Sometimes, the staff at Graphic Policy read more comics than we’re able to get reviewed. When that happens you’ll see a weekly feature compiling reviews of the comics, or graphic novels, we just didn’t get a chance to write a full one for.
These are Graphic Policy’s Mini Reviews and Recommendations.
Alfie
City Boy #1 (DC Comics) – We anthropomorphize cities and treat them like living things with thoughts and feelings, but what if that were true? City Boy #1 by Greg Pak and Minkyu Jung takes that concept and literalizes it. City Boy #1 stars Cameron Kim, who has the ability to communicate with cities. His power is left a little vague by this first issue. We see a lot of what he can do but we aren’t given a clear explanation of his powers. Cameron was abandoned by his mother at a young age, leaving him to become a natural loner traversing the streets of Metropolis and using his powers to find valuables in the nooks of the city where no one looks. Much like another we are legends title Spirit World, City Boy had a prelude in Lazarus Planet tie-in comic. Reading Spirit World without that tie-in confused me more than a little. Luckily here in City Boy, the story feels completely independent and doesn’t require you to have read the tie-in. The art by Jung is clear and communicative, the real highlight is when we get a glimpse of the true power at Cameron’s disposal. Overall City Boy #1 is a good first issue, it’s intriguing and sets up an interesting narrative. But there is a feeling that this will all read better once collected in trade. Overall: 7.5 Recommendation: Read
Logan
Green Arrow #2 (DC Comics) – Joshua Williamson, Sean Izaakse, and Romulo Fajardo‘s Green Arrow continues to be a lot of fun with flashy fight sequences and an emphasis on the found family dynamic. This issue in particular has an action comedy vibe with Oliver Queen and Lian Harper fighting injustice and inequality on a farflung planet against literal fat cats, the return of the boxing glove arrow, and Queen having a portable tree house because he’s always getting stranded places. Izaakse breaks up the page into varied panel shapes to keep the battles moving before using traditional square and rectangle panels for interactions between this separated Arrow-family. He and Williamson pay homage to Green Arrow stories of the past while keeping things fresh with Oliver and Lian ending up in a new planet/reality each issue. It seems a bit random at times, but is a nice change of pace for the street level hero. Overall: 8.0 Verdict: Buy
Fury #1 (Marvel) – Al Ewing, Scot Eaton, Tom Reilly, Adam Kubert, and Ramon Rosanas craft a love letter to Nick Fury Sr. while creating a new beginnings for Nick Fury Jr. in the Fury one-shot. The most appealing thing about this comic is a different artist drawing a different time period in the lives of Nick Fury Sr. and Jr. Eaton leads things off with a Nick Fury Jr. infiltration that is part Steranko, part Secret Avengers setting up the old/new stakes of Scorpio, the Zodiac key, and of course, The Watcher for the folks that remember Original Sin. Next, Reilly goes groovy/space age perfectly complementing Ewing’s Stan Lee-esque writing style and channeling the collage/psychedelic style of the aforementioned Steranko. After that, we’re off to the Sgt. Fury days with Kubert channeling his father and doing a gritty war comic style to go along with his usual dynamic layouts while he and Al Ewing further the family ties aspect of everything. Finally, Ewing and Rosanas tie everything off with a bow in the present with clean, easy to follow to art that’s really the cream of the crop of current Marvel storytelling. Fury #1 does an excellent job wrapping up the Man on the Wall’s 60 year saga while setting up a bunch of future stories down the line for Nick Fury Jr. We’ll see if they stick, and it’s delightful to see Al Ewing and this varied team of artists weave together old Marvel lore in such an entertaining package. Overall: 8.4 Verdict: Buy
Well, there you have it, folks. The reviews we didn’t quite get a chance to write. See you next week!
Please note that with some of the above comics, Graphic Policy was provided FREE copies for review. Where we purchased the comics, you’ll see an asterisk (*). If you don’t see that, you can infer the comic was a review copy. In cases where we were provided a review copy and we also purchased the comic you’ll see two asterisks (**).
