Quick reviews: Amazing Spider-Man, American Vampire, Project Superman

Amazing Spider-Man #663-664
Written by Dan Slott; pencils by Giuseppe Camuncoli; inks by Klaus Janson; colours by Matt Hollingsworth; Marvel.

After a thankfully brief but very mediocre Avengers Academy crossover, Amazing Spider-Man is back on track. I enjoy Dan Slott's pacing in this series. He finds a good balance between advancing the various subplots in small increments to tell an overarching story, while keeping things interesting with the more immediate action with the villain of the month (in this case, Negative Man). The art by Camuncoli and Janson is very functional, not overly flashy or spectacular, but getting the job done quite well. All of which adds to a pretty solid and reliable comic.

GOOD

---

American Vampire #16
Written by Scott Snyder; art by Rafael Albuquerque; colours by Dave McCaig; Vertigo.

I'm loving this, though I don't really have much to add. Every issue in this arc has been very good, so this is just more of the same, though I mean that as a compliment. Albuquerque's art is a bit difficult to follow in one of the scenes here, and I'm not entirely sure if it was intentional or not, but in any case it's not a big enough deal for me to take points away from this issue. Between this and the Survival of the Fittest mini-series with Sean Murphy, American Vampire has turned out to be a surprising hit for me, considering I don't really have any interest in vampires otherwise.

VERY GOOD

---

Flashpoint: Project Superman #1
Plot by Scott Snyder and Lowell Francis; script by Lowell Francis; art by Gene Ha; colour by Art Lyon; DC.

This wasn't really what I expected. I thought it was going to be about Superman being held captive by the military and experimented upon, but he doesn't even show up in this book until the very last page. It takes place 30 years before the events of Flashpoint and is about Neil Sinclair, a man who's getting turned into a super-soldier for a secret military project, presumably using Kryptonian DNA? As he gets more and more powerful, he also becomes more disconnected and inhuman. I was reminded a bit of A God Somewhere, a graphic novel about a dude who acquires God-like powers and flips out, although Neil doesn't become as violent and amoral as the character in that story did. There's some speculation that this character is going to turn out to be Apollo (the Wildstorm character) in DC's relaunch of Stormwatch in September. This comic left me pretty cold. Neil Sinclair doesn't have much depth as a character, because don't know much about his life before he enters this project and he doesn't seem to have a personality. The supporting cast is even more flat. The story is by-the-numbers. The art is okay.

WEAK

One-paragraph reviews: American Vampire, Detective Comics, Xombi

American Vampire #15
Written by Scott Snyder; art by Rafael Albuquerque; Vertigo

I find that I don't really have anything to say about this issue that I haven't already said about previous issues. Good story, good dialogue, good art. And great colours by Dave McCaig. No complaints whatsoever. We're now three issues into this arc (I think there's going to be six in total) and things just got a lot more complicated than they seemed to be at first. No idea what's going to happen in the next issue, but the last page hints at something really horrific. It's going to be amazing. Also, as a side note, there's a preview for the American Vampire: Survival of the Fittest mini-series. I didn't read it, because I never read previews for stuff I already plan to get, but the art by Sean Murphy looks phenomenal.

GOOD

---

Detective Comics #877
Written by Scott Snyder; art by Jock; DC

I'm still digging this book, but this might have been the weakest issue since the beginning of Snyder's run. The long conversation between Batman and the Roadrunner didn't seem to go anywhere. Jock's art seemed more minimalist than usual, with a lot of empty space filled by weird airbrushed backgrounds that kind of clash with the style of his line work. I'm not sure if those backgrounds are by the colourist or by Jock himself. I find myself actually looking forward to Francavilla being back on art, although I think both are really great artists and I'm not really complaining. Bottom line is that even as possibly the weakest issue in the arc, this is still really good and it remains probably the best Batman title at the moment. I loved the scene at the end where Dick cuts off the communication channel to shut Tim up. Also, that's a really awesome looking sci-fi boat on the last page.

GOOD

---

Xombi #3
Written by John Rozum; art by Frazer Irving; DC

Still a great story full of crazy concepts and original ideas. Still great art by Frazer Irving in his unique style. (Absolutely brilliant use of colour!) This is probably the weirdest book DC publishes right now and if there's anything I love in narrative art forms, it's weird shit. My only complaint with this issue is that it was really heavy on the narration, and that slowed it down a bit too much. But it's a relatively minor nitpick. Also, by the way, we need more characters with awesome mustaches in comics.

