[Discussed below are some comics I haven't already reviewed from September 2nd and 9th. Not reviews proper, just some thoughts.]
Ghost Riders: Heaven's on Fire #2: I'm not entirely sold on this yet though I will get the final four issues, because I'm enjoying it enough. Roland Boschi's art is just wonderfully twisted and energetic. Aaron's writing swings wildly between lame 'Heaven's been conquered by a rogue angel' plots and cool, fucked up horror fun. The inability to mix those two in a satisfying way is a big flaw in his run -- at least for me. Not sure about Hellstrom's makeover.
Greek Street #3: Trust in Milligan... I tell myself that, but this book isn't cohering yet as I would like. I'm giving it to issue six to win me over. It's still all over the place, not really providing the key character or scene to hook me. Also, I'm getting sick of the muted, bland Vertigo colouring.
Strange Adventures #7: Compare the cover art inked by Rob Hunter to the interior art inked by Al Milgrom and join me in hoping Hunter is never allowed near Jim Starlin's pencils again. Christ. I'm torn between calling this a return to form by Starlin and calling it a self-parody. Elements from his Warlock run show up as Starlin switches from his favourite topic, religion, to his second-favourite, psychology. His depiction here and in last issue of the Weird's psyche is interesting, but nothing mind-blowing or that innovative. This series is a lot better now than when it began, though. The rotating art for the back-up has bugged me, but that's the way it goes.
Sweet Tooth #1: Another Vertigo first issue offered for a dollar, so how could I resist? The concept of this book didn't really wow me ahead of time and the issue itself was better than I was expecting, but still not my thing necessarily. It was interesting enough that I'll pick up the second issue and see where things go there. I feel like this debut needed to be double-sized like The Unwritten or Greek Street -- hell, the preview for this comic was the end! They gave away the end to bring people in! That's odd. I will admit that part of my sticking with this book a little bit longer is Tim's love of Lemire's work -- and that Lemire is originally from the area where I live currently.
Dark Reign -- The List: The Avengers #1: David Uzumeri and I discussed Marko Djurdjevic's work here yesterday on Twitter and it's good. David, correctly, gives credit to inking from Mark Morales who does a much better job than Danny Miki did on Djurdjevic's Thor work. No bad attempts at hyper-realism, just crisp, clean art. A more liberal use of inks give this a more cartoony look and it works quite well. Definitely Djurdjevic's best interior work yet. The story is okay. Clint Barton making a raid on Avengers Tower to kill Norman Osborn. Spider-Man continues to be whiny as fuck in his protests. Bendis walks a good line between telling this story and spoiling the events of the current New Avengers arc... Overall, a very solid issue that I dug.
Ultimate Avengers #2: I would call it "Ultimate Comics Avengers," but the cover and the legal indicia, this comic is called Ultimate Avengers, so... A decent issue that fills in some backstory, but doesn't really advance the plot much. I do love the suggestion that Gail's dad got out of the house so she and Steve could have sex. The man understood his role in the war effort. This new Red Skull is interesting, but I hope he turns out to be a bit more complex than 'daddy wasn't there when I was a kid,' because that doesn't quite explain his behaviour. The variety of inkers hurt the art, which varies in quality from page to page. It never gets bad or anything, it just doesn't keep a consistent look is all. I am interested in seeing this group of Avengers that Millar puts together, like Tony Stark's older brother.
That does it for now.
Later
Phoenix #5 annotations
15 hours ago
