Animal Man Annual #2 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Travel Foreman (art), Lovern Kindzierski (colors)

The Story: Can we call child protective services on reckless superhero endangerment?

The Review: Lemire made the interesting choice when he started this title of dropping us into Animal Man’s life after his prime as a pure superhero.  By the second issue, Buddy had already realized his role as the shirtless agent of the Red, and we never did get to see what life pre-Rot was like.  We ignored this point because of the pressing nature of the story at the time, but now that Buddy has picked up his costume again, you wonder how he started out in this biz.

It seems Lemire had the same thought in mind, as here, despairing from the loss of his family, Buddy flashes back to happier times, when his powers were still new (he tells Ellen that he and Cliff spent the last night surfing the web for ideas of new animal powers he can channel).  At this point, he’s only just made a name for himself down in San Diego, fighting one of your typically punny villanis (“Biowulf”) with the late Detective Krenshaw and a team of cops by his side.  Even in these early years of the superhero age, Animal Man ranks among the D-list of masked marvels, but he seems quite content and thrilled to be part of it all anyway.

Action Comics #13 – Review

By: Grant Morrison (story), Travel Foreman (art) Brad Anderson (colors)

The Story: Who knew that aliens have ghosts of their own?

The Review: I have my grievances against Morrison as I suspect even his loyalists do.  I’m well aware he can be deliberately obfuscating and bewilderingly abstract.  I have recently heard his writing style described as “improvising,” which certainly feels true, but anyone who listens to jazz or has been to a Second City show knows that even the best improvisers risk falling flat from time to time.  But even then, you can’t deny they’re always striving for originality.

Who else, I ask you, will give you a sci-fi ghost story?  That’s exactly what you get in this issue; despite its trappings of aliens and pseudo-science like “ecto-technology…powered by pure consciousness,” it essentially is a tale of vengeful spirits targeting the living.  Morrison can often make what would otherwise be a rather straightforward story sound better simply by casting it in a different light.  Using Halloween as a backdrop for the hauntings of an imprisoned, alien mad scientist definitely gives off an interesting flavor, no?

Birds of Prey #11 – Review

By: Duane Swierczynski (story), Travel Foreman & Timothy Green II (pencils), Jeff Huet & Joseph Silver (inks), Gabe Eltaeb (colors)

The Story: Poison Ivy’s killer course on how to save the planet.

The Review: Look, none of us are naïve here.  We all know that there are some people in this world who can stand a little killing.  And I’m not talking about the ones who are clearly disturbed, like serial killers or child rapists.  I’m referring to the jags who see you waiting-signaling for a parking space and zip into it anyway, the corporate honchos who do everything short of snatching cash from your hands, the guy who leaves his pee all over the toilet, etc.

But horrible as these folks are, you don’t actually believe they deserve death (at least, I hope not because otherwise I suggest you seek counseling).  It just goes to show that our valuation of human life outweigh a whole slew of awful human behavior.  At the same time, most of us acknowledge somewhat hypocritically that there are things far more important than us.  It’s only when we have to practice that idea that we begin reconsidering our priorities.

Birds of Prey #10 – Review

By: Duane Swierczynski (story), Travel Foreman (art), Gabe Eltaeb (colors)

The Story: Didn’t you know nearly all Birds in the Amazon are endangered?

The Review: Fiction writers follow hardly any rules but loose ones, and one of the loosest and most followed rules goes something like this: don’t always stick to your guns.  Big ideas are important, and if you bring some to the table right from go…great!  But don’t be afraid to traipse off the well-trodden path to pursue a plot thread or develop a character you never once thought about.  A lot of times, these wind up replacing your original plans as the real meat of the story.

On the other hand, let’s not get so excited about exploring new directions that we get totally mixed up about where we’re going—and forget how to get back to the trail to the picnic area.  I don’t think we’re at a point where Swierczynski can’t lead us back to where we laid out our blankets and lunch, but those sandwiches are feeling further away all the time, and we’re feeling a bit peckish, to say the least.  (The extended, completely ridiculous metaphor ends here.)

