August in London (Part Two)

Today, the rest of the comics I bought. Fun.

Gødland #19

A couple of plots get finished here as Adam Archer is freed from his home and the giant insect lady is killed. We also bid adieu to Crashman. Like many books that are really well done, there isn’t much new to add here. This is a fun, great book and worth reading. Not groundbreaking, but entertaining as hell. My only complaint is that the cover breaks from the book’s usual cover design. What’s up with that?

Midnighter #10

Keith Giffen takes over as writer and promptly goes against Garth Ennis’ run, which began the book. In his run, Ennis basically argued that Midnighter is a killing machine and he’s okay with that. Here, Giffen says “Not so fast!” and has Midnighter looking into who he was before Bendix turned him into a killing machine. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I just find it funny that the book has now had two regular writers (plus four fill-ins) and both of them have provided diametrically opposite takes on the character, while still maintaining a strange consistency, because Giffen’s take doesn’t seem out of place. Rather strange, that.

This could be a good story. I trust Giffen to at least be interesting. Got to love how Midnighter’s home town is a weird one. Oh, comic books, you have the strangest coincidences!

Deathblow #6

Um . . . yeah. This is really just Brian Azzarello taking the piss, isn’t it? Again, I trust it to read better on the grand scale.

Black Summer #1

I wonder, will John Horus be the focus of this book, or will he be a background character, manipulating events and not really showing up in a major way until the end? That would be an interesting way of going about it.

This is a good issue. We learn more about these characters, including the other members of the team, get a good fight and learn something very interesting about the rest of the team. Looking forward to next issue.

Doktor Sleepless #1

I’m currently writing a novel for my master’s in creative writing thesis. It’s called “Infinite Future” and it’s about some of the same stuff here. Living in the future, that is. “Where’s my flying car?” indeed. Just find that interesting.

So, this is Ellis’ newest longform comic book novel in the same vein as Transmetropolitan, eh? Well, it’s off to a worse start. This isn’t a bad issue, it’s just a bit slower than early Transmet and the art isn’t nearly as good. But, this series is also more about the world and ambience than Transmet, which had a clearer and more focussed direction. Here, Ellis can walk around a bit more, talk a bit more. That also means that, as a single issue, this isn’t nearly as compelling or effective as Transmet #1 was. (Is it fair for me to compare the two? Probably not, but fuck it, I am.) But, whatever, we all know I’m going to be buying the next issue.

The Boys #9

I’ll admit that I buy this because I enjoy reading stories making fun of superheroes sometimes and why not read one written by Garth Ennis and drawn by Darick Robertson if I’m going to? I did find the shitting in the “Bat Cave” joke a bit much, but the threesome idea at the end was actually written in an interesting manner. It didn’t come off as just fucking with the characters, but seems like a natural progression of the Catwoman thing in the Batman comics.

Is this series brilliant? Nah, but it’s fun.

The Programme #2

Things become a bit clearer in this issue, but it’s another “let’s see how the big picture looks before we judge” books. Kind of reminds me of Pynchon, this series.

Criminal #8

What the fuck am I supposed to say about this book? It’s really fucking good. Buy it.

Casanova #8

It’s back, bitches. The book is back. And it’s still just rockin’ and a rollin’ along and kicking ass kinds of ass. Why? Because where most writers would see the new status quo as something to play around in with Sabine Seychelle and Kaito working with E.M.P.I.R.E. and all, but not Matt Fraction. No, Fraction says fuck you all, introduces this brand new status quo and then Fraction fucking jumps ahead two years. Fuck that status quo, let’s have ourselves a newer, cooler status quo. When is Casanova Quinn? It will be fun to find out. Plus, Fábio Moon’s art is the shit. Different from his evil twin’s on the previous story, but good. And it’s blue. Burn-your-eyes-out blue. Damn right.

Tomorrow, I bitch about Noh-Varr. Fun.