Herc #10

December 11, 2011

Title: Storybook Ending

Writers: Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente
Pencils: David Hahn
Inks: Roy Richardson & Rebecca Buchman
Colorist: Jesus Aburtov & Antonio Fabela
Letterer: Simon Bowland
Cover Artist: Carlo Pagulayan
Editor: Mark Paniccia
Publisher: Marvel Comics

With his father on Earth and powerless, Hercules decides to teach him a lesson in humanity – something that becomes a bit more difficult after a confrontation with the Kingpin leads them into battle with the ancient witch Baba Yaga and the assassin Elektra. Once again, I’m watching as a book I’ve really enjoyed comes to a premature end, although considering that these two writers did have a pretty substantial run with the character before this title, it’s not quite as premature as it seems. Still, the adventures of the non-powered Hercules have been really entertaining. Which makes it even sadder that this last issue is so weak. It feels rushed (and probably was) and ends in a way that ties up some of the outstanding plot threads, but doesn’t really satisfy in the way you would hope. The artwork is, sadly, even weaker. I really like David Hahn in general, and I’ve been a fan of his on many projects, so I have to wonder if this issue’s visual problems aren’t the result of weak inks. The characters aren’t often defined very well, and the expressions on their faces aren’t… well… expressive enough. The Baba Yaga house looks nice, but not spectacular, and Zeus doesn’t carry a powerful look to him at all – which, even on-powered, you’d expect to see in his frame and his attitude. As much as I’ve loved the run of these writers on Hercules ever since they took him into the fold during World War Hulk, and as sorry as I am to see their tenure with him end, this isn’t the way I wanted them to go out.

Rating: 6/10

House of M: Avengers #4

January 29, 2008

Quick Rating: Good
Rating: T+

Will a war destroy Sapien Town?

Writer: Christos N. Gage
Art: Mike Perkins
Colors: Raul Trevino for Protobunker Studio
Letters: Rus Wooton
Editor: Bill Rosemann & Tom Brevoort
Cover Art: Mike Perkins
Publisher: Marvel Comics

With the Punisher safe in Wakanda, he starts feeding Luke Cage’s “Avengers” information about Magneto’s plans to wipe out the remaining human forces. Meanwhile, the Kingpin’s tenuous partnership with Thunderbird’s forces snaps, and the war for Sapien Town promises to be as bloody as anything that could happen in Wakanda.

While this premise – heck, this entire universe – still isn’t one that holds much appeal for me, Christos Gage is probably one of the few writers working for Marvel that could keep my attention this long. While I still don’t feel any particular affinity for any of the characters, the situation itself is turning out to be pretty interesting. It’s something of a political chess match, with the different factions trying to make alliances or trying to fight back against mutual enemies, with everyone trying to figure out exactly who is on who’s side.

Mike Perkins’s art, as usual, is very good, particularly on the sequence towards the end where we see three different battles going on at once. He and Trevino do a great job of differentiating between the three battlefields, and they pack a lot of action into a few panels.

This isn’t too bad. It’ll never make a “favorite” list for me, but it’s at least interesting.

Rating: 7/10

Runaways (2005 Series) #26

May 1, 2007

Quick Rating: Good, but…
Title: Dead-End Kids Part 2
Rating: T+

Things get worse when the Runaways run afoul of the Punisher.

Writer: Joss Whedon
Pencils: Michael Ryan
Inks: Rick Ketcham
Colors: Christina Strain
Letters: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Nick Lowe
Cover Art: Jo Chen
Publisher: Marvel Comics

As the Runaways hunt down the package the Kingpin wanted, they find themselves facing off not only against a bloodthirsty monster-man with wings, but against the Punisher himself. A lot of people seemed to dislike Joss Whedon’s first issue of Runaways. I was not one of them – I thought it was pretty good, although I had my reservations. I’ve still got reservations, but there’s also a lot to like about this issue.

