Cautiously optomistic.

Immortal Thor #1 was pretty goood.
There were sections of this comic that were similar to Walt Simonson's first issue, which was much appreciated. The story was fine, with several standout elements, such as Loki's narration, and the reveal of the antagonists. Other parts didn't land as well, such as "The Utgard-Thor", having an evil version of the hero as an opener was not impressive. Overall, the story was fine, but felt like a lot of things we've seen before. Given Ewing's track record with Immortal Hulk (except for that ending. Yeesh!), Defenders, and Venom, I'm intersted in seeing where the story goes. At least, if this series ends with Thor yelling at God, it will be thematically appropriate.

The art was good, nothing special, Coccolo's an Asgard veteran and he gets the job done. Decent panel count per page, no over-reliance on splash pages, good page turns. Solid storytelling. Matt Wilson's colors were kinda washed out. It's a personal taste thing, but I like a more vibrant palette for Thor comics. Muted colors are for Daredevil or Punisher. Solid cover by Alex Ross, but, and this is a nitpick, it's a pinup, and doesn't tell me much about the comic.

All that said, for 3.99 it was find, for 6.00, it could have been better. more

He destroyed the Bifrost by... holding on to the ground REALLY hard?! Sweet Christmas, this is bad.

Full disclosure: I'm not following Thor. I read this as a Hulk tie-in, and will be reviewing it as such.

The art is not great. There are almost no backgrounds, the figure work is sketchy, and Martin Coccolo's usual facility with facial expressions is noticeably absent. He appears to be doing an impersonation of Ryan Ottley, which is hilarious because Ottley is off the Hulk book now. The coloring is dull and muddy, Matt Wilson is doing nobody any favors. Both artists have done much better work. The book looks rushed, and incomplete. It reminds me of an early 90's issue of Brigade.

Speaking of terrible stories... yeah, Donny's back to smashing action figures together in the sandbox. This comic has plumbed new depths of absurdity. To start with, Thor is now a hulk - which looks great on the cover (Thanks to Gary Frank for giving me something to be positive about.), but falls on its face in practice. Thor-Hulk and Hulk hit each other. A lot. Then Hulk becomes Thor, because... why not? Then Thor-Hulk breaks the Bifrost, the magical bridge that transports people to Asgard, by holding on to the ground REALLY, REALLY hard! Banner, somehow, Knows all about Titan (whatever that is) despite %$#$-all having been explained about it in either series. The comic ends with the Thor-Hulk and Hulk-Thor punching each other hard enough to make a planet explode.

There is no character development. There is no plot. There's barely any setting, judging from the art. I'm thoroughly disappointed, and I can't wait for this to be over. more

It was better than the Alpha issue, at least.

Cards on the table, I read this because it ties into the Hulk's comic. I'm not up on Thor, and I don't want to be.

This issue committed one of the Cardinal Sins of Comics; it explained a key plot point for a series in a tie-in issue. We finally got an explanation of what happened in El Passo... in a Thor comic. Not a Hulk comic. There's no excuse for that. Otherwise it wasn't bad.

The cover is great. Gary Frank has been killing it on covers for this crossover. Sure would be nice if Marvel'd pony up to have him do interiors. Speaking of which...yeah, not great. Martin Coccolo did a very uneven job on this issue, and there's no inker to lay the blame on. Some pages, like the final splash are impressive. My favorite panel from this issue is the one of Spider-man with Thor's ravens. But many others feel stiff, 2-dimensional, and, frankly, amateurish. Captain America looks insane, There's a panel where he looks like he's decided to bite Tony's nose off, and is about to do it. Matt Wilson's colors don't help. The whole issue feels flat, and dull.

It's nice to see Cates doing more than bashing action figures together. The opening scene with the Avengers is pretty good. I got a chuckle out of Tony pulling Reed's leg. I thought Tony's personality was captured well, but Cap was a one-dimensional twit "I'm telling you, stand down". Seriously? Why do people feel the need to keep re-enacting Civil War? There's a good bit of interaction between Odin, who's ghost, and a hammer, for some reason, and Banner. Here's where we get the El Passo flashback. Which didn't make a whole lot of sense, honestly. It seemed to pick on a thread from Immortal Hulk, then took a left turn at Albaquerque. We also got a tiny preview of, what I assume, will be the new Knull character.

