This may be one of the better weeks for comics in a while. Except for the shit. Fucking shit. You won't ruin my great comics week. My girlfriend is expecting me to be excited about today's comics, because I said I was going to be... on Friday. That's right, Fourth Week of October 2008, I was talking you up last Friday, that's how awesome you looked then. And you are awesome. I am excited to have gotten comics today. I am. So damn excited, people.
Aetheric Mechanics: A Graphic Novella
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful... Sherlock Holmes in science fiction London solving the case of a man who wasn't there. The ending is superbly metafictional. The art is detailed and the characters realistic... in their unreality. There's one panel on the third-last page that makes the book... the art in that panel just fucking makes the book. A wonderful little story and probably the best thing I got this week. And that's on a week with Criminal, and Scalped.
Captain America #43
Not bad, but I would have almost preferred a short break, a breather issue after the epic that was the previous 18 issues (really, the previous 42 issues, but the previous 18 comprised one story explicitly). Like I said, this isn't a bad comic, it's just as good as every other issue of Brubaker's run... I just don't feel like another story yet, I guess. That's my hang-up, though. It's just... fuck, another story featuring something from the past, someone ied to the Winter Soldier... we get some panels featuring the new Captain America fighting AIM, the Wrecker and Skrulls... it would almost be nice to just have a one-off issue with something like that instead of this. Just a short break. Then again, given that issue, I may have demanded more of this and wondered why I was reading just another typical superhero comic story in a book that's better than that. Maybe, sometimes, there's no winning with me. Maybe I suck. Unlike this comic, which is quite good.
Criminal #6
Nothing much happens, but so fucking much happens. Well done, Mr. Brubaker and Mr Phillips. You manage to impress every month and I'm left with nothing to say. Again. Except that this is a fantastically crafted comic book that gets me to care about these broken imperfect people who do bad things.
Final Crisis: Submit and Final Crisis #4
Submit isn't essential to understanding issue four, but it really does help. Which is a shame, because Submit is probably the second-worst comic book I got today. It's probably the worst Morrison-penned comic I've gotten in... when did I last get a Grant Morrison book this mediocre? I don't know! But, it sets up a couple of things in issue four--you will understand issue four without it, though. However, knowing you all as I do, if you're buying Final Crisis you were probably picking Submit up, too. The art is especially
New Avengers #46
My fault. I won't penalyse you, Fourth Week of October 2008 because I picked up an issue of a comic that I dropped last week because it's been sucking a whole lot. I hoped this issue would be one of those rare worthwhile issues tying into Secret Invasion, but it's not. It is so goddamn worthless. Four pages of story stretched out for an entire comic. Goddamn.
Scalped #22
Best comic I buy each month. Hands down. Red Crow is quickly becoming one of those Characters You Always Remember. Dash who?????
Secret Invasion #7
And, thus, Noh-Varr is used correctly for the first time since Marvel Boy #6. A solid, solid issue because of its focus, the little one-liners and the plot actually moving forward without hints of Important Things Happening Elsewhere. That opening double-page spread bothers me because the composition of the battle isn't entirely clear. It seemed that the two sides were heading at one another face-on, but the composition here has the Skrulls surrounding the heroes... we have characters shouting to take out Spider-Woman, but she's behind them... what? But, I am looking forward to next issue.
Aside from my own mistake, Fourth Week of October 2008, you were just as wonderful as I said you would be. Lovely.
