Comic reviews...

[angelophile]

A week late, but what the hell.

This week I got:

District X 13
Astonishing X-men 10
Excalibur 13
Desolation Jones #1


Cut for people who don't like boring comic reviews. ;)

ASTONISHING X-MEN 10 - Where can a book go so wrong? When it's second, 6 issue storyline is a misstep and you can't wait for it to be over, that's how. Joss Whedon has created his worst storyline since Xander left Anya at the altar.

Okay, so it's not all bad. There's some nice art and...

um...

Well Cassidy's art is really nice?

I honestly can't think of anything I liked about this last issue. A dreadfully contrived set of circumstances are used to defeat the X-men, the danger room becomes a shitty, ugly looking robot, there's none of the snappy dialogue. Ord's in it again and is all kinds of dull. Please, get this arc over with.

I wonder if I'm the only one wondering if it'd have been better to reschedule the Phoenix miniseries to fill Astonishing's sabatical so we could have still got our fix of these characters?

Moving on...

DISTRICT X 13 - A sudden leap in quality for this new arc. Not because the writing's better, because it was fine before, but it's the absense of Ortega. He has, over the past few months, become a major asshole. He's not in this issue at all, rather i's a short, two issue arc where Bishop barely appears and it concentrates on the street level mutants in District X.

That's what I signed onto this book for and while the story's not especially new, it's give a nice fresh polish and sent on its way by Hines and the art team. It's a taste of how good a book this could have been and how surprisingly good the first arc started out. It's never gonna be the best book out there but this was one of its stronger issues.

EXCALIBUR 13 - The fight with the Weaponeers ties up neatly, although there's some fairly standard Claremont leaps of logic here and none of the fun of Uncanny. It's a straight fight for most of the book and then the tie in to House of M. Frankly, the fight stuff was kinda tired by a few pages into the book and I was hoping it was going to wind up far earlier than it did. What's also clear is that Claremont hasn't got a grip on Paige's character either and Warren comes across as being frankly, rather bland. An average issue, all in all, what I expect from the book.

The end few pages with Xavier viiting Dr. Strange are better and more intriguing with some strong writing for Charlie as he realises he's out of his depth trying to help Wanda. Not bad.

Finally, DESOLATION JONES 1. Warren Ellis has been hyping this book for a little while, and with good reason. After the blandness of his Marvel output over the past couple of years and the unfathomable weirdness of some of his other output, I was beginning to dispair that I'd never see the Ellis that gave us The Authority, made Stormwatch great and owned Excalibur again. I was wrong. Desolation Jones is a pure return to form, judging by this first issue. There is the feeling that it's somewhat derivative of his own work - Jones himself is Pete Wisdom or Jenny Sparks in a new form - a cynical, screwed up, world weary ex-spook. However, Ellis writes characters like this so brilliantly, why shouldn't he play to his strengths? Certainly this is much more of the Ellis ethos than writing Fantastic Four.

Jones is a former British spy who has relocated to Los Angeles and is apparently "enjoying" a lifestyle of heavy drug use and alcohol consumption. Well, enjoys is hardly the right word. Desolation Jones hates L.A. He hates what he's become. He hates just about every aspect of his existence. He's stuck as a private investigator who only takes cases dealing with the “spook” community in LA, which means a supporting cast of posthuman characters who live mad, debaucherous lives.

You can't fault Ellis for his deft handling of cramming a book full of mad, crazed ideas which never seems forced. Some of the dialogue is wickedly sweet. Oh, yeah, it's weird... Let's face it, the main plot involves a search for Hitler's home made porn. It's Ellis at his best. Coupled with art by by J.H. Williams III, it is top notch. Jones looks gaunt and ill, and vibrant colours shock suddenly when placed against the previously muted tones, so colourist Jose Villarrubia gets a mention too.

This isn't a comic, it's a work of art.