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Also this week...
BATMAN #664 - I'm still
not sure quite what to make of Grant Morrison's run on this
title. This is a strange, choppy issue which seems to
have absolutely no connection whatsoever between its two
halves. Morrison is often very good with pre-existing
characters. Sometimes he finds a new angle on the
premise, as with the X-Men. Other times, he at least
manages to use the concept as a hook for his big, crazy
ideas, as with All-Star Superman. Silver Age
pastiche works well with his big, sweeping ideas. But
with Batman, he seems to be almost too much in thrall to the
concept, and trying to write it straight. Yes, he's
dusting off the idea of Bruce Wayne as a playboy, but that's
not a new idea, it's just one that's been in the deep freeze
for a while. We've got a femme fatale with an
alliterative name and a villain who seems to be just a
revamp of Bane. Weird pacing aside, it's done
perfectly well, but it seems terribly pedestrian compared to
what you'd expect from a Grant Morrison comic. Surely
there's got to be more to it than this? B-
BLACK PANTHER #26 -
Despite a mixed reaction, Marvel have doggedly stuck to
their guns on this title. The latest device to keep it
high-profile is to put the Black Panther and Storm into the
Fantastic Four for a while, and it's actually a good fit for
the characters. There used to be two major irritants
in Black Panther - a obnoxiously gratuitous disregard
for continuity, and some very clumsy politics (in which
Africans stand around expressing their admiration for
Malcolm X, and so forth). Crossovers and big events
normally damage a title, but in this case, it's had the
happy and probably unintended side-effect of forcing Hudlin
to pay attention to continuity, and dragging the book down
from its soapbox. The running subplot about a
suspicious US government looking for tenuous excuses to
invade Wakanda remains, but that was always a neat little
satirical idea. Otherwise, the title now finds itself
telling more normal superhero stories involving the Negative
Zone, and to be honest, it's a lot more fun as a result.
It's also probably a little less distinctive, and I still
don't find the Panther's marriage to Storm remotely credible
on any level, but I'm certainly enjoying it more than I have
in the past. B+
DAREDEVIL #95 -
Goodness, it's an old-fashioned Daredevil story. One
where he's a lawyer in New York, and he fights crime at
night, and there's some sort of scheme going on with an
established supporting character which he then has to
investigate. Ed Brubaker has devoted the first few
months of this run on the title to undoing the effects of
Brian Bendis' stories and getting the title back to its
classic set-up, and while the journey may have been a little
contrived, it's hard to see what option he had if the book
was to continue telling stories in the long term.
We've now settled down to a status quo which is identical to
Daredevil Classic, except that his identity is an open
secret. Everything comes full circle in this genre,
and after to be honest, it's a nice change to get back to
basics after so long. B+
There's more from me at
If Destroyed, and if you're desperate for more Article 10 columns, you can
always hunt through the archives on
Ninth Art.
Next week, Chris Claremont finally returns
to his regularly scheduled plot in New Excalibur #18,
while Wolverine stars in the first Civil War: Fallen Son
one-shot.
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