Man, what a great week. With all sorts of interesting announcements and tons of great comics, I can’t remember a week where I have been this happy to be a comics fan. But enough about that, you want reviews, don’t you? As usual, here’s our 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 I got to review Batman #701, Invincible Iron Man #28, Adventure Comics #516 and Amazing Spider-Man 637. Follow the cut to see my opinions regarding this strong list of comics.
This issue is the first of Grant Morrison’s two-part R.I.P.: The Missing Chapter. The end of Batman R.I.P. left both Bruce Wayne and the nefarious Dr. Hurt supposedly dead in a helicopter crash, only for Bruce to pop back up in Final Crisis before not-quite-dying again, and Hurt soon resurfaced in Batman & Robin. Clearly, this helicopter crash wasn’t as fatal as one would expect it to be (then again, Bruce is the goddamn Batman and Hurt may or may not be the devil, so it makes sense that they would escape unscatherd). So what really happened to these two in the time between R.I.P. and Final Crisis? That’s what this brief story aims to answer.
It has been a while since we’ve seen Morrison write a fully intact Bruce Wayne. Sure, we’re three issues into The Return of Bruce Wayne, but the Bruce we see in that title isn’t quite “there” yet. Rather, he’s just pieces of the man he was. In this issue, however, we see Bruce as most of us remember him, especially if you kept up with Morrison’s run on the title. Some may disagree with me, but, as a longtime Batman fan, I feel that Grant gets his voice down perfectly. Bruce may not talk much, but he is always thinking, and Morrison’s constant journal-like caption-narration illustrates this very well. Notice that you don’t see this form of narrative in Batman & Robin near as much as you do in Morrison’s Bruce-centric Batman run; Dick Grayson just doesn’t work that way. It’s an interesting subtlety that shows just how much thought Morrison puts into his characters.
Tony Daniel has never been a favorite artist of mine. He can be great, but sometimes he just doesn’t seem to try. Compare his work on the R.I.P. arc to his earlier work on the title with Morrison, and you will see a huge difference in quality. The art in this issue doesn’t dip down to the depths that he reached in his early Batman work, but it still could be better. If he doesn’t give his all when he is just handling artistic duties, I can’t say I’m thrilled to see him doing both the art and writing once again once November comes along.
The slightly puzzling thing about this issue is that it accomplishes in the span of one issue what solicits said would take two: bridging the gap between R.I.P. and Final Crisis. This issue ends with Bruce being right where we see him in Final Crisis, so what’s left for next issue? I have two guesses:
1) The next issue will be focused more on Dr. Hurt and how he escaped. Now, I find this slightly unlikely because Dr. Hurt’s schtick is that he is the puzzle piece that doesn’t fit, the mystery with no solution, and all that, so I think Morrison might just leave that unexplained. There’s always a possibility, though.
Continued below2) The next issue will sum up Final Crisis from Batman’s perspective. Let’s be honest, many Batman fans that were reading R.I.P. probably didn’t give a damn about Final Crisis, and probably didn’t read it for Bruce’s “death” due to it being hard to access if one hadn’t been following nearly everything Morrison wrote for DC. This would give readers the perfect chance to find out what happened there, and, as much as I loved Final Crisis, think it’s a great idea. Does this mean that you should skip the next issue if you’ve read Final Crisis and my hypothesis proves correct? I doubt it. Morrison isn’t the type to write anything without there being something new in it, so I’m sure the next issue will definitely be important to his Batman epic, whether or not you read Final Crisis.
Final Verdict: 8.1 – Buy it!
Invincible Iron Man #28
If you have been reading my reviews (I hope somebody is), then you probably know that I’ve been disappointed with Invincible Iron Man lately. The past few issues (excluding the annual) just haven’t had that “oomph” that made the title my favorite Marvel ongoing. Fortunately, things changed with this issue.
Now, the interesting thing is that my primary complaint regarding the last couple of issues was that there was a dearth of action. Logically, this means there was tons of top-grade action in this issue, right? Well, not quite.
This issue begins with Tony and Rhodey arriving at the scene to see Detroit Steel in action, and to cause a PR fiasco. Afterwards Tony gets chewed out by Maria Hill, who still hasn’t told Tony about the saucy events that happened before his recent memory reboot. The tension is masterfully handled by Fraction, even if it is a bit one-sided (though that makes it even more interesting). We also learn more about how this arc is connected to Fraction’s outstanding first arc, The Five Nightmares. Sure, there might not be much action right now, but with the younger Hammer’s interesting past I’m betting that once the action really starts, it’s going to explode. But for now, the aftermath of Steel’s debut and the war of words between Stark and Hill is all the action there is.
