Comic book quickies !

 

Well holy god damn funk. This week was a week likes. No lies. God damn near everything was out. If I wasn't so cheap there'd be MUCH more here to review. But even then all this stuff that is here is fan bloody tastic. Comics like. Some times there aw just magical.

THE SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #6

written by dan slott art by humberto ramos

So doc ock loses his shite this ish. Like really loses his shite. Live on the internet. Its not a pretty sight to see. Brutalises these two goof ball villains. Aye they werny funny and deserved a bit of a kicking new generation scumm that they are. But damn son. Ock takes it too far. Apart from that though. Really fun issue ! Yup. SS continues to be a hell of a vibey read. I mean its soo good I just assume all the hate for it has died down. I mean come on people. Big ocks quite the lad when hes not being a dick. That's gotta count for something. The science chef is still being a science chef. Fuck yas likes. Fuck yass. Part from that there's not much to say this week sadly. Things continued the way thieve being going. Ock STILL dosent gee a fuck. He's not even trying to stealth his way threw being peter parker. Its really quite endearing actually.

ALL NEW XMEN #9

written by brian michael bendis art by stuart immonen

It just keeps being amazing people ! The quality is off the FUCKING charts. This is big bendis at the top of his game ! Its a sight ! To see ! I have to shout this review at you ! Yes ! Its one of those comics ! We're at issue nine ! And it hasn't dipped in quality ! Like not at all ! Can you believe that ! Because I cant ! Maybe its some drug thieve concealed in the pages of the actual comic ! Yeah that has to be it ! Its the only explanation ! Ill calm doon now. I'm very sorry. Aye so. Every one who was being a lad is STILL a lad. And Cyclops is still the most loveable horrible bastard to ever live. Basically everything is right with the world. Even kid jean grey gets called out or her evil shite from the last issue. I'm blaming the 60s hair for it basically. And as the cover promises, mystic and sabre-tooth are cutting aboot toon. So really. You canny complain there. Special mention has to go to the art. Immonen is REALLY knocking it out of the park. Has to be said. The art is perfect to the tone. Its fast and floowy cartoony stuff perfect for banter but also action. Also I'm HIGHLY exited for the next issue which I hope is just cover to cover dick moves from auld Cyclops the ultimate bastard. So ayes. READ ALL NEW X MEN !

ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #21

written by brian michael bendis art by sara pichelli

I still quite like milles folks. It was a hard sell if you remember. I was fairly upset they killed off big ultimate pete. Guy died like a punk. A controversial statement I knows. But that's how I feel about the whole thing. And then we get miles. And you know me. I fear and despise any and all change. To be fair though. Big milies is an actual lad. The kid really won me over. Pretty much instantly. Him and big gahnk. Utter lads . I waffle on like this because I noticed were at issue 21 . has it really been that many issues ? Wowzers likes. I didny think it was anything like that. They just really wizzed by didn't they ? Not all were park knocker outers to be fair. Always readable Is the thing. Miles dad right. He's made of plasticine. Gets a wee bumped on the head then decides to die. Its like worse than the instant cancer. Now ayes. That could be realistic and aww that. But come on, mileses dad just likes to find new ways to be a cunt. He's down on super heroes for some reason. Probably because he's auld. He thinks killing hydra goons is a BAD thing. And now his just gona up and die at the drop of a hat. Fella needs to man up if you ask me.

 

SUPERGIRL #18

written by frank hannah art by robson rocha

Don't be fooled by that cover comic fans ! The writers have changed ! Apparently ! Now the change over dose seem quite promising. They seem to be adding power girl to the mix. Something I'm sure very few people will complain about. Big lex luther too. He seems to have a ranger team on the go as well. Is that a thing from the superman book ? Even if its just new its fairly nifty. Apparently supergirl got krytionite poisoning at the end of he'll on earth. Just another thing I missed. Don't fear though. Supergirl dose indeed fight a fool. So basically. Its still got the whole supergirl fighting vibe. Small victory right there. Arts quite funktastic too.

