What I Bought 1/20/2010

It's a moderately good-sized week of comics for me! Hooray! Four whole books! In other news, it rained around here today. Which means people driving stupidly. That was one of the things I liked about living near the comic store (and university), I could just walk. Saved gas, weather doesn't bother me as much when I walk as when I drive, and I felt less exposed to random acts of vehicular idiocy. Which is backwards, since a pedestrian doesn't have a car frame or air bags around them to shield them from a collision. I guess because I move slower than a car, I had to make sure I had more room to cross streets or whatever, so caution makes up for the lack of my own Iron Man suit.

Amazing Spider-Man #618 - I don't know about you, but to me, Marcos Martin and Mysterio seem like a match made in heaven. Pity there's not more actual Mysterio in this issue. It starts with a list of dead Maggia guys, and how they went. Then we shift to Mr. Negative's ninja guys trashing a Maggia casino, only to be saved by Spider-Man. Which means Spidey catches grief from your average citizens, who are unsympathetic to Spidey's explanation that he has to protect everyone.

Aunt May stumbles onto her employer, who is actually Mr. Negative, up to stuff, and he does that thing he does where he makes people evil with a touch. Or whatever his power is. So May then says harsh words to Peter, and is probably going to destroy her marriage if she doesn't get fixed soon. I wouldn't want to be married to a vicious old lady like Evil Aunt May. Then we learn how Mysterio's involved, and a character I didn't know was dead appears to not be dead. Actually, I didn't even know the character existed, which is the risk you take when you only buy a title once in a blue moon. Which isn't to say Slott does a bad job getting me caught up. I was able to follow most of the plotlines I'm coming into halfway, it was just that particular last-page reveal fell flat. Might be Mysterio's involvement, which suggests fake-out.

Marcos Martin, what to say? He is a very good artist. The page design is well done, and things flow very well from one panel to the next. I mean there is something in the panel which naturally draws your eyes to the next panel, and from there to the one after it, and so on. Really outstanding.

Avengers vs. Atlas #1 - It's another Jeff Parker-penned Agents of Atlas mini-series! Yes! But man, couldn't they have found a different cover artist than Humberto Ramos? His art bears little to no resemblance to the art contained within! Well, at least he's not Greg Land.

The story has two different threads. On one side, the Agents are busy cleaning more messes within their organization, then some seemingly random Lava Men invasion. Meanwhile, the New Avengers deal with the seemingly random appearance of the Growing Man. Then the Agents show up, tracking some distortion, which sucks the Avengers in and leaves in their place. . . the original Avengers! Well, the Avengers version 2.0 (no Hulk, Captain America). At least Atlas won't have to waste a bunch of time explaining they aren't actually bad guys. Then there's a back-up piece where Namora trashes some guys who claiming they're killing whales for research purposes, but may not be (I wasn't clear if they were bullshitting or not), but shows mercy because one of the whales she saved asked her to.

Well, I was entertained. Gabriel Hardman draws the main story, and I think it looks good, though it still has a bit of that Alex Maleev/Michael Lark grittiness to it I'm not sure fits with a story involving time fluctuations and talking gorillas. Takeshi Miyazawa drew the Namora story, which surprised me. It's a more simplified style than Hardman's, but still expressive and detailed when it needs to be, Miyazawa just doesn't need as many lines, which is nice. I hope these back-up pieces are going to be a regular feature for this mini-series. Makes me feel like I get more bang for my 4 bucks.

Oh, and Jeff Parker continues to remember Spider-Man is actually smart, and write him accordingly. Good news all around.

Nova #32 -Why did Brandon Peterson switch to this computer-generated looking style? When he drew some of Brian K. Vaughn's Ultimate X-Men stories, his art was nothing like this. I didn't love it then, but it was better than this. It's too shiny, plastic looking, like cheap toys.

So yes, the Sphinx has added a Namorita to the fray. Reed Richards tells Nova he can't warn her about Stamford and getting blown up, but Reed Richards is a monster who stands against love. OK, it's because he's concerned about the stability of the time stream. Then the Sphinx attacks, driving our heroes inside a pyramid where they're trapped in some sort of What If machine. Except for Darkhawk, who still seems to be immune/invisible to the Sphinx. Then we learn who would actually challenge someone with a reality-altering Ka Stone like the Sphinx, and that person has his own catspaws, who all have something in common.

Well, I'm definitely interested. I like the sheer scope of Rich's What If? scenario. it starts with canceling out a stupid mistake he made earlier in his career (well, more of a dick move then a mistake), but it goes from there, correcting a lot of the disasters of the last few years in the Marvel Universe (Civil War, War of Kings, Annihilation, Secret Invasion). He's thinking big, which is interesting, the number of things he feels he could/should avert. Andrea DiVito's still on the pencils, and I think everything looks fine.

Power Girl #7 - Power Girl and Vartox stop the Ix Negaspikes. Then Vartox starts turning on the charm again, and Power Girl agrees to have dinner, though she's smart enough not to drop her guard. And hey, she's sporting the outfit from that Adam Hughes drawing of the Ladies of the DC Universe! You know, where Selina's the only one in black, and Batwoman's wearing pants?

Ahem, Vartox' attempts at being smooth don't work, but his earnestness actually improves her opinion of him, a little. I think. Finally, Vartox gets around to explaining why he came looking for Power Girl, and I'm still not entirely clear on how they solved the problem Vartox' people were facing, but they did. Yay! Also, Satanna is gearing up to attack Power Girl for defeating the Ultra-Humanite, and she's teamed up with. . . some creeping looking bald guy with huge red sunglasses?

I would say this was a funny issue. Not laugh out loud funny, more goofy smile funny. Vartox is such a cornball with his overconfidence and silly exclamations, that he keeps Power Girl swinging from exasperation, sympathy, and amusement while she's around him. And she helped an entire planet. Well, she helped the non-pirate Yeti portion, while thwarting the hopes and aspirations of the pirate Yetis, but there are no perfect solutions I suppose. Plus, we're introduced to Satanna's sidekick, Angry Badger Scientist!

That's all the books for me. How were your books this week?