rantings and ravings

Transformers v2 #2

2009-12-24T20:58:00.000-08:00

So far the renumbering /soft reboot of the Transformers franchise has been pretty good letting new readers to jump in without know a whole lot of knowledge accept the american military isn't so sure they trust the Autobots anymore than the Decepticons at this point and Megatron is seemingly dead and most of the Decpticons seem to have fled the earth.

All of those idea's are intriguing and new to the franchise (as far as i know anyways)

The one problem tho is they came out with a one shot Bumblebee after the first issue that spoiled the entire set up of issue number 2 ! was this some sort of error in publishing? either way it doesn't make a lot of sense because the drama in the second issue was supposed to be who was gonna carry on after Optimus after he surrendered to Skywatch.

the rest of it ? well i like the more military feel of the book even from the Autobots perspective which makes sense given that Matt Costa previously worked on I.D.W's G.I. Joe Series.

And I also really keen on Don Figueroa's pencil work which is highly detailed on the robots and having the sense of scope needed to tell a story with giant robots.

So hopefully there wont be any mistakes like the last one so i can finally jump on to a transformers comic just like i did with there G.I. Joe Series last year.

Victorian Undead #2

2009-12-24T20:27:00.000-08:00

Hmm well this was a bit of a let down from the previous issue especially since not much of anything happens and Sherlock Holmes and Watson get saved (right on time no less) by his portly brother(?) who happens to have a crack team of zombie fighting soldiers with advanced weaponry that even we probably don't have right now (Machine guns that look like they belong on top of a tank for instance)and they don't look anything victorian in there uniform.

The writing does seem to capture the language pretty well and the main characters seem to be written in character and the art is decent but doesn't really set the mood of the time period and is starting to seem more endowed to something more slightly more cartoon like or animated looking like Walking Dead which i don't think really fits well with this time period.

I'm hoping the next issue sort of picks up the pace a bit more and gives us some twists and turns.

Powers #1 v3.

2009-12-01T15:34:00.000-08:00

I have tried to jump on board with this comic a bunch of times just cause a lot of people tell me how much better Bendis's street level comics are and since this book is mainly about cops and detectives trying to take down super villains i figured this would be a natural and with the new series afoot i figured it would be a good place to start.

Apparently i thought wrong since i am mostly confused and mostly irritated with this comic.

A lot of it has to do with the art by Micheal Avon Oeming which is similar in style to Amanda Conner and other slight retro cartoon like artists while Amanda is a good story teller and great at facial expressions Mr.Oeming doesn't seem to have any of those skills and frankly this style does not work on a gritty comic like this anywyas.

a lot of the story makes absolutely no sense to me at all and a lot of it feels rushed which is ironic considering how long it's been since the last issue came out and also there's some confusing things like i'm not sure what a "powers virus" is and what it does.

Frankly there's a lot of mistakes and plot holes in this like when officer Sunrise says "stop or i'll shoot" even tho she is already shooting.
I'm also curious how the two officers wound up in bed together first they check out a murder and then we get some weird random flashback that parodies the rat pack for no real reason and the next thing the two officers hop in bed together even tho they weren't even getting along before.

Maybe this will all make sense to someone who has read the previous issues but i'm completely left out in the cold and the obvious rushed mistakes and the crappy art doesn't make me wanna stick around and figure things out.

Honestly this feels like an inferior version of Criminal by Ed Brubaker and i would stick with that one unless your a hardcore Bendis fan or a big fan of this series.

The Sword #1

2009-11-25T11:08:00.000-08:00

I came across this issue recently by the Luna Brothers after reading there Spider-woman Origins mini series.
and i really like this comic, the premise is simple basically a paraplegic girl in a wheelchair finds a magic sword beneath her house after her family was murdered and her house burned down by a pair of evil mages.
thereby giving her the exact means for her revenge which may seem a little too convenient but the mages where looking for that sword in the first place.

