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And guess what - it's not even a new comic. Well, it is. Sortof. Just not from this week. Or last week. Might not be from the week before either. I can't remember. Anyway, yes. A review! At long last. I did call this site Highly Irregular Comic Reviews for this very reason though ;) - some times I just get very busy, or get very tired, etc etc. So yeah, it's been both for a while. Job takes alot out of me, have been to the theater (seeing Jersey Boys), to music gigs (seeing Europe), the cinema (seeing Princess and the Frog), been on dodgems and went bowling with work (yeah, when we want a break, we go on dodgems. I jest. We've only been once). And that's just been in the last week and a half, so yeah...
Anyway, on to the comic review - it's Pixie Strikes Back! part 1 of 4. It's written by Kathryn Immonen (who I've never heard of before), drawn by Sara Pichelli (again, never heard of), coloured by Christina Strain (third times the charm of not having heard of her), and lettered by Dave Sharpe (who I have heard of actually). So yeah...
The story itself is quite confusing, having lept into it half way through it seems. For some reason they're in a high school populated with demons (brilliantly hid I might add ) thinking their not mutants. I think... While Anole and Rockslide continue to antagonize each other and have all the fun and comedy while exploring the inner workings of the female bathrooms. I do like whenever they appear, because they just have a great dynamic, and actually can show off other points if Marvel ever bothered to (like, you know, how the X-Men are actually soldiers and Xavier has just been training them to fight with their powers, which is one of the major reasons I don't like the X-Men). Them and Pixie should be on all X-Teams :D
The third part of the story concerns Megan's mother, who is quite the irritating bitch. She immediately is hostile, and is just, well, to put it mildly: the Damian of the Marvel universe in an adult female body. And she gets violent to, so no defence from me about how she's just a concerned mother. The main story I just don't get at the moment, it'll be explained in latter issues, but right now it's just confusing. Which is a shame, I was looking forward to this one (can anyone guess why?)...
The artwork in this issue is good (quite reminiscent of Skottie Young, who you may or may not be aware that I think is brilliant), and I feel most of the time she gets Pixie dead-on (with none of this classic all women must have a clear outline of boobs at the minimum *cough* whoever drew her a while ago when she was older and taller than she should be), and the colour is mostly good. And they're quite cool casual clothes. Just one minor niggle - what happened to her blue undertop from page 4 onwards? And why does she have some white/blonde streaks in her hair - it does look quite good, but, not her. I was never a fan of having the black in there either, but I suppose it's some form of representation of her lost. You know, subtlety ;) But these are minor niggles...
Anywho, enough rambling from me I suppose. Just one last thing - why does every X-Uniform need yellow on it? And most having those stupid big boots and glove/gauntlet/bracer things... And the current female ones just look stupid as it is...
Oh, and just for the record - well done Marvel on spoiling the fatherhood of Pixie, among other things.
SPOILER
"You can’t pick your parents. And if you could, Pixie certainly wouldn’t have picked Mastermind, the man who turned Jean Grey into the Dark Phoenix. But right now, that’s the least of her problems. A giant demon named Saturnine has been using her Pixie dust to lull her fellow X-Men into submission and it’s worked. Now he’s one step away from all the power he needs to take control of the world. Can the fast-talking Welsh girl with wings possibly stop him?"
