Friday, June 13, 2008

Weekly Comic Reviews for June 13th, 2008 -- SPOILERS

Going back to that comment I made about buying fewer monthlies, the comic world seems determined to make a liar out of me with another fairly busy week by my standards. Another 5 books. Though one was a one-shot and the Angel series is limited. I'll try to keep things very short this week.

Skaar: Son of Hulk #1 -- Something I said quite often during Pak's Planet Hulk storyline was that it seemed choppy at parts. The narrative and story just didn't seem to have a flow and I had to go back and forth to see how we got from point A to location Theta. I found that here too. There was a few "cut to sometime later" that hurt the reading of the book. And I went back forth a few times to try to figure out exactly what happened at the end. Was that boy that the Axeman smashed Skaar in another form? Is he like his father and he only turns into Skaar at some points? I'm guessing that this will be answered in later issues but some dialogue or narrative to support that guess would have been nice. And the art just didn't work for me. I liked Garney's run on the Hulk and I think it's interesting to try and go without inks but I thought the book suffered in this case. It just looked too sketchy and muddy. But that's not to say the book didn't have a lot of positives. It does look like it might be a good story and I'm looking forward to it but I'm not entirely sold on it just yet. This series is one you may want to wait for the TPB, just to be sure it's a keeper.

Angel: After the Fall #8 -- This wasn't a bad issue of some short stories but at this point, I just want to get back to the main story. Most of this book did very little for me. Even the Gunn part didn't really seem to answer too much and felt like it was going on a bit too long. We already knew Angel freed the dragon which turned the fight around, it was like being hit over the head with it here. There was a hint of something more to Gunn's story but not really enough for me. Even seeing Gunn turned into a vampire seemed off, he still seemed to have his soul or something. Hopefully that also gets explained. I seem to be saying that a lot about this series. I also hope issue 9 picks turns things around for me.

Elephantmen #12 -- I had hoped this one would pick up my spirits after the disappointing Angel book but I was a little disappointed here. It was an okay story about two workers cleaning up after the Elephantmen's release from MAPPO but it felt more like a short story that should be a backup in a giant-sized issue or something. I kept waiting for it to end and an actual Elephantmen story to start up. The art fit the mood of the story well so I can't complain about it. But overall, not a particularly strong issue for this series.

Marvel Adventures: Hulk #12 -- A fun story about the heroes facing off against the Champion of the Universe. Of course it's for kids so nothing here can be taken too seriously or anything. So it's a fun read, I mean it has the Hulk doing kung fu. I really do think they are doing a great job with the series. I'd probably drop it if I really needed to cut back but it's a fun read accessible to pretty much anyone.

Hulk: Raging Thunder -- This one seemed like a bad idea to me. We already have Skaar: Son of Hulk this week, did we really need a whole extra book built to introduce a seemingly throw away "Daughter of Hulk"? Unless she somehow comes into the present from the future. The book seemed to be billed as a clash between Thundra and the Hulk but that was pretty flat. She gets tossed around, drops some rocks on him, steals a kiss, and that's it. I just felt pretty let down by this book and I don't think it's worth the money.

Wow, I really came off pretty negative this week. Oh well, what can you do? I picked up a few more TPBs of Fables as I'm really enjoying that series. And once I'm caught up I may actually go to monthlies. It seems to be written in a way that would make it worthwhile (not all their stories are spread out over 6 issues, it actually seems like you'd get a good read every month).

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