19 titles (10 Marvel and 7 DC/Wildstorm and 2 indies) came home this week. 16 are reviewed from this week and five from last week! Overall it was a pretty good week with most of the titles falling into the above-average category, but there more stinkers than normal this week too. Second Coming is still going strong and the Heroic Age is off to a heroic start.
The Score Card
X-FORCE #27 ★★★★★
SECRET AVENGERS #1 ★★★★★
THUNDERBOLTS #144 ★★★★☆
SECRET WARRIORS #16 ★★★☆☆
AMAZING SPIDERMAN ANNUAL #37 ★★★★☆
AMAZING SPIDERMAN # 632 ★★★★☆
WOLVERINE WEAPON X #13 ★★★★☆
BRAVE AND THE BOLD #34 ★★★★☆
JUSTICE LEAGUE: RISE OF ARSENAL #3 ★★★★☆
DETECTIVE COMICS #865 ★★★☆☆
GARRISON #2 ★★★☆☆
THOR #610 ★★☆☆☆
THE WEB #9 ★★☆☆☆
BATMAN: RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #2 ★☆☆☆☆
MIGHTY CRUSADERS SPECIAL # 1 ☢
X-MEN ORIGINS: EMMA FROST #1 ☢
LEGEND
★★★★★ = Really, really good.
★★★★☆ = Better than average.
★★★☆☆ = Average.
★★☆☆☆ = Below average.
★☆☆☆☆ = Not good.
☢ = Unreadable.
Breaking it Down
The Top Dog (Greg’s Top Pick of the Week)
X-FORCE #27 ★★★★★ (w: Craig Kyle & Chris Yost/a: Mike Choi) X-Men: Second Coming has become a roller coaster and we are all going to be sad when the ride stops and we have to go back to monthly X-Men titles. Picking up with the nimrods pouring into the Stephen King enclosure that has trapped the X-Men, X-Force has a series of pages filled with great action and then turns the dial and morphs into an extraordinary job of storytelling. One quick note about the nine pages of (almost) wordless action, this is the kind of storytelling that Hickman was shooting for in the Fantastic Four a few months ago: tons of things happen and you don’t need a word to explain it. Cyclops comes clean about X-Force (which goes over pretty well and is handled masterfully) and then sends the team on perhaps their most important and maybe last mission. Hopefully we will look back and Second Coming will stand beside the great crossovers of all time.
The Good
SECRET AVENGERS #1 ★★★★☆ (w: Ed Brubaker/a: Mike Deodato) The wait is over. Steve Rogers is back in action and has a new team to lead. bThere are few things that are curious about the Secret Avengers, first of all is the “b-list” heroes that were chosen, but the big question is why didn’t Rogers press Nick Fury into leading this task-force, which on the surface seemed to have the same operational directive as Fury’s Secret Warriors. I have no doubt that the Rogers/Fury conversation will be chronicled somewhere. The actual plot of Secret Avengers #1 is really good. The characters handled well and the story not only moves along quickly, but has a nice foundation in Avengers’ history: the Serpent Crown. Secret Avengers #1 continues the successful launch of the Heroic Age.
AMAZING SPIDERMAN ANNUAL #37 ★★★★☆ (w: Karl Kesel/a: Paulo Siqueira) “…I have the proportional brains of a spider!” The “first meeting” between Captain America and Spider-man is a cute, well-thought out little story. It is a bitter pill to swallow that markers from “today” are referenced in a story that should have taken place decades ago, but as we all know time is on the side of comic book storytellers, who have to content with heroes who never age. The very idea that Captain America references Wikipedia in their initial meeting is almost painful, despite an otherwise decent offering. Siqueira’s art is somewhere around average, maybe even better in some parts, but less so in others. The real “win” visually is seeing the old-school “modern” Captain America super-hero costume (the one that looks more like a one-piece hooded tunic and less like two-pieces). The second feature (w: Kurt Busiek/a: Pat Olliffe) is also, cute, but less well produced over all. And even though he has a prominent role in the second story, Stan Lee’s movie-like cameo in first part is awesome.
AMAZING SPIDERMAN # 632 ★★★★☆ (w: Zeb Wells/a: Chris Bachallo & Emma Rios) “Shed” is the real deal. Like many of Spidey’s nemesis over the past few years, the Lizard is going through a transformation. While much (as in “all the rest”) of “the Gauntlet” has been more or less a “day in the life” of Spider-Man, “Shed” is the kind of heart-wrenching, gut-turning story that “the Gauntlet” should have been all along. The Lizard is a cold-blooded (literally), ruthless monster… with new powers. Rios’ art is a faint shadow of Bachallo, which might be good in other circumstances. The Grim Hunt is on its way and “Shed” is a great pre-lude.