Birds of Prey #9 – Review

By: Duane Swierczynski (story), Travel Foreman (pencils), Jeff Huet (inks), Gabe Eltaeb (colors)

The Story: We have a serial killer and a group of pretty women—who’ll come out on top?

The Review: Another “Night of the Owls” tie-in.  Huzzah.  In all seriousness, though, it’s not like I think Batman-spawned plot is terrible—I haven’t even read it, after all—but it just doesn’t feel like any of these titles which have crossed over with the storyline really needed to.  The formula is simple: enter an undefeatable Talon; hero of the hour struggles against it for a while; hero finds some method (clever or no) to subdue it; fade out.

Lo and behold, that is exactly how this issue pans out.  Swierczynski makes an attempt to give Henry Ballard, the Talon in question, a bit of character, but like the Talons of Batgirl and Batman and Robin, the haste in which the issue wraps makes it impossible for you to develop any sentiment toward him whatsoever.  He has a whole shtick about the unchangeable nature of history (“Gotham’s streets are the same.  The blood flows in the gutters just the same.  The crimes, the wicked acts, the atrocities…all the same.”), but Swierczynski doesn’t explore that theme enough to make it worth your attention.

Animal Man #8 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (writer), Steve Pugh (artist), Travel Foreman (penciller), Jeff Huet (inker), Lovern Kindzierski (colorist)

The Story: Let this issue be a wake-up call to permissive, indulgent parents everywhere.

The Review: This may sound a tad hypocritical coming from someone who loves Young Justice so much, but I find the concept of kids getting caught up in the increasingly violent world of superheroics, frankly, rather disturbing.  Much as the Fantastic Four’s Franklin and Valeria try to emphasize the cuteness of the idea, I think that in any real life scenario, we’d get a result more along the lines of what happened to Red Arrow’s daughter in James Robinson’s Cry for Justice.

If you never considered this troubling problem before, you’ll almost certainly start thinking about it after this issue.  Maxine’s childlike confidence and legendary status may have lulled you into thinking nothing can really touch her, but here we see, in graphic fashion, that at the end of the day, she’s still a little kid with vulnerable flesh.  Lemire may like his warm, corny father-son moments, but he’ll let a four-year-old girl get mercilessly ravened by various animals when the story demands it.  The moment is an immediate punch in your gut, telling you once and for all that this series is not messing around with this horror stuff.

You don’t even have the comfort of feeling better when Maxine saves herself from bodily death, since it requires her to jump through some grisly body-snatching and body-disposing hoops to get it done.  Rather than charm you, her toothy smile and peppy, “It didn’t hurt at all.  It kind of felt good,” simply gives you the willies.  The only thing separating her on the creepy factor from the Children of the Corn is her obvious love and loyalty to her family, but her reckless and naïve behavior means we can’t count on those qualities alone to mean she won’t doom them all.

Animal Man #7 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (writer), Steve Pugh & Travel Foreman (artists), Jeff Huet (inker), Lovern Kindzierski (colorist)

The Story: No rest stops on this family trip—we’re on the lam from killer beasts, remember?

The Review: Practically every superhero comic on the stands bears some kind of peril within.  When our heroes are fighting to save their cities or fellow man, they’re also fighting to save themselves.  Theirs is a high-stakes business, where failure often means the loss of their lives.  What makes the danger in Animal Man feel so much more potent and real is the fact that Buddy’s not the only one at risk here; it’s his whole family that is being threatened.

More than anything else, the constant risk to the Bakers maintains the series’ choking tension.  It gives the Rot not one, but several targets to lurk after, so any time a Baker goes off anywhere on his or her own, your wariness increases for their sake.  When Buddy leaves Cliff to his own devices in this nowhere, desert town, everything takes on an ever-so-slightly sinister aspect, as if you expect at any moment some stranger’s good-natured smile will burst out with fangs and seize the boy in his grip.  No doubt this paranoia got instilled into you by the Hunters’ body-snatching tricks from previous issues.

