It’s bad, but I sort of wanted Millar to flop on the second issue of MPH. Not for any reason other than his adherence to the eighties multi-racial movie gang. He’s got them in here; nothing but it seems.
But he doesn’t flop. Even without doing some fantastic super-speed moments–there’s only one–the issue proves incredibly entertaining and Millar manages to get in some good character work. He’s got a new approach to how the characters experience the drug. The world’s on pause around their adventures. It takes him a while to get to this device, with the guy from the last issue zooming in and out of his friends’ lives.
MPH then has the problem of seeming too impulsive and I was ready for it to flop because of Millar’s brevity. He doesn’t skip the responsibility though, he owns it.
Additionally, it doesn’t hurt the Fegredo art is absolutely gorgeous.
B
CREDITS
Writer, Mark Millar; artist, Duncan Fegredo; colorists, Peter Doherty and Mike Spicer; letterer, Doherty; editor, Jennifer Lee; publisher, Image Comics.
This issue is a little busy. First, Glass showcases a rat battalion as they return home. They’re hunting. Nasty guys, these rats. It turns out some of the cast from the first issue has survived and are now prisoners of the rats, so Glass turns the focus to them for a while.
Wildfire seems to a science thriller. It’s hard to say so far–writer Matt Hawkins gives the reader a glimpse of the titular disaster and then backtracks a few days, presumably to show now the event came to pass.
Cary Bates sure does like exposition. It’s practically endless in the Flash feature, with Bates writing really long paragraphs of thought balloons explaining why The Flash can do what he can do. None of it makes any sense, but it sounds scientific.
Thomas Alsop is one confused comic. Not the art from Palle Schmidt, it’s excellent throughout. But Chris Miskiewicz’s story ranges from annoying to outstanding. Outstanding is when he flashes back to the titular character’s ancestor on Manhattan in the 17th century. Annoying is all the modern stuff.
There’s a lot of information in this issue. There’s a recap of the last issue and there’s a big history lesson of the Mice Templar world. That history lesson is rather confusing. Glass brings in a lot of names and ideas–the Oeming art is really good for these sequences. But it’s still a long history lesson.
Loki’s a trickster so it’s all been a trick! I won’t spoil it and say how or what has been a trick, but the biggest trick has to be Esquivel’s–he got me to read the whole series.
It’s a pointlessly double-sized issue. The extra pages give Conway time to get in fight scenes between Firestorm and both villains–and the art on the fight with the Hyena does have a great double page spread–without having to sacrifice the character development.
Winterworld is about some guy who has a teenage girl sidekick in a post-apocalyptic frozen wasteland.
★½
The Mice Templar is a heavy book. This first issue is double-sized, which is both good and bad. It’s good because Michael Avon Oeming and Bryan J.L. Glass are able to get the whole story done, but it’s bad because it’s too much at once. Glass has time to introduce the cast–maybe not make them all familiar to the reader, just because there are so many–and make the reader enjoying spending time with the cast.
The issue opens with a lengthy recap of the previous one’s events and Conway’s found a great way to do exposition in the series. Ronnie and Professor Stein just talk about it naturally.
Hawkins does such a good job with the pacing–the way he’s able to split the story off into scenes with auxiliary characters and have his protagonist narrate from her side makes Tales of Honor something special. Only this time Hawkins doesn’t have a natural stopping point; he goes for a hard cliffhanger but it’s got to do with a mission, not the commander or the speaking cast.
Ragamuffins is a very strange comic. It’s unfortunate it’s strange, because in addition to being strange, it’s a lovely effort from Don McGregor and Gene Colan.
Soule shows off major writing chops–the pace of the issue is phenomenal–and he’s got this amazing conversation between She-Hulk and Shocker but he tries for too much. He’s also got Ron Wimberley on the art. Hopefully Wimberley is a fill-in, because he eventually gets to be too much. During Hellcat and Tigra’s scene–they also have a good conversation–the exaggerated figures stop the comic cold.
I don’t know how best to make the remark without it sounding like a slight but McLeod inks the heck out of Milgrom’s pencils this issue. There are maybe two questionable panels, otherwise the art is first-rate.
I don't know if Starlight is exactly deceptive, but Millar does make you forget he's up to his old content tricks. There's just enough humor, character revelations (I was going to say development, but not really) and nods to the Flash Gordon roots of the project to move things along. Not to mention the Parlov art. There's some phenomenal Parlov art this issue.
Penciller Luke McDonnell–along with Tom Palmer on inks–does a lot of photo referencing this issue. But he’s only partially successful. Kirk looks spot-on, but Spock doesn’t. And Janice Rand returns this issue; she’s not spot on either. At least she’s not problematic. The work on Spock is downright bad.
There's a goofy aspect to this issue because there's got to be, given Johnson's storyline. It's a rip-off of some other things, with a couple odd Jurassic Park homages thrown in, but it's not a terrible story. Johnson gives Kirk a lot to do.
I don’t want to spend time griping about Milgrom’s pencils. If his composition were better, I might even let it pass, but the composition–and how he handles the costumed stuff–is a real problem. Conway gets in a lot of scenes and Milgrom handles the transitions awkwardly. His figures in superhero motion are really awkward, especially the flying. Superman guest stars too so lots of flying.
It’s hard to get excited about Infinity Man and the Forever People because there’s only so much enthusiasm from creators Dan Didio and Keith Giffen. Giffen does a thoroughly competent job with the artwork; it looks and feels like a Kirby homage should look and feel. Didio even gets away with a blatant Kirby homage, just because it’s a readable “New 52” comic and deserves a lot of slack.
This issue’s art, from Joe Brozowski and Tom Palmer, is better than the usual for the comic. A lot of emphasis on the faces, lots of photo reference, but also a decent level of general competency. If a little static.
What an awkward first issue. Writer Gerry Conway has a lot of story to tell, since he covers the origin of Firestorm and has to introduce the two alter egos, but there’s also a couple action sequences. His solution for having to convey all the information isn’t original–he uses expository dialogue. Lots and lots of expository dialogue.
There's an air of not-so-quiet desperation about The Empty Man, like writer Cullen Bunn is sitting in the front row of a class with his hand up, practically leaping out of his seat, trying to get the attention of the great Hollywood gods who can option his new comic and turn it into a TV show.
Having an interested artist helps Trek quite a bit. Leo Duranona does get Janson on inks and Janson’s been one of the series’s best parts so far.
I can’t imagine how Rob Williams and D’Israeli are going to maintain on Ordinary. Actually, let me amend that statement–D’Israeli will maintain just fine. Doing a story about people getting fantastical powers and sometimes not fantastical powers, but always visually interesting ones… Well, it’s got to be a fanciful artist’s dream job.
This issue is about eight years late. Maybe eight years and a month.
The Stop Button 