What I Bought 2/7/07

First things first, Chris of the Guys Who Buy Comics, is back as of Friday. Consider yourself informed, and you better read his blog... or else. I have pandas that could make you sorry otherwise.

Second point, I looked through Supergirl #14 and there are three things I'd like to mention. One, Churchill draws the Batgirl suit with the highly visible (and kind of creepy) stitches. Two, Cassandra seems to be acting more in the Deathsroke "killer for hire", rather than the Frank Castle "lethal vigilante" mold. But who the hell knows what that means, with hypos and the remaining missing weeks of that stupid missing year. Three, when did Supergirl get ahold of the Witchblade?

OK, enough talking about dreck, time to talk about what I actually purchased, with the usual warnings about spoilers applying as always.

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born #1 - So, I picked it up. I'm uncertain how exactly to grade it, as it's a story I'm familiar with. Peter David writes well, matching the King's style, but with a few things that feel more David-ish. The part about the love bite, for example, felt a bit like David's humor. Jae Lee certainly draws it well (and credit to painter Isanove), especially in some of the facial expressions (there's one Roland directs towards Marten that I really think conveys Roland's hatred) but...

It's the same problem the Annihilus/Nova fight had. No artist can really make it look as right to me as my own mind already had. For example, Roland's teacher Cort is probably an accurate representation of how he's described in the book, but he doesn't match how I've pictured him (shorter, hairier, more gnarled over, kind of like an old offensive lineman), so it throws me a little. It'll be interesting when Roland starts to get a lot older, since I usually pictured him looking a lot like GrimJack.

That said, this issue shows us how Roland earned his title of "gunslinger", as well as what discovery spurred it on. It seems like this mini-series may focus on the story Roland told his ka-tet in the 4th book (Wizard and the Glass), before moving more fully to his pursuit of the Man In Black across the desert. I thought it was fine, a solid 4 out of 5, but I was a fan of the Dark Tower series. It'd probably be more instructive to see the review of someone who didn't like the books, or had never read them (which is why I'd be curious to see Jack's reactions, were he to read it through).

Warbird #12 - Yeah, I'm going back to using Carol's good codename. Consider it a pickmeup, now that Greg Horn is drawing her covers. It's not neccessarily bad, though Carol looks unnaturally twisted, but I don't feel anything from it. It's not getting across any emotion to me. Ah well, just a cover, what's happening inside.

Well, Carol's fighting Doomsday Man and a bunch of zombie things he set loose. In typical horror movie fashion, it only takes a touch from them to infect a person, so now Carol has imminent zombiefication to worry about, if the amped up Doomsday Man doesn't cave her skull in first. In the meantime, Arana's having to play Zombie Crowd Control, and she's doing pretty well. Better than when she winds up trying to help Warbird with Big Cyborg Guy. At least it finally got Carol's head in the game.

Anyway, we're left with the feeling that lots of people are manipulating Carol without her being aware of their presence. There's AIM, whatever the dealie is in her brain, her publicist, I'm sure her romantic interest is evil too. They always are. Beyond that, the issue left me kind of cold. Maybe I'm still ticked at Carol for being a tool in the Pro-Registration Army? I don't know. 3.1 out of 5.

The Punisher #44 - The ladies are still making preparations to get Frank. Turns out getting through all the info on him is gonna be a little harder than they thought, what with one of them being dyslexic. Man was that out of leftfield, but I figure Ennis will have that come back to get a bunch of the other ladies blown up somewhere down the line. Either way, the ladies are quite serious. They've acquired quite a few guns, and they think they've discovered a chink in his armor (based on the reports of his violence from "The Slavers" arc). Of course, that one crazy lady appears to still be tracking them, so they better, how you say, watch their six.

In the meantime, Frank seems to be fighting a bit of a losing battle with his increasing violence. It's a clever idea by Ennis, to ask "If Frank went to the extremes of cutting out a man's intestines as an interrogation tactic once, why not do that every time? What made that guy special?" I think that's going to cost Frank some bullet wounds. It went fast, but I'm getting more intrigued, so 4.1 out of 5.

Ultimate Spider-Man #105 - Little more wrap-up from the Clone Saga this issue. MJ says something that stops Fury in his tracks more effectively than anything else I've ever seen (short of getting his arm ripped off in Ultimates, when the hell is that wrapping up?). Pete gets to the hospital, thanks Invisible Woman, and has a heart-to-heart with Aunt May. Fury finally comes clean with Peter and - damnit Bendis! How dare you make Fury a somewhat sympathetic character! What are you doing to me here? Black is white and up is down! [runs from room screaming]

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I'm better now. I saw the page where we see Fury has the Scorpion and Gwen Clones in his position. Yep, he's back to being a sneaky bastard. Much better. SHIELD ends up covering for Peter with the neighborhood, which is fitting, seeing as there's plenty of damage caused by their stupid robots. There's still one clone left loose, and I imagine we'll be seeing them again. In an intelligent move, Bendis shows MJ isn't over her recent travails just like that.

I want to give a shout out to Bagley. I know, I do that a lot. Well, I'm doing it again. He didn't get much action to work with (none, actually), but some of the facial expressions.... Peter's as he stands over Aunt May on page 6, Peter's face when Fury comes in behind him on page 9, and Kitty's face on the third to last page in particular. Bravo, sir. All in all, I'd say Bendis wraps up most of the important stuff, leaves plenty of other things open for future arcs, and that's fine. I'm ready to be done with the Clone Saga. Bendis got to have his fun, and do it "right", he did a halfway decent job of it, and now it's time to move on. I really want to see this next arc. I want Spidey interacting with more street-level Marvel heroes, even if none of them like him (stupid Ultimate Daredevil). 3.9 out of 5.