Five for Friday, but not the Spurgeon kind: Hibbs on 5/15/13

Sorry, this is so late, but lots of stuff going on this week. Under the jump for four new #1s, and something that shouldn't even have been printed!

(Really, that was a pretty shitty week for comics -- I kept most of what shipped LAST week up on the shelf too, just to fill in room....)

AGE OF ULTRON #8 (OF 10): So, I'm reading this and I'm literally thinking, "Why am I reading this? This doesn't count, this story didn't happen being the inner-level alternate reality of an alternate-reality-driven comic. The last page when, dunno, something huge drops on New York, and the city goes up in hellfire and destruction? I'm thinking "Yeah, and...?" I mean, it didn't happen, and it's all just time-travel, alternate-reality nonsense, and there's eight and one half minutes of my life that I desperately wish I had back. Wake me when the Angel-girl shows up to unthread this.... AWFUL.

AVENGERS ENEMY WITHIN #1: This is the first part of the CAPTAIN MARVEL / AVENGERS ASSEMBLE crossover, conveniently not attached to either series. I don't know, this is pretty drama-free to me, because, just like AGE OF ULTRON above, I'm fairly confident that Kelly Sue DeConnick isn't going to murder Carol, so "the enemy within" of her comic-book illness isn't really much of anything at all, now is it? This also wasn't really written with a new reader in mind -- I felt like it thought that I knew what was going on when I opened page 1, and I really don't, especially. And, more importantly, nothing on display here warmed me to Carol or Captain Marvel, or made me want to read or learn more about any of it. Foo! Also? The art was really bad, I thought -- Scott Hepburn doesn't seem to have basic control of anatomy or human proportions. I also have to give this one an AWFUL, though that's more a limitation of the SavCrit scale... "Very EH" might be slightly more accurate...

DOOMSDAY.1 #1 (OF 4): John Byrne has been killing it with these sci-fi books now -- I thought this was very much a airport best-seller from the 70s or something, and that's not even slightly a complaint: there is an easy level of craft and professionalism on display here, with many dramatically distinct characters. This isn't saying a LOT, since, like I said "shitty week of comics", but I thought that this was easily the best thing that I read this week. VERY GOOD (and available on our digital store, he said fruitlessly)

DREAM MERCHANT #1 (OF 6) : One of two named "Dream" books, and the one I couldn't really follow very well. The art by Konstantin Novosadov has some nice ethreal qualities, but it gets colored far too dark in too many places, and he kind of bobbles the faces again and again. The writing I thought was too self-indulgent, and should have covered twice the ground in half the space. WHAT IS THE ACTUAL PREMISE OF THIS COMIC? It's really not in issue #1. A very very low OK. (You could also get this at our digital store... and the coloring might be tuned to a screen, for all I know)

DREAM THIEF #1 (OF 5): Our other "Dream" comic is much easier to follow as Jai Nitz gives you a reason to care for the protagonist, and set out a controlling mystery very effectively. And I thought the art by Greg Smallwood was extremely effective in the flashback-to-dreams sections. The story is kind of Little Nemo in Slumberland meets The Spectre, and while I found the mystery compelling, I'm not sure that the body count produced makes the book really my cup of tea. Still, this is a very very solid GOOD, maybe even a bit higher.

That's what I thought at least, what did YOU think?

-B