I'm meh to Mastermind, so I'm not particularly bothered, and it makes a form of sense regarding her powers. I just don't see why they had to do that. Couldn't she just have the trauma of having her soul partially gone (which I don't really like. It somewhat does symbolise the current age of comics. Nobody is innocent, nobody can ever not have turmoil, nobody can have a happy family. ARGH. Sometimes you just need characters like that without screwing over their entire life. Grumble grumble. I do wonder whose idea this was. I'm betting it was Joe Quasemodo. I know that's not his real name, but sometimes I find high up editors just so infuriating. Grumble grumble)
END SPOILERS
And because I feel like it, I'll also just make a few comments about some of the ads in this issue:
- Super Hero Squad - please, just go away. The Hulk doesn't drive, Iron Man doesn't a fire truck, why is Spider Man driving Optimus Prime? And that's just for starters. ARGH. I hit spinoff toys like this >:(
- X-Men Second Coming - well, Scott's obviously not gonna be the leader, cause he's just an arse who I don't like. Yep, that's my reasoning on that one. Never have liked him, never will. Magneto would be the really controversial choice, and so seems most likely, while Emma is the middle ground viewpoint I suppose, but she's been in the spotlight alot recently, so it would make sense either way for her to have more spotlight or less. But regardless, please, put some clothes on. ARGH
- Fall of the X-Men & Avengers - because we haven't seen the Hulk attack his team-mates before... Repeated plot x 100 = ARGH
- The C2E2 - I hate being in Britain sometimes. I'm missing Alex Ross, Greg Land and Skottie Young, among others. ARGH
- Guardians of the Galaxy - now this looks interesting. Cool pic, and it's written by Dan Abnett. But I won't pick it up, as I don't normally buy Marvel single issues.
Oh, and if anyone could provide me with a concise timeline of the Runaways, that would really help - I've been collecting the collecting editions in various formats, and have got volumes 1-9, and I've really enjoyed em, but there's things missing, like the death of Gert etc... Grumble grumble
Right, so, here we are: a few different TPBs that arrived through my door recently. I'll be reviewing them in 'comic timeline' order, which, conveniently, is somewhat like my list of what I think held promise and what I bought just to say what started Dark Reign. Due to these books all being old, these reviews aren't for people buying comics regularly, but hey, this isn't something like Amazon anyway, so who cares?
Firstly, I'll be reviewing the House of M TPB (written by Brian Michael Bendis, pencilled by Oliver Coipel, inked by Tim Townsend, Rick Magyar, Scott Hanna and John Dell, coloured by Frank D'Armata and lettered by Chris Elipoulos), which also The Pulse, which is pretty much just advertising in comic book form (or newspaper in a comic book form?). I mean, sure, it does show (sortof) what's happening around the Marvelverse, but it's just advertising and is pretty ignorable really...
The first problem I have with this book is that after issue 1 (with alot of talking, which I don't mind), issue 2 just shows us what people's lives are like in this new world. That's fine and dandy in itself, but it's an event book, and it really shows the problem with this book - the pacing is all a bit off. I get that this new world needs to be established, but it probably was a big letdown for people reading this as it came out. For me, it's fine, but for others it might've caused a few issues.
The main problem with this book is that it suffers from Wolverine Publicity (thank you TVTropes). This is one of the few books where him being centre star of the series actually makes sense and works (which I don't mind, even though I really don't like him) - the problem is that he's been in everything else ever for the last who knows how many years. We've been inundated with him, which really drags the book down, though it isn't it's fault.
Another problem with this is a general problem with Brian Bendis - his endings of each issue aren't that great, and generally I find hamper the story a little bit:
- Issue 1: It should've ended a page earlier. Instead of showing Peter and Gwen, it should've just ended with that mahusive white flash, a whole new world, who knows what to expect from it kindof thing. And it would tie in with the ending of issue 7, a complete full circle of 6 issues, as it were...
- Issue 2: Yeah, it looks pretty, sortof. And? That's about it, it doesn't hold much significance for me. I mean, sure, Sentinels, SHIELD, what you have to assume is something important (the House of M flag) etc.
- Issue 3: A classic superhero comic flaw. They're having a standoff after they've told Wolverine he's got a tracking device in him. Wait, what? And it just carries on into issue 4 exactly how you would expect because superheroes can never agree, talk or do sensible things. They just have to fight...
- Issue 4: Yeah, let's just have a beer while saying the whole world's buggered. Great...
- Issue 6: It's meant to install hope, as it were, but, I dunno, it just rings slightly odd to me...
