Reviews for 7/5/07
Runaways #27
This is quite good, and I'm now very optimistic about Whedon's tenure on this title. Unlike the glacial Astonishing X-Men, this story is moving along nicely. We find out some key things this issue, and even though some open up even more questions, there's a definite sense of progress to the storyline. There's still a significant hole in the story since we still don't know why the Runaways would have talked to Kingpin in the first place, but that's not really an issue for the moment, and I'm willing to wait and see if Whedon works that into the story creatively a bit down the line. But other than the suspension of disbelief required for that, this plot arc is holding together well and is making good use of things already established in the Runaway's set-up. I'm also coming to like Michael Ryan's art, which bothered me when he first took over. He's doing a good job capturing the expressions of the main characters, though, and it's winning me over. Overall a very solid issue.
Loners #4
This Runaways spinoff following the characters from the short-lived Excelsior team is really covering some interesting territory. It's also managing to acknowledge the Registration issue in without having it take over the story. But it's pretty neat to see several former teen heroes debating the pros and cons of heroing and the warring desires to live a normal life. And this book doesn't just follow the same "with great power comes great responsibility" line. It also considers the disastrous effects the superhero life has on people who aren't even legal adults yet. And looks at whether there's anything in between "superhero" and "not using powers at all". I'm not exactly sure where this mini-series is going, but I'm very much enjoying it.
New Warriors #2
While I was not a fan of Civil War, it's nice to see that Marvel is handling the aftermath bettern than House of M / Decimation. With those events, a couple of Sentinels got stuck around the X-Mansion and everyone proceeded to ignore them and most of the de-powered mutants (except in X-Factor, which everyone should be reading). The Initiative concept, however, is being followed through on multiple angles, and New Warriors is tackling one of the more interesting ones- the inevitable rebellion against a the authoritarian environment. Even more interestingly, they're actually picking up on the "what do former mutant superheroes do" aspect of Decimation that the X-books themselves have largely ignored. High points of this issue include touching on the public reaction to the new New Warriors and Tony Stark's reaction to the whole thing. He's actually not being a complete bastard for a change. Although I suspect things will get unpleasant soon enough.
There are some concerns that I have, though. Sofia (formerly Wind Dancer) had a very disinct speech pattern which is completely absent here. She always sounded precise and avoided contractions because English was new to her and she had to speak carefully. I suppose you could say she got better at it, but the change, and a concurrent shift to a more aggressive attitude, is a little jarring. Also, Barnell Bohusk (formerly Beak, now apparently calling himself "Barry"), wasn't all that handsome last time we saw him. But the premise of the series is sufficiently interesting that I'm willing to overlook the differences to see where they take this.
Supergirl #19
This is a hilarious issue. Joe Kelley's run on this title has been all over the place, but here he's going for light comedy with a story reconciliation underlying it as Kara tries to make up with all of the people she's treated like shit recently. But first, while shes floating in space in the aftermath of being told she was being tested by the Monitors, Pariah (you know, from Crisis on Infinite Earths) shows up to babble about the impending crisis (or crises, or whatever), and deliver a warning or two. But the important part is that Supergirl bitches Pariah out for being an intensely annoying and melodramatic character, which is something that someone should have done 20 years ago. I can't stand Pariah, as I explained somewhere in my analysis of Crisis on Infinite Earths.
The other hysterically funny point is when Supergirl and Wonder Girl are having a BFF! reconciliation moment flying above Titans Tower. While Beast Boy and Kid Devil are busy memorizing the sight of two hot blondes embracing, Ravager shoots them both with a Really Big Gun. Brilliant. There are some good serious moments, too, particularly when Kara checks up on the girl who everyone picked on at the school she briefly attended, and the whole scene with Clark at the end. I can't say that this is a great series, especially with the whole "oh, most of that was a test from the Monitors" cop-out ending last issue, but this time around it's at least been entertaining. And the red headband tribute to pre-Crisis Kara Zor-El is funny, if inexplicable within the story.
Countdown #43
This is one of the better issues of this series so far, but that's not saying a whole lot. And even so, most of it really should have been an issue of Flash or Teen Titans, as it's primarily devoted to Bart's funereal. I don't really find Wonder Girl's characterization convincing here. I thought Tim was reasonably well handled, though, and Bart's video had some good moments. The whole thing was impaired by sub-par art, though, and I think a scene in a monthly book with more time put into it would have served the subject better.
There's also more mysteriousness with Monarch in the bleed, and he doesn't look like Captain Atom when he takes his faceplate off so who knows what's going on here. Jimmy Olsen, after covering Bart's funereal, reflects on what he should do with his randomly manifesting powers in a way that just makes me think "this can't end well". Trickster and Piper had the guts to attend the funereal, but their guilt gets the better of them and the run away. And Holly Robinson meets someone in the Athenian compound who will certainly add some craziness to her sub-plot. And Donna and Jason are with the "nice" Monitor, despite Donna saying she wasn't going anywhere with him last time we saw them- no explanation is given for why she changed her mind.
Most importantly, the "nice" Monitor, who is now confirmed to be the Monitor of New Earth, delivers some exposition telling us that the other Monitors intend to bury whole universes, including this one. Well, that's great, it gives us a bit more information about the threat, but I still don't know why. Countdown still has it's biggest flaw- there's no clear motivation for the "bad" Monitors, and this latest development comes out of left field. As of last issue, they were only looking to kill "jumpers" and other anomalies. Now they're killing off universes? Don't the other Monitors of target universes have a problem with this? How does this fit with their purpose as Monitors? Did anyone think anything about the Monitors through or did they just throw them in as a threat with no proper backstory? If there's no understandable motivation behind the main threat, the whole series fails to hold together as anything other than a promotional flyer for other DC books. And that's bad.
