It’s another exciting week here at the Nifty Nerd and we’ve got a new episode of Comics That Piss Me Off to go along with new comic day for the week of April 23, 2008.  This week we’ve got some good stuff and some bad stuff, and a new Modern Master volume all ready to become the latest addition to my “bathroom reading” stack of books.

Let’s see what wonders are waiting in this week’s buy pile:

1. Mighty Avengers #12
2. Hulk #3
3. Number of the Beast #2
4. The Spirit #16
5. Justice League of America #20
6. Modern Masters Volume 16: Mike Allred

First up, Mighty Avengers #12 by Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev.  I am a regular reader of the Mighty Avengers, in spite of it being a fairly poorly written book, and I have to say this new issue confused me.  I say this because as I read the issue I kept flipping back to the cover to make sure it was an issue of the Mighty Avengers and not its companion book, the New Avengers.  Bendis must have been confused himself as he wrote the book because it features not a single member of the Mighty Avengers, and focuses almost completely on the renegade team and Nick Fury.  This book is even worse than regular Marvel books which require you to have read every previous issue of a book for the past 5 years…this book requires that you have read every issue of some other series.  Marvel really needs to get rid of Brian Bendis if they want to open their books up to new readers…or open the books up to good writing.

This is where I normally talk about the art of whatever book I’m reviewing, but in this case the less mentioned about Alex Maleev’s work the better.  If you’re into completely lifeless, totally stiff artwork badly traced from photos, then this book is the answer to your most boring of dreams.  Maleev’s work has no movement in it at all…although, now that I think about it, his totally soulless artwork is well-paired to the completely soulless writing of Brian Bendis.

Second, we’ve got Hulk #3 by Jeff Leob and Ed McGuiness.  I love the look of McGuiness’ artwork.  It’s solid, full of life and a lot of fun.  His storytelling sucks anus, but at least the panels are fun to see.  Lucky for McGuiness, Leob’s writing provides absolutely no story for him to have to worry about.  Three issues in to the series and we’ve had almost nothing happen with no signs of anything happening in the future.  Oh sure, the new red Hulk has blown up a lot of stuff, but in the sense of story or story progression we’ve got nothing at all.  I almost feel like the higher ups at Marvel said, “Hey, Ed, just draw some pages with the Hulk and Abomination…oh, and toss in some other characters too…that’ll be fun.  Story?  Uuuuuhhhhh…we’ll worry about that later on.  Maybe.”  Unfortunately for those of us who enjoy reading a solid tale, they never got around to “later on.’  Pick up the book if you’re a fan of McGuinness or enjoyed the old Pitt series by dale Keown.  This book is all about pretty pictures and no substance.

Next is Number of the Beast #2 by Scott Beatty and Chris Sprouse.  I don’t know why I do this to myself.  scott Beatty’s story continues to suck and Chris Sprouse continues to draw a great looking, fantastically laid out piece of crap.  Don’t buy this book because it’ll just encourage the folks at DC/Wildstorm to keep putting out more issues.  Just skip it.  If you want the same kind of pain you’d get from reading Number of the Beast #2, get a hammer and put a nail through your own scrotum. That’s right, a nail pounded in to your very own ball-sack is similar to being forced to read the Number of the Beast series. Try it…you’ll agree with me.

Our fourth book is the Spirit #16, written by Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier, with artwork by the legendary Paul Smith.  I’ve been a fan of Will Eisner and the Spirit since they started doing magazine-sized reprints back in the late 70s and early 80s.  He produced some truly great work.  The new version of the Spirit has been done very well and the Aragones/Evanier writing team continues that trend.  This month the Spirit heads out to solve a murder on a movie set.  Paul Smith’s artwork is still top notch and is remainescent of Eisner’s own without being a blatant rip-off.  I do feel like the modern coloring really takes away from the look and feel of the book.  It might be interesting to see them do the series in black and white or with flat colors, as opposed to the over-rendered Photoshopping currently being use.  Hopefully DC isn’t going to try and tie this light-hearted character with the moody and violent film-version Frank Miller is producing for 2009.  It could be a very big mistake on their part.

I’m not a big fan of the new Justice League series and only pick up the odd issue here and there.  Seeing Ethan Van Sciver was doing the artwork for Justice League of America #20, and being a fan of Dwayne McDuffie from a long-time back, I thought I’d give the latest issue a shot.  The book was surprisingly good.  McDuffie has great writing chops and is able to keep the characters true to who they are.  Van Sciver is a poor-man’s Ivan Reiss and, while he can’t draw women worth a damn, the book was stilll very decent and an easy read.  It would be cool to see this creative team stick around for a while to see what they come up with.  A definite “recommend” for Justice League of America 320.

Last up is the latest volume of the Modern Masters series from TwoMorrows Pubishing.  This series has been going on for the past 7 or 8 years now and is something any fan of comic book art shouldn’t hesitate to pick up.  I’m not sure what their criteria is for picking a “modern master” is and I question some of their choices.  However, the quality of the series is top-notch.  This time around Modern Masters takes a look at the career of Madman’s Mike Allred.  I am a fan of Allred’s work and own just about everything he’s done, but I’m not sure I would have chosen to cover his career at this point.  Much like Frank Cho or Mark Shultz, I don’t feel like he has a large enough or influential enough body of work to be considered on par with guys like John Bynre, George Perez, Alan Davis or Jose Luis Garcia Lopez.  It seems like Steve Rude, Bill Sienkewicz, John Buscema, Mike Zeck or Dave Cockrum should come first.

Still, the Allred volume is a very interesting read an has a ton of pretty pictures in it. I give a big thumbs up for Modern Masters Vol 16: Mike Allred and the entire Modern Masters series. This book didn’t piss me off, which is a good thing.

Well, that’s it for this week.  Stop back by next week for another episode of Comics That Piss Me Off.

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