The Best _____ This Week for 8/17/11: Whole lotta fighting going on

Ughuguh. Never found the time to write anything this weekend, so you get super-quick picks for the week, just so I can say I put something up. Which is a tragedy because of how good some of the books were this week (Two great Man-Thing books! TWO!). In lieu of lengthy, loving write-ups, just trust me on these and go buy 'em, okay?



Best Cover This Week:

VENOM

Venom #6, cover art by Tony Moore and John Rauch

It's Spider-Man consuming Venom. Get it? #metaphor #hashtagsoutsideofTwitter #sorry

Best Art This Week:

HULK

Hulk #39, written by Jeff Parker, art by Gabriel Hardman, colors by Bettie Breitweiser, letters by Ed Dukeshire

A good week for art, even Greg Land managed to make it on the short list, and Spider-Girl and Captain America were impressive enough that they came very close to making this a four-way tie. But in the spirit of actually making a decision, I eventually narrowed it down to Gabriel Hardman on Hulk and Paolo Rivera on Daredevil, two artists who do amazing work on their respective books, creating atmospheric art perfect reflecting the tones of the books they're doing. But if I had to pick one over the other, I think Ijust have to go with Hulk this week, because on top of everything else in the issue I am just in awe at the way Hardman draws the Omegex. It's just this epic, genuinely menacing-looking creation, evoking classic Kirby designs (certainly the Destroyer, at least) in all the right ways.

Hulk #39, written by Jeff Parker, art by Gabriel Hardman, colors by Bettie Breitweiser, letters by Ed Dukeshire

Best Digital Comic This Week:

ADVENTURES INTO MINDLESS SELF INDULGENCE

Adventures Into Mindless Self Indulgence one-shot, written by Jimmy Urine, Kitty, Lyn-Z, Steve Righ? and Jess Fink, art by Jess Fink

Picked up a few things this week, including Daomu #6 and the first issue of Scott Snyder's Severed, but the thing I was most excited about was this evasive little one-shot. I've always enjoyed MSI as a band, and was psyched to see they not only had a comic coming out, but it was also drawn (and co-written) by awesome artist Jess Fink. Of course, my shop never got it in and I never found it anywhere else, to the point that I had completely forgotten about this. So I was extra-excited to see it  pop up on ComiXology this week. Definitely worth grabbing for a couple of bucks, this book is full of fun, probably-mostly-true tales of the band on tour, pin-ups and activities for the childrens*.

*Do not give this book to the childrens.


Best First Issue This Week:

SPIDER-GIRL

Spider-Island: Spider-Girl #1, written by Paul Tobin, art by Pepe Larraz, colors by Andres Mossa, letters by Dave Sharpe

It's still early, but there really hasn't been a Spider-Island book I haven't liked yet. The backbone over in Amazing Spider-Man has been a solid start to the event, Cloak & Dagger last week was excellent and the Deadly Foes one-shot... wasn't terrible, and this week both Venom and Spider-Girl were excellent. As a first issue, Spider-Girl was well-executed, dumping Anya right into the action amidst the Society of the Wasp, the Hand and the Kingpin. This carries forward a lot of the fun energy the cancelled ongoing had ended on, but feels more focused, and even delves a bit into Anya's past as Araña, without making it hard to follow. Larraz does a great job on the art, especially the fighting sequences, which the book is chock full of. Like Cloak & Dagger, the biggest drawback of this book is that it's a mini-series, when they're both exactly what I want more of on the shelf every week.


Best Last Issue This Week:

POWER GIRL

Power Girl #27, written by Matthew Sturges, art by Hendry Prasetya, colors by Jessica Kholinne, letters by Travis Lanham

I'm not sure I can really call this a great last issue, but it was a pretty great issue that also happens to be the last issue, and as far as we've seen the last appearance of Power Girl for the foreseeable future. Given sixty seconds and three scenarios of super-villains threatening people in different parts of the globe (friends and strangers both), Power Girl is told she can only save one by a mysterious mastermind pulling the strings. Even though, unlike a lot of its DC brethren, Power Girl doesn't have much of a sense of finality or conclusion, this story is a great one-and-done superhero story serving as a reminder of how fun this book could be, and making the idea of it going away hurt just that much more.


Best Event Tie-In This Week:

UNCANNY X-MEN

Uncanny X-Men #542, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Greg Land, inks by Jay Leisten, colors by Justin Ponsor, letters by Joe Caramagna

Can't lie, as much as I loved Gillen kicking off his run on Uncanny, the first two Fear Itself tie-ins were bland and meandering and drawn by Greg Land. This issue, however, was Gillen weaving two, two-and-a-half plot lines perfectly and even Land's art was some of the best I've ever seen. Granted, he still managed to give Danger of all characters a gratuitous ass-shot and put her in that "sexy", hip-thrusting pose all of his women tend to stand in...

Uncanny X-Men #542, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Greg Land, inks by Jay Leisten, colors by Justin Ponsor, letters by Joe Caramagna

...but MOST of the issue is pretty excellent. There are even panels where Illyana and Emma are distinctly different blonde chicks. Meanwhile, Gillen has worked an awesome A-story, a series of montages of Cyclops' plans to stop the worthified Cain Marko using different mutants in different combinations is in turns clever and hilarious ways to use some of these characters. The B-story is Cyclops sending Colossus, Kitty and Illyana to Cyttorak's realm to find a less-direct way to stop the Juggernaut, leading to an excellent last-page reveal. All in all, this is an excellent, fun issue unexpectedly springing up in the middle of an otherwise-uneven arc.


Best Comic This Week:

THUNDERBOLTS

Thunderbolts #162, written by Jeff Parker, art by Valentine De Landro and Paul Southworth, colors by Frank Martin and Fabio D'Aurio, letters by Albert Deschesne

Thunderbolts has been one of the few ongoing books that tied into Fear Itself and didn't feel like it hit a speed-bump with the story. Take away my obvious bias (more Man-Thing = more better comic) and you still have an excellent, excellent issue here, showing the split between the still-villainous and more-reformed Thunderbolts finally coming to a head (and then there's Shocker, who I'm guessing booked it from Chicago to New York just in time for Spider-Island), resulting in a schism far more interesting to me than the one happening over in San Francisco. And on that personal level, though, this issue had the best Man-Thing moments since... well, Frankencastle actually had an amazing one but aside from that it'd been a while. And we got to see Gunna in action, which is something I've been waiting for since Parker took over the series, I think.

(Slighty-Spoilery) Man-Thing of the Week:

(GIANT-SIZE) MAN-THING

Thunderbolts #162, written by Jeff Parker, art by Valentine De Landro and Paul Southworth, colors by Frank Martin and Fabio D'Aurio, letters by Albert Deschesne

Thank you, Jeff Parker. Thank you.