New Comics Day!
Short post today because bed is calling like a sweet, mattressed siren. Bad similes aside....
Deadshot #4 (of 5):
I think Warren Ellis refers to these as fight comics. Balls to the wall (can't believe I just typed that) action starts the issue off as Deadshot takes on a former ally called The Closer (as in a business deal, not a doorman or a relative measure of distance). Great name. Don't really like the bad guy turned good cliche but I'm liking it here.
Instead of a spaghetti western this comic is, and I think I may have coined this phrase in an earlier email to a friend (Dav was that you?), a spandex western. It's cliche-ridden, sure, (Outlaw returns to old stomping grounds to discover he had a child with a woman he hardly knows and begins to settle down. In this case settling down being eradicating every criminal in a five mile radius!) but the character moments seem genuine enough and Steven Cummings and Jimmy Palmiotti do some nice artwork in both the action sequences as well as the character moments.
What bugs me about this issue, and it is not only this comic but many others, is that Christos Gage falls into the old storytelling technique by having two guys who obviously hate each other's guts talk while destroying everything around them in order to reveal what has happened in previous issues. Dialogue sample:
The Closer: "You cleaned out the local mobs, set yourself up with a nice piece of territory here. I respect that. We could still run it together. I'm not even really mad at you yet."
Deadshot: "I said it before Closer, and I'll say it again...get out of my neighborhood."
Oh well....it has to be tradition's fault if anybody's.
Justice League Elite #9 (of 12):
Okay, I'm going to say very little about this issue as it is packed with spoilers galore and I'm tired. The premise is basically: DC's Authority. JLE are a Black Ops strike force who try and hit first against criminals who may be planning some nastiness. It's about as dark as a DC book gets without having a Vertigo stamp in the upper left corner of the cover.
Familiar members of the team are Flash, Green Arrow, Major Disaster and Manitou Raven from JLA. Vera Black is the team's cybernetic leader who is having some mental issues at the moment involving her "deceased" brother, Manchester.
Joe Kelly is usually pretty hit and miss with me but his writing is sharp, mysterious and "meaty." It's grim but still has that DC sparkle you expect from their mainstream books. The art (by Doug Mahnke and Tom Nguyen) fits perfectly with the tone of the book. These guys made me groan on JLA but I'd expect no one better on JLE (except maybe Steve Dillon...a boy can dream).
Saying anymore might be a bad thing to those who have yet to check it out but it is definitely worth picking up the entire series. I was surprised at how much I liked it from the very beginning and would highly recommend it as it is really starting to come into its own. Good stuff!
Well, that hardly ended up being a longer post than I'd planned.
Bedtime. Good night.
Deadshot #4 (of 5):
I think Warren Ellis refers to these as fight comics. Balls to the wall (can't believe I just typed that) action starts the issue off as Deadshot takes on a former ally called The Closer (as in a business deal, not a doorman or a relative measure of distance). Great name. Don't really like the bad guy turned good cliche but I'm liking it here.
Instead of a spaghetti western this comic is, and I think I may have coined this phrase in an earlier email to a friend (Dav was that you?), a spandex western. It's cliche-ridden, sure, (Outlaw returns to old stomping grounds to discover he had a child with a woman he hardly knows and begins to settle down. In this case settling down being eradicating every criminal in a five mile radius!) but the character moments seem genuine enough and Steven Cummings and Jimmy Palmiotti do some nice artwork in both the action sequences as well as the character moments.
What bugs me about this issue, and it is not only this comic but many others, is that Christos Gage falls into the old storytelling technique by having two guys who obviously hate each other's guts talk while destroying everything around them in order to reveal what has happened in previous issues. Dialogue sample:
The Closer: "You cleaned out the local mobs, set yourself up with a nice piece of territory here. I respect that. We could still run it together. I'm not even really mad at you yet."
Deadshot: "I said it before Closer, and I'll say it again...get out of my neighborhood."
Oh well....it has to be tradition's fault if anybody's.
Justice League Elite #9 (of 12):
Okay, I'm going to say very little about this issue as it is packed with spoilers galore and I'm tired. The premise is basically: DC's Authority. JLE are a Black Ops strike force who try and hit first against criminals who may be planning some nastiness. It's about as dark as a DC book gets without having a Vertigo stamp in the upper left corner of the cover.
Familiar members of the team are Flash, Green Arrow, Major Disaster and Manitou Raven from JLA. Vera Black is the team's cybernetic leader who is having some mental issues at the moment involving her "deceased" brother, Manchester.
Joe Kelly is usually pretty hit and miss with me but his writing is sharp, mysterious and "meaty." It's grim but still has that DC sparkle you expect from their mainstream books. The art (by Doug Mahnke and Tom Nguyen) fits perfectly with the tone of the book. These guys made me groan on JLA but I'd expect no one better on JLE (except maybe Steve Dillon...a boy can dream).
Saying anymore might be a bad thing to those who have yet to check it out but it is definitely worth picking up the entire series. I was surprised at how much I liked it from the very beginning and would highly recommend it as it is really starting to come into its own. Good stuff!
Well, that hardly ended up being a longer post than I'd planned.
Bedtime. Good night.
posted by Des at 9:45 pm
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