True Believers #2 ~ I'm not sure how I feel about this issue, though I'm not saying it was bad by any means. But the first one was a really interesting concept, something genuinely new and fresh, and this one feels a bit... samey. It ties more heavily into Marvel continuity, with the Fantastic Four playing a significant role - unsurprising, given the big cliffhanger at the end of the previous issue, but I'm not sure that was the best step, as for one thing it locks this issue into being about Reed half the time, and it's also inevitably a red herring in the end. On the other hand, there's 'original' material that feels more in line with issue one, with Payback seeing a counsellor and discussing her life and 'origin' under paient privilege - interesting idea, but I'm not that much of a fan of 'origin stories' so much as just seeing who a character is, rather than being told where they came from. The cliffhanger at the end of this issue raises some questions, but I can't say it's truly compelling - I'd rather be seeing the True Believers at work, whereas this miniseries so far seems to be about setting them up and then almost immediately breaking them down again, rather than just following the initial cool idea for a while before going all 'disassembled' for the sake of supposedly heightening the drama.
Contract #2 ~ They're having way too much fun with this; also, best comic of the week. Stellar Rangers Inc. - laconic ninja Tsumi, powerhouse Deutschlander Panzer, and hot and kick-ass lady in charge Jessie - head to the Beanstalk, a space elevator complex (space station, kind of - it's real science, go look it up) in search of Luma, a kidnapped girl that no other company thought it profitable to go after. You gotta love Jessie's heart-of-gold teamed with pure ass-kickery attitude. This issue focuses mainly on the team's attempts to get past the Crechebabies, super-powerful cyborgs locked into virtual reality fantasies that hardwire their perceptions of the world around them - they think they're heroic knights, their employers are noble lords, and anyone else is an evil dark elf or sorcerer or what have you. It's both an intriguing concept, even plausible in a wild-sci-fi kind of way, and a source of constant liveliness and humour as the visuals switch back and forth between the real world and the World of Warcraft-esque perceptions the Crechebabies have, laden with amusing heroic fantasy clichés. It's kind of a geek fun all-rounder - you get Blade Runner style tech-noir action, and at the same time poke affectionate fun at silly fantasy.
The only minor flaw - same as I noted in the review of the previous issue, with its preview pages of this one - is that 'Fusion', the colourist, doesn't do a lot of compensating for artist Ariel Padilla when he just does clean lines, without large blocks of black ink denoting shadows. Luckily it's not a huge issue, as Padilla does use his own inked shadows a lot more than the few preview pages last issue suggested, but I think the art overall would be stronger if the coloured backgrounds didn't seem so universally well-lit. Having said that, Fusion's cel-shading on the foreground figures is really eye-catching, and matches the book's light-hearted action feel well. As well as 22 story pages, this issue features a cutesy-styled art page of Jessie, and a five-page backup story in which Jessie dons a very eye-catching wardrobe to infiltrate a strip club. Y'know, just in case the Crechebaby visuals of her as a succubus, half-naked half-angel, and wearing a few bits of duct tape in between (glitch in the VR system), weren't enough eye candy for everyone. Not that I'm complaining; from where I'm standing, I don't see what Ellison has to complain about, sure he lost some blackmail material, but he got tied up by Jessie wearing that. Some people'd pay good money for that. Not naming any names. *cough* Okay, next comic review...
She-Hulk #32 ~ The X-Factor crossover now over and done with, She-Hulk and Jazinda are on the road with freshly-captured Nogor, a super-holy Skrull who could be a big bargaining chip if only they could figure out who they can trust to hand him over to; along the way they run into a Skrull prison ship, which Shulkie just has to take on, and a fairly major figure shows up to complicate matters. More importantly (well, more character-related than plot-related, that is) we see a fairly major step on She-Hulk's road back from the nihilistic doldrums she's been in since Peter David took over - proving that he knew what he was doing all along, told you so - Jazinda gets a lot of story attention, and GG Studio continues to be handling the art, so it all looks sensational. Special credit again goes to Barbara Ciardo for the colours - the delicate handling of palettes to show the quality of light in different scenes is a huge achievement. Peter David's usual mix of action and humour is on show, with some sly in-jokes, some cute wordplay, and a couple of moments of pure slapstick - sure, the story didn't have to have Jazinda accidentally teleport off She-Hulk's clothes before getting the hang of the teleporter, but who wants to complain about a bit laugh? There's serious storytelling, but it doesn't feel the need to take itself seriously - it is what it is, funny as well as serious.
Justice Society of America #18 ~ The big reveal - I think between Previews solicitations and the cover everyone knows it by now - is that Magog is back, in the form of a transformed David Reid, and... well, okay. Geoff Johns' comic book storytelling is as good as ever, with a real sense of awe and anxiety about Gog, and the debates and disagreements about how the Society should be conducting itself in this very unusual situation all believable and stemming from real character drama, and in a couple of cutscenes we get some follow-up on Power Girl in Earth-2, which appropriately enough are drawn by Jerry Ordway; still not loving his style on Kara herself, but it's nice that Earth-2 has a consistent look. But when the big reveal comes around, it's a bit so-so - maybe it's partly that I haven't read Kingdom Come yet, but I think it also comes down to the fact that Reid - he's the soldier with the zappy thing on his hand - just hasn't been around in this title very long, so this doesn't feel like a big development. It's something I've often noted about this title - there's so many characters, and so many stories to do with those characters, that it feels like one issue a month just isn't enough. Mostly that's a positive, but in a situation like this, it's a shortcoming - if Reid had gotten some major attention, been built up as someone who mattered as more than just some guy who's in a scene every now and then for a few issues, his transformation would have been a huge moment. But he's not had that build-up, so it's not as meaningful as it really should be - when the big moment comes, you just get the sense that this has been something built into the character from the beginning, not that he's a character that has been changed by this.
