 |
| Always good to know what you're sitting on. |
Sunday afternoon ∴ comics.
In a week where I picked up Punisher Max, Jennifer Blood and Green Lantern - all written by writers whose work I really like - this was the first issue I read which is no small measure of how much I'm enjoying this series.
Madame Xanadu makes something of a sacrifice and Etrigan goes off the deep end; the Horde attack the village as Vandal Savage attempts to turn the peasants into an army; and Exoristas briefly makes a friend. It's all splendidly done and leaves us on the brink of a full out assault from which there's no guarantees all our loose team will survive.
Another seriously good series and any reservations I had about the art at the start of it have no vanished as I warm to Alberto Ponticelli's style. Frankenstein and the Creature Commandos battle the vast horde of spiderlings before Khalis makes a move which leaves them to deal with the literally mountain-sized mummy spider. Turns out there's a deadline in which to act as Frank and the others have three hours to find and kill two other huge monsters and there's hints of a mysterious figure whose return doesn't exactly fill Father Time with joy.
Really enjoying this series.
Sinestro lays out his plan to save his home planet, forcing Jordan to go along with him and help, while the Guardians of the Universe hatch a plan that may spell the end of the Green Lantern Corps.
There's some excellent interplay between Sinestro and Jordan in this issue with Hal attempting to find the moral high ground and failing utterly. He really has no option but to help his former enemy and that galls him. Once on Korugar, Sinestro gives him one simple task to do and insists he wait until after sunset. Does he wait? C'mon, this is Jordan - of course he doesn't and that impetuousity may just be his doom as he appears to disintegrate completely. He's an arse.
A cracking issue, not only for the main story but also the reveal of the Guardians' plans to get rid of the Corps and replace it with a new army.
So Ennis's run on the title comes to an end as Jennifer Blood deals with the last of her evil, crime-lord uncles in a way that was a little surprising. Anyone expecting a huge, drawn out gun fight throughout the issue is going to be disappointed. Instead we get more information about her origins and how she became both the cold-blooded killer and the housewife and mother she is. Oh and Jack "from across the street" finally makes his move, expecting to find her in some S&M club and gets the shock of his life.
It's a good ending to the arc and while I picked up this title solely because it was Ennis writing, I'm willing to see what the new guy does with it.
Hmmm. Honestly, apart from the line about monsters that I used as the opening quote for this week, there wasn't a great deal in this issue.
We meet Silver Star whose apparently been around for decades, managed by the US government, the project to control him always funded regardless of who's in the White House. That's all changing as a review's been ordered and, at the same time, Star's girlfriend is walking out on him.
It's not terrible . . . but it's not brilliant, either.
Any good hero has to have a good villain to battle against but with Brainstorm, Mr Terrific's first real bête noire, there's plenty of room for improvement. Oh sure, Mr T's incredibly smart and so is Brainstorm; during their battle he discovers Mr T's secret identity and threatens to reveal it; he even divulges the fact that he caused the death of Terrific's wife at the moment he became Brainstorm.
And yet there's something lacking here. Perhaps it's the way Terrific defeats him so easily that reveals despite having the characteristics of an arch-enemy, he's really not up to the job and that reflects badly on Terrific. Sure, he beat Brainstorm but it wasn't that difficult.
Still, next issue Terrific's off to another dimension to help some seriously ugly aliens.
Neither the Punisher nor the Kingpin are having a particularly good time of things lately. The Punisher finds the criminals he hunts are no longer as scared of him as they were, and the Kingpin is too scared of leaving his safety to even avenge the desecration of his son's grave. It takes a child in both cases to spur them on - in Frank's, it's Fisk's dead son whom he has stolen from the ground while for the Kingpin, it's the son of one of his workers, forced to watch the Kingpin torture the boy's father. And underneath it all, Vanessa Fisk's plan for revenge is rumbling along.
This is seriously good stuff.
Mitch Shelley's already met an agent from Heaven (though he didn't realise it at the time) so it stands to reason that he'll run into one from Hell as well. This one lets him know that his inability to die and remain dead is causing problems and that one side or the other has to end up with him soon. Meanwhile, when he does resurrect in gloriously gory fashion, the Body Doubles are waiting for him and deliver their own surprise: while he dies and comes back, they're unable to die in the first place. All of which leads to a huge fight and their capturing him before the wonderful Transhuman arrives.
This is great fun and the art is simply gorgeous - well worth a read.
And what made me smile:
The Bride of Frankenstein flirts with the Wolfman!
I'm behind this week and haven't read any of these yet! I'll be back!
ReplyDeleteCall yourself a reviewer? Get on with it, man!
ReplyDelete