Spiderman: Back in Not Black. Spoilers and reviews ahead. (And if there’s anything additional you’d like me to do with these columns, if you want more info, less info, etc, please tell me in the comments.)
52 #41: After a few teases, they kill off the Question anyway. Off panel. Bleh. Starfire and Adam Strange land on Mogo. Yep, that’s pretty much all that happens in this issue.
Justice Society of America #3: Hawkman’s back… with no explanation. And the JSA figures out what we’ve known for the past two issues, and finally heads out to do something about it. More treading water: a weakness of the current monthly comic format, not necessarily the storytelling.
Thunderbolts #111: Issue 1 made you care about Jack Flag, issue 2 has him beaten (though there are a few pretty cool Captain America-fighting-style moments.) The art is an improvement, especially when Venom gets into play. Just a bit dissapointing overall… though the infighting and precarious place the team is in do suggest some interesting issues in the future.
Sensational Spider-Man #35: Kind of a neat issue, somebody’s giving out spider powers and spider suits. After reading this (another issue with “Back in Black”) I think the change in Civil War is that Spiderman just sheds his old costume for a black one in symbolic protest or something. It doesn’t seem to be a symbiote.
Blade #6: Blade’s dad was a vampire. No, that’s not his origin story. A bit confusing to those not 100% on their Blade back story, but it has Blade being a badass hero, so that’s always good. (And Blade might be half-white. Kinda funny.)
JLA Classified #34: I didn’t expect much out of this story, and was very pleasantly surprised at how good it was. A device goes off, and the Justice League have 4 days before the Earth is completely destroyed, and they can’t stop it. So they evacuate the Earth. Now there’s some JLA-level crisis right there.
Astonishing X-Men #20: This comic gets better as it reaches the end of the arc. The team arrives on Breakworld, and Whedon finally gets his chance to totally mess up Wolverine, like everyone writing him wants to do.
Exiles #91: I think this is the first issue of Claremont’s run (or I missed the last issue) but he adds Psylocke to the team. And somehow, the jokes just fall flat all of a sudden.
Spiderman: Reign #3: I previously mentioned the most ridiculous thing in this issue, but the whole series is worth reading for how much of a mess it is. They make 9/11 references, there’s zombie villians that aren’t zombies, and all sorts of not-done-as-well Dark Knight Returns stuff. Spiderman burying his costume with his wife was ok, and his punching his way out of a coffin while singing the Spiderman song was comical (in a dark way?) Oh, the thing that happens in this issue, other than that, is that Venom starts to eat the city.
New Avengers #27: Certainly one of the best NA stories I’ve read… maybe ever? Echo fights ninjas, loses. New New Avengers burst in to save her, including whoever the new Ronin is (not revealed in the issue.)
Outsiders #45: A short interlude involving Arsenal (yay!) and then a long one involving Black Lightning about things that happened in Green Arrow. Not sure where this is going, but it features characters I like and the art is better.
Dark Tower #1: I was looking forward to this one, and really enjoyed how they pulled off blending events from several books into one narrative, along with a narrator that uses the DT lingo. The art doesn’t blow me away, but it gets the job done, and I have no specific complaints. I wonder how much they’ll cover in the seven issues, because there’s some scenes that would be awesome illustrated.
Sam Noir Ronin Holiday #1: It was a logical extension of this series: Sam Noir meets a pirate detective. (it’s the kind of concept I really like, though I wish a bit more happened storywise and more of a mystery)
Welcome to Tranquility #3: The murder mystery aspect doesn’t really come to the front, but there’s a lot of stuff to like in this book. From intercutted comics and tv shows from the Wildstorm Universe (The Authority turned Teen Titans was especially amusing), to super speed sex and super speed suicide, there’s a lot to like here for atmosphere.
Back in Black = Oh shit lets tie things into the movie that far exceeds the profitability of our comics.
Very helpful, actually. I may just go pick up a few of the issues you say are good, like astonishing, and I can completely avoid the utter crap.