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#SwampThing #8 by @Ssnyder1835 and @YanickPaquette - Goddamn! This is definitely my pick of the week. #SwampThing’s reveal in this, about halfway through the book, is one of the most badass pages i’ve seen in a while. I love the way @YanickPaquette (and his contributing artists, in this case a great few pages by #MarcoRudy) design this book. @Ssnyder1835 writes these really interesting passages that remind me of #StephenKing’s #TheStand (this whole storyline does, and I love it) in the way that they’re kind of loose musings on what an apocalyptic scenario like this might mean to either side in the ensuing war between good and evil, rather than plot driven exposition. @YanickPaquette has been taking these passages, dividing them over panels, but rather than going with a boxy layout, basically draws a series of splash pages that have ever evolving borders that form the panels over the splash pages. Like #AlecHolland himself, the pages evolve as you read them. Or perhaps like #TheRot, the panels spread like a disease through each issue, telling a most horrifying story. I can’t say enough about page 10. If someone else ever designed #SwampThing like this before, please let me know. Because this seems like a wholly original, but totally sensible design for #SwampThing. I really loved this issue. It was a simple set-up to the oncoming war, but it really worked for me. Although, I think @Ssnyder1835 has an obsession with stabbing his characters through the chest. See #Batman #5, and just 2 or 3 issues previous to this one, #SwampThing was stabbed through the chest with a chain saw if I remember correctly. So clearly, the cliff hanger at the end of this book will really just end up being a flesh wound (bark wound?). (Just teasing, @Ssnyder1835!)
Academic Nerds Issue 44
Bullshit! - In which Garrett and Kevin decide to start calling bullshit. On everything. Except the Mega Millions. But only because Garrett doesn’t know what the fuck they are.
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#WolverineAndTheXMen #8 by @jasonaaron and #ChrisBachalo has my brian spinning! Finally, the return of #ChrisBachalo, and with him, the return of excellent but somewhat confusing artwork. I talked about this when he was drawing the early issues of this book: I love his style. The thick outlines with the sharp angles, filled in by a more sketchy pencil. I love the look of it, but he compounds that style with another style: that of crazy angles in his panels. Sometimes I’m not sure what I’m looking at. I did notice that the layouts in this issue were more straight forward than in his first few issues on the book, and this helped a little bit. But his construction of pages in this were a little confusing. @jasonaaron has been doing a great job of writing issues that contain 2 or 3 main stories, and 1 or 2 side stories. That’s a lot of story for a 22 page book (I think that’s an accurate number). #Bradshaw was great at illustrating what was happening in each storyline, and the transitions from one to the other. #Bachalo may be less great at this, at least in this issue it felt a little haphazard. It actually looked to me like he drew each panel individually, and then just started pasting them on pages. I know very little about comic art so I’m sure I’m wrong, it’s just how it appeared to me in the reading of it. Regardless, I’m super happy that he’s back because I love his renditions of these characters (even if it means we’re back to cute looking Broo. I wish they’d make a decision as to whether he’s cute or ferocious and make artists stick with it). And the story just keeps moving like an avalanche, accumulating more momentum with each issue. I can’t wait for more!
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#TMNT #8 by #KevinEastman, @TomWaltz, and #DanDuncan got me excited about the #Turtles all over again (especially after the #MichaelBay announcements). This book continues to find a perfect balance of new twists to the #Turtles story and nostalgic nods and winks to their originas as I remember them from when I was a kid. This issue felt a lot smoother than previous issues to me, especially in its dialogue. I wasn’t profoundly annoyed that all the #Turtles sound the same, as I had been in previous weeks. I think that means this is really starting to shape up and become an excellent comic. I already love it, but I could definitely see some weak points, and I think they’re clearing those up as they go along. #Duncan’s artwork is beautiful as ever. I love the way he draws the #Turtles. Oh and the idea they use to defeat the #Mousers is really simple, but really cool. Feels like a legitimate tactic. I hope we see more of that in the future.
