Age of Sentry #4 – Somehow I keep managing to forget about one of my favorite books. This may be silver age pastiche, but it’s done with such a sense of grand fun that it’s absolutely must read. If you like evil villains with four brains, fake Beatles playing for supervillians, time warps solved by two Sentries butting heads and far more, then you absolutely need to try this out. Don’t let Bendis shitty writing or that this is a “Superman” rip-off turn you away. It’s a short series and worth its weight in pure fun. 8/10 – Great
Avengers: The Initiative #19 – There was an awful lot of build-up in this book for a wildly confused, poorly choreographed fight scene, during which we get an anti-climactic finish to a great character arc. I get the feeling that this book ran long in set up and when the Invasion ended they were left clearing the decks. It’s a shame, this setup deserved much more. 3/10 – Bad
Deadpool #5 – This is a total throwaway arc before Deadpool goes to make a mess of the Marvel Universe’s big event again, this time Dark Reign. Before this, he’s broke and invaded a town filled with artificial zombies to kidnap back a bastard’s wife for money, only to betray everyone and cause shit to explode a lot. It’s fun and some clever cutting sequences distract from that this is totally throwaway while playing into ‘Pool’s general insanity. I don’t like all of the different personalities in Deadpool’s head still, but at least they aren’t taking over scenes anymore and instead we get good, exploding wackiness. 7/10 – Good
Doktor Sleepless #10 – We finally get the authority figures’ plans to deal with Sleepless and, well, they’re actually fairly well-reasoned. On the fence is a good cop, one who could be Richard Fell (the protagonist of the phenomenal Fell which needs to come back now) before his fall. This finally adds someone relatable to the series and can only help, since the constant big weird ideas with no grounding left this book without a heart. Still, it’s just a start and I don’t care about the characters yet, so it’s a ways to go. Warren knows what he’s doing; we’ll very likely get there, but it hasn’t happened yet. 6/10 – Solid
Ex Machina #40 – This book is, for those who don’t know, the story of Mitchell Hundred, a superhero in the “real world” who became mayor of New York. It can get slow, but the book usually has something good to say, so it’s worth sticking out. This month, the mayor decides to have a comic commissioned about his life. The book’s real creative team come to interview. These segments are filled with great personality and in jokes. You can tell Vaughan is having a great time writing this, but it really pays off when BKV the character talks about his experiences on 9/11. As a native New Yorker, this just rings perfectly true and comes delivered with an amazingly accurate tone, leading to a great character moment for BKV and Hundred that you wouldn’t think possible for a character just introduced, regardless of him being the writer. I’d be shocked if this wasn’t Vaughan being autobiographical about his own experiences. The ring of authenticity is rare and seems to be here. 10/10 – Classic
Fables #79 – The new big bad guy is wreaking general havoc and making Fabletown unlivable. The heroes are just finding out that there’s a threat, so this is absolutely a painfully slow build. We already care about the protagonists and most of this could have been accomplished in one month, since we’re just now getting to how dangerous the threat is. Once the Fables take action, this will pick up, but until then, it’s just another of the book’s frequent slow periods before the awesome starts. 4/10 – Below Average
The Mighty Avengers #20 – I bought this by accident and it’s simply the best Bendis Avengers book I’ve ever read. Most of the issue follows around Hank Pym, dealing with the Wasp’s death and finding out how much of a huge, useless prick Tony has been. It’s going to be quite awhile before I’m sick of him being yelled at by everyone and possibly beaten to crap, as well. From here we segue to Clint Barton confronting Norman, who smugly goes into the Avengers Tower and stands in front of an Avengers portrait. Screw the Dark Reign stupidity, this created a greater sense of foreboding than all of that combined. What we get is someone important died, all the heroes are still fragmented, and the wrong people have the reigns. 8/10 – Great
Robin #181 – First, the narration goes out of its way to let us in Stephanie and Anarky’s heads here. Anarky’s bomb scarred Robin and we get his near breakdown, as well. Sadly, this isn’t the original Anarky. This character is far shallower. Worse, they made the original a near vegetable. Since he’s one of my favorite characters, that’s really annoying. Worse, Robin knows this. How? Unrevealed. Why is the new Anarky doing this? For reasons of gaining control- the opposite of Anarky. This isn’t working as a plot or thematically. 2/10 – Terrible Comic
Thunderbolts #157 – In which every single character escapes from certain death with all of the most ridiculous premises around. The last team left new writer Andy Diggle with a cliffhanger and a lot to clean up, so given that, I’ll stay on, but, really, several of these guys should be dead numerous times. This cast deserved a better wrap up. 2/10 – Terrible Comic
The Walking Dead #56 – The big, out of nowhere end to last issue turns out to be a bait and switch to get us to our new interpersonal issues. Rick is struggling not to blame himself, while making enemies with his new companions accidentally. Everyone left alive is pretty broken at this point except maybe Dale, and he’s clearly in over his depth. Rick is so relatable that him getting it together while in danger in and inside his camp will carry nearly anything and, for my money, this is still the best book in comics. 8/10 – Great
