A world of four color magic arrives every Wednesday.
Stories and adventures of heroes and villains, good versus evil.
Tales that entertain and excite by talented writers and artists.
Here are my thoughts Among The Panels.
Thor #1
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Russell Dauterman
Publisher: Marvel
Price: $3.99
Thor #1 is a good start and finish to the current Thor’s story. This issue is really just getting us all on the same page. Thor has been through some wicked bad stuff lately in the comic world and it all comes to head in this issue.
In Original Sin something crazy happen when Nick Fury whispered into Thor’s ear when they were standing on the moon. Thor was so devastated by whatever was uttered that he dropped his hammer and could not pick it back up.
We find him sitting on the moon still many moons later, I know it’s a bad pun but I couldn’t resist, talking to Mjolnir and trying to coax it into letting him pick it back up but to no avail.
We are soon joined by Thor’s classic posse including the recently resurrected Odin accompanied by the All-mother Freyja. They come to witness Thor at his worst and try and get him to return home but before they can everyone decides to play Sword in the Stone with Mjolnir.
Of course no one is able to pick it up, not even the person who gave Mjolnir its power, Odin. Odin throws a fit and then is interrupted by someone telling them that Midguard has been attacked by frost giants. Odin wants to storm into battle but Freyja wants to leave Midguard to protect itself. There is a little conflict between Odin and Freyja about who is control of Asguard at the moment but it’s brushed under the rug by Thor rising from the moon’s surface. He says he’s going to the weapons room and then back to Earth.
Back on Earth the frost giants are destroying an underwater research center with the help of the ever annoying Meliketh the Accursed. He explains through a little exposition that they are looking for something lost many years ago and when they leave they will make sure to destroy the world by freezing it. While he is explaining we get one of the best images I have ever seen in a comic book.
Thor is riding a goat underwater while wielding an ax of some sort. The page is just so brilliant and goofy that it’s hard to turn away from. If the art wasn’t so spectacular it would have been laugh out loud funny. There is a quick battle where Thor is once again defeated. The end of the issue is a shot of the Mjolnir sitting on the moon and someone coming over and picking it up. It pulls out and we see an undisclosed female holding the hammer; an epic ending to a first issue.
Russell Dauterman’s art is commanding all throughout this book. He took the time to show love to a comic that is going to be under the microscope and he comes out looking like a true professional. For the writing, Jason Arron has a lot going for him here and because of the spotlight on his back he has his work cut out for him going forward.
I hope he manages to write this new female Thor correctly. It will be really easy to alienate the demographic you are trying to grab by not understand what all comic book fans are looking for, engaging characters that don’t need to have gender bias’ to be compelling. I wish him good luck and I can’t wait for issue number 2.
Score: 4 out of 5
Death of Wolverine #3
Writer: Charles Soule
Artist: Steve McNiven
Publisher: Marvel
Price: $4.99
I kind of hate that I had to wait longer for this issue to come out and I think it kind of hurt it for me.
The second issue ends on a massive cliffhanger that left you feeling empty knowing you had to wait. At first we thought only a week but a two week hiatus is just too long for something like this. If you are like me and are reading a ton of books every week, you tend to forget about things pretty quick.
This issue does start with a flash but doesn’t really end with a bang. The first two issues gave you pretty much everything you wanted to see Wolverine do before he eventually meets his maker. In this issue we take two steps back.
In the last issue Wolverine lost an eye in his fight with Sabertooth and was about to lose more to Lady Deathstrike when Kitty Pride intervened. This issue finishes the fight with Kitty and Deathstrike in a brutal hand exploding ending. Just after the fight Logan falls down, presumably from loss of blood, and Kitty takes out a syringe full of yellow liquid that regenerates his eye and brings him back from the brink of death.
She tells him it’ll patch him up but not fix him completely.
Then we get a really long and kind of boring talk between the two of them where Wolverine jokes weirdly about suicide. Then the conversations is blown away when Kitty kisses him and it’s revealed that she is currently being possessed by Ogun. Another fight breaks out and Logan is thrown through the side of a building and then is all of a sudden wearing samurai armor and wielding katanas. The fight continues but Kitty manages to overpower him in her mind but not before she extracts a name from inside his mind, Abraham Cornelius. Logan is shocked but has to chase after Ogun.
They end up in warehouse where Ogun makes a deal with Logan to give him the whereabouts of the man who is hunting him in exchange for help. The last page is Cornelius’s face looking maniacal.
