Science Dog Special #2

June 3, 2011

Writer: Robert Kirkman
Pencils: Cory Walker
Inks: Cory Walker
Colorist: Dave Stewart & Chris Chuckry
Letterer: Rus Wooton
Cover: Cory Walker
Editor: Sina Grace              
Publisher: Image Comics/Skybound

Science Dog, Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker’s labor of love, returns in a second special that wraps up his first adventure. In the midst of a plot by his arch-enemy, Science Dog is abducted by a group of aliens who need his help to solve a fuel crisis. It takes SD longer to solve the problem than expected, though, and when he returns to Earth, he finds a war-torn wasteland. This is the sort of story we see a lot in comic books and science fiction. Something goes terribly wrong, so the hero decides to travel back in time to fix it. As he often does, though, Robert Kirkman has found a surprising twist to put on the story. Things aren’t as easy to fix as they usually are in stories of this nature, and we see Science Dog get trapped in a particularly heartbreaking loop. I won’t lie – for such fun and (essentially) goofy concept, Kirkman goes to some dark places here, and we get an ending that’s bittersweet at best. And damned if it doesn’t work. Cory Walker does his thing nicely – with the time-travelling Science Dog he finds some nice, subtle ways to differentiate between one and the other, not just in the length of his chin-fur, but in the way the character carries himself and the expressions on his face. It’s more subtle and, certainly, far more effective. Wonderful book, and I hope this isn’t the last we see of Science Dog.

Rating: 8/10

Fantastic Four #553

January 29, 2008

Quick Rating: Excellent
Title: Epilogue Part Three: The End
Rating: A

Dr. Doom pits the Fantastic Four against… the Fantastic Four!

Writer: Dwayne McDuffie
Pencils: Paul Pelletier
Inks: Rick Magyar
Colors: Wil Quintana
Letters: Rus Wooton
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Cover Art: Michael Turner
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Dr. Doom has come back in time to prevent Reed Richards from destroying the world… a claim that the Fantastic Four isn’t too keen to hear. Then, a different FF from the future appears, there to take back Doom – until the Reed of the present decides maybe he should hear his arch-foe’s warning.

I could absolutely weep that this is McDuffie’s last issue, because although the “New” Fantastic Four arc fluttered at the end (a fluttering I’m fairly certain was caused by editorial interference), with this arc he has absolutely, 100 percent, without a doubt proven that he gets it. He gets the Fantastic Four. He knows these characters, he understands who they are and what makes them unique and what makes them one of the greatest creations in comic book history. The ending of this issue caused a swelling in my chest that I haven’t felt since the Mark Waid issue when they brought Ben back from the dead.

Seriously. Liked it that much.

Y’know what else is good? Paul Pelletier? I feel like I’m cheating him by using the same phrase to describe him every time I review one of his books, but I don’t know how else to say it. He does some of the best science fiction-based superheroes in comics. Lots of action, lots of energy, lots of cool tech and not four, but eight great-lookin’ heroes.

Loved this issue. LOVED it.

Too bad it’s over.

Rating: 10

Moon Knight (2006) #10

May 15, 2007

Quick Rating: Meh
Title: Midnight Sun Chapter Four: His Lord’s Banner
Rating: Parental Advisory

After the same prey, the Punisher faces Moon Knight.

Writer: Charlie Huston
Art: Mico Suayan
Colors: Frank D’Armata
Letters: Rus Wooton
Editor: Axel Alonso
Cover Art: David Finch
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Although last issue’s cover really should have been on this issue (and vice versa), make no mistake, this month Moon Knight faces down the Punisher. While Frank stands there and shoots and people, Moon Knight stands there and ponders the ways in which he is different from the Punisher. No, seriously.

After a fairly superfluous guest appearance, including some dialogue that makes it clear this story is still a Civil War-period tale, Moon Knight takes off to hunt down a man whose unique ability will come in handy. This character (hard to call him a “villain”, but I’m not sure what else) is easily the most interesting part of the issue. It’s not an unheard of technique – in fact, there’s a fairly similar character over in Fables right now – but it’s an intriguing one that can work really well in this sort of hardcore superhero story .

Mico Suayan takes over for David Finch on the art, and his style is pretty good. It’s a little less polished than Finch, but otherwise quite similar.

A big theme of this book is the fact that the title character doesn’t really have much of an identity. He’s several personalities vying for dominance in one body. While that can – and has – been used to great effect, here it just creates a distance from the main character that makes the book feel less than relevant.

Rating: 4/10

House of M: Avengers #2

December 4, 2007

Quick Rating: Fair
Rating: T+

Cage’s crew faces Shang-Chi.

Writer: Christos N. Gage
Pencils: Mike Perkins
Inks: Drew Hennessy & Mike Perkins
Colors: Raul Trevino
Letters: Rus Wooton
Editor: Bill Rosemann & Tom Brevoort
Cover Art: Mike Perkins
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Luke Cage’s crew, planning a subtle revolution against the House of M, tries to forge an alliance with Shang-Chi’s gang, but Shang wants nothing of it. Meanwhile, an ex-Marine named Frank Castle is about to go on the most disastrous picnic of his life.

I give Gage a lot of credit for finding a different way to handle the Punisher than the obvious route, although what happens to him afterwards isn’t really too engaging to me. The broad strokes of this series as a whole aren’t really that well defined – other than a general sense that the Sapiens are fighting the mutants (speaking of which, since when is Taskmaster a mutant?) I don’t feel a real direction here. The smaller bits, the character beats, are considerably stronger – Cage’s explanation for his “Christmas!” exclamation, for example. I don’t know if that’s something Gage pulled from canon or if it’s a new beat he came up with, but either way, it helps rationalize a rather annoying character trait from the past.

Mike Perkins’s art is pretty strong. He’s got a good feel for street-level fighting, and Raul Trevino’s colors help. The daytime scenes aren’t quite as strong as nighttime, though, with a color palette a bit too yellow, giving the comic a washed out feeling.

This isn’t a bad book, but Gage is fighting an uphill battle, at least with me. It’s not bad, but it’s not good enough to get my interest.

Rating: 6/10

Fantastic Four (1961 Series) #552

December 11, 2007

Quick Rating: Great
Title: The Middle of the End (Epilogue Chapter Two)
Rating: A

Can Dr. Doom save the world by destroying Reed Richards?

Writer: Dwayne McDuffie
Pencils: Paul Pelletier
Inks: Rick Magyar
Colors: Wil Quintana
Letters: Rus Wooton
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Cover Art: Michael Turner
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Last issue, a Dr. Doom arrived from the future, Namor and the Black Panther in tow, to try to save the world from the mad genius of Dr. Reed Richards and his mysterious “idea #101” to save the world. Thus, to prove he’s really not that bad a guy… Reed blows Namor’s head off.

Well naturally, he’s got a good reason to do this, and it becomes evident pretty early in this book, paving the way for the good Doctor to try to push the Fantastic Four’s buttons, trying to turn them against Reed by reminding them of the secrets he kept during the Civil War. When he pushes one button too many, though… well, let’s just say that in addition to drawing a great Ben Grimm, Paul Pelletier is now responsible for the art on one of the best Ben/Doom slugfests I’ve ever seen.

Although the “New Fantastic Four” storyline fizzled a little at the end, “Epilogue” is more than making up for it. McDuffie has gotten to the root of these characters, but in a way that touches on their insecurities and their flaws, and he’s using those flaws to spin a really solid, short finale to his arc. Pelletier is also perfectly matched. He’s always done his best work on superheroes with a sci-fi bent (Flash, Green Lantern and Exiles all come to mind), and this is no exception.

I may be in the minority, but with only one issue left, I miss this great creative team already.

Rating: 9/10

Somebody’s First Comic Book: Thor-The Mighty Avenger #8

Wondering what Somebody’s First Comic Book is all about? The explanation is on this page!

TITLE: The Man in the Iron Mask

CREDITS:
Writer: Roger Langridge
Art: Chris Samnee
Colors: Matthew Wilson
Letters: Rus Wooton
Editor: Sana Amanat & Nathan Cosby
Cover Art: Chris Samnee & Matthew Wilson
Publisher: Marvel Comics

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE: Thor was the god of thunder, right? And on the cover… it looks like he’s fighting… Iron Man?

IMPRESSIONS: As the story opens up, it looks like Thor has been caught by some evil robots, so his friend Jane calls up another superhero for help. “Doctor Pym” (dude in a red suit with a funky helmet) is busy, so he gives a call to his buddy, Tony Stark, better known to moviegoers everywhere as Robert Dow—um… as Iron Man.

