What I Bought 11/24/2010

Hey, Happy Thanksgiving to ya! Unless you're not celebrating Thanksgiving ('cause you're Canadian and you celebrated last month, or whatever), in which case Happy Last Thursday of November! Unless you're across the International Date Line, then Happy Last Friday of November! You are almost to your weekend, so rejoice! Unless you're being forced to work over your weekend, in which case I've got nothing. Look, what do you want? I have a limited supply of starry-eyed optimism, and until my stomach relaxes enough to make room for pie, that was it. Which may not bode well for these two reviews.

Avengers and the Infinity Gauntlet #4 - Thanos loses the Gauntlet thanks to U.S. Ace, but then it winds up in the hands of Dr. Doom, which might be even worse. Things don't go as Doom expects, and after a close call, Spider-Man winds up with the Gauntlet and saves the day. Which is nice because I'm not sure Spidey had done anything useful up to that point. He saves the day using the "reset button" technique, which means no one remembers what happened, except Spidey and one other person. Which would be bad news for Spider-Man, if there's follow-up to the mini-series.

Well, that was fun. I especially enjoyed Clevinger's Dr. Doom. He has the arrogance Doom needs, but there's also a hint of petulance and some weariness, like he can't believe he's allied with these morons. Chruilla's artwork looked a bit rougher this issue, like he was rushed. Or maybe it's the presence of 3 inkers, including Churilla. There was one page, right after the reset button, where Spidey's head seemed smaller, and the linework was thinner. His art still works well enough, though I'm unclear what Doom did in the panel he claimed he helped. Teleport the rest of the team to his location I guess, though I'm not sure why he did it.

Batman Beyond #6 - That's a nice cover. The black and red of Batman and the ground, the mostly white of Hush and the buildings. Plus, Hush's hands on the fissure, like he's forcing it apart, and how he's partially transparent, like a ghost. It works well.

Terry and Dick Grayson head off to stop Clone Grayson, with an assist from the new Catwoman. Still, the heroes are mostly getting stomped by the hijacked Bat-Wraiths and the clone until Old Man Bruce performs a little computer magic to turn the tables. The city is saved, the clone may have died, but probably didn't, and Dick Grayson and Old Man Bruce do not patch things up. Also, Waller deftly covers her rear, and hires a new person to take charge of their clone research. Judging by his last name, he's probably a bad choice.

As much as I enjoyed this, and I did, there were certain things that nagged at me. Little things, but Bruce was suppsoed to be giving the good guys heads up on how to deal with the robots. He told them nothing. Then again, the clone figured out there weak points, so you'd think Real Dick Grayson could do the same. The bit where Waller asks the detective if he's related to Harvey Bullock grated, because it felt unnecessary. It doesn't matter in the story whether he is or not. Detective Bullock doesn't even provide a definite answer, so why bother to bring it up? Let the reader wonder until such time as it's relevant to the story.

Griping aside, I did like how Beechen wrote Terry, Bruce, and Dick Grayson, especially Dick. He's hardened, bitter (with reason), but there's still a bit of of old style. The banter, the rescue of Dr. Reid in the earlier issues. Benjamin's art continued to be OK. I don't love it, but it works. Some of the fight panels are pretty good, but in this issue at least, I noticed a tendency for characters to speak like they've been punched in the jaw. So their lower jaw is jutting out to one side for no particular reason. On the other hand, I like his Waller. She's obviously older, and he can draw her in such a way that she can look like a kindly old woman, but her posture still gives her away as being in charge.