Quick Hit Reviews – Week of April 27, 2011

The last Wednesday of the month is also know as “The Week When Marvel Tries to Kill Us” by releasing everything they possibly can so that we can all throw our backs out as we leave the comic shop.

New York Five #4 – Here is an early contender for “miniseries of the year” and I’m going to be highly pissed when it gets left off those lists in favor of a bunch of miniseries that end in December because comic fans have the attention span of a mosquito.  This whole series has been a really touching slice-of-life drama as we follow these young ladies in the spring semester of their freshman year at NYU.  This issue brought things home in a major way.  For one thing, someone dies and the characters are left to ponder on the transitory nature of their lives: They’re all moving on in life and the little group of friends is moving apart.  We’ve all been there and had friends who seemed like the most important things in our lives before something changed because someone took a new job or moved or signed up for classes at a different time of day from you, and you just drift apart.  That’s life and Brian Wood really nails that sentiment.  I’ve gushed on Ryan Kelly’s art before (and own an original page from issue #1), but not only does he do a tremendous job on the young ladies who are the center of this book, but he also makes “The City” a co-starring character itself.  This is a “must read” for everyone and especially so for anyone with any affinity for New York.  Grade: A 

Velocity #4 – Oh la la!  Kenneth Rocafort is a beast!  This series wraps up a very good and straightforward tale of Velocity racing against the clock to save her Cyberforce teammates from a deadly virus.  Every panel that Rocafort draws of Velocity just oozes energy.  She just looks fast even when she is standing still.  He’s got a really powerful understanding of human anatomy and muscle groups.  Sunny Gho does a pretty nice job of coloring too.  Even though the story was really simple, I think Ron Marz deserves some credit.  It’s almost like he knew that this series would take almost a year to come out and kept it simple so that each time all you had to remember was “race against the clock to save teammates.”  If you’re an art fan, this is a must-buy in collected form.  Grade: B+

Morning Glories #9 – This title continues to be confusing, but in a very good way.  Sometimes I get highly annoyed by books that are being mysterious and opaque (see: Batman, Inc.), but I think Nick Spencer is pulling off the confusion because we actually have a hope of learning some answers.  In this issue, we follow one of the students, Jun, and see his back story, how the Morning Glories Academy became interested in him and what lengths they were willing to go to in order to get him as a student.  Yikes!  Once again, I can’t wait for next month.  I’ve heard a lot of folks complain about the art in Morning Glories, but I really don’t get it.  It’s true that it isn’t JH Williams or Mike Kaluta, but I think Eisma is doing a wonderful job with telling the story in terms of his panels and layouts.  Grade: B+

FF #2 – The story here is pretty top notch as the FF has to fix Doom’s brain damage and it has all the moralistic tropes where there are opportunities to kill Doom that are passed upon.  Fortunately, Hickman doesn’t spend too much time dwelling on the morals because the idea of the FF seriously killing Doom is just preposterous.  And, we get a pretty cool cliffhanger ending featuring Valeria who is having a really nice run as a character under Hickman’s pen.  The only thing holding this back for me is Epting’s art.  It isn’t that I think Epting is a poor artist, but I just don’t think his realistic style is suited for FF.  I’d rather see Epting illustrate a crime story and let us have an artist who is more cartoonist on FF.  It doesn’t have to be outlandish cartooning. Let’s just have someone like Dale Eaglesham.  Grade: B

Quick Hit Reviews – Week of March 23, 2011

Amazing what a sneaky heavy week of comics last week was, eh?  But, we here at WCBR endeavor to bring you the broadest coverage possible, even when we can’t get a full review up for every comic on the stands….

