I'm avoiding most of the big titles this week with one exception to hit one one of the AU titles and one that I was not initially hooked on but picked up some issues last week with Free Comic Book day and I'm sad I only have a couple of the issues.
First up I will hit the one high visibility title that I have mentioned before and that is Wolverine by Paul Cornell and Alan Davis. This issue brings in what will likely be the more Logan back up cast then the Wolverine supporting cast that we normally see. Again I don't help but continue comparing this to Matt Fraction's magnificent Hawkeye. So Logan has some normalish friends that he meets up with at a superhero bar. At least one of them has been kicking around the fringes of the Marvel universe a while now.
The story is still building for this first story arc and I think there is some neat little foreshadowing going on in this issue. Yes there is a good amount of action too, Logan loses costume it's yet again and he gets off a couple of great quips during the story. Its still pricey as books go but if you mis likening the little Canadian from your early Xmen days this is the title that will make you like him again.
This is the one AU title I have read so far and I'll tell you all why; the draw here for me beyond my love of the Captain Marvel comic, Captain Britain and the MI13 group it was Al Ewing the writer. As a fan of 2000AD and the new pulps of Abaddon books I now Al Ewing can write some great, weird and different feeling heroes. Anything outside the US, Latveria and the Savage Land get very little screen time in most Marvel books so its good for a reminder that there are heroes back across the pond and who better to write an alternate universe one shot then someone used to having to tell a story in just a few pages. Al reminds us that there is a vital and little utilized group of heroes that I really miss and want to have back
Art wise this one was also a draw and kind of clinched it for me. Butch Guice and Tom Palmer get world every so often (about as often as we see the UK heroes) and have a more realistic and restrained style that suited this one shot story given that a couple of the heroes seem much more like normal people then the four color ones we also know and love. I also enjoyed the nod to old home make pixilated video games. YMMD but in my honest opinion it was worth the extra money this week.
Last the book I picked up nine months ago and checked out again last week. Dennis Hopeless' Avengers Arena is definitely a Battle Royal look at the marvel YH (young hero) universe. If you did not look at it your missing out like I was; this book takes heroes from the very fun Runaways, Avengers Academy the much overlooked UK marvel stories and a couple others and hands them to the laughable villain Arcade. This time though this time the murderous little foppish trickster is taking his byline seriously abducting these kids from around the globe putting them on an island that's a bit survivor and a hell of a lot like the novel and movie from Japan Battle Royal.
In issue one Hopeless and the magnificent Kev Walker on art duties set the scene having Arcade abduct his cast tell the contestants the rules then proceeds to kill one of them to show them he means business this time. No silly pinball or video game knockoff death traps. These kids are here to kill off the weakest links till there is just one left. The issues I've managed to get and read including this weeks give us more character interaction then violence and in the case of some of the players we get snippets of their origin and story along the way. Kev Walker is great at drawing expressions that tell you more about the characters then just the dialogue alone. I'd say this is one to pick up in trade paperback.
I missed the middling issues where we lost a character or two maybe and the one that gave the Arcade background story and that one may be key here. Arcade I think has more going on then he is letting on and though he is absent from all but the first issue in what I have read but the tension created between the "teams" leaves his grandstand from issue one lingering in the mind. I find I can't wait for next months issue; funny somehow this title is now up there with Hawkeye, Captain Marvel and Fearless Defenders for me. W
Well that's me this week... Check out Avengers Arena it is another pretty fun title.....
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