Capsule reviews for issues I bought on 7/20 (Comics)
In entirely non-comic related news, my bike was stolen today. Hooray! Now on with the reviews.
A quick rundown on my comic rating system:
Yeah! - A great comic all around. Definitely worth buying.
Heh. - Pretty entertaining. Give it a read if you have a chance.
Eh? - Confusing. I'm not really sure if it's bad or good, honestly, but it made me scratch my head a lot.
Meh. - I could take it or leave it, really. Not terribly exciting.
Bleh. - Terrible.
Daredevil #75
Not a bad issue. The past three or four of these have really dragged, but this was a pretty decent payoff. I still don't really get what this story was all about -- People being possessed by some demonic baby? What? -- but Bendis conveys a pretty good sense of immediacy and finality in his characterization of Matt Murdock, who really seems to have a serious goal here. And Maleev's art remains beautiful and unlike anything else out there. Rating: Heh.
House of M #4
A quick rundown on my comic rating system:
Yeah! - A great comic all around. Definitely worth buying.
Heh. - Pretty entertaining. Give it a read if you have a chance.
Eh? - Confusing. I'm not really sure if it's bad or good, honestly, but it made me scratch my head a lot.
Meh. - I could take it or leave it, really. Not terribly exciting.
Bleh. - Terrible.
Daredevil #75
Not a bad issue. The past three or four of these have really dragged, but this was a pretty decent payoff. I still don't really get what this story was all about -- People being possessed by some demonic baby? What? -- but Bendis conveys a pretty good sense of immediacy and finality in his characterization of Matt Murdock, who really seems to have a serious goal here. And Maleev's art remains beautiful and unlike anything else out there. Rating: Heh.
House of M #4
Is there a reason why I keep buying this series? Really? I will say this: at least there's some semblance of plot now. Trouble is, the plot makes absolutely no sense. Characterization is bad. Very bad. So now suddenly Wolverine, who is the only person who actually remembers his past, is incredibly calm and cool-headed? A girl who was brave enough to approach a rebellion group of huge guys is afraid of an upscale apartment? Yikes. The dialogue is horrible. First two pages: "Grandpa? I made this for you. With my mind." Ugh. There's an entire conversation in exposition. The art's hard to follow -- it's kind of hard to tell which panel leads into which. With that in mind, in addition to the fact that I'm going to keep buying this anyway, Rating: Bleh.
Ultimate Spider-Man #80
This was one of the best issues of this comic in quite a while. It actually mixed up the Peter Parker stuff with the Spider-Man stuff, had a great scene at the Daily Bugle and some really good Spidey one-liners during the webslinger's meeting with the Kingpin. After several mediocre issues about a break-up (I mean, I love the teen love stuff as much as the next guy, but every once in a while the angst just gets to be too much), it looks like this title is finally back on track. Rating: Heh.
Ultimates 2 #7
Ultimate Spider-Man #80
This was one of the best issues of this comic in quite a while. It actually mixed up the Peter Parker stuff with the Spider-Man stuff, had a great scene at the Daily Bugle and some really good Spidey one-liners during the webslinger's meeting with the Kingpin. After several mediocre issues about a break-up (I mean, I love the teen love stuff as much as the next guy, but every once in a while the angst just gets to be too much), it looks like this title is finally back on track. Rating: Heh.
Ultimates 2 #7
I think I've finally figured out what makes The Ultimates so good: Mark Millar knows how to make a little go a long way. This issue opens with a really cool action sequence, then moves on to a nice little suspenseful conversation between Tony Stark and Thor that still makes one wonder if the latter's really a god or not after all. Then a scene giving us a little more insight into the characters of The Wasp and Hank Pym -- and what life with Captain America is like. Finally, we get a great cliffhanger involving Hawkeye. That's only four scenes, but I can't wait to get my hands on the next issue of this. That's as good a recommendation as I can give. Rating: Yeah!
Ex Machina #13
Ex Machina #13
The shine has maybe worn off a bit on this series for me, but it's still a great read. The flashback at the beginning of this issue is a nice little touch, and the fact that our main character is stuck with jury duty for the whole issue is something I haven't seen before. There's a little bit of a contrived cliffhanger here, but the character it comes from is ominious and mysterious enough for me to let it slide. And I do genuinely want to see what happens next. Rating: Heh.
The Authority: Revolution #10
The Authority: Revolution #10
This series is really starting to pay off. Each Authority character is put to good use here, and it actually seems like they're in some real peril since their headquarters, The Carrier, has been taken over. The end of the issue takes something Authority readers have seen about a hundred times and puts a whole new twist on it. And although I wasn't entirely sure about aging Jenny Quantum so fast, now I see that it was pretty well necessary. This is definitely worth reading once it gets collected. Rating: Yeah!
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