Jones gets the whole cast together and things finally start improving. Braithwaite draws Bruce as this vaguely awkward, aging pudgy guy. It’s a very interesting visualization of the character; it goes to making him seem a little less familiar even. Oddly enough, the second half of the issue has Jones’s most traditional use of Bruce Banner in many issues.

But bringing the cast together–back at Nadia’s roadside restaurant–reveals another big problem with Jones’s run. It’s very small. Same people, same places; every time it seems like Jones is actually building outward, he just turns around and constricts.

He doesn’t even bother coming up with an inventive villain this arc. Since the whole point is to put the characters in the same room again–somewhere he already had them at the end of the last arc–he just needs a disposable villain.

Jones doesn’t plot Hulk well. The issue’s simultaneously okay and not.

C+ 

CREDITS

Dead Like Me, Part Three: “Hello,” He Lied; writer, Bruce Jones; penciller, Dougie Braithwaite; inker, Bill Reinhold; colorist, Studio F; letterer, Randy Gentile; editors, John Miesegaes and Axel Alonso; publisher, Marvel Comics.

It’s a Hulk without even Bruce Banner. And I can’t figure out why. Usually when Jones takes forever with an issue, there’s at least an imaginative conversation going on. Lots of literary references, whatever. But not this issue. Here’s it just Doc and Betty arguing while Nadia Blonsky is in danger.

Where’s Bruce? He left Nadia alone so she could be in danger and Jones could get a cliffhanger out of it.

Nadia running from a variety of creepy things isn’t bad. If Jones had something else going on in the comic, it’d be a fine thing to fill the action quota. But Doc Samson playing with his lab equipment and Betty sounding bitter don’t offer anything. Jones is spinning his wheels to get through another issue and then he’ll rush to get Bruce back into it.

It’s a standard approach on the book.

The decent art helps a lot.

C- 

CREDITS

Dead Like Me, Part Two: Bury Me Not; writer, Bruce Jones; penciller, Dougie Braithwaite; inker, Bill Reinhold; colorist, Studio F; letterer, Randy Gentile; editors, John Miesegaes and Axel Alonso; publisher, Marvel Comics.

Jones gets a far better art–Dougie Braithwaite on pencils, Bill Reinhold on inks–and decides to celebrate. Of course, his celebration is dragging his cast through the dirt. He’s got Bruce emotionally pounding on Nadia, who’s a fine enough regular supporting cast member so it’s too bad Jones didn’t establish her more, and then he’s got Betty pounding–literally–on Doc Samson.

No one is happy how things are going or who they’re bedding down with. In all that unhappiness, Jones does do some explaining about off page things in the previous issues, but he also shows his hand. He wants to ruminate on the unhappiness of these characters; it’s unclear if he had any other point with his Hulk except to get them here.

While the issue’s often finely executed, Jones doesn’t offer any glimpses of growth. All he’s setting up for is decay. Unpleasant to read decay.

B- 

CREDITS

Dead Like Me, Part One; writer, Bruce Jones; penciller, Dougie Braithwaite; inker, Bill Reinhold; colorist, Studio F; letterer, Randy Gentile; editors, John Miesegaes and Axel Alonso; publisher, Marvel Comics.