Anywho, enough complaining about endings, I mean, I've probably complained enough on this TPB anyway. Because, even though I've just made loads of complaints about it, and haven't even mentioned how convenient the whole Layla thing is, I did enjoy this book. It was fun, didn't really have a message in it, Emma Frost didn't dress like a slut (a good thing, as I actually enjoy reading it more when she's just wearing the suit and coat then when wearing, well, almost nothing. It's something irritates me with comics. Though Polaris wearing almost nothing in places did bring it down a bit...), Hawkeye's costume was pretty damn cool, the artwork was solid and interesting, but not brilliant. So yeah, I enjoyed this one.
But on a bad note: Peter Parker. Shut up. You're complaining when everyone else has suffered the same shit you have in this one. What right do you have to complain any more than the others here? Shut up, move on, and stop whining. Unless you want to turn into Toby Maguire...
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After that, we've now got X-Men: The 198 (written by David Hine, pencilled by Jim Muniz, inked by Kevin Conrad, Jonathon Glapton and Don Hillsman III, coloured by Matt Milla and lettered by Joe Caramagna), pretty much dealing with the aftermath of House of M.
The problem here is that is suffers from so much wasted potential, and the typical superhero fight at the end. It's got some many point that could be taken further, showing the real schism about what's happening here - the 'voluntary' capturing of mutants, the camps, all that stuff. But it really looses it's message because it ends up being your typical superhero comic when instead it could've been something so much better, something much cleverer. Something that really would've caused a lasting impact on the Marvel world. I mean, there's so many paths that they could've gone down. But instead, well, it fails at any message it was trying to deliver.
And yes, I did enjoy reading this, but it really does suffer from it could've been so much better syndrome. And the ending, well, er, what the hell was that?
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Now I have to move onto Secret Invasion (written by Brian Michael Bendis, pecilled by Leinil Francis Yu, inked by Mark Morales, coloured by Laura Martin and Emily Warren, and lettered by Chris Eliopoulos). I don't know whether I can or not... I mean, do I have to?...
It was a mess, from start to finish. Issue 1 started badly by just jumping off from some other comic I've missed, which is always a problem. I mean, it's like starting Civil War from the cleanup operation, instead of beginning at Stamford... And then it just get's confusing, I didn't really have much idea what was going on. I get that might be because Brian wanted it to be confusing to show how it was for the characters themselves, but it was just a jumble really.
And it doesn't explain at all why suddenly Osborn gets power over everything. Because he shot the Skrull Queen, when there were about five heroes about to kill her, he becomes the hero of the hour? Er, right. Yeah...
The artwork was alright, but much worse than House of M and The 198 (which was cartoony, but in a good way). It wasn't terrible art, but it's definitely on the lower scale of alright, heading towards bad...
I honestly can't review this one anymore, it just makes me want to bludgeon my head against a brick wall. Repeatedly. It's that bad. Actually, that brick wall sounds delightful. Maybe it'll erase the stain of this comic from my mind...
Since some of us have bills to pay, and whatnot, I can only but a coupld of TPB/THBs this month :( I've already ordered Teen Titans: Titans of Tomorrow, so I'll review that when it comes, I'll order Decimation: X-Men - The 198 when I've paid those bills and the only single I'm buying is Green Lantern Corps #44... Next week gets more expensive, with
- Batman & Robin #7 (Urgh, why am I still buying this? If Grant messes up Batwoman, I'm just giving up with this...)
- Detective Comics #861 (Shame JH Williams III is taking a break, but we get Jock instead, so it's all good)
- Gotham City Sirens #8 (didn't we have one of these two weeks ago? Oh, why am I complaining? ;))
- Green Lantern #50 (The cover looks spectacular, but what with last issue being a bit of a dissapointment, well, I dunno...)
- Cry For Justice #6 (Finally. I feel like I've been waiting an age for this)
- Superman: Secret Origins (Sweeeet. Really looking forward to this one)
The TPB/THB I'm most awaiting are Avengers/X-Men: Utopia (Dark Avengers / Uncanny X-Men) and Dark Avengers 2, but they aren't out for an age yet. Grrrrr
For me it's no longer Michael Turner week, as I started it on Facebook over a week ago :D I'll be nice and continue for the rest of the week, after a break today :D
