First of all, a big thanks to MaGnUs of The Nitpicker's Blog and Paul Sebert, whose journal is Goggle_Kid, for leaving comments over the past couple of weeks. Much appreciated, guys!
Annihilation: Conquest - Quasar #3 ~ Okay, Moondragon's a dragon now. After last issue's final page reveal of Heather's reptilian makeover, and several preview pages from this issue doing the rounds, fans have been discussing this point extensively, roughly breaking down into two camps: "That's awesome!" and "That's ridiculous!" I'm not just saying this because I like Heather, but I'm very much the former, and you know why? Not because she can now fly and incinerate hordes of enemies, fun as that is, but because of how Phyla handles this sudden (and to all appearances permanent) transformation of her lover. It was in the preview pages, so it's not much of a spoiler: when Heather assumes that their relationship is over, what with her being an enormous fire-breathing lizard now, Phyla just takes a quiet moment, then dismisses the idea that it's the end for them with a joke. It's really, really sweet: she looks at this gigantic alien creature, and sees the woman she loves, and that's all. It helps that, judging by dialogue, they're quite capable of making out very satisfactorily by telepathy alone (it may even be better than the old-fashioned physical kind, for all we know), but at its core, it's a very tender moment, and a rather brave move for the story to make. I have no doubt Heather will be her humanoid self again before long (though between you and me, I wouldn't mind if they spent a while in a Ladyhawke kind of situation, where Heather's only human at certain times), but for now, it's a strong, strong endorsement of the relationship between these two women, which has been very effectively presented as the core of this miniseries, the foundation that all the sci-fantasy shenanigans have been built on top of. Now seeing as I've gone on about the first couple of pages so much, I'll quickly recap the rest: the art is good, with some signs of the inventive, pulp-futuristic panel layouts that made #1 such a blast to look at, and were a tad absent in #2; their return is much appreciated, and I hope they'll be even more prevalent in #4. Quasar's quest to find the mysterious 'Saviour' continues, as before very much in a pulp adventure/Star Wars kind of way, with broad-strokes storytelling that dances between sci-fi and fantasy, and is at its heart a lot of fun. There's mystery, action, the Adaptoid does some cool villaining, Quasar rocks like nobody's business, with Heather (and the aforementioned fire-breathing) holding up her end very well, and naturally the final page is a big doozy of a cliffhanger. I'm really looking forward to the conclusion of this miniseries; whatever happens next with Annihilation: Conquest proper, this is proving that Phyla and Heather are a great cosmic adventure duo, and I'll happily follow their adventures any time.
World War Hulk #4 ~ The penultimate chapter begins with Hulk facing off against Doctor Strange, now juiced up by the mega-demon Zom; it should come as no surprise that Hulk isn't defeated just yet, but the fight is satisfying enough, with some heavy duty smashing dealt out on both sides, and as with previous notably beat-ups in this miniseries, enough of an individual underlying idea that it isn't just a repetetive exercise in watching Hulk punch the latest in a series of superheroes. The meat of this issue is Hulk's arena, where as the cover indicates, the big green guy intends to force the 'heroes' who banished him to fight each other, just as was done to him when he arrived on Sakaar in Planet Hulk. Other tie-ins, most notably Incredible Hulk, have gone into some depth concerning Hulk's motives and how he and his Warbound view their own actions; the depiction here is the blockbuster-style broad-strokes version, but it's nonetheless consistent with what's been revealed in the other issues, and involving enough that if you hadn't read those tie-ins, you'd still get what was going on. WWH has been a good miniseries so far - not especially revolutionary, but not dumb either, and every character of note in it has had some depth and perspective offered to them, as well as a close-up view of Hulk's fists. Ulimately it will come down to the final issue, the content of which is guaranteed by the close of this one (if you want to know, just look at the solicited cover of World War Hulk #5, it's right there) - if that is as strong and cleverly-presented as the preceding four issues, this event will be a bright feather in Marvel's cap, and a credit to all involved. That remains to be seen; what is revealed so far of the Hulk and his final adversary is encouraging.
