Wednesday Number Ones will be a weekly feature here at Comic Pants. We will be taking the books that are premiering a first issue from that week and giving a quick opinion on them. From time to time we may also include more than issue number ones in this feature. If a noteworthy one-shot or the first issue of a new story arc is released, we may talk about it in this feature.
This week we will cover Soulfire: Chaos Reign #1, Forgotten Realms: The Crystal Shard #1, Eberron: Eye of the Wolf, Heroes for Hire #1, Nightwolf: The Price #1, Batman and the Mad Monk #1, Justice League of America #1, and Force 51 #1.
Dave Farabee Read and Thought:
Soulfire: Chaos Reign #1 (Aspen MLT): My first foray into the Michael Turner conceptualized Soulfire series reveals a fantasy world of bat-winged, tribal warriors duking it out with bat-winged demons. Plotting’s on the order of watered down Robert E. Howard, art’s mediocre but actually preferable to Turner’s blobbiness to my eye. Read it if you like oversaturated computer coloring.
Forgotten Realms: The Crystal Shard #1 (of 3) (Devil’s Due Publishing): Another flat but serviceable adaptation of a Dungeons & Dragons novel, retelling the first story to catapult Drizzt Do’urden to superstardom. Alas for fantasy’s answer to Wolverine, the art has no personality and the overused narrative captions have all the immediacy of a dusty history book.
David Martindale Read and Thought:
Justice League of America #1 (DC Comics): Exactly the type of book you would expect from Brad Meltzer on Justice League. Good dialogue but poor pacing and maybe 2 panels of action out of several pages of that good dialogue. Ed Benes is technically solid on pencils, but his pacing and story telling ability are sub par on this book. It’s neither a great book, nor a horrible book. It’s worth a look at issue #2.
Force 51 #1 (Dakuwaka): Things just kind of happen at random in this book. There doesn’t seem to be any sort or plot arc at all. The art is unpredictable. In one panel it looks pretty decent, and in the next it’s quite disappointing. The book has plenty of action, but the action fails to be exciting and it’s full of bad action movie one liners. The coolest thing about this book is the publisher’s name and shark logo. I had more fun saying Dakuwaka over and over again than I did reading this book.
Nick Budd Read and Thought:
Batman and the Mad Monk #1 (DC Comics): Matt Wagner continues his multi-layered, quintessential Batman storyline and has me chomping at the bit for more. Why should you care? Slick art paired with an engaging mystery that includes Jim Gordon kicking the crap out of some cops and Batman taking on a band of vampires. Go read it already.
Nightwolf: The Price #1 (Devil’s Due Publishing):Choppy storyline, bad pacing and a cast of characters that I just couldn’t seem to care about. The black & white art is eye appealing but I get the feeling that I’m looking at a picture book with some words tacked on just as an afterthought. Save some cash and skip it.
Randy Lander Read and Thought:
Heroes for Hire #1 (Marvel Comics): There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who think Civil War is ludicrous, and that superheroes aren’t supposed to screw up and cause innocent deaths no matter how “innocent” it is, and those who think Civil War is the most realistic thing possible, and of course superheroes are going to cause collateral damage. Actually, I guess there is a third kind of people: Those who buy into Civil War and its realism but who can still take a hero who talks to bugs and wears black leather seriously. If you’re one of these rarified group, you might dig Heroes for Hire #1, which has solid writing and art, but the weird balancing act of trying to be light and fun in the midst of Civil War’s doom and gloom doesn’t quite work, at least for this reader.
Eberron: Eye of the Wolf (Devil’s Due Publishing): No surprise that the creator of D&D’s Eberron world would write a compelling script weaving tales of three nations during the 100-year war that defines its history. I was longing for some of the cool, stylish art that we see throughout the Eberron game books, but Chris Lie does a nice job on art with the same epic sweep that Tim Seeley has brought to the Dark Elf trilogy, and Rob Ruffolo’s colors are solid, if a little heavy on the amber. Worth a read for Dark Elf trilogy fans wanting to branch out, as well as anyone who is digging D&D Online or the pen-and-paper version of Eberron.
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What I *really* want to know is what Randy thought of Justice League of America #1, given his disdain for Meltzer’s plots on Identity Crisis.
27 Aug 2006 at 4:53 pm
QuoteMore or less, I think Dave M. nailed it.
I also think somebody should take Meltzer’s captions away from him. It would make his books about 50% less pretentious, which they sorely need, and it would get him out of this “look how well I know these characters!” mode that I find annoying in his superhero work. I also think Ed Benes was a bizarre choice for a book this high-profile, and that Rags Morales would have been a much better choice. That said, I thought it was a decent, potentially interesting first issue, and the line-up is one I like. I’m particularly pleased with Vixen and Black Lightning on the team, although I suspect the latter will give Tony Isabella fits.
27 Aug 2006 at 7:16 pm
QuoteI thought Justice League was pretty solid. I do agree one to many captions. Please give me a break with them. It’s one thing to have twenty of them in an issue but two hundred? Come on! I was most disappointed that Sandra Benes only worked on the cover with Ed and not the whole issue.
