The Sunday Pages #49
This feature written by Comics Daily Team on Mar.08, 2009.
This week, capsule reviews of Deadpool #8, Hulk: Broken Worlds #1, Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk #3 and War of the Kings #1, together with the thing you’ve all been waiting for – the Comics Daily opinion of Watchmen.
Review : Deadpool #8
Following on from his Secret Invasion tie-in, the schizophrenic mercenary now mounts a single-handed assault on Norman Osborn’s Dark Reign setup, launching him into another crossover. While there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with Daniel Way’s policy of constructing situations around the gags he has in mind for ‘Pool, it does leave the book extremely weak when the punch lines fail to deliver. Add a cartoonish art style that manages to be entirely dependant on the colourist to introduce vibrancy, and it’s hard to see the book attracting the following Marvel is obviously hoping for on the back of the character’s forthcoming film appearance. [JHa]
Review: Hulk: Broken Worlds #1
The Hulk’s many incarnations and interpretations have left him with more alternate universe counterparts than any Marvel property besides the X-Men. Strangely, by exploring some of these stories and universes, Hulk: Broken Worlds offers an unlikely antidote for the depressingly uncomplicated Loeb era. Readers can expect to find a story about Hulk and Jarella in the microverse, a tale from the recent House of M run, a Hulk 2099 story and the crown jewel, a Peter David-penned “Future Imperfect” vignette which, if there’s any justice in the world, will be collected alongside its parent series in the future. It might be a glorified What If? comic, but even so, it’s far more entertaining than the parent series right now. [JHu]
Review : Ultimate Wolverine vs Hulk #3
I can’t help but feel that finally getting round to finishing this, given how much the Ultimate universe has since moved on (thanks, Loeb) is a staggeringly pointless exercise. But it’s as much of a fun little bonkers story as the first two issues were, despite barely moving the plot along a single iota until an intriguing final page reveal, and a reminder of a time when the Ultimate books were actually, you know, good. It’s also almost worth the cover price alone for Leinil Yu’s art, banishing memories of the cluttered Secret Invasion with work that challenges Superman : Birthright in the “career best” stakes [SP]
Review: War of the Kings #1
The oddly successful relaunch of Marvel’s cosmic properties continues with the beginning of the third major crossover, War of the Kings. It’s strange to see such recognisable supporting characters as the Inhumans and the Imperial Guard thrust into the spotlight with only a smattering of interaction with more A-List characters, though the plot, which sees the most recent Shi’ar Mad Emperor, Vulcan, gate-crash the Inhuman/Kree society event of the century feels oddly charged with gravitas. It’s never going to engage me as much as any story set on Earth, but as cosmic events go, it’s a nice example and a good start. [JHu]
Film Review : Watchmen
For those of you who are interested in the Comics Daily take on Watchmen, you can find the thoughts of both Seb and Julian over at Noise to Signal, where they each manage to give the film an identical rating despite having almost diametrically opposed opinions. If you want to know what James thought of it, however, you’ll have to first try and come up with a way to make him actually interested in seeing it.
March 9th, 2009 on 3:32 am
Deadpool: What an odd crossover. Not necessarily because of the story (which actually makes sense in the grand scheme of how the MU is playing) but because the tones of the two books are so drastically different. I’m kind of curious on how the rest of this will play out now, particularly in how each of the writers handle each other’s characters.
War of Kings: I love the cosmic side of the MU, because it’s so self-contained compared to everything else. And despite not having read any books relating to the Shi’ar and Kree/Inhumans prior to this (sans the SI: WoK one-shot and Saga issue) I feel like I’m not lost and really entertained. Of course, DnA are masters of their craft, so it’s not entirely surprising.
And finally, Watchmen:
Oh boy, there’s so much to nitpick at, but in the end they hit most of the important notes and I enjoyed watching it; that’s really the most important part an adaptation could ask for.
Though I will say I thought the ending was terrible (since the logic of America’s super-weapon uniting peace worldwide makes less sense than a squid to me) and the Goode as Ozymandias was…bad. And that Snyder has no idea how to do foreshadowing without giving away everything. I mean if he was any more obvious with Ozy he would have just turned the damn lights on and have a caption box saying ‘BAD GUY’ every time he appeared on screen. Name just about anything done in regards to the character, and it was completely botched.
His most important line (’Do It?…’) lacked every effect that it had in the book. Not only was it stated so rushed and matter-of-factually, it also didn’t help that the scene didn’t have Rorschach/Nite-Owl’s expression to go along with it. I understand some of the changes that are given in any kind of adaptation but the imagery from that scene is amongst the most iconic of the entire medium, let alone the story. And THAT’S one of the things that gets changed while everything else looks relatively close to their panels? It’s ultimately minor, I suppose, but it kind of ruined things for me on top of everything else that was done in the ending.
I know in a couple of months they’ll be doing the director’s cut in theaters which has another 40 minutes (which to my knowledge involves stuff that ISN’T Black Freighter-related). Since they eventually will be doing the DVD with it all combined, I’d assume at least some of it will have a bit more with Bernie and Bernard involved. I was kind of bummed they weren’t really shown much outside of the ending.
And before a get into another hundred paragraphs or so: Hallelujah? What the hell was Snyder thinking with that choice. 99 Red Balloons was odd enough, but that? And Gerard Way needs to stop butchering Bob Dylan songs and stick with comics full-time.