alexb
Name: Alexander Boyes
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Reviews
You’ve got to hand it to the Moon (or is it Ba?) brothers – they’re experts at drawing out the…
Read full review and commentsI feel pretty bad for Kieron Gillen right now. Having read an recent interview in which he explains why we…
Read full review and commentsAll reviews by alexb
I'm not sure if bringing these over-arching storylines to a close necessarily means sweeping everything under the rug. There's going to be fallout from both events and, as with the likes of Secret Invasion, Civil War or the Criseseses before them, writers that want to explore the ramifications will probably do so in their respective books. The Avengers titles have been so driven by these major events since Civil War (arguably before even that event with Disassembled sowing the seeds for Secret Invasion), that I can't imagine Bendis not wanting to touch on anything arising out of Siege. Ditto Geoff Johns and Green Lantern, which is slightly different in that it has been the main driving force behind Blackest Night.
I haven't read this issue yet thanks to the UK getting books a day later than you chaps in the US, but I felt the last issue really stepped up the storytelling to a really astonishing degree. the simplicity of that image of being stranded on a boat as a metaphor for what's actually being done to the character was really quite chilling. It's something Mignola has always been good at doing, letting the story flow naturally and then throwing a single image or panel that completely throws your perception of what's really happening. It can often be quite jarring, but it never feels out of place.
Also, and this is probably the fashion victim in me coming through, but I love the attention to detail Gabriel Ba gives to the characters' appearance. The flowing trench coats, striped jumpers and skinny ties are all really neat touches.
Great article Mike, you absolutely nailed why I loved the last issue of Detective Comics so much. I've found that for the last few months I would breeze through my stack of books and, while there would be individual issues here and there that I've enjoyed, if you were to ask me about any of them a few days later I would struggle to recall anythin memorable. Not so this book. From the first page to the the great blend of story and art which worked to breathe life into characters that, up until this point, had little backstory to them. And I think that's what made this book work so well. This issue provided some much needed context to the previous arc's narrative and added that undercurrent of tragedy you mentioned in the article. It was also something of a pleasant surprise because I wasn't really expecting another issue by this creative team so soon after they wrapped up the previous arc. So yeah, great stuff.
I'm intrigued by the new Northlanders arc, but I've found that these stories really do work a lot better when read in a collected volume. I picked up the first two issues of Northlanders because of Brian Wood's work on DMZ and Local, but felt it wasn't really working for me so let it go. I decided to jump back on based on the iFanboy pick of the two-issue storyline and then picked up the trade and really enjoyed it in that format. I've been picking it up every month since then, but the stories haven't really had the same impact on me in single issues as with that trade, so I'm not sure whether I'm going to just wait for the trade. Wood builds a really excellent narrative over the course of an arc, but on a monthly basis I always feel that there just isn't that hook to keep me interested that I get with the likes of Brian K. Vaughan.
I also couldn't agree more about the last Invincible Iron Man arc. Fraction's taken Stark and really built an interesting set of supporting characters around him, as well as really distilling what makes Stark work as a character, no mean feat given how over-exposed he was during Civil War and Secret Invasion.
Anyway, this is quite a long post and it also happens to be my first on the site (faux pas!) so I'll leave it there.