Ten reviews. Three (horribly run-on) sentences each. GO!
Cobra Civil War #0
Carnage #4 (of 5)
Batman and Robin #22
Uncanny X-Men #535
Captain America: The Fighting Avenger one-shot
Journey Into Mystery #622
Batgirl #20
Iron Man 2.0 #3
Hellboy: Buster Oakley Gets His Wish
Amazing Spider-Man #658
Cobra Civil War #0 from IDW
Written by Chuck Dixon (GI Joe, Snake Eyes) and Mike Costa (Cobra), art by Javier Saltares (GI Joe), Antonia Fuso (Cobra) and Agustin Padilla (Snake Eyes), colors by Romula Fajardo Jr. (GI Joe), Arianna Florean (Cobra) and J. Brown (Snake Eyes), letters by Shawn Lee.
"Have to admit--it's a letdown."
A triptych of stories setting up the three titles taking part in the Cobra Civil War event (GI Joe, Cobra and Snake Eyes), following the assassination of Cobra Commander and the various individuals vying for leadership of the organization, although nothing in here particularly made me want to keep reading one book, let alone three. The Joe story was probably the strongest, showing the Joes at work as well as the ruthless effeciency of Cobra's Krake (not a character I'm familiar with), but the Cobra story (while beautifully drawn by Fuso) was almost entirely people on video screens talking to each other and was incredibly copy-and-paste-heavy. The Snake Eyes story was a fine set-up for a more personal story for the silent ninja in the middle of the other two's goings-on, but for its part in this book, most of the events in it had already happened by the time the narrative had kicked in and we simply saw characters picking up the pieces.
Carnage #4 (of 5) from Marvel
Written by Zeb Wells, art by Clayton Crain, letters by Clayton Cowles.
"Heh heh did it just get badass in here?!"
I continue to enjoy this series, but I think more for the ideas presented in it than the story itself; the story is fine, and it showed what happened after Sentry tore Kasady in half, but the main draw has been a lot of fun, over-the-top uses of the Carnage symbiote and Hall's rip-off power armors. The art isn't as dark as it's been for most of the series and, as Crain does some absolutely beautiful work its nice to actually be able to see it, at last. The weakest part may be the dialog, which in this issue is heavily dominated by Kasady saying things meant to come off as "crazy" that mostly manage silly at best.
Batman and Robin #22 from DC
Written by Peter J. Tomasi, pencils by Patrick Gleason, inks by Mick Gray, Keith Champagne and Tom Nguyen, colors by Alex Sinclair, letters by Patrick Brosseau.
"You're meaner than I thought. I like it."
The White Knight's MO really isn't anything new in Batman books, obviously the overzealous vigilante taking things too far as well as killing off the Arkham inmates' family members, but the unqiue elements of Batman and Robin manage to keep it a fun read overall. There's a good mixture of action, detective work, gadgets and Damien scenes, telling a decent crime story while maintaining an overall more light-hearted tone to the story the made the initial Morrison run on the series so enjoyable. The art is a real stand-out on this issue too, subtle touches like the... well, try to keep it spoiler-free, the things stuck in White Knight's head forming devil-horns after he's become a "fallen angel", or the more obvious ones like the Joker's wonderfully detached expression as he's holding himself in his submerged chair.
Uncanny X-Men #535 from Marvel
Written by Kieron Gillen, pencils by Terry Dodson, inks by Rachel Dodson, colors by Justin Ponsor, letters by Joe Caramagna.
"So... super heroes to the rescue?"
One of two books Gillen taken over as the solo writer this month (along with Journey Into Mystery this week and starting by himself on Uncanny with last week's excellent 534.1 which I had completely overlooked on Wednesday), we see him bring the X-Men back into contact with SWORD and Breakworld and the plotlines left unfinished there, which, with all that's been going on in the X-titles lately, has gone on largely ignored for the better part of a year. Like most of Gillen's works, it's full of quick wit and wonderful character work while still telling a great story, this issue setting up elements of his coming run; primarily focusing on Kitty's permanent-intangibility and how it's affecting her and Colossus, Magneto's obsessions, specifically here with the Breakworld metal he possesses but a general look at the character's mental state as well, and Breakworld's former despot Kruun's sojourn to Earth. Unlike the point-one issue, that told a fairly complete one-off story, this issue has more of a focus on set-up, giving us an idea of what's on the horizon.
Captain America: The Fighting Avenger from Marvel
Written by Brian Clevinger, art by Gurihiru, letters by Tom Orzechowski.
"Shields are not for throwing!"
On the one, cynical, hand, this is a book that is part of the inundating wave of Cap books Marvel's churning out, as a one-shot telling an arguably inconsequential story and existing solely to promote the upcoming Captain America movie (even if most of the actual promotional space in it is devoted to the Thor film and tie-ins). On the other hand, however this is a book that is a) written by Atomic Robo scribe Brian Clevinger, and carries his traditional wry humor and solid storytelling, b) drawn by Japanese art team Gurihiru, who always do an amazing job, such as their beautiful work on Thor and the Warriors Four, telling the story of Cap's first field experience and revisiting the origin of the Red Skull in a fun, all-ages format, of which there are so few after the culling of so, so many similar titles this past year. It may only be one of many tentacles on this grasping, writhing, all-encompassing beast that is Marketing, but it's easily one of the prettiest tentacles; perhaps adorned by a shiny bow, or whimsical hat.
