Weekly Crisis Comic Book Reviews for 03/26/08

Comic Day is upon us and would make war with my wallet. With such overwhelming odds, I did concede a few too many dollars this week and came away pretty impressed with most of my purchases. I only feature a handful of them here, but make sure to check back tomorrow for the rest of them. DC was the big winner this week with All-Star Superman and Blue Beetle battling it out for my pick of the week.

In other news, I know I used to enjoy the New Joe Friday's with Joe Quesada and Newsarama, so I thought I'd point out the new column, Cup O'Joe, made its debut on Myspace last week. I know I missed it, seeing as, like Captain America, I don't use Myspace.

While it was basically just Joe Q spouting the company line when it was at Newsarama, he did answer some tough questions honestly and I found myself more pumped for Marvel related things because of those columns and actually looked forward to it every Friday.

The new one, while basically just a intro interview, seems like a bunch of softball questions, far less informative and, in general, a waste of time in comparison. Hopefully it picks up in future editions.

Anyways, on with the reviews!

ALL STAR SUPERMAN #10
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Frank Quitely and Jamie Grant

This might just be my favourite issue of All-Star Superman, to date, and that's a hard thing to be with pretty much nine straight issues of greatness under its belt.

There isn't any battle with Kryptonian explorers or an adventure in Bizarro World or any major threat or definite focus in this issue. Based on the various time stamps on the panels, this is just an issue that goes through random moments in Superman's remaining few weeks to live with a general focus on his writing of his last will and testament interspaced throughout.

Seeing as this is All-Star Superman, you can probably already guess that Superman's 'regular' days in this comic are going to be far from boring. See the cover? Notice the Earth? That's not some form of symbology (bonus points for anyone that gets the joke). Superman actually plays god this issue and creates a new universe and, in particular, a new Earth in his lab just to see how the world would evolve without a Superman there to hold their hand. We see the evolution of this Earth throughout the issue where, at the end, we see a comic creator drawing the original Superman concept design. This is just something we see over the course of several pages and it isn't even a major focus and it's better than just about anything the regular Superman books have done in ages.

Taking the godhood a little further, Superman puts some other affairs in order by releasing the bottle city of Kandor on Mars. He can't rebigulate (no that's not a word) them, but they'll be safe from human interferrance there and the yellow sunlight will make their lives easier as well as let them be free of their prison, prompting Superman to ask why he never thought about doing this before. Exactly my thoughts in regards to the regular DCU Superman's sticking Kandor on the shelf for 60 years.

Oh ya, the godhood comment. Superman enlists a few Kandorians to be, for lack of a better term, super anti-bodies and uses them to cure children in a hospital. It didn't show the aftermath of that, but to onlookers, it must have looked like Superman stuck out his arms and did the whole "you are healed!" evangelist bit as the micro-sized Kandorians went to work in their bodies.

This review is getting long and I've only really described a couple pages of the issue. There's dozens of this little moments scattered throughout this slice of life issue. Whether it's Superman admitting defeat to Lex Luthor and asking him to try and make the world a better place now that he's beaten Superman or just the single page where Superman stops a girl from committing suicide when her doctor didn't show up, whom we saw throughout the issue talking to her on the phone and getting caught up in traffic during Superman's brief battle with Toyman.

There's even some kind of time capsule from the 24th century where the internet has apparently destroyed the English language, reducing it to "l33t-speak" or retarded 13 year old girl instant messaging dialogue consisting of no vowels and as many abbreviations and acronyms as possible. Superman seemed to garner something from the garbled text about Solar Intelligent Systems, but I have no clue as to what it means or if it's a clue to saving him from dying or some threat for his twelve trials.

My only complaint, and it's a minor one, is that Quitely's art is lacking in the backgrounds department. It's like he's so far behind, he can't be bothered drawing them anymore and, if the background is even included in a scene, they are crudely drawn or consist of a sky or shot of the horizon so he doesn't have to draw anything major. I don't really focus on it that much and the characters and composition is still fantastic, but it's definitely noticeable and worth commenting on.

Verdict - Must Read. Seriously, I could go on about at least a dozen more single panel or one off things that happen in this issue that I didn't list in the overly long review as it is. Hell, one panel randomly has Superman counting off his DNA strands that ties in later to his developing a means to possibly clone himself. Sorry, this closing remark will go on forever if I start listing random things again. For Christ's sake, Superman makes his own universe in this issue! Buy it!


DAREDEVIL #106
Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Paul Azaceta

Let's just tag the "Daredevil in his all new EMO series" on this issue and be done with it. Did you read Frank Miller's run on Daredevil? How about when he threw away the Matt Murdock identity in the 90's? What about Kevin Smith's run? How about the two or three times Bendis tore Matt down and made him mope around, lash out at thugs and ignore his friends and loved ones? You read those, too?

Well, even if you only read only one of those, this issue is going to feel really familiar as Brubaker goes down the down and out Matt routine where he gives up on his job, becomes more and more ruthless against no-name thugs in Hell's Kitchen and completely shuts out all his loved ones in this issue.

