Friday, January 24, 2003

COMICS REVIEWS

what I bought and what I thought, January 22, 2003



1. MUTANT, TEXAS: THE ADVENTURES OF SHERIFF IDA RED 4 Satisfying conclusion to a mostly fun miniseries. Jason Bone and Paul Dini make a heck of a good team. Some enterprising studio animation head should option this ASAP. A

2. DAREDEVIL 42 I guess this really is coming out weekly! While Bendis gets the most attention for his work on Powers and Ultimate Spider-Man, to me here's where he is doing his best work. Despite his annoying Wolverine-ish rendition of the Owl, (Owl-verine. Hee.) Alex Maleev turns in another outstanding art job. Somebody pass him a few copies of some Owl appearances by Gene Colan! A-

3. Y: THE LAST MAN 7 How the heck did this make top three? Can't really say, guess it just grabbed me more than it usually does, or maybe the rest of the stack wasn't all that great. But here it is just the same. B+

4. SLEEPER 1 Given Brubaker's somnambulent Catwoman work, let's hope this title doesn't turn out to be prophetic. The main highlight of this, which presupposes familiarity with the rank-and-file Wildstorm line of comics, particularly Gen13 and W.I.L.D.Cats (books I haven't picked up regularly since, oh, 1997), is the always excellent Sean Phillips art. The script is OK, but I think it's gonna take a few issues to grow on me and my patience is pretty thin these days. B

5. CATWOMAN 15 Ed Brubaker and Cameron Stewart's approach is so low key and deliberate that they can present shenanigans not seen in mainstream comics since the EC days (eyeball eating! Ye Gods!) and make them pedestrian. Stewart's art, so impressive early, has become as dull as his predecessor Doug Rader's was. A nice online illustration portfolio does not a first rate storyteller make, apparently. Looks like when Darwyn Cooke left, he took the magic with him. B-

No comments: