Necrosha: The Gathering #1 (of 1) — Writers: Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost; Artists: Ibraim Roberson, Gabriel Hernandez Walta, Leonardo Manco, Kalman Andrasofszky/Cam Smith, and Mateus Santolouco
A one-shot anthology, with five stories recounting how the current X-villianess, Selene, recruited the five members of her vampiric inner circle. Lots of lines like “Kill him, my children.” and “Why do you exist, Mortis?” “To kill.” and “My queen. Who would you like me to kill?” “Everyone.” and… well, you get the idea; this is not a subtle comic. If you like the current incarnation of X-Force, with its dark artwork, grim plotlines and obsession with blood, fangs, claws and death, here you go.
Dark X-Men #2 (of 5) — Writer: Paul Cornell; Penciler: Leonard Kirk; Inker: Jay Leisten
For fans of the recent Captain Britain, here’s Cornell’s latest: it’s hopelessly mired in current Dark Reign continuity, but does offer the return of the Warren Ellis version of Nathan Grey (X-Man), alternate-world-traveling mutant shaman and all-around badass. Here, 40% of the way through the series, he hasn’t done anything yet, but he probably will next issue — not that any of it will affect Marvel continuity permanently, because that isn’t how these mini-series work, but it might be mildly interesting….
Web of Spider-Man #3 — (Rhino story): Writer: Fred van Lente; Art: Nick Dragotta; (Spider-Girl story): Writer: Tom DeFalco; Art: Ron Frenz/Sal Biscema; (Aunt May story): Writer: J.M. DeMatteis; Art: Val Semeiks/Dan Green
Kind of a bait-and-switch deal going here: there’s no actual Spider-Man in this book. Instead, there’s an 11-page Rhino origin of sorts, an eight-page Aunt May honeymoon story by DeMatteis that’s exactly what you’d expect from an eight-page Aunt May honeymoon story by DeMatteis, and a 16-page Spider-Girl story. In effect, then, this is an issue of Spider-Girl, by that series’s long-time creative team, with a Rhino and Aunt May story attached. Since the cover says nothing about Spider-Girl, and yet only her fans would find this book entertaining, I think we have this month’s winner for Most Incomprehensible Marketing Strategy.
God Complex #1 — Writers: Dan Berman and Michael Oeming; Art: John Broglia
Oeming’s name is all over the cover, but, while he created the concept, he only co-wrote this (although Broglia’s open, simplified layouts and designs suggest his artistic style). Unfortunately, the concept involves the Greek Pantheon (you know: Zeus, Hera, etc.) as modern-day corporate bigwigs, an idea that’s been done, oh, 357 times before. It goes nowhere new with it, either: Apollo quits to become a mortal, and says things like “To live as a human — as a man — to live each day, each moment as if it may be my last… this is really truly living!” Um, no, guys: this is really truly boring.
Anywhere 101 #1 — Writers: Tom Akel and Eric Mahoney; Art: Alan Quah
Arcana’s one of those wanna-be companies that has a two-page spread in the back of the book talking about their “over 150 original properties” and how tight they are with all the big Hollywood studios, and how they’re the “largest publisher in Canada” (the jokes pretty much write themselves, eh?); they offer a line of derivative, C-movie-idea books written and drawn by people you’ve never heard of. Here, the high concept is slacker superheroes as done in a Judd Apatow movie, so there’s a lot of sitting around and playing video games, and general hanging out, and nothing happening (the comic itself comments on this twice; I forget which reviewer coined the law, but the law says: if the story itself is forced to comment on how lame it is, then that makes it more lame, not less). It’s tempting to really tee off on this, but hey: Its twenty-something creators are obviously passionate about their work; they just don’t have the chops to pull it off yet. There are a couple of good lines of dialog, and the book’s only a dollar, and everybody has to start somewhere, so if you’re feeling charitable….
Murderer #1 (of 1) — Writer: Robert Kirkman; Pencils: Nelson Blake II; Inks: Sal Regla
Last year, Top Cow had a “Pilot Season” competition, where they offered the first issues of a number of different books by different creators, and then asked readers to vote on which one would become an ongoing series. This year, they got one team, Robert Kirkman and Mark Sylvestri, to develop five ideas, and one of those will become a regular book. This initial offering, while it has Sylvestri’s name (and art) on the cover, offers nothing from him inside. Instead, Kirkman and Blake tell a story about a kind of psychic Dexter, a guy with mind-reading powers who finds himself constantly overwhelmed by the thoughts of other people, and finds that killing someone is the only way to get the voices to stop for a while. Fortunately, he only kills “bad” people — in this case, a wife-beater and potential killer — and, really, that’s about it; this one of those comics where the cover concept pretty much sums up the whole book. It’s an OK but half-baked idea, the kind of thing that Kirkman admits he had lying around in a drawer; let’s hope the four other ones are a bit more inspired.
DC Universe Holiday Special ’09 — Creators: A Whole Bunch
A $5.99 Christmas anthology, offering 16 different stories, averaging maybe five pages each, by a variety of writers and artists you’ve probably never heard of. With that short a space, most are based on the same small set of ideas, too — Santas, Christmas parties, shopping, etc.; this is liking getting a big box of chocolates and finding they all have the same filling, and it’s that cherry nougat nutty stuff that nobody likes. There’s a four-page Billy Tucci Sgt. Rock tale, a six-page Enemy Ace with Howard Chaykin art, and a six-page Batman story with no dialogue and art by Peter Nguyen that I “read” three times, and still can’t figure out; those are the only things I remember out of this entire 100-page package, and they weren’t worth $6.
Nation X #1 (of 4) — Writers: Simon Spurrier, James Asmus, Chris Yost and Scott Snyder; Art: Leonard Kirk, Michael Allred, Michele Bertilorenzi and David Lopez/Alvaro Lopez
Yet another anthology, with four stories set on the X-Men’s current mutant-filled island home. The Allred art is welcome — it’s eight pages of Wolverine and Nightcrawler on a roadtrip — but the script doesn’t give them much to do. The other three stories feature Magneto, Iceman and Colossus, also not doing much: as with the DC anthology, if you’re going to give creators eight pages or less to make their points, you’re not going to get anything memorable unless their names are Will Eisner, and no one here comes anywhere close to that.
Phil Mateer
