It’s that time again, boys and girls. Thanks to Fenris for substituting last week.
I’ll kick things off this week with commentary on Richard Dragon #2. If you enjoy the bits of Batgirl, Robin, Batman, etc, with the martial arts, and you hunger for more chop-socky in your comics … buy this title. It’s good. Very good. The dialogue sparkles, and the art is solid. This one just got added to my permanent list.
A couple of comments.
The Legion. Well, Abnet and Lanning are gone and I can see the resulting dip in quality. The whole thing is lamost entirely generic up to and including the “plot twist” with Wildfire at the end. How many times have I seen that before? sigh
Ultimate Fantastic Four. Cool. I really liked the explanation of what happened. Probably my favorite Ultimate title right now.
I don’t have any reveiws to post yet, and I certainly don’t mean to hijack, but I just wanted to thank you, CandidGamera, for starting these weekly threads. It actually got me reading comics again…which I see as a good thing.
Keep up the good discussions, I’ll be contributing soon.
Aww, shucks. Glad to have inspired you to re-enter the hobby. 
Another slow week at ye olde comic shoppe for me:
Ultimate X-Men: Pretty good, but nothing thrilling so far. Vaughn is a good writer, but so far on X-Men, Millar has had the best run. I like was pleasantly surprised with the secret of Sinister’s boss though.
Ultimate Fantastic Four: I do love me some pseudo-science, and this issue had it in spades! Almost seemed like Reed and Ben were going to get into some Mallrats type questioning for a minute there.
Reminder…This Saturday is Free Comic Book Day at your local comic shop! Take your little brother, best friend, neice, girlfriend, cousin, etc. and introduce them to the different genres. Show them how far “funny books” have come!
And, I can’t say it enough…GO SEE SPIDER-MAN 2!!!
To save some time when I get home this evening, I might as well post some more from memory -
Legion #34 - I wish I’d been reading the title for a longer period so I’d have a sense of how long Wildfire had been gone. I enjoyed the Crisis references. One wonders who the other skeletons were in the battery. And whether the battery used to reside on Oa.
Batman : Harley and Ivy #3 (of 3) - The conclusion of the madcap miniseries. Good animated-style lunacy here - I can’t think of anything wrong with this series at any point.
Ultimate Fantastic Four #8 - Yup, good stuff. Doom’s looking kinda strange these days. Nice to see a classic “Thing Strength Test” moment. I’ll probably stick with this for the long haul.
I picked up Amazing Fantasy, which I know absolutely nothing about. It was the first of the series, had some pretty good art in it on my flip-through, and that’s about it. After reading it, I still know absolutely nothing about it - but it was pretty good. Who is this, Spidergirl? Is the whole series Spidergirl, or what?
So nobody tried Sleeper Season Two #1? I’m disappointed! I went to get it, but of course the LCS was sold out (if they ever ordered any to begin with). Sleeper is the best book out there, and it makes me sad that more readers aren’t giving it a chance.
I looked at it.
I thought about it.
Then I remembered I was about to spend $60 (of comics and stuff I was already going to buy), after having spent nearly $1000 on my recent vacation to Origins, after hotel costs.
So I didn’t pick it up.
Maybe later, though.
Other than the name, this new “Spider-girl” has no relation/association with Spider-Man. And she is not the Spider-Girl who has a separate comic, who is Peter Parker’s daughter in a alternate future.
All these comic book threads have gotten me to subscribe!
Wish I had more to contribute but I only seem to get to buying new comics every 3 or 4 weeks.
I will mention the last few books that I have read recently (sorry if I get the issue numbers wrong I am doing this from memory):
Caper #6 - I really enjoyed the start of this series and I was looking forward to where it was going. Suddenly the whole scene changed (back an issue) and I felt cheated somehow. Losing interest in this series but will probably pick up the rest to be complete.
New Frontier #1-5 - a friend told me that these books were the greatest retellings of the DC origins ever. Well, I think he over-hyped it a bit for me. I wasn’t completely familiar with all the characters and their stories either so I probably missed out on that. Still an interesting weave of origin stories. Anyone know if this is the new DCU origin for these characters?
Err by subscribe I mean register of course.
It’s not. I don’t recall if the Elseworlds logo appears on the book - but the New Frontier books place Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman as appearing much too early to correspond to current DCU continuity.