Besides the multitude of physical dangers in play, perhaps there are even greater ones closing in on the Bakers’ spiritual well-being.  The tension within the family grows more intense with each harrowing episode.  Ellen’s mom finally airs her feelings about the whole situation, and while telling her daughter that Buddy “was trouble from the moment you first started dating” seems a bit unfair, she has a point.  Lemire has crafted a bit of a double-edged sword in creating such a strong family unit for this series, because it does make you think how insane it is to even attempt to do your superhero thing if you have loved ones to fear for.

Yet Buddy seems oblivious to the problems eating away at his own family.  You can’t deny that he’s tops in the “cool dad” department (“Cliff, we gotta go…that was the Justice League, they need us!”), but when it comes to the more deeply-rooted issues, he’s a bit too lax.  It’s not just that he dismissively asks, “What’s her problem?” when Ellen’s mom storms out.  By this point, Buddy’s had two dreams of impending doom, and while he reacts with appropriate dismay at the evil portents for Maxine, he doesn’t quite seem as attuned to the equally dark signs for Cliff.  Remember Cliff’s spilt guts in #1?  Doesn’t it seem foreboding that here, in Buddy’s vision of the “future,” you see a grown-up Maxine, a geriatric yet spry Buddy and Ellen, yet no Cliff?

Animal Man #6 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (writer), John Paul Leon & Travel Foreman (artists), Jeff Huet (inker), Lovern Kindzierski (colorist)

The Story: Well, Buddy, you’re giving Clooney a run for his money on that Oscar, I’ll say that.

The Review: I have a screenwriter friend who’s a big buff for the canon of artistic cinema—loves everything Stanley Kubrick, big Criterion collector, all that good stuff.  Because I’m a lit nerd, I tend to view movies with a pretentious sniff, but under his influence, I’ve grown to see film as the potential art form it is—Twilight movies and unceasing Alvin and the Chipmunks sequels be damned.  And anyway, as a comics reader, I can’t exactly stay on a high horse.

I will say, however, that the bulk of movies tend to be more formulaic, predictable, and given to cliché than almost any other medium, even the decent ones.  Three pages into “Tights,” the last (?) movie Buddy starred in before his run-in with the Rot, you already know the angsty place the plot is heading long before Chas (Buddy’s “character”) lands himself in the hospital with an estranged wife and crying kid beside him, begging him to stop his vigilantism before it’s too late.  The premise of “Tights” also comes a bit too late in the “superhero down on his luck”-type story.

The beauty of art, though, is that no matter how much it follows formula, it can still be affecting and powerful depending on its execution.  And Lemire sure knows how to execute.  He’s not the type to insert this kind of thing into an issue just as a fun gimmick.  What “Tights” really does is give you a character study on Buddy himself through the guise of his film counterpart.  The last five issues have been so chock-full of action and plot elements that we haven’t really gotten a chance to know our hero as a person, so this sequence comes as a quiet, welcome break.

Now, we’ve seen the Baker family in action, so we know the distant father, mother, and son in the movie are at least not true to life (so to speak).  We also know Buddy is a pretty wholesome and well-adjusted guy, compared to the depressed, falling-apart drunk on screen.  There is one thing they share: an addiction to heroism, one they can’t quit even in the face of very real danger.  Red Thunder finds himself incapable of dealing with even the youngest threats of modern society, while Animal Man is poorly equipped to deal with the abstract, overwhelming foe he’s up against.  Red Thunder gets beat up; where will that leave Animal Man, I wonder?

Two significant moments in the issue signal how this movie clip will play into upcoming story.  First is Red Thunder’s admission to his grieved ex-wife and son: “I—I can’t quit…I can’t do anything else.  Without the costume…I’m nothi—”  Whether this bears any reflection to Buddy’s determination to see this horror through, even with the risk to his family, we’ll have to see.  It’s also significant to learn Cliff’s the one watching his dad’s movie this whole time.  We’ve seen in earlier issues how taken he is with his dad being in the hero business, but he just had a scary run-in with the Hunters Three, and witnessed his dad getting beat around.  It may well be he’s having second thoughts about how cool any of this is.

