Comics for 3/10/12

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

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 

Comics for 29/8/12

Before Watchmen: The Minutemen #3

With this issue, we begin to see the cracks forming in the Minutemen's armour

By now, it's very clear that this is the Before Watchmen title that's head and shoulders above the others. It seems to be one of the only BW titles intend on telling it's own stories about the Watchmen universe instead of recreating the big moments of the original series. However, while Brian Azzerello's Comedian series has just turned into a confusing mess by following this path, Darwyn Cooke's Minutemen series continues to exceed all expectations of the Before Watchmen titles.

The greatest strength that this series has is that Darwyn Cooke is the sole contributor to it. In addition to giving this series some of his classic golden age artwork, he uses it to make some of the strongest storytelling I've seen in comics for a long time. The scene as Silhouette explains what happened to her during a rescue of a child is a prime example of this, with the colours in particular standing out during these pages. Another good example of this is how Darwyn Cooke includes panels from a Minutemen comic made in this universe, which highlights exactly how broken the Minutemen are as we compare the current situation with the idealized versions of each Minutemen from the comic panels.

While I was worried about this series when the first issue came out, these past 2 issues (This weeks in particular) have shown me exactly how well you can do a series like this.

Captain Marvel #3

Captain Marvel fights some Kree ships, talks about war, and fights some more Kree ships...........Not a right lot happens in this issue

It's really hard to comment on what happens in this issue since the plot doesn't really advance that much further and this issue is mostly just fights with the Kree ships. One thing that did really bug me about the story was Carol's plan of action, which was to basically send off a messenger to find all the best fighters they opposing force has and fight them again. It's probably done as a show of strength to prove to the Japanese that they're better than them, but it seems like a silly plan when you remember that one of the Banshee Squad members was killed in the last fight with these ships, so for Captain Marvel (Someone with considerable strategic intelligence) it seems like a bad idea to put the Banshee Squad at risk again. I can say however, that the art for this series is still great, with some fantastic muddy colours, but it is starting to suffer as the fight scenes do start to look very stiff and lifeless. It may just be down to how Captain Marvel fights (with lots of lasers and beams), which naturally wouldn't give her fights much kinetic force behind them.

I'm gonna assume we've just had an off issue, and by next month we'll be back with a much stronger issue.

NCP: The Looker

The National Comics Presents line continues as we get a story about vampires, supermodels, romance.......YOU'VE ALL HEARD THIS BEFORE

I really don't like writing a review where I just bash something over and over again, but there was absolutely nothing good about this book. I should of seen this coming, but after last months one shot (written by Jeff Lemire) I was prepared to anything by the NCP line a go. It was just cliché after cliché, nothing that we haven't seen before and done much better in other series. Super stiff art and boring art and unlike-able characters just made it so hard to finish reading. I'll highlight one particular thing before I finish. During the introductory monologue, the main character makes a big point about how vampires are evil, vicious predators, you know, the opposite of what we see nowdays in the mainstream media. We start to get the idea that series might be different with it's vampires, but that idea gets shot down almost immediately when we find out that the main character used to be a supermodel, and if it wasn't for the fact that she wouldn't show up in pictures, she would still be after her transformation. Soon after that we see her being romantic with another character ''who she shouldn't be with''......Sound familiar? Be very glad that this was a one-shot.

And go read American Vampire instead.

Phantom Lady and Doll Man #1

As Phantom Lady, Jennifer plans on taking revenge on the mob that killed her family at a young age

DC'S really digging for obscure characters and series lately, huh? Between this and NCP, DC seems to be taking some chances with new 52 titles. It's a shame that this one probably wasn't worth the chance. Not to say that this issue was awful, the concept behind Phantom Lady's power is quite interesting, with control over shadows, and it gives a lot of room to do some cool sequences with them, but this issue just has so many flaws, which leads to everything feeling a little lazy and half-hearted. One of the biggest problems with this is the masses and masses of exposition that gets thrown on the reader. Just boxes upon boxes of information gets told to us as the Phantom Lady explains nearly every aspect of the story though narration. It's really bad during the opening scene as we watch her take down a group of thugs, along with a running commentary of her explaining her powers. It doesn't allow for any organic evolution of the story, and it just carries on as the issue continues. I want to see a series like this do well, but it really hasn't given me any reason to come back for when the next issue is released.

Prophet #28

We continue to follow Old Man Prophet as he looks to repair his robotic friend and begins his plot to free his race from the people who enslaved them

IGNORE THE 90'S-TASTIC COVER

Possibly one of the biggest surprises of 2012, Prophet was originally a 90's series created by Rob Liefield. It wasn't anything special, just your typical 90's EXTREEEEEEEMMME comic series that was eventually cancelled. It wasn't until the start of 2012 when Brandon Graham rebooted the series with a completely different artistic vision for the series. Gone were the guns and EXTREEEEEEEMMME, in were sprawling landscapes and high-concept sci-fi stories. What we now have is one of the best ''new'' series of the year and a real treat to read each month

With issue 28, we seem to be settling in what might be a much more standard storyline. Instead of following a random John Prophet for an issue or two, we continue to follow Old Man Prophet as he searchs the galaxy for the missing parts of his robot friend. It's a nice change of pace since we might be with Old Man Prophet for a while since his narration suggests a much more deeper plot than we might realize. We may not fully understand exactly what happens each issue since Brandon Graham seems intent to keep things vague, but the story get told in such a way that I always feel satisfied at the end of each issue, hungry for more.

    As I mentioned before, one of the biggest changes to the series is how it implements sprawling landscapes to tell the story and show us parts of this world, and some of these are just astounding to look at, particularly a page from this weeks issue:

The art by Giannis Milonogiannis is absolutely fantastic, with a very prominent European comics influence in this issue's art. Everything isn't necessarily minimalist, but there's a lot of empty space in the panels, giving a real sense of the size of the world John Prophet lives in.

There's literally nothing else like this series being released nowadays, and it's a fantastic series that I can't recommend enough.

Avenging Spider-Man #11

For Spidey's 50^th anniversay, Avenging Spider-Man #11 gives us a re-examination of Peter's relationship with Uncle Ben

This will probably be a very marmite sort of issue. On one hand, we get a much closer look at a character we've who we've never really known much about beyond that immortal mantra of his, and on the other hand, Zeb Wells is messing around with Muthfuckin' Uncle Ben, possibly the most untouchable character in comics ever. Some moments of this issue will likely cause a lot of fan uproar, for example Aunt May laughing at the idea of Peter starting a scholarship in Ben's name since she says that he barely finished high school. There are a couple of moments like throughout the issue, but they're not as damaging as they sound. The real message told in this issue is that Peter can't keep beating himself up over the guilt he feels for letting that mugger go, that he the world will keep spinning and that he just needs to move on with live. It doesn't mean however, that he should forget him, because he'll need those lessons and the strength Uncle Ben gave throughout his superhero career. This last message is done though a very touching sequence as we look over important moments in Spidey's life.

I haven't mentioned anything about the art yet, but there isn't much to say. It's Steve Dillon. He was a very odd choice considering it's a Spider-Man book, but luckily the whole issue is mostly just Aunt May and Peter talking. He still uses that trademark Dillon Sameface for each character, but the art isn't awful, just unsuitable for a book like this.

What I listened to during the writing of this post:
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Mature Themes (over and over and over....)
Andrew Jackson Jihad - Knife Man