The Drop List

In my various comicbook bloggings, I tend to skew positive. I've written before about why that is, but it boils down to generally feeling more energized by comics I like than those I don't. Negativity is an essential part of any criticism though, because not everything is going to be good, and when it's bad someone ought to say so. In that spirit, then, below are the comics I've decided to drop from my current pull list as of whenever I get around to sending an e-mail to Kelly at the store. (It'll probably be right after this). Oh, and of course, the reason(s) I'm dropping them.

Archer & Armstrong: I'm not totally sure when Archer & Armstrong went sour for me. It's still got a lot of fun and humor in it, but it feels like it's fallen into a narrative rut. The title characters keep fighting ancient evils and protecting ancient artifacts from being misused, but there isn't much actual progress made. This was probably always true, but it becomes more grating and noticeable the longer it lasts. Also, Archer and Armstrong haven't managed to remain as endearing as they once were, as individuals or a pair. Some of the playfulness has been sapped out of their relationship, and they both feel like empty echoes or their former awesomeness. I guess the whole series just got watered down somehow, not devoid of the elements that made it such solid entertainment in the past, but offering weaker, less interesting versions of those elements at every turn. Maybe this is more my fault as a reader than its fault as a comicbook; perhaps I've become less enamored of things that are exactly the same as they used to be, and I just can't say why. Whether I'm to blame or the books is or we both are or even neither of us are, though, is largely irrelevant. Bottom line is I'm over this title and ready to move on.

Hawkeye: As a rule, I've been less impressed with Hawkeye than other critics, or anyway the ones I read. I think there's been some smart stuff, but I wasn't as wowed by things like the dog issue or the most recent sign language issue. Cool ideas, carried through respectably and skillfully, but not mind-blowing or even necessarily stuff I'd never seen before. Not in that context, certainly, or in Aja's excellent style, so there's new good material, no doubt. It just doesn't excite me all that much. In between, there are Kate Bishop issues, which pretty much all suck. I don't have much experience with the character outside of this book, except for Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie's Young Avengers where she was considerably sharper, calmer, and more interesting. Fraction writes her as a little manic, and that makes her issues manic all over. There's a cartoonish energy about her and her stories that grates on me, doesn't fit with the Clint issues at all, and makes me dislike Kate as a character. I'm only talking about her recent move to L.A. In the early issues of Hawkeye, I loved Kate, and she was very much like her Young Avengers self. Maybe it's Fraction saying something about L.A., maybe it's the artists who should be blamed and I am pointing the finger at the wrong person...whatever the case, I have yet to like a Kate-Bishop-does-L.A. installment of this series. And I've always hated the bro villains. Cannot, will not, shall not accept them as a serious threat, no matter how many clown-themed hitmen they have in their ranks. The patriarch figure wheres what appears to be a Kangol hat and the world's douchiest sunglasses, so...not happening. With all the downsides and the longer and longer waits between issues, Hawkeye just ain't worth the wait any longer. Or the money.

Nailbiter: My normal probationary period for any new ongoing series is the first three issues. It's an arbitrary number, but three issues feels like the right amount to prove that you're worth following as a series. It gives the comic a chance to fully introduce its concepts, characters, and style, plus (ideally) move the story forward a significant beat or two. With Nailbiter, three issues wasn't quiiiiiite enough for me to make up my mind. There were some obvious negatives right away that never got better, but there was also the kernel of decent story in there, and I remained curious and invested despite the flaws. However, it only took issue #4 five pages for me to know I would not be following this series any longer (even though I still read the whole issue, because, you know, gotta finish what you start). There were two lines of dialogue in Nailbiter #4 that sealed the deal. First, a little background to explain why they were so awful. The story of Nailbiter takes place in a town that was the hometown of sixteen different serial killers. Nicholas Finch gets called out to that town by a friend of his, Detective Carroll, who believes he has finally uncovered the secret of why so many murderers come from the same place. By the time Finch arrives, Carroll is missing, so Finch teams up with local sheriff Shannon Crane to find him. This all leads to Finch and Crane digging up the grave of the first serial killer, which is what they're doing when issue #4 begins. BACKGROUND OVER. So, on page four, Crane says something about the guy they're digging up, and Finch says, "He was the first, huh? The first of the sixteen killers?" Ugh. I get it, they're trying to make this accessible to readers for whom this is the first issue of the series...but come on. That's not even trying. There is no way in the world Finch would feel the need to say that to Crane. It's a long-established fact that this is the first killer, and even if I accepted that Finch might want to confirm that, the notion that he'd qualify the statement by saying, "The first of the sixteen killers?" is just insane. She knows what he means by "the first" and he knows she knows it. The line isn't just forced and awkward, it's distractingly lazy writing. Then, at the bottom of page four and spilling onto page five, Crane gives a speech about how it wasn't until killer number sixteen, the titular "Nailbiter," that anyone paid any attention to the small town and its messed up history. According to Crane, "The victims showing up with their fingernails missing was big business." NOPE. Not buying it. The first three pages of this issue are devoted to describing another of the killers, called "The WTF Killer," who mutilated and messed with people's corpses like art projects. Two pages later you want to convince me missing fingernails is what got the headlines? Bullshit. It wouldn't take more than four or five serial killers coming from the same rural town for somebody to connect the dots, some cop or fan or reporter, and make it into something. Crane does say a few small-time books were written, but that's just not good enough. Fifteen killers went under the radar, but a guy chews on one not-that-intimate part of his victims' bodies, and that's news. I'm never going to be getting over that detail, so might as well call it.

