WLG #215: The Substitute

By Kelvin Green

Hello all, and welcome to What Looks Good. Your regular host Michael Diaz is away on a business trip, because he has the brazen audacity to have a life outside of comics, so I've been roped in to help out. Since my general distaste for most of today's US mainstream comic output is well known, I can only imagine that the Comics Bulletin overlords are playing some cruel joke on all of us. They're like that. I once saw Keith Dallas in Hallmark writing filthy hate-filled diatribes in all the "Get Well Soon" cards.

Anyway, despite my venomous hatred for all comics, I'm going to approach this in the spirit of fair play, and do it exactly as Michael does:

Standard Disclaimer: For those of you new to the WLG experience, here's how it works: Every week I check out the release schedule from the Diamond Comics Shipping List and decide which comics that I am going to spend my hard-earned money on. Yep, my money. That's good, because it helps to maintain my objectivity. If I spend money on a comic book and it turns out to be crap I'm going to be upset.

Well, perhaps not exactly...


Doctor Who #1 $3.99 (I think) (Gary Russell/Nick Roche; IDW Publishing)
Even though I'm a big Doctor Who fan, I probably won't be buying this one, because it's not actually available in Britain, due to short-sighted licensing deals. I suppose that's understandable though. I mean, it's not as if there are eight million Who viewers here or anything. Crikey...
Anyway, this should be a pretty strong title. It's part of official canon, it's written by the story editor of the TV show, and the medium neatly sidesteps the budgetary constraints faced by the parent programme (although to be fair, that's not nearly as noticable in the new series as it was in the old). I'm looking forward to reading it... somehow.


Krash Bastards OGN $9.99 (Joe Casey/Axel 13; Image)
To be honest, the solictation for this book is incomprehensible gibberish that comes across rather too much like it's trying to be edgy and eclectic. Joe Casey is an inconsistent writer, but he tends to do better with the more offbeat concepts, so he may very well be able to make this one work, and frankly there need to be more comics that just throw it all to the wind in the name of big concept hyper-kinetic fun. I'd rather have nextwave back (ARE YOU LISTENING, QUESADA?), but I digress. Kinda.


Onslaught Reborn HC $19.99 (Jeph Loeb/Rob Liefeld; Marvel)
Yeah, I'm not buying this one either. In fact, I'd rather have someone take a rusty cheese grater to my arsehole than read this tripe again. Jeph Loeb is hardly the strongest writer at the best of times, and Onslaught Reborn is far from a creative zenith for him. Like his work on Batman, Loeb is hacking out a bare bones plot to link together the images provided by his artist, except his artist on "Hush" was Jim Lee, whereas here it's Rob Liefeld, who's less of an artist, and more of a crime against comics. "Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the event that changed Marvel history" apparently, except no one in their right minds wants to remember Onslaught. Worst of all perhaps, is that Marvel gave a portion of the profits from the original series to charity, but seem to be keeping the cash from this shamefully overpriced collection all to themselves. This is poisonous stuff.


Rasl #1 (Jeff Smith)
I know very little about this comic; I don't know how much it will cost, and I don't know who's publishing it. What I do know is that it's by Jeff Smith, who turned out one of the best long form graphic novels of recent times in the classic Bone, and I know that the premise of an interdimensional art thief running from his past sounds like great fun. Smith's expert storytelling and that great pulpy premise are easily enough to get me to buy the first issue.


Thor #6 $2.99 (J. Michael Straczynski/Olivier Coipel; Marvel)
Thor is one of my favourite Marvel characters, and he's certainly been missed from the Marvel Universe (no, The Sentry doesn't cut it), but this initial story has taken far too long to get to the point. I might look in on this final part of the first arc, if only to see if they've got anywhere, and whether J. Michael Straczynski has managed to cover any new ground, or merely continued to rip off Neil Gaiman's Eternals. It's bound to look good though, as Olivier Coipel is simply brilliant, the new spangly disco chainmail aside.


Young Avengers Presents #2 $2.99 (Brian Reed/Harvey Talibao; Marvel)
The first issue of this miniseries was a misfire; instead of saying anything new about the central character, Patriot, it wasted time with tiresome chases and pointless fight scenes. Perhaps it was rushed, or perhaps there's just not much to say about Patriot, but there's a great deal more potential in Hulkling, the half-breed son of a Skrull princess and the newly-resurrected Captain Marvel. It's unashamed soap opera stuff, but that's part of what made Young Avengers so compelling, and they have a chance here to recapture that magic. I've not been enormously impressed with Brian Reed's comics work thus far, but superstar Ed Brubaker was behind that shoddy Patriot issue, so it's clear that expectations mean nothing with this series. Fingers crossed!



Well, that was fun. We should do this again sometime.

What did you think of my choices? What are your picks this week? How badly do you all want Diaz back? Please feel free to share your thoughts at the What Looks Good forums.

Michael should be back in time for next week, so thanks for having me, and remember, wherever you go, there you are.

Cheers, m'dears!

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