Animal Man #13
Rotworld
finally begins as both Animal Man and Swamp Thing try to find their
bearing in a world over run by The Rot
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It's
incredibly hard to review these two issues separately since both
follow the exact same pattern, in that both heroes find themselves in
the new Rotworld, get picked up by the last pockets of resistance to
the rot, each story is interlaced with what happened to those who
were left behind outside the portal, and then they find themselves in
the last safe haven of their respective colours. However, this
doesn't mean that these issues were bad, quite the opposite in fact.
Each issue gives us a look at how Rotworld came to be, as well as the
how most of the superheroes fell. Both of the double spread pages in
each issue we probably the highlight both issues. What we see is the
gruesome takedown of the superheroes as the rot began to take over,
animal man's in particular being super brutal as Steve Pugh's art
really drives home how nasty this sequence is. It should also be
mentioned that these sequences actually confirm the presence of a lot
of characters that may have been lost in the new 52 reboot. Another
way positive to Steve Pugh's artwork is that we finally get some
Yanick-esque panelling in Animal Man, very similarly to how he did it
during his time on the one or two issues of Swamp Thing. That and we
see the return of the Shepard......who is somehow in the real world?
Not that I'm complaining. This is a raw, dark world we read our
comics in now, and we're gonna need all the comic relief we can get.
That, and I love Buddy Baker being called ''BUTTER BAKER BLONDIE
MAN!''. On the other hand, back over in Swamp Thing, we get to see
the ''Rotted'' Teen Titans take on the last remains of the green.
There
is however, one big concern about Rotworld in general. It's that I
feel like none of this will have any affect on DC's greater
continuity. It may just be the cynic in me talking, but I think that
by the end of this event, everything will be back to normal, no one
will of died, and both books will kick off a new arc and act as if
nothing has happened. It just feels like they've done too much, too
soon for anything to have any lasting effect. I could be completely
wrong about this, I want to believe that Scott Synder and Jeff Lemire
have the balls to make this arc have some real consequences, but I
just feel like DC won't let them get away with it, so long as they
continue to kill and turn the superheroes into Rot heroes. I may be
cheating slightly, but I think that I'll enjoy Rotworld a lot more so
long as I treat it as a Elseworlds story.
Detective Comics #13
With
a new creative team onboard, Detective Comics kicks off a new arc
focusing on the penguin as he makes big changes to his organisation
A
lot of hype has been made about John Layman's jump on to Detective
Comics, . Mostly known as the creator of Chew (One of the smartest
and best series run by Image today, GO GET IT), this is his debut on
DC. The main focus of this issue is Penguin building up a positive
image to the public, similar to the way Bruce Wayne has built up his
image. While it's a plan really well suited for Penguin, It just
seems like a silly thing to do in the long run. It's not like
everyone is just gonna forget all the years of organised crime,
right? It doesn't help that he hires an assassin to kill Bruce Wayne.
It kind of feels like John Layman's trying to make this story a lot
smarter than it actually is, but the writing itself is actually quite
good. It also has to be mentioned that John Layman is trying to give
this series a bit more humour than the other Batman titles. On one
the first pages, we see Bruce Wayne making a donation to Gotham's
Orthodontic Association, and in the panel below we see Batman
smashing a guy's face with a box above saying ''At least I won't feel
bad about this''. I'm all for humor like this, and it'll give this
series a much needed sense of fun. There's not really much to say
about the art since it's very standard capes-affair art, passable but
nothing special. Ignoring the pretty bad story, I'm kind of looking
forward to this series since John Layman has some real writing chops
and once he gets a bit more room to write with (He only has issues 13
and 14 to write a short arc and then he has to write a tie in to the
Death Of The Family crossover) he may be able to turn this into
something special.