Saga: I might actually decide to keep reading Saga for another month or two. It's so fucking good-looking and visually inventive, I resist walking away. But looking at my pull list (without the other five titles in this post) Saga is the only thing I'm not actively enjoying right now, the only one where I feel no attachment to any characters or plotlines. It's a dullard, as narratively dry as it is visually...wet, I guess. Rich. Whatever the proper opposite-ish adjective is. It drags and drags and drags, filling time and space with dialogue that thinks it's clever and/or risqué and/or funny but is usually none of those things. Lots of gratuitous sex and violence, too, which I'm sure the creators would say has meaning but the meaning has yet to reveal itself to me. It's spectacle more often than not, and that has its place, but I can't afford to stick with it indefinitely if nothing meatier is ever going to be provided. Sometimes I love an individual issue, but that hasn't happened since before the most recent little hiatus the title took, so it feels like forever ago. Is the hope of it ever happening again worth the risk of being super-duper bored for another month's worth of this comic? No, but I may avoid giving up just yet nevertheless, due to weakness. Be strong, Matt.

Unity: Of all the comics on this drop list, Unity is the one I should've left longest ago. The opening arc was pretty fantastic, for several reasons, but it got fairly crappy as soon as that ended and has yet to step its game back up. I think the problem is that Harada had to become a villain, since in his "main" book of Harbinger that guy is way evil, but he was a big part of the brilliant combat strategies that made Unity stand out at first. His tactical mind and immense powers contributed a lot to the team's overall agility and capability. Also his personality helped stir things up. Now it's just people who agree with each other working toward common goals. Wah wah. The other huge change, and easily the biggest reason to stop reading this series, is that Doug Braithwaite left. He was most of why I picked it up in the first place, having been none-too-impressed with Matt Kindt's writing, historically. I should have departed when Braithwaite did, but I've now read more issues without him than with, and enough it enough already.

The Wicked + the Divine: So far, everyone who's said anything in this comic has been incredibly, insufferably full of themselves. They think they're so smart and funny and fantastic, but mostly what they are is boring passive supermodels who do nothing but talk about themselves and each other. Yes, ok, some heads blew up and some people were set on fire, but even then it happens so casually, and with a literal snap of the fingers, so as to make it seem insignificant. The idea of this comic, with the group of gods who show up every ninety years as hip young weirdos, is sexy and cool in all the right ways, but so far all the book has really accomplished is to idly roll around in the brilliance of its own concept. The most recent issue (#3) was mostly wasted space used not for story advancement but just to introduce two crazy annoying and clever-in-a-not-at-all-cute-way characters, who ended up not even mattering to the plot yet and walked off stage as suddenly as they entered. Boo, hiss, etc. I'm sure there's a plan, and that what seemed to me like wasted space was in fact a super-important piece of a puzzle too enormous for me to grasp yet, but I already don't care to ever grasp it. If this is the pace at which this comics plans to move, and these are the types of people who populate its world, then no thank you. Parting shot: the plus sign in the title is just obnoxious. Unless, I suppose, it's pronounced, "The wicked plus the divine," in which case it just has a dumb name.

