MONDOmagazine

Amazing Spider-Man #609
Marc Guggenheim (w), Marco Checchetto, Luke Ross, Rick Magyar (a), Fabio D’Auria (c). Marvel Comics.

This Checchetto character is really winning me over with some excellent Spider artwork — a lot of really dynamic shots with a sort of creepiness to it. Really reminds me of Ditko stuff. The inclusion of the web armpit costuming doesn’t hurt either. There’s a really good twist on the “bad guy wants revenge on our hero” theme in that any ironic item Raptor sends to Peter Parker to inspire fear in him… just doesn’t work. Pete’s given a scorched little Care Bear thing and of course it has NO significance to him — the whole fiasco is caused by a case of mistaken identity. I can’t wait to see what happens next. – Isaac Mills

Isaac’s rating: 4 out of 5

Batman: Streets of Gotham #5
Chris Yost (w), Dustin Nguyen (p), Derek Fridolfs (i), John Kalisz (c). DC Comics.

It doesn’t really feel like a whole lot happens in this issue — the first story is a running battle between Huntress and Man-Bat, for some reason that will hopefully be explained later, before they both land in front of a priest that has — just that second — gone crazy and is going to kill them. It’s amazing just how much inner monologue is getting out without actually saying anything — Huntress just keeps going back and forth on the will-she, won’t-she use lethal force bit. I guess it actually succeeds in capturing the sheer amount of language that would go through someone’s head in that time frame, but it doesn’t seem necessary. The Manhunter back up was really cool, but it was clearly dealing with character fallout from the previous Manhunter series of which I haven’t read, so for long time fans I bet this was incredible. – Isaac Mills

Isaac’s rating: 3 out of 5

Crossover Corner
How important is this issue to Blackest Night? Enjoy our special “crossover relevance” rating scale: Essential, A Pleasant Addition, Take It or Leave It, Adds Nothing, or Completely Unrelated

Blackest Night: Superman #3
James Robinson (w), Eddy Barrows, Allan Goldman (p), Ruy Jose, Eber Ferreira (i), Rod Reis (c). DC Comics.

I’m not proud of this. But. When Superboy managed to shrug off his being mind-controlled by the Psycho Pirate while Superman was on the ropes, and then he tears off the Black Lantern Kal-L (courtesy of Superboy’s patented tactile telekinesis), I made a loud noise that sounds very much like the human “Yes!” But that’s just me. For someone else, say, a sane person, this issue would probably have just been “ok”. The Kryptonians, by the way, come up with a secret weapon that repels the black lantern rings while keeping them trapped on their planet, sequestering them for the remainder of the crossover, which is pretty clever as far as taking them out of the story goes. But that is some seriously impressive super science they’ve got working for them. — Isaac Mills

Isaac’s rating: 3.5 out of 5
Crossover rating: Take it or leave it

Here ends Cossover Corner

Brave and the Bold #28
J. Michael Straczynski (w), Jesus Saiz (a), Trish Mulvihill (c). DC Comics.

This second issue in Straczynski’s run on Brave and the Bold — this time starring Flash and the Blackhawk pilot squadron, has Straczynski kind of showing off again — yes, for many, the Blackhawks are an obscure reference, we’re all very impressed. Except that they never once fly a plane in this book, so maybe, if we’re time travelling to World War II, you could go with the Sergeant Rock and Easy Company combo that could make more sense? Just a thought. Everything starts with the Flash helping a random scientist with some light experiments that naturally go awry and result in the Flash doing some time travelling, all of which is pretty standard old school Flash fare, so good job on that. Flash struggles with the question of killing in a time of war when it’s something he is firmly against (at least in his identity as the Flash). It’s an ambitious question to examine in a single comic, and though I don’t necessarily agree with the conclusions reached, I do appreciate the asking. — Isaac Mills

Isaac’s rating: 3.5 out of 5

Chew #5
John Layman (w), Rob Guillory (a). Image Comics.

