Day: December 9, 2013

The Boys 66 (May 2012)

864279

Ennis opens with the most exciting thing in the issue–only he doesn’t intimate there’s not going to be anything else exciting in the issue. He also doesn’t explain the scene. He just lets it play out, then goes back to the fallout from the previous arc.

The Boys sort of break up this issue. They take a break, with Butcher messing around with everyone–mostly Hughie–and then Hughie has another big scene with Annie.

There’s also the corporate stuff, but it’s unclear if Ennis is doing it to show the resilient evil of corporate America or if it’s a subplot he’s going to bring in. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

This arc is set some time–a month, maybe more–after the previous issue. It already feels like a different comic. Instead of a last issue, Ennis is doing a last arc as postscript.

There’s very nice Braun art.

CREDITS

The Bloody Doors Off, Part One; writer, Garth Ennis; artist, Russ Braun; colorist, Tony Aviña; letterer, Simon Bowland; editor, Joseph Rybandt; publisher, Dynamite Entertainment.

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Never Ending 1 (November 2013)

22403

Never Ending has a lot of ideas. Writers Adam P. Knave and D.J. Kirkbride just keep throwing them out there–what if a superhero didn’t have a secret identity or even a superhero name, what if he and his arch-nemesis fought each other for seventy years, what if–in 1950–the white superhero has a black girlfriend… and there’s probably even more.

But these are all ideas to be developed and Knave and Kirkbride don’t do any developing. They throw the idea out there, play with it for a page, then keep moving. Why not slow down? Because Never Ending is lazy. These ideas aren’t enough to define their protagonist, but a three issue limited series probably isn’t enough to establish a character over seventy years either.

The very amateurish art from Robert Love doesn’t help the experience.

Not sure what Dark Horse is thinking with this one.

CREDITS

Writers, Adam P. Knave and D.J. Kirkbride; artist, Robert Love; colorist, Heather Breckel; letterer, Frank Cvetkovic; editor, Philip R. Simon; publisher, Dark Horse Comics.

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Batman 376 (October 1984)

Batman 376

Moench has a lengthy conversation between Alfred and Bruce about the state of affairs–Jason, Bruce’s love life, a little with Batman–and it’s a decent scene. Even though much of the content is absurd, with Bruce mentioning he hadn’t thought through the legalities of being Jason’s guardian, it’s a good enough scene.

The main plot has to do with a group of thieves masquerading as party monsters–they dress as monsters for rich people’s parties. It’s decent enough stuff. Newton and Alcala do a fine job on the art. The best might be this mid-flight dive Batman takes out of a window though. Something about it is just very striking.

But there’s not much else to the issue. Jason gets a little moment where he’s rude to his new foster mother, Vicki and Julia bicker. Same old, same old.

The villains aren’t much good either.

Still, not terrible.

CREDITS

Nightmares, Inc.; writer, Doug Moench; penciller, Don Newton; inker, Alfredo Alcala; colorist, Adrienne Roy; letterer, Ben Oda; editor, Len Wein; publisher, DC Comics.

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