The Ultimates 3 #5 (of 5) — Writer: Jeph Loeb; Art: Joe Madureira
This has actually improved since its horrible first issues, and here at the end of the story we get lots of here’s-what-really-happened revelations, and some decent art and fight scenes, but it still doesn’t make a lick of sense, and the last-page true-villain reveal doesn’t seem to realize that the Ultimate version of that character is significantly different from the regular-Marvel one. Since the Ultimate line is about to be killed/altered/shaken up anyway, none of it matters; let’s just tiptoe away, and leave Ultimates 3 to take its place with all the other failed attempts to extend a franchise too far: Superman III, Batman and Robin, Jaws 3D….
1985 #5 (of 6) — Writer: Mark Millar; Art: Tommy Lee Edwards
This one isn’t getting better; it started out OK, but has steadily gone downhill, and has to be counted as a disappointment. On paper, its high-concept heroes-bleeding-into-the-real-world plot sounds great, but in practice it’s more outline than actual story, with a few good bits but no satisfying center; in trying to appeal to the 12-year-old in all of us, it reads like it was written by one.
Hulk #6 — Writer: Jeph Loeb; Penciler: Ed McGuinness; Inker: Dexter Vines
Readers who’ve been hoping for any actual revelations at the end of this first story arc will come away empty. Silly readers: this is a Jeph Loeb story; there is no resolution. Instead, the Red Hulk is punched until he falls down, and then all the logical suspects appear to establish that they aren’t him, and then it ends. Suckers!
Angel #5 (of 5) — Writer: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa; Art: Adam Pollina
It’s not that this book is ugly, but… oh, hell, who am I kidding? This book is ugly. Look at that cover, a closeup of Warren Worthington: impossibly-long neck, bee-stung lips, weird hair — who would buy this crap? No one, apparently; All About gets ten copies of it (as opposed to, oh, maybe 125 of Uncanny X-Men), and we’ll sell five. Pollina’s art at least isn’t cookie-cutter Kirby/Buscema tracing, and would be perfect for, oh, some indy comic written by Neil Gaiman, set in a Victorian Peter Pan fantasyland, but its exaggerated, elongated figuredrawing is wildly inappropriate for the superhero audience it’s trying to reach here. Marvel can collect it as a trade, but where’s the audience for cliched plots about religious nuts with shotguns who stalk ominously around the country gunning down mutants, and never get caught, while our title hero putters around at a boarding school, ignoring unspoken gay subtexts? Points for trying something different, but this is an experiment gone horribly, comically wrong.
Dead Ahead #1 — Writers: Clark Castillo, Mel Smith and Paul Birch; Art: Alex Nino
A Gulf Coast fishing excursion boat and its passengers and crew return from a day’s voyage, only to find that the land has been overrun with zombies; they sail around the Caribbean, trying to survive. The selling point here is the Alex Nino art: zombies, sailing ships and women, all of them exquisitely rendered — but, dude, it’s another zombie book, you know? Not to mention that the first line reads “Like a dream spitting you out, the ocean holds many mysteries,” which doesn’t even scan logically, and then the next panel I flip to at random has the dialogue “Get off me, you mother-sucking corpse!” (With three authors listed, you’d think one of them could actually write….) Buy this for the art, but don’t expect any kind of decent story to go with it.
Flash Gordon #1 — Writer: Brendan Deneen; Art: Paul Green
So: how would you try to update Flash Gordon? Originally, he was a college football star, cornfed and naive but also heroic, square-jawed and 100% American, transplanted to an outer-space world of Oriental-looking dictators and weird monsters, where his straight-ahead values and courage always won the day. The analogy between his plight, and that of the early-20th century United States vs. the rest of the world, was probably unconscious but still resonated with its middle-American, newspaper-strip-reading audience. In this new version, he’s an Indiana Jonesish college professor, and Dale works for the CIA (and looks like she just stepped out of Danger Girl), and they’re looking for Zarkov, who might be a terrorist, and… well, OK, it’s all setup, and we don’t even get to outer space yet, but it’s all pretty flat and been-there-done-that, and what’s the point? I give it five or six issues, maybe, and then low sales will kill it, and we can all wait for a less wrong-headed, and more self-aware, revival next time.
Reign in Hell #3 ( of 8 ) — Writer: Keith Giffen; Penciller: Tom Derenick; Inker: Bill Sienkiewicz
Giffen’s encyclopedic knowledge of the DC Universe comes into play here: there’s a cast of thousands, every mystic or demon or infernal hanger-on ever committed to comicbook paper, and they’re moved around expertly, like so many pieces on a vast chessboard. The problem is, you need a doctorate in DC history to have any hope of following the story; casual readers need not apply. That makes this book’s intended audience — well, me, I guess, and a couple of thousand similar fanboys — but while it’s kind of fun to play Trivial Pursuit with all the characters and references, Giffen’s laconic dialogue, and the lack of any viewpoint protagonists to root for, make this easy to dismiss.
