Martin Skidmore - Review

Elephantmen: Man and Elephantman 1

This is kind of a fake #1, and it fooled me. It’s sort of #30, really (and next issue is #31), but at least they give you a decent text intro so you know where you are: with some human/animal (mostly not elephants) hybrids created for a war that has now ended, and these ex-soldiers are struggling for a place in human society. Well, apparently they are – we see only one crude sign of any prejudice, and plenty of success.

Journey Into Mystery 622

I bought this because the recent X-Men 534.1 interested me in writer Kieron Gillen, and this increases my new very high opinion of him. In that X-Men comic he focussed on Magneto, doing a beautiful job of defining who he now is, where he is and what we might expect from him. In this, he does something similar for Loki, now resurrected (after dying in Siege) as a child. He makes him into a more interesting character here than I can ever recall before: brilliant, talented, very complex, powerful, with a precisely judged blend of chaotic risk-taking and genuinely cunning intelligence and planning.

Madman: All-New Giant-Size Super Ginchy Special

Immediate warning: the Allred content here is one 18-page story. The rest is stories by other creators, plus loads of pin-ups.

Uncanny X-Men 534.1

Another week, another .1 issue to review. Thankfully this is one of the best of them that I’ve read. The current team is reasonably compact and all really famous (the line-up is all on the cover), so it’s not much effort, but Gillen gives them all a moment anyway. More importantly, he zooms straight in on the point of greatest interest: why is Magneto now an X-Man, and how will this be accepted by the world?

Justice League of America 80-Page Giant 2011

I love the JLA: as a concept, in that I love plenty of past issues, and in that I love many of the mainstays of the team. I always want a reason to read it, and rarely regret it. But oh my god this is fucking dreadful.

Herc 1

This is a good first issue, and it does pretty much everything you want a fresh start to do. We get an opening fight scene, making clear that Hercules is now mortal and vulnerable, but still strong and with an array of ancient magical weapons. We get what looks like a new supporting cast, which also gives him a job and a place to live. We get mysterious voices of worship, suggesting that his demigodhood is not entirely dispensed with (and being a superhero comic, we can have no doubt that it will be returned sooner or later). Finally, we get some more action, leading to confrontation with the (or a?) Hobgoblin, who is working for the Kingpin.

Nonplayer 1

This appealed because the drawing looked so lovely – the trailed comparison was Moebius, and I see that, but it reminded me a little more of Miyazaki on Nausicaa. These comparisons do of course overrate it some, but many of the panels are beautiful, there are a few very good faces, and the creature, costume and scenery designs are strong.

Fear Itself 1 & The Home Front 1

Three comics in, and I am very irritated by this Fear Itself event. The prologue set up the Red Skull’s daughter, Sin, tracking some mighty weapon. In FI1 she gets it, and it’s like Don Blake getting Mjolnir: she becomes some ancient scary Asgardian god (of fear, I suppose). Odin immediately runs away, taking all of his Asgardians with him. Oh, and Sin meets some old guy, an alternate or evil Odin type by the look of it, and summons something or other. This is a double-length issue, so 66 or whatever pages in, and we still don’t actually know what is going on, but just keep getting “OMG Odin is scared and look the Watcher is hanging around so just imagine how big and exciting this is!!!!” stuff thrown at us.

Essential Captain America 6

My god the slump in standards some way into this is painful. I’m not sure I can think of another Essential volume where it’s so precipitous.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight books 6 & 7

There were opportunities and difficulties in continuing Buffy as a comic series, and there are all kinds of interesting effects both from those and from putting a TV writer in charge of something that used to be a TV show.