Rating System:
**** : Excellent
*** : Good
** : Fair
* : Poor
Zero : Horseshit
Title: Power Girl #10
By: Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray and Amanda Conner
Comics do not get more fun or much better than Power Girl. Lots of action, lots of humor and lots of great character moments. This book has not faltered once. But if it’s one thing that I learned from the last episode of Star Trek: TNG it’s that all good things…something, something. Really, just go buy this damn book already if you haven’t. The current creative team who have been with the book from the beginning will be leaving after issue #12 so enjoy it why it lasts. Can Power Girl haz an Eizner Pleez?
Rating: ****
Title: Secret Warriors #14
By: Jonathan Hickman and Sefano Caselli
I have been having some problems with this title as of late. For one, since Caselli’s return to art chores on this book he has changed up his style a bit and not for the better imo. The coloring isn’t helping any either. My biggest problem though comes in the form of the story. Hickman can usually do no wrong in my eyes but this last storyline has been taking forever to get anywhere. There have been too many flashbacks as of late that are focusing on way too many characters. Having it be SHIELD vs. HYDRA is one thing but when you also throw in LEVIATHAN it almost becomes too much for this title to handle. I’ll give credit to Hickman though. His Overall story is very ambitious but having this book only come out once a month is not going to cut it. If there was a way for this comic to come out biweekly during the summer (like Marvel Comics used to do with some titles) to help quicken up the pace of the story I think that would help out tremendously. Unfortunately that probably won’t happen. I’ll give this title a couple more issues to get something going before I decide whether or not to drop it.
Rating: **½
Title: Green Lantern #52
By: Geoff Johns and Doug Mahnke
This issue is basically Blackest Night #7.5. Lot of stuff thrown into this issue: The origins of Ion and Parallax are revealed, the rainbow lantern corps try to defend Coast City while attempting to take the planet Xanshi off the playing board and then you have the “rebirth” of Thaal Sinestro. One thing that hasn’t been doing it for me in these last few stories of Blackest Night is that Nekron is really turning out to be nothing special. He is the equivalent of Nero (from the latest Star Trek film) and I think we can all agree that that is not a good thing. Doug Mahnke continues to kill on art in this book and helps it gain an extra star rating.
Rating: ***
Title: Uncanny X-Men #522
By: Matt Fraction and Whilce Portacio
I haven’t read an issue of Uncanny since the whole Utopia storyline and I really have no idea what had been going on in this book lately (so I was kinda lost). All I DO know is that this issue marked the return of Kitty Pryde so I figured I would give it a go. Blerg…how can Matt Fraction write Iron Man so right while his writing on Uncanny is almost unbearable. This was a pretty tough book to get through and I didn’t even bother with the Phil Jimenez back up story since the combination of shitty art with craptastic writing would have surely done me in. But everyone rejoice! Magneto has brought back our precious Kitty Pryde and all is good…except for the writing…and the characterizations…and the art. This book gets one star alone for it NOT being drawn by Greg Land.
Rating: *½
Title: Thunderbolts #142
By: Jeff Parker and Wellinton Alves
Ah, time to cleanse the palette with a Jeff Parker comic. I must say that out of all of the Siege tie-ins I am enjoying this one the most. You have the T-Bolts breaking into the Asgardian’s weapon vault trying to get their hands on the Spear of Odin for Osborn. You then have the Mighty Avengers showing up to stop them. And then you have Amadeus Cho taking out Mr. X in brilliant fashion while you have the U.S. Agent kicking some major buttocks and out Captain America-ing Captain America. On top of all that the T-Bolts start getting their shit together and come off quite bad ass. This was every bit an awesome issue of Mighty Avengers as it was the Thunderbolts. What’s it going to take to get Jeff Parker on an Avengers book already? Get Bendis out of there. Oh and speaking of which…
Rating: ***
Title: New Avengers #63
By: Brian Bendis and Mike McKone
THE ONLY saving grace of this title has been Stuart Immonen’s art. You take that away and replace him with the boring, static art of Mike McKone and there is no longer a reason to torture yourself reading it. This issue’s “cool and witty” dialog is suicide inducing. Bendis is the master of writing pages upon pages of dialogue with little to no substance all the while not moving the story forward. This issue is a perfect example of “sideways” storytelling (much like Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk). The only thing worse than reading this comic would be reading CBR’s review for it (and other Bendis titles). Praising mediocrity seems to be their specialty.
