Isaac’s Book
G.I. Joe #2
Written by Chuck Dixon
Art by Robert Atkins
IDW Publishing, 2009
It’s interesting to hear what was “big” to different people as kids. Although there are some classics that everyone can agree on (except for those weird guys that aren’t down with the original Star Wars, I don’t know what their deal is), we’ve all got our personal favourites that tell the story of our youth. For me, things basically boil down to Star Wars, Back to the Future (number three all the way!), and Ninja Turtles.
Not a lot of room for G.I. Joe on that list, is there?
There are lots of names in this comic that I can tell are “name” or “important” Joes, and I should be getting excited that they’re around, but I don’t care who they are. So why isn’t this comic making me care? That’s the problem you always run into with ensemble cast books; the story is so widespread that there’s no narrative focus to reel you in with.
I’m a story guy, but I can get over a certain lack in this department if there’s something cool to balance things out. Explosions, time travel, some kind of time travel explosion hybrid, etc. This issue has a state of the art device that powers a stereo from across the room (that’s the kind of device Reed Richards would create while he’s delirious with fever and blind folded), and a chase scene involving three big army dudes failing to catch a lone nerd who’s running away while they are following in an actual vehicle. You’ve got to set the bar a little higher there, guys.
The art is technically good, but there are some inconsistencies with some characters’ faces, which results in one guy looking eighteen in one panel and thirty in the next. It’s already difficult enough to tell one Joe from another, don’t make it even harder on me. Although the cover by Dave Johnson is pretty cool, with its classic war propaganda thing going on.
There was one other thing cool about this comic, and this is always true for those slightly big comic companies that aren’t Marvel or DC, and that was the ads for other upcoming comic projects. The Life and Times of Savior 28 by J.M. DeMatteis looks like a really cool deconstruction of the superhero genre, and it’s something I’d like to check out. Skrull-faced children telling me to accept change do not get me excited about a comic… not that they were advertising any specific comic, but they wanted me to buy everything with “Secret Invasion” on the cover. To be fair, I did like the ads for Incredible Hercules.
This book wasn’t for me, but if you’re a G.I. Joe fan, maybe you’d be invested in finding out the fate of Bankshot next issue? Yeah, probably not.
Miles’ Book
Patsy Walker: Hellcat #5
Written by Kathryn Immonen
Art by David Lafuente
Marvel Comics, 2008
Ah. Dorable.
I love when a recap page is so clever, so funny, and so character-establishing that I can’t help but fall in love with a comic right away. And this is just the recap page. Recap page! (Please, Marvel, continue this style of character-based recap pages, it’s a little extra value in these tough economic times, eh?)
Luckily, the comic lives up to this recap page. A sad fact I’ve realized after writing a year and a half of these reviews is that when you only read a random comic from a random series, a lot of characters read the same — they blend together. Wonder Woman reads like Black Canary who reads like Iceman who reads like Hawkeye and so on. But this is a refreshing case where the main character sounds unique, different than other heroes, and then the supporting cast sounds just as different from each other.
And her adventure is just wacky. The opening has her Cliffhanger-style, trapped in a van stuck on a sheer glacier with an antlered bear, some rabbits, a yeti, a fox, a man encased in stone, and a teenage witch. Antlered bear! And she drops the bear because it’s too heavy. Hilarious antics!
The art was also great. A good fit for the book, and a clean style which I always like.
I have a feeling that this series was overlooked by a lot of people because I have a feeling that not many people are following Patsy Walker’s career. Maybe I’m wrong. I hope I’m wrong. This issue is very charming and I’ll be hunting for the first four issues next week.
James’ Book
Eternals #8
Written by Charles & Daniel Knauf
Art by Eric Nguyen, Sara Pichelli, & Andy Troy
Marvel Comics, 2009
This is one of the big problems with superstars. You take someone like Neil Gaiman and give him a book like the Eternals, a book that lets him play with his favorite subjects like Gods and mythology, and it’s fun, and great, and exciting. And then he leaves, because he only signed on to do a limited series.
So, how’s this Eternals? I don’t really know. I’ve only read the one issue, and it was pretty much one big fight. But I will say, if you’re going to re-establish a franchise with one of the premier writers of the medium, you should probably choose someone with a bit more prestige than the dude who created Carnivale and his kid to write the continuing series.
I can tell you this much: The father-son team of Daniel and Charles Knauf don’t know how to characterize the X-Men. They think you can have Beast say “Oh my stars and garters!” and be done with it. The Avengers, or the Defenders, or what the hell, the Fallen Angels could probably replace them in this issue and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.
As for the art, it seems to lack definition and confidence. I wouldn’t mind seeing what Nguyen’s pencils look like without Pichelli’s inks, but I’m not sure that would solve the problem. The book just has a bit of an amateur air to it, but maybe I’m being unfair. I just don’t dig the style, and let’s leave it at that.
After all that, though, there was one thing I was particularly intrigued about in this issue: the ad for Daredevil #177. I hear that Brubaker’s becoming a real superstar.
