Backwards Lap: Capsule Reviews from Jeff

Backwards Lap: Capsule Reviews from Jeff

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Categories: Jeff , old school , reviews

Yes, dammit.#194;I am currently committed to this capsule review thing, if only because it forces Hibbs and Graeme to also write reviews and my WASPy upbringing inherently enjoys guilting people into stuff.

After the jump: comics from last week, last year, and a really cool fan letter.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #169-173:ÂStill pretty much a mixed bag for me, but I do know how loose story plotting becomes during this period:Âissue #169, for example, teases J. Jonah Jameson showing pictures proving that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, but that`s barely more than 3 pages of the history and the remainder has Spidey beating the dirt out of people he encounters essentially at random.#194;#172 is the introduction of the Rocket Racer, but he gets just the opening four pages and so the remainder of the record sets up the fall of the Molten Man_and even then, interestingly enough, the cliffhanger is Spider-Man being worn on by two armed security guards.#194;The start page of #173 is Spider-Man getting shot by one of those cops and escaping, only to get jumped by bystanders, one of whom has been taking mail-order kung fu lessons.)

I love I carp on this again and again but: although none of that jack would pass muster in your basic Bob McKee workshop (or, as I recall, Dan Slott`s advice sessions on Twitter), it`s very fun in the proper doses and it helps add to that "man, anything can happen" feeling_even when every issue opens and closes with a battle scene, and you have Molten Man coming back from the dead and then dying for the 5th or sixth time.

All that said, the highlighting of this lot of issues for me was the next letter from issue #169:

Yup. It`s that Frank Miller, approximately nineteen years old, saying everything it`s taken me the final thirty-five days or so to try and articulate_and doing a better job of it.#194;I`m heartened but not surprised to get out Miller`s a fan of Andru_but the name of John Buscema is a small odd.#194;I question if that`s why the two of them worked on that very odd issue of Daredevil years later?

Anyhoo, it`s all pretty low-stakes stuff but I honestly believe it`s OK or better. The nostalgia factor bumps it up to a low GOOD for me, but I don`t believe I should really factor that in.

CRIMINAL: THE Conclusion OF THE Free #1: I really shouldn`t read interviews.#194;If I hadn`t perused Brubaker`s interview with Spurgeon over at Comics Reporter, I think it`d be easier for me to see this as an excellent return on the "guy kills his cheating wife" crime story with the metatextual stuff being a dainty little bonus. But having read the interview, I walked into this expecting the metatextual to be meaty and satirical and a vivid insight on nostalgia and it was_just kinda okay.#194;I`m hoping there will be a way that stuff goes a little further: it seems to me that Criminal has ever been packaged in a nostalgic way - Sean Phillips` amazing covers clearly reference those Gold Medal Books, among others - and I suppose it might be uniquely suited to comment on more than the "wow, now we conceive of the preceding as somewhere safe but it was fucked up, too" element of nostalgia, but the "we still omit the fucked up stuff" element that is a little more distressing.#194;Is it a class of purity to yearn for something evil? Or is it a house of depravity? I believe this word is leaving to handle this stuff (god, I really hope so), but the first issue didn`t really deliver on that for me.#194;It`s still GOOD, mind you - well-written and lovely as hell, but I`d been set for something great.

FLASHPOINT: BATMAN: KNIGHT OF VENGEANCE #1:ÂThomas Wayne as Batman? Don`t care. The Flashpoint version of The Joker? Don`t care.#194;Art by Eduardo Risso, colored by Patricia Mulvihill?ÂI didn`t care_until I saw it. Risso`s art is just eye-wateringly good and in the sewer fight scene he has this neat trick of using the page turn to up the storm by reversing the weight or tightening the focus (or, in some cases, both).#194;A conflict between Batman and Killer Croc in the sewers isn`t anything wehaven`t seen before but I don`t suppose I`ve always seen it quite like this. I want the tale had been more than your usual alt-universe blather, but danged if this didn`t take me as a GOOD stuff, anyway.

HELLBOY: THE FURY #1:ÂAlso, in the "Holy Shit, Look At This Art!" category is this book, which somehow manages to be jaw-droppingly beautiful from the start page to the last.#194;Like Flashpoint: Batman, I don`t really care know or care what`s going on, but the art by Duncan Fegredo (and colours by the amazing Dave Stewart) and the tempo of Mignola`s script miraculously negates all that.#194;I felt flashes of fear and question and, more than once, something like awe.#194;I guess this`ll sound obvious to you if you`ve read the issue, but reading it made me feel just the way I did when I first watched John Boorman`s Excalibur, that same weird mix of the heroic and the creepy. I ever feel weird giving books VERY GOOD ratings or higher based on aught more than simply the art but here we are.#194;Amazing stuff.

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #623:ÂThe art didn`t fry my burger this time around but I`m still enjoying the history and Gillen`s take on Loki.#194;In fact, the mix of classical myth and the story`s own sensibilities reminds me of the stuff I`m reading in the Simonson Thor Omnibus.#194;I regard the art didn`t seem so wispy, but I suppose I`m gonna throw this one a Very GOOD, nonetheless.