The Pickytarian

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November 18, 2004

Subway Reading: Ex Machina, The Pulse, Fantastic Four

Last night, I leave work and get on the subway, eager to get down to Midtown Comics to pick up my weekly fix. I have no books to read on this short ride, so I pull out my current backup trade: Sandman Vol. 2, The Doll's House. I finish the next-to-last chapter and put it away, saving the last chapter for when I run out of comics this week. Wierdly, the guy sitting next to me asks if it was any good! Huh? I turn and ask him to repeat himself and he does. I was so flabbergasted that all I could do was stammer, "uh... yeah, it's good. Really good." Then I sat in uncomfortable silence for the 3 minutes before my stop. Pathetic! I'm the Pickytarian, dammit! And that's all I could manage? "Uh, yeah, it's really good?!?!" I disgust myself. On with today's reviews:

Fantastic Four #520 - Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo have found it. That tiny, imperceptible point of balance between superhero action and fun, between light-hearted comedy and tense drama, between comic book perfection and unreadable dreck. And don't believe for one second that Waid has acheived this state of nirvana on his own. The fill-in issues featuring the new Frightful Four are all the evidence you need that Wieringo and Karl Kesel are integral to this delicate balance. For example, the flashback sequences in this issue are well-written, but it is the character acting that sells them. I'm going to enjoy this arc while it lasts; this team will be very sorely missed. 4 stars.

Ex Machina #6 - Maybe it's just my imagination, but I feel like artists Tony Harris and Tom Feister turned it up a notch in this issue. It's like they pull off a magic trick every month. The drawing is almost mechanical in its accuracy, and the lines are super-clean. And yet there is not a hint of stiffness or flatness to be found in a single panel. I chalk it up to clever staging, brilliantly restrained inking, and subtle exaggeration in the acting.

Brian Vaughan does a nice job of starting off a new arc. He sets up a new mystery that is tied to Mayor Hundred's past, continuing to use the technique of doling out that past in the form of flashbacks that seamlessly tie into the present storyline. My one reservation about the characterization in this book is on prominent display in this issue, however. I find myself knocked out of the story when the characters either get too preachy or too stereotypical. It's a very fine if not impossible line to walk in a story about politics. More often that not, Vaughan manages to walk that line. But in the scene where the Mayor is arguing with his aide Dave Wylie about school vouchers, the writer stumbles a little. Lines like "I warned you... I'm not a liberal or a conservative, I'm a realist" undermine the believability of the character. It seems like the writer is putting his own beliefs into the mouth of the mayor, and turning Wylie into a stereotype of somebody who disagrees with those beliefs. But in the scope of the general excellence of this title, this is a minor problem. All in all this continues to be one of my favorite monthly titles. 4 stars.

The Pulse #6 - How much longer? How much longer am I going to allow this to continue? Every month - scratch that, more like every week, Bendis and Marvel pick my pocket. I plunk down at least $2.95 on the strength of that name on the cover, and I wind up dissatisfied. I mean, come on. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 17 times, shame on me, right? The problem is that I am still enjoying Ultimate Spider-man and Daredevil. So I am repeatedly amazed that Avengers, Secret War, and The Pulse can be so inferior in terms of quality. Let me break down this issue for you. I'm not even going to warn you about spoilers because I WANT to spoil it. There is no reason to spend three bucks on this book, which is perhaps the most blatant example of padding for the trade that Marvel has attempted so far. And that's saying a lot. Here's what happens: 3 pages of Wolverine being mad at Jessica Jones for some unnamed reason. Flashback for 11 pages of what we already saw in Secret War: Mysterious woman blows up Luke Cage's apartment, Jessica Jones and Cage go into the hospital, but they can't treat him because he has unbreakable skin, Captain America, Nick Fury, blah blah blah. Literally the same scene from Secret War, down to the same exact script for 4 pages. Then 7 pages of the hospital blowing up and all the superheroes except Jessica disappear. This entire issue could have been accomplished in 3 or 4 pages. I feel like a heel and a sucker for buying it. And do you know what? I'm getting off the train. That's it. No more buying The Pulse, no more buying Secret War, no more buying any of this flimsy drivel that is being passed off as comic book entertainment. I read somewhere recently that Bendis offers a money-back guarantee on all his comics. He should get out his checkbook and prepare to receive a fat package from me. Becuase new artist Brent Anderson showed the inexplicably rare ability to draw Jessica Jones as something other than a generic comic-geek's fantasy boob-machine, I will give this book 1 star.

Posted by jdonelson_nyc at November 18, 2004 10:20 AM

Comments

Posted by: Peat at November 18, 2004 04:06 PM