blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Michael Lark
Winter Soldier 9 (October 2012)
I can’t believe I forgot about the Brubaker fake arc. It’s when he identifies something as an arc, but it leads directly into the next issue, which starts another arc. He usually uses a hard cliffhanger (and does so here too). It’s always vaguely frustrating because Brubaker uses the expectations to fool the reader. It’s […]
MoreWinter Soldier 8 (September 2012)
Once again, I’ve got to question Brubaker’s approach. He splits this issue of Winter Soldier between Bucky and the bad guy. The bad guy has kidnapped Natasha and he’s going to brainwash her. It’s unclear why he hates Bucky so much–Brubaker plays fast and loose with that logic a lot. He tries to “realistically” update […]
MoreWinter Soldier 7 (August 2012)
Brubaker uses Bucky as narrator here, but mostly Bucky just waxes on about Natasha. It’s filler. I wanted to make a joke about it seeming almost as romantic as Jeph Loeb’s Superman/Batman narration but it’s insincere. Brubaker has no reason to try to convince the reader of Natasha’s skills as a super-spy. He’s just filling […]
MoreWinter Soldier 6 (August 2012)
As usual, Ed Brubaker excels when not telling a story about his lead character. In this issue, instead of focusing on Bucky, Brubaker follows around one of his former proteges. The protege has a nice backstory and then an interesting side story to Bucky’s. Brubaker plays with the timeline to get a good ending and […]
MoreImmortal Weapons 1 (September 2009)
Could this story be more depressing? Aaron does a decent job on Fat Cobra’s backstory—though he doesn’t go enough into defining Fat Cobra’s Heavenly City. He buys his way back into it at one point and buying one’s way back into a Heavenly City seems a little common. Then there’s all the retconning of Fat […]
MoreTerminal City 9 (March 1997)
Terminal City stops more than ends. Maybe closes is a better phrase. Motter closes the series. There’s no finality to it and there’s lots of openness–in the last pages, Motter’s still introducing next things. It’s a capsule view of these people, important in the city, years after their glory days. Sure, events occur in Terminal […]
MoreTerminal City 8 (February 1997)
Anyone remember the Spider-Man trailer with the reflections of the city in the eyes? Because DC and Lark should have sued or something–it’s in this comic book, down to the pacing of the shot. Anyway. The penultimate issue. Motter is hurrying things along here. He’s sort of still introducing new stuff, but not too much. […]
MoreTerminal City 7 (January 1997)
This issue, presumably, starts the winding down of Terminal City. It ends with the first really action-oriented cliffhanger of the series, but Motter’s also winding down the characters. He’s moving Cosmo, still the ostensible lead, into a smaller role. His chances at romance dwindled this issue and, what’s really crazy good about Motter’s writing, is […]
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