Serenity

Serenity 1-3

Serenity: Better Days 1-3

Much like the Buffy comic, I bought these while I (and the world) was living in that period of Whedon-mania, where everything he touched was can’t-miss, whether it was good or not.  In retrospect, most of his comics (with the notable exception of Astonishing X-Men) fall in the not-so-good camp.  So much of what makes his characters sing come from the superlative performances of the almost uniformly spectacular actors in his shows.  No matter how good the writing or art, there’s always going to be something missing on the page without Sarah Michelle Gellar or Nate Fillion to give it that ineffable punch.  As with Kingman, I will never choose to read these over watching the show.

The covers are gorgeous, though.

Jo Chen

Joe Quesada

Josh Middleton

Regret buying: No (Yes for Better Days.  I should have known better by then.)

Would buy again: No

Would read again: No

Rating: Didn’t suck (Cutting)

Serenity: Float Out

Patton Oswalt is legitimately one of my favorite wordsmiths. No one can better string together words into the perfect sentence.

It’s not that he fails entirely here.  The sentences are all there, but they don’t form an interesting story.  The three flashback stories don’t say anything new about Wash. Zoe’s pregnancy’s the only item of note, and Dark Horse didn’t need to get Oswalt to write that last page.  

Regret buying: Yes

Would buy again: No

Would read again: No

Rating: Boring (Cutting)

Scion, The Secret, Secret Service: Kingsman

Scion 1-7

Hey, two Ron Marz titles in a row.  This time, he’s writing a medieval fantasy adventure (with the occasional random smattering of future technology, which makes no sense) for Crossgen comics.  (I would love to read an oral history of that place, it sounds like it was bonkers.) The story’s decent, it feels a lot like the Bant shard from Magic: The Gathering (yes, it came first, I know) with its initial focus on tournament combat supplanting all-out war.

Sigiled Paladin by Greg Staples

Rafiq of the Many by Michael Komarck

This would have been an easy cut, but for the art by Jim Cheung.  Yet even that wouldn’t have been enough - Cheung’s done better work since, and on much more interesting properties.  It’s the bright, exciting colors by Caesar Rodriguez that saves this trade from the cut pile. There’s something greatly appealing about it that keeps me from giving this away.  Thanks, Caesar!

Oh, wait.  Rodriguez is just using the blue and orange trick...

...that just about every movie poster in world employs.

Eh, I don't care.  Everyone does it for a reason.  It looks sweet.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: No

Rating: Fine

The Secret 1-4

The rare horror comic in my collection.  I really like the set up - Stupid high school kids crank call random people and say, “I know your secret!”  Naturally, they call the wrong person. Disappearances, creepy houses, and deaths ensue. As with a lot of things I’ve been reading lately, it’s fine.  It’s different enough from what I normally read to keep around, as the execution by Mike Richardson and Jason Shawn Alexander is competent enough. It’s lightweight enough that I can see myself reading it again someday.   

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine

Secret Service: Kingsman 1-6

One of the rare instances where the movie is far, far better than the source material.  Kingsman is a kinetic, funny, exciting movie that holds a place in my movie collection.  Secret Service is one of Millar’s weaker efforts, and reads like a reheated plate of Wanted, which wasn't that good to begin with.  Easy cut, I’d rather rewatch the movie five times before reading this again.

Regret buying: Yes

Would buy again: No

Would read again: No

Rating: Didn’t suck

Ruse, Samurai: Heaven and Earth, Ironheart, Batman: Universe, Wonder Woman, Second Coming

New comics!

Second Coming 2

Sunstar is an idiot, God is a putz, and Jesus is a decent fellow.  It’s fascinating to see how Mark Russell characterizes each of them and has them interact with each other.  But it’s starting to get predictable now that the personalities have been set. If Russell doesn’t have any else to say, I don’t see myself going much further with this.

Wonder Woman 76

Purchased entirely for Lee Garbett’s art, which is significant in that I haven’t bought something solely for the penciller in quite some time, I think.  But with the completion of Skyward, I really want to keep following him.  Also, he’s perfectly suited for Princess Diana.  G. Willow Wilson’s story isn’t the most engrossing, but it doesn’t suck, and even has a few standout moments.  (Helped immensely by the art.) If Garbett stays, I’m in for at least a few more months.

Heh.  "You may commence."

Awww.

Ironheart 9

Riri engages in a clash of wills with Shuri when her adventures take her through Wakanda.  A standard (but fun) team-up quickly brings them together, and I’m looking to their adventure next issue.

Batman Universe 2

Bendis must have loved writing this, as he unleashes quip after quip at his readers.  That’s what it’s all about in this issue, and he has a ridiculously high hit rate.

Never change, Alfred.

Ruse 1-6

Mark Waid and Butch Guice’s take on Sherlock Holmes by way of the CrossGen universe.  It’s perfectly decent, but I’ll never want to read it again.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: No

Rating: Fine (Cutting)

Samurai: Heaven and Earth 1-3

Ron Marz wanted to pit a samurai against soldiers around the world, and this is the result.  Marz was on to something, because even though the story’s just okay (with very nice art by Luke Ross), the clash of cultures is indeed something that I greatly enjoyed seeing.  That’s really the sole reason I’m keeping this in my collection.

I love it when comics show me things I've never seen before.

This totally qualifies.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine

Red Star

Red Star 1-9, 7.5

Red Star Annual 1

Red Star Vol 2 1-5

The Red Star blew my mind when it first came out.  The line art, the 3d models, the coloring - they combined to create a look that I had never seen before.  Even today, it’s still a gorgeous book. Christian Gossett, Paul Schrier, and Snakebite deserve all the credit in the world for what they’ve made here.  

