New Avengers #54

I read New Avengers #54 this past weekend, which is the culmination of a few plot lines, all in one issue. It was fun to see things start to get wrapped up as other stories are being spun out. Leaving things dangling is a real pet peeve of mine, so it's fun to see the writer (Brian Michael Bendis) actually wrap up a few things here.

The search for the next Sorcerer Supreme is concluded, and Jericho Drumm, aka Brother Voodoo (and his ghostly brother) has been chosen and accepted.

The deal between The Hood and the Dread Dormammu has also been played out, as the New Avengers alongside Brother Voodoo and Damien Hellstrom fought off The Hood, then Dormammu in the middle of New Orleans.

The fight was pretty cool, but I really am missing both Lenil Yu and Jimmy Chung on this book, as the art has gotten darker and more static since their departure.

So now the story of Brother Voodoo, sorcerer supreme begins. The war of words in the media between Ronin and Norman Osborn continues, and the fight between the New and Dark Avengers builds up a little more.

The team continues to lack a certain chemistry for me, though. It's not about the moments of levity or down time, but rather in the way they fight. I think they need to get a little more organized, and start using tactics a little more interesting than "dog pile the bad guy!" They need their own "Fastball Special", as it were. I mean, guys like Spider-Man and Luke Cage might not have tons of team work behind them, but Wolverine and Ms. Marvel should. Same for Ronin and Mockingbird.

Despite that small gripe, this series continues to be a must read for me, and is what I consider the flagship title for the Marvel Universe.

Draw! Magazine

Draw! Magazine has a new blog here on Blogger.

I've always liked Draw!, and I hope that the content on this blog is just as good as the mag. The last issue had features on Bryan Lee O'Malley and Guy Davis, of Scott Pilgrim and BPRD fame, respectively. Cool sketches, behind the scenes stuff that's really fun to read and reread.

Just can't get going

It's been rough trying to keep going 'round these parts. Sorry for the delays.

Just a quick review today.

Tank Girl: One has been a very interesting read, starting right at the beginning of her creation. Hewlett was a very gifted artist almost right off the bat here, and it's easy to see that the strength of the character comes from his amazing line work. It's inspiring, and it made me want to draw (and ape his style for a few sketches).

The writing is less than stellar, very indie, and adolescent.

The book itself does do a few things that make me all weak in the knees. Mat-finish on the cover is my favorite thing ever for a graphic novel. It feels better to hold than a glossy cover. The art is remastered and very crisp, and the print quality is top notch.

The storytelling is short, sporadic, and crude. The art is sharp, crisp, and stylish. The features in the book are decent, with a good amount of coverage on the back story behind Tank Girl. You can see why she caught on in this volume; she's cool, tough, dressed funky, hot as hell.

Thanks go out to Hewlett for inspiring a generation of girls to dress like his heroine. I know I'm in his debt.

Quick hits

I read "New Mutants #2" and "Wolverine: Revolver" last night.

NM#2 was a bit of a let down, not enough action, too much decompressed storytelling. This was not the new mutants book I loved as a youth. Time to pick up the pace.

Victor Girschler, who is a good pulp fiction writer, penned this Wolverine one-shot. It was cool, I guess, but sort of generic. Probably would have fit better in the old "X-Men Unlimited" book. It was sort of the opposite of New Mutants this week, all flash, no meat.

Kick-Ass #6

I just read "Kick-Ass" #6 last night.

I like Kick-Ass. I like Mark Millar and I have always like John Romita jr. I'm just not sure how much I liked this particular issue.

JRjr draws mobsters like no one else. Eversince his work on "Punnisher: War Zone", I have thought that gritty, street level heroes were his forte. He's okay on X-Men and Spidey, but Romita does suits and blood like no one else in the business.

I thought the inking by Tom Palmer was a little overly loose on this issue. I think Romita needs tighter inks in order to prevent the art from looking sloppy.

I like this series, but I'm seeing more and more decompression in the writing and the art, and I think that they could pack a little more into each book to help pick up the pace. the first couple of issues kept the tempo high, but it's been slacking up lately. Millar has written high-action, yet dense comics before (see the first six issues of The Ultimates), so I don't know what he's trying to do here. I would guess that he's having a tough time filling 22 pages of script, and it feels like he's cheating here, and pulling 17 pages and drawing them out.

In any case, I like the origin of Big Daddy, but I think it could have been better. I think that they could have gone further back in time to see an even younger Hit Girl, and really take the time to flush out their story and characters.

I like the comic, I like the creators and I like the characters, I just think that this latest issue is the weakest one thus far, and it was especially disappointing considering how late the book was. I hope that Millar is able to pick up the pace a little next issue, and that the inks get a little tighter to make the book feel more crisp and sharp.

I also find it very amusing that the movie has already started casting, considering the origin and nature of the characters is only now being looked at in the comic. Millar must be a hell of a salesman.

New Mutants #1

My favorite comic growing up was X-Men. A close second to that was The New Mutants. To this day, my favorite comic character is Cannonball, and just his presence on a comic cover makes me want to pick it up.

As such, the relaunch of New Mutants, starring all my old favorite characters, was pretty much a lock on my pull list.

I read the first issue yesterday over my lunch hour, and I will say, straight away, that I enjoyed it. This book looks to take the place that Jim Shooter's departure on Legion of Super-Heroes left in my pull list, and has a similar feel to it.

Illyana, 'Berto, Xian, Amara and Sam all make the team, and set up the book against an old X-Foe in Legion, and I'm excited to see where it goes from here. I also like the present, but not overly heavy-handed placement of this book firmly grounded in the current continuity of the X-Books.

The art was nice, but not great. I'm hoping they can get Bret Blevins, even if only for an alternate cover. The story was okay, too, if not fantastic. But the nostalgia was fantastic.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

I went to see it last night.

I wish I had something awesome and insightful to offer that wasn't completely covered by the rest of the blogosphere already. The first 5 minutes of the movie really are the best five minutes of the movie, and the rest of the film really just lets you down from the high expectations it set.

The rest of the movie was a convoluted mess. It at times adhered to the continuity of the X-Trilogy, and other times it just chucked it out the window. It had a cool cast, but it watered everyone down so much, that no one got enough screen time to really be cool. This movie needed 4 characters to work: Wolverine, Stryker, Sabretooth and Silverfox. That's it. If this movie was recut, and done to really flush out the characters, then the drama of the action would have been fantastic.

Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson was cool, but "Deadpool" was 9 kinds of lame. Have him in one or two scenes, let him mouth off a little, and then leave the rest alone. He ended up being to this movie what Angel was to X3, just in the way of the real story.

Same goes for Gambit and Blob, who were both there for no good story telling reason. They just ate up screen time that should have been reserved for exposition.

Wolverine says, in the movie, he was the best there is at what he does, but at no point in the film before he says that is there any reason to believe it. He mostly has just moped around and got in his team's way. It would have been nice to see him actually do something that would make Stryker's gamble with the adamantium make sense.

All in all, it had a few bright spots, but I think Wolverine was an exercise in wasted potential, choosing to try and fill the movie with as much "cool stuff" as possible rather than trying to tell a simple story of love lost and revenge.

As far as hero movies go, this one ranks around Blade III, Spider-Man III, and Elektra.