This week in Comics : Deadpool 62 + Phantom Stranger 1 + Batman 13

Another week, another set of reviews by team Comic Addicts..... did we pick your favourite comic for review? check out below...

Deadpool 62
Writer: Daniel Way
Artist: Ale garza , Sean Parsons et al
Reviewer : Anant Sagar

So the new saga begins.
As mentioned last issue, our boy Wade is having some issues with a certain retired FBI agent who
wants him dead because she got caught in his line of fire when she was undercover.
So she goes so far as to resurrect T-Ray and Slayback. Talk about a party.We see they’re no match for a simulated Wade, and have a lot more training ahead of them.

Meanwhile Deadpool stumbles onto Taskmaster. After a good old fashioned, shoot first – talk later. We find out that Wade isn’t after Tasky because he sold him out, he needs a job.After a bit of talking Taskmaster ‘gives’ Wade some info.

Spoiler: Turns out, you don’t trust Taskmaster.

Decent read. Good action. Standard Deadpool humor.

But something was missing. No not Hit Monkey, though I do miss the little fuzzball.

I’ll give this a 7 on 10.

 
Phantom Stranger 1
Writer : Dan Didio
Artist : Brent Anderson & Philip Tan
Reviewer : Anant Sagar

So this was by far one of the weirdest things I’ve read in a while.

Over the course of the issue, you discover various things. A girl named Rachel, with strange shadow like powers. Who just happens to be from Azarath and is the Daughter of Trigon.

Ring any bells. Yeah reminded me of Raven from Teen Titans too. Confused? Intrigued?So was I. So I kept reading and discovered that the Phantom Stranger is Judas.

Yes Judas, the one who sold out Jesus

Now forced to roam through existence and complete certain acts of betrayal for the number o silver
he was given. Or some such hooey.

In my opinion they screwed the Stranger over. He was much cooler before. Why did they have to go
and do all this?!

Anyway, an interesting read nonetheless. Artwork a little on the darker side. A nice change from
what I’m used to seeing. Apart from the Judas aspect I didn’t mind it.

I’ll give it a 6.5 on 10. Because the Judas aspect had a huge impact.

Batman #13

Writer: Scott Snyder

Artist: Greg Capullo

Reviewer:  Anubhav Das Gupta

 

Batman #13 isn’t merely a good comic. It’s a great one, at the apex of magnificence, though not quite touching it.

It marks the return of the Joker after a year long disappearance (we saw him last in Detective Comics #1) and boy is it good.

What we get here is the most twisted version of Joker since “The Killing Joke”. Snyder’s a deranged writer, and writing a character like the Joker must be like Christmas for him. His Joker is far more twisted and dangerous than the ones we’ve seen before. This one gets his hands dirty, his “jokes” are deadlier and downright disgusting. We don’t see his face until the very last page, and it works so well that I won’t be surprised if a horrific gasp escapes your mouth.

Snyder’s plotting is quite ingenious, too. He gives you a familiar Joker scenario, a drab one that you think you can easily predict, and then he stabs you in the back with a twist you probably didn’t see coming. The back-up he co-wrote with James Tynion IV (aka the next Scott Snyder) drawn by Jock, while not adding much to the story, does reveal how twisted Joker has become since we last saw him (spoiler : very).

The mood and the setting are well conveyed by Greg Capullo’s magnificent linework. Now, he’s been great since the series began, but here, he just takes it to another level. He gives the comic a very cinematic feel, with panels reminding you of great horror films like Rosemary’s Baby and Exorcist. Snyder and Capullo are a great team. Both of them are quite good at setting the mood for horror, and on Batman, they complement each other like Batman and Robin. A formidable duo, this.

But for all its merits, this comic does fall short of hype. Now where did Snyder go wrong? Tough to tell. But he doesn’t seem to have a grip on Bruce Wayne’s voice as he did with Dick Grayson’s back in The Black Mirror and the comic definitely suffers from that. He still falters when it comes to exposition, too.

But read this baby. Read it for Joker. He’ll make your skin crawl. And he’ll probably give you nightmares. 

Rating : 10 on 10