Panel of the Week: 10/7/15

Every time I come close to catching up with this damn column, something happens and I fall off and next thing you know I'm almost a month behind. I'll get there one day, I promise. Anyway, the winner for the week of October 7th comes from Avengers #0, an anthology. The story the following image belongs to is a prelude to Uncanny Avengers Vol. 3, and is written by Gerry Duggan and drawn by Ryan Stegman.

I've chosen it not because the art is particularly great, because it isn't, or because there's anything in the dialogue that makes me love it, because there isn't, but because it's representative of the state of the Marvel Universe right now, and why I'm slowly starting to lose interest. What you can see from the above interest is that Captain America is now a retiree; mutants and, obviously, the X-Men, have been pushed aside for the Inhumans, marginalized to such an extent that they are now rendered unable to have children, something that completely invalidates the last three years of X-Men stories; and, oh yeah, Deadpool is an Avenger now, further proving that at this point he's even more overexposed than Wolverine ever was.

No wonder the number of indies I'm reading has spiked lately...

Goodreads Book Review - Finders Keepers

Finders Keepers by Stephen King
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I didn't enjoy this book as much as Mr. Mercedes. It's not because the plot was weak or because I wasn't pulled in, because the plot was great and I was. The problem is that it felt like it was really two plots that were put together for no reason other than King wanted to do a sequel. The Mr. Mercedes characters don't show up until the book is halfway through, and then they spend the whole rest of the book playing catch-up and just rehashing ad nauseam what the readers already know. The complaint being said, the "A" plot of the stolen books and what two lovers of reading who fall on opposite ends of that spectrum do for those books is thrilling. I wish that plot had been expanded into its own book instead of being shoehorned into being the middle part of a trilogy it is only barely connected to tangentially. The tease throughout the second half of the book, especially at the end, of where the final part in the trilogy might go was interesting enough to make me want to read it despite this one's shortcomings.


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Panel of the Week: 9/30/15

No intro today. The Mets are on and I'm a bit buzzed, so let's get right down to it. The winner for the comics from the week of September 30th is the following panel from DC Comics' Justice League #44, written by Geoff Johns, art by Jason Fabok.

It's a double-page spread of the ongoing battle between the evil god Darkseid and the uber-powerful Anti-Monitor. This battle has been featured here before, but I'm in awe of this image: the power and violence of the fight, the cleanless of the lines, the cowering figures of the Justice League as they are buffeted by the force of the blows traded in the battle. It's pretty great.

Panel of the Week: 9/23/15

Today's post is a bit of a milestone, folks. It's my 101st post in 2015, which means I've officially blogged more this year than any other year previously.

And even with that being the case, I still can't seem to get up on this damn column. Stupid life.

Anyway, the winner for September 3rd's batch of comics is a series of panels from 1872 #03, a miniseries that is part of Marvel's Secret Wars event. The book is written by Gerry Duggan (of Deadpool fame) and drawn by Nik Virella (who I've never heard of). And here are the panels:

That's a Wild Wild West version of Bullseye getting taken out by Red Wolf, and I'm absolutely tickled by it. How it took someone this long from the moment Colin Farrell's Bullseye popped up in that awful Affleck Daredevil movie to do a gag like this is beyond me, but it wins, hands down. From the shock on everyone else's face to the stoicism on Red Wolf's as he drops the punchline, I love it. Maybe if Duggan's Deadpool was this funny it wouldn't be such a chore to slog through...

Goodreads Book Review - Archmage

Archmage by R.A. Salvatore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Like all Salvatore books, this one is filled with vibrant characters and the kind of vivid, thrilling battle scenes he's known for. The intrigue keeps increasing in the plot as the remaining Companions of the Hall become more and more intwined with the drow and their machinations. This kick-off to the new sub-series, Homecoming, was the first in awhile where I didn't have a feel for where the book was going before it got there, which was a pleasant surprise, as was the pair of cliffhangers the book wrapped up with. The strange bedfellows (stranger than usual) set up to work together in the next installment have me eagerly awaiting it.


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Goodreads Book Review - William Shakespeare's Tragedy of the Sith's Revenge

William Shakespeare's Tragedy of the Sith's Revenge by Ian Doescher
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A better installment than the last few, but that's only because Revenge of the Sith has a better... and admittedly more Shakespearean... plot than either of the last two books. Aside from some humorous touches, like spotting the Samuel L. Jackson movie title in all of Mace Windu's lines, this whole thing is a fun conceit that really should have stopped at one book.


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