Just a question? How many dead Celestials are just laying about? The Avengers headquarters is in one. Thor and Hulk are fighting in the severed hand of one. Tony has a new set of Hulk Buster armor that's, apparently, made of a Celestial. For a while, the Guardians of the Galaxy shacked up in a Celestial's severed head. These things seem kinda fragile for near-gods.

There were a couple of back-up stories. I enjoyed the Defalco, Frenz, and Breeding collaboration on an Enchantress tale. more

I don't know what the hell I just read... but I love it!

Shaolin Cowboy is back, with all the insanity that thought entails. Cruel to be Kin picks up where Who'll Stop the Reign left off - the Cowboy (who will always be Clint Mifune to me from now on) standing outside the Chick Inn, clutching his chest, possibly dying. The issue is largely flashback, as one of the talking monitor lizards that has a deal with the city to keep the streets clear of carrion relates the story of his childhood wandering the desert with the Cowboy. There's a kung fu fight with a giant lizard,and an encounter with Stuey-Hitler riding a flying jellyfish. Pure insanity, and yet I was able to buy in instantly.

Not enough can be said about Geoff Darrow's artwork. The talent and craft on display in every panel is sublime. Dave Stewart's colors are understated, but perfectly suited to make Darrow's hyper-detailed artwork pop off the page. Truly a feast for the eyes.

The story is thin, little more than an excuse for Darrow to draw whatever the Hell he wants, but the storytelling is fantastic. Page layout and panel composition are second-to-none. Everything just flows so beautifully.

I will be checking out the next issue.

AMITOFU! more

Three steps forward, two steps back. Issue 3 suffers from sub-par art and scripting.

After issue #2 I was optimistice about where this series was going. Alas. While the STORY issue #3 was trying to tell was good, the art and script were poorly exectuted. There are 2 pencilers, and 4 inkers on this issues, and it shows. The art is highly inconsistent; some panels are fine, others feature bizarre facial expression or physical distortions. Sean Chen is an excellent artist, but you wouldn't know it from these pages. Michael Yg, is new to me, and the only work of his I can find is on Iron Fist. I don't think it would be fair to judge him from this comic because it's obvious that multiple inkers have left their mark on the pages. Layout and composition are ok, but page-turn reveals and splash pages are utterly let down by the quality of the art. Check out the demon reveal, or when Lin Li mashes the remaining sword shards into is arms, or when Lin Li, Mei Min, and Ying Yi team up to takee on the demon. You'll see what I mean. Powerful scenes that fail in execution.

While I still think the story is good, the script for issue #3 took a turn for the worse. The scene transitions work well, a flash back leading into a scene with the villian, which blended well into a scene with Lin Li. The dialogue is inconsistent, in some places capturing the characters' voices perfectly, in others, it's cliched. Lines like "You're not her real Dad!", and "This is my family's sword. My birthright. My Destiny", and several more landed like a fart in church. There was some good character work - Lin Li's rival Ying Yi joining the fight against the demon, revealing him as more than a one-note bully.

I would like to have seen this comic with a single artist and inker, I think it would have made a huge difference. Still optomisitc about the series, but this issue was a stinker. more

Not bad, but could have been better.

I'll get this out of the way upfront: There is no excuse for having 11 pages of your first issue be a flashback about eating dinner. None.

That said, this issue wasn't bad. I'm unfamiliar with the writer, Tochi Oneybuchi, but I felt they captured Sam and Joaquin's voices very well. The script was fine. It established the conflict, identified the players, and seeded some subplots. The bulk of the story focused on an attempt to stop smugglers on a train, with all the fisticuffs and explosions you'd expect. It was fine, though Joaquin's cousin being on the train was too much of a coincidence to swallow.I appreciated the use of the White Wolf. He's a great character that hasn't been used properly since the 90's. I am, however, over Crossbones.

The art is really good for the most part, but kinda stiff. Many of the panels feel like pin-ups instead of pieces of sequential art. The page layouts mostly use 2 or 4 large panels which can result in some panels feeling crowded by word balloons, or sometimes feeling like the actions depicted are unrelated to the previous panel. R. B. Silva's character work is outstanding. The lines are clean and precise. He makes excellent use of facial expressions, and body language to convey character and emotion. He also uses silhouette to good advantage. Unlike many comics I've seen lately, almost every panel has a detailed background.