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#AvengersVsXmen #0 by @JasonAaron, @BrianMBendis, and @apesandbabes is the prologue to @Marvel’s big event this year. As someone who is fairly new to reading ongoings (spent years reading trades before I got into weekly comic reading), I don’t have a lot of knowledge of @Marvel’s continuity. I know a lot about their characters, and their various origin stories, but as far as the continuity, especially over the last 10 or 20 years, I know very little. Most of the trades I read were for older series, so it gives me very little context for this series. #0, which I had hoped would basically be a catch-up book for readers like me, felt entrenched in continuity. Especially @BrianMBendis’ #Avengers storyline. Maybe this is @Marvel’s plan, but all it made me want to do was read the last 10 years of #Avengers books so I could figure out what the hell everyone was talking about with this #ScarletWitch, how she made the #Xmen extinct, and why the hell, in a book called #AvengersVsXmen, are #Wolverine and #Beast on the #Avengers? I know that #Wolvie has been a part of that team in the past, but how do they justify him being on that side of things in a war with the #XMen? I felt like I needed a lot more information about that storyline, and while I do genuinely want to discover those plot points as I read through some older comics, I still want enough info to understand this story. @jasonaaron’s part of the book, the #Hope story, was much better in this regard, although still left me wanting more info. He does a great job in his run on #WolverineAndTheXmen of providing you with just enough details from continuity to help you understand the current story. He also just makes sure the current story can stand on it’s own two legs without using much continuity. He does mostly the same work with his #Hope / #Xmen story here. I still don’t quite understand the extiction (or #Xtinction as I believe I’ve seen it called on the shelves), but I do understand #Hope, the reference to the #Phoenix (shame on you #Xmen movies, for not giving us more of this storyline), and her position as possible savior or messiah. This too makes me want to go back and read the last 10 years worth of #Xmen continuity (good luck), but I at least feel like I know enough to follow this story. Overall this issue was a mixed bag. But I’m still excited for my first big comic event. w00t.
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#TheNewDeadwardians #1 by @VincentAbnett and @injculbard was a really strong #1 that featured an interesting art style I’ve not seen before (remember, fairly new to comics), and a really fun premise. I love the use of “nicknames” here, much in the way #TheWalkingDead has names for its zombies, #NewDeadwardians has names for it’s upper and lower classes, being vampires and zombies respectively. The vamp’s are called #TheYoung, and the zombie’s are called #TheRestless. That’s right, #TheYoungAndTheRestless. And no, it’s not a story written for emo teenagers. It’s a great detective story about a murder investigator living in the land of the dead. What cases are there to solve when everyone is already dead? How about the murder of a #Young who was not killed by any known method of killing a vampire? @VinceAbnett builds a fascinating world that appears to take place in Victorian Era England where some cataclysmic event has turned the world on its head. People are choosing to become #TheYoung, it would seem as a way to prevent themselves from becoming one of the #TheRestless. But which is a worse fate? Perhaps that’s what this series is all about. I’m excited to find out more!
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#AllStarWestern #7 by @jpalmiotti @JVGray and #Moritat takes #Gotham’s Odd Couple to New Orleans, and it’s just as fun as it sounds. (That reads like a soundbite.) (That was an edit.) (Left in, for your pleasure.) (This has turned into a bit.) (That was a bit) (Left in, for your pleasure.) This issue was jam packed with general badassery, while taking the time to unveil a different side of #Hex. We get to see him schmooze someone for information, and his transformation into a different kind of person reveals a lot about what he’s capable of and the lengths he’s willing to go. I love the idea of masked vigilantes in the old west, as it feels like a #SergioLeone movie. #NightHawk and #Cinnamon are like the #ManWithNoName. But there’s two of them. And one’s a lady. But it’s the same thing. But that’s awesome. I think @jpalmiotti and @JVGray really pull that off. The fight scenes are awesome in this, #Moritat impresses me more with every issue. I really loved the action sequences, helped by the idea of the awesomely badass babe. #AllStarWestern is always fun, and I really appreciate that they pack every issue with a lot of action-driven story. And the #NightHawk and #Cinnamon backup by #PeterSherberger, #DanGreen, and #TerryAustin was pretty cool. Standard origin stuff, but I liked the writing, and I’m glad the back up is tied to the main story now. That works a lot better for me. Oh and the artwork for the backup was really nice! #NightHawk and #Cinnamon looked really great in those pages.
