1: F (Judge Dredd); 2: C (Batman); 3: E (Rorschach); 4: A (Namor); 5: B (Lobo); 6: D (Nova)
Archives: Projects
Velvet: October 2014
Brubaker/Epting
Jim’s Review
Velvet #7 picks up the chase for Velvet from the points-of-view of Colt and Roberts. Actually, but for a few panels, this issue offers very little of Velvet herself. It’s not the greatest way to pick up the story arc, and it doesn’t do very much to advance the narrative or tell us anything we didn’t already know, but it does offer glimpses into the minds of Colt and Roberts. Those characters are a little more fleshed out here, and so the world of Velvet feels slightly more populated. The big payoff for this issue is in the cliffhanger, so rest assured, the story-telling pace here won’t slow for long. Steve Brubaker’s command of the hard-boiled/noir voice is as engaging as ever, and thanks to Steve Epting’s art, and Elizabeth Breitweiser’s ink work, Velvet’s aesthetic appeal continues to excel and immerse us in the environment of Cold War Europe.
If you’ve been reading this title, it’s safe to say you know what’s going on, and this issue won’t really do much to move the story forward, but it’s a solid installment. If you haven’t read the initial arc (issues #1-5), you’ll have a tough time fully investing, or seeing this book as much more than a run-of-the-mill, “Spy on the Run” story, but if you’re a fan of Ed Brubaker’s work, or of hardboiled/noir storytelling, this series is still young enough to be worth your time to catch up on.
Verdict: Worth a look.
Amazing Spider-Man: October 2014
Slott/Ramos
Jim’s Review
The story arc seemed to take a step forward with Amazing Spider-man #6. We were given, at least seemingly, a bit of closure with Electro. and we see some direct confrontation between Black Cat and Spidey. Some of the banter between Spidey and Silk feels forced here, and stretched out to take up more page space than is really warranted. That makes for some very busy looking panels, but putting Spidey into action alongside Silk is a nice change of pace from some of the more recent issues that have focused heavily on Peter and his troubles with managing his young company.
For the most part, the art work holds up. The layouts are easily digestible, but I felt during the action sequences with Electro, much of the art was washed out in blue, and the inclusion of heavy dialogue, the exchanges between Spidey and Silk forced a higher number of panels per page, and that broke up the action just a bit too much for my liking. Even so, issue #6 delivers the step forward that Amazing Spider-man has needed, and while there’s nothing particularly surprising here, it’s quite satisfying.
Verdict: Solid read
Top 5 Comics: October 2014
Velvet (Image Comics)
Amazing Spider-man (Marvel Comics)
Detective Comics (DC Comics)
Daredevil (Marvel Comics)
Batman (DC Comics)
Batman: October 2014
Fawkes/ACO
Jim’s Review
Keeping in mind everything I’ve said about Future’s End; I haven’t followed the main title, these storylines are apart from current ones, etc… Batman’s installment is really only a little bit better than that of the New Suicide Squad. The story is certainly more coherent and cohesive. I have a better grasp on what Batman is trying to accomplish, but we aren’t told nearly enough in terms of how Batman arrived at the point where we find him. Of course, this is part of the idea. Future’s End doesn’t want to show all of its hand, but the execution of it feels coy. This may be because Batman feels out of character. He’s desperate and slightly irrational here, and without knowing what got him there, it’s harder as a reader to accept it. In the end, all I can say is this issue feels like another stalling tactic on our way back to current day Gotham City after the events of Zero Year. There’s really no satisfaction in the outcome, and for that reason, it doesn’t even work as a one-and-done.
Verdict: Skip it.
Daredevil: October 2014
Waid/Samnee
Jim’s Review
This issue begins a new leg of the story. There’s still a lot more of Matt than Daredevil in this issue, but the time is spent developing his new love interest, and it’s done well enough to hold interest. We see Matt deal somewhat with celebrity, and even get some interaction with the San Francisco Police Department. In this respect, there feels like there’s some fleshing-out of the new setting with this book, and that makes it a rewarding read. My only complaint is once we do get a little action in this issue, the layouts and artwork make it slightly difficult to follow.