Catching Up With February (1 of 2)

Because of the horrendous Massachusetts weather and an equally horrendous week-long cold, I didn't get out very much in February. I worked from home all month, and the comic shop I go to is right by my office but almost an hour from my house, so I didn't make any of my usual weekly stops to pick up my new comics. As aggravating as that was at the time, it did allow me to buy an entire month's worth of comics at once last Thursday, which is excellent, although admittedly it's not as big a stack as I expected. I must have successfully cut back on how much I was reading without even noticing it. Good for me! Anyhow, what follows are brief reactions to every comic in the pile, in the order I read them.

All-New X-Factor #3: I think I may be done with this book. I mostly really like Carmine Di Giandomenico's art. It has some rough parts, but they're worth it for the crackling energy that fills his pages. His Danger was especially great, and the one thing that might make me stick around for another issue. But with the head of Serval (I forget his name) already obviously untrustworthy and narcissistic, Gambit not feeling or acting like Gambit at all, Polaris and Quicksilver's weird half-sibling tension being so forced a plot point that Quicksilver openly talks about how he doesn't know what to make of it...I'm just not feeling this series conceptually. Peter David's usual humor could save it, but it's nowhere to be found, so I'll just have to wait for Di Giandomenico to get a gig on a title I actually enjoy, and then read that. This isn't holding my interest.

Sex #11: Another problematic series for me (I tend to read the stuff I don't expect to like as much first, so hopefully things get gradually better as I go, though it doesn't usually work out quite right). I wrote a post all about my problems with Sex several months back, and they haven't really changed much. Simon Cooke is an awful main character, most of what happens is boring, there's a bunch of explicit sex stuff that serves little-to-no narrative purpose, and the only character worth following is Keenan Wade because he has a real personality and he gets shit done. Everybody else stagnates. Even The Old Man, supposedly working on becoming a big-time villain again, just slowly tortures different people in uninspired ways (meaning he directly rips off the Gimp from Pulp Fiction) without getting anywhere or making any visible progress. So yeah, this comic drives me mad, and issue #10 was easily the worst ever, but then at the end when Keenan and Simon finally confronted one another, that interested me enough to come back for one more issue. And this issue may have been the best yet: Simon actually emoted, Keenan got more page space than he maybe ever has, and there was no pointless graphic sex. And as always, Piotr Kowalski and colorist Brad Simpson both did stunning work. I'm still not wild about this title but I liked this issue so I guess I'll read one more.

Archer & Armstrong: Archer #0: First of all, I should say that I completely expected to like this, but I read it third anyway just because it was a #0 issue so it seemed like a natural palette cleanser before reading two #1's (see below). And it was just as good as I'd hoped. Archer & Armstrong rarely blows me away, but it just-as-rarely disappoints. The origin story given to Archer here is no surprise, but it's still well-told and entertaining. Plus I think Pere Pérez is the best artist this book has had, or at any rate he's the best for this series. His lines are solid and often heavy, but the art still has a playfulness to it that matches the moments of humor. This issue was darker than most, though, because Archer's past is a pretty brutal series of abductions and tortures and trainings. Fred Van Lente really piles it on but, again, it's not out of step with what we already know about Archer and the world he lives in. The details have been filled in now to a history that had already been fairly well-outlined in previous issues. That's a nice use of this kind of #0 issue, and then in the final few pages, Van Lente brings it back to the present and teases the next storyline. All good stuff.

Loki: Agent of Asgard #1: I should probably read Kieron Gillen's Journey Into Mystery run, huh? Not that it's necessary to understand this, but Loki: Agent of Asgard is rooted in the events of JIM, so reading Gillen's work would probably deepen my understanding of Al Ewing's new story. That being said, Ewing's script works perfectly well on its own, recreating Loki as the All-Mother's personal secret agent, a role that fits him extra-snugly. Ewing writes Loki as the intelligent, somewhat conflicted anti-hero he needs to be to carry this title. Then just to go the extra Mile, he writes the Avengers as hilarious sitcom characters without needing to make them say or do anything out-of-character. All of that comedy and personality was boosted by Lee Garbett's artwork, which was crisp and cartoony and handled every character with ease. Nolan Woodard's pop coloring helped, too, infusing everything with a brightness that made it that much more fun to read. He did a good job of giving the flashback panels their own tints, too, setting them apart but not letting them clash with the rest of the art. This was a fast-paced, thoroughly enjoyable debut from cover-to-cover, a done-in-one story that also served as the first chapter of a longer narrative, a complex multi-Loki story about the nature of good and evil that's only starting to take shape. I look forward to following it.