First of all, Whedon’s gift for dialogue continues to impress. Say what you will about the credibility stretch concerning the kids working with the Kingpin, anytime you can include lines like “Why aren’t you awesomed by me?” without a bit of irony, you’ve started to win me over. He’s also got a good grasp on the characters, particularly little Molly, who seems to be becoming the star of this story arc. The ethical issues of the kids working for the Kingpin are addressed this issue as well, and I feel a bit better about it, and we go into a dandy cliffhanger that promises a storyline that I’m quite looking forward to. What’s coming up next isn’t exactly groundbreaking in a superhero comic book, but it’s at least something the Runaways haven’t done before.

That said, I’ve still got problems with aspects of the book. Like I said, the dialogue was good, but at times it seemed a little self-aware. Another came with the Punisher – I can buy him pointing a gun at Chase, at Victor… maybe even some of the girls, but crazy as he’s been painted lately, I somehow just can’t picture Frank Castle pointing a gun at a girl as young as Molly. (Okay, granted, I don’t think he ever points the gun at her directly, but the implied threat is about the same.) There are some other little quibbles that all seem to come together that put me ill at ease at parts – it isn’t enough to make me hate the book, but it’s like feeling an old pair of shoes that suddenly don’t fit quite right. Maybe it’s just growing pains, maybe once Whedon has worked on the characters more, that feeling will go away.

Michael Ryan’s artwork, fortunately, doesn’t have any of those problems. She’s got a great style that works really well with this book, and Christina Strain’s colors pop out all over – this is visually a very appealing package.

This book really is okay. I think Whedon just needs a little time to get his footing.

Rating: 7/10

Sensational Spider-Man (2006 Series) #36

March 26, 2007

Quick Rating: Good
Title: The Strange Case Of… Part Two (Back in Black)
Rating: A

Someone is creating fake Spider-Men – can the real one round them up in time to save their lives?

Writer: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
Pencils: Ramon Bachs
Colors: Paul Mounts
Letters: Cory Petit
Editor: Warren Simons
Cover Art: Clayton Crain
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Freed from the shackles of not talking about why Spider-Man is in his black costume again, part two of “The Strange Case Of…” is considerably better than part one. Still waiting for word on whether or not May is going to survive being shot by one of the Kingpin’s snipers, Peter is confronted with another bizarre threat. Someone is kidnapping teenage boys, granting them approximations of his powers, putting them in versions of the costumes he’s worn over the years and sending them out into the city. As Peter rounds them up, he finds out that some of them are transforming even further, becoming more spider than man, and unless he and his big brained friends can figure out what’s happening to them and how it’s happening, they may all die.

It’s amazing, but just being able to say “Aunt May has been shot” is remarkably freeing to this comic book. No more pretending we don’t know why he’s in black, no more avoiding the subject of why he’s so gloomy – not only can Aguirre-Sacasa say it, but he can deal with it, and that small thing is remarkably freeing. The villain’s plot in and of itself is fairly interesting – it plays off the unmasking fairly well, but still remains a solid old-school mad scientist story.

I’m also a much bigger fan of the art this issue. I know a lot of people were in love with the Todd McFarlane-style art that Angel Medina brought to the book last issue, but this issue Ramon Bachs comes to the plate with a style that very much evokes Mike Zeck and Kraven’s Last Hunt. When reading this story in collected form, the shift in style will likely be quite jarring, but looking at this issue in and of itself, I consider it a significant improvement.

This is a pretty good issue. Unfortunately, three of the four in-continuity Spider-Man titles are unable to really develop the character right now – they’re all marking time to see what happens in Amazing, but Aquirre-Sacasa is taking the circumstances handed to him to tell a story that, while it probably won’t turn out to have any lasting importance, is at least interesting.

Rating: 7/10

Amazing Spider-Girl #6

March 13, 2007

Quick Rating: Good
Title: The Hobgoblin and the Hostage
Rating: A

The Hobgoblin crashes Spider-Girl’s comic book premiere!