Rating: ½*
Title: Nemesis #1
By: Mark Millar and Steve McNiven
What do you get when you mix an uninspiring idea with passable art while adding a story that seems to be written by a 15 year old sociopath? Well, you get a comic that makes Kick-Ass look like shit. Spoiler: Kick-Ass didn’t really need any help to look like shit…and neither did this comic.
Rating: Zero
The CCW*TV Companion Blog 
Great reviews man. These reviews are all spot on.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
J.
Matt Fraction continues to confuse me with his on and off titles. When he switches to Thor I’m gonna check it out but I really don’t know what to expect anymore.
I think Thor will be more like his work on Iron Man. The problem with his X-Men stuff is that Fraction can’t handle the sheer number of characters he’s being asked to work with. Writing a large team book like Uncanny should prove to be challenging simply in the fact of trying to give all of them air time. While Thor does have a cast around him, I wouldn’t worry about him overextending himself.
Oh god, I read the New Avengers book, I wanted to start the thing on fire, when I got to the part where power-man and his wife talk about nonsense for 1/3rd of the issue I got my lighter out, then I was reminded by the owner of the book that it wasn’t mine. Its ridiculous how much dialog that’s there unnecessarily, It actually reduces the art work because the word bubbles take up so much room.
Your comment pleases me greatly. 🙂
J.
Your reviews, shit your whole blog pleases me greatly.
Lmao
“anger leads to hate, hate leads too suffering”
I understand Torso and Jinx are considered reasons why Bendis isn’t a complete joke as a writer, but how good can they be? I mean I literally go thru my new avengers comics and feel so ashamed I bought them… I haven’t read a good Bendis comic in so long. Man. Its just so unpleasing to realize all that money I worked for went to that.
Even I must admit that Torso and Jinx were great. What has happened to Bendis’ writing can only be described as utterly tragic.
J.
Torso looked really cool. I’ve always been eager to check it out, but I really just don’t want any part of Bendis these days. He just writes so much. And he teaches at a university too. So much, its no wonder he doesn’t have to time to revise his scripts.
What the hell is he teaching!? Misogyny 101? Unbelievable.
J
LMAO! hahaha
I’m not sure to be honest, he’s always going on twitter talking about the benefits of being a teacher. And He said this was his first semester of being one.
I mean, it makes sense why his scripts always feel rushed, he literally writes more for marvel than anyone else and now has to grade papers and all that. And the rumor of the spider-man reboot with his involvement -_-
He is teaching one class. It’s about writing the graphic novel, and I’m not joking.
And people wonder why the education in the U.S. fucking sucks. I can’t believe some school is letting him teach. That is so fucking sad. I can’t relay to you how much this disturbs me.
J.
But did he actually attend college to be a teacher? did he just say to the Dean “hey you know I wrote ultimate spider man” and they replied “hot damn! you gotta teach here!” I mean its showing that people who don’t even have the degree to teach are teaching. which really doesn’t make sense.
Like having non-musicians judge a singing contest.
Ya to be a college professor you don’t have to do shit if some dean likes you.
Is he really going to be involved with the reboot? I just threw up in my mouth.
I hope Bendis isn’t teaching a class to tell one’s head from their ass because I honestly don’t think he knows.
LOL. Good one, Jose. My wife just asked me why I’m laughing at the computer screen.
Great just great, you guys haven’t realized the worst part. There will be a generation of writers coming up taught by Bendis!
The HORROR!!…
Hopefully I’ll have kids by the time that generation rises to prominence and I won’t have time for comics. Now I just need to stop being so rigid in my dating habits and find a girl between now and then. LOL!
Blackest Night ends next week and i cannot wait for it. It has been the best comic book event for me in years. I am going to start reading Secret Warriors at #16 before they start the Captain America arc to see if its good. Are you going to post a review for Siege #3 because that issuse might have had alot of action but was a very bad storytelling.