She-Hulk #1: Probably the two most well-regarded superhero comicbooks Marvel has right now are Daredevil and Hawkeye, both single-star titles that have a good sense of humor and a nice humanity to them, dividing their time between the superhero and normal human parts of their protagonists' lives. It seems like She-Hulk is following that tradition, and the fact that she has the same day job as Daredevil, plus this series being drawn by Hawkeye's most regular fill-in artist, only adds to the sense that this new series is taking its cues from those two critical darlings. I'm not attacking that approach, quite the opposite, since Daredevil and Hawkeye are both series I follow and enjoy. She-Hulk feels like it's going to be another good read every month, fun and personal but still able to do the high-powered superhero stuff with style. Charles Soule uses the Marvel Universe to enhance his story, but it's a Jennifer-Walters-as-lawyer narrative, rather than Jennifer-Walters-as-Avenger. I liked focusing on that part of her life for the first issue, because it's maybe less expected and potentially less exciting. Soule makes it compelling, not so much because the legal case is particularly original, but because Jen is such a strong character right away, and has a very funny, singular view of the world. I'm eager to spend more time with her. It did bother me when, for no real reason, a few panels were devoted to painting Jen's client as a horrible mother. No idea where that came from or why Soule thought he needed to include it, but that was pretty much all that bothered me about his script. I'm not the biggest Javier Pulido fan, though I only really know him from his Hawkeye issues which have been alright but never amazing. Here, Pulido seems more sure of himself somehow, and he fills Jen with the confidence and charisma she deserves. He also avoids objectifying her, even when her clothes get tattered in a robot fight, which should always be applauded when it happens in comics, particularly mainstream superhero books. Neither of these creators are especially familiar to me, and She-Hulk's not a character I've read a lot about, but I was impressed by this and I'm excited for more.

Lazarus #6: Lazarus bores me and I can't quite tell why. It's not badly written or drawn, it's clear and it moves forward steadily, it definitely has a long-term plan in place, and there's nothing offensive about it in content or quality. Yet here I am six issues in and I feel no connection to or investment in this series or any of its characters, least of all Eve, the supposed star. She's so one-note, even though it seems like Greg Rucka wants us to think she's got a deep, tumultuous inner life. I just don't buy it, or haven't seen enough of it to understand her or care about her, or maybe it's a combination of those things. Whatever the case, she feels bland to me, ever the stoic security guard, not someone worth rooting for or against yet. Meanwhile, a weird post-apocalyptic political thriller takes place around her at a snail's pace, the Carlyles fighting with each other and other families over a desolate country full of downtrodden people. I see no reason to care who ultimately wins that struggle, because they're all despicable and the world they live in doesn't excite me. It's awful to look at and uninteresting to think about, too common and simple a vision of the future to get my wheels turning. Whatever...I could go on taking shots at this book but why bother? It's not for me, I've given it a fair chance but it has not won me over, and the best thing for everyone would probably be if I moved on. I'm glad there's an audience out there to whom this speaks, but I am not a member of it.

Hawkeye #15: This confused me a bit. There was the minor confusion of what exactly happened on the last few pages. I know Kazu shoots both of the Barton brothers, that much is clear, but I'm not entirely sure where it happens or how. Kazu clearly gets the drop on them, but where was he positioned so that he could do so? Where does he run to? Why doesn't he shoot Spider-Woman, who is like two steps behind Barney on the stairs? Where was Clint going, anyway, and what did he hope to find there? None of that is made obvious by either Matt Fraction's script or David Aja's art, which is a shame because, though this series has its ups and downs, being able to make sense of it has never really been a problem before. That confusion was accidental, a case of Aja's layouts and Fraction's dramatic silence at the issue's close not registering with me the way they were meant to. Far worse was the needless plot development Fraction tosses out earlier in the issue, explaining that, while Clint has deemed himself the protector of his apartment building, legally speaking he has no ownership of it and, in fact, it is already in possession of the bad guys against whom Clint is trying to defend it. Ok, so the villains already have the building...why keep fighting? Could they not just call some lawyers and cops and get Clint kicked the hell out of the apartment he's technically squatting in? I understand these guys are thugs who love violence, but that doesn't mean they have to be complete idiots all the time. You want the building? It's yours! Just take it and stop trying to murder people. It also makes Clint into a less noble figure, and more of a buffoon than he already always was. So I'm not sure it was the best move, from a storytelling standpoint. It changed very little as far as anyone's behavior, and introduced a complication the narrative didn't need or want. There was, as there always is, some solid humor, and Aja's art was only less-than-amazing for a few unclear panels at the very end, so I didn't dislike this issue. It was mostly fine, but with a few questionable choices/moments of befuddlement that were not so fine.