Writer: Tom DeFalco
Pencils: Ron Frenz
Inks: Sal Buscema
Colors: Gotham
Letters: Dave Sharpe
Editor: Molly Lazer
Cover Art: Ron Frenz
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Now that she’s pulled her candidacy for class president, May Parker can concentrate on the other two great challenges in her life: cracking the coded disc that holds the former Kingpin’s files, and trying to figure out how to tell her parents she’s Spider-Girl full-time again. It’s not all bad, though – her friends Jimmy Yama and Wes have made their own Spider-Girl comic book, and they’re going to have a grand premiere with Jimmy’s girlfriend in the costume. Unfortunately, not everybody knows that she’s not the real Spider-Girl.

This was a quite enjoyable issue – May’s situation is very old-school Spider-Man, struggling with her family, struggling with school, a villain out to get her and a case of mistaken identity. The Gene Thompson subplot only gets a cursory glance this issue, but it’s enough to have me questioning his involvement with May even more than before, and her confrontation with Davida is really strong. This book really feels much more like a true extension of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko than anything else on the comic book shelves these days. That goes not only for the character stuff (especially the great scene at the end), but also for the action. May’s battle with the Hobgoblin, trying to take him down even though she’s out of webbing and he’s got a little bundle of hostage – this is the stuff Spider-Man does best, and it’s great to see that he’s passed it along to his daughter.

Again, this is a fun book, and that’s not something the Spider-family really has much of these days. Thank goodness Marvel saw fit to give it a new lease on life.

Rating: 7/10

Daredevil (1998 Series) #95

March 26, 2007

Quick Rating: Good
Title: To the Devil His Due Part One
Rating: T+

Matt Murdock is finally home – but that doesn’t mean he gets to take it easy.

Writer: Ed Brubaker
Pencils: Michael Lark
Inks: Stefano Gaudiano
Colors: Matt Hollingsworth
Letters: Chris Eliopoulos
Editor: Warren Simons
Cover Art: Marko Djurdjevic
Publisher: Marvel Comics

With his name cleared and his partner back, Matt Murdock gets to finally come home after all the… well… years of insanity that have gripped his life since he was first “outed” to the press as Daredevil. He’s trying to minimize the number of people who still believe that to be the truth, while at the same time, heading out to the streets to take them back. Neither of these projects turn out to be as simple as he hoped.

Daredevil’s problem is that someone is using an old technique of the Kingpin’s to pull multiple crimes at once. Ol’ Hornhead is on to the scheme, but something has put a fear into these hoods that he simply can’t fathom. Meanwhile, a defendant with ties to Daredevil winds up with a murder rap on him, and Matt wants to steer clear of the case… but Murdock and Nelson’s newest associate has different ideas.

Although this isn’t a spectacular issue, it is a welcome one. Daredevil’s life since the “outing” has been so dependent on major stories, major twists, that it gets a bit heavy at times. Not that there haven’t been good stories as a result, it can just get to be a bit much. This story may ultimately still head in that direction, but the first issue at least just feels like a relatively simple, old-fashioned Daredevil story, and it’s been a really long time since we got one of those.

Michael Lark and Stefano Gaudiano do a fine job on the art – their style is, as always, suitably dark, and Marvel’s new cover sweetheart Marko Djurdjevic does a really good rendition of Daredevil – the cover could really be poster-worthy.

Not too much else to say – a solid issue, one that won’t blow anyone away, but it should satisfy most fans pretty well.

Rating: 7/10

Amazing Spider-Girl #5

February 11, 2007

Quick Rating: Good
Title: Priorities
Rating: A

On the day of her big debate, Mayday and Mad Dog get called back into action!

