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Monday, September 27, 2004
Last Weeks Comics
The Witching #4: Positively glacial pacing aside, I find I'm enjoying the humor of this book immensely. Would people be bored or interested to know that this title is actually selling decently for us, especially to women and the "goth" kids?
Ultimate Elektra #2: Elektra finally puts on something resembling the costume most people are familiar with...and it's to disguise herself as a hooker. And for the sake of all that is decent, can't we just pretend that the Bullseye costume in the movie was a bad idea and not replicate it in the comics?
Ultimate Fantastic Four #11: A nice tease of action and some good dialogue from Ellis, but otherwise this felt like a place-holder issue. It was padding, because Marvel is now apparently incapable of publishing anything that isn't in a six-issue arc.
Nightcrawler #1: Remember when Nightcrawler was the devil-may-care swashbuckling adventurer, instead of an angst-filled, morose, "my appearance has alienated me from the rest of mankind" type? I miss that Nightcrawler. He isn't here, either.
Flash #214: I'm half-surprised there isn't some big logo splashed across the top of the book "Identity Crisis Continues Here!" As tie-ins go, it's pretty good. The relevant information is retold and no new information impacts the main story. And the scene with the Rogues makes me think that H's theory is probably correct. However, I've got to say, I'm not much of a fan of Johns' take on this title. I don't think the Flash works as a gritty crime-drama. And the increasingly self-referential nature of the title (which isn't just the fault of Johns, Waid's run is almost unreadable at times for the same reason) is bringing the series closer to Legion territory, where the only people who can bother to wade through the continuity to understand a story are people who have been reading the title for the last twenty to thirty or more years.
Runaways #18: A nice send-off to the cast, all things considered. As many loose ends as we can expect to get tied up get tied up, and the gang gets a very open ending to pave the way for future adventures.
Robin #130, Batgirl #56 and Catwoman #35: Well, I certainly didn't guess that the mysterious figure taking advantage of the chaos of the gang-war to take over all the criminal cartels was the character who died a couple of years ago over in Catwoman...With what they've done to Spoiler in these three issues, I swear it's almost as if DC is deliberately baiting people to accuse them of misogyny. Proctor's art on Robin literally made my eyes hurt. And I feel I should point out, just to answer some people's concerns, that at our store at least sales on Catwoman did actually improve once Gulacy took over on art, which suggests to me that the Toth-esque look the book originally had wasn't a selling point for lots of people.
Plastic Man #10: A cute, done-in-one story which will doubtlessly sell really well as a back-issue once word gets around to the people who only buy comic books with vampires in them that there are vampires in this. Also of note: the ads in this book are the same as the ads in the kid's books DC publishes, which says a lot about the audience DC thinks is reading this title. And, to be fair, we do have several kids pick this up on a regular basis.
Manhunter #2: We pull back a little this issue and get more into character development and foreshadowing here. It looks like there's going to be a little more depth and complexity and moral ambiguity to the character than "kill the bad guys" which, really, we've got The Punisher as written by anyone other than Garth Ennis if that's all we're looking for in a comic.
Ex Machina #4: The obvious suspect is almost a little too obvious, don't you think? And I may be the only one, but as someone who actually likes modern art and makes an effort to understand it, the conversation between the intern and the artist this issue was dead-on as an indictment of most modern art, and more importantly most critical reception to modern art...except of course for the part where the artist is self-aware enough to realize that her work is a joke...that never actually happens...
Conan #8: Our first look into Conan's childhood is really quite an impressive issue. Ruth's art is fantastic and Busiek makes a strong case for the child being the father of the man, as it were.
Astonishing X-Men #5:...uhm...yeah...I'm just going to have to go back to pretending that they just stopped publishing X-Titles entirely after Morrison left, aren't I?
Teen Titans #16: Ugh...can't...be...bothered...to...care...about...Legion...continuity...
Nodwick #25 and ps238 #7: It's an Aaron Williams double-feature! The funniest fantasy series and the greatest book about kid super-heroes both released on the same day! Williams' has a great "cartoony" style and his writing is very funny and very clever and very character driven. I can't recommend ps238 highly enough. Go! Go buy the trade at least!
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