World War Hulk #4

Written by Greg Pak

Art by John Romita Jr, Klaus Janson and Christina Strain

Marvel Comics $3.99

Though I hate to jump on the anti-blockbuster even bandwagon, I really am starting to miss Planet Hulk’s storytelling and interesting themes, characters and settings.   Outside of Dr. Strange letting a demon possess him, turning into a ten foot monster and kicking the hell out of the Hulk until he, of course, lost, this issue was more of the same.  Virtually everyone has known how this last issue is going to unfold, so the build up has seemed incredibly pointless and bland and even myself, an iron man hating, kill reed richards sort of reader can’t even stand the constant beat downs and unfair fights.

By showing the Sentry as a terrified schizophrenic sad guy in his apartment for four issues, they’ve made the final showdown next issue seem even dumber than it really is.  And, conveniently, at the end of this issue, he’s in his doorway looking like a bad ass and ready to fight, instead of a 8 year old girl who just saw a spider in the bath tub, like he has for the entire rest of this series.

I just hope that, when this is all over, Greg Pak is going to get back to those good Hulk stories.  This has become so stale, I can’t wait for November.

Action Comics #855

Written by Geoff Johns and Richard Donner

Art by Eric Powell

DC Comics $2.99

Finally, after that painful-to-read Busiek arc, Johns is back with Richard Donner and in less than 30 pages we get to go to Bizzaro World, Pa Kent gets kidnapped and an entire Bizzaro Metropolis storms Superman.  It’s good, classic Geoff Johns storytelling and Richard Donner helping out doesn’t hurt.  I’ll be excitedly following this arc as it progresses and I hope Action continues to ship at such an astoundingly fast rate.  If my count is right, they put out three issues last month.

Eric Powell’s artwork is really great and well suited for this sci-fi type adventure story.  Nothing looks too realistic, but not entirely cartoonish either.  It’s a happy medium and I don’t think ultra-realism would help this story out, the whole story of going to another crazy backwards(and cubed!) world isn’t meant to be realistic, so Powell’s art works great with John’s fantastic setting and highly personalized version of Superman.

Don’t miss this arc.

Astonishing X-Men #22

Written by Joss Whedon

Art by John Cassaday

Marvel Comics $2.99

For about the fifth issue in a row, I’ve read the last page and wondered if a member of the team is dead.  Whedon has become really good with the cliffhangers that revolve around death and surprises, which is an excellent way to keep readers excited about the story, but it sucks to have to wait between two and three months to find out of such classic characters have been killed all the way or just a little bit.

I’m really curious to see how this story is going to end, which has to be wrapped up in two issues when Whedon’s run end and Warren Ellis takes over.  I think there’s a major theme of manifest destiny as far as Colossus is considered.  At this point they’ve been on the Break World long enough that I would feel overjoyed if he went on the rampage he’s expected to and destroyed their planet.  I guess we’ll have to see.

This was the book that relaunched my interest in comic books two years ago and it’s paid off big time.  I had taken about a decade away from reading comic books all together and the sensationalism surrounding this book lured me back to the comic scene and I slowly started picking up other books.  I think one of the best things I’ve discovered via this book is Brian K. Vaughan’s writing and John Cassaday’s other work(Planetary), which are really better than this actual book, but not by much.

Astonishing X-Men, the gift that keeps on giving.

Black Summer #2 of 7

Written by Warren Ellis

Art by Juan Rose Ryp

Avatar Press $2.99 

Some readers seem to have a problem with Warren Ellis because, like most of the English, he doesn’t particularly abide by the nonsensical adoration and respect toward superheroes and formula storytelling that Americans are used to.  It’s actually because of this that I really enjoy his superhero stories.  Like Garth Ennis or Grant Morrison, you get an outside perspective on an old theme, but getting a superhero story from someone who doesn’t particularly like superheroes is great because you get to witness a writer take something bland and make it stand out.  Not just to the reader, but to the writer as well.

Black Summer is about the most powerful superhero in the world, John Horus, who has just killed the president and endangered the superhero team he’s part of by involving them by association in the event.  This issue mostly focuses on what we do when we’re backed into corners, when we’re scared and when we’re forced to fight.  The outcome is generally bad.

Ryp has seriously cleaned up his art for this issue, which improves the look quite a lot.  Instead of a messy, cluttered panel, you get a neat, clean one like above. This is far less a distraction from the story and more like an additional dialog you get visually, which only aids the story’s progression.

