5.10.06 Reviews

Ex Machina #20 (DC/Wildstorm): The recent consensus of a few online critics has been that Ex Machina is slipping in quality. I don't see it. I think the pacing of the stories is a bit slower, as Brian K. Vaughan attempts to incorporate some more "real world" issues into the stories over outright superheroics or simply relying on flashy "Mamet-esque" dialogue. I still dig it. This one has a shocking ending! Grade B+.

Captain Atom: Armageddon #8 (DC/Wildstorm): This series is so much fun! The showdown of Captain Atom and Grifter vs. Apollo and The Midnighter was really cool! God, I hope Grifter is ok, I've followed him through so many incarnations, from the original Jim Lee to Scott Lobdell & Travis Charest, to Joe Casey & Sean Phillips, to Joe Casey & Dustin Nguyen, and now here. But we know he'll be ok for the Grant Morrison & Jim Lee resurrection, right? I don't really know what's going on in terms of destroying universes, assume it will all get resolved since we've already seen Captain Atom on "New Earth" over in Infinite Crisis, I'm just really enjoying all the Wildstorm gang in one place! Strong art from Camuncoli and a great voice over narrative courtesy of Will Pfeifer. Grade B+.

52: Week 1 (DC): I know it's the first issue and it's hopefully ramping up, but this was pretty boring. There's this attempt to make it feel like so much is happening in this "missing year" due to the condensed nature of the format, but I don't see it. We've seen the end of Infinite Crisis and we've seen the beginnings of the One Year Later stories and not much has changed, so how interesting could the time in between be? Hoping I'm proven wrong. Grade C-.

Also picked up the following pile of things which I'm looking forward to reading;

Popbot #7 (IDW): Been a while. Wasn't sure if more were coming due to Ashley Wood's sporadic nature. Looks like the first ish of "Season 3." Hoping there is more story to this and less pin up art.

Borrowed Time (Oni Press): Much of Oni's recent material has been hit and miss for me, mostly the latter. But the preview art looked really interesting on this, and for the price, it wasn't a very risky proposition.

Fate of the Artist (First Second): I really do dig the First Second logo - a stylized :01. And they launched quite a few of these digest sized books this week. Really excited about that. Looked like an interesting Eddie Campbell project. Hope it is more intriguing and doesn't lean toward being self-indulgent.

The Lost Colony (First Second): Art looked... interesting, I suppose is the nicest way to put it. But I was taken by the book design and interesting premise.

Vampire Loves (First Second): This is a collection of previous released material. And ever since the Anne Rice cults of the early 90's and culmination of Whedon's Buffy series, I've basically been all vampired out. However, Joann Sfar's The Rabbi's Cat is one of my favorite books, so I picked this up based solely on trust in the creator.