Week-In-Review: Avengers Assemble #1 / Daken: Dark Wolverine #22 / The Ninjettes #2 / Saucer Country #1 / Scarlet Spider #3

Well folks, here's the last set of new issue reviews for this week - hope you enjoy them! As always, if there's any series you want to know about or see reviewed, just drop us a line.
Till next week, happy readings!

Avengers Assemble #1 (Marvel)

Story : Brian Michael Bendis

Art : Mark Bagley, Danny Miki

(Reviewed by Anant Sagar)

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!!!

I've always wanted to say that, along with a whole bunch of other things.

So anyway, to the point. Avengers Assemble #1. Excellent read. Basically meant to be an easy-to-access series with the team from the upcoming movie meant to serve as accessible to less regular readers.

THE GOOD:

The story is interesting. I like the Avengers cast seen here. I enjoyed the villains that they have. The Zodiac are an interesting concept explored as super-humans, each named after a sigh of the zodiac. So far we see two - one water elemental (probably Pisces) and Taurus. Action sequences are in abundance in this issue, something I really enjoyed, especially since they are really well drawn.

THE BAD:

Bits and pieces in the story seem to drag out a little. Which can be a little bit irritating! It’s what made me take longer to read this because I drifted off. Apart from a few over-stretched dialogues it’s a pretty fast read.

THE FUNNY:

Stark going, “Please don’t knock over the building, I’m not made of money”, to which Widow replies “Sure you are.”

“Wow, the Incredible Hulk. I always thought you were a myth.” - “HULK VERY REAL!!!!”(Leaps into action)

Hawkeye asking Black widow to talk about how awesome his (ahem) manhood is, at his funeral.

A moment although not really funny, but made me smile was Thor getting decked and thrown through a humvee.

Go get a copy and read it. NOW!!

SCORE : 8.5 / 10

Daken: Dark Wolverine #22 (Marvel)

Story : Rob Williams

Art : Matteo Buffagni, Andrea Mutti and Riley Rossmo

(Reviewed by Anant Sagar)

Daken is an amazing character. I don’t think I can get enough of him. He is truly the son of Wolverine and more.

THE GOOD:

Daken is written incredibly well. So dark, so evil, twisted and yet so bloody smart. His conversations, his dialogue, his calm cool demeanour are just something that make him an extremely cool character to read about. The story is good, not great. What really works is the character himself.

THE BAD:

The story. That was my major problem. It drags. The excessive dialogue the random jibber jabber. It bores me. Not a very fast comic. It’s more words, more thinking required, and granted that its fun sometimes, I just did not feel the urge to read all that this time.

THE FUNNY:

No so much really. This issue is pretty non-humorous. Sucks I know.

Wolverine on acid was funny though.

Reed saying that they took Daken in and treated him like... Daken cutting him off and saying don’t say the F word... And them apologising for not punching him sooner.

Reed Richards MELTING.

I would say this is a long read. You need to think. It’s a good insight into Daken, but for the dragging story.

SCORE : 5.5 / 10

The Ninjettes #2 (Dynamite Entertainment)

Story : Al Ewing

Art : Eman Casallos

(Reviewed by Akshay Dhar)

After the entertaining blood-bath and adrenalin-fest that was issue #1, I felt like I needed to review this second one and see if they could keep that up and still make it interesting.

The answer to that is YES and NO at the same time.

Starting off quietly for a couple of pages, very soon its diving head-first right back into the gore as we see the results of last issues ending where Kelly is faced with her first task on her desired road to professional killing, as per the instruction of her new instructor whom we saw in action through the issue – Varla. Whats the task you ask? Well her dear old dad just got brutally cut loose from the mortal realm by Varla and Kelly must now dispose of the remains, in pieces... by hand. And the really disturbing part? She does it with little or no qualms.

The issue then barrels through several stories: a mob/gang member in prison reminiscing to an unknown woman about bloody misadventures courtesy a certain crazed cow-girl, the misadventures themselves and Kelly's return to normal life after completing her gory task.

There's definitely potential here for an entertaining bloody action story, but I'm just worried that they might be trying too hard to put in too much too soon. I can see wanting to do that to make sure you don't put in too little so that readers are drawn in early and then stick around, but there is a danger here in my view of not being clear enough about what you're talking about. I didn't read this book for mystery and intrigue, I read it for the babe-licious action. Period.

The art was still decent enough so no new commentary on that except to say that all is well on this front – though his background details are not always perfect, but passable.

SCORE : 5 / 10

Saucer Country #1 (Vertigo)

Story: Paul Cornell

Art : Ryan Kelley

(Review by: Anubhav DasGupta)

#1’s are the hardest comic-books to write. The writer has the tough job of introducing the characters, the situations they are in, and setting the tone of the book. And the job toughens up tenfold when the comic you’re writing has nothing to do with chiseled heroes in spandex.

Writer Paul Cornell does an okay-ish job of it in Saucer Country. In the first few pages we meet Governor Alvarado, a Hispanic woman running for president. She’s not much of an interesting character, besides the fact that she claims to have been abducted. Harvard Professor Kidd makes for a more intriguing character. He’s a professor of “modern folklore” who converses with the Pioneer One couple.

This comic didn’t feel like anything special. I don’t have any complaints about the art or the colouring or the writing, but there’s nothing to praise here. It’s nothing special, but it’s not bad either. It felt like the season opener of an average American cable network TV show to me, in fact.

I’ve got a feeling that Saucer Country is going to be a slow and long comic-book; I just hope Cornell writes well enough to keep us interested for long and I really hope we get more of Professor Kidd, who is terribly wasted in this issue despite being the most interesting character. Do give it a chance, though.

SCORE : 6 / 10

Scarlet Spider #3 (Marvel)

Story : Chris Yost

Art : Ryan Stegman, Babinski and Von Grawbadger

(Reviewed by Akshay Dhar)

Oh man, oh man, oh man!

I know I've been raving about this series since issue #1, but what can I say? The creative team is just ripping all conventional Spidey-world tales to shreds with this action-packed, wild and crazy – but ultimately human – tale.

To put it simply and without any spoilers (and there's a big one to be had!), this series picks up from #2 with Kaine still trying to help the young girl he rescued and now aided by the Doctor who he rescued as well. Throw in a new cast member in the form of Annabelle Adams, whose role I'm still trying to assess given that little is revealed about her, and you've got a nice new set of friends to play with here. Stick in some Kaine madness as he makes a mugger soil himself, an assassination attempt, lots of fisticuffs and a big reveal toward the end that promises to make the coming issues utterly and totally awesome and you have here one hell of a comic I would say – wouldn't you? That last reveal... man I want to talk to someone about it so badly, but all I can say is that it's a concept that has been a rarely-used favourite of mine in the Marvel U from the first time I saw it in Gambits solo series. I've said too much, enough!

This issue has more story progression and reveals than the first two which were an intense mix of loads of action and character development, all of which I think sets the stage nicely for this issue which works as a great transition into the clearly bigger story-arc/pile of hell that Kaine is about to step into in the months ahead.

Once again, the creative team has done a brilliant job and panel after panel I'm loving every bit of the art here and would definitely tell anyone and everyone who would dare to read a more intelligent and different kind of spandex-saga to check this book out – hands down better than a lot in Marvel's line-up.

SCORE : 8 / 10