Sunday Reviews #1

Batman #18 8/10

I feel like this issue was both a success and a failure in what it was trying to do. It was a success in showing us how bad a place Bruce was in, and in helping us get to know Harper Row and her brother more, but it failed in that unless you follow the greater comics media you don't know why Bruce is in such a bad place. At the end of Batman #17 his supporting cast is avoiding him but they're all very much alive. At the start of Batman #18 his son and one time Robin is dead. If all you get is Batman and somehow avoided the non-stop flow of spoilers then there is a pretty strong disconnect between the end and starting points of the issues. As for the issue itself, I feel like this is a return to form for Snyder after the meandering Death of the Family. He's obviously got big plans for Harper Row but they're going to be going on the back burner soon for the year zero storyline.

The End Times of Bram and Ben #3 9/10

This book is so much fun. Newly cleansed of sin Ben goes to try to stop Bram from his attempt at being the Antichrist but man, the list of no-nos for staying clean of sin are really restrictive. The Angels, who all clearly have no idea what people are like at all invade Burning Bram and begin to slaughter the sinners, and then we get to go meet to real Antichrist. Well, Antichrists. And I love who they are. Every page is packed with great jokes and the art by Rem Broo is kinetic and fun. I can't recommend this one enough, and the back issues are already down to $1.99 on ComiXology. Check it out.


The Manhattan Projects #10 7/10

In this issue we finally get the fill in artist that is supposed to help get Nick Pitarra back on track. The fill in, Ryan Browne, is doing his best Pitarra impersonation here and its serviceable. I feel like we could have had an artist that was more of a departure from Pitarra for this issue as it was set in the murderous Oppenheimer's mind. We've got the start of the Oppenheimer Civil War that is likely going to lead to the "amalgamated Oppenheimer" that was referenced in Feynman's journal from the first issue. We get to see the extremely chaotic mindscape of the murderous Oppenheimer in which new Oppenheimers are spawned with a thought and then go about making him into even more of a psychopath. One thing though, if you think Scott Snyder hates horses wait till you read this one.

Thor: God of Thunder #6 5/10

The history of Gor is pretty generic. Good guy Gor lives on a dying world. His mother was pious and the gods never answered his prayers. His family dies in a series of tragic but likely preventable ways. Then he finds two Gods that have fallen from the skies, takes the weapons from the dark one and uses it to kill the golden one. Then he gets to work butchering across the universe thanks to his new God weapon that seems a lot like the symbiote from Spider-Man. There's nothing we haven't seen before here and we could have probably guessed most of it based on what we've seen of Gor in the last 5 issues. A few hundred years in the mines did do wonders for Volstagg's weight problem though. He was looking good.