The Comics Haul for July 7, 2005
Small batch this week, but it's a good one.
Villains United is, far and away, the best of the four miniseries to come out of this whole Infinite Crisis hoo-hah. I'm a big fan of witty banter with supervillains, so it's supremely entertaining to see them bantering with each other. Catman an Deadshot continue to be delightfully gay ("I ain't gonna kiss you or nothin', Blake." "I'll cry when I have the time, Lawton.") and any and all references to Apokolips scare the crap out of me. Gail Simone's trademark humor coming out of bad guys ("She better be dead or I'll be pissed.") is positively delightful.
The Return of Donna Troy has taken a step up from fucking incomprehensible to only vaguely confusing. Then again, if you have to drag in all the continuity baggage each one of these former sidekicks brings with them, along with the fallout of the Rann-Thanagar War, I'm willing to forgive a lot of the confusion. It's hard to read the "order" in which characters speak, but for most panels, order is irrelevant -- these characters are trying to piece together what the hell is going on just as much as we are, so it makes sense to "hear" them chattering all at once and over each other's conversations. The most comprehensible thing in the issue is the foreshadowing of Donna and Roy getting together when this is all over, which is made so obvious it's almost a belabored point already.
It's kind of nice to hear a mention that it's Jade, not Nightwing, that leads the Outsiders (the good Mr. Winick has seemed to have forgotten that as of late), even if it is Nightwing that barks most of the orders here. And then, somehow, Phil Jimenez manages to work in odd little references (Tesseracts, "hobbits," and "That's no moon. It's a space station!"). I wasn't going to be the least bit surprised if someone said they had a bad feeling about this.
Overall, I like where he's going with this series, and he's slowly but surely gaining some focus. I just hope the readers will give him enough patience to pull it all together.
And, according to the advertising, the WildC.A.T.S cartoon is coming out on DVD! The thing is probably twice as awful as I remember, but this Wildstorm series was one of my guilty pleasures when I was younger... you know, before I developed any taste. The thing comes out on July 19, and I might get it once it hits the bargain bin... which should be around, oh, August or so.
Y: the Last Man continues to be awesome, even if it is really weird that Vaughan gets meta about himself ("It figures. An entire planet of women, and the one guy gets to be the lead."). The bit about being able to tell Yorick's a dude based on the frequency of his voice I call bullshit on, though. I may be biased by my own deep voice, but I don't think you can peg someone's sex based on whether they sing bass or soprano. But, hey! Canonically gay characters! Now, if we can only get the LBGT population in DC-owned comics to get out of the permanent-sidekick slot. (I'm looking at you, Vaughan. We all know Mayor Hundred is. Just come out and say it.)
Villains United is, far and away, the best of the four miniseries to come out of this whole Infinite Crisis hoo-hah. I'm a big fan of witty banter with supervillains, so it's supremely entertaining to see them bantering with each other. Catman an Deadshot continue to be delightfully gay ("I ain't gonna kiss you or nothin', Blake." "I'll cry when I have the time, Lawton.") and any and all references to Apokolips scare the crap out of me. Gail Simone's trademark humor coming out of bad guys ("She better be dead or I'll be pissed.") is positively delightful.
The Return of Donna Troy has taken a step up from fucking incomprehensible to only vaguely confusing. Then again, if you have to drag in all the continuity baggage each one of these former sidekicks brings with them, along with the fallout of the Rann-Thanagar War, I'm willing to forgive a lot of the confusion. It's hard to read the "order" in which characters speak, but for most panels, order is irrelevant -- these characters are trying to piece together what the hell is going on just as much as we are, so it makes sense to "hear" them chattering all at once and over each other's conversations. The most comprehensible thing in the issue is the foreshadowing of Donna and Roy getting together when this is all over, which is made so obvious it's almost a belabored point already.
It's kind of nice to hear a mention that it's Jade, not Nightwing, that leads the Outsiders (the good Mr. Winick has seemed to have forgotten that as of late), even if it is Nightwing that barks most of the orders here. And then, somehow, Phil Jimenez manages to work in odd little references (Tesseracts, "hobbits," and "That's no moon. It's a space station!"). I wasn't going to be the least bit surprised if someone said they had a bad feeling about this.
Overall, I like where he's going with this series, and he's slowly but surely gaining some focus. I just hope the readers will give him enough patience to pull it all together.
And, according to the advertising, the WildC.A.T.S cartoon is coming out on DVD! The thing is probably twice as awful as I remember, but this Wildstorm series was one of my guilty pleasures when I was younger... you know, before I developed any taste. The thing comes out on July 19, and I might get it once it hits the bargain bin... which should be around, oh, August or so.
Y: the Last Man continues to be awesome, even if it is really weird that Vaughan gets meta about himself ("It figures. An entire planet of women, and the one guy gets to be the lead."). The bit about being able to tell Yorick's a dude based on the frequency of his voice I call bullshit on, though. I may be biased by my own deep voice, but I don't think you can peg someone's sex based on whether they sing bass or soprano. But, hey! Canonically gay characters! Now, if we can only get the LBGT population in DC-owned comics to get out of the permanent-sidekick slot. (I'm looking at you, Vaughan. We all know Mayor Hundred is. Just come out and say it.)
posted by Amy at 10:11 AM
1 Comments:
It's funny, I seem to be alone in liking the godstuff in Donna's Return part 1, but I found the second issue a lot more irritating.
I mean, Outsiders 25 devoted a page or so to Nightwing walking out on the team....and suddenly he's back?
I hate that Jimenez is near ignoring Kyle's past with Donna--Jade's reference seemed pretty afterthought. And I don't like the way Jade is just taking Nightwing's horning in on command--she's smart enough to know she needs to ride over him or take herself out of leadership position.
I dunno, I'm pretty up on Titan's history and current events, but this issue seemed confusing and clunky even to me.
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