After a long weekend of Comicon, a wedding and a strip club, its time to sit down and review this week's books.
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe #17
Both this book and Futures End were heavy on the copy this month. Lots of flashback storytelling in each one with lots of words. When we last left Adora, she killed He-man with a cursed sword. We of course learn, through a long flashback about Skeletor's ancestry, a way to bring He-Man back to life. He IS the title character after all.
Pop Mhan continues to bring his A-game on the art. His Teela as the Snake Sorceress is pretty sweet and sexy. His art has really grown over the title. Hopefully he doesn't get TOO good so DC either moves him to another book or loses him to Marvel. I'm looking at you Mahmud Asrar.
The biggest bummer of the book is purely aesthetic. I want He-Man's costume and sword to be the old classic style. The sword is better than the early 2000s version, but I'd really like both the sword and his chest plate to be a little less fancy and more utilitarian. The current look is a little too far removed from the Masters universe.
Futures End #21
We're back for more flashbacks. This issue is ENTIRELY a flashback about what exactly went down with "the war" everyone keeps talking about, and how the Earth 2 denizens came to our beloved Earth 1.
Its a pretty cool story, but I wonder if there would have been a better, less wordy, way to tell it. A lot of different plot points are now tied together by Green and Red Arrows. They recall how the war and post-war times went down connecting Mr. Terriffic, Cadmus and Brother Eye. Nothing is particularly mind-blowing, but it tightens up a lot of what Futures End is all about.
Cully Hamner makes his debut on art. Hamner, is a good artist, but has a more specific style than what we've already seen from other artists. I wouldn't want to shift any farther than what Hamner's doing away from what's already been established. Despite using four different artists through 20 issues, the art has been incredibly consistent.
First Place:
Saga #23
And the misery continues... Alana's still doing drugs and Marko is balancing on the razor's edge of infidelity. Aside from the usual family melodrama that we've been treated to, we get some crazy shit from Dengo, the kidnapping, murderous TV head janitor.
The insanity that plays out on the tree spaceship, paced along side the quiet moments that lead the issue highlight just how good Brian Vaughan is at story pacing. No words are wasted and each panel is a deliberate step to serve the story.
Its the book everybody's reading and all the critics are loving. Mark Waid even jokingly calls the Harvey Awards (comics' Oscars) the Sagas. The book wins a lot.
Panel of the Week:
Pop Mhan's Teela as the Sorceress.
-Gint
Saga #23
And the misery continues... Alana's still doing drugs and Marko is balancing on the razor's edge of infidelity. Aside from the usual family melodrama that we've been treated to, we get some crazy shit from Dengo, the kidnapping, murderous TV head janitor.
The insanity that plays out on the tree spaceship, paced along side the quiet moments that lead the issue highlight just how good Brian Vaughan is at story pacing. No words are wasted and each panel is a deliberate step to serve the story.
Its the book everybody's reading and all the critics are loving. Mark Waid even jokingly calls the Harvey Awards (comics' Oscars) the Sagas. The book wins a lot.
Panel of the Week:
Pop Mhan's Teela as the Sorceress.
-Gint
No comments:
Post a Comment