This looks like a good, if slow, start to the series. I'm interested in seeing what comes next.

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"HUlk...(yawn)...zzzzzzz"

I give the creative team credit, this comic had the potential to be terrible, but instead it was marginally above average.

I'm not sure why (aside from extracting the price of another comic from the readers) Marvel decided to kick off this crossover with an Alpha issue, as though it were a major event, and not something that will be forgotten in 2 years. But, here we are.

The story is wafer-thin. Hulk and Thor hit each other. That's it. Nothing more to see here. Move along. This comic expends 2 double-page spreads, each packed with tiny panels, to catch the reader up on events in the Thor and Hulk series that led to the present moment. Mileage may vary, but to me, it reads like a highlights reel of Cates' worst ideas. I have not enjoyed Cates' Thor, and I find his Hulk unreadable, so I was a bit surprised that I didn't hate this comic, but I'd be hard-pressed to give a good reason for why it exists.

The art is pretty good. We start with a Gary Frank cover that is downright excellent. Anyone following that has their work cut out for them. Martin Coccolo gives it the old college try. His page layout is very good, but his panel composition could be better. He does a great job on facial expressions, and his close-ups are very effective. His art style feels a bit loose, and panoramic shots that should feel cinematic fall a little short. Many of the panels have minimal or no backgrounds, making the comic feel slightly unfinished.

There's not story here. Cates is just bashing action figures together in the bathtub. This comic is full of odd sight-gags; the watcher eating popcorn, the arena splash imitating a fighting game, etc. There's weird stuff too, like "Betty" being back in Bruce's head after clearly being expelled in Hulk #6. If I had to guess, I'd say this was written before the end of the first hulk arc was completed. Hulk and Thor both talking to voices in their head. I think this was supposed to be deep or funny, but I feel like it just demonstrates that Cates is out of ideas, and simply repeating himself. Perhaps it's intended to be self-deprecating humor, but it fails even at that.

A cardinal sin of comics is explaining plot elements from a main series in a tie-in. This comic does just that, explaining that Banner is thought to be responsible for 17 deaths in El Passo. Why this should bother Thor, who's thousands of years old and has a personal body count in triple digits, is not explained.

If watching someone else play Mortal Kombat is your idea of a good time, this comic is for you, I can't recommend it for anyone else.

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An almost perfect first issue.

The creative team did a great job establishing the setting, setting up the main conflict, and seeding a few subplots. Tech-9, Wise Son, Fade, Flashback, and Holocaust are introduced, with the much of the focus being put on Tech-9. I would have liked to know more about these characters by the end of the issue (I"m an old Milestone fan, so I'm familiar with the characters, but new readers might need more information). The issue ends in a way that left me wishing it was 10 pages longer. It felt like part 1 of 2, and, as a rule, I think first issues should be complete stories, in and of themselves. It didn't end on a cliffhanger, exactly. I was left wanting more and will definitely check out the next issue.

The art is flawless. Chriscross is seasoned pro, who's no stranger to Dakota. He has a distinct style that's immediately recognizable, and extremely relatable. This comic is some of his best work. He is able to communicate a lot using just facial expressions and body language. His action scenes are explosive and kinetic - no static poses or boring panels. He knows how to use splash pages to good effect, and his page layouts are always interesting. There's a splash of a graffiti drawing of Icon that gave me chills.

Geoffrey Thorne's script is tight. I think he writes dialogue well, and he keeps exposition to a minimum, usually pairing words with action in classic show-don't-tell style. The pace is a bit slow, but there's a lot of work put into world building. Thorne captured the voices of the characters well.

After reading this comic, I'm excited about this series, and looking forward to seeing what happens next. This comic gave me the same thrill I go reading the original Milestone comics, and I recommend it. more

This comic isn't awful, but it really isn't good.

