NEXTWAVE #2
Writer – Warren Ellis
Penciler – Stuart Immonen
Inker – Wade Von Grawbadger
Colourer – Dave McCaig
Editor-in-Hate – Nick Lowe
Published by Marvel
I did it.
I added NEXTWAVE to my subscription.
Agents of Hate. Or HATE. Or H.A.T.E. God gave full stops to you; respect the cause. JIGGIDYJIDDIGEEHAD.
Update was successfully finished. Lovely, like Paul Bunion’s skillets.
Pull up a chair and learn about Nextwave AGENTS O.F. HATE. There is Fin Fang Foom in his underwear – because Marvel cannot show penises (penii? picante?), let alone mirthful green phalluses (phallicii? phalatio?) swinging around, distressing females. No, he just stuffs some chick down his shorts, or tries to at least. Wrong comma usage – sorry(,) Jesus.
Underwear is deployed.
Awesomeness is delivered, bringing with it a Marvel Universe comic that displays, delights, derails, dumbfounds and drastically defers dishonour from the Marvel Universe, along with the exact opposite of all those lovely d-words from earlier in this sentence.
(cue imaginary flashback paragraph)
But this bokk. Or buy this book, whatever make = more sense to your eyes and my fingers. The snakes on the plane died, the A.G.E.N.T.S. of nextWave remain… for now… it’ll be cancelled by 2008, but it’ll fetch a hefty sum on eBay and your taste.
And, yeah, I only just got issue #2. Big whoop, wanna make sumfin of it? There are eight of them around now, or something near to eight. Nine, perhaps? Nine is a nice number. I would trademark nine if I could… can I? (Note: investigate this possibility)
Grade: A
ASTONISHING X-MEN #17
Writer – Joss Whedon
Artist – John Cassaday
Colourist (not Colourer, you dolt) – Laura Martin
Middle Man – Mike Marts
Published by Marvel
I had a lovely dream involving Trish Stratus the other day and the White Queen in this issue just kept reminding me about it… even though lovely Patricia was wearing green in the dream… a dark, lush, fertile green… a perfect shade of ripe…
I’m getting so far off track I’ve found the horizon. Perfectly comfortable place. Perhaps because there are no comics here, only papercuts. Ow! What? Sense? Sure, make some:
This is the best boring book I’ve come across in quite some time. Technically, it’s hard to fault it. Cassaday keeps things as crisp and concise as ever. Martin takes full advantage of Kitty Pryde’s powers to show just what she can do on the colouring side of things. Whedon built his reputation around dialogue that wavers from quirky to irritating depending on who hears it, and he employs this asset tremendously here just as he has in the previous 16 issues. He even gets to work in some hair-envy from Cassandra Nova, fer greetin’ oot loud. When he gets his dialogue mitts on Molly-from-RUNAWAYS, the English language could become a veritable WMD(*). The creative team compliments one another’s strengths and produces a book that is, indeed, worth reading… but it just feels so very, very similar.
This could be blamed on the erratic scheduling, but only by people who don’t know any better – such as Joe Quesada, presumably. In this day and age there is no need to solicit books that are clearly not going to be on any sort of regular schedule. Just wait until it gets onto a monthly schedule (as this title now is) and roll from there. We’ll wait, honestly. It’s not as though events in this book have any bearing on the MARVEL COMICS EVENT KNOWN TO THE PEASANTRY AS CIVIL WAR. Tsk. Read it in a trade? Well, yes, you really should. It’s a shame Marvel isn’t making more books like Next W.A.V.E OF Hate Agentry that offer up a satisfying read in pamphlet form but, hey, such is the way. Am I asking myself questions in the reviews again? Looks like… wanker…
If we are going to blame anybody other than the Trade Monster or the Solicit Kill Krew, it only seems fair to blame the story. You’ll know by now that the Hellfire Club have somehow banded together again, led by dear ol’ Seb Shaw and with the likes of Cassandra Nova, the White Queen and, um, some goth chick. You won’t know exactly how the White Queen and Emma Frost can be one and the same, only not. You’ll not know where Cassandra has been (last I heard, she was missing after the “Reloaded” days of the X-books). Ord and Danger from the previous arcs return, yet you’ll not know the details of why they are convinced that Colossus must perish. You might well not care about any of this. You might well just want to laugh at Wolverine talking like a 19th century schoolgirl but, sadly, that joke wore off at least two months ago.
