Days Missing #1 (of 5) — Writer: Phil Hester; Art: Frazer Irving
This is an sf series about a guy who’s been around since the dinosaurs, who shows up at moments of disaster, extinction-level events, and tries to prevent them: sometimes directly, and sometimes in a kind of butterfly’s-wings-cause-a-hurricane chain of events. When he’s successful, the crisis rewinds by 24 hours, somehow, and then it’s like the apocalypse of that particular day never happened (hence the series title). It’s all a little too clever by half (it sounds a lot like it started life as a TV pilot), and there are some confusing parts (how does the time thing work, exactly? If he’s been around since before humans, why is he so conveniently humanoid?), but give the creative team credit: this tale moves right along, is interesting enough to keep the reader turning the pages, and attempts to integrate actual organic themes into the story. I’m including it first this week because it’s definitely worth a look.
Frank Castle: The Punisher #73 — Writer: Victor Gischler; Artist: Goran Parlov
Part three of the Punisher vs. the B-movie swamp yahoos. It’s fun, and the Parlov art helps tremendously (his rendering of the little drug-dealer guy is a hoot), but — unlike Days Missing, and especially unlike Garth Ennis on this series — there’s only the barest whiff of a theme or a point; the events slide by, cheerfully intense but without a thought in their heads, and disappear from memory just as easily. That’s one difference between a good and a great writer, and between a story that’s just a pleasant pastiche, like this one, and one built to stand solidly on its own.
Blackest Night: Superman #1 (of 3) — Writer: James Robinson; Pencils: Eddy Barrows; Inks: Ruy Jose with Julio Ferreira
This pretty much goes where all the other BN stuff has: Conner and Kal-el vs. — well, that might spoil one of the story’s surprises (since the antagonist on the cover isn’t quite clear), so let’s just say it’s the one dead character, other than J’onn J’onzz, that would be the hardest to fight. OK for what it is — and it provides a few more hints about what the returned dead are doing, and what their goal is — but it looks like it wold be fairly easy to skip, too (it’ll probably be helped by being the only BN comic out this week, meaning that readers looking for an event fix wil be more eager to pick it up).
Superman/Batman #63 — Writer: Mike Johnson with Michael Green; Art: Rafael Albuquerque
A stand-alone “what if?” tale about Gorilla Grodd taking over the world. Props for making it one issue instead of dragging it out for three (or, Lord help us, six); it’s strengthened enormously by offering such compact storytelling. Blue Beetle fans might want it for the Albuquerque art — he’s got a few too many panels of people biting their lips and gritting their teeth, but his grizzled, desperate Batman is reminiscent of Paul Pope’s, and there’s a payoff full-page splash of Grodd doing a sort of “He’s right behind me, isn’t he?” expression that’s almost worth the book by itself. Entries on this “Read/Put Back” list tend to be either books that totally suck (and therefore can be made fun of) or ones that almost make it, and are worth checking out, and this comic (and, come to think of it, almost all the others this week) fits into the latter category.
The Brave and the Bold #26 — Writer: John Rozum; Art: Scott Hampton
Worth reading especially for fans of the old Milestone imprint, because it’s a team-up between The Spectre and Rozum’s Xombi, and has quite a bit of the brainy supernatural buzz of that title (and Rozum’s Midnight, Mass., which was announced this week as a possible TV series). As with both of those earlier books, the focus on plot and character exposition sometimes makes it too talky (Rozum’s wordcount per panel sometimes threatens Don McGregor’s), but it’s clever, has its heart in the right place, and is pleasant enough; it’s nice to know that David Kim and his nanomachines are still out there in the DC Universe.
Batgirl #1 — Writer: Bryan Q. Miller; Penciller: Lee Garbett; Inker: trevor Scott
Neither the Barbara Gordon nor the Cassandra character; instead, it’s… well, the other obvious candidate, I suppose, although I won’t spoil the small surprise (it’s revealed on page six), although Oracle is in the book, too. Inoffensive, but it’s one of those second-tier bat-titles that’s so relentlessly average, in both story and art, that it’s hard to find much to say or care about it, unless you’re one of those fans who like Gotham City and its cast enough to scoop up every generic book about it (if so, Streets of Gotham came out this week, too; I couldn’t even work up the interest to give that one a listing…).
Power Girl #4 — Writers: Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti; Art: Amanda Connor
As Gray and Palmiotti keep proving in Jonah Hex, they’re precisely as good a creative team as their artists. Here, even less happens than sometimes does in their Western book, but Conner offers incentive to page through it anyway; she’s better at appealing character expression than anyone this side of Kevin Maguire (there’s a scene where Kara and Terra do nothing more than watch a movie in a theater, and yet she’s able to make it entertaining based solely on the looks on their faces). If only she had more to work with….
Phil Mateer
