One-Line Reviews for Recent Titles

AQUAMAN #17

Written by: Geoff Johns

Art by: Paul Pelletier and Art Thibert

Variant Cover by: Paul Pelletier, Art Thibert

Steadily, the New 52 DC Universe has carefully hedged its bets with Aquaman, a bad joke given good substance, and the results come through in the story by Geoff Johns and the beautiful care taken by Pelletier and Thibert. 

8.5/10

ALL-STAR WESTERN #17

Written by: Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti

Art by: Moritat

Backup Art by: Staz Johnson

Cover by: Bill Sienkiewicz

The DC New 52 has given new life to the Jonah Hex franchise (and the western comic genre) with All-Star Western, but the real treat comes in the expansive unfolding of DC's old west universe, under a variety of talents.

8.5/10

BATMAN INCORPORATED #8

Written by: Grant Morrison

Art by: Chris Burnham

Though this issue moves at a break-neck speed, marking the death of Damian Wayne, Batman's sidekick/son, the scenario seems too contrived and falls flat, a rare bad note in Morrison's symphony, nonetheless beautifully rendered by Chris Burnham.

7/10

THE FLASH #17

Written by: 

Francis Manapul

Brian Buccellato

Art by: 

Francis Manapul

Since he reshaped the entire DC Universe by running really fast (again), Barry Allen has been having establishing shot adventures in his hometown, most recently concluded here in his battle against overly intelligent primates (again), but the stale material of pre-chewed storyline is competently handled by Manapul and Buccellato, while the art shows new potential in the formalities.

8/10

AVENGERS ARENA #5

Writer: Dennis Hopeless 

Cover Artist: Dave Johnson

Artist: Kev Walker  

The second-rate villain Arcade has redesigned Murderworld to thin out the Avengers Academy by forcing them into mortal battle with one another, which seems like a tired premise and would be if not for clever character development by Dennis Hopeless and near-perfect visuals by Dave Johnson.

9/10

UNCANNY AVENGERS #4

Writer: Rick Remender

Penciler: John Cassaday

Inker: John Cassaday

Colorists: Laura Martin and Larry Molinar

Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos

Editors: Tom Brevoort and Daniel Ketchum

The extension of the Red Skull's plot to pit humans against mutants presents the first major threat to the newly integrated team of Avengers that include Havok, Rogue, and the Scarlet Witch; the solid script by Remender and award-winning artwork by John Cassady make this book a high-quality treat. 

9/10

UNCANNY X-MEN #2

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis 

Penciler: Chris Bachalo 

Cover Artist: Chris Bachalo 

With the new relaunch of Uncanny X-Men, we see a disgraced and power-fragmented Cyclops attempting to assemble a school for wayward teen mutants in the hope of defending themselves against the various threats of humanity, given weight by Bendis and sculpted by Bachalo.

8.5/10

YOUNG AVENGERS #2

Writer: Kieron Gillen 

Artists: Jamie Mckelvie with Mike Norton

Kieron Gillen delivers a no-frils superhero team comprised of a younger generation of interesting characters, and Jamie Mckelvie and Mike Norton are having a good time with narrative design, in terms of asethetics, making this a surprisingly impressive exercise.

8.5/10

DC's Green Lantern comics: Wrath of the First Lantern

GREEN LANTERN #17

Written by: 

Geoff Johns

Art by: 

Doug Mahnke

Christian Alamy

Cover by: 

Doug Mahnke

Mark Irwin

Variant Cover by: 

Doug Mahnke

Many years ago, when Grant Morrison was writing a brief successful title for DC Comics called "JLA: Earth 2" the antimatter Green Lantern's ring said a word echoing from ages past and total obscurity, which has now emerged, center stage and super powerful. Volthoom, the First Lantern. It feels weird knowing that Hal Jordan is so very unsuccessful in his own title. He's practically dying to get back into it, since he and Sinestro found their way into the space between life and death that house the spirits of the Black Lantern Corps, well... here's the thing. Our "First Lantern" Volthoom is a psychotic cosmic sadist. Conceptually possessing the power of a god, the ability to tweak reality via different individual's "lifeline constellation" and feed on the emotional spectrum that it triggers within each character. This will no doubt as the series continues (alternating between each title until it exhausts itself with Volthoom's inevitable undoing via his own hubris/sacrifice of one for the many/etc.) be an opportunity for the characters proper timelines (since the reboot) to be explored. Doug Mahnke needs more awards for his work on this title. Geoff Johns would appear to be heading out (leaving the Green Lantern title soon) with a bang or two.

