4 stars = Stop reading review and go buy now!!!!
3 and a half stars = Great issue and make room on your trade shelf someday soon
3 stars = Recommended and maybe even trade worthy
2 and a half stars = Recommended
2 stars= Not the best, not the worst, not recommended
1 and a half star = Terrible issue and vocalize your disgust at your next social event
1 star = Awful awful awful and you may want to consider dropping this title
0 stars = Next con you attend where the writer and/or artist are present you should throw this issue in their face
Mighty Avengers #16- Sigh. And so we get another SI filler issue. Again, I’m still finding these quite tedious. Oh, and something that heightens that feeling is these damn homage covers. They started doing these with the Marvel Zombie covers and then continued with SI. They were cool for the Marvel Zombie mini-series and that’s it! Once we got to the 20th printing of that hardcover and then now with the Skrulls, these covers are just plain crappy now! Oh well, I doubt this will change by the end of the event so yay I have four more months of this to look forward to! But I digress. This issue is about what happened to Elektra. Despite my earlier ranting, there was a lot to enjoy about this issue and I’m sure a lot of you will love it. This is coming from a DD fan so liking an Elektra story means something. However, this is a picture heavy book from the usually wordy Bendis. Unfortunately, when you have a story that depends so much on the art, if the art is bad the issue will probably be bad as well which is what we get here. Sadly, I found Khoi Pham’s art horrendous. His Elektra looks like an old woman! From the story alone this issue is pretty good, but because there are so many wordless pages, the shoddy art detracts from the story.
2 stars
X-Factor #33- Does anyone still remember when this was a top tier book? The characters were great, the stories were great. The art was unconventional but fit the story perfectly. Why has this book declined so much after Messiah Complex? I’m almost to the point of dropping this book, but then I remember the characters I fell in love with and I’m still interested in their story. So please Peter David, write better! This issue is a SI tie-in, but there isn’t much about Skrulls in here. We get to see a Skrull reveal which was a bit predictable but still cool, but that’s it. The rest of the book is just like a normal X-Factor book. Also, the Skrull in this issue doesn’t say much, but what it does say is very odd. For someone that writes dialogue so well, I don’t know why we get such weird lines from David. There are still some great moments in here, but that is overshadowed by the horrible art and a bit of bad writing. Oh, and this story is being continued in She-Hulk which is a book I don’t read. And sadly, I don’t care about this story enough to follow it into a new book.
1 and a half stars
Final Crisis Requiem-First off, I want to apologize for something. I recently said that I flipped through this issue and thought the art didn’t look very good. Well, after reading it, I feel that the art is pretty fantastic. However, I still feel that Mahnke got his reference pages mixed up and is drawing Impossible Man instead of Martian Manhunter, but the art was great. Sadly, that’s about the best thing I can say about this issue. I personally was appalled when I read it. It tries to ruin almost everything Grant Morrison was trying to say in Final Crisis. This is a retelling of what happened in that book and it pissed me off. This should have made me sentimental and left me remembering J’onn J’onzz fondly. Instead I left this issue blinded with rage. At first, I was going to recommend this issue if you treat it as a MM book instead of a FC book, but I don’t even think it works then. It doesn’t seem written well at all. I had an instinct to stay away from this book, but I heard so many positive things about it that I gave it a shot. I was sorely disappointed.
1 star
Final Crisis Rogues’ Revenge #1- Leave it to Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins to produce a decent tie-in. The team that told some of the best Flash stories reunite to bring us a new Rogues tale. The art is fantastic! I didn’t expect this to be so gritty but it is. The Rogues aren’t written as comic blunderers. They are written as tired old men that are still bad ass in their own way. They are villains with an unusual moral code and they are written extremely well. Unlike the aforementioned FC tie-in, this doesn’t screw with the main FC story. It is referenced and it seems a bit is spoiled. Perhaps issue 3 should have been out by now. It doesn’t seem like much of a tie-in yet, but it is still a great story on its own. There is plenty of set-up in this issue, but there is still a lot of action and cool moments with a cliffhanger that will leave you hungry for more!
3 and a half stars
P.S. For those keeping track, Final Crisis wins!
Tags: Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Avengers, Bendis, Geoff Johns, Secret Invasion, Skrulls, Brian Michael Bendis, X-Factor, Peter David, Final Crisis, Doug Mahnke, Mighty Avengers, Peter Tomasi, Martian Manhunter, Final Crisis: Requiem, Scott Kolins, Final Crisis: Rogue's Revenge
July 17, 2008 at 11:29 am
Peter David’s been kinda off lately. Seemed to start right around the time he took over She-Hulk from Slott. Makes me a little wary of the X-Factor/She-Hulk/Secret Invasion triple crossover that he’s doing. These could be the first SI tie ins that I don’t like. We’ll see. I’ll be getting my books tomorrow and I’m interested in reading X-Factor, but super excited to get three of the best books on the market right now (Nova, Incredible Hercules and Captain Britain). I think this is my first ever DCBS shipment with no DC books whatsoever. I guess GLCorps is late this month?
