KrakaNEWS - Funny Books

September 24, 2011

For week 2, I’ll try to be a little more concise in my review so it doesn’t take 3 hours to write. The comics I read weren’t as good all around as last week, but some of them were really good.

Batman #1

In a single sentence, my favorite of the New 52 so far, and I’m willing to bet it will stay that way. It wasn’t as engrossing as Scott Snyder’s work on Detective Comics, it wasn’t exciting, it wasn’t all new, but it was exactly what it needed to be. It introduced all the important characters and set up ongoing plots for Batman and Bruce Wayne, which I’m sure will tie together eventually.

After finishing the book, I was struck by how effortless it seemed. I know that Scott Snyder worked hard on it, but the end result was so elegant and flowed so well that it was a breeze to read.

The art was better than I thought it would be, even though I’m not wild about the new “extreme” designs for some of Batman’s rogues gallery. I’m sure that some of the designs (Professor Pyg, Scarecrow and others) are their makeshift jailhouse costumes, but I fear that some of them will turn out to be more “edgy” takes, especially the Riddler.

Other than that, the art was fun and expressive, while still dark, and the story definitely has me wanting to see how things progress next month.

Daredevil #4

Not as exciting as last week’s issue (I’m not complaining, but I wonder why it came out two weeks in a row?), but it’s still one of the best told stories out there, as far as the writing and art is concerned. There is nothing about the storytelling in Daredevil that can get any better. And the inclusion of mysterious Latverian speakers makes me excited that Dr. Doom will be involved. Fingers crossed.

Red Skull — Incarnate #3 of 5

I’m not a big fan of comics that feel the need to go into detail about why a villain is evil, but Greg Pak has been doing a good enough job with Red Skull that I’m willing to read it.

This month’s entry was very much a middle of the story issue. There wasn’t much character progressing for Johann Schmidt (the future Red Skull), it existed mainly to expand on the political turmoil the the period before the Nazi’s took complete power. This issue works better as historical fiction then the profile of a psychopath, but fortunately, I enjoy history.

The Red Wing #3 of 4

I have no idea how Jonathon Hickman is going to wrap this up with only one issue left. Jonathan Hickman is one of my favorite writers. I love his work on Fantastic Four/FF, I enjoyed Nightly News and Pax Romana, I like the premise of The Red Wing, but the actual comic hasn’t engaged me that much.

Hickman’s solo books are nice, but tend to be mostly talking heads with occasional murders. The strength of The Red Wing is really Nick Pitarra’s art, which is beautiful, and his storytelling is well fit for the time travel aspects of the story, showing the flow of time over centuries in a single page.

It’s actually ironic that Hickman’s solo books suffer from a lack of action, but The Red Wing’s main weakness is that it doesn’t have enough time to focus on the story. The story itself fails to find a balance between the time war and the emotional conflict in the main characters.

Another weakness of this issue is that when three characters get in their fighters and put their helmets on, it’s hard to tell who is who, making the action scene confusing.

It’s not perfect, but Hickman is always worth reading.

Wonder Woman #1

Wonder Woman is not the worst New 52 book—that would be Justice League #1—but it’s also one I don’t plan on picking up again.

My biggest complain about Wonder Woman is that it focused more on plot than character, but the plot wasn’t interesting enough to bring me back next month.

What do we know about Wonder Woman’s character from this comic? She sleeps naked. That’s about it. What do we know about the plot? Someone that I assume is Hera made centaurs to attack a woman pregnant with Zeus’ baby. Hera is also plotting something against one of Zeus’ other kids, who I at first mistook for Marvel’s The Purple Man.

That’s not enough to interest me in the character, and it’s not enough to make me wonder what happens next.

What did I like about the issue? The art was really nice. I especially liked the designs of the mythical characters, my favorite being Hermes, who is depicted as a pale green skinned, black eyed bird man. It’s a welcome change from usual depictions of gods as beautiful, perfect humans. This helps make the gods stand out in a world where every super hero is also a beautiful, perfect human.

12:30am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZheSAx9szo0u

(Notes: 9)