Reviews For last Week's Comics

It took me a while to figure out how I was going to grade these things (that’s why this is up so late, plus the fact that this took longer than I thought it would), but here’s my first stab at comic reviews. Basically, I’m just going to review what I pick up at the shop Wednesday and try to have the reviews up by Friday. I figure I can have them read by Wednesday afternoon, let my thoughts stew for 24 hours, and then have something up every Friday. But we’ll find out if this works in actual practice as we go.

Okay, so first I want to cover a bunch of back-issues I picked up since they were on sale.

Cyberforce #1 – Yeah, I have no idea what the hell is going on here. Is the writer trying to go for a “Days of Future Past” angle? Is the dystopic future we see through-out the issue the horrible future that the red-headed chick is warning us about? Or do things get worse? And while I’m sure she mentions her name at some point in the story, I still don’t know what it is. Also, who the hell is she talking to in the narration? Don’t get me wrong, I’m used to the internal dialogue-thing comics use instead of an omniscient narrator, but the girl is literally having a conversation with someone we never see. A lot of stuff is thrown at you with extremely vague details, so that you’re not even sure if the writer knows where he’s going with the plot.

This actually feels like a good example of what people mean when they say, “Shitty ‘90s Image writing” – mysteriousness for mysteriousness’ sake, so that when you take that away, it’s nothing but padded action sequences. I’ll say this for the comic, the art is actually pretty good. Clear storytelling, plus it is some of the better pencils I’ve seen from Khoi Pham; while you never learn much about anyone in this comic, they’re at least rendered well.  Plus, there’s the cover and two extra pages of pencils from Marc Silvestri, a guy who I’m always happy to see work from. Also, this comic was free because of a Kickstarter campaign, so I have to give Top Cow props for that.  Still, it’s safe to say I won’t be picking up issue two.

Grade: 2/5 (and that’s only because it was free)

Avengers #13-17 and New Avengers #14-16 – I know this is kind of a cheat to grade them all as one lot, but I think this works because A) they’re all tie-ins and B) they’re all too old for anyone to give much of a fuck about the single issue grades; people picking these issues up are probably getting them in trade, so it doesn’t hurt to approach them like that. But on to the review…

These issues are a perfect example of a writer who doesn’t understand his craft, which is weird since I think Bendis started out as an artist. He uses the weirdest damn structure for both series, where he’ll have a page or two of talking heads followed by a couple pages of action with no dialogue.   I get that he’s trying to incorporate his Oral History of the Avengers bit into the comic itself, but he does it in the most awkward way. For one, he actually shows a better way to do it than the one he uses the most in the comics, by having both the talking head panels and large action splash pages all on the same page, with the people in the small dialogue panels describing the way they saw the events that were going on action panels. This works, it adds a retrospective element that can maybe even provide a glimpse into the character’s psyche. But when he segregates the panels, it just becomes… boring.

 And Bendis, you had Mike Deodato, JRJR and Chris Bachalo! Why not play up their strengths at rendering action scenes? This is more for Deodato and JRJR than Bachalo (who can make talking-head comics fun, if he’s given the freedom to do what he wants, but he’s too tightly regimented and given way too many talky-pages to even save his issues). You can see that all of these guys give an honest try at these pages, but after a while you can see where they just say, “Fuck it, he wants talking heads? That’s what he’ll get, but he never said they had to look different.”

Negatives aside, the art is still very good. All three guys do a great job on the few action bits they get to draw, and before they start to get as bored with the talky-pages as we are reading them, they make an honest attempt to liven them up some, which does help. Bendis does also make some of the fights feel like they’re on an epic scale, and he does a solid job with characterization (I especially like the beginning of the Hawkeye Spider-woman romance in these issues). Plus, Squirrel Girl got a freaking spotlight issue, which is always tops in my book.

Grade: 3/5 (if not for the art, these wouldn’t have even qualified for 2/5)

X-Men #38 – This was actually pretty good. I had my doubts that anyone would be able to follow Brian Wood’s excellent run, which I still wish would have lasted a lot longer, and may have saved this book from getting cancelled. That said, Seth Peck’s first issue was a nice little team-up issue. I’m shocked a team-up with Domino and Daredevil works as well as it does, but that is a testament to how good a writer Peck is. He really sells it with the banter; it’s very charming. Seeing these two characters play off each other makes me want to see them interact more. In fact, while I wasn’t keen on the whole “X-Men Team-Up” aspect this book had for the first thirty or so issues, if they’d been as well handled as this issue, it could’ve worked and ths title wouldn’t have felt so superfluous up until the latter half of Gischler’s run.

The plot itself moves along rather nicely, it sets up why these two characters are in the same place rather quickly and then gets right to the action. Seeing Domino’s luck powers in a casino is a rather fun bit (something I’ve actually thought about more than you’d think), and the art from Paul Azaceta serves this kind of story very well. Paul has a more old-school, maybe even indy style that is less about flash and more about storytelling, which is clear at conveying one action to the next, plus doing a nice job of supplementing Seth’s strong character work with great facial expressions and body language. This is definitely a collaboration where the two parties mesh to enhance the other’s work. It really is a shame this book is ending two issues from now, but at least it’s going out on a high-note.

Grade: 4.5/5

Wolverine and the X-Men #20 – This series continues to grow on me, and I thought the first issue of it was practically revelatory, too. There are a lot of reasons why this is my favorite book every month, but I think the most important one is character work – Jason Aaron is a master when it comes to pitch-perfect dialogue that not only captures the essence of a character, but can also reveal a lot of what’s going on with their current mental state at the same time. When a character does something, it’s not because the plot demands it, but because it’s the only natural course of action for them. That holds true for this issue, which continues to catch us up on what Warren’s personality and powers have evolved into since the end of the Dark Angel Saga, while also introducing a new mutant, Shark Girl (picture Wolfsbane, but with scales, fins and lots more teeth). Jason also works in a couple of members of the Invisibles, a group he introduced at the end of his Wolverine run.