Vix! #2 ~ With the introductions done, this issue sets about raising the stakes, with a secret cabal of somethingorother (I'm sure we'll find out more later) doing somethingorother connected to Vix, and she herself - or rather, alter ego Celeste - having a difficult time at school due to her extra-curricular super-heroing, which comes full circle as the class is attacked by commandos looking for her, and she has to defend her classmates. I'm not sure about where they're going with the 'big picture' plotline - is Celeste actually going to turn out to be the embodiment of divine power? It seems an odd element to throw into a comic like this, which so far has been more in the Buffy realm of the supernatural - lots of action, but not big on having actual meaning beyond the characters themselves. Celeste's personal concerns, the scenes with her friends at school (and her sister at home) are well-presented though, and manage with some convincing dialogue to avoid being just a retread of teen angst scenes we've all seen a hundred times before.
Avengers: The Initiative #16 ~ As promised on the cover, we get to meet the Skrull Kill Krew - and they're crazy. Entertaining though, and quite kick-ass in an insane kind of way - if Rocket Raccoon had a grudge against Skrulls, he'd fit right in here. They hook up with 3-D Man, whose regained his ability to see Skrulls regardless of their new disguise trick; meanwhile in New York, Crusader is still at ground zero of the invasion, and back at Camp Hammond no-one knows what's going on, and the guy in charge is Yellowjacket, who we now know has been a Skrull all along. This issue really hits the heart of that Avengers: the Initiative is all about - it's not just one story, it's seemingly all of them, with several plotlines going at once, and cameos and guest-appearances from dozens of characters, old and new. She-Thing pops up, Komodo reappears (now part of the 'Desert Stars' team in Arizona, led by Two-Gun Kid), Ant-Man's still skulking about and unexpectedly gets himself in the thick of things, we see events tying into the Iron Man comic (soon to be War Machine), we see Nick Fury's re-emergence from Secret Invasion #4, and the Skrull Kill Krew traces its origin back to old Fantastic Four... it's all in here. The one flaw in it is Nick Fury - he accepts Crusader's help when he shows up, and that's just plain inconsistent with what we saw already - the man shot Ms. Marvel, even though she was killing Skrulls left and right, because he couldn't be sure he could trust her (because he's a piss-poor strategist, frankly), there's no way he'd let Crusader walk around, let alone join his team, just because he'd heard of him from Cap ages ago.
Mighty Avengers #17 ~ This is an odd issue, in that it really could be omitted, and I don't know that it's change much. Briefly, the Skrull Hank Pym is having second thoughts about the Invasion, seeing ways in which it could go wrong, which leads to a showdown between him and the Skrull Dugan, who's got a Skrull SHIELD force backing him up. In the end, Skrull Hank is killed, another Skrull takes his place as Pym, and we learn that this has happened several times already - something about Pym just messes with the Skrulls that try to assimilate his personality when they take his form in the new super-undetectable Skrull manner. It's an interesting notion in itself - that a Skrull could be influenced by the personality he or she is faking, and that there's something about Pym that has this power, call it what you will, that's capable of causing this problem when other personalities or more forceful-minded heroes don't. But so far, I don't recall anything in the rest of Secret Invasion that suggests there's anything amiss with Skrull Hank - he's been the loyal little Skrull in disguise, and all this issue gives us of the presumably 'current' Skrull Hank is that he's the one who was seducing Tigra; fair enough, can't think of many better ways of passing the time until D-Day. So (Tigra aside) what I'm left wondering is: does this issue matter? It may be interesting from the point of view of Hank Pym, but is he relevant to Secret Invasion, or Mighty Avengers, and if not, what's this story doing here?
New Avengers #44 ~ Now this is another matter (compared to Mighty Avengers, above) - it's not a huge revelation of Secret Invasion, just an examination of one little segment of the Skrull war machine, and how they achieved the results they did. But it's very clever, it uses characters (especially Reed) who are big in Secret Invasion, and... it's just a great read, y'know? All the Skrull characters, who aside from the Emperor are nobody significant so far as I know (admittedly I don't know the Emperor either, but I've seen his face before), have characterful dialogue that sketches out personalities for them, in just a few lines, that are interesting and compelling. The way they work, and how they arrive at decisions and implement them, is genuinely fascinating to read, and it's in these little tiny bits of business that the Skrulls really come alive as a people, rather than just an antagonist force. This may not be the most plot-crucial tie-in - it basically just shows how the Skrulls figured out how to make themselves undetectable, and really it doesn't matter to the wider story how they did it - but it's a satisfying one, and I think it helps add depth to Secret Invasion that we get to see things like this, behind the scenes.
