Rapid Reviews - 31 August 2005 - Part II

Yah! I finished last week's comics almost in time for this week's comics!

JLA: Classified #11: "New Maps of Hell" Part two: Very much a set-up issue, with various events pulling in various heroes who all find something similar in the disasters they handle. For this one, the Wiki actually helped remind me what happened in the last issue, so I'd call that a success. There's a great splash page of Superman taking off that has an intriguing sign for an art exhibit. The cover really bothered me when I first saw it, and still seems subtly wrong to me. I just can't quite put me finger on what bothers me about it. Overall, this is a standard superhero book.

Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere #3: We get a little more of the history of the family, and a little more of Richard trying to adapt to a very strange situation. I'm still very interested in the book, and still curious as to how this will all turn out.

Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight #4: "The Last Stand of Don Vincenzo": So the artist isn't nearly as bad as I thought. Sort of. If you feel like hunting down and reading my reviews of the first three issues, that statement should give you a major spoiler. What the point of the spoiler is remains to be seen. I think I'll just let this whole Seven Soldiers thing finish.

Solo #6: Jordi Bernet: Another artist I don't know anything about. Happily, the stories were pretty solid. The first tale is probably the creepiest and best, almost an episode of "The Twilight Zone". There are some other creepy ones, but after the first tale, I'd go with the prison tale and the next most fascinating. In short, another good solo effort. This is one of DC's best ideas in a long time.

Astro City: The Dark Age #3: "Casualties of War": This is still living up to the standards of Astro City, as Royal and Charles show that they aren't the perfect pair of brothers and yet... they are very much brothers. This issue tells us what happened that made both of them hate vigilantes, as well as having a nice bit of tinfoil-y subplot goodness.

Green Lantern #4: "Alienated": If that's who I think it is on the final page, I have serious hopes that a certain superhero I'm a big fan of will get a chance to tackle him in this new state as well. This is the first time I've ever found Hector Hammond to be truly menacing. I'm warming up to this title. Finally.

Beowulf #4: I don't recall the previous issues being this hard to read, with such annoying artwork. The sketchy art and extremely dull coloring makes this one a book that I just don't feel like reading anymore. Whatever good was there seems to have fled for some odd concept of style. Eh.

Usagi Yojimbo #86: "The Treasure of the Mother of Mountains" Chapter Four: At first read I thought that the story was moving too slowly, but then I thought about everything that happened in this issue, and suddenly wondered if it's moving too fast instead! Maybe it's going at the perfect pace. I know I'll be rereading this one a few times once the story is complete. As usual, this book is just better than average.