This week has been a busy week for us, what with all the new announcements. It’s amazing that we’ve found the time then to review our books! We’re a tad bit slow this week in processing all that we have to share with San Diego Comic Con underway and all the information pouring out, so forgive me/us if we’re a little slow in getting our reviews up this week. Never fear, however, because we will get them done – and I’ll start you off! So first, let’s go over the scoring system:
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
This week my reviews include Booster Gold #34, Birds of Prey #3, The Thanos Imperative #2, and World War Hulks: Spider-Man Vs Thor/Wolverine Vs Captain America. Quite an odd list, eh? Don’t worry. We’ll make it through together.
Check out all the reviews after the jump.
Booster Gold #34
I’ve been a rather vocal dissenter on Booster Gold. I’m actually not entirely sure why. Most people fell in love with him in 52, or had already liked him due to Justice League International, but I was never a fan. However, when I read Generation Lost #1 and loved it and saw that Booster Gold would lightly be tying into that, at least thematically, I knew that this was a book that I wanted to jump into.
Fortunately, Giffen and Dematteis have made that incredibly easy for me to do so. Starting off as if it was a brand new title was the best thing to happen to this book (or so I’m told for those that read the previous run by Jurgens), and I’ve gotta say it acts as an interesting contrast to Generation Lost. I’m loving Generation Lost for it’s story and the dark surrounding it, but Booster Gold has primarily been a “comic” (as in funny) character, so as serious as it is that Max Lord is back, there still has to be time travel and comedic elements to how Booster handles it. This is where the Booster ongoing comes in, and as misleading as the solicit for this issue is, the book is really quite grand.
Now, I do not want to overly endorse nostalgia storytelling, but man do I love seeing Blue Beetle and Booster teaming up in a classical style with Big Barda and Miracle Man. While this comic jumps back to a different time, it still feels rather fresh and relevant, and it’s equally entertaining and heartbreaking to watch Booster and Beetle to team up like this. The Bwa-ha-ha is certainly back in this title, and it’s only appropriate for Dematteis and Giffen to be behind the wheel on it. They’ve definitely returned the comedic wit to the book and added a new element of fun to the Generation Lost story that I certainly appreciate and am excited to have, considering I Can’t Believe It’s Not Justice League is a thing of the past.
I also think that Chris Batista is a great fit for the book. He’s really good at character formation and style, and I think he really has a good understanding of size. His heroes look strong but certainly not overpowered (except for Barda of course), and his design for the villain is a lot of fun. I can’t say I really enjoyed Giffen’s art at the beginning of the book, but once we got more into the norm of things with Batista back on the pages, I found the art to be incredibly satisfying for the tale.
Continued belowAnother one of the writers of this site, Walt, said that now is the time to go back to Booster Gold because it’s once again safe. This is definitely true. I’ve never been a Booster fan, but in a team dynamic he’s great, and this is the first time I’ve ever actively read the ongoing title and enjoyed it. It’s nice to have a comic book that makes it obvious it wants to be funny without resorting to excessively repetitive jokes, bad dialogue, and boring slapstick.
Final Verdict: 8.4 – Buy
Birds of Prey #3
Every time I pick this book to review, and every time I have trouble with it. Every other writer of this website yells at me for not reading Secret Six, so I’m getting into this book with the hope of fulfilling my Gail Simone nerd quota so they’ll leave me alone. The problem is, three issues in and I still can’t decide if I like this book or not, because there is just too much on either side of the spectrum to keep me from evenly settling on either side.
In this issue, we’re given quite a good deal of plot twists – some things we saw earlier are reversed, lives are at stake, White Canary’s identity is known (although not said), and Penguin has a plan. There is a lot going on in Birds of Prey in the penultimate issue for the first arc, and despite the Brightest Day banner nothing is looking too good for our rag rag group of heroines.
So here’s what I like: I think the writing is fairly sharp in dialogue, and I’m really enjoying Ed Benes on art. Given the inherent amount of curves, I’d imagine most men are at this point, but what I really love is his action sequences. There are a lot of very movie-esque moments in the book, and considering a large part of is a fight scene between the Birds and some crooked cops, it plays out incredibly well. The book is really fresh when it comes to the spoken word as well, and to say that Simone understands how her girls work together is putting it lightly.
