The Doomino Effect for the week of Mar 21, 2007


Don’t go falling all over yourselves, because it’s time for this week’s Doomino Effect. Actually that’s a lie, because normally Tuesday is time for the Doomino Effect. But Fin Fang Doom didn’t buy enough comics last week to justify his weekly “Meaningless Awards” and Jean-Claude Van Doom hasn’t swung by yet with his “Worst to First,” and Doom DeLuise’s last words to me today were “post a new blog,” so here we go.

Now let it be said, you may have thought to yoursef that I tend to only give somewhat favorable reviews. While I have known to dislike comics now and then, I do what is rather unique and groundbreaking in the world of comic blogs, and that is I buy comics that I like. So the odds of having anything resembling a 50/50 split on good and bad are unlikely, and quite possibly devastating to my comics habit.

I’m going to try something different this week. Usually I carefully arrange the order of these books so that I might seamlessly segue from one to another, hence the implied domino effect. This week, I’m going to push myself to the limit and just go in the order that they’re currently stacked and just make the magic happen.

First up is Amazing Spider-Man #539. I don’t normally read ASM, but I picked it up last issue because it was supposed to be a big deal and I wanted to read the big deal as it happened. Well, I thought it was a stapled pile of crap folded in half. This issue at least was a big improvement on that. So now it’s a stapled mediocre blah folded in half. It’s really unfortunate that Kingpin is the bad guy, since that means Daredevil apparently takes place in the future. Too bad there couldn’t have been more communication there. But to me, this issue reads like a comics from the 70s or the 80s where the people don’t have real emotions or take real actions – they have COMIC BOOK emotions and take COMIC BOOK actions.

I’ll do my best to illustrate what is essentially a gut reaction, but Kingpin is such a “bwahahaha” villain in this, quoting Euripides and just talking like a caricature of a villain rather than the cocky stud he is. Sure Peter might be losing Aunt May, and yeah, people are going to react to that very harshly, but he goes immediately to the vengeance stage with lines like “I don’t knock – I’m not in the mood,” which just seem like they should be in Lone Wolf McQuade and not a 2007 comic book. Well, at least now he’s in a black costume, so marketing is probably happy.

Ron Garney’s art is solid, but I can’t help but wonder if that’s contributing to my instinctive reaction that I accidentally picked up an issue of ASM from the 70s.

And speaking of comics from another era, that brings me to The Brave and the Bold #2. Much like with issue #1, I had to force myself to read this. Just like with issue #1, I was really glad that I did. I was pleasantly surprised that Supergirl was allowed to be the clever one in the situation, particularly considering what a shallow flirt she was made out to be at the beginning of the issue. I’d still rather have the former without the latter, but at least she wasn’t left without any depth. Or maybe Hal Jordon is just that hot. I bet it’s a blast for Mark Waid to write this, having the constraints of writing a hand-off to a different team up every month. We went from Batman and Green Lantern in issue 1 to Green Lantern and Supergirl in issue 2…we’ll pick up with Batman and Blue Beetle in issue 3. So far this has been a great comic that manages to capture the fun of a previous era without seeming weaker for it.

But speaking of Batman, that leads me to Detective Comics #830. We’re still on the break from Paul Dini, but I haven’t minded this Stuart Moore fill-in arc. Generic bad guy Vox – who you just know is going to bite it from how disposable he is – has infiltrated Wayne Tower and started spraying C4 all over the joint so he can blow it up and make a statement to the world about something or other. I haven’t minded this fill-in arc because I at least enjoy the interplay between Bruce Wayne (who can’t sneak out and become Batman at first) and Robin, and all that teamwork and being smart stuff. A Batman issue can just have Batman and Robin being clever and working as a team and I’ll dig it. What I didn’t much care for was the Mideast political drama going on in the background. I realize it gave some context to Vox’s mission, but it just worked out a little too cute for my tastes when the two groups came together out of concern for Bruce Wayne.

And speaking of two opposing political groups, that leads me to Civil War: Battle Damage Report (this has almost been too easy so far – maybe I’ve been wasting time actually preparing for this). I’ve been very pleased with everything Civil War-related that I’ve read since the conclusion of the series, so I picked this up thinking it might be as sweet as The Confession. I should have opened the stinking cover. It’s just a bunch of bios on characters, many of whom I have never heard of nor care to hear of. There’s a guy called “Phone Ranger.” His power might have something to do with phones but I can’t even bring myself to read about him. Okay I just changed my mind. Apparently he was a telephone repairman who went to fix a broken phone that had been infected with some alien technology. I really wish I hadn’t read that. I also really wish I hadn’t bought this. Ooh I just flipped some more pages. There’s a guy called “Typeface” who literally has letters on his face. I’m not going to share anymore, except to ask – did you know there’s a guy called “Living Mummy” ? Apparently he’s a living mummy from Egypt.

Which – holy crap, I did not even plan this – leads me to 52: Week 46 where our favorite ancient Egyptian Black Adam shows up at Oolong Island and kicks some tail before being taken down by some geeks. But I’ll refer you to Doom DeLuise’s 52 review if you’re interested in more.

But speaking of 52, that leads me to Justice Society of America #4, which – thankfully – did not include Starman making any cute crazy-person references to 52. Rather, it was a battle between Wildcat and Wildcat Junior against Vandal Savage. I personally have a tough time believing that Vandal Savage could be beaten – or at least outsmarted – by a boxer and a big cat, but at least the ‘cats beat him by having him get hit by a fire truck. I can accept that. Otherwise, it’s just more stuff about fighting those Nazis and building up those future generations of crime-fighters (which we also saw mentioned in this week’s 52), which is why we have so many new characters that no one has ever heard of. But it’s good enough that I keep coming back.

And speaking of characters no one has heard of, that brings me to Aquaman #50, which is this week’s Book of Doom. I’ll leave most of my thoughts for our feature tomorrow, except to say that I didn’t know who anyone was and if I’m going to buy a book called Aquaman, I want to see Aquaman.

And speaking of Aquaman…okay, I can’t do it on this one. No, wait, I’ve got it. And speaking of people with identity issues…that brings me to X-Factor #17. It’s been said many times on this blog by everyone but Doom DeLuise I think, but this is a great, can’t-miss book. This issue introduces the X-Cell, a group of de-powered former mutants who are blaming the government for orchestrating an anti-mutant conspiracy, known to us as the Decimation (or DeciMation if you’re a graphic artist). The bumbling group of quasi-heroes known as X-Factor manage to wind up in the middle of it and it’s fantastic and I love it.

The end.