Editurs r gud

Two quick periodical hits, since I'm standing in a pretty empty store today for some reason...

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #552: I'm just generally opposed to any character introduction where a seemingly normal junkie (Down to yelling "China white, we've got a date!") is able to evade Spider-Man through the streets of Manhattan. that's just sloppy lazy writing.

But what bugs me even more is two editorial lapses which just TORE me out of the comic. First off, on page 8 Spidey tears the ass in his suit. On page 10, the crowd comments about being able to see his ass. Page 9, which has got a fairly clear ass shot? Nothing.

(not that I WANT to see Spidey's ass, just saying)

But the bigger one for me is that "The Freak", takes a drug of some kind that literally makes him puke up his guts, on camera, which then swallow him up making a bloody organic cocoon. It's pretty gross and explicit. Then four pages later "Ox" picks up "the Bookie" and the caption at the bottom of the pages says "And let's cut it there folks, before it gets too gruesome for our all-ages comic!"

Uh, what?

This is the first arc of BND Spidey which I really really hated. Phil Jimenez's art makes things a little better, but there's a few really weird shots, like that one on page 7 where it looks like he's channelling McFarlane, with a leg that can't possibly be where it is. Plus that cover? What's wrong with Pete's arms. All in all, I'll say AWFUL.

UNCANNY X-MEN 496: First off, thank god for a comic set in SF where you don't see the GG bridge in every panel, and there's actually a pretty good representation of a Victorian "Painted Lady". But the "Previous in..." page at the start of the book says that the City has morphed into "a far out version of itself from the summer of '69"

Now, maybe this is splitting hairs, but its my understanding that by '69, the Haight was mostly boarded-up store fronts, and that speed and smack had long replaced weed and acid as the drug of choice. Apparently even by '67 the bloom was off the rose, and it was really like '65 and '66 that SF was "groovy".

'69 was Altamont, right?

Interestingly, the giant Eternal is still standing in Golden Gate park, though (cf: Gaiman's ETERNALS mini)... I never expected to see that referenced again, and I suspect that no one (even Neil) knows how that one resolves...

The rest of the book is fine, if a bit slight, especially coming off the Big Crossover, pretty much the textbook definition of an OK comic book.

DC SPECIAL: RAVEN #1: Other than not liking the comic at all, I really have to comment on the cover blurb "Finally in her own EMO series". O. M. G! AWFUL.

Alright, store is full of people again, I'm out...

What did YOU think?

-B