Green Lantern: New Guardians #32 – Review

By: Justin Jordan (writer), Brad Walker (penciller), Andrew Hennessy with Scott Hanna (inkers), Wil Quintana (colorist)

The Story: “I didn’t want to but they know how to make you.”

The Review: The original adventuring party has splintered over the last few issues of Green Lantern: New Guardians, with Quaros leaving his brothers in between issues and Kyle separated from the group at the climax of GL: NG Annual #2. Appropriately each division has marked the entrance of uncertainty and powerlessness into this uniquely godlike group of wanderers. As this issue opens we still don’t know what’s happening to Kyle, what he truly saw beyond the Source Wall, whether Oblivion still exists, or even where our hero is really. This trend reaches, what seems to be, its lowest point this issue.

I’ve previous noted in my reviews of this series that the Templar Guardians have started to become a bit of a literal Deus Ex Machina, frequently appearing at the last-minute to save the day, rendering Kyle’s actions a mere distraction. Well this issue clearly answers that concern, at least in the short-term. Justin Jordan does an impressive job of hiding the Guardians’ panic behind their usual wisdom. While it’s not exceptionally complex character work, the execution is effective, immediately and fiercely conveying both their worry and their pride.

Jordan has always enjoyed homage to horror movies in his work, but New Guardians has never reached this level of eeriness before. The story plays with dramatic irony, feeding the reader little bits of information every so often without actually answering questions. In the meanwhile, Jordan takes a slow burn strategy, playing on the expectation that things have to come to a head. The fact that the reveal has to justify each page of suspense puts a time pressure on the book that becomes more stressful the further you read.

Batman Annual #2 – Review

By: Scott Snyder & Marguerite Bennett (story), Bennett (writer), Wes Craig (pencils), Craig Yeung, Drew Gerraci, Craig, Jack Purcell, Sandu Florea & Marc Deering (inks), Ian Hanin (colors) and Dave Sharpe (letters)

The Story: Batman meets a new/old denizen of Arkham while testing out their security systems.

Review (with minor SPOILERS): Bravo to DC and the creative team for introducing a new character!  I know that the fanboys love to read another Joker story, but I personally find new villains to be much more interesting.  Only with new characters are there unclear motives, unclear powers and unclear outcomes.  All the new character needs is a little hook to make them unique and it is suddenly fascinating to watch the creators fill in the blanks of the character.

The new character from this issue is named yhe Anchoress.  She has a really cool hook in that when her powers manifested, she accidentally killed her parents and was sent for therapy at the original Arkham Asylum back when AA was a place where a Dr. Arkham actually tried to help the mentally ill.  As such, she hates Batman for turning AA into a supermax prison for his rogues gallery.  Once that happened, nobody cared about helping the mentally ill. They just wanted to keep Joker and Clayface in their cells.  It’s an interesting way to introduce a character and to make us look differently at a landmark like AA.  I mean, I think almost all modern Bat-fans look at AA as a prison.  It’s easy to forget that AA probably used to have a different purpose….like treating the mentally ill and perhaps now those mentally ill don’t have the same prospects for treatment.  Readers of this site know I love real-world parallels (and so does Scott Snyder, I think), so I can’t help but see relationships between this take on AA and the closing of mental health institutions in the 1980s and all the crime and homelessness that happened as a result.  It’s just interesting to think about some of these criminals or bums as mentally ill people who have been failed by “the system.”

Thunderbolts #159 – Review

By: Jeff Parker (writer), Declan Shalvey (art), Frank Martin (colors) & Albert Deschesne (letters)

Moonstone story by: Joe Caramagna (writer), Valentine de Landro (art), Chris Sotomayor (colors) & Deschesne (letters)

Ghost/John Walker story by: Jen Van Meter (writer), Eric Canete (art), Fabio D’Auria (colors) & Dave Sharpe (letters)

Crossbones story by: Frank Tieri (writer), Matthew Southworth (art) & Sharpe (letters)

The Story: A medley of stories detailing events on the Raft after it is destroyed by Juggernaut’s Fear Itself Hammer.

