Comic Book (sort of) Weekly Reviews – 3/21/12

Another week down, hopefully I’ll speed things up and get caught up with reviews.

Avengers: X-Sanction #4 – Wow, just so bad.  Why is Spider-Man in his black costume and Wolverine in his X-Force when they don’t wear it at all?!  And that ending?  This is the lead up to the war between the X-Men and Avengers and if it’s goal was to get me excited, I’m not.

Story: 6.5 Art: 6.5 Overall: 6.5

Batman #7 – Batman suffers from the trauma he experienced from the Court of Owls and we discover the truth behind Talon.  This is some of the best Batman I’ve read in years and Scott Snyder’s writing with Greg Capullo’s art is just beyond so much of the other material being put out there.  Fantastic.

Story: 9 Art: 9 Overall: 9

Captain Atom #7 – The concept of time is explored as we learn the origin of Captain Atom.  Such a fantastic issue, I hope this series finds the audience it deserves.  The art is fantastic, story top notch.  A great series.

Story: 8.75 Art: 8.75 Overall: 8.75

DC Universe Presents #7 – Well, well done DC, another series I don’t have to buy.  Hopefully the next arc is more worth it than this one.  I just don’t care and I’m just not entertained about the Challengers of the Unknown.

Story: 7.5 Art: 7.5 Overall: 7.5

Dominique Laveau: Voodoo Child #1 – Taking place post Katrina in New Orleans this is a pretty interesting story full of Voodoo, Vampires, Werewolves, Witches and who knows what else.  There’s an interesting vibe to the series, but I’m not totally sold.  It’s a decent start, but not quite the kick I was hoping for.

Story: 7.5 Art: 7.5 Overall: 7.5

Fables #115 – Another chapter in the war in Oz, the toys of Discardia and the events going on in Castle Dark, so many stories, so much to keep track.  Maybe too much to keep track?  The series is still solid, I just think there might be too many storylines weaving about.

Story: 8.25 Art: 8.25 Overall: 8.25

Fear Itself: The Fearless #11 – Is it just me or does Hellstrom’s actions and depictions not add up in the three different series’ he’s been depicted in this past month?  As far as the rest of the story… yawn.

Story: 6.5 Art: 6.5 Overall: 6.5

Generation Hope #17 – And that’s the end of the series.  It ended much better than it’s been for quite a bit, but it still feels very junior league to me.  The ending was ok, but I think Kenji was a waste of a character even though he was so stereotypical.  Oh well….

Story: 7 Art: 7 Overall: 7

Green Lantern Corps. #7 – Stewart deals with his actions in an ok story that throws out a lot of possibilities in the future.  We’ll see what all of this might lead to in the future, here’s hoping some decent emotional long term repercussions.

Story: 6.75 Art: 7 Overall: 6.75

Hoax Hunters #0 – It’s Scooby Doo and all of those ghost reality shows mixed together in an entertaining series collecting the short stories that’ve appeared before.  The series is entertaining and fun mixing some light horror and humor with original ideas.  The series will be kicking off into an ongoing soon and it’ll be great to see what they do with the ability to pull off a story over multiple issues.

Story: 8 Art: 8 Overall: 8

The Invincible Iron Man #514 – Tony is presented an option instead of facing a trial and like a game of chess so many moving parts are going on.  It’ll be very interesting to see how this all plays out because as Tony hints towards the end, he’s a few steps ahead of the rest.

Story: 8 Art: 8 Overall: 8

Justice League #7 – The main story was pretty damn bad.  The quiet moments when the team is talking to Trevor is good, and the Shazam short story is interesting enough, but overall, this is supposed to be a top line DC title?

Story: 6.5 Art: 7.25 Overall: 6.5

Kick-Ass 2 #7 – And that’s the end of the second volume.  There’s some good stuff here, but it’s still mostly violence for violence sake.  There’s a bit of character development and the third volume has potential to be much better than this second one.

Story: 6.75 Art: 7.75 Overall: 6.75

New Mutants #39 – If you need more evidence that Warlock in large doses is annoying… well here you go.

Story: 6.5 Art: 7.25 Overall: 6.5

Nightwing #7 – Seven issues in and it was all a lead up to a crossover with Batman and his Court of Owls storyline.  Overall, we really still don’t get the why of it all, it just seems like an empty lead up to me.

Story: 6.75 Art: 7.5 Overall: 6.75

Rebel Blood #1 – Another hot series from Image that fills a nice horror niche.  The series is great and left me not totally understanding everything.  The story looks great and left me wanting more.

Story: 8 Art: 8 Overall: 8

Supercrooks #1 – Why do criminals always commit crimes in cities where super heroes are?  That’s the question this new series from Mark Millar and Leinil Yu asks.  The series’ first issue is a solid start with some great action, great characters and solid art.  The concept is good and this is a more subdued comic compared to Kick-Ass.  This very well might be Millar grown up a bit.

Story: 8.5 Art: 8.75 Overall: 8.5

Supergirl #7 – Supergirl fights the Worldkillers and it’s all a set up for Doomsday to eventually show up.  The art is great but story flimsy.

Story: 7 Art: 8 Overall: 7

Thunderbolts #171 – Songbird goes on vacation and of course that goes wrong.  The story is very meh, but I guess the point was to get Songbird to a certain point in her powers….

Story: 6.5 Art: 7 Overall: 6.5

Uncanny X-Men #9 – There’s an escape of aliens that make an otherwise boring day exciting, except the writing is bad, the dialogue laughable.  The art is decent though.

Story: 7 Art: 8 Overall: 7

Wolverine #303 – The battle between the Hand and Yakuza wages on in what I can only assume is a way to shake some things up when it comes to those entities in the Marvel universe.  The story is ok, but I hate hate hate hate hate the switching of the art in the different chapters.

Story: 7 Art: 7 Overall: 7

Wonder Woman #7 – Wonder Woman prepares for a trip to Hell and meets Eros and finds out a truth about the Amazons and any boys born.  The story is ok, but not quite the quality we’ve seen from the series, depicting men as victims instead of strong women.

Story: 7 Art: 8.25 Overall: 7.25

X-Factor #233 – The team thinks Jamie is dead so they’re out doing some work for Val and Havok is in charge.  The series veers from it’s usually noir feel with more of an action story, but the writing is solid as always.

Story: 7.5 Art: 7 Overall: 7.5