This book didn’t live up to my expectations at all. I was so excited to dive in and I found the story shallow and rushed. I get that we need to shove in all of Wolverine’s ties from stories that have been told for many years but this is just getting too crazy to tell a good story. We are losing the connection we feel to Logan by healing him and giving him a chance to survive.
The title is called “The Death of Wolverine” and I know I want what it says. I don’t like that she healed his face and he is now back at 100 percent to go ahead and hunt down someone else. It just cripples the badass story they were setting up.
Still not a terrible issue it’s just not nearly as good as the previous two. The art is still stupid great to look at and pushes this week issue along. Steve McNiven is still knocking it out of the park. I’m ready for number 4. Let’s just hope they wrap this thing up in a way that celebrates an amazing character.
Score: 3 out 5
Gotham Academy #1
Writer: Becky Cloonan, Brenden Fletcher
Artist: Karl Kerschl
Publisher: DC
Price: $2.99
Writing comics for all ages has to be tough. When I read anything from the current Batman run I know that it is not really meant for kids. Having the Joker cut off his face and wear it as a mask is a little too dark for the younger crowds.
Gotham Academy #1 is a near perfect example of how to write and draw mainstream comics for everyone.
When you look at the first few pages of this issue you know instantly that this is going to good.
The stunning visuals matched with interesting dialogue all wrapped in the Gotham wrapper we all know and love.
The life of this book is really based in our main character; Olive Silverlock. She is white haired returning sophomore to Gotham Academy after a mysterious summer break. She pals around with her soon to be ex-boyfriends younger sister named, weirdly, Maps.
We learn through Olive’s inner dialog that something bad happened to her over summer break. We get very little information about it. The two girls kind of have a Nancy Drew adventure where they end up climbing the bell-tower in hopes of discovering if it is indeed haunted or not. When they get to the top Olive looks out over Gotham City and sees the Bat Signal painted across the clouds. This is our first hint of her distaste for Batman. Maps gets too excited and breaks the ancient ledge of the bell-tower and almost falls to her death. Olive swings into actions and grabs the bells rope and repels down the edge of the tower to save Maps.
Inside the tower building Bruce Wayne is giving a speech to the new and returning students. When he looks out the window and sees Olive and Maps hanging from a rope we get another bread crumb because he seems to know Olive. The wrap up of the first issue shows us that whatever happened to Olive over the summer has something to do with Batman and it has changed her in ways we don’t really know but soon we will.
This book does some astounding things when it comes to telling a story that everyone can get behind but there are still a few things that seem like they may be trying a little too hard. The fact that our main character is the semi outcast of the school and that there is a popular girl that hates her is kind too cliché for a coming of age story.
I understand that most comic book fans felt this way in their youth but I feel that we don’t need to include it in a story like this. Just let her be a teenage free of that kind of useless drama. We want to escape from our world and into one where we follow someone who is strong and awesome without constantly being pushed down. They understand how to write and the writing is fantastic despite the clichés.
Okay, now that I said my piece let us talk about the art. I couldn’t have been more pleased with the art in this book. Karl Kerschl’s eye for panel placement and backgrounds is so eye pleasing that it immerses you into the story.
I really enjoyed that he placed these bright and wonderfully sculpted characters in the dusty old backdrop of gothic boarding school. It mixes so well on every page that it’s hard to pull yourself away from the book. It’s captivating and different from what you normally see DC and it’s in a single word: refreshing.
Score: 5 out of 5.
Lobo #1
Writer: Cullen Bunn
Artist: Reilly Brown, Nelson DeCastro
Publisher: DC
Price: $2.99
Over the years there have been a few characters that have peaked my interest but I have never really put the time in to learn more about them. Lobo is one of those characters.
I remember first running into him before I was an avid comic reader on his Superman: The Animated Series appearances. He was instantly someone who interested me. I thought maybe he was bigger and more kick ass than the cartoon would let him be.
This was before the instant gratification of the internet, so I just was kind of out of luck.
I just hoped that he would return and I could get more awesomeness from him.
When I saw that they reinvented Lobo for the New 52; I was excited. The first few incarnations were kind of strange and not really clear if he would be a reoccurring character in the new DCU.
Almost a year ago DC launched their Villains month ties in and we got a new Lobo. This time he was scaled back from his leather jacket wearing space biker origins to a much more sleek and intelligent killer.
