I Bought Comics: May 13, 2009

[Normal reviews may buy my comics these days, but they're kind of boring sometimes, you know? A little too 'you must write this way all of the time' for my tastes. Sometimes. I'm not complaining. It's just that there are a lot of rules and people get annoyed if you stray too far. Examine an issue solely on its own merits and they get pissed. Examine an issue within the context of the whole and they get pissed. Call a writer a "stupid motherfucking retard who obviously learned English thirdhand two hours before shitting out a turd that some inbred editor decided to call a script" and your editor makes you rewrite. Not here, my friends. Not here where I don't do proper reviews. Calling them reviews would be wrong, oh yes. They are simply whatever I feel like saying about a particular comic. Blessed freedom.]

Captain Britain and MI:13 #13

Um... what? This arc is only half over and it looks like the bad guys have won. I mean, the team's all dead. They're all dead! Where do you go from there? Paul Cornell knows and I trust him. I'm a cynical fella and don't buy that all of those characters are dead, but it's still shocking to see them all slaughtered with such ease.

Final Crisis Aftermatch: Escape #1

I read this twice on Wednesday. I wasn't sure if I was going to pick this up or not, but the preview pages convinced me to give it a shot. Out of these four Final Crisis Aftermath titles, I knew I would be getting Dance for certain, while Ink and Run looked like shit -- Escape was the only one that had me debating. It was Dan DiDio's pet project with him editing it directly, which was a strike against it, honestly (I tend to take a dismal view of ANY project where an editor is heavily involved -- and the more power said editor has, the less I want it -- Mark Waid over at BOOM! is an exception, of course). But, promises of it being similar to The Prisoner had me intrigued. Marco Rudy on art was also a plus since I dug his Final Crisis stuff when it wasn't too rushed. I have no idea who Nemesis is, but this was one damn good comic. A real mindfuck that doesn't even attempt to explain anything. Number Six himself even shows up. Reminds me a bit of The Filth (the Mr. Green/Mr. Yellow issue in particular). Rudy pulls in all sorts of influences from Williams to Weston to Mandrake, and it's a visual joy. The writing isn't quite at that Morrison level, the narration a bit too heavyhanded at times, but there's promise -- and it's better than a lot of the other shit out there. Not the sort of comic you'd expect DC to publish, at least not in its regular Universe. Hard to believe that this is the same company that gave out Blackest Night #0 for free, permanently damaging lords knows how many minds. Good show, Ivan Brandon.

Gravel #11

If this story is going where it looks like it will be going, I am very pleased. That direction, for the record, is Gravel just killing off the Major Seven entirely. Why bother solving the mystery when you can carbetbomb the whole lot? Lateral thinking. Solider thinking. He's not a detective and he doesn't like trumped up idiots who sit around and do nothing except admire how brilliant they are. Wolfer fucking draws the shit out of those final pages. Some very good work.

Secret Warriors #4

Jonathan Hickman continues to improve with each issue, juggling all of these characters and situations. Nick Fury is a bastard, but that good kind. The Hydra stuff is interesting. I don't know what to say beyond this is a good fucking comic. Christ.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen -- Century: 1910

I read a black and white .pdf of this a while back. Enjoyed it then. Haven't reread it yet, but do like the colours. Thinking I may do a Reread Review of The Black Dossier if only to show how dumb I really am. But, yeah, a really nice read that takes a different form from previous League stories -- which Moore says is a result of not having to pander as much to DC and readers. It works.