All in all, this was a great issue where Ellis tries to humanize the superhero by showing  them under pressure and terrified, not knowing what to do.  By doing this, showing human beings who happen to be superpowered, he comes very close to what Alan Moore did in Watchmen, making the fact that the main characters are heroes secondary and making the fact that they are people with problems primary.

Batman #667 & 668

Written by Grant Morrison

Art by J.H. Williams III and Dave Stewart

DC Comics $2.99 

Grant Morrison has made a name for himself in mainstream comic books by taking old ideas that many people have forgotten about, revamping them, exploring old characters and concepts and making them very VERY relevant and fresh to the modern reader.  I’ve noticed that there are a few creators who are interested in old ideas who make them incredibly interesting again.  Alex Ross would obviously be an easy name to come up with when talking about old ideas being recreated.  Morrison’s work on Batman is no different, as far as resurrections of the past, than his work with Uncle Sam or Metal Men.  It’s different, great and pretty fucking entertaining.

Revisiting the Batmen of all nations in what would seem like a weekend getaway for Batman, Robin and a handful of “second rate wannabe Batmen” as Robin put it, Morrison turns this three part arc into a murder mystery weekend with a bunch of incompetent heroes who are past their prime and incredibly suspicious of each other.  It’s incredibly entertaining to see all of the various Batmen from different countries and how some of them resent Batman’s success, but they all have to work together, as they’re trapped on an island with a murderer on the loose.

Williams’ work is immediately satisfying and only gets better upon multiple viewings.  He’s particularly successful at rendering costumes that look like cloth, instead of the weird porno-spray painted bodies that usually dominate superhero comics.  He has a firm grasp on shadows and dark/light balances, which is great because most of this story takes place at night in a big mansion full of old relics and costumes.

Meanwhile, boring comic book nerds everywhere are crying because this story doesn’t have any typical villains and its’ not formulaic enough.  I think it’s fantastic and I think I see where this is leading and if Morrison is planning on a big family get together, it’s going to be one hell of a summer-ending arc.  I’ll also be excited if they keep cranking out two issues a month like this, it’s great for a manic reader like myself.

Batman/Lobo: Deadly Serious #1 of 2

Written by, drawn by and cover art by Sam Kieth

DC Comics $5.99 

YES!

Okay, so I was really excited when I saw this in my pile on Wednesday.  First of all, I was obsessed with Kieth’s The Maxx when I was younger.  I stopped reading comic books around the age of 16 when I started to become obsessed with music, but I continued to reread the Maxx series and eventually ended up buying a bootlegged version of the television series from Ebay.  It was well worth it.  I had noticed though, in my previous two years of rediscovering comic books, that Sam Kieth seemed to be missing entirely from the scene, but Jim Lee, the Kuberts, Chris Claremont and most of the people who were making my favorite books in the nineties.

So, again, I was seriously fucking jazzed when I saw this in Previews a few months back.  It comes at a time when I’ve been reading Grant Morrison Batman for almost a year, so I feel like I’m not at a point where Batman is strange territory for me.  Another great writer/artist on a character I’ve come to like quite a bit.  Excellent.

So, Sam Kieth, Batman, Lobo, Spaceships, Alien disease that makes women turn into homicidal maniacs, explosions, lots of guns, aliens.  As long as you aren’t expecting a super serious Batman story, this is made of 100% win.  Batman, against his will, is brought to a spaceship light years from earth to stop a disease that makes women act out and go on insane killing sprees.  All the men have left the ship and so all of these women are being killed.  Kieth’s women are, of course, beautiful and the story is fun as well as morbidly funny.  Of course, Lobo just happens to be there for some reason, trying to make some money.

Although this is only a two issue series, it’s being published in the prestige format, so each issue is 48 pages.  That means this won’t be a short little story, it will be almost 100 pages, easily the size of four or five issues published as a regular comic series.  I think it’s going to be a blast.

Cat Woman #70(and 69 too)

Written by Will Pfeifer

Art by David and Alvaro Lopez

Cover art by Adam Hughes

DC Comics $2.99 

Checking out a new book is incredibly fun for a few reasons that don’t really transfer to an old favorite.  First off, you don’t actually know what you’re getting into.  If you’re familiar with the writer, in this case, Pfeifer is the lead writer of the wonderful DC mini-series that wraps up next week, Amazons Attack, which I’ve been reading.  So I had an idea what I was getting into, strong characterization based around solid action scenes and a script that relies on a well-balanced mix of dialog boxes and scenes that make effective use of an action-based story.  I also knew David Lopez from the first 20 issues of Fallen Angel, back when it was being put out by DC Comics.  I knew his pencils were a good match for a strong writer because they tend to be mild and mellow, instead of screaming for attention, they add to the overall story without really grabbing the reader with the tackiness that some pencilers for superhero books tend to use.  So, I had an idea that this book had the potential to be pretty entertaining.  Plus, this Adam Hughes cover didn’t hurt.