Drag it out, resolve it quickly and haphazardly, draw it all beautifully and chuck in a couple of laughs per issue. That seems to be the motto of the creative team. Perhaps they should have just agreed to do fewer issues of each arc in the first place, rather than placating Marvel’s greed.
Still well made though. Dammit.
* – The D stands for Delight.
Grade: B
LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #22
Layout Guy – Barry Kitson
Scripters – Tony Bedard & Mark Waid
Penciler – Adam Dekraker
Inkers – Rob Stull & Rodney Ramos
Colourist, with a U – Nathan Eyring
52 Honcho – Stephen Wacker
Published by DC
Supergirl.
Annoying, ain’t she?
After shoehorning her awkwardly into the book and largely ignoring her, Waid and Kitson (and Bedard [and Wacker?]) finally get around to showing that not everybody in the 31st century loves the badly-dressed, badly-conceived, badly-handled plot contrivance that inexcusably sells so many bloody copies of comic books. C’mon guys, there are plenty of blondes in short skirts. Have some dignity and get a geek-freak with a personality for a change.
That’s what the latest installment of DC’s best comic is all about, really. Ultra Boy is obsessed with Supergirl for reasons he is too blinkered to comprehend and his girlfriend, Shadow Lass, is too jealous to realise. Karate Kid, Shadow Lass’ ex, kindly steps in to organise a practical demonstration of why Supergirl has been unwittingly causing them such difficulty. Cosmic Boy thinks he is in love with Supergirl but receives some scientific evidence that suggests otherwise – though it remains to be seen whether or not he will accept it. The young lady in the red cape that has been causing all this fuss remains, as ever, bland and unaffected by events around her. To the credit of the creative team, they have not treated her presence as a burden but have instead used it to further develop the characters of the regular cast in an entertaining, self-contained story. Hell, they even pace things well enough to work in several long-term plot points as well, including a returning villain and a potential new member who looks an awful lot like the lovechild of Jack Nicholson and J’onn J’onzz.
Well, he is a shape-shifter…
*cough*
Anyway…
Grade: A
SHADOWPACT #5
Writer – Bill Willingham
Penciller – Steve Scott
Inker – Wayne Faucher
Colourist – Mike Atiyek
Subjugator – Joey Cavalieri
Published by DC
The ‘Pact are back and, after last issue’s rather unnecessary prequel issue, are adjusting to the world having aged a year in their few days of absence. Alongside the harsh realities of unpaid rent and lapsed leases is the rather unsettling idea that the world seems to think they all died. As far as homecomings go, it’s a bit of a bummer. We’re also introduced to somewhere called either the Black Tower or the Dark Tower, depending on which page you believe, where they keep their magical prisoners under the guard of a guy named Lord Coldrake. It would have been an ideal opportunity for Willingham to bring back Grant Morrison as a character (see: ANIMAL MAN) but never mind. Oh, and there’s a new bad guy called Doctor Gotham introduced too.
This is all very… adequate.
Unfortunately, adequate just isn’t enough to cut it. I have a limited budget for comics, particularly single issue comics, and everything on my subscription needs to pack more oomph than this title seems capable of generating. A book with a cast that includes a Blue Hellboy, a talking chimp and a pretty snarky goth girl should, by all rights, be able to grab my attention without even trying. The first five issues of this certainly haven’t tried very hard, but the end result has been very much a take-it-or-leave-it shrug. The fact that the cast is decidedly D-list would normally mean that DC really doesn’t care about what happens to them (and the glaring continuity errors in SHADOWPACT #1 and 52 WEEK 19 back that up), but compare what Willingham does with his comparative freedom in this situation with what Ellis does with NNNNNNNNNNNNNNEXTWAVE and you can appreciate the difference. One is Christian Slater, the other Jack Nicholson…
…homeboy f*cked a Martian…
Grade: C
52 WEEK TWENTY
Writers – Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka & Mark Waid
Breakdowner – Keith Giffen
Penciller – Chris Batista
Inker – Ruy Jose
Colour Provider – Alex Sinclair
Guy Who Left – Stephen Wacker
Published by DC
“God is Enraged”
DAY #141 – Supernova floats around the Batcave, scoping the place out. Maybe he’s going to launch DCU Cribs. Hey, he needs something to do, OYL.
