I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space!!! #1 ~ Obviously I knew what was coming, since this issue - indeed, everything up to the middle of issue six, so far - is available from the I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space website. But for 99c this issue is still a steal - it's fun and fiesty and self-aware and satirical and... and fun. The handmade-style art will probably be a jolt for readers used to the polished perfection of modern comics, but it really does add to the charm, and while Gedris's work may not be photo-realistic (or even close, in most panels) she does have a real knack for sight gags, with body language and expression coming through strongly in caricature form. The story really does rocket along - you don't realise it, reading it page by page on the website - so there's plenty of content, with effective introductions of our heroine Susie and her crew of well-meaning kidnappers (my favourite is the ice cool Dr. Wendy and her gunslinger wielding of the tranq-o-matic). I'm most definitely getting all six issues.
DC Universe Zero ~ My comic shop - Kings Comics, Sydney - were literally giving this issue away, since they got boxes of it and couldn't be bothered charging the 50c cover price. And I don't want to be cruel, but DC should have been doing the same, especially this close to FCBD - if Marvel could make their Secret Invasion Saga issue free, DC surely could have done the same for this, given that it's really nothing but a glorified advertisement. The unifying 'plot' of the book, while basically logical (I guess) is arbitrary and void of any kind of story, so all you get are a bunch of three-page previews of upcoming books and events. Because of that, I don't have any idea what's relevant to Final Crisis and what isn't - so I'm just guessing that anything linked to a specific book isn't, and therefore doesn't do anything to build anticipation for the big event. The one bit that does seem relevant, involving Libra and the Rogues, was half-assed, coming off as a pale, childish imitation of the Crime Bible concept as introduced in 52. Bruno Mannheim was scary - Libra is just some cliche-spouting idiot in a spandex costume, and I fully shared the Rogues' reaction to his rousing speech: sitting there glumly, waiting for it to be over. Since the whole book is so reliant on individual titles, the only bit I found interesting was the Wonder Woman segment, which in addition to introducing a very cool - and logical - concept, shows off Aaron Lopresti on art, and looks great. Overall, given that this was free I can't complain, but it's done nothing to make me look forward to Final Crisis - and (as I said would happen last week) this failure, and in particular Libra's corniness, has helped me decide to drop Justice League of America from my standing order for now.
The Order #10 ~ Oh, this book deserved so much better. Matt Fraction does his best to bring the story of the Order to a satisfying conclusion, but there's no hiding the fact that it's an accelerated ending that leaves several subplots in the dust. I mean, aside from agreeing to go along, the rest of the Order basically just sit around while Henry does the tough, dirty job that needs to be done to save the day. And Ezekiel Stane goes into villain overdrive to provide rationale for his sudden, violent infliction of mass destruction on Los Angeles, despite the earlier issues being much more measured and subtle in their pacing - he ends up coming off as less of a mastermind than a complete raving psycho, and I kind of preferred the former. Overall the story hits the points it needs to, but there just isn't time to do it all justice, and everything is rushed. The art doesn't help - Kitson did breakdowns, but Saltares' pencilling is 'finished' by no less than three other artists, which produces a distracting mishmash of styles - Veda in particular seemed to have a completely different face every few pages. I don't want to put words in their mouths, since I've got precisely zero inside knowledge, but it seems like Marvel did the bare minimum to fulfil their commitment to this book and get it our the door, while their minds were already elsewhere. And that's a damned shame - they had a chance with The Order to find something new and valuable in the superhero genre, which is sorely needed, but now it's gone, and Marvel is poorer for it.
Avengers: The Initiative #12 ~ I'll say it up front, I don't like Steve Uy's art. I didn't like it when he filled in on an earlier issue, and things haven't improved now - some things he does very well, like colouring (aside from getting Iron Man's jaw wrong) and especially lighting, but in many, many panels, I just don't think he draws very well. Faces especially - Cloud 9 was unrecognisable a lot of the time, and I was using obvious clues like hair colour and costumes to identify a lot of the other characters too. This was actually a bit of a disappointing issue in other ways too - the confrontation between Iron Man and War Machine on the cover doesn't materialise at all, and when we finally see the rookies graduate, their costumes range from generic (Komodo) to awful (Hardball and, again, Cloud 9). And the plot seemed to be moving too quickly - it's a delicate balancing act to keep this many subplots in the air, but sometime during the KIA arc I felt this book faltered, and now there's just too little time being spent on any one storyline for it to feel like it matters much. Cloud 9 - taking her as an example, since she's my favourite - has a few scenes, but we're almost entirely left to infer what's going on in her head from a couple of bits of dialogue, which is just plain unsatisfying. Don't get me wrong, this is a good book with good ideas, but I want to read stories, not wikipedia summaries of stories - Slott and Gage need to slow down and tell their stories at the pace they need to be told at, instead of rushing headlong and losing all the emotional connection.
Witchblade/Devi ~ I used to read both Witchblade and Devi, so even though I eventually dropped both - Devi's art falling from wonderful at the beginning to poor by #10 when I gave up, and Witchblade's 'new direction' around #100-onwards being contrived and poorly executed - I was tempted enough to pick this up. For starters, it's part one or two - maybe that was in the solicitation, but it sure wasn't on the cover, and I was frustrated when I realised that the story wasn't going to wrap up by the end of the issue, especially since time had been wasted by waffling - the second page of the villain's cameo in the middle, for instance, was completely superfluous, since the first page said everything that needed to be said. And of course Devi and Sara do the whole mistaken-identity-fight thing that heroes always do when they cross paths, which... y'know what, hasn't that been done enough by now? Would it really have been such a bad thing for Witchblade and Devi to have a crossover where they didn't get into a stupid fight because Devi's trigger-happy and Sara's suddenly unable to form a coherent sentence to explain herself? Sheesh. The use of both characters having lines of predecessors - and thus the Devi and Witchblade having fought side by side in prior incarnations - was interesting, but aside from that the only notable feature of this issue is a return to the good old eye-candy-aplenty days of early Witchblade, with Sara fighting bad guys in her knickers.
