COMICS REVIEWS
Week of January 8, 2003- what I bought and what I thought!
1. DAREDEVIL 41 The old axiom that you get what you pay for doesn't hold true this time around. I paid almost two and a half dollars more last week for a comic that wasn't half as good as this one. Fun story, nicely dialogued as usual by Bendis, and very well drawn by Alex Maleev, except, curiously enough, for his terrible rendition of the Owl which makes him look like Wolverine after Jenny Craig and a three day bender. I've always had a soft spot for the Stilt Man character...one of the first comics I ever owned was Daredevil 8, above, which sported great Wally Wood art, especially the cover. He's used very well here. The Stilt Man, not Wood. A
2. 100 BULLETS 41 The usual outstanding Azz/Risso story and art, giving us more Trust/Minutemen puzzle pieces on the one hand, while giving us a clever counterstory on the other. A
3. FABLES 9 More Fractured Fairy Tales, this time out wrapping up the second story arc in a somewhat rushed fashion and with a surprising cliffhanger at the end. I've never been much of a fan of Mark Buckingham's pencils; as a penciller, I've always thought he made a good inker. But he serves the story well, and Steve Leialoha's inks give him a Kirbyish flavor. A-
4. POWERS 27 Another consistently excellent book. The pottymouthed super-hero satire at the beginning was amusing, but I'm sick to death of super hero parodies- nothing makes an easier target. As for the rest of the story, so low key that it seems like almost nothing of consequence happens, it gets by on characterization, which is Bendis' saving grace. A-
5. VERTIGO POP: LONDON 3 Milligan & Bond's little morality play takes some interesting twists and turns, and not in directions that I thought it would go. Good on them. A-
6. JSA 44 This seems to be a week for rushed finales. The gimmicky resolution to the whole Egypt thing was kind of a letdown, but now that it's out of the way we can get into what I want to see, the Doc Fate meets Gemworld meets...a surprising return character at the end. B
7. HAWKMAN 11 I've really tried to like this book, really I have. But the scripts, while they try hard, never really rise above standard superheroics. Whatever the reason, you can't fault Rags Morales, who draws these turgid events with energy and style. B-
8. KILLRAVEN 4 If I didn't love the McGregor/Russell 70s version of this character so much, I might think more of this well-intentioned but feckless revival attempt, and actually, if one looks at it objectively, this is the best issue yet. But as a series it's an aesthetic failure, for reasons that are intangible, like heart and soul and emotional investment which I usually always seemed to get from McGregor & Russell but are beside the point for Davis. For him, this is a vehicle to demonstrate the he can write as well as he can draw, and nothing more. Problem is, he can't. C+
