The Reading Order
March 4, 2010
WOLVERINE: WEAPON X #11
JUSTICE LEAGUE CRY FOR JUSTICE # 7
MIGHTY AVENGERS # 34
INVINCIBLE IRON MAN # 24
ULTIMATE COMICS - NEW ULTIMATES # 1
ULTIMATE COMICS: AVENGERS # 5
For Reading Later…
AMAZING SPIDERMAN # 623
BATMAN CONFIDENTIAL #42
CINDERELLA FROM FABLETOWN # 5
DETECTIVE COMICS # 862
FIRST WAVE # 1
CHEW # 9
PUNISHER-MAX: BUTTERFLY
SUPERMAN: BRAINIAC TPB
The Extraordinarily Good!
WOLVERINE: WEAPON X #11 (w: Jason Aaron/w: Ron Garney) is fantastic. It’s a Wolverine/Captain America (and Nightcrawler!?!) buddy-story and Deathlok the way he ought to be. Garney’s artwork is spectacular. Okay, no more superlatives. Wolverine: Weapon X #11 is a rare gem. Alright, seriously no more superlatives. Wolverine: Weapon X #11 harkens back to the “first meeting” between Logan & Captain America way back in Uncanny #268 and while Garney is certainly “no Jim Lee”, there isn’t anything lacking from his art in W:WX #11. Grade: A+ (story: A/art: A+)
JUSTICE LEAGUE: CRY FOR JUSTICE # 7 (w: James Robinson/ a: Mauro Cascioll, Scott Clark & Ibraim Robenson) is a classic reminder that DC comics can be really, really good. Forget Rebirth: Whoever, Blackest Plot and Crisis in Imagination, once in a blue moon, DC hits one out of the park. Think about the Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One, Kingdom Come or Identity Crisis (sheesh, was that really a Crisis book?). These stories are the cornerstones of the DCU, the strange, grown-up shapes that the heroes take in these books echo throughout the DCU for years. If you’re old enough, think about what Batman was like before Dark Knight. Or Superman even. And Kingdom Come, how much of that “imaginary” future has bled into the modern DCU (too much). Then there is Identity Crisis, which turned the icons back into people. Justice League: Cry for Justice #7 is the perfect sequel to Identity Crisis. The characters are brilliantly written and masterfully drawn. The diabolical plot is tremendous. This book was late. So late that ramifications of this story have already hit the DCU shelves. Unfortunately that has become a pretty common problem for the major publishers. However, where some stories (say Captain America: Reborn) are made irrelevant by the missed deadlines, Cry for Justice is strong enough to transcend the goings on in the DCU. Unfortunately, part of the problem is that the rest of the DCU is such a wreck, but that too makes Cry for Justice stand-out in its excellence. Grade A+ (story: A+/art: A+)
The Good
INVINCIBLE IRON MAN # 24 (w: Matt Fraction/ a: Salvador Larocca) is better. “Stark: Disassembled” has been a huge step down from the work that Fraction/Larocca have been turning in for Invincible Iron Man (IIM) for the past two years or so. IIM #24 wraps up the languishing storyline gracefully, if not with merciful efficiency. For the past three months, IIM has seemed out of sync. Captain America returned here first (chronologically, books on the shelf, real-time) and that was weird. Last time (before IIM) I saw James Rhodes he was half transformer (apparently, he got better). All this to turn back the proverbial clock, ah well. All is ready for the Age of Heroes. Grade: B (story: B/art: A)
MIGHTY AVENGERS # 34 (w: Dan Slott/ a: Neil Edwards) was borderline unreadable. The Thor intro is absolutely horrible, in a bad way. Mighty Avengers has been a genuine treat for the last few months, not so much with Mighty Avengers #34. The premise of this story is not good, not slightly rationale or logical. It reads like someone let the air out of Slott’s balloon and with the “cancelation” of all the Avenger titles maybe someone has. Grade C- (story: C--/art: B-)
ULTIMATE COMICS: AVENGERS # 5 (w: Mark Millar/a: Carlos Pacheco).Grade: B- (story: B-/art: B) The thin thread of familiarity and nostalgia that connects this series with the pre-Ultimatum Ultimate storyline is starting to snap. The Red Skull story is interesting but has gone on too long. The Cosmic Cube is a hard story to tell, and wouldn’t you rather see it somewhere other than the Ultimates Universe? The worst part of the UC: Avengers is, unfortunately, the Avengers themselves. As a group they aren’t very interesting (they’re kind of like that group that Millar spun out of the Fantastic Four a few years ago) and the Cap that is running around is so (deliberately) out of character that there is no one to really captivate the audience.
The Bad
ADVENTURE COMICS # 511 (w: Sterling Gates, James Robinson & Eric Trautman/ a: Travis Moore, Julian Lopez & Pier Gallo) is a disappointing segue or prequel for the upcoming Superman: Last Stand of Krypton event. If you’re into that this is a decent companion book. All three stories are interesting and well crafted, but if you were looking for a new “Adventure Comics” story (you know, because it’s “Adventure Comics #511”) then you’re bound to be a little disappointed. While the stories are readable, they require knowledge of the current going-ons in Action & Superman to be really good. And that has not been the case for Adventure previously. Grade: C (stories: C/art: C)
ULTIMATE COMICS - NEW ULTIMATES # 1 (w: Jeph Loeb/ a: Frank Cho). If you read Ultimates vol. 3 and Ultimatum, you already know that Loeb un-Ultimated everything thing that made the Ultimate Universe that Bendis & Millar created. The Ultimate line hasn’t been the same since in its place, a shallow husk of the Ultimates and a strange fun-house mirror image of the Marvel U. Ultimate Comics: The Avengers was starting to find the way back. The New Ultimates is (unfortunately) just like the old (vol. 3) Ultimates. This isn’t a good Avengers story, it isn’t a good Iron Man story and it seems to be out of place (publishing-time wise), in case you were trying to follow a contiguous storyline through the Ultimate Universe. Grade: D (story: D/art: B+)
No comments:
Post a Comment