Animal Man #5 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (writer), Travel Foreman & Steve Pugh (artists), Jeff Huet (inker), Lovern Kindzierski (colorist)

The Story: This is one parade of animals I can live without.

The Review: Like anything else, serial fiction has its upsides and downsides.  On the upside, there’s a lot to be said for a story that has enough time on its hands to explore any direction it darn well pleases and develop its characters as far as they can go.  The problem is for a story to go on for that long, the main character has to stick around for a good, long while, which means their survival in any kind of dangerous situation is practically assured.

That makes writing your traditional superhero comics a bit tricky, to say the least.  While the goal is to challenge their powers by placing them in some kind of peril, for the most part, you’re never all that concerned anything drastic will happen to them.  But then, Animal Man is hardly your traditional superhero comic.  From the onset, Lemire has imbued this title with a constant, sweaty tension, allowing danger to lurk on every page.

To begin with, our hero is much lower on the power scale than his League counterparts.  We saw last issue how ineffective, even at its most potent, his skill set is against the Hunters Three, and here, separated from direct contact with the Red, Buddy proves even less effective against just one of the Hunters.  Yet from the looks of things, it doesn’t seem like there are many on Earth who can handle these flesh-feeding terrors, except those with powers over flesh themselves.

Animal Man #4 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (writer), Travel Foreman (artist), Jeff Huet (inker), Lovern Kindzierski (colorist)

The Story: Over the mountains and through the woods, to Grandmother’s house we go…

The Review: Animal Man’s cult popularity comes less from anything inherently cool about his powers or himself, but more from the way writers have used him for highly experimental, even radical, storytelling.  When you think of Animal Man, you tend not to think of his iconography or mythos, but rather the fact that he once starred in one of Grant Morrison’s delightfully bizarre works.  What you know of him as a character is far less concrete.

Lemire has been filling the gaps in that area since this series started, and done it quite poetically too, though he poaches off Swamp Thing’s continuity for some of it.  You especially can’t help seeing the resemblances in this issue: humans acting as avatars of the Red, returning to the Red once their work is done to become Totems in the “Parliament of Limbs.”  Here, just as in Scott Snyder’s sister title, the Red has found its greatest avatar of all to fight its greatest enemy of all.

We’ve seen hints of how far Maxine’s power can go, particularly in reanimating the corpses of several small animals.  But now we really get a sense of the difference between her, a true avatar of the Red, and Buddy, a mere “agent,” as the Totems called him last issue.  Buddy’s ability to channel the powers of animals makes for some entertaining action, but Maxine wields power over flesh itself, as she shows when she heals her daddy’s wounds, molding his skin like clay.

Animal Man #3 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (writer), Travel Foreman (artist), Lovern Kindzierski (colorist)

The Story: It’ll take a hardy stomach not to go vegan after this.

The Review: Horror is a tricky thing to create.  While we all know how unsettling the foreign and bizarre can be, it takes something more to elevate them to concepts that frighten us.  Often, that necessary element comes from mixing the unnatural with the natural, the strange with the familiar.  When we confront a thing we think we understand, we have a measure of control.  When our understanding proves fallible, we become vulnerable, and that’s frightening.

Here, our villains—although the term feels too commonplace to describe the malevolent forces in question—make a game of hiding within hosts, but they do it so carelessly that it offers no comfort to us or to the characters in the issue.  Their human form serves as a mere skin, a poor, shrunken costume that these creatures quickly outgrow, their monstrous limbs squeezing and tearing out of any opening available.  The only possible reaction is to recoil in disgust and terror.

This Ellen does very convincingly, though Cliff doesn’t seem to grasp the gravity of the situation (“That was awesome!”).  After all, these creatures are called the Hunters Three, and you don’t earn that title without some serious tracking skills, so no matter where mother and son go, their pursuer won’t be long behind.  Without any apparent super-powers at their disposal, they’ll be at the Hunter’s mercy when he catches up to them, so you have another rich vein of suspense there.

