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 Dark Ivory #1, Darkness Vs Eva #1, Everybodys Dead #1, FX #1, Ghost Whisperer #1, Goblin Chronicles #1, Super Friends #1, Tangent Superman’s Reign #1, Tiger & Crane #1, and War Is Hell: First Flight Phantom Eagle #1.

Nick Budd Read and Thought:

Everybody’s Dead #1
Writer: Brian Lynch
Artist: Dave Crosland
Company: IDW Publishing

What would you get if you crossed National Lampoon’s Animal House with Dawn of the Dead? Well, let’s just say the finished product is an odd thing to behold, comical but a little bit clichéd as well. That said, this first issue doesn’t really get into the zombie aspect too much, just a single tease towards the end of it. What it does cover is a over the top but violent feud between two rival fraternities. The humor is well-timed and results in actual laughs, but there’s not a whole heck of a lot too this one, especially since the zombie genre has been literally done to death as of late. As for the art, Crosland does turn in some very expressive, energetic work here. The whole thing has a cartoon-y type feel to it, but every character has a definitive look and a range of emotion to them, which goes a long way to make the characters more likable. Not a bad book, just nothing we haven’t already seen.

Darkness vs. Eva Daughter of Dracula #1
Writers: Leah Moore & John Reppion
Artist: Edgar Salazar
Company: Dynamite Entertainment & Top Cow

Truth be told, I don’t think that I’ve ever read a Darkness story before now. After this little fun-fest, I can sort of see why. It’s not that he’s a boring character, he’s just stuck in boring stories that have been told over and over again. In this crossover, we have vampires and werewolves trying to take over the world and two “heroic” characters, Eva, Dracula’s daughter who wishes to rid the world of all vile and evil things, and Darkness, a quasi gangster that possesses great power, who will undoubtedly fight each other until the inevitable realization that they’re actually both good guys and that they have better things to do. From Leah Moore, Alan Moore’s daughter, I think I was expecting something different and less formulaic. Salazar’s art however, is very solid. The action is well choreographed and easy to follow, and his versions of Darkness’ darklings are specifically cool looking. All in all, kinda boring but fans of the Darkness or Eva might want to give it a shot.

Dave Farabee Read and Thought:

War is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle #1 of 5
Writer: Garth Ennis
Artist: Howard Chaykin
Company: Marvel Comics

Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard of Marvel’s World War I flying ace, the Phantom Eagle, before today. Yeah, me neither, but Garth Ennis is pretty much starting from scratch for this Marvel MAX mini, so don’t sweat it. As first issues go, this one’s pretty strong, aided and abetted by Howard Chaykin with some of the best art he’s done in years. I’m betting Howard’s one of these guys who digs sinking his teeth into researching military historical visuals, and it shows. The story introduces us to a Brit flight squadron who find themselves a little rattled when a brash American shows to join them. His backstory and orders seem suspicious and his behavior’s typical of Ennis taking the piss out of Americans while the Brits go about their professional soldiering. Coming from him it’s a bit cliche, but it works on its own terms, and as always his dialogue is hugely readable. Worth checking out for a slightly larger-than-life slice of air combat in The Great War.

Super Friends #1
Writer: Sholly Fisch
Artist: Dario Brizuela
Company: DC Comics

Sporting a nostalgic title and promoting a Mattel line of puffy superhero toys, the first issue of Super Friends is about what you’d expect: cute, kinda fun, definitely aimed at kids, and mildly commercial (Superman can be seen flying a version of that old Superman rocket ship that had the fists on it - no doubt a vehicle in the Mattel toy line). It’s a little like the Lego Star Wars games in tone, and even when the superheroes are on the ropes they somehow manage to be upbeat and smiling. And they defeat Amazo because he’s not yet waterproof and so short circuits when he goes after Aquaman. Geez, even in the kiddie comics they have to strain to find a use for poor Arthur Curry! Needless to say, this one’s strictly for the little ones, but the art’s fun, the story brisk and decent enough. Nothing wrong with that.

Dan Grendell Read and Thought:

Dark Ivory #1
Writers: Joseph Michael Linsner and Eva Hopkins
Artist: Joseph Michael Linsner
Company: Image

Linsner is a talented artist who produces sensual, beautiful paintings. Unfortunately, his interior art is nowhere near as developed, and his writing skills are weaker as well. The addition of longtime art assistant and co-colorist on writing helps, but the story is still a fairly weak one- goth Ivory is full of angst and detached from her family, and wonders what it would be like to be a vampire. Meanwhile, a real vampire wanders the streets, and when Ivory stumbles on one of his victims, she finds herself oddly thrilled. The strongest part of the book is the dialogue, though that sometimes reads unnaturally. The art is generally fairly strong, though there is a scene in the beginning where a woman’s throat is cut deeply open and surprisingly little blood emerges. Overall, this is likely to be of interest to goths and vampire lovers, but few others.

