chewable newt: April 2009

so i've been burned out on comics lately.
i think a large part of this came from two series i was following.

nyx: no way home

i loved the first nyx story, high school kids with mutant powers and all the hate, misunderstanding. it was nice to see something with mutants that didn't involve super hero acts and plots to destroy famous monuments... or whatever. i was hoping for more of the same in this series, but mostly it was just a lot of "wtf?"
okay so first off, i figured out lil' bro had mutant powers in the first book. i assumed kiden's ghost dad was a manifestation of this, and this later seem confirmed when lil' bro used his power to make dragons and other such monsters appear, they were the exact same colour as dear old daddy. but no, it couldn't have been that simple, instead it really was the ghost of her father, the time traveling ghost of her father who decided to put her through hell as it was the only path she wouldn't die.... oy.
then there also appears to be some evil version of xavier collecting mutant kids, and was really interested in lil' bros powers, that's fine, could've been interesting, it was lame however that his main operative was "immune" to kiden's power. that doesn't make any sense! kiden's power is all about time relative to her, she speeds up as everything around her nearly comes to a stand still, this is how she broke that kids arm by poking him in the original series. so either this chick is stuck in "no time" everytime kiden phases out, or this chick has the same power and phases out when she sees kiden disappear, but even by then kiden would be long gone at the that point.
yes, yes, i realize this is just a comic book, but suspension of disbelief only takes me so far.
would've been so much better without ghost dad's epic woes and impossible chick's powers.

el diablo

i picked up the first issue of this mostly because i liked the art, and the idea of hells assassin. i ended up being pleasantly surprised. it started out great, a gangster betrayed by his second in command, this happens during a bust, he gets crippled and ends up in a hospital room with a comatose cursed cowboy. obviously the cowboy passes the curse onto the gangster and now he's determined to get vengeance on his old buddy. and as a great bit of info that comes later, it turns out his second in command was a corrupt undercover cop. of course it doesn't that stay that simple or interesting, they throw this random insane killer "vorpal" in the mix, and he's a demon too! and then some random story about sumerian gods.... if this were a video game i believe yahtzee would say it has indigo prophecy syndrome.
seeing him fight uncle sam and co was fairly entertaining, the whole demon babe wanting to devour the world however, was not. it should've been skipped, and the focus should have remained on his ex partner and figuring out his powers.

i think that's my main complaint about comics, they take a simple idea and make it far too condiluted.
i mean lets face it, most superhero stories are worse than day time soap operas.

not all is bad in comic land, i might as well do my latest pull list for the hell of it.

icognito
great series about a "rehabilitated" supervillain. basically he's stuck in a crappy office job after being forced to take drugs to dampen his powers. he starts doing illegal drugs because his life sucks, and this somehow counters the government drugs. so now he gets his kicks by running around at night beating the shit out of thugs and would be rapists. i haven't read the latest issue yet but at the end of issues two his old bosses found out he's still active, and likely the one that squealed to put them behind bars.

kick-ass
fun series. can't say i didn't see the latest twist coming, but the back story on hit-girl and big daddy was interesting, must be fun to right a crazy right wing killer.

echo
interesting dream sequince in the latest issue, it's a great ongoing series, but nothing much to talk about with this issue, harlots, zealots and the golden ratio.

air
this is probably my favourite series now that i kill giants has ended. at first i was a bit worried when this went away from realism and into fantasy, but it's been handled beautifully, it's one the best written and fascinating comics out there.

whatever happened to the caped crusader?
this was wacky, and i loved it. if i understand it correctly gaiman is saying that there are endless versions of batman out there, all depending on who is telling the story. the common thread of course is that they're all batman for the same reason, the death of his parents, and he will always be killed by doing what he needs to do, batman will never retire. i know some people sort of wtf'd at the end, but to paraphrase the beginning of batman r.i.p. "batman will never die!" as a reward for a life of torment, he gets a few years of happiness in being a kid before being made into a whole new version of batman again.

black lightning: year one
now this is a superhero miniseries done right. not knowing anything about black lightning i was worried when it appeared his nemsis was going to be a demon, i was relieved when it turned out to be a somewhat immortal wizard with connections to ra's al ghul. apparnetly that's good enough for my willful suspension of disbelief. fun story though, definetly made black lightning one of my favourite superheroes.

comics i have yet to read:

criminal: a wolf among wolves
another brubaker title. blair bulter called this comic the best stand alone issue of last year, and she has yet to lead me astray, i'm realling digging incognito, so i figure if i like this , i'll eventually get around to the rest of the series.

pax romana
ah hickman, another author blair bulter has turned me on to. basically it's a story about the vatican of the future sending an army back in time to save the roman empire from collapsing, and making the world a better catholic one. sounds interesting, i'm quite glad i finally got a hold of the first two issues of this.

comics that need their next issue out already
rasl & red mass for mars