What is a Short Pants Review? While we’d love to give full reviews to everything, there just isn’t enough time in the day. So we’ve come up with Short Pants as a way of providing capsule reviews from our varied review writers, giving quick hits and short capsule thoughts about various comics we’ve read recently.

This time out, Randy covers Annihilation: Conquest #4, The Bakers: Babies & Kittens HC, Buffy the Vampire Slayer #11, The Darkness #2, Nightwing #141, Teen Titans Year One #2 and Warhammer: Forge of War #5.

Randy Lander Read and Thought:

Annihilation: Conquest #4
Writers: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
Artists: Tom Raney & Scott Hanna
Company: Marvel Comics

Though the original Annihilation had a wider scope, encompassing galaxies, Galactus, Annihilus and a war to wipe out all of existence, Annihilation: Conquest still boasts plenty of impressive cosmic scale, although viewed through a lens of relatable, smaller scaled protagonists. Abnett and Lanning perfectly capture the godlike detachment of the High Evolutionary and the all-too-human hatred of ultimate robot bad guy Ultron, but they’re just as good at the interplay between Mantis, Bug, Rocket Raccoon and Star-Lord in this issue, and the bonding between two heirs of a legacy, Adam Warlock of his own and Quasar of two past heroes, is very interesting to watch. From the outset, Annihilation: Conquest has put the heroes at a disadvantage, but their scrappiness prevents this from feeling overly dour or dull, and a wide-ranging cast hasn’t hurt their focus at all. There are a lot of impressive little moments, from Mantis’s use of her telepathy, Warlock’s pep talk for Quasar, the revelation of Ronan’s secret weapon and what he intends to do with it and a perfect use of Ultron’s old school encephalo ray, but what makes them all the more impressive is the way they’re being woven into one big narrative. Then there’s the artwork by Raney, Hanna and colorist Frank D’Armata, who present some of the most impressive and creepy techno-organic baddies this side of The Matrix as well as a slim, sleek High Evolutionary who looks perfectly alien, a Quasar and Warlock who convey their youth and inexperience in their look and plenty of other strong designs and stirring moments.

The Bakers: Babies & Kittens HC
Writer/Artist: Kyle Baker
Company: Image Comics

The latest in Kyle Baker’s autobiographical (with humorous exaggeration) tales of his family is finally here, and for fans of great cartooning or animated hijinks in the classic Warner Brothers style, it’s well worth a look. Baker tells a fairly short and contained tale about how a mouse leads his wife and kids to adopt a cat without telling him, and the hilarity that ensues as they try to hide it from him. But that’s just the plot, which is almost beside the point. The joy of Babies & Kittens is Baker’s way with art, giving tons of personality to non-speaking (or barely speaking) characters like the baby, the mouse and the kitten and his animator’s sense of timing and layout that gives way to vibrant, active scenes that remind this reader of watching great cartoons. Slapstick, misdirection and other sitcom classics are brought to the fore, and the potentially saccharine sweetness of a genuine family is perfectly undercut with gags like “He’s in one of his ‘Slays Four, Then Self’ Moods!” and a darkly hilarious sequence that perfectly captures the way a cat toys with a mouse. One quibble: While Baker is a master cartoonist, an inspired wielder of onomatopoeia and a skilled humorist, his planning and scheduling abilities are a bit questionable. This book, originally solicited for July 2007, contains a couple of false story leads that go nowhere, and the plot is described differently on the book’s back cover, and differently again in the original solicitation, suggesting that the story was sort of made up along the way. In the light-hearted Bakers, this is usually just barely noticeable, but it does prevent this from having the same weight at Baker’s earlier work on Why I Hate Saturn? or even his more recent Nat Turner. But in terms of lightweight fun and great cartooning, The Bakers: Babies & Kittens is a hole in one.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #11
Writer: Joss Whedon
Artists: Georges Jeanty & Andy Owens
Company: Dark Horse Comics

The Buffy comic is making me remember why I liked the Buffy television show so much, after a pair of weaker seasons on UPN sapped a lot of my love for the show away. This latest issue, the second in a series of two one-offs by Whedon, introduces another aspect of th “Big Bad” of “season eight,” adds a little interesting depth to a new character, features more great work on Xander Harris (a personal favorite of mine) and features Whedon’s trademark dialogue and whimsy with an undercurrent of emotional trauma for his protagonist. In other words, it’s pretty much everything you’d want from a good standalone episode of Buffy, and Jeanty and Owens do a pretty solid job on the visuals, especially when concerned with designs for the militaristic new Slayers, from Buffy’s ’90s X-Men combat jumpsuit to the punk rock look of rogue slayer Simone Doffler. Less impressive is the bland design for the baddie, but that’s partly Whedon’s fault for giving us a fairly generic supervillain type who flies and has super strength. The bigger budget afforded by comics has been mostly a boon to this comic, but on occasion the unlimited special effects budget seems to constrain Whedon to ideas that don’t quite fit the Buffyverse and worse, seem played out, something that Buffy rarely seemed when Whedon was at the helm. But even a generic masked baddie gets a touch of subversion with the “itchy neck” fake reveal, and a frothy fun fight and poignant, melancholy undercurrent and finale for Buffy make this one of the best issues of the series thus far.

