What I Bought 7/11/07

Oh dear. Eight comics this week. Yes, eight. Insane, I know. For sake of comparison, that's the same number of total comics I bought from May 16th, to June 6th. So yeah, four weeks worth in one fell swoop. This could be strenuous.

Amazing Spider-Girl #10 - So, Carnage is back. This is bad for New York City. On the plus side, the symbiote isn't bonded to Cletus Kasady, it's deranged serial killer former host. Plus, whomever the new host is, they've got enough control that Carnage hasn't actually killed anyone yet. On the down side, they know May - and her family. And SHIELD thinks Spider-Girl was in on the attempted heist. That could make life difficult.

It's not a bad issue. DeFalco appears to be using it to step away from the Black Tarantula/Hobgoblin gang war, let that stew for a while. We get a little more development of the Moose/Courtney situation, and May dealing with the fact her mother might be working at the high school soon. Ron Frenz does his usual solid work. It won't wow you, but he generally illustrates movement well (though some of the angles and positions of characters seemed off this month), and his facial expressions convey what they're supposed to, so I think he gets the job done. I'm reasonably intrigued about next month. 3.6 out of 5.

Annihilation: Conquest - Wraith #1 - Well, dealing with a new character here. What do we know? Well, he looks Kree, but says he isn't. The Phalanx says he's alive, but isn't. His weapon can be a blaster, or a laser-sword/whip, thingie. And he looks like he can manipulate the Darkforce Dimension (where Cloak's powers come from). He's also trying to find a man, with a ring (Does he also have six fingers? Did he kill Wraith's father?), and doesn't know anything about the conquest of the Kree Empire, nor does he care.

Wraith reminds me of a combination of Vash the Stampede and the Man With No Name. Unusual abilities, determined on his goal, ruthless when necessary, and generally unconcerned with others problems (not completely, though). The art is interesting; a bit shadowy like I associate with Mignola, though without the roughness I think of with Mignola. People look angular and dead-eyed, which would work with the situation, where everyone not infected would need to hide, and living would be tough as a result. I don't think it's a great mini-series yet, but I'm interested enough to give it the second issue. Grillo-Marxuach has avoided the pitfall of making the new character too powerful (so far). That can be annoying (I'm looking at Brubaker, with Vulcan, and Darwin. Guys can do just about anything, gimme a break). 3.8 out of 5.

BloodRayne: Blood Red Run #1 - I have to get this out of the way first: the art on this issue is really harsh. Faces look off sometimes, or like they were sketched a bit hastily, the same character's face can look very different from one panel to the next, Rayne's pants are ridiculously low, even by her standards. It made the book harder to enjoy, because it made it harder to follow.

As to what's going on, someone in Mexico City is kidnapping women off the streets. Turns out these women are being turned into vampires, and being put to some purpose that involves medical experimentation. We've also got the return of a villain from the first Bloodrayne game, though he doesn't look a thing like he did in World War 2. That annoys me, seeing as I went to a lot of trouble to kill that guy back when I played the game. I think this mini-series could have an interesting idea, but they need to tighten up the art some. 2.4 out of 5.

Deadpool-GLI Summer Fun Spectacular - Let's be honest: I couldn't not buy this. You've got Deadpool teaming up with the Great Lakes Initiative to stop AIM and their Inebriation Wave. You know, if this is what AIM comes up with now that MODOK's kid has broken them into little splinter groups, the world should probably thank the little twit for that.

After that you've got essentially two storylines running back-and-forth. In one, the GLI keep trying to get Wade to leave their HQ. In the other, Squirrel Girl tries to fix Speedball. That one also includes all the reason I'll ever need to accept Squirrel Girl's victory over Dr. Doom as legit, courtesy of one of her little friends. It's good stuff, I laughed frequently, even at scenes involving Robbie in his really dumb current outfit, that accompanies his really dumb codename, which I will not say, because it will taint the pure fun of this review, so there! 4.6 out of 5.

New Excalibur #21 - Only halfway done? Man, I'm taking too long. OK, the actual cover is nothing like the picture I've got right there. I think the actual cover works better for getting a person's attention (it's Captain Britain at the nose of a jet plane, trying to stop its descent), but we go with what we've got.