This is quite good, and I'm now very optimistic about Whedon's tenure on this title. Unlike the glacial Astonishing X-Men, this story is moving along nicely. We find out some key things this issue, and even though some open up even more questions, there's a definite sense of progress to the storyline. There's still a significant hole in the story since we still don't know why the Runaways would have talked to Kingpin in the first place, but that's not really an issue for the moment, and I'm willing to wait and see if Whedon works that into the story creatively a bit down the line. But other than the suspension of disbelief required for that, this plot arc is holding together well and is making good use of things already established in the Runaway's set-up. I'm also coming to like Michael Ryan's art, which bothered me when he first took over. He's doing a good job capturing the expressions of the main characters, though, and it's winning me over. Overall a very solid issue.
Loners #4
This Runaways spinoff following the characters from the short-lived Excelsior team is really covering some interesting territory. It's also managing to acknowledge the Registration issue in without having it take over the story. But it's pretty neat to see several former teen heroes debating the pros and cons of heroing and the warring desires to live a normal life. And this book doesn't just follow the same "with great power comes great responsibility" line. It also considers the disastrous effects the superhero life has on people who aren't even legal adults yet. And looks at whether there's anything in between "superhero" and "not using powers at all". I'm not exactly sure where this mini-series is going, but I'm very much enjoying it.
New Warriors #2
While I was not a fan of Civil War, it's nice to see that Marvel is handling the aftermath bettern than House of M / Decimation. With those events, a couple of Sentinels got stuck around the X-Mansion and everyone proceeded to ignore them and most of the de-powered mutants (except in X-Factor, which everyone should be reading). The Initiative concept, however, is being followed through on multiple angles, and New Warriors is tackling one of the more interesting ones- the inevitable rebellion against a the authoritarian environment. Even more interestingly, they're actually picking up on the "what do former mutant superheroes do" aspect of Decimation that the X-books themselves have largely ignored. High points of this issue include touching on the public reaction to the new New Warriors and Tony Stark's reaction to the whole thing. He's actually not being a complete bastard for a change. Although I suspect things will get unpleasant soon enough.
There are some concerns that I have, though. Sofia (formerly Wind Dancer) had a very disinct speech pattern which is completely absent here. She always sounded precise and avoided contractions because English was new to her and she had to speak carefully. I suppose you could say she got better at it, but the change, and a concurrent shift to a more aggressive attitude, is a little jarring. Also, Barnell Bohusk (formerly Beak, now apparently calling himself "Barry"), wasn't all that handsome last time we saw him. But the premise of the series is sufficiently interesting that I'm willing to overlook the differences to see where they take this.
Supergirl #19
This is a hilarious issue. Joe Kelley's run on this title has been all over the place, but here he's going for light comedy with a story reconciliation underlying it as Kara tries to make up with all of the people she's treated like shit recently. But first, while shes floating in space in the aftermath of being told she was being tested by the Monitors, Pariah (you know, from Crisis on Infinite Earths) shows up to babble about the impending crisis (or crises, or whatever), and deliver a warning or two. But the important part is that Supergirl bitches Pariah out for being an intensely annoying and melodramatic character, which is something that someone should have done 20 years ago. I can't stand Pariah, as I explained somewhere in my analysis of Crisis on Infinite Earths.
The other hysterically funny point is when Supergirl and Wonder Girl are having a BFF! reconciliation moment flying above Titans Tower. While Beast Boy and Kid Devil are busy memorizing the sight of two hot blondes embracing, Ravager shoots them both with a Really Big Gun. Brilliant. There are some good serious moments, too, particularly when Kara checks up on the girl who everyone picked on at the school she briefly attended, and the whole scene with Clark at the end. I can't say that this is a great series, especially with the whole "oh, most of that was a test from the Monitors" cop-out ending last issue, but this time around it's at least been entertaining. And the red headband tribute to pre-Crisis Kara Zor-El is funny, if inexplicable within the story.
Countdown #43
This is one of the better issues of this series so far, but that's not saying a whole lot. And even so, most of it really should have been an issue of Flash or Teen Titans, as it's primarily devoted to Bart's funereal. I don't really find Wonder Girl's characterization convincing here. I thought Tim was reasonably well handled, though, and Bart's video had some good moments. The whole thing was impaired by sub-par art, though, and I think a scene in a monthly book with more time put into it would have served the subject better.
There's also more mysteriousness with Monarch in the bleed, and he doesn't look like Captain Atom when he takes his faceplate off so who knows what's going on here. Jimmy Olsen, after covering Bart's funereal, reflects on what he should do with his randomly manifesting powers in a way that just makes me think "this can't end well". Trickster and Piper had the guts to attend the funereal, but their guilt gets the better of them and the run away. And Holly Robinson meets someone in the Athenian compound who will certainly add some craziness to her sub-plot. And Donna and Jason are with the "nice" Monitor, despite Donna saying she wasn't going anywhere with him last time we saw them- no explanation is given for why she changed her mind.
Most importantly, the "nice" Monitor, who is now confirmed to be the Monitor of New Earth, delivers some exposition telling us that the other Monitors intend to bury whole universes, including this one. Well, that's great, it gives us a bit more information about the threat, but I still don't know why. Countdown still has it's biggest flaw- there's no clear motivation for the "bad" Monitors, and this latest development comes out of left field. As of last issue, they were only looking to kill "jumpers" and other anomalies. Now they're killing off universes? Don't the other Monitors of target universes have a problem with this? How does this fit with their purpose as Monitors? Did anyone think anything about the Monitors through or did they just throw them in as a threat with no proper backstory? If there's no understandable motivation behind the main threat, the whole series fails to hold together as anything other than a promotional flyer for other DC books. And that's bad.