Mike Buzzelli’s reviews:
Fantastic Four #575
The Fantastic Four’s first enemy, the Mole Man, seeks their help, plunging into the subterranean depths of the Forever City of the High Evolutionary. Ben Grimm, the Thing, displays his extraordinary heroism, leaping into danger to rescue children, at great personal risk to his own unusual physique, and the Richards children, Valeria and Franklin (aren’t they the cutest?), once again show an amazing amount of compassion. Scribe Jonathan Hickman and artist Dale Eaglesham produce another fine work of Fantastic Four fiction. Though, Eaglesham’s muscle bound Tom of Finland Mr. Fantastic is still disturbing (Reed Richards should be skinny).
Grade: B +
Astro City – The Dark Age: Book Four # 1
The Williams Brothers, Royal and Charles, circle around their nemesis, Aubrey Jason, and stumble upon significant battles in Astro City during the 80’s in the latest chapter of the Dark Age. A slew of new concepts and characters are introduced, all slightly resembling heroes and villains of the Marvel and DC universes. Author Kurt Busiek only moves the story forward minimally, but there are some great visuals by Brent E. Anderson.
Grade: B
Guardians of the Galaxy #22
Moondragon is about to give birth and the Universal Church of Truth wants to be there to smack the baby’s bottom and call him god. Actually, Moonie is holding an evil entity from another universe in her belly, containing the unnatural force with her telekinetic abilities. The Guardians come to the rescue, and they’re aided by their chief rivals on Knowhere , the giant Celestial head that acts as a space station at the edge of the universe (It sounds odder than it…no, it’s pretty darn odd), the Luminals (outer space super-heroes with matching purple uniforms). Meanwhile, Drax (the former Arthur Douglas) gets some quality time with his daughter, Moondragon (the former Heather Douglas), and Moonie gets a surprising spiritual visitation. Pick up this book for the last-page shocker that is sure to make a lot of fans happy.
Grade: B
New Avengers #61
The New Avengers are facing off against the Hood. Wait. Isn’t that every solicitation of the New Avengers for the past two years? It’s more of the same here, only now Steve Rogers (in civilian clothing) is back to help our hapless heroes. Spider-Man and Spider-Woman have an interesting tete-a-tete while clinging to a side of a building, but not much more happens here. It’s another Bendis issue with the Siege banner, but, like Dark Avengers last week, it barely forwards the Siege storyline.
Grade: C –
Avengers: the Initiative # 32
Oddly enough, Avengers: The Initiative has a “Siege” banner and actually forwards the “Siege” storyline. The Siege of Asgard is in full swing, and regular Joe Super-Villain, the Taskmaster, realizes he’s in way over his head attacking Asgardian gods. Even though, he manages to convince the level-headed Constrictor about the benefits of the invasion. Meanwhile, Captain America’s old flame, Diamondback, gets into a dicey predicament. Writer Cristos Gage carefully constructs a plausible story and fills in some continuity gaps while he’s at it, and Mahmud Asrar does a decent job with the art.
Grade: B+
X-Factor # 201
Layla Miller is alive and well and living in Latveria? Reed Richards is acting uncharacteristically creepy and the Richards kids, Valeria and Franklin (cute little buggers) hire X-Factor Investigations to spy on their pliable daddy. Wouldn’t you know it; Doctor Doom is behind the whole thing. He just can’t leave that cosmic quartet alone for five minutes (Doom is simultaneously fighting the Fantastic Four and friends over in Black Panther’s book, and he’s kicking the Thunder god around over in Thor this week, and battling several Hulks, Red, Blue, Green or whatever over in last week’s Incredible Hulk). This issue has some of that great Peter David dialogue we all know and love, and it has beautiful renderings by Bing Cansino (Seriously, that’s the dude’s name, he’s like a Rat Packer).
Grade: B+
Red Hulk #1 – Fall of the Hulks
The Red Hulk (we still don’t know if we should care about him) and A-Bomb (a blue gamma-powered Rick Jones) go spelunking in an underground A.I.M. facility and discover a cosmic-powered android Hulk (the regular green kind) and learn of the cosmic creation’s origin while trying to lay a smack-down on the aforementioned automaton. Not to mention, the cosmic Hulk battled Doctor Doom (that tin-plated Latverian dictator sure gets around) last week in Incredible Hulk #606 (There is a disclaimer noting that this issue happens before that one). The normally brilliant Jeff Parker gives a very by-the-book origin tale, with a few Parker- esque storytelling tidbits. Carlos Rodriguez’s pencils are nothing to write home about (I’m at home and yet I’m writing about them, therefore, the cliché is moot). It’s a pretty unspectacular chapter to the, so far, stellar “Fall of the Hulks” storyline.
Grade: D
Tim’s reviews:
Green Lantern #50
I always liked the original Parallax, a guy that got so mad at his failure that he flat out lost it. I don’t want to say I can relate, but you know, sometimes things make a guy mad, you know? And after all, Hal just wanted to make everything right again. When Geoff Johns wrote GL: Rebirth, he gave Hal the biggest out I’ve ever read, possibly one of the biggest retcons in comics history. He introduced a big yellow space-bug that was the true Parallax, and this yellow bug had made Hal Jordan do all those horrible things. I never really liked the concept, it seemed like a cheap out, so you can guess how I feel about this issue of GL.