Hinterkind #5: This issue managed to express the urgency of its story while also splitting its focus between several groups of characters and never needing to rush through anything. Prosper and her father have some good, intelligent debate about the morality of letting people die in an emergency situation, all while trying to survive one. The soldiers who kidnapped them do the same, though there is less debate and more order barking in their case. Meanwhile, in California, the queen of the Hinterkind (I think...she's a queen of some of them, if not all, but I believe it's all) learns of her daughter's insubordination during her recent absence, and sets to work to make things right. Oh, and there's a guy whose name I can't recall who escapes the soldier compound on his own in a couple very efficient pages, while the gang of evil Hinterkind who've always been around try to find their own way out. It's a tight bit of writing by Ian Edginton, who seems to have finally found his stride with this series. No longer needing to establish the cast or reality, he can now just let crazy shit happen, and watching everyone's reactions makes for a meaty issue. Artist Francesco Trifolgi is also getting better all the time, and his handling of the widespread fire and chaos here was expert. Hinterkind is still defining itself, but every new issue it gets closer to being something truly remarkable. Given the proper time, I think this could be a phenomenal series, and I hope it keeps up the current momentum and realizes its full potential soon.

Mighty Avengers #6-7: I'm glad I got to read these issues back-to-back, because they really are a one-two punch of story. Each of them has their own threads, and the end of #7 is left open in several ways, so it's not like I'd call this a two-issue "arc," necessarily. But there's a throughline in #6 that leads to its final page directly, and that final page is just setting up the A-plot of #7, so this pair of issues has a clear connection that made them a fitting combo read. I also liked how both the new Power Man and, in even more detail, the current White Tiger had their powers explored a bit, because I'm less familiar with them than anyone else in the cast. Along the same lines, having Luke Cage and Adam Brashear butt heads over their respective histories was a nice, character-appropriate way to provide a bit of background exposition on them and advance their relationship. Al Ewing does the team book well, always giving everyone at least a little something to do, and never making any one character the obvious star of the series. It is Cage's team, but he's no bigger a presence than anyone else in these issues. Everybody has an important part to play, a part that only they could, something suited to each of their specific skill sets. But it's not repetitive or predictable, it's just that Ewing knows his cast well enough to use them all as effectively as possible in whatever story he tells. Valerio Schiti is a more than welcome replacement for Greg Land. I get the sense that Schiti may also do some photo-reference work, but if so, it's less obvious. Basically he either does convincingly comic-looking photo-based art, or impressively realistic free-drawing. My eye isn't well-trained enough to know for sure, but either way it's great for this title. This is a team all about being in touch with the regular people of their city, so having grounded artwork, characters who remind us of our own world while still being distinctly superheroic, is exactly right. And it makes the pigeons chasing that arsonist around super creepy. When they finally lead him to Falcon, it's so dark and awesome it feels more like a Batman moment than an Avengers one. That's a mood I think works for Mighty Avengers, a little more gristle, a lot more street-level action, and a vague gloom hanging over everything. This team has got some hard times ahead, and Schiti is stepping in just in time to take them there and make them look good along the way. Spider-Ock is officially gone, the rest of the team is clicking and buzzing, and the art has taken several big steps up. Mighty Avengers may well be one to watch.

