Fantastic Four: Isla de la Muerte! — Writer: Tom Beland; Artist: Juan Doe Not bad — it shows a lot of affection for the characters, and nails their voices; I was pleasantly surprised to get to the end credits and find out it was from Beland, who’s best known for his indy/autobiographical True Story, Swear to God (I thought “Huh. Good for him…”). The art comes off as too cartoony at first, but every character has a consistent, well-thought-out presence, from the looming Thing to manga-eyed Sue to the Darwyn Cookeish squinty-eyed Reed and beady-eyed Johnny. The earlier Grimmcentric scenes … Continue reading →

Special Forces #2 — Writer/Artist: Kyle Baker Fifteen or 20 minutes of a fire fight, tracking the main character. I think of Baker a lot like I think of Darwyn Cooke (and, come to think of it, Alex Toth): Worth buying just to admire how he’s solved the technical problems, even if he’s not always quite as good at the plots and human stuff. Checkmate #21 — Writers: Greg Rucka and Eric Trautmann; Penciller: Chris Samnee; Inker: Travis Lanham The origins of Mademoiselle Marie, as a kind of Phantom-like one-dies-another-takes-over Spirit of France, and her connections to a Checkmate operative. … Continue reading →

New X-Men #45 — Writers: Craig Kyle and Chris Yost; Penciler: Humberto Ramos; Inker: Carlos Cuevas Part Eight of the “Messiah Complex” crossover series. One of the few pieces of good news about a sprawling event is that it can spotlight good work being done on the lower-tier titles like this one; here, Kyle and Yost show their knack for characterization, and Ramos does his usual tightrope act between cartoony exaggeration and straight-ahead widescreen action, especially in a throwdown between X-23 and Deathstrike. The bad news is that it’s hard to show off your strengths when you’re assigned just one … Continue reading →

Bat Lash #1 (of 6) — Writers: Peter Brandvold and Sergio Aragones;  Artist: John Severin John Severin. On a Western. Doing full art. Add in Aragones, working on the character he helped to create, and gorgeous coloring by Steve Buccellato (just look at that first-page splash, or the way the background/sky colors change chronologically through early-day blues to afternoon yellows to sunset reds), and you’ve got one satisfying comic. The story’s mostly an origin, and as subtle as a Saturday-afternoon serial (the bad guy wears black, has a mustache, and drags the heroine to an abandoned cabin where she faces … Continue reading →