Pull Review 3/05/2008

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #12 - Goddard begins a new mini-arc in the overarching Twilight story here, and he's reveling in the unlimited SFX budget of comics. I'm a little ashamed to admit I didn't recognize his name immediately as one of the series writers/producers, though I guessed that was the case given his handle on the characters, particularly their voice. Our new antagonists exhibit some interesting new abilities seen only once before, which should remind series fans of something. Sadly, this does run directly into another bit of last page blast-from-the-past revealing (you will have guessed it before you get there), but it promises to be interesting. The art... is the better of the two currently running Whedon TV continuations. It's generally easy to tell who is who, but it's far from fantastic. See Angel for what it could be, if you need reassurance that it could be worse. Also, if you've missed the world crapping on Buffy in hilarious ways, you're definitely in luck here. Of course, given the nature of this volume, you shouldn't even consider starting here, so all I can really say is Par for the course. Don't flee, but don't run out to grab this if you haven't been bothering.

Cable #1 - Seriously? Cable? I spent money on Cable. If you suggested that even a year ago I probably would have shot you, but here I am. And you know what, I'm happy with my purchase. Unless you're not reading X-books at all you probably know this is spun out of the end of Messiah CompleX, with Cable on the run with the first mutant born since M-Day in the future. There, you now know it either way. Anyway, we start already in the future, setting up the world a bit, and even giving basically the same brief recap I just did. We're moving pretty slow throughout, which could get annoying in the long run, but it mostly serves to establish Cable once again as a solo character (very little of Messiah CompleX was told from his perspective, so unless you read Cable & Deadpool he was either absent or a minor team player for ages), and lead up to the abrupt cliffhanger. This is one of Swierczynski's first comics, so it's possible the slow pace is a transitional issue more than a decompression one. Time will tell here, though he pulls off the workings of Nate's mind pretty well. I didn't have the ending spoiled for me via solicits, so I won't spoil it for any of you, but it certainly worked for me. What didn't work was the art. Most of it was beautiful, don't get me wrong, but it's all overlaid onto filtered photographs, which just feels lazy, and in some cases very jarring. Still, even just on the premise it's interesting enough to warrant a bit of a look, and with the ending I'll have to label it as Recommended. Seriously though, at least filter the photos better to make it less obvious.

Detective Comics #842 - Peter Milligan fills in for Paul Dini with another of this book's customary (of late) done-in-ones, spinning out of the event that brought him to the Bat-books most recently, Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul. Thankfully, this is written vastly better than his contribution to that abortive crossover. The vast majority of the writing here is Bruce's internal monologue, which is in character enough with recent representations, and Robin speaks little enough to avoid another horrible character assassination, in case nobody explained yet that he doesn't act the way he did during RORAG. There is, however, a bit of an irksome continuity gaffe, and I mean within the continuity of the issue here, not the DC universe at large. It's ultimately a forgettable story, but enjoyable for its duration. Dustin Ngyuen, however, can keep drawing Batman books as long as he'd like as far as I'm concerned, I love his vision of pretty much everything involved. Recommended.

Logan #1 - I admit it, I'm a Wolverine fan. Not enough to suffer through most of his solo run mind you. Certainly not enough to buy every book that plasters his face on the front to garner unwarranted sales either. This is different though, because it's Brian K. Vaughn writing. Brian K. Vaughn can essentially do no wrong in my book, and this is no exception. The story takes place in both the present and World War 2 eras, though we are only given a tease of the present day conflict. The past though, gives us a look at one of the many stories that make Logan the loner he is, all without the annoying over-the-top badassery so many writers fall back on with him. It's hard to deal with living forever, doubly so when you have to live with yourself for the amount of crap that's come your way, and the last page of the book promises a shitstorm of epic proportion. It's definitely nice to see Logan being the best at what he does without having to verbally remind everyone of it every thirty seconds to boot. Risso's art is fantastic, and I'm actually torn as to whether I should have grabbed the uncolored version to showcase it better, or stuck with what I got as it is well colored. You really can't go wrong either way though. Highly Recommended.

Uncanny X-Men #496 - Speaking of writers who can do no wrong, here's a book by Ed Brubaker. Sure his first arc was a bit of a mess, the second was kind of enjoyable if not the greatest. Then he got sidetracked by someone else's event, and was more than competent with it, but really it was Carey's show and he just kept the train rolling with quality. Now we're finally into a new arc and it's, frankly, fantastic. The book has split focus once again between Cyke and Emma going to their new base of operations to deal with the summer of love that exists for some reason, and Logan, Piotr, and Kurt in Siberia. All five of these characters are pitch perfect with their dialogue, and the stories are both very interesting. Of course, it would help if Giant-Size Astonishing had shipped, as this spoils the end (though everyone knew about that already) and further references a status quo that we haven't been introduced to yet. Hopefully that's out before 497 since it's going to be more important next issue, but I'm not about to let shipping issues get in the way of enjoying a fantastically written book. Also, Mike Choi's art continues to be utterly fantastic all around. Can't think of a single negative about the book that isn't based on someone else's book being absurdly late. Highly Recommended.

X-Force #2 - Speaking of books I'm shocked to be reading... this one is also pretty good, and utterly unlike its predecessor. Wolverine is not a leader, and nobody knows that more than him, including the fans that balked at the concept of Wolverine being a leader. I'm coming into the series relatively unfamiliar with X-23 outside of the high level concept. Well from here she feels a lot like Wolverine meets Cass Cain, which is a good thing. Also, Kyle and Yost were not kidding when they said despite the powerset similarities of these characters their personalities are very different. With more time to speak here, we're getting to see that more obviously, and it's appreciated. Also, to say the ending was unexpected would be the understatement of the year. I can't say I'm not extremely intrigued with where this is going, but if they get into a cycle of trying to one-up the shock factor issue by issue, it could get tiresome. Definitely not tired of it yet, and in fact can't wait for the next issue. The art is, well, most of it fits in with the Uncharted "Next Gen" mode. For the unfamiliar, it makes everything dark and brown. Of course, that was a joke about a number of early PS3 games, while this is intentional, and about the best possible aesthetic choice they could have made. The art is very dark and sometimes muddy, but attractive nevertheless, and the last thing this group needs is bright and crisp. God help me, I'm quite pleased with an X-Force book outside of the pre-X-Statix run. Recommended.