Ya, Siege was shit. We will be reviewing it on the next episode of the podcast which should be up tomorrow.
J.
PowerGirl I almost picked up, it justnever resonated with me. Maybe with the next team.
G.L. Not abad issue by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve got a bad feeling where its leading.
Nemisis: Passable art? Thats high praise indeed, all things considered That almost sounds like you had less of a problem with the art than I did. That can’t be right. 🙂
I thought you liked McNiven Phil? Now that I think about it you did say that the art didn’t impress you a few days ago. I guess I was just looking for something, anything, to be sorta positive about. 🙂
J.
Why try, the part where the chief kills the grocery store robbers, and of course nobody saw him… because he was wearing at hat. And it was just downhill from there.
You have a good point there.
J.
great reviews but am I the only one that thinks its bullshit that IGN gave uncanny x-men#522 an 8.3 but gave thunderbolts#142 a 5.8?
Ya, I’m done with IGNcomics. I removed them from my bookmarks about 4 months ago for shit like that.
No, I think it’s bullshit too. But then again I think that IGN’s comic reviews are all a fucking joke. They don’t know their fucking head from their ass. IGN’s reviews hold just as much weight as Entertainment Weekly’s for me.
J.
cool Im glad Im not the only one who thinks IGN reviews suck.
I agree as well. Thanks Jose for the reviews.
Matthew
You think IGN is bad listen to ComicVine podcast someday, those people know jack about comics even the most simple general knowledge.
Just keep BatgirlBabs outta your sites, bucko? Did I just say bucko? 🙂
Yes..yes you did and I feel ashamed for you.
😉
Yeah ComicVine is just a bunch of nerds who want to be nerdy rather than being nerds and having fucking class in the comics you buy. Their weekly pull list is basically every comic on the shelf (so they don’t lose any viewers probably) and their reviews? boring. cheesy. etc
At least CBR only gave Uncanny 2 1/2 stars. Looks like the reviewers there are slowly getting their balls back.
I think your Secret Warriors score is one * lower than it should’ve gotten, and GL is half a * lower.
Great reviews! I love this line…
“a story that seems to be written by a 15 year old sociopath.”
Doesn’t anyone feel bad that Millar seems to be getting more & more popular when he basically dares his audience to hate him? He’s like a snake oil salesman who just happens to tell you his product is shit and won’t make your life any better. At least JoeyQ pretends the shit he promotes is good.
So now Bendis has gone from aping the style of dialogue that made Tarantino famouse(except that all his characters sound like Chandler Bing mixed with the worst Woody Allen character ever) to using the back and forth in time plot that Pulp Fiction made popular? When will the rest of the comic buying public admit that the “Emperor” has no clothes?
That guy must have the most loyal fanbase in the world. That’s the only reason I can think of for his shit to keep selling like it has.
I think Millar can be talented when he wants to be,but he gets rewarded for pandering.Look what happened to Wanted,they take the parody,satire,and moral subversiveness out and leave in the ultra violence.Same w/Ultimates.The political satire is gone from the movie but the action stayed. I think Millar saw the success of these things and said “oh,so this is what you REALLY want!Have at it!” And I think BMB is now trying to follow suit. How many years has the Jinx movie been in turn around? Brian probably wants some of that Hollywood money too!Bring on the superhero gore!
I think Millar can be talented when he’s “borrowing” ideas from Grant Morrison, otherwise he’s a hack.
Isn’t it true that, except for Ultimates(which I’m not a big fan of), all of Millar’s well reviewed books were co-authored with Morrison(or he at least helped him the ending like he did with Red Son)?
J knows how to turn a phase don’t he, 😉
I think Bendis is at the nader of his popularity, the fall is coming if only that he’s been doing the same schtick for 10yrs now and his style has become a verb
never a mighty avengers! you guys have said you appreciate slotts work on the title but he just came out with a really great one and nothing. hell even koi pham has gotten so good on that title. i wanna know your opinions on it, more so than the new avengers or other crap bendis stuff
It’s a hard knock life isn’t it? The reason I don’t review Mighty Avengers is because I don’t read Mighty Avengers. As much as I like Dan Slott I despise Khoi Pham’s “art” and that pretty much makes the book unreadable for me. And I certainly do not think Pham has gotten any better. Polish up a turd and it’s still a turd. At least the book is getting cancelled so now you won’t feel the need for me to review it anymore.
