Nova #14 — Writers: Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning; Pencilers: Wellingtom Alves; Inker: Scott Hanna
In a week where the good stuff was really good and the not-so-good stuff… wasn’t, this is one of the few unbought books that at least came close. Abnett and Lanning are good at this space opera, as all their Annihilation work has shown, and their take on the Silver Surfer and Galactus is well thought out; the Surfer’s personality makes sense, and the cliffhanger ending on the dying planet is suitably eerie. The bad guy seems to have wandered in from SF Cliche Land, though (possibly even from a Star Trek episode), and is so obviously just a mechanism to get to that cliffhanger that it detracts from the overall story.
Rann-Thanagar: Holy War #2 ( of 8 ) — Story: Jim Starlin; Pencils: Ron Lim; Inks: Rob Hunter
The other book that almost made the cut; Starlin does for the DC space stuff what Abnett and Lanning do for Marvel’s — and, of course, the man invented “cosmic.” There’s a cast of thousands, including the title planets plus Starlin mainstays like the Weird, Captain Comet, Hardcore Station, religious allegory and corporate cynicism. Maybe that’s too much — it gets hard to keep every plotline straight, and hard to care about any one piece of it; the promise of eight issues of this begins to seem more of a threat instead.
Avengers/Invaders #2 (of 12) — Plot: Alex Ross and Jim Kruegar; Script: Jim Krueger; Pencils: Steve Sadowski
And here, we have 12 issues, and that definitely seems like a threat — despite the big cast of heavy hitters, the predictable plot and so-so art make this feel weightless and insubstantial. In a world of Secret Invasions, it’s already out of date, and who cares about the Invaders anyway? By issue five or six, I’ll bet sales on this will be retreating faster than German troops in 1945.
Justice Society of America #16 — Story: Geoff Johns and Alex Ross; Writer: Geoff Johns; Penciller: Fernando Pasarin; Inker: Rebecca Buchman
The big spookily-smiling Gog guy almost makes the book, but I think we can see where this is going; it’s all fun and games until the puny humans refuse to worship the infinitely powerful being, and then someone’s gonna get hurt. It would be refreshing if Johns and Ross ended up going somewhere else with this, but since it’s the second time this week that the creators seem to be drawing inspiration from an old Star Trek episode, I’m not optimistic.
Star Trek: Assignment Earth #2 — Writer/Artist: John Byrne
Speaking of Star Trek… Byrne’s art here is as solid as always, and his affection for (and knowledge of) Original Trek is impressive, but who, exactly, wants to read a book that faithfully reproduces the cheesy production values of mid-’60s TV, and is pathetically proud of the way it uses a failed Gene Rodenberry character to fix continuity holes in a not-particularly-noteworthy ST episode? For aging former-nerd baby boomers only, since they’ll get the obsessive references; for everyone else, this will be one of the most boring books of the year.
House of Mystery #2 — Writer: Matthew Sturges; Artist: Luca Rossi (plus a 5- page interior short story by Bill Willingham and Jill Thompson)
The Willingham/Thompson short almost makes this worth it, but the main story, involving one of those pan-multiversal Bars With No Name (let’s see: in sf, there’s Spider Robinson’s Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon series; comics had Munden’s Bar in Grimjack, plus the place in Gaiman’s Sandman: The Wake, plus the bars that pop up in practically eveything Warren Ellis writes…), just hasn’t gone anywhere yet, and it’s irritating that the cover has absolutely nothing to do with anything that happens in the actual comic; it suggests Lovecraftian horror, where the book itself offers sly whimsy involving cosmic process servers, a bait-and-switch tactic that’s likely to alienate more readers than it attracts.
The War That Time Forgot #2 (0f 12) — Writer: Bruce Jones; Penciller: Al Barrionuevo; Inker: Jimmy Palmiotti
Worth checking out if you’re a fan of non-superhero Silver Age DC books, and if the idea of characters like the Viking Prince, Firehair, Tomahawk, the Enemy Ace, etc., etc., all running around the dinosaur island from Star-Spangled War, sounds interesting to you. Considering it’s by Bruce Jones, and that his last three or four series have been barely readable, and easily forgettable, I’m passing.
Phil Mateer
