Comic book reviews for the week of August 4, 2010

SHIELD #3 - (Jonathan Hickman & Dustin Weaver) - This comic is just turning out to be a really cool tour de force. In this issue, we take a bit of a diversion away from the "main story" of young man Leonid and his indoctrination into the SHIELD organization in the 1950's to cover what happened when Issac Newton joined SHIELD in the 1500's. Lot's of cool things in this issue. Neat, bit concepts galore and wonderful art. The only thing I don't like is that this comic is only coming out every other month. Why is that? Surely Hickman can manage writing more than that? Does Weaver have another time obligation that keeps him from working on this full time? Anyway. This is just great. 9.0/10

Avengers Prime #2 - (Brian Michael Bendis & Alan Davis) - This is another really good comic that is (unfortunately) bi-monthly. WTF? In this issue we continue to follow Tony Stark, Steve Rogers and Thor as they are cast (separately) into the nine realms of Asgard just after the events of Siege. They spend most of the issue figuring out where they are, but there are fun character moments galore along the way. Again....wonderful art. I wonder if it is just getting that the standard for excellent comic art is such that artists cannot do monthly books any more? Too bad.... 8.8/10

I, Zombie #4 - (Chris Roberson & Michael Allred) - This was a big improvement for this series that had been chasing its tail a bit through three issues. What we get here is a bit of an unifying set of rules for the characters in I, Zombie having to do with a character's oversoul/undersould (think conscious and unconscious minds) and how different combinations of souls a bodies create different sorts of undead monsters: zombies, vampires, mummies, ghosts, etc. And it goes further to explain things like why zombies crave brains and vampires drink blood. Very cool. And, there is an eons old secret society who is out to get ALL of our undead friends. I love me some secret societies! Allred's art is a little different than normal. I think some of it was that he was giving the book a different feel, but some of it looked like he was just experimenting a little. I actually checked to see if they had brought in someone else to ink his pencils, but it is still all credited to Allred. Very, very nice and I'm excited about this series again. 8.6/10

Marvel Universe vs. The Punisher #1 - (Jonathan Mayberry & Goran Parlov) - I hadn't intended to buy this, but it was a lighter week for me at the comic shop so I gave it a chance and am glad I did. This is very much a "what if" type of story that is NOT in the cannonical Marvel Universe, but deals with the human race (superhumans included) turning into Zombies. I know that Marvel has done Marvel Zombies before, so this isn't THAT new, but it is still fun to see the Punisher as the last man standing against them. For example, in the opening sequence he kills Deadpool for the ~30th time and bemoans that he always comes back, so this time he will hack him to bits and bury the pieces separately.......cut to a scene of Punisher holding a big knife and standing amidst a bunch of baggies of Deadpool. Funny. The only thing holding this issue back was that the explanation of how the zombie plague had happened was a little too long, but I'm very excited to see the remaining issues of this series. 8.2/10

Secret Six #24 - (Gail Simone & J. Califore) - This was a fun, but weird, stand alone story for the Secret Six that throws them all into a Wild West scenario with Deadshot being a bounty hunter, Scandal Savage being the town Marshal, Bane as he deputy, etc. And we get a return of Ragdoll's sister, Junior (from the first SS story arc). It is a LOT of fun, but I do wonder how this all ties into what has been going on in SS. Is it an Elseworlds kind of story? Is it connected and I'm just not seeing it? Califore's art on this series had gotten way, way better since he came aboard ~6 issues ago. The only quibble is that he really doesn't draw Junior anywhere near as menacing as Nicola Scott did. 7.9/10

Irredeemable #16 - (Mark Waid & Peter Krause) - It was great to get Krause back on this title. His art just looks right with this series and while the stand-in artists haven't been bad, I'd rather have Krause than someone else imitating him. This issue really serves to establish another new status quo for this great little series and Waid tosses out some cool concepts, namely that Kaidan may be able to use her powers (which usually serve to summon mythical Japanese heroes) to bring back the heroes killed by the Plutonian as spectres who can help the good guys (provided she can craft a compelling enough story or myth around their exploits). Very neat. 7.8/10

