A Whole Nother New World

I'm going to reiterate that Marvel really does have the top artists working for them. Avengers one is absolutely beautiful. I've followed Opena through Ghost Rider and X-Force and he really keeps improving. Another cool thing is that it has a layout similar to Hickman's Image books which is kind of interesting that a writer has his own recognizable visual aesthetic. The script is solid, but pales in comparison to Hickman's creator-owned work. If I'm going to recommend you buy a book that he's writing, it would be Manhattan Projects. 

The last few pages seem somewhat rushed to move along the plot. Although in today's decompressed era it's a little nice to actually move the plot ,so it's not all bad. My biggest concern with this book is that with it's frequent schedule (every other week for this one and Hickman's  New Avengers will also run every other week so that Avengers will essentially be weekly) they are going to need to change artist for every story arc. Marvel will have other top artists working, but I wonder if it will hurt the consistency of the overall tone.


I wasn't much looking forward to this until I flipped through it. Steve Dillon is another top notch artist great with facial expressions, especially when said faces have bullets running through them. And although I find the Punisher to be one of the most boring popular characters Marvel has, there have been three runs in the past decade or so that I really loved. two of them were drawn by Steve Dillon (with scripts by Ennis and Aaron. In case you were wondering, the third run was Remender's).

Unfortunately the script was lacking. There was very little substance and I felt the humor fell flat (although that's more subjective). They wasted the entire first issue with a team recruiting story. The story focuses around Ross and the Punisher. The other vignettes where the other characters are recruited seems unnecessary and forced in just to remind readers that these characters are on the team (which the cover conveys perfectly).




This series has slowed down a lot since the first issue. The second issue was spent entirely with Wolverine's team and the original X-Men while this issue focuses on Cyclops's team. That's not necessarily a bad thing. I can enjoy a nice slow build (especially when we've already had three issues in the past four weeks it's not that long of a wait at all). The two plots converge at the end of this issue. Let's hope the payoff is big when we get to the next one.













Maybe not as funny as two, but still has a lot of laughs. This is the first Marvel Now book that's officially made my list.

Book of the Week

2-24-10

Once Again, Hickman and Eaglesham put out a great issue of Fantastic Four. It's got the fun and adventure of a 60's sci-fi movie when people would discover new worlds around every corner.

Last issue, they team went underground to a radioactive city of mutated Moloids where Galactus' skeleton is buried. This time, they travel to a research base in Antarctica only go to an underwater city of fish and snail and dolphin people.

Eaglesham's art really adds a lot to the storytelling. Much of the book is completely told in the art. There are no words during an underwater battle, and the sequence is told with no confusion at all. This task can even be difficult for veteran artists.

It looks like this book is going to send the team all over the universe in these one-issue adventures that will later be seen as a larger overarching story.

Book of the Week

1-27-10

This book caught me a bit by surprise. I normally don't read Fantastic Four. In fact, I think the last time I bought two consecutive issues was when Claremont took over, and even then, I didn't stay on board for long. I tried the first issue of Millar's run, and found it abysmal.

But advertisements and previews got me interested in this. So I bought it. And I really liked it. This is mostly a setup book, but it looks like Jonathon Hickman has some pretty wild ideas coming up, and I'm totally excited. Dale Eaglesham's art is great. There's a great Alan Davis cover.

There's a new aspect that adds a bit of depth to the Moleman and Moloids that I've never seen. I don't want to spoil too much, so I'll just say that there are a lot of cool ideas planted here. I hope subsequent issues hold up, because it looks like The Fantastic Four are in for a far-out Kirby-esque epic. There's potential for a lot of fun.