Grayson: Futures End #1 – Review

By: Tom King & Tim Seely (story), Stephen Mooney (art), Jeromy Cox (colors)

The Story: Dick tries his hand at political assassination and finds it doesn’t suit him.

The Review: As my first serving of the Futures End crossover, Action Comics left a bad taste in my mouth and a deep dread of what the rest of the month would bring. With its poor use of the five-year jump, its distant connection to the Event itself, its tenuous handling of the Superman mythos, the issue checked off every trademark of a forced tie-in. You could just as easily throw it away and it would make no difference to any storyline anywhere.

Thank goodness I read Grayson second. It’s not a cleverly finessed tie-in the way Daredevil‘s tie-in with Original Scene is, but at least it does everything Action Comics does not. And it starts with King-Seely’s decision to tell its story backward, a risky move that pays off by tying Dick’s (potential) future with his famous past. Tying it all together is the motif of a rope; it’s the visual that starts off the issue and upon which the issue ends, the beginning of Dick’s life as we know it as well as its conclusion. It’s a fitting symbol for a hero who’s always placed himself on the line.

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