The pacing is so great that it only takes them 2 pages to shockingly reveal Dara is handicapped.

The art is very simple and clean too with soft pastel colors in some area's and a great sense of normalcy in everything from the backgrounds to the anatomy.

I have rarely seen such a collaborative effort where there lines of artistic deviation aren't divided up by Writer and Penciller.

I feel like i don't read enough indie comics for various reasons but this one feels very classic even tho it started in 2007 this could have been made at any time.
I really can't say enough about this book so please give it a try.

Black Widow - Deadly Origin #1

2009-11-21T15:47:00.000-08:00

Black Widow- Deadly Origin #01 (by Paul Cornell, Tom Raney, and John Paul Leon)

I'm not sure who this book is meant for really and I can't say I am interested in this at all.

The story takes several jumps through places and times including her origin and while the book starts off with Black Widow in a Mini Space Shuttle playing a game of spy one upmanship unfortunately we then get five pages of wordless grunting and pointless fighting.

Then we get to the main plot where a man who is apparently like a father to her named Ivan is on the run because of something called the “icepick protocol” and from there we get somewhat random flashbacks about Natasha's early childhood and for some reason Wolverine makes a cameo appearance (boy that guy sure did get around) and then back to the present.

To be perfectly honest this story bored the hell out of me maybe if you are a big fan of spy type stuff this would interest you and we also have no clue what the icepick protocol is or what it's about and the flashbacks are kind of dull and don't tell us much except Natasha was a killer at an early age.

The art in the present by Tom Raney doesn't really work well especially since all his females have chubby faces it doesn't really fit how Widow is supposed to look which I think should be strong and fierce and determined with high cheekbones, his storytelling isn't all that great either.

The Flashbacks by John Paul Leon are nice and atmospheric and has some interesting layouts that look Steranko-esque.

I can't say if I will continue reading this but right now I can say I don't have much interest, I would advise most people to read something else unless youre a hardcore fan of the original Black Widow or you love Spy books no matter

Valkyrie

2009-11-13T12:59:00.000-08:00

I was really looking forward to seeing this movie the other night but ultimately i was very disappointed in it.

The actors don't seem quite passionate enough for something as life and death as this(overthrowing Hitler)
Not to mention that noone even attempts a German accent and most of the actors besides Tom have British accents which is really jarring.

There is no mention of the atrocities that the SS and Hitler are performing on Jews or exactly what exactly they plan to do once they get rid of Hitler.

If this was supposed to be some sort of comeback vehicle for Tom Cruise..... well then i'm curious why he and his people didn't invest more effort into making this movie more authentic and passionate?
since after all this would have been a great oscar bait if it was more successfull.

2009-11-09T04:36:00.000-08:00

Deathlok the Demolisher #1 (1of a seven issue limited series)

Apparently this book is reviving the Marvel Knights imprint (which has seemingly been dead for quite a while,)although from the writing here with it's glorious use of violence and long string of obnoxiously edited curse words they might as well put it out in the Max imprint. of course one even wonders why Marvel and DC are always trying to revive long dormant characters but I guess they should be rewarded for at least trying even if most of the time the results are null and void, which is pretty much what we seem to be getting here.

Granted I know next to nothing about Deathlok except he was a african american half cyborg and possible soldier of some sorts and his book was considered edgy for it's time and that's just going from memory..

Anyways all those idea's have been apparently thrown out the window for some reason at least for the time being what we get is a mix and match of sci fi tropes all thrown into together in something that doesn't seem anything at all original so basically what we have here is Starship troopers meets Rollerball meets Running Man which basically amounts to a parody of extreme sports commentators over a a bunch of hard ass military goons pretending to be jocks.

