Friday, February 16, 2007

COMIC PICK OF THE WEEK! 2/7/07

Time for the COMIC PICK OF THE WEEK - My weekly rundown of last week's haul, where I pick my favorite from the stack, and then invite everyone to join in and post their favorites in the comments!

X-MEN PHOENIX WARSONG #5 - This one ends as ho hum as the rest, again, I think mostly due to the art...
UNCANNY X-MEN #483 - Another solid issue in the space epic from Brub and regular fill-in Henry. Henry's a decent artist, but his style doesn't much suit the subject matter for me...
THE PIRATES OF CONEY ISLAND #4 - Best issue yet of this fun, colorful series. An all action girl on guy gang throw down...
X23 #3 - I'm really liking this series, it's amazing artwork, and the mythos that Kyle and Yost are building for Wolverine's daughter...
THE NEW AVENGERS #27 - Essentially another of the Civil War fill in issues, however, this one actually features a guest appearance from the entire, new, New Avengers...
NEW UNIVERSAL #3 - The New Universe continues to actually shine under Ellis's masterful direction, as the scope widens and takes shape...
IRON MAN HYPERVELOCITY #1 - I'm a huge Adam Warren fan, and as much as I love his art, his writing is some of my favorite too. I also dig that even when he's not doing full artwork on his stuff, he turns in detailed roughs for the artists to work from, so even though it's not his finishes, it's still very much his style and approach. Anyway, issue one was good, decent, a great battle test of both Iron Man's new armor and Warren's trademark smartly informed sci-fi applications, with a nice little twist. Nothing too impressive, but very solid. With issue 2 however, Warren builds on all of that, but starts to add more wrinkles, making last issues setup all the more interesting as things that weren't what they seemed, aren't what they seemed then either... Fun comics, and Iron Man done right. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Warren deserves a much wider following, the man is on par with Ellis, Morrison, and other creme de le creme writers!


PICK OF THE WEEK: SPIDER-MAN REIGN #3
So if I liked IRON MAN HYPERVELOCITY so much, why didn't it make the pick or the week? Well, the beauty of following comics week to week is, it's a big crapshoot, some weeks you get book after book that are just okay, and some weeks you get a stack of greatness. This week I could've made six out of the eight titles my pick for best of the week, it was a great great week, but one book stood above the rest...

Spider-Man Reign got off to a shaky start, but with issue 2 I started to feel strongly pulled in, and suspected it was on the verge of greatness. With issue 3, it's all but realized. Andrews weaves a tightly paced, and masterfully designed plot that builds perfectly through it's four issue arc. With this extra sized issue, you can't help but get swept up into the iconic moments building towards next issues epic climax, with all the various elements crafted together and punctuated by pitch perfect comic book storytelling.

I'm not only eager for the next, final, issue, but to see if Andrews can pull off the amazing story he's set up, and give us the blue and red Spidey returned to form, hero defining moment.

How about you, what's your pick this week???

2 comments:

Javier Hernandez said...

Hey Jas...I was interested in your Spidey Reign review cause for the past week or so I been reading some pretty hilarious comments about that issue, mainly the Radiactive Spidey 'stuff'!! Some of those posting are actually pretty funny, and malicious, in their reviews. But, um..... maybe one day I'll read the whole thing. Although, truthfully, the whole Dark Knight homage grew old after the first pages I looked at.

I just finished ready the first DMZ trade and bought #2. Pretty good set up for a story, and Wood keeps the narrative moving with his main characters and the sureal world he finds himself in. Nice sharp art, too.

Also read an old comic, King Size Rawhide Kid, collecting 7 Stan Lee/Kirby classics. Never really read them old westerns but, boy, are they a lot of fun! Um...sorry for the review on 30+ year old material... :(

Jason Martin said...

Nah man, whatever your read recently is fine!

First, Spider-Man Reign, and um, the radioactive blood... it makes sense to me, but I can sure see how fan boys, purists, or whomever could get bent out of shape on it...
it's such a non issue to me, I'd already forgotten that element to be honest. While I did think it was over the top, I thought it was a smart observation...
As for the Miller/DK homage, I agree, I touched on that with issue 2, and lamented it with issue 1, but the book has done enough on it's own that I've gotten past the excessive derivativeness of the thing and appreciated it on it's own merits.

DMZ, I really like. Like you say, great concept/setup, and Wood really fleshes that out. It's been enjoyable so far, but it still seems to be lacking that x-factor to put it over the top (and it's not lacking in the art department, that's for sure).
Wood's a talented writer, and one of my faves (and I don't follow many writers).