King City #5 — Writer/Artist: Brandon Graham
The larger size of this book makes it hard to spot — it’s on the wall just left of the new comics rack — but it’s worth seeking out: a future-city landscape populated by quirky, appealing characters, drawn in a style that splits the difference between Moebius and Jim Mahfood. The characters are probably too quirky (they’re sometimes a collection of tics instead of actual personalities, and that makes it hard to care about them), and sometimes it feels like Graham is making it up as he goes along, but it’s an impressive rookie effort nevertheless.
Scalped #35 — Writer: Jason Aaron; Art: Danijel Zezelj
If you want to see what makes Jason Aaron a good writer, here’s the issue to do it: it’s a self-contained tale about an Indian farmer and his wife, and you don’t need to know any backstory about the comic to read it. Well-constructed and affecting, it’s a knowing, human little fable that hits some nice beats; the art, sometimes so subtle that it almost disappears, doesn’t help it that much, but at least it doesn’t hurt it, either.
Gotham City Sirens #9 — Writer: Paul Dini; Art: Guillem March
Dini’s in his element when he’s writing detective stories, and here the lead is Edward Nigma, the Riddler, as the girls sort-of hire him to investigate a murder they’re being framed for. Too much Nigma and not enough Sirens, I think, and none of it really amounts to much; March’s art, like Zezelj’s in Scalped, doesn’t actively screw up the story, but offers little in the way of memorable scenes or moments, either, and the “surprise villain” reveal is too obscure to have much shock value.
Nation X #3 (of 4) — Writers: Chuck Kim, Grace Randolph, Chris Yost and Corey Lewis; Art: Gabriel Hernendez Walta, James Harren & Jaime Mendoza, Karl Moline and Corey Lewis
An anthology focusing on various minor players on Utopia, the X-Island: the first story features Danger and Armor, and has interesting, if over-painted, art; the second is Magik being a bitch with the little green lizard kid (the fact that he’s never named in the story hints at its weak writing). Third up is Madison Jeffries and his ex-wife, and it offers nothing to care about, while the fourth is Corey Lewis trying his best to be Bryan Lee O’Malley, with Cannonball standing in for Scott Pilgrim; it’s intermittently interesting, but has a story as brightly-colored but insubstantial as cotton candy.
Thor #607 — Writer: Kieron Gillen; Art: Billy Tan & Batt, Rich Elson
Gillen’s writing in Phonogram: The Singles Club has been so good that it makes me take another look at this book — but corporate characters are considerably different from a writer’s own, and on top of that he’s been dealing with leftover Straczynski plots and the whole Siege thing. This issue, in fact, shows the leadup to events that have already “happened” in the Siege series, so there’s not a lot of suspense (we know who, what and when, so all that’s left is the “how,” and it’s no surprise that it involves all the Asgardians being suckered by Loki… again). There’s at least some hope here that, when all the Big Crossover Stuff is over, this can settle down into a decent comic again.
Dark Wolverine #83 — Writers: Daniel Way and Marjorie Liu; Pencils: Giuseppe Camuncoli; Inks: Onofrio Catacchio
Well, it turns out that last issue’s shock ending was actually just a “possible future” (too bad, as killing off Norman Osborn quickly and quietly, in a book mostly offstage from the main Siege event, would have caused a number of fanboy heads to explode). Instead, we get Daken mingling with the Norse Fates, as the potential bringer of Ragnarok, blah blah blah. Camuncoli’s art has actually started to grow on me; he’s drawing his main character less like a raccoon, and all the panels with the Fates, especially, let him show off his artistic skills (it turns out that he can draw people who aren’t ugly, grim, or gritting their teeth all the time). Still, it’s hard to care about a book where the main character is a total butthead, and it will be nice to (presumably, please) get back to Logan in a few issues.
Phil Mateer