I really love that cover, it’s beautiful and the simple background makes her stand out even more.  That image is from the official DC page about the comic, which is slightly different from the final product that actually appears on the issue I have.  But you get the picture.  I went and looked up Adam Hughes and realized I have a whole bunch of covers by him and I generally really enjoy his work.  And he has a thing for big breasts, in case you didn’t notice.  I really like the shades of light reflecting off of the costume, so you can tell it’s leather and not spandex, the detail of the zipper, the goggles and the fact that there’s actual detail to her face, which makes her look like a real person, not just a thieving sex symbol.

The issue ended up being an Amazons tie-in about Selina’s workings with the Bana, the Amazon offshoot terrorist group.  It was really good.  I found out that she had a kid and had semi-retired from crime, had become friends with Batman and had allied herself on the side of the heroes since the Amazonian war had begun in the states.  The issue relied heavily on dialog boxes and let Selina narrate the story in reverse, which was an interesting change.  I liked it enough to go  out and pick up the issue before, which was also good and featured all of the same talent, down to another Hughes cover.

I think I’ll be reading this on a regular schedule if this book continues to be as entertaining for a few more issues.

Metal Men #1 of 8

Written by Duncan Rouleau

Art and Cover by Rouleau

DC Comics $2.99 

This was recommended to me by my comic shop owner and, though I’d never heard of it and wasn’t familiar with the concept or characters, I really liked this first issue.  This article does a pretty good job of catching one up.  So Dr. Magnus wants to be a successful scientist and he has some great ideas involving the time stream and alternative physics, but his robotic assistants get much more attention than the ideas he’s actually interested in.  I like the concept of the unhappy, unappreciated scientist whose creations, which are made to help him, actually turn out to be a major problem.

The comic features seven robots, all fashioned after different metals, who have differing personalities and make up a sort of super team.  A rival team of robots is, of course, trying to destroy the world and Magnus is at odds with his creations.  Overall, it’s enough conflict and characterization to make the story interesting.

I’ll definitely keep reading.  The art is great and mildly cartoonish, which is a nice change for a DC book, and the writing is entertaining, not trying too hard to be funny or serious.  I’d pick it up if I were you.

Incredible Hulk #108

Written by Greg Pak

Art by Leonard Kirk, Scott Hanna and Chris Sotomayor

Marvel Comics $2.99

Rick Jones, the Hulk’s first friend from Earth, and Miek, Hulk’s first friend from Sakaar, square off in a fight that doesn’t really seem to serve any real function other than show that Rick and Miek like the Hulk.  In the end, they both decide that they can help their mutual friend in their own ways, and stop fighting and go on their own ways, respectively.

The issue is mostly comprised of flashbacks featuring two of the three of them, usually showing how  one or the other was a good friend to the Hulk and vice versa.  Overall, this is probably the least interesting issues Greg Pak has put out on his entire Hulk run.  In the first panel, the series of allies that Amadeus Cho has assembled bows down to the Hulk, offering their allegiance, but the issue isn’t clear if they are accepted or rejected by the time the issue ends.

Batman #666

Written by Grant Morrison

Andy Kubert and Jesse Delperdang

DC Comics $2.99 

You have to give credit to Grant Morrison for doing what he thinks is good for the story, despite how out there it seems.  I can’t imagine trying to pitch this idea to DC.  15 years from now Bruce Wayne has been murdered, Barbra Gordon is the commissioner of police and wheelchair bound, Damien Wayne has taken up the mask of Batman to avenge his father and rebel against his plotting mother and there are a series of other Batman, one of who is likely to be Dick Grayson, who MAY have killed Bruce Wayne, and the clock is ticking down to armageddon.  And they bought it.

I really liked this, it was a blast to read, it looked great and it has the set up to be an epic story in a not too distant future.  But there’s no clear idea where the story will pick back up.  Next issue starts the Batman of all nations three part story, so I hope this wasn’t a well-thought one shot about the end of days to coincide with the adorable issue number.  It was really good, but I hope Morrison actually does something with this, or else it would be a serious waste of effort and a good idea.  I had hoped that the entire Batman and son storyline was a lot bigger than those four issues.