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#AvengingSpiderman #5 by @ZebWells and @leinilyu teams #Spiderman with #CaptainAmerica for their most exciting adventure yet: friendship. While this issue’s premise is inherently fun (#Spidey wants to be bromantically involved with #Cap), it fell flat for me. The first arc of this book was fun filtered to purity by sheer awesome. This issue was mostly #Spidey and #Cap talking about a comic book. They didn’t throw these two into a situation that had stakes high enough to keep the running joke of #Parker desperately trying to prove that he and #Rogers are alike moving. The book just kind of slows to a halt at the end. And, although I was happy to pick this up and see @leinilyu’s name on it, since I had just had my first experience with his art last week on #SuperCrooks, I was frustrated with the art work again this month. I don’t like the decision to all of the sudden draw #Peter like the actor who’s currently playing him on screen. Did they do this for the #TobeyMaguire ones? It threw me off immediately. And even weirder, they didn’t make any of the other characters look particularly like their movie counterparts. This is the first time we see #Spiderman without his mask in this series, and I was really disappointed by that for some reason. Also, when he had the mask on, he looked like #Spiderman from the 60’s cartoon series. This was overall a disappointing issue in this series. I hope they get back to a more cartoonish art style, and more silliness. We don’t need the little heartfelt stories like this. Just keep it light and fun.
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#SuperCrooks #1 by @MrMarkMillar and @leinilyu is a fun concept with excellent art. I was really impressed with the look of this book. @leinilyu created some really nice action shots in this, and I like his character designs a lot. As far as @MrMarkMillar’s story is concerned, this issue was a nice, slow introduction to a new series, which in comparison to #KickAss2 (as I’ve just finished reading that) is a breath of fresh air. However, I wish we had gotten a clearer picture of who these characters are. Hopefully they’ll be a bit more fully realized in the coming issues, but it was hard to get excited about the premise because I don’t yet care about any of the characters in play. I’m not as particularly interested in these ‘What if?’ scenario’s that @MrMarkMillar has been playing out over the past few years. I was with the original #KickAss, but the stuff to follow wasn’t as interesting to me. This is a bit more original than that, but still feels like it falls into that category - ‘What if the supervillains traveled over seas!?’ I’m more excited for something like #JupitersChildren, which sounds like more of an original idea than a play on other ideas. That being said, this issue was pretty good and I’m interested to read the rest of the series and see where he and @leinilyu take it. They leave you with some interesting mysteries by the end of the issue that I’m curious to find out more about.
That’s @DaveGibbons90’s variant cover up top!
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#WonderWoman #7 by @BrianAzzarello and @CliffChiang (yes, he’s finally back for this issue!) was one of the best issues in this run. It told an interesting, little self-contained story that acts as a step on #WonderWoman’s journey to Hell. The #Hephaestus design was really cool, the idea of a more weaponized lasso was awesome, and the explanation of #Diana’s brothers was interesting. The resolution at the end of this issue is not what you would expect. It certainly wasn’t what #WonderWoman was expecting, and it added a nice layer to her character. She learns something in this issue, and that’s something you don’t see happen often enough in super hero books. The promise of #WonderWoman needing to journey through hell to find #Zola is exciting, and I hope Mr. @CliffChiang will be doing all the artwork for the Hell issues, as I’d really like to see his take on it.
