DustinRiccio Comic Reviews

Peter J. Tomasi is also mostly succesful in capturing the Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne dynamic, though a joke on Damian's part about Twitter sort of thudded (yeah, he is a teenager, but he's not really a teenager, if that makes sense.) The story at large does start to get interesting and is at least fairly unique. There's nothing more annoying when reading a Batman comic than realizing that the story you're reading has already been done before any number of times (see: David Finch's Batman: The Dark Knight.) Tomasi and Gleason have yet to really carve their names into the Batman mythos, but this story is a decent read and seems to be picking up steam. I'm gonna stick around and hope it keeps improving.

All that being said, this issue is still clearly setting up bigger and badder things to come. But if his previous Batman arcs are any indication, this will be a story worth sticking with until it all comes gloriously together.

Overall, the setting and the plot twist have got me interested in a second issue but the rampant sex and violence didnt titillate too much without a real story to go with it.

This, along with Batman Inc. #4, are two of the best single issues of a Batman comic in recent memory. They are both required reading for all Batman fans.

Also, that line DC drew at 2.99 was apparently not written in stone.

The art is nice. Andy Kubert has a number of great splash pages and continues to show why hes one of the premiere names in mainstream comic art. I assume at some point Johns will give him more to draw than just people standing around trying to explain/figure out whats going on.

I might pick up another issue or two to see if this fantastic premise ever gets off the ground, especially since it seems the writing duties for the rest of the stories will be given to others. Hopefully someone can deliver on the delightful fun that should be found in this crossover.

Overall, this thing is a waste of 3 dollars and 99 cents. It makes me sad to think that there might be people coming to comic stores and grabbing this book to see what the big reboot fuss is about. Those people are going to read it once, throw it on their coffee table and never have the desire to read a comic book again. And thats a shame. Some of the other reboot titles actually look and sound really interesting, so it puzzles me that DC decided to lead with this one. Oh well. Ill still pick up Action Comics #1 which, by all accounts, is actually worth reading.

So what we have here is a generic story with stock characters that, while having the best of intentions of paying homage to Jack Kirby, completely misses the mark. If you want to read a comic that salutes the King, pick up Godland instead.

I was sort of surprised at how much I enjoyed this issue to be honest. Not sure why, since Jason Aaron has always been a great writer and Frank Castle has proven to be a fascinating character in the hands of a great writer. It really makes me regret the fact that I haven't been following his Punisher run more closely until this point, but I'm definitely on board now. Ennis' work on the character was so fantastic that it would be easy to think of all other Punisher writers as imitators, but Aaron seems to be carving out his own territory in the annals of Punisher history.

This is the 47th issue and by this point writer Jason Aaron and artist R.M. Guera have this stuff down to a science. Their work on this title is very solid and very consistent (as I alluded to earlier, it does occasionally veer too far into schlock but nobodys perfect) and this issue is no exception. If you arent reading Scalped yet, well, this is as good a point as any to jump on board.

Overall, this is probably the best issue of Sweet Tooth in quite some time. The real treat is the wordless story starring Gus and Jepperd that effectively explores and advances their relationship without needing to say anything at all.

Mallory himself has a memento left over from that time period, part of one of the superheros costume that says: VOUGHT AMERICAN CONSOLIDATED. Pulling it out of his pocket, he remarks to Hughie, And I though then, like I think now: how dare they put that word in the middle of something so disgusting but I guess thats an old trick, right? The tragedy here being that when multi-national corporations get involved in the business of warfare, they can put the men and women in uniform at risk. Its a familiar theme for Garth Ennis and The Boys and is handled well here.

That being said, this isnt a horrible comic. Straczynski and Hester are good writers and I enjoy Don Kramers art (I also like the new costume so maybe Im nuts.) Wonder Woman #609 is an alright read in and of itself but it does seem to exist largely just to help set up the big thing thats apparently coming in three issues.

So I think Xombi is a title worth watching. Its been a good read so far and Im hoping it will soon start to let loose even more and raise that freak flag high.