UPDATE: Reviews completed!
Ya, I skipped last week. Well, Last week I only picked up the new Rouge Squadron # 2... that was it. Not enough to go to McDonald's with. Actually, while I may seem to heap buckets of praise on Dark Horse's Star Wars line, Rouge Squadron #1 is taking me longer to read the first issue, yup it's a bathroom reader, than our last art race to cross the finish line. Next post I promise... maybe... On with the week's comics!!!!
Walking Dead #23
I know, or at least I think I've said here before, that comics can be a lot like television. This week is more that way than most weeks, but maybe it's because the first two comics I got EVERY month were G.I.Joe and Transformers 20 years ago. Maybe it's just me, but somehow, those 22 pages had an equivalency with 20 minutes of television, a half hour show minus the commercials. I'm not saying a comic book NEED to fill the amount of story you'd find in a half hour of TV, or take a half hour to read even... I have no real point, except that Walking Dead, again, didn't really deliver an episode so much as it delivered a scene. Yup, one scene. Could have been one scene in a stage production... probably about 7 minutes long, and still there's a cliffhanger. We're loyal, we'll pick it up... actually my wife is sick of the cliffhangers being every issue. I can't say anything, I'm a West Wing fan too. I'm not loosing any love for this book. It's always the first read the week it comes out, but the story seems trapped in this prison. The characters are all becoming self destructive, but hey, it's past the end of the world, who wouldn't be? I guess most of our cliffhangers here for the better part of a year have all been negative, we haven't been hit with hope, yet. The Walking Dead #23 checks out the view atop the bell curve at 3 out of 5.
New Excalibur #1
Excalibur, back in the day... Read this list and close your eyes; Sweet Child O' Mine, George Micheal's Faith, U2's Rattle and Hum album... Every Rose Has It's Thorn by Poison. Hear them? Feel your copy of Super Mario Brothers 2 in your hands? Okay... Short Circuit 2, Twins, Naked Gun, Who Framed Roger Rabbit... Shit, I can smell any given dinner of that summer right now. It's 1988 and everybody but me watches the Cosby Show. The original Excalibur series came out. Hell the first 11 issues were as perfect as any of the best of mutant books ever were. The art was gorgeous, the scripts were cunning, cutthroat and never felt like they were holding anything back. Now it's been reincarnated as a title that feels designed in a staff meeting of a toy company. Okay, Marvel was having a string of doing good comics again, now it feels like they're guarding their properties as to not pee in any coffee cups at Merrill Lynch. This felt like a TV pilot, complete with FCC overlords over the shoulder of the writer. Punches were pulled here, and the lack of sincerity is noted. I'd hope for the best, but I'm gonna be cruel to this uneventful first issue; 2 out of 5.
The Book of Lost Souls #2
I want to like this book more than I do so far. It's very classic Vertigo / Sandman, and at the same time, just not to close. Somehow, this book feels expected, yet I don't know what to expect from it. So much of it seems so ambiguous at this point that your head my imagine more cliches than or in the pages. The names are top notch, Maybe I was just to excited to see J. Michael Straczynski and Colleen Doran on the same pages. Am I disappointed? No. OK, yes, I am. I wanted greatness, and It's only above average... Maybe I'm an old curmudgeon today... This is an embittered 3 out of 5. Then again, maybe not... To I weigh on the side of give non-spandex a chance, or call it for being... trite. Lets move on...
Star Wars : Empire # 37
This arc is a joy. I have little different to say than I did for issue 36.
Okay, actually, I do have a bit difference in opinion. I'm mildly irked by Luke being in this book. I'm not saying I don't care about Luke, but the fact is, I don't, at least in this story. This was supposed to be closure to one or Empire's best arc's, with the main character being Lt. Sunber. I thought Empire was supposed to focus on the other side of the lines, and humanize the Empire... which it does do, far more than prior series, but does Sunber have to cross paths with Luke Skywalker. There are neat things about Luke being in the book, one, he's a shit rebel with one high mark on his resume! That's GREAT. I like seeing Luke taking orders and not being special this early in his career, especially out of the cockpit. Hell, by Jedi Han out ranks Jedi flyboy, and you get the feeling that Luke was kinda... in the closet about being a Jedi. Hell, if Star Wars were a different, more introspective narrative we'd have probably seen tertiary Alliance characters making comments about letting him "play" Jedi since there could obviously be no more new ones, unless some survived... not that the head of the council or a general could survive, nurture and train a single uber Jedi... See, this character is too special sometimes, and that's how he used to always be treated in comics... I love seeing him have to earn a place at the table outside a fighter cockpit. It just keeps the universe small that Sunber's going to run into him... I talking everybody knows Worf, Star Trek small! So, this is... a tough call, but honestly... can we give bonus points for art... okay. 4 out of 5.
Lets get on to the real hit of the week.
Star Wars: Republic #79
If you SAW Episode 3... If you want a bar by which to judge what the TV series could and SHOULD be... and want to see the most beautiful art to ever grace Star Wars, BUY THIS BOOK NOW!!!! This is AMAZING. Just crack it open, pop in the Episode 3 Soundtrack and start at track 4. I said the other day, I'm not getting my hopes to high on the Star Wars TV Series, I want it to be amazing, but I don't want to be disappointed due to expectations... I could easily, EASILY be as good as Deep Space Nine's Dominion war seasons. I don't expect it to be as good as Galactica, though the feel must be similar, the worlds of the republic have been torn apart by war and lost their culture and we know it's decades before the Alliance scores a win. Could it be at a Galactica level or better? YES! Republic #79 should have been the pilot episode! But, it's too beautiful to miss... Look!
