Detective Comics No. 6
For the world's so-called greatest detective, solving a crime that occurs at a criminal overlord's casino should be a walk in the park. But that doesn't seem to be the case for writer Tony Daniel's slightly slower and all-around worse written Batman.
Leading off with what is sure to be one of the worst puns of Batman's 70-year career, Daniel writes an issue both somewhat uninteresting and completely mediocre. Daniel, by trade, is not one of comic's low-end writers and in fact has collaborated with some of the greatest minds in the industry to work on comic masterpieces like Batman R.I.P. and contributing his own work in the form of 2009's Battle for the Cowl.
Detective Comics' largest faults revolve around the characters Daniel works so hard to create, and in turn do little to forward the actual plot. Juggling between three main characters leaves little room for readers to fully comprehend the stakes of Batman's current case, and while Penguin himself is actually written with incredible skill and grace, he becomes more of an afterthought in his own setting.
While his writing isn't quite there to keep readers enthralled, Daniel's artwork is. A beautiful sanguine, noir color palette adorns every panel in the Dark Knight's perspective, while his criminal counterparts Snakeskin and Chase see the world in blazing reds and rich purples.
With new creative teams coming in many series' Issue No. 7, the next few weeks should reinvigorate stale writers and serve as the ideal whetstone to sharpen the cutting power of the DC Universe.
Winter Soldier No. 1
Fear Itself, Marvel's 2011 summer crossover event, bent the rules for some of the world's greatest heroes. Thor died and was resurrected, Asgard was sealed for the time being to limit themselves from the fragile world too soon tampered with and, most importantly, the believed death of Bucky Barnes and continuation of his Winter Solider days were all the aftermath of Marvel's summer masterwork.
Now, under the experienced penmanship of Ed Brubaker, the Soviet secret weapon has returned, though this time fighting for Nick Fury and the good ol' red, white, and blue.
Brubaker's first foray into the revamped world of covert warfare and steamy love lives is an absolutely brilliant adventure, rife with intrigue and suspense with some of Brubaker's best writing this side of a Daredevil issue. The team of Barnes and Natasha Romanoff work together in incredible ways, half lovers turned coworkers, the other half contract killers turned friends. From start to finish, the teamwork presented is both adorable and vicious to read.
Butch Guise and color artist Bettie Breitweiser put an art style together all their own. From well-defined, sharp imagery to the intentionally vague scenes of Barnes' vocation, the team finds ways to create panels that both enhance Brubaker's writing and even work as a story within themselves.
The series, still in its fledgling form, shows serious promise and with a creative team as dead set in its mission as the Winter Soldier himself, and nothing short of Red Skull can stop a team with this much momentum.
Infestation 2: Transformers No. 1
What happens when Lovecraft meets Optimus Prime and Nikola Tesla meets the Elder Gods? The answer is one of comic's most interesting and historically informative issues that comes from the world of IDW and, while it has its fair share of serious WTF moments, it's one of the most interesting crossovers that any sci-fi fan can ask for.
The Elder Gods have awoken; they plan to take Earth's inhabitants by storm, bringing about a new era of change in the late 1800s. Only a team of sentient robots from Cybertron, Tobias Muldoon, and the heralded master of electricity, Nikola Tesla, can stop them.
As an independent publisher, IDW has complete editorial power to publish whatever suits its fancy and that control is nowhere more apparent than in its legendaryInfestation crossovers. While Marvel and DC typically unite over a villain grown too powerful, or the Flash upsetting the balance of space and time, IDW intentionally chooses events both completely laudable in theory, but absolutely absurd on paper.
Transformers accomplishes what the comics set out to do on all accounts. Cthulhu meets America plot line: check. Autobots versus zombified shells of Decepticons: check. Tesla conducting insane experiments on sentient robots: double check.
Every ingredient for a formula made entirely of madness is there, and while the coming weeks will see both Dungeons and Dragons and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles inhabited by Lovecraftian lore, one can hardly imagine that it will be more over-the-top nonsensical than this issue.
If nothing else, this $3.99 treasure is worth owning, if only for its use as a conversation starter.
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