Green Arrow & Black Canary Wedding Special ~ I bought this for two reasons: closure on the 'wedding' arc (Black Canary Wedding Planner, Justice League Wedding Special, this), and because Amanda Conner provided the art. The latter is, as always, a gem; the former, so-so. The art is gorgeous, full of character and expression and fun, and not a little bit of sultry sexiness from Dinah as she and Ollie get up to some pre-wedding hijinx (and not, in a rather amusing sequence). Judd Winick holds up his end on writing, with lots of cheerful laughs, and several rather touching moments (at least, if you go with the flow they're touching - I imagine this could seem sappy if you weren't into it), and the story sprawls out to encompass a whole bunch of DC's notable characters, with asides and cutaway scenes aplenty. Superman and Wonder Woman get one of particular note, where they discuss the ups and downs of superheroes having relationships; Wonder Woman's stance is really very interesting, and hopefully the implications of what she says - good and/or bad - will be explored further in Green Arrow/Black Canary (sadly, it's totally at odds with Diana's own status quo, but I still blame Heinberg for that heinous lack-of-imagination mess; god I hope Gail Simone does what amounts to a reboot of WW when she comes on board, and we can lose the moronic 'secret agent' idea and have a secret identity that matters). The only real failing of this issue is that the JLA Wedding Special pre-emptively trumped it with a far more energising and exciting idea - I mean, what gets your juices going more, Deathstroke or a dazzlingly retro chic Challenge of the Superfriends-throwback Injustice League? I was hoping this would actually be a tie-in to that storyline - though obviously it has to ultimately play out in JLA - and it was disappointing to find that not the case, especially as the replacement villain(s) seemed somewhat, well, uninventive - aside from one element, this really was basically a fight for a fight's sake. And I must say, I was a bit disappointed with how Dinah fared once the fighting started - she got the short end of the stick, being treated as an impetuous damsel who ultimately needs rescuing (though at least she goes in fists flying), while Ollie gets to be the cool one who saves the day. I'd have liked things to be more, well, equal, at least this once - would it have been that terrible if the girl hadn't needed a helping hand in a fight? Happily, at least, the dull wedding dress from the Wedding Planner didn't make an appearance, and Dinah instead goes with something that, personally, I found quite sweet and very appropriate (though I'm sure it'll be roundly criticised from some corners for being too sexy - if it were anyone but Dinah I'd probably agree, but this is her wedding dress, and it's perfect). Finally, there's a very strong lead-in to the Green Arrow/Black Canary series, which left me a bit cold; fun as this little series of one-shots has been, I'm not nearly interested enough in either character to buy their series, and all in all the JLA Wedding Special stole the show.
Jungle Girl #0 & #1 ~ There's a bit of a rush of wild women at the moment, with Shanna starring in her second miniseries, Sheena recently relaunched, and now Jana, the leopard-skin-bikini-clad heroine of this title; if so, I'm all for it - jungle warrioresses are a lot more interesting than zombies, or whatever other fad comics have going at present. Nicer to look at than zombies, too. Jungle Girl is plotted by Shanna creator (re-creator, rather - she existed before, but her current incarnation is a reboot) Frank Cho, who judging by Shanna knows his wild women: that title was full of pulp adventure thrills and spills, and besides being gorgeous in a skimpy bikini, Shanna was quite a well-rounded (forgive the pun) character, with a reasonably complex psychology behind her shapeliness and dinosaur-battling - all this bodes well for Jungle Girl, so long as writer Doug Murray can turn Cho's plotline and character concepts into a solid comic, without losing the magic that made Shanna work. Judging by these issues, he can - the writing isn't quite Shanna-level (the narration seems kind of awkward - I very much liked how little spoon-feeding of exposition there was in Shanna, which largely left it to the reader to infer what was going on, not that it was ever truly taxing to do so), but overall the story is enjoyable and has a good sense of direction, Jana comes across as a credible and capable jungle heroine, and the hapless film crew who've crashed into her prehistoric backyard have a variety of interesting reactions. I woudln't go so far as to say any of them really emerge as distinct characters, but this is only the first issue, so I'm willing to give them time. I will say it seems a bit off-kilter to me that Jana speaks English so fluently - of course it's practically mandatory that she speaks it at all (and she refers to 'Daddy', who evidently knows about planes and so on, so there's an inbuilt explanation for how she learned), but she's very fluent and free in her speech patterns, by the standards of jungle women - it's not necessarily an inconsistency, but it struck me as a bit odd, and maybe even a touch disappointing, that she doesn't have a less-'outside world', more idiosyncratic way of talking. Then again, I suppose we don't want her to be too much like Shanna, so perhaps this will prove to be a good thing. The art by Adriano Batista (with colours by Frank Martin) does a pretty darned good job of living up to the promise of the Frank Cho covers - not an enviable situation for an artist drawing a scantily-clad athletic woman to be in. There isn't quite the precision of Cho's linework, but the rougher lines and naturalistic colour palette give Jungle Girl a bit of a style of its own, without deviating too far from its covers.
