This is what I bought (if I remember) on June 6th, 2012. Yes, it's too many. I have a problem.
Animal Man #10, Avengers Academy #31, Avengers vs. X-Men #5, Dial H #2, Earth 2 #2, GI Combat #2, Hulk #53, Justice League International #10, Red Lanterns #10, Secret #2, Stormwatch #10, Swamp Thing #10, Thief of Thieves #5, Ultimate Spider-Man #11, and Uncanny X-Men #13.
Overall, this was a good week. Animal Man and Swamp Thing are a bit stagnant too me, but Francavilla was on Swamp Thing this week and it was like watching a horror movie at midnight at a drive in. He's fantastic. Avengers Academy was weaker than usual and I think will be better once this AvX thing ends. AvX finally had something happen, but it didn't thrill me and I'm not sure I can do this for 3.5 more months. I'm tired of it.
Dial H is amazing. I need to reread issue 1 and then read 2 again to piece it all together. If you aren't reading it, do so. Mieville is an amazing writer, and it's awesome to see his voice put together with a fantastic artist.
Earth 2 I liked, but didn't love. I'm reading it for Mr. Terrific, but I guess I liked the Flash origin story just fine, but the Green Lantern story was boring, even with the boy/boy action. I'll keep buying it, I like Robinson quite a bit as an author, but world building needs to be done slowly, and he's doing that, but it's not easy to slowly build a world when issues are 4 weeks apart.
GI Combat was uninspiring and #3 has to knock me out or I'll probably drop it, even with the awesome dinosaur art (which wasn't as awesome ass issue one and looked more static and rigid).
Hulk was good. I like this new direction (and love the cover), especially considering my disappointment last issue. JLI is getting canceled in 2 issues and I feel like I'm at a high school party where we just found out the parents are going to be home in a couple hours, so things are being straightened up the best they can and nobody wants to admit the party wasn't that great anyway so why am I cleaning someone John's house if you know what I mean. I have seen DC's new 4 and am not dying to get any of them, so I'm wondering what else will be shut down (probably going to be a couple on my pull list, I like a couple unpopular comics) and am kinda sorta maybe hoping that nothing too new and exciting comes out so I can save some money.
Red Lanterns was a Stormwatch story that was better than the Stormwatch story, although Stormwatch had a great ending and made me like Apollo even more. Midnighter still interests me, but he's being played up as a vicious killer, which I didn't get when he was first introduced. I am not sure I'm supposed to understand Jenny Quantum's powers, but I don't, and think that in one panel she solved what took and entire comic to build, which may be a creative mistake. I still like Stormwatch a ton. It's my favorite team book in the DC Universe by quite a bit.
Thief of Thieves... umm, I haven't read it. I've bagged it and put it away, but I need to reread issues 1-4 first. That will come next weekend when school is out. Uncanny X-Men is another title that needs AvX to get the hell out of the way so I can have a cool X-Men story. Unit is going to mess stuff up, and I like it. I just wish that we could get to it.
And lastly, Ultimate Spider-Man. Fantastic. I'd say amazing, but then that would be the amazing ultimate Spider-Man, which would be confusing. People on the message boards were excited about the Aunt May sighting at the end. I'm more interested in what Miles is going to do about his own parents and being blackmailed. There has to be a showdown soon. Issue 12's cover looks like a Prowler/Miles fight, and issue 13 has Captain America reaching down to help Miles up, so I'm looking forward to them greatly. Every week when I see the title, it's the one that excites me the most. I'm a fan. It's not better than Amazing, but it's as good, and Amazing has been fantastic.
On the other hand.... These either are on my list that I have been collecting and dropped or am close to buying, just haven't gotten to it yet:
Action #10, Detective #10, Defenders #7, World's Finest #2. Invincible Iron Man #518, Journey Into Mystery #639, and X-Factor #237.
Action and Detective just bored me. I tried. I wanted to like the flagship titles of the DCU, and I didn't. I can't justify the $3.99 price tag for something I'm not really liking. World's Finest. . . I didn't buy the first issue until last week when it was restocked at the store. It was an impulse buy. I didn't love it, didn't hate it, but when it came time to buy this one, I just didn't care enough.
I want to buy an Iron Man book, but it seems to be in the middle of a pretty major storyline right now, so I'll wait. I've read in many places that X-Factor is good, but I think I'll wait until AvX shuts down.
Journey In To Mystery - Every review tells me how awesome this is. My excuse last month was the whole tie in with. . . umm, New Mutants? I forget. But that's over. I should pick it up. Maybe soon.
Big week. Next week looks cool as well, with Spider-Man and Ends of the Earth, Batman AND Batman and Robin (hopefully finishing off those owls, who are sucking the joy out of the Bat-verse), Demon Knights, and ooh, The Shade and (woohoo) Spider-Men, which better be awesome. I have faith, Bendis does Spider-Man right.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Monday, June 4, 2012
Spider-Man Annual #39
This is why I don't buy annuals. It was a mediocre and fine story. It was a long story, and it was only $3.99. However. . .
It added nothing. It's a Grady Scraps story (the best kind of story), and it's shallow and empty and just didn't add anything. I guess I'm right at the grand finale of Ends of the Earth and all of a sudden instead of Doc Ock and Spidery saving the world, you've got Peter and Uncle Ben and completely non-threatening time distortion. . .
