Comics

100 Days, 100 Comics #54: ‘The Great Ten’ #2

Tony Bedard is really doing his best — whether intentionally or not — to craft DC mini to rival Marvel’s Immortal Weapons. The concerns I had at the close of The Great Ten #1 that there’s a fine line being walked between caricaturizing the Chinese government and framing it in a way that seriously tackles … Read more100 Days, 100 Comics #54: ‘The Great Ten’ #2

100 Days, 100 Comics #53: ‘Blackest Night: The Flash’ #1

I don’t know if you’ve ever played a Japanese import RPG that was obviously intended to be shown on an HD television, and after plugging it into your 360 or PS3 you realized that your non-HD TV could not possibly display all of the narrative text at work in the game. If the HD TV … Read more100 Days, 100 Comics #53: ‘Blackest Night: The Flash’ #1

100 Days, 100 Comics #52: ‘Blackest Night’ #5

Ivan Reis proves once again in this issue that DC couldn’t have tapped a better artist for Blackest Night, and I’m assuming nuclear abstract confusion is the final note issue #5 meant to end on, but scene by scene this books felt a little fractured. This was chiefly due to two different problems. First, nearly … Read more100 Days, 100 Comics #52: ‘Blackest Night’ #5

100 Days, 100 Comics #51: ‘Siege: The Cabal’ #1

Siege: The Cabal #1**SPOILER ALERT** Brian Michael Bendis’ Siege: The Cabal #1 at #51 was a coincidental follow-up to #50. It packs a memorably malicious exchange between Dr. Doom and Norman Osborn and lead into Marvel’s new “Siege” event, but it also left me completely stunned throughout the second half with a scene I misinterpreted with anticlimactic consequences. So this review is going to be as much about what didn’t happen as was did happen.

The premise of the Siege title going into this read was presumably that it would be about Norman deciding on what to do about the big fat kingdom of Asgard that’s currently hovering above the United States and how he’s going to storm the gates and get rid of it. His anti-Illuminati cabal of villains, The Hood, The Taskmaster, and Loki are predictably along for the ride when he solicits the help of Dr. Doom. There’s a beautifully melodramatic discussion between Osborn and Doom about why that won’t happen that leads up to a Siege of a different kind, but my post-9/11 reading of the sequence ending that confrontation had to be rewound and reread. My explanation requires an extra image, which you’ll see after the jump…

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100 Days, 100 Comics #50: ‘In the Shadow of No Towers’

“That was all washed away by the rains and the police as the world hustled forward into our “New Normal.” -Art Spiegelman I’ve wrestled with how I feel about this book on almost a biannual basis over the last five years, but I’ve come to the lingering conclusion of late that it is to my … Read more100 Days, 100 Comics #50: ‘In the Shadow of No Towers’

100 Days, 100 Comics #48: ‘B.P.R.D.: 1947’ #5

With everything else that happened during the first four issues of this miniseries, specifically the fall of Konig and the vampires, there was plenty of reason to believe this was going to be a lame-duck final issue. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case, as there were a few historical moments tucked into the final pages and … Read more100 Days, 100 Comics #48: ‘B.P.R.D.: 1947’ #5

100 Days, 100 Comics #46: ‘Immortal Weapons’ #4

When I start looking back over my pull lists for 2009, this miniseries will be among the first in line for my top five picks. In a beautiful standalone issue, Duane Swierczynski tackles an origin story for Tiger’s Beautiful Daughter that resembles a Neil Gaiman Sandman tale more than it does an Iron Fist spin-off. … Read more100 Days, 100 Comics #46: ‘Immortal Weapons’ #4

100 Days, 100 Comics #45: ‘My Every Single Thought’

Autobio indie comics automatically have an uphill battle to fight with me, as I’m sure they do with most readers. It’s an overpopulated junkpile of a genre most often, and though a few rare comics slip through every year with something new to offer or a new way to say something, I’ve read more bad … Read more100 Days, 100 Comics #45: ‘My Every Single Thought’