Love the Red Woman design.  She looks amazing on just about every page.

Love the oversize boots on Makita

Nice dynamic posing by Gossett.

The story is pretty cool, too.  Gossett mixes magic with an analog for the Soviet Empire, resulting in a world that’s immersive and enthralling.  He throws out delicious, evocative phrases like “comrade-sorceress,” “skyfurnace,” and “the Battle of Kar Dathra’s Gate.”  Each one is carefully crafted to make me want to know more. His description of Transformation, where a kaster is converted into an energy blast, then reconstituted back into human form is simultaneously awesome and horrifying.

By the end, though, the overwrought narration really wears thin.  I skimmed over huge blocks of text that contributed neither plot nor imagery to the comic.  

So.  Much.  Talking.

A beautiful comic, great story, overwritten to death.  There are worse ways to do it. 

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes for volume 1, no for volume 2

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good, veering towards nice by volume 2

RASL, The Assignment

RASL 1-12

The incomparable Jeff Smith’s followup to the epic Bone.  In a far departure from his magnum opus, he’s gone for a 15-issue science fiction story about a parallel dimension-jumping thief.  If I had known it was going to end in three issues, I would have stuck it out for a couple more months. Instead, I lost interest - RASL didn’t read well as a monthly series.  It fared better this time around as a binge read, and I might look up what I’m missing out on from the library.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice

The Assignment

Huh, this should be sorted in the A’s, not the R’s.  I thought this was called (Re)Assignment, which the movie version was for a while.  (Starring Michelle Rodriguez and Sigourney Weaver. I haven’t seen it, don’t plan to, either.)

So, intriguing premise: A doctor surgically alters a hitman’s body from male to female as revenge for an assassination.  I’d have bought more into the story if the post-procedure hitman’s drawn body language reflected that of a guy’s - it’s not like the hitman is trying to transition, his body was changed against his will.  Would he still move like he did with a male body? Instead, it feels more like a 70s exploitation film. And I don’t even know how to interpret the sex scene.  

Still, The Assignment provokes more thought than most comics, even the execution is horribly flawed.  Keeping it around.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice   

PS238, Quantum and Woody

PS238 0-5, 7-9

A little indie title about elementary school kids with superpowers by Aaron Williams.  I didn’t expect to keep this in my collection when I started reading - I remember it being decent, but haven’t gone back to it since my first readthrough.  It holds up better than I thought it would! Williams does a fine job of showing things from the teachers’ POVs, where they treat their charges and their abilities with a been-there-done-that attitude that’s amusing and satisfying at the same time.  

Great mentorship.

The kids are also a treat to follow.  Williams mixes a nice range of powers and personalities together.  Some are original, some are clear homages. Most are executed with good humor.  

Barry Ween was so hot back then.  I miss that comic.

Sandman was even hotter.

Might be the best power ever.

I'm amused by kiddie Dooms trying to one-up each other.

I’m good with the number of issues that I have, but I’m pleased to see that Williams is still producing PS238 online.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine

Quantum and Woody 0-5, 7-10, 18, 32

I never liked this as much as the critics did.  Rereading it did nothing to change my mind - It’s brilliant in some places, but Christopher Priest could never quite maintain the level of entertainment that would push it up to that next level.  Let it be said, though, that Priest is a master of nonlinear storytelling in comics (just take a look at that first issue!), and the following three page sequence is a wonderous piece of work by MD Bright.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice (Pretty good for the earlier issues)

Tetris, Future Foundation, Superman: Up in the Sky, Lois Lane

3 new comics this week!

Future Foundation 1

Jeremy Whitley’s follow up to the lamented Unstoppable Wasp.  He’s gathered a bunch of characters in whom I have little to no interest and sent them on an adventure that just as blah.  Quick run down:

Alex Power - Never read Power Pack, don’t care

Julie Power - She was fine in Runaways, but I don’t get anything from her here.

Dragon Man and the Moloids - Don’t care.

Bentley-23 - The Quintin Quire of the group.  So hard to make an annoying character like this likable.  (Jason Aaron managed it with Quire. Whitley doesn’t manage it with Bentley.)

Artie and Leech - Hated them in X-Factor.  Don’t want them here.

And why would you bring back The Maker?  Something about him pisses me off to no end, and not in an entertaining comic book villain kind of way.  

Final dagger comes directly from Whitley’s afterward: “If you’re familiar with some of the other work I’ve done at Marvel, this book may be a little bit of a surprise to you.  I tend to be a writer who likes to focus in on characters, and my books then to stay relatively light on the action. But this isn’t that book.”

Oof.  Soooo...he took everything that was that was awesome about Wasp and decided to go in the opposite direction.  

Sorry, Whitley.  I wanted to like this so much.  Most likely not coming back next month.

Superman: Up in the Sky 2

Superman boxes for half of the issue.  Gets his ass kicked, but his determination somehow convinces his opponent to quit.  Suuure. At least Andy Kubert sells the brutality of the fight.  

The second half has more emotional weight - A healer sacrifices his own life in order to bring Superman out of a coma.  It’s actually quite beautiful and well executed. Nice job by Tom King on this one.  

Lois Lane 2

So it looks like this series is going to be about Lois digging into a mystery, misspelling her stories, working w/ Renee Montoya (yay!) and getting slutshamed by the public for kissing Superman (boo).  Solid enough for now, but I really hope Greg Rucka drops the last bit. It’s no fun to read.

Tetris: The Games People Play

Borrowed from the library.  A neat little history of an amazing game.  I was mainly fascinated by the massively complicated battles for the various publishing rights for the game.  I had no idea that there were so many parties vying for contention. A worthy effort by creator Box Brown.

Would buy? No

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Fine