Here’s what I didn’t like: I think, all in all, this book is really for fans of the first volume. To be perfectly frank, reading the new Birds of Prey makes me think that Gail Simone was given some of her favorite toys back after not being allowed to play with them for a while and, instead of sharing them with us new readers, she called all her old friends in to pick up some stories from where they left off from old play dates. It leaves me feeling quite lost, and there are elements of this book that I imagine will not really have any pay off for me when they’re revealed. One of the bigger reveals of this book had no real impact on me because the characters it revolved around (whose name I won’t mention because I don’t want to spoil anything) had no connection to me, and seeing their interaction with the Birds of Prey didn’t connect to me on any level. On top of that, I already know that when White Canary is revealed, it probably won’t register who it is all too well in my comic book nerd knowledge due to my lack of know how on Simone’s original run on the book.
Part of this makes me want to go and check out the original Birds of Prey series, because I enjoy enough of this book to want to “get” it, but at the same time I don’t really appreciate a new book tagged with a banner that is supposed to mean it’s accessible being so inaccessible to me. My hope was to find a new book that I could get in on the ground floor on with a writer my friends respect and an artist I enjoy. Instead I’ve found a book that’s probably quite good if you’ve already got 56 issues worth of knowledge in your memory banks.
Continued belowAlthough, I must say – what a saucy opening sequence! Gail Simone, you horndog!
Final Verdict: 6.9 – Browse
Thanos Imperative #2
It is definitely a shame that the Cosmic Marvel U does not get the attention that it deserves, because already two issues in and we’re seeing what should be Marvel’s premiere event at the moment. I am absolutely enthralled by this story, and knowing how short it is makes me even more excited to see and read each issues – and we’re only three installations in!
That may be some pretty high praise right off the bat, but let’s take a look at the book. In this issue, we’re shown the magnitude of the situation as all the cosmic abstracts come to help battle back the cancerverse. Over with the GotG, we see that Thanos is the only one who has any real power against the opposite side. Meanwhile, on our side of the universe the fight isn’t going to well. Lord Mar-Vell’s forces are too powerful, and their inability to die sure is a cog in that machine.
What I love about this event is that you really feel like there is something at stake here. Where other events feature exposition to build intrigue, DnA have always been good at having events focused on pushing the plot forward. For those that have seen their other events, you’ll notice they often are good at maintaining a quickened pace, and Thanos Imperative is no different. They also have such a great way of adding to their Cosmic reign as they go – with this issue we have more elements of the cancer-verse as well as a last page that is pretty amazing and shocking.
Of course, the issue isn’t perfect. I’m not really 100% on the art because at times it seems that Sepulveda doesn’t totally get all his definitions properly. It’s especially apparent in the faces that are on occasion half formed and left to being obscured by shadows. The shading as a whole can be quite odd at times, and some faces look like they were shaped and filled in at a later date. I also want to note that as much as I enjoy the quickened pace, there is a mildly odd give and take between which scenes get time and exactly when they’re cut off.
All in all, though, a lot of Thanos Imperative feels incredibly rewarding. Having read from Annihilation up to this point, a lot of the threads feel rewarding as elements collide. Thanos Imperative has a very finite feeling based on what’s going on, and it’ll be interesting to see how things wrap up. We’re two issues in (plus that Ignition issue), but I’m enjoying this more than DoomWar, Shadowland (though that just started), and Marvel’s other mini-events of the moment.
Final Verdict: 8.4 – Buy
World War Hulks: Spider-Man Vs Thor/Wolverine Vs Captain America
This one is a bit harder to review. In actuality, there are four stories here, each of them deserving their own little look. Creating an aggregate score based on that will be interesting, but it is really the only proper way to tackle this monstrosity.
