Open Fire! Reviews.
Where we raise aim and open fire on these comics. Some may survive the blast barely scathed; others may be blown to a billion bits. Either way it’s not going to be pretty.
Now the point to Open Fire Reviews is mainly that sometimes I build up quite a lot of comics in my pull box, but can’t review them all at once, or fully really so they slip away, forgotten.
Open Fire is all about more quick reviews, a paragraph or two at most usually describing my overall thoughts on the issue in general and then leading to the typical grade as seen in our regular reviews. Now don’t worry, I’m not slapping on a beer gut and going bald yet, regular reviews will still be extensive when I can make them such.
The Amazing Spider-man #573
Written: Dan Slott
Art: John Romita Jr.
What a waste of time NWTD has been. Outside of the brilliant character anti-Venom, I can’t think of one worth while thing that has happened here. In the end, NWTD was all just more blatant set up for future storylines, such as Harry being tied to strange experiments in Oscorp, Norman having big plans and Spider-man possibly knowing of the events of OMD. It’s as if Dan Slott held a big fuzzy mouse in our faces and us, the stupid cats that we where, tried to grab it and only caught a tear of fluff.
While this issue has some good moments, most notably Spider-man losing it and trying to kill Green Goblin and Venom, the symbiote, not Gargan, still loving Eddie, this all felt like a whole burst of hot air. You feel the heat from the air, but in the end, you weren’t really hit with anything.
Romita Jr. turned in the work of his life here, honestly, this is some award worthy stuff. Green Goblin has never looked better and the Venom/Scorpion suit, stupid as it looks, looked kind of cool for a bit.
We got a few interesting points, most notably that Lilly has a thing for Peter now and kissed him. It’s kind of interesting, but not enough to keep me reading. While I may read ASM on occasion, for now, I’ll still to Ultimate Spider-man where everything isn’t turned on it’s ass.
2 out of 5
Pass It
Venom: Dark Origin #3
Written: Zeb Wells
Art: Angel Medina
I know #4 comes out in 3 days, but I wanted to quickly chime in on #3. Dark Origin #3 is pretty much a giant waste of paper and money. The first half is absolutely nothing, and I’ll repeat that, NOTHING worth looking at. Though near the end, the final few pages or so, are actually enjoyable and give me hope for the final 2 issues of this comic. We get a funny moment of Venom asking a priest for forgiveness about lying all his life, then about the cop he just killed, and we get a Joker-esque laughing sequence when Venom looks in the mirror at the end. Overall, it leaves me with strong hope for #4 and #5, but they might as well have just pasted issues 1 2 and 3 together for issue #1.
Angel Medina doesn’t seem to know if he wants to draw utter crap or pure greatness. Some moments are really great, and the final page is damn near incredible. Whereas other times it’s just downright hideous and like a bunch of blobs moving around. It’s insane.
While I suggest you check out #4 this week, don’t waste your time on 1-3.
1 out of 5
Burn It
Invincible #54
Written: Robert Kirkman
Art: Ryan Ottley
While this was a great issue of Invincible, it was also a very weird issue of Invincible. Something about time travel, Immortal as an evil king, and all in the middle of Mark and Eve’s first real date? It gets kind of choppy and feels thrown together. More like some odd form of set up for a story far down the line for Invincible. Though it isn’t bad really, I quite enjoyed Immortal ranting of his sins and Mark’s violent reaction, but it all felt so random as if this where an every day part of life. Nothing too major really.
Though what really brought this home for me was the final scene of Mark and Eve’s date. Really sweet scene for them and brought it home for me as a fan of both characters. While I fear that Kirkman may be setting up for some major heartbreak down the line, I’m still hoping this works out because Kirkman has done a great job of fleshing this relationship out.
Ottley’s are continues to shine. For getting 2 issues out in one month, I wouldn’t expect his art to retain such a strong look but he really keeps it up and does a great job on expressions and the 2 spreads of Mark and Eve, them as a couple now and them before they where a couple, was incredible.
A great issue, despite the random moment of time travel. A Must Read for any fan of the series.
4 out of 5
Must Read
Secret Invasion #7
Written: Brian Michael Bendis
Art: Lienel Francis Yu
Nothing worthwhile happens here. That’s it; it’s a bunch of fighting and nothing more. Shit goes down, shit hits the fan, but nothing worthwhile happens here. We get a lot of fighting, a lot of Skrulls being randomly killed, and the Skrull Queen dies, but in all honesty, I can’t think of any reason to really say Secret Invasion was good.
We got some okay moments, like Jessica and Luke teaming up and Stature kicking some ass. But really, nothing happens here. It’s a whole lot of nothing really. Sure, Yu’s art continues to be incredible and he captures a great epic scale with his work here, but it doesn’t save this month’s (meaning October’s) issue like it did September’s.
Though I must admit, the cliff-hanger was great, it still didn’t help justify this mindless bore of a read anymore.
2 out of 5
Pass It
So there you have it for our Open Fire! Reviews. It took me some time to get around to writing up the Invincible and Secret Invasion one, but I found some extra time this morning so I decided to post it before I go on my way with my day. I hope you all enjoyed them, and again, don’t worry, reviews will usually be more epic then this. Though I may blend regular reviews with Open Fire! Reviews sometimes. I skipped reviewing the Ultimate Spider-man Annual since if you've read Month's and Week's End, you've seen my thoughts on it. And Batman and Witchblade, while both good reads, there wasn't a lot to say on them and their both fairly far down the line. I only reviewed Dark Origin since #4 comes out this week. So with all that said, I hope you enjoyed the reviews, I'll see you soon with more stuff in the week.
2 comments:
the ASM cover threw me for a bit - is that Mac Gargan in his Scorpion/Venom suit? Cause it looks kinda cool there.
It's him in the Scorpion suit with the Venom symbiote taking over, so yeah. the fused version does look a bit different though. This is the variant that I got from my pullbox.
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