The Darkness #2
Writer: Phil Hester
Artist: Michael Broussard
Company: Image/Top Cow

I was kind of harsh on the first issue of Hester’s The Darkness, and while I haven’t come around entirely on the book yet, the second issue has a lot more scope and more of the interesting quirks I expect from Hester’s work. The most interesting aspects, from Jackie drugging the nation with his darkness powers to the moral quandaries involved in using his darkness powers to build himself a woman, are mostly left untapped, but there are some neat ideas shown off, including the development of his darklings as a squadron of allies instead of basically a special effect for a blasting power. And the introduction of a new force between the rebels and Jackie Estacado’s regime is a natural evolution of the story and one that has plenty of potential for political and moral complications. I’m still not seeing anything in Broussard’s artist that’s much different from the average Top Cow house artist, with ill-defined and anorexic faces and bodies, way too many extraneous lines to add the illusion of detail and often-times skimpy backgrounds, but his storytelling is adequate to the task, and I have to admit I’m seeing the potential in the storyline a little bit more after two issues.

Nightwing #141
Writer: Peter Tomasi
Artists: Rags Morales & Michael Bair
Company: DC Comics

The first issue by this creative team was a touch cluttered, littered with the detritus of the lame “Resurrection of Ra’s Al Ghul” crossover, and I was prepared to write off Nightwing for a while again. I’m glad I didn’t, because this issue is really more like the first issue of a new run, repositioning and revamping Nightwing so that the new creative team can put their stamp on him, without losing what makes the character cool. A big element here is an optimistic outlook that is the biggest difference between Nightwing and Batman, but there are also some cool scenes with both Superman and Batman to show off where Nightwing fits in the DC superhero pantheon. And even better, Tomasi goes to town establishing his new baseline for Nightwing, which includes a new job, new base of operations, new mode of transportation, new way of tracking down trouble and bad guys and a new villain or two as well, not to mention an intriguing new plot about somebody stealing super-powered corpses. Oh, and did I mention re-establishing an important relationship with an old friend who has been similarly screwed up in current DC continuity? It’s a lot of groundwork, but it feels light and exciting, rather than the moving around of continuity chesspieces that so many similar stories offer. And Morales, aided by veteran inker Michael Bair, turns in the kind of exceptional performance you’d expect, whether it’s a visual gag during Superman’s appearance, a two-panel showcase of our new villain’s henchmen, a stunningly detailed ballgame as backdrop to a character-building conversation or a great scene of two friends bonding. Promising superheroics for a character who hasn’t been well-handled in years, and a bright spot in the morass of Countdown-influenced dreck currently polluting a lot of the DC Universe.

Teen Titans: Year One #2
Writer: Amy Wolfram
Artists: Karl Kerschl, Serge LaPointe & Steph Peru
Company: DC Comics

This column has turned into a “The second issue is much better” for me, as Teen Titans: Year One is another book I’d nearly written off as beautifully drawn but not that interesting based on the first issue. Clearly I needed a little patience and perspective, because while the focus here is still on the adult superheroes going bad, the results in this second issue are seen much more clearly in the lead characters, and Wolfram gives the character’s plenty of personality to match the hefty amount Kerschl and company have already given them visually. Little tweaks to make Aqualad a true fish out of water (and a touch skittish to boot), Wally a modern-day Internet junkie and Speedy a cocky upstart to match his mentor are great character innovations, and the story of mentors going bad and the teens having to stop them, while a bit long in the tooth, is presented in a fun way. Wolfram earned a lot of points with me by adding a touch of scare factor in the teens wondering what they’d do if Superman had gone rogue, and plays that off nicely in introducing Wonder Girl to the team, with four reaction shots by Kerschl, LaPointe and Peru perfectly nailing the emotions of the moment. This is a beautiful book that looks unlike anything else on the stands, and Wolfram’s grasp on the characters as well as the pacing of story is much better than I originally gave her credit for.

Warhammer: Forge of War #5
Writers: Dan Abnett & Ian Edginton
Artist: Rahsan Ekedal
Company: Boom! Studios

I have a fondness for tales of doomed champions fighting on against unwinnable odds, which makes the grim fantasy universe of Warhammer a perfect setting for me. This miniseries started with the forces of good breaking ranks and losing a battle against chaos, and continued as we watched survivors struggle and often lose against evils like vampires, orc slavers and more. The fifth issue brings together the whittled-down survivors for a last stand against a vast army, and it reads both as a great capper to a fine dark fantasy series and a good one-off story of battle against hopeless odds. Abnett and Edginton reintroduce each of their characters from the past few issues, give them each a spotlight moment and then unleash the grand plan before launching into the big epic battle and leaving at a satisfying (if unconventional) final moment. It’s a shame there isn’t more cinematic grandeur in the art, which belies the work of someone still learning their way around the craft, including competently drawn but unexciting figures and fairly plain, standard panel layouts, but Ekedal’s storytelling gets the work done, even if it leaves a lot of the heavy lifting to the writers and doesn’t provide the sort of emotional connection that really great art might have.