The first big mistake is the pacing which doesn't even get to the action until page 15 where the book is already half-way over and the second is the extremely obnoxious extreme sports commentators who don't offer any real insight into the players or what's going on in the book at all just check out this exact quote from one of the commentators “that can only mean one thing the house of pain is open for business” “ amateurs need not apply” “we got the big dogs in the ring tonight and one of them ain't going home with a bone” And then they insult one of the former players turned commentators who was handicapped from a field explosion .
Apparently all this is supposed to be some sort of dark comedy but the dialogue is way too in your face to ever be funny so i'm not sure who exactly this book is supposed to be marketed towards.

Lan Medina's art is really lovely in the beginning and has lots of nice detail and a level of almost painterly realism, but then when the action starts the action seems stiff and the blood red colors blur a lot of the energy and detail out of the pencils. Sadly Deathlok himself doesn't even appear in this issue at all so maybe the next issue will pick up on the action and leave the commentators behind.

Secret Six #15

2009-11-08T04:57:00.000-08:00

Secret Six 15

Deadshot is having issues ! he keeps seeing dead people and he wants to kill everyone he sees and he doesn't like to not be in control so will he kill everyone or will he reform and become a priest?

In this story Deadshot meets up with one of his old friends Reverend Richard Craemer at a downtown Gotham Cafe and he tells the Rev that he has been having uncontrollable homicidal feelings. they catch up on what Floyd has been doing lately then he takes the Reverend to his old house and tells him how he had to “evict” some gang members from his old abandoned house and told them to spread the word that it's his. We also get a nice short flashback of Deadshots origin where he meets Bruce and Batman for the first time.

John is not someone I'm overly familiar with, I know he has been working a lot on the Dark Horse Star Wars Republic series and did a lot with the Suicide Squad in the late 80's including reinvented Barbara Gordon as a computer hacker named Oracle. So I wasn't sure what I was expecting completely it seems a lot of older generation writers from the 80's have really lost there touch lately , but it seems his skills probably never atrophied like a lot of other writers.
Either way it's hard to not be impressed with this issue it's dark and pretty grim at times, but not to the point of parody. Deadshot has always seemed very contradictory about who he decides to kill or not kill on any given issue while even characters like Wolverine who have killed they usually are a little more repentant about it and Deadshot only cares about this sudden impulse cause he can't control it and that bothers him, but he does not care about the moral implications even when he is discussing things with a Reverend the only problem with this story is how suddenly Batman mysteriously disappears in the middle of the story.

J. Calafiore is on pencils and although it doesn't look anything like his regular work the storytelling is very good even in the shadows.

To sum it up Great issue if you have been liking Secret Six so far I seriously doubt you could be disappointed by this at all.

2009-11-08T04:46:00.000-08:00

Psylocke #1

(script by Christ Yost Art by Harvey Taliboa)

Psylocke is back in a new body and maybe a new mind but she still doesn't know who she really is anymore so she travels to japan with Wolverine in tow

I'm not sure if Psylocke needs a mini series but here we are !

The book seems to be basically about Psylocke trying to find out who she really is deep down inside which is a great hook to reel people in and gives Yost a lot of room to clear up some things with Betsy who is probably the most screwed over X-men .

Although one wishes this would have come out sooner since it ties into her reappearance in Uncanny X-men where of course she switched minds/bodies again ! And frankly the first couple of pages of this comic are a bit of a cluttered almost impossible to read mess It also doesn't help that there is some weird back and forth timeline going on making it hard to place when the opening scene actually happened. and of course it is also nice to see Psylocke and Dazzler has buddy buddies again even if they haven't seen each other in a long time.

I think the best thing about this book is Betsys inner monologue which comes across as intelligent and witty befitting someone who grew up a rich socialite in england with a well healed education.

The art is very reminiscent of Stephen Segovia with long wavy lines everywhere unfortunately some there is too many extreme close ups in the beginning and the actions scenes are extremely cluttered at first but then it starts to come together around page 10

Fall Out Toy Works

2009-09-17T18:05:00.000-07:00

The first issue is created by Pete Wentz (with help from two or three other people)who most people know as the bass player and songwriter for popular Emo band Fall Out Boy and while i don't know any of the other people involved in this i have to say that this is a good first issue especially for those who are fans of the band and more adult oriented anime.