That’s okay, though. The rest of the issue was devoted to the future of Stark Resilient, Tony’s newest venture. One of the (in my opinion, many) fields that Matt Fraction excels in is writing hypothetical science, and that’s why I don’t care too much that this issue didn’t have all the crash and bangs that some people, including an impatient me, might have wanted. It’s fascinating to just listen to how Fraction wants to use the capabilities of these fictional characters to truly better their world rather than just find a better way to blow each other up. The way that Fraction has developed Stark has been attempted before, but never really made permanent. Fraction, however, is bringing Stark closer and closer to the point of no return, much like he has done to Cyclops in Uncanny X-Men, and I’m all for it.
If you’re just looking for another beat ’em up, then this Invincible Iron Man issue isn’t for you. If you’re interested in seeing Matt Fraction confront and overcome the “Reed Richards is useless” trope in an imaginative and engaging way, I highly recommend this.
Final Verdict: 7.9 – Buy it!
Adventure Comics #516
Joining in on the renumbering craze, this issue of Adventure comics totals up the numbers from all previous volumes to reflect what issue number Adventure Comics would be at had it remained one volume. Normally, this sort of thing irks me, but since it didn’t “conveniently” land on a number divisible by one-hundred, this seems less like a cash-grab and more like an attempt from DC at restructuring things. Why? I’m not sure, but that’s neither here nor there.
Continued belowI’ll be honest, there isn’t much to say about this issue. The issue is your standard one-issue origin recap, retelling the history of the deceased R.J. Brande and his encounter with Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy that resulted in the formation of the Legion of Super-Heroes. I wasn’t too familiar with Brande, so that part was slightly informative, but the rest is pretty standard. Levitz does have a great grasp on all of the characters, so he gets some credit for that, but using Brande’s odd dialect to narrate the story was slightly distracting. Overall, it was nothing great, but not terrible by any means.
Now, some people don’t really care for DC’s co-features, but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of The Atom’s side-story. It follows last week’s Brightest Day: The Atom special, but not so much that you can’t keep up if you didn’t read that one-shot. Many people were furious about the death of Ryan Choi, so Jeff Lemire has a lot of pressure on him to make Ray Palmer interesting enough to balance out the loss of Choi, but I think he can do it.
All in all, if you enjoy the Legion, this may be worth picking up, and even more so if you read and enjoyed last week’s The Atom one-shot. However, if you’re a long-time Legion fan, this is a story you’ve heard multiple times before, so it’s a better choice for new fans than old. Otherwise, just give it a bit of a flip-through.
Final Verdict: 6.7 – Browse
Amazing Spider-Man #637
The Grim Hunt ends here. After facing a Gauntlet of his most feared villains and the resurrection of an old foe, Spider-Man has his final showdown in this issue. Spoilers will be discussed. You have been warned.
Last issue ended with Kaine sacrificing himself on Peter’s behalf, and Peter finding Kaine’s corpse with a note reading “HUNT ME” and a copy of his black suit. Quite a way to end an issue, to be sure. We have seen Peter go all out before, and the black suit tends to be an indication of this, so the anticipation was high for this concluding issue. Of all the Brand New Day Spidey-team, Joe Kelly has proven himself to be one of the best, and this arc was no exception.
As a huge fan of JMS’ Amazing Spider-Man, I was very pleased to see Kelly bring back the totemistic aspect of Spider-Man, melding it very effectively with the themes of Kraven’s Last Hunt, which is easily one of the best Spider-Man stories ever written. Joe Kelly also brought back some supporting characters that haven’t been seen in quite some time, such as the mysterious Madame Web.
For the most part, this issue was excellent. Peter Parker is normally a very lighthearted guy, but even he has his limits. With his life constantly taking one terrible turn after another, when Peter finally cracks it should be intense. Joe Kelly definitely understood this, and his portrayal of a darker Spider-Man is absolutely chilling. All the fight scenes in this were an incredible combination of Joe Kelly’s writing and Michael Lark’s art, giving a great example of how the writer/artist dynamic should be.
I had one problem, though, and a pretty big one at that. The ending was so incredibly cliche. Once again we were given an ending akin to “I can’t kill him because that would make me the same as him!” As Multiversity collaborator Brandon would say, weaksauce. I am not by any means saying that Spidey should become a killer; rather, I would just like to see a different ending than this played-out cliche (even then, I wouldn’t think it would matter because wasn’t Kraven undead or something?). I would expect this from lesser writers, but from Joe Kelly? I’m disappointed.
Everything else about this arc and this issue was outstanding though, so this issue still gets a Buy (if only barely).
Final Verdict: 7.1 – Buy it!
