"Rapid". "Fire". Alone, they’re short, direct words, not really bad or good, but simple. Put them together and you get “rapid fire”, which is a whole new ballgame. That ballgame doesn’t end well most of the time: a rapid fire in a forest usually kills a lot of creatures and takes decades to recover, rapid fire from a gun results in property damage under the best conditions, and rapid fire responses at a press conference are usually scripted and hiding the truth. Or am I being too cynical?
I’m going to try to give “rapid fire” a bit of positive cred this week. I’m going to review WAY more than my normal amount of books. I’m going to do them fast, right after having read them. And just watch, it’s going to be awesome!
Superior Spider-Man Team-Up 2 (Yost/ Checchet):
The old adage “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” gets taken out for drinks, dragged to a back alley, and thrown around for a while until it starts seeing dead people. I’m not a fan of stories that could have been much shorter and effective if the parties involved talked and listened for two minutes before the fighting, but in this particular case, it works well. Look for the next chapter in Scarlet Spider 20!
The old adage “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” gets taken out for drinks, dragged to a back alley, and thrown around for a while until it starts seeing dead people. I’m not a fan of stories that could have been much shorter and effective if the parties involved talked and listened for two minutes before the fighting, but in this particular case, it works well. Look for the next chapter in Scarlet Spider 20!
Infinity 1 (Hickman/ Cheung):
Two tense buildups to three reveals, none of which actually say anything that established audiences don’t already know. Is there anyone left that hasn’t figured out A) that Thanos the Mad Titan prefers his everything dead, and B) Earth has a very poor reputation for conquerability? It’s one thing to try to ride popular momentum from a successful movie, but this bends itself backwards so far you can hear spinal bones break to court that audience. Blech.
Herobear and the Kid: The Inheritance 1 of 5 (Mike Kunkle):
A reprinting of the original Herobear series with a couple pages of additional material. It’s a great chance for new readers to jump onto a wonderful story from the beginning, but a $4 cover price is pushing it. I recommend it, but only if you haven't read it before.
Saga 13 (Vaughan/ Staples):
It’s back it’sbackit’sbackit’sback!! What stands out to me about this series of fantasy and science-fiction’s blaster-shotgun wedding and the horde of brutes trying to end it is that there are so many slices of life. All too often these genres focus on warriors or royalty, and this has plenty of those, but it also covers hungry tabloid reporters and bored insurance adjusters. It makes this book so rich and interesting that I fall in love with it every issue. I’ve said that before and am risking my credibility, so tell you what: next month, I’ll find some reason to trash it, okay?
Red Sonja 2 (Simone/ Geovani):
In two issues, I feel like Simone has pushed Sonja further than anyone before. She had human moments of emotional connection with people in the same issue that she hacked and slashed in a major battle. Major range, and it worked at both extremes of the spectrum. I respect that.
Wolverine and the X-Men 34 (Aaron/ Bradshaw):
This book does what no other mutant book is doing right now: it makes being a mutant look fun. Most other book looks at the power mutants don’t ask for or always control, or how a lot of other people don’t like them. This doesn’t forget any of that, but rather than dwell on it, it moves on. Quentin Quire decides being the big bad isn’t what he thought it was, landmasses get into a free-for-all brawl, and the Hellfire club considers restructuring. Boobs get involved. It works somehow.
Deadpool 14 (Posehn/ Duggan):
This comic is the bastard child of Simpsons and Nightmare on Elm Street. Since Game of Thrones made bastards look cool, Deadpool found self-esteem and is talking to women! Remember in the GLX-Mas Special, when Squirrel Girl beat the tar out of Thanos and the Watcher came down to cement the event into 616 continuity? This flips that.
Star Wars 8 (Wood/ Kelly):
Nothing’s happening, nothing’s happening, ke-pwishhhh, pewpew, nothing’s happening. Hey, that guy’s not letting the Wookiee win. Movies can tell multiple stories at once, but when you try to do it in a single issue, usually nothing happens.
The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys 3 (Way/ Cloonan):
From the beginning of this series, a whole two issues ago, the audience was introduced to a young girl wandering the desert from settlement to settlement, a pair of sex robots that couldn’t catch a break, and a revolution that didn’t feel like revolting just yet. The girl’s still walking the wasteland and the revolution found some lipstick that’s, like, so awesome! Someone did do a favor for one of the sex robots though. That’s something.
Batman 23 (Snyder/ Capulo):
As overtold as the origin of Batman is threatening to become (I mean really, even if you count Jesus, a guy who’s beginning is retold in churches around the world on Christmas Day, and each church counted as a different telling, Bruce Wayne is catching up!), a new twist is presented here. It adds a poetic bit of symmetry, really.