Is it written well? Yes and I'm sure many will find this to be an excellent issue, especially if they are new to the book or started with Brubaker's run. If you've read Daredevil at any point in the last 10-15 years, though, you've probably read this story before and it's really starting to get old. I hate complaining about a book that's written well, looks well, or, at least, fits the tone and style of the book, but this is about as safe a storyline as you can do with Daredevil because it's been done a dozen times before.

Verdict - Check It. I want to say Avoid It, but it's still well written and newer readers will probably be impressed. Me, though? I kept waiting for something to happen to set this apart and was disappointed on every page because I've read this before.


GREEN LANTERN #29
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Ivan Reis and Oclair Albert

This was everything I feared it would be - a complete and utter rehash of Hal Jordan's origin. There's about two pages at the end with Amon Sur talking to the Red Lantern alien from previous issues and it was about the only interesting thing in the entire issue.

I guess a recap is in order. Hal Jordan was a little boy that loved seeing his daddy fly planes. His daddy died in a plane crash, but Hal persisted in his no fear attitude and, on his 18th birthday, enrolled in the Air Force and became a test pilot for the army. Sound like a wikipedia entry yet? It keeps going. From there we see how he's a hot shot pilot with nary a care in the world and reckless to boot. The rehash takes us up to where Hal's mother died of cancer in the hospital, he washed out of the Air Force, since his mother doesn't want to see him as a pilot like his father and so he wouldn't have to quit, and see how he doesn't make it to see her before she dies.

Simply put, it was a waste of my time and money to buy this issue. Johns claimed in interviews this Secret Origins stuff wasn't going to be just a simple retread and, based on this issue, that's just about all it was. If you just jumped on Green Lantern with the Sinestro Corps War and don't know anything about Hal, then, yes, this could be seen as a decent issue, but this is not new material. It's not even close to being new material. We've seen bits and pieces of this issue scattered about Johns' run already. It's not even new material from him.

As I mentioned above, for $2.99, you get to read about 2 pages of new material at the end with Amon Sur, in a near fanatical state, which was quite the contrast from the way he's been presented when he gave Hal the ring, was the only interesting part of this issue. Why couldn't the entire issue be focused on Amon Sur's quest to know more about the prophecies surrounding the Blackest Night? It would have at least justified picking this issue up.

Verdict - Avoid It. Unless you have no idea who Hal Jordan is, you're wasting your money. Not even the art could save this, as it was far from Reis, or possibly the colourists, finest outing. Just hit up Wikipedia and you'll be fine.


NEW AVENGERS #39
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by David Mack

Up until now, I had been on the fence with the whole Secret Invasion / Skrull nonsense. I was intrigued, but pretty much all the suspense and hype for it was coming from Bendis in interviews. Not once did I feel like the book actually reflected any kind of Skrull threat and what little there was seemed to be the exact words Bendis was using to promote the book on Newsarama, Jinxworld and the numerous other comic sites. The ending to the Illuminati series was the first time I thought this could actually be really cool.

However, this issue killed any kind of interest I have in the book or upcoming event. I'll probably still pick it up, as I'm that guy buying all the crap events, bitching about not buying them anymore and then going right back for more. But that doesn't change the fact this issue consists of Bendis disguised as Wolverine and Echo and preaching his Skrull speech for an entire issue.

I usually enjoy the whole Bendis-speak, where every character magically has the same sense of humour and verbosity, but this issue wasn't like that. It was Marvel characters with Bendis' words coming out their mouth. It felt like I was reading every piece of promotional propaganda that Bendis has spewed out over the last year or so. It's like he finally realized the so called event is starting next month and there is literally no build up other than one random Skrull body the team ran across in Japan.

It feels like everyone is drinking the kool-aid and I'm the only one still standing with the full cup. Where is this threat? Where is the proof or even an inkling of a Skrull invasion? How are they getting an event out of this?

This issue goes way out of its way to prove this point by having Echo, who doesn't really believe in the whole invasion thing, take off from the hideout to go patrol or something (it never explains where she's going, seeing as she doesn't have a home or place to go other than the base) and conveniently runs into a Skrull Daredevil imposter. This imposter, who has Cyclops' optic blast, Nightcrawler's teleportation and Human Torch's flames, among other things, can't take down Echo, even after telling her she's just a human and has no chance. When Wolverine shows up, it just becomes a joke of a threat and the Skrull has to actually run away from two relatively unpowered heroes, in comparison. This makes a believer out of Echo and I guess I'm supposed to buy into this whole invasion now, too.

The only thing I actually liked here was the nod to Echo being deaf. It seems Bendis has been reading fan outcry over the whole Echo "hearing" things when she can't see the person's lips moving and he put a scene in here where Wolverine tried to tell her something and he even points out she can't hear him. It could have been a simple way to show she's not a Skrull as well, but I'm not sure I'm going to give him that much credit for this.

Verdict - Check It. It's not that this is outright bad or not worth reading, but the sudden shift in tone and the feel that this is just Bendis trying to hype his, as of right now, non-event by having the characters spout the same garbage he's been saying all year long in magazines and online. Just felt like he was reaching in a desparate attempt to say, "Look at me! SKRULLS! INVASION! See how crazy this is! Big event coming and the heroes are scared, you should be too!". It might just be me, though, so your mileage may vary.

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