OB1og

Fanboy Fodder 8.5

It’s a week five write-up, so that usually would mean a light week in terms of number of books out, but that wasn’t the case. What is/was the case is half the books purchased could not be read due to my behindness on Civil War. I’ll get around to catching up, hopefully soon because TV and Xbox 360 games are fast approaching to capture my attention from the waning baseball season.

To be honest, I am actually not all that interested in writing about comics from this past week, but I have to keep up with this, so here’s a half-hearted shot for the six books I did read. I did have a hard time choosing between running the cover for X-Men or All-Star Superman, so I went with both, but Supes at the top since I ran an X-book last week.

All-Star Superman #5
Holy crap Batman! The Superman book has actually taken the lead in the shipping schedule despite debuting at least a month after the Batbook. According to Jim Lee, it’s all his fault and not Frank Miller’s, but whatever. This is about the excellent Superman book penned by Grant Morrison and penciled by Frank Quitely. I think I mentioned this book in my Superman Returns review because it is just an excellent read and an easy way for someone to jump into a Superman book. Morrison is breaking it down to the core of what all the Superman cast of characters represent and Quitely is producing some excellent visuals. This ish features Clark visiting Lex Luthor in jail to get an exclusive interview. A prison riot ensues and Clark must protect Lex, and others, while Lex believes he’s protecting Clark just so he can get his story out. There are several scenes that provide good laughs. I think my favorite thing about this book so far has been the difference between Clark and Superman. I think this book more than any other I have ever read does this so well that you almost forget they are one in the same. This is in large credit to Quitely’s art, but also to the Morrison’s writing. I’ll buy this book until they are off the title and only then if it starts to suck. I’m a big fan.

X-Men #190
I’m not certain I like Mike Carey’s writing yet, but Chris Bachalo has come a long way in getting me to love his art. I used to hate him when he was drawing Generation X back, well… it seems forever ago, but really not that long ago. Anyway, I really like what he brings to the table now and I think that’s just a product of his maturation as an artist and probably my growing appreciation over the years of artists that aren’t in the mold of Marc Silvestri and Lee. The cover makes you go WTF!?, but of course the inside goes slightly contrary to its suggestion. This new X-Men threat that Carey has developed, the Children of the Vault, is about as clear as mud, or the Neo — I think that’s what they were called — from a few years ago. If Uncanny can rocket into space to face the Shiar, why can’t this title face more classic villains also? Why does every writer have to come on and create their own convoluted mess? Why not start with something we are familiar with and then see if we like your new shiznit? I’ll always buy this book, but this current story arc doesn’t have my attention like Astonishing or Uncanny currently do. This new team they are putting together could be funky, but they aren’t getting there fast enough for my taste.

Ultimate Fantastic Four #33
Hey, this is just like the X-Men book. Let’s introduce some new group of superpowered beings that appear humanoid enough, but not from Earth, but more likely from a future, parallel Earth instead. Oh, well lookey here who is the writer of this one… Mike Carey. WTF dude? Are you kidding me? This one is even harder to follow than X-Men. Hurry up and get over already… What? It’s only the first issue in a new arc? Fcuk!

Ultimate X-Men Annual #2
The last of the lackluster annuals from the Ultimate line. This one probably ranks second behind last week’s Ultimates annual. That isn’t saying a whole lot for the other two that came before them, which I already outlined as being pretty close to suck. In this one, we finally get to see how psycho they suddenly decided to make Nightcrawler. Oh, and Rogue loses the powers she siphoned from the dying Gambit, so I guess that means no more crawling into bed with the ice cube since her own power is dominant again.

Teen Titans #38
I see where they are going with this now that this week’s Wizard gave us a nice rundown of this Fall’s stuff. I think I will stick with it for now, but I’m not entirely positive the payoff is going to do it for me. I have nothing invested in most of these characters — Robin is really the only one I am very familiar with — and I have been reading this book for the last year. I liked it before DC’s latest crisis, but the characters left now are very foreign to me. I’ll give it a few more issues.

Cyberforce #5
Sorry Marc, this sucks my balls so far and I’m not buying another issue. The X-Men crossover mini-series being floated in the end could be interesting though. Probably not smart to stick the two characters you totally ripped off from the X-Men with your Cyberforce characters in the ad though…

As for the other books purchased and not yet read, they include the Civil War books Cable and Deadpool #31 (one of my favorite books just because Nicieza rocks) and Young Avengers / Runaways #2. X-Factor #10 is no longer Civil War, but I haven’t read the previous two because they were. X-Men: Fairy Tales #4 finishes that mini (I think), so now I’ll read them all. Justice #7 is a bi-monthly maxi-series, so I’ll have to wait the two years for it to complete before I read it. I’d never be able to remember what was going on otherwise. You ask me, they should have given Alex Ross the first year to work on it and then start putting them out so it would be monthly. Either way, I know it will pay off just for the visuals.

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