Also this week...

BOOSTER GOLD #1 - Ooh, old school.  It's a double-sized first issue complete with one of those dreaded cover logos reminding you that it's all part of the ongoing DC megacrossover.  Fortunately, although the story does indeed duly spin off from 52, it also makes an effort to distance itself from Countdown.  The idea is that DCU history has become vulnerable to attack thanks to the damage to the timeline in 52, and so Rip Hunter has enlisted a reluctant Booster Gold to help sort it out.  Unfortunately, in order to avoid anyone messing about with his own personal timeline, Booster has to keep up his image as a loser.  This is a pleasantly retro book, as you'd expect from something co-written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Dan Jurgens, and it certainly ploughs through a ton of plot in its first issue.  On the other hand, it does look very much like a series in which Booster Gold visits the backwaters of DC continuity every issue, and I'm not sure that's really for me.  But what it does, it does well.  B+ 

TERROR, INC. #1 - The old nineties horror character is revived under the Max imprint by David Lapham and, a little more surprisingly, Patrick Zircher.  I'd always had Zircher down as a fairly conventional superhero artist, but he shifts his style quite easily to accommodate this sort of material.  The story, on the other hand, is an extended origin flashback combined with a fairly standard crime story.  It's alright, but I'm not sure I see the point.  It feels like it's going through the motions - not badly, by any stretch of the imagination, but I hardly get the impression that Lapham has a Terror, Inc. story he's desperate to share with us.  It's okay, but nothing to write home about.  B

WOLVERINE: ORIGINS #16 - Through the miracle of flashbacks, this is the first part of a storyline guest starring Captain America.  Basically, it's Wolverine sitting around reminiscing about the flashback scenes from Uncanny X-Men #268 - the one with Captain America and the Black Widow in Madripoor - but adding in additional details from Daniel Way's conspiracy storyline.  This is a double-sized issue, because for some reason Marvel have chosen to reprint the original story in its entirety (as well as throwing in an eight page preview of the next issue of Wolverine proper).  Frankly, the comparison does Way no favours.  The original story isn't a classic by any means.  It's a straightforward action story with some novelty guest stars.  But it moves at a fair clip and it's got art by Jim Lee.  The lead story takes the same material and sucks the life out of it.  It's embarrassing, to be honest.  C-

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, Astonishing X-Men #22, a mere four months late.  Funny how Dark Horse don't seem to have this problem, isn't it?  There's more of the Marauders in X-Men #202, while X-Men: First Class #3 has the concluding half of the Monster Island story.  Wolverine #56 is a fill-in, but it's by Jason Aaron and Howard Chaykin, so chances are it'll be decent.  And Wolverine also guest stars in the newly Cable-free Cable & Deadpool #44.

back | continue