Marvel Comics Presents #1 ~ This is a title I've been very much looking forward to - there's so much to the Marvel universe that a whole lot of it is still unknown to me, so anything that shines a spotlight around here and there is a very useful tool in helping me find titles or characters I might be interested in. This issue didn't truly blow me away, but it didn't disappoint either - five stories, five styles of writing and art: I feel confident in saying that I'll find something to latch on to in every issue, even if I don't dig everything that's going on. Right now the Weapon Omega story is a bit of a ho-hum one for me, but that's to be expected for someone who didn't read the Collective arc of New Avengers, or the Omega Flight miniseries - I don't really know a lot of what's going on, but what little I got was good enough that I won't be skipping future instalments, so the story has time to entertain me. Hellcat (the main reason I wanted to buy this, aside from the general 'anthology' idea) kicks off a quirky story that seems like it could be fun - the writing has a sly humour to it that appeals to me, though the art is a bit more angular than I like, and is somewhat unflattering to Patsy at times. For the record, on the WTF-inducing-but-amusing fashion splash pages, I like the lower right look on the left page. Spider-Man gets a one-shot story which is just a dream, and so ends up feeling a bit hollow, but it's amusing enough with some witty one-liners along the way - it's kind of like good junk food: you forget about it the moment you're done eating it, but it tastes good at the time, so that's alright with me. The Thing has a one-shot story told from the perspective of Alicia - it's nothing new, but it's well-written and quite touching now and then, and is supported by good art. And lastly (actually first in the issue, but who's counting), Vanguard - I don't even know if Vanguard is a name or just a title or what, and this segment is big on setting the mood and short on story, but it really did the trick for me. The apparent lead character Stacy is mainly presented in terms of her job - kind of like the characters on Law & Order, but that's fine by me (I loooove Olivia Benson), the writing is crisp and effective, and the last page is a terrific "Wait, what?!?" moment. Dave Wilkins (art) and Tony Washington (colours) deserve a special mention for doing the lion's share of setting the mood and tone of this segment, which could well turn out to be my favourite - big call after one issue, but we'll just have to see how it goes.
Next week looks like another biggie, with the second issues of both 52 Aftermath: The Four Horsemen and Countdown to Adventure, my first-ever issue of Justice League of America (#13), the long-delayed conclusion of Heinberg's opening Wonder Woman arc in the Wonder Woman Annual (featuring a backup story also written by Heinberg, which just seems like saying "Well the main story will be a pile of boring crap, so why waste a good backup on it?" - I admit, it's purely because I'm a somewhat obsessive-compulsive completist that I'm even looking at it), #6 of the always-entertaining Avengers: The Initiative, the third issue of The Order, and last but very much not least, Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose #46, which you'll no doubt be hearing all about in great detail next week. The trade paperback of White Tiger from Marvel also arrives - I didn't quite get pulled into reading this issues, but I'm curious, and would like to take a look at this story; it'll probably have to wait, though, until a week when I'm buying less overall.
As always, if you agree, disagree, have another perspective, or want to tell me I'm crazy about the wedding dress, the comments link is here for you:
