Comic Reviews for 9/11

[Guest starvenger]

Here's reviews of the 4 comics I picked up this week...

 

eXiles #17, "Wildlife Reserve"

Creators: Judd Winick(W)/Jim Calafiore and Eric Cannon(A)

Company: Marvel

Plot: The eXiles transport to an Earth where Cro-Mags... I mean, Lizards are trying to overrun the earth.

 

Writing: 8/10

Art: 7/10

Cover: 5/10

Overall (not an average): 7/10

 

Comments: Like #16, this is a self contained issue, and I suppose that Calafiore is gonna be the new regular penciller with Mike McKone leaving. That could go either way, I suppose.

 

The cover is rather underwhelming - just a generic team pose. What will catch a browser's eye is the "widescreen" effect, which makes the title logo stand out a bit more. Calafiore's art is good, but a bit inconsistent - he seems to randomly jump from full bleed to white borders and back before using black borders at the end. And while the black borders actually help convey the proper mood, it really doesn't mesh well with the flip-flopping in the earlier pages.

 

Winick again writes a decent story, while layering some subplots (in this case, the Blink/Mimic relationship) and character development in. It also seems like he's doing a bit of foreshadowing as to what'll happen down the road.

 

Transformers #5

Creators: Chris Sarracini(W)/Pat Lee, Rob Armstrong and Erik Sander(A)

Company: Dreamwave

Plot: Wheeljack tries to stop Megatron's techno-virus, Prime faces off against Devastator and Spike learns the truth about the Ark II project.

 

Writing: 7/10

Art: 8/10

Cover: 9/10 (Soundwave and cassette Decepticons)

Overall (not an average): 7/10

 

Comments: Like I mentioned in my review of Armada #2, Sarracini is hampered by the past history of the Transformers. His writing is getting better here as he manages to weave 3 different subplots together but the storyline as a whole still seems too contrived, and the product suffers as a whole because of it.

 

Pat Lee's artwork is once again gorgeous, with the exception of maybe Prime's cab windows, which looked a bit too much like pecs. This is pretty much what keeps bringing me back.

 

Uncanny X-Men #412, "Hope part 3"

Creators: Chuck Austen(W)/Ron Garney and Mark Morales(A)/S.Uy?©

Company: Marvel

Note: This is from last week

Plot: Nightcrawler and Iceman try to save the rest of the team (and Juggernaut) from Black Tom.

 

Writing: 8/10

Art: 6/10

Cover: 9/10

Overall (not an average): 7/10

 

Comments: What the heck happened with Ron Garney? The Cassidy Keep pages were very Bogdanove-ish, and that's not a good thing. But the rest was quite good. I guess he was going for something different and/or pressed for time, and the result ain't pretty. On the writing side, Austen needs to work more on the action sequences, but he's doing a great job with the characters. I can't really fault him there.

 

Finally, I dunno who did the cover, but it looks very cool, with Nightcrawler looking demonic yet heroic at the same time.

 

Pick of the Week

X-Men Unlimited #38, "Yartzeit"

Creators: Greg Rucka(W)/Darick Robertson(A)

Company: Marvel

Plot: Kitty Pryde and Nightcrawler reflect on Colossus' life and death.

 

Writing: 9/10

Art: 9/10

Cover: 8/10

Overall (not an average): 8/10

 

Comments: This book is meant to show how Kitty manages to deal with Peter's death, one year later, and the timing of the book can't be coincidental, as it fits in very well with 9/11 and how people are dealing with events one year later. Mind you, there's no action, so stay away if you're looking for that.

 

Darick Robertson's art is just amazing. He's one of those guys who you know you're gonna get a great looking book from when you pick it up. His inking is a bit heavy, but it really doesn't take away from the art at all.

[Guest pochorenella]

I completely forgot there's still X-Men Unlimited out, and that's too bad because it's surprised me several times before with good self-contained stories, like the one with the electricity-powered kid that had the Legacy Virus. Wonder what happened to him afeter he joined the New Warriors?

 

Regarding Ron Garney, I liked his two runs on Captain America and also kinda appreciated what he tried to do on Silver Surfer. His Hulk work I never completely saw so I can't comment, but his work on Uncanny really underwhelmed me, at least the little I've seen. In fact I'm almost out of the loop from Uncanny, but Raptor and starvenger have given the title somewhat of a break so I might too.