A Few Thoughts on Comics from The Past Few Weeks

There was a BIG pile of comics waiting for me this week at the store and I've waded through them. There'll probably be a few of these entries while I catch up. I'll try to mix some 'reflections on my vacation' entries in the pile so it won't just be be talking about comics for a week.

Invincible Iron Man #20 features the title character on life support, effectively brain dead. Tony's plan to elude Norman Osborn has worked and Norman has to scramble to regain his footing in the public eye. Tony's left behind a message for his friends which largely says 'things are a mess and likely to get messier'. He also leaves them a 'reboot' procedure that should fix him, if that's what they want to have happen. This... redemption of Tony Stark story has been going on for over a year now. It's not getting the attention that the return of Steven Rogers is getting but this is also a well paced, epic storyline with good art, good writing, and good 'wow!' moments. It's not as big and cool as Cap's story but it's still good reading.

Punisher #11 begins the FrankenCastle storyline. At the end of 'The Punisher-the List' (which I didn't get) Frank Castle, the Punisher, is dismembered by Wolverine's son. He is beheaded. He is dead. His bits and pieces are found by monsters on the run from a 'Destroy All Monsters' kill squad from Japan and are cobbled together in the hopes that the revived Frank will act as their military leader to protect them from said kill squads. It's ridiculous and over the top. It's great fun. I think I'll give it a shot and see where it goes.

I've mentioned G-Man - Cape Crisis before and I now have 4 of the 5 issues. It's still funny and cute and clever and such. I've begun to notice that writer/artist Chris Giarrusso's 'voice' doesn't change much from one character to the next. Everyone gets the dialogue they need to move the story forward or be funny. This is one of the great concerns I always have with my own work; that every character sounds like me. Having made that observation, I don't think it's a problem here. This story flows like a cartoon from the '80s that was never made because it's too good to be a cartoon from that era and there's no toy line to promote. Yet it has that vibe, that fun style to it that makes you chuckle and smile. I like it.

Dark Avengers #11 features the Molecule Man. He's pretty crazy and just wants to be left alone. He dismantles the Dark Avengers, in some ways literally. Best moment: Norman Osborn in a Spidey suit being confronted by Gwen Stacy atop the bridge he knocked her from and she simply asks 'why?' Cause Norman needs to be MORE crazy, right?

The Tick has a new comic book series! It's in color, the art is good. It continues the storylines and characters of the Tick spinoff books (aka the books we didn't call 'The Tick' because we were hoping Ben Edlund would return to do issue #13 of that series but it's been 16 years so, you know, probably not going to happen) so if you've not read some of those, you will be lost. I found it humourous, as it should be. At $4.95, it ain't cheap. It is bi-monthly so at least that's only $5 every other month. NEC is in the process of reprinting all the Tick related comics in big honking collections but, again, as they're not a big company, these ain't cheap. The least expensive collection gets you 9 comics (and probably some extras) for $28. It's not a horrible price but it's a lot to have to slap down at once. The original Edlund run (12 issues but extras) is $35. Bad price? No but that's the sort of thing you expect to be hardcover from a Marvel or DC but at half the page count. I have to stop doing the math on these; I think I'm talking myself into buying them and I have a lot of the originals. Doh!