CBR Live! Archive
Quick and Dirty Single Issue Review
- by Brad Curran
- in Comic Reviews
Two of my favorite comics came out this week and I wan to talk about them! Them, and some thing with Skrulls.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 #13- Last issue, Drew Goddard gave us a great gag based around Buffy's BI-curious fling. This issue, we get the comedic stylings of a racist Dracula (unfortunately, Racist Frankenstein does not make a cameo). If this pattern continues, we'll have one knee slapping abortion gag by the end of the arc, by my estimation. In a ripple of evil moment, I can forsee Johnny Ryan joining the writing staff if things really get out of hand on the questionable humor, forcing Joe Rice to buy a Buffy comic and the world to implode. Until that happens, I'll be happily picking this up every month, especially if it comes out in the same week as--
Casanova #13- We get the fallout from last issue's slaughter, as Fraction establishes the rules of death in the Casnonava-verse. The titular character returns (sort of) and we get a nice down time issue out of it before the shit commences to hit the fan next issue. As an added bonus, Fabio Moon draws scenes I barely remember from the first volume, which his twin brother rendered! If you haven't at least tried this series... I don't know what to do with you. I mean, you must buy crap like--
Secret Invasion #1- Well, I lost my moral high ground there real quick. It further plummets down the toilet when I admit to liking this, on a "first act of a summer blockbuster" level. Of course, I like a lot of crap, so I don't particularly consider my seal of approval any kind of sign of quality. Diminished expectations may have something to do with my enjoyment of this, but I like the whole idea of doing an Invasion of the Body Snatchers style story with the Marvel characters, and I thought Bendis handled the consequences of it pretty well here. The fact that beloved secondary characters were the only ones revealed as Skrulls in this issue was interesting, I thought. I've always liked Yu's work, and although it's farther on the scratchy side of things, for lack of a better word, than I like, I still think it works here.
Other than some of Bendis's dialogue tics that have been hashed over 15,000,000 times, I really liked this, so I'll pick up the next issue. I haven't read enough of Bendis's big superhero comics to really know if he can actually pull this off to my satisfaction. World War Hulk proved to me last year that I'm willing to forgive these things an anti-climatic ending if the ride's fun enough, so I'll give it some rope.
Special Bonus Review: Wolverine First Class #1- This is entirely in my nostalgia wheelhouse, as my love of the X-Men in general and Kitty Pryde specifically came from the stories that this new series is mining for its "Untold Tales" take on a Kitty/Wolvie team up comic. Fred Van Lente hits all the right notes in the script, but what do you expect from a guy who has his own Cronin declared holiday? This is basically Marvel Adventures: Wolverine, and it works very well for something with that seemingly ridiculous mandate. Andrea Di Vito provides the kind of clean, solid art you expect from an all ages comic like this.
Wolverine doesn't get to use his claws on panel, much like in Marvel Adventures: Avengers, but he's still a surly loner struggling with his demons and hiding a heart of gold. Kitty, on the other hand, is a neophyte P.O.V. character in the strange world of the X-Men. The ability to distill the characters down to their essence is something that only comics that can toss continuity out the window while still evoking a familiar era can get away with. So, if you want a fun Claremont-esque comic, but without all those Claremontisms, this is for you. Or, you know, a Wolverine comic that doesn't take place in Hiroshima. It also fits that bill. There are also a few of Chris Giarusso's Mini-Marvel strips on the last page, and if you can pass all that up, you must hate fun. Or not have the mindset of a 12 year old, I don't know. Either way, this is a nice, fun package, and you don't get to say that about Wolverine comics-- ever, really.
This week also gave us a cheap reprint of Kirby's Kamandi, so I declare it pretty damn spiffy, even if Sook's Last Boy on Earth the cover kinda freaks me out. He's so alluring! That may say more about me than him, though, so I'm packing it in.
- Posted on April 2, 2008 @ 08:29 PM
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7 Comments
Craig
April 2, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Thanks for the review of Wolverine: First Class. I've been enjoying Van Lente's work on MA: Spider-Man, and I'm obviously a mark for both Shadowcat and Chris Giarusso, so I should have a great time. I avoided it because the "Untold Tales" model has been beaten to death by Marvel over the years, and after countless adventures, I'd rather wonder when heroes have downtime than wonder what other adventures they fit into their already convoluted schedules... especially Wolverine.
