Kevin Reviews His Weekly Singles #15

2 Comments | Posted: July 3rd, 2008 | Filed under: Reviews | Tags: simone bianchi, warren ellis

Astonishing X-Men #25

Ellis’s first issue as the new writer of Astonishing is, as these things now have to be, a bit of a “Lights, Please.” While the elements for this storyline – someone who hid themselves during the Scarlet Witch’s “No more mutants,” whozit is offing other members of homo superior – are laid out very nicely, a lot of the issue is devoted to who’s who, what’s what, and oh yeah, they’re not wearing costumes all the time anymore because Ellis doesn’t like them as much as Whedon did. I like that Ellis is using this to tell a different kind of story than the norm for the team, and Simone Biachi’s art, despite a muddy color pallet obscuring details that i think would have had to have been in in the original pencils, does the trick nicely, both as a contrast to John Cassaday’s work on the title previous to this issue, and as the pictorial half of the comics storytelling equation on its own. I’m not sure if I’m sticking around for the singles, but this looks to be something I’ll very much enjoy in trade paperback.

Batman #678

Morrison’s love of old Silver Age stories means that we get the Bat-Radia from “Batman: The Superman Of Planet X” on top of a drug-addled, amnesiac Bruce Wayne wandering the streets of Gotham while the Black Glove systematically destroys his life. It’s so weird and itchy that I can’t help but love it a bit and will even give a little love to Tony Daniel’s art, which actually manages to tell the story well this time around. It’s so weird: sometimes, he’s on-point and then three issues in a row will pass where it looks like he’s copying poses from Wildguard. (I hope that someone at DC thinks to come up with a Batman: RIP companion trade paperback with all these stories Morrison’s referencing. It’d be a really nice way to make sure the readers appreciate his dedication to being bugfuck mental.)

The Boys #20

If there’s ever a course at the community college entitled “How To Make Entertaining Comics Information Dumps (Even If You Shouldn’t Do That),” Garth Ennis would certainly be the professor handling it.

Patsy Walker: Hellcat #1

Kathryn Immonen’s Hellcat feature was the only reason I read the first few issues of the recently-revived (and anemically selling, at least at my retailer) Marvel Comics Presents. While it’d be easy to grouse that the art chores on this aren’t being handled by her talented husband this time around, David Lafuente’s art and John Rauch’s colors make the switch away more than bearable. This may be the most exuberant Marvel book of the last few years: Patsy loves being a superheroine and accepts her Initiative assignment to Alaska with aplomb and humor – her interaction with Tony Stark made me laugh aloud, like you hear about on the internet – while the art practically bounces off the page with funky angles, streamlined shapes, and high-octane colors. Add in dialogue like “I’d like to see your angriest ursines, please,” and you’ve got a comic book I want to read more of.

Squadron Supreme #1

I got no damn idea what’s going on in this. Apparently Ultimate Nick Fury is over in the Squadron Supreme universe because Greg Land got hired to trace a bunch of Victoria’s Secret Models while Bendis and Strazcyznski scripted a crossover last year. I don’t know; I don’t give a damn, not even with Chaykin writing.

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