Ms. Marvel #1: Lots of Marvel stuff on this list, huh? I guess i didn't really notice how much of my list had been devoted to them. I'm still not reading any of the New 52, which has opened up some space in my wallet and schedule to try out more of the All-New Marvel NOW! books coming out these days. And just like with Loki and She-Hulk above, Ms. Marvel #1 was a good opening issue. In that it's introducing a brand new character, it certainly has a different feel than the other debuts, less thrilling but no less intimate in its focus. This is mostly a teen drama comic, about a young girl with oppressive parents who just wants to go to the party and hang with the cool kids. In other words, it's something of a cliché, but with the not-insignificant detail of main character Kamala Khan being Muslim. That's the reason for most of the attention this book has got prior to its release and—based from the little I have read (trying to avoid spoiling it for myself)—since then as well. But it's really not that important to the plot here. Or...it is, but it could be any religion, or no religion at all, so long as Kamala still had overbearing and overprotective parents. It is her father's refusal to let her do the "normal" things she wants to do that spurs her to sneak out and, ultimately, leads to her being exposed to the (Terrigen?) mist that gives her her superpowers. Some of the details, like Kamala wanting to eat bacon and refusing to try alcohol, are Muslim-specific, but it would not have been difficult to swap those out for other things. My point is that G. Willow Wilson writes Kamala not as a Muslim who happens to be a teenager but as a teenager who happens to be Muslim, which is a good way to go. It makes her relatable to anyone who's been a teenager upset with their parents, even as she simultaneously represents a community historically neglected by mainstream comics. And she's also a superhero geek, writing Avengers fanfic and fantasizing about life as a superhero, giving her something in common with any number of potential readers of this series, myself included. At then end when she gets her wish, it's easy to feel the same mix of excitement and fear Kamala must be feeling, because it's the same emotional blend I'd feel if it happened to me. The gloriously dumbstruck look on her face in the final splash panel goes a long way, too. Adrian Alphona draws great teenagers, too expressive for their own good, always betraying the feelings they think they're keeping in check. Wilson writes them the same way, making this a strong example of a realistic, human, accessible story about modern high schoolers trying to live normal lives. I hope Wilson and Alphona continue to take that route, keeping Kamala in an age-appropriate world and with a supporting cast of her peers, rather than too quickly shifting her into the role of a full-fledged superhero. Give her some time to be a bumbling, inexperienced young crime fighter until she earns her seat at the table. We'll see where this goes, but for now Kamala is a likable lead and a decent-hearted young woman who, in theory, could be an amazing hero someday.

Well...that's 11 out of 21 comics and more than 3,000 words, so I think I'll call it for now. Come back tomorrow for the second half.

Pull List Review: Hawkeye #10

Francesco Francavilla can draw all the comicbooks. I mean no, obviously that would make his distinctive style less distinctive but...damn, what a talent. I'm just going to provide a quick list of all the things that wowed me about the visuals of Hawkeye #10 because that seems more efficient than trying to talk about them in paragraph form:
1. As always with Francavilla, the colors were amazing, in particular the way he uses them to light the scenes. When Kate and Kazi are at their most intimate, he is lit in dull blue and her in soft pink, displaying their differences but still unifying them in the intimacy of the moment.
2. Speaking of that intimate moment, Francavilla has an incredible skill for getting across the tense calm of this kind of situation, where one character is a mystery and/or threat to the other. It reminded me of some of the James Gordon, Jr. stuff he did with Scott Snyder on Detective Comics. Lots of very close shots and panels of silence to add layers and pregnant pauses to the tension.
3. The shattered glass layouts of pages 8 and 9. All the layouts were typically dynamic and inventive for Francavilla, but that one-two punch hit harder than the rest.
4. The entire look of Kazi/The Clown. Chilling and sad in the perfect doses.
     So the art, as I expected, was spectacular. Did Matt Fraction's script rise to that challenge?
     It absolutely did. Firstly, Fraction was smart enough to take a step back in many places and let Francavilla run the show. Clipped dialogue, scenes of silence, conversations that we only get parts of here because we've seen them in other issues. There is as careful a use of space in the script as there is in the art, and it creates a very unified whole.
     The story is essentially a character study and origin story for Kazi, a villain with a somewhat typical history but a perfect personality and approach to be a nemesis for the Hawkeyes. He is humorless, detached, always cool and collected. Neither Kate nor Clint fit that description. They're wise-cracking street-level good guys with heart. He's a heartless sociopathic assassin.
     Fraction and Francavilla give Kazi an epic yet fairly quiet entrance onto the Hawkeye stage. It's a tight, crisp, intelligent issue with a shifting chronology, fascinating central character, and an ending that shocks even though it's a spoiled reveal. Applause, y'all. As solid a showing as this series has offered yet.
7.5/10

