Annihilation: Conquest-Quasar #1

July 16, 2007

Quick Rating: Very Good
Title: Destiny
Rating: T+

Phyla carries two legacies – against the menace of the Super-Adaptoid!

Writer: Christos N. Gage
Pencils: Mike Lilly
Inks: Bob Almond
Colors: Stephane Peru
Letters: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Bill Rosemann
Cover Art: Matt Wilson
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Phyla-Vell, daughter of Mar-Vell and new wearer of the Quantum Bands, carries with her the legacies of two fallen heroes. During the Phalanx invasion, a strange voice compelled her to seek out the “savior of the Kree.” That quest begins this issue, and she has already run into her first obstacle – the Super-Adaptoid.

The Annihilation crossover evidently isn’t only breathing new life into old heroes, it’s reinvigorating old villains too. I never thought I’d see the Super-Adaptoid again, but here he is, big as life and twice as threatening. Gage demonstrates good knowledge of Marvel history here, using the Adaptoid in an intelligent way and bringing back Moondragon’s history with Wendell Vaughan to reflect on her new relationship with Phyla. The big fight scene here is really very good, and the whole thing has a definite sense that it’s building towards something significant.

Mike Lilly and Bob Almond have a good style for this book. They go from spacescapes to a heavily forested planet to a scene that looks like it was ripped straight from hell. Plenty of different environments, but they handle them all really well.

Like most of Annihilation thus far, this book was quite impressive. Gage is quickly becoming one of those writers I’ll trust on just about any project – he’s really demonstrating that he can do it all.

Rating: 8/10

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2006 Series) #3

December 16, 2006

Quick Rating: Very Good
Title: Freddy’s War Part Three

Jade and her father take the battle to the Dreamscape!

Writer: Chuck Dixon
Pencils: Kevin West
Inks: Bob Almond
Colors: Tony Avina
Letters: Wes Abbott
Editor: Ben Abernathy
Cover Art: Tony Harris
Publisher: DC Comics/Wildstorm

Her brother dead, her best friend critical, Jade decides the time has come to take the fight to Freddy’s world. She’s not alone, though – this is one battle her father will join her in.

Chuck Dixon has really taken the Nightmare franchise in a unique direction in this story. The cliché in this series is for the adult characters to be ignorant or actively harmful, ignoring the Freddy problem until it’s too late. Jade’s dad not only believes her, not only decides to stand by her, but proves himself a capable warrior in the dream world. He and Jade take the fight straight to Freddy, showing the sort of fearlessness that saps his power. At the same time, Freddy isn’t neutered in this story – he’s a violent, brutal monster, in his scariest incarnation. The conclusion of this inaugural story arc really feels bittersweet, which is the happiest a Nightmare story can ever get, and that’s a good thing.

Dixon and the art team have done a fantastic job breathing life back into this franchise. This is a much more character-centered story than recent Nightmare comics, with a very strong, intelligent, driven story. The artwork, by Kevin West and Bob Almond, is equally strong – clean and clear, telling the story with just enough gore to get the point across effectively, not blowing their wad just because it’s a “mature readers” story like a lot of artists do. This isn’t a comic for little kids by any stretch, but nor is it so graphic that you have to worry about a kid getting nightmares (no pun intended) should he happen upon an issue while looking for Teen Titans Go!.

In the end, I’m highly impressed with Wildstorm’s new incarnation of this horror classic, and I’m anxious to see where the story will take us next.

Rating: 8/10

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2006 Series) #1

October 7, 2006

Quick Rating: Very Good
Title: Freddy’s War Part One

The new girl on Elm Street is in for a Hell of a ride!

Writer: Chuck Dixon
Pencils: Kevin West
Inks: Bob Almond
Colors: Tony Avina
Letters: Wes Abbot
Editor: Ben Abernathy
Cover Art: Tony Harris, Jim Clark & J.D. Mettler
Publisher: DC Comics/Wildstorm

I read the recent Avatar Press Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th comics, and while they were okay, they really didn’t blow me away. It seemed that the creators behind those comics thought all you need for a successful horror franchise is buckets of blood, curse words and the occasional naked girl. And it’s true that all of those things are pretty much staples of the slasher genre, but is that what really makes for a good story? Not in my book.

Now those titles have jumped from Avatar to Wildstorm, and if this first issue of A Nightmare on Elm Street is any indication, it’s a change for the better. Chuck Dixon knows how to generate suspense, and puts those skills to use here in the story of Jade and Brad, the two new kids moving to the town of Springwood with their single father, a man who has never quite gotten over his wife’s death. Jade begins having horrifying dreams, and a new friend at school tells her about a local legend, that of a killer and child molester who was killed by a lynch mob of parents, then returned from the grave to exact his revenge.

Dixon doesn’t assume that the reader is already familiar with Freddy Krueger’s story (although it’s probably safe to assume that almost everyone who reads this comic will be), but the recap feels like a seamless part of the story, not gratuitous or dull at all. What’s more, he uses the good parts of Freddy – the sort of psychological horror aspect that sets him apart from the Jasons and Leatherfaces of the horror world – to base this story. He seems genuinely scary here, not the macabre clown he’s become in his films.

Kevin West does a really good job on the artwork. He’s got a nice, clean style with strong character designs, not going too overboard with the gore but giving us enough to get the point across. The color scheme is a little brighter than I would expect for a story of this nature, but that’s a minor quibble.

On the whole, this is a really strong launch for Wildstorm’s new line of New Line horror comics.

Rating: 8/10

JSA All-Stars (2003 Series) #8

December 2, 2003

Quick Rating: Fair
Title: And Justice For All

The younger members of the Justice Society, having faced their inner demons, reunite to combat the demon named Legacy.

Writer: Geoff Johns
Pencils: Sal Velluto
Inks: Bob Almond
Colors: John Kalisz
Letters: Ken Lopez
Editor: Peter Tomasi
Cover Art: John Cassaday, Mark Lewis & David Baron
Publisher: DC Comics

I think the format of this miniseries hurt this conclusion more than anything else. In the first issue Legacy kidnapped the older members of the JSA and the Spectre sent the remaining members on a quest to settle with the demons in their own lives. We then got six very good single-issue stories about these younger members, along with six spectacular back-up stories about their golden age counterparts.

During these six issues, the framing plot with Legacy was almost never mentioned, and it was easy to forget why the heroes were going on these quests. Almost any of these stories would have worked just as well as a fill-in issue of JSA or a back-up story in that title without any editing, and by the time we got back to the main story in this conclusion, we get jarred a bit to remember that this is a story that has taken place over eight months for us, but one day for the JSA. Sand is even still around (having been taken out of commission in JSA #50, which was a far more recent release than JSA All-Stars #1).

The battle with Legacy is a fairly standard one, although fine for what it is. It’s just not as spectacular as I’d hoped, or especially as I’ve come to expect from a writer as good as Johns. It’s interesting to note that the original co-writer for this series, David Goyer, didn’t stick around for this last issue.

The middle six issues of this miniseries were all brilliant. I have to admit, though, I kind of wish DC had just published those six solo stories as a mini of their own or as a series of one-shots, because they would have worked much better that way.

Rating: 6/10