New Excalibur #16

February 11, 2007

Quick Rating: Good
Title: Fallen Friend Part 1
Rating: A

One of the team goes down – in a most unexpected way.

Writer: Chris Claremont
Pencils: Scot Eaton
Inks: John Dell
Colors: A. Crossley
Letters: Tom Orzechowski
Editors: Nick Lowe & Andy Schmidt
Cover Art: Salvador Larroca
Publisher: Marvel Comics

The team gets called in to stop a bank heist – and the crooks are packing some pretty heavy hardware. After a heated battle, one of the team winds up down… but it’s not who you expect.

I was actually surprised at how much I liked this issue. The first half seemed a pretty run-of-the-mill fight sequence that (once again) stirred up one of this series’ most persistent, annoying unanswered questions. Then we get a totally unexpected twist and one of the characters winds up fighting to stay alive. Claremont also manages to bring up some pretty valid questions that stir in drama naturally… when you’re dealing with mutants, what if their anatomy isn’t what the doctors are used to? How do they treat someone if they’ve got a different body structure? What if they wind up making things worse?

The last few pages are also a pretty big shocker – I’ve got to wonder exactly how far Claremont is willing to take the long-term implications of this character’s condition. I really don’t recall anyone ever trying a story quite like this one before, and it’s got me intrigued.

Scot Eaton and John Dell make for a pretty good art team, as well. They’ve got a pretty standard look, but a solid one, and the emotions they manage to pack into the faces on the last few pages are simply fantastic.

This issue is an intriguing surprise – certainly better than much of Claremont’s recent work.

Rating: 7/10

Booster Gold (2007 Series) #44

May 31, 2011

Title: Turbulence Part One (A Flashpoint crossover) 

Art: Dan Jurgens
Finishes: Norm Rapmund
Colorist: Hi-Fi Designs
Letterer: Carlos M. Mangual
Cover: Dan Jurgens
Editor: Rex Ogle                 
Publisher: DC Comics

We all know that in September, the entire DC Universe is going to be effected by the events of Flashpoint, but for right now the only ongoing series that’s being touched by the event is Booster Gold. Booster’s creator, Dan Jurgens, is back just in time to see Booster get shunted into the altered timeline created by Professor Zoom. Aware that the universe has changed around them, Booster and Skeets set out to try to restore the timeline, only to run across the nastiest enforcer in any time. It’s always a treat to have Jurgens working with Booster again. With all due respect to the other creators who have worked on this title, nobody has ever drawn the character as well, and few writers have understood him the way Jurgens does. This issue doesn’t really shed much light on what’s going on in the crossover – we’re still not sure just what’s going on in this altered world or how it got that way, but that fits right in with what’s happening to Booster himself. I don’t get the impression that this storyline is going to mean much to the crossover itself, but it does make for an engaging story and a good look at the world through the eyes of an outsider, like ourselves. From that perspective, if nothing else, it works very well.

Rating: 8/10

TransFormers: The Animated Movie #4

February 9, 2007

Quick Rating: Good
Title: Matrix Quest

With the Matrix lost, the Autobots prepare for final battle with Unicron!

Writer: Bob Budiansky
Art: Don Figueroa
Colors: Josh Burcham
Letters: Neil Uyetake
Editor: Chris Ryall
Cover Art: Don Figueroa
Publisher: IDW Publishing

The final chapter in IDW’s adaptation of the classic TransFormers: The Movie hits and hits hard. On the Planet of Junk, the Autobots are left in a shambles. Their leader is dead, their ranks are devastated, and their greatest power – the Matrix of Leadership – has been taken by Galvatron to the surface of Unicron, the planet-eater.

The biggest problem with this issue – and the series as a whole, actually – is that much of it feels somewhat choppy. It’s always a danger, when working with a film adaptation, to leap around too much. The pacing of a film doesn’t work in a comic book, and translating the script too directly often results in a rushed feeling, and that’s the case here. There’s not enough time to really get into the characters or fully explore the great moments that make the film a favorite, even today.

Far surpassing the writing, though, is the art. Don Figueroa was born to draw the TransFormers. His clean, fantastic artwork looks like it could have been culled directly from an animation cell, then recolored by a master (props to Josh Burcham for that). It’s a wonderful-looking book, and for that alone any hardcore TransFormers fan should have this comic sitting on their shelf.

With a new movie coming out this year, I’ve really quite enjoyed this trip down memory lane. Sure, there are a few things that could have been done better, but for the most part the book was a lot of fun, and the sort of thing that old-school fans will greatly appreciate.

Rating: 7/10