Review: All-New Hawkeye #1 by Jeff Lemire , Ramón Pérez (penciler)

All-New Hawkeye #1 by Jeff Lemire
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

 

 

Ehhhhhh. Ok?

So, I’m not terribly impressed or terribly disappointed. This could go either way, and I guess the only thing to do is keep reading.
The art was somewhat jarring, though.
Not bad, just…jarring, because it kept flashing between this:

And this:

Is it something that will annoy me in the long run? I’m not sure yet.
Again, the only thing to do is keep reading, and see how it all turns out.

Another problem could be that I still haven’t been able to read the last volume of Fraction’s Hawkeye…so maybe I’m having some closure issues?
Speaking of, did something happen to Clint’s hearing in that one? Has he always had hearing loss, and I just didn’t know about it? Or did I just misread that part about Stark making him hearing aids?
These are things I probably should have Googled before writing this, but I’m a slacker, so if anyone out there wants to help a girl out…
cough, cough

Anyway, Clint & Kate are teamed up to look for something bad in a Hydra compound, and between quips & ass-kickery they manage to find…something bad. Every few pages you’re flashing back to a day in Clint’s childhood, when something important happened for him and his brother. You learn they were in an abusive foster home (are there any other kinds in books?), and something happens to the boys that changes their lives. Maybe.

Dum, dum, duuuum…

It was kinda weird (to me), but I didn’t hate it.

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Review: Justice League United, Vol. 1: Justice League Canada by Jeff Lemire

Justice League United, Vol. 1: Justice League Canada by Jeff Lemire

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

First off, I love my Canuck comic book buddies.
There are a lot of you, and thankfully you each seem to have an excellent sense of humor.
Especially when it comes to how poorly you guys get treated on the panels!

I was actually hoping that this would be your big BREAKOUT (and breakaway from Alpha Flight), but so far…not so much.
The good news is, JLU isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever read!
And there are is one spectacular moment in this that (honest to God) made the whole thing worth reading for me.

*WARNING: There are all kinds of spoilers below!*
Seriously. You’ve been warned. No bitching…

All of this takes place after the whole Forever Evil stuff in JLA Survivors of Evil , and now the team of B-Listers formerly known as the Justice League of America is sort of in limbo.
The only one anyone cares about real powerhouse is Martian Manhunter, but Animal Man, Stargirl, and Green Arrow are all still bopping around in the background.
Hey! What happened to Hawkman?!
I’m just assuming you asked that.
Well, now. Don’t you worry…he shows up. *insert evil cackling here*
PS – I’m fucking serious about that spoiler warning.

Get ready, because the big news is that Adam Strange and his girlfriend fiancee wife, Alanna, join the team in this one!
Yeah! Whoo-Hoo! Yeah! Yeah!

Oh. You’re not as excited as I thought you’d be.*cough* Well, that’s ok. That’s ok.
Equinox is also another new member! And when I say new, I mean it.
She’s a Native American…or is she a Native Canadian?
No, I think she’s still a Native American, because…it’s the continent not the country. Right? Am I right? I don’t want to take anything away from my Maple-SyrupLeafed friends, but I’m pretty sure it’s still Native American.
You know what…doesn’t matter.
Anyway, back to Equinox!

She’s actually pretty cool, and I’m hoping they keep this character around after they cancel this title! And it will get cancelled.
She get her powers from ‘seven elders’, and each one basically represents something good…I just can’t remember exactly what ‘good stuff’ right now.
All she has to do is say her magic word, and she controls the powers of the elements. But (I think) she can only access the element that she’s currently around.
Like, if it’s snowing she has the power of…snow.

Moving on!
There was a lot of bickering between Animal Man and Green Arrow, with each picking on the other for being The Lamest Superhero.
I liked this, because it was an attempt on Lemire’s part to address what everyone is already thinking about these guys.
Some of their interactions were funny, and some of them felt forced and hokey, but at least he tried.

Alright, alright! If you’re still reading this, it’s because you probably want to know what the hell I was talking about in the beginning that made this entire volume worthwhile.
*Ahem*
Drum roll, please…

He’s dead.

Says Supergirl…all sad n’ stuff.
Bwahahahaha! Hahahahahahaha! Ha! Hahaha! Hahahaha!
I can’t *wheeze* I can’t stop…I can’t stop laughing!
OhGod!IPeedMyself! They killed that hairy-shouldered fucker!
I should give this shit 5 stars just for this one panel alone!

Yeah, yeah. I’m sure that fucking Nth Metal will heal him.
But for one brief moment the sun shone down on me, angels sang, and little woodland creatures gently nuzzled my face…

Highly recommended if you want see Hawkman bite it!