Writer: Tom DeFalco
Pencils: Ron Frenz
Inks: Sal Buscema
Colors: Gotham
Letters: Dave Sharpe
Editor: Molly Lazer
Cover Art: Ron Frenz
Publisher: Marvel Comics

After her last encounter with Mad Dog, the reality show bounty hunter, Mayday is looking forward to a relatively normal day at school… at least, as normal as she can get on the day of her big debate for the Student Council President election. Problem is, it seems nobody is happy with her – her best friend and campaign manager Davida thinks she’s not spending enough time on the campaign. Her boyfriend Gene Thompson thinks she’s spending too much time there. And of course, her parents don’t know she’s been spending her nights out as Spider-Girl again.

As always seems to happen to those Parkers, danger rears its head just when she really needs to be somewhere else, and she winds up fighting alongside Mad Dog again. I really do enjoy stories like this one – it’s these tales where Spider-Girl most feels like the early, classic Lee/Ditko Spider-Man tales. Mayday’s got so much in common with her father that any longtime fan of the Spider-Family should get pulled right along and enjoy this.

Personality-wise, May is Peter’s daughter as well. The solution she comes to at the end is quite simple, and while I’m not sure that the paperwork involved in most high schools would actually allow such a thing, I’m willing to suspend that disbelief for the purposes of the story because it really is a very in-character, very elegant way to tie off one of our subplots.

The artwork suffers a bit in this issue, particularly in the fight scene. Mad Dog’s gimmick is that he arms himself with weapons he (supposedly) confiscates from the villains he’s captured, so having a varied arsenal is perfectly logical, but the artwork simply doesn’t flow. Weapons appear and disappear completely between panels – and I don’t mean small things that could simply be tucked into a pocket, I’m talking about giant apparatuses like Stilt-Man’s legs or the Beetle’s sucker-tipped gauntlets, things that don’t appear particularly collapsible, but pop in and out regardless. It really pulls the reader out of the scene when he has to start asking, “Wait, where did that come from?”

So this issue has its faults with the artwork, but the story fortunately carries the day.

Rating: 7/10

Ultimate Spider-Man #53

February 9, 2004

Quick Rating: Very Good
Title: Daughters

Peter seeks the missing Mary Jane, and the mystery of the Black Cat deepens.

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Pencils: Mark Bagley
Inker: Art Thibert
Colors: J.D. Smith
Letters: Chris Eliopoulos
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Cover Art: Mark Bagley
Publisher: Marvel Comics

After opening this issue with one of his fabled fake-outs, Brian Michael Bendis sends Peter out into the streets to search for Mary Jane Watson, who went missing at the end of last issue. Later, we get a wrap-up of the Black Cat storyline (at least for now) as we learn who she really is and why she has declared a one-woman war on the Kingpin.

Although Bendis really is a great writer, he does at times have a tendency to stretch action scenes too long or to squeeze character-building scenes across an entire issue. In this issue he’s finally struck a perfect balance between the two, showing the depth of emotion between our two young stars, making us feel for them and making them seem real. He manages to work a little action into the first half of the issue and a little emotion into the second half, and that teeter-totter finally finds its point of equilibrium.

Mark Bagley is – and I’m just going to come out and say it – the most consistent artist in comic books. There may be people with a better style than him, but there is nobody in the business that can deliver the quality of artwork he does in the quantity that he does. In a day when most artists can’t handle one monthly title without taking four months off a year, Bagley can handle a twice-monthly comic book, a story arc for The Pulse and various other covers, pin-ups and fill-ins without ever missing a step. The same can be said for Bendis, writing several high-quality comics at a time, but that trait is much rarer in an artist and I don’t think Bagley gets enough credit.

As this is the last issue of the story arc, it wouldn’t be a good place for a new reader to jump on… but is that really a problem? Judging by the sales figures, everyone in America who reads comic books is already reading this title. A lot of books can coast with poor art or writing just by being part of a popular franchise and still hit the top of the sales chart. This is probably a book that could go that route. Fortunately, as long as Bendis and Bagley are on board, it will almost certainly never have to.

Rating: 8/10