WOLVERINE WEAPON X #13 ★★★★☆ (w: Jason Aaron/a: Ron Garney) was almost a ★★★☆☆ and very almost a ★★★★★. The Deathlok story started great, became the Terminator which left it sort of predictable. And then the Heroic Age dawned and the Avengers showed up and the story got back on track. Aaron IS one of the best new-writers in the comic universe, as he is demonstrating in Weapon X, Astonishing: Spider-Man & Wolverine and Punisher: Max. Weapon X #13 could have gone a lot of ways, this future-past-Deathlok story was starting to flail a little last issue, but rebounds solidly in this installment.
SECRET WARRIORS #16 ★★★★☆ (w: Jonathan Hickman/a: Gianluca Gugliotta) A long-standing, hard-to-test, theory has been that a comic should be both serialized and easy to “jump-on” anywhere along the ride. That’s a hard theory to test because too frequently mediocre comics on the verge of being good are canceled and books that are good quickly end up on the pull-list or their introductory issues get reprinted fast (accessibly enough) to read before making the “jump”. Secret Warriors is one of those books that gives readers the chance to test the theory. It sprung out of Secret Invasion and has its actual origins in the Secret War (2004, not to be confused with Secret Wars from the 80’s).
So how did Secret Warriors #16 do? Not so bad. Hickman does an admirable job of moving a very heavy and complicated storyline along and still do enough re-cap/intro work to keep a new reader informed. The plot itself is in the middle and is a little hard to follow – which in this case is really the readers’ fault and not the author. One of the acceptable losses in picking up a story in the middle is that you have to be prepared to run with it until you figure out what is going on, and hopefully you do (figure it out that is). Overall, Secret Warriors #16 was good enough to move the title over to the pull-list.
BRAVE AND THE BOLD #34 ★★★★☆ (w: J. Michael Stracyznski/a: Jesus Saiz) JMS gets comics and I can’t wait for his re-launch of Superman and Wonder Woman. The good thing about Brave & the Bold #34 is that it is a classic Legion travels back in time story, with a twist or two. The first twist being the team-up with the original Doom Patrol and the second is that this is the first of JMS’ B&B stories to be more than one self-contained story. The downside is that pretty much all Legion travels back in time stories are very, very much the same. Regardless, JMS & Saiz do a great job with both classic DCU teams.
GARRISON #2 ★★★☆☆ (w: Jeff Mariotte/ a: Francesco Francavilla). Garrison #2 fell just a little shy of the very high expectations set by Garrison #1, but just “just shy”. Much of the issue seems like “filler” and is little boring, but there are important set-up details (introduction to the world of Garrison) throughout and the final sequence goes along way to explaining “Garrison”. There are lot of cool ideas thrown together in an interesting way in Garrison, which make it a good read – even if it comes off as not entirely original in any way.
JUSTICE LEAGUE: RISE OF ARSENAL #3 ★★★☆☆ (w: J.T. Krul/ a: Geraldo Borges, Kevin Sharpe, & Sergio Arino) Let’s be honest, the way the “Fall of Green Arrow” turned out and after the first two issues of this series(a robotic arm? going back t drugs?), expectations for Rise of Arsenal #3 were pretty low. While helping to prove the theory that more than two writers or artists usually spells doom (at least for that particular component), the story for Arsenal makes a little bit of a rebound. The art is, at best, unremarkable (there are three artists), but Krul does a decent job of setting up the finale of the series and hopefully sets up a new life for Roy. There are a lot of ways to go from here, good luck Mr. Krul.
DETECTIVE COMICS #865 ★★★☆☆ (w: David Hine/a: Jeremy Haun). The Black Mask and Jeremiah Arkham storylines wrap up in an almost satisfying little package. Hine stops one step short of actually completing a long-coming transformation, by leaving his last victim (of the issue) alive instead of killing a useful member of the Batman mythos. While actually killing said character would have left a small vacuum it would have been a nice way to cement the new direction and sincerity of Black Mask. Meanwhile the Asylum is not in good hands and hopefully that means good things for Bat-readers. It was a little disappointing to see some of the character background work that they had done with Jeremiah kind of go the way it did, but it is understandable and works with the story. Best Bat-book of the week!
