02 Jun, 2008
Picks & Pans for May 29th, 2008
By: PCSbot
This week the Picks & Pans team is Gavin Jasper of 4thletter!, AHR of Geekanerd, and newcomer Carissa Koo! Last week was a big week, and I think we covered all the highlights.
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AHR: There are many things about this book I don’t understand. I don’t know if it’s because I forget things from month to month, or if I’m not as up on DC History as Historian-of-the-Obscure Grant Morrisson is, or if the book is intentionally cryptic. Whatever the reason, this book reads like a dream that keeps shifting and introducing new elements, and whether or not you understand everything, watching it unfold is thrilling. Even if the details are hard to keep up with, the impact of the moments are indelible; Lex Luthor on death row, a hands-on fight with a red sun, and an overarching feeling that Superman is saying goodbye to hard, good life. And even if you don’t buy the “Superman is Dead” teaser on the front cover, the feeling of acceptance and nostalgia that Clark carries throughout this issue makes me like him more than I have since, well, ever. |
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Carissa: Here’s an interesting take on the origins of X-Men’s Angel. I personally really enjoyed this. Far more than I thought I would. The art is beautiful—true, the characters all look like they need to eat a sandwich, but it’s got that great mix of fantasy and Goth, Like a dark fairytale. The art also matches the story concept and writing style well. The story is dark and religious. It’s not self indulgent in that way though. We still get real personalities and a good amount of high school drama. We all know the basic idea of what’s going to happen next to Warren, but the ending is a cliffhanger none-the-less. There’s nothing superhero about this issue though, and it makes me wonder how Warren Worthington is going to become an X-Men team member, or if the series will end before he joins. Either way, I’m curious. |
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AHR: The DC event series is over, long live the DC event series. I loved 52, hated Countdown, and the first issue of Final Crisis is….pretty good. A thematic opening sequence that takes place in prehistoric times looks amazing as drawn by J.G Jones, and it feels kind of like a palette cleanser after the continuity nightmare that’s been going down for the last year. Grant Morrison includes some excellent villain banter in the first half of the issue, between both the Secret Society (”I am not adverse to the taste of human flesh, sir!”) and a “blindingly obvious” team-up between Doctor Light and Mirror Master (including jokes about Light’s infamous sexual deviancy, and some good mucky Scottspeak for Mirror Master). It’s fun and funny, but soon it’s down to business, and business means plot-points a-go-go. Morrison spends much of his time organizing plots involving the New Gods, The Green Lantern Corp, and the Monitors. Oy. Three of DC history’s most convoluted groups, all fighting for space in a seven issue series? And even though I appreciate that Morrison is trying to foist some humanity on to the intensely boring Monitors, I’m nervous. When a multi-thread series hinges on factions instead of individuals, there’s a huge risk of falling into history-lesson territory, all names and places with no personality. Still, no other comic writer balances complicated ideas and character development as well as Grant Morrison, and I’m hoping by next week he’ll prove he’s got it under control. |
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Gavin: How can I hate a comic that begins with a caveman hearing, “I am Metron”? Grant Morrison is here to fight through one of his greatest challenges. After Countdown and Death of the New Gods, he has to funnel their aftermaths into a story that’s joined by remnants of Seven Soldiers and likely a few pieces of 52 while going in its own special direction. Thankfully, it feels big without being as chaotically epic like the first issue of Infinite Crisis. I’m not too sure what’s going on or where this is going, but at least the opening issue keeps me interested in where this could possibly be going. That, and the JG Jones art is absolutely fantastic. Morrison or not, I’m sure I can’t be alone in groaning whenever the Monitors show up. There’s too much stigma from Countdown, so that’s going to take me a while to get over. |
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Gavin: Here it is. The finale to not just one of the best X-Men runs of all time, but as far as I’m concerned, one of the best comic runs in general. Whedon and Cassaday say goodbye to their 25-issue epic take on the X-Men and I couldn’t have imagined a better issue for it. Except for Danger and I guess Lockheed, every single member of the series’ main cast finds a place to shine here. Everyone from Armor to Kitty to the mighty Colossus himself. There’s a subplot involving what Earth’s heroes are doing during this threat which works in two ways. One, to show why they’re taking the backseat to the X-Men in terms of the giant bullet threat. The other is so Spider-Man can give us one of the absolute best set-up lines of the series. Emma Frost is totally right. The latter pages of the story are indeed nothing short of astonishing. |
