What I Bought 2/2/09

No, your eyes do not deceive you! I did receive comics, and I shall review them, even though all the rest of you have moved on to the next big thing! Three weeks' worth of books, which means a grand total of. . . six comics. Jeez. Well, don't blame me. Marvel pushed Immortal Iron Fist and Hellcat back to this week, so it threw things off. No more time to waste, starting with the oldest books first!

Amazing Spider-Girl #28 - Our May teams up with Black Tarantula for awhile, and gets chewed out by her spirit guide for it. Actually, her spirit guide nitpicks her through the entire issue, so she's probably just May's own self-doubts. Meanwhile, her friends' attempt to rescue Peter Parker does not go as planned, and Spider-Girl's left in a rather dire situation at the end of the issue.

The art's looking kind of rough on this issue, probably because Sal Buscema went from inker to finishing the art. It's especially noticeable in how the webshooters are drawn, because they look pretty clunky compared to their more elegant usual depiction. As for the story, it looks to be ramping up for a wild conclusion, one that will hopefully put this Spider/Goblin conflict to bed once and for all. It's been a recurring thing since the very beginning, so I'd say it could wrap up anytime now. Verdict: Annoyed with May's spirit guide, annoyed with Norman Osborn being back, curious to see how this plays out.

Booster Gold #16 - I tell you, when I saw Enemy Ace on a Faces of Evil cover, I about lost it, because Rittmeister von Hammer is not evil! That was the point of all those Enemy Ace stories wasn't it, that just because someone fights against your side, it doesn't make them evil. Then I calmed down and decided to wait and read the issue, and Jurgens got that point across. Which means I'm out a blog post complaining about him missing the point. Just as well, I suppose.

Booster meets Enemy Ace, impresses the Ace with his decency, and von Hammer does the same to Booster. Booster gets a couple of surprises in the issue, and might just regret saving the American soldier he did. I'm unclear on whether the solider would have been OK if Booster never showed up, though.

Something I like about the art is the frequent shots of von Hammer where his eyes aren't visible. Not that he's shut his eyes, more that they're hidden somehow. I think it's Jurgens and Rapamund trying to mimic Joe Kubert, since I think he would do the same sometimes (I don't have any of my dad's comics around to confirm at this moment). Actually, they do it with Booster and the other Germans as well, but not Cyrus that I can tell. Interesting. Verdict: Intrigued. Waiting to see who mysterious glowy person is, and what their plan is.

Deadpool #6 - This issue brings us Wade struggling with various desires. The desire to kill Tiger Shark. The desire to know who sent Tiger Shark. The desire to not let innocents be harmed. The desire to impress one of the innocents that happens to be a cute nurse. His voices seem to be squabbling with each other more I remember from eariler issues. Maybe because things aren't going as smoothly, so there's more room for self-doubt.

I continue to be pleasantly surprised by how much I laugh at this title. In a good way, I mean. I enjoy Wade's excitement at the sight of a machete, and the troubles that come with villains used to doing things with their hands trying to use weapons. I am confused as to how Tiger Shark is able to keep disappearing so fast. He's a big dude with a fin and gills. How easily can he blend in? Great, now that's going to nag at me. Medina's back running solo as the penciler, which is fine. He draws a fine seagull, and I'm digging his fight scenes more than I did during the first arc. Verdict: Laughing a lot, wondering if pretty nurse lady will become recurring character.

Guardians of the Galaxy #9 - I've been down on a lot of Langley's covers for this series, but I dig this one. Maybe because the costume design doesn't lend itself to the overdoing we got with that one Starhawk cover. Or because something's happening. I do wonder why the dead guy has a facial tattoo. Is he supposed to be someone in particular?

Anyway, Star-Lord is sent in to negotiate with the prisoners of the 42, who were abandoned by the guards and wardens of the prison when the attack started. Part of me would like to think Norman Osborn would kill them for that cowardice, and for losing him his nifty extra-dimensional prison, but I'm sure I couldn't be that lucky. Star-Lord and Jack Flag palaver a bit, and eventually settle on trying to contact the Guardians, which they do, and the Guardians head to the rescue, with one minor complication. It caught me totally by surprise, until I realized the full implications of Star-Lord's situation at the start of the issue. Then it was just really funny.

Brad Walker draws the Negative Zone action, and I continue to like his work, though his Blaastar looks too soft, somehow. Maybe he's trying to look more refined and regal, but I would expect Blaastar to have coarser looking fur. I don't know how one would draw that, exactly, so I'm not much use. I'm somewhat less sold on Carlos Magno's work on the rest of the issue. Something about it makes me think it isn't inked, but that he uses thicker lines for his pencils. Faces not in the foreground lack definition, even when it seems like they're kind of important to the panel. It's not as severe, but it reminds me of Stroman's art on X-Factor from last year. Verdict: Enjoying the story, somewhat concerned about the art.

Moon Knight #26 - Jake Lockley is fighting for money in Mexico. Someone offers him money to rescue thier daughter from crooked federales. He accepts, but there's someone else in town that doesn't want him there. Someone with a gun and a skull shirt.

One thing I'm hoping to do in this arc is compare Lockley's personality to Spector's. They should be different somehow, and I'm curious to see how. It would help if I'd brought my comics from the last arc, but just have to go from memory. Right now, I can't really see much of a difference, but it's early going. I'm a bit uncertain about Jefte Palo's art. It strikes me as appropriate for the story somehow. There's a lot of shadows, hard edges, and not an intense level of detail to more characters, perhaps because they're just incidentals. It reminds me of Campbell's art from the last arc of the Punisher I bought, only the linework is more distinct here. Shadows are more generalized here, not seemingly to cluster in dramatic locations quite as often. I think Benson and Palo are driving for a noir feel, with the dirty cops, desperate rich men, and world-weary "hero". Verdict: Not real excited to see Frank Castle in the primary Marvel Universe, but generally optimistic for this story otherwise.

Nova #21 - Worldmind has a new home, Rich is concerned, but appears to be the only one in the Corps with doubts. He chats with the Fantastic Four a bit, chats with his brother, tries to make nice with the Worldmind, but can't shake his doubts, and ends doing the "Charlton Heston sees the Statue of Liberty in Planet of the Apes" move. Well, that's what it made me think of.

I'm torn here. On the one hand, Rich is acting very erratic, so the Worldmind might be onto something. On the other hand, I can't shake the sense he's right about the Worldmind. Everybody's smiling just a little too much when they're around the Worldmind. Oh crap, I just had a horrible thought. No, I won't share it yet. In other news, Wellinton Alves is back for the entire issue, which makes me so very happy. *sings* I'm so glad he, came into my liiiiiiiiife! Ahem. Sorry about that. I just love how Alves draws weird stuff like, Ego the Living Planet, new home of the Worldmind. No it's not a member of the Corps. 'No one would be foolish enough to recuit a planet into the corps.' Ha! I love it. Verdict: Geared up for the finale, but mostly just ready for Nova to get back into space full-time, where all the cool stuff is.

So there we are. Strange, I was only trying to go alphabetically within each week, but it wound up being alphabetically all the way through.