Red Robin #15 - (Fabian Nicieza & Marcus To) - This issue isn't anything spectacular, but it is quite good and deals with Tim Drake dealing with the fact that Vicki Vale seems to know all of the Bat-families secret identities. Of course, that won't do at all, so he concocts a cunning plan to throw her off the trail. The end result is that he gets a super-powered shape-shifting guest star t0 take a bullet for him, and then he'll limp around for the rest of the year. That's very Bruce Wayne level obsessive dedication to craft. It seems that as DC is about to bring Bruce Wayne back from the dead (after almost 2 years away), that they are reminding us how similar Tim Drake is to Bruce. It will be VERY interesting to see where Bruce, Dick Grayson, Tim and Damien (who has another scene stealing moment in this issue) end up when Bruce is back. Marcus To also doesn't get enough kudos for how nice this titles looks. I recently went back to the first Red Robin issues and this series didn't take off until after To took over on art. 7.6/10

Nancy in Hell #1 - (El Torres, Juan Jose Ryp) - Nothing to sophisticated in this new miniseries from Image: It's a trashy/sexy biker chick in hell using a chainsaw to carve up the minions of hades. But, what keeps this from being one of those T&A comics that I loathe is that it has a neat story on top of the great (if trashy) art. Basically, the concept is that there is no heaven and hell.......its all hell and the best you can do is fight against the hellhounds a zombies for as long as you can. As long as you can keep them at bay, you're free to indulge in whatever you want in hell because there are no rules. This is worth sticking with for the duration. 7.5/10

Amazing Spider-Man #639 - (Joe Quesada & Paulo Rivera) - Quesada keeps picking at the One More Day scab in this issue. If they had to revisit that bit of continuity, I still don't understand why they didn't do it two years ago, but stilll..... Even though I don't like the story choice, I think I do understand where Quesada is going. Since Peter and MJ didn't get married (as shown in ASM 638), they had nothing to trade to Mephisto to save Aunt May's life. So, Mephisto never even bothered to show up in Aunt May's hospital room. Follow the link for my further thoughts on this that I typed up at WCBR. 7.0/10

Red Hood: The Lost Days #3 - (Judd Winick & Jeremy Haun) - Jason Todd is way more interesting now that he was when we was so awful as Robin in the 1980's that fans voted to have him killed. This series has followed Jason's revival by Talia al Guhl and this issue gets into the fact that she's teaching him the things that Bruce Wayne wouldn't teach: poisons, guns, how to kill, etc. What we see is that Jason is still more of an anti-hero and while I'm dropping off this miniseries now, I am curious to see what happens with Jason in future Batman stories. 7.0/10

Shadowland #2 - (Andy Diggle & Billy Tan) - This Daredevil "event" just hasn't been knocking my socks off. It isn't bad, but it isn't the "wow" moment that I think a lot of Daredevil fans had hoped for. The big news in this issue is that a bunch of DD's costumed friends go to have an intervention of sorts with him, only to see just how off the deep end DD has gone. 7.0/10

Batman Odyssey #2 - (Neal Adams) - If only DC had just let Adams draw this series and let someone else write it! Why couldn't he work with Morrison? Anyway, what we get is a confusing, disjointed and not very interesting young-Batman story with spectacular art. 6.5/10

Iron Man Legacy #5 - (Fred van Lente & Steve Kurth) - This was the high water mark for this series so far and that is NOT a good thing because there is still nothing about this series that makes me want any more of it. The art is much better here because the story has more Iron Man and less Tony Stark, and Kurth's art style lends itself better to drawing the armor than the faces. I also like that it shows that Tony Stark has two legacies: having his tech stolen by madmen and serving as an inspiration for other inventors. 6.5/10

Murderland #1 - I just didn't like this new miniseries from Image at all. It was WAY confusing as I couldn't make heads or tails out of what was going on in the story. The art was kind of interesting, but didn't handle the big, confusing action scenes very well. 5.3/10

Shuddertown #4 - (Nick Spencer & Adam Green) - I really don't want to smear more hate on this project, but I really cannot follow the story at all. And, I don't care for the photo referenced art where you can actually recognize the actors used. For example, the main character's partner is clearly modeled on Tony Soprano and that just really takes me out of the story because I expect to see Paulie and Christopher show up. 5.0/10