Verdict: Worth a look
Detective Comics: October 2014
Percy/Leon
Jim’s Review
We have a new creative team for this arc, apparently. I will say the shift from the sort of aesthetic we’ve been getting from Francis Manapul to what we see here is jarring. There’s a lot of play on light and shadow, which you’d expect in anything related to Batman, but there’s a certain muted quality to the panels that adds something of a retro feel to the story.
Speaking of the story, we’re set up for a bit of a mystery on a plane. That, combined with the aforementioned retro look to the art, makes this feel like a little bit like an old Twilight Zone episode at first. My initial reaction here is to dislike it, but if I’m being honest, there’s a good chance that it’s just because it feels so different from what I expected. What changed my tune a bit here was the ending. This book leaves us on what I feel is more familiar (and more interesting) Batman ground, and while I’m still getting used to the art, the story seems promising. If nothing else, you’ll most likely have to pick this one up if you want to read part 2 of this arc.
Verdict: Not bad.
Spotlight: Tachyon
First Appearance: Sentinels of the Multiverse: Base Game
Who she is: She’s the Flash of the Sentinels of the Multiverse’s main superhero team, the Freedom Five
Innate Power: Rapid Recon: Look at the top card of your hero deck. You may discard that card.
Primary Damage Type: Melee
Secondary Damage Type: Sonic
Nemesis: The Matriarch, Iron Legacy
Deck Concept: Tachyon’s deck is fast. Super fast. While most heroes won’t get through their entire deck during a game, Tachyon rarely ever goes a game where she doesn’t go through her entire deck, which means you get to pull off all of her tricks. Play and or discard burst cards to power up her deadly attacks. Sonic Vortex—which almost gets the prize for best attack—deals X targets 3 sonic damage, where X = the number of burst cards in your trash, but it loses the top spot to Lightspeed Barrage which gets stronger with every burst card you discard. This card deals a single target X damage, where X = to the number of burst cards in your trash. Lightspeed Barrage caps out at a whopping 22 damage. Not many villains can survive a blow like that.
Deck Strength: Tachyon’s deck has innate card draw. Unlike other heroes, she doesn’t get tripped up by an equipment card discarding mechanic, and she copious amounts of damage when she pulls off her big attacks. She usually pulls off her big attacks every game.
Best Team Support Card: Fleet of Foot: Each Player draws a card. You may play an additional card this turn.
Best Personal Support Card: Pushing the Limits: You may play an additional card during your play phase and draw an additional card during your draw phase. At the start of your turn, either Tachyon deals herself 2 sonic damage or this card is destroyed.
Best Attack: Lightspeed Barrage: Tachyon deals 1 target X melee damage, where X = the number of burst cards in your trash.
Deck Weakness: You have to build up to her large attacks because her smaller attacks don’t do much of anything, especially if the targets in question have armor—and most do. If she can’t draw cards, Tachyon’s in big trouble. She doesn’t have a lot of defense and no healing factors, so she can deal out a barrage of damage, but she can’t take one. Then you have some game mechanics that make heroes shuffle their discard pile into their trash, and this mechanic kills Tachyon’s best attacks. It’s like starting the game over.
Worst Card: Sucker Punch: Destroy 1 target with 2 or fewer HP.
Ultimate Team-up: It’s as if the creative team behind Sentinels of the Multiverse made the Visionary to go along with Tachyon. The Visionary grants Tachyon extra draw power and allows Tachyon to discard a burst card (which powers up Tachyon’s excellent attacks). But that wasn’t enough, the Visionary also has a means of shielding Tachyon from damage and that’s always a good thing.
