Quick Hit Reviews – Week of March 23, 2011

Amazing what a sneaky heavy week of comics last week was, eh?  But, we here at WCBR endeavor to bring you the broadest coverage possible, even when we can’t get a full review up for every comic on the stands….

Daredevil Reborn #3 - Ugh.  This is really not good!  I hate to be flip at the expense of something that a comic creator put his effort into, but if Diggle’s run on DD were a boxing match, the referee would be stopping the fight and sparing us the final issue of this miniseries.  Let’s just skip ahead to the Mark Waid series coming in a few months and be done with it.  Here we continue seeing Matt Murdock (and his well groomed neck beard….Where does Matt shave btw?) locked into his battle against small-town cops from hell.  The story just isn’t that compelling.  Matt/Daredevil isn’t a creature of the desert…….he’s a man of the shadows and that’s the only place I want to see him.  Did you know he can drive a truck?  Well, he can provided that he kicks out the windshield first so his echolocation works…..  Did you know while driving said truck, he can also tell when he has cars catching up behind the truck?  Don’t know how that one works…..  Grade: D-

Kick Drum Comix #1 – Now this was some electric stuff!  Holy cow did I love this issue that was actually the very LAST off the pile due to his non-standard format (kinda Golden Age height, but not Golden Age width).  Brought to us by Jim Mahfood, Kick Drum Comix offers two stories of urban action that will be loved by anyone with an affinity for 80’s/90’s R&B/Urban/Punk music.  The first story follows the saga of the Popmaster from his roots in early hip-hop music to becoming a take NO prisoners, hard-core music mogul and his eventual struggle with his estranged daughter.  The second story is revolves around two urban youths with a love for Johnny Coltrane.  Mahfood illustrates the whole issue in a crazy style that is really hard to explain.  His panels are SO content-filled that you can just stare at them and continue to notice great new elements.  Just be sure to buy this.  You’ll love it! Grade: A

Echoes #4 – The psychological creepfest keeps chugging into a strong 4th issue.  As if the basic premise of the series wasn’t disturbing enough (whether a 30-ish man has “inherited” from his father a predilection for killing small girls and making tiny dollies out of their skin, bones & hair), now we are teased with a couple of double-reverses to the story that makes me wonder if it is all in the main character’s head.  Joshua Hale Fialkov is really bringing the plot twists in this one!  And Rahsan Ekedal is contributing great B&W art by being the one thing that this series really needs: creepy!  Grade: B+

Marineman #4 – So what if it is a little derivative of Aquaman?  We all wish Aquaman could be this interesting of a character!  Steve Ocean (a.k.a. Marineman) is a really fun character that seems to have all of Aquaman’s abilities, but he isn’t a dick!  In fact, he’s so incredibly likable that you spend most of the issue cheering for him to succeed.  Ian Churchill is doing career-best artwork on this series too.  Everything about his Marineman just screams “larger than life” and I’ve rarely seen more compelling underwater scenes due to the outstanding coloring.  Grade: B+

Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine #5 - There is a lot of goodness in this issue.  Love Adam Kubert’s tight pencils and am also really enjoying a lot of the fun that Jason Aaron is having with Spidey and Logan now that they are aware that they’ve been starring in a reality program helmed by Mojo.  Probably the most fun is the moment where the two heroes bedazzle themselves with the time diamonds.  In fact, this issue is a lot of fun and has great art, but it is still leaving me a little wanting only because I had higher hopes for this series than “fun with great art”.  I kinda hoped that when you took awesome creators and freed them from the chains of current continuity and a monthly shipping schedule that we could get something “epic,” but it doesn’t look like that will happen.  Grade: B

Osborn #4 - If you’re into Spider-Man or just followed the Marvel U. for the last few years, this title is well worth catching up on because it is showing how Norman Osborn goes full circle back to being a villain as he busts out of the secret underwater prison.  But, I don’t think that writer Kelly Sue Deconnick is going to just send him back to being Green Goblin either.    Emma Rios’ art is really something as everything is detailed as hell and the characters are lively.  She also has a really cool new character design with her centaur-like man/spider-God thing.  So, with all that being said, why is this title hanging out amongst the “B” reviews in Quick Hits?  The biggest problem I have is how Osborn is portrayed.  He is very interesting, but he also seems old and weak (almost Joker-esque) and a little more contemplative than the aggressive, h0t-head we’ve gotten to know over the decades.  I give Marvel full kudos if they have decided to age Osborn, but since they never do that with other characters, why would they be doing it with Osborn?  Grade: B

