Awwww yeah! After a week off from reviews, I’m back with a slew of new reviews. It was an exciting week, as one of my favorite books celebrated a momentous occasion, there were two new releases I was pumped for, and a refitted series in The Heroic Age kept its run of quality going. Before we get into what those are, check our scoring system below.
0: Uwe Boll will direct the adaptation of this comic
0.1 – 1: Burn upon touching
1- 1.9: Abysmal
2.0 – 2.9: Art. Writing. Editing. All bad.
3.0 – 3.9: You’d be a masochist to pick this up.
4.0 – 4.9: “I’ll give it another month…but that was not good.”
5.0 – 5.9: “Really? The Watcher? In the face? I guess it was fun.”
6.0 – 6.9: “Hmm. That was decent.”
7.0 – 7.9: Well made but a few problems
8.0 – 8.9: Nearly flawless
9.0 – 9.9: Outstanding
10: Perfection. Issue of the year contender
That means The Walking Dead #75, Welcome to Tranquility: One Foot in the Grave #1, Time Masters: Vanishing Point #1, and Thunderbolts #146 are all mine folks! Find out what I thought after the jump.
The Walking Dead #75
Written by: Robert Kirkman
Illusrated by: Charlie Adlard, Ryan Ottley
From a quality standpoint, The Walking Dead is an incredibly difficult book to review because of the uniformity that we’ve come to expect from it. A firm grasp on plot progressions and pacing as well as ever developing characters and relationships from Kirkman, and Adlard providing very solid art that represents the horror of zombies and humanity equally well. I know this is a reviewing faux pas, but I think for this issue I’m going to look at plot almost exclusively – so thar be spoilers below.
This issue finds the tension that has been quietly building in the new community our survivors have been living in coming to a head. By that, I mean the atomic bomb known as Rick Grimes goes off.
A while ago, I theorized that Kirkman had put our heroes in an interesting position, as for all intents and purposes they had become the villains to a degree. Rick and Glenn sneaking guns out to protect themselves if need be, Abraham owning the work crew and taking over, and just steamrolling most anyone when given the chance. However, on the surface they seemed to be fitting in until Rick became suspicious of a potential child/wife beater named Pete. Next thing you know, Rick was on top of him about to kill him as the entire town looked on in abject horror.
The thing about this book is that Kirkman has forever made us expect the unexpected. While Rick has obviously been a bit on the touchy side, this seemed like he went 0-60 in the period of half a comic, exploding on Pete with no real proof save suspicion and conjecture. It works brilliantly for the story, and I can’t wait to see where it goes, but it seemed so against the extremely docile Rick we’ve come to see since they came to the community. The biggest turn was Michonne, who went completely against Rick at the end, although deservedly so.
The other primary storyline was Glenn and his fellow supply gatherer off looking for medical supplies in town, while dealing with a herd of zombies and some gun crazy rednecks. I fully expect this story to blossom into something bigger, as Kirkman is a master of taking the inkling of something and turning it into a full idea (kind of like Inception).
The highlight of the comic though was what Kirkman did to have fun with a letter he received way back in issue #2, in which he suggested that he’d be out of ideas by issue #75 and would likely bring in aliens or something to spice it up by then. Taking that basic idea and blowing it up with Invincible artist supreme Ryan Ottley was hilariously awesome, bringing back lost favorites like Tyreese, Martinez, and The Governor (as well as Lori) and giving them all powers and reconfigured bodies (for those who had lost a limb). I was massively entertained by this section, and it made me a little sad that Ottley wasn’t actually drawing the comic as he gleefully illustrated the death and destruction Kirkman brewed up.
Continued belowI should have expected this issue to be just another issue of The Walking Dead. It’s hard to really improve on the greatness they’ve made us expect, but adding the Ottley story ramped it up enough for me to earn the first “Outstanding” grade in a while.
Final Verdict: 9.3 – Buy
Welcome to Tranquility: One Foot in the Grave #1
Written by: Gail Simone
Illustrated by: Horacio Domingues
Welcome to Tranquility from Gail Simone and Neil Googe is one of the most underappreciated books in my mind from the past few years, as it was irreverent, funny, original, and filled with fresh and three dimensional characters. I loved it instantly, and it just got better throughout. So my expectations were very high for this, even with Neil Googe out of the equation.
Which makes it all the more disappointing that I found this issue a bit convoluted and old hat.
I know this is a word that is used strictly for sound, but the word that goes through my head when I think of this book is “cacophonous.” There was just too much going on, not enough focus on the characters and what made the book as a whole so special before. It seemed that Simone wanted to convey so much so fast that ultimately the house of cards failed accordingly.
