What I Bought 11/21/07

Lousy, lousy week. No books from my pull list whatsoever, and the one comic I did buy, well I'll let the review speak for itself. Hopefully it's capable of that.

What If? Annihilation - Yeah, I know, a "What If?" is rarely a good idea, but I guess I have a blind spot for Annihilation. In ffact, I know I do. So in this version, Drax tries to free Galactus himself, rather than freeing the Surfer and using his power to do it. That backfires, and Galactus, the Surfer and Drax die. Moondragon survived. . . somehow. So Nova reaches Earth fighting the advance scouts of the Wave right during the big, lame final battle of Civil War. He clues everyone in, differences are set aside, lots of still panels of people fighting, oops that was just the advance forces, here's the real deal, hello Watcher and your super-special save the day device that I've never heard of, and there you go.

I think it would have worked better if there had been more issues to work with. You know, an issue for the battle with the advance force, then an issue for the final showdown. With just the one it all feels rushed. The panels feel too stuffed, as it seems like Suayan and Kayanan are both trying to get as many Marvel characters as possible into each shot. I understand the reasoning, to demonstrate how everyone is banding together, but I think they needed larger panels to pull it off, because it just comes off looking largely muddled. Plus, at this stage, I have kind of a hard time believing the heroes of Earth would so readily accept what Nova is telling him, though I suppose the presence of three former Heralds of Galactus might lend some credibility. It's just not so easy to see the heroes doing the right thing immediately, after all the time they spent squabbling over stupid crap in Civil War.

Plus, I'm not sure about the Cap/Iron Man exchange at the end, when Cap says he wasn't going to finish Stark off, and IM replies that he knows, he saw in Steve's eyes that he would 'wimp out'. Wimp out? He was going to spare your life, and that's wimping out? {Edit: Feb. 1, 2008 - Upon further thought, Stark may have been going for lighthearted joshing there. But given the overall all tone I got from Civil War, it obviously fell flat with me.} I guess it's a good thing Stark didn't have Cap at more of a disadvantage in Civil War #7, or he might have just blown a hole through Steve's chest. Would have saved Sharon Carter a lot of grief I suppose. There had to be a better choice of words, that still would have avoided getting too maudlin, which I think is what Hine was going for, to avoid being too serious, but I think he might have gone too far the other way. On the whole, a disappointment, though I'm mostly disappointed in myself for buying it. I'm not sure what I was expecting. Live and learn.

And on that down beat, I'm done for the next couple days. Adorable Baby Panda and I will be back on Saturday. ABP doesn't celebrate the Thanksgiving, because to pandas, every day is a celebration of life's joys and surprises. Which is why pandas are so jolly, with the partying and all.