Today we got our chance to meet the new Lobo face to face in Lobo #1. Of course we open with the new Lobo talking to the old Lobo. The conversation is kind of funny but when we pull out and see that the new Lobo is holding the old Lobo’s disembodied head it gets us to the point of this comic which is to distance itself from the past. He proceeds to throw the head on the ground and shoot it with a laser. They do a masterful job in crafting this new iteration. He has all the things you know and love about Lobo placed inside a stronger and more capable anti-hero.
This story forces Lobo to head back to Earth. He is tasked with killing 8 of the best assassins in the universe before they kill their mark. We have no idea who the mark is but I am sure it will amazing when it’s revealed.
This book is crazy violent but in the best way possible. It’s pretty rad watching such a badass dude killing aliens with his gut ripping blades. The artists on this book did a great job introducing us to the violence in a way that was not off putting. It kind of reminds me 80’s action movies.
Where the blood was so over the top that it couldn’t even be mistaken for reality; that’s how this book felt to me. There is a point where he just massacred like 8 guys but stops to remind us that no matter what he doesn’t kill dogs.
As a comic reader this was a really good way to show us that he may be a bad guy but he isn’t the devil. He is from another planet where everyone is dead because of something he did and now he hunts and kills bounties to try and hide from that horrific past. Showing us that he will not kill dogs is such a good character device to get us to understand who he is in one line of text.
The writing and art are solid. I haven’t had much experience with either parties here but they managed to make a fan out of me. This is a really good first issue and manages to make an older character more relevant and help push him into greater worlds and stories.
I don’t think everyone will be talking about Lobo #1 with everything else that is going on in comics but I do think that if it stays as good as this it might make a few waves.
Score: 4 out of 5
Edge of Spider-Verse #4
Writer: Clay McLeod Chapman
Artist: Elia Bonetti
Publisher: Marvel
Price: $3.99
Oh how weird this title is shaping up to be.
This version of Spider-Man is so very much unlike what we have seen so far that it feels like an entirely different book.
This issue knows what it’s doing so well that it actually references the fact that you have heard the Spider-Man origin story so many times, but you have never heard it like this. This version is strictly horror and you know what, it works.
Our main character differs from Peter Parker in a lot of ways but still resembles what we know. His parents are still out of the picture, he still gets bit by a spider, and he still is in love with his redheaded neighbor.
This time, however, he lives with his abusive uncle Ted, he is slightly psychotic, and he actually turns into a spider instead of just getting the good things. Even though almost everything in this book is predictable it still was a really fun read. The pacing is done well and when we do get to the unpredictable part it really comes out of left field.
While I was reading and realizing that this Spider-Man wasn’t going to place nice with our recently recruited versions it was kind of nice trying to guess where the story was going to go. From the first few issues we understood the pattern; new Spider-Man, new universe, same result.
This one is very different. Since this Spider-Man is bad how do you end it?
You reveal your villain and let him wrap it up. It’s a genius idea.
This is not the strongest addition to this ongoing series but it being so different in the wrap up and overall story makes it one of the ones that will stand out. Chapman did a good job standing out in a landscape full of really interesting takes on our favorite web crawler. Pair his great idea with the haunting art of Elia Bonetti will stay in your mind for a long time to come. The reveal of our trans-dimensional villain was super exciting and it’s kind of excruciating having to wait until the end to see the Spider-Men go head to head with him.
I don’t usually talk about covers because I don’t like to put a ton of stock into what the front of something looks like. The amount of money shoved into variant covers really upsets me. I understand that covers are the first thing we see and it honestly can make or break you picking up a new title but I tend to wait and hear what others say about books before just going on the cover alone.
Having said that, even if I wasn’t already reading this title I would have picked it up just based on the cover. I love old school horror based covers like this. It just harkens back to my youth where I would scour the depths of used book stores looking for old copies of anything Edgar Allen Poe with gothic based illustrated covers. The colors and images are just so perfect for this book and with Halloween coming up it will be easy to slip into any basket or pillowcase some kid dressed as Spider-Man.
It’s probably a little too graphic and scary for the younger crowd but we can’t shelter them forever!
This is another great addition to this already stellar series. I don’t even care if the end doesn’t live up my expectations because it won’t be able to take way the great start. Seeing as how issue 5 has Gerard Way attached to it. I can’t expect anything but greatness in the future.
Score: 4 out 5
