Friday, March 25, 2005
Mini issue reviews!
Detective Comics # 784, 786 (September, November, 2003)
The main story (written by Ed Brubaker) deals with a series of murders in the 40s in Gotham. The story has the golden age Green Lantern (his weakness is wood? What the hell?) and comics retailer James Sime shows up as a corpse. It’s pretty fun.
The backup story in the first issue is written by Judd Winick and is about Josie Mac who’s a police officer with some sort of telepathic powers. It’s pretty good and leads into Gotham Central apparently.
The other backup is part two of three and is by Rick Spears and Rob G who worked on Teenagers From Mars together. I really loved the first four issues of Teenagers From Mars, and though I didn’t like the last four issues as much I still think these creators are really talented. This story deals with a dog catcher finding the Joker’s dog and not knowing what to do with it. The writing is good and funny, while the art is generally good. I think it suffers a bit due to the colouring, but that’s probably more because Rob G has (I think) pretty much entirely worked in black and white before.
Catwoman, volume 2 #25-26 (January-Febuary, 2004)
These are, I think, the first two issues drawn by Paul Gulacy and the art really isn’t as good as the earlier cartoony art. The writing by Brubaker is pretty solid and there are some nice touches (the gang made up of some of the Joker’s former henchmen). Gulacy’s art however is a mixed bag, while his version of Selina Kyle is pretty good (looks sort of like Trinity from the Matrix), his version of Catwoman looks more like something out of Ghost World then a superhero comic.
Sebastian O #1 (May, 1993)
This is the first issue of a miniseries from the early nineties by Grant Morrison. It’s about a sort of Victorian dandy in, um, a steampunk like setting. The comic’s sort of confusing (like much of Morrison’s work I guess) but pretty good overall and I’d like to read the other two issues. I like the house full of traps.
Namor, The Sub-Mariner Annual 1 (1991)
This is from the early nineties and features four different stories. First there’s an origin retelling that’s pretty basic and forgettable. Then there’s part five of “Subterranean Wars” which I guess was a cross over between various annuals that year. Anyway, it’s ok. However I was amused to discover that it featured Lord Vashti who I recognized from Essential Super-Villain Team-Up. It’s also got Stingray who’s in the next comic I’ll review (who reviews two comics with Stingray in one week?).
The third story is an Invaders story flashback. It takes place during the Potsdam conference and features everyone’s favourite comic book character, Stalin! It’s also got the Red Guardian a Soviet superhero (so I should really wait to review this comic until I review the other comics I’ve got with Soviet superbeings). This comic’s kind of stupid and features the way people are interrogated in the Soviet Union, with vodka! The art’s pretty good in this one, the replacement Captain America is an amusing jerk constantly hating communism. I wish more information on the Red Guardian’s origin was given, the half page used for it doesn’t really help that much. Man, I’m such a sucker for anything about Russia.
The final story included is an incredibly stupid one I’m not even going to mention. Though what the fuck is wrong with the Thing in this comic? It looks like he’s got a weird rocky helmet on.
The last page is pretty neat though, a pinup of the Avengers by Mike Mignola. His art’s awesome.
Marvel Two-In-One #64: The Thing and Stingray (June, 1980)
This comic is pretty ridiculous, however once again ESVTU has helped me understand it better. Mentions of Hydrobase and Dr. Henry Croft, both of whom appeared in ESVTU, make this comic more amusing to me. The fact that the Fantastic Four have giant pictures of themselves in their headquarters is pretty amusing. Looking through this comic again I realized that like 8 billion characters appear and there seem to be like 14 different subplots going on. However the major appeal of this comic is the Serpent Squad (basically the Serpent Society?), they’re awesome.
The main story (written by Ed Brubaker) deals with a series of murders in the 40s in Gotham. The story has the golden age Green Lantern (his weakness is wood? What the hell?) and comics retailer James Sime shows up as a corpse. It’s pretty fun.
The backup story in the first issue is written by Judd Winick and is about Josie Mac who’s a police officer with some sort of telepathic powers. It’s pretty good and leads into Gotham Central apparently.
The other backup is part two of three and is by Rick Spears and Rob G who worked on Teenagers From Mars together. I really loved the first four issues of Teenagers From Mars, and though I didn’t like the last four issues as much I still think these creators are really talented. This story deals with a dog catcher finding the Joker’s dog and not knowing what to do with it. The writing is good and funny, while the art is generally good. I think it suffers a bit due to the colouring, but that’s probably more because Rob G has (I think) pretty much entirely worked in black and white before.
Catwoman, volume 2 #25-26 (January-Febuary, 2004)
These are, I think, the first two issues drawn by Paul Gulacy and the art really isn’t as good as the earlier cartoony art. The writing by Brubaker is pretty solid and there are some nice touches (the gang made up of some of the Joker’s former henchmen). Gulacy’s art however is a mixed bag, while his version of Selina Kyle is pretty good (looks sort of like Trinity from the Matrix), his version of Catwoman looks more like something out of Ghost World then a superhero comic.
Sebastian O #1 (May, 1993)
This is the first issue of a miniseries from the early nineties by Grant Morrison. It’s about a sort of Victorian dandy in, um, a steampunk like setting. The comic’s sort of confusing (like much of Morrison’s work I guess) but pretty good overall and I’d like to read the other two issues. I like the house full of traps.
Namor, The Sub-Mariner Annual 1 (1991)
This is from the early nineties and features four different stories. First there’s an origin retelling that’s pretty basic and forgettable. Then there’s part five of “Subterranean Wars” which I guess was a cross over between various annuals that year. Anyway, it’s ok. However I was amused to discover that it featured Lord Vashti who I recognized from Essential Super-Villain Team-Up. It’s also got Stingray who’s in the next comic I’ll review (who reviews two comics with Stingray in one week?).
The third story is an Invaders story flashback. It takes place during the Potsdam conference and features everyone’s favourite comic book character, Stalin! It’s also got the Red Guardian a Soviet superhero (so I should really wait to review this comic until I review the other comics I’ve got with Soviet superbeings). This comic’s kind of stupid and features the way people are interrogated in the Soviet Union, with vodka! The art’s pretty good in this one, the replacement Captain America is an amusing jerk constantly hating communism. I wish more information on the Red Guardian’s origin was given, the half page used for it doesn’t really help that much. Man, I’m such a sucker for anything about Russia.
The final story included is an incredibly stupid one I’m not even going to mention. Though what the fuck is wrong with the Thing in this comic? It looks like he’s got a weird rocky helmet on.
The last page is pretty neat though, a pinup of the Avengers by Mike Mignola. His art’s awesome.
Marvel Two-In-One #64: The Thing and Stingray (June, 1980)
This comic is pretty ridiculous, however once again ESVTU has helped me understand it better. Mentions of Hydrobase and Dr. Henry Croft, both of whom appeared in ESVTU, make this comic more amusing to me. The fact that the Fantastic Four have giant pictures of themselves in their headquarters is pretty amusing. Looking through this comic again I realized that like 8 billion characters appear and there seem to be like 14 different subplots going on. However the major appeal of this comic is the Serpent Squad (basically the Serpent Society?), they’re awesome.
Labels: comics
# posted by tomorrowboy 2.9 @ 5:35 pm 
