Very late reviews for December 2nd, 2009 (and older)

I was travelling for work last week but I was finally able to pick up my books from last week which included the second issue of "The Stuff of Legend" (my comic shop missed ordering it for me the first time around).

The Stuff of Legend #2 -- I thought that this was advertised as a two issue story but it looks like only chapter 1 is two issues and there's not a lot of closure with the ending of chapter 1. This was a really solid issue though. A lot of emotions at play and unique characters showing their range. And the art is really beautiful and solid storytelling for the most part (a few scenes took me a minute to figure out but weren't too bad). I have seen/heard people comparing this to Toy Story (it is toys coming to life after all) but I think that really does this a disservice, there's so much more to the story and the characters. I'm really looking forward to seeing where the story and characters go so I'm a little disappointed in the length of time between issues (I think the second volume is set to start in the spring 2010, around the same time as the collected version of the first two issues) but at least they're upfront with the schedule. I definitely recommend checking this one out, especially with the Free Comic Book Day book online.

Fall of the Hulk Alpha #1 -- I was on the fence as to whether or not I would be picking this series up but I decided to give it a try, I need some books to review after all. I'll see where it goes and drop it if I need to pick up Loeb's Red Hulk stuff (seriously, even the characters who created him are refering to him as "a Red Hulk" as in "we will create a Red Hulk"?). First up, I love Pelletier's work. I thought the inking here was a little rough but still really impressive art. As for the story, I'm not a huge fan of this trend towards "Look, we have another group of masterminds who have secretly been behind all these events in the Marvel Universe. Isn't that clever?" How many "secret groups" are there and how many have Doom involved? Though I guess that makes sense for Doom. I do have to admit to kinda liking the explanation of this group being behind helping each other out when they get caught or worse, explaining their (and other character's) unexplained freedom and reappearances throughout the years. But in the end I was sort of "meh, it feels like it's been done very recently by the Illuminati and the Cabal." If you're a big Hulk fan and looking forward to Fall of the Hulks this is a pretty important book, but I wasn't really blown away by anything in the story yet. Just have to see where things go I suppose.