Short comic reviews based on initial, lizard-brain opinions. There are probably some spoilers herein. Arranged from BEST to WORST.
Dead, She Said #1 gets an A from Albo
The more of Steve Niles' work I read the more I like the guy. I picked up 30 Days of Night when it was on the stands back in the day and came away feeling it was a little thin. But Simon Dark, among other things, has made me take another look. This horror noir story starts with a private dick waking up and cracking his way out of rigor mortis... That's right, he's "dead," shot through the belly and he's determined to figure out why. Giant ants may be involved. Smart, original, well worth your dollars.
Reviews for Amazing Spider-Man #560, Mighty Avengers #14, and Fantastic Four #557 after the jump!
The Amazing Spider-Man #560 gets a B from Albo
Not much more to say that I didn't say in last week's review of #559. Just a solid Spidey story from Dan Slott with killer art from Marcos Martin. We learn a little more about "Paper Doll" this week, and she's turning out to be a pretty cool villain. Different, at least. Also this ish contains the return of a major Spidey character we haven't seen since this whole Brand New Day stuff started...
The Mighty Avengers #14 gets a B from Albo
Frank Cho being so slow of an artist forced Bendis to approach his Avengers books in an interesting way--he was trying to thread the two books into one ongoing story, but since Mighty was taking so much longer than New he ended up creating a lot of flashback stories as filler for New in order to keep the books on roughly the same timeline. Well now that's become a real style of his, as most of his Secret Invasion tie-in stories skip around in time more than a season of LOST. I say it works, even if it does get a little tough to put all the pieces together in my head. This ish in particular is about how the Skrulls have approached the "problem" of the Sentry, and it's a testament to the new era of comics that their solution isn't just "hit him really hard," because as we (and they) know, that never works for the bad guys. Well, except maybe Doomsday.
Fantastic Four #557 gets a C from Albo
Ahem. To defeat a giant robot that pummeled every Marvel hero in existence and destroyed dozens of military complexes around the globe, Mister Fantastic builds a bigger robot (which he inexplicably dubs "Anti-Galactus"... wtf?) in an AFTERNOON and bases his whole battle strategy on the ASSUMPTION that the robot's creator included him in a list of people that it couldn't harm. When he could have, oh I don't know, CALLED HER JUST TO MAKE SURE. Lazy storytelling from a guy that's probably too busy out promoting the movie adaptation of Wanted to give a damn. On a positive note, there is a really sweet scene at the end (which I woulda given an "A" if it were a standalone story) where Reed takes Sue out on an anniversary date--back in time to the moment they first met. And as a gift he gets her a ring with a "stone" that's actually a micro-galaxy with "over forty trillion couples ... all loving each other like I love you." What kind of softy have I become when I open a comic and prefer the date scene to the giant freaking robot fight?! Am I losing my Geekanerd touch? Or is Millar just better with character moments than action?
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Every week we at Geekanerd rip panels from our comics and put them on display here, recognizing the best, worst, and weirdest moments of the week. Beware some SPOILERS!
Click the pics for high res goodness!
Beatdown of the Week - Young Liars #3
Little Sadie here apparently attended the Jason Bourne School of Resourceful Dustupping. Not only does she pull an IV out of her transsexual junkie friend and jam it in her attacker's eye....
...she then proceeds to squeeze the remaining contents of the IV bag into the guy's face! Holy crapsticks that is hardcore.
Hit the jump for the highs and lows of Amazing Spider-Man #559's art!
Art Worth Praising - Marcos Martin, Amazing Spider-Man #559
I praised Marcos Martin in my review of the book but I'm glad I get to do it with some visual reference now! You can see in this page how deceptively simple his linework is. It feels very spare and uncluttered, but really there is a high level of detail crammed into every inch. The panel-to-panel storytelling is especially great on this page. Martin tells a fun little story with all the details he's packing into Spidey's characterization: the subtle wringing of hands behind the back as he worries about being seen as a psycho, the contemplative hand on the chin in the next panel, and the resolute fist in palm at the end... You would know what was happening in this page even without word balloons, which is really as good as it gets.
One more thing I want to say about Martin's art in this issue of Amazing Spider-Man is that his sense of architecture is spectacular throughout the issue--so many comic artists draw cities as block after block of homogenous rectangle buildings, but Martin does a great job of keeping his setting just as varied as real world New York.
Also contributing to the great look of this issue is Javier Rodriguez on colors. He is a perfect compliment to Martin, with a coloring job every bit as subtle and smart as Martin's linework. EXCEPT...
(Mis)Adventures in Computer Coloring - Amazing Spider-Man #559
Yes, this is the third time I've gotten on this book for grievous misuses of Photoshop. What happened, Javier? Every other page of this book is beautiful, so why did you lose all sense of subtlety and restraint for the nightclub scene? It's so unpleasant I can only hope you were just trying to make a statement about how distasteful you find clubbing.
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Short comic reviews based on initial, lizard-brain opinions. There are probably some spoilers herein. Arranged from BEST to WORST.
Amazing Spider-Man #559 gets a B from Albo
Dan Slott returns as the best of the Brand New Day herd. The real star of the issue, though, is artist Marcos Martin who throws down some really good looking pages that come off as something like a Tim Sale/David Lapham lovechild. The only problem with the art is some ugly ugly ugly coloring in a night club scene that buries Martin's work under a layer of splattered Day Glo vomit.
Wolverine: The Amazing Immortal Man and Other Bloody Tales gets a B from Albo
This one-shot contains three David Lapham-penned short stories that take place in different eras of Logan's non X-Man life. The first, a story of Logan working as a circus act in the 30s, is by far the best, even if it doesn't quite fit with what we know of his history. Only the third story falls flat, mainly because it just seems like a very normal Wolverine story after you've been given two alternate perspectives on the ole Canucklehead.
Reviews for Newuniversal: Shockfront #1 and Young Liars #3 after the jump.
Newuniversal: Shockfront #1 gets a C from Albo
I'm willing to bet that my inability to grasp what this comic is going for is 100% due to the fact that I'm completely ignorant of previous newuniversal stories. That being said, this book certainly didn't do anything to make me want to rid myself of that ignorance.
Young Liars #3 gets a C from Albo
Yes, this is the third review this week wherein I evoke the name of David Lapham. Call me a fanboy. I was less than impressed by this issue for many of the same reasons I wasn't sure about the first issue... The story's chronology skips around so much that I have a hard time getting caught up in the stakes of any given moment. Hopefully things settle down a bit for issue four (like they did in issue two) so I can relax and really get into this promising story.
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Summary only...
Short comic reviews based on initial, lizard-brain opinions. There are probably some spoilers herein. Arranged from BEST to WORST.