What an end to the first arc of a great new series!  Layman and Guillory definitely shown that they’ve got a really well planned out series laid out. The opening page of this issue was a bold move, revealing the secrets of this final instalment to the “Taster’s Choice” arc. I don’t want to give anything away because it’s just absolutely imperative that you go and find out for yourself. There will no longer be an excuse for not picking this series up especially when it comes out in trade form. The story is turning into something greater than just the initial psychic food guy shtick. Just go get it already. — Sandra Yao

Sandra’s Rating: 5 out of 5

Deadpool Merc with a Mouth #4
Victor Gischler (w), Bong Dazo (p), Jose Pimentel (i), Matt Milla (c). Marvel Comics.

If there’s anything about this series that has put a constant smile on my face, it’s the recap page. The one in this issue is no exception. I just love a good recap page that sums up what’s going in a very nice and concise way. This one even adds a little humour to the mix. It’s a non-stop adventure for Deadpool and his zombie head. Along with their scantily clad A.I.M. liaison, they manage to escape a very hungry zombie T-rex, but can’t quite get themselves out of Hydra’s crosshair. The art is still pretty consistent and matches the story well. I mean it’s a little gratuitous, but it’s Deadpool and he happens to show a little somethin’, somethin’ too. — Sandra Yao

Sandra’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance #6
Joe Casey (w), Chrisscross (p), Rob Stull, Marc Deering (i), Snakebite (c). DC Comics.

For a comic attempting to capitalize on the culture of immediate gratification we’ve got going on, this book was way too long. Its heroes get bored easily by what they’re up to, so why do they assume the audience is any different? The entire meandering subplot about “what was secretly going on in Japan” that had been running through the rest of the series ultimately amounted to a case of Japan being embarrassed that it needed to reconstruct after the last world shattering crisis. Poor priorities. Something I’ve been commenting on throughout this mini has been the use of a twitter narration courtesy of Most Excellent Superbat, which has evolved in this comic to a kind of bio-tweet. A basic narration box feels a lot more natural during action scenes than to have a twitter box show up, suggesting that Superbat stopped whatever he was doing every couple of minutes to tweet, which is of course stupid. I just wish they experimented more with this progression of media usage throughout the series — like starting with MySpace, moving to Facebook, then Twitter before finishing with this futuristic proposal of a social networking tool. This could have been handled so much better. — Isaac Mills

Isaac’s rating: 2.5 out of 5

Justice League of America #38
James Robinson (w), Mark Bagley (p), Rob Hunter (i), Pete Pantazis (c). DC Comics.

I didn’t think Robinson was starting his Justice League run so soon; I was expecting a little more from the Cry for Justice series first. Interestingly enough, Robinson makes reference to things that will be happening in that series which we have yet to enjoy. That kind of sucks, but it is good that they’re trying to actually get the Justice League book involved in the greater DC universe again, placing it in something of a recognizable timeline i.e. the next issue is a Blackest Night tie-in. There’s a brief cameo by Blue Jay I enjoyed, except that it looks like he’s dead now, so scratch yet ANOTHER JLI member. It’s hilarious that when the League is at its weakest Despero just randomly attacks, kind of a “Here’s Johnny!” moment. — Isaac Mills

Isaac’s rating: 3 out of 5

The Mighty Avengers #30
Dan Slott and Christos N. Gage (w), Sean Chen (p), Mark Morales (i), John Rauch (c). Marvel Comics.

Oh, Mighty Avengers, you bit off more than you could chew. There are just too many characters in this comic to have branching storylines. Next issue looks like it will bring them all together, so that will help, but at the moment it’s too much. Also, in a few ways, this seems to be a replay of the first arc. Like, the first story also had Hank Pym off doing other things only to come in at the end and prove to the other characters (and the readers) that he’s awesome. So, points deducted for that. However, I will say that I’m tempted to give this comic a perfect score because of Hercules’ line “Norman Osborn! Gird your loins for battle!” It made me laugh so very, very hard. That, and Pym declared Earth’s Scientist Supreme — it’s just such a neat idea and I can’t believe no one came up with it before. — Miles Baker

Miles’ rating: 2.5 out of 5

Sonic Universe #9
Ian Flynn (w), Tracy Yardley (p), Jim Amash (i), Jason Jensen (c). Archie Comics.

