New Comic Day July 12

This is the first of my posts to attempt to get caught back up. Since blogger has a nifty feature where you can change what day you posted, it'll look like it was posted when it was supposed to. I'm sneaky that way. Read and enjoy!

Onto two weeks ago's comics! It was a good week!

Ultimate Fantastic Four #31
So the FF zombies finally escape from their cell this issue (after waiting like a year) using the most lame-ass trick possible. As soon as I saw them "de-materialize" from their room, I was like "god-damn it, this will be stupid." I turn the page and sure enough, I was right. Here's the dilly-o: Zombie Reed and zombie Sue (henceforth ZR and ZS) start talking to the guards about how ZR customized a ballpoint pen using distilled ink, food chemicals, and a strand of hair to build a teleportation device. The zombies form a huddle and promptly disappear. This is the point where the guards freak the hell out and rush into the cell to see where they might have gotten to. What they should have done was say "Oh yeah, the FF has a member called the Invisible Woman and realized that of course, the zombies were still in the cell. LAME!

Apart from that though, it's not a badly written issue (still crappy poser-riffic Greg Land art though) and the ending with Dr. Doom forcing Reed to switch bodies with him (it's the Fantastic Four, that's why) is pretty neat. I hope this problem isn't resolved next issue though (it's a three parter - hopefully just about getting rid of the zombies) as I think it could be explored quite well. This isn't likely a high possibility though as issue #33 gives a new creative team on the book.


Fables #51
Ah, Fables. This is a tasty installment from Willingham and guest artist Shawn McManus. It features super-spy extrordinare Cinderella trying to negotiate a treaty with the folk that live above the clouds that beanstalks grow through. Over the course of the issue Cindy turns into a mouse, skydives off a beanstalk, tells off some giant quacks, makes a shady deal with Frau Totenkinder, and helps in a delicate operation to cure the reigning king of the high ground in the sky. Whew! All this and the subplots are managed to be moved forwards too!

McManus does a very good job with the art chores and you can tell he was having fun when he did this issue. He's also very adept at conveying character's emotions through facial expressions, a feat that many artists fall short on. A very enjoyable issue.


The Escapists #1 (of 6)
This was a fun little book that is outside of my normal comic book buying box. It cost a dollar so I was willing to try something very different as I had no idea about the Escapist. Anyhoo, this issue has a theme which is always sort of neat when done well. It's basically a comic book about comic books. The main character is a comic book geek that wants to reintroduce the comic book character he loved as a kid, The Escapist, to the modern day world. We see the kid grow up and how much he loves the medium. He meets up with a sultry artist who agrees to draw the comic and his longtime friend dresses up as the Escapist to promote the book. Despite the rotating artists for this comic, I think it has potential to be a very interesting series.


Ultimate Spider-man #97
Part one of the Ultimate Clone Saga is here! You may go now.







Still here? Actually this issue was good as it had a little bit of everything which I will now enumerate: (1) There's a good dynamic between Kitty and Peter after she finds out he went to Mary Jane (MJ) about the Morbius stuff from the last two issues. (2) We finally get some explantaion as to why MJ is being more friendly towards Peter after her freaking out at him a while back. (3) MJ listens and gets the hell out of dodge when a fight starts instead of hanging out on the sidelines like a damn fool. (4) A pretty decent fight scene between Spidey and the Scorpion (though it had a predictable ending and why are cops so stupid?). (5) We get left with an exciting cliffhanger. So five awesome things about this issue. I know I've said in the past that this comic series is, well basically shitty, but that was only for a an arc or two and it's been pretty above average otherwise. Thumbs up for Bendis and Bagley.