A weekly column in which Jake gives
short blurbs about the comics he’s picked up that week. Reviewed in the order
read, which varies but generally by increasing anticipation. Disclaimer: he knows very little about art,
at least not enough to considerably honor such tremendous undertakings, so…yeh,
there’s that.
Drax #2
Writers: CM Punk & Cullen Bunn
Artist: Scott Hepburn
Color Artist: Matt Milla
Letterer: VC’s Clayton Cowles
Marvel
Terrax, former Herald of Galactus, and
Drax the Destroyer walk into a bar.
Everyone in bar says “Crap, this isn’t going to be good…for the building
and for our lives, but if someone were making a comic book about this it
actually would be pretty good.” Roll on snare drum. Curtains.
Inappropriate Watchmen references aside, Punk and Bunn (Punk’n’Bunn?)
give us some great action and dialogue in Drax’s second issue. The Terrax-Drax (Terrdrax?) confrontation
doesn’t go down as one would expect and for that matter neither does most of
the issue, which is a great thing as it keeps things unpredictable while a
pattern of misconceptions arises. We get
an indication that Drax’s quest won’t be as straight forward as both he and the
readers thought. Such a script gives
Hepburn a chance to flex both his comedic and frenetic muscles in both dialogue
and fight scenes. It’s a particularly
strong showing as Hepburn captures both types of interactions equally
well. He and Milla also get a chance to
go wild with the various alien species that the protagonist beats up in the
issue. Drax’s second outing is packed
full of great dialogue, action, and set-up for the current plot, all of which
culminate for a very enjoyable buy.
All-New Wolverine #3
Writer: Tom Taylor
Art: David Lopez & David
Navarrot
Color Art: Nathan Fairbairn
Letters: VC’s Cory Petit
Marvel
Wolverine deals with a bit of
backstabbing and returns it with non-lethal stabbing in kind as she and her
clones try to stay one step ahead of their Alchemax pursuers. Taylor’s script is heavy on the action, but
the dialogue we do get is excellent.
Laura’s posturing and threats go over nicely and her conversation with
her clones as to why she isn’t snikt-ing everyone’s faces off is rather
nice. It reveals a bit more of
Wolverine’s thinking and possibly naïveté as she tries to solve things without
killing, though it’s obvious that she’s being pushed closer and closer to that
edge as Alchemax continues to doggedly pursue what they believe to be their
property. The action scenes from the
Davids are excellently choreographed and the framing throughout is fantastic. Fairbairn gets to let loose a bit more thanks
to the prevalence of explosions and car crashes in the issue. The last page’s revelation had me grinning
from the get-go and set up what should be an interesting team-up for next
issue. All-New Wolverine continues to excel
and entertain.
Mercury Heat #6
Story: Kieron Gillen
Art: Nahuel Lopez
Color: Digikore Studios
Letters: Kurt Hathaway
Avatar Press
Luiza Bora faces off against the
terrorists who are threatening to destroy the Mercury colony in the arc’s final
issue. Despite the arbitrary villain
monologuing, Gillen keeps things interesting by getting to the core of the
terrorists mission here on Mercury and their reasons for the atrocities they’ve
committed/are attempting to commit. Even
more interesting is the come-down after the mission is over and the fallout
that results from Luiza’s professional and personal choices. Lopez’s action sequences are a sight to
behold and are bloody treat. He and
Digikore light up the showdown as sparks and blood fly in the vacuum of
space. On the whole, Mercury Heat
satisfies a particular itch thanks to its hard-nosed, graphic sci-fi setting as
well as being a good story in its own right.
Can’t wait to see where the next issue goes.
BOOK OF THE WEEK
Rat Queens #14
http://www.comicbookresources.com/imgsrv/preview/0/0/1/RatQueens-14-1-93599.jpg
Writer: Kurtis J. Wiebe
Artist: Tess Fowler
Colors: Tamra Bonvillain
Letters: Ed Brisson
Image
There’re revelations galore as Dee
tells her brother of the terrible secret behind the eldritch entity their
family worships, Hannah’s mom shows Hannah just what her father was doing
throughout her childhood, and Violet and Betty fight a dragon. Sorta.
Wiebe wisely balances out the weighty drama of the first two with the
humor and charm of the latter. He also
gives us yet another wonderful repartee between Hannah and Tizzie which is
always a joy and this one might be the best yet. Not to be outdone, Fowler and Bonvillain
supply these dialogue-heavy scenes with wondrous scenery and panel choices. Sure, the use of past scenes told with new
dialogue in Hannah and her mom’s conversation is likely a script direction, but
it wouldn’t work nearly as well were it not for Fowler’s excellent
framing. The dragon confrontation might
be one of the funniest scenes in Rat Queens (say something) and it’s thanks in
large part to Fowler’s excellent character work and body language. If next issue’s cover is any indication, Rat
Queen’s looks to get rather messy in the coming days, and this issue sets up
for that throw down nicely.
So what did you pick up this week?
Agree or disagree with anything said here? Let us know in the comments.
Labels: All-New Wolverine, Avatar Press, Comic Books, Comics, Drax, Image Comics, Marvel Comics, Mercury Heat, Rat Queens, Review, Reviews
