It’s Spring Break and it’s time to head to the sunny
Florida beaches with my brood of six children and stay at Jim’s house! Just kidding…
We are traveling this weekend, going down to Richmond to celebrate
Easter with my mother and do some fun stuff around my hometown. So, I don’t have much time to cobble together
a post; therefore, I’ll try to keep it short and sour…I mean “sweet”, which
leads us to another installment of Recent Reads.
One of the difficulties of catching up on your reading
(as Jim has been doing) is generating a huge backlog of stuff to blog
about. I’ve just finished the Captain
Britain Omnibus (very good) and while I hope to spotlight it someday in the
future, I don’t have the time right now to do it justice. The real problem develops the more time that
passes between when you finish a book and get around to discussing it. Enthusiasm wanes, details get fuzzy, etc. If you read something, but don’t blog about
it, was is really worth it? We’ll leave
that question for the philosophers.
Anyway, Wednesday was my first day off for the break and
I was at the store right at 1100, having just downed a White Chocolate Mocha Frappuccino,
with a generous helping of books I really enjoy in my box. I even had time to read all of them that
afternoon. Unfortunately, I had problems
with most of them. (Maybe it was my
strange melancholy mood and innate fatigue.)
O.M.A.C
#8
What a disappointing ending! Kevin Kho and his “everyman” plight faced
with the over-the-top, monster action clashes was what really appealed to me in
this series. But Kevin doesn’t even
appear in this issue, at least in human form.
No, we get him narrating over the action, where he fills us in with
issues worth of back story to set us up for the finale with Brother Eye giving
him control of O.M.A.C, but without the ability to switch back. After he just told us how much his girlfriend
meant to him, he refuses her help and walks off alone. I did like how Brother Eye got defeated by
Max Lord with the continuity-based asteroid prison and it’s good to see that
O.M.A.C is still around in the DCnU, but do we really need a Hulk with Bruce Banner’s
brain? I wish this series had continued
for another eight months or more. It was
a thrilling ride, but the ending left me a bit nauseous.
Secret
Avengers #24
First, the recent covers by Arthur Adams have been
great. Second, now that I’m well-versed
in the lore of Captain Britain, I’m interested in seeing him in action
again. Third, last issue’s heroic death
of Ant-Man was really good. Fourth,
while I abandoned the Venom series, I hope to see what I wasn’t getting there,
here with some better focus on Flash Thompson.
Fifth, I really enjoy Gabriel Hardman’s art (more so than his POTA work
for BOOM!). Sixth, I…I fell asleep while
reading the issue. Hey, I was beat. I guess I need to read it again.
Amazing
Spider-Man #683
GET. YOUR. POLITICS. OUT. OF. MY. COMICS!!! Seriously, the global warming garbage is
ruining the whole story for me. Plus, we
even get an appearance of both President Obama AND Al Gore (and Steven Hawking). I loved it when Spidey socked Gore in the jaw
(that one’s for Tipper), but it turns out it was just the Chameleon. What really burned me was that Spidey was so
upset over Gore getting locked in a closet.
If you can get past all that credibility stretching junk, the actual
story of Spidey leading the Avengers trying to outthink Ock and the way Otto
masterfully out maneuvered him – that was all cool. If I hadn’t spent the past year plus
investing my time back into this series, I would seriously opt out of this mess. The sad thing is that the political aspect
isn’t really germane to the overall story…
Action
#8
Finally, some improvement. Despite the numerous artists it took to
finish this chapter – never a good thing, especially if there are vastly
different styles – I liked this book over all.
There’s really too much to go over in detail, but I’ll quickly mention a
few things. Looks like his landlady could
be Mr. Mxyzptlk. The connection between
Clark and deep-throat Lex is interesting.
I thought it was funny how the collector was like a real collector,
wanting everything in Mint condition. Didn’t
really like his look, reminded me of the horrendous changes to the Robot in the
bad Lost in Space film. It was neat how Superman is using the
collector’s ship as his fortress (for now I guess). I also thought it was cool how Brainiac was
created from his rocket. Looks like
Grant has a ton of cool ideas for this series.
However, what really bugged me (following the ASM read) was the image of
President Superman. What on earth are
people going to do if America elects someone else in a few months?! I bet the President will retreat back to the
shadows and just be a generic figure.
Swamp
Thing #8
I think I can last until the first story is over (if it
ever is), but man it’s tough to read this book.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s very compelling, but the gruesomeness is
harsh. I find that I have to read it sort
of with one eye closed, subconsciously not looking too closely at the
images. Oh, and after seven months of
waiting, we finally get to see the new Swamp Thing and he looks…VERY
different. Hopefully, I’ll get used to
it. How can you defeat something that’s
already dead?
Daredevil
#10.1
I guess I ended up saving the best for last. Still, with all the buzz on this book, did we
really need a point-one issue? Some of
the “this is how my powers work” narration was a little tired – I mean we’ve
heard this a million times already. I
know, I know that’s the whole point of the “point”, but I think it distracted
from the flow of the story a bit.
Regardless, DD is awesome and I loved how he took out one of the groups
gunning for him.
That’s it folks! Have a great Easter Sunday tomorrow. “And life is worth the living just because He Lives!”
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