Meanwhile, Buddy has his hands full just dealing with the revelations about his daughter and his true place in the Red’s hierarchy.  For all the abilities he possesses, he is meant to be little more than a bodyguard for the Red’s true avatar.  Even at its strongest, there’s been an inherently limited (and slightly goofy) quality to Buddy’s powers.  It stands to reason that channeling the strength of a lion or gorilla won’t impress the personified abstractions of a “rot.”

Animal Man #2 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (writer), Travel Foreman (artist), Lovern Kindzierski (colorist)

The Story: Who went and impregnated the hippos?

The Review: You get to see all kinds of outrageous, fantastical things in comics: space cowboys who sling energy from rings, men who can shrink down to sub-microscopic size and travel between the folds of parallel universes, women who charge into battle wearing nothing more than a glorified one-piece.  Yet families are something of a rarity; Buddy Baker may be the only superhero who’s managed to have something even approaching a normal family dynamic.

Emphasis on “approaching.”  Nobody can integrate superpowers and vigilantism so closely with their home life and have it come out with its normalcy completely intact.  As we saw last issue, Buddy and his fams have adapted astonishingly well to his career.  None of them finds it unusual for the man of the house to hover away to confront a deranged psychotic in the children’s ward of a hospital.  You can imagine it would take something quite dramatic to rattle these people.

Well, that something happens in this very issue, which proves nothing is more unsettling than a wide-eyed little girl with a link to the supernatural.  You’ll be most disturbed by her flippant behavior to what would cause most of her peers (and probably most of us, at that) to shriek and run off as quick as our legs can take us.  Whether it’s the fact that she finds all these animated animal cadavers so cute or that she shows only a vague curiosity at her daddy bleeding out his eyes, you quickly realize lil’ Maxine is one creepy kid.

Big brother Cliff seems strictly enthused by these events (“Let me run and get my phone…I gotta film this!”), but mother Ellen comes very close to having a mild breakdown from the wild cacophony of emotions running through her: ill-hidden horror at her daughter’s newly discovered powers, terror of what will happen if others find out (“Buddy!  This is…this is bad!  They’re going to take her away!”), sullen rage at being left behind while her husband literally flies off with their daughter on a mission to save an abstract idea.

Animal Man #1 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (writer), Travel Foreman (artist), Dan Green (inker), Lovern Kindzierski (colorist)

The Story: Sing it with me, everybody—“‘Cause I want to live / like animals…”

The Review: Who would’ve ever predicted that from all of DC’s enormous body of characters, Animal Man would get counted as one of its most famous and acclaimed?  Certainly, he has little inherent appeal in either his powers or background.  A family man who can call on the powers of the animal kingdom certainly has nothing on an alien from a dead planet with the strength of a god.  It just goes to show what inspired writing can do for seemingly unpromising material.

And if any writer can bring the inspiration to make Animal Man a force to behold again, Lemire can.  From the first page, he gets us well acquainted with Buddy Baker’s voice, which is candid, mild, and irresistibly inclusive: “The whole DIY, bootleg thing is a part of who I am…As long as the world still needs Animal Man, he’ll be around.”  Think of a tree-hugging Jimmy Stewart who can also do an uncanny impression of a dog, and you’ll have the right idea

We get to see all these elements in action, in a tense, but ultimately tangential sequence involving a grief-crazed shooter in a children’s cancer ward.  While Buddy obviously prefers the touchy-feely approach, he has no qualm about getting his hands dirty.  As he simultaneously controls the abilities of an elephant, fly, and cheetah, we see good evidence of why, even with a fruitful film career, he’d never give up the superhero biz.  “…it’s just too much fun.”

What with all the DC men who’ve lost their wives to editorial changes, it’s refreshing to see Buddy blessed with a stable, wondrously imperfect family life: the familiar insinuations (“And when does your agent think you’re going to get paid…?”), the harmless squabbles, the small, loving gestures (“I..take on the weight of a bumblebee so I don’t wake the kids.”).  That he gets to experience these things on a daily basis already sets him apart from his more famous peers.

Superman #710 – Review

By: J. Michael Straczynski & Chris Roberson (writers), Eddy Barrows & Travel Foreman (pencillers), J.P. Mayer & John Dell (inkers), Rob Reis & Dave McCaig (colorists)

The Story: Can a nerd from the sticks and an emo from the big city work together to defeat an immortal caveman?