What’s Good: For one thing, this is a pretty fat issue.  Checking in at 40 pages for its $4.99 price, you’re getting a double-sized comic for less than double-price.  And none of the 40 pages is junky crap like an old reprinted Thunderbolts story.  Nice one…

This is effectively a Thunderbolts anthology.  I love anthologies, but it isn’t uncommon to get some crummy stories that you just need to skip.  That’s not a problem in this issue as all of the stories are between “solid” and “quite good”.  And, because these four stories are both bulky and from widely different parts of the Raft, it really drives home the enormity of the crisis.  It also continues the general strength of the Fear Itself tie-ins.  This issue adds a lot of local flavor to Marvel’s summer event.

For regular T-bolts readers, the star of the issue will be the Parker/Shalvey Underbolts story.  When we last left these characters, they were contemplating just running for it instead of continuing to serve as “heroes”.  Here we see them helping out with rescue efforts but also building in their own little insurance policy for the future.  This is just classic T-bolts storytelling since these characters are villains and you never want them to feel “safe”.

The other stories all have their moments such as Marvel letterer Joe Caramagna showing us what happens when the female and male prisoners come into contact without any chaperones present or how effectively the anarchist Ghost and the former US Agent, John Walker team-up (and build a grudging respect).

Generation Hope #6 – Review

By: Kieron Gillen (writer), Salva Espin (art), Jim Charalampidis (colors), Dave Sharpe (letters), Jordan D. White (assistant editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: Hope and kids head off to find another emerging mutant with a new liaison to the big-boy X-Men in tow.

What’s Good: Most of the fun from this issue stems from seeing new characters doing new things.  Between Hope and her Five Lights, Hope is the best known character and we (the readers) still don’t even really know what her powers are.  The rest of the Lights are really black boxes beyond a cursory description such as “Laurie is blue, had fins on her head and can fly.”

So, those of you who bitch and moan that there aren’t even any new characters in comics, you should check this out because it is almost 100% about new characters.  And you almost feel like you’re learning about their powers at the same time as the writers.

Probably the most interesting of these new characters are Kenji and Teon.  Kenji (who everyone says is an Akira rip-off, but I haven’t read Akira, so there!) seems to view his body as a piece of living organic art, which should be interesting to anyone who enjoys the artform side of comics.  There is also the small fact that Kenji may or may not be evil making him more interesting.  I think Teon is mostly getting his positive vibe because he’s hanging out with Wolverine.  For years, it has seemed that the only way to make new characters stick with the X-titles is to have them be mentored by Wolverine, so perhaps we’re seeing the same formula that worked so well in the past with Kitty, Jubilee and Armor (someone needs to use Armor!) only with a young man instead.

I have mixed thoughts about Kitty being the new liaison for Hope’s team.  On one hand, IMHO the biggest thing making the X-titles weak over the last several years has been the lack of established roles for the characters.  For better or for worse, I think we would get more interesting stories if characters like Kitty are forced into a defined role on a sub-team of X-Men instead of being a minor, supporting character in all of the stories.  By putting her in a role like this, we are most likely to get interesting Kitty moments as she interacts with the new team and has to deal with being the grown-up after decades of being the “kid”.

Chaos War: X-Men #1 – Review

By: Louise Simonson & Chris Claremont (writers), Doug Braithwaite (art), Dave Sharpe (letters), Rob Schwager (colors) & Mark Paniccia (editor)

The Story: Some dead X-Men find themselves brought back to life and thrust into the Chaos War.

What’s Good: The art looks very nice.  If you’re not familiar with Doug Braithwaite, he’ll remind you a little of Alex Ross.  He definitely falls into the more realistic school of art and what strikes you most about his linework is how anatomically correct his characters are.  All of the muscles, contours, facial wrinkles, etc. are all as they’d appear on real humans.  Then he combines that with a very nuanced inked shading.  These inks combine with Schwager’s colors to give some pages an almost painted look.  The end result is very nice.

What’s Not So Good: This issue is credited to Claremont, Simonson & Braithwaite without any indication as to who wrote and who handled art duties.  I’m assuming that means that Braithwaite had some input on the story and that one or the other of Claremont and Simonson only helped in the most conceptual manner.  But, it could also be that no one really wanted to take credit for this story because it is not very good.