J.
Y’know, I hate to be negative, but I have to agree that Pham makes this title unreadable for me as well. I’ve tried to read the last couple issues and I just can’t get past the artwork. He seems to have improved only a tiny amount in the two years or so he’s been on the book. Koi Pham is my least favorite artist working in comics today. Having interacted with a lot of aspiring artists on the ‘net and otherwise, I’ve seen a lot of work that is far superior from people who have a hard time landing jobs. I honestly don’t see how this guy got such a high-profile assignment. This is not to say that I don’t think he couldn’t improve, but right now Pham is just not playing at a big league level.
Pham has pictures of Quesade in compromising positions and is blackmailing him that has too be it.
If Pham drew those pictures, Joe Q has nothing to worry about.
good on ya, mate
I don’t currently buy Mighty Avengers even though I do like Slott(for one thing it’s cancelled and I’m also back on the wagon in terms of refusing to buy Marvel until something changes), but I agree that Koi Pham has gotten a little better. He wouldn’t even be in my top 20 artists, but he also wouldn’t cause me not to pick up a book. I find that there are a lot worse artists working today than Pham.
The positive thing about Slott’s Mighty is that it feels like an actual super team comic when you read it as opposed to 20 pages of filler for the next “event”.But,uh.. does anyone else think the current story is maybe slightly creepy?I mean,bringing your ex-wife from the dead in a robot body that you can control? Isn’t that the flip side of chauvinism..instead of beating your wife you control her? Maybe I just reading too much into it?
Also,I flipped thru Nemesis at the comic store yesterday and put back on the rack.But I guarantee you it will be optioned for a movie by next year.
You did not read to much into it. I had a feeling of disgust towards Pym throughout the whole book, he’s all worried about the robot, but not his team. I don’t know where there going with this.
he has not brought his dead wife back to life and put her anywhere yet.
jocasta was made by ultron to be his wife back in the 70’s. and pym is in love with the robot now(not uncommon in marvel) its weird yeah. but not as weird as all the other inter species love in marvel.
i think slott will eventually have pym put wasps mind into a jocasta body(the one with flesh parts now) so she can be alive(the wedding he hinted at?). but i doubt they will get together.
i think mighty avengers is one of the only good marvel books around. that last issue even more so. hank pym is marvels doctor who. finally a book worth it. and 2.99 still.
just read nemisis. what a bullshit awful comic.those cover blurbs lost their humor after the kick ass teaser. since then they are just lame and awful. millar needs to quit.
You’re right about the inter-species romance at Marvel.Going back to 70’s Avengers I think in the same story where Wanda married Vision,Mantis married a tree spirit in the form of the Swordsman who dead at the time? (Sidenote: “Oh no,Stan…Me and Jim Starlin aren’t smoking pot on the weekends,why would you think that?”)
It’s just that if this were anything but a superhero comic,it would seem like some sort of control fantasy.I dunno…
Slott along with Jeff Parker and Paul Cornell are pretty much the only guys at Marvel who get all the characters, and fun lots of oldschool fun from these cats. I dropped Mighty only because Pham’s art gives me a nose bleed.
But comics with a bad guy as the protagonist are so original! How could you give it a 0!!! Really though, I think Millar managed to out do Kick-Ass with how bad that was.
kick ass started good i thought. i was into the idea. about halfway through issue one. it died.
i love reading the posts people make on cbr and stuff saying they herd about the movie and went out and bought the hardcover and it let them down completely.
thats millar in a nutshell.
yeah nemesis is written to be a movie and thats sad. go get a new job fucker cut out the middle man and just write horrible action movies.
