Saturday, September 29, 2007
Recent Comics I Have Read
Amazons Attack #6: Meh. As God is my witness, I have no idea what the bad guy's secret plan was supposed to be here. Also, the whole Hippolyta with her sword at Diana's throat thing kinda loses it's dramatic appeal after the second or third time around.
New Avengers #34: The real benefits of regeneration. Dr. Strange gets his freak on. Echo gets an eyeful. Group therapy, Dr. Strange style.
Batman #667-668: A clever twist on the hoary old Agatha Christie plot making good use of D-List heroes from the Silver Age. Not much of a fan of the J.H. Williams, III art.
Black Canary Wedding Planner #1: Mediocre artwork, fairly good writing. DC is really milking this thing for all it's worth.
Captain America #30: duhn, duhn DUUUHHHHH!!!! Oh, and (sigh) Cyber-Bucky.
Catwoman #71: More mediocre art, though an interesting concept. Helena would make a much better Bat-baby than (shudder) Damien.
Detective Comics #836: Gross, badly written, overly-narrated and badly-drawn Scarecrow arc lurches to a close.
Green Arrow & Black Canary Wedding Special #1: I love Amanda Conner's artwork, particularly her wonderfully expressive faces, an area frequently overlooked in comic book art. The look of affectionate bemusement on Wonder Woman's face at Superman's cornfed cosmic naivete did more to establish WW's character and personality than all of Amazons Attack and most of her current book. My only complaint? Ollie's facial hair looks way more redneck than Robin Hood. Oh, and the ending. The ending is moronic on so many levels.
Justice League of America Wedding Special #1: I can only hope they'll be a Darkseid Wedding Special soon. Joker shouldn't be on supervillain teams; he should be the supervillain other villains have nothing to do with and are secretly afraid of. And Luthor looks ridiculous and decidedly un-intimidating in that armor get-up.
Justice Society of America #9: Art still bad, story okay, but the continuity has been screwed up so much lately, do we really need to get into alternate realities?
Noble Causes #31: Vastly improved artwork, good sudsy story with a clever twist.
Ultimate Power #7: More bizarre light-table art, but the story is getting better. Oh, and Thor spits on your gods.
Welcome to Tranquility #9-10: I didn't realize this was going to be an actual series instead of just a mini-series. Gail Simone's writing is as good as ever, with clever twists on classic comic book genres and tropes. The cartoony art takes some getting used to, but it fits in.
Wonder Woman #12: WW continues to be badly served by DC, remaining a dull, boring character without any sort of spark of personality, motivation or appeal. Even here, in her own comic, she's pushed to the sidelines by the supporting cast. Someone really needs to do a serious revamp of WW, someone who actually cares about the character, or by the time the movie finally rolls around, no one will give a flip.
New Avengers #34: The real benefits of regeneration. Dr. Strange gets his freak on. Echo gets an eyeful. Group therapy, Dr. Strange style.
Batman #667-668: A clever twist on the hoary old Agatha Christie plot making good use of D-List heroes from the Silver Age. Not much of a fan of the J.H. Williams, III art.
Black Canary Wedding Planner #1: Mediocre artwork, fairly good writing. DC is really milking this thing for all it's worth.
Captain America #30: duhn, duhn DUUUHHHHH!!!! Oh, and (sigh) Cyber-Bucky.
Catwoman #71: More mediocre art, though an interesting concept. Helena would make a much better Bat-baby than (shudder) Damien.
Detective Comics #836: Gross, badly written, overly-narrated and badly-drawn Scarecrow arc lurches to a close.
Green Arrow & Black Canary Wedding Special #1: I love Amanda Conner's artwork, particularly her wonderfully expressive faces, an area frequently overlooked in comic book art. The look of affectionate bemusement on Wonder Woman's face at Superman's cornfed cosmic naivete did more to establish WW's character and personality than all of Amazons Attack and most of her current book. My only complaint? Ollie's facial hair looks way more redneck than Robin Hood. Oh, and the ending. The ending is moronic on so many levels.
Justice League of America Wedding Special #1: I can only hope they'll be a Darkseid Wedding Special soon. Joker shouldn't be on supervillain teams; he should be the supervillain other villains have nothing to do with and are secretly afraid of. And Luthor looks ridiculous and decidedly un-intimidating in that armor get-up.
Justice Society of America #9: Art still bad, story okay, but the continuity has been screwed up so much lately, do we really need to get into alternate realities?
Noble Causes #31: Vastly improved artwork, good sudsy story with a clever twist.
Ultimate Power #7: More bizarre light-table art, but the story is getting better. Oh, and Thor spits on your gods.
Welcome to Tranquility #9-10: I didn't realize this was going to be an actual series instead of just a mini-series. Gail Simone's writing is as good as ever, with clever twists on classic comic book genres and tropes. The cartoony art takes some getting used to, but it fits in.
Wonder Woman #12: WW continues to be badly served by DC, remaining a dull, boring character without any sort of spark of personality, motivation or appeal. Even here, in her own comic, she's pushed to the sidelines by the supporting cast. Someone really needs to do a serious revamp of WW, someone who actually cares about the character, or by the time the movie finally rolls around, no one will give a flip.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman
Soon I Will Be Invincible, by Austin Grossman. Meh. I picked this up thinking it might be some funky, post-modernist take on superheroes (the way "My Super Ex-Girlfriend" might have been if its creators hadn't been completely cowardly). But, no, it's really just a novelized version of a fairly standard superhero plot, revolving around a veteran villain (Dr. Impossible) and a rooky hero (Fatale). Their origins, the plot, and the "shocking revelation" at the end are all fairly pedestrian and really wouldn't warrant much of a mention in any comic book currently published. Austin Grossman's writing itself is good (he wears his fanboy status on his sleeve), and there are a tantalizingly few glimpses of social commentary or relevance, but not enough to drag the thing out of mediocrity.
Monday, September 10, 2007
OZ-ZY!! OZ-ZY!!
