Comics reviews and stuff
Jan. 19th, 2004 09:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
angelophileCut to avoid spoilers and for those people who simple don't care.
1602 - Not bad, things finally started happening. I'm not really overly enamoured with the book so far, although it has had some nice twists and the artwork is a real pleasure. However, this issue was better than most. Like most, though, not one you can just pick up since you wouldn't have a clue what was going on if you hadn't read all the others. Finally some explanation as to what the hell's been going on though. (Although is anyone else irritated that the Black Widow was made into a villain?)
X-treme X-men - The whole Storm arc - Actually, I have to say, while this hasn't been my favourite X-men story of recent times I enjoyed it a lot. Sure, there's plenty of minor flaws it would be easy to get hung up on (Masque is back and suddenly a woman? Well, that's easily explained by either a second mutation or the Masque that was killed was a fake and his abilities have expanded since his initial 'can warp any flesh but his own' appearances.) But, that aside, if you chose to ignore the slight, and they are slight, problems with continuity, there's a pretty good story to enjoy here for Storm fans.
One plus I guess is that I do like a strong Storm story and Yukio is always good fun, as is the case here. Good to see a couple of less popular but familiar faces pop up too and at least Callisto's change in appearance is justified without using secondary mutations along the way. All in all the whole thing would have dragged over 4 months, but released in the space of 5 weeks it's been a pleasant destraction from the overly complicated storylines in the X-titles recently. Old fashioned fun. Only downside is the art which is discipherable but makes everyone look like they've been stuffing muffins at every available opportunity.
Ultimate X-men - Brief but touching story, with a focus on the really dark side of mutations. And what has to be pretty much the suckiest mutant power ever. Although the suggestion that Wolverine's power could immediately heal him of any effects of the boy's power while everyone else crumbled to dust instantly seemed like a hell of a stretch to me.
Spiderman/Doctor Octopus Negative Exposure - Okay and things are starting to hot up a little with Doc Ock's escape, but to be honest it's fairly run of the mill stuff from Vaughan, I was expecting better. It hasn't really given much of an insight into Doc Ock's character either.
Spectacular Spiderman - Now this is the comic you want if you want a decent Doctor Octopus story. Doc Ock holds the Palestinian Prime Minister hostage and threatens to kill him unless Spiderman reveals his identity to the world. The importance of the Prime Minister is tangible, tying into current events as well as the Marvel fantasy world. Doc Ock's conversations with him where he talks about his childhood and the death of his father are both dark and insightful and give some idea of quite why this an is so warped. best of all Ramos' art just gets better and better, with his unique style making Octopus finally look like a villain to be reckoned with.
2 issues of Weapon X - Discussed at length in my other post.
Transformers Energon - The relaunch/continuation of the Armada universe. Pretty unmemorable stuff. None of the characters have had any time to develop between the action and while they are shadows of their original counterparts, they don't have the individuality of them. There's simply too many characters and never any time given to explore their motivations. Toy tie in stuff that doesn't really rise above the original US run which is disappointing for Furman.
New X-men - Great art, some truly original ideas, plenty of mysteries and a dark undertone to this Days of Future Past-esque story that is actually a pretty original take on the concept. No copy-cat 'sentinels have taken over' nonsense here, the wold is on the brink of ruin but there seems to be no discernable cause. The X-men are scattered or dead and the focus in on new characters like Tom is nice to see. More a 'What if' book than an X-men title perhaps, but Morrison's voice is strange and unique and the 'Crawlers with the powers stripped from the DNA of many of the pervious X-men are a great invention. Especially the multiplying ones. Hundreds of scary German Kurts? It's great. :)
Mystique - Highly enjoyable series continues to gather pace - there's some great action set pieces here, which are hard to pull off in comic form, and it's a testement to both writer and artist that they come off. The art is the real highlight though. This is the sort of artist the X-titles deserve instead of getting saddled with horrible Manga wannabes at best.
The Authority - Weird ending to an odd arc, which seems slightly blasphemous. One highlight - the Jennifer Lopez clone's arse being expanded to inhuman poportions by the henpecked Doctor.
GI Joe/TF - Rotten end to a rotten series. The WWII version is so much better.
Transformers 0 - Great stuff that serves as an introduction to the upcoming series, but also answes a lot of unanswered questions about the last limited series (particularly where Unicron and Scourge come into it and quite what the latter was doing on Shockwave's Cybertron. High hopes for the series after the rocky start, the second limited series was so much better and this hints at more to come that won't disappoint.
Heroes Anonymous 3 - Average and not as funny as the first issue. Quirky at best, but not really desperate to be picked up again.
Uncanny X-men - I picked up this book determined to like it this month and... couldn't. It was okay I guess and there were some strong moments. The setup with Jeb Guthrie was actually pretty strong, but from there on in the writing deteriorated. Someone explain to me why, after all the talk during Dominant Species about Warren moving on and his screaming concern for her during the awful Draco arc now he suddenly dumps her without a single explanation. Oh wait, I know, it's so by the end of the arc they can have made up and have 'learnt something along the way.' Eeesh. Go write Mills and Boon romantic fiction if that's the best you can do Mr Austen. The fact that this story is going to take half a year to tell what could probably fit into 2 issues doesn't fill me with joy.
One highlight? Larocca's art. Unfortunately it's totally ruined by dull, lifeless inking and flat, washed out colours. Udon's colours are poor to an extreme, making everything look fat and dull compared to the wonder colours you used to get during Larocca's run on X-treme. I hope it improves, but it seems unlikely. The coup of getting Larocca is therefore negated by this.
