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

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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

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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

Is It Wednesday Yet?

New comics this week!

• Detective Comics #877 (DC)
• Xombi #3 (DC)
• American Vampire #15 (Vertigo)
• Strange Adventures #1 (Vertigo)
• Amazing Spider-Man #622 (Marvel)
• FF #4 (Marvel)
• Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #3 (IDW)
• Butcher Baker: The Righteous Maker #3 (Image)
• Super Dinosaur #2 (Image)

I dropped Action Comics this month, because although I've been enjoying Paul Cornell's run so far, the Lex Luthor arc has concluded and the story now shifts to the "Reign of Doomsdays" arc. That story so far has consisted of Doomsday beating the shit out of various heroes, and based on the solicits for the next three issues, that's about all we can expect until its conclusion. This is a totally idiotic crossover, hijacking several titles and adding absolutely no value to any of them. It's the best example I've ever seen of how NOT to do crossovers.

One-paragraph reviews: Spider-Man, Fear Itself, Last Mortal, Supergirl

Amazing Spider-Man #661
Written by Christos Gage, art by Reilly Brown; Marvel

I probably wouldn't have bought this issue if I had noticed that it was written by Christos Gage before leaving the store. I read the first few issues of Avengers Academy, and while I like the characters, the weak scripts and occasionally even worse art prevented me from enjoying it. I've always been a bit puzzled by the generally positive reviews of it I see online. Here, we get the same level of quality I've come to expect from Gage: an all right story, mostly bad dialogue, and scenes that somehow ring false. No complaints about the art, though.

OKAY

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Fear Itself #2 (of 7)
Written by Matt Fraction; art by Stuart Immonen and Wade Von Grawbadger; Marvel

I had mixed feelings about the first issue. The story was better than I had expected, but I was really turned off by the pretentious attempt at "relevance" that steered clear of any actual political commentary. In the end, although I was curious to see what would happen next, I decided not to bother with the rest of the series or crossover event. Then I started reading Journey into Mystery and was surprised by how awesome it was. Since it seems like an important tie-in, I figured I would give the main series another try. Aside from the annoying and utterly pointless soundbites from the news that occasionally intrude on the narrative, Matt Fraction seems to have abandoned any effort to connect this story to what's going on in the real world. In fact, there isn't much of a story here at all. We see various characters pick up the hammers that fell from the sky and get transformed into different beings, which is repetitive and boring. Meanwhile, the Avengers are in full crisis mode, but it's not clear exactly what they're reacting to. In one of the most unconvincing pep speeches ever delivered, Steve Rogers talks about "incident zones" and tells his troops that people will be hurt, scared and panicking. I guess these "incidents" occurred in other books. I'm not going to start buying more titles to figure out what's going on. In fact, I regret buying this one. I'm just going to stick to Journey into Mystery from now on and hope that the story remains self-contained enough for me to be able to make sense of it without paying any attention to this.

AWFUL

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Last Mortal #1
Written by John Mahoney and Filip Sablik; art by Thomas Nachlik; Image

Nice black and white art, but I couldn't really bring myself to care about the characters or what happens to them in this issue. The hook of this series is that the main character apparently can't die, so it was a bad idea to not explore that in the first issue. As an idea, it's not really strong enough on its own to just throw it at the reader on the last page. It might work once this is collected in a trade, but for now if the goal is to keep me buying the issues, I need a little more to go on. Especially considering this wasn't much of a twist, since I already knew what the series would be about based on the promotional material. I may or may not pick up the next issue. It'll probably mostly depend on how heavy my pull list happens to be next month. I know how unfair it is to judge a book on a single issue, but unfortunately that's the economic reality I have to deal with.

OKAY

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Supergirl #64
Written by James Peaty; art by Bernard Chang; DC

This concludes the "Good Looking Corpse" story that Nick Spencer started four issues ago. Looking back at the full story, I have to say it was pretty disappointing. We'll probably never know what Spencer intended to do with it, but we know that he left after only one issue because his editors apparently didn't like what he was giving them. So Peaty was almost certainly following an editorial mandate here, which makes it hard to hold him responsible for the story's failure. Does it really come as a surprise to anyone that when you take one writer's idea, have an editor twist and bend it out of shape, and then hire someone else to hack out the scripts, the results are not very good? What you get is a flat, somewhat pointless story that feels like nobody's heart was really in it. Bernard Change's art is pretty good, although this last issue feels a bit sketchier than the others, and there's a lot of ugly digital blur effects (the bane of my existence) added by the colourist.

NOT VERY GOOD

One-paragraph reviews: Gates of Gotham, Teen Titans, Booster Gold, Silver Surfer

(No spoilers unless otherwise indicated.)

