Monday, September 28, 2009

the bookshelf: nerd alert

I brought a ton of reading material with me on the trip, and have plowed through a lot of it. Random thoughts:

- Night at the Museum 2 (on the airplane): Looked mildly fun until I put the headphones on. Best viewed on mute while playing the new Muse or Mika album.

- League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, 1910: anticlimactic. This felt more like a super-sized serial issue rather than a self contained story. Also, having two of your supporting players sing exposition in a comic...not really working.

- Trials of Shazam: The first time I've really questioned Judd Winick as a comic book writer. Disjointed and stilted, a good story is arranged haphazardly but beautifully illustrated by Howard Porter (who appears to have lost steam halfway through, and eventually hands things off to Mauro Cascioli for the final few issues).

- Blackest Night: Continues to be the mega-event that could, delivering on all cylinders when it comes to the main books as well as satellite titles. I liked the Titans issue so much, I just ordered the first trade paperback from Amazon.

- Marvel Books: I'm sort of over the doom and gloom of the Marvel Universe and its Dark Reign. Instead of planning to buy a run of books, I'm looking at them all in-store and actively dismissing or purchasing. Sad. (Old Man Logan's finale is being saved for the flight home).

- Superbooks: Still loving The World of New Krypton. I love how its an actual event, and not a flash in the pan.

- X-Books: Now that this whole Utopia/Dark Avengers mess is sorted out (I skipped most of it) I'm happy with the new status quo, and hope the book can returns to the high points of Messiah Complex. Mention of the Predators has me hopeful.

Is anyone actively reading Flash: Rebirth? Can a Flash novice who learned everything about the Speed Force from Justice League Unlimited pick it up and enjoy it?

1 comment:

Cully said...

Re: Rebirth, As usual with Johns it juggles a LOT of continuity but he gives you all the big notes and key moments that you need to follow things. In the end it doesn't really matter what you knew or didn't know about the Speed Force going in because he redefines it and explains what it "really" is a few issues in. Basically doing for the SF what he did for Parallax. Personally I am not enjoying it as much as I did GL Reborn, but that could be because I don't have as much interest in Flash as I had in GL.