The Review: I’ve managed to stay above the fray when it comes to the polarizing “Grounded” storyline Straczynski’s been writing into Superman, but only by not reading it altogether.  The pitch of Superman walking America for reasons you can only describe as misplaced just didn’t appeal.  But with big things coming his way this year, it’s only appropriate to check in with him before the status quo gets shaken up again.

At first, the issue starts off much as you’d imagine: having come upon another city on his road trip, Superman chats it up with the little people and tries to help them with their problems.  But with the appearance of Batman, Roberson switches gears, flashing back to the first adventure of the World’s Finest, before they get the idea to wear their underpants outside their costumes.

In the grand scheme of things, the story’s a very random aside from Superman’s “Grounded” journey.  Batman shows up very suddenly and for little reason, other than to chide Superman’s sabbatical pretty much the same way Lois, the Flash, and Dick Grayson have.  The recollection of their first team-up feels very out of context from the current plot too, being far better suited for Superman/Batman since it’s largely self-contained and kind of messy, continuity-wise.

That said, Roberson writes it well enough, albeit a little predictably.  It has all the typical elements of a Superman-Batman story: showing off their core personalities, acknowledging each other’s strengths and weaknesses, sly hints to their future heroism.  Vandal Savage and his army get defeated a tad too efficiently, and with so little struggle from the villain you never feel Bhutran (gateway to Nanda Parbat, the immortal city) is ever in any real danger.

This would have been a fun, if slightly pointless, excursion if not for Roberson’s attempts to bring some deep, meaningful conversation into the mix.  Clark and Bruce (both past and present) spend way too much of their idle time pontificating on the nature of justice, the value of their work, and on handling death.  It just feels forced, heavy, and a little pompous—which kind of fits given what I’ve heard about Superman’s slightly arrogant attitude throughout this storyline.

Immortal Iron Fist #22 – Review

By Duane Swierczynski (writer), Travel Foreman (artist), Matt Milla (colorist)

The Story: It has long been rumored throughout the seven capital cities of heaven that there is in fact a mysterious eighth city, and Danny Rand has just found it.  After acquiring a map in the lair of a monster that nearly killed him, Rand and the Immortal Weapons launch an expedition to find the enterance to the eighth city.  Stepping through the gates, they are terrified to discover they may have just entered Hell itself.

The Good: Taking an idea first mentioned in Fraction and Brubaker’s original run on the title, Swierczynski has been slowly, skillfully developing the subplot of the eighth city over the course of his run, and it’s now about to pay off in a major way.  “Escape from the Eighth City” looks like it’s going to be one of the best Iron Fist storylines yet!  I love how the eighth city is portrayed as being a cross between Hell and Gauntanamo Bay, and was thoroughly disturbed by the piggish demons that populate it as foot soldiers.  There a line in this issue about Hell being monotony, and you really appreciate the truth of that as you witness Rand his the other Immortal Weapons fighting for their lives in an endless cycle of impossible battles.  And the twist at the end!  Wow, never would have seen that coming, and that’s what makes this book continue to excel.

The Not So Good: My support for Foreman’s art has been cautious at best, but I think it’s finally been exhausted.  Foreman has proven himself to be a sparse and spartan artist whose pages adequately convey action scenes but really underwhelm when asked to express character and environment, elements that are especially crucial to a story like this.  Foreman’s art, while not outright awful, is nonetheless proving to be strangely lackluster for what is otherwise an amazing book.

Conclusion: The latest storyline of Immortal Iron Fist is solidly fun entertainment, even if Foreman’s art keeps it from being great.  If you’ve never read the book before, now’s the time to give it a try!

