There is a lot to cover on Wednesdays. We should know, as collectively, we read an insane amount of comics. Even with a large review staff, it’s hard to get to everything. With that in mind, we’re back with Wrapping Wednesday, where we look at some of the books we missed in what was another great week of comics.
Let’s get this party started.
All-New Inhumans #3
Written by James Asmus & Charles Soule
Illustrated by Stefano Caselli
Review by Ken Godberson III
I think what I am liking the most about this book is that it’s taking the heavy lifting of world building over its sister series “Uncanny Inhumans”. All the characters, their abilities and just the little moments between characters are so ripe with potential. This issue has us delving a bit more specifically into the Inhumans Swain and Panacea and some surprising things about the R.I.V (the airship that Crystal and her team travel in). Again, all these little moments between characters are, for me at least, the meat of the issue because the main plot is just kind of okay. It is a bit predictable because the villain is just so stock really. I mean, how the predicted fate of the Sin-Cong Inhumans is revealed is a bit unique, but still. This is the arc’s penultimate issue, so it’s really going to be the next issue for the book to sell me on the geopolitical side it wants to embrace.
Stefano Caselli and colorist Andres Mossa are amazing. Nearly everyone in this book is so pretty and the energy they bring to the book (and I’m not even talking action scenes, there’s also a nice use of that Kirby Krackle) is so infectious. They are also capable of more than just superhero action as we go into Spiritual Nightmare Scariness (don’t you just love the sight of spirits fused together in agony? I do!). I may even say that, while I like the story in “Uncanny” a bit more, I think Caselli and Mossa are turning in better artwork than McNiven and Gho over there.
Final Verdict: 7.0- There is a lot of good character bits in this pushed further by some fantastic art. It’s just waiting for that big kick to knock it to the next level.
Colder: Toss The Bones #5
Written by Paul Tobin
Illustrated by Juan Ferreyra
Reviewed by Jess Camacho
I’ve written a lot about “Colder” over the last few months in various places and really, this is probably the final time I’ll do so since this series came to a close this week with “Colder: Toss The Bones” #5. Declan and Reece face their final challenge with Nimble Jack and thankfully the series does have a finite ending. What’s great about the ending is that it has a true horror ending. Without spoiling what it is, it features real consequences and an odd, creepy feeling of closure. Declan and Reece’s relationship was always the core of this series and it’s on the two of them that Tobin and Ferreyra end things. They fight for them and their decision making in this final issue is purely motivated by their own safety. “Colder” was a personal story and it’s no more apparent than with the finale. Tobin does a great job pushing Declan and Reece to their breaking point and as Declan tries to help people and their insanity, he gets deeper in his own insanity. It’s on the nose but it’s effective.
Juan Ferreyra’s art is what you’d come to expect and he goes out on a very high note. The backgrounds in Nimble Jack’s world are perfection and there’s a subtle romantic quality to some panels featuring Declan and Reece. The color work stands out the most as Ferreyra is able to transition from a washed out darkness to a more vibrant palette. There’s a gorgeous splattering of rainbow colors in a crucial scene that just pops right off the page. While his pencils are wonderful to look at, his color work helped make “Colder” such an effective horror series.
Final Verdict: 8.8 – Not the ending I predicted but a concrete and logical finale.
Continued below
Monstress #3
Written by Marjorie Liu
Illustrated by Sana Takeda
Reviewed by Michelle White
When a series has a triple-sized first issue, you know it’s going to immerse you pretty deeply in the world of its story. And immersive this series is – not to mention shocking, brutal, magical, and lovely to look at.
Of course, all of this relies on a good deal of exposition, most of which was dealt with in that long first issue. But it remains difficult to discuss the plot without getting into the nitty gritty of it all. Put simply as possible, Maika is a teenaged girl and a member of an oppressed magical race, and has already wreaked some measure of revenge on a hegemonic order of nuns. But she’s also possessed by some kind of malevolent spirit, and this issue gets us more acquainted with whatever that thing is.
The two main selling points of this series so far – Liu’s intricate world-building and Takeda’s delicately wrought art – remain in top form over the course of this issue. The art, which encompasses a blend of Western and Japanese styles, covers an even wider range of subject matter than before, with elaborate frescoes and demonic appendages dominating several pages. And while the story is beginning to sprawl a little – it’s harder to take in, over the course of a regular-sized issue, than it was in the more novel-sized first – the thread of Maika’s journey remains intact.
My only quibble is that the subject matter remains so consistently brutal, contrasted against the innocence of those who have been pursued alongside Maika. Obviously, exploring the atrocity of it all is a major component of this series, and we should be made to feel this keenly, but some scenes involving Maika’s adorable fox friend tread close to bathos.
You have to be along for the ride with the series – happy to read the history lessons delivered by magical cats and the end of each issue, and happy to mull over the political backdrop that’s being delivered by degrees. And as horrifying as some of the subject matter can be, Takeda’s luminescent art keeps the pages turning.
Final Verdict: 7.8 – A beautiful but brutal comic that rewards engagement.
