I bought this for 2 reasons. I'll give any female starring comic a try and I love Dynamite's Lone Ranger comic. I won't be buying the second issue. I don't mind the cheesecake art, but I do resent poor writing and overly gratuitous butt shots. The female boobs and butts are front and center, but the male characters? Fully clothed and in the background mostly. I wish the writing had been in the background. To wit:
A character, our Jungle Girl, who knows not from TV, planes, cameras, and other wonders of modern technology, yet not only speaks perfect English, she's got modern vernacular down cold, ie "Suit yourself."The narration is insipid in places and the dialgue often just repeats the narration. My favorite:
The narration says "For the moment, the group felt safe with their unusual guide..."I've read children's primers with more personality.
Then Jungle Girl Jana says "You'll be safe here..."
Perhaps future issues will answer all the questions as to who she is, what's going on, and why does she speak flawless, modern English, but I prefer Sheena. She, at least, makes some sense as a character and the new Sheena series had a lot more going on in the first actual issue than this slowpoke issue of Jungle Girl.
Aquaman 56
I love the art on the cover. Wish I could say the same for inside. I'm sure Shawn McManus' art would be great for some books, this isn't it. He has a very cartoonish style and his characters look like grinning hyenas most of the time, when they're not grimacing or gritting their teeth. As for the writing, I've never read Tad Williams' books, but his run on this book has been so dizzying with dozens of concepts introduced and strewn across the pages, that most of the time, I don't know what's going and worse, I don't care. I'm not given time to care about any of it. Yes, he tied things in nicely with the whole Sub Diego bit and there are some nice things here, but they're dragged down due to lack of depth (which given we're underwater most of the time in this book is rather ironic). Vandal Savage never looked so ridiculous. He's one of the baddest of the bad and he's reduced to clown status here, not to mention he looked a bit short.
I really loved the first arc in this relaunch, but this book has nosedived with the new creative team. feh.
Countdown to Mystery 1
Wow. Now this is more like it. I was a psych major with 15 grad credits in psych (before I switched to library science), so having Kent Nelson be a screwed up shrink has a lot of appeal for me. From the wonderful cover with the title blending with Fate's cape, to the nifty recapping of the Helmet's journey and temporary wearers, to a down and out Nelson trying to wrap his brain around the concept that what he saw was real and, oops, there's a real nasty ready to kill him, this book delivered. Oh, and there was a nice Eclipso story with Plastic Man about to end up in deep shit. The art on both stories was great.
Shadowpact 17
Maybe the art team here could swap with Aquaman's team. Not that I'd want lesser art on this wonderful book. Doug Braithwaite filled art chores here and wow, the realism was wonderful. Everyone looks like real people. Enchantress trying to train Laura was a powerful scene and makes Laura ripe for a seduction of the innocent scene with the new, charming devil in town. This book has been a pleasant surprise. I hadn't expected much from it, but it quickly moved to my top tier of weekly reads with its cast of quirky characters well written. And it's got Detective Chimp!
Checkmate 18
This is the gritty book of my reading list, what Outsiders had tried and failed to be. Things are really heating up as the "Fall of the Wall" storyline begins. Amanda Waller is one bad ass character, one who feels all too real and therefore, more frightening than most of comic villains. Scandal's a piece of work, too, and always fun to read. I can't wait for the next chapter.
Flash 232
I love Acuna's art and while the story by Waid hasn't been up to par, it's been decent and I love Wally's interactions with his kids. And I enjoy seeing them try to handle being heroes. Not in my top tier, but still, very nice.
Birds of Prey110
I cannot wait for Sean McKeever to take over. Tony Bedard is a decent writer, but this feels so much like a fill-in, it's not interesting, funny, or otherwise worth reading or keeping. Nicola Scott's nice art can't compensate for a story supposedly showcasing Huntress that manages to set things back months and months. Her reluctance to go on the mission Oracle assigns her, necessitating a recap of other birds who might be good in her stead ends up wasting 4 pages. On a tv show, this would be akin to a bottle episode. I couldn't care less.
I was pleasantly surprised with Countdown to Mystery. I really had no expectations at first, but it was a pretty darned good story.
ReplyDeleteCheckmate is consistantly good. I love Amanda Waller, but she really has been a tad out of control lately, and fully deserves a good smackdown.
Birds of Prey was ok. Not quite up to the standards of Gail Simone, but...adequate.