ALL NEW GHOST RIDER #1: Meet Robbie Reyes. He’s a mechanic at an East L.A. Auto Body shop, where his boss tried to stiff him on his paycheck. Later, some street punks steal the wheelchair from his disabled brother and, despite fighting with them, loses and has to bring his brother home on his back. Even later, after his brother goes to bed, Robbie slips out and steals a car from the Auto Body shop to use in a street race straight out of THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS. Unfortunately, the military corner him in an alley and gun him down, even as he surrenders. Moments later, he becomes Ghost Rider.
I’m sorry. Everyone I know is jumping up and down and calling this the best GHOST RIDER series since the days of Johnny Blaze. Personally, I couldn’t wait to finish it…and be finished with it. Felipe Smith tries his hardest to make us concerned about the gang violence in East L.A., but that didn’t feel real for me, especially since we sort of went down this road in so many movies in the past. Not to mention the obvious nod to THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS. Couple that with Tradd Moore’s very distinct art style, all angles and such, and I found myself totally bored with both the concept and the look. Sorry folks: this just wasn’t my cup o’ Joe!
CYCLOPS #1: Jean Grey from the past had been kidnapped by the Shi'ar. They had made the decision to put her on trial for all the damage she had done as the Phoenix. The Guardians of the Galazy, the Starjammers, Cyclops, and the All-New X-Men banded together and rescued her. During that adventure, Cyclops discovered that his father Corsair was alive. Following the rescue of Jean Grey, he decides to stay in space with his dad.
I have nothing I want to say about this book except that if you are expecting a kick-ass space adventure, you are going to be a little disappointed. Sure, there is some outer space action and they get to fight the big bad Badoon. This is more of a tale of a boy and his dad and Greg Rucka does a wonderful job of writing that tale. It is a story of a boy finding a father he thought he would never see again and going off on pirate-style adventures with him. Unfortunately, this isn’t what I expected. Don’t get me wr0ng, except for Rucka writing Corsair like Johnny Depp, the book is a loving tribute to a boy and his dad. Russell Dauterman does a nice job with the art and Greg Land’s cover is breathtaking. Unfortunately, this isn’t a title I will keep reading only because there is only so much mutant reading that my wallet can handle. With that, I wish Rucka and company good luck.
INHUMAN #1: In Bergen, Norway, Kristian gets into a bar fight before being attacked and enveloped by the fallout from the Terrigen Bomb that went off in New York City. A creature named Lash arrives and transports the cocoon to a place and tells the story of the Inhumans as he waits for it to hatch. When it does hatch, he is less than pleased with the results and eradicates the newly born creature. Meanwhile, Medusa travels to Battery Park where Eldrac is able to transport her to the last place Black Bolt was seen alive. Elsewhere, in Illinois, the mists affect Dante and his mother, who dies during the transformation. Dante is sent into a rage against the newly arrived Lash, but is calmed by Medusa’s arrival, who attempts to convince him to come with her.
In case you were not aware, Attilan was destroyed in INFINITY #3, which resulted in the releasing of a Terrigan Bomb over New York City. That bomb began to transform Inhumans in hiding. So, that’s the back story to this story. Now, you may also recall that Matt Fraction was slated to be the original writer for the series, but backed out of it due to creative differences. That caused the book to be pushed back almost five months. Charles Soule is now writing this and Joe Madureira is drawing it. And I lost complete interest about a dozen or so pages in when Lash kills Kristian, who I thought would be the protagonist in this tale. Instead, we get this kid from Des Moines, get virtually no back-story and he gets to deal with Queen Medusa, who wants him to choose a side. Here’s my choice-not this title.
LOKI AGENT OF ASGARD #1: Loki is given a mission by the All-Mother. He visits the Avengers who, obviously, do not trust him and they battle. At one point, he runs his brother Thor through with a sword, allowing some corruption to escape and be captured in a special jar Loki has made. The brothers patch up their differences and Loki head back to Asgard where he delivers the jar of corruption to the All Mother. Of course, it is opened and, lo and behold, young Loki is gone and replaced by the lying deceiver we all know and love.