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Carissa: Instead of starting a new Iron Fist storyline, Fraction starts us off in an unlikely place, right near the end of Bei Bang-Wen’s story. We don’t know him, but we find out all we need to know in the first few pages. We also don’t get to find out all the great, heroic deeds Bei did as the Immortal Iron Fist, as we join him near the end of his story. It’s like picking up issue number #7 of a ten parter. We dive in right after the climax, catch Bei self-flagellating, and wave our arms around shouting, “Whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do? You’re running out of time!” Fortunately, Bei is led by the hand of God (Fraction) to become best buddies with another self-flagellating character, and together, they go on a fabulous odyssey towards more ass-kung-fu-ing, a final battle, and self-realization. Friendship, duty, and Buddhist overtones abound. I like the story. A lot happens, but it’s paced in such a way that we don’t feel overwhelmed. We get a clear look at Bei’s personality and we see it believably evolve in just 22 pages. The ending is a touch over dramatic, true, but it ties off the story nicely. The art is sharp, clean, and reminiscent of previous art for the Immortal Iron Fist series. My only complaint about the art is that the fight scenes seem disconnected and posed. They lack the fluidity of previous Iron Fist art, and I almost imagine a cameraman making the characters stand in their poses for three minutes, while he readjusts his lens and they try not to think about picking their crotch. It’s a little complaint though. Teeny-tiny. |
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Gavin: I’m totally down with Secret Invasion and I’ve loved New Avengers since the first issue. That’s what makes it so hard to say that I just plain didn’t like this one. This issue is, sadly, Secret Invasion filler based on the least interesting piece of the Skrull invasion. An obvious revelation is showcased throughout an issue when it only needed a page or so of explanation. It’s told with two guest characters who really don’t fit here. Bendis has pulled the trick of taking non-Avengers and giving them the keys to his issues, but I honestly couldn’t care less about what Ka-Zar and Shanna have to say about anything. At least it gives us a vaguely interesting cliffhanger. |
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Carissa: Speak of the Devil’s final issue was a disappointment to me. I can accept that Gilbert Hernandez was trying to create a town where the people in it are all bat shit crazy fetish-freaks and completely accept bat shit crazy fetish-freak logic, but this was way over the top. Butter knives and blood abound. The women are no longer endearingly nutty and sexy, but raving mad. I do have to thank this issue for giving me one of the best laughs of the day though, even if it probably wasn’t supposed to make me laugh. That scene where Val kung-fu kicks her mother and the blood that’s spraying out her mother’s nose looks like chopsticks rammed up there—priceless. The story makes little sense. The ending is predictable. The art is unique and pretty in typical Gilbert Hernandez style, but the fight scenes are disastrously scripted and drawn. I had higher hopes for the direction this story could have taken, but, oh well. At least it’s over. |
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Carissa: Here’s another bunch of short stories about a particular horror genre from Boom! Studios. As usual, one story is pretty good, and the other two are just ho-hum. The first story, “The War At Home,” just didn’t grab me. It starts the way every other zombie film/comic starts, with a guy waking up in a hospital room and realizing the world has gone to hell. I can’t tell if Lansdale was trying to be original and serious, or trying to do a Sean of the Dead spoof thing. There are parts which look like an attempt to be funny, like the zombie tripping over the IV unit, but it was more of an “eh” than a “hardy ha-ha” for me. “Three gimp vets to defend a hostile zombie beachhead,” as the narrator says right before the “to be continued” sign. Right. Good luck gimps. I’ll pass on part two. “People Person” by Steve Niles was uninspiring too. Talking zombies! Sexy talking zombies! Boom! Bye bye sexy talking zombie. Wait, sexy talking zombie lives. But we already knew that, because the narrator told us so before we actually were surprised by it. The end. “Spring 2061″ was the only story that I found interesting. It’s a cute spin on Planet of the Apes. The zombies are in charge, the humans are caged and eaten with cereal. But wait, is that a secret human uprising I sense? The dialogue is cutesy and witty and the art isn’t bad. The story ends too soon though, without a “to be continued” sign. What happens next? What happens next?! We’ll never know. |