I'd have rather re-read ASM 678 and 679. Which I'm going to do right after this post.
It's a C- story with C- art and I guess my real problem with it is the timing of it, which is an F.
Grade: D.
It added nothing. It's a Grady Scraps story (the best kind of story), and it's shallow and empty and just didn't add anything. I guess I'm right at the grand finale of Ends of the Earth and all of a sudden instead of Doc Ock and Spidery saving the world, you've got Peter and Uncle Ben and completely non-threatening time distortion. . .
I'd have rather re-read ASM 678 and 679. Which I'm going to do right after this post.
It's a C- story with C- art and I guess my real problem with it is the timing of it, which is an F.
Grade: D.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
All Star Western 1-9
When I asked the guy at the comic store what was good, one of the first things he recommended was All Star Western. That surprised me, because that was probably at the bottom of my list of ideas. Batman, Spider-Man, Justice League, that kind of thing, were what I was looking for.
His advice was excellent. It was a remarkable change from what I'd expected in comics and in the thirty minutes it took me to read it changed what I was looking for in comics.
I had no idea this was going to be a buddy book. It should be. The dichotomy between Arkham and Jonah is played off perfectly. It's taken a bit of a dip in New Orleans as Cinnamon and Nighthawk add absolutely completely nothing, but Hex and their plan to bring down the August 7 is pretty cool.
There is one thing that is keeping this from being an A. It's a $4 book that has awful backups instead of $4 worth of Jonah Hex and Arkham. The backups have been terrible (although the Barbary Ghost was ok, I'd give it a D+), but the others have been low quality and dumb. I'd rather pay $3 and not be stuck with 8 pages of crap at the end. It's too bad. Issue 1, I couldn't believe how much story there was - it was the best first issue DC printed. The rest have seemed short (although the story moves along much faster here than in other books, Gray and Palmiotti have succeeded there. I wish they had the full set of pages to give me more All Star Western.
All Star Western 1-9 - Grade: Hex/Arkham = A, Backups = D-, Final Grade: B+.
His advice was excellent. It was a remarkable change from what I'd expected in comics and in the thirty minutes it took me to read it changed what I was looking for in comics.
I had no idea this was going to be a buddy book. It should be. The dichotomy between Arkham and Jonah is played off perfectly. It's taken a bit of a dip in New Orleans as Cinnamon and Nighthawk add absolutely completely nothing, but Hex and their plan to bring down the August 7 is pretty cool.
There is one thing that is keeping this from being an A. It's a $4 book that has awful backups instead of $4 worth of Jonah Hex and Arkham. The backups have been terrible (although the Barbary Ghost was ok, I'd give it a D+), but the others have been low quality and dumb. I'd rather pay $3 and not be stuck with 8 pages of crap at the end. It's too bad. Issue 1, I couldn't believe how much story there was - it was the best first issue DC printed. The rest have seemed short (although the story moves along much faster here than in other books, Gray and Palmiotti have succeeded there. I wish they had the full set of pages to give me more All Star Western.
All Star Western 1-9 - Grade: Hex/Arkham = A, Backups = D-, Final Grade: B+.
Batman Annual #1 (and 1-9)
Batman has been one of the top 5 books of the New 52 without question in my mind. It and Batman and Robin I have found to be light years ahead of the other Bat-books. The Night of the Owls needs to end and probably didn't need 85 crossovers (of which I read all, and actually liked most of them and was glad to get exposed to the new Bat-Universe), but I'm about done with it as it no longer seems like much of a threat as all the Talons pretty much got their butts kicked.
Batman 1-9: Grade = A.
Batman Annual: I never know what to expect with annuals. In the past I've usually been disappointed by them, expecting more and better and frequently getting five times the fluff for twice the price. Not this one. Straight up a Mr. Freeze book, this book is awesome from start to finish. The back story of Freeze is creepy and sad, his current motivations are even creepier, and he is extraordinarily powerful, weird, and a bit scary. He's turned into a fantastic villain, which makes me happy, since my only memories of him are from the old TV show and whichever Bat-movie he was in.
This is only the second time I've read him. The first was in Red Hood, and it was good, but this was over the top awesome. I guess I don't like that at the end he's going to be back in Arkham and not on the loose, because I think he could be a fun villain to have around (unlike the Penguin, who has sucked in the other Bat-book he's in). I'm setting the bar here for the grade for this because I hate doing this right off the bat, but this book is that outstanding.
Batman Annual 1: Grade = A+
Batman 1-9: Grade = A.
Batman Annual: I never know what to expect with annuals. In the past I've usually been disappointed by them, expecting more and better and frequently getting five times the fluff for twice the price. Not this one. Straight up a Mr. Freeze book, this book is awesome from start to finish. The back story of Freeze is creepy and sad, his current motivations are even creepier, and he is extraordinarily powerful, weird, and a bit scary. He's turned into a fantastic villain, which makes me happy, since my only memories of him are from the old TV show and whichever Bat-movie he was in.
This is only the second time I've read him. The first was in Red Hood, and it was good, but this was over the top awesome. I guess I don't like that at the end he's going to be back in Arkham and not on the loose, because I think he could be a fun villain to have around (unlike the Penguin, who has sucked in the other Bat-book he's in). I'm setting the bar here for the grade for this because I hate doing this right off the bat, but this book is that outstanding.
Batman Annual 1: Grade = A+
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