This week: Capsule reviews of Blackest Night #5, Detective Comics #859, Hulk #17, Ms. Marvel #47 and Ultimate Comics Avengers #4!

Review: Blackest Night #5
Alright, look – I only bought this to get a free Green Lantern Corps ring. I know. What does it say about me that I’m a big enough Green Lantern fan to want a shiny plastic ring, but not enough of one to otherwise be buying the big event book that centres around it? Anyway, I have been keeping an eye on the crossover, and I’m pleased to report that this is the best issue so far – it’s done that classic thing that DC events of recent years seem to, in that after a stream of relative incomprehensibility, you suddenly get an issue (around #4 or #5) that neatly exposits what’s actually happened so far, and is itself much easier to follow. Pleasingly, the fact that the very question of there being such a thing as a “Bruce Wayne corpse” is far from clear cut is dealt with rather promptly, and the closing-page cliffhanger is a nice subversion of the way events have gone so far. It’s still terribly obvious how it’s all going to end (i.e. with Hal Jordan making like Tommy-out-of-Power Rangers), but it’s not half bad, this. [SP]

Review: Detective Comics #859
And this, meanwhile, is spectacular. From a story point of view, probably the best issue of Rucka’s run so far – filling in the pieces of Kate’s background, her military history, her relationship with Montoya, and turning her into a character (better late than never, I suppose) working wonders for the experience of reading about her in the present day. What really makes it, though, is a sequence that might even make a late challenge for my “Moment of the Year” nomination – it’s Kate’s “bat crashing through a window” moment, and it features some really quite bravura visual storytelling as Williams actually combines the artistic style of the pre- and post-becoming-Batwoman sequences within the individual panels themselves. The ability of colourist Dave Stewart to assist in pulling off the trick can’t be underestimated either, but this is experimental stuff of a nature you rarely see in everday, continuing superhero books – and it demands attention for that alone. [SP]

Review: Hulk #17
Hulk has come far from its catastrophic opening arc, but as a book, it still leaves much to be desired. Since being inexplicably and inexpertly transitioned from villain to protagonist, Red Hulk has struggled to build a character, and what little he is assigned usually comes out of narrative captions, told not shown. His powers, meanwhile, have been hastily lowered, with the man that once went head-to-head with Thor and beat down the Green Hulk finding himself blinded by Wolverine and paralysed by a single sai. Such muddled portrayals might be forgiveable were it not for the plot, which is frantically trying to weave a web of conspiracy that encompasses previously unrelated arcs. The result is a several-page sequence of nonsensical, largely retroactive exposition that would trip up any comic, let alone one which already has such poor footing. [JHu]

Review: Ms. Marvel #47
With “War of the Marvels” mercifully behind us, Reed finally pays off his Ms. Marvel annual by having Spider-Man and Ms. Marvel go on the date they arranged way back when. After the convoluted nonsense of the previous storyline (which the creative editorial basically admits and apologises for in this issue, by including a detailed, in-story recap) it’s nice to get back to a simple, reasonable straighforward story that plays up to the book’s strengths. Particularly nice is the fact that Reed manages to side-step the usual tendancy writers have of bringing Spidey in as a guest star so that they can do an audition for his solo title. Here, Reed casts the web-slinger firmly in a supporting role, and the issue is all the better for it. Ms. Marvel is a frustrating book, where months of poor writing and plotting will be balanced out by one or two excellent issues before it disappears into the mire again. Although ostensibly cancelled with #50, there’s a strong chance – assuming that Carol isn’t the token Seige death – that Ms. Marvel is heading towards a relaunch. If so, let’s hope it re-energises the series so that it can turn out this sort of issue a little more routinely. [JHu]

Review: Ultimate Comics Avengers #4
You wouldn’t want every comic (or even every Mark Millar comic) to be one in which a single character kicks an awe-inspiring amount of ass in a fashion that’s by turns clever and… well… kick-ass. But it’s hard to deny that when these things are put in the Scot’s hands, he does them very well. And even if the idea of a rogue Captain America being hunted down by Nick Fury and fighting off a group of fellow heroes that massively outnumber him only to succumb at the end has already been done exactly the same in Ultimates 2, it doesn’t make this any less thrilling. I actually like this version of Steve Rogers, and I honestly never thought I’d see the day. Meanwhile, “Nerd Hulk” is brilliant. This is still all a bit one-note compared to the layered intricacies of Ultimates 1 and 2, but it’s very strong nevertheless, and Pacheco is simply on another level compared with everything he’s done before. [SP]