To which I have to say: WTF?! Al Ewing and Lee Garbett give me a book I wish someone would buy off be. Or at least hit me over the head to try and drive the foul taste of this thing out of my mouth! I swear, this is the most uninteresting, unimaginative book I have read in quite a while. And trust me: I have read a lot of uninteresting, unimaginative comic books in my lifetime. So, Loki is bad again and now what? Tell you what: I don’t care! Because his heel-turn is all a big tie-in to the future Marvel movie franchise anyway! This was just a plain waste of about twenty minutes of my life and three bucks, both of which I want CCO Joe Quesada to give me back!
MAGNETO #1: In Cape Girardean, Missouri, a barrister is telling how he watched a man snap his fingers and pull a man'’ filling out of his mouth. From there, he threw the man into the street, where numerous street signs impaled him. The murdered man was accused of “genetic genocide” and “crimes against evolution” because of his involvement with groups like The Purifiers and The Right. The man who murdered him, living in a hotel under the alias of Mr. Sullivan, is magneto. He is on a mission to avenge those who have done wrong to his people. Next on his list, a vagrant named Colton Hendry. So magneto heads to Mountain Air, California where he learns that the vagrant has had cybernetics grafted to him and turned him into a crude version of an Omega Sentinel. Magneto defeats him and learns that this man was an unwilling victim.
What day is it? Saturday? Okay…so Magneto is a hero! Yeah-that’s exactly how I feel. This man has had more turns than a professional wrestler! He’s a villain who’s a hero who is a villain again and then a hero again and then an anti-hero and now he’s…the mutant version of The Punisher? I respect Cullen Bunn’s work and he writes a good tale here. I just hate the idea of ANOTHER MUTANT BOOK and ANOTHER take on Magneto. I am also not impressed with Gabriel Hernandez Walta’s art. If I wanted to look at something that resembled John Romita Jr., I’d read a book drawn by JOHN ROMITA JR.
MS. MARVEL #1: The tale begins in Jersey City where we have a 16 year old girl named Kamala wishing she could eat bacon, which goes against her Muslim religion. Later, at home, she works on writing Avengers Fan Fiction before dinner with her very strict family. After dinner, she sneaks out to attend a party. After someone tries to get her to drink a Screwdriver, she runs off and is enveloped in a mystical kind of fog. Captain America, iron man and captain Marvel all visit her and tell her that she is going to get a total reboot and it won’t be what she hopes it will be. She awakes and finds herself in some sort of cocoon. When she breaks out of it, she finds herself in the costume of the “classic Ms. Marvel”.
Okay…right off the bat, I was shaking my head and asking myself how Ms. Marvel turns out to be a 16 year old Muslim. Don’t we already have an Arab-Muslim Green Lantern by the name of Simon Baz, who falls into the category? The book is written by G. Willow Wilson and you might know her from her work for Vertigo and the graphic novel CAIRO and the series AIR. Wilson is a American Muslimn, so if anyone can write about being a 16 year old Muslim, it’s her. What I found about the book was it was so heavy handed that I became insulted by it. Sure, I understand you want to introduce us to the culture and the characters but it was like being hit with a hammer…like being told: “HEY LOOK-THEY’RE MUSLIMS! THEY HAVE A DIFFERENT CULTURE THAN OURS!” And to slam it all down on the reader in the first issue was really pushing the point to the extreme. I don’t care for the character, I don’t care for her family or friends and the only thing I DID like was her appearing in what I always think of as the “classic”, sleek outfit the was epitomized by some beautiful Dave Cockrum work back in the day. Adrian Alphona is no Dave Cockrum and his work reminds me of some bad attempt at capturing a Manga style. Sorry: this one failed to hit a home run with me.
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