Sunday, October 15, 2006

'Space travel' beats 'killed by Clor,' by a long stretch, T-Bird.


I forget if he's Warpath or Thunderbird now. Oh well.

Not a bad week for comics. The above is from Uncanny X-Men #479, written by Ed Brubaker, pencils by Billy Tan, inks by Danny Miki and Allen Martinez. Pretty good issue, even though the team storms in to get asskicked because it's that point in the storyline where that needs to happen. Still, I know Criminal is probably definitely better, and I haven't bought that yet...

Alan Davis was the selling point for Stan Lee Meets Doctor Strange, so I was a little disappointed his wasn't a longer story, although the joke wasn't strong enough to drag it out any more than it was. I didn't mind the Bendis/Bagley Impossible Man story, and loved the Chris Giarrusso strip; but I did kind of wonder why they were in there instead of more Strange material. I was also looking forward to the Barry Windsor-Smith reprint, but I already had it! So everything in it was good, but I was expecting more.

Punisher #39 was issue three of the current six-issue storyline, so it's still building up steam. It does annoy me sometimes when everything I buy in a given week is 'part 9 of 34,' but Ennis rarely has disappointed me on the Max series.

The new issue of Dork, #11 came out this week. The only bad thing I could bring myself to say about it is I don't know when, or even if, the next one will come. It's crude, vulgar, and funny as all hell. Seriously, if you're reading this blog, I will bet there is plenty in Dork that will make you laugh out loud. If you don't love it or are offended, well, you are probably a mature, rational, and rather stiff individual. Visit Evan Dorkin at House of Fun, and see if his stuff grabs you. It should.

Also picked up the quarter-priced reprint of Fables #1, the new Toyfare and All-Star Superman, some old Legends of the Dark Knight issues out of the quarter bins, and one pleasant surprise:




My sister has some kind of Target fetish. Loves it. And to be honest, Target's come through for me more often than not. Recently, they've had some Marvel reprints, some of which are old 60's Spider-Man or X-Men. At least one has been a skip week event, repackaging most of the Marvel Monsters, including the brilliant Fin Fang Four. The rest have been the Marvel Adventures line, and those have been surprisingly engaging.

This is the first Marvel Adventures: the Avengers reprint, subtitled Heroes Assemble, written by Jeff Parker and penciled by Manuel Garcia. It's set in its own continuity, and takes the JLA 'big guns' approach to team building: Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Storm, and Giant-Girl. The stories are all-ages without being overly dumbed down, and have a lot of nods to prior Avengers history without being locked into following it. Look, it's fun, cheap ($4.99 to reprint issues 1-4), funny, and no one gets decapitated, raped, or unlawfully imprisoned. What more do you want?

And that concludes our little look at what I paid for this week. Generally, I intend to stay on older books for the most part, but to be honest, my basement still isn't done. I have one issue that leaped to mind last week, and even a pretty good idea where it is, and it's completely buried. In fact, it's buried to the extent that it would be quicker, easier, and possibly even cheaper to go to the comic shop and buy another one. We'll see if I crack.

No comments: