Gashapon Reviews: March 17, 2010

I'm currently on the hunt for a new comic shop. The problem I'm running into is that I'm so opinionated about things, I don't handle it well when I consider the other patrons to be idiots.

Marvel:

Dark Avengers #15 (****)

Well, that mystery is solved. If I wasn't so lazy I'd go back and see if my guesses were right, but alas. I enjoyed this issue a lot, because it filled in more pieces to the Siege puzzle. And you really begin to see just how unhinged the Sentry really is. Osborn built such a house of cards here, and while hardly unexpected, I find it to be incredibly interesting to watch how it comes tumbling down. And I thought the art was pretty, so there's that.



Siege #3 (****)

It's unusual for me to give so many four-star ratings, but I'm really enjoying the comics this week. We've finally seen Osborn's Card-House fall, and now we see what's left in the, uh, void (Ok, that pun was intended, but you gotta admire the wordplay). I think it's so cool that the only thing holding the Sentry in check was Osborn. As bad as things were with Norman in control, what hell have they unleashed by taking him down? And more importantly who's going to be able to put that particular genie back in its bottle?

Siege Embedded #3 (***)

I find the Glenn Beck allegory to be a little too painful, although admittedly that may be because I don't like how truthful it could be. I don't think Embedded is a bad book, I just don't have much to say about it. I'm not a huge fan of the art, either. I think I see this as just the third or fourth side of the same events I'm seeing, and while they were really cool in Siege or one of the Avengers titles, watching this reporter suffer through Siege just seems extra to me. I don't hate the books, I just can't come up with much of a recommendation for them.

Nation X #4 (***1/2)

When I saw Doop on the cover, my initial reaction was "Oh God I'm going to hate this." But I think it actually turned into my favorite of this little mini-arc they've got going. While I'm not sure I understand what happened in Doop's comic, I sort of enjoyed the random nature of it. In spite of myself sometimes, I'm amused by Emma and the Cuckoos, and I thought the art for that section was gorgeous. I thought the story of the three kids trying to sneak food, kicked up a notch by their mutant powers, was very enjoyable, even if I do dislike Warpath. Watching Storm call Namor on his shit was also funny, because dear God it's about time. I'm so done with him and will be glad to have him go away as soon as possible.

X-23 #1 (***)

As a reader, I didn't like it. I thought the story was kind of rambling and I didn't get it. But as a comic book aficionado (if I could actually label myself as such), I thought they did some interesting stuff here. I'm not going to say it's never been done before, because I just don't read that much, but the switching off between normal comic style and the red scribble pages I thought was eye-catching and certainly different from everything else I'd read during the week.

X-Men Legacy #234 (***)

As IGN put it, a breather between Nation X/Necrosha and Second Coming. Sort of a 'day in the life' issue. While I initially had my reservations about a comic centered on Rogue, I think this title is pulling together nicely. Rogue has shown that she's capable of kicking ass, which is all I really need in a heroine. She's a little to empathetic with everyone, but I can handle it in small doses. And I'm very glad we are referencing the Phoenix Force disappearing, since from next issue I think that will be important. The only thing I'm not sure of, though, is did Rogue break Indra? I couldn't get a feel for that final panel with him.

DC:

Green Lantern Corps #46 (****)

What a great issue. I love it when the different lanterns all team up, and I thought these scenes were especially fantastic. The Tholian Web reference? Genius. The Anti-Monitor is back (albeit not for very long) and how they dealt with that I thought was awesome. I want to be able to say something more concrete than "It was awesome" but I'm not really sure where to start. You got to see fun displays of power, you got to see Guy and Kyle deal with personal issues, you saw the Blackest Night story move along towards its conclusion in two issues (Green Lantern next week and Blackest Night #8). And I have to say I love the Elephant blue lantern.