Epic Kill #1- Kudos to anyone who writes and draws their own comic and gets it published, but this is sort of the type of project that I wish the creator spent some more time on before releasing it. The art, while clean, is very stiff and comes off rushed at times. The anatomy needs some work as well as the back cover seriously has the main character depicted with two left feet. Unless that’s a super secret ninja move we’ve never heard of, that kinda means ‘back to the drawing board’ to me. The story has some potential but at the moment it reeks of the usual ‘sexy killer girl with amnesia on a mission’ scenario we’ve seen so many times, probably most from Image as well. Still, it’s twenty-four pages for $2.99 so it’s doing better than its competitors for content per dollar. C+
Avengers Assemble #3- I think I finally pinpointed one of my biggest pet peeves with Bendis. It’s not that every character always sounds the same (which they do), but it’s specifically that every villain sounds the same. There are no unique villains in the world of Bendis, and every single one has the same speech patter. That’s especially if they are just basic goons or low level lackeys, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Ultron started talking about his tuchus at some point. Besides that, the last panel reveal in this issue is sort of……really? I get that with the Avengers movie this may seem like a timely thing to do, and I fully realize it’s probably not really who it looks to be since that would be just stupid. But let’s face it, Bendis sometimes fully ignores the work of other creators and messes with what he feels like despite the continuity. Just…..bah. C-
Dial H #1- I don’t really know what I was expecting since I’ve never read any of China Mieville’s novels, but I was sort of hoping for something more. There’s plenty of space to develop I suppose and I want to give it some more time to flesh out, but there wasn’t anything in here that grabbed me and impressed. I was a big fan of the last Dial H iteration, just titled ‘Hero’, so perhaps my expectations were just too high. Nice Bolland cover though. B-