Random Reading: Post Holidays Fun

I come home and hit the shop, pick up many, many comics. Wait two weeks and nearly every book I buy ships another issue. Pretty cool, I have to admit.

Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. #11

Fuck you, Warren Ellis, I will not buy six copies of this issue. Not that the six double-page splashes of the team fighting its way through the weirdest fucking enemies I've ever seen (I remember sex-midgets in Iron Man helmets and Elvis-headed MODOKs and Wolverine apes and other ungodly horrors). Basically, Nextwave makes a final assault on the headquarters of the Beyond Corporation, State 51 and fight their way through strange enemy after strange enemy in a series of side-scrolling splash pages until there's no one left. Oh, and we see Dirk Anger as a zombie. Can't wait until next issue.

newuniversal #2

More pieces of the puzzle. We kind of find out exactly what's going on and how it relates to Idea Space. Three people from last issue discover more about their abilities--and three just happens to be the magic number of superhumans to reactivate a government agency that builds robot suits to kill superhumans. Or something like that. Things are moving along nicely, basically.

Punisher War Journal #2

Am I wrong in kind of wishing the series was called War Stories featuring Captain American and the Punisher just so we could ensure the back-and-forth between these two continues for a long, long time? Fraction plays with the two personalities so well here as we have boy scout WWII soldier trying to work with fucking animal Nam veteran. Friction abound throughout the issue as they work together to try and win the war. But--oops, Punisher just killed some guys, the shit's gonna hit the fan, I suppose.

(One thing that semi-bothered me was seeing Photon in the group after reading Nextwave. It just doesn't seem right to have her in a comic mocking an event and then in a comic that ties into the same event. Damn you, Marvel. Damn you, Mark Millar.)

The Immortal Iron Fist #2

It sucks to be Danny Rand. Gets his ass whooped by Hydra and then it looks like they're trying to take over his company, too. But, he's got his old friend Luke Cage helping him out, so things can't be that bad. Oh no, his so-called iron fist just turned into a pile of mush. Damn, Danny Rand, you suck.

The Midnighter #3

How do you fight time cops? Why, you throw a time-frozen Adolf Hitler at them! Go, Midnighter, go!

A fun issue in a fun series.

All-Star Superman #6

"But, Chad, you said you haven't been digging this series and you don't keep buying books you don't dig and aren't you just the biggest liar in the world, Chad? Aren't you?"

It's Morrison and Quitely, so, yeah, I'm gonna keep on buying it and hope it wins me over by the end.

As of this issue, still mostly cold. I don't know why. But I am. Odd.

New Avengers: Senty and Sentry: Reborn

The local shop had these two trades and I said, "Hell yes, little voice inside my head, I will buy them." The first is passable and provides an okay intro for the second. We get the basics on what's up with Sentry, basically he's crazy. We also have the New Avengers fighting the Wrecker. Oh, and Paul Jenkins faints. Because he's a wimp.

Sentry: Reborn is an amazing read. I really liked the first Sentry mini and this one tops it. Easily. We learn all about Sentry and his life and the fact that he is batshit insane. Really, really, really fucking insane. And he's the most powerful human alive. And he's insane!

Okay, it reads better than that, but Jenkins has created a really interesting and complex character here. It's one of the better pieces of superhero fiction I've yet to read, giving a really adult take on a character without it coming off as superficially "dark." Makes me wish Jenkins was helming an ongoing series featuring the character.

Punisher Vol. 3 hardcover

Stopped at another shop and they were having a sale on trades, so I got this and Batman: Broken City--and basically got the trade for free thanks to the sale.

This hardcover collects nine issues from the Marvel Knights series penned by Ennis with art by Steven Dillon and Tom Mandrake. The five stories here are all decent. Only the three-part "Brotherhood" about crooked cops actually comes close to the work Ennis is doing on the MAX series currently.

The first story is about Joan the Mouse from the first Ennis/Dillon Punisher mini. It's a cute story. The third story is about a mobster looking for giant squids and is also kind of cute. The fourth is a three-part story about a crazy guy, homeless people and subway tunnels and isn't that good. The final one is another cute story involving Elektra.

As I said, the second story, "Brotherhood" actually has interesting characters and a solid story. The rest, though, was just too cute for me. I've said cute a bit too much, haven't I?

Thankfully, Dillon's art on the first three stories makes them worth reading, while Mandrake's art is solid sometimes, horrid others.

Batman: Broken City

Two things stand out after reading this:

1. So, the Joker knows he's Bruce Wayne?

2. Wow, Azzarello really added a whole mindfuck element to the character.

The basic story is a pretty standard sort of Batman story: dead people, kicking ass, crazy villains, blah blah blah. All very well done, just blah blah blah still. The final issue collected, though, is very, very good. Adds a rather cruel dimension to the character--one that works well, though.

And that's this past week.