The story is sort of a mash up of Blade Runner (visually at least) and Pinochio and as strange as that sounds it works pretty well .

The plot is basically a guy who makes life like robotic toys but is out of work because his factory closed down and is now being offered to make a life like woman to be a housewife.

It's hard to say who exactly this is geared towards and the plot mash up could be a little more subtle but as someone who doesn't really care for the band either way i was certainly intrigued enough by the set up to check out the next issue.

G.I. Joe (IDW)

2009-04-30T06:42:00.000-07:00

I must admit i was pretty excited when i learned that IDW was going to reboot the Joe franchise from the previous owner Devil's Due and so far i have not been disappointed and to be honest i have not been a hardcore fan of there comics before but this time they have bought me hook line and sinker.

It's pretty ambitious because they have launched 3 ongoing titles and they have brought Chuck Dixon for the main book who also just recently and controversially left Dc comics and is a somewhat notorious conservative who also happens to love his military jargon almost as much as Warren Ellis loves his sci-fi techno jargon, so it's been a natural fit from day one.
The other books are G.i Joe Origins which features G.I Joe mainstay Larry Hama and G.I. Joe Cobra which is co-written by Christos Gage and Mike Costa.

The main book shows the current timeline where the other two are in the same continuity but in the past.
It's hard to pick which one is better right now they all seem to be in the same quality even tho the main book started off a bit slow right now it's kicking into high gear with Destro (pre metal mask) using arachnid like robots to infiltrate the Joe's underground desert base now i'm not sure if this plot has been done before cause it seems so simple it's almost a no brainer and Destro having his two henchpeople to use Xbox controllers to manuever the robots is a absolutely hilarious.

The art by Robert Atkins is really good and has the good sense where he doesn't get in the way of the strong storytelling by over complicating the pencils.

Also using a underground desert base is a real neat idea that i have not seen used a whole lot in any of the comics or the cartoons.

I'm not really sure why he Chuck Dixon feels the need to over emphasize the scottish accents in Destro's castle almost to a Chris Claremont parody but that's a small nitpick.

G.I Joe origins has been more character oriented which is showing how the Joe team came together and it's first mission.
i have to admit it's a bit confusing cause they are using this guy named Chimera who could or could not be the future Cobra Commander
i guess we will see cause honestly i think the Joe's could use another antagonist besides Cobra Commander and the various Cobra allies.

G.I. Joe Cobra features mainly the character of "Chuckles" (whom i don't really know much about)doing undercover work in Eastern Europe seems he is working for some rich dude as a bodyguard type and also having an affair with Jinx who is supposed to be his liason purists might think this book doesn't feel like a G.I. Joe comic but who cares? The thing i really like about this book is Chuckles does not feel like your typical action hero movie or comic book wise he is a slightly annoying smart ass who wears hawaiin shirts and bitches and complains a lot to Hawk which is kind of funny.

But it also feels very much like you are there witnessing this all go down it pulls you straight in and thats a rare thing to find in any comic even if it's one that is completely grounded like this one.

If you have never read a G.I. Joe comic or just wanting to get back in and need to get in on the ground floor this is probably the best oppurtunity yet.

G.I Joe #0

2008-11-17T22:00:00.000-08:00

This is band new reboot of the G.I. Joe story by IDW spear headed by Chuck Dixon of mostly Batman fame and honestly there is probably no single writer ever made that could fit in more perfectly since Chuck loves taking his characters on international espionage conspiracies and Joe obviously couldn't be a better fit for that.

The other writers who are working on seperate books are Christos Gage who has been writting some small X-men mini series lately and Larry Hama who is well renown for his writing of G.I. Joe in the 80s.

This book is a compilation of small stories giving you a sample of what there books will look like.

Anyways what do they fare? Well the Chuck Dixon one looks great but the story is a little weird because they sneak on a ship that is carring illegal arms and then hold the arms dealers up but then a guy with a bazooka yells at the Joes in a foreing language they tell him to "drop it" and he says "go to hell" then the next page the ship is empty and they blow it to bits and escape so what happened to the arms dealers and the bazooka guy? they said this was supposed to be a non lethal excersion? and they don't show the Joes killing or shooting anyone...but when they get to the rescue boat they have a prisoner even tho he's dying tho we are not sure how cause he looks un-injured.. so there must have been some miscommunication or they just said "screw it" cause either way it makes no sense.

The art by Robert Atkins is really pleasing especially the subtle use of colors.

Next story with Larry Hama has Hawk trying to recruit Duke after he won a purple heart in Iraq.
Of course if he didn't say yes Hawk said he would have supposedly shot him.
But that doesn't really matter cause he is now he will be considered dead to everyone and will be undercover with a codename which is an interesting idea having the Joes be covert this time around of course the story is short with nothing but talk but it is still an interesting conversation.

Next one is by Christos Gage and Mike Costa with art by Antonio Fuso wich deals with some undercover spy named "Chuckles" and him getting saved by a double cross by some communists by some unkown guy who has a sniper friend and well thats about it.
The art sort of looks similar to dustin Nguyin who is doing Detective right now.

The best part of the book is the character designs and sketches by Robert Atkins were he goes into detail about updating the Joe's and Cobra's uniform.
Theres also an interview with the writers at the end.

And it's only a dollar so you really really can't beat that.

Steve Earle -Guitar Town

2008-11-15T11:31:00.002-08:00

The Debut by Texas Troubadour Steve Earle shows all the promise that a great debut cd should and more especially for an artist who is known for personal and heartfelt yet vivid lyrics with with flinty vocals which propel the best songs on here and while the album starts off with the raucous classic "guitar town"with the hilarious line "everybody told me you cant get far 37 dollars and a jap guitar" And the Rockabilly influenced "hillbilly highway" shows his knack for vivid and personal details with the line "i was born in the land of plenty but now that ain't enough" the most heartbreaking song is "my old friend the blues" which strips away the tinny 80's mainstream country production.

Steve Earle -

2008-11-15T11:31:00.001-08:00

Elvis Costello - My Aim is True

2008-11-01T07:02:00.000-07:00

Well certainly this was unexpected i got this at the local used record store ( deluxe edition too !) so that was pretty much a steal, of course i was expecting this to be more punk rock than it really was but i can't say that i'm disapointed at all.

Theres so much variety on here it's practically breathtaking and Elvis pulls it off so simply and easy it doesn't feel like he's showing off at least compared to the genre-hopping he started doing in the 90's and beyond.

Probably the best song on here is the ballad "Alison" which features some very lovely jazz guitar type soloing.

Also another gem is the traditional rock and roller "Mystery Dance" which sounds like it came straight from the 1950's.

The deluxe edition features a lot of acoustic demo's and some really nice country rock songs with wonderful steel guitar playing.

Can't recommend this enough honestly even if you are familiar with the singles.

Incredible Hulk - Hide in plain site

2008-08-27T03:06:00.000-07:00

Ok this is part of Bruce Jones's work on the Hulk and i'm really not feeling this arc at all .
It's basically Absorbing Man caught in some sort of secret underground lab/prison and somehow is able to absorb minds without even touching them??

Absorbing Mans powers only work when he touches something and not only that since he can enter minds he has become intelligent and crafty so we spend 98% of this arc completely out of character on purpose which makes me wonder why he didn't just make up a new villian capable of entering peoples minds?

I never really understood why Absorbing Man is one of the Hulks arch enemies in the first place since his mythos has nothing to do with the Hulk but i can assume that some writers decided to use him as a foil to take a break from the ever present gamma conspiracies .

anyways A/m blackmails Bruce Banner to get him to realease A/m from his prison and when he does he somehow takes on the properties of the whole entire lab.