Grade:  B+

-Tony Rakittke

Immortal Iron Fist #20 – Review

By Duane Swierczynski (writer), Travel Foreman & Russ Heath (artists), Matt Milla (colorist)

The Story: Danny Rand has had better days.  Having just celebrated his 33rd birthday, Rand discovered that all but one of his predecessors have died in combat at age 33.  Their killer is a beast called Ch’i-Lin, a mystical creature that feeds on the life source of the dragon that all Iron Fists draw their powers from.  Hiding in the body of a man named Zhou Cheng, Ch’i-Lin has finally come for the Iron Fist, and it will not stop until it has ripped Danny’s heart from his chest.

The Good: Any doubts I had about Swierczynski and Foreman not being able to deliver the same quality of stories achieved by Brubaker, Fraction, and Aja have gladly been put to rest.  Swierczynski has taken loose plot threads from the previous team’s storylines,– like the Iron Fists dying at 33, and the mysterious eighth Capital City of Heaven, and is fashioning them into some really dynamic and entertaining stories.  It helps that he has an artists as skilled as Foreman working with him.  Foreman’s art has a cool anime look to it that compliments Iron Fist’s kung fu heritage while still driving him forward in new directions.

The Not So Good: Foreman’s art suffers from some poor page compositions and erratic inking, with some pages having up to thirteen panels crushed together, obliterating any sense of detail and storytelling.  It wasn’t as bad in this issue though, so hopefully he realized his style looks best when it has the space come to life.  Also, the inks on some pages looking like they’ve barely been touched, while others are saturated in black.  A minor problem, but at times it was enough to distract me .

Conclusion: Under the direction of Swierczynski and Foreman, the future of Iron Fist is in good hands, and this continues to be one title I look forward to every month.

Grade: B

-Tony Rakittke

Immortal Iron Fist #18 – Review

By Duane Swierczynski (Writer), Travel Foreman (Artist), Russ Heath (Artist pgs. 1-4), Matt Milla (Color Art)

I have to hand it to Duane Swierczynski for managing to maintain a majority of the momentum left from the fantastic Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction run. He wisely picked up the plot thread with the most immediate potential, Danny Rand’s 33rd birthday, and ran with it. The introduction of mysterious Iron Fist killing villain brought an immediacy to back to the series that continues in Immortal Iron Fist #18.

The issue opens up by showing the demise of Iron Fist Kwai Jun-Fan at the hands of the mysterious man/creature that Danny Rand is currently battling in Central Park. From there, the action reverts back to the particularly brutal fight in the present as Danny’s narration brings everyone up to speed on the situation at hand. An appearance by the Heroes for Hire keeps the Iron Fist alive for at least another day, but things between Rand and the mysterious man look to be far from over. Even though the bulk of the issue revolves around an action scene, the story manages to advance in a meaningful way. It is clear the Iron Fist assassin is playing hardball and I can’t wait to see how Danny Rand reacts.

The only real complaint I can think of regarding Mr. Swierczynski’s writing is that he is clearly employing the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” style for his run. There are more than a few moments where he is obviously using aspects of the Brubaker/Fraction style to tell the story, but I can’t come down to hard on him when the results work so well. Simply put, the series is extremely close to being as entertaining as it was with the last creative team and I really like the direction the story is going. While it is not quite as epic in scope as the Brubaker/Fraction arcs, Swierczynski is using the foundation they laid to great effect. The only real cause for worry is that Swierczynski may not be able to sustain this momentum over the long haul, but that is something to think about another time. Fans of Brubaker and Fraction can rest assured that, for the time being, The Immortal Iron Fist series is in good hands.

Both artists do a great job making this a nice looking book, but a few things keep it from being something special. I love Russ Heath’s brutal scene with Kwai Jun- Fan, but can’t ignore the fact that it is a bit inconsistent with the details (Bloodless severed leg?!). As for Travel Foreman’s work, I am really enjoying his gritty style, but wish he had a better handle on his action scenes. While some of it looks fantastic (the headbutt!), the direction is a bit confusing and some of the more stylized moments just look rushed. A little  more refinement and I would easily consider this to be one of the better looking books on the stands.

Eventually, Swierczynski is going to have to find his own voice on this series, but I like how things are going so far. The story is interesting, the art fits nicely, and I think there is definitely potential for things to get even better. Take some time to check this one out. (Grade: B)

-Kyle Posluszny