Them there reviews
In short...
Countdown - FUCK! Why? Can someone tell me why? The past two weeks have been for what? To set up a new fucking Kamandi series? Worthless! All this advertising about some DCU Great Disaster thing and it turns out to be for a character noone could give two shits about? Yeah, thanks DC. The narrative also sucked. Just this Buddy Blank asshole's diary essentially. And to make matters worse the descriptions never matched up to Jim Starlin's art. Never. At any point. It was, needless to say, absurd.
Flash - It keeps...getting...worse. This title, sad to say, has gone nowhere since they brought back Wally West. One of the best characters of the DCU and they've gone and virtually ruined him. This is just sad.
Blue Beetle - Okay, now we're getting into quality. The ending of the story caps off the past couple of years with the climax of this whole business with the Reach. It also features appearances by Guy Gardner, Booster Gold, Fire and Ice who show up to help deal with the situation on the ground while Blue Beetle goes tearing ass around the Reach ship in orbit. He's reunited with his scarab, which was a foregone conclusion. Also, his scarab is actually given a real voice and not some made up hyroglyphs thrown on the page for that alien feel. It was a pretty good issue. Things felt a bit rushed though. I think they could have given the story one more issue to breathe a bit more before they wrapped it up. Jaime's house, which was destroyed a couple of issues prior, was rebuilt in a quick and dirty epilogue and things are returned to normal. Course, I was mostly annoyed by the small blurb detaling the next issue that said it was going to be an all Spanish issue. Um, what? Fuck that! Yeah, pay three bucks for a comic I can't read. Thanks DC!
Captain America - Kick ass fight between Captain Bucky and Crossbones. The thing that's starting to bother me is that it seems Bucky loves him some roundhouse kicks. Every fight, it's roundhouse kicks. Very awkward looking roundhouse kicks to boot. Okay, maybe a punch? Think a punch would be easier to throw. Story is good, but the awkward character motions are distracting. There was also a nice little romantic moment between Bucky and Natasha Romanov. Can't wait to see how this plays out. Honestly was never a big fan of Sharon Carter and never saw what Steve Rogers saw in her. Oh, and Steve's body might, in fact, be held in some kinda stasis by the Red Skull. Sweet! The mystery deepens!
Green Lantern - The origins of Hal Jordan. This is all flash back story going back to whaen Hal was a kid and saw his father die in a test flight crash. His mother after that becomes obsessed with keeping her kids safe. Hal's younger brother, a mama's boy, adores Hal while his older brother is resentful of Hal's free spirited ways. Eventually, Hal runs away when he turns 18 to join the Air Force and become a test pilot like his dad. Moving forward alittle later we find Hal testing F16s (and crashing them) and finding out his (now estranged) mother has pancreatic cancer. Unfortunately, she doesn't want to see him while he's in the service and dies before he gets drummed out for punching a superior officer. It was a really nice issue. A mid-paced issue that delves into what makes Hal Jordan the asshole that he is. Also a brief Cameo by John Stewart during a bar fight scene between flyboys and jarheads. Excellent art by Ivan Reis. Top notch, best title I picked up this week.
X-Men: Legacy - So, Professor X is finally woken up and by Magneto of all people. Xavier's memory is still swiss cheesed at this point and you'd be hard pressed to find any evidence of him getting shot in the head (seriously, what the fuck) but it's a mostly character driven story that Mike Carey is really good at. Mags does give Cargill a lobotomy (thank God, I hated that character) and Exodus climbs to greater levels of douche-baginess but seeing Magneto and Xavier lament at how irrelevent they've made themselves adds to the two characters' dynamic. I think they should have gay sex and get it over with. Sure, why not? The idea that their long war with each other is nothing but pent up homoerotic feelings would be great! And isn't that where comics are going these days? Everyone is a gay rape victim! But seriously, good issue. Carey's run has been pretty uninteresting up until Messiah Complex and now these more character oriented stories are finally proving why Marvel bothers signing his paycheck.
So the overall score is 4/2. Four decent to excellent reads and two crap reads. Not bad. The crap was awful. Two titles that were highly anticipated and major letdowns. DC's push for bigger events is showing signs of exhaustion. Time for them to let up and let their characters breathe more on their own.