Good, But Not Great: Hawkeye & Young Avengers

It's like when you hear a joke that only makes you smirk while everyone else is in stitches. Though you can understand conceptually what makes the joke funny, and even pull some personal amusement and pleasure from it, you still feel like you're not getting it in the same way as those people around you. This happens in any and every medium, and it can make you question your competence and intelligence, even if only for a moment, when your own feelings seem to be counter to those of popular opinion. Right now, for me, this is happening in comicbooks in a big way with Matt Fraction & David Aja's Hawkeye and, to a lesser extent (because it is only two issues old) Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie's Young Avengers.
     Let me be clear: I like both of the books in question. Like them a lot, even. Visually they have each had some pretty stunning moments, there's a good deal of tight and funny dialogue in them, and I'm into their respective casts. But I don't think of them as the highest in current superhero comicbookery, nor have I ever considered them deserving of that level of acclaim. Are they more solid and better-looking than the majority of titles available today? Definitely. They belong closer to the top of the list than the bottom, but I don't LOVE them.
     I might grow to love Young Avengers over time. It's still so new and has been good thus far, but it's also immensely decompressed and has a sizable cast, so not that much has gone down as of yet. The first issue got more than one perfect review online, but in my eyes it came across as a pretty standard debut: we got brief glimpses of the current lives and personalities of all the main characters, and it ended by introducing the threat of the opening arc. Not every first issue is smart enough to do this kind of common sense groundwork, so kudos to Gillen for starting at the beginning, but still, the result was too many threads established too briefly for any of them to fully capture my attention. The issue had ADD; the opening scene of Kate Bishop and Noh-Varr was the best and most fun, but it was never returned to, abandoned in favor of meeting the rest of the cast. Even in Young Avengers #2, which was considerably more focused, there was but a single throwaway line referencing the characters from the debut's first scene, so in more than 30 pages Gillen has yet to get back to the most interesting story he's introduced. Yes, this is how comicbooks get written nowadays more often than not, aiming for the trade rather than satisfying single issues. And that's fine, and I like the other threads of the book, so I'm happy to follow those instead of the one I really want for now. But my mind isn't ever going to be blown by a book that, in two full issues, can't completely wrap its arms around or explain ANY of its myriad plot points, especially if it flat out ignores some of them for the sake of developing others at a snail's pace. When this arc wraps and I do have all the answers, I may well be thoroughly wowed. What bugs me is that so many reviewers online are already wowed, and I can't place why. It feels to me like Young Avengers isn't even expecting to drop its readers' jaws yet, that Gillen & McKelvie are taking their time in the beginning so that the latter half of their story can really go nuts. Nevertheless, the overwhelming praise continues to pour in, and though there MUST be people online talking about the title's flaws, too, they are much harder to track down than those folks enthusiastically waving the Young Avengers banner.
     Hawkeye is a stickier wicket, because my problems with it vary from issue to issue. Very much not written with the collected volume in mind, this series does mostly one- or two-issue stories, and while some of them have been a load of fun, there have also been a few duds already. And though I credited it above to the initial and most regular artist David Aja, it has also been drawn by Javier Pulido (#4-5), and Steve Lieber & Jesse Hamm (#7), and where Aja kicks ass the others only punch it lightly. So it is a less stable, reliable title than I want it to be, and even though I have seen this fact acknowledged online in places, the majority of what I've read has had a higher opinion about each issue than I.
     I never really thought the villains with broken English who say "bro" at the end of every sentence were especially funny, so maybe I'm just not the target audience, because those guys show up in the debut. But the story around them in that first issue was a strong one, showing Hawkeye's toughness along with his genuine altruism. And Aja's art was stellar right away. So I stuck with it, and though they had some rough spots, issues #2 and #3 were both more good than bad by far (even when the "bro" guys returned). Nothing that melted my face in the stories, but consistently great artistic work, from Aja and colorist Matt Hollingsworth both, and some impeccable humor from Matt Fraction. It was off to a strong start.
     But the Javier Pulido-drawn "The Tape" story was of lower quality on all fronts. The plot didn't ever grab me and then resolved on a cheap fake-out kind of ending, Madame Masque has never impressed me as a villain, and Pulido is similar to Aja in some ways but far less polished and detailed. His characters' expressions are wilder, and their appearances more prone to shift or morph from panel to panel. As much as I had enjoyed the opening three issues, I never raved over them the way I saw others doing, and then during "The Tape" I could feel my interest waning rapidly. But the promise of Aja's return kept me around, only for Hawkeye #6 to be another "bro"-fest. An entertaining, beautiful one, absolutely, but this being their third issue, the gang of tracksuit-wearing thugs began to feel like one-note clowns.
     #7 was the Hurricane (Superstorm?) Sandy issue, and even though it was inarguably awesome for Fraction to donate the royalties, the stories themselves felt a little cheap and like they were pandering. I'm not sure that could have been avoided entirely in the telling of Sandy stories about superheroes, but that didn't make it any less grating. Also, again, the art was not as strong. It's good, clear, emotive stuff, and both artists fit nicely with their respective stories, but it's a dip for the series, which doesn't help the weaknesses of the narratives.
     And that brings us to Hawkeye #8, another one centered on the "bro" dudes that seems to be leading us into a longer arc centering on them. Damn, now that I think about it, those jerks are the main baddies in half of the issues so far. Maybe that's the only reason I don't like this book as much as other people.
     Whatever. I'm still reading it eight issues deep so I must be enjoying myself. I don't eagerly anticipate it every month but I do look forward to seeing what it'll deliver. And I never know exactly what to expect, which is a point in its favor for sure. As for Young Avengers, I think I'm committed to the full first arc already, no matter how long that ends up being, after only two chapters. So even if I'm not trumpeting it as the next big thing in superhero books, I am glad to be reading it and excited to see how it plays out.
     But I'd love to love these series with the same enthusiasm I seem to find around every corner of the Internet. I want to feel like I am in on the joke, but I just don't yet get what the big deal is.

