Brightest Day #6 – Wow, I really wish I knew where the heck any of this was going. We keep getting weird little revelations from the past of characters and trying to piece it all together is making me feel like there’s no connection. This is a largely Martian Manhunter centric issue with Hawkgirl and Hawkman nowhere to be seen, but I don’t exactly find myself caring what the hell happened to them. The only part of the story that really interests me is the one going on with Hawk & Dove and Deadman. Now that’s the storyline I’m enjoying as it unfolds, but boy, it is slow going. This issue is decent and seems to balance things out a tad better than other issues. None of the artwork is really terrible, but with so many artists it is hard to judge. I hope we hit some pay-offs soon because this is looking like a bust of Ryan Leaf proportions. This issue is decent though, not enough to be a buy.
Amazing Spider-Man #638 – Hey, Jim Shooter gets some work reprinted in this one. Makes it worth buying right? Let’s see! So Joe Quesada finally decided that this erased history with M.J. and Peter Parker should finally come to a close. The experiment, to me, failed. The issues just felt weird the whole time, so yeah, I’m interested in seeing how they piece this one back together. We get a cobbled together story using the old artwork and story and adding in some new stuff to create a whole new “time-line” for what happened to cause MJ and Peter to NOT be married. Kind of an interesting concept, not sure how well it was executed. That being said, the artwork is all over the place and the best is really the artwork from the Spiderman annual where he marries MJ. I thought some of Quesada’s artwork in One More Day was bullocks, here he can hide it by blending it in with other artists. Quesada’s art has never thrilled me and his art seems to get worse the more time he has off from drawing. This issue I wanted to be good, but it all feels damned disjointed and a tad confusing. Skip this issue and hope the next one is worth it.
Zatanna #3 – What’s this? Zatanna is actually FUN to read? Yes, amazing things do happen and Paul Dini has managed to turn another boring character into something interesting. For the first few issues we’ve been dealing with Brother Night and tracking him down. In fact, issue #2 was an absolute blast and if you haven’t bought it yet, you really should. This brings to conclusion the 3 issue story arc. I’m hoping we’ll get to see plenty more where this came from too. I thought Stephane Roux’s artwork was quite good and everything in the issues just seems to work. While this isn’t quite as strong as the other two issues, it was still very enjoyable. This issue really seemed to zoom by and the climatic battle was a tad anti-climatic. It felt like this issue could have been extended out into two and given us a better send-off to the story. But given what it is, a good and entertaining issue, just not what the last two were. Buy if you’re looking to give something new a try.
Vengeance of the Moon Knight #10 – This series is really getting better as of late. In this one we are treated to the mind of Moon Knight as he takes on a mission with the new assembled Secret Avengers. We get a decent yarn being spun and a look at what Moon Knight is thinking. Makes for an interesting story and it is all over in one-shot. No big two-parter or anything. The story is very well written by Gregg Hurwitz, but the artwork is phenomenal. I’m not sure how to best describe it besides it has a bit of a style you’ve seen out of Robert Crumb, but with a more realistic flavor thrown in at the same time. And guess what? It works. The thing I like about Juan Jose Ryp’s artwork is that there is not much room for taking shortcuts. With that style, you’re almost guaranteed that every panel is going to have an amazing amount of detail to it. It is really fun to see and I can’t wait to see him on other projects. Thoroughly impressed. This issue isn’t a must buy, but it is worth picking up if you’re looking at picking up an extra title this month.
Shadowland #2 – So in this issue Daredevil finally decides if the heroes aren’t with him, they’re against him. Haven’t we seen that somewhere before? This seems to be building towards Daredevil’s downfall. But once again, haven’t we seen something just like that recently? Maybe Marvel will surprise me. I do still like the fact that the Hand is corrupting him and he’s taking more extreme measures. Despite everything else, this issue is pretty good. We got a major surprise in it that would be ruined if you look at some of the upcoming titles in the Shadowland crossover. Thankfully I really didn’t pay attention to that, so I was actually surprised and happy about it. Spiderman does seemingly randomly shows up in this issue and Marc Spector joins the fray, but we knew he would all along. The artwork is fine, no real complaints in this issue and things continue to unfold as Matt Murdock continues to lose his grip on things. Andy Diggle is super busy with this series and it seems like it is coming together now and that’s a good sign. Worth picking up!
X-Men #1 – Ok, seriously. Who thought Mutants vs. Vampires was a good idea? Sounds like an attempt to jump on the vampire craze that’s going on. Marvel has single-handedly decided to kill any momentum the vampire craze has by bringing it back to comic form. Congratulations Marvel! Seriously, this whole concept does nothing for me. We have an exploding vampire and a former X-Man get infected so she’s going to become a vampire. The only good thing out of this series might be the fact that Blade returns next issue. The storyline just seems hokey and the writing by Victor Gischler is even worse. The artwork by Paco Medina is fair enough though and that’s about the only bright spot I could find. This entire storyline is unfortunate because we’re coming out of an event “Second Coming” that I thought was quite good in classic X-Men major event tradition. But in this, it’s like they’re almost ignoring most of what happened. They should be patching things up, Storm should still be pissed at Scott, lots of things just don’t work in this issue. This issue bites in more ways than one.
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Quick Comic Book Reviews – August 8th, 2010
