Another week, another batch of comics to go over, fellow geeks and geekettes! We’ve got a short list this time out, including two reviews from one of our most faithful congregation! It’s a new season, and with that, let’s get right into it!
@Cheeky_Basterds
JJ Abrams of Lost, Alias, Star Trek, and Star Wars fame has teamed up with his son, Henry Abrams, to bring you his take on the ol’ web head. Leading up to the announcement, there was plenty of fervor what story would be told: would a it be a retread of classic? A continuation of Sam Raimi’s ill-fated Spider-Man 4? Or something wholly original?
The story begins with the action well underway; the city in ruins as Spider-Man battles Cadaverous, a terrifying sentient-like new villain from the Abrams brain trust. Spidey has seen better days, as he’s bloodied, black and blue, in which he suffers an abysmal loss that makes him hang up the tights for twelve years. This is when we meet Ben, Peter’s teenage son that seems to be showing some “Amazing” symptoms of wall-crawler fever and we are witness to Peter as a curmudgeon, who cares less about doing what’s right and more about keeping the ones he loves safe.
Make no bones about it: this is an Abrams story through and through, these are his characters and he is not afraid to off them. There is an appeal to that angle which entices me to see just what other classic characters will be introduced and what’s to be their fate. 4/5 Bibles.
-Lauro Rojas
Inferior Five #1 is an interesting beginning. I’m a huge fan of both Jeff Lemire and Keith Giffen and have been reading DC Comics since the eighties, so it was no problem for me to get onboard with this being a sequel to INVASION!, the major DC crossover event of 1988. But it seems like maybe they should throw some breadcrumbs to readers who aren’t familiar with that storyline. There also seems to be little connection — at least thus far — to the original 1966 parody-superhero namesake.
While I enjoyed the issue, anyone who’s not as entrenched in DC continuity might not enjoy it as much. It does not meet readers halfway and propel them onto the next issue and, now that I think about it, scans more as a metacomic-within-the-comic that someone might have been reading in the third year of Giffen/DeMatteis’s beloved JLI run. I loved the scratchy, late-80s Giffen Art, as well as Lemire’s PEACEMAKER backup story. An interesting debut, but a bit of a strange start, which I suppose is on-brand at least. 3/5 Worst-Case Scenarios.
-Rob Bass
@Cheeky_Basterds
The issue of the crossover event, Year of the Villain, begins with Apex Lex traversing the multiverse and encountering the Lex’s of paths not taken with a mission to eliminate any potential threat that may arise in the future. Apex encounters Lex Luthors that became heroic and used their intelligence for good, to a monstrous Doomsday Lex Luthor, which he can only scoff at, and call a second rate Frankenstein’s monster, even to a Luthor that did not have all the advantages and became a simple cobbler.
Jason Latour‘s writing is crisp and clear…so long as you have been following the lead up to this story in Justice League. Bryan Hitch‘s artwork was cool, due to the many iterations of Lex Luthor we have not yet seen. In the end, the story is a bit complex, especially if you have not been keeping up with the comings and goings on Justice League, but it definitely works as a character study into Lex and ultimately his selfishness. 3/5 Bibles.
-Lauro Rojas