Half Past Danger 4 (Mooney/ Bellaire):
When you open a bag of really good potato chip, do you remember that time when you kind of lost track? You just sit there eating something perfectly salty and just a bit greasy but crunchy, each in perfect proportion, and next thing you know the bag is empty and you’re left with sensory satisfaction that’s wrapped in anxiety that you’re a bit of a pig. This is like that - an overdose of everything that professionals say is bad for you but dammit you need more.
And with that, my clip is spent. See you later!
Two tense buildups to three reveals, none of which actually say anything that established audiences don’t already know. Is there anyone left that hasn’t figured out A) that Thanos the Mad Titan prefers his everything dead, and B) Earth has a very poor reputation for conquerability? It’s one thing to try to ride popular momentum from a successful movie, but this bends itself backwards so far you can hear spinal bones break to court that audience. Blech.
Herobear and the Kid: The Inheritance 1 of 5 (Mike Kunkle):
A reprinting of the original Herobear series with a couple pages of additional material. It’s a great chance for new readers to jump onto a wonderful story from the beginning, but a $4 cover price is pushing it. I recommend it, but only if you haven't read it before.
Saga 13 (Vaughan/ Staples):
It’s back it’sbackit’sbackit’sback!! What stands out to me about this series of fantasy and science-fiction’s blaster-shotgun wedding and the horde of brutes trying to end it is that there are so many slices of life. All too often these genres focus on warriors or royalty, and this has plenty of those, but it also covers hungry tabloid reporters and bored insurance adjusters. It makes this book so rich and interesting that I fall in love with it every issue. I’ve said that before and am risking my credibility, so tell you what: next month, I’ll find some reason to trash it, okay?
Red Sonja 2 (Simone/ Geovani):
In two issues, I feel like Simone has pushed Sonja further than anyone before. She had human moments of emotional connection with people in the same issue that she hacked and slashed in a major battle. Major range, and it worked at both extremes of the spectrum. I respect that.
Wolverine and the X-Men 34 (Aaron/ Bradshaw):
This book does what no other mutant book is doing right now: it makes being a mutant look fun. Most other book looks at the power mutants don’t ask for or always control, or how a lot of other people don’t like them. This doesn’t forget any of that, but rather than dwell on it, it moves on. Quentin Quire decides being the big bad isn’t what he thought it was, landmasses get into a free-for-all brawl, and the Hellfire club considers restructuring. Boobs get involved. It works somehow.
Deadpool 14 (Posehn/ Duggan):
This comic is the bastard child of Simpsons and Nightmare on Elm Street. Since Game of Thrones made bastards look cool, Deadpool found self-esteem and is talking to women! Remember in the GLX-Mas Special, when Squirrel Girl beat the tar out of Thanos and the Watcher came down to cement the event into 616 continuity? This flips that.
Star Wars 8 (Wood/ Kelly):
Nothing’s happening, nothing’s happening, ke-pwishhhh, pewpew, nothing’s happening. Hey, that guy’s not letting the Wookiee win. Movies can tell multiple stories at once, but when you try to do it in a single issue, usually nothing happens.
The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys 3 (Way/ Cloonan):
From the beginning of this series, a whole two issues ago, the audience was introduced to a young girl wandering the desert from settlement to settlement, a pair of sex robots that couldn’t catch a break, and a revolution that didn’t feel like revolting just yet. The girl’s still walking the wasteland and the revolution found some lipstick that’s, like, so awesome! Someone did do a favor for one of the sex robots though. That’s something.
Batman 23 (Snyder/ Capulo):
As overtold as the origin of Batman is threatening to become (I mean really, even if you count Jesus, a guy who’s beginning is retold in churches around the world on Christmas Day, and each church counted as a different telling, Bruce Wayne is catching up!), a new twist is presented here. It adds a poetic bit of symmetry, really.
Half Past Danger 4 (Mooney/ Bellaire):
When you open a bag of really good potato chip, do you remember that time when you kind of lost track? You just sit there eating something perfectly salty and just a bit greasy but crunchy, each in perfect proportion, and next thing you know the bag is empty and you’re left with sensory satisfaction that’s wrapped in anxiety that you’re a bit of a pig. This is like that - an overdose of everything that professionals say is bad for you but dammit you need more.
And with that, my clip is spent. See you later!
Looking for older Variant Coverage Blogs by Ryan Walsh for Comic Carnival? They're here:
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