Deadpool Team-Up #888 -- Who says the art of the single issue story is dead? This was a really good time... not only for the wonderful Tom Fowler art and the Cullen Bunn story and the Humberto Ramos cover, but because they brought back the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation! If you're a fan of the Thing (as you all should be), you may remember he had a short stint as a wrestler back in the '80s... well, the UCWF is reborn for the new milly, and Benjy is ringside doing guest commentary. When Deadpool rolls in as the manager of a "villainous" wrestling pair, Ben plain doesn't like it. The two have to learn to set aside their differences, of course, when an intergalactic wrestling champion teleports in to challenge the title. Goofy fun. I miss
Marvel Two-In-One.
Hellblazer #272 -- Cool effect, having Bisley draw the segments that take place in the past and Camuncoli draw the segments that take place in the present. In an unexpected but pure Milligan twist, Epiphany and Constantine finally consummate their romance, but in the weirdest possible way. After that, we see how truly far off the deep end Shade has gone, and Conjob finds a new way to fuck himself over. Do I love this book? I think I do.
Vertigo Resurrected #1 -- This is an odd sort of collection... sort of like a 100-page mini-trade, except with ads, and there doesn't seem to be a terrible lot of rhyme or reason to the collection. It starts out with "Shoot" by Warren Ellis and Phil Jimenez, the long lost Constantine story that prompted Ellis to quit because DC refused to publish it. Now, I'm about as opposed to censorship as anyone you'll ever meet, but I had to side with DC on this one... the story was in gallingly poor taste.
Following this story are a bunch of shorts from various anthologies that were coming out around the same time, written and drawn by some of Vertigo's all-time greats. The talents: Brian Bolland, Brian Azzarello, Esad Ribic, Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, Garth Ennis, Jim Lee, Steven Seagle, Tim Sale, Peter Milligan, Eduardo Risso, Bill Willingham, Bruce Jones, Bernie Wrightson, and Tim Bradstreet. Quite an assemblage. So, the rest of the stories were great individually, but as a whole the package doesn't really come together because they're all over the place, some attempting horror, some being war-themed, others romance stories. At $8, it's a decent deal, but I wonder what prompted them to put the package together this way rather than just release the lost "Shoot"? Dunno... either way, everyone should buy it, because if you do maybe they'll come out with a #2 featuring the lost Rick Veitch "Swamp Thing Meets Jesus" story.
PunisherMAX: Tiny Ugly World -- Dave Lapham, PunisherMAX, can't go wrong. Talk about a seriously disturbing story, too... like so many of these one-shots, Frank is barely in this, and the story centers around another odd, damaged figure that finds himself caught up in that world. It's hard to get too into this without spoiling stuff, but let's just say that Bobby Boorsteen is a seriously messed up individual. Dalibor Talajic's art is crisp and exciting, reminiscent in its line of early Tim Sale or Peter Snejberg, even with hints of Ditko, but with a clear and straightforward sense of storytelling and design. This is a great one-shot for fans of the macabre.
Dead@17 #1 -- Part of the Image Firsts program, it's hard to go wrong when you've paid about a quarter for a book through DCBS. I ended up being about as torn on this issue as I've ever been with a #1. It alternated between being exciting and original, and painfully cliched teen horror movie dreck, almost on a page by page basis. Really odd. I guess I'd lean towards checking out more in hopes some of that stuff gets ironed out, because the parts that worked for me
really worked (even though the parts that didn't
really didn't)... maybe someone else has read more of this series and can advise me as to whether it'd be wise to continue?
Anyway, yeah, the premise... so, within the first 5 pages, the main character gets hacked to death in her own house. Hell of an opening! We don't spend the rest of the issue following her around as a zombie or ghost or whatever, though, she's dead and buried, and it looks like we'll be following her best friend and ex-boyfriend in trying to move on and maybe uncover some answers about her killer. When her diary gets uncovered by the police, though, we start to see hints that something way deeper was going on with her, and something horrible is happening elsewhere in the town as well. It's an intriguing setup... again, should I pursue more?
Action Comics #894 -- Perfect. Paul Cornell just gets it, man, through and through. Not only does he write a pitch-perfect Death, he shows us a new side of Lex in his conversation with her (and, seriously, who ever thought those two would meet?), and even takes time to set up some other future plot lines. Just ace stuff. Not only that, but Nick Spencer and RB Silva's Jimmy Olsen backup continues to deliver wild thrills as an alien with a crush on Jimmy takes him on a cruise in her spaceship... only to find out her race gets drunk on oxygen, and that their parties are truly the stuff apocalypses are made of. With or without Superman in it,
Action is as good as it's ever been right now.
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