 

AMETHYST #6

written by christy marx art by marc anderyko

This is tough likes. I bring sad news. You may want to sit down. It may come as a bit of a shock. Ok ? Are you ready ? Right so. Amethyst. Its lost a wee bit of its swagger. Hhhhhm. God. It even hurts to type that. Now I'm not saying its suddenly goat shite. No. not at all. Its just lost a bit of its swagger. Back in the day. Like six issues ago it had such fantastic swagger. It brought us hope likes. It made our lives better. It was this incredibly girly comic that was AWESOME. You expect to see that kinda thing from anime not a big comics company like DC. What's the source of this swag drain you ask ? Wells its kinda muddied its epic world waters. Folk are just crossing over willy nilliy. Which dosent necessarily have to be a bad thing. Big constatine is generally always welcome. But not every other issue like. This month fucking eclipso jumped. That just sorta really sucks and feels more than a bit corporate mandatey. Fuck off eclipso is aw I can really muster from my brain. They do a fairly aw right job to integrate him into the word but I gotta say. It just dosent sit right with me. So yeah. Nothing out right bad and its far from hateful its just had a few wee miss steps. Hopefully over the next few months it can regain its lost swagger.

 

GREEN LANTERN NEW GUARDIANS #18

written by tony bedard art by hendry prasetyo , jim calafiore, javier pulido

Now in direct contrast to the comic above here we have a book gaining more and more swagger as it go's on . Swagger ascendant if you will. It really can not be stressed enough how much new guardians has improved since its zero issue. What's more amazing is it seems to be down to a change in artist. How dose that work ? Not sure. Like at all. I'm not going to question it though. Fucking love what this book has become. What is that you ask ? Pure awesomeness. Somehow. Possibly threw dark magic this book has gone from being very average to fooking brilliant. Ayes. Be happy for humanity. This first lantern arc has really accelerated the ladness even further. Last issue we goat kyle ryner channelling simon the digger. This ish we get the rest of the team channelling simon. Its .. its beautiful. I might actually have cried. Each member of the team refuses to except ANY of the first lanterns pish. Like no amount of it at all. THIS IS EVERTHING I WANT TO SEE FROM COMICS ! LONG MAY THIS RUN CONTIUE !

 

ACTION COMICS #18

written by grant morrison art by rags morales and brad walker

Ohohohohoh ! This is it sports fans ! The big one ! Morrison's last action comics. Tearing up a bit even now. So yes. Its utterly mental. In that very special Morrison way. And its very much the end. Its very last issue. Not in a kill em all way. More in things are kinda sorta explained kind of way. I thought it was AWESOME. Plenty of superman fighting crazy folk. Iv herd complaints of clunkiness. Fair play likes. Id say it was intentionally clunkie But that just might not work for some folk. It has an OMNIMON ending thaw. That's the best kind of ending possible for any story in any universe ! I liked this run. I have to say. Way back in the beginning I think its safe to say. The whole world was hyped. BIG grant Morrison on a superman on going. I think it went well. Though it was defiantly odd. The thing is we were ready for it to be odd. It was just a different kind of odd. A kind of odd that took us off guard. Its a shame really. Morrison's sort of slipped from his red ranger pedestal during the new 52. usurped by synder and the other younglings. Morrison probs dosny gee a fuck. So its fine. But it is something to keep in mind when thinking of the sheer depths of this generations giant bastardness. I will miss you action comics. Normally id say I'm looking forward to the next teams run but I here the next guy has already quit. Soo. Yeah. Lets wait and see what happens.

JUSTICE LEAGUE #18

written by geoff johns art by jesus saiz

BIG BARRY ALLAN. The greatest hero to ever live ! The man who takes time in one hand and space in the other and SMASHIES them together ! Why ? FOR LADNESS. That's right. That's how humanity's new GOD KING rolls. This week he took it upon himself to take up the comic relief slack left by hal jordan. It was a grate burden. But barrys MANLY back could carry it. So aye. Gid issue. Really quite liked it my self. Hell of a vibe. Putting a team together. Well more like adding new members to the current roster. That's fine though. It was done in a nicely casule way. Having the new members up to the watch tower for tea was a funky way to do it. AYES to be fair shit dose get a bit pair shaped. The metal man woman platinum go's a wee bit mad ted and the others have to take her down. A damn shame if you ask me. She seemed like a lot of fun. Well I suppose you cant have everything. COUSE big element woman might be on the team ! Yay ! Goota credit the goff on a good decision there. Its nice element woman's kicking about in this universe after her grate successes flashpoint. Aye. Very nice issue of justice league. Now aye it was a breather issue and it wasn't all that epic. But like I say. It was well done ! Not at all sure what the whole add super villains to the team thing was at the end of last ish. Maybe there going somewhere with that.

