R.C. Killian Comic Reviews

This is really a lot of what makes the book work best: the juxtaposition of a Spider-Man who has poses closer to a real person, wearing a mask that's not allowed to magically express his emotions clearly, set against a bunch of great jokes that land well and don't distract from the over-arching plot of a flying siege-tower city of bird-people. It manages a nice nod to continuity (whatever it may be at this point in Spidey's lengthy career), without feeling utterly devoted to it. It comes out an excellent illustration of a good, healthy recognition of where and when to drop the Marvel encyclopedia to make sure the tale being told comes first, but that it also does so respectfully. It's an adventure, and a funny one, that promises some action and some good jokes, in a welcome and entertaining way that is reminiscent of the older, "lighter" stories, but converted to modern Marvel story-telling techniques.

Cluster shows a lot of promise: it's an unapologetically, but casually female-led (even dominated) book that marries familiar premises of lethal prisoner restraint and conflict-riddled aggressive personalities to the notion of military service that teeters between forced and chosen. It promises exploration of Samara's character openly, and hints gently at seeing more of the people around her and why they made the choice to serve their sentence in combat rather than simple time. The art avoids stylistic excess or sheer banality to keep the words from utter domination without overpowering them, as befits the story-oriented nature of its central conceits. This looks like one to hop on now, if not at least keep an eye on.

And here we have the problem-slash-joy: this book is rapidly becoming of primary interest to fans of that old series (like myself!) but it's difficult to imagine that, even though much of this is comfortably relayed to readers here, it will be appreciated in anything like the same way. Man, it's great fun to watch these two completely ignore whatever rules and not-rules the New 52 and even some earlier stories created and just blithely continue the story they've worked on intermittently for the last 20-some-odd years, and Howard Porter's pencils keep it engaging, but it might be a bit lost on newer readers, and it still seems to be cementing its identity, for now. Worth it for standing fans, take pause if you don't know these stories"and at least go read the old ones!

While Unity #11 and #15 let us see that Matt Kindt is really invested in the character of Ninjak and of justifying "a supremely well-trained guy" next to psiots, extraterrestrial armor, giant robots, and millennia-old warriors, Ninjak lets him explore the character more comfortably, without needing to touch back on other characters, switch focus after a given issue to one of said characters, or justify Ninjak's presence in a cosmic battle. Clay Mann's pencils and Seth Mann's inks really sell the book, too, with well-staged and clear action, and a really great pairing of writer and artist for the first page, which opens on an unexplained ninja battle, immediately becoming clearly the sight enthralling a very young Colin, with shots that make his absolute absorption in this and its obvious inspiration"apparent in a point of perfection. Ninjak is set to keep modern Valiant's blemishes to an absolute minimum, and keep itself on the higher end of even that stellar record.

Rumble #1 was one of my favorite story/character debuts in the past year, and the third issue doesn't relent on the promise it showed. It's a joy to see Arcudi and Harren running wild and boundless in their sense of action and adventure, even when they proceed to deflate them to just the right degree with their sense of humor. I continue to look forward to what happens with Rathraq, Del, and Bobby"and especially Mr. Bildad (I have my theories, but I shall keep them to myself!)

This is familiar territory for Faerber, at least in light of the aforementioned Noble Causes. He and Joines do a great job of setting up a brand new team of superheroes with the same kind of gusto that book had, superheroes who we're convincingly told have a lot of backstory, without sitting us down for the lot of it. The structure"introduce the super team, introduce a core conflict, and seed each of the characters with a secret identity that can't end well"is just the right kind of enticing for anyone who is looking for a book to alternate between tense teasing and explosive revelations, exactly as intended.