CrazyforRAMU's Profile

Supernerd Ryan North writing supernerd Reed Richards grappling with the problem of vampirism is pretty much my favorite recipe for a Blood Hunt tie-in. Add on rock-solid art and a big supporting role for Alicia, my favorite character in this volume, and you've got an issue that I'll happily call great.

The initial scenes, with their time-jump and their pages packed with gorgeous, incomprehensible mysteries, didn't inspire a ton of confidence in me.

Fortunately, Wyn's story picks up and provides a satisfying plot along with a challenging resolution. Ultimately, I think this is a very good comic.

I don't think it quite clears the bar to greatness, though. I think, like the se ries as a whole, this provides the illusion of depth and intrigue without ever delivering really meaty revelations. Which is kind of Jonathan Hickman's whole Deal.
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Simple isn't always bad. This book is about punching Nazi vampires in the face, and it approaches it with the perfect tone. It's fun and fast and full of bombast; the dialogue is deliciously irreverent (also hilarious).

The art. I like the art. But I also see it as an instructive example of my critical terminology. Would I call this art "polished?" Never in a million years; it is undeni able that a lot more work could have gone into details and precision. But this is also what I mean when I say that art has "good bones": It's clear and dynamic, and it succeeds in portraying both the beats of fighting and the expressions on faces. And in its raw, unpolished state, it actually suits the roguish, devil-may-care pace of the script perfectly.

Petty, positive thing: I LOVE that this comic rejects the "my finger is in my ear, so I'm on the radio" cliché and actually SHOWS the heroes using Avengers Identicards to communicate.
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The art is gorgeous, and there's plenty of important event plot development. The pace and the overall level of action are slightly bothersome; this is one of those comics that boils down almost entirely to people talking to each other. And the shocking reveal that Miles is a vampire is…apparently not a big deal?

On the other hand, Sam's inspirational speech is some mighty good talking.

I also like it when the heroes are as insightful as a reasonably engaged reader. Carol makes a key deduction that attentive readers should already have picked up on, and her timing is perfect.
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The art is mind-warping in its intensity, and the fighting is nearly as enthralling. But the plot isn't one for the ages; all Hulk and Banner find is another plot coupon in a fetch quest that looks like it's going to drag on and on before Charlie is restored. So this book has a little disappointment to go with its infernal delights.

This is a fast, spectacular story--spectacular in that it contains many spectacles. The artist digs in and makes them look formidable; there are some portfolio-worthy splash pages in here. The script slams through a lot of startling, intriguing plot developments, and the finale certainly encourages that good "and THEN what happened?" feeling. I'm not convinced the dialogue is particularly great, t hough.
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To me, it's not quite as beautiful as previous issues. And the slow development of the plot continues to irk me, as do the questions that go unanswered (just how real was Amano?). Ultimately, though, I think the biggest problem is my unrealistic expectations, so I'm striving to put them aside and really notice everything on the page--because there's a lot of subtlety in the slowness.

I enjoyed this, but I think it's right on the border of "good comic." What tipped it over for me is that, where other Blood Hunt comics so far have, at best, nodded for a panel or two at the moral problem of freshly turned vampires attacking humans, this one-shot is ENTIRELY ABOUT THAT. And it doesn't shy away from the impossible-to-untangle knots and contradictions.

If I love the mater ial, the storytelling reins in my enthusiasm. There's nothing wrong with the pace, structure, or dialogue, and Jubilee's voice sounds great. But I tend to count character work as material/content rather than technical writing talent, anyway. And if none of the prose offended, not a lot of it stuck in my memory, either.

I am forever waffling back and forth on whether or not I've acquired the taste for Enid Balám's art. This particular issue has my needle moving into positive territory--but it's certainly not huge on detail.

I've only read one other Forgiven story, and I hated it. This issue reminds me just how big a role the writer plays in how characters land with me.

Finally, the "Jubilee as knight-errant" premise nicely matches her appearance in the last round of FCBD promos.
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My latest literary snob observation is that J.M. DeMatteis definitely doesn't believe in the death of the author. He KNOWS what Peter Parker is thinking, and he won't hesitate to fill an entire page with narration to make sure you know it and can't argue about it.

As you can guess, wordiness remains the primary fault I hold against this series. It slows the pace and sometimes confuses t he narrative. But there is a finely-crafted story unfolding here, and though they might be belabored, the feelings are genuine.

The art remains strong. Sometimes the faces get goofy and melodramatic, but the blocking is exquisite. The author and artist probably share credit for that--depending on how detailed Mr. DeMatteis's instructions were.
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The main strip confirms a critical fact about the author's current Daredevil run, though I think I'm not alone in having guessed it after #9. Beyond that, it shows Wilson Fisk engaging in monstrous violence and self-indulgent navel-gazing. Both pursuits are conveyed with talented storytelling, but not so well that my interest was truly captured.

The reprint strip makes an instructive co mparison. There were LOADS of moments there that stuck in my head. In the main strip? Mainly just the big reveal and the monstrosity with which Fisk was drawn, which was far too over-the-top for me.
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There's still a lot of pretension in the script (my god, the narration in that first flashback scene), the villain's plan remains vague, and the pace is slow. But accessing a seed of genuine pathos in Deadpool gives the issue the weight it desperately needs.

The art is a high point at the beginning, combining inventive layouts with great rendering and lighting effects. It gets looser as the issue goes on, but it never dips anywhere close to average.
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This issue is balanced, but not in a good way. Every positive--like Ellie, like the humor, like the protagonists' banter, like the dynamism of the art--is counterbalanced by a negative, like the often-too-casual voices (Solem! What the hell happened?!) and most especially, like Death Grip. He's stupid, he sounds stupid, and his plan seems stupid (and vague).

