comics: X-23: Oneshot, Black Widow #1, Birds of Prey #1
Man, I forgot that first issues are almost pure setup these days.
X-23: I actually read this when it came out, but forgot to post on it. I’m pretty ambivalent about the X-23 character, aside from the cracktastic idea of a teenaged female Wolverine, but it was by Marjorie Liu and featured the official first meeting of X-23 and Jubilee. I liked what I signed up for (particularly that X-23 describes Jubilee as “effortlessly unpredictable, and thinks it’s a big compliment) but it was a minor part probably included because Liu is supposedly a Wolverine & Jubilee Partnership fan. The rest featured X-23 reuniting with characters from Liu’s NYX series. Which was pretty good, but also confusing for me, and confirmed my impressions that that series wasn’t for me.
Black Widow: Also by Liu, and clearly riding the coattails of the new Iron Man movie, which explains Tony Stark’s otherwise rather unnecessary presence. Wolverine was rather unnecessary too (though it looks like he may end up important to the plot, so SIGH), but he invades everything. As an individual issue this is actually fairly weak. What focus there is on Natasha is good, but it shows that Liu is primarily a novelist and doesn’t usually write episodic stories. It’s basically (1) Natasha is an awesome badass spy who is smarter than you and you like that, (2) she and possibly others like her are being targeted and cut open for something, but you don’t get to have a clue what’s going on there yet, and (3) Bucky is a good boyfriend because he’s fine with Natasha using him as an excuse to deal with the abusive husbands of casual acquaintances. (Though those aren’t tactics like to have good results in RL.) This is, I suspect, something that I’ll like more once I’ve finished it than something I like as I’m reading it. I’ve both liked and disliked Acuna’s stylized art in the past, largely based on whether or not it seemed fitting for whatever series it was in at the time. It seems pretty fitting here so far, both something about it feels “off” to me.
Birds of Prey: A much stronger first issue, though (1) Gail Simone has been writing tons of comics for years, and (2) Gail Simone wrote these characters for several years, and established the current team dynamic. Also, the last BOP series had the final issues be all about how Calculator couldn’t handle a woman being better than him, so it could almost only be an improvement. Simone has scaled back the cast to Oracle, Black Canary, Huntress, and Lady Blackhawk, which I think is a good move, but it looks like it may be expanding again soon. We’ll see? This one was a lot of setup and catchup, too. If you liked Simone’s first BOP run (especially the first few arcs) you’ll probably like this one, too. Sadly, Ed Benes has sunk even further into giving women odd torsos and making them look exactly the same except for hair and clothes. He’s like Greg land, where I like his early work, but then he got popular and it got bad. Though I think Land is way worse.
Maybe now I’ll finally get around to reading all the comics I’ve had waiting around for months and months and months.
X-23: I actually read this when it came out, but forgot to post on it. I’m pretty ambivalent about the X-23 character, aside from the cracktastic idea of a teenaged female Wolverine, but it was by Marjorie Liu and featured the official first meeting of X-23 and Jubilee. I liked what I signed up for (particularly that X-23 describes Jubilee as “effortlessly unpredictable, and thinks it’s a big compliment) but it was a minor part probably included because Liu is supposedly a Wolverine & Jubilee Partnership fan. The rest featured X-23 reuniting with characters from Liu’s NYX series. Which was pretty good, but also confusing for me, and confirmed my impressions that that series wasn’t for me.
Black Widow: Also by Liu, and clearly riding the coattails of the new Iron Man movie, which explains Tony Stark’s otherwise rather unnecessary presence. Wolverine was rather unnecessary too (though it looks like he may end up important to the plot, so SIGH), but he invades everything. As an individual issue this is actually fairly weak. What focus there is on Natasha is good, but it shows that Liu is primarily a novelist and doesn’t usually write episodic stories. It’s basically (1) Natasha is an awesome badass spy who is smarter than you and you like that, (2) she and possibly others like her are being targeted and cut open for something, but you don’t get to have a clue what’s going on there yet, and (3) Bucky is a good boyfriend because he’s fine with Natasha using him as an excuse to deal with the abusive husbands of casual acquaintances. (Though those aren’t tactics like to have good results in RL.) This is, I suspect, something that I’ll like more once I’ve finished it than something I like as I’m reading it. I’ve both liked and disliked Acuna’s stylized art in the past, largely based on whether or not it seemed fitting for whatever series it was in at the time. It seems pretty fitting here so far, both something about it feels “off” to me.
Birds of Prey: A much stronger first issue, though (1) Gail Simone has been writing tons of comics for years, and (2) Gail Simone wrote these characters for several years, and established the current team dynamic. Also, the last BOP series had the final issues be all about how Calculator couldn’t handle a woman being better than him, so it could almost only be an improvement. Simone has scaled back the cast to Oracle, Black Canary, Huntress, and Lady Blackhawk, which I think is a good move, but it looks like it may be expanding again soon. We’ll see? This one was a lot of setup and catchup, too. If you liked Simone’s first BOP run (especially the first few arcs) you’ll probably like this one, too. Sadly, Ed Benes has sunk even further into giving women odd torsos and making them look exactly the same except for hair and clothes. He’s like Greg land, where I like his early work, but then he got popular and it got bad. Though I think Land is way worse.
Maybe now I’ll finally get around to reading all the comics I’ve had waiting around for months and months and months.