Here’s why Millar is actually kinda clever…other ppl who want to be screenwriters have to get agents,take meetings and pitch ideas to bored executives who turn them down.Now Hollywood doesn’t know anything about comics but they’re always looking for some property they can exploit.Millar knows that he can just say “Hey,over here! I wrote this thing that adolescent guys like and it’s got violence in it!” Hollywood will go “SOLD!”
real clever. to bad he has to lessen a form of art to make money through another.
he ruins comics. people are going to try the’millar’ way now. and make comics only as a step to getting their movies pitched.
hack.
I totally believe this is what happened to Brian Bendis.I don’t think he’s a misogynist in real life,I think he’s pandering to what he believes is the low impulses of his audience (which may be worse).He’s written good female characters before in ultimate Spidey and in Powers,but that scene J. posted from DA is straight up 80’s horror movie stuff.The line about Wonder Woman having STDs? C’mon! That’s the stuff a 14yr old says about the pretty girl who won’t date him! It’s almost like Howard Stern who’s a smart middle aged guy who make his money talking about strippers and fake boobs.
Not that I have anything against fake boobs…
Baba Booey!
Am I the only one who gets all their comics shipped at the end of the month? Hello? Is there anybody out there?! Am I all alone!!?
I prefer to just wander into a comic shop at random every 3 weeks or so and just pick up whatever cathces my eye. So I get some “interesting” items.So.yeah,I’ll get the newest JLA Seige etc, but I also picked up Capt America 202 by Jack Kirby.Something to do with the hypnotised Falcon fighting a space monster..Gotta love 70’s Kirby.
70’s Kirby rocks. Kirby in any era rocks, actually.
i just go every month at the end and get the months worth then.
i hate it when a comic i really wanna read comes out the next week though. gotta wait a whole nother month to get that.
i dont like subscriptions or buying online. its the reason comics are how much they are now. alot of folks dont even go to local shops and they keep closing down.
(Not trying to threadjack here, just going on a little rant) Vegedge, I’m not too sure that correlation you’re mentioning between price and online purchasing is too accurate. I haven’t done any research on this but I would think that if you banned all online purchasing the comic companies would lose more profits overall. Even if this would lead to more local comic shops. This is anecdotal but I get more books from each comic company because of the discount I get online. If they’re making less overall this would contribute to higher cover prices. But anyways profits aren’t the only thing that contribute to changing cover prices (If profits go up one year do cover prices go down the next year? Have cover prices ever gone down?). And I think you’ll find that a lot of online shops are actually connected to physical shops. That’s not to say that some shops haven’t had to close down due their customers going online. Now, I’m no economist or business expert and like I said I haven’t looked into the online market vs. LCS market numbers so anyone feel free to correct me if I’m wrong here.
Did I just try to start a real debate on the internet? I picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue.
I can see where your coming from, and your right online probably hurts the LCS’s. I for one go to my LCS every Wednesday, sometimes Thursday morning at the latest. I don’t have my shop hold any books for me because I am constantly changing what I’m reading. But on top of that I buy comics off ebay and mycomicshop.com, I don’t feel like I am hurting the comic shop, when you buy old books online is probably going to be 10 times cheaper, I’m not a huge collector, so as long as I can read the story, I don’t need all my comics to be NM. So sure I use online but I don’t feel like I am betraying my LCS.
Nope, most of mine get shipped from the dcbs in the last week of the month. I usually have some comics to catch up on though or else I just torrent them if theres a discussion about them.
I use dcbs too. Yeah, that’s why I brought it up here: I usually miss out on any discussion and these capsule reviews are all I can check out without spoiling the books (I don’t want to download any torrents).
Anoyher great round of reviews J, although I have to disagree on secret Warriors. Caselli art looks better to me and Hickman is a slowburn writer even though it’s decompressed he at least has a alot of stuff happening within the story.
Thunderbolts #142 looks alright. I might actually pick that one up. Just reading the plot seemed really cool. Reminds me of some Thieves guild quests in Oblivion.
I read the latest G.L. and I’m getting a real bad feeling about B.N’s conclusion. A real bad feeling. Hey Jose, what did you think about 1st Wave? Myself, if I stay for the long haul (doubtful) it will be because of Rags. Azzerello to me is trying to fit a novel inside a comic…. well thats my take anyway.
I liked the first issue of First Wave. I’ll definitely be checking it out for at least another few issues.
J.