For me, the only sections that really worked were the quiet ones…Suzy Fury teaching Leona and Mangacide how to cook her famous meatloaf, Deputy Duray’s derisive comments on the car ride back to Tranquility with Alex Fury and Tommy…those moments hit me well. But besides that, I just felt like it was too much too fast without enough time for us to become ingratiated back into Tranquility. Even for a big fan like me, this book was a hard read…even with some turns of events that were very pleasing for articulate fans such as myself.
While I know Horacio Domingues had illustrated this book before during the Armageddon event (thanks to some savvy Googling by myself), a lot of the charm of the book came from Googe’s pencils. While Domingues gives us a nice approximation, it still doesn’t work for me. His lines are harsher, his scenes are more convoluted…everything seems less naturalistic. While I enjoy him overall as an artist and he does a decent job, the comparison that forms naturally in my mind doesn’t bode well for him.
All in all, I was pretty disappointed by this. I was hoping for greatness, and instead I got something that I found lacking. Perhaps on re-reads or when read as a whole I’ll like it more, but I didn’t connect with it nearly on the same level as I did the first run.
Final Verdict: 4.8 – Browse
Time Masters: Vanishing Point #1
Written by: Dan Jurgens
Illustrated by: Dan Jurgens, Norm Rapmund
Unlike a lot of people, I was still enjoying Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund’s run on Booster Gold. While it wasn’t nearly as imaginative as Johns run or even the early stages of Giffen/Dematteis, it was quietly effective and they understood the character and his mythology so well that it was still exciting to read. When I heard they were going to do this book that focused mostly on Rip Hunter (Booster’s son, secretly), I was very excited as I hoped they would delve more into that relationship while also providing important details about the search for Bruce Wayne.
What I got overall was a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, they did a great job of building that relationship between Rip and Booster (as well as Rip as a whole), spending most of the issue dealing with the Carter family as a whole with even some surprising villainous guest stars joining up. All of this I enjoyed, as Jurgens expanded on the ideas he developed in Booster Gold expertly.
The thing that bothered me though was that this is, for all intents and purposes, Booster Gold. The amount of time spent dealing with Bruce Wayne was far less (and kind of unnecessary overall) than the time spent on Rip dealing with his father and the heroes who wanted to do heroic things like “accidentally destroying the timestream because we gave a few pirates oranges.” With Giffen/Dematteis in full steam run, this seemed superfluous and kind of like a money grab from DC in the first issue. Perhaps it will develop into being an integral part of the return of Bruce Wayne, but as it sits now this title is unnecessary.
Continued belowJurgens and Rapmund work very well together, and their style is pure substance. There isn’t anything flashy or exceptional here, just pure meat and potatoes storytelling via art. We’ve come along way with Jurgens, and we know what we’re going to get throughout. It’s not bad, it’s not great, it’s just consistently solid. There’s something to be said about that.
As I said, I have mixed feelings about this. I’m unsure as to whether or not I’ll pick up the second issue, but I’m intrigued because of the Booster/Rip stuff. Perhaps we’ll go on from there, but as of now, I say…
Final Verdict: 6.5 – Browse
Thunderbolts #146
Written by: Jeff Parker
Illustrated by: Kev Walker
Fuck yes! Jeff Parker…you are a god. Kev Walker…you are also a god. You men are gods!
This book is massively entertaining, as Jeff Parker has taken a team that was weird as all hell (heroes: Luke Cage, Songbird, Fixer, Mach V, the wheelchair bound U.S. Agent…villains: Moonstone, Crossbones, Ghost, Juggernaut…vegetation: Man-Thing) and turns it into one filled with conflicted, three dimensional characters that are far more interesting than they were before.
In his hands, Moonstone isn’t just a horrible woman who turns on everyone for anything. She’s a woman who recognizes heroes when she sees them and seems genuinely impressed by Cage. Ghost seems almost like a doting child, following Cage around and always wanting to impress and even being comforted by the distinctly not comforting Man-Thing.
These characters seem like fresh but natural takes by Parker, and it’s a blast to read. He also gives us genuinely awesome action set pieces to read through, all of which are ably rendered by Kev Walker.
Walker is given plenty of opportunity to shine, and he takes it and runs with it. In fact, the last page of this issue has to be one of my favorite pages of the year. Man-Thing, Crossbones (with a huge gun!), and Ghost onboard with Mach V to take on these crazy, infected SHIELD agents to save the rest of the team? Yes please. It’s powerful and clever work by Walker, and I can’t get enough of it.
This whole book is just a gem. It quickly went from being a “must avoid” to a “must buy” for me, and that’s a heck of a turn of events. Way to go Team Parker and Walker. As long as you guys are there, I’m there.
Final Rating: 9.0 – Buy
