Amour & The Evil Inside ~ Approbation Comics sent me these PDFs as a thank-you for my reviews of their earlier comics (buy Chaos Campus!), so I thought I'd review them too - they're not especially super-heroine-y, but hey, it's my site, I can do what I want. Normally I'm a bit wary of anthologies, in comics and elsewhere, since they're usually a bit of a bell curve, with some good, some average, and some bad (I'm looking at you, Marvel Comics Presents), and I prefer aiming for all-good to begin with. These aren't subject to that rule, since they're all the work of the same writer, and unlike the ill-fated MCP, the shorts contained in each issue are meant to be short stories, rather than drawn-out serialisations of longer ones. As the titles will probably tell you, Amour is all about romance in its various forms, while The Evil Inside is a collection of horror stories, touching on the supernatural but not in an overt Spawn/Ghost Rider/name-your-demons-vs-angels-story kind of way - it actually put me in mind of that old Nightmare on Elm St series, where Freddy was the presenter for various non-Freddy-related short stories (probably based on earlier TV shows, but let's pretend I'm not old enough to know), and issue #3 is shared between the two. The art is black and white, but well-drawn, and as I said all the writing is by the same hand, so the quality level is consistent, rather than good stories being paired with crud just to make up the page count. As I said, anthologies aren't my thing, but if either of these concepts sparks your interest - especially the romance one, which isn't something you see a lot of in western comics these days - these could be worth your time.
Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose #49 ~ Now here's something you don't see every day: a guest star in a comic book. Not the 'guest-starring Wolverine!' kind (it's usually Wolverine, after all), but an actual high-profile real person 'playing' a character in the comic, akin to a guest spot on a TV show. Fiona Horne is the guest, a witch, singer, and actor from Australia (and yes, I had heard of her before this - she's fun), and here she gets the Tarot treatment, going on a journey through the Fairy Realm when a goblin kidnaps her. Tarot and Raven make a respectable appearance, but the bulk of the issue goes to Fiona alone, as she's separated from the pair and has to make her way by her wits alone to a portal to get back to Earth. It's reminiscent of Tarot's own journey in The Witch Key arc, and has the same heavily narrated structure, with real-world themes and ideas translated into literal representations in the Fairy Realm, that variously help and hinder Fiona on her way - like The Witch Key, this would probably be somewhat difficult for new readers to get to grips with, since it really puts the emphasis on the narration's philosophising rather than straight-forward dialogue and character conflict. Then again, Fiona's fans will likely approach it in the right frame of mind, so this style of issue is probably a fairly wise choice from Balent and co. - at any rate, judging by the cover Boo Cat is going to be along next issue, and she tends to bring a more conventional storytelling style with her when she appears, so anyone feeling a bit perplexed at this stage only has one issue to wait for a more accessible introduction to Tarot.
She-Hulk #27 ~ Val Semeiks fills in for Shawn Moll on pencils, and does a decent job - not quite up to Moll's level in terms of fluid action, and combining striking visuals with a sense of progression and motion, but good work, and (no doubt helped by the inks and colours) pretty seamless with earlier issues when Shulkie's big and green, though not so much when she's Jen. Still, I'd read half the issue before I even realised the artist was different, not because it wasn't apparent (good as the match is), but because Peter David writes a script that just grabs you and doesn't let go. In a one-shot story that flows elegantly out of the previous arc, yet stands well on its own, David draws Shulkie back into a legal arena, without it seeming forced, and lays in some big clues as to what happened that drove She-Hulk away from her firm to begin with (so all the people who've been complaining that her new status quo 'makes no sense' can shut up now, thanks). This issue could go in a textbook under the heading 'How to stage the entrance of a guest star' - the one-two appearances of the two guests are played out with superb style, and both contribute interesting angles to their ongoing relationships with Shulkie, as well as fulfilling a logical place in the issue's plotline. All this, plus David's wonderful touch with dialogue. What I'm trying to say is, do not miss an issue of She-Hulk, ever.
