ComicCritic87’s weekly comic book reviews
Week of November 2nd,, 2011
Greetings friends and fellow comic book readers and fans, the ever continuing reviews march on. This week is a drastically smaller week, seems to be no surprise since the last two weeks of the month are always big and week 1 is usually small. Plus this week friends I make sacrifices, with my work schedule building up there is the inevitable drop of hours so I won’t be able to get most if not all my readings especially with weeks where they push close to 60 dollars. So it was a hard choice but I have to make massive cuts to both Marvel and DC comics. I will exclude maxi or mini-series since they eventually end. At the end of these reviews will be my list of dropped titles, these were tough decisions too, but I will try and keep up with them in some fashion in the future.
Comics this week
DC Comics: Action Comics #3, Justice League International #3, Swamp Thing #3
Marvel Comics: Amazing Spider-man #673 and Fearless #2
Other Comics: none
Top Picks of the Week
DC Comics: Swamp Thing #3- Written by Scott Snyder and Artwork by Yanick Paquette
Abridged Story: Alec proves to the Abigail that he was a Swamp Thing, using a small power of the Green against her. She warns him they have to stop a boy in a plastic bubble, for he is to become the opposite of Swamp Thing…..ROT THING (they don’t call him that but that’s essentially what he will be)
Review: This series is close to rivaling Batman which is also being written by Snyder. The series is not only a great character driven story but we delve into great detailing as to what the opposing forces of the Green and the Rot are. The sense of darkness and dread fills this title really great, we see this Rot becoming a very powerful threat, leaving Alec with seemingly one choice left. I still like seeing Alec as a human slowly developing his power as a Swamp Thing rather than him changing into swamp thing in issue 1, 2, or 3.
Artwork: The cover features Abigail shooting at Swamp Thing but that doesn’t occur. Paquette’s artwork is amazing to see and truly fits the dark tone this book is aiming for
Grade: A+
Marvel Comics: Amazing Spider-man #673- Written by Dan Slott and Artwork by Stefano Caselli
Abridged Story: The epilogue of Spider Island; the city is cleaning up, The Jackal is still alive, and Kaine leaves the city on a new journey. However not all is good, Carlie leaves Peter for lying all this time, Dr. Strange tells Peter the spell on him wore off, now risking a chance to be revealed again. Peter cures MJ and they look at the Empire state building seeing the thanks the city has given him.
Review: Well this was quite a surprising issue, many things occurring at one time it’s astounding. I for one enjoyed the overall story arc of Spider Island and now seeing the true conclusion does now raise more questions. I felt both happy and sad that Peter is seen as a true hero but then his life outside of being a hero nose dives. It’s quite a jarring issue, I do feel bad that Carlie left him but once again she brings up the trust issue, so is this the end, it may be but we see this play out before. Slott continues to do an impressive job with writing Spider-man and these characters he interacts with.
Artwork: The cover is a nice homage to the Spider-man no more panel and cover. The new artwork by Stefano Caselli is a nice and fitting style with the Spider-man characters and the people he interacts with. The amount of heroes on some of the splash pages is amazing.
Grade: A-
Quick Reviews
Action Comics #3: We learn some backstory of Krypton as Clark gets harassed. We also get a tiny glimpse of the mystery being that struck a deal with Luthor. Solid Issue, Solid Writing, and Solid Art. A-
Fearless #2: Valkyrie fights off a samurai vampire while Crossbones found one of the hammers in France. Valkyrie walks away with a hammer herself and gets stopped by the Secret Avengers. This was a pretty fun series so far, like the back and forth between both hero and villain stories. Artwork is top notch. B+
JLI #3: The team goes to each giant robot to find out where they came from, each group getting attacked by rock monsters. An okay issue but this will be my last for it. Artwork is still nice. B-
I looked over my readings. I’m currently reading 34 titles; 14 from Marvel, 17 from DC, and from IDW. This is rough but these were necessary cuts. First the titles LEAVING from DC
DC comics LEAVING my listing
Aquaman
Batman & Robin
DCU Presents
Flash
Green Lantern
Justice League International
Superboy
Supergirl
Superman
Marvel comics LEAVING my listings
Avengers Academy
Captain America
FF
Ghost Rider
Invincible Iron man
Secret Avengers
Wolverine
So what I have left in my readings my comic listing comes down to roughly 18, which is where I wanted it to be. Now with upcoming comics in Marvel like Scarlet Spider-man and Defenders coming out in the coming months that will bring it up to into the mid-20s along with the stuff with IDW I’m reading. So that’s all for this week, hope you guys enjoy as usual. Catch you all later