9/10

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #17

Written by:

Peter J. Tomasi

Art by:

Fernando Pasarin

Scott Hanna

Cover by:

Andy Kubert

Variant Cover by:

Andy Kubert

Guy Gardener has gone through enough phases by now that the human centipede 4D creature featured on the first major splash-page of this issue is more freaky in some ways than any other of the First Lantern's visits. This all calls to mind the spirit of Grant Morrison, who briefly touched the Green Lantern mythos (which has for so long been Geoff's baby) with Final Crisis, years ago, and also in the aforementioned Earth 2, which mentions Volthoom in passing (certainly other instances of this name arising have occurred, but with this run of the Green Lantern books we really get to see what he does). But specifically, the end of Morrison's fantastic series The Invisibles reaches a point at which the main character Dane acheives a heightened awareness of dimensional superstructures. This runs parallel to the power of Volthoom the First Lantern. With this particular issue of GL Corps, he feasts on the emotional spectrum (he prefers pain and despair) of the oddly effervescent Guy Gardner. It's worth noting that this veers into his brief time as a Red Lantern and focuses on the red herring of death and doom (in store for Jon Stewart next issue). Overall, a pretty decent issue. Fernando Pasarin has a quality to his detail-work that serves the wordy but worth-a-reread script by Peter J Tomasi.  Story flow works, and this doesn't feel especially "tacked onto a crossover", which is the risk run with such events.

8/10

GREEN LANTERN: NEW GUARDIANS #17

Written by:

Tony Bedard

Art by:

Aaron Kuder

Cover by:

Aaron Kuder

Variant Cover by:

Aaron Kuder

In the constellation of titles that compose the Green Lantern sector of the DC Multiverse, it is Green Lantern: New Guardians that tips the hand of the editors in terms of their long-term plans. Aaron Kuder's art is fantastic and fractured, and Tony Bedard clips the back-and-forth between Kyle and the First Lantern into something more natural than the concurrent GL Corps and also more intriguing. Since the reformat of the DC New 52, Kyle Rayner has been removed from the planet at large (barring a brief crossover with Blue Beetle, R.I.P.) and spends a good deal of his time galavanting about the galaxy willy-nilly or dealing with Artificial Solar Systems or the Rainbow Brigade of Emotion he's been gathering up and helping to develop a back-story/character(pointing to the title without explicitly labeling the group as such). Volthoom seems to have more trouble with Kyle than the other characters he's been poking with a sharp stick. Certainly this will all lead somewhere. Probably a near-miss on cosmic extinction and a heroic sacrifice. And probably new guardians. The old ones rotted through.

8.5/10

On the Nature of the Industry: Free Association.

Where Mutantkind's Utopia has produced a GMO seed to wipe out world hunger, you can bet Monsanto's watching.

Remember, Comic Books are Big Money now. 

It's gotten to the point that it's lazy to even allude to the tag line ("Comics are not for kids anymore") so frequently and freely repeated as an introduction by lazy journalists over the years for their hum-drum research of the new mature themes expressed by the once-chemically-castrated medium. It's an industry joke to just say comics aren't for kids.  When were they last for kids? Unless you're talking baby goats, there are no more kids. The Internet is raising this new batch as the Television raised those of us born into the ad-blasted 80's, and none of them are children. Even the simple reference parenthetical presented here is simply to conjure the final nail in its coffin, on a tapestry of blog blubber. 

Nobody gets to use that term which shall not be repeated.  Anymore. Ever.

Your average mainstream comic book is for two kinds of people. Teenagers and people with the same interests as teenagers (though, in Reality a divergence of sex and age and status ever-expanding, providing a common watering hole of nerd culture expressed in 10,000 neon Pokemon balls of media, much of it becoming interactive in a new and initially awkward way, most meeting the aesthetics ranges expected from medium to major overweight/out-of-shape/ malformed/ mutated service industry hopefuls). Intangibles emerge immediately. The service of these forms is exemplified in the minute variance of theme available  (many notable exceptions notwithstanding) in mainstream comic book media. The Gangster Ethics that Alan Moore describes prescribes a thuggish glare to the industry that often accompanies fame for these age-old standing standards of character, or lack thereof. These are stories that most often struggle with the idea of the Hero's Journey, attempting to subvert or integrate it through the use of panels and script.  

Heroes are heroes, but the Big Two share a copyright on "superhero" so that is, for the most part, what they have made a point of presenting over the century or so since the medium was first developed in a Yiddish fever dream, and these garish supergods spilled from our third eyes and onto our experiments in the second dimension, where the ink still boils... but the concept of superheroes is off-limits, technically. If labeling a superhuman creatively,you generally have free reign to call them metas. Or mutates. Mutants has the X connotations, another trademark alley exchange. Superhuman is itself an adjective, it is the act of being super in your heroics that everything breaks down. Superheroes, Heaven forbid anyone get hold of that outside of the rigid patriarchal monotone conditioning of a company in the tender clutches of a media conglomorate. 

You'd think it'd get tiring after a while, but comic books  draw from and speak to something primal in our psyche and by extension culture and society that no other medium does with quite the same smirk in your mind's eye. As Grant Morrison noted in an interview with the Onion A.V. Club, the combination of text and image on a page presented in a sequential format creates a hologram in the mind of the reader. 

When one reads a comic book, as much as if not more than in the instance of a standard novel, there is a creation of voice and noise where there seems to be only silence, but moreover there is a sense of image and movement that cannot be replicated in any medium, something to do with a thing McCloud called "the gutter". Moore has a great deal to say on the topic as well, in The Mindscape of Alan Moore, but we don't have five hours here to get into the intricacies of that (for now). Let's look at the history first, being mindful that comic books are a wholly unique medium that stand apart and in several cases above all other media, in terms of human collaboration, internal exploration, and general aesthetics.

