My Week in Comics: June 11, 2010

A helpful and earth-friendly tip for you guys: Does your local comic shop bag your comics in plastic or paper bags? Do us and Mother Earth a favor by bringing your own bag! You must have tons of plastic or paper bags lying around from years of buying comics, so help your LCS save up on costs to produce bags and paper by telling them you'll be bringing your books home in your own bag! Isn't helping the environment fun? But I digress, let's see what I got myself into this week!

Invincible Iron Man #27 has Pepper wanting to be Rescue again for some reason, Stark Resilient gaining its first employee, and some big time fun happens in the home of gravure idols, Japan!

Once again, writer Matt Fraction decides to take things slow with some character development. Stark is visibly dealing with his past pre-mindwipe...the entire issue is seeped with drama. A pretty wordy issue, now that I look at it. I don't think I remember the last time I got tired actually reading a comic book, but there you go.

Part of me thinks that this story would have gotten over better if it was a novel or short story. Some of the lines feel corny at times reading it in comic book form. It doesn't help that Salvador Larocca is lapsing back to his awful art phase. Bottom line, everything looks bad here, and the awfully muddy and muted colors make it even worse. Daniel and Charles Knauf's run with Butch Guice in Iron Man: Director of SHIELD, despite having a premise just as heavy, looks more comic book-y by comparison!

This is an ugly-looking book, and it's dragging the story down with it. If the art pulled as much weight as the writing in this ish, it would have been easier to swallow. As it is, this is a 2 out of 5. Even the idea of Iron Man in Tokyo next issue isn't enough to save this comic.


And then we have Red Sonja, who reverts to her old numbering just in time to celebrate her 50th issue. It's a whopping 100 pages, and filled to the brim with stories about the She-Devil from a multitude of artists and writers. No fluff, no extras to pad page count, just page after page of story. That's value however you look at it.

There are lots of great stories here about our resident She-Devil raising hell in Hyboria and dealing with stupid pirates, werewolves and the occasional frost giant. I'm a sucker for anything swords and sorcery, and even though the stuff here isn't exactly LOTR material, it's written well enough to keep me interested.

As for the art, they each serve their stories well, bringing the gritty and bloody world of Red Sonja to life. Aside from a few questionable artistic choices in some scenes (like opting for a wide and long shot of Sonja stabbing someone in the neck when a close up shot was more appropriate), it's all good. I particularly like the art in "Here There Be Wolves.", which happens to be my favorite story from the bunch. Red Sonja throwing down with an entire army of werewolves, looking ridiculously sexy while doing so? Sign me up!

If the idea of a metal bikini-clad redhead lacerating, decapitating and basically eviscerating people with extreme prejudice for one hundred pages is your cup of tea, Red Sonja #50 is liquid gold. This gets a 4 out of 5. Read it when you get the chance.


If S.H.I.E.L.D. #2 wasn't so delayed, this would have been a fun week. But a good comic book blogger rolls with the punches, and I'm thankful enough to still read comics week after week! Think I'm full of crap? Want to thank me for talking you into buying Neko Ramen? Leave me a comment below and let's talk about it! Thanks for reading!

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