The idea that John is going home after being dead for years is interesting, but barely got explored. The conflict was bizarre - someone sold the x-genes of the mutants on the reservation to the government? Like that's a thing? And the cops are rounding up the elders? I just couldn't buy into it. The script was uneven, so-so in places, and clunky and odd in others. Having John call one of the cops "brah", for example. Unless I'm missing something, it's verbal fad he would have been unaware of, being dead for so long. It's picky, but stuff like that pulls me out of the story. The comic was fast-paced. We go from arrival to trashing a police station, to fighting a werewolf in 10 seconds. It's a one-shot, there's no room for decompressed storytelling and they wanted to cover a lot of ground, so I appreciate them getting down to business. It's consistent with John Proudstar's impetuous personality.

For the most part, the art didn't click with me. I thought the opening sequence with John arriving in town was quite good. Solid composition and interesting page layout. Once the action started, the figures seemed stiff, and the panels felt very static. The artist did well with facial expressions, particularly in close-up panels, like after John got shot "Bullets?", that was great. To me, it felt like he was out of his depth with the fight scenes. Not terrible, but it just didn't fit with what I look for in an X-book. I like the new costume design, but I have a question; why does John have a holster on his hip if he doesn't have a gun. It's obviously intended to be a holster, not just a random pouch. Why?

It was nice to see John portrayed as more than the one-note bruiser he was in Uncanny X-men. Since he died on his second mission, we never got to see much of him. Back then he was angry, and easily manipulated by implying that he was scared. Treating Jimmy as the "little brother" was odd to me, since, Jimmy is older and more experienced now than John ever was. If anything those roles feel like they should be reversed. John would be a great character to do more solo stories with. He's not mired in 40 years of X continuity, and has a lot of potential.

I really with this comic had been better. more

Once again, Jason Aaron uses the Hand to give readers the Finger.
The art is great. Lets get that out of the way. This is an skillful and talented team, and the book LOOKS beautiful. The 3 stars are for them.
As for the script... God, where to start?
The retcon is in. The Hand have been monitoring Frank since childhood. It's his destiny to be the Fist of... whatever.
The zombie wife is riddled with bullet holes, and barely there, mentally. Naturally, Frank jumps right into bed with her. Sweet Christmas. It's like taking advantage of the disabled.
There is a massive amount of expository dialog. The priestess lady has an internal monologue that would make 90's Batman roll his eyes.
I did not enjoy this comic. I still think the premise is dumb, and issue #2 has further solidified that opinion.
That's how I feel. If you're liking this new direction for Ra's al Castle drop a comment letting me know what you enjoy about the comic. more

It wasn't Amazing, but it was pretty good.

Wells and Romita delivered a relatively solid "first issue" that established Peter's new status quo, set up the main conflict for the opening arc, seeded some subplots for future development, and ended on a cliff hanger.

The script was fine. Wells captured the characters voices well, particularly Peter, May, and Tombstone. Expository dialogue was kept to a minimum, which is always appreciated. Show me, don't tell me. Peter's a bit edgy, but still within tolerance.

The art is good. Romita is one of the best storytellers in comics, and his composition is nearly flawless. The guy was born to draw Spider-man. To people who feel like his art has declined, I say this: go back an look at his work on Daredevil, ASM, and Thor and compare it to what he's doing today. It's the same level. Zero drop-off. He's been delivering the goods for so long his style has become classic. Same thing happened to Byrne, Buscema, Ditko, and Kirby.

I will say this; I'm tired of Peter being constantly kicked around. I'm over it. It's not something I'm interested in reading anymore. "Parker Luck" used to mean "3 steps forward, 2 steps back". There was always just enough progress to keep hope alive. Lately, that light at the end of the tunnel is just the A train.

The MJ reveal is no cause for alarm. The time skip is 6 months. Those kids are clearly like 5 years old. Unless there's another Sins Past situation, it's clickbait.

I'll check out the next few issues to see what's up, but unless something dramatic happens, I don't see me sticking around for much more than that. more

This was a pretty good issue. I think a lot of the issue suffers from playing catch up. For those of us that had read Infinite Frontier and Justice League Incarnate, there's not much going on here that we didn't already know about. This issue promises the Death of the Justice League and... it delivers, and that's pretty much it. I wish there was more meat to this issue, as it's basically a glorified recap with deaths at the end of it that we knew were coming because it's in the solicitation and it's plastered on the cover. The only thing that keeps me from giving this a lower score is that I thought the art was nice and I am somewhat interested in where things go from here. Also, I'm slightly concerned this spoils how Action Comics wraps up its Warworld saga, but that's besides the point. Still better than anything Bendis could have done with a final issue. more

Well... that was a snore.
The most dramatic part of this comic was the cover.

