Annihilators: Earthfall #1, 2 - Those covers would look a lot better if the colors were a little brighter. Why does everything have to be murky? Anyway, go Bill! Pound him into the ground like a tent peg! Whooo!The Annihilators (minus the Surfer, who dropped out), have inserted themselves into a struggle between different factions of the Universal Church of Truth. Cosmo learns that the UCT is eagerly awaiting the return of their Chosen One, and that it's going to happen on Earth. Off the team goes, to stop the Magus from coming back. Unfortunately for them, the members of the Church on Earth are smart enough to know when to act like terrified humans, namely, when the Avengers show up and see Ronan the Accuser wrecking stuff. Cue fight scene, and ugh, the Red Hulk? His presence lowers the quality of this book by at least 5%. Blasted Bendis, making him an Avenger. Anyway, the Avengers finally get it through their skulls the Annihilators aren't the bad guys, but by then, the Magus is already up and at 'em. In the form of dozens of creepy children.
The Rocket Raccon/Groot back-up involves them in a series of increasingly nonsensical situations that turn out to be Mojo filming a new series, with them as his captive stars.
Well, I could have done without ever seeing Adam Warlock or any of his various selves ever again, but at least I should get to see Ronan crush creepy children's skulls with his hammer. That'll be fun. The Avengers can stand around and talk about how horrified they are by it all. They've lots of practice at that sort of thing by now. I do wish they had a different artist. It isn't that Huat's art doesn't get things across, but I don't think it really conveys the scale of the battles, or the impact of the hits. Plus, there doesn't seem to be a lot of variation in his expressions. And those noses! You could lose your eye on the end of most of those noses! I'm perfectly fine with Tim Green II's art, though, and Mojo doesn't bother me the way I've heard he does some others. Maybe I don't read the X-books enough to hate him.
Avengers Solo #1 - I bought this because I like Hawkeye, and Jen van Meter earned some trust from me with that awesome Black Cat mini-series last year.So Hawkeye finds a man running from someone in powered armor. He drives off Armor Guy, but the man runs, only to turn up at the Mansion asking for help. Then he turns up dead, but not before he'd given Hawkeye a disc with a lot of information on it. After surviving an encounter with Chance, wager-killer-for-hire, and the Return of Armor Guy, Hawkeye gets in touch with a person connected to the recently deceased, and learns about a study conducted where people started turning up dead, or missing. Hawkeye agrees to investigate, only to get caught by Paste Pot Pete?! Oh, Hawkeye, that's gonna be hard to live down. In the backup story, Pym takes along Finesse and Striker to investigate why an old acquaintance tried hacking into the Academy's computers as soon as they were set up.
I'm withholding judgment on the plot for now, but van Meter has a solid handle on Hawkeye. The cockiness is there, but more than that, his determination and sense of duty. Hawkeye's likes a bulldog, unwilling to let go. Sometimes that's good, sometimes it's bad. Like when he wouldn't let Mockingbird deal with her own problems, and contacted the family that was convinced she was dead, without consulting her first. And being an Avengers means something to him, in terms of how he handles himself, but also what it means about helping people. He wasn't able to save Tulio Guzman, and that bothers him, because saving people is what he's supposed to do, and that feeds into the bulldog thing and makes him that much less likely to drop it.
I think Roger Robinson's art would be helped if they'd lighten the shadows up a bit. When Chance attacked, my first though was it was Armor Guy again, and Hawkeye just hadn't recognized him at first. Then I noticed the armor was different, and then the real Armor Guy showed up. I know a lot of the story took place at night, but it's New York. There's street lights and crap everywhere. Is it really that murky? Seriously, is it?
Legion of Monsters #1 - Take your NextWave fun where you can get it, right? Did I see Machine Man's been regressed to his old look in the Hulk books? Booooo!The story is this: There's a Monster Metropolis deep beneath New York, where lots of monsters live, and where Morbius and a few other monsters are trying to serve as a police force, to help create a real society. Enter into this one Elsa Bloodstone, monster killer. She says "monster hunter", or perhaps "monster chaser", but I'd say "killer" is accurate. Or "exterminator". She's tracking a beastie that's been killing people in a small town, and it lead her through a portal back there. The creature dies, but not from Elsa shooting it repeatedly. Rather, something messed with its brain with magic, and Morbius would like Elsa to team-up with his crew to find this problem and deal with it. it's only after he points out that will be less dangerous to innocent lives than relying on her ability to kill potentially 400,000 berserker monsters, does Elsa agree. There endeth the issue.
It's not a bad first issue. Dennis Hopeless introduced all the major protagonists, gave us at least a little peek at their personalities, and we at least have an idea of the problem they face and why it's something to be concerned about. I'm not at all clear on how they'll begin to track down the threat, but I'll guess we'll see. I'm also curious whether the Dimensional Man being stuck in a pipe, rather than in that specialized containment unit will be a plot point. I tend to believe he's the gun we're introduced to in Act One, that will have to be fired at some point, but I've been wrong before. Quite frequently, in fact.
Juan Doe's art is pretty stylized so I imagine most people are either going to love it or hate it. I'd fall into the former category, I suppose, or maybe I'm not most people. I'm really impressed by how few lines he appears to use with Elsa, yet he gets her expressions across so well. The action, when there is some works well. I would like to see the Monster Metropolis fleshed out a bit more. Right now it's some shadowy towering stuff and lots of pipes. Which makes a certain amount of sense, being underground and connected to sewers, but there's a lot more one could do with that, isn't there?
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