What I Bought 5/14/08

So Ken Murphy, who owns Marvels and Legends, is the biggest Speed Racer fan I know. He was psyched up enough for the movie that he and his son drove two hours so they could watch it on IMAX. The verdict? Loved it. He said he wouldn't have gone the way the Wachowskis did if it was him making it, but he still liked it a lot, especially the off-road race. They were sitting in the back of the theater, and getting psyched up every time the movie started playing "the music", as he put it, high-fiving and such. That's a pretty ringing endorsement. Anyway, it's my big week for comics this month, so was it a cornucopia of joy, or a disappointment?

Amazing Spider-Girl #20 - For the record, there's actually lots of words on this cover, though the preview doesn't show that. The arrow has "This one has it all!" The Gene Thompson/May panel says "Teen-age romance", the shadowy figure one says "Tales of Suspense, and the Spider-Girl shot says "Amazing Fantasy". That was kind of cute. Anyway, "Brand New May"? Really? This being a lengthy arc is Quesada's idea. I have no idea if that places the blame for the last page on him, but either way, I am not a fan of the last page. You want a hint? Fine, go to the end of the review, right above the cover for the next comic. Those of you that don't want it spoiled make sure to skip the final line of this review.

It's a bummer, because I was mostly enjoying the issue up until then. May learns how to make web fluid, tells her parents and friends she's thinking of becoming a cheerleader (which is met by stunned silence by the former, and less silence by the latter), and tries to save a classmate from mutant haters, only to have to save the mutant haters from mutants. And Peter visits Normie Osborn and finds the horrifying last page reveal. It's all just a lot of set-up, and if not for that last page, I'd probably be more interested in it. Or maybe not, I don't know. I should be more positive. DeFalco wrote a story I enjoyed using the Carnage symbiote for goodness sakes, so anything is possible. Still. . .

OK, this is the big reveal. Last chance to scroll down. Dramatic pause. It involves clones. No, not Ben Reilly. Yes, you may begin screaming and flailing your arms as you run around wildly. I chose to groan and punch my fridge, but I wouldn't recommend that.

BloodRayne: Tokyo Rogue #1 - That cover is pretty muddled, which fits well with the story. it takes place about a decade before the Automaton one-shot that came out in January, and there's a lot going on. The Brimstone Society was battling the Yakuza, who have been infiltrated by vampires. Some group of well-trained folks attacks the Brimstone Society, burns it to the ground, but kills no one, instead taking them captive. Rayne arrives with her partner from the second game, and goes looking for answers and fights a woman by the name of Ayano, and its pretty even until the well-trained goons get involved. But that group apparently isn't the actual threat, which is instead a fellow named Noburu who bathes in a pool of blood which drips from corpses hanging from his ceiling. I have no idea if he is the Yakuza guy (I think he is, though) or if the well-trained guys were part of the Yakuza. So yes, I'm a little lost. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a little frustrating.

Jake Bilbao's on the art chores, which is fine with me. He did a story on each of the Prime Cuts one-shots, and I liked the art in both, but the art looks a little different here. I think part of it is there's more red, orange and yellow in this story than in those two. Things seem brighter, and I think the inking has been toned down a bit. The characters still stand out against the backgrounds, but it isn't as stark somehow, as it was before. Bilbao's linework looks smoother than it did last month, less of a rough quality to it, though I'm not sure why. It loses points for confusing me a bit, but still a fine start.

Booster Gold #9 - Things progressed faster than I expected. I figured there'd be an issue of team building, then an issue of storming the gates, but Johns and Katz covered it all at once. It's interesting to see, with Max Lord not getting his neck snapped by Wonder Woman, how they try and fit the pieces together. I'm not sure why Brother I is still with Max, as I figured Alex Luthor would have dealt with that, but it appears Alex died sooner than he did in the original time. Not sure who to credit for that. One thing I wonder, since the JLI rescued J'onn from Alex' stupid Dimensional Tuner whatever, did they just leave everyone else trapped in there. The Ray was trapped in that thing, damnit! Get him out! He was in the Justice League with most of those characters!

Anyway, the fight starts, Batman shows up, bitching and ungrateful, as usual, but Booster gets in his face and lays some truth on him. Good for you Booster. Oh, and Superman cried in this issue. Sigh. Oh, and the real big bad guys have decided to make their move. I may be underestimating some of them, but I would say they're outgunned right now, so they may have wanted to move a little sooner. But I could be misreading their motives. I thought this was a good issue, all in all.

Guardians of the Galaxy #1 - I (and a lot of other people) forgot to tell Ken we wanted this series, so he drastically under ordered, which was frustrating him a bit. My bad. So since he gifted me with one of the few copies he had today, I better love this book, huh? Well, I can't say I like that cover, though Rocket with his giant gun is nice, but the style as a whole isn't appealing to me. It is an odd mix of bright and flashy, yet gritty and harsh though, which credit for that. But still not my thing.

So Starlord and Adam Warlock want to set up a tough team to prevent the next Annihilation or Conquest from happening and this is what we get. Starlord's thinking in terms of what's already happened, Warlock in terms of what he fear could happen. It is an odd bunch, with people who want to help, people who feel they have to help, and people who just have nothing better to do. First mission involves stopping a ship of proselytizers from flying into a fissure in space. Except saving the ship involves killing lots of followers, which brings them some attention I'm sure they won't want down the line.

There's a lot of humor in the book, people making jokes, then groaning because they made jokes (Gamora especially), and the interlude that shows us how Nova recruited Gamora is highly amusing to me. Between her and Namorita, Rich must just have a thing for aggressive women. Pelletier's art seems different than I'm used to. Not a lot, it may actually just be the colors, but it seems darker than what I'm used to from him, which is a little odd, giving we're looking at weird space adventure here. Between this and Booster Gold, they pretty much make up for my utter horror at the last page of Amazing Spider-Girl, though I can't decide which I preferred. Oh, and Cosmo the telepathic Russian dog is in this book too! That settles it, Guardians of the Galaxy wins.

The Punisher #57 - Easily described as "Soldiers attempt to capture Frank Castle, Take 1". Really, I knew it was going to be good on page 4, when the soldiers, having thrown smoke grenades into Frank's safe house, crash through the windows as Frank lurks behind a wall, wearing a gas mask and carrying a baseball bat. I like how afterwards, these soldiers realize how dangerous Frank is, even if he won't try kill them. So they regroup, track him down, and stop because Frank threatens to blow up a statue in a cemetery? I'm confused again.

The excerpts from a book that are set throughout aren't helping, because I can't see the point of them. What, war sucks? It's run by incompetents who don't care about the people they use up and spit out? What's the freaking point of these things? Hopefully it makes more sense by the end. This is an odd issue anyway, as it starts fast, then slows down and meanders through lots of talking.

That's it for this week's books. Share your thoughts.