The art was fine, maybe a bit sketchy in places, but overall, pretty solid.

The story was a color by numbers set up for the next Final-Dark-Infinite-Metal-Crisis event.
Nothing much to see here that we haven't seen before. No thrills. No surprises. No heart. No twinge of the heartstrings as our greatest heroes are dispatched with barely an inconvenience.

I do have a couple questions, though:

1) How do any of these characters remember Pariah, or the original Crisis? The only characters who should still have that knowledge are Alexander Luthor, the Original Superman, and Superboy Prime.

2) If Pariah can disintegrate Superman, and Wonder Woman with a wave of his hand, why bother with the whole "Dark Army" shtick?

3) Pariah is the bad guy? Really? The dude who spent 12 issues of the first Crisis whimpering in the background. He's the dude with the Master Plan? Why do I feel like this will be resolved with a Hostess Cupcake?

A few final thoughts:
This comic contains the worst characterization of John Stewart I've seen in a while. "I'm bringing the God Storm", "They can't handle my light", %$#@ all the way off. While I appreciate the Emerald Knight making an appearance, the writer could have made more of an effort.

The absolute certainty that these characters will be back inside 5 months takes a lot of the wind out of this comic's sails (sales?).

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"Saving the damn day!"

Is "killing" your best superheroes the thing you do when you're out of ideas and you want to get the "new and improved" heroes over with the readers?

Josh Williamson for the most part is a solid writer but I'm sorry to say he can't get a win with a premise like that.
Even Rafa Sandoval's art, which usually is nice to look at, seems rushed and just a bit off.

Well then, with the actual heroes out of the picture DC Universe is screwed now.

Great work. more

Great followup to a strong first issue.
Waid and Mora have captured lightning in a bottle. The art is on point, and the story is well plotted. The script is great, capturing the iconic personalities of these characters. Kudos to all.

A few comments:
I would dearly like to see a Mark Waid Doom Patrol series, based on the portrayal in this series.

I'm not sure exactly when this takes place. It's tough to tell which Robin this is. It's doesn't appear to be Damian, based on personality. The best fit would be Dick, given the back and forth with Supergirl. The thing is, I don't much care. This comic was enjoyable, and I'm looking forward to what happens next. more

This comic was pointless. I mean, it was, objectively, pointless. It never resolved any of the central questions presented in earlier issues. We never learned what happened to turn Banner into an abusive lunatic. We never learned what was up with "Betty" - though she did call him "son" last issue. We were posed the question of the ages, "Why can't the Hulk have a Hulk?". The answer is, because that would be dumb.

The art was fair. Ottley's illustrations seem to have gone downhill since the early issues. He's still Ottley, but he seems bored.

The story is irredeemable. This is hands-down the worst work I've read from Cates. There's no development, he just jumps from one sight-gag to the next. The narrative is thin, as it has been for every issue in this series so far. Not much happens to move the story forward. The various conflicts are dispensed with easily, with barely an inconvenience. In some cases the conflict is stupid - who tries to kill a Hulk with a gamma bomb? Seriously? Fortunately they were able to us multi-modal reflection sorting to suck the radiation into another dimension.

I was struck by what appears to be a strange continuity gaff. "Betty" is dispatched when Hulk breaks out of the engine room, but when the dust settles, Banner and Hulk are back in the engine room, with the doors intact and closing. You can say it's all in Banner's mind, and he can make it what he wants, but that is not clear from the story, and it was still weird.

We deserve better, people.

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...and they stick the landing!

This issue was a satisfying end to a great series. Though I'm disappointed the series is ending after only 12 issues, I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. The creative team successfully wrapped up the plots and sub-plots that were developed, reset the table for the next creative team, and planted some seeds for future stories. The art was solid, a bit more consistent than usual, actually. The cinematic shots of Oa and the lanterns were well executed and powerful. I enjoyed the nod to Jack Kirby, you could call it a stunt, but it made me smile.

