Sunday Reviews #4

Cable and the X-Force #7 - I'm torn on this book. On the one had I love the dialogue. The characters all have a good patter. Its possible that its a bit too relaxed with the situations that they're in, but its fun. Especially the eternally frustrated Forge. Unfortunately the book itself doesn't seem to make a lick of sense. The first arc had the team infiltrating a fast food giant to stop some kind of virus and the second has them stealing a spaceship to get an intergalactic criminal off planet. Because... reasons. I have no idea. Its probably related to Cable's visions of the future, but we don't know anything about them except that they're happening and that we've seen foreshadowing that they're being caused by someone. With the current 90s character revival at Marvel I'm predicting Strife will be back. Or Adam-X the X-Treme. And since Rick Remender isn't writing it it'll probably suck.

Iron Man #8 - I've really started to take note of when Kieron Gillon is on a book lately. I read Phonogram back when it came out in TPB but it didn't do much for me at the time. Recently he's been doing a hell of a job on his Marvel books. This week we got the final part of the Godkiller arc in which Tony Stark is on trial for his life for the crime of killing The Phoenix. Trial by combat that is, and without his armor at that. He held his own against the various combatants of the people prosecuting him since he's actually been in a fight before, but not wanting to loose the trial they bring in Death's Head to throw down. And throw rocks. And throw Tony. Of course he escapes, and we get an appearance by the Celestials as well as a set-up for the ongoing villain of our space opera. Greg Land's art wasn't even as stiff as normal since he actually had to draw some of the issue. You can't photo-reference a porn star for a Celestial.

Wonder Woman #19 - A year and a half later and I can say for certain that this is my favorite book out of the DC relaunch. Now I've seen a lot of complaints online that this is nothing but people sitting around talking. And it is. It completely is. I guess the people complaining about it don't have any interest in politics because Wonder Woman is all about betrayal, backhanded deals and hidden information. The only thing that I don't like about the book is Good Time Orion. At first I enjoyed him not being nothing more than a one note character that was always angry but his portrayal in the last few issues with him being little more than a frat boy hanging out has gotten on my nerves. Fortunately it looks like he's moving on here, or at least progressing his story. On the art side we had two different pencilers and two different inkers who were all trying their best to do a Cliff Chiang and not succeeding. Hopefully we'll have him back next issue.

Sunday Review #3

Saga #12 - You know for a comic that stirred up as much controversy as this one did there wasn't much to it. In this months issue we take a break from Marko, Alanna and the gang to see what Prince Robot has been doing. Apparently its mostly been dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. And being threatened by a batwinged bastard. He goes to visit the author of the trashy romance novel that has inspired our war crossed lovers we learn all about where he is as a person. Or machine. I'm not really sure with him. Still, he's not in a happy place.

This is the first last page reveal that hasn't worked for me. When we find out that the Sagettes are hiding upstairs listening to this all to everything thats happening. The cliffhangers normally leave me with a feeling that I NEED to read the next issue. He's a master of "we can't stop there!" and this reveal just left me cold. By finding out that they were upstairs we lost a step in the story, and we'll likely get their version of events in the next issue. The problem with that is that Saga is doing a hiatus after this issue. Its likely only for a month but to come back after the break and then rewind the story seems like a bad idea to me. Additionally this was issue 12, also known as the last issue in V2 for the collected editions, so people reading in trade will have an even longer wait for the rewind. It just seems like a terrible place to put this kind of reveal.

Theremin #1 - A trippy time travel comic based on a real life person? Sign me up. Theremin is written by newcomer Curt Pires and has art by Dalton Rose, who provided us with the gorgeous Phabula a few months ago. Its the story of real life inventor Leon Theremin, though I think they might have embellished the time travel aspects of his invention. You see the Theremin is a unique musical instrument  of which I've embedded a video of Theremin himself playing below.

The premise here is that if you hold your hand at the correct angle you're shunted outside of time, can see the events of your life, and reposition yourself back when you wish. It looks like its still going to follow what we know of Theremin's life, but its also going to add in time travel, wallpaper men, and what looks to be a robot in the first issue. Its available as a digital exclusive for .99 cents on ComiXology and its a load of fun.

Sunday Reviews #2

Deadpool #5 - Deadpool has become an interesting book, not because of how funny or well done it is but more because of the sheer number of jokes thrown at the reader. The latest issue, done in the style of a bronze age filler pulled out of a drawer, has jokes on top of jokes, and most of them aren't funny. Its kind of like reading the old Loony Toons or Disney comics. They're more concerned with the quantity of joke than the quality. Now some were pretty good. Peter Parker in the Bugle news room, the liquor store ad, those were pure gold. Most of the rest of it was chuckleworthy at best. On the art front the book looked amazing. It was a perfect throwback to the 70s and 80s.

Thanos Rising #1 - I didn't like this, not because I felt that it was poorly done, but because I don't want Thanos humanized. I don't want to see young artistic Thanos sitting alone drawing. I feel that it weakens the character because until now he was a force of nature. We knew that he was obsessed with death and that he seeks to gain her favor. And I really think that's all we need to know. Showing us him developing from someone that would be considered normal into the sociopath we know undercuts the character. It makes people look for a redemption arc in a character that until now should never be redeemed. Its just a bad idea.

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.