Tempest’s Reclaim from the Deep can allow Tachyon to play Lightspeed Barrage a second time without reshuffling her deck, which is always handy. Other than these two obvious teammates, Tachyon benefits from anyone else who can redirect damage or boost her damage so her smaller attacks aren’t useless. Here’s looking at you, Legacy.
Geekly TV: October 3, 2014
Gotham
Jim’s Review
With a lot of the obligatory origin material taken care of in the pilot episode, this week’s episode allowed us a little time to explore the city the show’s built so far. This also made the storyline seem a little less cluttered this week as the writers weren’t so clearly pressed to give equal screen time to all the plot threads.
Maybe most importantly, Selina Kyle (Catwoman-to-be) actually had some lines this week. Once again, she felt a little inconsequential to the events of the episode, but letting her speak at least gives us a feel for the character as Gotham will portray her. I found her delivery to be a little awkward, but as far as I’m concerned, young actors get a little latitude.
In general, the performances felt a bit off. Fish Mooney’s over-pronunciation gives her an odd, quasi-English accent, and it takes me out of her scenes somewhat. Carmine Falcone got a bit more screen time, and I’m still enjoying his part of the show. The dynamic between Harvey Bullock and Jim Gordon worked well again, but I thought the repeated mentioning of Gordon “getting on board” was heavy handed.
Subtlety is something the show needs to get better at. Right now, they’re relying very heavily on archetypal characters. For example, the mayor feels too much like an uncaring, straw-man politician. Ultimately, that makes the character flat. A heavy dose of pragmatism works wonders in making the Bullock character more fully rendered, and I think that trick could work with the mayor and other characters on the show. If we’re dealing with people who are not simply “bad guys,” but rather just too lazy, scared, or pessimistic to make changes in the city, it’s more believable that with better leadership, things could improve.
There was also a bit of fan service in this episode. Without tossing around major spoilers, we get our first mention of Arkham Asylum, and our first DC supervillain already at work (not just in their origin like Edward Nygma). It seems they’re treading lightly, trying not to let Batman’s rogue’s gallery get ahead of him, but I’m a little nervous that they’ll lose patience on this. I’d rather see them stay focused on the more down-to-earth villains at work in Gotham, like the Falcone family, and Fish Mooney’s power struggle.
Verdict: I remain cautiously optimistic.
Kyle’s Take:
Jim and I pretty much agree. This episode was a lot more watchable than the pilot, but the series suffers from a lack of subtlety (see Jim’s review: character depth) and the heavy handedness of foreshadowing (akin to the subtlety issue). If I hear one more Penguin reference, I’m gonna squawk. It reminds me of the movie Titanic where “unsinkable” or some derivative was used fifty times in twenty minutes of film. We get it. Move on. And I will move on to Bruce Wayne. The Wayne story arc is one hot mess: an unlikable Alfred (I wanted to like this unique portrayal but can’t), and the attitude of hey, Gordon, I just met you and this is crazy, but here’s the Wayne kid, so raise him maybe. Still, I enjoyed the Cat on the prowl, even if she didn’t factor into the overall events as much as I’d like, and despite its flaws, Gotham has done enough to keep me watching for another week.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Jim’s Review
I don’t know whether or not I’d say the second episode of the season was an improvement, but it wasn’t a step backward. We were given a little closure—or at least movement—on a couple of the secondary storylines. Given that one of my primary gripes with season one was that it felt like a long holding-pattern until Winter Soldier came out, a little plot progress is a welcome sight.
With that said, I still just don’t care about the mercenaries’ stories. I don’t feel they were ever fleshed out, and so I never invested in any of the characters. That detracted from some of the intended sentiment, which really just fell flat for me.
It’s hard to get into my concerns with this season without giving away too many plot spoilers, but I can sum it up by saying it’s beginning to seem like the show’s writers are working off a template. The formula of unclear allegiances and murky background information is wearing thin. It’s made worse by the fact that they’re still farming Coulson’s character for the mystery part of the formula. It’s understandable. Coulson is really the only fully-developed character on the show (thanks to the movies), but it’s beginning to come off as lazier than I’m willing to forgive.