The general concept of Chaos War is that the Chaos King has destroyed death.  This allows all of the dead to come back to life.  At the same time, the Chaos King has struck down all mortal heroes into a coma of sorts.  So, while the godly characters of the Marvel U are fighting the Chaos King in the main part of the event, some of these back-from-the-dead heroes are trying to do little bits to help here on Earth.  This formula has given us a really good Dead Avengers miniseries and a fun Alpha Flight one-shot.  But, that magic was missing from this issue.

Halcyon #2 – Review

By: Marc Guggenheim & Tara Butters (writers), Ryan Bodenheim (art), Mark Englert (colors), Dave Sharpe (letters) & Aubrey Sitterson (editor)

The Story: The heroes of Earth continue to adjust to a world without crime.

What’s Good: The premise is interesting: What happens if there is no more crime?  What do the heroes do?  In this well written comic we start to see that the heroes are going to varied responses.  For example, the superfast dude is stressed to within an inch of his life because he (and he alone) is fast enough to get to the scene of natural disasters as they happen whereas the woman who is the Superman-analog knows she isn’t fast enough to do that stuff…and is really kinda enjoying relaxing.  They’re all different, and some will be not so noble.

The writing craft of this comic is really top notch.  It is well paced and the story is told in a way that makes it clear that the creators know what the story is going to be .  We’ve all read comics where you get a sense that the creators have a general sense of what will happen, but not a firm outline.  Not the case here and that is something I generally find to be true of writing teams since the mere act of collaboration requires more detailed planning.

We also don’t often get to say something nice about lettering, but Dave Sharpe is showing why lettering can matter as he does some neat things in this issue.  There is one character who is named Null and he doesn’t speak with typical word balloons, he speaks with black background/white text dialog boxes.  It may not seem like much, but it adds to this Null’s character without the writers having to write anything about him.

Finally, let’s cheer for the second issue coming out promptly.  I think a lot of “indy” comics lose momentum with bad release schedules.  My biggest complaint with issue #1 was that it didn’t give much intro, but that is kinda washed away now because issue #2 came out quickly.

Chaos War: God Squad #1 – Review

By: Marc Sumerak (writer), Dan Panosian (art), Antonio Fabela (colors), Dave Sharpe (letters) & Mark Paniccia (editor)

The Story: A bunch of neither God, nor mortal heroic types battle the forces of Chaos.

What’s Good: This is a comic you buy if you’re into a couple of the characters OR are buying the whole Chaos War event (like me).  The story focuses on Daimon Hellstrom, Sersi, Silver Surfer & Venus.  How’s that for an odd team?  Probably most Marvel fans will be interested to read about one or two of those characters.  For me, the highlights are the Surfer and Venus.  Although Venus’ joke of signing some appropriate (yet oddly inapt) song to solve a problem is not a new joke, it really never gets old.  It is one of those story devices where you can just tell that every Marvel writer has “the song” that they’re going to have Venus sing if they ever get to writer her.  I love reading a comic that contains that sort of enthusiasm from the creators.  Do you doubt that some Marvel writer has a plan to have Venus sing “Baby got back” someday?

In an oddly good moment for an event tie-in, this issue actually expands the Chaos War event a little bit by explaining why these four characters are important to defeating the Chaos King.  Here’s a hint: The name “God Squad” is actually kinda a misnomer for them, but only “kinda”.  This was a neat concept and I hope it is explored a little more in the Chaos War proper.

Panosian’s art is mostly excellent.  There were pages in here where I said, “Ohhh.  I like that.  I wouldn’t mind having that framed on my wall.”  That doesn’t happen in every comic.  This issue also has a lot of cosmic vibe to it that allows Fabela’s colors to shine.

Halcyon #1 – Review

By: Marc Guggenheim & Tara Butters (writers), Ryan Bodenheim (artist), Mark Englert (colors), Dave Sharpe (letters) & Aubrey Sitterson (editor)

The Story: Guggenheim & Butters begin to explore what happens when the heroes “win”.

What’s Good: There are a couple of common questions in superhero questions, such as, “Why doesn’t Batman just kill those villains since they just bust out of Arkham and cause mayhem again?” or “Are heroes causing crime by being an attractive nuisance for criminals?”  Halcyon seems to be touching on a tangent to those types of questions: What would the heroes do if there was no more crime?  Would they decide to settle down or would some of them prove to be such adrenalin junkies that they would find a way to create some crime to fight?