I will admit, Geoff Johns does a nice job setting up the Spectre as such an unbeatable foe that really, the only rational choice is to allow a gigantic yellow bug to crawl down your throat, so I can’t blame Hal for becoming Parallax again. My bigger problem is that I’m sort of losing interest in Blackest Night. I’ve been reading the same basic status quo for like 7 months now, and it is starting to get old. I mean, in the real world, like 7 months have passed, but in the DCU they’re still in the middle of one bad day that started last summer. So even with Johns’ patented hilarious dialogue for Ronnie Raymond, I just can’t get worked up about most of the happenings here. There are a few pages dedicated to the New Guardians, the coolest of which deal with Scarecrow exulting in his own fear as he attacks the Spectre. Johns clearly has some cool things to say about the Scarecrow. I still puzzle over the Atom’s compassion, but maybe I’ll figure it out soon. I also didn’t care for Mera’s comment that she never wanted kids. Even if it is true, do you really say that when confronted by the animated corpses of both your son and husband? It seems a bit cruel, even for someone vomiting acid-blood.
Doug Mahnke draws the heck out the proceedings, as he always does. The Spectre actually looks spooky, not an easy feat with that silly goatee. The New Guardians looks pretty cool too, again, not an easy job. Mahnke is easily one of the best pencillers working right now.
Grade: B-
Avengers: The Initiative #32
Look at that cover! Best of the month, I think. Both characters look fantastic.
I can never get enough Taskmaster. Christos Gage actually uses this crossover as an opportunity to narrow his focus. This book has had a huge cast for months, but now that Siege is in effect, he spends most of his time with Taskmaster, the Constrictor, and Diamondback. The Avengers Resistance like Tigra and Justice still get some panel time, but the bulk of the issue is a great character study of the Taskmaster. Taskmaster is so desperate to prove that he belongs with the A-list villains that he’s trying to convince fellow “pro” Constrictor into going all-out in the attack on Asgard. It’s a neat transition, seeing Tasky switch from his normal lead from the rear personality to a fighting maniac. He’s throwing himself all over the fight, including a great closing sequence with dueling narration boxes from him and Diamondback. Gage does a tremendous job making that scene from Siege #1 work, Diamondback should never have been in those panels for the Thor takedown, but Gage makes it work. Also, Gage actually gives Quicksand some dialogue, so that’s bonus points right there. Any hope for Mongoose?
Mahmud Asrar has a clean style that works really well on super-heroics. I hate to see him leave Dynamo 5, but he really can handle a Marvel team book at this point. His Taskmaster is particularly fun.
Grade: B+
Captain America: Reborn #6
This ended up as a nice conclusion to the mini, although it is really a good Avengers story more than anything else. When we last saw Captain America, he was possessed by the Red Skull and was strangling Winter Cap while the rest of the Avengers battled a horde of MODOKs in DC. The book opens with Hank Pym punching his way through AIM techies as he makes his way to Sharon Carter to bust her loose. Soon the pair of them are heading after the Vision (who Pym calls “old friend,” so clearly Ed Brubaker wants the old Vision back too). Meanwhile, Cap manages to throw off the Skull’s domination through sheer force of will. No fancy plot devices, Cap is just stronger willed. This bounces the Skull into another robot body. He’s understandably furious. I’m not sure why Sharon Carter blasts the Skullbot with a growing ray, but the overwhelmed Avengers aren’t up to stopping him. So Pym, the Vision, and Sharon blast him with some AIM missiles, ending the storyline and the threat. It really was a bombastic battle in the mighty Marvel manner. It was a pleasant surprise, with all the mental hurdles Steve faced in this series, I was expecting a more cerebral showdown.
There are a few interesting epilogues, including one where Cap thinks about a possible future he saw where he and Sharon had kids. Of course, that same future came to an end in some sort of apocalyptic battle, so Steve wants to know if he can just keep parts of it. We also see that the Skull’s daughter, Sin, was badly burned when her father blown up, leaving her face looking like a very familiar reddish skull.
Bryan Hitch’s pencils are loose here, and Butch Guice doesn’t tighten them up as much as he usually does. The art is clear, but it does look just a tad unfinished in places.
Grade: B+
Sean’s reviews:
Kick Ass #8
The final issue of Kick Ass is just about what everyone expected it to be: loud, hyper-violent, and calculated to offend as many people as possible with… well, pick your issue. It’s bound to be there. and I say “calculated” in the most cynical way possible. Even going back to the solicit, which asks “Who will be morally outraged?” (when there’s not a single character in the book that knows what morality looks like), it’s obvious this finale was designed to provoke a reaction from the audience. Mark Millar went where “Heroes” couldn’t/wouldn’t/was unable to go with the “superheroes in real life” theme, and how messed up it really would be. Overall, however, Kick Ass is like watching porn: lots of button-mashing and screaming and penetrations climaxing with everyone screaming as the money shot splooshes out, covering everything. It is a comic fanboy’s wet-dream brought to the page. I have to applaud Millar for doing what no one has really done before: delving into angsty-teen-comic-fan-fic comic stories and making at living at it (then again there is the inexplicable popularity of “Twilight” and “Wicked Lovely”). If “nuance” is what you’re looking for, well, that’s why there are movies like “When in Rome” (I jest, of course. “When in Rome” is as subtle as a skinhead at a Seder.). I just help but wonder that I read this series the whole way through. Maybe because it betokens the future of comics writing.
Grade: C
Madame Xanadu #19
Madame Xanadu is one book I look forward to every month. Oddly, this month’s issue was supposed to be the conclusion of a story, but instead there was an overwrought “aside” about Nimue and Morgana’s childhood together (an extremely long childhood, at that). I know that Matt Wagner is often overwrought, but usually that can be forgiven because of the art that accompanies the story. This is one of those titles where the art means so much to the words. Amy Reed Hadley, who normally illustrates, is off this month, replaced by Joelle Jones, and the story is just kind of “OK”. Amy brings some real magic to Matt Wagner’s words, and without her, this chapter seems both unnecessary and ugly.
Grade: C+