I received a digital arc from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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Review: Secret Origins Vol. 1 by Jeff Lemire

Secret Origins Vol. 1 by Jeff Lemire

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The only reason to read any of these Secret Origin stories, is if your are somehow unfamiliar with the characters.
Not only are the origins not Secret, they aren’t very interesting.
Somehow, I thought that because they were coming out with this Origin volume, I was going to learn something new, or maybe there might be a fresh twist on things.
Nope.
I’ll save you some time.
If you already read comic books, you’ve heard these stories before.
And, honestly, there are better versions of them out there.
Starfire and Harley Quinn were the only ones that haven’t been done to death.
Does that make them great?
No.
But at least I wasn’t rolling my eyes through either of them.
Superman, Green Lantern, and Aquaman were the only characters with stories that felt like the authors even tried to bring some kind of emotion to the table. I’m not saying they were AWESOME. I’m just saying it felt like they tried.
Green Arrow/Oliver Queen is just more we-like-the-tv-show crap, but if you’re into that, it won’t piss you off.
Batman, Batwoman, and Damien’s origins were all unbelievably regurgitated. Nothing was new.
NOTHING.
Red Robin (Drake), Robin (Grayson), and Supergirl, however, rounded out the bottom of the barrel.
I hated all of these guys by the time their issues were done.
Remember when Batman tracked Dick Grayson down and begged him to be his partner?
Yeah, me neither.
And evidently Tim Drake was super excited to partner up with Batman after he caused his poor parents to end up in witness protection.
Mom? Dad? I know I ruined your lives, but Brucey is gonna adopt me now, so…Laters! Enjoy looking over your shoulders for the rest of your (probably very short) lives!
Really? Drake comes off like a total douche. Normally, I like his character quite a bit, so…Thanks!
Supergirl.
*sigh*
One minute she’s fighting a Kryptonian dinosaur, and the next she’s (maybe) starting a war with North Korea over some of their astronauts that she saved.
Yeah. I know that nothing in that sentence made sense.

This isn’t awful, it’s just unnecessary.
It might make a nice gift for people who are just getting into DC characters, but I wouldn’t personally be thrilled to find this under my Christmas tree.

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Review: Animal Man Vol. 3 Rotworld; The Red Kingdom – by Jeff Lemire (and Scott Snyder to a lesser extent)

Animal Man, Vol. 3: Rotworld: The Red Kingdom by Jeff Lemire
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

***Green Theme Buddy Read with the Shallows…The Green is more Swampy’s territory, but it’s part of the trifecta with the Red and the Rot, and they’re all here…so ya. Plus Swamp Thing.***

Well…that was…terrible. Dark and depressing, I won’t be surprised if Buddy Baker becomes a raging alcoholic pill popper. Rot world was a crossover on the Dark-horror edge of the DCU spectrum….Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Constantine, Black Orchid, and so forth. There’s also lots of heroes who appear and get turned into zombies by the Rot…Buddy should have learned the best way to predict the future of your wife is to look at her mother…and they are both enormo-cunts. Like somehow it’s his fault that their daughter has powers? ThE real problem is that they spend more time chewing him out than listening to him or curing that crime against follicles that is Cliff…

The talking cat makes me think of Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

Swampy is more interesting because his life partner isn’t a fucking cunt. Also, when did she start looking like a librarian? I think they ugged her up on purpose. The art is also terrible. By the end everyone is just a mess of lines and smudges and blechy colours. Not pleasant to look at, way too many thought and speech bubbles and internal monologues.

Oh and to top it all off, even in a book he doesn’t appear in, Batman saves the world and the day. Yup. Also, the Justice League manage to be useless twats as well. I did enjoy Frankenstein showing up…I like a lot that New 52 has a mandate for Frank to be in 33% of everything.

This was also just dumb. I think I went onto autopilot about halfway through the book.

I won’t be rushing to volume 4.

Disappointing for sure. I also hate super kids. What do u think is going to happen if you have kids with a superhero dude? Idiots. Also, who brings there mother in law on a road trip and doesn’t leave her in Wichita? Dummy.

Just not worth it. Lots of DCU grit. But not at all pleasant. No point other than depressing me. Yay.

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Release Day Review: Teen Titans: Earth One Vol. 1 by Jeff Lemire, Terry Dodson (Illustrator)

Teen Titans: Earth One Vol. 1 by Jeff Lemire

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Pretty cool retelling of the Teen Titans’ origin story.
These Earth One books have been hit-or-miss for me, so I went into this hopeful, but not salivating. Earth One titles (in case you aren’t familiar with them) are basically What If stories, that re-imagine the beginnings of some of DC’s most iconic characters. They don’t fit into the continuity of the regular DC universe, so the authors can kind of do whatever they want, without it causing ripple effects.

