Ultimate Comics Wolverine #1 – Review

By: Cullen Bunn (Writer), David Messina (Penciler), Gary Erskine (Inker), Javier Tartaglia (Colorist), VC’s Joe Caramagna (Letterer)

Review: Poor old Jimmy Hudson. As character’s go he’s often gotten the short end of the stick. He was first introduced in Jeph Loeb’s facepalm-worthy Ultimate Comics: X, a series intended to be an ongoing before production delays saw it wound up as an extended mini. Then he shifted over as a regular cast member of Ultimate Comics X-Men though his growth remained stunted, imagined as half romantic foil for Kitty Pryde, half perpetually snarling anger-ball. Now, even when he gets the chance to star in his own mini-series proper, he has to share page count with dear old departed Dad.

Still, Jimmy does kinda suck, so whatcha gonna do? Other than his Daddy Issues I’ve never found him to be that interesting. I mean, compare him to Daken in the 616; that guy had it all. Cool tattoos, an edgy Mohawk, a third claw on the inside of his wrist…and he was into the guys as well as the gals. Plus, he totally hated his Dad and cut the Punisher up into tiny l’il bits. Meanwhile J-Huds is just this angry white kid – he reminds me of Ryan from The O.C. Not that I watched The O.C., you understand, it’s just that I’m hip and culturally aware and have my finger on the pulse of popular entertainment *remembers that The O.C. finished 5 years ago, hides away DVD box set*. Ahem.

Angel: After the Fall #6 – Review

By Joss Whedon (plot), Brian Lynch (plot & script), Tim Kane, David Messina, Stephen Mooney & John Byrne (illustrators) & Ilaria Traversi, Lisa Jackson & Leonard O’grady (colors)

There are ways of doing a good anthologies comic and there are ways of doing it awful. The way done for Angel #6, sadly, is the latter. It’s weird because the previous Tales from Buffy were pretty good. The stories here are inconclusive or just non-interesting at all.

The tales told in this issue are gathered by the telepathic fish. It’s a nice decent resource, I give them that. The first has Spike meeting with Fred who turns again into Illyria – in hell anything can happen. Connor’s story deals with him remembering who he really is, and what happened to him in the previous years. Eventually, he gets caught by some nasty demons, and it leaves us with a big cliffhanger! Damn. Serialized short stories? Not good for a montly book like this. Sorry!

Finally, there’s a Lorne story – which is complete – but so boring and tedious, that it’s pointless. It’s written in rhyme (it feels more like a song that Lorne sings), recapping what happened to him before.

I really just wanted to read and see what happened after the last episode of Angel on season 5, like they promised, but I’ll just have to keep on waiting for the payoff. Sigh. (Grade: D)

-Daniel Yanez