Dark Reign: Young Avengers #3 (of 5) — Writer: Paul Cornell; Penciller: Mark Brooks; Inkers: Mark Morales and Walden Wong
Dark Reign: Sinister Spider-Man #2 (of 4) — Writer: Brian Reed; Pencils: Chris Bachalo with Rob Disalvo; Inkers: Townsend, Mendoza, Sibal and Disalvo
Dark Reign: The Hood #3 (of 5) — Writer: Jeff Parker; Art: Kyle Hotz
Dark Reign: Hawkeye #4 (of 5) — Writer: Andy Diggle; Penciler: Tom Raney; Inker: Scott Hanna
Dark X-Men: The Beginning #2 (of 3) — (Cloak and Dagger) — Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk; (Weapon Omega) — Marc Bernardin/Adam Freeman and Michel Lacombe; (Daken) — Rob Williams and Paco Diaz
Dark Reign: Lethal Legion #2 (of 3) — Writer: Frank Tieri; Art: Mateus Santolouco
Six Dark Reign mini-series this week? Six? Marvel, Marvel, Marvel… and what’s worse is that, as mini-series, none of these will have any actual impact on the main event; they’ll all end with Norman Osborn chuckling evilly, the status still quo. So, is there any reason to buy any of these? Young Avengers has Paul Cornell, whose Captain Britain has (a) gotten lots of critical buzz, and (b) been canceled, and it’s a well-constructed, thoughtful story about characters you can’t possibly care about. Sinister Spider-Man has Bachalo art, which is nice, but it’s Spidey-Venom and J. Jonah Jameson bugging one another, and halfway through has gone absolutely nowhere. Hood has the Parker/Hotz combination, but is hampered by continuity troubles: the character lost the Dormammu connection over in New Avengers, lost it a different way in Marvel Zombies 4, and still has it here; who can keep all of that straight, and who would want to? Hawkeye is a really really stupid Bullseye story, while Dark X-Men is a series of shorts, each designed to show what a manipulative bastard Norman is: big shock. The Daken one has, simultaneously, the best writing and the worst art, if that makes any difference.
Finally, I started to skim through Lethal Legion, got a few pages in and encountered a scene where the Grim Reaper shows up at Simon Williams’s apartment and these two superpowered heavyweights have a big hourlong fight that breaks a TV, but leaves the apartment, the building and the neighborhood untouched; then they have a beer. I said “Who writes this $#!+?” and looked at the credits. It was Frank Tieri: longtime readers of this column may recall that he’s the same guy who writes every comic that I get halfway through and ask “Who writes this $#!+?” Fooled me again, Frank: I’m not sure that says a lot for either of us.
Ultimatum #5 (of 5) — Writer: Jeph Loeb; Pencils: David Finch; Inks: Danny Miki
Speaking of writers that make you want to say “Who writes this $#!+?”: This is a comic composed entirely of pointless, badly conceived character deaths; since it’s set in the Ultimate Universe, Loeb can slaughter anyone he wants, and he kicks over the anthill and stomps it flat, just because he can. This is an avalanche of stupid, and it ends in a “shocking” last-page development that’s so uber-stupid, so cynical and nonsensical, that I think it should disqualify this man from writing any comics (or TV series) ever again. I’m serious: send him to whatever island prison they put Chuck Austen on, and stop wasting paper on this crap!
The Last Days of Animal Man #3 (of 6) — Writer: Gerry Conway; Penciller: Chris Batista; Inker: Dave Meikis
I haven’t been paying a lot of attention to this — AM stories not by Grant Morrison don’t count — so maybe someone else can tell me: had they explained, up until this issue, that this story wasn’t even taking place in regular DC continuity? It’s got a “League of Titans” in it instead of a Justice League or Teen Titans — even though everything else seems to fit “our” Buddy’s backstory — so there’s even less reason to care about this title. The Bolland covers are nice, but Batista’s art doesn’t excite me that much, and Gerry Conway is writing exactly the same kind of smooth, professional, soulless hackwork that he was producing 35 years ago (OK, I have a soft spot for some of his Spidey stuff, but even back then I sensed that he was in it for the money and not the love of the story — unlike, say, the Gerbers or the Engleharts — and this current work hasn’t changed my younger self’s opinion one bit).
Justice League of America #35 — Writer: Len Wein; Pencils: Tom Derenick and Pow Rodrix; Inks: Alquiza, Hunter, Wong and Green
A fill-in by another guy who was writing comics 40 years ago. Wein was one of the first fans to turn pro, so at least he always seemed to be having fun, and he’s got at least one classic series to his name, so he’s deserving of respect. On the other hand, this seems very by-the-numbers: professional, but it’s easy to see the seams in the construction. That may be my own long comics-reading history, though; less jaded readers may very well like this better than I did.
Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps #3 (of 3) — Writer: Peter Tomasi; Artists — Chris Samnee and Mike Mayhew
Two Green Lantern Corps stories — kind of weightless-seeming after the more revelatory tales of the other-colored Corps in the first two issues of this series. However, it’s also got a “Director’s Cut” of the #0 issue, with Reis’s raw pencils and running commentary from Johns and the two editors who worked on it; that may be enough to convince Blackest Night fans to pick it up.
Phil Mateer
