FEAR ITSELF PROLOGUE: BOOK OF THE SKULL

Remember last year when Brian Bendis was promoting the big Marvel event "Siege" and he said that this was going to be the last big Marvel event for awhile? Well a year later and we're already into "Fear Itself," Marvel's new event. I'll be honest: I think Marvel has better books than D.C. but for some reason I've never bothered to read Marvel's event mini-series. "Civil War," "Siege," and "Secret Invasion" just did not interest me at all. Ed Brubaker wrote this prologue and he used to be a great writer (his run on Captain America has gotten boring, his Secret Avengers stint sucked, and his new Incognito series isn't half as good as the first series) so I thought I'd see what this was all about. After reading this set-up issue I'm guessing that "Fear Itself" will deal with Sin, the Red Skull's daughter, taking over the world. In this issue, Sin and Baron Zemo go to a hidden bunker to find a Thor-esque hammer. What this hammer does has yet to be revealed, but to get it they have to read some incantation from a book made out of Antlantean flesh. The book jumps back in time to when Captain America and Bucky battled the Red Skull while he was setting up his hidden bunker. We also get to see Captain America and Bucky vs. a Yetti creature. Yes, it's as stupid as it sounds. The art by Scott Eaton is very sloppy and the writing is swift but same-old. Whether or not this event turns out to be awesome is up in the air, but they do have Stuart Immonen drawing it and Matt Fraction writing it so at least the potential for greatness is there. As for this prologue? It's silly but it's at least entertaining. Maybe I'll actually read a Marvel event series for once. **

VENOM #1

This is a solid first issue, but I really dislike the premise behind it. One of my favorite storylines in comic books is the birth of Venom, the alien symbiote that came back to Earth with Spider-man after he was battling out in the cosmos during Secret Wars. The alien symbiote eventually attached itself to Eddie Brock and a great villain was born (and Todd McFarlane and Erik Larsen's awesome art certainly helped). Decades later and the U.S. Government has the alien symbiote and they're attaching it to special soldiers to help during big missions. This series follows Flash Thompson as Venom as he fights bad guys while struggling with the weight of it all. The art by Tony Moore is incredibly detailed and vibrant and it's certainly the best thing about this book. Writer Rick Remender has one cool idea: a Pumpkinhead villain that cooks the brains of his enemies. The premise, though, is a flawed one. Venom was a great villain. He seemed like he was a lot of fun to draw and it showed. Now he's neutered and thus boring. Yes, it's been two decades of Venom as a bad guy. Marvel does have to evolve to prevent stagnation, but Venom as a good guy does not work at all. I'm guessing this will all lead to a return of the villanious Venom...but this sidetrack is dead on arrival. **

SUPERMAN: EARTH ONE

Last year, with great fanfare, writer J. Michael Straczynski came to DC Comics and took over Superman and Wonder Woman. After a few issues of lackluster interest he was taken off the books, his future plots given to other writers to finish. The reason that DC gave for the shocking news was that his new hardcover graphic novel, Superman: Earth One, was such a blockbuster in the sales department that Straczynski would immediately go to work writing another hardcover graphic novel and not mess around with petty monthly books. I read the first few issues in his short Superman and Wonder Woman runs and they were pretty awful. Superman: Earth One, though, is a terrific read. It tells the origin of Clark Kent in an alternate Earth, although it's not really that different at all. Clark grows up in Smallville, heads to Metropolis, writes for the newspaper, meets Lois Lane, faces an alien menace, and eventually reveals that he's Superman to the world. The origin story of how his planet Krypton is destroyed is changed a little bit, but it's mostly just a typical Superman origin story minus Lex Luthor. The art by Shane Davis is awesome stuff, albeit he's better working on small panels. His splash pages are terrible for some reason. Davis reminds me of Rob Liefeld, which a lot of people hate, but I've always loved his bombastic style. This is super entertaining stuff, and it's too bad they didn't just run this as a four part monthly in Superman. We would have been spared that forgettable "Grounded" storyline where Superman walks nonchalantly across America. Ugh. ***

