Solar Flare: Science Fiction News

Another week, and another batch of comic book reviews. It’s another large column too this week I’m pleased to say. So enough pointless waffle and on with the reviews.

Ms. Marvel #7
Writer: Brian Reed
Artist: Roberto De La Torre
Publisher: Marvel

Ms. Marvel is in the middle of a Civil War tie in right now and it’s actually one of the best going I think. Marvel initially promised that there would be a balance between both pro and anti-registration groups, but much of what we’ve seen on paper makes one side look better than the other. Not here. In this issue Arachne and Shroud’s behavior seems just as reasonable as the behavior of Ms. Marvel and Wonder Man.

It was also nice to see the pro-registration side doing some recruitment and training rather than just arresting people. Makes them look less fascist which is how they’ve been coming across in some of the comics.

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Ultimate X-Men #74
Writer: Robert Kirkman
Artist: Tom Raney
Publisher: Marvel

The Magician storyline comes to a very unsatisfactory conclusion. I had already expected that Magician was manipulating the team somehow and was fine with that, but what I don’t like is undefined powers that can do anything and a story which seems to serve no purpose.

By the end of this we seem to be right back where we were before it started. So why tell this story at all? On a brighter note, all those interesting sub-plots that were started before the Magician side-track seem to be coming back to the foreground again.

I was a little disappointed with the artwork in this issue too. Some parts of the fight scene were very hard to follow. Part of that is probably to do with the reality warping/illusory powers that magician had, but it still made for difficult reading.

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Dragonlance Chronicles: Dragons of Winter Night #2
Writer: Andrew Dabb
Artist: Steve Kurth
Publisher: Devils Due

Devil’s Due’s adaptation of Hickman and Weis’ Dragonlance Chronicles continues and the artwork is as impressive as ever. One of the big problems with adaptations of novels is that novels are a lot more wordy than your average comic book. Some of those words can be easily taken care of by the artwork, but not all of them.

Andrew Dabb’s solution to this problem is to have a narration in the comic which fills in the bits that the characters can’t easily speak. The problem with that is it gives this whole issue a feeling of something that’s already happened which rather kills the tension.

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Civil War #4
Writer: Mark Millar
Artist: Steve McNiven
Publisher: Marvel

The highly anticipated Marvel Civil War issue 4 has arrived and it delivers in a pretty big way. There are some major events in this issue. The return of Thor is addressed and his strange behavior all makes sense before the end of the issue. Plus finally Sue Storm takes a side.

Millar makes some efforts to show both sides of the argument, but the defining moment of this book makes it very hard to like the pro-registration side even if they do have logic on their side. No matter how “right” their argument might be, their actions make them wrong.

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Image via Wikipedia
Moon Knight #5
Writer: Charlie Huston
Artist: David Finch
Publisher: Marvel

We’re now 5 issues into the new Moon Knight comic and we still haven’t gotten to the end of the first story. So it’s certainly not fast paced and my patience is becoming a little short.

On a more positive note, I love the artwork which is muscular and moody and perfectly suits Moon Knight’s character. I do also like how Huston has defined Moon Knight and made him a real anti-hero. The focus on vengeance makes perfect sense when you consider the character’s background.

Less positive. This is the first issue where the Batman ripoff elements really surfaced and I wish they could be downplayed more. Plus the slow pace is really hurting things. This will read much better in the inevitable graphic novel release.

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Sensational Spider-Man #30
Writer: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
Artist: Angel Medina
Publisher: Marvel

There’s a lot going on with Spider-Man these days between Civil War, his hook up with Tony Stark and of course outing his identity to the public. Sensational Spider-Man is focusing on that last angle right now with mixed results.

The core storlyine of a whole group of villains targeting Spidey and his nearest and dearest is just fine, but there really doesn’t seem to be any more depth to it than that right now so with all the other Spider-Man stories to choose from, this one doesn’t stand out much.

On the art side of things, I found this issue just a little too cartoony. People’s poses and figures were distorted to a point that made them look freakish.

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Superman #656
Writer: Kurt Busiek
Artist: Carlos Pacheco
Publisher: DC Comics

One of the problems people have writing Superman is how damn powerful he is. How do you present him with a credible threat? Kurt Busiek’s solution in the story is to present Superman with a creature who could be him and then also to tie him up trying to protect his identity and rescue trapped solidiers all at the same time.

It works well, until he pulls the rug completely out from under us on the last page and moves the story abruptly in a a whole new direction. Very disconcerting, but I’ll give him a pass at least until the next issue when I find out where he’s going with this.

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Ultimate Fantastic Four #34
Writer: Mike Carey
Artist: Pasqual Ferry
Publisher: Marvel

The second part of God War is definitely stronger than the first. I’m not sure if the artwork is stronger or I’ve just adjusted to the different style, but it isn’t bothering me nearly as much. And while there’s still way to much invented futuristic jargon in the dialogue the plot actually moves forward this time round.

Fantastic Four often works far better with a sci-fi slant than when its done as a straightforward superhero story so this may actually work out quite well by the end of the story. We’ll see.

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Union Jack #1 of 4
Writer: Chris Gage
Artist: Mike Perkins
Publisher: Marvel

Fresh from the pages of Captain America, Union Jack gets his own limited series. I was pretty doubtful about this when I heard about it for several reasons. The writer is not British (and that can result in some horrible cliches) and Union Jack traditional fights vampires which I’m really not into.

Fortunately Chris Gage does a solid job on the dialogue and while they may be overemphasizing the British setting a little bit, it holds up pretty well. Gage has also managed to redirect Union Jack to a more contemporary threat (terrorism) which strikes me as much more interesting than yet more vampires.

Really my only complaint is the tendency to come off a little heavy handed on the issues. The Arab/Israel debates aren’t exactly subtle here and hey not everyone important in the UK is a member of the aristocracy. Still I think I’ll be sticking around for all four issues of this one.

Eoghann Irving is amongst other things the creator and Editor of Solar Flare. He has a life long interest in all forms of science fiction and fantasy and a pressing need to share this interest with anyone who will listen. Find out more at his personal website eoghann.com..

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