The bad guys seem to want to study Thor and his magic hammer, and Iron Man comes in for the rescue wearing a much bigger and bulkier suit of armor than I remember from the movies. (Even the first one.) Thor manages to bust out on his own, though, and winds up fighting Iron Man, whom he assumes is one of the robots. (Which, to be honest, is fair enough.) Then there’s the team-up and, in the end, Thor actually does something productive that could help humankind. I didn’t know superheroes were allowed to do that…

Wow, I really liked this book. Thor is easy enough to grasp, and although Iron Man isn’t exactly the way he was in the movies, he’s close enough that I didn’t have any trouble figuring out what was going on. The story was cool too – a lot of fighting, but nothing that didn’t make perfect sense in context. I got the impression this was the first time these two characters met each other, which makes the misunderstanding much more reasonable. And the artwork is great – I loved the designs for the robots, and the old-school Iron Man armor looked really cool.

This was awesome. Just full of coolness and fun. In fact, I’m really looking forward to getting the next issue of Thor: The Mighty Avenger!

What’s that you say? Last issue?

Aw… nertz.

GRADE: A

Somebody’s First Comic Book: Araña #6

Wondering what Somebody’s First Comic Book is all about? The explanation is on this page!

TITLE: The Heart of the Spider Part Six

CREDITS:
Writer: Fiona Avery
Penciller: Roger Cruz
Inker: Victor Olazaba
Letters: Rus Wooton
Colors: Udon’s Jeannie Lee
Editors: Jennifer Lee & Mark Paniccia
Cover: Mark Brooks
Publisher: Marvel Comics/Marvel Next

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE: I’ve never heard of this Araña before. There seems to be a spider motif going on here.

IMPRESSIONS: The book, quite helpfully, starts off with a “previously”page that tells us a couple of things. Araña is apparently trying to help someone named “Miguel,” who is evidently bonded to her in such a way that he requires her presence to… well… not die. And now she’s got a super-assassin named Amun chasing her. And somebody else is now trying to kill her for no apparent reason.

Then I turn the page into the story and my understanding pretty much falls apart. The fight scene is simple enough, but there’s not much chance of understanding why she was in the fight in the first place or whether or not Amun is actually a bad guy… or, for that matter, why the guy who’s trying to kill her in the first scene looks so much like Miguel later on that I was trying to figure out why she was trying to hard to help out the bad guy.

I’m not really sure what Araña’s deal is, either. She’s apparently super-strong, but is the armor that pops out of nowhere in the last page normal? Or the fact that she starts talking like she’s in a trance when it’s there? It is, simply put, a very confusing comic book, and the revelation on the last page that evidently her mother had something to do with her very confusing circumstances doesn’t make them any less confusing. The whole thing is just… weird.

GRADE: D+

The Stand: No Man’s Land #2

April 1, 2011

Creative Director: Stephen King
Script: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
Art: Mike Perkins
Color Art: Laura Martin
Letterer: Rus Wooton
Cover: Tomm Coker & Laura Martin
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Publisher: Marvel Comics

The Boulder Free Zone Committee has decided to send spies to the west, to Las Vegas, to report back on the workings of Randall Flagg. This issue, three of the chosen spies prepare to go west, while Nadine and Harold both make decisions about their own fate.

This issue really is very good to demonstrate both what’s great about this series and what’s awful about it. Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has really done an admirable job capturing the feeling of the novel. The tension, the desperation is palpable here. Mike Perkins and Laura Martin make it even better, with wonderfully dark scenes for Nadine and an absolutely spine-tingling smile on the part of the Judge when he accepts his own assignment. In fact, I’d rank the scenes with the judge in general right up there with some of the best pages of Stephen King’s work yet transcribed to the comic book medium, and I don’t just mean in this series.

But still… still there are times when the scripter just can’t trust the artwork and dialogue to tell the story and hits us with totally unnecessary captions. This issue may, in fact, have the worst example of that since this series began in the scene where the men of the Free Zone Committee speak to a hypnotized Tom Cullen. The mood here is perfect. Tom, under the spell of the hypnosis, clearly isn’t exactly the Tom we all know and love, and the agony the men feel over what they’re asking him to do is very real. We believe entirely that they love him too, and they’re gutting themselves over what they’re asking him to do. Then, right after Tom makes a particularly sobering statement, we get a panel of Stu Redman, wincing, and pressing on with his instructions. The beginning of the panel? A caption. That reads, “Wincing, Stu pressed on.”