Countdown - FUCK! Why? Can someone tell me why? The past two weeks have been for what? To set up a new fucking Kamandi series? Worthless! All this advertising about some DCU Great Disaster thing and it turns out to be for a character noone could give two shits about? Yeah, thanks DC. The narrative also sucked. Just this Buddy Blank asshole's diary essentially. And to make matters worse the descriptions never matched up to Jim Starlin's art. Never. At any point. It was, needless to say, absurd.
Flash - It keeps...getting...worse. This title, sad to say, has gone nowhere since they brought back Wally West. One of the best characters of the DCU and they've gone and virtually ruined him. This is just sad.
Blue Beetle - Okay, now we're getting into quality. The ending of the story caps off the past couple of years with the climax of this whole business with the Reach. It also features appearances by Guy Gardner, Booster Gold, Fire and Ice who show up to help deal with the situation on the ground while Blue Beetle goes tearing ass around the Reach ship in orbit. He's reunited with his scarab, which was a foregone conclusion. Also, his scarab is actually given a real voice and not some made up hyroglyphs thrown on the page for that alien feel. It was a pretty good issue. Things felt a bit rushed though. I think they could have given the story one more issue to breathe a bit more before they wrapped it up. Jaime's house, which was destroyed a couple of issues prior, was rebuilt in a quick and dirty epilogue and things are returned to normal. Course, I was mostly annoyed by the small blurb detaling the next issue that said it was going to be an all Spanish issue. Um, what? Fuck that! Yeah, pay three bucks for a comic I can't read. Thanks DC!
Captain America - Kick ass fight between Captain Bucky and Crossbones. The thing that's starting to bother me is that it seems Bucky loves him some roundhouse kicks. Every fight, it's roundhouse kicks. Very awkward looking roundhouse kicks to boot. Okay, maybe a punch? Think a punch would be easier to throw. Story is good, but the awkward character motions are distracting. There was also a nice little romantic moment between Bucky and Natasha Romanov. Can't wait to see how this plays out. Honestly was never a big fan of Sharon Carter and never saw what Steve Rogers saw in her. Oh, and Steve's body might, in fact, be held in some kinda stasis by the Red Skull. Sweet! The mystery deepens!
Green Lantern - The origins of Hal Jordan. This is all flash back story going back to whaen Hal was a kid and saw his father die in a test flight crash. His mother after that becomes obsessed with keeping her kids safe. Hal's younger brother, a mama's boy, adores Hal while his older brother is resentful of Hal's free spirited ways. Eventually, Hal runs away when he turns 18 to join the Air Force and become a test pilot like his dad. Moving forward alittle later we find Hal testing F16s (and crashing them) and finding out his (now estranged) mother has pancreatic cancer. Unfortunately, she doesn't want to see him while he's in the service and dies before he gets drummed out for punching a superior officer. It was a really nice issue. A mid-paced issue that delves into what makes Hal Jordan the asshole that he is. Also a brief Cameo by John Stewart during a bar fight scene between flyboys and jarheads. Excellent art by Ivan Reis. Top notch, best title I picked up this week.
X-Men: Legacy - So, Professor X is finally woken up and by Magneto of all people. Xavier's memory is still swiss cheesed at this point and you'd be hard pressed to find any evidence of him getting shot in the head (seriously, what the fuck) but it's a mostly character driven story that Mike Carey is really good at. Mags does give Cargill a lobotomy (thank God, I hated that character) and Exodus climbs to greater levels of douche-baginess but seeing Magneto and Xavier lament at how irrelevent they've made themselves adds to the two characters' dynamic. I think they should have gay sex and get it over with. Sure, why not? The idea that their long war with each other is nothing but pent up homoerotic feelings would be great! And isn't that where comics are going these days? Everyone is a gay rape victim! But seriously, good issue. Carey's run has been pretty uninteresting up until Messiah Complex and now these more character oriented stories are finally proving why Marvel bothers signing his paycheck.
So the overall score is 4/2. Four decent to excellent reads and two crap reads. Not bad. The crap was awful. Two titles that were highly anticipated and major letdowns. DC's push for bigger events is showing signs of exhaustion. Time for them to let up and let their characters breathe more on their own.
posted by Robert at 12:49 AM
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