DONE-IN-ONE REVIEWS: MARCH 21, 2009

[Blake Petit]

Welcome, friends, to another Saturday of fun, frivolity, and Done-In-One Reviews. The CX staff once again has converged to pool together quick looks at a lot of comics that aren’t being covered in regular review features. This week we’ve got monsters, superheroes, FBI agents, orbital battle schools, little kids and evil supervillain clones dripping with goo. What’s not to like?

Bomb Queen #6 (Image Comics/Shadowline)
By Jim Robinson & Paul Little

You can’t keep a good villainess down. BQ is in the fight of her life against the nigh-invincible Black Knight. And it’s up to the nerds and superhero Dee-Rail to save her lousy butt, which in turn may just save their own lives. Well Jim Robinson swung for the fences with this issue. There is plenty of mayhem and carnage, especially concerning the fate of one of the geeks. Yikes, that was a harsh scene indeed. While things were wrapped up nice and neatly at the end, I can’t help but wonder when a real superhero won’t come along to put BQ in her place. It’s not that I’m becoming weary of the violence, but seeing a villain win every time just upsets my nerd sensibilities, I guess. Still, Bomb Queen remains a vile and repulsive fun filled comic extravaganza.
Rating: 4/5 —Terry Verticchio

Ender's Game: Battle School #4 (Marvel Comics)
By Orson Scott Card, Christopher Yost & Pasqual Ferry

Ender is moved to Ray Army this issue, and placed under a Toon leader who actually knows what to do with him. As Dink Meeker has Ender begin to demonstrate his new null-gravity tactics, some of the kids who have learned to hate the young prodigy begin to plot ways to take him out. Pasqual Ferry does a brilliant job illustrating the zero-gee fight scenes in this issue. There's plenty of action and energy, the colors pop, and the intensity comes right out in the characters. Yost has done an impressive job of translating the novel to a comic, keeping much of the dialogue, but managing to convey the rest of the story very well without resorting to overly-prosaic captions or other cheats that pull you out of the comic. Marvel has been producing a lot of novel-to-comic adaptations lately. As those go, this is easily one of the best.
Rating: 4/5 --Blake M. Petit

Eureka #3 (Boom! Studios)
By Andrew Cosby, Brendan Hay, Diego Barreto, & Digikore Studios

What a pickle. King comes back to help, and it turns out Brogan is one of his “mistakes”. But can he control him – or should I say the thing in Brogan? He thinks so, but the truth turns out to be much more complicated (as they are wont to do, really). Meanwhile, Carter and the others realize Brogan has Allison and try and save her, but fighting a guy who can't be hurt or killed is pretty damn difficult, especially when he's someone's old boyfriend on top of that. A chaotic fight scene ensues, but as I've pointed out, there's lots of complications. This issue has a fair bit of exposition, but it is balanced out with action, and there are attempts made to even out the art, which has been one of my biggest quibbles with this miniseries. It's not quite there yet, but it's a good start.
Rating: 3.5/5 --Andrea Speed

Fall of Cthulhu: Apocalypse #4 (Boom! Studios)
By Michael Alan Nelson & Mateus Santolouco

It's the end as the Godwar comes to an end – right in the first pages, in fact – and the fallout is felt afterwards by those who stopped it. Lucifer discovers that the Harlot has had plans for her for a while, and we find out who that red haired little girl is. She's shown up in at least one panel throughout this series for a while, but we never quite knew why she was there or what she was supposed to signify. Now we know. It's all logical, but the best sequence is the opening one, where nightmare creatures brawl and people descend into madness, and it's all just as freaky ugly as you expect. The art is at its best when dealing with the madness and monsters; dealing with “normal” people, it's not nearly as effective. The color blocking is really nice, though. A somewhat abrupt end to a good series.
Rating: 3.5/5 --Andrea Speed

Greatest American Hero #2 (Arcana Comics/Catastrophic Comics)
By Stephen J. Cannell, William Katt, Derek McCaw, Christopher Folino & Clint Hilinski

As Ralph takes the alient power suit home, oblivous of the fact that he's left the instruction manual behind Maxwell is suspended from duty. Plus, Ralph tries out the suit for the first time. There are two main problems I'm having with this story. First, it's not really funny. It tries to be, but it doesn't quite meet the charm and whimsy of the original TV series. Second, is that it doesn't feel like it's near a finish. There's only one issue left, but the story has clearly barely begun. Obviously, they intend to produce more minis if this first one is a success, but that doesn't mean the first shouldn't stand on its own. I'm really afraid we'll see this series end on a cliffhanger, which is something I'm never really in favor of. I feel like I want to like this book more than I actually do.
Rating: 3/5 --Blake M. Petit

Hotwire: Requiem For The Dead #2 (Radical Publishing)
By Warren Ellis & Steve Pugh

This should really have Pugh's name alone on it, since he's doing all the writing and drawing, but the Ellis influence is writ large all over this story, so even if he wasn't credited, you could see how this basic story came from him. What do I mean? Well, our Detective Exorcist thinks this weird blue light problem is containable – more or less – and the “ghost bomb” someone mentions is still a myth, as riots rage out of control throughout the city. But then a dead guy who doesn't seem to know he's dead turns up at the cop shop, and by the time Hotwire gets there, he's exploded ... into a spectral Chinese dragon. All of this deals with a drug mule type scenario that actually involves “weaponized” blue lights and the ghosts of a whole bunch of psychopaths. It's weird, a tad unsavory, disrespectful of most authority (not all, but some), and a bit gruesome. In other worlds, classic Ellis. The artwork remains very pretty, especially those spectral dragon pages, which also boast beautiful coloring. This comic is a trip, and I mean that in the best sense of the word.
Rating: 4/5 --Andrea Speed

