Capsule Reviews, 2/5/09

Capsules, Reviews, Top Story

Cable #11 – How exactly can Swiercyznski rule on Iron Fist, yet be so mediocre here? I have no idea why I read this. It’s Cable and a child wandering through a post-apocalyptic future where nothing can grow. Naturally, nothing much happens. The world is dead and bad. The roach people were set up for several issues to be dismissed for the dead world, which, guess what, is dead uninteresting. 3/10 – Poor

Deadpool #7 – How is this so fun, yet Wolverine: Origins is a consistently dreary mess? Here we have Deadpool realizing Norman wants to kill him because ‘Pool can blackmail that sucka. Naturally, it won’t work, since Deadpool won’t be ending the Dark Reign, but the crossover pending with Thunderbolts is sure to feature some fun ass kicking and, hey, that’s good comics. 6/10 – Solid

Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds # 3 of 5 – The one Crisis book still running might be the best of them all. The book features Geoff f’n Johns and George motherf’n Perez doing a humongous fight scene between three Legions, Sodom Yat, Superman against all the Legion’s villains (including Mordru!) and Superman Prime. Does that many characters in a throw down drawn by Perez interest you? What if I include Bart Allen? Yeah, its that kind of book. 10/10 – Classic

Secret Six #6 – Well, Junior is honestly creepy and disturbing on a whole above and beyond level. Very rarely does a comic make me flip through pages a little bit faster because I’m disgusted and freaked out at a character, but Simone and Scott pulled it off perfectly here, creating an immediately engrossing gross-out top villain. That’s not all this issue is, oh no! We also get the secret employer of the Six for this mission, who is a great reveal, particularly for those who read the last mini and a huge betrayal that is guaranteed to rock the core of the team as a traitor stands revealed from among Catman, Ragdoll, Scandal and Deadshot. I have no idea where the book can go from here- they had a formula and that’s clearly broken, but this turning point immediately delivers the goods. 9/10 – Excellent

Secret Warriors #1 – $4 a pop for new books is absolutely destroying my desire to not only try out new books, even when I like the author (Jeff Parker makes me really happy, sorry Agents of Atlas), but also makes me wish ill on Marvel as a company. What would be the company wide equivalent of gonorrhea? Well, that’s what I want.

Of course, to prove I’m a total hypocrite, I bought Secret Warriors. There was a lot that went into that buy, to be honest. I mean, I really hate Bendis… like… a lot, but I figure that his name is attached early to boost sales, much like early JSA had Robinson babysitting Johns. Second, I like Hickman and want him to have money, so fuck Marvel with a diseased Thai Whore, but Hickman gets my cash. Lastly, it’s a book that’s basically about Nick Fury being awesome. Guess what happens in it? Nick Fury is awesome. There’s a giant conspiracy that Nick figures out and he spends the entire issue being entirely too badass for words. He’s like killer spy Batman. If that’s something that appeals to you, then this is for you. Also, it feels like Bendis had zero part in this, without even the annoying dialogue ticks, so this is going on the pull list. Oh and if you read Comics Should Be Good, yes I did write this exact same thing there… and if you don’t read CSBG, well, why the hell not? 9/10 – Excellent

War of Kings: Darkhawk #1 of 2 – This is where $4 issues are really going to bite into my ass. For $8, I get two issues. It’s like Marvel is chasing me to trades where for $12-$15 I can get a full 6-issue arc. Also, had I not already loved prior Annihilation events (the cosmic Marvel crossovers), the high price tag would scare me away from trying this off. It’s just poor marketing. To make matters worse, most of this issue is spent setting up who Darkhawk currently is and where he’s been. That’s great, but I already knew all of that. There’s a nice cliffhanger on the last page, but nothing new is revealed here, so I just spent $4.00 for backstory, which I already knew. Way to make me feel foolish, Marvel. I’ll be dropping quite a few books if this continues. 5/10 – Average

Glazer is a former senior editor at Pulse Wrestling and editor and reviewer at The Comics Nexus.