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 Abe Sapien The Drowning #1 of 5, Clandestine #1, Halloween Nightdance #1, Lords Of Avalon Sword Of Darkness #1 of 6, Marvel Illustrated Moby Dick #1, Speed Racer Chronicles O/t Racer #1 and Uncanny X-Men #495.

Nick Budd Read and Thought:

ClanDestine #1
Writer/Artist: Alan Davis
Company: Marvel Comics

Sad to say, this one was a bit of a disappointment. Alan Davis, the creative mind behind such things as Excalibur and JLA: The Nail, is by leaps and bounds one of comicdom’s better artists. His style has a very classic vibe to it but it also has a uniqueness to it too, a great layout and a level of energy that makes what’s happening on the page pop. Like I said, he’s just a damn good artist. His stories lately, however, haven’t been the best. Fantastic Four: The End suffered a little from being too old school and now ClanDestine, which he’s returning to after a little over ten years, doesn’t quite stack up either. In short, this tale of a magic family who basically works on the down-low so as to not raise suspicion from the rest of the Marvel Universe is a little too incomprehensible for its own good. The concept as a whole could work well but the actual character introduction is a bit clunky, the villains of the piece, robed guys who hang out in shadows, blah and a general feeling that nothing happening really gels together. I wanted to like this but beyond the art, which was very good and right up there with Davis’ other stuff, it just didn’t deliver.

Dave Farabee Read and Thought:

Speed Racer: Chronicles of the Racer #1 (of 4)
Writer: Arie Kaplan
Artists: Robby Musso & German Torres
Company: IDW Publishing

I almost have to admire the audacity of the premise behind this mini. It’s not like Speed Racer’s ever been a particularly serious concept, but Chronicles of the Racer gets even goofier by mapping the Buffy hook onto it. As Pops Racer explains it, “In every generation, one child from our family is chosen - by luck, kismet, karma, whatever - to be the racer.” Doesn’t it sorta take away from Speed’s coolness and uniqueness if he’s just one more in a line of destined heroes? Well, yeah, but mostly it’s an excuse to have him investigating his lineage and flashing back to the adventures of the Speed Racer of ancient Rome (chariot throwdown), the Speed Racer of ancient Nubia (foot race, and even Racer X makes an appearance), and the like. Reminds me a bit of those Elseworlds where we’d see Batman as a pirate or a viking, and it’s similar lightweight fun, if maybe a little too literal in paralleling the modern Speed (did the chariot have to have automated jacks exactly like the Mach 5?). Despite the fun premise, the art throughout is fairly bleh, reminding me of some of the lesser Ameri-manga artists at Antarctic Press.

Dan Grendell Read and Thought:

Abe Sapien: The Drowning #1 (of 5)
Writer: Mike Mignola
Artist: Jason Shawn Alexander
Company: Dark Horse Comics

As usual, I wondered how Mignola’s choice of artist would work out on this new mini. And as usual, it was perfect. Alexander definitely has a style all his own, very different from Guy Davis or Mignola himself, but it fits the feel of the book perfectly, and he draws the hell out of Abe Sapien. His use of shadows and light is fantastic, and Dave Stewart is his normal amazing self on colors. The plot, involving Abe’s first mission for the BPRD without Hellboy, is intriguing, and features ancient Hindu daggers, a dead warlock on the bottom of the ocean, and a Victorian occult detective. Once again, Mignola gets it right.

Halloween: Nightdance #1 (of 4)
Writer: Stefan Hutchinson
Artist: Tim Seeley
Company: Devil’s Due Press

I’m not generally a fan of horror comics, simply because they don’t scare me. They often make the assumption that it’s the gore, the simple presence of monsters, that makes a story scary, and that isn’t the case. It’s all about pacing, a sense of the unknown, a creation of empathy for characters so that you feel loss when they die and threatened when they are menaced. That’s what made the original Halloween film so great, and Hutchinson gets that- he spends plenty of time here setting his characters up, while also introducing Michael Myers as the blank killing machine that makes him so fearsome. Jumping back and forth between Myers’ current victim and setting up his next ones is sometimes confusing, but Hutchinson generally pulls it off well and Seeley’s artwork is quite strong, conveying both the brightness of the initial set-up and the menace of the slaughter equally well. Horror fans, check this one out, and those of you who don’t generally dig horror books might like this too. I did.

Randy Lander Read and Thought:

Lords of Avalon: Swords of Darkness #1
Writers: Sherrilyn Kenyon & Robin Gillespie
Artist: Tommy Ohtsuka
Company: Marvel Comics

I gather that Lords of Avalon is a popular fantasy novel series. Based on the first issue of the Marvel Comic, I have no idea why. It starts out with an evil version of King Arthur, goes on to have a couple of Arthur’s knights talking and acting like 20th century frat boys and includes every hoary cliche in the fantasy playbook, including the seductive, vampy villainess, the good-looking and charming (yet evil) villain and of course a young hero (in this case heroine) from whose humble beginnings yada yada yada… seriously, I got bored summarizing it, you wouldn’t believe how bored you’d get reading it. Ohtsuka’s art, a bright manga- and anime-influenced style, is attractive and expressive, if a bit sparse in backgrounds, and while the youthful look and comedic touches in his art do exaggerate some of the more annoying aspects of the story, in general the art is the best part of the book. But unless you’re a fan of this series already, I don’t particularly recommend it.

Marvel Illustrated Moby Dick #1
Writer: Roy Thomas
Artists: Pascal Alixe & Victor Olazaba
Company: Marvel Comics

The latest of Marvel’s comics adapting classic literature is indicative of the general quality of their line. They are true enough to the source material to serve as Cliff’s Notes and well-crafted enough to read as pretty entertaining comics as well. Whether or not there’s an audience for relatively faithful translations of literature to comics is another argument, but certainly putting veteran scribe Roy Thomas as well as up-and-coming artists on the book results in solid comic books. Alixe and Olazaba are pretty impressive talents, producing realistic art with strongly defined faces that is crucial to this kind of material, and Sotocolor’s A. Crossley does nice, bright (but not garish) color work. And in addition to the foreboding sense of doom that permeates Moby Dick, Thomas finds the humor in Melville’s story, with a very funny introduction between Queequeg and Ishmael that the artists deliver on perfectly.

David Martindale Read and Thought:

Uncanny X-Men #495
Writer: Ed Brubaker
Artist: Mike Choi

I actually started to do a quick blurb for this issue. Once I looked up at what I had typed, it became apparent that I had written a full-sized review of the book. I was so enthusiastic for the issue that my fingers had taken on life of their own, and had poured more than I expected out onto the keyboard. Click here to read the full review.