Welcome to the first installment of a new feature here on the Nifty Nerd (www.theniftynerd.com).  It’s a little something I like to call “Comics that piss me off.”  Every Wednesday I’ll be going over my picks for hits and misses in the world of comic book new releases.

The hits for this week of March 26, 2008?

None really.  It’s sad but I really don’t buy many new comics any more.  Growing up and even through art school I’d buy $40-$50 a week or more — I’d buy everything.  My love of comics hasn’t diminished any, but the quality of the work has definitely gone in the toilet.  There really isn’t much worth reading anymore.  This is all especially sad now that I have enough disposable income to buy anything and everything on the stands.  Very sad.

This week I picked up Green Lantern #29, Legion of Superheroes #40 and the Mighty Avengers #11.  Unfortunately, none of it is really worth recommending.

Brian Bendis on the Avengers continues to have very little happen in each issue — even in issues supposedly packed with action, nothing really happens.  The current arc pitting the Avengers against Doctor Doom has run 3 or 4 issues and really only had enough meat to have filled one or two issues at most.  It’s a shame because Mark Bagley’s work is as solid as ever…too bad he’s being given crap to work with.

As a kid, the Legion of Superheroes was one of my favorite books around.  I think the Paul Levitz-Keith Giffen team are one of the best and most underrated creative pairings of all time.  So, when I heard Jim Shooter was going to be taking over writing chores on the book as of issue 37 I figured I’d give it a shot…in spite the nearly 20 years of anal rape that has been done to the book and its characters by an uncountable number of hacks.  This week LSH #40 came out and it will probably be my last issue.  It looks like Jim Shooter has subscribed to the decompression theory of comic writing and spends the entire issue trying to figure out how to keep anything from progressing the story.  It doesn’t help that artist Francis Manapul isn’t a solid enough with storytelling or character work to make the script more interesting.  DC really needs to do something with this book…maybe the reintroduction of the Multiverse can let us pick back up with the Legion circa 1983 before Crisis destroyed the book.

Next, Green Lantern #29.  I’m a huge Green Lantern fan.  Huge probably isn’t a big enough word.  GL has been my favorite character since I was in the womb.  I’ve stuck through a lot of bad times with GL (cough* Ron Marz * cough).  Since then I’ve been fairly pleased by the return of Hal Jordan in Rebirth and what the current creative team has been doing.  Why Geoff Johns decided to do another version of Hal’s origin is completely beyond me — almost the entire new series has been dealing with his origin and who Hal is.  And why he decided to split it in to multiple issues is even more confusing considering what was presented in the issue really shouldn’t have taken more than 10 pages.  Come on, man, what happened to you?  Even the artwork by Ivan Reis seems to be asleep on the page — it looks like Ivan is taking a cue from Brian Hitch and is trying to produce art with no life in it at all.  I’ll stick with GL because I’m a fan of the character but this may be the creative team that finally convinces me to go cold turkey.

The last thing I want to mention isn’t new for this week but is something I just discovered.  North World is a trade paperback from Oni Press which, I believe, was released in the last couple of weeks.  It is a quirky little book written and illustrated by Lars Brown and takes place in an alternate-world from ours — a modern day world of Dungeons & Dragons…where sword and sorcery co-exists with fast food, ex-girlfriends and accountants.  I really enjoyed the book.  The story was fun, the artwork was solid and it all flowed very well.  I very much hope there is another volume coming out soon because the story just sort of stopped more than ended, and it left a lot of plot threads up in the air.  If you see it on the shelves of your local comic shop, check it out for a good time.

That’s it for this first installment of “Comics That Piss Me Off.”  Here’s to hoping next week doesn’t suck quite as much as this week did.

-Mat N., the Nifty Nerd
http://www.TheNiftyNerd.com