In the end they trick him into popping into one of the professors minds and since that professor is dead he can't escape yet at the end he somehow appears in a baby in china?

The art by Leonardo Fernandez is nice in a slightly angular way that seems very popular nowadays.

I guess i would give this about a C

Stella Soleil -Dirrty Little Secrets

2008-08-27T02:42:00.000-07:00

Britney Spears created sort of a weird trend where failed female rock singers turned to remaking there image and incorporating teen oriented dance pop.
Vitamin C and Stella Soleil are the ones that come to mind since they both had failed careers singing "alternative rock" before the teen pop explosion during the millennium.

Stella used to be an a slight industrial rock band called Sister Soleil which noone seems to remember.
And the cover art here is quite nice recalling 40-s and 50-s pin up queens.
And strangely enough the music isn't half bad at all.
The semi hit song from here was a remake of a middle eastern hit pop song called " kiss kiss" which is probably the sexiest and best song on here.
Tthe rest mix dance pop with bits of pop/rock guitar with various producers (including Phil Thornally of the Cure !) and most of the songs deal with sex and love and tho her voice isn't perfect she seems to know how to work within the boundaries of her limitations and delivers some slightly quirky vocal performances.

It's a shame that her career bottomed out after this and went into dog grooming since she shows some capabilities.

I would give this about a B :)

Tampoline -Joe Henry (music)

2008-05-19T00:16:00.000-07:00

I became familiar with Joe Henry thru a tribute album called Sweet Relief where he collaborated with his sister in law Madonna on a song called "guilty by association"
which was a perfect little song and made me go out and get Trampoline by Joe Henry which is a pretty great recording even tho it now seems like a transition album from his alternative-country roots to his now jazzy art rock albums.
technically Joe has a strange but slightly sexy croak that resembles a younger Tom Waits and has almost all the idiosyncrasies locked down tight with reverberd guitars and funky live drums dominating most of the album and with strange lyrics like "theres something caught in my teeth and a cricket that wont let me sleep/ he sizzles like a radio another world away he laughs at me and my bare feet my flashlight robe and brown tv"
Recall prime Tom Waits with his obsession with gritty details and white trash surrealism.

the strangest thing is most of the guitars are played by Page Hamilton who was guitarist for heavy metal band Helmet of course theres no heavy metal here and shows what a great musician he is.

the most startling song because it sticks out the most is "i was a playboy" which with heavy pathos recounts a players lonely life after his looks and charm have faded.

Batman Gotham Knights #6

2007-11-17T07:21:00.000-08:00

Hoookay this is a weird one ! it's not all that coherent either, since basically the first half is Batman running around playing detective and the other half is Barbara Gordon upset because she found out that Jim Gordon may or may not be her real father which is sort of confusing, cause i always thought she was his daughter but apparently she was adopted by him.

i personally feel this is just a unnecessary retcon to create drama coming from an adopted person i can tell you that it doesn't really matter who you're real parents are as long as you have someone that cares about you.

honestly the only reason i got this issue was because it had Babs being shot on the cover and so i thought it be a series of flashbacks about how she got thru that mess physically and emotionally but of course that has absolutely nothing to do with whats inside.

anyways towards the end this gets really over the top with Batman saying he doesn't really wanna know about all this personal stuff and Barbara chastising him for not being a better adopted father to the new Robin (i'm assuming shes talking about the new Robin could be Dick for all we know)while Barbara is screaming at him Bats just makes these hilarious grim pouty faces and then after she stops yelling at him there is a really uncomfortable scene where Bats tries to kiss her on her forehead, i don't know i don't think i can handle Batman as touchy feely sensitive guy too much (thats not to say i want to see bat dick again)maybe Batman isn't suited for x-men level soap opera dramarama?
anyways i give this a D.

