Ridiculously late, I know, but then I didn’t actually get a chance to read any of these books until yesterday.\u00a0 Such is the fate of those who rely on a combination of Diamond and the postal service.<\/p>\n
Batman & Robin<\/strong><\/em> #11<\/strong> – “The Return of Bruce Wayne begins here!”, says the cover, which is an odd thing to put on the second part of a storyline, but that’s DC for you.\u00a0 In this issue, the new Batman continues to explore the underground bits of Wayne Manor, while Robin teams up with a bloke in a mask to fight some baddies.\u00a0 Is the bloke in the mask Bruce Wayne?\u00a0 Probably not, because that’d be a bit obvious.\u00a0 As I feared, now that we’re getting to the obligatory mechanics of returning to the traditional Batman set-up, this really isn’t anything particularly special.\u00a0 Part of the problem, I suspect, is that we’re now getting into the territory of established villains like Damian’s mother wandering about, and she’s a character I neither know nor care about.\u00a0 And neither knowing nor caring about major characters is… an issue.\u00a0 It’s fine, it’s well paced, it’s efficiently handled, it just doesn’t grab me.<\/p>\n Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love<\/strong><\/em> #6<\/strong> – The concluding part of the miniseries.\u00a0 I’m not sure this has really worked.\u00a0 Partly, that’s because three Fables<\/em> titles a month is stretching it, particularly when the third one is lagging so far behind in continuity that it’s evidently been tied up in development for an age.\u00a0 But mainly it’s because the basic conceit of Cinderella as a Bond-style spy isn’t sustained effectively for the whole series.\u00a0 The problem here is that they’ve ended up doing a story about a spy for the Fables<\/em> universe, but that character doesn’t have a great deal to do with Cinderella, and so when they wheel out bits of Cinderella’s background, it feels rather forced.\u00a0 And that means that the “characters from fables in the modern world” routine has been done better by the parent title.\u00a0 Shawn McManus’ art is excellent, and the story itself is acceptable, but it doesn’t quite pull off the admittedly tricky task of blending these two ideas.<\/p>\n Deadpool & Cable<\/strong><\/em> #25<\/strong> – Or just Cable<\/em> #25, if you go by the indicia.\u00a0 It goes without saying that Deadpool is overexposed to the point of self-parody these days, and Marvel seem to be trying to make a virtue of necessity by turning that into a joke in its own right.\u00a0 So here’s Deadpool to bid farewell to a series he never really appeared in.\u00a0 That said, while this is notionally the final issue of Cable<\/em>, it’s actually more of a coda to the Cable & Deadpool<\/em> ongoing series that preceded it.\u00a0 It’s a flashback story, with Deadpool helping Cable out during the “Messiah Complex” crossover and fending off the baddies while Cable gets to safety.\u00a0 It’s quite a nice way of bringing the book full circle, but it’s not really enough of a story to justify an entire issue.\u00a0 Deadpool is in full-blown fourth-wall mode here, by the way, not only lamenting the demise of their partnership but berating the fact that there’s still been no adequate explanation of why<\/em> anyone regards Hope as important.\u00a0 It’s almost as though they’ve belatedly figured out that they botched that one.\u00a0 Best viewed as a one-shot wrapping up Cable and Deadpool’s erratic relationship, and it’s not really a storng enough story to recommend even on that level, but it’s not without its charm.<\/p>\n S.H.I.E.L.D.<\/strong><\/em> #1<\/strong> – Jonathan Hickman and Dustin Weaver’s new series is thoroughly odd, recasting S.H.I.E.L.D. as a sort of Marvel Universe version of the Illuminati who’ve been secretly protecting the world from alien invasions and such like all the way down the centuries.\u00a0 The framing story is set in the fifties; it’s about a guy called Leonid being recruited into the organisation.\u00a0 But much of the issue is given over to flashbacks as diverse as Imhotep fighting the Brood and Leonardo da Vinci taking on Galactus.\u00a0 While it’s certainly a Marvel Universe title in the sense that Marvel’s own mythology is deeply embedded into it, it’s not a superhero book in any normal sense.\u00a0 Hickman’s indie work has generally been more eccentric than his relatively conventional Marvel books, but here he seems to be going off the deep end into something genuinely odd.\u00a0 At the same time, it also has the best feature of his Fantastic Four<\/em> stories, which is his willingness to take a thoroughly insane concept and run with it.\u00a0 It’s too early to judge it as a story, but as a set-up issue establishing a truly demented premise, it works.\u00a0 Admittedly, my sense of intrigue is somewhat undermined by the fact that I can’t imagine something like this lasting a year in the current market.\u00a0 But presumably all involved are sufficiently alive to the commercial realities that they’ve got a good self-contained story lined up for the first few issues.