Comics Roundup 22/1/2008 SPECIAL STAR SPANGLED ISSUE

I know, I have been neglecting comics roundup. In fairness, there have been some weeks recently when no good comics were published, so it is partly the industry's fault. Anyway, let me continue!


The Amazing Spider-Man #583

Yes, I am a sad individual. Two stories in this. The first is about this female friend of Peter Parker. One often hears it suggested that Mr Parker might bat for the other team; this story lends credence to that point of view, with Parker declining to have his go on his attractive female friend, even when she is drunkenly throwing herself at him. The other story is about Peter Parker going to the inauguration of Barack Obama as US President and then having to intervene as Spiderman when not one but two Obamas show up to take the oath of allegiance. This is a shameless cash-in of the so-crap-it's-brilliant type – at one point Obama even says "Chill the fuck out – I got this!" (only without the swearing or bad grammar). I am hoping it appreciates in value like that Pope John Paul II Marvel comic did, as are all the other people who bought this.

I would love to say that it ends with President Obama and Spidey engaging in dance-off, but sadly...




Air #6, by G. Willow Wilson & M.K. Perker

I think I may have failed to read the previous issue. This one sees vertigo-suffering air hostess Blythe teaming up with Amy Earhart, who is revealed not to have died back in the 1930s but to have travelled through time thanks to unusual psychic powers. I had started thinking that maybe this strip was losing its way a bit, but this issue suggest that actually it is going to mutate into an enjoyable make-it-up-as-we-go-along romp. Maybe G. Willow Wilson wrote it all during NaNoWriMo, in which case I am hoping that a load of furries show up next issue.


100 Bullets #99, by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso

OMG second last issue. I didn't really like the last issue (unreviewed here) – the mix of eroticism and violence seemed a bit too much like what you would get in a European perv comic. This one is more like it, and for once even features a semi-comprehensible storyline. Various shady characters are getting together and have decided to settle their differences etc., but now it looks like all the second string bad-ass characters are going to come and kill them. Or something. It's not really about the story, it's about the art, the general noir feel, and the implacable bad-assness of all the characters. Anyway, this is all very exciting, but I suspect that more or less none of the characters will still be alive by the end of the next issue.

image source

More Spidey-Obama team-up action.