Phil's Reviews — Stuff I Read and Put Back #27

Deadpool/GLI Summer Fun Spectacular #1 — Writers: Fabian Nicieza and Dan Slott; Artists: (1st story) Nelson; (2nd story) Paul Pelletier/Dave Meikis; (3rd story) Clio Chang; (Interludes) Kieron Dwyer
All the stories are played for laughs (as the title of the book should tell you), so whether you like this depends on your tolerance for Deadpool and the GLI’s brand of tongue-in-cheek humor (they’re the “GLI” instead of the “GLA” because they’re now called the “Great Lakes Initiative,” and if that seems funny to you, then you’re the audience for this book). There’s one good bit where Squirrel Girl confronts the former Speedball and points out just how illogical the whole “Penance” thing is, making this creative team about the third this month to do so (hey, Marvel: when even your own writers are stumbling over themselves to make fun of your mega-plots, that’s probably a bad sign), but otherwise your $4 would yield more “summer fun” if you used it toward admission to a water park or something.

World War Hulk: Gamma Corps #1 (of 4) — Writer: Frank Tieri; Penciler: Carlos Ferreira; Inker: Sandu Florea
With no actual Hulk in this issue (the guy who’s cleverly set up to look like him on the cover is actually Grey, one of the members of this obscure team of gamma-irradiated… well, “heroes” is stretching it, since they don’t mind killing people, so let’s just say “characters”), it’s a prime candidate for this week’s “superfluous comic” award. We have unpleasant people the reader doesn’t know or care about doing irrelevant things (since, really, how much impact on the actual “World War Hulk” storyline is this series going to have?), wrapped around a plot that requires extensive knowledge of the Marvel Universe to make sense: for a comic published in July, this requires way too much effort, for far too little payoff, to be worth it.

Sub-Mariner #2 (of 6) — Writers: Matt Cherniss and Peter Johnson; Artist: Phil Briones
OK art — there are what amount to full-page splash pinups of Venom and Wolverine, plus a double-page panel of Namor tackling Iron Man — but very little actually happens, and this suffers from the same problem as the first issue: there’s no sense of underwater life, or hint of any quality or ability that would make the title character attractive or special (not even an “Imperius Rex”). If someone told you that the Sub-Mariner was Marvel’s earliest hero, the character that first put the company on the map back in the ’40s, you’d be hard-pressed to believe it, based just on this comic; some of Bill Everett’s what-the-hell, anything-goes energy and enthusiasm and wonder would help a lot here.

Annihilation: Conquest: Wrath #1 (of 4) — Writer: Javier Grillo-Markuach; Artist: Kyle Hotz
Hotz’s art is cool, and well-suited to the moody, Batmanesque feel of this character (i.e., he’s a mysterious loner, and he’s got a cape). The story’s your standard one-man-against-the-Empire (or, in this case, the Phalanx) plot, complete with an initial confrontation, a hook-up with the rebel opposition, and a subsequent attack by the bad guys. As yet, there’s no definition of powers, and no backstory, although presumably that will come in later issues; if I were in the market for a multiple-comic space-opera crossover epic, I could do worse than this book (and if that seems like a very mild recommendation, that’s exactly what it is).

Countdown #42 — Writers: Paul Dini with Sean McKeever and Tony Bedard; Pencils: Carlos Magno; Inks: Mark McKenna and Jay Leisten
The Flash-villain subplot takes center stage, presumably because there’s no longer a Flash comic to contain it, while Mary Marvel acts like a bitch and the Atom joins the looking-for-Ray-Palmer team. Slightly improved over previous issues (maybe because we’re now ten episodes into the plot, so at least there’s some history to what’s going on), but it still seems like mostly filler, and there’s still no compelling reason to read it; the first sentence of this review tells you everything about it you need to know.

Batman Confidential #7 — Writer: Michael Green; Penciller: Denys Cowan; Inker: John Floyd
Did the world really need yet another how-the-Joker-became-the-Joker story, especially one with no connection to any of the previous attempts? Apparently so — in this one, he’s a master criminal, but bored at his job, and only shows interest when he gets a noble opposition in the form of a young Batman. Presumably, in the rest of the arc he’ll put on the red hood, fall into the chemicals, go nuts, etc. The problem, of course, is that we know all of that already, so there’s not much dramatic tension; instead, we’re left to ponder small editing errors, like a caption that mentions Poe writing a “half-century” ago (huh — so, in the DC Universe, Poe lived in the 1940s, instead of the 1840s?). Decent Cowan art, but it doesn’t hide the “been there, done that” feel of the story.

Nova #4 — Writers: Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning; Artists: Sean Chen and Scott Hanna with Brian Denham
Back into space, and straight into the new Annihilation crossover. As I mentioned above, I’m not really in the market for one of those right now, although Abnett and Lanning get points for taking this in an unexpected direction, one that ensures that Richard Rider won’t just be repeating his actions from the first Annihilation (and, right now, may be rethinking that whole “leave Earth” thing, but maybe I’m saying too much).