Models, Inc. #1 (of 4) — Writer: Paul Tobin; Pencils: Vicenc Villagrasa; Inks: Terry Pallot and Vicenc Villagrassa
This has mostly received attention for its backup story (8 pgs. by Marc Sumerak and Jorge Molina) featuring “fashion icon” Tim Gunn, A.I.M. and a suit of Iron Man armor. It’s not bad as a typical Marvel celebrity suck-up story, less rushed and more logical (and with better art) than the Obama or Colbert ones, and not quite as whorish as, say, Uri Geller in Daredevil. The main story is a modern take on the more-serious, soap-opera-y Silver Age version of Millie The Model, with Millie, Patsy Walker, Chili and a couple of other women fashion-worker leads. Hard to tell its intended audience — male superhero geeks won’t touch it, and females attracted by the fashion-mag cover and Gunn appearance would probably find it confusing (Patsy’s Hellcat job is referenced, and the Human Torch shows up for no particular reason), and less than compelling, with arbitrary plot twists, generic art and a cliched cliffhanger ending.
Blackest Night: Batman #2 (of 3) — Writer: Peter Tomasi; Penciller: Ardian Syaf; Inker: Vicente Cifuentes
The Bat-cast versus the Black-Lantern zombies: just about exactly what you’d expect — assuming that you’re expecting a story that doesn’t advance the main-event plot and involves lots of bloody dismemberment, running around and yelling, and the kind of angsty “Oh, decomposed former loved one, why have you come back to say snarky things about me and try to eat me?” panels that have already become SOP for these spin-off series.
Frank Castle: The Punisher #74 — Writer: Victor Gischler; Art: Goran Parlov
Finishing the “Punisher in the Bayou” arc, and while it’s shown some encouraging B-movie instincts, it’s ultimately foundered on a plot that makes little sense (things happen because… well, they just do; shut up and watch the alligator bite someone in two, or the backwoods caricatures get theirs, or the little drug-dealer guy do skewed buddy-movie riffs with Frank). Parlov’s art makes this worth a look, although foreign artists doing American African-American characters is a minefield: as with Ennis’s Barracuda stories, there are some panels here that skate perilously close to 19th-cenury racist images, especially when taken out of context (you wouldn’t expect Parlov to necessarily be aware of those, but Marvel’s editors should have been).
Thunderbolts #135 — Writer: Andy Diggle; Art: Miguel Sepulveda
Does anyone else think that “Dark Reign” has worn out its welcome? We’re well into the “things get worse before they get better” stage, both here and in every other damn Marvel title, and another three or four months of watching evil triumph, good guys get captured and main characters get (seemingly) blown away has little attraction. Wake me around Christmas, when (please, Oh Lord) the whole mess will culminate in its inevitable Peter Parker/Norman Osborn confrontation on some big $5 one-shot, and secondary titles like Thunderbolts can get back to delivering their own quirky, self-contained takes on superhero tropes.
The Shield #1 — Writer: Eric Trautman; Pencils: Marco Rudy; Inks: Nick Gray; (Inferno story/10 pgs.) — Writer: Brandon Jerwa; Art: Greg Scott
So, let’s review: DC gets J. Michael Straczynski to help them roll out their MLJ-character revival, and he delivers a perfunctory set of world-building one-shots; now, for one of the two main series, they offer an utterly average pair of stories, by competent-but-largely-unknown creators, in a book that a typical reader will flip through and, seeing nothing startling or compelling, put right back on the rack. Assuming that this “new line” has faded into obscurity by Christmas, I’d love to hear DC editorial explain to their new management just what they were thinking, and how they’ll justify the time and expense that went into this born-to-fail waste of resources.
Adventure Comics #2 — Writer: Geoff Johns; Art: Francis Manapul; (LSH story/9 pgs.) — Writers: Johns and Michael Shoemaker; Art: Clayton Henry
Fans of Johns’s Teen Titans run should probably pick this up (the cover indicates why), and he offers some crumbs to older readers (like the beginnings of a Luthor/Brainiac team-up), but this is so mired in current continuity that new readers will have no idea what’s going on, and no reason to care. The LSH backup is the first part of a Lightning Lad quest story; between the small number of pages it has to work with, and its own reliance on reader familiarity with the characters, it too is dismissible.
Red Robin #4 — Writer: Chris Yost; Pencils: Ramon Bachs; Inks: Guy Major
I kind of like the “against all logic, Tim’s searching for Bruce Wayne” overplot, and there’s a full-page splash of him examining a certain cave wall that’s nice, but that also points up this book’s weakness — like Adventure, it depends on the reader’s vast knowledge of current DC continuity, and it’s inpenetrable otherwise. Throw in a lot of bloody violence (in a comic that, like Batman: Blackest Night, has no warning label for younger readers or their parents), and average art, and this is yet another comic this week that seems ill-considered and easy to resist.
Phil Mateer