I don’t remember if the Elseworlds logo appears either, I don’t think it is.
Another + for the book though, it is great reading a comic that size and not having any Ads in it. Reminds me a bit of the old 25cent 100 page giants.
Anyone seen the Powerless title by Marvel? Wonder where the hell that one is going.
Darwyn Cooke has said he asked for the Elseworlds logo, but DC is not using it anymore. It’s out of continuity, but good lord they’re great books. I keep rereading the Losers’ segment on the lost island - the artwork is absolutely gorgeous.
Thanks for the reminder, Rik - some more of this week’s Gamera purchases:
Powerless #1 - Well, okay, it’s an old schtick. But the execution seems interesting. Art’s a little muddled. Ending was very intriguing.
Doom Patrol #1 - I wanted to give Byrne a chance to impress me - to make me believe that despite his ludicrous stance on continuity, this would be a worthwhile book. Instead, I get “Look, we’re continuing the same JLA-plotline we shoehorned in, in a blatant attempt to snatch up some readers!”
Harley and Ivy–Oh my god, this is so good. Why isn’t it a regular series?
Doom Patrol–John Byrne’s “I fucked up continuity and people loved me for it” note at the back made me vomit, but that aside, it wasn’t too bad, except that A) there’s a bunch of loser characters I don’t care about and B) Byrne just doesn’t get the core concept of Doom Patrol. The FF is a Family. The Avengers is a semi-paramilitary organization. The JLA is like a fraternity (the “Shriners” kind, not the “Etta Beta Phi” kind). And the Doom Patrol is “freaks”. People who can’t go out in public without getting stares. There’s too many pretty faces in the crowd. (Also his Negative Skeleton effect doesnt’ (to me) have the dramatic impact that the two dimensional glowing shadow effect had). Mostly readable.
Green Lantern–Feh.
Ultimate X-Men–Wow. GOOD stuff. I really enjoyed this issue. I liked the characterization between Wolvie and Storm.
Ultimate FF–Bathroom jokes and a plot that moves and action. What more do I need? Excellent stuff.
Spec. Spider-Man–Who is this asshole and what has he done with Captain America? This isn’t the Ultimate Universe Cap (who’s supposed to be an asshole) so what’s with him having this massive personality disorder? Characterization is one of my dealbreakers on a book and no-one acted right. Bleh.
Avengers/Thunderbolts-GOOD stuff, but it’s Busiek, so how could it be otherwise. I miss the Avengers. Oh well. Bendis takes over soon enough.
Legion–Eew. For this they refused to give Abnett and Lanning (who I grew to love. Hated Legion Lost until I read it in a lump. Now I put them up there with Levitz and Shooter) two more lousy issues to finish out the Cub Nah storyline? This just blew. Or sucked. Or both, I suppose. 
JLA–Um…guys? The 100th issue isn’t a good place for a crappy tie-in to a new lame title. Also, who’s the guy in the red jumpsuit with the yellow lightingbolts? 'Cause it ain’t Wally West. I wonder how Geoff Johns feels about this?
PVP-I thought this was supposed to be new stuff, not stuff I could simply download from Kurtz’s website. TSK. My last issue. It’s the best web-comic out there, but the industry outgrew comics that were simply reprints of strips in 1938.
The Moth–One of the very, very few books I’ve ever bought for art alone. The story is coma-inducing, the characters have little personality and what personality they have is obnoxious but the art!!! Steve Rude is the man. BRING BACK NEXUS, DAMMIT! (Or, if not, at least get Mike Barron or someone good to write your stuff)
As an aside, I’ve mentioned Bob Bolling before–he was to Archie what Carl Barks was to Uncle Scrooge. He did the first 30-some issues of L’il Archie which are quietly funny, tender, a little sentimental. Anyway, Archie (which treats it’s back property terribly) is coming out with a Bob Bolling L’il Archie trade paperback. It’s availible for pre-order in this month’s Diamond Comics Previews. I highly recommend it, and if you have little kids that you want to hook on comics, I double-recommend it!
Fenris
Ooops–Missed one-
Amazing Fantasy–I was pleasantly surprised. Decent stuff with potential. And very nice art.
Several samples of Bolling’s Little Archie work can be seen beginning here and for the next few “days” from Scott Shaw!'s Oddball Comics column at Comic Book Resources.