New comics

New comics!

Wonder Woman 32

Tom King returns to the parallel intertwined storytelling device that he employs so often.  Usually it works, but this time around it felt forced and unnecessary.  Sometimes I just want a straightforward story, is that so wrong?

Batwoman 2

Nope.  So done with this.  An unmitigated, uncharacteristic fail by Greg Rucka.

Battle Beast 8

Battle Beast returns to the fray, and it doesn’t disappoint.  The fight sequence with the regenerating sword is pretty sweet.  Like I said last time, this series needs Battle Beast fights to stay interesting.

Flash 32

Not bad, but I’m looking for a little more from Ryan North.  Hopefully he picks it up after he gets his feet wet with this first arc.

Detective Comics 1108

Is a Tom Taylor title worth buying if it’s perfectly fine?  I cut the cord with his Superman run, I wonder if I have the strength to do it with this.  It’s on my watch list.

Harley & Ivy 5

Erica Henderson is Pulling.  It.  Off. 

Absolute Batman 19

Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta introduce a bunch of new, exciting things: Absolute Scarecrow, Absolute Robins, and Jim Gordon dies!  After a less-than-stellar run w/ Absolute Poison Ivy, happy days look to be back again.  (As happy as things can be in Absolute Gotham.)

Powers 25 8

We get Kutter’s origin, and it’s not nearly as interesting as her partner’s.  Still not turning down Bendis/Oeming, though.  

Absolute Wonder Woman 19

Diana and Zatanna free Zatara and fight Giganta.  And before she can catch her breath, Diana jumps back into the fray against something called the Iron Maiden.  Speaking of breath, this Diana takes mine away.  

Spider-Man/Superman 1

Just about every single one of these stories would have been better if they showed the greatness of these icons instead of speechifying about what makes them so.  It gets really old really fast.  It’s a waste of some truly phenomenal creative teams.

Fine Print TPB 3

Stjepan Sejic is one of the best comic creators out there right now, yadda yadda yadda.  I will buy anything this dude puts out.  He doesn’t disappoint with this.  Can’t wait for whatever comes next.  (I think it’s more Sunstone.)

New comics

The neverending battle to stay less than a month behind my new comics continues.

Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees 6

As I hopefully predicted, creator Patrick Horvath does a great job closing this miniseries out.  Sam executes her endgame flawlessly, and the joy of watching her competence far outweighs the lack of narrative tension.  I’ll have to keep an eye out for Horvath’s future work.

Transformers 8

My review is exactly the same as last month's.  It’s hanging on to my list by a thread, despite its well-done execution.

Birds of Prey 9

As much as I want to like this, it’s on even thinner ice than Transformers.  I love the characters and Kelly Thompson does a decent job w/ their personalities, but these stories are complete snooze fests.

Fantastic Four 20

Johnny and Ben get into an inane, meaningless competition over who’s the better grocery cashier, ending with a predictable “but beneath it all they love each other like family” denouement.  Not Ryan North’s best.  

Fine Print TPB 2

I had to re-read the first trade since I’d forgotten everything that happened previously.  No chore at all, Stjepan Sejic really deserves to be a bigger name in the industry.  He really is one of my favorite creators.  There’s more plot, more sex, and more characterization in this second volume.  Win win win.

Asgardians TPB 1

George O’Connor follows up his excellent Olympians series w/ the next best mythology out there.  And while it’s of the same quality as his original offering, the fact that it’s the next best mythology out there naturally limits its ceiling.  I’ll still be getting all of these.  

Zorro: Man of the Dead 4

This miniseries ends way earlier than I expected it to, but that’s not a bad thing; Sean Murphy got in, did his thing, did it well, and got out cleanly.  It’s better than Plot Holes, worse than Batman: White Knight, and looks great the whole time.  

Get Fury 1

Garth Ennis finally gets back to his “Frank Castle in Vietnam” epic, crossing over w/ the Nick Fury of My War Gone By.  It’s exactly what I want out of it.  I’ve missed Ennis.

Animal Pound 3

Tom King writes what amounts to a historical recitation of facts in the most engaging way possible.  I loved reading this, as the animals’ government succeeds as conceived.  But there’s always an underlying tension as you get the feeling that it could all fall apart at any moment; the peace between the different species is precariously balanced on a knife’s edge, and my expectation was that it would all go to shit once Titan or Fifi inevitably died.  Instead, the twist comes a lot earlier in an ominous, harrowing turn.  Can’t wait to see what happens next.

Fine Print, Pedro and Me, Road Trip

Fine Print 1

My Stjepan Sejic reviews are all starting to sound the same.  Reading it the second time around, Fine Print is definitely not as good as Sunstone; There are a few too many supporting characters, and they’re mostly cupids and succubi engaging in machinations that I don’t find that interesting.  

Then there’s the main character, Lauren.  An ugly duckling who became a supermodel who made one fateful bad decision that led to her currently crushed spirit, her behavior, while understandable, is not conducive towards making her a sympathetic character.  Which isn’t always a deal breaker in a top notch story, but Sejic doesn’t quite get there in making her someone whose success I’m invested in.  I’m not even dying to know what happens next, which would be a deal breaker if Sejic wasn’t an artist of the highest caliber.  At this point, I’ll pretty much buy anything that he draws and writes.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Good

Pedro and Me

I think this is what put Judd Winick on the map for me.  I was living in Asia when his season of Real World came out, so I was only vaguely familiar with Pedro’s story when I read this for the first time.  It’s such a personal work, and so well done that it’s impossible to give it anything but my highest rating.  Winick has, of course, gone on to do even better things, but nothing will ever be as heartfelt.

That face cracks me up every time.

Don't know why this amuses me so much.

So.  Sweet.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pure joy

Road Trip

As Winick explains in the afterword, this is a reprint of his first published comic work.  The craft is rough around the edges, but it’s got the heart, sense of humor, and strong writing that will go on to mark all of his future work.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Good

New comics

Some new trades that have been sitting on my shelf unread for quite a few months.  Now’s a great time to read them as I drag my heels before what I imagine will be a torturous slog through From Hell.  (Still very likely I’m going to cut it before I get all the way through it…)

Fine Print vol 1

Every time I read a Stjepan Sejic work, I’m first and foremost blown away by the skill of his characterizations.  To my mind, he’s unparalleled in his ability to create likable yet completely flawed people, protagonists that are intricately deep and capable of sustaining a series for years and years.  (I have no doubt about his ability to carry Sunstone through the twenty volumes he has planned.)  Throw in the gorgeous art and amazing sex and he’s put together some of the best comics I’ve ever read.  

On the one hand, I’m happy that he’s got, what, four(?) series going on at the same time.  It’s clear he has tons of ideas that are just bursting out of him, and it’s great that he’s staying creatively fresh jumping from book to book.  But on the other, it means that it’ll take forever before any of them come to a conclusion and I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT for all of them!

Plot Holes

Sean Murphy ran the Kickstarter for this miniseries a little while ago, and I backed it while riding on the high of Batman: Curse of the White Knight.  (So good!)  Unfortunately, this is a mish mash of a series that’s as disjointed as the books that the heroes flit between. 

Short summary: A bunch of characters from unpublished books band together to save other books from the hell of not-being-published.  Or something like that.  The internal logistics of the premise never really make sense, which is a problem because the entire series hinges on them.  The result is a story that’s as flawed as the books that the protagonists are trying to edit.  It just never fully makes sense, and I spent the whole time muttering, “Whaaatt??” as I read it.  

Luckily, the art remains stellar.  I never think of Murphy when going through my mental list of favorite artists, but I really need to add him to it.  The guy is amazing.