It’s also problematic for me that once again we see Coulson choosing to place his faith in a character that has double-crossed him before. I understand that S.H.I.E.L.D. finds itself understaffed and stretched thin after the events of Winter Soldier, but they’re running the risk of making Coulson appear incompetent.
The preview for next week’s episode promises for more movement on the Fitz and Simmons plot, but it appears they’re going back to their well of dubious loyalties for a source of tension, and the relationship between Fitz and Simmons never had time to breathe after the events of last season’s finale, which makes such immediate confrontation feel like the show is on fast-forward.
It’s not so much that I’m upset about where this show is, it’s just that I see no real signs that it’s going to make satisfying progress without being forced to by the next Marvel movie.
Verdict: It’s still watchable.
The Awesomes
Kyle’s Review
The final episode of this season skimped on the jokes—minor spoiler: one of the best laughs has to be after an alien invasion begins and a news correspondent reveals how best to get ready, “prepare your grave ahead of time for the easy burying of any body parts you have left”—but it delivered on the promised super villain team and the inevitable beat-em-up. Oddly enough The Awesomes had better character development and payoff than any of the other shows in this review. But this week’s episode was the season finale as opposed to an early season episode. Still, it left me satisfied.
Perfect Man gets back to a more palatable character. I still don’t like him, and that’s the point, but I prefer this variant of Perfect Man. Even better is the fact that his oddball, loosely relevant story threads of this year actually make some sense with the main storyline.
I love how we’re introduced to an alien world, learn few things about this world, and all of the things we learn make another appearance in the episode. We get images that build on each other throughout the story. Even the solution the heroes come up with to defeat the villains is deeply rooted in this odd world that’s familiar, even though we just met it.
This episode takes everything that’s good about the Awesomes and condenses it into twenty minutes. You could watch just this episode and get a feel for who each character is. Thank goodness Hulu renewed the Awesomes for another season.
The creative team introduced next year’s main story arc at the end of this episode, and by the looks of the story they introduced, it can go one of two ways: extremely well or the show just jumped the shark. If this season taught me anything, I’ve learned to trust this creative team and go with the former over the latter. Either way, next season can’t come soon enough.
Verdict: Great show
Comic Book Reviews for the Week of 10/1/2014
Action Comics #35
DC Comics
Pak/Kolins/Cifuentes
As the cover implies, we’re still dealing with the fallout from the “Doomed” storyline. Actually, the cover gives away pretty much all of this issue. There’s not really much in the way of plot development accomplished here. Pak is instead going for character development. To do that, he poses the classic comic book question: Do superheroes just lead to supervillains? The question on the cover, “Who Needs Superman?” is from a headline written by Clark Kent himself. This is meant to convey inner conflict, but for me, it comes off as maudlin navel-gazing. The answer to the question, suggested by a different character, makes it no better. I think what Pak is doing here is a lot of setup work, but there’s nothing in it that makes me feel like this section of narrative warranted its own issue.
The art was more or less what it has been. We see Clark/Supes with a castaway beard that later becomes a depression beard. What makes that odd, and not just cliche, is that it somehow manages to make him look more baby-faced. Here’s hoping that it doesn’t last.
Verdict: You can probably skip it.
Detective Comics #35
DC Comics
Percy/Leon
We have a new creative team for this arc, apparently. I will say the shift from the sort of aesthetic we’ve been getting from Francis Manapul to what we see here is jarring. There’s a lot of play on light and shadow, which you’d expect in anything related to Batman, but there’s a certain muted quality to the panels that adds something of a retro feel to the story.
Speaking of the story, we’re set up for a bit of a mystery on a plane. That, combined with the aforementioned retro look to the art, makes this feel like a little bit like an old Twilight Zone episode at first. My initial reaction here is to dislike it, but if I’m being honest, there’s a good chance that it’s just because it feels so different from what I expected. What changed my tune a bit here was the ending. This book leaves us on what I feel is more familiar (and more interesting) Batman ground, and while I’m still getting used to the art, the story seems promising. If nothing else, you’ll most likely have to pick this one up if you want to read part 2 of this arc.
