New comics for August 03, 2007

I’m a week and a half behind, so this week I ended up picking up quite the pile. I was glad to see so many great issues in my pile this go around. I was particularly excited about walking dead, which is already reviewed, batman, dark tower and JLA. I’ll be putting up several reviews per day and working my way through my pile over the next several days.

Action Comics #853 - Kurt Busiek(w), Brand Walker, Livesay, Lee Loughridge(a)
Batman #666 - Grant Morrison(w), Andy Kubert, Jesse Delperdang(a)
Black Panther #29 - Reginald Hudlin(w), Francias Portela and Val Staples(a) Arthur Suydam(c)
Black Summer #1 of 7 - Warren Ellis(w), Juan Jose Ryp(a)
Chronicles of Wormwood #6 of 6 - Garth Ennis(w), Jacen Burrows(a)
Countdown #39 & 40 - Paul Dini, McKeever(w), Jim Calafiore and Jay Leigten(a)
Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born #7 of 7 - Peter David and Robin Furth(w), Jae Lee and Richard Isanove(a)
Deathblow #6 - Brian Azzarello(w), Carlos D’Anda, Henry Flint(a)
Fallen Angel #18 - Peter David(w) and J.K. Woodward(a)
Futurama # 32 - Ian Boothby(w), Mike Kazaleh and Andrew Pepoy(a)
Grimm Fairy Tales #16 - Ralph Tedesco and Joe Tyler(w), Andrew Magnum and Roland Salvidor(a)
Justice Society of America #8 - Geoff Johns(w), Fernando Pasarin and Rodney Ramos(a)
Metal Men #1 of 8 - Duncan Roleau(a & w)
Midnighter #10 - Keith Giffen(w), Chris Sprouse, Karl Story, Randy Mayor(a)
Raise the Dead #4 of 4 - Leah Moore and John Reppion(w), Hugo Petrus, Marc Rueda and Ivan Nunes(a)
Speak of the Devil #1 of 6 - Gilbert Hernandez(Spider-Man Fairy Tales #3 of 4 - C.B. Cebulski(w), Kei Kobayashi, Christina Strain(a)
Star Trek: Klingons Blood Will Tell #4 - Scott and David Tipton(w), David Messina and Elaina Casagrande(a)
Star Trek: Year Four #1 - David Tischman(w), Steve Conley, Leonard O’Grady(a)
Uncanny X-Men #489 - Ed Brubaker(w), Mike Perkins and Andrew Hennessey(a)
Unholy Union #1 - Ron Marz(w), Michael Broussard(a)
Walking Dead #39 - Robert Kirkman(w), Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn(a)
Welcome to Tranquility #9 - Gail Simone(w), Neil Googe(a)
Wetworks #11 - J.M. Dematteis(w), Joel Gomez and Trevor Scott(a)
World War Hulk #3 - Greg Pak(w), John Romita Jr, Janson, Strain(a)
World War Hulk: Ironman #20 - Christos Gage(w), Butch Guice, Dean White and Gerald Parel(a)
World War Hulk: The Incredible Hulk #108 - Greg Pak(w), Leonard Kirk, Scott Hanna and Chris Sotomayor(a)
World War Hulk: The Irredeemable Ant-Man #10 - Robert Kirkman(w), Phil Hester, Ande Parks, Bill Crabtree and Val Staples(a)
X-Men #201 - Mike Cary(w), Humberto Ramos, Carlos Cuevas and Edgar Delgado(a)

Wetworks #11

Written by J.M. Dematteis

Art by Joel Gomez and Trevor Scott

Wildstorm $2.99

Around issue nine I started to hear that this issue was going to be the first canceled from the wroldstorm event. That issue was the last of the original creative team for this relaunch. Issue ten began the new team of Dematteis and Gomez, and two issues later, I still don’t like the work as much as the first nine issues, but it’s not bad.

The differentiation in stories is incredible though, jarring at some points because they’re almost unrelated outside of sharing the same characters. The first nine issues played out this great complex story of a vampire prison on an alternate version of Earth, it detailed a rebellion, a prison escape and a plot of dominate the planet. The writer went pretty far back and explored the history of vampires and werewolves on this alternate earth and made the characters, even the obvious villains, interesting and easily likable. Then issue ten jumps straight into a story where Mother One, the cyborg of the team, has somehow lost a piece of her soul in a region called the deadworld, where only Ab Death can go to save it. This isn’t explained very well, but she needs that piece of her soul or she’ll die. That piece of soul is the one that really works and apparently the rest doesn’t run without it. It’s like an episode of Lost on Wednesday or Bob Barker without Plinko; you can’t have one without the other.

So Ab Death goes off and gets her soul back, bringing Mother One back from Deadworld. I would say that Ab Death has been one of the most examined characters of the entire series thus far, and I’m happy with that, but they aren’t going in the right direction. Often issues will focus on an inner dialog he tends to have between himself and the reader, where his generic philosophies about life and afterlife are explored and he tends to ponder about himself and his place in all of it. Souls and heaven and hell and all that lot that he’s not too sure about. What would really work well and actually develop a great conversation from the character would be to explore how it feels to be a character with no past. He has no memories of his life beyond the past few years, he was created, not born. It may be foolish wishful thinking, but the exploration of what it is like to be a character with no past, who doesn’t know what he believes, perhaps because he hasn’t been around along enough to develop complex ideas and opinions on such complicated matters as death and souls, what it’s like to not have a clue who you are. It’s as if someone became an amnesiac at 40 and never recovered, never having someone as a reference point to piece together who you are. It would be terrifying, looking in the mirror and seeing a stranger, living in a stranger’s body, standing on a stranger’s feet. But that goes undeveloped. Wildstorm should give me a job.

