Author Archives: Phil

About Phil

With 40 years of experience in comic reading, collecting and reviewing, English Professor Phil Mateer has an encyclopedic mind for comics. Feel free to ask Phil about storylines, characters, artists or for that matter, any comic book trivia. He will post your questions and answers on the AABC blog. His knowledge is unparalleled! He is also our warehouse manager, so if you are looking for that hard to find comic book, ask Phil!

Phil's Reviews — Stuff I Read and Put Back #102

DC Universe Holiday Special #1 (of 1) — Writers: Various, including Dan Didio, Joe Kelly and Paul Dini;  Artists: Various, including Ian Churchill, Dustin Nguyen, Rafael Albuquerque and Kevin McGuire Lots of anthology specials this week; how you feel about them, of course, depends on whether there are enough “good” artists and writers to justify the price. Here, for $6, there’s a beautiful Frank Quitely Christmas cover, a pretty-good JLA 7-pager by McGuire, a Didio Aquaman story whose dialogue you can make fun of (“Back down, Aquaman, or I, Captain Blanco, will kill her where she stands”: who talks like … Continue reading

Posted in New Comics, Reviews | Comments Off on Phil's Reviews — Stuff I Read and Put Back #102

Phil's Reviews — Stuff I Bought #101

Phonogram: The Singles Club #1 (of 7) — Writer: Kieron Gillen; Art: Jamie McKelvie The first Phonogram had a story whose intentions never quite got matched by its execution, but it was a noble, interesting effort with a clear and appealing voice; the after-essays by Gillen, about writing and about British pop music of the last 20 years, made the books worth keeping. Here, both he and McKelvie have a narrower narrative focus, and they’re assured enough to tell a good one-issue, character-driven part of a larger story. Nicely done, and there’s another essay about British pop, too, one that’ll … Continue reading

Posted in New Comics, Reviews | Comments Off on Phil's Reviews — Stuff I Bought #101

Phil's Reviews — Stuff I Read and Put Back #101

Action #872 — Writer: Geoff Johns;  Artist: Pete Woods Comic math: Action plus The Creature Commandoes and Ultraa the Multi-Alien (all found in Brainiac’s ship, but don’t ask) plus New Krypton (really don’t ask) minus Gary Franks’s humanizing and luminous art all equals I’m not buying this any more. Green Arrow and Black Canary #15 — Writer: Andrew Kreisberg;  Penciller: Mike Norton;  Inker: Josef Rubenstein New guy Kreisberg gets off a nice framing device, but also falls into the new-guy trap of wanting to summarize the character’s life and immediately try to hammer on What Makes Him Unique, which leaves … Continue reading

Posted in New Comics, Reviews | Comments Off on Phil's Reviews — Stuff I Read and Put Back #101

Phil's Reviews — Stuff I Bought #100

Secret Invasion #8 ( of 8 ) — Writer: Brian Michael Bendis;  Penciler: Leonil Francis Yu;  Inker: Mark Morales This seems to have both started and ended better than Final Crisis (assuming Final Crisis ever ends…), although FC had its moments in the middle, and SI bogged down there. This last episode, though, has plenty of slam-bang events, and the “Dark Reign” setup turns out to be much better than I had feared (although, geez, can’t we please, at some point, have an actual end to a story?). Yes, it went on too long, and the revelation of the fate … Continue reading

Posted in New Comics, Reviews | Comments Off on Phil's Reviews — Stuff I Bought #100

Phil's Reviews — Stuff I Read and Put Back #100

X-Men: Noir #1 — Writer: Fred Van Lente;  Artist: Dennis Calero A rookie police officer (whose father is also a cop) and his older partner investigate the murder of a young woman in 1920s NYC; it’s slowly revealed that the system is corrupt, and that the city is actually controlled by the rookie’s father and his cronies. That’s a typical film noir plot; the “X-Men” part is that this is an Elseworlds story — or whatever the Marvel equivalent is — and that all the characters are familiar: the corpse is Jean Grey, while the rookie’s father, Magnus, is… well, … Continue reading

Posted in New Comics, Reviews | Comments Off on Phil's Reviews — Stuff I Read and Put Back #100