FX #1
Writer: Wayne Osborne
Artist: John Byrne
Company: IDW Publishing

Everybody played pretend when they were kids. You imagined you were in a car and drove around going “VROOM”, or made a gun with you r hand and said “BANG”, or whatever. In FX, young Tom Talbot and his friend Jack are doing just that (though at a bit older age than I remember doing it) when Tom is hit by a glowing light. He soon discovers that when he pretends now, a shape of light appears that really creates what he is thinking about. Fake plane? He can fly. Fake gun? He can shoot. So what does he do? He becomes the superhero FX, of course. This issue he fights the villain gorilla Silverback, though it is never really made clear why such a villain would be incarcerated in a public zoo, and learns that someone knows who he is. A cool, fresh idea, this is some old-school hero fun, and Byrne’s art looks clean and crisp, as good as it has in years. A strong surprise.

The Goblin Chronicles #1 (of 3)
Writers: Troy Dye and Tom Kelesides
Artist: Collin Fogel
Company: APE Entertainment

The races of the Four Realms are at war. Goblin, Elf, Troll, and Shapeshifter all fight each other, and the Dark Queen’s Host takes any leaders prisoner to ensure they never form alliances. But Gorim the Goblin tinkerer has been called along with a representative of the other races to overthrow the Dark Queen and stop the wars. This seems like a fun fantasy quest book, with the standard destined group out to stop the force of evil. The art is a bit rough at the beginning, but already by the end of the book Fogel has improved noticably. Give it a shot, if you like heroic fantasy; I think you’ll dig it.

Randy Lander Read and Thought:

Ghost Whisperer #1
Writer: Becca Smith & Carrie Smith
Artist: Elena Casagrande
Company: IDW Publishing

I don’t know whether this accurately represents the TV show or not, but I do know that the comic at least doesn’t feature any memorable scares, effective atmosphere or any characters with any depth or interesting personality. The story features a hackneyed plot involving mean girls, a tragic death, and a cover-up and weak attempts at Whedon-esque quippy dialogue. The art is somewhat bland and indistinguishable. And the premise, about a woman who helps angry spirits “move on to their final resting place,” never held much interest for me in the first place. I can’t judge how accurately this captures the spirit of the TV show, but I can say that as a comic, it was a disappointment.

Tangent: Superman’s Reign #1 of 12
Writer: Dan Jurgens
Artists: Matthew Clark & Jesse Delperdang
Company: DC Comics

Tangent Comics was an interesting thought-experiment/fifth week event from several years back where creative teams, spearheaded by Dan Jurgens, imagined big names like The Atom, Joker, Superman, Flash and more as new characters, using only the name for inspiration. It was fun, approachable and had some imaginative and entertaining concepts. Unfortunately, this years-too-late sequel of sorts has little of that. Drenched in the same dire “everything sucks” tone that dominates the DC Universe, awkwardly jammed into the new multiverse rather than allowed to stand on its own and drowning in continuity, Tangent: Superman’s Reign is a confusing read with weak art. The colors by Dom Regan range from muddy to garish, Clark’s work is inconsistent and sketchy more often than not and Jurgens doesn’t really explain the characters at all well for those who aren’t intimately familiar with the concept already. Which, at this point, has got to be a fairly small audience.

Tiger & Crane #1
Writers: Alex Leung & Randall Zamchek
Artists: Samicler Goncalves & Aejun
Company: Bluewater Comics

I’m afraid I can’t sugarcoat it… this was pretty bad. Kung-fu superheroics on the streets of San Francisco should be fun and action-packed, but once you get past the shiny colors of Nimmarn Tonglim, you realize that the artwork looks a bit amateurish, with a lot of inconsistency in faces and bodies, sparse and unimaginative backgrounds and dull action that doesn’t convey the flourish that a martial arts comic should have. The story, about a masked vigilante in the Iron Monkey tradition, is a decent premise, but Leung and Zamchek serve up some howlers in the dialogue, making it hard to take the whole thing seriously and yet failing to indicate a tongue-in-cheek tone. The tortured logic of the villain in the opening scene, explaining how a suicide and a disgrace somehow equals his nemesis having killed his family, is ludicrous, put it’s played entirely straight. Which is kind of how I felt about the entire book, to be honest.