PICK! 100 Bullets #92
Writer: Brian Azzarello
Art: Eduardo Risso
Colorist: Patricia Mulvihill
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo

Ernie: Trying to predict the last eight issues is like trying to drive a rear-wheel truck on black ice. You have no control. You just let go of the wheel and hang on for dear life. With alliances deteriorating, our favorite players are reaching the end of the plank and we have no one to fault but ourselves for liking these guys and gals. Don’t try to take it out on Azzarello and Risso they knew it all along and we were hooked, line and sinker. These Minutemen were trouble from the start and Agent Graves sees the sharks circling but that don’t mean he’s dead in the water, I don’t think he’s even begun to fight. But the power of these final issues, so far, resides in the subplot of the children “dealing” in life and death. It not only sings a tragic tune but resembles too many real streets and corners to count. Mulvihill’s genius is in coloring these scenes in hues where an excess darkness exists contrasting the game played under the lights. While the main plot dances around the trigger, these kids are actually pulling them.

PICK! Booster Gold #10
Writer: Geoff Johns & Jeff Katz
Art: Dan Jurgens & Norm Rapmund
Colorist: tbd
Publisher: DC Comics

Carissa: Scouring the net, I’ve read a lot of complains about Booster Gold’s tenth issue. It doesn’t make sense in the DC continuum. That wouldn’t be possible in real time traveling science. “What?!” “Yeah right.” “Meh.”

I personally loved it. I understand how it doesn’t make too much scientific sense, but I don’t read about time savvy superheroes for the sense they should make. In the genre of kitschy, 1970’s sci-fi, Booster Gold’s tenth issue scores high on the groovy scale. It’s got those great family values. (Father vs. Son, death match!) It’s got those great friendship values. (Two men, completely, platonically, in love) And the revealing of the ultimate bad guy and what happens to him? Comedic brilliance. (Team America, anyone?) The best part though, was the ending, starting with Blue Beetle’s perfect one-liner on the bottom of the fourth to the last page. They were identical to every apocalyptic/armageddon movie I saw in the 90’s, and they broke my heart just like every one of those movies did. On a semi-related note, the cover of this issue also gets a high groovy rating.

PICK! Locke & Key
Writer: Joe Hill
Art: Gabriel Rodriguez
Publisher: IDW Publishing

Ernie: Sam has made his way into Lovecraft and is determined to finish the job he started. With minimal resistance, he marches right onto the Locke estate and terrorizes them once again. Bode’s discovery down the well proves to be resourceful when he meets her eye to eye and is faced with the dilemma of trusting her. So many horror films are about shocking viewers with a cadre of ghastly sequences or thrusting an orgasm of gore in our face that it becomes a test of patience and sometimes comical. Reading a horror novel allows the author’s words to guide our imagination, but is it ever as scary as it is intended? That depends on the reader. But Locke & Key gives enough to realize the reality of the situation. Our mind fills in the rest that goes on between panels and off. Hill and Rodriguez have managed create something that will infiltrate your fears and creep the fuck out of you–even violate you. Rarely have I felt the type of genuine fear and suspense when turning the pages of Locke & Key. Highly, highly recommended.

SEMI-PICK! Punisher: Little Black Book
Writer: Victor Gischler
Art: Jefte Palo
Colorist: Lee Loughridge
Publisher: Marvel Comics/MAX

Ernie: Turning Punisher into a Max title is one of the best things done to the character since hiring Garth Ennis to write him. And as Ennis preps us with his final story, I can say with this one-shot, Marvel’s found a suitable artist for the next era of Frank Castle if they’re looking. Little Black Book is a little ditty told from the perspective of a powerful and professional call girl who winds up being Frank’s easy way to his next target. Palo got a great blocky style and heavy brush that’s sure to remind longtime Punisher readers of a young Whilce Portacio or Bill Seinkiewicz back in the day but Gischler writes Vette, the call girl as a narrator in noir fashion. At times though, it’s borderline cliché and predictable. As a one-shot diversion or collected with other short stories it works, especially if you favor stories like Spider-Man’s Tangled Web but it’s hardly ground-breaking material for Punisher.

PICK! Red Mass for Mars #1
Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Art: Ryan Bodenheim
Colorist: Jonathan Hickman
Publisher: Image Comics

Carissa: Red Mass for Mars already looks like it’s going to be an interesting new series. I like the post-apocalyptic slash superhero slash alien parasite thing it’s got going on, and the few characters we meet are intriguing. (Even the alpha male superhero we barely get to see) Lightbender especially looks like he’s going to play a very convincing, evil, EVIL bad guy. That shot with him sitting there talking about his genocide plans while the parasites fly all around him? Psychotic brilliance.