Pull List Review: Hawkeye #5

I hate this kind of ending. Having a mystery we didn't even know existed and couldn't have seen coming be explained to us (via it being explained to the only character not already in the know) is a boring, tired, cheap, lazy move. It tanks the conclusion of an otherwise pretty fun story, and leaves me feeling oh so deflated. Also, this is the first thing I've read with Nick Fury, Jr. and the guy came across as such an asshole. Arrogant and foolhardy.
     The ending might have held up if the rest of the issue were amazing, but it's mediocre and sometimes worse. There is one pretty great scene where Madame Masque threatens to put cigarettes out on Kate's face, but it's too brief and never even comes close to actually happening, so in the end who cares? Other than that, it was a lot of poorly-paced action. Like why have the first page take place seconds after the next page? What is the point of that awkward, tiny time jump? It added nothing. Along those same nothing-to-add lines, Kate and Clint have a moment when, facing down a room of villains, they do a cutesy "Ready, Hawkeye?"/"After you, Hawkeye," thing, which is all well and good on it's own. But literally two pages later they stop, realize they need to go back for something, and face down the same exact group of bad guys while counting to three before charging back the way they came. These two pauses are way too similar to each other and too close together, and both are weakened because of it. If you want to prove to me that the Hawkeyes can handle a room full of evil-doers together, once is enough.
     So yeah, Matt Fraction's script is lacking here. It feels rushed or, worse, less-than-fully-thought-out. And there's not a great deal of assistance offered by artist Javier Pulido. His pencils are fine as far as they go, but not to my taste and, I think, not as strong as they want to be. It feels like Pulido is aiming for something fairly grounded, but his style slides too far to the exaggerated side of the scale to pull grounded off. Everyone has big eyes and wide faces, and it's off-putting. There were one or two awesome pages, specifically when Masque fires her gun at Kate and Clint gets in the bullet's way, but beyond that it's middle-of-the-road stuff.
     I will give Matt Hollingsworth's colors a nod because they more than deserve it. The coloring adds a lot of flavor and energy to the book. They're vibrant, almost pop art hues, and it works for the frenetic pace of the issue. So high fives for that. 
     But yeah, god, that ending. So lame. And needless. Why couldn't it have been Hawkeye who assassinated that dude? He fired and explosive arrow at a giant window in front of a room full of people. This is not a guy who seems worried about the well-being of his enemies. And if the Avengers are a government-sanctioned team now, shouldn't they be allowed to do things for the government? I don't get it, and ultimately it feels like what Fraction is aiming for is to make Clint seem noble and selfless through protecting the identity of the soldiers who actually did assassinate somebody. If that's the case, though, Fraction misses the mark, and instead we get this flub of a wrap-up.
     Enough with this issue. Bring on the glorious return of David Aja!
4.0/10