Batman: Gates of Gotham #1 (of 5)
Written by Scott Snyder and Kyle Higgins; art by Trevor McCarthy; DC

My expectations for this mini-series were insanely high. Partly because Scott Snyder's recent work on Detective Comics resulted in one of the best Batman stories I've ever read and I was looking forward to more of the same. And partly because Cassandra Cain, former Batgirl, is set to play an important role in it. Cass has a very passionate fanbase and she's a character I've read a lot about but haven't had much first-hand exposure to. While this first issue doesn't quite live up to the hype I built up for it, it's still pretty good. I'm not the biggest fan of the art style. It has a cartoony feel that doesn't appeal to me and I really dislike the character designs for all the bat characters when they're out of costume. But these are mostly due to aesthetic preferences, not a lack of skill on the artist's part. The important thing is it's good storytelling. Kyle Higgins' dialogues don't pack the same kind punch that Synder delivers with surgical precision in Detective, but it does the job. Cass only makes a brief appearance in the end, but it looks like she's going to play an integral part in the story going forward. We only get hints of what is really going on in this first issue, but it sets up an interesting mystery. Looking forward to the next issue.

GOOD

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Booster Gold #44
Written by Dan Jurgens; art by Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund; DC

(SPOILERS)

This is the first issue of Booster Gold that I've ever read, although I've previously enjoyed him as one of the main characters in 52. I was thankful for the in-story recap, which make this a very easy jump-on point for readers like me who are mostly picking this up because it ties into Flashpoint. This issue is mostly set-up, as Booster finds himself stranded in the Flashpoint timeline and realizes that something is very wrong. Booster and Barry Allen (who's not in this) seem to be the only two people so far who remember the old timeline. Jurgens' dialogues have a very old-school feel, which I don't mind at all. Considering how exasperating the ongoing Doomsday crossover in the Super titles has been, I wasn't too thrilled to find that he's going to be an antagonist in this series as well, albeit as a transformed, Flashpointified version of the character. I guess Jurgens did create him, so it shouldn't be too surprising. In any case, I'll keep reading, as I want to know how Booster pulls through this mess and what part he's going to play in restoring the timeline.

OKAY

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Silver Surfer #4 (of 5)
Written  by Greg Pak; art by Harvey Talibao, Iban Coello and Sandu Florea; Marvel

I don't have a lot to say about this issue. I think the art continues to be pretty weak, while the story continues to be pretty good. This concludes next month. Maybe I'll have more to say then.

OKAY

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Teen Titans #95
Written by JT Krul; art by Nicola Scott and Doug Hazlewood; DC

Nicola Scott is one hell of an artist. I suspect this title is going to end with #100 in August, but you can be sure that I'll follow Nicola to whatever book she'll be drawing next. In the meantime, she and inker Doug Hazlewood are drawing the shit out these characters and the story could be the most inane, boring crap and you would hardly notice. Thankfully, though, this story is actually pretty good. The combination of decent story and stellar art makes this one of the best books DC currently puts out, which is remarkable when you consider that before this creative team took over it had long been considered awful by fans. (I wasn't reading it, so I can't confirm that.) The one thing that has me feeling a little uncomfortable is the way this story turns Hindu mythology into supervillany. Obviously, a lot of comic book stories and characters are inspired by myth or religion, but int he case of Greek or Norse mythology, these are religions that are largely "extinct" (although some people still believe in them) and in the case of Christianity, it's usually the writer's own culture that is being mined for inspiration. Here, JT Krul steps dangerously close to cultural appropriation and exoticism. Solstice, the Indian girl who will apparently join the Teen Titans, brings some much needed diversity to the team, but did her first adventure have to be one against comic book versions of her culture's religion? From what I understand, Rankor, the god/demon/villain in this story, is a made-up character not based on any actual Hindu deity, so I don't want to overplay this. It's not that I disapprove of this story or anything. All I'm saying is that these questions remain in the back of my head while I'm reading (and enjoying) this.

GOOD

Fear Itself vs. Flashpoint August solicitations

When DC announced that they were releasing a gazillion mini-series spinning out of Flashpoint, the entire comics blogsphere gasped and felt an overwhelming sense of event fatigue all of a sudden. But a closer look at the numbers shows that Fear Itself is way bigger event than Flashpoint. If someone wanted to get every tie-in issue for both series, here's what their pull list would look like in August.

