Mercy Sparx #0 — Writer: Josh Blaylock; Art: Matt Merhoff
Lord help us, we’re seeing the return of the early-’90s Bad Girl craze, with cute Gothy demon chicks who are bad because, you know, they have red skin and horns and, like, smoke cigarettes and have tattoos. Such characters stir the loins of your average comic book geek, who figures he could never get their real-life equivalents to look at him, and so he’s ready to forgive the cookie-cutter plots and pedestrian art (for a time, anyway) in favor of the mild fantasy jolt they provide. Points here for making the Earth incarnation of the character look like Gwen Stacy (surely the anti-Goth), but otherwise this is a pointless revival of a trend that was pointless the first time around, too.
Final Crisis: Revelations #1 (of 5) — Writer: Greg Rucka; Pencils: Philip Tan; Inks: Jonathan Glapion, Jeff de los Santos and Walden Wong
This features the intersecting stories of the Spectre, who’s going around snuffing out actual villains, for once (literally, in Dr. Light’s case, although who thinks that death is going to last?), and the new Rene Montoya Question. Interesting enough — and the Question is Rucka’s baby, so fans of that character will want to read this — but the Spectre’s power level is so high that it’s hard to get very invested in him (even good writers like Rucka have to work overtime to figure out ways to rein him in; otherwise, he’d just snap his ghostly fingers and fix everything), and Tan’s art is too dark and murky to follow easily, so despite some nice bits I’m going to give this a pass.
The Last Defenders #6 (of 6) — Writer: Joe Casey; Penciler: Jim Muniz; Inker: Cam Smith
There’s a big “Who cares?” problem here, because instead of the original idea of the Defenders (get Marvel’s heaviest hitters — the Hulk, Sub-Mariner, Dr. Strange and the Silver Surfer — together), this incarnation features the She-Hulk, the Warlord Krang, Damien Hellstrom and a “new,” ex-Shield-agent Nightcrawler, with a behind-the-scenes Kyle Richmond bankrolling things. Whee… but, I repeat, who cares? A 12-year-old who picked this up wouldn’t recognize any of the good guys, and would be put off by the square-jawed, ugly faces and the lack of any cool action sequences. Me, too — it’s like the creators deliberately crafted a title with no good reason for anyone to buy it. In today’s crowded market, that doesn’t seem like the best marketing strategy….
Captain Britain and MI13 #4 — Writer: Paul Cornell; Penciler: Leonard Kirk; Inker: Jesse Delperdang
End of the first arc, with the Skrulls in England routed (at a high price), and the new, Excalibur-like team together. If you care about Captain Britain, England or the Marvel characters who live there, here you go; for me, though, in spite of some nice writing it’s a lot like The Last Defenders: there’s just no incentive to pick up this book.
Secret Invasion: Thor #1 (of 3) — Writer: Matt Fraction; Penciler: Doug Braithwaite
Fraction’s staking out a claim to be the next Thor writer, between this and the series of one-shots set in Asgardian history that he’s been writing this summer, and he has the characters’ voices and interrelationships down well. However, it’s still just a big three-issue Asgard-Skrull battle, an unessential piece of someone else’s Big Event, and despite a few twists and turns we all know where its going to end up. Thus — in what’s becoming a definite theme this week — we’re left with a book that, unless you’re a big Thor completist, offers no convincing argument for fans to spend $3 on it.
Gen13 #21 — Writer: Scott Beatty; Art: Mike Huddleston
The group finds out they’ve missed the apocalypse, and now has to deal with their ruined, changed world. Hard-to-follow art, lots of inexplicable characters a new reader wouldn’t know (with little attempt to explain them, or what’s going on generally), and a lack of interesting or compelling action sequences: yep, it’s another comic this week that offers no good reason for anyone who picks it up to ever pick up another issue again. And people in the industry wonder why so many books like this are selling so poorly….
Phil Mateer
