Wednesday Number Ones is a weekly feature here at Comic Pants. We take the books that are premiering a first issue from that week and give 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 76 #1 of 8, Cemetery Blues #1, New Exiles #1, Robin #170, Star Trek TNG Intelligence Gathering #1 of 5 and Stranded #1.

Nick Budd Read and Thought:

Stranded #1
Writer: Mike Carey
Artist: Siddharth Kotian
Company: Virgin Comics/Sci-Fi

Let’s be honest for a moment, The Stranded is a little bland. That’s not a word that I would normally associate with any of Mike Carey’s work, as the majority of it has been layered, smart and quite often, very good. The Stranded, however, isn’t one of those and instead tells the story of a group of people who are living amongst us who aren’t actually human, they’re the stragglers of an alien society. The big surprise is that for some whacked out reason they’ve had their memories overwritten so that they don’t remember anything. In theory, it’s a workable premise. The problem however, is that it’s a premise that we’ve seen before. To make it even less interesting, we now have a mysterious character, the psychotic villain of the book apparently, who is offing these people for a reason yet to be revealed while he talks to himself manically. The art is okay, a bit reminiscent of a Top Cow book, but the action is at least nice looking and Kotian’s storytelling is strong. All in all, a bit yawn inducing.

Dave Farabee Read and Thought:

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Intelligence Gathering #1 of 5
Writer: Scott & David Tipton
Artist: David Messina
Company: IDW Publishing

This is one of the stronger Trek comics to come from the halls of IDW. I’m more a Classic Trek guy than Next Gen fan, but I still enjoyed it and all the characterizations seemed to be spot on (even Barclay – hate that guy!). One of my recurring issues with the IDW Trek comics has been that their stories feel hurried, more like half hour than hour episodes, and this issue overcomes that by focusing almost exclusively on Data and Riker on an away mission. They’re investigating a possible rogue A.I. in a Federation supercomputer (Classic Trek’s Richard Daystrom gets a shout-out), an investigation that takes them into the Tron-like environs of the tesseract that houses the computer. There are some good twists and turns once the plot gets going, along with some unusual action, and my one complaint is that the moral dilemma posed early in the issue never gets a real test. Maybe we’ll see more of it in issues to come. Even though this issue pretty much reads as a standalone story, it’s the first in a five part miniseries and the revelation at the end will presumably expand on this first chapter. The art? Pretty strong, though one of Messina’s tics – those little circle-highlight-thingees on the tips of everyone’s noses – needs to be retired for clashing with the general realism. Not bad at all though.

Dan Grendell Read and Thought:

Cemetery Blues #1
Writers: Ryan Rubio and Thomas Boatwright
Artist: Thomas Boatwright
Company: Image Comics

The story of two rather dim-witted monster hunters and their attempts to take down their dead master’s nemesis, this book tries a bit to be a mystery/adventure story and a bit to be tongue-in-cheek and doesn’t really do either well. The subdued humor just seems to lie there, and the plot and characters don’t do much in the way of getting the reader’s interest. It isn’t a bad book, really, in that there’s no outstanding flaws, but it it also doesn’t really reach out and grab the reader, and on today’s packed shelves that’s almost a sin. The one saving grace is Boatwright’s art, which is a nice bit of shaded cartooning that looks great in black and white and does a good job of setting a bleak tone. It isn’t enough to keep me reading, though.

Randy Lander Read and Thought:

‘76 #1
Writers: B. Clay Moore & Seth Peck
Artists: Ed Tadem & Tigh Walker
Company: Image Comics

The creative teams of ‘76 get major points for bringing the era to life, from the fashions drawn by Tadem and Walker to little details like box scores and news events from the year breaking up the stories and filling up the inside covers. They want to transport you back to their crime-tinged view of an era, with kung fu badasses, bat-wielding bounty hunters, drug dealers and plenty of ugly facial hair. And ‘76 does that well, and is a pretty fun read if you have a fondness for the era. However, thus far, neither of the two stories in this split book is strikingly original. The writers wear their influences (’70s kung-fu and crime flicks, especially) on their sleeves, and so anyone who has read Power Man and Iron Fist or Stray Bullets has probably seen a lot of this kind of thing so far. That said, it’s not like there’s a glut of ’70s influenced crime comics on the stands right now, and if you’re in the mood for one, ‘76 does what it sets out to do pretty well.

Robin #170
Writer: Chuck Dixon
Artists: Chris Batista, Jamal Igle, Cam Smith, Rick Ketcham & Rodney Ramos
Company: DC Comics

I’ve long wondered how Robin supported his own book, especially when he’s running well over 150 issues. The only time I wasn’t really wondering that was when Chuck Dixon, who originated the book, was writing it. He had strong villains, supporting cast and a great take on the character, making him both more and less than a teenage Batman. Dixon is the latest creator to try to go home again at DC, and as with most of the other efforts, while it’s a solid return, it’s not particularly affecting. Longtime Robin fans will like the return of a long lost supporting character, and there are definitely bonus points for referencing the Stephanie Brown fiasco, but the crime plot Robin is looking into is pretty dull, and the new vigilante Violet mildly interesting but not the return of Spoiler many (including me) might have been hoping for. Like the five artists on the book, Dixon is too much of a professional to turn in something subpar, but neither is there the excitement of either a brand new era or a return to greatness. It’s just yet another creative team on a long-running book that, barring inertia, doesn’t really have much of a reason to exist.

David Martindale Read and Thought:

New Exiles #1
Writer: Chris Claremont
Artist: Tom Grummett
Publisher: Marvel Comics

New Exiles… same as the old Exiles. Claremont’s overwrought style nearly guarantees the failed relaunch of a book that was most likely headed for failure anyways. Claremont’s soap opera theatrics might have worked well for him in his heyday, but on a title that highlights “fake” or alternate dimension versions of characters, it just feels time consuming and boorish. The love triangle between Sabertooth (Age of Apocalypse version), Mystique (British Gentleman version?), and Psylocke (616 ninja version) may be the most interesting thing going on in the entire issue. Claremont’s need for larger than life concepts and ten dollar words stands out like a sour thumb as phrases like, “The whole, incredible panoply of the Omniverse” get dropped as early as page six. It becomes even more ridiculous later on as “fake” Rogue spends nearly an entire page explaining her actions and her whereabouts aloud so that the reader knows what’s going on. Chris Claremont has an incredible legacy in the comics world and is somebody that I would like to remember as one of the greats. This sort of thing is making it hard for me to do that.