X'ED OUT

Charles Burns is famous. If he wasn't, I doubt that this book would have ever seen the light of day. X'ed Out is writer/artist Burns' newest graphic novel, albeit only part one of a supposed longer tale. You might know Burns from his awesome 2005 graphic novel, Black Hole, but you've definitely seen his art somewhere. His images are iconic and look like nothing else out there. This newest book makes no sense though, and feels more like a jumbled mess of random ideas than a cohesive narrative. The main character is a typical Burns outsider/artist that lives with his mom, falls in love with a girl that takes photographs of herself in bondage, and enjoys blueberry Pop Tarts. He has a bandage on his head and at night he dreams that he enters a strange world with lizard people in suits and pig-faced dudes without shirts that eat omelets. In this odd, dream world the creatures take a new queen and send her to The Hive. Did the main character have an accident? Brain surgery? Is this dream world real or just his imagination? What's up with his cigarette-smoking father? How does his new girlfriend fit into all of this? What happened to her? The book is gorgeous but short. I read it in about twenty minutes. It ends abruptly and there are too many questions left unanswered. If this is simply part one then why only release this aspect of it and not wait until it's completed? It's weird, yes, but almost weird just to be weird. It's dark and depressing, almost suffocatingly so. This is too bad, as Burns is a great artist. If he wasn't famous this would probably be stuffed in an attic box somewhere collecting dust. *1/2

JENNIFER BLOOD #1

Garth Ennis' new series is about a soccer mom that also happens to be The Punisher. It's a simple premise. Ennis has said that he wanted to write something fun. What we have in this first issue isn't exactly “fun” unless you think blood and guts and driving kids to school is a good read. The suburban malaise theme has been done to death (think American Beauty and Revolutionary Road), but the reasons for Jennifer's midnight murder spree on local criminals hasn't been given enough of a back story to define the series' theme just yet. So far it's a chick with kids and a nice husband that doesn't satisfy her. She likes guns. She goes out at night and wrecks havoc. It's nothing new of course, but it could be a worthwhile read if it was entertaining or had some bite to it. The diary entries throughout the book feel tiresome (and really, Garth, you're married...you don't know that it's called a pedicure and not a manicure?). The uber-violence isn't shocking, it's just boring. The art is a little sloppy, although Adriano Batista is probably as good as it's going to get since this isn't a D.C. or Marvel book. The big problem that I have is that Garth Ennis did such a remarkable job writing Preacher that it's almost sad that he's never written anything even close to as fresh, funny, or wildly entertaining as that book. Is he really a one-trick pony? I really hope not, but this new series is a big disappointment. *1/2

BATMAN & ROBIN #20

I don't read Green Lantern Corps, but the writer/artist team that had been on that book has moved to this one. It's apparently sort of a big deal. I did read the “Sinestro Corps War” trade a year or two ago and writer Peter J. Tomasi and artist Patrick Gleason probably did work on a few issues of that but they certainly weren't memorable. It should be noted that I loathe Green Lantern and his oh-so silly universe. There's that. The cornucopia of Batman books have a lot of new talent these days. Jock and Scott Snyder are doing interesting work in Detective Comics but it's super dark. This book seems to be a bit lighter, kicking things off with family movie night at Wayne Manor. The story has an angel falling to his death at a red-carpet affair and Batman and Robin fighting a large bat creature amongst the skyscrapers of Gotham. At twenty pages, it's all set-up of course, but it's nonetheless uninteresting. The art is fresh and vibrant but there is a large spread towards the end that is incomprehensible. For a new superstar team I was hoping for a roller coaster ride and a half. This is just pedestrian stuff, really. It's fucking Batman. Liven it up. ** (out of ****)

IRON MAN #500.1

Remember when all of a sudden #0 issues were chic? Let's hope that the decimal numbered issue isn't next to gain popularity because it's obviously just a cheap ploy to get you hooked on a new book. Normally I'd say that it's a good thing to have an issue for new readers to catch them up to speed. The biggest reason I don't start reading a book I've never read before is because I'm totally lost (case in point: if you've never read Green Lantern, go read an issue and try to figure out what the hell is going on). The problem with this book is that #500.1 doesn't explain anything to new readers. It vaguely hints at the history of Tony Stark but doesn't even tell us what's been going on in detail for the past few issues. With that said, this is a great standalone read, perhaps writer Matt Fraction's best issue yet (I usually can't stand his writing). It has Tony Stark speaking at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. It's whip-smart and cute and fun and has a neat little ending. The art by Salvador Larocca is exceptional as well. The whole point behind the .1 issues that Marvel is putting out is totally lost with this particular issue, but at least there's a good book that's come out of it. I guess that's a good thing. ***1/2