Comics Come Forward

DC Universe #0 (or whatever the official title is): Prior to this I had practically given up on DC, but Final Crisis has me excited because I long ago drank the Morrison kool-aid and now hang on the man's every word (plus JG Jones on art and not someone like Howard Porter is cause for celebration). So in turn, I was ready for this to set the stage and hopefully fill me in on anything I needed to know. Instead I see snapshots of future books, some of which are related to Final Crisis and some that aren't. We get a little recap of past Crisis action and then it's on to the first preview, a Superman book. Big splash page and then stuff I don't understand. I don't have the comic here to give it a second look, so I'm assuming this ties into current Superman stories or DC universe continuity? Well, Geoff Johns and George Perez can do this one without me. Not a great start. Next up it's Batman, a book I'm still behind on. Batman and the Joker talk...and that's it. Morrison throws in plenty of symbolism, but as the tease for the actual story it doesn't work. Someone is after Batman...WOWZA KIDS! After this I just flipped through Frank Miller's Wonder Woman, a Green Lantern piece I didn't even want to attempt, something with the Spectre and then we get to the last story, the actual Final Crisis to-do. And it's easily the best thing in here because stuff is shown happening. We get Libra grouping villains up to worship what looks like Darkseid, and then a little Barry Allen bit at the end, all positioned around the scene of a figure falling through realities. It gets the job done. But overall, this wasn't the greatest idea of all time from DC, or maybe it would be better to say what the material they included wasn't the greatest. Also, what is up with the art? No one is credited in their story, which makes sense given that they're only three pages, but I have no idea who drew some of this. JG Jones is listed but it's not him on the last story or, to my eyes, anywhere else. I have no idea what Carlos Pacheco did either. In the end, this is the kind of thing DC seems to always be able to produce: something that irritates me. I'm still looking forward to Final Crisis, no thanks to this garbage.


Immortal Iron Fist #14: Kind of a disappointment. After the previous issue that contained people talking and not punching each other, we get the big explosive finale where the creators make you reflect that this book's run almost got you pregnant, sex be damned! Alas, it goes out not with a supernova, but with a firecracker. First off, David Aja is nowhere to be found. It seems like after about the tenth issue he just disappeared. Not that the art in his stead is terrible, but Aja had been doing some really nice work. Well anyway, all the subplots have to be resolved, and since way too many had been put in motion, we have to spend quite some time dealing with them. Which wouldn't be a problem, except most of these don't resolve around people getting kicked in the face, which was something I could usually count on from this book (issue #13 must have started a bad trend). It just takes all the things that should be awesome, like Danny Rand going DBZ on a bullet train and the Heroes for Hire destroying people, and takes all the energy out of them. And then it's over, with a small tidbit about what could be ahead in future stories, sans Fraction and Brubaker. But maybe it's a more fitting ending than I think. The book was always somewhat inconsistent, a little more as it went on. But it always had crazy parts that made me smile. And while this has been a fairly negative review, I'd by lying if the Immortal Weapons each getting their one panel with their ridiculously named attacks didn't have me grinning. Go Bride of Nine Spiders, go.


All-Star Superman #10: Here we go. I'll be honest, issue #9 had me nervous. It didn't really do much for the overall story, even though it kept to the overall established themes (plus the Steve Lombard sequence made my life). But Morrison pulls out all the stops here and presents what I'd argue is the best issue of the series yet. Superman goes about getting everything in order as he gets closer to death, which just leads to so many great moments, like applying the cure for cancer, cloning his DNA and finally finding a place for Kandor. Then there's the panel where he saves the goth girl, which would probably be ridiculed to the rafters if it had happened anywhere else, but in this book, it's just pure gold, no cheese at all. And then we get the universe creation and it's just ALL SO AWESOME! Whoo, I got worked up there. Oh and it's drawn by Frank Quitely, who's...well...the greatest superhero artist of his generation (if not all time). There, I said it!