1602 - Not bad, things finally started happening. I'm not really overly enamoured with the book so far, although it has had some nice twists and the artwork is a real pleasure. However, this issue was better than most. Like most, though, not one you can just pick up since you wouldn't have a clue what was going on if you hadn't read all the others. Finally some explanation as to what the hell's been going on though. (Although is anyone else irritated that the Black Widow was made into a villain?)
X-treme X-men - The whole Storm arc - Actually, I have to say, while this hasn't been my favourite X-men story of recent times I enjoyed it a lot. Sure, there's plenty of minor flaws it would be easy to get hung up on (Masque is back and suddenly a woman? Well, that's easily explained by either a second mutation or the Masque that was killed was a fake and his abilities have expanded since his initial 'can warp any flesh but his own' appearances.) But, that aside, if you chose to ignore the slight, and they are slight, problems with continuity, there's a pretty good story to enjoy here for Storm fans.
One plus I guess is that I do like a strong Storm story and Yukio is always good fun, as is the case here. Good to see a couple of less popular but familiar faces pop up too and at least Callisto's change in appearance is justified without using secondary mutations along the way. All in all the whole thing would have dragged over 4 months, but released in the space of 5 weeks it's been a pleasant destraction from the overly complicated storylines in the X-titles recently. Old fashioned fun. Only downside is the art which is discipherable but makes everyone look like they've been stuffing muffins at every available opportunity.
Ultimate X-men - Brief but touching story, with a focus on the really dark side of mutations. And what has to be pretty much the suckiest mutant power ever. Although the suggestion that Wolverine's power could immediately heal him of any effects of the boy's power while everyone else crumbled to dust instantly seemed like a hell of a stretch to me.
Spiderman/Doctor Octopus Negative Exposure - Okay and things are starting to hot up a little with Doc Ock's escape, but to be honest it's fairly run of the mill stuff from Vaughan, I was expecting better. It hasn't really given much of an insight into Doc Ock's character either.
Spectacular Spiderman - Now this is the comic you want if you want a decent Doctor Octopus story. Doc Ock holds the Palestinian Prime Minister hostage and threatens to kill him unless Spiderman reveals his identity to the world. The importance of the Prime Minister is tangible, tying into current events as well as the Marvel fantasy world. Doc Ock's conversations with him where he talks about his childhood and the death of his father are both dark and insightful and give some idea of quite why this an is so warped. best of all Ramos' art just gets better and better, with his unique style making Octopus finally look like a villain to be reckoned with.
2 issues of Weapon X - Discussed at length in my other post.
Transformers Energon - The relaunch/continuation of the Armada universe. Pretty unmemorable stuff. None of the characters have had any time to develop between the action and while they are shadows of their original counterparts, they don't have the individuality of them. There's simply too many characters and never any time given to explore their motivations. Toy tie in stuff that doesn't really rise above the original US run which is disappointing for Furman.
New X-men - Great art, some truly original ideas, plenty of mysteries and a dark undertone to this Days of Future Past-esque story that is actually a pretty original take on the concept. No copy-cat 'sentinels have taken over' nonsense here, the wold is on the brink of ruin but there seems to be no discernable cause. The X-men are scattered or dead and the focus in on new characters like Tom is nice to see. More a 'What if' book than an X-men title perhaps, but Morrison's voice is strange and unique and the 'Crawlers with the powers stripped from the DNA of many of the pervious X-men are a great invention. Especially the multiplying ones. Hundreds of scary German Kurts? It's great. :)
Mystique - Highly enjoyable series continues to gather pace - there's some great action set pieces here, which are hard to pull off in comic form, and it's a testement to both writer and artist that they come off. The art is the real highlight though. This is the sort of artist the X-titles deserve instead of getting saddled with horrible Manga wannabes at best.
The Authority - Weird ending to an odd arc, which seems slightly blasphemous. One highlight - the Jennifer Lopez clone's arse being expanded to inhuman poportions by the henpecked Doctor.
GI Joe/TF - Rotten end to a rotten series. The WWII version is so much better.
Transformers 0 - Great stuff that serves as an introduction to the upcoming series, but also answes a lot of unanswered questions about the last limited series (particularly where Unicron and Scourge come into it and quite what the latter was doing on Shockwave's Cybertron. High hopes for the series after the rocky start, the second limited series was so much better and this hints at more to come that won't disappoint.
Heroes Anonymous 3 - Average and not as funny as the first issue. Quirky at best, but not really desperate to be picked up again.
Uncanny X-men - I picked up this book determined to like it this month and... couldn't. It was okay I guess and there were some strong moments. The setup with Jeb Guthrie was actually pretty strong, but from there on in the writing deteriorated. Someone explain to me why, after all the talk during Dominant Species about Warren moving on and his screaming concern for her during the awful Draco arc now he suddenly dumps her without a single explanation. Oh wait, I know, it's so by the end of the arc they can have made up and have 'learnt something along the way.' Eeesh. Go write Mills and Boon romantic fiction if that's the best you can do Mr Austen. The fact that this story is going to take half a year to tell what could probably fit into 2 issues doesn't fill me with joy.
One highlight? Larocca's art. Unfortunately it's totally ruined by dull, lifeless inking and flat, washed out colours. Udon's colours are poor to an extreme, making everything look fat and dull compared to the wonder colours you used to get during Larocca's run on X-treme. I hope it improves, but it seems unlikely. The coup of getting Larocca is therefore negated by this.
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Date: 2004-01-19 07:42 am (UTC)Yes, that really is all I have to say. ;)
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Date: 2004-01-19 07:50 am (UTC)