Words of Questionable Wisdom: Son of Speedlines…
By Paul Sebert
Alright guys. I just couldn’t seem to find an idea worthy of a full column this week. So it’s the return of Speedlines! A tiny tasty piece of musings on the batch of comics I picked up on Wednesday, April 4th.
- I’m not going to avoid spoilers, but I have to say I have almost nothing nice to say about this week’s issue of 52. Easily one of the weakest issues of the maxi-series Darick Robertson’s art is subject to a particularly rushed looking ink job that’s too dark even for the faux-noir feel of the story. As tempting as I am to like a noir story with giant anthropomorphic rat and octopus people, this was a pretty lackluster finish to Renee Montoya’s character arch. I won’t comment on the cliffhanger ending to this until the end of the series.
- You know I was really digging the premiere issue of Avengers: The Initiative when all of a sudden Dan Slott pulled out a plot twist straight out of Craig Kyle & Chris Yost’s New X-Men run at the end. Not a good sign as well, I’m personally sick of seeing teenage superheroes with the approximate life expectancy of Ostrander-era Suicide Squad members. Lets just hope the end of this issue doesn’t completely set the tone for the series.
- You know I was concerned when Brian K. Vaughan left Runaways, but I was pretty impressed with Josh Whedon’s first issue. Call me crazy but I think this guy might be a big name someday.
- Speaking of new guys on established cult books I managed to snag an early copy of Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane. I have to say that I’m pleasantly surprised with David Hahn’s work on Spider-Man loves Mary Jane. While I still miss Takeshi Miyazawa’s take on Sean McKeever’s teenage melodrama, David Han has his own subtle pop-art style which while isn’t a vast departure from Miyazawa’s work, is still fairly unique. Anyway this week’s issue introduces Felicia Hardy into the Mary Jane-verse, and well the world may never be the same. Also we got more Firestar and PASTE POT PETE!
- Why is The All-New Atom DC’s best ongoing title right now? Well this month’s issue has Ryan Cho fighting KUNG-FU ZOMBIES! It is a well known fact that the collapse of the direct market in 1993 can be directly attributed to a lack of kung-fu zombies so I whole heartedly approve of any book featuring them.
- Speaking of Kung-Fu, with only four issues in Ed Brubaker & Matt Fraction’s run on The Immortal Iron Fist just might be Marvel’s best title. Issue #4 of the title mixes in Ed Brubaker’s uncanny knack for street dialog with Matt Fraction’s insane ideas with some remarkable results. The new creative team isn’t so much updating the Iron Fist character as remaking him from the ground up, changing a quirky 70s character into one with some remarkably fascinating depth. Also David Aja knows how to draw some serious quality Kung-Fu and Gun-Fu.
- I’ve been a fan of Mark Sumerak’s previous Power Pack mini-series, but Hulk/Power Pack alas lacks Gurihiru Studios art work. There’s nothing particularly wrong with David Williams’ pencil work, however the art style’s kind of well boring… still an ok book for the kiddies I suppose.
