Quick Comic Comments

The New Avengers #1 - Okay I'm officially worried about my tastes right now, as despite many reviews hammering this series for me the first issue doesn't suck.

Yeah I know damning with faint praise there, but (full on geek mode) I LOVE seeing the Jessica (Spider-Woman) Drew again after loving her cartoon show as a kid and didn't even know she was still alive in comic form. The Peter and MJ moments were nice and the art was fun to look at.

Other than that, then yeah the plot is too slow, it doesn't make sense if you think too hard (government plans for every contingency except an electrical powered guy?), has allusions to conflicts I have no idea on (Luke Cage and some purple guy) and the last page shocker made me go "Who?".

Yet hey, considering that I thought this book would make great birdcage liner it is a surprise and I may actually look at #2.

Samurai: Heaven and Earth #1 - Ron Marz takes a lot of crap sometimes, but one of his real strengths sometimes is knowing when to "shut the hell up" as a writer and let the art speak for itself.

That's the case here, as artist Luke Ross makes a big forward leap in his work in this lushly detailed period epic set in ancient Japan.

That's not to say the story isn't good as well. The setting of a young samurai of the time and his love for his duty and his woman is very well told. Despite it being most readers first glimpse of the characters and world, everything is setup quickly so the story can get started.

Legion of Super-Heroes #1 - Finally a readable LSH comic after years something that seemed to only pretend to be Legion comic.

There is a sense of detachment through the first half of the book that bothered me a little at first. I want to get to know these characters and be swept up in their adventures like I was when I first encountered the series a decade ago.

I hope that the detachment was only a story telling device meant to introduce us to the world the Legion find themselves in. Which the second half that had the team members debating with each other over tactics and direction they were going to go as a group showed promise of realizing.

I do like the positive spirit I see though, and have hopes that I'll get to learn and love these characters and their world as time goes on. In the end I'm hopeful, which for me has always been the big appeal of the Legion of Super-Heroes.