Quick Hit Reviews – Week of April 13, 2011

Try as we might, we can’t always do full reviews for every comic on the stands.  Thus, the Quick Hit Reviews….

Steve Rogers: Super Soldier Annual #1 – Leaving aside the awkwardness of having an Annual for a title that was a 4-issue miniseries that wrapped up ~6 months ago (silly editors!), this was a pretty hot issue.  This is Part 2 of the Escape from the Negative Zone that is mostly an X-Men story.  In the Uncanny X-Men Annual a couple weeks ago, we saw Cyclops, Hope, Namor and Dr. Nemesis get sucked into the Negative Zone and come into conflict with Blastaar.  As you might guess, in this issue Steve Rodgers goes in to save them and fun ensues.  This issue (written by James Asmus) is just packed full of Steve kicking ass, Cyclops and Hope kicking ass, Namor being really well written (not too haughty) and Nemesis being 100% smart-ass fun.   Ibraim Roberson & Jim Charalampidis combine to give the book a very pretty, painted look.  I (personally) like to see a little more inking in my comic art, but I know some people just go bat shit for this painted stuff and this issue is really well done and beautiful.  Grade: A-

Incredible Hulks #626 – Even though I dropped Incredible Hulks during that boring Dark Son story arc ~8 issues ago, I had recently reread the Planet Hulk story and said, “THAT was awesome.  Maybe I should be reading Incredible Hulks again!?!”  This is a fun story that sends Banner off to track down Betsy.  Betsy and he aren’t getting along and she has fallen in with a bad crowd, but the real problem is that her continual use of her Hulk powers is threatening to get her stuck in Hulk form.  OH NO!!!   Banner wants to stop that, but to find her he has to go to a black-tie affair in Italy.  Of course, not everything goes smoothly and thanks to some unstable molecules, you get to see Banner transform into the Hulk without ripping up his tuxedo (which was pretty awesome).  This is a worthwhile Hulk story and Grummett’s art is very much the old-school, superhero art that I like.  Looks like I’m back on Hulk for a while!  Grade: B

Black Panther #517 – It is not a good thing when you sit down to do the Quick Hit Reviews, look at Black Panther #517 and think, “What was that about?  I remember that Francesco Francavilla’s art was gorgeous, but other than the title nominally being about Black Panther dealing with eastern European gangsters in Hell’s Kitchen, I don’t remember anything about the plot.”  While that is surely a sign that Dean gets too many comics, it also means that this story has run its course.  Like many Marvel story-arcs: It would make a snappy 3-4 issues story, but just doesn’t have the meat to be 6 issues.  Never really understand stretching out stories so that they make better trade paperbacks.  BP is probably selling ~30K units in the direct market, so Marvel will mess up a good story (by stretching it out) only  to have 6 issues to collect into a trade paperback that will probably sell a combined 1,000 units between the direct market and everywhere else.  That’s smart right there! </sarcasm>  I usually don’t pick on covers, but I will here: The cover text promises Black Panther vs. Luke Cage (because we all know that the kiddies love black-on-black fights), yet the cover seems to show Black Panther with his hands around the throat of some white guy.  Bad coloring!  Oh….and SPOILERS….there really isn’t that much to the BP vs. LC fight anyway.  Grade: C (good art, story getting long in the tooth)

Carbon Grey #1 – Review

By: Hoang Nguyen, Khari Evans, Paul Gardner & Mike Kennedy (story), Gardner (script & letters), Evans, Kinsun Loh & Nguyen (art)

The Story: It’s a steampunk-ish tale involving prophecy and ladies who kick butt.

What’s Good: I honestly didn’t enjoy a whole lot about this comic book.  But if I had to pick out a high point, it is the art.  Now, I’m going to throw some rocks at the art down below, but there is no denying that this comic has some very nice individual panels with very detailed and soft lines combined with painted looking colors.  Even if this style isn’t a personal favorite of mine this issue definitely has its moments.