Daredevil #96
Gladiator reborn and crazier than ever!
Milla stalked!
Daredevil kicking people’s faces in!
Lily Lucca shows up!
Tim’s a happy guy!
B+
Heroes for Hire #9
Ugly art takes me right out of this story and all of the fun seems to have leaked out of it too. I like Wells, but he seems way off here which is odd because heretofore funny seemed to be his wheelhouse.
Even more Paladin fails to redeem this.
D+
Powers #24
To be honest, I’m pretty disappointed in this issue.
There is plenty going on, but the book still feels empty. After last issue revelation-a-thon, I had high hopes for the new direction that all of that promised. Instead, I got this.
A suicide that ends the case in a far too pat manner; a lie that, while a cool bit of deception, completely deflates a promising conspiracy angle; and a terribly dangerous villain who basically does nothing combine to drag down the issue.
It hurts to write this, but…I haven’t been this disappointed in Powers in memory.
C
Astonishing X-Men #21
I love prophesies.
More specifically, I love how prophecy can end up true despite not manifesting in the way the words made you think they would. MacBeth had them, Lord of the Rings had them, heck even Heroes sort of has them in the form of Isaac’s paintings. And, of course, Joss Whedon has made considerable hay of them in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. So it should come as no surprise that I am enjoying Colossus’s quest to dodge his destiny while, inevitably, only coming that much closer to doing so. I am more than a little curious to see in what way this prophecy fulfills itself.
What’s nice is that Whedon (aided by Cassaday’s typically gorgeous art) is giving us plenty of great stuff to keep us occupied along the way. Armor’s growth into the role of an X-Man, Beast’s snappy banter with SWORD’s leader Agent Brand, Agent Brand’s surprise, Kitty’s solution on how to pass the time, an underground society dedicated to helping others, and Cyclops revelatory admission to Emma are strong character moments that service the story and work on their own.
B+
Avengers Initiative #2
Oh…this is going to be a disaster. A disaster well worth reading, don’t mistake me, but a disaster nonetheless.
We are two issues in and you can already see how the Initiative is rotting from within and will, no doubt, be an equal, if not greater, tragedy than the Stamford incident. What Stamford represents to the old Marvel U where no one registered or cared about anyone registering is what the Initiative will be to the new Marvel U where registration is the call of the day. It is only a matter of time.
And I, for one, am enjoying watching those seconds tick by.
Already we have instructors hiding secrets from each other, Pym battling his mental demons while being praised by a Nazi scientist, a Nazi scientist (sorry, but that bears repeating), a dead trainee who was very likely the best and brightest, another trainee being trained in hiding because his power is horrible and beyond his control, and a method of travel that is weakening the separation between our dimension and the Negative Zone. To note that things look bad is an tremendous understatement.
As is saying that Slott is balancing everything well. He’s not just balancing, he’s juggling and doing so with sharp burning things.
Wow, what a weak analogy.
In any case, Slott is doing a terrific job chronicling a wildly unsavory organization. The air reeks of dashed hope and moral compromise. There is hope, of course, in the wide eyed recruits who admirably rise to their first taste of superhuman combat. But the deck is stacked against them and a sense of foreboding reverberates through the book.
There isn’t for everyone, but if you like your superheroics complicated and morally ambiguous, this is for you.
B+
Loners #2
The spotlight falls on Ricochet this installment and it is revealing, in a bit of a shallow way. Not unlike, I suppose, Ricochet himself.
Essentially, he experienced a tragedy because of his inaction and ran to the West Coast to escape his guilt. Along the way, he found out about the Loners and thought his problems could be solved through them. Now, frustration has set in and he’s doubting that the group is the right way to go.
Again, I have to praise how Cebulski nails the language and the feel of recovery groups (like AA or NA) and the individuals. He does a great job of connecting with the ego stripping that has to happen and the unfortunate way the participants inevitably attempt to resist that stripping.
The one problem, again, is that we are, more or less, cheering for these guys to fail. As fans of superhero comics, we are programmed to believe that being heroic is no vice and therefore it is difficult to understand what good this group does. Especially in the case of Ricochet, who’s problems stem from his inaction and his inability to see things through, things that would be better served by dedicating himself to using his powers for good. He doesn’t seem to need a support group, he needs a good mentor to train him.
Beyond this bit of cognitive dissonance, though, the book is good. The clashing of personalities is well done and there is no sense of “sameness†amongst them. The sense of selfishness that most people in early recovery still carry with them is well utilized for story momentum and adds to the sense of authenticity.
Still, Cebulski’s inability to convince us of the necessity of this support group (at least with its present mission statement) does hurt the book and drops it down a bit in the grade department to a…
B
Omega Flight #2
Ugh…what happened to the promise of Omega Flight #1?
Apparently it is having a bit of a lie down as this issue gives us a perfunctory fight, a team building process that is still languishing, one character that still has no made an appearance, USAgent making like the Guy Gardner of the Marvel U, and an issue ending revelation that we’ve known about for at least 3 months.
Well, at least Kolins art is nice.
D+
Runaways #26
The Punisher stuff is pretty fun, but if you’re a fan of the character, you’ll probably hate it.
The art is good, but feels very busy and flattened where it used to feel light and clean. Maybe it is the coloring?
This issue is, more or less, a place holder. The ending is a cool twist, but there is nothing here that leads to it that feels like anything more than wheel spinning. It is fun wheel spinning to be sure, and that does count for something, but it is wheel spinning nonetheless.
C