It's due to the auspices of panicky McCarthyism that the mainstream superheroes we're just now coming to terms with in Megaplex Excursions were born. Developed in this Era of Cold Warriors, the Comics Code Authority was like a vice-grip on the balls of creativity, for the "sake of the children", which immediately infantilized the medium as a whole. A sense of surreality in culture was expressed in the acid-washed sixties of loose hook-ups and rainbows of irony and nostalgic sadness. Nobody even considered what it meant to be Captain America, goodhearted weakling turned Imperialist Liberator, or Superman, the Overman come to life in bold primary colors.  

Here we have an industry with its roots tangled tightly around brightly-lit lurid spandex creatures bred by men of subnormal intelligence, who were underpaid for their futile efforts, vilified at dinner parties, ripped off and bound in a rinky-dink contract that hardly provided for enduring legacy... These are the roots of the current standard of mainstream comics, and though considerable strides have been made this has marked the industry in toto. The current standard? You better be able to write for mainstream television if you write for comics. You don't need to even graduate from high school, though. You better be able to get along with other writers. As an artist, it is really spectacular if you are from another country. Overseas. South America if at all possible. It's also an industry to be flexible in. And careful. The Internet will immortalize your failures and your accomplishments side by side, with robots in the comment section arguing about something irrelevant.

We're past all that now, or so we'd like to think. We have stronger female role models within the story. Women do read comics. A great number of adults read comics and enjoy them on a regular enough basis. THEY TAKE TIME OUT OF THEIR DAY TO SIT AND ENJOY THE MAGIC OF WORDS AND IMAGES COMBINING. Mainstream Comics today are infinitely adaptable while remaining rigid within the Status Quo, insofar as they can resurrect their own characters to fit any storyline (or clone them, or rewrite history itself to nullify marriage contracts, in order to avoid the messy and potentially controversial issues that on occasion come up in the editorial bullpens). In this manner comics become an infinite game, and suffer from the drawbacks as such. So long as collaborators exist to produce them, they will be created regardless of their content, so a fair portion can be considered deadline pap, at best. This is all tangential to the real point. Comics are Big Money, now. 

Since Disney bought Marvel, you'd better believe that making that business investment palatable is a number one priority, but there is also likely a sense of freedom in some manners that have allowed for an interesting progression for different camps, those writers with enough clout in the Marvel pits to have played musical chairs, to some success and some "we'll see". Bendis can still draw everyone into an Ultron Soup.  

And in the meantime, the rise and fall of DC Comics has come and gone. A new Universe with a new set of rules, for the fifth time or more, COIE the only standard for the limitless reboot, conceived by the continuity conscious Alan Moore then retooled as the means to explain how octogenarian superheroes can be translated into the rough trade of the Megamillions post-Star Wars Money Cage. 

In the end, we'll see the law of diminishing returns at times, but the pendulum always swings the other way in the end. Comics will mature as a medium while somehow maintaining a bond with the vox populi by virtue of its aforementioned ingratiating nature. Comics cure an itch in the mind of many, and all the results, fair or foul, are reflected back into the medium immediately. Reflexive containment of a conceptual structure. Word bubbles and snapshots of moments in memory. Let's take it as seriously as we are able, and laugh where it is appropriate.

Even money says this goes down in history as the single grossest Joker scene of all time. Thanks.

Comic Book Reviews for Recent DC Releases

"Yeah, can we just try to drive home the point that Aquaman's a total bad-ass every chance we can? Great. Thanks."

JUSTICE LEAGUE #14

Written by: 

Geoff Johns

Art by: 

Tony S. Daniel

Richard Friend

Backup Art by: 

Gary Frank

Cover by: 

Tony S. Daniel

Richard Friend

Have fans had enough shenanigans to last a lifetime with this hacked-together driftwood that DC is producing with recent issues of Justice League? You know you're in trouble when your main event story arc is so waif-like it feels like it's being bullied by the backup story with Shazam! (which for some reason makes one think there are sick times in store for the beleaguered Billy Batson). The art, as ever, is pretty in a refined sugar kind of way.

Honestly, there isn't much to say for the story of the Justice League up to this point. Stuff is happening, sure, but there's rarely any extension of tension in the content.  The whole thing feels forced like absolutely nothing else Geoff Johns has ever written, and much like the Star Wars prequels, these issues cannot be undone.  They're canon now, we can only move on.  It feels like Johns is removed even further from his comfort zone with the (temporary) removal of Hal Jordan from the team, and the focus on a (forced forced forced forced) relationship between Wonder Woman and Superman felt like it lacked the passion it might have had with, say, years of actual build-up, as it has been rumbling in the background of the main arc for a minute now.  But the final page/panel of this issue is the greatest and most frustrating tease of all, as it seems to imply that something has been going on under the surface of these hollow automaton pose-a-thon caricatures the entire time. 

