EXCLUSIVE! Chad Nevett's Comic Book Mini-Reviews and Star Ratings for the Week of July 4, 2012

Action Comics #11: There's a fragmented approach to Action Comics over the past couple of issues that I like. Superman is pulled in numerous directions: the social-justice-crusader in a t-shirt, the new fireman persona, the fully costumed superhero... he's basically trying to be everything at once. I don't really dig on the art of either Rags Morales or Brad Walker, but I like the idea of different artists presenting these fragments of his life. What I'm concerned with is whether or not this run will add up to anything. It's been fairly all over the place. [***1/2]

Age of Apocalypse #5: Bringing on a new artist (for this issue at least) was a big shift and it made me realise how I didn't recognise almost any characters just by looking at them. That's problematic. As is the languid, directionless feel of this comic. It doesn't feel like it's actually going anywhere. The AoA Quentin Quire is an interesting character/concept raised and dismissed... a shame. [**1/2]

Animal Man #11: Underwhelming issue. This comic was once interesting and scary and something I looked forward to. Now, it's just been doing the same thing for so long that I should just drop it and be done. [Held up, hand opens...]

The Boys #68: When MM and Butcher were in the same room, you knew what was going to happen. It was obvious and Ennis didn't try to hide it. The cut-away for two pages was a brilliant delaying tactic that only made the return worse. One down, eh? And Butcher... the amount of damage he has inside has always been there, but, until now, it was easy to deny. I mean, this is a suicide mission he's on. A man who is genuinely determined to tear the world down -- the supervillain of the book, if you will. Brilliant. [****1/4]

Fury MAX #4: If you thought being in Vietnam would end in disaster, getting involved with Cuba is a lovely raising of the clusterfuck stakes. I love the way Parlov drew faces in this issue. I don't know why I noticed them more this time, but I did. [****]

Haunt #24: Visually, this issue was a bit of a mess. Nathan Fox's style does tend to lean in a direction where you have to try a little harder to understand what you're looking at sometimes, but this issue was a whole new level of that. A big part of that is the colouring, which does a pisspoor job of clarifying Fox's line work, instead making it messier. What could have been a thrilling action issue falls flat in a lot of places. [Damn shame]

Later