Sketch Reviews (November 24 2011)

Man, this past week, I pissed off Batfans with my CBR reviews. Funny thing: it didn't even occur to me that I was reviewing three Batbooks until my review for Red Hood and the Outlaws #3 garnered a "Nevett strikes again!" reaction on the CBR forums. My favourite part is the hate mail and the chance to respond with absolute literalism. That's always fun. But, I did want a break from comics a little, so I took Tuesday off from Random Thoughts. I went shopping in Detroit instead. I've long blasted the States for its lack of potato chip flavours, but, this time, it countered with many different M&M flavours not found here. I'm loving these dark chocolate M&Ms -- because, clearly, dark chocolate is the superior chocolate. Anyway, let's get to some new comics...

Annihilators #3: Damn, this comic is reading like the big event book Marvel should have pushed to the forefront instead of Fear Itself. It's pretty easy to see how this could have been made 'bigger,' especially the Magus taking over a third of the US population -- throw in an issue where it's the Avengers vs. a bunch of heroes and villains that are part Magus and you could kill plenty of time. Instead, it's a nice little mini-series mostly ignored. Ah well. [***1/2]

Captain America & Bucky #624: As always, gorgeous, fantastic art from Samnee and Breitweiser. The story is less a story than some fragments shoved together, especially the end of the issue with Bucky's sister. [***1/4]

Justice League Dark #3: What's so crazy about recruiting Mindwipe? I'm not familiar with the character... I'm enjoying this book, but think I would have been better off tradewaiting it. It's moving at such a slow pace across so many characters that it's hard to get too enthused over each new issue. [***]

RASL #12: DANGER DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE! Lots more Tesla talk and I'm completely okay with that. An interesting issue -- and an educational one! [***1/2]

Scalped #54: We keep walking towards our death... [****]

Vengeance #5: No Russian supersoldiers during World War 2... because the Red Skull killed them all in a camp during the war. Everything is connected and we move towards Latveria... we all know who Z is, of course. The way that Casey blends together all of his work in this series is fantastic -- same with the arrogance and self-doubt of youth he captures so well. Miss America calls She-Hulk a 'puta' rather than accept a ride home from the sixth dimension... goddamn, this is just some good comics, son. [****1/4]

Wolverine and the X-Men #2: I don't know why, but I'm a little bothered that this is the first time Iceman tried that trick and it works perfectly. Still, nice to see Jason Aaron actually pushing things a bit. Just some crazy fun this comic... Bachalo captures the manic chaos better than almost anyone else. [***3/4]

Later