The Spirit #1 — Writer: Mark Schultz; Art: Moritat; (Second story: Writer: Denny O’Neil; Art: Bill Sienkiewicz)
There’s a prevailing critical opinion that Spirit stories more than ten pages long don’t work, and this 23-page effort doesn’t do a lot to disprove it. It’s about as good as it’s going to get, too — Moritat can draw femme fatales, and has a decent title page, but his first full-page splash of Denny Colt is a little off, and Ebony has apparently been replaced by a Greek chorus of street kids, and there’s a lot of padding, and… eh; like I said, it’s about as good as it’s going to get. The eight-page backup by O’Neil and Sienkiewicz is better (it follows the Eisner storytelling pattern much more closely, and the artwork takes a lot of chances, and is fun), but it’s all light as a feather, and it could just as easily have been a Question story, or a Batman one; as with the lead, it offers readers no compelling reason to keep reading comics about this character.
Sif #1 (of 1) — Writer: Kelly Sue Deconnick; Pencils: Ryan Stegman; Inks: Tom Palmer with Victor Olazaba
This is meant to set up Sif as a strong woman and a bad-ass, and it’s amiably empowering enough, and knowledgeable about her history (Beta Ray Bill shows up), with a nice cover and OK interior art (it has a couple of Michael Golden influences, and it’s always nice to see Palmer’s inking). At $3.99, though, who’s going to buy this — Thor completists? Sif fans? It’s a pleasant surprise that this comic is as decent as it is, but just throwing it out there by itself, at that price point, almost guarantees low interest and even lower sales. What’s the point?
Captain America: Who Won’t Wield the Shield? #1 (of 1) — Writers: Jason Aaron, Matt Fraction, Stuart Moore; Art: Mirco Pierfederici, Brendan McCarthy, Joe Quinones
You have to look very closely at the cover to notice that one of the “heroes” holding up the shield is Forbush-Man, and that this is a parody book — but fans who thought they were getting a “real” Cap story, instead of a Not Brand Ecch-like Satire 101 deal featuring Deadpool (because he isn’t in enough other books this month), might be mollified by the framing sequence (involving Ed Brubaker, Jason Aaron and Matt Fraction being stalked by a killer), or the six-page Dr. Strange/Cap Silver Age psychedelic mashup by McCarthy.
DV8 #1 ( of 8 ) — Writer: Brian Wood; Art: Rebekah Isaacs
This spin-off group from the Gen-13 title started out life as a series written by Warren Ellis and drawn by Humberto Ramos, and it’s been pretty much downhill ever since. Here, they have another good writer in Wood, and he comes up with an interesting premise — stranded in prehistory, each member of the group is adopted by a different primitive tribe and becomes their “god” — but he’s not a superhero writer, and there isn’t the flash or nervous energy that might put this book over the top. Isaacs, similarly, is an OK artist, but is just serviceable here; there’s little in the way of startling or memorable visual moments, and her one two-page splash doesn’t have the zip to make it pay off the way it should.
Her-oes #1 (of 4) — Writer: Grace Randolph; Art: Craig Rousseau
Why do “girls” comics follow so many of the same cliches? Here it’s Archie meets Marvel, as a number of Marvel heroines — Janet Van Dyne, Jennifer Walters, Namora, Carol Danvers — are all high-school students, with typical angsty high-school problems and relationships, and then gradually start to reveal their powers and, presumably, will become a group later. Fine, but it’s like an Elseworlds cartoon version of the people we know, and so doesn’t seem “real” (said the obsessive fanboy). One assumes that, collected, this will eventually become a manga-sized paperback, and that’s when it’ll be most likely to find its intended audience.
The Brave and the Bold #33 — Writer: J. Michael Straczynski; Art: Cliff Chiang
A story set in the past, as Zatanna and Wonder Woman take Barbara Gordon (still as Batgirl) out for a girls’ night on the town, for a reason that gradually, and poignantly, becomes clear. As so many of Straczynski’s issues of this comic have been, it’s a perfectly serviceable story, but is just kind of… there; it doesn’t help that its ending takes five pages when it should have taken two, which dilutes its effectiveness and makes it come off as too self-satisfied.
Green Lantern #53 — Writer: Geoff Johns; Pencils: Doug Mahnke; Inks: Christian Alamy
Absent the big-event charge of Blackest Night, we’re now dealing with the ramifications of all those Lanterns and characters and colors, and it’s hard to muster much enthusiasm for it (although Johns, Richard Donner fan that he is, does get off a sly Luthor callback to the first Superman movie). This exposes a weakness of monthly books: we don’t need another Lantern story right now (we’d all like to catch our breaths), but one’s scheduled, so here it is anyway.
Phil Mateer
