New Comic-Book Night -- and some future plans

Once again it has been 2 weeks since I was able to get to the comic-book shop. This time, for once, weather was not a factor. Instead, I had an appointment last Wednesday, and I just couldn't get out there until so close to the next NCN, that there was no point to going. Thus, I delayed until today.  This gave me a decent haul -- four comics, all independent titles.  While there, I also discussed some other independent recommendations with the shop owner, and I am probably going to pick up some of the trades by the Luna brothers, since I have been so liking their work. But first I have the "Confession" trade to finish for Astro City, and a Birds of Prey volume by Gail Simone, so it'll probably be a few weeks before I dig into anything else.


In the mean time, I picked up four new titles tonight: Velvet 4, Suicide Risk 11, Legends of Red Sonja 4, and Miss Fury 9.  I review them below.

Velvet #4 - Brubaker and Epting continue to impress me with another strong and engaging chapter in the opening story of super-spy Velvet Templeton.  Velvet is still on the track of who killed agent X-14, and this leads her to an ex-KGB agent that she had dealings with back in the '50s.  She finds him at the Carnival of Fools, a festival held every year, and saves his life from some assassins sent by the Soviets to take him out.  But when they talk afterwards, he has some very bad news about who is responsible for X-14's death.  This story is well paced, and the dialogue is excellent. The art is moody and fits the storyline perfectly.  I can't say enough good things about this series. It remains at the top of my list. 10/10.

Suicide Risk #11 - This is another solid outing for Mike Carey and Elena Casagrande.  We follow "Requiem," who used to be called Leo.  Two people seem to be occupying the same body -- Requiem, who remembers another whole world from our earth, and Leo, who has been subordinated but is trying to break free, and remembers our world.  It remains unclear if these are two different people, say from other dimensions, or if they are the same person, with different memories, or what.  Most of the other "heroes" we have seen (people with super-powers) are dead, although "Just a Feeling" is still around, and is quickly becoming one of the most interesting characters. She seems to understand more about what has happened than anyone else does.  Also, we see a little bit more here about the powers of Leo and Sunni's daughter.  Another solid outing by the creative team. This series continues to interest me. 8/10.

Legends of Red Sonja #4 (of 5) - This miniseries draws to its conclusion as we get two more stories of Red Sonja. In one, we learn how she saved a village. In another, we watch her rescue a forest god.  One thing has become clear as the story has progressed -- many of the weak, the downtrodden, the helpless, and even the powerful, owe Sonja their lives. She is called a she-devil, but she is more like an avenging angel, killing those who do evil in the world and purging regions of their blight.  She convinces one of the nine following her to turn away. This leaves eight hunters, and with one issue left, we can imagine that they are going to either turn aside, or end up in bloody pieces.  This has been an interesting series so far, and I have enjoyed the different Sonja stories. It's hard to believe she is almost as old as I am now. (She looks a lot better for her age than I do for mine!).  8/10

Miss Fury #9 - Rob Williams continues his confusing story about time travel and Miss Fury's journey to past, present, future, and even some times that seem outside the timestream itself.  When this story began, I was worried, because time-travel stories are rarely done well. Williams one me over in the early issues because he did handle it well at first. But now, nine issues into it, the story has begun to wear thin.  Each month for the last few, I have toyed with just telling the comic shop to remove it from the pull list. Each month, the current issue is good enough that I hold off one more month longer.  But the story is just taking too long to conclude. I'm starting to think that the time-stream business is not just a story arc, but has become what this entire series is about. And I'm not cool with that. And so, Miss Fury will be stricken from my pull list the next time I go to the shop. That said, this story itself is not all that bad, and there are some interesting twists. The art remains excellent, which gives it an extra point. Overall this particular issue fairly well done -- but I've just had it with time travel, so I'm done. 7/10.

And now, about the future....

A few days ago I got a small shipment of back-issues, which included the final three Rom issues I need to have a complete collection from issues 1-50.

Now, the Rom series went past issue 50 by quite a bit -- it ended on #75. However, I stopped collecting it shortly after issue 50, for two reasons. First, the story went dramatically downhill after issue 50 (once the "total war" story-line came out starting on issue 52, the whole tenor of the book changed, and not to my liking). And second, the art took a nose-dive, as Sal Buscema, one of my all-time favorite pencillers, stepped down, and was replaced by Steve Ditko, whose style I have never enjoyed.  His Rom, in particular, looked like it was drawn by a three-year-old.

However, for issues 1-50, Rom was a glorious combination of great stories and wonderful artwork, and it remains one of my all-time favorite series on that basis.  Now that I have all 50 of those great issues, I've decided to do an in-depth review of Rom.  Each week for about the next year, I will post a review of one issue, starting with #1, and concluding, about a year from now, with #50.  I'm doing this mainly to stop myself from just pulling out all 50 issues and devouring them in a weekend -- after which I will be sad that there are no more good Roms to read.  This will force me to spread it out, and writing he reviews will add some longevity to each issue.

As an added bonus, Rom: Spaceknight was such a well-done series for those first four years, that I believe these comics can serve as an object lesson -- they show what comic-books should be, what they were meant to be.

Look for my Rom reviews in upcoming weeks. And as they used to say back in those days, Long Live Rom, Greatest of the Spaceknights!