A Few Thoughts on Comics from This Week

The Twelve : Spearhead is a one-shot 'apology' comic. You see, The Twelve is a twelve part mini-series from Marvel starring some lesser known heroes from the World War Two era. The problem is that issue eight of twelve came out months ago and issue nine is still to come. This issue is a 'please stay interested in the mini-series, we promise to finish it honest' prequel to the mini-series. Chris Weston's art is excellent, detailed without losing a cartoony edge. The story puts the characters in Europe near the end of the war and features visits from the Howling Commandos and Captain America. Good stuff. It did remind me of everything I enjoyed from the mini-series and just makes me more annoyed that it's not done yet.

Savage Dragon #158 is mid way through the 'Dragon War' storyline. What brought us to this point is complicated and I won't try to explain it all. The issue has caused me to reflect on the series a bit. No matter what you may think about writer/artist Erik Larsen's work, I believe it can be agreed that he keeps moving forward. His characters aren't set in stone, resetting themselves every so often like sitcom characters or other comic book stars. Dragon's situation changes every so often and never returns to a 'default' position. Right now, Dragon's personality has changed. In a normal comic, the expectation would be that at the end of the story, this would get fixed, he'd get hit on the head with a coconut or somesuch, but here, there's no reason to believe we'll get Dragon back as we once knew him. It's very interesting and should be saluted.


Web of Spider-Man #6 provides us some insight into the origins of the Lizard as well as the Man-Thing, tying the two characters together. This works better than I expected. Nothing's really changed, just some details added to both beginnings to make them work that much better.

Transformers - Bumblebee ends with issue #4. Bumblebee has more guilt, there's a fight, there's a gamble, ... and is that Goldbug? I enjoyed this book as the 'additional information' it seems to have been intended to be compared to the standard Transformers monthly book. Nice clear art and a simple story with enough twists and turns to make it interesting.

Peter Parker often jokes that he has bad luck. In the Amazing Spider-Man #624 he doesn't have bad luck so much as he makes a mistake, a big mistake, and gets caught. His intentions were good but the action was wrong. The reactions of other characters to this are well within character. All I can say at this point is 'ouch'.