To be even more subjective a nd critical, the positives are undercut by the fact that the better an idea is, the more likely it is that the author swiped it. The lovely Wade-Ellie relationship leans heavily on Gerry Duggan's past work. Not only was Princess invented by Alyssa Wong, but she's not that novel to begin with: Take Thori the Murder Dog, gender-swap him, dunk him in Carnage goop, et voila. Hell, Ziglar will even rip himself off: Death Grip's chismoso lackey sounds so much like Doug that at first I thought it was an undercover shenanigan.

To drop a familiar but hard-to-attribute quote: This comic is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

Final catty nitpick: It's "hoard," not "horde." I'm tempted to apply for a copyediting gig at Marvel, but I suspect the reason the job's done so poorly is that it pays in peanuts and "exposure."
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Well, this is ridiculous. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. But for it to be a good thing, you have to approach this with a very specific sort of open-mindedness.

For once, the extra pages really helped. The author has space to make each character sound like more than just an action figure, tie up a few continuity threads, and, most importantly, offer a plausible motivation for the more heroic contestants in this corny ol' battle royale.

Of course, big mysteries remain--and that's okay. It's unclear exactly what Apocalypse is offering, and whether any of the contestants know any more than we do.

While the character work gives me a pleasant surprise with its depth, no such pleasantries await on the visual side. You have to strap in for a relentless 90s throwback. Not necessarily a bad one, but undeniably a dated one. Unclear action and everybody posed at all times like they're ready for a cover shot, woof.

Nothing about this is really in my wheelhouse, but I can already see that it's going to be the art that truly tries my patience.
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Just after I've decided this is a kid's book with decent crossover appeal for adults…this. Puzzle Man's ability to warp space and travel through the pages of the comic suggests major, meta-textual, She-Hulk or Gwenpool-type powers. But instead of exploring them, the issue spends most of its pages on this "Highlights for Children" stuff.

It's well executed and decently integrated into Ba iley's ongoing story. But still.

This issue also gives me definite "Wait, we're not cancelled? What do we do now?" vibes. #8 is a weird place for them to show up, but this still feels like a scramble to find a purpose after the fairly tight first arc.
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So it turns out, Miles's significant role in the bigger event was incredibly brief. Here, in his own title, Blood Hunt serves as an excuse to revisit his personal, even stupider vampire story. At least it gives Hightail an opportunity to shine.

I felt that the author was having particular trouble breaking out of his preferred voice. Dracula sounds aristocratic by virtue of filling a who le page with verbal diarrhea. Blade sometimes sounds like himself (which is actually a bad thing) and sometimes not. It's just inconsistent enough to disappoint all expectations.

On the visual side, I'm faced with personal irony. Usually, I LOVE to moan and nitpick at Federico Vicentini's hyper-dynamic art for this title. But when it gets replaced with this polished yet generic (and dated) collaboration, I miss Vicentini's frenetic work.
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I WANT to like this. I think the story has a fundamentally sound shape, the characters are appealing, and the art is excellent (particularly for a collaboration).

But the pace is so fast and the dialogue is so simplistic that the kids end up looking like morons every time they discover new information and change course. (And also, the world they journey through seems suspiciously unaffe cted by the vampire apocalypse.)

Perhaps this story needs more pages to breathe. And perhaps it's been scripted for a younger audience, but in a haphazard way.
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I said that #1 was decent, but that a reader needed a nudge to bother reading it.

#2 is nudging me in the wrong direction.

The author's scripting remains disjointed and harder to parse than it needs to be. This whole corporate vampire plot is unrelated to Blood Hunt and lines up due to pure chance? Blerg.

Where cause and effect are clear, they also seem inconsequen tial. The baddies have a vampire-attracting pheromone. The feral vampires are following the Lizard. 2 + 2 obviously = 4, but so what?

The way Marcelo Ferreira dresses and poses female characters continues to bug me, this time more than the last.
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This is either the best or second-best issue of the series. It isn't perfect. The pace is choppy, some of the dialogue is sappy, and the art could use more detail (particularly in the settings).

But the storytelling is clear and compelling, the content is terrific, and the insights into Kamala's character (mostly shown, not told) are world-class. This issue whacks Kamala with plenty of bad news, preventing the overall experience from feeling too saccharine. It leaves her with a very tense, intriguing status quo.

The authors came up with a great way to massage Kamala's MCU powers into her 616 story, not forcing them on her and future creators, but opening up a door to a range of possibilities. (Also, the solution to her power glitches was refreshingly simple and logical, without being telegraphed in advance.)
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This was an impressive and fun installment. The author juggles a lot of different plot-balls, developing the story from many angles at once while sliding some enjoyable dialogue in, too. The artist collaboration works remarkably well, with consistent blocking and finishes smoothing the joints between McGuinness and Nauck.

It might not be full-on epic, but it's fast and polished enough t o get me enjoying the reading experience instead of nitpicking.
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It's the last issue, but it's not so much a resolution as a segue into Venom War. If that's a sin, it's a minor one at best.

I found this issue engaging, though not faultless. The art is superb; Pere Pérez delivers gore, polished characters, and imaginative layouts with equal, admirable talent.

The prose is good, driving the story steadily forward and massaging divergent nar ration smoothly into the scenes. (The dialogue still needs more contractions. I'll keep saying this until Torunn Grønbekk finally develops a good ear for American speech.)

The ideas and plot developments are interesting, but there's a want of logic beneath a few of them that holds this issue shy of greatness. Examples: Everybody else (Liz Allan in particular) apparently goes on vacation for a few weeks while Flash and Carnage pull themselves together, and the pseudo-political protest rally isn't justified/explained well.

I'm always a sucker for a good philosophical reference, and this issue uses the Ship of Theseus in a relevant and enlightening way.
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