But that's just a tease, maybe. Nothing to see here yet, kids, move along.

6.5/10

What is this goofy mess? Superman looks, like, twelve years old. Heck, Jason Todd has more crow's feet than him.

RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS #14

Written by: 

Scott Lobdell

Art by: 

Pascal Alixe

Cover by: 

Kenneth Rocafort 

A genuinely guilty pleasure of this reviewer is the smart and slick surprise sleeper, Red Hood and the Outlaws.  Whether taking on Obese Asian Mob Mistresses, fighting smoke ninjas, or taking on alien menaces, the jumping bean of the major arcs in this series seems to lead us into a nostalgic singalong.  With Starfire (amnesiac nymphomaniac alien princess) and Arsenal (that, um, goofy bro with the trick arrows and a big mouth) backing up Jason Todd (Robin II, aka Red Hood, aka dead man walking) in his misadventures, there's no way to successfully summarize the main thrust or moral to this comic book. And it wouldn't work any other way.  That... and Pascal Alixe's art could make anything look cool.

Red Hood and the Outlaws succeeds where many other titles along the same vein or corner of the DC New 52 essentially fail.  The failure of Teen Titans, or The Ravagers, or whatever other mess being spawned by Image-hacks of Christmas Past, is that the overarching plot crushes any real chance at characterization, which in turn kills investment in the overarching plot.  Instead of fleshed-out dialogue and events, flattened stick-puppets in flashy costumes react verbosely again and again to some (likely misunderstood) villain with nigh-infinite powers and an endless array of schemes within plots within schemes, amounting to bupkiss, since nobody involved is easy to access or relate to.  

In Red Hood and the Outlaws, we're put in third person limited omniscient perspective with essentially a cast of three characters, and each character's motivations are explored alongside the demons and angels of their personal backstories that inevitably pop up.

With this issue, Superman shows up and the standard superhero slugfest ensues. Except it doesn't feel forced or stupid. Scott Lobdell has grown increasingly comfortable with this comic, as evidenced by the spunky manner in which he chooses to approach it. It's not stale, it's not automatically painful, and where it lags, Pascal's art kicks in and distracts. Well played, overall, and consistent with what it promises.

8/10

 
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You know you're in trouble when the slobbering alien starts firing yellow dwarfs at you.

GREEN LANTERN NEW GUARDIANS #14

Written by: 

Tony Bedard

Art by: 

Aaron Kuder

Cover by: 

Aaron Kuder

Variant Cover by: 

Aaron Kuder

Good old Kyle Rayner. More approachable than any other Green Lantern in the sector, and possibly the savior of the entire universe, soon enough. For some reason I have a soft spot for Green Lantern: New Guardians. It's quirky and moves at a brisk pace, exploring the potential for cosmic DCU done right. The art is consistent and quiet at times, then dazzles with the technological wonders of computer content playing with the chromatic content generated in the Green Lantern sector of the DCU New 52. It feels less forced than some titles and characters, you aren't forced to jettison decades of hard-won memories in the nostalgia fields just to enjoy the actions taking place. Characters are explored, up-sized, fleshed-out, and turned around each issue, and the cast of characters is such that the protagonist of any story might be explored tangentially to the overarching plot, namely the Guardians of the Universe are evil as hell and have raised a Third Army, rendered Hal Jordan and Sinestro moot, and are even now finding new ways to make readers hate them every issue. It's all building up to something big, and the spine of that mega-event is New Guardians. Expect its spotlight to brighten soon.

8.5/10

The classic "Fat Mobster type strikes a deal with a Demon", you know, the usual. No bigs.

DC COMICS PRESENTS #14: Blue Devil & Black Lightning 

Written by: 

Marc Andreyko

Art by: 

Robson Rocha

Cover by: 

Ryan Sook

It's nice that DC has seen fit to use DC Comics Presents as a testing ground for all the characters that don't get their own continuous series.  Black Lightning had an interesting investment in the Final Crisis storyline of universes gone past, and Blue Devil found himself in the breakroom of the Justice League Headquarters not a few times over the years.  Now the two of them team up to stop a demon and his soul-trafficking mobster with a skin condition and a glandular problem. Overall the art gets kitschy when everything slows down, but in certain pages the kinetics of it give the action an enhancement. Not a bad story, but by the numbers with just enough developments to keep a reader reading. Maybe.

7.5/10

Dc Comics Batgirl Adult Womens Costume, Black, ADULT SMALL (Google Affiliate Ad)

Joker's back. And he's playing mind games with Catwoman to an absolutely ridiculous extent.

