Dracula The Company of Monsters #1- The good news! This is a fairly inventive plot and Daryl Gregory does a decent job at scripting it, so much so that I think I prefer him doing it over Busiek because really the majority of Busiek’s work over the past year or so has been kinda lackluster. Bad news! The art is solid, but it also kind of fits into this generic house style that Boom! Seems to be setting up for itself. I don’t want to knock it because Scott Godlewski has some good layouts and can tell a great story, but at the same time I opened it and pretty much thought ‘yep, this is a Boom book’. Also, while there are no ads, $3.99 for 22 pages of story on a new book we aren’t sold on yet? Not great marketing. Granted this was a set-up issue, but for that price I want a little more to actually happen. B+
Superman Secret Origin #6- I honestly can’t remember if I read the last issue.....and I’m not sure if it’s a good sign that I read this one and had no problem jumping in or a bad sign I couldn’t remember the last issue at all. Well, it’s both but I just wish they could have kept on track. Either way, once a series starts running late like this I pretty much feel like it needed to be released as a GN anyway. While another Superman year one story wasn’t necessary I did enjoy this and I really do like Gary Frank on the character and this part of the DCU. Looking forward to sitting down with the HC soon. B+
Batman #702- The Kirby language alone in this issue was fantastic, and as pointed out to me it enhances the entire reading of Final Crisis knowing the process going through Batman’s mind as he shot Darkseid. And even though I am not a huge fan of Tony Daniel, these past couple issues have really kicked ass and he pulled it off great. A-
Guarding The Globe #1- While $3.50 for 22-pages (no ads) ain’t great, plenty happens and a lot is set up for future issues. The trick is this isn’t a great book to just grab if you don’t read Invincible or have never checked out the Brit books by Kirkman. It just plops you in assuming you know who everyone is, and if you do it’s fine. I think it pretty much assumes it’s audience already exist and that it doesn’t really have to try harder than to be a supplementary title, which is actually a little unfortunate. I kind of feel that Kirkman has halted a little bit in his development and has stopped being innovative to a certain degree. As a whole his work is still enjoyable, but I don’t feel the same sense of urgency to check out and see what he’s doing these days. This pretty much just ends up being another team book with a sense of humor, but overall something you can live without. B-
Superman Batman #75- Not really worth the $4.99 unfortunately. The main feature was ok, but anti-climatic and just sort of there. The Seagle/Kristiansen pagers were just sorta meh, the Billy Tucci pages almost cute but a waste of space, and the Adam Hughes pages pretty but also didn’t bring anything to the table. I liked the Krul/Manapul ‘Friendly Advice’ story, but again real quick. Great pin-ups by Jill Thompson, made me wish for more. The Green/Davis/Albuquerque pages were just sort of filler along with the Rouleau Krypto/Ace the Bathound pages. Of everything in here, the Azzarello/Bermejo Joker and Lex tribute to Calvin & Hobbes was the only material that stepped up to bat and gave us something truly worthwile for being only 2-pages of filler. C
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