Albion has taken out all technology in England. This will allow him to seize control, and rebuild England as he sees fit, or something. If he's got the vision and know-how to do that, one wonders why he wouldn't just go back and fix his Earth. Whatever his reasoning, the Dark X-Men are actually going to team up with Excalibur to take him down (then stab the good guys in the back later, natch). Dazzler's not keen on working with people who killed her, but Wisdom seems to be in a vengeful mood, so he's all for it.

Albion's got himself a two-pronged attack, and while Excalibur seems to have stymied one prong, the probably more important one is still on the loose. All told, even with some new allies this issue, I wouldn't say Excalibur's chances have improved much from last issue. I don't know that this is a good story, but it's captured my interest enough that I don't think anything of coming back each issue, so that has to count for something. 3.4 out of 5.

Nova #4 - Rich is off Earth, and into Kree Space, and he's under attack in less than three seconds. Wow. That has to be in the running for "fastest a place has ever become hostile to an arrival". Nova's up against a lot of those big, purple Sentry robots, but isn't experiencing any real problems until one of the assimilated starts giving the 'bots commands. It's someone with experience on how Rich thinks and reacts, and that's very bad for Rich.

Eventually, Rich gets overwhelmed by numbers, and has to retreat. Except, there is no retreat, and Rich nearly killed himself finding that out. And I don't mean "nearly killed" in the sense of a few bumps and bruises. I mean he resembles a charcoal briquette. On the other hand, it's a real great time to start rebuilding the Nova Corps. Gotta look on the bright side, right? I quite enjoyed this comic. 5 out of 5.

Shadowpact #15 - I didn't expect this. DC's website always says Shadowpact will be out the second Wednesday of the month, then it always actually comes out the third Wednesday, so who would have thunk it would actually come out when they said, for once?

It amuses me that the cops set up their barricades around Dr. Gotham, searchlights, all that jazz, to the point it that it's nighttime, before they sent someone out to find out what he wants. Maybe that's standard police procedure, but it'd seem like establishing a list of demands in a case involving a levitated bus full of kids would be higher priority. It just gives you the feeling Dr. Gotham has just been sitting, waiting for someone to ask what he wants, hence him eating dinner. At any rate, the cops do learn - eventually - that Gotham wants to see Shadowpact, and only the Shadowpact. Fortunately, law enforcement agencies have their phone number. You know, there just seems like there's something fundamentally wrong when the universe's top "mystically inclined" team has a contact number. It seems more apropos for them to simply appear where they are needed. While shrouded by fog. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Anyway, the good guys attack, taking advantage of Gotham's tendency towards Claremontian lengths of exposition. Then, rather than press the attack, Nightmaster in engages in his own bloviating, and Gotham recovers, and well, things go downhill real fast from there. Poor Chicago, now where will Ferris Bueller wannabes go when they cut school? 4.1 out of 5.

X-Factor #21 - There's a dude with a glowy eye in this comic. Gasp, Cable's back from the dead! No, the eye glows red. Cyclops? No, they're a telepath too. Hmm, I got nothing. Then let's move on. Pablo Raimondi's back on the art duties! Jamie tries to patch things up between him, Monet and Siryn! Monet asks uncomfortable questions of Jamie, though not nearly as uncomfortable as the one his drunk dupe asked his drunk self!

*gasps, wheezes*

This talking in all exclamation points is hard. How did comic characters do that back in the day, especially since they could smoke freely? Layla still doesn't like the newest arrival, and things continue to pop up that Layla didn't see coming, so I can only imagine she's gonna get grumpier the longer that persists.

Siryn must be a bad influence on the team. I know she's a bit of a boozer, now Jamie's drinking in the morning, and that has Guido doing the same thing, since he thinks it's noir. Bunch of rummies. I honestly have no idea who this weird guy is (I know his name, he gives it during the issue, but it doesn't mean anything to me). I can't decide whether that's good or bad. Have to wait and see, I suppose. 4.3 out of 5.

Well, that's it. Night, all.