All About Comics Blog

Milestone Forever #1 (of 2) — Writer: Dwayne McDuffie;  Art: John Paul Leon, Mark Bright and Romeo Tanghal
The Leon art is a framing sequence wrapped around the main story penciled by Bright, and that stars Icon, Rocket, the Blood Syndicate, Static and a few others — it’s a fun callback to the early Milestone stories, when the imprint’s urban pizzazz was a breath of fresh air, and McDuffie had a Jim Shooter-like creative control over the whole line that brought all the titles together and gave them a consistent, edgy voice. The only criticism here is with the covers, both inside and out — the lettering and trade dress are practically illegible, sacrificing looks for clarity, and will probably cost the book some sales from readers who’ll have no idea what they’re looking at.

Demo Volume Two #1 — Writer: Brian Wood;  Art: Becky Cloonan
Beginning a new run of Wood’s and Cloonan’s quirky non-mutant mutant book, and just as quirky as ever in its look at the lives of various twenty-somethings with not-quite powers. As with the first volume, it’s subtle, startling and sometimes moving, and stubborn in its refusal to take easy narrative paths, or provide pat themes or answers — and the Cloonan art is worth the $2.99 cover price all by itself.

Jonah Hex #52 — Writers: Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti;  Art: Jordi Bernet
Standard drill here — this title rises and falls on the strength of its artists, and Palmiotti and Gray have been able to corral a lot of excellent ones to visualize the adventures of their cynical, scarred about-to-be-movie-star. Jordi Bernet is one of the best, and this done-in-one-issue gives him the chance to draw, along with Jonah, various swamp-rats, pretty women and gunfights — which is about all anyone can reasonably ask from this title.

Blackest Night: The Question #37 — Writers: Denny O’Neil and Greg Rucka;  Pencils: Denys Cowan;  Inks: Bill Sienkiewicz and John Stanisci
This follows the formula of the better BN “extra” issues of fondly-remembered, now-cancelled titles — it’s got the original creative team in O’Neil and Cowan (with Rucka and Sienkiewicz both logical additions), and it manages to recreate some of the flavor of  Read the rest of this entry »