Countdown to Adventure #8 ~ Well, that was disappointing. The Animal Man/Starfire/Adam Strange half drew to its inevitable close, as the alien medic guys finally got a clue and let the heroes save the day. The only interesting thing to come out of it all is Adam Strange's vow to make Rann less, y'know, stupid, and we finally get to see Lady Styx herself, although it's kind of underwhelming to discover that she was actually paying attention to her plague, since all things considered it was a pretty weak effort - I mean, Starfire cured it. I like her, but she's not Superman, y'know? If Starfire can undo your evil plan, especially when she's being slowed down by various contrived hindrances, you really need to try harder. Meanwhile, the Forerunner storyline wrapped up in an incredibly rushed manner, with a jumbled, inadequately-explored plotline that really just served to provide Viza with somewhere where she could be happy. Since I kept comparing her misfit crew to Farscape, imagine if John Crichton had solved the wormhole problem and settled down with Aeryn at the end of episode one - that's what this feels like. It's pretty difficult to imagine the author who had such obvious fun writing Forerunner being the one to decide to shelve her like this, so it can only have come from DC, and it's just baffling that they could have thought it wss a good idea to mothball a new character just as she was starting to get interesting - especially since, let's be honest, not a lot else has come out of Countdown that's worthwhile. I hope her planet gets quietly retconned away, and she shows up again soon, back on her ship with her fun crew of misfits and renegades.
Ms. Marvel #25 ~ The big quarter-century rolls around for Marvel's current glamour girl apparent, and it's a satisfying Big Issue, though not a huge whack-out-of-the-park kind of whammy. In a show of good timing, Carol is back home (well, the hotel - but not off on a mission, is what I'm saying), allowing her to touch base with various supporting cast members and their ongoing subplots over the course of quite an eventful day. William Wagner pops up again, as does Sarah Day (incorporating a nod to current goings-on in Spider-Man with Jonah, I gather), references are made to Wonder Man, and (in passing) the parallel universe Warbird - it's a big ol' continuity-fest, built around a fairly straightforward set-up kind of storyline which sees Carol investigate a routine AIM operation, and turn up a Skrull with X-Men powers. It's obvious that this is the start of a big Secret Invasion storyline for Carol - as well as the obvious super-powered Skrull running around, there's a personal connection to Carol herself (relayed through a couple of retro-art flashbacks, which are fun, though suffering from bad timing with Mighty Avengers pulling the same artistic trick in its previous issue), and there's another Carol Danvers wandering about, and it's all got something to do with William. It'll obviously take a while to unravel all this, but as the start of an arc, this is promising.
Mighty Avengers #11 ~ The Doctor Doom arc continues on its merry way, with ups and downs but, in all honesty, nothing much happening until the final couple of pages. Not that the rest is bad or anything - in fact there's some interesting stuff there, with a nice page of thought bubbles from Doom that show how quickly he thinks, with huge monologue segments happening between words in the sentence he's saying out loud, although it is a bit hokey how he conveniently recaps the story thus far so readers can keep up - the usual interesting asides and mental quirks from our heroes, and so on and so forth. It's just that nothing really happens until Iron Man and Sentry show up again, and until then the issue is just filling up time with interesting bits and pieces. Once we reach that point, then stuff happens - one of those retro-chic moments that Mighty Avengers does so well, where you forget that comics have been meandering on for decades, and get caught up in it as if it matters, and won't just be returned to the status quo in a few issues' time. We all know that Iron Man vs Doctor Doom isn't going to have a clear winner - Iron Man's not going to die, and Doom will be back in his lair plotting stuff eventually. But not yet - for now, things are up in the air, and the story is handling itself in such a way that it's generating the illusion of importance. Heck, maybe it'll be the real thing, and this will be a huge shift in the status quo for old Doomey, though I doubt it - but for now, the issue does its job well enough that I'm not looking at the man behind the curtain, and just enjoying the story. Oh, and there's a scene with Black Widow and Spider-Woman in a hot tub together. Can't argue with that.
