comickal: recently read, powered up edition
Just one or two reviews to get my hand back in.
But first, a cover from an upcoming Brightest Day issue.
How ... interesting.
I'm ignoring the melting zombie Deadman thing. After all, the last issue of Brightest Day declared in big zappy letters, "Blackest Night Firestorm!" along with an image of said character. That character -- or at least, that incarnation of said character -- appeared nowhere in the issue. However, as DC notes in "The Source", there will be a new Aqualad. There will also be a new DC Animated version of Young Justice, in which the new Aqualad will appear. (I wonder how they'll explain what happened to the old one. Granted that I didn't watch Teen Titans that much, but the last I saw, the old Aqualad was a going member of Titans East. I wonder if he got killed off somehow?)
I find it moderately intriguing that the new Aqualad is apparently going to be "born", so to speak, in one of the driest areas of one of the driest states in these United States. Seriously, people, I'm from New Mexico, and you have a hard time locating both very large bodies of water and notable numbers of black people anywhere, never mind in Silver City. It's going to be interesting to see how they pull this off, as well as the connection between this and the DC Animated universe.
And I daresay the fanboy angst will be much much more intense and impolitic than this, judging from the recent brouhaha over the suggestion of Donald Glover for Spiderman.
But in the meantime: recent funny pages!
Power Girl #13 (Judd Winick/Sam Basri; DC)
So ... yeah.
Issue 13 of PG, with the new Winick/Basri creative team, is effectively a Brightest Day tie-in -- so much so that I'm astonished that they didn't put the Brightest Day banner on the cover. It jumps back a bit in time, relatively speaking, to give us the early days of the event from PG's perspective. Power Girl and an assortment of JLA and JSA members, including Batman, go after Max Lord, whom they've realized is once again doing Very Bad Things. This does not go well -- in fact, it goes very strangely indeed -- and when she gets back to New York, PG discovers that her life has effectively just blown up in her face.
The only way I can describe this issue is to say that it's basically very well written and very well illustrated, and that I still didn't much care for it. Basri's art is really very good, and impressive to look at ... and not quite right for Power Girl. It's very washed out and pale, and that doesn't fit the character at all. Winick is actually a good choice for a writer who is going to make Power Girl a more dramatic title, while still keeping the odd, infrequent touch of humor, if that's the kind of title you'd like to read.
Here's the thing: one of the things that I truly loved about the Palmiotti-Gray/Conner run on Power Girl was that they created a heroine who really loved her life, even when it wasn't always going the best, and there was more than an odd, infrequent touch of humor about the title. She loved being able to help people. Power Girl was just plain fun, and now that PG is dealing with a life in ruins, it's pretty clear that "fun" is not going to be much in supply around these parts.
In all fairness, I can't recommend it, but I also can't not recommend it. It's a very well done issue, and I think there are people that it will appeal to, expecially with the (oddly unlabeled) Brightest Day tie-in. I'm just not necessarily one of them.
Azrael 8/9 (Fabian Nicieza/Ramon Bachs, John Stanisci, JD Smith; DC): The end of Nicieza's run on Azrael, and a very frustrating one it is, too. He makes the very reasonable case that the eighth deadly sin is Faith -- carried to excess, of course. After all, none of the Deadly Sins is sinful unless carried to extremes; different versions of them are actually regarded as virtues, of a sort, or at least as necessary. And then ... Nicieza backs off. Azrael is effectively taken over and becomes the manifestation of the eighth deadly sin. The story theen takes a turn that, honestly, doesn't make any sense, but which is still kind of fascinating to read. Azrael decides that he then must kill the foremost proponent of irrational faith in the world today. And who would that be? I'll give you a hint: on his way to kill said proponent, Azrael kills the Swiss Guard. All of them. But Azrael gets blocked from his goal by the White Ghost, who tells him that he won't truly understand how the Suit of Sorrows works until he has faith in Ra's al-Ghul. And just like that, Azrael is cured. Um ... what now? How does that work? They spent nearly half of issue 8 arguing and maneuvering him into the position of becoming the eighth deadly sin; the Ghost talks him out of it in only a couple of pages? Really? In any event, it's going to be interesting to see where the new creative team takes the series, and who it will be. It still seems to have a fixed end point, so it doesn't seem like the series can go that much longer, sales aside.
OK; No recommendation.
First Wave: The Spirit #3 (Mark Schultz, Michael Uslan, F. J. DeSanto/Moritat, Justiniano; DC): In which the Spirit's baffling ability to get villainous women to fall in love with him appears once again. Moritat's art is, as usual, wonderful to look at. And the story follows logically enough from the previous issues. It's just a bit ... silly, really, especially after all the grand guignol mayhem. (Seriously, that last scene with Angel Smerti is pretty much begging for Quentin Tarantino to stick it in a movie.
OK, Recommended.
This entry was originally posted at http://iainpj.dreamwidth.org/11969.html, where there are
comments.
But first, a cover from an upcoming Brightest Day issue.
How ... interesting.
I'm ignoring the melting zombie Deadman thing. After all, the last issue of Brightest Day declared in big zappy letters, "Blackest Night Firestorm!" along with an image of said character. That character -- or at least, that incarnation of said character -- appeared nowhere in the issue. However, as DC notes in "The Source", there will be a new Aqualad. There will also be a new DC Animated version of Young Justice, in which the new Aqualad will appear. (I wonder how they'll explain what happened to the old one. Granted that I didn't watch Teen Titans that much, but the last I saw, the old Aqualad was a going member of Titans East. I wonder if he got killed off somehow?)
I find it moderately intriguing that the new Aqualad is apparently going to be "born", so to speak, in one of the driest areas of one of the driest states in these United States. Seriously, people, I'm from New Mexico, and you have a hard time locating both very large bodies of water and notable numbers of black people anywhere, never mind in Silver City. It's going to be interesting to see how they pull this off, as well as the connection between this and the DC Animated universe.
And I daresay the fanboy angst will be much much more intense and impolitic than this, judging from the recent brouhaha over the suggestion of Donald Glover for Spiderman.
But in the meantime: recent funny pages!
Power Girl #13 (Judd Winick/Sam Basri; DC)
So ... yeah.
Issue 13 of PG, with the new Winick/Basri creative team, is effectively a Brightest Day tie-in -- so much so that I'm astonished that they didn't put the Brightest Day banner on the cover. It jumps back a bit in time, relatively speaking, to give us the early days of the event from PG's perspective. Power Girl and an assortment of JLA and JSA members, including Batman, go after Max Lord, whom they've realized is once again doing Very Bad Things. This does not go well -- in fact, it goes very strangely indeed -- and when she gets back to New York, PG discovers that her life has effectively just blown up in her face.
The only way I can describe this issue is to say that it's basically very well written and very well illustrated, and that I still didn't much care for it. Basri's art is really very good, and impressive to look at ... and not quite right for Power Girl. It's very washed out and pale, and that doesn't fit the character at all. Winick is actually a good choice for a writer who is going to make Power Girl a more dramatic title, while still keeping the odd, infrequent touch of humor, if that's the kind of title you'd like to read.
Here's the thing: one of the things that I truly loved about the Palmiotti-Gray/Conner run on Power Girl was that they created a heroine who really loved her life, even when it wasn't always going the best, and there was more than an odd, infrequent touch of humor about the title. She loved being able to help people. Power Girl was just plain fun, and now that PG is dealing with a life in ruins, it's pretty clear that "fun" is not going to be much in supply around these parts.
In all fairness, I can't recommend it, but I also can't not recommend it. It's a very well done issue, and I think there are people that it will appeal to, expecially with the (oddly unlabeled) Brightest Day tie-in. I'm just not necessarily one of them.
Azrael 8/9 (Fabian Nicieza/Ramon Bachs, John Stanisci, JD Smith; DC): The end of Nicieza's run on Azrael, and a very frustrating one it is, too. He makes the very reasonable case that the eighth deadly sin is Faith -- carried to excess, of course. After all, none of the Deadly Sins is sinful unless carried to extremes; different versions of them are actually regarded as virtues, of a sort, or at least as necessary. And then ... Nicieza backs off. Azrael is effectively taken over and becomes the manifestation of the eighth deadly sin. The story theen takes a turn that, honestly, doesn't make any sense, but which is still kind of fascinating to read. Azrael decides that he then must kill the foremost proponent of irrational faith in the world today. And who would that be? I'll give you a hint: on his way to kill said proponent, Azrael kills the Swiss Guard. All of them. But Azrael gets blocked from his goal by the White Ghost, who tells him that he won't truly understand how the Suit of Sorrows works until he has faith in Ra's al-Ghul. And just like that, Azrael is cured. Um ... what now? How does that work? They spent nearly half of issue 8 arguing and maneuvering him into the position of becoming the eighth deadly sin; the Ghost talks him out of it in only a couple of pages? Really? In any event, it's going to be interesting to see where the new creative team takes the series, and who it will be. It still seems to have a fixed end point, so it doesn't seem like the series can go that much longer, sales aside.
OK; No recommendation.
First Wave: The Spirit #3 (Mark Schultz, Michael Uslan, F. J. DeSanto/Moritat, Justiniano; DC): In which the Spirit's baffling ability to get villainous women to fall in love with him appears once again. Moritat's art is, as usual, wonderful to look at. And the story follows logically enough from the previous issues. It's just a bit ... silly, really, especially after all the grand guignol mayhem. (Seriously, that last scene with Angel Smerti is pretty much begging for Quentin Tarantino to stick it in a movie.
OK, Recommended.
This entry was originally posted at http://iainpj.dreamwidth.org/11969.html, where there are
comments.