Moon Knight 1 (May 2014)

297651 20140305124015 large The Declan Shalvey art is nice and Warren Ellis gets a kick out of some of the comic, but it’s still just another Moon Knight comic. I’m not sure if there’s anyway to make an exciting Moon Knight comic. It sure doesn’t seem like it.

Ellis has got Moon Knight in a white suit and mask, traveling New York in a driverless limo–so he’s also cool enough to get exclusive Google betas. Ellis doesn’t seem interested in those parts. He doesn’t do them well.

He writes the crime scene investigation stuff well, even if he’s just aping “Law and Order: Criminal Intent.” He’s not visibly interested in those scenes though.

But when he has Moon Knight facing off against Mean Machine’s unhealthy ancestor? Then Ellis is engaged. Shame he follows that part of the comic up with lame Moon Knight retcon (or revelations).

Shalvey alone can’t carry the comic.

C+

CREDITS

Slasher; writer, Warren Ellis; artist, Declan Shalvey; colorist, Jordie Bellaire; letterer, Chris Eliopoulos; editors, Ellie Pyle and Stephen Wacker; publisher, Marvel Comics.

Dracula World Order 1 (May 2012)

Didn’t some other publisher just try Dracula again? I guess in the vampire craze, everyone things Dracula is just the natural thing to do. To be fair, Ian Brill’s comic doesn’t seem Twilight-influenced based the vampire biology–he’s got to be able to give Dracula a rebellious son right off the bat.

So to speak.

Brill’s Dracula World Order tries to combine a monster team origin, political commentary, dystopian future and probably a couple other things. He’s got four artists on the book–Tonci Zonjic’s opening chapter is the weakest, art-wise, but still okay–but his chapters don’t make any sense. They’re artificial constructions to enable multiple artists.

The final one, with the Gabriel Hardman art, is the best. Though there’s something precious about Rahsan Ekedal’s one.

But no artist could make up for Brill’s weak dialogue or the lousy pacing. It’s not amateurish, it’s just not good.

Thunderbolts (2006) #149

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I see what Parker’s trying to do overall but it doesn’t work.

He’s even left with a confusing end narration. The rest of the issue doesn’t have any narration so I’m not even sure who’s point of view the last page’s narration is from. I suppose I could have given it some thought, but Thunderbolts doesn’t encourage much thought and I didn’t want to give it.

Parker’s apparently realized he’s been too nice to Crossbones this issue. First he has a character commenting on him being a racist nut, then he has him kill a cop for fun and frame a dead zombie ninja. But the Ghost saw, so we’ll see how long that revelation takes to come out.

Regardless, Parker still makes Crossbones the issue’s primary character in a lot of ways.

Shalvey’s art continues to disappoint. Maybe if it were bad in an interesting way….

Still, not terrible.

Thunderbolts (2006) #148

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I can’t believe it… I miss Kev Walker. Not for the whole issue, of course. Declan Shalvey does a fine job with all the lead-up stuff—Luke’s in New York because of the “Shadowland” crossover (which seems like it’s really lame). He calls in the team—in an abuse of his authority—to go look for a friend’s son. Parker does a good job not tying it too much to the crossover; he takes a lot of time on the Thunderbolts too, which is nice.

Although he makes Crossbones so sympathetic I’m wondering if Marvel’s going to have a white supremacist line of titles… “Tea Party Comics” maybe.

But then it gets to the action stuff and Shalvey just flops. It isn’t only about Walker establishing an action tone for the series, Shalvey just doesn’t do well. He’s got a main character apparently dying and it’s way too subtle.