AUGUST MARVEL FEAR ITSELF ISSUES

fear itself
fear itsef: fearsome four
fear itself: wolverine
avengers (fear itself tie-in)
journey into mystery (fear itself tie-in)
invincible iron man (fear itself tie-in)
alpha flight (fear itself tie-in)
fear itself: the deep
fear itself: youth in revolt
fear itself: the home front
fear itself: poster book
ghost rider (fear itself tie-in)
avengers academy (two issues) fear itself tie-in)
new avengers (fear itself tie-in)
herc (fear itself tie-in)
black panther: man without fear (fear itself tie-in)
hulk (fear itself tie-in)
heroes for hire (fear itself tie-in)
thunderbolts (two issues) (fear itself tie-in)
fear itself: fellowship of fear
uncanny x-men (fear itself tie-in)
fear itself: deadpool
fear itself: uncanny x-force
new mutans (two issues) (fear itself tie-in)

Total: 27 issues

AUGUST DC FLASHPOINT ISSUES

flashpoint (two issues)
booster gold (flashpoint tie-in)
flashpoint: batmaan - knight of vengeance
flashpoint: secret seven
flashpoint: abin sur - the green lantern
flashpoint: world of flashpoint
flashpoint: emperor aquaman
flashpoint: deathstroke and the curse of the ravager
flashpoint: frankenstein and the creatures of the unknown
flashpoint: citizen cold
flashpoint: wonder woman and the furies
flashpoint: deadman and the flying graysons
flashpoint: legion of doom
flashpoint: lois lane and the resistance
flashpoint: the outsider
flashpoint: kid flash lost
flashpoint: project superman
flashpoint: hal jordan

Total: 19 issues

It's also worth pointing out that Flashpoint ends in August, whereas Fear Itself will be just over the halfway mark.

Is It Wednesday Yet? // What's going on with DC books after August 31?

So I've been looking at DC's August solicitations and I have to admit that I'm pretty damn excited about what's going to happen after August 31st. Yes, I know that as a comic book blogger, it is my job to be cynical about the stunts that the big two pull to convince us that their comics are really important and a big deal and that they're going to change everything. Which is pretty much what DC has been telling us lately about Flashpoint, with all the PR and creator interviews and now the solicitations for August, where it is revealed that the only title currently scheduled to be released on the fifth Wednesday of the month is Flashpoint #5, because of the tremendous impact it's going to have on the DCU. I mean, I am fully aware that this is all manufactured hype, but it doesn't mean I shouldn't care. Or even, perhaps, enjoy it? Is that permitted?

Okay, editors and creators and ads constantly telling us that "it's a big deal" gets tiring and needs to be taken with a grain of salt. And only soliciting one book for the last week of August is a bold move, but what I think is much more telling about the solicitations is the fact that pretty much every book in the mainstream DCU in August is either the conclusion of some longer story arc, or what feels suspiciously like a filler done-in-one. It's like all the loose ends are getting wrapped up in August, so that it's really impossible to tell which book is going to continue in September and which book is going to be cancelled or transformed.

Let's take a closer look at the non-Flashpoint August solicitations. JMS's two epic failures, "Grounded" in Superman and "Odyssey" in Wonder Woman, both come to an end. Kelly Sue DeConnick's three-issue story in Supergirl also concludes. Superboy ships twice in August so that Jeff Lemire can finish the Hollow Men story he's been crafting since the first issue. Karl Kerschl's cover for #11 is an homage to Rafael Albuquerque's cover for the first issue (see above), which would gives the whole series a nice symmetry if this turned out to be the last issue. And Teen Titans ships twice in July and twice again in August, all so it can reach issue #100 before August 31. Do they want to end on a nice round number, or start off in a new direction on #101?

In the Bat books: Scott Snyder's long arc in Detective ends (with two issues shipping the previous month so they could fit everything in before August 31). Batman Inc promises a "surprise ending." Red Robin will have concluded its current arc the previous month and in August gets a story about Tim going after Captain Boomerang, the man who killed his father; it sounds like a done-in-one and is thematically appropriate for a final issue, with some payoff for an issue that's been in the background since Brightest Day started. Batgirl has to "put her past behind her" in a story that sounds like the conclusion for the stuff that's been going on for months with the Reapers. Batman and Robin is a done-in-one by David Hine, to kill time after Judd Winnick's three-issue arc that will end in July. Batman also sounds like a done-in-one, this one by Fabian Nicieza, and it hints that Dick Grayson's time time under the cowl might be coming to an end.

So there you have it. There's pretty much no way to predict what September's going to look like. What's going to be interesting is how DC manages to hold the suspense once it becomes time to release those solicits next month. Ideally, they wouldn't tell us anything about what comes next until the last issue of Flashpoint comes out on August 31, but obviously they can't do that. I'm predicting a lot of "top secret" covers in the September solicits. Should be interesting.

