Weekly Comic Book Reviews 07/07/08
Astonishing X-Men #25
Writers: Warren Ellis
Artist: Simone Bianche
Publisher: Marvel
This is Warren Ellis’ first issue of Astonishing and they’ve teamed him up with Simone Bianche so I had high expectations. And I certainly have no criticisms of the art. Ellis wastes no time establishing the new setup. Most of the team are in place when the story opens and only Storm gets re-introduction. Not sure about the new “X-Mobile” but it does fit the new direction. Making the team consultants for the San Francisco PD is a radical change of direction, but it opens up possibilities. There’s bound to be some complaining about the team’s “street uniform” though. Very curious to see where this story is going.
Image via Wikipedia
Buffy The Vampire Slayer #16
Writers: Joss Whedon
Artist: Karl Moline
Publisher: Marvel
Whedon returns to Buffy Season 8 and picks up a number of the threads that have been running through the issues up to now. But more significant probably is the return of Fray the future slayer. I feel like they are overplaying Buffy’s “experimental phase” a bit. The constant references seem rather ham handed, but on the whole this reads just like TV Buffy.
Fables #74
Writers: Bill Willingham
Artist: Mark Buckingham
Publisher: Vertigo
We’re now firmly in the middle of an all out war between the Fables and things seem to be going just a bit too well for Fabletown. This issue continues the run of good luck as modern warfare techniques are cleverly combined with magic. So what’s going to go horribly wrong next issue?
Secret Invasion: Front Line #1
Writers: Brian Reed
Artist: GG Studios
Publisher: Marvel
What would a Marvel summer crossover be without Front Line? This time though it’s written by Brain Reed and he takes a different approach. We get a single story that intertwines the lives of three individuals. The emphasis here is not on the journalists even though Ben Urich is one of the protagonists. Instead it does what Frontline was always supposed to do and tells stories about unpowered citizens faced with a superpowered invasion.
Squadron Supreme #1
Writers: Howard Chaykin
Artist:
Publisher: Marvel
The Squadron gets it’s third relaunch, now in the hands of Howard Chaykin after the abrupt and largely unacknowledged departure of J. Michael Straczynski. Chaykin moves the timeline on five years in order to gain some clearance from the mess of plot lines that JMS left unresolved.
I suspect some people will have problems with the early scenes. Chaykin certainly left Chloe’s motivation for covering up the attempt rape open to interpretation. It looks as though he plans to introduce a largely new team of superhumans and it’s not really clear exactly what direction this is going in yet.
Batman #678
Writers: Grant Morrison
Artist: Tony Daniels
Publisher: DC
Morrison’s grand Batman RIP storyline moves on and quite frankly if you haven’t read every single issue so far (and probably a bunch of other issues of his run) you aren’t going to have the faintest idea what is going on here. I have a feeling this is one you need to re-read once the story is complete.
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