This issue only begins to establish the world of Halcyon.  The writers take us through introductions to the main heroes.  This series of vignettes is nicely done as each character gets a box with their name and power.  More comics need to use this technique because it is nice to know what these peoples’ names are.  The heroes are all pretty recognizable archetypes from our Marvel/DC comics, so one wonders if this is a bit of misdirection such that we will be surprised when the “Captain America dude” does something that the Marvel Cap never would.  We’ll see.  But, as the stories unfold, the heroes come to the realization that all crime is coming to a stop.  Not just super-powered crime, but also muggings, et al. Of course, this may or may not be scheme by the one super villain we meet in this issue.  It is an enticing concept and it’ll be interesting to see where it goes.

The art works.  It is serviceable and tells the story written by the writers without trying to show off and free lance.  It isn’t without its flaws (an odd looking characters here and there, sparse backgrounds), but it perfectly fine for the story.

Lettering is one of those thankless tasks where it is usually only noticeable when it is done poorly, so we try to offer praise whenever possible.  In this case Dave Shapre uses a really neat font for a scene in Pakistan that makes it 100% clear these folks are speaking a foreign language without resorting to: “<Drop your gun!!>”*       * – Translated from the original Farsi

Generation Hope #1 – Review

By: Kieron Gillen (writer), Salvador Espin (art), Jim Charalampidis (colors) & Dave Sharpe (letters)

The Story: Hope and her new entourage (a.k.a. the “Four Lights”) head to Tokyo to meet a budding mutant with a bad disposition who they hope will be the fifth light.

What’s Good: Hope.  That is the only really good thing about this issue.  She has become a pretty important character as various X-writers have developed her over the last ~3 years and she has been central to that last three big X-events (Messiah Complex, Messiah War & Second Coming).  So, it is nice to see the spotlight shine on her a little bit as a central character without the story being about everyone trying to kill her.

Espin’s art is quite good in places.  He has a couple of odd moments with Wolverine and Cyclops (who look 28 years old), but the art is just fine and good in places.

Web of Spider-Man #12 – Review

The Ex-Terminators by: Fred van Lente (writer), Pepe Larraz (art), Andres Mossa (colors) & Clayton Cowles (letters)

Arms against a Sea of Troubles by: Roger Stern (writer), Philippe Briones (art), Chris Sotomayor (colors) & Dave Sharpe (letters)

The Story: The Black Cat – Mary Jane team-up continues and we get a reminder of Doc Ock’s origins.

What’s Good: I like anthology books for two major reasons: (a) there is a surprise in what kind of stories you get and anything bad is over quickly and (b) they tend to be a showcase for new(er) comic artists who Marvel/DC wouldn’t put on a major book yet.

I really enjoyed the first story in this issue (The Ex-terminators) which continues the team up between Black Cat & MJ as they try to find a missing Spidey.  What’s not to like about that?  There is just all kinds of fun, silly dialog between the two ex-girlfriends that would be a little out of place in a standard Amazing Spider-Man story, but works just fine as a short-story in Web.  The art on this was kinda a revelation too because I enjoyed what Larraz was doing.  For one thing, he switches effortlessly between a very contemporary digitally-drawn-comics look and a flash-back that is old-fashioned scratchy pencils.  For another, he just has all kinds of interesting panel compositions and perspectives going on.  How can you not respect that: guy gets a shot to do some comic work for Marvel (working with van Lente) and actually flexes his muscles a little.  Bravo!  Kudos to Mossa on a really nice coloring job too.  Point is, there are more than a few “pause worthy” panels and pages in here.

The Doc Ock story is just a condensed origin tale and that story is nothing special, but it too features some nice art.  In this case it is more of a classic pencil/ink look which makes sense for an origin of an established character.

Web of Spider-Man #11 – Review

The Ex-terminators, Part 1 by: Fred van Lente (writer), Pepe Larraz (art), Andres Mossa (colors) & Clayton Cowles (letters)

Jackpot: Double-Edged Sword by: Marc Guggenheim (writer), Sana Takeda (art) & Dave Sharpe (letters)

The Story: An MJ and Black Cat team-up in the main story, plus the conclusion to Jackpot’s mission to avenge her husband’s death in the back-up.

What’s Good: The main story features a team-up between MJ and Black Cat that shows why Web of Spiderman exists.  I think WoS is a lot like a comic I reviewed yesterday: Batman Streets of Gotham.  Spidey has a pretty big rotating cast of characters and WoS attempts to touch base with them.  I like that because it makes Spidey’s universe feel more alive when these other characters don’t seem like toys that go back in the closet as soon as they are done being played with by Spidey.

And, the story for this team-up is pretty fun as Spidey is missing, leaving only his phone behind.  MJ finds all the raunchy texts that Black Cat has been sending to Spidey and uses those to get in touch with her so she can hire Black Cat to find Spidey.  As you can imagine, there is lots of catty banter between the two ex/recurring Spidey-girlfriends and that makes the issue kinda fun and the story ends with the pretty good cliffhanger.

Web of Spider-Man #10 – Review

The Extremist, Part 3 by: Fred van Lente (writer), Nick Dragotta (art), Brad Simpson (colors) & Clayton Cowles (letters)

Negative Reinforcement by: Marc Guggenheim (writer), Sana Takeda (artist) & Dave Sharpe (letters)

The Story: Spider-Man wraps up his conflict with the Extremist and Jackpot gets into a bind with Mr. Negative.

What’s Good: I’ve quite enjoyed this Extremist story over the last 3 issues of Web of Spider-Man.  It isn’t the best Spider-Man story ever and the ending here isn’t quite as good as the beginning of this story, but its still an above average Spider-tale.  Throughout it has played on the theme of the dual nature of Peter Parker who is both kinda wussy and spineless, yet incredibly brave once he puts on his mask.

The art is also quite good on both portions of this issue.  Dragotta is doing more of a classic Spider-Man look whereas Takeda is doing something more photo-referency with the Jackpot tale, but I don’t have any complaints with how this issue looks.

Web of Spider-Man #8 – Review

By: Story A: Fred Van Lente (writer), Javier Rodriguez (art), Muntsa Vicente (colors), Joe Caramanga (letters); Story B: J.M. DeMatteis (writer), Val Semeiks (pencils), Dan Green (inks), Chris Sotomayor (colors) & Dave Sharpe (letters)

The Story: The era of “all you need to buy is Amazing Spider-Man” comes to an end as Web begins its first ongoing, Peter Parker story with The Extremist in Story A.  Meanwhile, in Story B, we catch up with what Ben Reilly has been up to.

What’s Good: Both of these stories are quality, but the star is The Extremist by Van Lente.  In this, we are introduced to a titular pseudo-hero claiming that his mission is to take on the purveyors of moral ambiguity (mostly the media and politicians) who sometimes tear down heroes and attempt to understand the motives of the villains.  “No more of this nonsense”, says The Extremist.  He wants the public to know who the good guys are!

Of course, is there a more maligned hero than Spider-Man?  It would seem that this Extremist dude would be a real help to Spidey, but…c’mon…this is Peter Parker.  Nothing works out that well for him.  So watching how Peter’s sense of responsibility can’t just allow this guy to help him.  All Peter would have to do is…nothing.  And Spider-Man would be more popular with the public.

This story is clever on many levels.  Beyond really capturing Peter’s essence (he is too noble for his own good), it ties in very nicely with the heroic age: We need to know who the heroes are AND who the bad guys are.  It also has a very neat solution to Peter’s employment problem and that causes all sorts of problems with his roommate (who I love).  It’s just great… Go read it.

Cloak and Dagger #1 – Review

by Stuart Moore (story), Mark Brooks (pencils, Walden Wong (inks), Emily Warren (colors) and Dave Sharpe (letters)

The Story: After the events of Dark X-Men, Cloak and Dagger must decide if they belong on Utopia with the X-Men.