There isn’t a word, a syllable, a letter in that caption that’s necessary to tell the story. The artwork displays it perfectly, and the caption just feels silly and redundant, and it yanks you right out of one of the best moments this book has ever had. Then, in the last panel of the page, the same thing happens again. Since we’ve already been jarred out of the story, it’s not as bad the second time, but that’s only because we’ve yet to find our way back.

There’s so much good here, but that one niggling detail keeps eating away at me. I suppose it’s not something that will be corrected in the time we’ve got left with these characters, but to me, it’s always going to stand out as the thing that prevented Marvel’s adaptation of The Stand from being a truly great piece of work.

Rating: 7/10

Marvel Zombies Vs. Army of Darkness #3

April 30, 2007

Quick Rating: Sweet
Title: Night of the Livid Dead
Rating: Parental Advisory

Even if Ash survives – will he and his allies be able to find the Necronomicon and rid the world of Marvel Zombies?

Writer: John Layman
Art: Fabiano Neves
Colors: June Chung
Letters: Rus Wooton
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Cover Art: Arthur Suydam
Publisher: Marvel Comics/Dynamite Entertainment

Last issue, in the most deliciously amusing death I’ve ever read in a comic book, we saw Ash Williams get the top of his head bitten off by a zombie Howard the Duck. This issue… look, let’s just take it as a given that he pulls through somehow, okay? That should be no surprise to absolutely anyone, and way he survives – while kind of a cop-out – is the sort of cheesy, goofy solution that I have come to expect and love from the Army of Darkness franchise.

Ultimately, Ash and his few allies manage to continue their hunt for the Necronomicon, but when they find out where it is, it may be an ever harder quest to find it than they were up for. There are tons of cameos in this issue, and we see more and more how the Marvel Zombie world differs from the mainstream Marvel U, particularly in the development of the timeline. There are characters from throughout the Marvel history, including several frozen in forms they had decades ago and others exactly as they appear in current continuity. Really, it’s a mishmash, allowing the creators to whip up Zombiefied forms of the heroes at whatever point in their development they so choose.

I quite like Neves’s artwork. He’s got a softness that gives the book a very lush feeling, but he doesn’t flinch from the blood and guts either. Just imagine Modok turned over on his giant cranium, half-eaten by creatures craving brains. Yeah. It’s just as gross as it sounds.

Neither the Marvel Zombies series nor the Army of Darkness comics are really a home for substantive storytelling. They’re universes to have fun, to throw out a ton of in-jokes, and to hurl buckets of blood at the reader. Putting them together has really proven to be a perfect fit.

Rating: 8/10

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger-The Little Sisters of Eluria #3

March 14, 2011

Creative Director: Stephen King
Plot and Consultation: Robin Furth
Script: Peter David
Art: Luke Ross & Richard Isanove
Letterer: Rus Wooton
Cover: Luke Ross & Richard Isanove
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Roland of Gilead has been wounded in battle with a mob of Slow Mutants and taken in by a group of terrifying “Sisters,” who have been both nursing his injuries and slowly drugging him. As he rests in their tender care, he talks to a survivor of a previous attack by the Slow Mutants and learns more about his situation.

While Furth and David have, for the most part, done a good job taking Stephen King’s novella and transforming it into comic book form, this issue underscores one of the problems in translating stories from one medium to another. John’s story, about how his brother and companions died and he came to be in the clutches of the Mutants, doesn’t take up a lot of time in the original novella. The writers have chosen to devote almost an entire issue to the flashback, though, which has the unintended consequence of grinding the story to a halt. While John’s tale is interesting, it’s not integral to Roland’s quest or even, really, to his encounter with the Little Sisters, and this the issue feels somewhat superfluous.

The artwork helps considerably here. Luke Ross continues to grace us with a very clean, powerful-looking line art which Richard Isanove brings to life in a way that very much demonstrates that comic book coloring is, indeed, its own artform. The pages of this book are just fantastic, combining all the greatest elements of horror storytelling with the color palette and mood of a western.

This issue isn’t bad, but it’s unnecessary, and in some cases, that may even be a worse thing. Hopefully, the final two issues will pick up.

Rating: 7/10