Verdict: Not bad.
Justice League #34
DC Comics
Johns/Kolins
There wasn’t a lot of plot progress in this issue, at least, not until the very end. For most of the issue, the theme is uneasy allies, and the league ostensibly getting used to the idea of having Lex Luthor around. This leads to some overwrought dialogue bits where Batman and Wonderwoman tell Luthor (and us) “what it means” to be a member of The Justice League. These are a bit on the cringe-worthy side, and where Batman especially is concerned, it feels far too saccharine for the character.
The payoff for this issue is in the last few panels. Without getting too far into spoiler territory, we’re finally given a glimpse of the long-con we all know Luthor’s been playing. I’m a little worried that it will bring the narrative a few steps back, but I’ll admit it feels like it’s taking us back to something that was always left as a loose end, so there could be some satisfaction to be found there.
Verdict: Not bad
Captain America #25
Marvel Comics
Remender/Pacheco/Taibo/White
Here’s a bit of full-disclosure. I don’t like the plot gimmick of someone stepping into the shoes of an established superhero. I didn’t like Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, or Azrael taking up Batman’s cowl, though I do like Dick Grayson and Jason Todd as characters (no, I’m not forgetting Azrael). I like Bucky Barnes, but having him as Cap’s replacement felt wrong. What I’m trying to get at here is it’s got nothing to do with who they choose to replace a character with, the gimmick itself bugs me. Since the cover poses the question, I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to tell you that’s what this issue is about; who will take over for Steve Rogers?
If you’ve been following the news on Captain America (and a number of other Marvel titles), this change is not a surprise to you, and you probably know who they’ve chosen to wield the shield. As with Dick Grayson and Jason Todd, I like the character a lot, but he’s not Captain America. I think that’s partly because he’s already got his own identity, and partly because any replacement of a long-running hero is going to be temporary, and we all know it.
With all that soap-box nonsense out of the way, this issue handles the subject matter about as well as it can be handled. Steve Rogers isn’t supposed to be dead. He’s not even supposed to be out of the picture, so we’re given a reminder that this is not necessarily a sad turn of events. Actually, the gathering of Avengers where we’re told the big news tries very hard (sometimes successfully) to give us a laugh. There are a lot of barbs slung between Spidey, Hawkeye, and Tony Stark, and they serve to lighten the mood. Actually, at times I feel this scene went too far into the realm of comedy, but it wasn’t necessarily unwelcome. All things being equal, we were adequately prepared for the new series featuring a new Cap, while we were also given a nice reminder of why we love Steve Rogers (and why we’ll be happy when he inevitably returns to his role).
Verdict: Worth a look.
Death of Wolverine #3
Marvel Comics
Soule/McNiven
I have been pleasantly surprised with the Death of Wolverine run. I have no doubt that part of that is because the __ Months to Die series was so uneven, but I think Soule’s work on the narrative has been really solid. Since she’s on the cover, I don’t mind telling you Kitty Pride features heavily into this section of the story, and for the most part, her interaction with Logan is handled really well, even as we’re thrown for a bit of a loop in the wind-down. I think that’s been part of what makes this run successful. Logan’s touching on all the things I think he should, but he’s not dwelling on any one part of his world, and on the other side, it doesn’t feel too condensed.
I’m still really happy with the look of this arc, too. It’s laid-out well, with some really engaging work on pencils and inks. As content as I am with the writing here, I actually think the art nearly steals the show. When I heard #3 was delayed, I was nervous, but I can assure you now, if you’ve enjoyed the first to issues of Death of Wolverine, #3 won’t disappoint you. Actually, I think it’s the strongest of the group.
Verdict: Excellent read.
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