What’s Good: We’ve been teased for about 25 years by the duo of Cloak and Dagger.  They were created in the 1980’s as super-powered heroes in the war on drugs, but it was never made clear if they were mutants or not.  They have failed (commercially) in a few attempts to give them their own ongoing series over the years, but had increased visibility over the last year as members of the Dark X-Men.  In this issue we do definitively learn that they are not mutants.  I liked the way this revelation was handled because it showed that even among the mutants, Cloak and Dagger just don’t really fit in.  They are kind of “other”.

I was also pleased for editorial reasons that C&D are not going to become X-Men.  The mutant roster is already so full that A-listers like Nightcrawler aren’t getting much to do. Two other cute story moments: Dr. Nemesis kicking butt while sneering at the bad guys’ technology, and Cloak suspecting Dagger of having an affair with the homosexual Anole (esp. Anole’s reaction).

As for the art, it is mostly a positive in this issue.  It’s a very bright and pretty book and I think Brooks nails the X-Men.  The cover is also really nice (if you care about that sort of thing).

Civil War: House Of M #3 – Review

Christos N. Gage (writer), Andrea Divito (pencils), Nathan Fairbairn (colors), Dave Sharpe (letters), Mike Perkins (cover)

The Story: Magneto’s campaign for mutant rights continues. After liberating Genosha and making it a safe nation for all Mutantkind, Xavier urges Magnus to seek less violent ways to progress the cause. Even with the support of Black Bolt, Black Panther, and Namor, Magneto’s patience wears thin with diplomacy. Behind Xavier’s back, he starts to move the pieces into position for full scale war, while the US sends a strike team to assassinate him.

What’s Good: Gage does a good job of dealing with the Magneto-Xavier relationship. As Magneto nudges things closer to war, Xavier’s opposing views take a front-seat which provides some great tension between the two. It’s also nice to see Magneto’s attempts at diplomacy. He’s such a strong character, and to see him do something “weak” like seeking the support of others is a pretty compelling power-shift to see. This ties back into his relationship with Xavier as things always cut back to Magneto telling Charles how he really feels about groveling.

What’s Not So Good: There’s a lot of exposition and setup. That in itself isn’t a problem, but since the first two issues were so war-heavy, the drag of the setup is more noticeable. Still the overload of information takes a toll on all aspects of the book. Andrea Divito has a great visual pallet for battle scenes, but since there’s a lot of talk here, she doesn’t get as much of a chance to shine. Nothing looks bad, in fact the pencils are still outstanding. However, I’m looking forward to seeing the massive battles which are no doubt on their way.

Conclusion: It’s a slow week for this title, but a necessary one. Things are set up nicely for a dramatic conclusion to Magneto’s rise to power. I wish this information had been spread out better over all three issues, but as it stands now we’re ready for war.

Grade: B

– Ben Berger

Civil War: House of M #1 – Review

By Christos N. Gage (writer), Andrea Divito (pencils), Laura Villari (colors), Dave Sharpe (letters), Mike Perkins (cover)

Part Magneto back-story, part House of M/Civil War tie in, this book retells an origin and gives new insight to one of Marvel’s major events. I’m usually against prequels since many of them are done for the wrong reasons (see Star Wars, and money), and in most cases they’re unnecessary and create more plot holes than they solve (see Star Wars). However, House of M shows a lot of promise one issue in, successfully documenting the rise of the Master of Magnetism.

Christos Gage and Andrea Divito hit the good points while avoiding many pitfalls in this issue. In this tale, Gage depicts Magneto as a man fighting for a cause rather than an extremist hellbent on seeking domination. His portrayal of the Magneto leaves readers curious to see exactly how he takes over and leaves in question how the humans can put up a fight. Accompanying Gage’s Magneto is Andrea Divito’s sizzling art. Divito is a superstar, making every panel sizzle. The artist’s work delivers, as it is able to focus greatly on the backgrounds just as the characters and the foreground. Divito’s work manages to  hold on to your attention, panel for panel while not distracting you too much from the main action.

House of M: Civil War is a sure pickup, as it offers a lot for an origin story. Gage and Divito gives us a lot of exciting scenes and an interesting character study of one of Marvel’s beloved villains/ anti-heroes. If you want a tale that follows the psyche of Magneto and some explanation as to how he gained leadership of the mutants, then this is the book to pick up. This issue perfectly sets the history of the House of M. (Grade A-)

-Ben Berger