|
|
| Saturday, June 30, 2007 04:57 PM |
| The Take |
 by Fëanor |
Immortal Iron Fist #6
KICK-ASS. The first story arc of this series is now done, and I am very pleased, and will definitely continue collecting - as long as Brubaker and Fraction continue writing it, of course. Some hilarious dialogue in this issue, as well as some great action sequences, of course. I also love David Aja's art, and was surprised and disturbed when somebody else came in and did the art for the flashback scenes in this issue. Dude's name is Russ Heath and, not to put too fine a point on it, he sucks. His style is clumsy and ugly, especially when drawing humans. Thankfully he only ruined a few pages.
Silver Surfer: Requiem #2
Yeah, I'm done with this one. My opinion of JMS has started to sour over the past few days, and this story helped continue the trend. Very occasionally it's actually really moving, but the rest of the time it's just incredibly melodramatic, cliche, and trite. He treats his big ideas and issues with all the subtlety, originality, and insight of a high schooler writing their first emo poetry. Blah. Book dropped!
Hellboy: Darkness Falls #3
Again, KICK-ASS. Hellboy is so awesome. I mean, he says things like, "I was so god damn mad, I thought, what the hell, why *not* fight a whole army of skeletons?" Also, when he's told that the latest guy who's out to kill him, Koshchei the Deathless, has his "soul is inside an egg, inside a duck, inside a rabbit, inside a goat, and the Baba Yaga's hidden the goat so he cannot be killed," he replies, "We'll see." I think I'm going to take the advice of the guy in the letters section and start collecting BPRD, too; it's essentially "Friends of Hellboy: The Comic," and I hear it's also quite good.
The (New) Fantastic Four #547
I really like that they're not taking themselves too seriously with this book. Sure, serious, dramatic things happened, and they're handled well. But there's also a lot of really, really funny dialogue where they play with the characters in great ways. Like, who knew Storm was so touchy about her hair? I love the exchange between Pym and Reed where Reed is using a machine to translate a series of alien scents into English:
Pym: Where did that machine come from?
Reed: I just invented it.
Pym: See, this is why we all hate you.
World War Hulk: X-Men #1
This was quite good! I don't really care so much for the new X-Men titles or all those new young X-Men, but they're handled pretty well here. Plus, we get to see an interesting part of the WWH story that we haven't seen yet: apparently before his fight with Iron Man, the Hulk stopped by the mansion to have a discussion with Xavier, and ended up in the middle of a giant fight with the latest class of X-Men, plus one or two of the old guard. The central issue of this book, however, is not the fight, but actually this question: how would Professor Xavier have voted if he had been there for the Illuminati meeting where they decided to shoot the Hulk into space? It's an interesting question, and it remains unanswered in this issue, but I'm okay with that, because leaving the Hulk waiting for his answer is a good cliffhanger, and because the question itself brings up further moral and ethical issues.
World War Hulk: Front Line #1
The other WWH story this week was less exciting. This series will apparently follow the editors and reporters of a growing indie newspaper in NYC who are covering the Hulk story, and a cop helping one of Hulk's Warbound investigate an attack on Hulk's robot buddy. There was nothing particularly objectionable in this issue, and it was a decent enough way to kill a couple of minutes, but there also wasn't anything here to really grab me or excite me. The one thing I'm left curious about is who the mysterious rich man is who's funding the indie newspaper. All we have to go on is that he likes big words and he hates J. Jonah Jameson. He's definitely not Peter Parker, as Parker doesn't have the money. Maybe he's JJJ's second-in-command guy, who just got fired in the latest Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man? Except it looked like this issue somehow occurred at a point in the continuity before the guy got fired, so maybe not...
Daredevil #98
This is a character I like and a writer I like, and yet still... meh. It's not that the issue is bad; it's just another book that didn't grab me this week. Maybe I'll give it another issue or two, just to see if my old pal Brubaker can pull me in.
Criminal #6 & 7
Brubaker's definitely got me on this book, though, which consists of really top quality illustrated crime fiction. This is the start of a new storyline, and the main character is so far an intriguing puzzle with some serious history and a lot of dangerous skills. There is violence, there is mayhem, there is action, there are secrets and lies. Good stuff! Also, it was good to see Leo again, although I'm a bit puzzled as to where this falls in the timeline of the previous story. Is this actually supposed to be after that story? Did Leo somehow survive the shoot-out? That would be crazy!
Ex Machina Volumes 4 & 5
I don't have much more to say about this except, it's still really good. It was interesting to finally see the origin of the Great Machine's arch-nemesis, Pherson, even if it was a bit unbelievable - and given the fact that this is a story in which the main character gained the ability to talk to machines after an alien artifact blew up all over him under the Brooklyn Bridge, that's saying something. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jim Genzano's books on Goodreads