SAGA #11

written by brian k. vaughan art by fiona staples

Saga there. Being the most saga ish it could be. Like you know what I mean folks. You've read it. I diiny have to talk about it. I'm a gentleman after all. Saga though. What's it like. Just cutting about with the best banter. What more really is there to say. It has the best banter. The wills still being a lad. Surprisingly. We were told early on that he's a monster. So I guess we're building to something with him. Shames really that his awesomeness is soured in that way.

comic book quickies 8.2.13

Dark days friends. No action comics this week. Offt likes. I don't remember action being late before. I think its come to all of us as a bit of a shock really. It was always a solid week one tittle. Always there for us. Waiting there in the corner with its not quite perfect but occasionally AMAZING-nes. Now its probably the only way this thing could have went but I really don't like that books have lost there place in the four week cycle. Before I could be aww like. Aye. Aquaman. That's a week four book. Or like. Aye. Batman. That's totes a week three book. Fuck knows ware there at now. Cast adrift on a schedule-less sea of madness. Sad really. Well no. it was inevitable. These things happen likes. Delays in making the book and wanting to promote it at different times. Its fine to be fair. inevitable is bad word though. Sickened that I had to use it despite its rightness. Damn fun to say in an agent smith voice though. Bumper week all in all. Despite the grate loss of action that is. eight books in all. Surprisingly no clunkers ether. One of those weeks ware I just read threw everything in a flash. That's always something gid.

 

ALL NEW X MEN # 7

written by brian michael bendis art by david marquez

Big bendis likes. He's still on form. Still knocking it out of the god damn park. I'm STILL buying x men comics. We live in that world now. Shock AND horror. I was never that big x men fan it has to be said. My exposure to them was limited to the 90s cartoon and the films. Now the 90s cartoon was pretty rocking. Instilled in me a life long love of cable. The movies were fun too. The SHEER vibe of x2 likes. Magical almost. Defiantly a true movie of the summer of my youth. The comics though. I duno likes. There's just so damn many of them ! Do people really love the x men this much ? Yeah. They probs do. Not me though. All new x men though. Its probably because its bendis. As we've discussed before id probably follow bendis off a cliff. Its just so lad-ly written likes. Everybody's just so fun and un bastardly. Yet. These are the x men we're talking about after all. They'll probably drop a asteroid full of angst on the earth at some point. For now though all new x men still brings the momentum AND the fun.

 

SAGA #9

written by brian k. vaughan art by fiona staples

Classy indi comic booking at its best. Has to be said. Now there's a long and interesting story to why I'm reviewing this issue late. It involves industrial espionage and ninjas. I assume. The box containing saga went missing on its way to my local. Well that was nether long nor interesting. Hmm. None out of two ain't bad ! Canny beat a good bit of saga. Well mudman can. In my eyes at least. Probably not in the eyes of pretty much everyone ell's in the world. Fair play different tastes and all that. Saga is a class read though. If your a person and sentient. You'll probs love saga. Iv said it before and ill likely say it each time I review saga. If you read it. You'll love it. Not entirely sure why. Probably because its cool. Just plain cool. Cooly cool if you will. This issue is a wee spot light on the will. The caped bounty hunter dude. Seams pretty cool like though we here he's a right bastard. Shames like.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #20

written by brian michael bendis art by sara pichelli

Gotta say. I got pretty much everything I wanted from this issue. A big fight ! Too many comics theses days go for talking and banter instead of the pure glory of combat. Its a damn shame. I'm sure iv made this exact point like a hundred times before so lets move on. Aye so this issue milles gets into his first tussle with venom. Or a venom. Symbiont's in the ultimate verse are weird. There was that one in ultimates 3 that was like a doom bot or something. Dooms a cool guy no matter the universes like. Any way's miles's first fight with the inky nightmare go's relatively well. Aye well miles dad might be dead/ dyeing. So like I say. Relatively well. Miles dad ain't really that cool of a guy. Bit of a punk really. Bit of a buzz kill if you ask me. Now I'm not wishing death on the poor fella. Just saying he could stand to be a tad more interesting. Like who the fuck takes being awesome and makes it out to be a bad thing ? Miles's dad that's who. I'm sure its commentary on parenting attitudes or some shite. Its just not for me thank you very much. Venom though. Gotta love venom. He so fighty. sept when he isn't. But he is here ! I think we can chalk this issue up as a win pals.

