Thursday, May 04, 2006

Weekly comic reviews

Three books this week but boy were they doozies (at least two of them). We have the start of Marvel's Civil War, the end of DC's Infinite Crisis, and Exiles. Spoilers will be kept to a minimum (you're welcome Carl) and more complete details and spoilers will be sent to only those who I think want them (you're welcome Jason). And now, in the order I read them (based on what I was most keen on reading):

Civil War: Despite some fans claims that this storyline just wouldn't have the emotional impact of a major comic event I think the intensity in this issue was built up well. Heroes are picking sides on the registration act and already people are not happy and emotions are running high nation wide. And in the midst of all the babble Captain America gets to kick some butt. The art was great for the most part. But of course I found myself not liking how some characters ended up being depicted. Maybe it's just me though as I haven't followed some of these characters as religiously as I have the Hulk (who of course is off planet during all this). Which leads me to the issues I have with the Hulk comments, Goliath brings up Hulk destroying Vegas with She-Hulk right there but she doesn't stand up for her cousin. Nobody does. Nobody points out "Hey, it was SHIELD sending the Hulk to neutralize a gamma bomb that started that whole mess." Even the Thing, who was beaten almost to death during that fight and let the Hulk go after a nice chat with him, said nothing. But that's the comic fanboy part of me talking. Put that part of me into a jar and this issue really kicked up the series with a bang (literally).

Exiles (extra spoilers in here since I know Carl and Jason don't read this anyways): We conclude their adventures in the land of the Maestro. Maestro pummels the Exiles, Blink accidentally teleports Sabretooth into space (but for some reason he doesn't go pop, just freezes), and Proteus recovers and, possibly thanks to his reality warping powers and the 2099 Hulk's great strength, he breaks Maestro's neck. Kinda funny, his dialog is similar to the Maestro's when he broke the Hulk's neck in Future Imperfect. I guess that's where he got the idea. In the end, Proteus punches the metal shard out of Morph's head and takes over his body. Then he jumps to the next universe (the Heroes Reborn universe). But I guess that wasn't much of a surprise as this issue has Morph narrating and giving his bio to the reader which in the Exiles is an indication that that character is about to go bye bye. It was still good to see the Maestro (even if he does get his butt kicked). And as for Blink's comment about teleporting his baton (can't remember the word she used but baton seems to work with Maestro), sure it would be painful but with the Hulk it would all grow back in no time anyways. :) A good book but as the Exiles leave this universe I think I'll be done with the book.

Infinite Crisis: Reminder, I'm not a DC fan. Well, this series ends with a bang. Actually, a few big bangs. It's hard to talk about the art as the issue had a variety of artists work on it but for the most part they did a decent job with a few issues. Right off the bat, the splash page opening the book has a few characters in the front properly coloured but most of the page is just red. Why? It looks like the colourist looked at the page, started colouring and said the heck with this and starting slathering red over everything. There's no real reason I can see but perhaps I'm missing something. Maybe it was just supposed to symbolize the battle that was going on but it just looked bad. In the end, a few more people die, Doomsday is stopped in a two page spread (gee, I thought the mighty Doomsday was going to do something impressive), and the Universe is saved (how isn't exactly clear as I didn't think Superboy was vulnerable to the red sun or kryptonite). And the main three characters go their separate ways but are ok with one another. The problems (other than continuity or inconsistencies), many of the death scenes were done in small panels. I guess that minimizes the impact considering how gory they were but it also diminishes it as a death scene. I had to go back and confirm that Superboy was cutting someone in half with his heat vision. They were almost treated like an aside. And some of the things that happen were a little lost on me but again, not a DC fan here. Overall it was definitely the best issue of the series and had some emotion to it. But I still think it could have been presented better. And now I'm done with DC for a while. On to waiting for the Mouse Guard TPB.

And oh yeah, have to mention Lucasfilm's announcement of the original Star Wars Trilogy (un-altered) on DVD! WOOHOO!

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