This weeks trip netted me three new comics:
Those first two are regulars but I picked up that issue of Superman because my buddy Randy recommended it. Grant Morrison written series usually get worse as the issue numbers get higher but Randy says this one is getting better. I’ll let you know.
Week Seventeen of my reviews of recent DC Comics.
Green Lantern: Rebirth TPB – Besides a few issues recently I haven’t read Green Lantern in a fifteen years or so. I missed the whole Hal Jordan turning into Paralax and killing the Green Lantern Corps thing (1993!). This series from 2004 brings back Hal Jordan (the original Silver Age Green Lantern) and makes him the number one GL again.
My GL knowledge is fairly basic but I had no trouble following the story. I won’t go into the plot because it’s pretty complicated and involves the whole GL mythology.
Overall I liked this book. It is a “serious” super hero book as opposed to a “fun” one and there is lots of life and death drama and writing about the nature of heroism. It’s never corny though.
The art was also very good and, at times, great. Overall the penciling was top shelf (Ethan Van Sciver) and the storytelling excellent but it might have been the five different inkers that brought things down a peg. Sometimes the blacks were spotted perfectly and the story just sang but a lot of the time the storytelling got lost in a lot of pointless illustrative noodling. A good art job in general but with the right inker who could really spot blacks well it might have been a great art job. Really good inking is a bit of a lost art.
So if your in the mood for an epic “restoring the glory” super hero story check this book out.
Scalped 1,3-4 – Lots of violence. Lots of sex. Lots of cursing. Lots of criminals. Lots of cops who are just as bad as the criminals. Lots of ugliness. All on an Indian reservation. All fairly well done but off putting unless you’re really into “grim and gritty”.
I don’t know how much more of this book I can read because everybody in it is just so miserable. And the art hurts my eyes. The artist can draw but the black spotting and storytelling seem almost random at times. I don’t like his finishing technique because he renders everything on the page with equal importance and that takes away from the depth of the art. The flat bland coloring didn’t help either. But if you’re into stories about the dark seamy side of existence this might just be for you.
Deathblow 4 – I can’t tell if this book is supposed to be a joke or not. Seriously. Is this tongue in cheek or just bad? It could be both because if it’s tongue in cheek it’s really bad tongue in cheek.
Deathblow the super bad ass agent without his memory, drug dealers, amoral government guys, a cyborg dino-man, kid assassins, and a talking dog? Bad, bad, and bad. Stay away.
Nightwing 128, 130 – I like this series. Marv Wolfman is doing an excellent job with the writing and Jurgens, Rapmund, Ramos (128), Igle, and Champagne (130) are doing an excellent job with the art. This might be my favorite DC book that’s out right now. The plots keep moving along and the stories are imaginative and well told. Recommended.
I try not to imagine Grant Morrison at all. He makes my soul sore and the baby Jeebus cry.
Try to imagine it’s not Grant Morrison when you read it…