CATWOMAN #14

Written by:

Ann Nocenti

Art by:

Rafael Sandoval

Jordi Tarrogona

Cover by:

Trevor McCarthy

This issue of Catwoman is aggravating, due to its ties to the current crossover in Bat-titles "Death in the Family"... yet compelling in its own right. This particular issue goes with the new format of all Batman related titles, namely "Let's all have a heart-to-heart with the Joker", better known as "Death of the Family", wherein the Joker, having had his face surgically removed off-camera, somehow develops superhuman-like powers, not unlike Wolverine, where he can simultaneously be everywhere at once and at the same time develop elaborate death traps, break the neck of every policeman in a station save one, kidnap Alfred, recreate every single action he'd ever made up until this time and monologue until you want to claw his face back off. Here he continues with his amazing new Joker powers by conning Catwoman into paralyzing herself and get a bunch of bat-symbols all over her.  Nothing really feels like it's heading anywhere, and by the time we get to our stop on this ride, we may have already fallen asleep. Catwoman started fresh and still has a bit of that in it, but not for quirky cross-overs that feel like "talkies".

7/10

All the overlapping conversations of 100 Bullets are finally revealed in Wonder Woman, for some reason.

WONDER WOMAN #14

Written by:

Brian Azzarello

Art by:

Tony Akins

Dan Green

Cover by:

Cliff Chiang

Variant Cover by:

Cliff Chiang

Brian Azzarello is doing a good job with Wonder Woman and retooling the mythology of her new place in the DC Universe. The overall reverence for the gods and goddesses, fitting, one would suppose, is the circulatory system that makes this book function. Gone are all the mismatched peculiarities and baggage of the previous volumes, now at least her motives are clear and present. The interactions with all the offshoots of deity and godlings and established scions has been ongoing since this series began, and it seems to sit in its own remote location in the DCU New 52, far away from continuities that would muss it up. This is positive, for the time being, allowing Azzarello to enrich Diana in the manner in which she deserves. Where the Justice League's Wonder Woman feels more teeth-gritting and over-archetyped, the Wonder Woman in her own title is more regal in her bearing, fearless but not beligerrant, and overall inhabiting both her godly namesake and another thing entirely, a far cry from when she was a gimmicky drama queen or a murderous misandrist.

9/10

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Reviews for Recent Comic Book Publications

Mainstream comic books in their present condition are such that the amount of capital invested to seed the future cineplex blockbusters is reflected through examples of the medium's true potential, as expressed in successes and even in the failures of its most dismal dregs.  As well adjusted members of American society slough off the birthing cowl of high school, so too must comic books deal with their history as a medium geared and stunted for decades towards children and grown-up children.  Superheroes are as integral to comic books as a medium as the journey of the hero is integral to most ancient and modern mythologies.  How well they are dealt with matters a great deal to the industry. 

It is the intent here to draw from the entrenched dichotomy of the supposed mainstream, the "House DC" and the "House Marvel" if you will, and analyze the weight and worth of their good and bad and meh recent releases, individually or in the context of story.  In fact, scores for each issue are weighted towards story, with exceptional art tipping the scales towards bonus points unless dreadful. Assessments draw from the history of the standard for each title, within and without the medium's standardized history.  Attributions for each review are added on a title by title basis.  

I, VAMPIRE #0

Written by: 

Joshua Hale Fialkov

Art by: 

Andrea Sorrentino

Cover by: 

Clayton Crain

We all know that a "DC Vampire" book to fill in the gaps near where a proper Vertigo title (American Vampire) germinates was somewhat inevitable, given the nature of the social biosphere that lets pap like Twilight create a buzz among young fools.  I, Vampire emerged in the post-Flashpoint foam of the New 52 as a stand-alone anomaly, meeting at odd angles with Justice League Dark in the "fantastic and magic" corner of the DC Comics New 52 color-wheel.  It's done a serviceable job to its readers and seems to take the popular Faustian trope for its main character, Andrew Bennett.     

The art for this particular issue sells the story in panels seething modernist influences of the medium and accenting them with a tinge, a pinch, a mere touch of Gothic sensibilities.  We get the origin story for Bennet, his connection and encounter with Cain, the first vampire.  The pacing is spectacular, the multi-page unfoldings by Andrea Sorrentino worth careful examination and appreciation.  In the dustbins of comic books, this title shines like a blood-red diamond. A fabulous combination of elements and delivers what it promises, specifically vampires, in a fresh, slick, well-executed package.

9/10

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #694

Writer: 

Dan Slott

Penciller: 

Humberto Ramos

Throughout Spidey's career, he has been crushed under tremendous weights multiple times, both literal and situation-based.  I can recall the hologram foil issue of Amazing Spider-Man #365 where Spider-Man fought the Lizard in one of their many sewer-based conflicts, brick-debris and a train from Penn Station nearly crushed him. In true-to-character fashion, he thinks of all those relying on him, and finds the strength to Hulk out in his own fashion and free himself. 329 issues and several crushings later, he does something he's never done before. He acts as landing gear for a plane with Aunt May and Aunt May's pilot boyfriend on it, as well as many other civilians, J. Jonah Jameson's family members, and a cute puppy in the cargo hold.