Kudos and best of luck to Thorne and Raney. I'm looking forward to more of their work in the future. more

The artwork is top-notch, no problems there.

The story is True Grit, and not as well executed as either of the movies, or the novel.
I'm not sure why this is a Supergirl story at all, it would work better with Guy Gardner.
Honestly, I'm scratching my head at Kara going to all that effort to go on a bender.
Won't be continuing with this, so I guess it's moot anyway.

Art is a 9-10, but this isn't a Supergirl comic so I can't give anything else than a 1.

I buy a comic with Supergirl on it, I expect Supergirl in it. It's like if I buy a pizza and get a fish dish. It might be well made fish dish, but I ordered pizza.

This is not Kara, it's Rooster Cogburn wearing a Supergirl-Edgar-Suit.

What a farce.
This issue literally shows that the only way to make John Stewart shine is neutering and undermining Hal Jordan, which obvioudly is what Thorne's always wanted to do.

After all that, a letdown. I can't say I actually understood what was going on, or why we needed the secret history of the Banners and Stearnses. At least the art was great (too bad Bennett is a turd) and the character work was good. But in the end, Ewing didn't come close to sticking the landing. Not that it matters since we are reverting to the usual version of the Hulk.

A really great run with a very good last issue. While I liked this I felt like the One Below All was handwaved like he was nothing so that was a slight disappointment. Bennett was absolutely stellar here, say what you want about him, without his gorgeous art Ewing wouldn't have created this masterpiece (the same can be said about Al), there were times when the writing wasn't that great but Joe saved him. From now on in my mind the characters in Hulk's world will always be represented in this artstyle. more

This ending was fucking great. I know some people might be a little... confused or disappointed by the ambiguity of the issue. And, ambiguity is being used for lack of a better word here, I just don't know what else to call it. I remember way back during the Hulk in Hell arc, there were a lot of people who turned their nose up to the Judaism mythology present there. So, if those people even make it this far, I wonder if they'll dismiss this too. Hulk is essentially the Job of the Marvel universe here. The One Above All created him as a test. Either he becomes a hero, and becomes Geburah (Good), or he succumbs to all the suffering and he becomes Golachab (Evil). Luckily, in spite of issue 25's dire predictions, he is not broken, and therefore he's Geburah. And from there, it's all about the balance of Geburah and Chesed. Either Hulk becomes the left hand of God, embracing strength, and therefore the breaker of worlds. Or he becomes the right hand, embracing mercy, and doesn't smash everything. I'm simplifying the ideas here, but nonetheless, this is a very smart way to end this book and I can't help but get that needling feeling in the back of my neck that too many people will not appreciate it. This is one of best Hulk runs ever. It deserves all the praise it gets, if not more.

I have no idea how Donny Cates and Ryan Ottley are going to transition from this to what they're doing. It's going to be very different, it's probably going to turn some people off, and I just hope there isn't nonstop comparisons between that run and this run. That won't be good for anyone. Seriously, if Al Ewing never writes another issue of comics, he's left an indelible mark on not just Hulk, but Marvel, and the wider industry. I guarantee that, much like with Hickman's Avengers into Secret Wars, there will be attempts to capture this lightning in a bottle again by other creators on other properties. I just hope they're successful. We need smart comics. They're always written by people from the United Kingdom, it seems. Maybe the rest of the world can get in on this at some point. more

Where's the rest? I only have half a comic here.

Following from issue 48, this comic is a major let down. The intention is to mimic a magazine article written by Mcgee, the effect was to produce a comic that is nothing but splash pages and text boxes. Perhaps we need to revisit the concept of sequential art.

Speaking of the art, it's outstanding. Bennett, Brabo, and Jose continue to meet and exceed expectations. If you'd like to support them by purchasing orignal art from this series you can find it at jadegiantart.com. Yes, I'm shilling for them, shut up.

The story, however is thin. Hulk and McGee walk across town, have a brief confrontation with the Avengers, then walk through a magic door. That's it. There are some interesting parts in the narrative - McGee describes the sounds Mr. Fantastic's body makes as it stretches, and it's chilling - but overall, I kind of feel robbed. Depicting a Hulk / Avengers fight in a few splash pages is criminal. This comic cost $5.00. Somebody owes me $2.50. more