The Bad
THOR #610 ★★☆☆☆ (w: Kieron Gillen/a: Doug Braithwaite): “The Siege: Epilogue” is pretty light reading and lacks the significance that you might expect from the Asgardians, seeing how integral part of the Siege story. That doesn’t bode well for post-Siege Thor stories. Equally jammed into the issue is Thor’s long-awaited confrontation with Ragnarok. Unfortunately, that battle is also less than satisfying. Braithwaite’s artwork is decent, but overall Thor #610 is disappointing.
THE WEB #9 ★★☆☆☆ (w: Matt Sturges/a: Roger Robinson) is the penultimate chapter of the Web series. In other words, Web #10 is the last issue, which is a shame because Robinson is really starting to hit his stride with the artwork, which absolutely carries this story. On the other hand, it seems like Sturges has been trying very hard to keep a dying patient alive. Regrettably, that transition started around Web #6 and has gone downhill ever since. The worst part is that the John Raymond (Web) character and the concept of the Web is good enough to carry its own series.
BATMAN: RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #2 ★☆☆☆☆ (w: Grant Morrison/a: Frazer Irving) Bruce Wayne continues his journey through time, no this isn’t a Booster Gold comic – but apparently that idea worked out so well that it has been adapted for this mini-series. We do get to see a shadowy explanation for why the Justice League is all bent out of shape about Bruce reaching the present and unfortunately it leaves us wishing we didn’t know. In a throw-back to Morrison’s Doom Patrol run, the shadowy explanation is abstract and borderline ridiculous. On the other hand, the witch-trial plot is slightly more interesting, but would make a better ElseWorlds story than a chapter in this “shadowy” (translated: murky and has no substance) mini-series. Irving’s artwork is nice, but I suspect it helps to be a fan of his work.
MIGHTY CRUSADERS SPECIAL # 1 ☢ (w: Matthew Sturges, Brandon Jerwa, John Rozum, and Eric S. Trautmann/a: Javi Pina). Apparently this is the week to test comic theories. One such theory holds that if it takes more than two writers or more than one penciler, the book probably isn’t going to be any good. Last year, JMS re-launched the old Archie comics heroes for DCU under the “Red Circle” banner. Once the actual stories started coming out, really only the Web held its own. The Shield wasn’t bad, but suffered from an unimaginative plot. The Mighty Crusaders unfortunately proves the theory and reads like a really bad independent comic or someone’s Superhero role-playing adventure.
And while proving one theory, the Mighty Crusaders Special disproves another: that there is something good about every comic. There really is no compelling reason to read this comic. Actually, Pina’s artwork isn’t bad, there just isn’t any reason to keep looking at it other than for arts’ sake.
X-MEN ORIGINS: EMMA FROST #1 ☢ (w: Valerie d’Orazio/a: Karl Moline), there were a couple of the X-Men Origins one-shots that were pretty good, the Jean Grey one comes to mind. It could be that the character basically isn’t solidly put together to tell a strong origin story, especially one that covers so much of her life or it could be that this is just a bad Emma Frost story. Either way you can avoid this comic without too much hand-wringing.
The good thing: There is a good thing about this really bad comic! It is nice to see the old Hellion costumes. It had been awhile and they’re still 80’s funky, but nice to see anyway.