the Illuminati #3

2007-11-09T17:37:00.000-08:00

Oh god it's Bendis time again ! i always find myself suckered into reading his books and then end up completely regretting it,
this is obviously no different.
Anyways in this issue we get a massive swooping retcon about the Beyonder,
and to be frank it doesn't work and i'm not even sure what purpose this story serves,
basically The illuminiti are back in the first Secret Wars era and they find out that the Beyonder is really a Inhuman/mutant hybrid now this is a big great swooping retcon about a character who hasn't really been seen since the 1980's.
and it also basically doesn't make much sense since this means that The Beyonder is more powerfull than his king Black Bolt and that means he doesn't have to listen to him if he doesn't wanna.
now the last time we checked The Beyonder was found out to be part of a sentient cosmic cube, so i'm really not sure how this is all gonna fight in with his prior history and also seems kind of pointless since we haven't seen him in a long long time which sort of makes me wonder if they are going to find a way to bring him back and if so whoever is writing it is going to eventually have some explaining to do !
the other big retcon was that the Professor Xavier considered stopping everyone from fighting by using his powers but he was afraid of what The Beyonder might do in retaliation.
the thing is the professor rarely if ever uses his powers especially in that sort of context so we really don't know if hes capable of doing such thing.
anyways this thing ludacrisly ends by having Namor basically yell at him and tell him to "obey his king" which is kind of hard to do when you're king isn't allowed to talk but i digress.
then he turns into rock and the illumniti leave and then at the very end we find out he teleported himself back to downtown New York and is milling about in the crowds incognito.

so all in all completely pointless and the artwork wasn't really good enough since everyone looked like they all had the same funky looking nose.

Cable and Deadpool 39

2007-11-04T19:47:00.000-08:00

Classic issue !
in this one we get Deadpool trying to rescue Outlaw and Sandi from the clutches of T-ray !
now doesn't that sound awfully old school silver age-y to you? damsel in distress? hell two of them !
I also love the opening recap page where T- ray takes over, and gripes at us fans for not "believing" he was the real Wade Wilson "because hes funny" well yeah ! why would anyone want to believe what an arch villain has to say anyways?

Anyways i really love how this clears up the continuity mess joe kelly made with that issue, I m really starting to believe this Fabian Nieceza is a work of gold !
he turned something that was a big confusing continuity mess and cleared it right up for the fans.
i also really liked Ron Lims art which is somewhat animated/cartoony but not too over the top, especially with facial expressions.

Runaways #25

2007-11-04T17:07:00.000-08:00

Never read this before, but this is Joss Whedons first time writing this and i'm a big fan of his work (save for Buffy strangely enough)this is an excellent first issue for newcomers: first we got introductions to the team and there powers and then we get someone summing up the story so far,
all in a couple of pages ! take that deconstruction!!
anyways the group has a meeting with the Kingpin at a fancy restaurant in new york and they have a nice tete-a-tete about them taking over The Pride.
and Kingpin is written so well that i can actually hear his voice from the 90s Spiderman cartoon!

anyways he lets them know hes not to be played with and they do the same and then he lets them have a place to stay.
of course then we get a story about the Skrull who is apparently dating one of the teenagers who happens to be a lesbian even tho the Skrull in question is decidedly male in his natural form :/
i found this part very intriguing because it raises a lot of questions about sexuality especially when one can change there appearance to look male or female.
(this question has never really been brought up with Mystique that much even tho she is bi sexual)
then we get to the part where apparently The Kingpin wants them to rob someones personal vault and of course thing's don't go as well as planned.
at the end we get a teaser that The Punisher is going to be in the next issue which really ought to be interesting to see how he deals with teenage robbers with super powers.

anyways i give this issue an A- mostly because I'm not so crazy about Micheal Ryans work usually, but this work suits him better than an adult book since his style is very simplistic and almost retro.