Olive Oyl… geez, she was frumpy. All that spinach really limited Popeye’s ambition. Heh-heh… “pop-eye”… heh-heh…
It’s a penis joke. LAUGH.
So, yeah, the big whoop about this issue is Batman apparently having Lex Luthor’s Kryptonite fisting glove in the cave and Supernova finding it. He doesn’t seem bothered by it, so presumably he isn’t Kryptonian… unless it’s just a depowered replica put on display by a Batman who is now meant to be less of a dick and less likely to keep anti-friends weapons… aw, who knows?
DAY #143 – In Metropolis, Steel holds a burning building together long enough for the fire officers to clear the public out. Then the Kala woman from S.T.A.R. turns up with supposed evidence that Luthor’s metagene therapy is reversible. The fact that Steel is wearing pants on that page just raises the question of whether he was naked when he came out the building or not… and if he was, were the fire officers applauding his efforts or his shiny shaft? And is that why he looks so gosh-darned cheeky when asking for a scrubbing pad?
Dirty. Unclean. This is a family site. Will Cooling has cooties.
DAY #146 – Over on Planet Fish, Lobo is having fish problems. The fish people are in trouble from something and want Lobo to use the squidgy eye thing to somehow save them. Lobo doesn’t want to, despite his fish friend urging him to do so. Apparently the squidgy eye thing does something bad when it is somehow used. Then Animal Man somehow gathers some powers from the fish people to fend off a storm of something that somehow turned up to somehow eat everything. In the end, Lobo somehow vanishes from the fishworld and a fish person somehow uses the squidgy eye thing to somehow save the fellow fish, with an assist from Starfire. Then some big floaty head thing in space seems to notice the squidgy eye thing somehow being used. Then Lobo somehow regenerates and mutters something about some guy called Ekron, who is in fact the head thing and who does in fact want his squidgy eye back.
Um, WHAT?
I’ve seen Mario games make more sense. Adam Strange’s origin does not help matters, though it is interesting to note that his is the first one so far to include Infinite Splat developments in it, plus it includes his recent eye-ectomy… a permanent disability?
Grade: C
52 WEEK TWENTY-ONE
Writers – Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka & Mark Waid
Breakdowner – Keith Giffen
Penciller – Joe Bennett
Inker – Jack Jadson
Colouring Guy – David Baron
Dearly Departed – Stephen Wacker
Published by DC
“Teambuilding Exercises”
Bleuch, what a boring title. I guess “Stuff and, um, Things” was taken.
DAY #148 – In Metropolis, Natasha “Starlight” Irons convinces Luthor to let the new speedster, Eliza, back onto the team. We get introduced to Eliza’s obsession with the Titans and the Flashes. Mmm, there’s a pathos in the ate mos fear…
DAY #149 – Ralph Dibny and the Dr Fate helmet, with the assistance of some gingold, tie up the big grizzly red thing guarding the Netherplains entrance to the Underworld Beyond and force their way in. Then we cut to a far duller plot…
DAY #150 – Luthor’s team, calling themselves Infinity Inc., try to take down Blockbuster in Las Vegas. Not the overbearing video store, just some Hulk wannabe (controlled by Luthor, obviously). The battle goes well for them, then Beast Boy and Raven turn up with some other random nobodies that purport to be the current Teen Titans. They stand around and talk for way too many pages, till Luthor wakes Blockbuster up and engineers Eliza’s death by taking her powers away at an opportune moment.
DAY #153 – The Inc and the Titans attend Eliza’s funeral in Manchester, Alabama. Steel turns up to try and talk to Natasha about the superpower situation, but she is a teenager and thus utterly stupid when it comes to emotional matters. She brushes him off, but Beast Boy offers to help him.
DAY #154 – In Australia, some guy called Johnny Warrawa is rebuilding the Red Tornado on the cheap.
That’s it. Not even an origin story. Deathly dull. Nothing more to say.
Boobies.
Ok, I’m done.
Grade: D
Next Week… the increasingly futile quest for excitement, or even mild interest, continues with 52 WEEK TWENTY-TWO… the end is nigh for the missed opportunity known as MARVEL TEAM-UP #25… and there is at least the guarantee of one decent read in ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN VOL. 7 HC…
