Comics for 9/27/06
Oh happy day! A new issue of Ultimates! This pleases me. Here we go:
- 52 #21
- Action Comics #843
- Batman #657
- Cable & Deadpool #32
- Eternals #4 (of 6)
- Justice League of America #2
- Ultimates 2 #12
Any week with an issue of the Ultimates is a good week; throw in Eternals and the JLA and things should be downright fantastic. Are they? Find out!
52 #21
On time again! Further thoughts on 52 have been known to loiter ’round hereabouts.
Action Comics #843
Pretty good, pretty good. Everything makes sense (you can’t take that for granted in comics, so this is a compliment), we’ve got a fun group of characters, and I love the art (which as I noted last week, is important for Superman). The covers are also worth noting; laying them out like Daily Planet pages is a clever touch and much more entertaining than Iconic Pose of Main Character #235. It seems like in the long history of Superman titles someone has probably already done this before, so I don’t know if I should be acknowledging some previous artist in my praises, but they make great covers no matter who came up with the idea.
Batman #657
This is the most sense the story has made yet, but the whole arc has been in trouble since the revelation at the end of issue one: Batman has a son. Immediately you know that the next five issues you’re about to read will be irrelevant. Status quos for major heros are almost never changed radically without lots of hype, and even then the changes aren’t generally major or long-term. Maybe Batman’s son will die, which would be the most dramatic and least cheesey way to get things back to the status quo by the end of the story. Maybe he’ll decide to go off and do his own thing, showing up every year or two in another Batman story—maybe as an ally, maybe as a foe. Or, most likely, it will turn out he’s not really Batman’s biological son, just part of some nefarious deception! The last option would completely neuter the story, but even the other two will leave this feeling kinda pointless. From the start, I assume that this will be a gimmick and not a story seriously exploring the rammifications of a biological son for Batman. It’s cynical, but realistic, and it sours the whole ordeal.
Cable & Deadpool #32
Why am I still reading this?
Eternals #4 (of 6)
Ok, I guess now we know what’s going on; we’ve got what appears to be the Big Picture for the story. Some details are fuzzy, but I think I understand. It still doesn’t seem like should have taken this many issues to get to this point, but—Oooh, John Romita Jr.! Pretty art!
Justice League of America #2
Wait, what? They’ve lost me from last month; I thought Green Arrow wasn’t going to be in the new JLA, and here they’re considering it. I thought they already invited his son to the team, and here they’re considering it. Maybe it will be clear if I re-read issue one.
Ultimates 2 #12
Setting up a team of super villians made up entirely of Bad Versions of The Ultimates, down to the man, doesn’t give you many original options for resolutions. Captain America fights a Bad Captain America. Hulk fights a Bad (badder?) Hulk. So why do the good guys win? Because they’re the good guys. Even the alternative would’ve been a little cliché, tag teaming so Captain America beats Bad Hulk and Hulk beats Bad Cap’, for example (castling, as it was called in Superman/Batman), has been done to death too. That’s why I guess it doesn’t bother me that this issue plays out so conventionally; the real problem isn’t this issue, it’s the villians set up several issues ago.
The whole issue is one big, big, fight, and it delivers. Hitch’s art has never been more suited for this comic than here, an all out war with the entire Ultimate universe involved. In spite of my complaints, we’re still treated to a few surprises. The final two-page spread to set up the next issue is no big shock (ha), but the last panel before that reveal is downright awesome. Any fan of any version of Marvel’s characters should add The Ultimates 1 & 2 to their collections when they’re all in trade paperbacks.