GOOD

One-paragraph reviews: Jimmy Olsen, American Vampire, Butcher Baker and Godzilla

Jimmy Olsen #1
"Jimmy Olsen's Big Week"
Written by Nick Spencer; art by RB Silva; DC.

Everything about this is fabulous. I'm not even going to spoil this review by mentioning how annoying it was that I had to pay for half the content in this book twice... Oh, wait, I guess I just did. Well, that is annoying, but let's focus on the positive. Nick Spencer's script is brilliant. I've read quite a few of his recent work (Morning Glories, THUNDER Agents, Infinite Vacation, that one issue of Supergirl) and I think it's pretty safe to say that this is by far the best thing I've read by him. He gets the characters' voices so right it's uncanny. The remarkable thing about his take on Jimmy Olsen is that he manages to update him and make him really cool, while somehow staying true to the character's wacky origins, which in theory almost sounds impossible and yet here it is all perfectly realized in comic book form! Grant Morrison did something similar in All-Star Superman, but his reinvention of the character was a little more radical. This is closer to home, and therefore doubly impressive that it works. RB Silva's art is also just perfect. Where did this artist come from!? And please, DC, don't let him get away. Put him on another book ASAP. Everything about the art is excellent, from the layouts to the facial expressions. The only complaint I have is that the quality of the art dips a little on the last two chapters, as Silva gets help first on ink and then on pencils as well. There are a few panels in the last chapter that you can really tell were pencilled by someone else, and that's a bit of a shame. But it doesn't greatly harm the overall quality of the book. (Also worth mentioning: excellent cover by Amanda Conners and great colours by Dave McCaig.)

AWESOME

---

American Vampire #13
"Ghost War part 1"
Written by Scott Snyder; art by Rafael Albuquerque; Vertigo.

Apparently everything that Scott Snyder writes is gold. He's been blowing my mind on Detective Comics, but it's this his series that first brought him to everyone's attention. I regret not jumping onboard earlier, but can you really blame me for being sick of vampires? Thing is, though, this is a really original take on vampires, quite unlike anything else I've ever encountered. This issue starts a new story arc set during WWII. It's only the second issue I read and the last one was a done-in-one with a (pretty good) fill-in artist. Regular artist Rafael Albuquerque is back on this one and it makes a big difference. I'm hooked, and I'm definitely going to have to get the first year of the series in trades. This is worth catching up on.

VERY GOOD

---

Butcher Baker: The Righteous Maker #1
Written by Joe Casey; art by Mike Huddleston; Image.

This book is out of control. It's also filthy. It's also a lot of fun. Needs more cock, though, to balance out all the tits and ass. I'll give this series a few more issues before I come up with something intelligent to say about it. Just let it be known for now that I'm enjoying the ride.

GOOD

---

Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #1
Written by Eric Powell and Tracy Marsh; art by Phil Hester and Bruce McCorkindale; IDW.

It's a book about a giant monster who comes out of the sea, smashes things, causes mayhem. There isn't much set up for it either. A couple of kids are playing on the beach at the beginning, then the monster shows up and apparently eats them. There's a shot of their father, who's on a boat and yells out "My children are on that beach!" I assumed the story would focus on these characters, with the father trying to get to his children to save them. Seemed like a classic way to add a human element to the story. But except for those two panels on page 6, we never see the father again or find out what happened to him or his children. Presumably they are among the dead, but for a the havoc Godzilla is wreaking, it feels oddly like there are no victims. We're told by military officials that hundreds are dead and bodies are still being recovered, but we don't see any of them. There's no gore, no blood, no on-panel death. There's one panel where you see people on the street and the shadow of Godzilla's foot, then the next panel the foot slams down on the street, sending cars out flying, but I wasn't sure if the people got squished or not. I'm not saying the book would have been better if it was filled with gory details. But it seemed too clean and unsatisfying in the same way that a horror movie rated PG-13 would be. Phil Hester's art is nice, although I find some of his layouts a little confusing - not in the sense that I can't figure out what's going on, but in the sense that it requires me to stop and think and realize that what looks like a single splash page is actually showing me three different moments in time from different angles, without the use of panels or clear borders. I've been sort of obsessing over layouts and panelization lately, so this is actually a pretty interesting example of a non-conventional style. I'll probably write more about it in the future. I'll leave it at that for now. There's enough going on here for me to give the stick with the book for a few more issues and see where this is going.

OKAY