The Reading Order
SECRET AVENGERS #1 ★★★★★
THUNDERBOLTS #144 ★★★★☆
SECRET WARRIORS #16 ★★★☆☆
AMAZING SPIDERMAN ANNUAL #37 ★★★★☆
AMAZING SPIDERMAN # 632 ★★★★☆
WOLVERINE WEAPON X #13 ★★★★☆
THOR #610 ★★☆☆☆
BATMAN: RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #2 ★☆☆☆☆
BRAVE AND THE BOLD #34 ★★★★☆
THE WEB #9 ★★☆☆☆
MIGHTY CRUSADERS SPECIAL # 1 ☢
JUSTICE LEAGUE: RISE OF ARSENAL #3 ★★★★☆
DETECTIVE COMICS #865 ★★★☆☆
GARRISON #2 ★★★☆☆
X-FORCE #27 ★★★★★
X-MEN ORIGINS: EMMA FROST #1 ☢
Unread
INCORRUPTIBLE # 6
X-MEN SECOND COMING: BLIND SCIENCE #1
Bonus Coverage from Last week (5/19/10)
BOOSTER GOLD #32 ★★☆☆☆ (w: Keith Giffen & J.M. DeMatteis/ a: Chris Batista) The sense of humor missing from JL: Generation Lost is rampant throughout Booster Gold #32. Unfortunately, what works as “JLA-themed Spidey banter” when the team uses it comes off snarky and awkward when only one character and a bunch of strangers try it. Unfortunately through out BG #32, the dialogue acts more like a distraction than actually adding to the story. Truth be told, much of the story seemed to written around the amusing banter (which is not such a good idea). Booster is still bouncing through the timestream, running errands for Rip Hunter, and he winds up on Daxam the day that Darkseid has come to terraform the planet in his own image. Daxam, where all the inhabitants have Kryptonian like powers... luckily for Booster no Daxamites actually show up in the issue. A side note, the actual events of Darkseid’s coming to Daxam are part of one of the greatest run of issues in any comic, The Legion of Superheroes’ “Great Darkness Saga” (Legion of Superheroes, vol 2, 290-294), which Giffen co-wrote and co-illustrated. Giffen’s co-writer at the time was none other than Paul Levitiz, who returned from a twenty-year hiatus to re-launch the Legion into their own series this week.
RESCUE #1 ★★★☆☆ (w: Kelly Sue DeConnick/a: Andrea Mutti) almost falls into the same boat as this week’s Zatanna #1. There really isn’t anything wrong with Rescue #1, but the good parts are just “good” and not “great”. Not every book has to be part of a mega-event and Rescue #1 does deliver a very satisfying Pepper Potts story and makes fantastic (okay, there is a really “fantastic” part) use of an old friend. Rescue #1 is an empowerment story and comes from a very soft-and-mushy place. The upside of Rescue #1 is it is a companion one-shot to the Invincible Iron Man and isn’t trying to sell Rescue (or Pepper) as a leading-lady type character. In that regard, this story works and works really well. The downside, if you aren’t really into the Invincible Iron Man or Pepper Potts, this book will probably make go,”ehh”.
ZATANNA #1 ★★★☆☆ (w: Paul Dini/ a: Stephanie Roux) Dini & Roux put together a nice and enjoyable package for Zatanna, but you are still left wondering if this series wouldn’t do better as a Second Feature in a Justice League book. As first issues go, you expect a bit of character background, some exploration of the native environment of the series, an introduction to the supporting cast and a plot that will compel you to buy the next issue. While enjoyable, for the most part Zatanna #1 lacks most of those qualities. There isn’t anything wrong with Zatanna #1, however the protagonist (Zatanna), antagonist (Brother Night & company), supporting characters (some cop guy) and the plot lack any real enduring charisma. It is still a win for the title to break an average score with an unremarkable first offering, though you’ll probably hard pressed to really want to part with your hard-earned $2.99 for issue number two next month.
DC UNIVERSE: LEGACIES #1★★★★☆ (w: Len Wein/a:Scot Kolins & Andy Kubert) At first glance this ten-issue mini-series looks like a mistake, but that notion quickly falls away as the story starts to get going. It’s tough to tell a “Golden Age” story and appeal to a contemporary audience. While the artwork harkens back to days gone by, it doesn’t really reach out and grab you until you start to become engrossed by Wein’s storytelling. Remarkably the plot follows two kids that you’ve never heard of as they cross paths with heroes you probably know slightly better and still manages to keep you riveted. The Dr. Fate and Spectre (w: Len Wein/a: J.G. Jones) back-up story looks better, but tells a much weaker story than the entrée. Next issue promises two more stories: The Golden Age and the Seven Soldiers. While the DCU may be an absolute train-wreck of continuity, this series has potential. On a completely-geeky note, one of the baddies in the first story is: “Mike Moran”, which is also the alter ego of Miracle Man, who will very shortly be re-introduced to the world in the Marvel U as “Marvel Man”. I know, totally geeky.
ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS #1 (ONE-SHOT) ★★★☆☆ 36 one-page introductions – like the ones you might see as filler-space at the back of an issue (for all I know, these are re-prints). Remarkably, more than 30 of them written by Fred Van Lente, who has the potential to become a really strong workhorse in the Marvel stable. His work on Amazing has been great, but Iron Man: Legacy... not so much. Overall the one-pagers are so-so, but overall this is a pretty good way to shell-out a lot of information quickly.
