This Week's Funnybooks

I love comic books. Once a week, generally Wednesdays, I go to my local comic shop and grab my weekly stack of comic books. I figure it'd be cool to give my thoughts on the comics I buy. This week, I'm taking a look at Amazing Spider-Man #546, Green Lantern Corps #20, Hulk #1, Nova #10, and The Twelve #1. Let me say right off, this was a good week.


Amazing Spider-Man #546 is the first shot in the "Brand New Day" era of the long running Spider-Man saga. As I mentioned the other day, Spider-Man's world has been turned on it's head recently in the "One More Day" story. Among other things, it did away with his marriage and completely erased any memory of his secret identity, essentially delivering the hapless Peter Parker into a strangely familiar cross of the recent history and his previous bachelor days. That is to say, many good looking girls that seem almost just out of reach and not enough money to even be saying he's scraping by, all while moonlighting as the friendly neighborhood Spidey. Let me just say, this is a Spidey that I can always get into. Pete is broke, he's back at home with Aunt May, and his luck is running to to the old Parker form. To make things worse, some idiot is running around town with a Spider-Man mask, mugging people! And in the background, a new bad guy is plying his trade in New York. Dan Slott's got a firm hold on Pete and his sprawling cast and he never misses a beat in the script. Steve McNiven delivers some great pencils here as well. These guys are going to do great things the next couple of issues. For a bonus, the other creative teams got a few pages in as well, and these quick shots are like a small taster of things to come. I highly recommend it.


Green Lantern Corps #20 follows on the heels of the end of arguably the best comics event of last year, the Sinestro Corps War. The new status quo was set in the previous issue; Hal and John are the sector Lanterns in Earth's quadrant while Guy and Kyle are in the Green Lantern Honor Guard. This clearly sets GLC as the title featuring Guy and Kyle, and they get half the spotlight here, making the momentous decision to relocate from Earth to Oa. The other half of the issue focuses on a certain recipient of a Sinestro Corps ring, who promises to be a real thorn in the side of Kyle and Hal in the future. This was a pretty cool issue from Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason, with some handy fill-in work by Carlo Magno. Mainly it's a setup issue without any real action, so it suffers a bit there, but seeing the two Lanterns moving all their stuff to Oa was fun. Not a bad issue, but not must read stuff for the week. Non GL fans probably want to skip this one.

Hulk #1 is a launch issue, and it comes out shooting from the hip. It's a real departure from the Hulk we've all come to know and love. The first clue of this is that he's red. The second is that he apparently kills an old enemy with a gun. And that's just the first few pages. By the time we've gotten to the last page, there's been a superhero scuffle, some explosions, and a rather unexpected person appears at the end to put into question exactly who the Hulk really is. Jeph Loeb is showing his experience here with this relaunch, putting the right amount of mystery, action, and nods to fans. Having been following the Hulk since Planet Hulk started almost two years ago and on through to the big bad World War Hulk saga, I can say without hesitation that this issue is a worthy follow up. I recommend it, even if you're just jumping on the Hulk bandwagon.

Nova #10 continues a so far flawless run on the character, perhaps the best that's ever been done for the Human Rocket. Nova's been through the wringer since the inception of this series: shouldering the responsibilities of the destroyed Nova Corps, battle weary from the Annihilation War, and nearly killing himself fighting the Phalanx in the Conquest of the Kree Galaxy. Lately he's been out on the far edges of the universe after escaping the Phalanx, heading for the home world of the Technarchy to find a cure for the Phalanx Transmode virus with Gamorra and Drax hot on his heels. This issue, a sort of self-contained monster story, reveals some interesting bits about why Gomorra and Nova split up after Annihilation, all while fleeing a voracious monster. At the end, Nova's in a bad way, and you get the feeling that he'd better get help next issue or he's done for. Credit to Abnet and Lanning (with art by the rising Wellington Alves) on their run on this title. Nova's been great fun from the start, and this issue keeps with the trend of upping the ante. If you're not reading Nova right now...I dunno, you hate good stuff. Read it.

And finally, the Twelve #1 rounded out my reading for the day, and it was a good way to end. The premise has been done before, but it's well handled here. Twelve heroes from Marvel's Golden Age are involuntarily frozen in the final days of World War II, and a fortuitous discovery by a construction crew unearths them nearly sixty years later. These are old school heroes from a time when there wasn't room for cynicism and everyone drank to government Kool-Aid. They've got goofy powers and even goofier names. And by the end of the issue, they're all ready to step into the current Marvel Universe as registered heroes that would set the tone for the rest of the younger heroes (a la the Justice Society). So that's the end, right? Well, yeah, but why is one of them dead at the end? This book is the brainchild of by J. Michael Straczynski, who is probably one of the best writers in comics today. He's on form here, telling the story from the perspective of one of the heroes that, despite wearing a mask, comes off as an everyman that you can identify with. Everything just seems, and I hate to say this, but it seems very real, the reactions (to the characters) and interactions. There's a feeling of anticipation, like you know that this is just a short lull before something major is about to go down. The art is rendered in fine form by Chris Weston, who does a great job of getting a healthy medium between a Golden Age sensibility and the modern comic art we're used to. It's all around a nice package, and I'm really looking forward to the rest of the series.

Damn, that took much longer than I thought it would. And this was a small week...