Mixed Plate Comics- Week of 2.23.11

A sad week to be a nerd.  With that said tons of great books, films and stuff to get us out of that funk.  Bummers to not have a new episode of Young Justice and who else was not feeling that Smallville rip of Hangover??  Only cool spot was hawtie Cassidy Freeman rocking the mic and that bit of Chloe telling Clark that she has recruited Batman and Wonder-Woman into their league.  Ahh and here are the panels, pages and word bubbles that kept me flipping all week:  Gotham City Sirens  #20 / Fantastic Four #588 / Iron Man 2.0  #1 / New York Five #2 / Power Girl #21 / Secret Avengers #10 / Justice League: Generation Lost #20 / Action Comics #898 / Teen Titans #92 / Avengers #10


5   Fantastic Four  #588   Jonathan Hickman & Nick Dragotta/Mark Brooks

An impressive homage to the always classic art stylee of FF co-creator and legend Jack Kirby.  Didn't know much about artist Nick Dragotta but I sure do now!  Despite the throwback illustrations, Hickman's contemporary and exceptional storytelling allowed for a gripping, emotional, hold your breath kinda page turner with so much too see in the pictures that dialogue was non-existent until the very end.  

The book covered a month of mourning for the recently departed Johnny Storm-- how it has impacted each of the family members-- and leaves some breadcrumbs on what we can expect in the coming issues of the re-tooled Future Foundation story threads.

Equally as engaging is the second part of the final Fantastic Four ish that takes us into an intimate conversation between Spidey and Franklin, who both share the loss of a close best friend / Uncle.  Creates a real natural bridge to Spidey's inclusion to the band of scientists, filling the space of his buddy and acting as a mentor for his #1 fanboy (all-powerful) Franklin Richards. 
 
4   Power Girl #21   Judd Winick & Sami Basri
The tie-in arc with the JLI book (Generation Lost) looks to get even better with Karen getting the cold shoulder from Booster, Ice and the rest of her friends as they deal with the death of Blue Beetle and what's up with Winick and his hate for the Beetles?  Yes, if you recall it was him and Geoff Johns that killed off Ted Kord (Jaime Reyes' predecessor) to kick-off Infinite Crisis.  Again, hoping this is a way for them to bring

Kord back somehow...  PG then leans on Batman (Dick Grayson) for help by forcing him into remembering that Max Lord is in fact a real person and responsible for a number of orchestrated attacks against the hero community (murdered Magog- though blamed on Captain Atom).

Dick is eventually coerced into working his detective mojo on the corpse of Kord with the O.G. Dark Knight and Bruce uses his knack for logic to convince him that Ted Kord did not take his own life.  Being that Bruce Wayne was not around this timeline during Lord's global-mindf*ck of Earth's population...he wasn't affected and knows just how dangerous of a player he is.  So that puts the JLI, Power Girl and the Batmen on the opposition of the devious head of Checkmate.

Really curious how this will play out into the eventual Flashpoint books being that Batman is know somewhat of a time-jumper 

3   Secret Avengers  #10   Ed Brubaker & Mike Deodato

Commander Rogers and the rest of his black ops crew get their much needed revenge on the agents of the Shadow Council- Fury and Steele, that to this point have had their way with the Avengers.

Moon Knight gets into some of his own comedy hi-jinks (usually savored by Ant-Man) when he is discovered behind enemy lines.  Good to see Valkyrie & Widow make a rare appearance in their attack that is highlighted by War Machine and Rogers busting an ill take on the fast-ball special which leaves, Steele a bit  incapacitated.    

Wannabe Fury gets his ass easily handed to him too, which was a bit deflating since he has pretty much been the elusive, major badass in the last issues.  Oh wells, all things come to an end!  Shang-Chi is eventually saved from nearly being sacrificed to some demons by his insane, evil zombified pops.  Next chapter will go WWII flashbacks into the super-soldier antics of John Steele and Steve Rogers.

Brubaker and Deodato deliver on the goods that IMO is the tops Avengers book out there (yeah, there is like ten of em or something).

2   Justice League: Generation Lost  #20   Judd Winick & Joe Bennett
Winick humanizes Max Lord as less the evil, big-boss man by telling his origin story on how his family were victims to powerful, big-bad Corporations.  Due to his father's supposed murder and mother influencing Max to go down the darkside-- to be less of a philanthropist and more in line with the likes of Lex Luthor.  Re-living his transformation with the retcon of his mommy-dearest, made me think of how Lord was written by Giffen and DeMatteis prior to his infection and though he was written as an corporate- opportunist-- Lord
was definitely a force for good.

As for him now being more the maniacal, global politician with a world-view of how he can make the world better for the many-- despite the suffering of the few-- it's right in line with why I was such a fan of the Checkmate book when it was headed up by the man, Greg Rucka.

I still for some reason doubt that Jaime Reyes is dead though.  It's hard to swallow down that a young, relatable, Latino-hero will be axed-- especially with his supposed live-action TV show that DC is trying to get picked up in the future.  Whoa, now that was a bit of an tangent...My bad!  As you can guess, the final standoff of Lord and his OMACS (so pumped to see them back!!) and the JLI is right around the corner and expect some major fireworks between the old buds Booster and Lord.

My fave non- Batman or GL book out there.  Props to Winick for his impressive salvo of left (JL: Generation Lost) and right (Power Girl) handed jabs for the knockout of this weeks top-list...well almost if it wasn't for..


1   Action Comics #898   Paul Cornell & Pete Woods

How can you not be hooked with the rematch between Lex and Larfleeze (with some help from Glomulus)?!  This comedy-infused action genre has been missed since Blackest Night, where Larfleeze stole the show from Hal, but lucky us that we have the rest of DCU creative like Cornell and Woods rocking their Orange Lantern stories!

Funniest shit in sometime with Larfleeze calling one of Luthor's croonies a "construct"!!!!  Oh man, nothing more to say on this ish as you really need to read it yourself.


This post was written by:
big O