Sam Christopher's Quick Hits

By Sam Christopher

Two anthologies lead off this edition:

Marvel’s Dark Rein: New Nation One-Shot is basically five lead-ins by five creative teams to five comics that Marvel is hoping to entice you to buy. The first, Secret Warriors: Declaration has a Nick Fury-led team attempting to “change the world”. Brian Michael Bendis and Jonathan Hickman write while Stefano Caselli draws this interesting story. Agents of Atlas: The Heist, by Jeff Parker and Carlo Pagulayan, makes me wish I’d read the A of A mini. Cool little story about the theft of a rather large amount of gold from a rather large holder of gold. War Machine: Crossing the Line was all right but I never really cared very much for this character. But writer Greg Pak and artist Leonardo Manco made this interesting; maybe I’ll try the series. Adam Felber and Paulo Siquiera bring us Skrull Kill Krew: Breakfast in America. They should have kept it. Lastly, Jim McCann and David Lopez tell us about the reunion of husband and wife Hawkeye and Mockingbird in New Avengers: The Reunion: Suspicion. Okay, I guess. All in all this was much, much better than last week’s Dark Reign One-Shot.

Next, the DC Universe Holiday Special is chock-full of super-powered Christmas cheer. First, Matt Cherniss and Peter Johnson tell, while Ivan Reiss and Joe Prado illustrate, “The Man in Red”, an origin re-told—sort of. An excellent story. Second, “Somewhere Beyond the Sea”, by Dan Didio and Ian Churchill, relates the meeting of two kings—sort of—and is a solid Silver Age-style Aquaman story. “Good King Wenceslas” is up next. Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen relate a non-super, very sweet, medieval tale of warriors and kings. Then, Batman and Jim Gordon live through the wonderful quiet of “A Day without Sirens”, with special thanks to The Birds of Prey, in a tale told by Joe Kelly and Mick Bertilorenzi. “It’s a Wonderful Night”—written by Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani and drawn by Tim Levins—is a nice little story about family. Although it would have been nicer if Nightwing could learn that Christmas presents should be accompanied by a boisterous “Merry Christmas”. The JC Vaughn and Lee Garbett production of “Christmas with the Beetles” was okay, nothing special. Then the Huntress plays nice in “An Angel Told Me”, a sappy but fitting story by Amanda McMurray and Rafael Albuquerque. Good story, a little rich cause-to-narrative ratio, though. “The Night Before Christmas” stars the Teen Titans in a story by Rex Ogle and Mike Dimotta that vies with “…Beetles” for the worst in this book but still not bad. “Party Animal”, by Alan Burnett and Kevin Maguire, starts out pretty lame but comes back with a strong finish. And, speaking of a strong finish, Adam Schlagman and Rodolfo Migliari end this volume with an excellent story starring Dr. Light, fittingly titled “Let There Be Light”. All of these stories are sandwiched between a one page opener and closer by Sterling Gates and Karl Kerschl. A special, special book.

Other comics:
Age of the Sentry #4- More Silver Age-style goodness with just a hint of darker reality around.

Angel: After the Fall #15- Angel fights both his nature and destiny as Gunn and Illyria try to destroy the world, bringing about the death of… but that would be telling.

Birds of Prey #125- Kind of a letdown for a “milestone” issue, but not bad. Anytime you have Black Canary and Oracle together it’s a good time.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #20- Writer Jeph Loeb and artist Georges Jeanty bring us a transitional tale that takes us back to Buffy’s freshman year in high school. A dream sequence glimpse of what they had in mind for the Buffy Animated Series they worked up a few years back. Great story, great fun.

Mighty Avengers #20- Funeral for a Wasp. Thor makes a magical, heart-felt appearance. My question: How and why did Norman Osborne become Marvel’s answer to Lex Luthor? I just can’t see all these heroes—especially people like Tony Stark—bowing down to this clown no matter what pull he has in the government. I just don’t get it.

Spiderman: Noir #1- Starts off looking, very, very good… then quickly collapses into garbage. I’ll check out the second ish but I’m not very hopeful for this series now. I just hope things change.

Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Last Generation#2- Why am I not surprised that Wesley Crusher would do the wrong thing?

Stephen J. Cannell’s The Greatest American Hero #1- A fantastic, fun re-telling of the early days of this classic tv show in comics form. Publisher Arcana Studios promises original stories are forthcoming. If they’re told in the same vein as this one we can look forward to a laugh-riot. It’s rare that I laugh out loud while reading a comic—Ambush Bug accomplishes this with regularity—but this book had me guffawing every couple of pages.

Supergirl #36- Kara tries to deal with her father’s death and her mother’s descent into madness. Kandorians Nightwing and Flamebird (y’know, I’m not even sure that’s what they’re called but that is the costuming for them), along with the mysterious Superwoman, make an appearance.

Terminator: Revolution #1- Are all the women at the end of the world this incredibly hot? Sarah and Tara Connor—not making that up—are just astonishingly well put-together. Is this an evolutionary imperative, a “survival of the fittest” thing? Just curious.

Thor: God-Sized One Shot- This tells the tale of Skurge the Executioner and why the gods have conflicting memories of him. Great story! Just a great story.

War of the Elementals #2- Finally got this! And I don’t really know what to say about it. And in this case that is a compliment. I think I know where the story is going but I don’t want to say but that makes it concrete in my mind and I would just as soon be wrong. Meeting Kazar was a bit much at first but it seemed to fit in all right. I imagine #3 is out by now—maybe I can get it in the next few months. (I have no idea how this happens. Same thing happened with Epilogue #2)