The art is also well planned in this issue. The backgrounds are detailed and never skimped on, giving us readers a clear idea of what future-earth looks like in all its sci-fi glory. The art is dabbled out in a unique fashion, with a certain color palette being used depending on the location and mood. (For instance, the soft sepias of the Halidome scenes, and the burnt reds of Lightbender’s scenes) Finally, look at that last page. The angle. The colors. The expression on “alpha male’s” face. “Oomph,” I say.

PAN! Skaar: Son of Hulk #1
Writer: Greg Pak
Art: Ron Garney
Colorist: Paul Mounts
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Ernie: With the Incredible Hulk movie revamp, we also get the release of a Planet Hulk spinoff where the Hulkspawn runs amok with monsters. I was hoping to see a much slower growth unfold in these pages, perhaps every five issues we see Skaar in a great physical adventure at one age, and then with the next arc, be older with his powers further developed. Part of me wanted to see this title to be like watching an egg hatch in an incubator. Instead we get abrupt jumps in age, size and ability with the start of a story shoehorned near the end. The whole issue reads as if it were rushed. Conceptually, Hulk’s baby is more interesting than what’s being done here and like the Star Wars prequels, my expectations were not met with the results. One moment we see toddler Skaar slaying some big nasty, and soon after he’s nearly as big as his daddy. There’s not much captivating being built here–at least for me–and I’m going to guess we’ll see him in the Marvel Universe before too long. Sigh. The Hulk family now has THREE titles. Too much to be made of a character that’s been done well in his own original title only a handful of times (Peter David era, Bruce Jones, and Planet Hulk come to mind right away). The pleasurable thing about Planet Hulk was that for a year, we got a great fish-out-of-water story and then he returns to deliver comeuppance. Skaar dilutes that and tries to capitalize on that spirited year that Pak took Hulk to a new height instead of finding a natural way to bring Skaar’s story to front row. Honestly, how long could they really draw this out before it gets old? On the bright side, Ron Garney’s art and veteran colorist, Paul Mounts have never been bad to look at. But hardcore Banner readers will likely prove me wrong and find enough other good reasons to support this much Hulk. I’m just not going to be one of them.

SEMI-PICK! Trinity #2
Writer: Kurt Busiek
Penciller: Mark Bagley
Inker: Art Thibert
Colorist: Pete Pantazis
Publisher: DC Comics

Carissa: I’m waiting for Trinity to prove itself, but it still just chugs in its second issue. It’s not the set-up of the big story I have a problem with though. I understand that will take some time, and a few issues will have to be spent introducing the villains and showing the tests they throw at the Big Three. If this is going to happen though, I’d at least like the set-up action to be more interesting. I don’t just want to see Superman pushing a sun for two pages or Batman disappating a mental attack in one page. I want to see them kicking ass, then maybe being foiled for a little bit, and then kicking ass again through some ingenious plan or revelation. Just because there are three big players in this series competing for screen time doesn’t mean that the three big players have to only get bit parts in each issue. One easy solution would be to not waste lots and lots of important pages on boring, not-so-important fights like Green Lantern vs. Big Monster and his DC Version of a Chaos Mite. What was the point, really, of Green Lantern’s honking 11-page smash-crash scene? (Kind of like the pointless Flash and his Tykes fight scene from the previous issue) This is what I say. Less unimportant, boring side stories + more pages devoted to the important, interesting characters of this series = interesting first issues of Trinity, even with all the tedious set-up.

PICK! X-Force: Ain’t No Dog
Writer: Charlie Huston & Jason Aaron
Art: Jefte Palo, Werther Dell’Edera & Antonio Fuso
Colorist: Lee Loughridge & Andrew Crossley
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Ernie: I need to preface this review a bit. I avoided the relaunch of X-Force and felt that the title’s high point was the spastic parody by Peter Milligan and Mike Allred. I was a big fan of that and the much-talked-about darker take on Rob Liefeld’s creation + Wolverine (in yet another superhero team and yet another costume) was NOT enough of a draw to be sucked into yet another mutant spinoff. However, similar to Punisher: Little Black Book I was willing to take a leap on a one-shot, half-drawn by Palo. Here he draws a blood-drenched tale of “berzerker” Wolverine in excellent form, torturing a guy for half the book and taking breathers to pile up ninja carcasses. The money shot climax may be worth the cover price alone. I was sucked into this easily, but I still didn’t get the essence of this new X-Force, which is fine, I just wanted to see Wolverine go off, and got off I did. The second story, scribed by Aaron (Scalped) took a rather natural assignment to write Thunderbird or whatever he’s become in this new X-Force. It’s a quiet and introspective into a character that’s often underused. It also responds to the nay-sayers who think that modern-day comics are filled with characters looking for senseless killings. Two contrasting tales with two very different characters. I was skeptical going in but in the end I may have convinced myself on catching X-Force in trade.