IRON MAN #6

written kieron gillen art by greg land

Aye so Tony stark is cutting about space now and this comic is pretty much everything you'd want from Tony stark cutting about space. He gets into a space battle AND then try's to bed a space princes. He invokes star trek while doing it too. What a lad. What a SPACE lad. Its took a long while likes but were finally here. Finally here at the final frontier ! Yas ! Knocked that out of the park likes. Ayes so stark left fer space in the last issue of the last run. But he didn't because marvel now. But he's out there now. Being the most starky he can be. Good on him. Iron man in space could be very fun. And indeed this comic was fun. That's all I can really say to back up this run. Its fun. What more do you want from a comic ? Aye greg lands still doing the art. Its probably shite. Don't personally care really. Its fine for suit stuff and other assorted robot junk. Yes his space woman are just as porny clone-ish as his earth woman. That's funny likes. Deaths head makes appearances in the issue for like a single panel. That's something all right. Don't really ken ware all this space stuff is going but I hope it keeps up this issues levels of fun.

SUPER DINOSAUR # 17

written by robert kirkman art by jason howard

Oh super dinosaur. You wee super amazing Saturday morning cartoon. What are ya like. Astoundingly braw is what ya are. Cause that's what super dinosaur is. A Saturday morning cartoon. But like from the 90s. In vain of street shark or the biker mice from mars. Mainly street sharks. DAMN that was a show. Back at this issue we've got poop jokes. Poop joke every ware ! A little rude ! Still very kid friendly is the thing. Oh and action packed. Canny forget that. So not only is there an inner earth there's also an inner moon too. Populated by bug people. Who eat poo. Fucking love comics. Like.

MUDMAN #6

written and art by paul grist

Oh fuck yes. Yaaaaaaas. Its back ! Its back in the game ! Big mudman descending from the heavens on wings of excellentness and .... mud. Aye I foooooooking love mudman. Might just be my favour comic. Thinking about it I most likely say that a bout a lot of comics. So mudman is like the all time champ out of all of them. Mudman and one piece. Thems the two buddy cops of greatness. A lot of mudmaans fantastic un defeatble amazing greatness comes from the Britishness of the book. Not gona lie guys. Morrison's the supermarket makes an appearance this issue. Humanity just got better people. FUCK depression. FUCK recession. Mudmans making it all better. Morrison's is in the god damn GAME. That's another thing. Mudmans sort of fearless in its references. Like its not some off brand Morrison's. Its actual Morrison's. Also music from the cure appears, and its awesome. Gona buy mudman likes. To me its utterly perfect so to you it but be at least passable. Worth a pick up if you ask me. As a balancer I should say that mudman the character was a little whiny ish this week. Not all out unbearable whiny just a little teenage asgnsty. Its possible that's a bad trope necessary for cultivating the teenage super hero vibe that mudman dose so well. Reminds me of ultimate peter parker a little bit. Least we forget despite his utter ladness ultimate pete could be a complete bastard from time to time. Teenagers like.

 

SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #3

written by dan slott art by ryan stegman

Right. Deep breaths pals. You might actually want to sit down for this. Superior is still perfectly fine. I know ! SHOCKING to here isn't it ? Man this is something I think your going to have to learn to cope with. A comic that has a history of being fine. CONTINUING to be fine. Aye its scary stuff that consistency is. But your all big boy and girl comic readers now. I think you can handle it. Now I may be being to overly optimistic but I have faith in you guys likes. Its ock spidy vs the vulture this ish. Vultures a bit of a weird bastard all said. Using wee kids as mooks. Sets ock off rageing as it makes him flash back to when he was beaten as a kid. You feel bad for the bastard I guess. Its hard though. Ocks dad was the one beating him and yes beating your kids is very wrong BUT I cant stress enough just the sheer size, density and funcktasticness of papa ocks mustache. I could totes take a solo comic for that facial hair. Its that rocking. Yami peater parker is still a treat to behold. He's not in it as much as last issue but the ghost buddy cop vibe is still there in full force. Fuck yeh buddy cops !

DETECTIVE COMICS #17

written by john layman art by jason fabok

Damns. Almost missed this off here. Don't really no what happened. Almost went with out creating an entry for detective comics. Thought I did. Looks like it disappeared actually. I blame ghosts. About the actual comic though. I'm really quite loving this run. Its well written and has good art. BOOM review done. I'm out o here. Well I'm back. Ill say more on detective. Its cold out there likes. Aye so detective comics is a wee bit of an under dog. Going a wee bit un-noticed in my neck of the woods. Two reasons for that. The first run of the reboot was a wee bit shite. I don't think many people will mind me saying that. I liked it. It was grungy and a tad mad. Good combo if you ask me. It just wasny all that amazing. The second thing that keeps this detective run down is batman. No not the character. That be mad actually. Batman ruins book about batman. There's a head line for bizzaro world likes. Naw I'm talking about the main batman book. Its un godly good. Like just a damn proper read. If your going to buy one bat book your going to buy batman. And that's fine. You shidny have to buy a thousand different books for the same character even if that characters as legendary as batman is. This detective run though. Its damn decent. I Definitely say its worth a read. Aye its not as good as batman and it may be a tad silly in places for some peoples tastes but I do quite like it. Its got a good vibe going for it. The story a bit gritty but off putting and the arts detailed but actiony. Aye. What I'm trying to say is. Gee this run a go. You probably most likely wont regret it. Blame ghost if you do. Not me. Definitely don't blame me.

