata did his standard stellar coloring job, so the art is very much in the vein of what we're used to. Which is to say it's very good and perfectly suited for a superhero espionage book. The pieces of Red Skull's plan start to fall into place as James is slowly learning to fill the massive shoes he was given. The wait for the next issue will be a long one indeed. Highly Recommended
Daredevil #105 - This is probably a sin, but I have to admit I didn't read any of Gotham Central, at least none of it that wasn't part of the Murderer?/Fugitive crossover that began my descent into reading as much of this stuff as I do. I bring this up because I know this book is 2/3rds of the creative team from it, and it's so good that I now regret the mistake. The Mr. Fear arc comes to a close and leaves us with yet another steaming pile left in Matt's lap. The writing is significantly slower paced here than on Cap, but it's a much different kind of story anyway. The art is, as always, dark and forboding, which is exactly what you want in a book like this, and it doesn't fail to work at any point, and the dialogue is up to par for Bru. This probably isn't his best book, but it's not even his worst, which is still pretty good. Recommended
Teen Titans #56 - Back on DC? Like clockwork I've run out of good things to say about the art here. I'm being unfair I know, but this just isn't that interesting overall, and in several places it's strange and not at all good. Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane was a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine as well, and parts of this remind me of why I liked it so much, but Terror Titans? Please tell me editorial mandated a second group of young versions of super-villains to attack the Titans again, and this isn't just McKeever showing that he should stick almost exclusively to teenage relationships. Sadly, it's not even all great on that front either, as most of the team are acting like assholes for no discernible reason. That's not true actually, the reason is to alienate Eddie further, but they typically aren't all that bad all the time. Not Recommended but god damn I'm going to keep reading for the nuggets of old fashioned McKeever goodness.
Thor #6 - This has never been a fast moving book. This issue is no exception. We start off with a number of stories from the townspeople interacting with Asgardians, which leads of course to some humor though it's all very typical fish out of water stuff. Can't say I didn't laugh at some of it though. From there we move on to a choice Thor has to make. He certainly didn't intend to bring Loki back, but now that he has he considers just releasing everyone at once. After all, the main reason to do it on the small scale is already messed up. Really, that's about it for the whole book, but it's still compelling nevertheless. Coipel's pencils certainly don't hurt any. Mildly Recommended, though if you're not on board yet you may as well wait for the trade and flip through a bit. This is very much not for everyone.
Young Avengers Presents #2 - We were all waiting for it since Mar-Vell returned, and here we have it. The bulk of this issue is about Teddy and his father, which I'm sure you can imagine would be quite a bombshell for both of them. Reed isn't the guy I'd consider the go-to for emotional moments, but he pulled it off here and the Marvel Marvel pantheon is his baby so it makes plenty of sense. Unlike the first issue we even get a minor bit of the unregistered members of the team doing what they do, which is nice though not as nice as getting a new volume of the ongoing for them. At least this confirms they aren't all in hiding 100% of the time anyway. Recommended to fans of the team.
X-Men Legacy #208 - This is spinning straight out of the most obvious mystery left at the end of Messiah CompleX, what happened to Charles Xavier? Well, the answers are within, as is the explanation to how he'll eventually (and nobody doubted this for a second) return to the world at large. Along the way it seems we'll be running through his past to reassemble his mind. I can't say I was overly enthusiastic coming into this; to be honest I planned on dropping it entirely. That said, Carey's team since his run started was full of characters I never really cared about at all, and I found it more interesting than this book has been in ages, so I took the leap at the last minute and am glad I did. This should be an interesting ride if nothing else. The art is good if disjointed. Part of that is for obvious reasons, but there are a full four pencillers which gets a little distracting in places that shouldn't be so obviously different thematically. Still, it's worth a pickup if you're following the X-Teams at all, as we'll definitely be seeing more of the plot threads from Messiah CompleX and before running through this book. Recommended.
Criminal #1 - I didn't read the last volume (or any straight up crime stories in any format truth be told), but after some rave reviews I decided what the hell? It's not like I don't read all the books Brubaker writes or cowrites at Marvel proper, why not jump onto his baby? Well, it was a good decision. Reading the backmatter makes it obvious that this isn't a new character for his universe, but it reads just fine not knowing that. The book feels a lot like his Daredevil without costumes or the bullshit science that allows random radioactive waste to do what it did to Murdock, or any of the other characters that require suspension of disbelief up the wazoo. This is a very human tale, just with the same feel, which is a good thing. The art is dark and opressive, to go with the mood, and the characters are all wonderfully flawed and real. This is apparently back story, but even still it's got me hooked. Time to grab the trades from Amazon and stick around for the ride from volume two. Highly Recommended.
No comments:
Post a Comment