Meaningless Awards of the Week- 6/27/07
Bad Idea of the Week- going to Wal-Mart, The Walking Dead #38
Going to Wal-Mart is never a pleasant experience. It takes forever to get through the checkout. The aisles are always crammed full of unnecessary displays and the elderly. If you can find an employee to ask a question, they never know the answer…oh wait, I’m supposed to be talking about what happened in The Walking Dead. Yeah, so you’ve survived a zombie apocalypse and try to raid the neighborhood Wal-Mart when a group of thugs (from the settlement whose “Governor” a member of your group recently tortured to the point of near death) comes up to the front door armed to the teeth with automatic weapons. Yeah, that’s pretty bad, but so is waiting twenty minutes in line to buy a bottle of shampoo. I’ll leave it up to decide who has it worse.
Fight of the Week- American Eagle vs. Bullseye, Thunderbolts #115
Who would have thought a D-lister like American Eagle had that level of skills? Bullseye, one of the deadliest fighters in the Marvel Universe, gets his ass handed to him by the no-name in this issue of the Thunderbolts, with a little assist from a few thousand volts of electricity. And it was all part of Songbird’s plan to take back the team that was besmirched by the likes of Venom, Bullseye, Moonstone and Norman Osborn. Step one: put Bullesye into a permanent vegetative state. Step two: continue being awesome. I wasn’t happy when Thunderbolts relaunched during Civil War, but I’m glad it looks to be back on track. Songbird retaking “her team” seems like not only an entertaining storyline, but a logical one after she was forced into this situation six months ago. I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing a rogue team consisting of Songbird, Radioactive Man, American Eagle and Sepulchre down the road…no, seriously.
Book of the Week- Sinestro Corps Special #1
It was our Book of Doom last week. Just go check that out. But really, this book was so awesome it deserved to be mentioned again.
Betrayal of the Week- half the team, X-Men #200
So the Maruaders already have a sizable numbers advantage over the X-Men, who just lost two “members” in Cable and Sabretooth. Then half of the remaining members go and switch sides. Ouch. Lady Mastermind and Omega Sentinel seemed like obvious betrayals…all you had to do was look at the Marauders cover to see that. Mystique’s double-cross came as quite a surprise to me since over the past several years she’s been cast in a decidedly more heroic light in X-Men and her solo series. The again, it’s Mystique, so it wasn’t completely shocking. I’d be really surprised if we didn’t see either Sunfire or Gambit switch sides over the course of this arc to even things up a bit, although it’d be a real shame in Gambit’s case because he’s so much cooler as a villain. But then again he’d have to be, wouldn’t he? P.S. Gambit sucks.
Writer of the Week- Ed Brubaker
This probably would have gone to Robert Kirkman, who delivered top-notch installments of Invincible and The Walking Dead this week, if only his sub-par Ultimate X-Men wasn’t continuing to be so badly drawn. Brubaker ties Kirkman with three books this week (well, technically 2 ½ since Matt Fraction co-writes Iron Fist), all of which were great reads top to bottom. Jean-Claude Van Doom already addressed Iron Fist and Daredevil in Worst to First, and did a good job of explaining why I enjoyed both of those books. Brubaker’s third issue, Criminal #7, has finally convinced me that this series is a keeper. There’s really not anything specific I can put my finger on, but this book just works. The art, the noir feel, the third person narration (when was the last time you saw that?), the cameo from the lead of the first arc…all of that contributed to this being one of the best books in a really incredible week.
Waitaminute. You don’t like Kirkman’s writing on Ultimate X-Men because it’s poorly drawn?
What?
I worded that poorly. In additoon to the writing on Ultimate X-Men being sub-par, it’s being drawn incredibly poorly. I have a hard time not looking at the art when I’m reading the words, so it’s a bit hard for me to completely separate the two.
You’ll get used to it, Mark. He doesn’t like Leinil Yu’s art on New Avengers because it’s written by Bendis.
I also didn’t like Yu’s art in the Fallen Son issue he did, so there.
In regards to Fallen Son, you wrote:
“What was wrong with it? I’m not sure. The story of Wolverine invading the SHIELD Helicarrier to confront Crossbones was decent enough. Leinil Yu is an artist I still look forward to seeing, even if I feel he’s gone slightly downhill as of late. It could just be that the issue didn’t feel like the event Marvel was making it out to be. It was light on plot and heavy on characterization, which usually isn’t the type of story that gets put into a one-shot (or mini-series, depending on how this Fallen Son thing turns out). This story would have been much more appropriate as a single issue of Wolverine or Captain America. Especiialy Captain America, because then it could have been written by Ed Brubaker instead of the recently disappointing Jeph Loeb.”
I realize you didn’t actually buy this issue (see “I Have Issues with Issues I Don’t Have”), so you’re having to rely on in-store memories, but it sounds like in the three months that have passed you’ve rewritten your memories from “Jeph Loeb’s story was disappointing but Leinel Yu was pretty good” to “I didn’t like Leinil Yu’s art.” This looks like another case of “Blame one half of the creative team for the faults of the other.”
Damn, I missed that issue of Criminal. Well, at least I left you something to review…
PS — I think “I feel he’s gone slightly downhill as of late” counts as unhappiness (if marginal) with Yu. Quit picking fights, Jim, you old ninny.
PPS — congrats to us on post #666. Let’s just kill the site now.
Hey, I’m just saying, Mark shouldn’t be surprised. I’m just getting him primed so he can be a regular Doomer without suffering through the months and months of cognitive dissonance I’ve had to. 😉