I’m also a little skeptical that Khoi Pham’s art was so bad on Mighty. I loved the work he did on Hercules, and I thought Mighty 14 had good art as well. Could be one of those Eye of the Beholder situations.
July 17, 2008 at 12:31 pm
I’m surprised by the intense negative reaction to FC: Requiem. At worst, I found it to be unnecessary to the main story of Final Crisis. But as an MM story, I thought it was fine. I could have done with fewer recaps of MM’s life, but I didn’t find anything in it objectionable.
I’m enjoying Secret Invasion, but I just can’t dig into it deeply enough to care about the tie-ins. I’ve tried picking them up. But invariably, the make me sleepy. Of course, I have this reaction to just about every issue of Mighty Avengers.
The only Peter David I read these days is She-Hulk. I’m enjoying it quite a bit. But my anti-mutant bias has kept me away from X-Factor. There just isn’t a character in the book that is a draw to me. I have noticed I read less of Peter David’s work than I used to. But that’s probably not a reflection of the quality of his work so much as the books he’s currently writing.
July 17, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I liked the art in Mighty Avengers and love the Skrull covers. Oh, and that was an awesome issue of Mighty Avengers in general. Elektra is so bad-ass, it’s unbelievable. Especially when you look at it this way: Illuminati v Super Skrulls and Elektra v Super Skrulls. Kind of proves how bad-ass she is, right?
The art is X-Factor I will agree was horrible, along with the story. Sigh.
July 17, 2008 at 4:04 pm
i haven’t read any of these yet and my box doesn’t come in till Monday. sad times. but, the extra time in between is allowing me to catch up on all those trades i had stacked up: DMZ, Ex Machina, Power Pack, Exterminators, Amazing Fantasy…
July 17, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Desiato-Uh yeah this is the only Peter David book I’m reading and as I said, the writing has gotten bad ever since Messiah Complex. I hope you enjoy X-Factor more than I do because I didn’t care for it much. I have no connection to Khoi Pham at all. I seem to remember thinking his art earlier in Mighty was ok, but it really seemed to suck here and it basically ruined the issue because this was an art demanding issue.
dclebeau- Has it been an intense negative reaction to Requiem? I’m the only one I know of that disliked it, unless you were referring to my intense negative reaction. It may have been an ok MM story, but it was sullied by all the FC ruining stuff that I may have been too blinded with rage that I didn’t enjoy it. Personally though I thought the writing in general was shoddy. Uh I can understand you not buying the tie-ins. I’m not either, but if they’re in a book I’m already reading or feature a crew I like then I’ll read it. Oh and if you are going to read some SI tie-ins, the MA and NA ones are the most important as they are written by Bendis. Having said that, unless you’re deeply invested in SI, NA, or MA, you aren’t missing much. Oh and really, earlier issues of MA made you sleepy? I think the book has been fairly good. At least you could appreciate the Bagley and Cho art right? I’m not reading She-Hulk, but I would recommend early X-Factor issues. I love the characters. Still, I don’t want to get you hooked and then have you read the last few and be all sad like me. So I guess stay away from X-Factor.
Pi- Sir I think your judgment is clouded by your love of the Skrulls. Nah, as I said it was a good issue, but it was specifically written to be an art book with so many wordless panels and I didn’t like the art. But if you did then I would recommend it. But I don’t like my Elektra to look like an old woman. She has like 10 bags under her eyes! Elektra should be sleek, sexy, and kick ass! But to each his own. I’m glad you at least agree with me on X-Factor, I really do want to like that book.
Billy-Uh yeah read those comics on Monday and buy Conan!
July 17, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Pham has a unique art style. The thing you dislike, from what I can tell, is that a lot of the shading in pencil is done with single lines, and not solid or hashmarks. There was only one panel to me where Elektra kind of looked old. Otherwise, I don’t think she looked old, just that her eyes had shading. I mean, look at her outfit and all the lines in the folds of the fabric.
July 17, 2008 at 9:26 pm
I’m just stating a general complaint. It can be hard at times to properly articulate ones reasons for disliking art. But I wanted to put something other than “it sucked”. So, rather than picking another specific reason, I’ll just simply say that I didn’t care for the art.