Why?  Well, a few issues back with his gig at Horizon Labs, Peter Parker accidentally gave an irresponsible iPhone twittering jackass punk kid superpowers. The kid named himself Alpha and, in this issue, smacks around a near-cosmic villain like a tiger pwning a puppy.  In the process, though, he nearly kills a goodly sum of civilians, hence the Spider-landing-gear.  With each issue since the Spider Island scenario, Amazing Spider-Man has proven that it can pack in fresher scenarios of interest into what should be a rather tired enterprise of recycled plot.  There are still surprises and a marked gradation of potential for Spidey and Parker now, less restricted by the limitations of his origins. As super-genius and masked vigilante carrying cards to both the Avengers and the Future Foundation, Spider-Man has settled into "middle age" rather comfortably. The art and writing hit where they fit, and this issue is a relevant example of that.    

9/10

BATMAN INCORPORATED #0

Written by: 

Grant Morrison

Chris Burnham

Art by: 

Chris Burnham

Cover by: 

Chris Burnham

Variant Cover by: 

Aaron Kuder

Chris Burnham

It has not happened yet, but it will someday. A character is designed for a comic book that will be the synthesis of Batman without the bat, that takes a stance towards corporate accountability in a fashion where the scum of a certain 1% are taken to task for their malevolence.  Until then, we have Batman Incorporated.  Grant Morrison extends into his personal mythos of the balance between Bruce Wayne's money and Batman's dogged determination.  Batman as a global icon to be established with certain individuals throughout the globe is part of the nostalgia that is built into Grant Morrison's style and approach with DC Universe characters.  Behind all the merely clever bits he hearkens to the same thing all successful comic book writers do: he finds where he fell in love with comics and writes that. 

 The age of Morrison when he first touched a comic book was an era where a league of Batman-inspired international heroes came together to fight the injustices close and far from home.  It was a time of goody LSD-exploded rainbow Batmen and artificially sweetened boy wonders.  An extension of his well-done Black Glove storyline, Morrison's Batman Inc. #0 is a backstory for all the heroes of Africa, Russia, Japan, England, and Australia, but if this were to extend further could we find one in India, or for that matter Pakistan?  There is the promise of riches to come for DC if they continue to allow Morrison reign over their dreamscape archetypes, with the art possessing a dynamic shift from still to kinetic with every page, fitting every scene.   

9/10

FF #22

Writer: 

Jonathan Hickman

Penciller (cover): 

Ryan Stegman

Artist: 

Nick Dragotta

We have already established that Jonathan Hickman is a Comic Book God by some rights, and his ability to make a second ongoing title for the Fantastic Four, a long-troublesome and sometimes near-dead enterprise, is testament to his strengths.  His weaknesses come about in the noticeable contrivance of "wrapping up dangling plot-threads".  At times entire issues simply lack the weight of driving action required for the comic book medium, but they serve a sound architecture of plot overall, and at his worst Hickman's dialogue is too choppy or verbose, but it never seems hackneyed or dumb.  With FF #22, in the fallout of major cosmic storylines preceding it, the Fantastic Four (with Spidey! Five! Fantastic Five!) confront the self-styled science messiah The Wizard on an AIM island compound.  Bentley, a clone of The Wizard, has been raised in the FF family for some time now, the "inherently evil" wise-cracker kid akin to DC's Damian Wayne without ninja assassin training.  As always, Hickman delivers and the art is crisp perfect flow.  With Hickman's recently announced departure from Fantastic Four, it'll be interesting to see what direction FF, very much his brain-child, will head. Nick Dragotta's artwork is a perfect compliment to this series, with comfortably sparse scenery setting apt tones and characters possessing solid emotion to their expressions.

9/10

THE FURY OF FIRESTORM: THE NUCLEAR MEN #0

Written by: 

Joe Harris

Art by: 

Yildiray Cinar

Marlo Alquiza

Cover by: 

Yildiray Cinar

Marlo Alquiza

Perhaps someday Firestorm will be more than a simple superhero slugfest book.  Mind you, that was the limitation imposed on it by virtue of the New 52, where Blackest Night seemingly never happened, nor did Firestorm's entire history. The Fury of Firestorm series has read up to this issue #0 as "the superhuman weapon" motif gone weird, the Firestorm Protocols.  Captain Atom deals with the themes of the scope of his matter-manipulation powers, whereas Firestorm just apparently blows stuff up.  Firestorms, plural. Sorry.  

Major problems for this series include but are not limited to the flat characters, the seemingly pointless story arcs interrupted by seemingly pointless shock value explosions, often set at public landmarks and/or sporting events.  It may be that the series is geared towards action junkies that aren't looking for finesse or plot, but rudimentary structures set to give the flat randomly-motivated characters room to explain the things they're seeing as said things are seen, or spout cliche threats against people dressed just like them. The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Man is garbled nonsense at its worst moments and regurgitated fight scenes at its best. The profundities and potential of the characters understanding their powers or having something more to them than simple reaction scenarios is never really explored for more than a moment. If the series is to survive, it needs to carry more emotional weight, or at least pretend it can. 