The Life and Times of Savior 28 #1 (IDW Publishing)
By J.M. DeMatteis & Mike Cavallaro

Savior 28 is dead. The legendary hero, lost for years in a miasma of alcohol and self-loathing, is gunned down at a "Save the World" rally, and the question of who committed the crime may not be as intruiging as that of why. Being, as I usually am, a big fan of J.M. DeMatteis's work, I really wanted to like this book, but I just couldn't. While the premise is interesting, Savior 28 comes across as just another of the uninteresting moral relativists that have turned me off of a lot of the more popular comics being printed today. The mystery, for much of the book, takes a back seat to political posturing. The revelation of the killer at the end opens up the more interesting question of why Savior 28 was murdered, but by that point, I don't really care enough about the victim himself to want to follow that train of thought. There's a solid idea here, but the execution left me totally cold.
Rating: 2/5 --Blake M. Petit

Potter's Field: Stone Cold (Boom! Studios)
By Mark Waid, Paul Azaceta, & Nick Filardi

John Doe, the mysterious man who looks into deaths mysterious and forgotten about in potter's fields, is back again, this time looking into a whole bunch of odd cases. Seems the people died of natural causes, but were then burned and mutilated after death. Why? With a friend of his in the force, he starts an investigation that leads to identity theft and dirty cops. This is a decent story that seemed almost like the episode of a detective show, although perhaps a bit more violent than some. The artwork is atmospheric, and while weak in close ups, great otherwise (that silhouette panel is just beautiful). People in the mood for a crime drama/mystery comic will find this to be just the thing to fill the need.
Rating: 3.5/5 --Andrea Speed

Tiny Titans #14 (DC Comics/Johnny DC)
By Art Baltazar & Franco

The Tiny Titans have their first meeting of the Paradise Island chapter of the Pet Club, introducing new members and alienating older ones. The boys standing on the picnic table was a great touch, and somehow, every appearance of Elizabeth the elephant is funnier than the last. Later, the kids have to deal with a runaway vacuum cleaner, Beast Boy takes care of Miss Martian, and the Wonder Girls pay a visit to a Cyclops family. All funny stuff, and the Cyclops story actually has a bit more menace to it than we usually get in this series. It's not so much that it'll be disturbing to kids, though, and it works in the story wonderfully. As I've come to expect, this is a series full of laughs, charming characters, and great Easter eggs for the regular fans. Brilliant stuff, one of the best kids' comics DC -- or anyone else for that matter -- is producing these days.
Rating: 4.5/5 --Blake M. Petit

X-Files #5 (DC Comics/Wildstorm)
By Doug Moench, Brian Denham & Carlos Badilla

Something spooky is happening in the Bad Lands of South Dakota. It seems some women are disappearing in that area and the only suspect the local cops have is some guy that claims he’s being possessed by demons. So it’s up to Mulder and Scully to find the truth. It’s Doug Moench’s turn as writer, and I believe that he as a pretty good handle on the characters, though he plays up Scully’s skepticism and Mulder’s belief in the supernatural a bit much. But he does have Mulder behave in a reckless manner, like he always does which invariably lands him in mortal danger with some kind of beasty or entity. The art is very good and Brian Denham even gives the Agents a BMW to drive instead of some lousy Ford POS. The story is clever enough, the characterisation is well done and everything feels like a proper X-Files episode. So if you’re a fan feel free to pick up this issue.
Rating: 3.5/5 —Terry Verticchio

Zombie Tales #12 (Boom! Studios)
By Eric Heisserer, Jeremy Rock, Digikore Studios, Ralph Soll, Sebastian Piriz, Ian Brill, & Toby Cypress

This issue of the series features some great art from Rock in the opening story, about a school shooting and how the distillate of an old zombie virus is used to briefly reanimate the dead, so they can reenact (from muscle memory) their last moments before they died. It's a decent if predictable story, but the art really stood out. The scene where we watch the resurrected shooter “wake up” again? Oh my god, that's such a well drawn sequence it's incredible. He's an artist to watch. (The coloring's pretty nice too.) The second story, about hicks racing zombies, is slightly amusing but also a bit predictable. (They just had to go for the painful pun, didn't they?) The last story posits “cured” zombies trying to live amongst people in a world where they're hated and feared by most normals, and attend self-help groups that seem a lot like twelve step programs. A nice idea, and the highly stylized artwork is attractive in its way, although it's not a style I generally like. (I do like it here, though.) A solid installment.
Rating: 3/5 --Andrea Speed

Zorro #11 (Dynamite Entertainment)
By Matt Wagner & Cezar Rezik

Don Diego drops in on Lolita, only to find her already entertaining a guest -- Major Pasquale. As Diego finds a rare opportunity to make his oafish playboy act work in his favor, Lolita begins to suspect that there's more to him than meets the eye. Later, Zorro makes another play against Quintero's forces. The action stuff in this issue is good, just as good as the series has been from the outset, in fact. But what really makes the story work for me is first scene, where Diego manages to win a very subtle dual with the Major even while maintaining his air of foppishness. I hate to keep comparing zorro to Batman, since the Fox actually came first, but the comparisons are far too obvious to easily avoid. This issue is one of the first to really show Diego putting his secret identity to use in a way that Bruce Wayne never really does. It's a great scene that really sells the issue. Rezik's artwork is as good as ever. The whole isue comes together nicely.
Rating: 4/5 --Blake M. Petit