New Comic Day August 16

Once again I get comics very near my birthday (tomorrow) which is always a nice treat. This will be the last update in terms of new comics for a while as I am moving and will only be getting comics about once a month.

Boys #1

I liked Preacher a heckuva lot and when I saw the solicitation for this ("We're going to out-Preacher Preacher), I figured I'd pick it up. The story is basically about a group of government sponsored toughs that take down super heroes if they get out of line. At least that what the story will be about once the standard recruitment phase is overwith. This issue introduces us to Butch who is the leader and seems to have heightened levels of perception. The first recruit joins the team because his girlfriend was very brutally killed as collateral damage from a super hero fight. In short, she was between a wall and a villain of Juggernaught like size as said villain was moving at high speed. It wasn't pretty, though it seemed to be thrown in for the sake of goriness. I enjoyed it, but I don't know if I enjoyed it enough to get monthly.

Casanova #3

This was a neat issue that structured around a theme seen in the classic Star Trek: TNG episode where they're stuck in a time loop and only Riker's plan will save them. Data figures out that the occurance of the number three in everyday events is the clue and the say is saved...What were we talking about? Oh yeah, Casanova #3. Here we see the ramifications of Cass's mission from last issue in three different peroids of time: the present (a), 7 days ago (b), and 97 days ago (right after the mission)(c). The pages switch from a to b to c and back for the whole of the issue and it makes for an interesting read. We get the sense that Cass wants to be in control of his own life and to not be such of a bad guy. It's not the best series I've ever read, but it's definately something different and worth the low price point.

Phonogram #1 (of 6)
I didn't order this when it came out in previews, but since then I've read interviews with the creators and saw the sample pages so I decided to pick it up. The central idea with this is that music is magic and people that can use music are phonomancers. It's a cool idea and the book is "hip" (if that's the right term for it), but here's the problem: I don't listen to a lot of music and whatever message the authors are trying to project will likely be lost on me. When I listen to music, I don't pay attention to the lyrics. I don't know what (insert song here) is "about". If I like it, I like it for the sound and that's probably it. I think that if I was a music freak like Jon Ben, the comic would speak to me a bit more. As such, it was a good comic, not super-duper.

However, the main character, David Khol looks a helluva lot like a good friend of mine and thus I present:
Neil Moore as a comic character (albeit somewhat cockier - if that's possible):



Ultimate Fantastic Four #32

This is the end of the zombie FF storyline and the end of Mark Millar and Greg Land's run on the title. Doom in Reed's body does a spell to exorcise the demon from Johnny, but makes a "mistake" and instead of transporting it directly to the N-Zone, it just pops out onto his chest, thus endangering all life on Earth. I think this was intentional on Doom's part because once the demon is out, it looks for the most powerful being to posess next. Instead of it being Thor though, it's Reed in Doom's body. This gives Doom the opportunity to switch back to his body and perform a selfless act to appear heroic. I would have liked to see a longer story of how Reed deals with being in Doom's body. I'm glad that Land is not the artist anymore. Man he stinks.

Ultimate Fantastic Four Annual #2

This was a good issue and I liked it better than last week's Ultimate Spider-man annual. It told a fun super hero story without seeming like random events thrown together to try to make a story. It features the Moleman as the villain, who sinks a lab full of brilliant youngsters in order to recreate a sub-terranean utopia. The FF show up an try to stop him and FAIL! The smart kids whip together some cool weapons and take MM down. A cool twist is that the smart kids want to stay underground because they are sick of building weapons for the government. All in all a good issue with lots of action and a great story. Definately something to pick up if you're even a passing fan of the FF.