First off, for all the fans out there who have been screaming bloody murder over Starfire’s over-sexualization in some of other titles?
You can officially put down your torches and pitchforks. The majority of this book, you only see her eyes (sort of), and when you finally do see her, she’s wrapped up in cloth from the neck down.
Like a mummy!

Sorry, that image just made me giggle, so I thought I’d share.

Ok. In this story, most of the (eventual) Teen Titans (Cyborg, Terra, Beast Boy, and Jericho) meet in high school.
Two exceptions.
Starfire, whose alien DNA has been used for experiments, and is currently in stasis at a lab.
And Raven, who’s not the daughter of a demon in this one, but a Native American with somewhat undefined powers.
The other four kids are seemingly normal teenagers until they all start hearing Starfire’s voice n their heads, asking for help. The voice triggers the different latent powers in each of them to go into some sort of hyper-drive.
Except Jericho.
He seemingly remains a normal kid.
Hmmmm.

The plot reminded me of Kelley Armstrong’s young adult trilogy, Darkness Rising. In that one, a group of teenagers lived in a isolated town, blissfully unaware that the company their parents work for had been injecting them with stuff that eventually gives them supernatural powers.
An experimental town, so to speak.
Now, I’m not suggesting that Jeff Lemire ripped-off a young adult series. I doubt he’s ever even heard of it. But if you know the plot of those books, then you’ll understand the comparison.
The kids in Earth One are also ‘experiments‘, and are unaware of the part their parents played in their new abilities. Now they’ve gotta go on the run, search for answers, yadda, yadda, yadda.

The Terry Dodson’s art fits with the feel of the book. It’s got a cartoony vibe to it, without being weirdly exaggerated. Good stuff.
And this is really just sort of silly, but I’m wondering if anyone else thought the dark haired chick on the cover was Amanda Waller? Maybe because I’d been looking at a tiny cover on my computer, but I was actually surprised to realize that it was Raven.

Overall, I liked this one, and I’m interested in seeing where they go with this story.

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Review: Green Arrow, Vol. 5: The Outsiders War by Jeff Lemire, Andrea Sorrentino (Illustrations)

Green Arrow, Vol. 5: The Outsiders War by Jeff Lemire

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I should probably take some time to think about it, since I just finished this one about 3 minutes ago, but…
*shrugs*
Fuck it.

I’m done.
I’m not reading another one of these stupid attempts to merge a shitty comic with an even shittier tv show.
Now Oliver Queen has some mysterious past that’s tied up in a conspiracy about THE ISLAND.
*screams internally*

The first issue is Green Arrow: Zero Year.
As in, what was Ollie up to while Bruce was taking on the Riddler in Gotham.
Shhh. No one will notice that Batman is cooler…promise.

This little adventure leads to Oliver meeting Diggle.
One fist-bump later:
TEAM ARROW!
No, really. I’m not kidding.
I was making little notes to myself when I was reading it, and the next one I have says “I’m going to throw up“.
For reals!

Mooooving on.
The Outsiders War.
Who the fuck are the Outsiders? Well, it’s not a mismatched team of kids lead by Wildcat, that’s for sure.
Not this time, anyway. Nope.
The Outsiders are…tribes. There’s the Shield tribe, the Fist tribe, the Sword tribe, and (of course) the Arrow tribe…just to name a few.
Are you seeing the pattern here?
Anyway, Ollie and Shado are searching THE ISLAND for the Totem of the Arrow, when the Shield tribe attacks them.
With shields.

Oh noes! We can’t shoot them with our arrows, because they’re blocking us with their shields!
Ouch! Now they’re tossing them at us like boomerangs!
Bong!
What the fuck is Captain America doing in the DC universe?
Wacka! Wacka! Wacka!
Let’s see what my notes say, shall we?
“This is retarded.”
Damn, I’m eloquent!

The art is ok, until you try to figure out what’s happening in any of the action panels. Then you might as well make an educated guess, and move the fuck on, because it’s not like you can actually see what the hell is happening.
Part of me liked the whole BIG WORD thing with the action happening inside, and part of me was squinting at the screen getting more and more pissed off. I have a feeling this style will work better in print than digitally, so that may have been part of my issue with it. However, for those of us who read a lot of our comics on tablets, this might pose a problem.

Let’s see what else I have..
Hmmmm. I’ll consult my notes.
“This last little bit doesn’t seem so bad. Wait. No. It sucks again.
Something, something, something. More choppy action scenes.
I hate this. Want it to end. Why is he yelling at a traumatized kid? Gotta stop requesting stuff. Ugh.”

I’ve definitely read worse, but this just didn’t work for me.
Maybe you’ll have better luck with it than I did.

Thank you NetGalley!

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