Not a lot of reviews this week due to not having a lot of books to read this week. I apologize about not having an Ultimate Spidey issue, but my comics store got shorted it, so I had to wait until this morning to get it. Here’s a fake review for it:
FAKE ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN REVIEW
HOLY CRAP! Aunt May died!
Spidey controls Bartertown.
FOGGY NELSON IS REALLY THE GREEN GOBLIN!?!?
Uncle Ben really did make all that rice?
RATING: Z
There you go.. now to the real reviews….
EXILES #80
Writer: Tony Bedard
Artist: Paul Pelletier
Inker: Rick Magyar
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
I know that Exiles has a history of replacing it’s members, but let me just say that if Proteus kills my favorite Exile – I’ll be hurt.
Let’s just say that one of the originals goes down (which if you read between the lines you can easily figure out who it is), but they leave us with an easy way for him to bring him back. That’s all I’m saying.
How was the story? Fun, as everything Bedard has done with World Tour. How was the art? Fantastic, just like I expect out of Pelletier.
Next stop: Heroes Reborn..
RATING: B
FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN #8
Writer: Peter David
Artist: Mike Wierengo
Inker: Karl Kesel
What the hell is going on here?
From page one, the journey of the possible return of Uncle Ben begins. I’m not a fan. Uncle Ben’s death is the fundamental event that causes Spidey to be Spidey, as we’ve seen in countless Elseworld-ish stories. Everytime Ben remains in the picture, Peter ends up just a plain old mess because he doesn’t have the need to repent his sins.
Now it seems one of those Elseworlds is clashing with the real world. If this is just a Spidey story that will fall to the wayside in time, then fine. If they are building to a final return of Uncle Ben, then Marvel will be recieving some letters. I’m sure they are already.
I will admit that it is a very neat way to have Ben look at Peter now and show us how he would approve of what his nephew has done with his life. (And possibly offer some sage advice in concerns to Civil War?)
RATING: B
Occasionally when I happen to read a DC book that isn’t imprinted on Vertigo (rarely) – I will do a comparison here… since we are given the beginning of Marvel’s epic – and the ending of DC’s, it seemed only reasonable.
Note: You will probably never see this feature again.
CIVIL WAR #1
Writer: Mark Millar
Artist: Steve McNiven
Civil War is upon us.
Well doesn’t that suck?
Now I’ll be completely honest with you – I was planning a long diatribe on Civil War, as it’s the book of the week for a Marvel Zombie like me. It is the moment we’ve waited for, but my comic provider needed an extra copy and I passed along mine (after reading it, of course) – so somewhere out there someone is reading a copy that’s been touched by my deliciously sexy hands.
Maybe it’s you.
So the New Warriors are working on saving their reality show, and go and take on some big wigs. (Ok, big wigs for them) and end up blowing themselves, and most of a suburban block, up in their wake.
Now the government’s push for superhuman registration has begun, and who stands as the moral opposition – none other than Captain America, who goes face to face with the current head of SHIELD and shouts his reasons against the idea to her face, only to come head to head with a fantastic action sequence that cements Millar’s understanding of both regular world Captain America as well as his Ultimate version.
My only question – why, given Cap disagrees, must SHIELD just go and attack him? Isn’t there more of a reasonable way to do it? Also, did Maria Hill REALLY think that she would be able to capture Captain America without some kind of superpowered opposition? Seems a touch short-sighted.
Along with that, the book leads to lots of smaller questions, mostly of which sides our personal favorite Marvelite is going to sit on (ie: Deadpool? You know he’s not going to be happy) – and this book is the perfect set-up. As long as it keeps moving along, it will easily overshadow the other big book this week.
RATING: A
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artists: Jiminez, Perez, Reis, Bennett, Lanning, Ordway, Parsons, Thiebert
It’s well documented around these parts that I can’t tell you a Wonder Girl from a Saturn Girl, but I’ve been enjoying Infinite Crisis.
The nuances of how everything goes down at the end of the book are beyond me, but that’s for the DC nitpickers to sit and explain to me in long slow sentences. That does NOT mean that it’s a bad story, just much more for the integrated DC-child than myself.
The art rings true with Crisis stories gone by, with Jimenez taking the role of Perez and doing so fantastically.
Now, you may ask why I do both of these issues first – aside from their relation alphabetically, let me address both after I throw out a rating for Crisis.
RATING: B
Now —
THE HYPE MACHINE (A minor editorial)
It might be more reasonable to assume this is something more prone to Marvel News & Views (which will be out tomorrow), but I think as this week both companies came out with a double gun salute, it only seems reasonable to mention it here as well.
Both Civil War and Crisis have been long documented big books coming out of the big two, but for as much as I can allow myself to pull back and read the books with an old fanboy like glee – I felt slightly underwhelmed. Not because the books themselves weren’t good, they both were solid writing from Jones and Millar. It is just that Marvel and DC have been shoving Civil War and 52 and One Year Later down our throats for so long, I felt I was just walking the primrose path down a journey I knew we would be taking anyway.
This might only be a jaded view because I immerse myself into comic culture like a child on Amity Beach, but it just felt that the ending of Crisis seems pretty damned obvious given how hard they’ve promoted 52 and One Year Later. Civil War gives us the laid groundwork on – well – a Civil War that has been foreshadowed like a hammer to the cortex.
Maybe the shock isn’t supposed to be the lead in to the event, but what happens during the event itself. That the companies will have to prove to me over the course of the next few months.
So, the comic fans win on great told stories, but we kind of knew that three months ago, and that’s the problem.
Thanks for listening.
