Also among this week's comics...

CREW #2 - If you just can't wait for the ending of Black Panther, then don't worry, because it's helpfully given away here.  Which is a bit irritating, but at least it gets Kasper Cole out of the shadow of being the faux Black Panther, at least to some extent.  To all intents and purposes this is another issue of Kasper-era Black Panther, not that that's a bad thing.  I'm still not at all sure about this book's preoccupation with page-wide, vertically tiered panels, but artist Joe Bennett does do a great job with Kasper's new look.  B+

LUCIFER #39 - Lucifer and Michael are brought before God to have the reality of the universe explained to them.  Not surprisingly, God's attitude is that everything is going according to plan, and since it's his universe, that's not entirely surprising.  One of the big themes of this series has been Lucifer's attempts to escape the plan; if God's to be believed, he's failed utterly.  And yet Lucifer doesn't seem quite so thrown by all of this as Michael is.  Great book, it really is.  A-

OUTSIDERS #1 - Judd Winick revives some superhero team or other for DC.  And, well, it's a Judd Winick team book, except steeped in DC history.  If that sounds like a good idea to you, you'll probably love it.  Quite honestly, it didn't do a great deal for me.  This is a fairly standard "gathering of the forces" story to kick off the series, but while Winick's still good at the sparky dialogue, he never really interests me in the characters.  B

PROMETHEA #26 - Since Promethea is somehow going to destroy the world, Sophie takes the obvious way out and flees anything in her life that might be remotely inspiring.  This is a really good issue by Moore and Williams, making fabulous use of muted, artificial colour palettes.  You wouldn't think this would be the best place for a guest starring role for Moore's other ABC character Tom Strong, but it all fits together brilliantly.  Also includes a panel containing a sepia-tinted picture of a glass of water.  A+

THUNDERBOLTS #80 - The Man-Killer makes a return to the cast, although it's a bit late to try and sell this series as a continuation of the previous title by now.  And yes, granted, she's way out of character from Fabian Nicieza's take on her.  That said, if you're prepared to ignore all that, this story is working pretty well taken on its own terms.  Something vaguely resembling a team turns up at the end; if the intention was to steer to a new team based around the Man-Killer, then commercially speaking, it's taken them at least three months too long to get there.  I still think it's a shame that this perfectly good series has got itself hobbled from the word go by dumping it in Thunderbolts.  A-

VENOM #2 - Enter plot element #2, and government agents worried about the escape of Venom.  God, this is slow.  I know it's meant to be a slow-burn horror story where you build up the tension, but come on.  Two months to get to this point?  Venom finally turns up on the final panel of the second issue of his own series, and it's not pretty.  Herrera is not the sort of artist to build the atmosphere they're looking for in this series, if you ask me, and his Venom is really a bit of a mess.  I know the first issue was ordered high, but I can't for the life of me see this holding on to those sorts of sales.  C+

There's another Article 10 up at Ninth Art on Monday

Next week, another fill-in issue of Agent X; the third issue of Mystique; the end of Soldier X; and more of "God Loves Man Kills II" in X-Treme X-Men.

back | continue