Dave
April 2, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Personally, I didn't get much of a "scratchy" feeling from Yu's artwork on Secret Invasion #1, I actually thought it's the cleanest his art has looked since like Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk, especially in light of his recent run on New Avengers.
Morales's inks made a world of difference as far as I'm concerned, and I greatly prefer this to anything else I've seen from him in at least the past year or so.
Tomer S
April 3, 2008 at 2:31 am
I agree with Dave. Yu's art is so good in SI #1, wish he'd keep this style when the book is over. Morales'' inks and Martin's colors are perfect for this cleen look.
As for the story itself, I try not to be over excited. It was a great opening nad done very well. There are so many questions that I hope will be answered in the next 7 issues, and other questions regarding small things that may be just artistic mistakes.
SanctumSanctorumComix
April 3, 2008 at 8:26 am
Agreement all around.
Yu's art never looked better (for a mainstream superhero title).
I'd love his sketchy work on some dark magical, or detective noir thing, but for a big "shiny" book like Avengers, it didn't work for me.
(Yes, it's the "secret defenders" Avengers, so the scratchy work worked thematically, but not so much over the long run.)
In Secret Invasion, the inker really polished it all up nice.
As for the writing, there were as many Bendis-tics as usual in his work, and the entire issue read very much like an explosive film segment that it kicked some ass.
Enough reveals to tantalize (but, sadly I knew each of them before hand - it wasn't too difficult to guess ANY of them way in advance), but enough red-herrings came popping out of that transport ship to really make one question;
are they ALL the real deal, or only SOME (while others are skrulls placed among the escapees to fool the "70's heroes" while they were on the run)?
I was hooked going in, and I'm still eager.
I love a good conspiracy plot. Mix it with some 1950's horror/paranoia and I'm so there!
~P~
P-TOR
brian
April 3, 2008 at 9:32 am
Yeah, Secret Invasion 1 was good - and this is coming from someone who dropped Bendis' Avengers books about a year ago.
One reviewer over at Savage Critics is talking about how the Skrulls are like Islamic Terrorists. And I kind of get that here.
But on another level this is just a pure Marvel book. Yes, after 9/11 it has a difference subtext, but at the same time the Skrulls date back 40 years and have been pulling crap like this on a smaller scale for decades in Marvel books.
And I'm honest to God intrigued by that crashed ship full of heroes. Who's who? Who's real? Who's not?
SPOILERS:
I have a theory. I recently read a run of John Byrne's Namor. In the book he revived Iron Fist and the story line included a suplot about how Danny Rand's death was actually at the hands of the Super Skrull, who had been brainwashed to thoroughly believe he was this kid Iron Fist befriended so he would not be discovered through a mind meld. I'm wondering if that's what's happening here. The Skrulls not only have infiltrated us, but they are "sleeper agents" convinced until just the right moment that they truly are the heroes and civilians they are replacing. And that's how Bendis and everyone else will be able to explain how we haven't been reading about the real Power Man or Vision or Ms. Marvel for about 30 years. And when readers balk, they can say - "Welllll, the Skrulls 'thought' they were the real characters so, technically, they were'." So Marvel and the readers now get to have their cake and eat it too.
What do you think?
SanctumSanctorumComix
April 3, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Yup.
That's what a bunch of people (myself included) have been discussing on various boards.
I'm pretty sure even Bendis himself has alluded to this sort of thing in interviews.
It's truly the only way to have some of the reveals "work" without massive geek-aneurisms.
Sure, some skrulls Do know who and what they are, but others are sleepers sent into deep cover.
I don't doubt that there will be *some* continuity gaffs, but that's sadly to be expected these days and is up to the die-hards to grok how to make them work out.
~P~
P-TOR
Kanedoras
April 4, 2008 at 3:31 am
For what it means, the current Captain Marvel mini-series has had a few Skrulls tell Marvel that he is actually a Skrull sleeper agent who for some reason (I can't remember if it's intentional or if something happened and he got out too early) he doesn't know that he's a Skrull.
The last issue is still a week or two away, so I figure we'll find out definitely in that. But since Marvel's killed a Skrull or two since he's been back, it hasn't worked out like they were planning.