Now, I should point out before I start my reviews that, personally, I think World War Hulks is one of the dumbest “events” ever. I think that the idea of everyone hulking out and transforming into the beasts that they named themselves after is a horrendously stupid idea that doesn’t make sense, and the fact that now everyone will talk like the Hulk when we’ve seen that every other Hulk can speak perfectly fine is just … ugh. So to say I’m not enjoying this whole thing is to put it lightly. However, the problem is that little elements keep interesting me. On the one hand, I’ve read every issue, so I might as well see it through to it’s completion. On the other hand, this is the first published work of Brian Clevinger in the 616, as well as a new piece of work by Gillen. How can I not want to read those? So I did.
Continued belowSpider-man Vs. Thor – I was pleased to see that the main story in this issue was Gillen’s. I was also pleased to see that he generally kept his head throughout most of it. Focusing on the two Hulk’s internal monologues, Gillen elaborated on elements of their past and how it effected them as Hulks. Thor’s story came out a lot better, but I think that’s because I’m more used to seeing Gillen write Thor, and he does it so well. While the motivation behind the character seems a bit wonky, we’re dealing with World War Hulks here, so reason and logic is somewhat out the window. The main goal now is to tell as entertaining a story as possible. Does he do it? For the most part, yes. As much as I wish we could see Gillen on a more endearing title, he still manages to do some entertaining writing here, so I’ll let it slide.
Cyclops Vs. Iceman: Cyclops vs Iceman is a much shorter story, but it has more emphasis on the humor aspect. Considering Iceman is a bit of a clown, it’s worked into the story by writer Chris Eliopoulos that Cyclops is basically using this time to really beat the tar into Bobby (not that he hasn’t done so in every danger room session ever). We also get more focus on their past as mutant heroes than we do as Hulks, leading to a series of visual pranks which are really pretty funny. Since this is a much shorter story, there is a lot less emphasis on the tale being told here, so it works a lot better as a “to be continued” short.
Wolverine Vs. Captain America: This story, written by Paul Tobin, is one that I could not get into at all. It has the oddest Hulk interpretation in that Wolverine can speak and think clearly because of his healing factor – yet at the same time his Hulk-ness causes him to rage like no other and, as much as he wants to be a hero, he instead wants to spend his time beating up Bucky for something that happened years ago. I’m sorry, but even in the realm of “everyone’s a Hulk,” this just seems out of place. While the other stories focus more on the smashing and humor aspect of the whole ordeal, Tobin actually tries to tell a somewhat serious story that pushes into Wolverine’s past with Bucky… but it’s not one that is needed and/or welcomed. I think when you try and write a serious story about Hulk Wolverine, that should be your first sign right there.
Monica Rambeau Vs. Everyone: This is Clevinger’s first 616 work for Marvel, and it’s such a shame because it’s the backup story that excels the opening. I actually enjoyed this one the most. Clevinger brings back Nextwave via flashes in Monica Rambeau’s head as she fights various Hulks, and Clevinger hits the Nextwave vibe pretty pitch perfect (with only one gag that I didn’t quite understand). The overall feel of this story deftly brings back Nextwave in a hilarious way, and it’s one that is incedibly welcome in this Nextwave-less universe that we live in. I had grabbed this comic with the hopes of Clevinger writing the main story, but despite the shortness of the back up, it ended up being the best out of all the Hulk stories that I felt slightly justified in getting these otherwise awful books. Now, if Clevinger was let to write something along these lines (Nextwave vol. 2?) instead of Hulk stories, I’d be ridiculously happy.
Of course, the one last thing I have to mention before I wrap up my review with a score is – all these stories somewhat create this epic continuity glare, since Loeb’s Hulk book portrays one version of these Hulked Out Heroes (where they’re all like Bruce Banner in their idiocy and love of the smash), and each of these stories shows the characters having more depth, ability to speak, and/or motivation. The pieces do not fit together, but as I stated earlier, I think it’s best not to try and take this seriously anymore and just role with the punches.
Continued belowWith that in mind,
Final Verdict for Spider-Man vs Thor: 6.4 – Browse
Final Verdict for Wolverine vs. Captain America: 4.3 – Just find Clevinger’s story, because it really is quite funny
