The Week in Comics: Marvel

POSTED BY , 29 June 2007

Recommendation: Buy it

How it Compares to Last Month: Down

Why You Should Pick it Up: This book gets a "buy it" based on David Hine's usually solid writing, Frazier Irving's lovely art... Not on the final direction of the story. If you read "Son of M," another excellent mini by David Hine, this book had the same trajectory: Start with a straight-forward plot; take a left turn at the end of the first issue; follow that left turn; peter out with a non-ending. Fool us twice, I guess. That being said, this book ends with a surprising new status quo for the Inhumans, and a clear opening for Hine's next mini-series (whatever that may be). Though the six issues don't end conclusively, they do follow the character arc of Blackbolt, and we will be picking up; the (conclusion?) next part of Hine's trilogy; he certainly isn't running low on interesting ideas.

Recommendation: Borrow it

How it Compares to Last Month: Even

Why You Should Pick it Up: It really kills to not whole-heartedly recommend this book, especially considering writer Dan Slott is tying up his run with issue #21 (turning the reigns over to the very capable Peter David). The Leader is back, and She-Hulk's (just Jen Walters now, thank you) main rival, Mallory Book is defending him to get their law firm back on the map. The premise is fun, and Slott is a very capable writer. There's even a nice emotional moment for Jen in the issue, when she final realizes she may be a gamma rays addict. But this book has never recovered from the loss of Juan Bobillo, who was the perfect art match to Slott's writing. Rick Burchett, the current artist, is perfectly adequate, but it feels like both his and Slott's hearts aren't quite in the book. That all being said, there's not too much you can hate about a book that ends on Duck World.

Recommendation: Buy It

How it Compares to Last Month: N/A

Why You Should Pick it Up: Forgetting the third/fourth back up stories in Civil War: Frontline (please, please forget them), that book was an essential companion to the Marvel event. So how does WWH:FL stack up? While not as essential, writer Paul Jenkins seems to recognize this is a smaller, more focused event, and sets out to create stories that, if they don't flesh out the world, at least offer a different perspective. In particular, sections focusing on the evacuation of Manhattan are real and frightening (with the social commentary, probably the scariest part, seeming sadly accurate). The Korg/Danny Granville buddy cop team-up? Ummm... Not so much. Though we really hope that before the end of this mini, Korg says, "I'm getting too old for this s*%t."

Recommendation: Buy The Trade

How it Compares to Last Month: Down

Why You Should Pick it Up: Probably the best re-launch to come out of Civil War, Thunderbolts kicks an amazing amount of arse on a daily basis. The villains as heroes angle; the nanobytes angle; even the Civil War angle, have all been played to death, and yet writer Warren Ellis has made them feel completely fresh. It doesn't hurt that artist Mike Deodato Jr. is the perfect choice for this title. His dark pencils make the Thunderbolts utterly frightening, and the circumstances surrounding our "heroes" murky to the max. The fight scenes are perfectly staged, and the plot twists are confidently twisty. So why do we have an empty taste in our mouth? This is a comment that almost never gets given, with our current "paced for the trade" publishing schedule, but this arc actually needed one more issue. The whole first six issues of the run have been such a slow burn, to rush everything like this in the last part feels like we're skipping significant details. One can assume Steel Spider was taken into custody, but not one panel? Not a single mention of his fate? And the scene with Bullseye vs. American Eagle is incredible, but given the other characters lack of screen-time, could it have been one page shorter? These are all quibbles with what is otherwise a near perfect arc. Now let's see the fall-out.

Recommendation: Buy It

How it Compares to Last Month: Up

Why You Should Pick it Up: Now, that's more like it. Mike Carey's X-Men run has been a mish-mash of great ideas with sometime confusing execution. A large part of that may be pencillers Humberto Ramos & Chris Bachalo's fault. They're great at dialogue scenes... Not so much with the action. This issue is chock full of action, and while it doesn't completely work, most of the scenes are the villains standing around and looking menacing, which works out juuuust fine. Okay, spoiler time: The Marauders are back, and the take down the X-Men in record time. Or rather, Marauders record time, as they're probably the only team to repeatedly hand the X-Men their asses. This time around, they have almost an entire team of X-Men helping them out, including Gambit, Sunfire, a Malice-possessed Omega Sentinel, Lady Mastermind, and... Seriously, spoilers... Mystique. Let's be honest, people: who's made a bigger mistake, the X-Men for trusting all these people, or the Marauders for stacking their team with X-Men who will have a crisis of conscience and start fighting for good at the last second? We're certainly on board for the whole arc, we just hope it keeps delivering on all cylinders. As for the Endangered Species back-up, it certainly ends up in a surprising place, if you've never read comics before. As for those of us who have, the only surprise is how MANY villains Beast asks for help. By our count, he's asking the follow most evil dudes alive for help: Dr. Doom; The High Evolutionary; Mr. Sinster; Sugar-Man; Modok; Arnim Zola; Dr. Kavita Rao; Pan; and, um, Mojo. What, no Thanos?

- Alex