\u00a0 On the principle that “it’s bound to get cancelled” risks being a self-fulfilling prophecy, I’m going to stick with this one for a bit.<\/p>\n Spider-Man: Fever<\/strong><\/em> #1<\/strong> – Artist Brendan McCarthy writes and draws a three-issue miniseries for the Marvel Knights imprint.\u00a0 Despite the title, in spirit it’s more of a Dr Strange story with Spider-Man as a guest star.\u00a0 Weird magical stuff escapes from a weird insect dimension and steals Spider-Man’s soul; it’s Dr Strange to the rescue.\u00a0 The story is functional, but that’s not really the point.\u00a0 This is McCarthy paying homage to Silver Age Steve Ditko by teaming up his two best known creations and going to town on the psychedelic landscapes in the same way that Ditko did.\u00a0 It’s incredibly stagey at points – some of Strange’s dialogue is downright stilted – but that’s probably deliberate.\u00a0 Some comics really are just an excuse for the artist to go nuts, and some artists are interesting enough to make that a good enough reason to put out a comic.\u00a0 And this is an example.<\/p>\n Turf<\/strong><\/em> #1<\/strong> – We’re going to talk about this on the podcast this weekend, but this is the miniseries by Jonathan Ross and Tommy Lee Edwards.\u00a0 Now, while Jonathan Ross may be unknown in America, he’s a major star in Britain (think a younger David Letterman and you’re on the right lines), and even though he’s a well known comics fan, he’s a very big name celebrity to actually write one.\u00a0 And he seems to be serious about it, too – he’s been doing the publicity rounds to promote the book, and he never<\/em> does the publicity rounds himself.\u00a0 For American audiences, of course, it’s an Image miniseries by an unknown writer and a well-respected artist.<\/p>\n So.\u00a0 Any good?\u00a0 Actually, on the whole, yes, it is.\u00a0 The high concept is a turf war in prohibition-era New York between gangsters, vampires and, um, aliens.\u00a0 But it’s played mostly straight – or deadpan, if you prefer – as a historical drama, with a dash of knowing absurdity.\u00a0 Needless to say, Edwards is good at that.\u00a0 It’s got an unusually rounded moral attitude to prohibition (yes, it’s a stupid law, but you are<\/em> supporting organised crime…), and the gangster vampires are a fun idea.\u00a0 On the downside… it’s probably a bit too dense, it’s very wordy (even Mark Millar’s characteristically enthusiastic afterword suggests a Don McGregor influence), and the tone is uneven, with occasional lurches into B-movie that don’t quite sit with the rest of the story.\u00a0 But yes, it’s really quite decent, and a lot better than I was expecting.<\/p>\n Uncanny X-Men<\/strong><\/em> #523<\/strong> – Part two of “Messiah Complex”, and fortunately we’ve got Terry and Rachel Dodson on art for this arc.\u00a0 So not only is there brightly-coloured fighting, but it’s pretty and the characters are alive.\u00a0 It’s a pretty good issue, too.\u00a0 Part one set up the basic formula of the bad guys chasing Cable and Hope.\u00a0 Fraction has fun with that here, as Hope gets used to a pre-apocalyptic society for a change, albeit one where everyone’s still shooting at her.\u00a0 But he also introduces the second strand of the story, which is that all the dubious decisions Scott’s taken as leader of the X-Men over the last few years are evidently going to come home to roost.\u00a0 X-Force have just been exposed, and the cuddly members of the group are thoroughly disconcerted.\u00a0 Of course, they can’t exactly walk out now, what with the baddies trying to kill Hope… so they’re stuck with Scott for now.\u00a0 And all this leads me to think that maybe recent commenters were right in suggesting that Scott’s the one in line for the chop here.\u00a0 The build to this point has been decidedly erratic, but I’m still interested to see where it’s all heading, so job done, I suppose.<\/p>\n Wolverine: Weapon X<\/strong><\/em> #12<\/strong> – The second part of “Tomorrow Dies Today”, in which timetravelling Deathlok cyborgs from the future come back to kill off leaders of a future rebellion – specifically, guest star Captain America.\u00a0 Meanwhile, in the future, a band of rebels try to take down the Roxxon Corporation.\u00a0 So… Terminator<\/em> crossed with “Days of Futures Past”, then?\u00a0 It’s fine, but it doesn’t have the inventiveness of the previous issue, and ends up getting a little more caught up in the cliches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ridiculously late, I know, but then I didn’t actually get a chance to read any of these books until yesterday.\u00a0 Such is the fate of those who rely on a combination of Diamond and the postal service. Batman & Robin #11 – “The Return of Bruce Wayne begins here!”, says the cover, which is an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-x-axis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=284"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":287,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions\/287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}