Dean’s Drive-by Reviews

My pull list is way, way too long and every week there are a few titles that don’t get the full review treatment by me or my colleagues here at WCBR, but they still deserve a mention of some sort…

Thunderbolts #150 – Sheesh! Is Jeff Parker on a can’t miss string right now, or what?  This is my pick of the week in a pretty strong week of Bat-books.  I love the bastardized team-up between Avengers and Tbolts that leads to a duel of sorts in some alternate universe with talking frogs.  And….we get to see Captain Steve smash the All New Crossbones (with heat vision)!  How great is that?!?  Kev Walker’s art is just perfect for this title too.  My only criticism is that Marvel could spare me the Wikipedia entry on the history of the Tbolts and I always hate getting these old reprints in the back of my issues.  I never even bother to read them and hate paying the extra buck.  Grade: A-

Superior #2 – Mark Millar can do feel-good story telling!  This comic is really Big with superpowers.  This issue was just a blast as we watched this kid learn how to use his new powers.  Ever wonder precisely HOW Superman goes about flying or shooting lasers from his eyes?  Well, this at least shows you what it’s like the first time you try those tricks.  Can’t wait to see what happens when the space monkey comes back!  It goes without saying that Yu’s art was very good and I love the championship belt in his costume.  Grade: B+

Harlan Ellison’s Phoenix Without Ashes #1 – Review

By: Harlan Ellison (writer), Alan Robinson (art), Kote Carvajal (colors) & Robbie Robbins (letters)

The Story: Something weird is going on in this comic adaptation of Harlan Ellison’s long out-of-print novel Phoenix without Ashes.  A young man named Devon finds himself getting crossways with the Puritanical leaders of his community except this isn’t the 1600’s, it is set in 2785!

What’s Good: I enjoyed the basic concept for this comic book: small town is shut off from the outside world, set in the future but has a 1600’s Puritanical leadership and the leaders seem to be taking orders from a funny computer.  That’s all cool stuff and I actually didn’t realize that this was adapted from a novel of the same name until after I read it.  Ordinarily I don’t enjoy comic adaptations of novels.  Call me closed minded, but prose works should be enjoyed in the theater of the mind.  But, in doing my crack research for this review (i.e. searching on Amazon) it appears that Phoenix without Ashes is sooooo out of print that you cannot even buy it from the Amazon.  So, I’ll give it a pass on being a relatively novel story.

The characters in this story are pretty incidental (more below) because the primary hook for this tale is the series of questions that the story begs: Why is a city 700 years in the future being run by Puritans?  Why are they taking orders from a computer?  Do the leaders have an ulterior motive?  Why does this city seem to be inside of a sphere?  The list goes on and on.  In a lot of ways, this is similar to the recent Wildstorm series, Sparta USA.  But, whereas Sparta never hooked me and I dropped it after one issue, I’ll keep getting Phoenix to learn the answers to the mysteries.

From an art standpoint, I’ll say this is “competent”.  I can’t give it bigger praise than that, but it certainly doesn’t stink.