Pigs #5 – Review

By: Nate Cosby & Ben McCool (writers), Breno Tamura (artist), Kevin Colden & Jordie Bellaire (colors), Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: A bunch of Cuban-born agents are trying to break into a prison to kill someone.

Three Things: 

1. I feel like I missed an issue! – This isn’t necessarily the writers’ fault.  I’m pushing 40, read a lot of comics and have a bajillion things going on in my life.  So I DO lose the plot thread of comics sometimes and it isn’t the writers’ fault.  That being said, I’m kinda lost and I’m sure I’m not the only one.  Here’s what I know about the series [SPOILERS]: The President’s arm gets cut off at some point and last issue these Cuban agents were killing a Congressman and his mistress.  So, I don’t understand why – in this issue – they’re trying to break into a prison to kill an inmate.  What does this have to do with the plot?  And there’s this Nazi inmate who seems important, but I don’t think I’ve seen him before.  When I harp on this kinda thing, there is always someone who pops up to give the answers in the comment thread and I’m not debating whether some people can keep track of the plot, but the writers need to do a better job of recapping the action if they want to sell this as a single issue comic.  I’m sure it’ll read better in collected form, but if you’re selling it to me as a single issue I must review it as a single issue.

2. I want to know about the severed arm, dammit! – This is mostly an issue with pacing of the series.  The first issue had that awesome reveal on the final page where we learned that somehow these Cuban agents had chopped off the arm of the US President.  That’s the mystery I want answers to.  I don’t really care about how some of the agents are more committed to the cause than others or any of their personal dynamics.  Further, I don’t see how this story is leading us toward the President.

Spider-Girl #1 – Review

By: Paul Tobin (writer), Clayton Henry (artist), Chris Sotomayor (colors), Joe Caramanga (letters) & Nate Crosby (editor)

Young Spider-Girl back-up by: Paul Tobin (writer), Dean Haspiel (art), Edgar Delgado (colors) & Joe Caramanga (letters)

The Story: Classic 1st issue fun for a teen-superhero as Spider-Girl starts out dealing with criminals her own size, but gets sucked into a bigger fracas.

What’s Good: I have a hard time getting bored with teenage superhero comic books.  They are often paint-by-numbers as the hero start out tackling smaller villains before gaining mastery over their powers and dealing with some A-list bad guy…. and thus becoming a full-fledged member of the superhero insiders’ club.  But, that is such a classic coming-of-age story that it never feels old (to me).

Spider-Girl #1 hits all the right notes for a series like this as Anya Corazon tries to balance her daily life of school and family with her heroic after hours duties.  In keeping with this type of story, we see her facing off first against Speedball who is a C-list Spider-Man rogue.  That’s fitting.  Anya doesn’t currently have any powers (although she has been combat trained by the Avengers), so Spider-Girl vs. Speedball is a pretty fair fight.

Anya’s personal relationships are also explored and the fun thing is that her Dad knows her secret identity, but when her Dad arranges for Anya to hang out with Sue Richards, Sue has no clue that this teenage girl is swinging around in spandex by night.  That’s just an interesting reversal…usually the teenage hero is trying to conceal their secret identity from their parents not having their Dad be a full-fledged cheerleader for their crime-fighting.

A few writers have used Twitter as a story telling device, but Tobin makes very nice use of it here by letting tweets replace narration boxes.  But, the real bonus for originality is that @The_Spider_Girl is a real Twitter ID and you can follow heron Twitter if you want (I am).  That should be at least moderately interesting for a while.

Henry’s art is spot on.  I didn’t see a single technically unsound panel AND he pulls off the really hard thing for an artist of a young hero: He makes her look like a teenager when she’s in costume.  Anya is a slight teenage girl, so its refreshing to see that she doesn’t suddenly become muscular with a huge chest the second she puts on her costume.  Also, many superheroes are drawn as essentially nude figures with costumes painted on…. not Spider-Girl.  Perhaps the legs and arms are those of a nude figure, but he tones down the “important” parts and that’s appreciated.  I don’t need to see pendulous breasts on a teenage hero!  Nicely done!

The back-up story is also really good, featuring very strong art by Dean Haspiel, it tells the story of young Anya’s first visit with her father to the Baxter building.  Any parent of a precocious little girl will love this!