Pull List Review (9/21/11 Comics)

Most of the comics from that week were DC’s new number ones and Travis & I reviewed them in the latest LBR podcast. To find out what I thought of those third week DCnU 52 comics*, have a listen.

Now on with the rest of the comics I read from that week.

Daredevil #4: The legal side of this comic continues and I find I’m still liking it a lot. The opening sequence, while artistically very simple, conveys the story and the tension very well. The last few pages sets up the story for next issue, and it’s a doozy for Matt since his new client is also blind. And the last page cliff-hanger extends into the editorial next issue blurb at the bottom: when Matt tells his client that “it’s going to be okay” and we see them framed in a window with 26 laser-sight dots on their bodies, we are informed by the text below it, “not exactly”. Loved it.

Spider-Island: Spider-Woman #1: Sigh. I simply buy everything that I can stomach (but no more Avengers, not again) featuring Jessica Drew, which is why I bought this title. (It’s funny, I’m also getting the Spider-Girl tie in. Two female Spider books, but I do not read Spider-Man, nor anything else associated with the Spider-Island “event”.) I liked the plot well enough, but could have done without the stereotypical villain appearance and the hokey misunderstanding causing the two heroes to fight each other (hey, wait, this is a sort of Marvel Two-in-One issue, isn’t it?). Plus, I also could have done without the whole, I’m different from everyone else/I’m the Other self-reflection that Jessica does throughout this issue, but that is turned on its ear on the very last panel–it was just too easy and too quick a resolution. In short, I found the story lacking, and Jessica Drew deserves better. As for the art, I liked it better than JR Jr. doing Spider-Woman, but I’ve seen better. The most remarkable thing about this issue? The reprint story commemorating September 11, 2001. That was a hell of a few pages of comics.

Star Trek #1: When I first read that IDW was going to publish “new” stories featuring the new movie Star Trek characters, I was intrigued. But then I heard they were going to retell the classic stories from the Original Series with these new movie characters and . . . I was still interested. And what I’ve concluded is that I probably do not need to read old stories being retold with the new movie characters. What’s the point? If I want to revisit those stories, I will just plop my DVDs into the player and be entertained all over again. That being said, I thought the creative team of Mike Johnson (writer), Stephen Molnar (artist), and John Rauch (colorist) do a pretty darn good job at consistently representing the actors faces and the personalities of the characters as we were shown of them in the movie. I give props to Molnar for his rendition of the Enterprise interiors as well as the exteriors–I’ve read enough Star Trek comics over the years to know that the Enterprise is usually given short shrift by the artists (maybe they think it’s too boring to draw my favorite spaceship?). I don’t believe I will get too many of these issues, but I also have to admit that I am still curious, and hungry for more “new” Star Trek, so we’ll see.