Mixed Plate Comics- Week of 9.21.11

A heaping mouthful of comics grinds to pick at and enjoy this week.  Along with the barrage of New52 #1s had a fab back to back week of Mark Waid's DD and an intro to GoT as a comic which was okay but not spectacular enough to bear that brand, here are the others I flipped thru: Nightwing #1 / DC Universe Presents: Deadman #1 / Captain America #3 / The Red Wing  #3 / Daredevil #4 / Batman #1 / Wonder Woman #1 / Green Lantern Corps #1 / Catwoman #1 / Dark Horse Presents #4 / Birds of Prey #1 / A Game of Thrones #1 / Hawkeye #2.  The massive selections you gotta snatch are...

5     Daredevil #4 Mark Waid & Marcos Martin
I feel cool when I read this book.  You know like when you feast your eyes on the newest, funkdobiest Mondo Tees movie art that just mystifies you with its minimal, stylistic steez.  Yeah, thats what I get when
chilling with Waid, Marcos and the gang on DD.

From the rad, imaginative cover that has the cityscape with its sights on rat-a-tat-ing the hell out of our fave devil-- to the double page splash, cubic-paneling that has some Olly Moss-ish design work to it.  ILL!!!

Foggy and Murdock take on more of those unfavorable cases and their new approach of having peeps represent themselves.  As they rake in the wins they put themselves out there to help a client with similar challenges to Murdock.  What they don't realize is how much trouble they could be in to help Austin Cao.  Did they say something about Latveria?  Please make that mean that my fave Dr come by for a house call!!  Muntsa Vicente's visual attack on the colors pays homage to the silver-age with a nice modern twist. 


4   Batman  #1  Scott Snyder & Greg Capullo

Snyder is one of the baddest, new scribes on the block, as for McFarlane clone aka Capullo-- I am into his cover treatments but interiors can be inconsistent.  I would have preferred an artist less cartoony with darker vibes to match Snyder's moods set.  Batman illustrator roll-call!!  Tony Daniel check, David Finch check, Chris Burnham check, Greg Capullo...

Luckily Fco Placsencia manages the lighting and shadows of Capullo's art with monotones and few brights to keep it Gotham. 

You just know that Dick Grayson is gonna get some major blowback for impersonating the Joker-- but liked how they implemented the tech element there along with the concept of a mobile Batcave.  So that's how you handle not having Oracle around huh?!  Good answer.

Reminds me of how all of us jump on our cell (Google) when we don't know the name of that actress in that one film...yeah but this is all on a Bruce Wayne level budget..cool.

Okay, here is our first family pic of all the Bat-boys in the New 52-- so if Bruce is 29ish, Dick 20ish, Tim 14ish and Damian 10 or so-- I suppose Capullo pulled that off right.  Remember what I told you on Grayson getting some payback, well looks like it might happen sooner than I thought. I told Ethan Van Sciver that his variant cover was my highlight of the week-- oh look, now I just told you.  Look forward to his co-scribe gig with Gail Simone next week in Fury of Firestorms and of course the covers!!      



3  Green Lantern Corps #1  Peter J. Tomasi & Fernando Pasarin
When headed up by team Tomasi/Pasarin-- GLC followed by Emerald Warriors-- were at the times the best Green Lantern book on the planet from month to month.  Looks like that pattern could continue.  More of the same usage of Guy Gardner as the main man with John Stewart coming in as his right hand in place of

Kyle Rayner who will be handed his own GL book and other Lanterns (from the rest of the color spectrum) next week.  Pasarin improves with every book he pumps out as you can see with even more attention to deets with the atmosphere and surroundings of OA.

Like Hal, John and Guy look to find ways of flling their extracurricular time on Earth with their passions but find maybe life on Earth just isn't their calling.

A new super-powered, unknown threat emerges with the ability of taking out a squadron of GLs that are monitoring a sciencell and it goes on to wipe out an entire civilization.

We are left with Guy and John heading up a hand picked team of some hardass GLC to go out and find out what the hell is behind the genocide of a planet.  The go to companion book with Green Lantern if you can't shell out the skrill for the other GL books- Red Lanterns and Bedard/Kirkhams upcoming New Guardians title.


2   Wonder Woman  #1  Brian Azzarello & Cliff Chiang
Wonder Woman has been plagued with not having enough readership despite solid creators being assigned but delivering mediocre, unimpressive approaches that are either to filled with Amazonian / Greek dogma or just suck.  This ish moves away from all of that by jumping right into action and letting the reader figure things out as the story unfolds.  Thank you.  Regular comics readers know that Azzarello's scripts never disapoints. 

Throw in Cliff Chiang on cinematography and you have yourself a creative team that is up to the challenge on reviving longtime WW fans and grabbing some new ones along for the ride. 

I have only enjoyed reading Wolverine (sorry Jason Aaron) and Wonder Woman in their respective team books or in cameo apperances being that the limited screen time seems to force having characterizations down pat. 

Azzarello & Chiang have done their homework and scored big in this ish.  The physicality and warrior-essence of WW is captured perfectly panel to panel and I am just praying each of the books they crank out can be as good as this one.  Most friends and peeps that I have spoke to in shops were stunned how good this book read.  No year-long Odyssey crap story needed, TBNT JMS!  With confidence I attest that Wonder Woman is up there with Animal Man as the biggest surprise, kick-you-in-the nuts title of the New52 thus far.  Yes, this is the top pick by many other top comics sites but I can't deny how effing good the next title is.


1  Catwoman #1    Judd Winick & Guillem March

Sure, everyone is talking about the soft-porn, gratuitous sex scene that was on some Kevin Smith level of nasty (okay not quite but almost- if you don't know type Poison Ivy Widening Gyre in Google search).  Besides all that (and come on this is a younger Catwoman and Batman of course there will be loads of sex) this ish entertains like no other.

Unlike Higgins in this weeks Nightwing (was okay), Winick has Selina Kyle down to a science and you get to know enough about her after the first 6 pages in.  How does that saying go...brevity is the soul of wit.  Winick shows how on top of his game is after busting fab stories in Generation Lost, Power Girl and now in Catwoman.  As for the art...  

Guillem March is on the Hugh Hefner robe wearing tip (yes, Adam Hughes does go to cons in a robe too) when it comes to fleshing out the sexy, geeky crotch tent inducing imagery.  Think DC meets Cinemax after dark.  Winick and March rock a very adult-centric title with Catwoman-- as it should be.  Damn DC is killing it.



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big O