5/10

SPACE PUNISHER #3

Writer: 

Frank Tieri

Penciller: 

Mark Texeira

There's silly and then there's silly that knows how silly it is. On the heels of Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe limited series comes a type akin in its major meta-style kookiness. Space Punisher, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's the Punisher. In space. This is that bit every Marvel fan speculated on at least once, where Frank Castle, armed with only a robot and space age weaponry, goes cosmic kill-ride with a list of most of the cosmic names of the Marvel Universe, along with variations of villains to murder memorably as he goes.  If you like over-the-top action thrill rides, senseless violence, and tentacle clone armies of Hitlers, heroes and characters warped between humor of Lobo and the no-nonsense ultraviolence of Judge Dredd, this piece of Marvel weird come to life lies somewhere in between.  In this almost-hilarious enterprise of an issue, Frank Castle gets closer and closer to his answers, and the Watchers that killed his family are in his sights. There's no need to think too hard about this one. It's a limited series, and it's fully aware of itself. The art is at times too spare, but overall it's a piece that can be spotted for what it is. Fun and action.

7.5/10

SUPERMAN #0

Written by: 

Scott Lobdell

Art by: 

Kenneth Rocafort

Cover by: 

Kenneth Rocafort

Variant Cover by: 

Kenneth Rocafort

In some ways, the dilemma of the DC stock of characters is wholly understandable. They see the need for constant revisionist history of storylines and events to fit the long-term goal of loyal readership.  With Superman we have the most difficult task of all, stripping away his acheivements and accolades and toning him from the level of Supergod to perhaps demigod.  Gone is his lawful perfect attitude towards all things, staggeringly high intelligence, and ultra-refined understanding of his powers.  

The New 52's Superman has been described as near-socialist in his stance as a hero. He fights against not just tsunamis and alien invasions, but government corruption, media bias, terrorist attacks and alien invasions. And tsunamis.  He's been taken down a few notches, save interesting portions of Action Comics and blips on the miasma of Superman as a title itself, where the old ideal shines through.  With Superman #0 we see his father's story, that is, Jor-El, studying the potential reasons for Krypton's imminent demise, which thanks to ham-fisted plot-tinkering would appear to have been arranged by someone of great power and influence.  The art for this particular issue is breath-taking, so much so that the sparsity of Krypton's culture in favor of a chase sequence conspiracy seems tolerable.  The final page raises whole new questions, and we are left with a potential storyline involving time-travel to unravel the secret conspiracy of why Krypton died (as apparently it's not just because Despair suggested it to Rao in Sandman: Endless Nights) and how that affects Earth's possible demise.     

8.5/10   

ULTIMATE COMICS ULTIMATES # 16

Writer: 

Samuel Ryan Humphries

Penciller (cover): 

Michael Komarck

Artist: 

Billy Tan

The past year or so of the Ultimate Universe has seen dramatic changes and bold decisions, mostly in the wake of Ultimate Spider Man's death.  Ultimate Reed Richards pretty much decimated Europe, killed almost all the Asgardian gods, went to war with a superhuman Asian army, and annihilated Washington D.C. will an antimatter bomb.  Texas immediately secedes. Meanwhile an Evangelical Christian bigot has co-opted an entire army of Nimrod Class Sentinels and declared major portions of the southwest as a sovereign territory, as well as calling for death to all mutants.  Who it turns out are human-made. So. Steve Rogers retires out of shame and this is what happens? What would happen if perhaps he was simply sworn in as president of the United States and rebuilt the nation through force of arms?  Ultimate Comics Ultimate #16 answers this question and a few others.  It's commendable enough that each Ultimate series and its Earth variant have moved further from and closer to the Earth 616 (latter being the surprisingly refreshing and tastefully done Spider-Men).  They piqued interest in what might very well have been a dud enterprise based on the lightning in a bottle that was Mark Millar's first pass at these alternate reality Avengers, certainly paving the way for works and multi-billion dollar movies to come.  Since the gradual phasing out of Jonathan Hickman for Sam Humphries, the title's dialogue has suffered somewhat in quality, but vestigal plot-devices linger on, leading to what may wind down into nonsense but for now keeps pace with the build-up that brought us to this point.

8/10

AQUAMAN #0

Written by: 

Geoff Johns

Art by: 

Ivan Reis

Joe Prado

Cover by: 

Ivan Reis

Joe Prado

Variant Cover by: 

Ivan Reis

Admit it. Everyone thinks Aquaman is a joke.  The New 52 provides him a means to drop all the baggage of his history and start fresh.  So it is that with Aquaman #0 we see a story from his life where, prior to heroics, he's simply confused and angry about his questionable heritage and seeks out his first answers.  Under the sea.  In many ways the art of this series has been a major selling point, serving the story to such a great capacity that if it was a lesser artist would have killed the baby in its crib.  As things stand, Aquaman has come to a point where you can relearn his history without knowing the phases of "hand/not hand", "hook", "bionic hand", "sea god powers", "king/not king", "moody", "useless", "dead"... and reinforce his ongoing animosity with his half-brother Black Manta.  He's depicted too variably in what few other New 52 titles he's appeared in, but with this series, he's less out of his element, pun most certainly intended.  So long as they keep reminding people that the art sells the story in Aquaman and less the other way around, everything for this title should remain relatively kosher. Ha. Kosher. Get it? Alright.