Journey Into Mystery #622 from Marvel
Written by Kieron Gillen, pencils by Dougie Braithwaite, colors by Ulises Arreola, letters by Clayton Cowles.
"I'd have to try terribly hard to be that terrible."
Like Cap, we're seeing Thor ramping the number of his books up, so its suprising but also refreshing to see, after his book is rebranded from Thor to Journey Into Mystery as Gillen takes over (again), the focus is not on the Thunder God so much as Loki, especially now that he is reborn as a child, a fresh character who's more or less a tabula rasa to work in whatever direction Gillen so pleases. The result, of this first issue at least, is if nothing else an interesting character piece, epically scaled up by the Norse mythology woven through but also grounded by the humanity of the character, suffering for his past-self's crimes. Braithwaite's art is excellent, for the most part; the human(-looking) characters are done fairly realistically, it maintains a more pleasing style than a lot of the more photo-realistic artists tend to pull off, although the more fantastical creatures are not as strong, such as the dragon or Volstagg's atypically-round body shape.
Batgirl #20 from DC
Written by Bryan Q. Miller, art by Ramon Bachs, colors by Guy Major, letters by Dave Sharpe.
"Here we go." (This one was rather sparse for random, out-of-context quotes)
This book continues to be a Bat-family comic with classic Spider-Man sensibilities, not to imply its ripping off anyone but saying it as a huge fan of Spider-Man books and it's great to see someone bringing that kind of fun to a market of superhero books heavily devoid of such frivolity, especially one so traditionally mired in darkness as Batman tends to be, something Stephanie Brown continues to be particularly resilient to, no matter how hard other writers seem to have wanted to bring her down. I'm still a little lost with the story, not sure how many of these characters and groups I should already be familiar with and who's new, but so far it's been easy enough to follow what's in front of my eyes and that's enough for the moment. I'm enjoying Bach's art, especially on some of Stephanie's expressions, and it's all topped off by a beautiful Dustin Nguyen cover (seriously, click on that and blow it up, that is some impressive kineticism right there)
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Iron Man 2.0 #3 from Marvel
Written by Nick Spencer, art by Barry Kitson, Kano and Carmine Di Giandomenico, colors by Matthew Wilson, Kano and Frank Martin, letters by Joe Caramagna.
"Does this gun serve any kind of purpose or is it purely phallic?"
And so with this issue, we get a pretty clear idea of why this book is called Iron Man 2.0 and not War Machine; hell, they straight-up say it in the dialog. This is related to probably my biggest, albeit possibly only real problem with the book, in that it's diluting Rhodey's identity somewhat, in this current iteration, as well as some previously, certainly, he's not too terribly distinctive from Stark and the rebranding and retooling only drives the point home further. That said, though, regardless of who's at the helm, Iron Man or War Machine, it's still telling an good story, although this specific issue didn't do too much to move forward, the story mired heavily in recovering from the last issue's powerful ending, with more of a focus on lining up the pieces and unveiling the new toys instead.
Hellboy: Buster Oakley Gets His Wish from Dark Horse
Written by Mike Mignola, art by Kevin Nowlan, letters by Kevin Nowlan.
"Now there's something."
As much as I love the Hellboy story-arcs, the one-off issues tend to be some of the best stories (In The Chapel Of Moloch, for example), or at least the most fun, (particularly the sillier ones like last year's Hellboy In Mexico), and this one falls squarely into that latter category. Back in the '80s in rural Kansas, Hellboy's investigation into some genuine supernatural happenings are interrupted when he gets abducted by aliens (the existence of which hasn't been wonderfully, willfully ignored for the most part even though one species has shown up a few times before, including a cameo in this issue) and handles the situation the best way he knows how: beating the shit out of them; blunt and straightforward yet delightful. Kevin Nowlan kills it with the art on this issue, easily some of the best-looking work on a Hellboy book; the page with the ghost cows and the tractor beam may be one of my favorite single moments of the series.
Amazing Spider-Man #658 from Marvel
Written by Dan Slott, art by Javier Pulido, colors by Muntsa Vicente and Javier Rodriguez, letters by Joe Caramagna. Marvel Team-Up back-up written by Rob Williams, pencils by Lee Garbett, inks by Alejandro Sicat, colors by Fabio D'Auria, letters by Joe Caramagna.
"This keeps up, I'll have to change the meaning of 'Parker Luck.'"
Even I'm starting to get a little sick of writing about how awesome Dan Slott is, but damn if he doesn't keep putting out some great issues for this series, this one juxtaposing some troubles on the horizon, with Peter's relationship with Carlie Cooper and literally with his job at Horizon Labs, and some of the other-worldly missions he's going on as a member of the FF, including sub-atomic surgery, meeting the Future-Future Foundation and giving a mime its comeuppance. Somehow, both the trippy adventures and the more domestic issues are both equally well-complimented by Pulido's style. In addition to the main story, we get the first part of a so-far fun Spidey/Ghost Rider back-up, written by Rob Williams, the writer for the upcoming Ghost Rider ongoing (and not the singer and former member of Take That, as I had originally hoped/feared).
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