Daredevil Reborn #3 – Ugh.  This is really not good!  I hate to be flip at the expense of something that a comic creator put his effort into, but if Diggle’s run on DD were a boxing match, the referee would be stopping the fight and sparing us the final issue of this miniseries.  Let’s just skip ahead to the Mark Waid series coming in a few months and be done with it.  Here we continue seeing Matt Murdock (and his well groomed neck beard….Where does Matt shave btw?) locked into his battle against small-town cops from hell.  The story just isn’t that compelling.  Matt/Daredevil isn’t a creature of the desert…….he’s a man of the shadows and that’s the only place I want to see him.  Did you know he can drive a truck?  Well, he can provided that he kicks out the windshield first so his echolocation works…..  Did you know while driving said truck, he can also tell when he has cars catching up behind the truck?  Don’t know how that one works…..  Grade: D-

Kick Drum Comix #1 – Now this was some electric stuff!  Holy cow did I love this issue that was actually the very LAST off the pile due to his non-standard format (kinda Golden Age height, but not Golden Age width).  Brought to us by Jim Mahfood, Kick Drum Comix offers two stories of urban action that will be loved by anyone with an affinity for 80’s/90’s R&B/Urban/Punk music.  The first story follows the saga of the Popmaster from his roots in early hip-hop music to becoming a take NO prisoners, hard-core music mogul and his eventual struggle with his estranged daughter.  The second story is revolves around two urban youths with a love for Johnny Coltrane.  Mahfood illustrates the whole issue in a crazy style that is really hard to explain.  His panels are SO content-filled that you can just stare at them and continue to notice great new elements.  Just be sure to buy this.  You’ll love it! Grade: A

Echoes #4 – The psychological creepfest keeps chugging into a strong 4th issue.  As if the basic premise of the series wasn’t disturbing enough (whether a 30-ish man has “inherited” from his father a predilection for killing small girls and making tiny dollies out of their skin, bones & hair), now we are teased with a couple of double-reverses to the story that makes me wonder if it is all in the main character’s head.  Joshua Hale Fialkov is really bringing the plot twists in this one!  And Rahsan Ekedal is contributing great B&W art by being the one thing that this series really needs: creepy!  Grade: B+

Marineman #4 – So what if it is a little derivative of Aquaman?  We all wish Aquaman could be this interesting of a character!  Steve Ocean (a.k.a. Marineman) is a really fun character that seems to have all of Aquaman’s abilities, but he isn’t a dick!  In fact, he’s so incredibly likable that you spend most of the issue cheering for him to succeed.  Ian Churchill is doing career-best artwork on this series too.  Everything about his Marineman just screams “larger than life” and I’ve rarely seen more compelling underwater scenes due to the outstanding coloring.  Grade: B+

Quick Hit Reviews – Week of February 23, 2011

Sometimes there are soooo many comics published in a given week (ahem….I’m looking at you Marvel) that despite the heroic efforts of the WCBR writing staff, we simply can’t give every comic a complete review.  Thus, the Quick Hit Reviews…

New York Five #2 – Wow is Ryan Kelly a great artist!  The story here is solid, slice of life stuff as we follow our four college freshmen as they adapt to life in NYC, but the star of this issue is Kelly’s art.  His character work is really strong as young ladies are all cute and express appropriate emotion, but his attention to the city around them in just incredible.  The city just feels alive. I really need to track down New York Four and I encourage everyone to check out this Vertigo series.  Kelly and Tommy Lee Edwards (on Turf) made a LOT of artist’s backgrounds look like dog food this week.  Grade: A-  — Dean Stell

X-Men: To Serve and Protect #4 – All I ask of an anthology series is to give me one really memorable story.  I almost don’t care if 3/4 of the issue is crap as long as I get that one stellar tale.  This issue has a BIG mission accomplished for Jed MacKay and Sheldon Vella’s story of Dazzler, Misty Knight & Colleen Wing engaged in roller derby death match involved a really wacky version of MODOK (Mental Organism Designed Only for Roller Derby!!).  Vella’s art and colors are just amazing.  Toss in a good finale to the Rockslide/Anole story that has woven through this anthology series and you’ve got a winner.  I love the X-office continues to publish these anthologies.  Grade: B+  — Dean Stell

Echoes #2 – Review

 

By: Joshua Hale Fialkov (writer), Rahsan Ekedal (art)

The Story: A man tries to come to grips with the fact that his father was a big-time serial killer while also dealing with his own mental health issues.

What’s Good: What a creepy story this is!  If you enjoy horror that is more unsettling and psychological, this is something you should definitely check out.