Wolverine and Jubilee #3 - The good: Phil Noto’s art.  He probably draws one of the prettiest women in comics.  And, not naughty/pretty or cheesecake-y, but just really pretty.  He also does a nice job with all of his other art, but his true area of excellence is drawing women.  So, why bring in a kick-ass artist of women (who is a ‘name’ artist to boot!) and then have part of the story devoted to Rockslide?  That’s just dumb.  It’s like having a pitcher who throws a 101 mph fastball and the catcher keeps asking him to throw a curveball that is merely “solid”.  I think you have Noto draw pretty women until readers get sick of it (the equivalent of making the hitters prove they can hit the 101 mph fastball).  The story itself goes to some interesting places as we are DONE with the Logan/Jubilee buddy adventure in Siberia and moved onto something much bigger involving nuclear fallout and pocket universes.  Grade: B

The Mission #2 – Ya know, this issue wasn’t half-bad.  I was pretty neutral on the first issue and that’s a quick way to get a title kicked off my pull list, but if you’re really into espionage comics, this could float your boat because the story and art are both highly competent.  The basic story is that a man is approached by a stranger who tells him that he must assassinate another stranger.  When the main character balks because the target seems like a nice guy, the target goes on a killing rampage.  So, who is the mission-giver/handler and what is going on?  This second issue also has heavily implied religious overtones.  I find religious allegory to be pretty boring, so that’s not my thing, but it works for some people.  Grade: C

Justice League of America #55 – I really want to like this comic more than I do and think DC would be well served to make JLA akin to Avengers (i.e. the centerpiece of the DCU), but you don’t make a title important by tying it into the Superman books and bringing in Doomsday and relegating the Eclipso storyline from last issue to the background AND…. having a to-be-continued ending that goes to two different books next month.  That’s the downside and why I’ll be dropping this title.  The good stuff:  James Robinson writes well and the issue is fast-paced and fun.  Bret Booth is really on his game with the art too.  Grade:C

Silver Surfer #2 – Is he the Silver Surfer or is he Norrin Radd?  You’ve heard the contrast between Superman and Batman: That Superman really is Clark Kent but that Bruce Wayne really is Batman and Bruce is only a mask he wears to be part of the world?  Well this series seems to be digging into that same question about Surfer/Radd.  Who is he really?  In this issue we get an action packed escape from the base where Norrin was being held and if you’re a huge Surfer fan, seeing him do things without his cosmic power is kinda cool.  The biggest problem I had with this issue is that the pencils look to be mostly by Harvey Tolibao and not the outstanding Stephen Segovia who did issue #1.  I don’t think Tolibao is terrible (although I don’t like how he draws jawlines), but Segovia is good enough to make me buy things that I’d ordinarily skip.  Segovia DOES get his name in the credits, but I didn’t see much Segovia in here.  Wil Quintana’s colors are still kicking all kinds of ass.  Grade: C-

Power Man and Iron Fist #3 – This issue picks up a lot from the first two issue as the duo finally gets into action against what seems to be the primary villain (a dude name Pokerface).  It has one very good scene with Iron Fist having to predict how many minions Power Man can take down before they overwhelm him.  But, the primary problem with this issue is that I still don’t like anything about the new Power Man.  He is just so annoying and it is hard to imagine why Danny Rand would spend his non-Avengers spare time dealing with such a punk.  I took martial arts as a kid and no teachers (and certainly not elite teachers like Danny Rand) had time for punks like Power Man.  Two artists on this didn’t help as I didn’t think that Alves and Pere Perez meshed all that well (although I DO like Perez alone).  Grade: C-

Meta 4 #5 – I really hate to give this such a bad grade, because I feel like there was a really smart comic inside here if I’d only spent a few more hours analyzing the work.  But, that’s my problem: I don’t want to put hours into analyzing hidden meanings in comics.  I guarantee that there are people out there who really enjoyed this and will read this quick review and say, “Sheesh is that Dean a non-intellectual!”  But, I can’t help it because I really didn’t understand anything that happened in this final issue.  I do like the art though: mixed art styles, very emotional with flowing, loose linework.  Grade: C-

-Dean Stell & Alex Evans

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