Salutations! Verily, I am glad to be here, mostly because I'm sick of driving, and of throwing off my sleep cycle hanging out with my night owl of a friend (going to sleep at 5 a.m. is pretty standard for him). I haven't shaken the effects yet, since I was not myself when I swung by the store to purchase my comics. I forgot to see if Ken had any of the Layla Miller one-shot, and I didn't check to see if he had any of the Batgirl mini-series (probably my sub-conscious telling me something). Plus, he got shortchanged on this week's Punisher, and he was out of Moon Knight (I want to see Marc Spector fight the Thunderbolts). So the week was somewhat smaller than I expected. But I'll forge ahead regardless.
Batman & the Outsiders #10 - The Outsiders find the club that was shown at the end of last issue, where the weird monster thing can give people powers, if it doesn't kill them. So three Outsiders fight with the newest of the empowered, while Batman gets a little gung-ho leaping onto the fleeing parasite and telling the others to follow his signal. Except the transmitter's in the belt, and that got ripped off, so no one knows where he is, and the team has a new leader. And Salah reminds us of the hazards of psionically linking yourself to a serious piece of cybernetic hardware (really, the second he said he'd decided to control the suit with his mind, you had to know what was going to happen).
I'm a little surprised at who steps up to take command. Of course, taking command doesn't mean you'll be followed, so we'll see how that goes. I imagine if Green Arrow shows up next month he'll be a hassle, but he hassles people he supposedly likes, so I guess that won't be much of a change. I suppose this is it for Dixon, and it'll be Tieri doing the "Batman R.I.P" tie-ins. That should be interesting. A lot of these characters have connections between them (say, Metamorpho-Geo-Force-Katana as the classic Outsiders, or Grace-Thunder from the prior iteration), but as a whole the only thing that tied them together was Batman putting them on the same team. If he's off if his Day-Glo costume busting people in the head with baseball bats, what do they do? What's their purpose? Perhaps they'll become a "non-team", like the classic Defenders (on a related note, I purchased Vol. 1 & 2 of The Essential Defenders this week), each of them going off on things that interest them, that somehow connect. I suppose that's probably only going to work once though, having it be a coincidence that their interests coincide.
New artist this month, a Ryan Benjamin. He (or his inker) is using a lot more lines, which gives everyone a rougher look, which could work if it's meant to evoke things starting to go awry for the group. There are times his faces look rushed, and oddly shaped, lopsided, but for the most part I think he does a solid job, conveys the information he needs to.
BloodRayne: Tokyo Rogue #2 - It's been three months since #1, so I wound up reading this issue, rereading #1, then reading this issue, which seemed to help get everything straight in my head. The first issue seemed designed to present a mystery (who are these people attacking the Brimstone Society's Japan branch, and why?), and to get Rayne to Japan to meet them. This issue solves the mystery, and explains why they needed Rayne in Japan. Unless I miss my guess, #3 will be the big fight scene.
The answer to the mystery is a bit Asimov's Second Foundation, and it's a nice idea, but part of me wonders whether it would have worked better for us to see this story before all the previous mini-series and one-shots that established that the Brimstone Society wasn't, to let the readers wonder about it, and then we could decide whether some of the other stories were signs of misdeeds, or just coincidence? It doesn't hurt this story, I'm merely pondering. Anyway, the real problem is that the leader of this mysterious bunch has one of two swords that belonged a Japanese version of Vlad the Impaler, and his soul is bound to the sword. Part of it anyway. The other part of his soul is bound to the other sword, which is in the possession the mysterious leader's (Hicharo) old mentor, who has been corrupted by the malevolent being within, and wants the other sword. So the big fight's going to be a defense of that sword I imagine.
There's quite a bit of double-crossing, with people switching sides, but not realizing their cover is blown, and characters allowing themselves to be followed to secret bases to set traps. It makes things a little murkier, less clear-cut than simply "find bad guy, kill bad guy", when everyone is being sneaky. It works well with a story about the daughter of a ruthless vampire, who despite what you might expect, fights to protect the world. Keeps a theme of not judging by the outermost layer in play. Jake Bilbao's art is still quit good, though he seems to have added more linework to the faces, which makes the characters seem less smooth than they did last issue. Perhaps the stress of the situation is leaving them a bit weary, since things did seem a bit simpler when Rayne and Severin thought they were just investigating a simple attack. I imagine duplicity could wear on a person, especially one who tends to prefer the direct approach. The coloring interests me, since there are some pages tinted entirely in purple, others in green, still others in orange. I'm not certain what it means, but it caught my attention.
Guardians of the Galaxy #4 - I could really do without Secret Invasion mucking about with my beloved Cosmic Marvel titles. Just have to keep telling myself it'll help the sales, and hopefully preserve the book. A bomb goes off in Knowhere, and Skrulls are among the dead. Skrulls that were in disguise (in case you thought perhaps the Skrulls were merely there to ponder the vagaries of existence at the edge of the universe, though that would be pretty funny if the Guardians got all freaked out about the Skrulls, but in reality they weren't targeted at all). Lots of accusations fly around, as Rocket accuses Cosmo, Gamora questions Warlock, Drax, and Starlord. Meanwhile, it wouldn't be a Marvel comic if the public wasn't wary of our heroes' presence, and the council of Knowhere decides to start questioning them about stuff. Oh goody, beaureacratic hamstringing. I'm with Adam Warlock on this, to hell with the Council. Also, Starlord had Mantis do a bad thing, and Drax knows about it, which means it's certainly not good that the issue ends with Drax loading up with firearms.
Assuming there is a Skrull present on the team, I'm not sure whether it's responsible for the increased strife, or whether it's a side effect of Starlord's bad decision. I see roster upheaval in the future, unless Vance Astro can remember what he's there for (I figure it's big enough people will put aside their beefs to help). I'm curious to see what Peter Quill does from here. He's clearly willing to cross boundaries if he deems it necessary, so are there any boundaries for him? How does he view his team? Are they expendable, and if so, how dire does the situation have to be for that to happen? And are some of them more expendable than others? Is he even the one in charge? Truthfully, I like the idea of tension between the team members, but I think it could have been explored without Skrulls tiptoeing about in the background, and then we'd have more time for that church, and whatever is wrong with Starhawk. Ah well.
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2 comments:
Yeah, Guardians was very disappointing. I think I'm going to check out for the duration of the SI tie-in, I just don't care. All I know is that they had better not get rid of either Cosmo or Rocket, cause they're pretty much my main reason for reading.
Anyhoo, the Layla Miller one-shot was darn good, reminds you how good X-Factor is when they can actually have their own plot, instead of having to take the big event's leavings. The regular, monthly issue of X-Factor came out this week (good job on that Marvel) as well, and it's pretty bad, the first issue of the series I can say that about. One more issue (since I think their SI tie-in is done), if that's not up to snuff, I'm gone.
jason: I'm glad to hear the Layla Miller story was good. As to Guardians, I've considered sitting out until SI is over, but I'm hoping that Abnett and Lanning can use the Skrull paranoia as a way to kick-start exploring things that are more important to them.
It'd make the book extremely ancillary to SI, but I don't find that to be a terrible thing.
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