New comics this week!

• Batman: Gates of Gotham #1 (of 5) (DC)
• Booster Gold #44 (DC)
• Supergirl #24 (DC)
• Teen Titans #95 (DC)
• Amazing Spider-Man #661 (Marvel)
• Sigil #3 of 4 (Marvel/CrossGen)
• Silver Surfer #4 (of 5) (Marvel)

Wow. Only Marvel and DC for me this week. That's rare.

I'm super excited about Gates of Gotham, the Batman mini-series written by Scott Snyder. As you probably know if you've been reading my reviews, his current run on Detective Comics is probably the best Batman comic in a long time, so there's little doubt that this is going to be a good story. The wildcard is artist Trevor McCarthy, whose work I'm not familiar with. His covers are definitely nice, though.

I'm adding Booster Gold to my pull list as it seems to be a major tie-in to the Flashpoint event. This will be my first-ever issue of Booster Gold, though he was one of my favourite characters in 52.

I decided to drop Legion of Super-Heroes. Not that it was terrible, but I realized it was always the book I was least looking forward to reading. Sometime the issue would stay on my to-read pile for almost a full month before I'd get around to it. Nothing that's happened in it so far has really gotten me excited. And with Flashpoint and a few other additions to my pull list, this one just had to go.

Review: Flashpoint #1

Flashpoint #1 (of 5)
Written by Geoff Johns; art by Andy Kubert and Sandra Hope; DC

(Spoiler-free review.)

Let's start by talking about the art. I've seen both positive and negative responses to it online. I think it's good. Some of Andy Kubert's faces are a bit weird and occasionally the proportions seems to go a bit wonky, but it doesn't really bother me. I'd much rather have some quirks from an artist who has his own style than bland uniformity or lifeless photorealism. Alex Sinclair's colours are also worth mentioning. They give the book a crisp, saturated look, with sharp contrast between warm and cold hues. It works.

Now, about the story... If you've read my review of the final issue of Flash, which leads directly into Flashpoint, you know that I've been pretty hard on Geoff Johns' lazy scripts. This issue further cements my feeling that his strength is in the ideas, stories and concepts he comes up with, more than in the scene-by-scene scripting or dialogue.

The opening scenes where Barry realizes he's lost his powers and that his mother is still alive are fine, up until the point where they start talking. This is something that always bothers me in alternate reality stories where one character is the only person aware that the world has changed. As soon as they start saying things like "Where's Dad?" when their father died three years ago or "Do I own a car?" people would freak out. They would immediately become extremely concerned about their mental health and want to take them to a doctor. I've had friends who started showing signs of schizophrenia and let me tell you it's a very disturbing and frightening thing to see someone you love lose their grip on reality. It's not something you just shrug off and ask "Are you sure you're okay?"

Like the scenes in Flash #12 that were seemingly lifted right out of a bad TV drama, this tells me that Geoff Johns is not the kind of writer who draws a lot from his own experience  in terms of how human beings interact with each other, but instead takes his cues from television, movies and other comic books. This scene immediately calls to mind dozens of similar scenes from alternate reality stories we're all familiar with and it makes no effort to rise above the clichés.

Fortunately, the rest of the book is a lot better. There's still a lot of exposition through dialogue, but honestly I'm not sure how else you could convey so much information about a completely new world in a single issue without those types of info dumps, so I'm more willing to forgive it. The only thing that bothers me slightly is that all this time is spent introducing characters that will apparently not feature prominently in the main series but whose stories will instead be told in the four gazillion spin-off mini-series. So for those of us who don't plan on reading the spin-offs, this is just a lot of extra information that isn't going to pay off in any way. But, again, I understand that this is an "event" comic and this issue essentially functions as a big advertisement for all the other books DC is hoping you will buy. Anybody who buys the first issue of Flashpoint is a willing participant in that game, so to bitch about it too much would be kind of disingenuous.

The book ends on a very effective revelation about one of the major players, one that most readers will have probably seen coming by the time they get to the last page but that packs a good punch anyway just because of its implications and how it sets the tone for the next four issues.

Flashpoint #1 doesn't really rise above the problems you'd expect from the first issue of a big summer event comic book, but it gets the job done. It was a good choice to keep the two main antagonists (Aquaman and Wonder Woman) out of the book. Their threat is felt throughout the book, but Johns wisely delays the impact of their first appearance for a later issue. The business about the Amazons castrating all males who enter their territory definitely makes me groan - a lot! - but I'm willing to bite my tongue for now and wait to see exactly where they go with it before I critique that story decision. I plan on picking up the next issue. Haven't decided yet if I'm going to bother with any of the minis.

OKAY