Thursday, October 4, 2012

Mini Reviews!: Axe Cop, World's Finest, Earth 2, The Hypernaturals

I'm a little short for time this week, so instead of doing a review of a single issue like usual, I thought I'd give some brief thoughts on a few of the books I read this week. 

Axe Cop: President of the World (#3 of 3): When I started reading this miniseries, I wondered if I would continue to find its random plot and general silliness as amusing after this third issue. Thankfully, Axe Cop continues to find laughs in the most absurd, childlike plot twists. For example: an ordinary man gets forcibly injected with "the blood of everything," turning him into the villain Every Man, who has the power of--everything? This is exactly the kind of comic book I imagined when I was 8, except perhaps with more knock-offs of 80s slasher villains and some kind of Aeon Flux-y super spy. 

Axe Cop is a simple pleasure, but not a guilty one. If you don't like it, you probably have humour cancer.  

World's Finest #5: I don't disagree with those who say that this book doesn't move the plot forward in any meaningful way, or that it seems to be stalling between the first arc and the next, but you know what? I'm OK with that. For a standalone issue, #5 is packed full of story and art from Jenkins and Perez, and half of that story is so good that it's worth the $2.99 price point by itself. Seriously, Huntress saves a Take Back the Night rally from a woman-hating gunman. How awesome is that? Huntress is becoming my favorite member of the Bat-family, and while Power Girl needs to put some R&D money in designing a costume that doesn't burn off her body every issue (or just GIVE HER BACK HER OLD COSTUME DC), her characterization is great too. Sorry for shouting. 

World's Finest isn't breaking the mold, but it's the kind of fun, good-natured comic that I wish DC would publish more often.

Earth 2 #5: Speaking of great DC comics, Earth 2 continues right where #4 left off, with the new "Wonders" taking on one of my favorite Pre-52 villains, Solomon Grundy (just "Grundy," here). What can I say? I love Earth 2. This is how a reboot should be done.  There would be far fewer problems across the DC line if they would have just wiped the slate clean like they have with this title.  I have no doubts that Alan Scott is going to choose to be hero over spending eternity with his dead lover Sam, and will save the day by defeating Grundy with the help of The Flash, Hawkgirl, and The Atom. Beyond that, I have no idea where this series will go. 

In these past 6 issues, the groundwork has been laid for an exciting new chapter in DC Comics history and can't wait to see where Robinson and co. take these characters next.

The Hypernaturals #4: Hypernaturals is a good cosmic superhero story, if, and only if, you are a fan of the Legion of Superheroes. I know this title is creator-owned and supposedly therefore less restrained but in four issues, this book has just failed to make me care about the future of the series. The art is great. The production of this book is quite excellent, and has been far more consistent in this regard than either Extermination (great story/terrible art) or Higher Earth (good story/good-to-terrible art). Even so, I can't just get excited about this series when I feel like I know exactly what it wants to be: The Watchmen meets the Legion of Superheroes. There is clearly a mystery going on and one of the heroes is going to turn out be evil or something like that but I just don't care. 

Overall, I felt that this was a really strong week for DC, as Animal Man, Swamp Thing, and Dial H, which I also read, were all excellent.

2 comments:

  1. As an old time Legion fan I did enjoy Hypernaturals FCBD and # 1, but I couldn't keep buying it (I have too many books on my list!).

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  2. I'm mostly in the same boat. I like "the idea" of the Legion and I like the basic idea of The Hypernaturals, but it's just not doing anything exciting enough for me to want to spend $3.99/issue on.

    Same goes for just about everything else Boom Studios is putting out these days. I liked the stories of Extermination and Higher Earth too, but not enough to justify the cover price.

    Image and Valiant on the other hand, have been putting out books that I've had no regrets about purchasing monthly because the quality of the story and art is generally pretty high.

    I've been staying away from Marvel as well lately since I feel like DC gives me more value for my comic buying dollar, but I may have to sample some books from the Marvel NOW initiative. I'm especially interested in Remender and Cassaday's Uncanny Avengers (although with Cassaday on art I'm wary about shipping delays) and I'm also interested in Avenger's Arena (Avengers Academy + Murder World = SOLD!).

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