WRITING FOR THE TRADE

Something occurred to me the other day that here on Comic Book Quickies we sometimes say that a comic has been written for the trade. I'm sure most of you that come here know what a trade is but if you don't then by that we usually mean that a comic's being written slow paced and usually about six issues to an arc. Most comics are like this these days. It means that it can be easily collected into trade paperback which are the comics you'll find in book shops like Waterstones or what have you. That's all fine and dandy but when we say a comics been written for the trade we mostly mean it as bad thing. See if you have been following our flagship series comic book quickies you'll see that we buy our comics weekly and when a comics been written for the trade its a bit of a bugger to read cuz these comics aren't self contained stories but are just one part of a larger story so it can take six to seven months to read a full story and that's a bloody long time. That's like half a year! It's not always a bad thing but it's most definitely a thing that exists.

So let's try something new! Lets do a comic book quickies for trades and lets start with the most tradey writer out there, Brian Michael Bendis and since there's a new Ultimate Spider-Man just starting out why don't we take a look at the very first volume of Ultimate Spidey?

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN VOL 1: POWER AND RESPONSIBILITY

Written by Brian Michael Bendis art by Mark Bagley

Yup it's ultimate Spider-Man's origin story alright. So firstly Ultimate Spider-Man is a retelling of the Spider- Man story set in an alternate world from the main Marvel universe. The Ultimate Universe came about when the Marvel big-wigs thought to themselves that their main line of comics had too much continuity behind it which made it hard for new readers to get into so they decided to make a new line of comics where everything was new and shiny. And so the Ultimate Universe was born. This might be one of the first trades I ever bought. It's basically my gateway drug into comics so it has done its job as being a good starting point for new readers. Basically it's Peter Parker in high school. And it is glorious. Most of the time.

As you would expect this first volume is Spider-Man's origin set in the modern day so instead of the spider that bit Peter being radioactive it's instead genectaly engineered. That's one of the things about the Ultimate Universe - most of the heroes and villains get their powers from science that was trying to recreate the super solider serum that made this worlds Captain America. So in this story it's Norman Osborn and his attempt at the super solider formula that created this Spider-Man and turned him into the Green Goblin and as we'll see in later volumes made Doc-Ock too. So it's pretty niffty that everything is all tied together like that at the start.

So we all know the story, Peter gets bitten, his beloved uncle gets shot by a dude he could have stopped earlier so he dedicates his life to fighting crime. That happens here over seven issues. See that's where the whole writing for the trade thing comes in. I couldn't imagine what it was like to read this when it first came out monthly, I mean it probably was still kick-ass but it just works so much better as a trade. See if you were reading this monthly then it would take you seven months for you to see Spider-Man actually fight the Green Goblin or about five months for uncle Ben to die. That's crazy! So that why it works better as a trade, instead of a seven month wait you can read it all at once making the story feel complete.

The characters are staggeringly solid and that's one of the benefits of the slow pace. Here we actually get know uncle Ben before he gets shot and yeah he's a pretty cool if a wee bit hippy-ish. UltimatePpeter Parker's pretty much the geeky wise cracker you'd expect and yeah he does have his emo teen moments even before Ben's death but he gets over it pretty fast. One of the really fun things that I thought was cool was that Peter actually enjoys having superpowers which may be a dumb thing to say but all to often in comics do we have people that are all like “I just wanna be normal!” man that kinda thing sucks. The Norman Osborn here is a bastard. That's pretty much it. Oh and he's green Hulk that can shoot fireballs. Yeah that pretty much it.

How could I get this far down without talking about the art? Well it's damn fine. Bagley's perfect for the book. It's all cartoony yeah but awesome cartoony and since it's a Bendis book it's always very talky, Bagley's art is perfect for that. It's so good and Bagley lasted for so long on the book it's not really worth talking about. The art in Ultimate Spider-Man is only a talking point when Bagleys not working on it.

So this is indeed a great trade and a great start to a great story that just gets better and better as the years go on. Shame Peter's dead now. Or maybe he's just hiding : D

BUY IT !!!