I haven’t decided if I want to keep reading this or not. The characters are interesting enough, but it doesn’t feel like the creative teams are pushing for any real character development at this point. Either work this guy’s problems or move on to another character, there are so many in this book who haven’t been explored at all and in a universe with cyborgs, life-conscious vampires, werewolves and the like, that’s a real shame.

Black Panther #29

Written by Reginald Hudlin

Art by Francis Portela

Cover art by Arthur Suydam

Marvel Comics $2.99

Hell of a Mess Part 02 of 03

 

Utterly failing at working with the Skrulls to stop the Galactus-empowered zombies, the Fantastic Four and a helpful faux-Super Skrull manage to make it back to the ship and hide out in the sky while they try to assemble a plan. They bomb the base that the zombies are in, feeding on Skrull workers, but I think we all know how successful that will prove to be. While all of this happens, people say amusing variations on old taglines, such as “it’s slobberin’ time!” and what not, and hundreds of Skrulls get eaten. What becomes a major problem for the universe is that the zombies figure that the Fantastic Four have come from another galaxy and, because they are always hungry and running out of people to feed on, they need to hijack the dimension-jumping device the FF have and take it, turning Earth into a massive meal.

Hudlin does a pretty good job balancing a bit of humor, trying not to force it on the reader, and trying to move the story ahead at a pace that is neither trudging along nor so fast that the group doesn’t seem to be in real danger. That has always been a staple of the horror genre - the suspense of waiting to see who’s going to die. Of course, because this is Marvel and Black Panther is subject to continuity, they aren’t going to kill any of these four characters. The Skrulls, however, are totally fucked.

I’ve actually always hated the Marvel Zombies design, because it looks more like Marvel Skeletons With Costumes, not like actual zombies. Other than disliking the zombie design, which is not Portela fault, as how he had nothing to do with the original design, I really like his art. His work on the live Fantastic Four and the Skrulls, including the Super Skrull, is great. Clean and crisp lines exist in stark contrast to the dark, messy zombie design. The colors of Val Staples keep the pages bright, entertaining and generally interesting among the slightly tired zombie design.

The Walking Dead #39

Written by Robert Kirkman

Art by Charlie Adlard and Cliff Rathburn

Image Comics $2.99

Picking up my comics late this afternoon, I rushed home and quickly flew through this issue first. At one point I even peeked at the first page when I was at a stoplight. I’m absolutely STILL in love with this comic 100%. This series is so satisfying, so well written, drawn, inked, plotted, Christ, it’s the perfect serialized story. I hope it never ends and, according to the notes in the letters column in the end of this issue, it’s sales are higher than they’ve ever been at a time when the comics market is busier than it’s been in a while, which means good things for geeks like me.

I think this issue should make the zombie nerds feel more reassured, as there’s an attack while trying to get gas for the generator. There’s also a moderate level of violence. I say moderate because with this series it ebbs and flows, but the bar is set really high as far as freak out crazy violence goes. The issue opens by closing off the conflict that happened at the end of issue 38, facing the people who were probably from Woodbury in the Wal-Mart where Glenn, Maggie, Andrea, Tyrese, Michonne and I swear Axel was with them, but he’s nowhere to be seen in this issue. It’s verified that they’re from Woodbury, one of them recognizes Glenn. And shoots him, unexpectedly. I really didn’t expect that at all, it was random, like most of the other horrible shit that happens in this comic. Just like life. Andrea keeps getting more and more interesting as the series stretches out. She manages to kill half of the hostile men and Michonne dismembers the other two. I like how strong and able the main female characters are in this book, they’re in stark comparison with Lori, who is so incredibly annoying and essentially useless. Glenn, shot, though he was in riot gear, lays on the ground with Maggie quietly mumbling, “no. no. no. no. no.” It’s done incredibly well.  And he turns out to be perhaps okay.

I have really grown to love Adlard and Rathburn’s combined art using black, white and grays in all of their various shades.. The realism of the art style helps to ground the series in reality. Often times I forget that this is a zombie book at all, because there are large chunks of time without zombie attacks, where it’s just a human drama steeped in tragedy. This is my favorite thing about this book, it is about human suffering and companionship, which makes it one of the most realistic comic books I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading, despite it being set in a universe overpopulated with zombies.

In the meantime, useless Lori has her baby and Billy and Dale run into some zombies while looking for gas to help run the generator to keep the lights on during the delivery. Despite the ominous cover, there was no zombie baby, which I thought was going to happen, or something equally horrible, until the last page when a normal baby girl is shown.

Another great issue by Kirkman, Adlard and Rathburn, more development on these great characters, putting them through odds that seem insane and realistic at the same time.