Artifacts #8 – PREVIEW

Artifacts #8 (of 13)

Ron Marz
(A) Whilce Portacio
(Cov) Eric Canete, John Tyler Christopher

Mass Combat!

The combined forces of the Artifact bearers aligned with Witchblade bearer Sara Pezzini and The Darkness host Jackie Estacado have reached a truce with the cybernetic heroes of Cyberforce. They’ve fought off the relentless assassin Aphrodite IV, but that was only the beginning. Pushed to the limit, can they defeat a force that dwarfs everything they’ve faced before?

From Top Cow Universe architect Ron Marz (Witchblade, Magdalena) and legendary artist Whilce Portacio (The Darkness, Uncanny X-Men) bring the second chapter of the epic event series to a thunderous conclusion. Featuring a gorgeous cover by Portacio as well as a variant cover featuring Alina Enstrom by John Tyler Christopher (Witchblade).

Each issue will also feature a Top Cow Origin backup written by Marz and drawn by a superstar artist.

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).

Amazing Spider-Man #611 – Review

By Joe Kelly (writer), Eric Canete (art)

The Story: Everyone’s favorite merc with a mouth, Deadpool, is hired to whack our Friendly Neighborhood wallcrawler.  Hijinks ensue as the wisecracking masked men kick and punch each other around NYC, culminating in the inevitable “Yo’ Momma” insult showdown between the two.  Meanwhile, Kraven the Hunter’s teenage daughter and her mom (who appear to be the same age and evidently enjoy Eskimo kissing) prepare for next month’s Gauntlet event by plotting against other spider-themed characters while Spidey’s distracted.

What’s Good: Skottie Young’s cover to this issue is one of the funniest sight gags I’ve seen in a while.  Admittedly, some knowledge of the excess prevalent during the 1990’s age of comics is necessary to get the joke. However, if you have even the slightest acquaintance with that era, this cover is guaranteed to at least elicit a smirk from you.  Sadly, it’s the only humorous thing about this comic book.

What’s Not So Good: “Trying too hard” is a phrase that I use often.  It inevitably comes to mind when I notice that someone or something has gone overboard in attempting to “be” something that they’re obviously not.  Women older than 40 shopping at Forever 21 while wearing UGGs?  Trying too hard.  Flash-Forward aping the structure and tone of Lost?  Trying too hard.  Anyone driving a Hummer?  Trying too hard.  Amazing Spider-Man #611 doing it’s best to be irreverently funny?  Trying.  Too.  Hard.

To be fair, Joe Kelly and Eric Canete gave me exactly what I expected when I picked up this issue.  Whenever Deadpool shows up in a comic, starring or guest-starring (I believe this is appearance #62,658 this Fall), it’s to be expected that the creators will do their best rendition of a wacky, slapstick routine that happens to involve people in tights.  The fact that this issue is written by the writer who is in someways synonymous with Deadpool only serves to cement that expectation. Unfortunately, too many ingredients  have been thrown into the “wacky pot”; from farcical editorial interjections to the fumetti-styled recap page to the “worst day ever” direction of the plot.  It doesn’t help matters much when on top of everything crammed into this package,  a fairly serious side-story that leads into next month’s Gauntlet story-arc is thrown in too.  Not only does ASM #611 try to be chock-full of funny and fall far off the mark, but it also attempts to be a prologue to another story.  There’s biting off more than you can chew, and then there’s biting off more than you can chew.  Kelly’s script falls into the latter category for me, regrettably.

While Canete’s artwork is far from bad, it does add to the unfortunate over-the-top approach prevalent throughout the issue.  A perfect example is his double-page splash depicting Spidey battling Lady Stilt-Man (okay, that name is sort of funny, I’ll admit) over the streets of Manhattan.  Spidey’s anatomy is, in a word, distorted.  Lady Stilt-Man is (I can only assume) supposed to be standing upright on stilts that seem to be flapping around weightlessly.  The entire piece has the feel of being reflected in some sort of funhouse mirror.  I’m sure the exaggerated approach to the visuals was intentional, and it certainly fits with Kelly’s equally excessive plot, but it only serves to confuse in an already overburdened piece of work.

Conclusion: While I appreciated the raw energy apparent in the work, this issue of Amazing Spider-Man never rises above being the equivalent of someone explaining the punch line of a joke, and then asking, “Get it?  Get it?”  I got it.  I just didn’t like it very much.

Grade: D

– Joe Lopez