“Old Man Logan” #1
Written by Jeff Lemire
Illustrated by Andrea Sorrentino
Reviewed by Stephenson Ardern-Sodje
With the glut of post-Secret Wars books pouring out of Marvel HQ, there are so many new offerings that it can be difficult to know what to take a punt on. But one character who is almost always guaranteed a spot on any True Believer’s pull list is James ‘Logan’ Howlett. Lemire and Sorrentino offer up a surprisingly fresh revenge plot that proves there’s life in the old wolverine yet.
Lemire has clearly got an alternate timeline of his own that he wants to bring to the forefront of both his run on “All-New Hawkeye” and this new title. Old Man Logan wakes up disorientated and displaced in modern day America, after having been torn from his own dystopian timeline in a world where the bad guys won and he’d been left to fend for himself. Heavy helpings of Mad Max, and “The Dark Knight Returns” flavour this first issue, but Lemire’s recognisable yet reimagined Logan definitely helps give the book a feeling of its own. Lemire’s interpretation of a pacifistic Wolverine who’s retired the claws plays out interestingly for the first half of the book but, predictably and gratifyingly, quickly gives way to a version of Logan so hell-bent of vengeance he’d give Tarantino pause for thought.
Sorrentino’s shadow-heavy artwork provides a fittingly gritty base for this first issue. Old man Logan’s story appears to be being set up to be a solo one set in a similar style to Bunn and Walta’s “Magento”, and that freedom from more mainstream crossovers allows Sorrentino much freer rein to experiment stylistically.Visually, this book focusses heavily on movement and emotion, with some of the best moments resulting when those two things collide. The result is a series of understated but terrifically tense scarlet panels that highlight moments of physical violence. Sorrentino’s Logan is different enough visually from the Wolverine of old that this book could be, on the surface, an indie offering that muses on the consequences of seeking revenge.
Continued belowSorrentino and Lemire are shining a light into a corner of the Marvel universe that feels, both stylistically and thematically, darker and more weighty. Their interpretation of Logan should be strong enough to both satisfy fans of Canada’s meanest export and different enough to placate those comic book critics who claim that death is a meaningless element of the medium. This Wolverine is, both in characterisation and tone, a very different beast.
Final Verdict: 8.4 – New versions of old faces are falling through the cracks in reality left in the wake of convergence. Lemire and Sorrentino have leapt on one of the most interesting ones to offer up a comic that feels both tied to the wider world and in a category all of its own.
The Omega Men #8
Written by Tom King
Illustrated by Barnaby Bagenda
Reviewed by Brian Salvatore
Each month, “The Omega Men” continues to build upon its already powerful and effective mythology, and continues to scale the mountain of great comic stories. It’s getting pretty close to the top, too.
This issue focuses on Voorl, a planet in the Vega system. This issue was the clearest thus far in showing just how cold and heartless the Citadel truly is, and gave us a tether to that inhumanity in Scrapps. Her story is told in this issue, and is absolutely heartbreaking – and that is saying something in the context of this series, which traffics in tragedy. King’s script takes all the ambiguity out of the Citadel’s actions for once, and yet also leaves open a path to see their actions as justified in the grand scheme of things. It is a truly impressive feat.
And, as usual, Bagenda is able to strike this incredible balance between space action, full of spaceships and blasters, and truly heartfelt moments. Much of the issue revolves around Kyle having to decide if he can be used as ‘the bomb’ to destroy the Citadel, and Bagenda does a wonderful job of showing his strife at this decision without resorting to the usual overwrought images of a hero in physical pain over a hypothetical situation.
Someone’s going to need to really comfort me when this series wraps up in May.
Final Verdict: 9.0 – A remarkable series that just keeps turning the screw on the reader.
Prophet: Earth War #1
Written by Brandon Graham & Simon Roy
Illustrated by Giannis Millonogiannis & Simn Roy and Joseph Bergin II & Lin Visel
Reviewed by Matthew Garcia
Throughout Brandon Graham’s run on “Prophet,” readers were continually treated to exciting visuals, intelligent storytelling, and simply a bunch of people having fun creating this new world. Much of that is still in place for “Prophet: Earth War” #1. The issue itself is winding up for something bigger, and there’s a lot of scene setting as all these characters start preparing for a great upcoming war. Graham and Roy keep pretty close to a fantasy structure for this: these mysterious figures who worship a crystal show up, calling on the John Prophets to complete a mission for them and a young hero volunteers to take it on. They know what’s drawing people into the book, and they seem willing to provide it with everything they can think up.
It isn’t just the wide landscapes or crazy sci-fi images that make this book so sweet to look at. It’s not just that amniotic fluid brain projection chamber thing or the crystalline acolytes worshipping this great rock. It’s the little gags that help make this book so memorable. The spaceship they’ve inhabited was constructed for a smaller species, so the Prophets have to crouch as they make their way through the hallways. There’s a mountain that looks like it’s about to pick the old Prophet’s nose.
Big epic gestures but with still enough room for goofy sight gags give this book a singular and entertaining voice. Everything might only be gearing up for something big, but Graham, Roy, and Milonogiannis with colorists Bergin and Visel keep the story engaging and the book interesting to look at.
Final Verdict: 8.3 – Fantastic visuals boost an intriguing prologue
