Dec 11 Comic Week in Review

Every week Pablo Gunner uses the little intelligence he has to muster up some written comic book reviews of the titles that he thinks his fellow nerds would want to know about most and the books that didn’t quite make it onto the Comicast. This week he reviewed INHUMANITY AWAKENING #1, JUSTICE LEAGUE 3000 #1.

DC Comics

JUSTICE LEAGUE 3000 #1 $2.99

(W) Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis (A/CA) Howard Porter

I always like reviewing these kinds of book to see what twist they put on classic characters. Usually it's a disappointment but sometimes it works and makes sense. Those two points are most important and pivotal to the success of these kind of stories. It's started with some random, unknown lady whose obviously on the run. Then it switches over to the people she's running from, CADMUS. There's these twins, brother and sister, that the lady was working with. They're trying to finish the work she started and they keep referencing the Justice League. Finally they show them all decked out in new futuristic styled garb, fighting a horde of mind controlled alien civilians but they seemed like a slightly twisted and warped version of the heroes we know and love. It goes back and forth between the twins and the Justice League. I'm still not sure if the Justice League 3000 are robots/AI, reanimated corpses, clones, wannabes, or the original superheroes cryogenically unfrozen. The mystery is a good edge to keep readers interested but the possibilities should at least be narrowed which is an issue. Not only that I didn't care for or buy into the characters or world they're in. The art was the generic sketchy, line heavy, grimy yet sleek, bright futuristic, full on neon lights, hobos, and future tech like flying cars and such. I’m not quite sure the mystery is enough for me to read the next issue but this one wasn’t bad.
Verdict: weak BUY

Marvel Comics

INHUMANITY AWAKENING #1 (OF 2) $3.99

(W) Matt Kindt (A) Paul Davidson (CA) Jorge Molina

This was an interesting read. It wasn’t interesting in an I want to know and read more way but rather an I’m not quite sure how bad this is way. Matt Kindt is one of those writers that is hit or miss. He’s more of a fill in writer than anything else. To be honest this artist seems like he a fill in as well. If I really wanted to I could probably tear this book apart but instead I’ll try to be nice and professional. Starting off we have random young characters like Quentin Quire and Finesse cleaning up the wreckage of Attilan like every other Marvel title this week that is an Inhumanity tie-in. One of the female heroes flags the rest of the crew to go check on this girl she has been following on a twitter like social network. They locate her in the nick of time and then she proceeds to tell her story about how she found out she was an Inhuman. This is all shown through a Facebook and twitter style story telling mode. I didn’t get why they were using this as a story telling device until it was towards the end. That's when it started making a lot of sense and almost seemed like a smart story telling device but it wasn’t. It was more annoying than anything. It didn’t make any sense and was really confusing until the near end. Using a story telling device such as this shouldn’t take the entire issue before it starts working and making sense. Other books have tried this and honestly its really difficult to infuse the social media route and make it work but some books have pulled it off and phenomenally well. This book was not one of them. The end attempts to hook you for the next issue but unfortunately not only do I not care about the characters, yes even the ones from other books, I didn’t care for the art either. It looked mediocre and slightly amateur. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t necessarily nice to look at. I definitely won’t be picking up the next issue.
Verdict: weak SKIM

You can pick up these comics at Age Of Comics, Kaboom Test Labs, or 

Twin Suns Comics & Games