I’ll admit I collected the Knuckles series back in the day — and there were a lot of fun shout outs to that bygone era in this comic. There was a lot of tension between the characters that didn’t really make any sense. Yes, that’s how Knuckles was the first five years he’d been around, but he has grown quite a bit over the years, so to regress him like this, and even have another character shrug her shoulders and remind us “he’s a hot-head” is really kind of lame. I like how two characters, while guarding the Master Emerald, are attacked by a bunch of robots and seem surprised that they’re going for said emerald. I mean, wouldn’t you go for it? It’s clearly very valuable. — Isaac Mills

Isaac’s rating: 3 out of 5

Spider-Woman #2
Brian Michael Bendis (w), Alex Maleev (a). Marvel Comics.

It’s just so much better as a non-motion comic, aka a comic. From the little bits of extra dialouge that properly explain things to the incredible still art of Maleev — this is just so much better on paper. They were probably right to not include those elements in the motion comic but they really bring the work alive, making it a much more fleshed out and enjoyable experience. Check out both, I think you’ll see what I mean.  — Miles Baker

Miles rating: 4 out of 5

Sugar Shock one-shot
Joss Whedon (w), Fabio Moon (a), Dave Stewart (c). Dark Horse.

Shocking fact: even though I’m a enormous Whedon fanboy, I didn’t read this when it came out. You see, I have a moral problem with online comics that present themselves at standard comic size. It’s just wrong. Computer screens are wide and when you make a comic for a computer screen you should take advantage of that.  With the standard comic size, you can’t read a full-page spread correctly — you have to scroll up and down and that’s bullshit. But now that it’s published in the format that it was clearly meant for I have no problems giving it a read. And, it’s fine. It’s a manic adventure that (self admittedly) barely makes any sense. There’s some great laughs, but I found the main character to be severely annoying a lot of the time. She’s supposed to be, but I don’t understand how any of the other characters can tolerate her presence. I guess she’s a good singer.  — Miles Baker

Miles’ rating: 3.5 out of 5

Thunderbolts #137
Rick Remender (w), Mahmud A. Asrar (p), Rebecca Buchman (i), Bruno Hang (c). Marvel Comics.

I’m not going to lie, I didn’t finish reading this comic. I couldn’t. The art was so unappealing. It’s not the worst art that I’ve ever seen, but compared to the other, consistently brilliant artists I read this week, it was unpalatable. And flipping through the rest of it seemed to yield fill-in issue of no consequence. So I can’t rate it, but I don’t recommend it. — Miles Baker

Miles’ rating: N/A

Underground #2 (of 5)
Jeff Parker (w), Steve Lieber (a), Ron Chan (c). Image Comcis.

Oh, so I was wrong about this title last time. I went into it expecting it to be a crime/mystery story and it’s not — it’s a thriller. A thriller with a really good location. Though, for me, the highlight were Parker’s antagonists. There’s a scene where one of them, Lee, tries to prevent an other one, Harden, from shooting our hero Rangers. I love it because it shows that he thinks that killing them over this situation is wrong. It separates him from the billions of mindless thugs we usually see tailing the central antagonist. Lieber puts in a really strong issue where he takes full advantage of the low light the caves provide with strong shadows that never go too far.  — Miles Baker

Miles rating: 4 out of 5

X-Men Legacy #226
Mike Carey (w), Daniel Acuña (a). Marvel Comics.

I love the X-Club, the team of wacky scientists that Beast assembled to be awesome and basically run the X-Men. They have this great exchange with Cyclops about how fast they can build a doohickey that will protect them from the villain, Emplate. Jefferies: “Not only do we not have the equipment, we don’t even have the math. We’d be inventing an entirely new branch of physics.” Dr. Nemesis: “So probably at least an hour and a half.” Delightful! As is this great bit of character from Rogue: “And ah know ah should probably just walk away at this point. But ah never was any good at that part.” Beyond that, Carey writes villains creepy and Acuña matches him in the creep factor. Continues to be a great X-Title, and this is the perfect time to pick it up.  — Miles Baker

Miles rating: 4.5 out of 5