Ya, I skipped last week. Well, Last week I only picked up the new Rouge Squadron # 2... that was it. Not enough to go to McDonald's with. Actually, while I may seem to heap buckets of praise on Dark Horse's Star Wars line, Rouge Squadron #1 is taking me longer to read the first issue, yup it's a bathroom reader, than our last art race to cross the finish line. Next post I promise... maybe... On with the week's comics!!!!
Walking Dead #23
I know, or at least I think I've said here before, that comics can be a lot like television. This week is more that way than most weeks, but maybe it's because the first two comics I got EVERY month were G.I.Joe and Transformers 20 years ago. Maybe it's just me, but somehow, those 22 pages had an equivalency with 20 minutes of television, a half hour show minus the commercials. I'm not saying a comic book NEED to fill the amount of story you'd find in a half hour of TV, or take a half hour to read even... I have no real point, except that Walking Dead, again, didn't really deliver an episode so much as it delivered a scene. Yup, one scene. Could have been one scene in a stage production... probably about 7 minutes long, and still there's a cliffhanger. We're loyal, we'll pick it up... actually my wife is sick of the cliffhangers being every issue. I can't say anything, I'm a West Wing fan too. I'm not loosing any love for this book. It's always the first read the week it comes out, but the story seems trapped in this prison. The characters are all becoming self destructive, but hey, it's past the end of the world, who wouldn't be? I guess most of our cliffhangers here for the better part of a year have all been negative, we haven't been hit with hope, yet. The Walking Dead #23 checks out the view atop the bell curve at 3 out of 5.New Excalibur #1
Excalibur, back in the day... Read this list and close your eyes; Sweet Child O' Mine, George Micheal's Faith, U2's Rattle and Hum album... Every Rose Has It's Thorn by Poison. Hear them? Feel your copy of Super Mario Brothers 2 in your hands? Okay... Short Circuit 2, Twins, Naked Gun, Who Framed Roger Rabbit... Shit, I can smell any given dinner of that summer right now. It's 1988 and everybody but me watches the Cosby Show. The original Excalibur series came out. Hell the first 11 issues were as perfect as any of the best of mutant books ever were. The art was gorgeous, the scripts were cunning, cutthroat and never felt like they were holding anything back. Now it's been reincarnated as a title that feels designed in a staff meeting of a toy company. Okay, Marvel was having a string of doing good comics again, now it feels like they're guarding their properties as to not pee in any coffee cups at Merrill Lynch. This felt like a TV pilot, complete with FCC overlords over the shoulder of the writer. Punches were pulled here, and the lack of sincerity is noted. I'd hope for the best, but I'm gonna be cruel to this uneventful first issue; 2 out of 5.The Book of Lost Souls #2
I want to like this book more than I do so far. It's very classic Vertigo / Sandman, and at the same time, just not to close. Somehow, this book feels expected, yet I don't know what to expect from it. So much of it seems so ambiguous at this point that your head my imagine more cliches than or in the pages. The names are top notch, Maybe I was just to excited to see J. Michael Straczynski and Colleen Doran on the same pages. Am I disappointed? No. OK, yes, I am. I wanted greatness, and It's only above average... Maybe I'm an old curmudgeon today... This is an embittered 3 out of 5. Then again, maybe not... To I weigh on the side of give non-spandex a chance, or call it for being... trite. Lets move on...Star Wars : Empire # 37
This arc is a joy. I have little different to say than I did for issue 36.Okay, actually, I do have a bit difference in opinion. I'm mildly irked by Luke being in this book. I'm not saying I don't care about Luke, but the fact is, I don't, at least in this story. This was supposed to be closure to one or Empire's best arc's, with the main character being Lt. Sunber. I thought Empire was supposed to focus on the other side of the lines, and humanize the Empire... which it does do, far more than prior series, but does Sunber have to cross paths with Luke Skywalker. There are neat things about Luke being in the book, one, he's a shit rebel with one high mark on his resume! That's GREAT. I like seeing Luke taking orders and not being special this early in his career, especially out of the cockpit. Hell, by Jedi Han out ranks Jedi flyboy, and you get the feeling that Luke was kinda... in the closet about being a Jedi. Hell, if Star Wars were a different, more introspective narrative we'd have probably seen tertiary Alliance characters making comments about letting him "play" Jedi since there could obviously be no more new ones, unless some survived... not that the head of the council or a general could survive, nurture and train a single uber Jedi... See, this character is too special sometimes, and that's how he used to always be treated in comics... I love seeing him have to earn a place at the table outside a fighter cockpit. It just keeps the universe small that Sunber's going to run into him... I talking everybody knows Worf, Star Trek small! So, this is... a tough call, but honestly... can we give bonus points for art... okay. 4 out of 5.
Lets get on to the real hit of the week.
Star Wars: Republic #79
If you SAW Episode 3... If you want a bar by which to judge what the TV series could and SHOULD be... and want to see the most beautiful art to ever grace Star Wars, BUY THIS BOOK NOW!!!! This is AMAZING. Just crack it open, pop in the Episode 3 Soundtrack and start at track 4. I said the other day, I'm not getting my hopes to high on the Star Wars TV Series, I want it to be amazing, but I don't want to be disappointed due to expectations... I could easily, EASILY be as good as Deep Space Nine's Dominion war seasons. I don't expect it to be as good as Galactica, though the feel must be similar, the worlds of the republic have been torn apart by war and lost their culture and we know it's decades before the Alliance scores a win. Could it be at a Galactica level or better? YES! Republic #79 should have been the pilot episode! But, it's too beautiful to miss... Look!
... Do I need to say it? Ya, cause it FEELS good....This is a 5 out of 5!!!!!!
See ya next Wednesday.
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