Before Watchmen:
Rorshach #2
IT'S
TIME TO SHIT.........JUST NOT AS MUCH THIS TIME
After
a bit of a shaky start last month, I think this series is starting to
find it's feet. The big issue of Rorshach acting really out of
character is somewhat relieved in this issue. He's much less willing
to talk to other people, but his character is still somewhat off
though. When he's dealing with the thugs who beat him up he's much
more closer to how he acts in Watchmen, lots of intimidation, but
then he throws in 80's styled action hero quip and it just doesn't
settle right. It kind of feels like Brian Azzerelo is either writing
him at face value or he's just writing for a pay check, and I feel
like it much more the latter than the former. The lazy writing seems
to extend to the villain as well, who for all intents and purposes,
is just a typical gruff and gritty crime boss. There are still nice
touches in the writing every now and then, like the blood spots
appearing the narration as Rorshach's condition gets worse. The art
is still fantastic, with the colours in particular adding that extra
level of sleaze that some of the scenes really need. The last scene
of Rorschach interrogating the man about the Crime Boss' location was
DIRTY and really hard to look at, as Rorshach puts the broken glass
into his mouth. It's pretty clear that Lee Bermejo is putting loads
more effort into the art and covers (Which are both tight BTW) than
Azzerelo is into the writing I am starting to enjoy this series, but
I feel like it'll be anything more than a decent series. That being
said, I wouldn't be surprised if Brian Azzerelo had something big up
his sleeve that no one sees coming.
Dail H #5
The
continuing adventures of COCK-A-HOOP AND HIS DAIL-HER'S
We
finally see the first arc of Dail H come to a close as we see the end
if the Abyss and the first appearance of the Dail Hunters. Compared
to other past issues, this one is surprisingly coherent, more because
this is the big climax to the arc, which means we need much less
exposition to explain what's going on. We see everything come
together, all the characters join up, and we also get a bit of a
clear out as some characters leave the fray. The art is psychedelic
as always, with the first appearance of the dial hunter being my
favourite part of this issue. On this double spread, we see crazy
panelling along with some super kinetic art as the dial hunter swaps
between about 5 different heroes. Mateus Santolouco is just killing
it in each issue and his art is slowly becoming my favourite part of
the series, besides the some of the most imaginative heroes I've seen
in comics in along time (Cock-a-hoop just edges out Pelican Army). I
may not understand what happens in each issue, but I always enjoy
what I'm reading.
Daredevil: End of Days
#1
Bendis'
long awaited Daredevil story finally comes out
For
all the flak Bendis get's for his run on avengers (and his writing in
general), people forget how great a writer he can be. Apart from his
ongoing on Ultimate Spider-Man, his writing has been pretty
lacklustre recently, but we might be seeing an end to this trend with
this issue. This story takes place in the theoretical future where,
after a desperate encounter with Bulleye, Matt Murdock is murdered in
front of the public he swore to protect. The story is mostly told
from the perspective of Ben Ulich, a journalist from the Daily Bugle,
as he tries to figure out what exactly set off the chain of events
that lead to Daredevil's death. Bendis' quick witted and fast writing
style actually works really well for the story as helps properly
articulate Ulich's thinking process. Also his typical ''Bendis-isms''
are cut down to a minimum, resulting in a much more easily flowing
narrative. Another aspect of the story I like is how this might a
much better take on ''what happens when a hero crosses that last
line?''. It's revealed towards the end that Daredevil finally got
tired of dealing with Kingpin, and in a very public display of force,
brutally beating him to death, simply stating ''You don't
understand......I've tried everything else''. I feel like Bendis will
be able to do a real good job with the story if he continues to take
this angle. The art on the other hand, was a lot more inconsistent.
Klaus Janson has a style that is very reminiscent of Frank Miller,
very gritty and detailed, but on a lot of pages it just turned into a
scribbly mess. I didn't even realize that it was Bullseye tho
Daredevil until I re-read the issue. There were even some moments of
Liefield-styled bad limbs appearing, I'd turn the page suddenly
Daredevil would have rickets! The art direction and panelling itself
was actually very well done, in a sort of noir style, but the bad
pencils just keep cropping, damaging my love of the issue.
This
feels like a real passion project for Bendis, the sort of stories
that writers want to write, rather than following the guidelines set
by the creative departments. It been so long since we've seen his
writing this strong, and if it keeps up this level of quality, and
maybe the art gets a little better, it could be one of the big
highlights of the year.
What I listened to during the writing of this post:
-Tame Impala, Lonerism
-Death Grips, NOLOVEDEEPWEB
-Rolo Tomassi, Astraea
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