Comic Reviews -- Spoilers

Two books this week (not counting the Wizard magazine). She-Hulk and Ares. So let's get right to it.

She-Hulk: Civil War tie in. Starfox is on trial for sexually assaulting a woman. She claims he used his powers (he's able to manipulate people's brains in the area of their pleasure centre and uses this to persuade them to do stuff and to lose their inhibitions) to get her to sleep with him. So of course, Jennifer Walters (aka She-Hulk) is defending him. Like in the last few issues we see evidence that Starfox's powers may be having an effect on those around him and making them act strange (women who were going to testify against him switch their stories once they're in the same room as him). We also learn that She-Hulk even at one point came onto Starfox and had a little "fun". After a series of events She-Hulk starts to reason that this fling was also the result of Starfox using his powers on her. She goes berzerk and despite recently having her powers diminishing for some reason she gets a temporary power boost and pummels Starfox (finishing with a very mighty kick to the nads). But Starfox's father teleports him out before any more justice can be done.

Art wise it wasn't the strongest issue. It was mildly ok for the most part but a few panels just looked awful. I saw some complaints on forums that the art didn't match the comedic aspects of the book... really? This issue was comedic to people? Sure there was a few mild light hearted scenes (like the kick to the nads or Awesome Andy's comment that he doesn't have lips to kiss and the male Hydra guard who fell in love with Starfox and wanted his wife to wear a Starfox costume) but this issue is basically portraying an Avenger as a rapist who even seemed to have used his powers on his own teammates. If any issue of this series required more serious artwork it was this one.

Story wise I'm kinda hung up on this issue. In terms of Civil War it really pushes the need for superhero registration. Over all it's well written. It's tough to combine the comedy of the book with the very serious storyline they are going with and Slott does a reasonable job but I'm not sure he should have gone this serious with it. The plus side is that supposedly Slott has said there's more to the Starfox story than what we've seen so far and I really hope this is true. Because although Starfox has had a very sordid history the idea of him crossing this line kills him as a character. He can no longer be a hero nor can he become a supervillain (not that sexually assaulting characters doesn't make him a villain but because that wouldn't make him a good comic book villain). So I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Ares: I'll make this one shorter and with milder spoilers for Carl's sake (so no recap of the issue). I found the art was a little more lacking in places in this issue than previous ones but it wasn't bad. The lack of backgrounds kinda makes it look a little amateurish. Part of the grandeur of reading books about gods like Thor is the settings and having them always be in a blank background kinda takes away from that. The writing wasn't bad although this issue seemed to be more of a tension builder to the final issue without really doing too much (which is to be expected, calm things down a bit before the final storm). My only gripe was the "5 years later". What the??? I definitely didn't see that coming. I know they wanted to portray a long battle (and have Ares' son get older) but now I've lost track of when this happened (or will happen) as I don't know any time where Hercules was gone for 5 years. It mentions the recent destruction of Asgaard throughout so I thought it was recent so are we jumping 5 years from now? And Asgaard hasn't returned (even though it definitely appears as though Thor will be)? It just threw me a bit and raised some questions that I know they won't cover.

As for Ares, we start seeing a slightly softer side. I'm slightly disappointed in this but it's only slightly softer and it's mostly directed towards his son. I kinda like this Ares. Yeah, you could kinda say he's the stereotypical badboy hero but he's Ares, God of War. If anyone is supposed to be a badboy it's him. And the fact that they made him so over the top bad is kinda funny (like his opinion of women and such). So overall I'm still enjoying this series despite it's shortcomings.

That's all for this week. So go enjoy the 7 minute preview of X-Men 3 or the new Superman trailer or TV clip. I'm not sure which way I'm leaning. Pictures from Superman haven't impressed me but the clips have. X-Men 3 pictures look pretty standard but I don't like what I'm hearing story-wise or seeing of the dialog and directing in those clips. And I'm more of an X-Men fan anyways. And don't get me started on Halle Berry. :) Oh well, I'll see both and buy the DVDs no matter what.