Hey everybody, I dragged myself away from reading things (like Empowered volume 1 and Lovelock) to talk about things (like last week's comics). Spoilers and stuff ahead (Spoiler, there were not many good comics last week).
Daredevil #506
I just wanted to post the picture above because I thought it was a pretty awesome way to start a comic. This issue also featured a beautiful cover by Pablo Rivera. The book itself was another solid issue of ninja politics, which contains only slightly less killing then normal politics. They're doing a nice job of balancing martial art melee with the intrigue and betrayal of the fractured Hand organization all while slowing Murdock slipping ever further towards the edge. The real question is how far is Marvel willing to go. Would they dare to make Daredevil a full on villain? I kind of doubt it. The way I see it you got two possibilities. One, Daredevil becomes an extreme antihero in the vain of The Punisher, or two, this is all part of some master plan and DD will be back to normal once he's finished his endgame, this is far more likely. Thinking about it though for all the villains that have turned good how many heroes have turned, and this is the catch, stayed evil? A few have had temporary stints but I can't think of any that have become long lasting major villains.
The Savage Sword of Ares #1
It's kind of weird that my favorite piece of art from the issue was from the text story. Truthfully I thought the text story was the best story in the book as well. Written by Duane Swierczynski with illustrations by Leonardo Manco, Wojina (the text piece) is a great little pulp style story with a fantastic, quasi-twist ending as Ares transforms a 15-year-old coward into the greatest hero his village had ever seen. The other three stories are also quite enjoyable. Staying true to the pulp feel the stories are all bloody and violent often reading like Conan meets the Twilight Zone as the stories provide twist endings that try and leave you thinking about the nature of betrayal, war, and warriors. The cover (which looks sweet) also reads, "Skull-Spliting Metal Mayhem featuring Marvel's God of War", which is a pretty great thing to have on the cover of your comic, provided you'd like it to sell many issues. I will say that the 'Bob Ares Greek God Body Building' bit was pretty weak. After what Grant Morrision did with Flex Mentallo no other parody of Charles Atlas can compare.
Siege: Loki #1
This was surprisingly awesome. I guess I shouldn't be surprised given the creative team but I just don't expect much from one shots or minis tying in to big events as usually they are a complete waste of time and money (see Siege: Captain America). This one shot though not only matters in Siege but moving forward seems to leave big repercussions for Thor and the rest of the Marvel U. It's also a lot of fun. McKelvie's art is as fantastic as always and Gillen continues to impress the shit out of my with his Thor work. I was super excited to hear Fraction would be writing Thor after I'd read his Age of Thunder series but now I'm kind of sad to see Gillen go (not that I still don't think Fraction's Thor will be amazing, because I do and it better........or I will be sad). This issue is all about Loki living up to his reputation as the master manipulator as he plays Osborn, Mephisto, the Disir, and Hela as well as sacrificing some pawns. There is also a great moment that showcases that he has might as well as cunning, as he beats the Disir single handed. One of the great joys of fiction is seeing a plan come together, even when it's an evil plan...perhaps especially when it's an evil plan.
Hellcyon #1
Such a disappointment. The cover features some guys on an sweet looking future-bike escaping from a mech so I immediately thought of all kinds of cool Anime like Akira, Gundam, and Code Geass. This is not of that caliber. It does feature a pretty good chase scene as depicted on the cover but the pacing and dialog are so off that the story never engages you. At the end of the first issue I knew virtually nothing about the characters and while I knew the basic political set up I had no understanding of the reason or rhyme. The idea itself, political activist students get caught up in a futuristic civil war between a federation and a would be independent planet, is a good idea. We've seen similar before but done well sci-fi rebel stories can be a blast. Considering that those stories already exist and are much, much better then this, there's no reason to buy this comic.
Batgirl #9
This was a very enjoyable comic but I'm going to bitch about it anyways. My big problem is that I was expecting this to be the conclusion of the crossover with Red Robin which would make sense, this being the next issue and the crossover being, you know, a crossover between two comics. I guess I was ridiculous to expect this crossover to be formated like every other crossover ever. Also doesn't it kind of kill the suspense of the next issue of Red Robin (which I guess will be the conclusion of the crossover) to have this issue come out first? Once I got over that it was a good issue although I still have a problem with Stephanie Brown. Not her personality because she's very likable, but the concept of her as a superhero character. They've basically created her to be the Batversion of the hapless, semi-incompetent hero that only in the business because it's the right thing to do and only gets by on determination and a little luck. This works fine for characters with superpowers, we can believe that Blue Beetle can take out 10 dudes, because he has got magic powers. The whole Batfamily stretches believability but we as readers buy into it because they're suppose to be the best of the best, the smartest, fastest, strongest, most highly trained, and highly funded group of "normal" humans on the planet. Stephanie is none of those things. It makes her unique, and the book itself has been good, but I just can't buy into the concept.
PunisherMax #6
"Oh good," you think "a Jason Aaron book, he won't bitch about that." Wrong! The first eight pages of this are a waste...well kind of. I understand exactly why Aaron wrote them, he's establishing Bullseye for anyone who doesn't know who he is. That's all well and good but he does it based largely around bathroom humor (another Garth Ennis staple that I guess Aaron wants to keep)which I've never been a big fan of. My personal tastes aside it's still a problematic scene, it's predictable. You know from page one, panel one exactly what's going to happen which I might have been okay with if I found the execution funny instead of gross and boring. Bitching aside this bit:
actually did make me laugh out loud. Dillon's art is still great and Aaron's take on Frank (as seen in that first page) is still spectacular. Like his Wolverine Aaron's Punisher speaks exactly the way you'd expect, behaves exactly the way you'd expect, and, largely thanks to Dillon, looks exactly the way you'd expect.
Unwritten #12
This is the best issue of the Unwritten yet, considering how much I've loved the first eleven and considering it was nominated for 3 Eisner awards, that is saying quite a lot about just how fucking good this issue is. I've heard some other people talk about these one-offs as pleasant diversions that fill out the world of the story but as someone who has read Carey and Gross' phenomenal Lucifer series I can almost guarantee that each of these stories will tie in to the saga of Tom Taylor. That being said this issue is a stand alone story and is so funny, smart, and gorgeous to look at that you'd be a fool not to give it a chance.
...and you know what they say about fools, they should get an education lest they be pitied by large black men wearing copious amounts of gold chains.
That's it for this week, nice to leave on a good note after all my nerd-rage. Comment below.
-egs
Are people excited for the A-Team movie?
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