In the first issue, we were introduced to a young man whose elderly father was passing due to Alzheimer’s.  In his final, incoherent moments, he tells his son to, “Check the box” in the basement of their old house.  The son does so and finds ~100 little dolls.  That would be screwed up even if they were normal dolls, but these dolls are made from the skin, bones, hair & clothing of little girls that his father (apparently) killed.  We also learned that the son is not that mentally stable himself.

This issue explores whether the son is destined to become his father as Fialkov makes him hear his father’s voice in his head and that voice is urging him to start killing little girls.  The whole thing is very creepy, but what really sets it apart is how you just cannot tell how much of this “father’s voice” is the son’s guilt and how much is due to his own mental illness.  Or is it really all the same?  This whole situation builds to a pretty shocking conclusion to this issue that I won’t spoil.  The pacing is really good on this series, as both issues have ended in a really good place that rewards the single-issue buyer.

Ekedal’s art is again perfect for this issue.  This comic works a million times better without color (although it does have significant grays) because it removes all warmth from the page and let’s just the creepy remain.  His renderings of the little dollies are disturbing as hell.  You hate to look at them, but have a hard time prying your eyes away.  Really good art…

WCBR Quick Hit Reviews – Week of Dec 29, 2010

We at WCBR all get more comics that we could possibly review in full every week.  Rather than let them go unmentioned, we run though the remainder of our pile here.

Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine #4 – This time hopping series continues and puts Logan and Spidey in yet another awesome situation: Logan is thrust into Spidey’s youth as his wrestling partner (i.e. after the spider bite, but before Uncle Ben’s death) whereas Spidey is sent to Logan’s youth.  Of course, Logan was a nasty feral forest monster back then.  Aaron writes both of these characters really, really well.  I’m amazed at how well he writes a humorous Spidey considering the man also writes Scalped and PunisherMax.  Kubert shows off about 3 different art styles in this book and they’re all pretty.  Oh and we also learned the identity of the big-bad.  Any old-time X-fan will be pleased.  One thing that helps this comic is that although it is supposedly not in continuity, the fact that it is a time-jumping tale makes it feel like it could be.  Grade: A-   — Dean Stell

Incognito: Bad Influences #2 – Damn do I wish that Brubaker could sell enough copies of Incognito and Criminal that he could create a couple more series of this quality level and quit screwing around with normal Marvel properties to pay the bills.  This is a really good series and you should be buying it.  The set-up for this is that Zack Overkill (a former supervillain who had his witness protection spot ruined in the first Incognito), is being sent by the good guys back into the lions den: They need him to pretend to go back to being a supervillain.  So, what we end up with here is very much a double-agent, espionage tale as you can see that Zack is sorely tempted to just go back to being bad…because being bad is fun. Meanwhile, the other supervillains trust Zack about as far as they can throw him.  Sean Phillips and Val Staples (again) provide stellar art.  Grade: B+  — Dean Stell

Echoes #1 –  We need more horror comics. If you’re looking for a promising one to pick up, you could do a lot worse than the first issue of Echoes by Joshua Hale Fialkov.  In this issue we meet a ~30-year-old man who is going through a big transition in his life: His wife is about to give birth just as his father is about to succumb to Alzheimer’s.  While sitting with his father right before he dies, his non-lucid father jabbers something about how he must search the basement of their old home because that’s where he hid the bodies of all the little girls.  Whoa!  WHAT!?!?  Chilling, huh?  Rahsan Ekedal lends very atmospheric B&W art.  The only thing holding it back from a higher grade is that they played up the young man’s stress a little much and it made parts of the comic confusing.  Pretty sure that was intentional, but I think the basic story is good enough that you don’t need to screw around.  Grade: B+ — Dean Stell

Osborn #2 – This is a very solid comic book detailing Osborn’s time in some off-the-grid prison where he is being held until someone decides what to do with him OR he rots… whichever comes first.  Of course, Osborn is not one to stay locked up and as he breaks out he brings the other weirdoes of the prison with him.  So, neat story by Kelly Sue DeConnick and great art by Emma Rios.  The only fault with this series is that I don’t see the purpose of the Norah Winter’s story.  I like Norah as a supporting character in ASM, but after two issues we haven’t seen why pages should be devoted to Norah yet.  It seems like every bit of the story featuring Norah could be told via the more interesting Osborn story thread.  Grade: B — Dean Stell