I want my Batman and the Mad Monk now! I have to wait two more days until I comes. I hate when the books I am suppoused to get don’t come in on the dates they are suppoused to and when finally do they still don’t come. Argh. Tough enough getting low ordered books like The Escapists and other books from Dark Horse and not to mention Oni. Then again everybody prefers to buy every X-Men even if they are all for the most part garbage and not great reads like Fables, Ex Machina, Runaways, Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, Queen and County and on and on. It’s puzzling. Ok. I’m done rambling. Soo..how bout them Cowboys?
28 Aug 2006 at 11:57 pm
QuoteI thought the same thing about Isabella’s reaction, but I was on Isabella board the other day and he’s sorta cautiously optimistic and on board with Black Lighting being on the JLA. He made some reference to the fact that BL has always been open minded and he can see him changing his mind about joining, I’m inferring BL turned down membership in the past, not something I’m familiar with but I’ve always gravitated a little more towards Marvel.
He does seem to have a bone to pick with Winck though, again not sure of the why’s and wherefores, but the gist being he’s not happy with Winick’s portal of “his” character.
29 Aug 2006 at 10:07 am
QuoteWhile I get where you’re coming from, “Heroes for Hire” worked for me, so much so that I bought a couple of extra issues to hand to some friends in hopes of getting them hooked. (I’m such a geek)
The over-the-top, neo-Kung-fu, Blackspoltaion vibe of Daughters of the Dragon really appealed to me, the book was one my favorite things I’ve read this year and while the first issue of Heroes for Hire didn’t quite grab the way the first issue of “DotD” did, it was still one of my top books of the week. Over all, the line the book carried between the darkness of “Civil War” and the light hearted funkadelic banter worked for me at least and found myself enjoying the roof top debate as much as the knock-a-around with the third string villains.
I do have some reservation, not crazy about the new Tarantula character, and some of the things discussed on the roof top don’t seem to jibe with the next issue teaser thing at the end, but then teasers are meant to hook ya in, not necessarily be entirely accurate.
In other news, sometimes talking to both to people I know face-to-face and online I sometimes think I may be the only guy in the world who digs Turner’s art. I know that can’t be true as the guy certainly gets enough work, but it seems everyone I know hates his artwork, when did this happen? Is it an overexposure thing, I seem to remember other folks digging him, but lately it seems the guy’s the red headed step child of Liefield, or something, least in the circles I run. Not really going anywhere with this, but just something I’ve observed of late.
29 Aug 2006 at 10:40 am
QuoteGood to hear Isabella has calmed down a little bit about letting other people “play with his toy,” as it were. Black Lightning in the League can only help the character, unless he’s horrendously mis-characterized and then that characterization sticks and… oh. Oh, now I see the worry. It’s the “Captain Boomerang/Ralph Dibny” type fear.
On Heroes for Hire… I also really enjoyed Daughters of the Dragon, but Heroes for Hire was too in your face about some of the things I hate about Civil War. On the very first page, it notes that something like Stamford was bound to happen eventually, which I think is a false premise and one of my biggest issues with the Civil War story, and that immediately put me at odds with the book. Superhero books, especially one with tons of hot women, kung-fu action and bug-talking heroes, really shouldn’t concern themselves all that much with “what if all this were more like the real world,” y’know?
Can’t help you out on the Turner front. I’ve occasionally seen why the flash of his artwork is liked, but I’ve never been a fan. Then again, my leanings are towards less realism and more stylized artists, like Darwyn Cooke, Paul Pope, Adrian Alphona, etc.
29 Aug 2006 at 12:02 pm
QuoteAs you mention a very viable fear, with this book, while part of me is saying, hey this is pretty cool the other part of me keeps remembering the “Fool twice, shame on me” part of that old adage.
29 Aug 2006 at 7:00 pm
QuoteJust as a side note, I do wish there was a way of editing one’s comments, probably not a likely addition, but me am make many embarrassing typos.
29 Aug 2006 at 8:29 pm
QuoteI’m not sure, but can’t you edit your comments? As an admin, I can edit mine (and others, although I promise to use this power only for good). There’s a tiny “e” that you can click on after the time in your post, or at least there is from my viewpoint. It took me a few times through before I noticed it, so maybe you have it as well and haven’t seen it as yet?
29 Aug 2006 at 8:41 pm
QuoteDon’t see it, myself, must be an admin thing. That’s fine I was just wondering. I’ll just have to be more careful.
29 Aug 2006 at 10:41 pm
QuoteJust a quick note about Turner: I don’t think he’s without talent. What I don’t like about him is that there’s a certain thin wispiness to his linework that usually speaks to amateurishness. McFarlane had it too, and McFarlane had some decent natural artistic talent, but never got around to disciplining his art. Meant he had energy but a low level of craft. I see Turner a bit on the same level, and he’s also got some wonky anatomy at times. Like this Flash cover, for inst:
http://www.amazingcomics.it/flash_1.jpg
It’s not that I don’t expect exaggeration and distortion in comics, but Turner’s distortions sometimes seem to be at odds in even a single figure. In the Flash figure, he’s bizarrely thin at the waist, has shoulders the size of Thor’s, and kinda small biceps that suddenly transition into GIANT-ASS forearms and some crazy-big hands. Turner’s also a guy whose art would, I think, be severely undercut if he didn’t have glitzy colorists working over it.
I get his appeal, though. He’s pretty slick. Some nice detail at times. And his covers aren’t what I look for, but they look modern ‘n’ sexy. He’s definitely head and shoulders above Liefeld, and I’d say McFarlane as well.
02 Sep 2006 at 2:25 am
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