More Comics from 9/1

THE NAIL #3: Gore gore and more gore, there was enough of a nugget of a plot to at least make you feel not cheated. As Don Thompson used to say "If this is the kind of thing you like, you'll like this." Eh. UNCANNY X-MEN #448: No Alan Davis, and, let's face it, you really want to see Alan Davis drawing MurderWorld. I do, indeed, hope Sage took that bullet in the face. I mean, MurderWorld should probably be renamed LightWoundingWorld otherwise. We demand truth in advertising! Oh, and doesn't "The X-Men meet the Queen of England" seem very very wrong somehow? Eh.

TALES FROM THE BULLY PULPIT #1: I was going to say something about how strange and weird it was to have a comic starring Teddy Roosevelt and Thomas Alva Edison stealing a time machine and fighting Nazi Martians in Argentina, and then I realized I just read a comic about the X-Men being put in a pinball machine to rescue the Queen of England. I liked this better, but the grade is largely for the At-LEAST-a-Buck-Too-Much cover price. $4.95 woulda gotten this a "Good". Eh.

ELEKTRA THE HAND #1: As you well know, we've often discussed Elektra here at the Savage Critic, and how I find most comics starring her to suck because either she's The Perfect Killer (and there's no drama) or She's Having Issues (which undercuts the very premise of Sexy Ninja Death). Cleverly, they've found a third path here -- Don't Have Elektra Appear in the Flashbacks, and Have 19 Pages of Those. So, in other words, this is really a "The Hand" comic rather than an Elektra one. I liked it OK.

SCRATCH #4: Running and Shouting and All Middle and I say Eh.

MONOLITH #8: You'd think that the Obligitory Batman Appearance would make this a more compelling comic, but you'd be wrong. Only bits I liked were the AIDS test bits, and, huh, did they even say the acronym's name once? Eh.

JUSTICE LEAGUE ELITE #3: I'm sure it's possible to have a more confusing comic starring less appealing characters with the few interesting ones being written largely out of character called a "Justice League" comic -- but I wouldn't want to read that one, either. This was Awful, and is my vote for the Book of the Weak.

BATMAN CATWOMAN TRAIL OF THE GUN #2: Preach preach preach. Nice art, but everything I said in the review of #1 stands. Awful.

Y THE LAST MAN #26: I suppose this was neccesary, but it felt like watching the Deleted Scenes feature on a DVD. OK.

SWAMP THING #7: Decent script by Pfiefer, nice art by Richard Corben (!), but I walked away from it only caring a little, and mostly wondering what Swampy's status is right now. No questions are really answered or even addresed. OK.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: BARBARA'S ZOMBIE CHRONICLES #1: Throwing this in just to see if I can do a review shorter than the title, but it looks like I've already blown that. Ah well. There are Zombies, there is gore, there is an attempt to expand upon Romero's mythos somewhat, but like THE NAIL, above, this really isn't my thing -- I prefer WALKING DEAD. Eh.

SPIDER-MAN UNLIMITED #5: Story #1 has no Spidey, and I think everyone acts like an asshat. Story #2 has Spidey, but he acts like an asshat too. This book serves no good function, Awful.

STREET ANGEL #3: Big leap forward in the art this issue -- this is purely terrific stuff. I'm less excited by the story -- several of the beats seemed forced, But I can give this a very low Good.

SYLVIA FAUST #1: Terrific art, passable story. OK.

UNITED FRONT #1: Anthologies are hard beasts, as I've said 1000 times before people (meaning me) judge them by the least interesting stuff in the issue, and there's a lot of uninteresting marginal material in here -- stories that meander and go nowhere. At least at 3 pages each most of them were over quickly enough. What drives me bonkers is the editorial where the publisher seems to suggest that the market is nothing but superheroes -- when all you have to do is look at a good shop and see that's far far from the truth. Just because some genres are underserved doesn;t mean those genres aren't supported -- it just means you have to be really good to penetrate the market. And most of this material is far from good. About the only piece I thought showed promise was "Yam" by Corey Barsa... and even that didn't really tell a complete thought or have a point. So, sorry, Awful.

PERIPHERY #1: Another anthology, this one with a couple of Steve Niles stories in it. Slight ones, at that (I mean, I thought that first one was dramatically undercut by the "...and by the way, they're VAMPIRES!" Scary!" ending) Still the general level of professionalism was higher, so I'll go Eh here.

RETURN OF THE ELEPHANT: MOTHER COME HOME's Paul Hornschemeier (too many E's!) did this, and it's super creepy in its banality. I did a great big "Ugh! Nasty!" at the end, which I'm supposed to, but this isn't material I really want to think about, damn it. Still, from acraft perspective: Good.

Back tomorrow, I think, with the Books for 9/1

-B