This week was a pretty big week…well, at least in terms of charges to my credit card. My total bill come out pretty close to $40 and, strangely enough, didn’t include any trades or graphic novels at all. An unusal thing for sure because I almost always find some sort of higher priced book to pick up.
1. Secret Invasion #2
2. Mighty Avengers #13
3. Conan #50
4. Rann-Thanagar Holy War #1
5. Avengers-Invaders #1
6. War That Time Forgot #1
7. American Dream #1
With that out of the way, let’s get on to the comic reviews!
At the top of my list and soon at the bottom of my trashcan, Secret Invasion #2 by Brian Michael Bendis and Lenil Francis Yu. Lenil’s artwork on the series continues to be flat, uneven and very awkward. I’m not sure what Marvel was thinking by hiring him to draw a book where multiple versions of characters are appearing in and out of costume because everyone he draws looks the same. It doesn’t help that Yu isn’t the strongest storyteller around as the book quickly becomes very confusing — I’d go so far as to call it unreadable.
Speaking of storytelling, have I warmed up to the series after 2 issues? Not at all. The crossover “event” seems to be nothing more than Marvel attempting to fix a lot of its character and continuity mistakes and missteps over the past 10 years. Truthfully, they’re forgetting about their biggest mistake of all…putting Joe Quesada in charge as editor-in-chief. Of course, allowing Bendis to come on board as a writer is a very close second. Hopefully we’ll eventually find out everyone is a skrull and pretend none of it ever happened.
Secret Invasion has replaced Secret Wars 2 as my nominee for worst company crossover of all time. It’s nice to see Marvel finally answering the question of how badly one company can fuck itself up.
Second, we’ve got the Mighty Avengers #13 which, interestingly enough, stars absolutely none of the Mighty Avengers for the second issue in a row. Ok, you got me, Ares does appear in 2 pages of the story. Out of costume and rendered completely unrecognizable by the photograph-tracing Alex Maleev. It’s true, take a look through this issue and the last one and you’ll quickly realize that Maleev is just taking high contrast photos (backgrounds, figures and all), tracing them and is pawning them off as his own work. His art is cold, lifeless and as uninspiring as the writing by his “creative” partner, Brian Bendis. Like many of you, I’m praying this whole Secret Invasion thing turns out to be a belated April Fool’s Day joke by the staff of Marvel. The thought it might be a serious thing hits my stomach like a plate of bad sushi.
Thank God for Dark Horse and Conan #50 by Tim Truman, Tomas Giorello and Jose Villarrubia. In this issue Truman retells an unfinished story by Robert E. Howard (which was later finished by Lin Carter and titled “the Hand of Nergal”). I have to say this over-sized final issue of the series reads great, looks great and is one of the best Conan stories I’ve ever read. Truman fully understands and appreciates the character of Conan and it is nice to see his respect play out so well in the pages of Conan #50. Even cooler is a reprint of the original Marvel Comics adaptation of the same story by Roy Thomas and John Buscema from 1973. Reading the two versions together is an interesting contrast indeed.
While Conan #50 is the last of the series, Dark Horse mentions a new series starting up in a few months. I hope they make use of the same creative team. Giorello’s art and storytelling fit perfectly with Truman’s writing and remind me very much of the early Frank Frazetta inspired artwork of Mike Mignola from back in the mid-80s. Fantastic stuff and most definitely my “Must Buy” pick of the week.
In the first offering from DC in this week’s batch o’ comics is Rann-Thanagar Holy War #1 by Jim Starlin and Ron Lim. Lim’s normally slick and solid artwork seems very weak and rushed. I’m not sure if this is the fault of Lim or because of the amateurish inking of Rob Hunter. Someone needs to tell Hunter that inking isn’t just tracing. Aside from the so-so artwork, I have to say that the book feels like yet another story retread by Jim Starlin. We’ve all seen everything in this issue about a million times in one Starlin-penned comic or another and it really is getting old. Unfortunately this “Holy War” is just a pile of “Holy Shit.”
Fifth up is Avengers-Invaders #1, which is a perfect example of why the Alex Ross-Jim Krueger writing team should be the recipient of the world’s first 2000 week abortion. Alex Ross is using the reputation he built (a bit undeservedly) with Marvels and Kingdom Come to confuse people into thinking he is a writer of any merit at all. The story is pointless, the script is stilted and the artwork by Steve Sadowski reminds me of a very bad Brent Anderson clone. What’s worse is the closing sequence with Iron Man seeing a seemingly reincarnated Steve Rogers as Captain America. This might have had more impact if we weren’t getting a very similar sequence with Captain America’s “rebirth” over in the Secret Invasion series. It’s interesting that Marvel was able to track down the one writing team even worse than Brian Bendis to write a comic. Good job, Marvel! Why don’t you just get Rob Liefeld to bring back Onslaugh…oh, wait, you already did.
Next we’ve got The War That Time Forgot #1 by Bruce Jones and Al Barrionuevo. I have no clue why I picked this book up…it must have been the half-assed Neal Adams cover. There is very little worthwhile about this book. The story has been done about 10,000 times (if you saw the recent Turok, Son of Stone direct-to-DVD movie then you’ve seen it). When I read The War That Time Forgot #1 it immediately made me think that DC was looking for a way to keep the copyrights/trademarks up to date for a bunch of their lesser-known characters. This is a huge disappointment from Jones who is usually a fairly strong writer.
Last up is American Dream #1 by Tom Defalco and Todd Nauck. Wow, there were a lot of number one issues this month, weren’t there? Long time readers of this site know I am a big fan of Tom Defalco’s work on all of the MC2 universe titles. He puts together some very solid books which are easy to read and even easier to get in to. I wish they’d give him an entire line of books to manage because he might be the one to help bring comic books back to the masses and make them more accessible to kids. Todd Nauck’s work is passable, even if it isn’t the most technically sound…he comes off a bit as a weak version of Mike Wieringo, but I look forward to watching his art grow on the series. American Dream #1 is my recommendation for anyone who misses good storytelling and well done comic superhero comics. Good stuff for sure.
My stack this week was a bit bigger than that, but there wasn’t much else in there worth mentioning. I picked up Savage Tales #7, which had a couple of so-so stories and a couple of really terrible ones (the Thulsa Doom tale, in particular, really sucked gooch), and Joe Kubert’s Tor #1. I attended the Kubert School back in the early 90s and have always been a fan of Joe’s work, but his art is looking a bit rough these days and the story is incredibly cliche’. This might be one instance of an artist going back to the well one too many times.
That’s it for this week. Check back next week for a new episode of “Comics That Piss Me Off.” Until thing, stay nerdy!
-Mat N., the Nifty Nerd
http://www.TheNiftyNerd.com
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