8/10

X-TREME X-MEN #4

Writer: 

Greg Pak

Penciller (cover): 

Kalman Andrasofszky

Artist: 

Paco Diaz

You'd be better off forgetting the Chris Claremont brain-child X-Treme X-Men that emerged from the sewers of Marvel around the same time as Grant Morrison's New X-Men.  The new title X-Treme X-Men follows a group of characters that first appeared in Astonishing X-Men, playing alt-reality foils to Lawful Neutral Cyclops in a reality where Charles Xavier is a bit of a dick-head. Then they reality hop, apparently along the lines of the little-loved but potentially fabulous Exiles series.  With X-Treme X-Men #4 the team, if in fact it can be called that, consists of a Charles Xavier head in a floating jar, James Howlett, Dazzler, and an alternate reality Nightcrawler (common since his death on Earth 616) and they team up to... well, it's hard to say. "Kill about a dozen evil Xaviers" fits, but it's an "episode to episode" scenario in many aspects, the true overarching goals unclear at a glance but hey, who cares?... Feels like the old series Exiles mixed with Sliders mixed with Quantum Leap, to an extent, and just like Exiles it's very mutant-heavy in all respects.  The art and the general "just go with it" attitude of the title overall save it from falling into the realm of being too snide or overly hokey.  If every two issues or so we get to see this reality-hopping crew have a random encounter or three, it should make for neat cover art at the very least.

8/10

RED LANTERNS #0

Written by: 

Peter Milligan

Art by: 

Ardian Syaf

Vicente Cifuentes

Cover by: 

Miguel A Sepulveda

Let's just say you don't want to be a jaywalker when the Manhunters decide to get feisty.  What has come as a pleasant surprise is that the title Red Lanterns has survived as long as it has.  It showed a strange sense of potential, twisted as that may at first seem.  Atrocitus, the first Red Lantern, provides explicit details of his motivations and origin with Red Lanterns #0.  Also, it turns out that he had relations with a demonic space squid, and learned the lessons of the Five Inversions, using their bodies to craft the Red Lantern battery in the first place.  These and other details are filled in that should prove of interest to both new and old fans of the Green Lantern stables of stories.  Overall, this issue shows the complications of a character you might expect in a Lantern whose primary motivator and power source is rage. Though not inherently evil, but more inherently brutal, the red end of the spectrum seems motivated by injustices rendered by figures of authority, and with the recent and blatant abuses of power rendered by the so-called Guardians of the Universe, along with the removal of Hal Jordan and Sinestro from the board, war is almost certain.  They'll be calling it the Rise of the Third Army.  This issue plants seeds for that and more, and although rushed in some spots and wordy in others, sports a certain confidence overall, which leads to a stronger fan base in the long run.

7.5/10

WOLVERINE #313

Writer: 

Jeph Loeb

Penciller: 

Simone Bianchi

This whole mess sucks. I'll get to this review when I am done wolveretching. God. Such a terrible taste in my mouth.

Really, how many times will Wolverine nearly kill Sabertooth?  Kids shelled out good money to see him decapitated once and for all, heck, there was a hardcover copy and everything. A clone killed Feral, is that what you're saying?  And this Romulus and Remus thing that we're led to believe was behind even what was behind the behind of Weapon X program?  

What's so effin' difficult about writing a Wolverine storyline? Sure, send him to hell, okay.  Let demons take over his body.  Then hem and haw over him dealing with the same tired pattern, maybe throw in a Gorilla detective for comedic relief, or gross everyone out with yet another hint at his mysterious past and shit, fine, you know what? Don't care.  Stopped caring. Wolverine should be dead from overexposure by now. He's impossible to kill by virtue of his popularity, okay, we get it, but you can write a story without it being about something fifty to four hundred other people have already done.  Mark Millar got it right, and that was ages ago.  Since his revelation of memory after M Day, we've had Wolverine run ragged joining the Avengers and becoming a headmaster of a new school and being featured in his usual six to ten guest star spots either subverting his classical image or tritely attempting to make it more shiny.

At the end of the day, this most recent plotline is to make us believe that Logan, James, whatever you want to call him may have volunteered for the Weapon X project, used to work for Romulus and Remus, and bladdah bladdah forget anything you knew before, let's change the ending to something besides a faked alien threat, yeah, let's make it, um, Dr. Manhattan bombing the world, sure, let's dumb down the whole thing like a Zach Snyder feature and end it with him kissing the hot immortal redhead or whatever, Christ, fine, do it.  Get Jeph Loeb to do this series forever, let him turn Wolverine into an actual wolverine. Yeah. Team him up with Liefeld and a team of cancer monkeys. It's over. I'm done with it. Wolverine's officially jumped the shark, folks. Nothing to see here.  

Art for the past few issues with this effrontery against all previous issues has been fantastic. That's it. That's all that's even remotely good about it.  Even then, to be honest, it just makes me nostalgic for old back issues of Heavy Metal. Let's strike these past three issues from the record. Bury them like E.T. the video game. 

4/10