Reviews - Review - FA Online

Action Comics 1

… Best of all, it avoids Morrison’s two greatest faults – weak piddle-away endings that don’t match the strength of his opening concepts, and a propensity for being up himself to an extent, well, usually seen only on very specialist websites…

Archie’s World Tour

Put it this way; how would our American chums feel if a British writer depicted a tour group in 2008’s New York, using subway tokens (obsolete since 2003) to go to visit the twin towers of the World Trade Centre (famously destroyed in 2001)? I daresay they’d be miffed.

Spandex

Spandex are an all-gay superhero group who live in Brighton. Martin Eden, spandex’s creator has published four issues so far and they can either be bought separately or in a collectors pack of four that comes complete with a free Pink Ninja Attack badge.

Justice League International 1

Remember the underwhelming, yet massively-hyped Justice League 1? Well this is the opposite – in that the entire team gets together in five pages, they interact with each other and actually do something! Yes! That’s still possible to accomplish in a comic, in 2011!

Captain America: The First Avenger

I’ve spent a good few years being quite cynical about Marvel’s ambitious plans for their superhero franchise in the cinema. Even if they did get made, they wouldn’t be any good. What is very pleasing about Captain America: The First Avenger is that none of these fears are realised.

Justice League 1

I thought All-Star Batman was vile. It was vulgar, self-consciously ‘controversial’, and only borderline competent, despite some admittedly pretty illustration. It was the comic-book equivalent of monkeys in the zoo flinging poo at the patrons because they’re bored. But at least it aspired to some content… as opposed to the hollowed-out All-Star Batman that is Justice League 1.

Fuzz and Pluck – Splitsville

Stern renders this world in a fairly sparse scratchy line, all in black and white, and the end result is folksy, rather than arty. Despite a notable (and desirable) lack of slickness to his style he conveys the world he’s conjuring up with considerable deftness – it’s a world full of carnies and pirates and broken junk, shacks and sideshows and charabancs – and his ability to suggest character and mood is excellent.

Captain America 1

I am a huge admirer of Brubaker, and he’s done a lot of his best work with Cap, so I had high hopes for this, but I am slightly deflated after reading it. It does a great job of introducing the essentials of the character, thankfully eschewing a millionth showing of the origin, but flashing back to WWII, showing him with the Avengers, bringing in Nick Fury, Dum Dum Dugan and Sharon Carter, giving him some action as Steve Rogers and finally as Cap.

Elric: The Balance 1

I’ve always had a fondness for Michael Moorcock’s Elric character. He’s an anomaly in the sword and sorcery genre: a melancholic , physically frail drug addict who, in order to survive, has to rely on sorcery and on souls fed to him by his vampiric, insatiable and ultimately treacherous sword. Rather than victory, he brings death and disaster to those around him, including the people he loves. In short, he’s the anti-Conan. Elric’s run in comics hasn’t been as successful as Conan’s, but then that’s cerebral limey writers for you.

Gobs 1

Some goblins build a pub. No, seriously, that’s it. That’s all that happens.