What I Bought 1/16/08

So in addition to the usual comics, I also got my copy of Beyond! in trade form. Haven't sat down to read it yet, but I'll get to that later tonight, I imagine. In the meantime, let's get to the new comics of the week, shall we?

Amazing Spider-Girl #16 - You know what I like about this cover? How Frenz drew the fabric of the costume bunched around the neck, which gives it some sense of being actual clothing. I know, it's a little thing, but those count for a lot with me sometimes. Anyway, in this issue May lets her father in on the recent development with her baby brother, finds out Gene Thompson wants to get back together with her (don't do it May!), and gets attacked by an assassin named Deadspot. Sadly, there is no indication she is somehow the offspring of Deadpool and The Spot. That would be awesome, though, if she were. In the process of fighting said assassin, she saves Black Tarantula's second-in-command, who had also been targeted, and was the one who warned her of the contract.

That's the part I didn't follow. It seems like Tarantula is the one who sent Deadspot after May, but then Chesbro can't figure out who sent Deadspot after him, even though the killer says Chesbro has become a liability. That would seem to make it fairly obvious who sent her, but maybe I'm reading it wrong. I like though, that we continue to get some progress on Hobgoblin's attempts to be the new Kingpin, though I wonder if DeFalco's not putting too many balls in the air, now that there appears to be a new player on the scene (besides Deadspot) that's going to be mixed up in the gang war, besides Fancy Dan (Hey Chris Sims! Enforcer cameo! No Ox or Montana, though. Sorry). I think Frenz' work on faces suffered a bit this issue. They seemed a bit too exaggerated in places, but I like the way things are laid out in the panels. It's not revolutionary, but he does a pretty good job of knowing when to go close up, and when to pull back and show things from a distance, such as when May tells her dad about Benjy's recent wall-crawling. I enjoyed the issue, minor concerns aside.

Where In The World Is Carmen San Deadpool? #49 - I must admit, I'm not sure what Skottie Young is going for with these covers some times. Beyond being amusing, I mean. Which is fine, I'm just curious about the style of his art. So Wade travels to the Savage Land with Weasel and Bob for Irene, to get a doohickey Magneto had, and then they're going to give it to the people of Rumekistan to make their lives better. That's nice. First though, Wade will have to defeat Brainchild and his lackeys with his tactical genius that can only come from playing Super Mario. And no, I don't mean that Wade eats 'shrooms and jumps on turtles. They should save that for the lest issue. Anyway, as is typical, Wade's method of handling a problem - in this case, a stampede of hungry dinos - has unfortunate side-effects, which are briefly shown at the end of the issue.

There wasn't anything gut-bustingly funny in this issue, but there were a lot of scenes that made me chuckle, from Bob's blog entry at the beginning, to how Wade was immune to Lorelei's song, to the contract negotiations, and of course, Wade's potential slashfic comment about Ka-Zar. Given Reilly Brown did the writing, and Nicieza was 'script monkey', I'm not sure who gets credit for what there, but let's just say a strong job by both, aided by Brown's usual strong job on the pencils. I did think the layout when Wade tells Irene that he'll get this doohickey for her, with the small panels with black backgrounds, was a bit of an odd choice. It worked, but it caught my attention when I was reading. Issue definitely enjoyed. Alright, 2 for 2! Can we get a perfect 3?

Immortal Iron Fist #12 - I have nothing to say about the cover. So, we've learned why Danny's father never became Iron Fist. We've learned what Lei Kung and Orson's daughter are up to, and we've learned what the Prince of Orphans does when someone disrespects what the Tenkaichi Budokai is all about. Suffice to say, it involves lots of punching. There's something else to him as well, but I don't know what it is. . . yet. I think that's for next month.

The stuff about Wendell Rand and Davos was very interesting, and Bruaction came up with a pretty logical explanation for why Wendell did not slay the dragon and become Iron Fist, all things being considered equal. Plus, they're doing a really good job of making Davos someone who seems to think he's fine as he is, but who is a sack of garbage as far as most others are concerned. Heck, Davos may even recognize that, but like most villains he chalks it up to them, not him. I can't figure out the reason for the Javier Pulido pages, by which I mean I can't figure why he drew those pages instead of David Aja. Thematically, I can't figure what was special about them. Plus, he draws Danny kind of scrawny. Still, I have to say I enjoyed this. Alright, 3 for 3! Woohoo!