The whole issue works really well as a bit of a riff on the first appearance of Kitty Pryde, where several X-Men have to fight it out with some Hellfire Club goons and The White Queen, all over who got to recruit Kitty. It’s well paced, and the dialogue is snappy. If I have any gripes with it, it’s the art and what he does with Angel. Steve Sanders is a talented artist, and his cartoony style not only fits well with the style of past artists on the book but also does a more than decent job of getting across action and emotion. That said, his Beast just looks goofy (although his Shark Girl looks pretty freaking amazing), plus the coloring isn’t doing him any favors. I’m not sure what Marvel was thinking, but they paired Sanders, who is a cartoony artist by nature, with a colorist that used the kind of color palate and Photoshop effects you’d want from a Greg Land colorist – it’s not the prettiest looking combination.

I also mentioned what he does with Angel’s powers, which was to add energy blasts/sword. I don’t have a problem with this, and that is because I planned on doing basically the same exact thing if I ever got to do the X-Men. This is the second time Aaron has beaten me to the punch (the first was Iceman), but I can’t really hold this against him just because great minds think alike.

Grade: 4.5/5 (the only thing holding this back from a 5 is the coloring)

AVX Consequences #5 – this was a bittersweet issue; I agree with a lot of other critics, this series was basically Uncanny X-Men #21-25, and it’s a hell of a way to cap a run. Gillen, since taking over the old Uncanny from Fraction, has done a brilliant job of dragging it from the boring, poorly-written muck that was the Brubaker-Fraction period. While Cyclops couldn’t be salvaged (I still hate the whole Utopia/General bullshit), Gillen at least wrote a Cyclops that A) was in character based on the previous interpretation and B) a Cyclops that I didn’t immediately detest. That writing is present here -  Cyclops is a conflicted man, he knows what he’s doing is morally wrong, but at the same time he’s doing what he feels is necessary. He’s a Scott that is aware of the way his current philosophy is at odds with that of the Scott of ten years ago, but he can rationalize it based on what mutants have endured in that ten years.

The actual issues moves along at a brisk pace, picking up from the cliffhanger of the last issue, and managing to work in a lot of information. We get an exciting break-out scene where everyone’s powers are on display, we see the new Uncanny team in action as a unit, dangling threads introduced in this mini are tied up and Scott finishes his transformation into Magneto-Lite that started all the way back in Deadly Genesis. The character itself is pretty weak sauce now (he feels like a high-school student’s first fan-fiction version after they’ve finished reading Whedon’s run for the first time), but Gillen makes the process itself very compelling, which is why I’m so sad to see him leave the X-Men because he could make the most poorly thought out editorially mandated direction at least readable, and all too make room for a guy who used talking head stories while cribbing from the X-Men to make the Avengers work as an A-list book – who will Bendis crib from take the X-Men back to the top? But that’s a topic for another day…

One touch I really liked was Scott’s letter to Wolverine, where he acknowledged the shift in the roles they play – ten years ago, Wolverine would be the one taking a harder stance while Scott would have cautioned him about how that would alienate humanity and be a step away from Xavier’s dream. That’s how much these characters have grown (yes, grown); they built to this, with Scott getting more and more cynical as things got worse for mutants after Deadly Genesis, and Wolverine seeing the flaws in his old philosophy by watching one of his closest allies take it up. A brilliant stroke from Gillen.

The art is more than serviceable, but I don’t think it fits this more action-heavy chapter of the series; I have to question Marvel’s art scheduling, because his style very easily could have worked on one of the earlier issues, while one of the earlier artists (like Raney) would have fit better here.

Grade: 4/5

All-New X-Men #1 – This was actually not as bad as I thought it would be. Yes, I still hate this new version of Cyclops because he’s basically a much less intimidating, more platitude-spouting version of Magneto, but this issue somewhat works. It has flaws (that’s for damn sure), but it has some nice moments. For one, I like how Iceman points out what I’ve been think for a while now, and Hank’s plan isn’t all that bad considering the X-Men are probably the biggest users of time-travel stories. The plot moves along quickly, Bendis introduces a new mutant (who has powers I planned on giving a new mutant should I ever get to write the X-Men; I think it’s safe to say I’ll have a post down the road about Marvel constantly doing this), he further establishes the role Cyclops’ new team will play from the end of AVXC #5, and he sets up the premise for this new series.

It’s a lot of stuff, and maybe I’m being greedy or nostalgic for the old days, but I think he could have done more. While he packs in quite a few plot elements, I think he could have taken out some of the more padded dialogue exchanges (already we’re seeing one of Bendis’ eccentricities hold the series back) so that he could have ended the issue with the original X-Men confronting Scott’s current Extinction Team. There’s also a bit of a talking heads problem here too, where several of the characters feel like cyphers. Still, it could have been worse. As for the art, not much to say here; I paid for Immonen, I got Immonen. His pencils do their typically great job, they’re dynamic while also telling the story adequately.

All in all, I’m looking forward to the next issue, but I don’t see why this or the upcoming new Uncanny book are going to be the flagship books when you have the much better (and more revolutionary, and more X-Men-like, etc) Wolverine and the X-Men from Jason Aaron. He’s proven himself time and time again since Schism with this book, and mark my words, he’ll consistently beat Bendis out every month when it comes to quality. Seriously, Marvel, stop sucking Bendis’ dick, he’s you’re Geoff Johns, not your Grant Morrison (that would be Aaron).

Grade: 3.5/5

Next time, I'm doing fewer books (I didn't even review all the books I got last week!)