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