Mixed Plate Comics- Week of 9.15.2010

In this light week, well at least for what I picked up- I actually have a perfect 5 books to drop my mental hi-jinks on to you.  Like any week where there is not so much going on in the current shelves, I jump into the bins for backissues and this week it was all about R.E.B.E.L.S.  I will tell you more about this fab title after the weekly dish: 

5   Birds of Prey #5  Gail Simone & Alvin Lee/Adriana Melo
First off, who in the hell is this Alina Urusa chick that busted this cover?!  Damn Gail Simone has the baddest effing talent around her.

And though some out there in the comicbook interwebs are not quite valuing the collection of artists that collaborate on each ish--saying there are "inconsistencies"-- I for one appreciate the variety and different aspects each artist brings to the pages (ala Brightest Day).  Take Alvin Lee, who I suppose is filling in for Ed Benes-- like Benes, Lee really captures the hard-boiled, fight scenes that are, well what the Birds do.  And then you have Melo to balance out the feel of the story with emotion and keeping us reeled in to the subtle, intimate interactions taking place between the Canaries, Dove, Hawk, Savant and Oracle.

Simone has really come out with her rebirth of the birds in a manner that demands attention at what she is doing here-- not just following in the same formula that was known with her first take- blending warmth, humor and a lot of ladies kicking ass-- but developing complexities in how we see these heroes, definitely adding more and more of the "human" element to these non-metas (well minus Hawk, Dove and Black Canary).



4   Joe the Barbarian #7  Grant Morrison & Sean Murphy
The all-out war is on and we get splash, after splashpage of glorious action and straight ruckus that Morrison & Murphy has been leading us into.

It never gets old seeing how well this books makes use of characters across their family of books, making us forget this isn't a DC book and even gets away with throwing in Snake-Eyes, Grimlock and other novelty characters from our toybox of nostalgia.

Joe, looks to be at the end of his luck in this one and I really don't see this ending well for him-- afterall he is the "Dying Boy" of legend right?  Murphy astounds in his immaculate artistry and Morrison seems to transform himself into a children's storybook scribe, but maybe more for the youth inside of all of us, adults that is.  Graphic, chilling and straight mesmerizing.


3   Brightest Day #10  Geoff Johns/Pete Tomasi & Scott Clark/Ivan Reis/Joe Prado/David Finch
All of what I know about Black Manta goes back to my childhood watching Superfriends over a big-ass bowl of cereal on Saturday mornings.  And this is definitely NOT the Black Manta I remember.

Manta enters the stage in a way that blows your mind, you just get a sense of large-scale badassery about him-- making me think Darth Vader.  Yeah, the big-ass dome makes it easy to draw those comparisons, but like in Return of the Jedi where Luke unveils his father to be some weak, frail, old whitey-- we know we won't get that let down here.

Okay, I am back.  Brightest Day is just the culmination of all the work DC has invested in their attempt at successful weekly/bi-weeklys.  The whole BD team is killing it.  Period.

p.s.-  I am starting to get interested in Firestorm now, but damn it sure took you all a minute to get me hooked in.  Please continue with what you got going here.  Sick!!!!


2   Steve Rogers: Super Soldier #3  Ed Brubaker & Dale Eaglesham

Why oh why does this book have to end??!!! 

Last ish left us with a wimpy, depowered Commander Rogers- looking pretty damn helpless and about meet his maker.  Oh come on, you know that he ain't going out like that my ninja!

Rogers goes to his suppressed memories of getting beatdown by all those bullies and takes it out on the superpowered thugs trying to take him in/out.

Showing all of us that its not the superpowers, costume, or shield that make him the main-man of the Marvel U-- but thankfully he will get all that back on very soon, cause this image of a scrawny little Stevie just won't sell any books now will they.  Brubaker gives just enough dialogue to push the story and spares more than enough space for Eaglesham to get his mad paneling on.  Iam so dialed into Cap since they brought him back.  Thankfully I will still have Secret Avengers and one more ish to enjoy this great origin tale.



1   Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #2  Pete Tomasi & Fernando Pasarin

Tomasi is like reason 1A or 1B depending on when you talk with me, on who has attributed most to the success of the Green Lantern mythos in comics today.  Though Hal Jordan (props to Geoff Johns) will always be the lasting face of the Green Lantern symbol, the GLC book worked as a reinforcing agent to show just how big this stage can be and how the Green lantern mythos can become the center of the DCU (which it has been for the last 2 years- taking over the previous Trinity of Wonderwoman, Superman and Batman).

Emerald Warriors is more of the same but bringing deeper introspection and allowing further shine towards Gardner, Kilowog and to my surprise Arisia!  Each of the Lanterns have a separate agenda and we get a glimpse into such very quickly in this ish, but at the core-- Arisia, Kilowog and Guy have an undying loyalty to support eachother through the unified missions ahead to the uncharted realms of the Galaxy.

The book is fast-moving, yet delves long enough in serious matters that we need to keep tucked away for later like the death of Sodam Yat, the mortality of Green Lantern and of course the cleansing of Gardner's rage which isn't going away all that easy.  Pasarin is probably the only artist out there that makes me forget about the artistic GLC mastery of Pat Gleason (who I look forward to seeing in the pages of Batman and Robin with Tomasi!!)


This post was written by:
big O