Week In Review : Hawkeye #1 + Infected #1 + The First X-Men #1

Three more #1's folks! This week has been choc-full of new-comic goodness and we've got some doozies here for you today! The hotly anticipated Hawkeye and First X-Men as well as IDW's new offering. Enjoy!
- Always-helpful Akshay

Hawkeye #1 (Marvel)

Story : Matt Fraction

Art : David Aja (linework), Matt Holingsworth (colors)

(Reviewed by Anubhav Dasgupta)

Marvel is winning.

I can’t believe I typed that. I’m a harcore DC guy and I typed “Marvel is winning.”

Now, I don’t know a lot about Hawkeye beyond what I’ve read since the Heroic Age. I wasn’t really a fan until I read last year’s Hawkeye & Mockingbird by Jim McCann, which was amazing fun. But this one… it’s textbook. It’s brilliant. It’s so good that it makes making brilliant comics look easy.

This comic doesn’t have any epic fights between super-powered heroes or alien invasions or another stupid plot involving the Phoenix, rather it’s a human story. It’s what happens when Hawkeye isn’t 'Avengering'. It’s what Clint Barton does when he isn’t hanging around with Tony Stark or Steve Rogers.

C2E2: New Comic News!!

Good day one and all!

Apologies for a hectic week and not enough comic-y goodness for all of you (largely my fault, but I blame the IPL and various other things for our shortcomings!) but we intend to make up for it and then some in the days to come!

For those of you who follow this stuff, there's a HUGE load of comic news that came out during the recent Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo, popularly known as C2E2 amongst fans. I've been keeping an eye on their news and announcements and have for you here a sumptuous feast of some of the most choice and tender treats to tickle your taste buds!

This post is a special recap where I've tried to put together as much of the news as possible for your geeking-out pleasure (in alphabetical order for general ease of use!).

So let's just get to it shall we?

To kick things off, from the strange and frighteningly awesome Avatar offices:

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Michael DiPascale’s new project announced at C2E2 is Hero Worship which will premier in July. Keith says that Avatar Press rarely does superhero comics, noting the exceptions by Warren Ellis, and Christos Gage, saying they don’t do them unless there’s something unique about them. He then describes Hero Worship a bit, telling us Zak Penn will be writing, and it’s a six issue miniseries and is about society’s worship of superheroes and how that can be used to screw the system. The main characters are Adam and Zenith. Adam is a normal boy and Zenith is a Superman-style superhero. Adam is Zenith’s biggest fan, and the book is not really about him, so much as the world around him.

Week-in-Review: Avengers – Solo #1 / The Activity #1 / Catwoman #4 / The Immortal: Demon in the Blood #1

Well hello folks! Welcome to our premier edition of "Week-in-Review" which we teased you with just a few days ago.
Today I have for you some great and some surprising picks from the books released this past Wedesday. We will try and bring you a list like this every week on Monday's to give you a flavour of what's new and what's hot and whatever looks good in between - and once in a while when something is really to be avoided, we'll bring warnings! Now enough of me gabbing, on to the reviews!

The Activity #1

Story: Nathan Edmonson

Art: Mitch Gerads

I was definitely looking forward to this book from when I heard about it – not just because Image has been having a banner year and putting out some of the most awesome books, but because this is Nathan Edmonson's follow up to the magnificent Who Is Jake Ellis and his ongoing Grifter for DC. Like Jake Ellis, this is a secret agent and espionage kind of story, but where that was about someone on the outside bucking the system, this story is about a team that is the best of the best and the go-to guys for the elite, and so on and so forth – you get the idea. A sweet little opening chapter that has a new recruit joining the team (not the newest idea, I know) it acts as a 'testing the waters' kind of mission both for the characters and their new team-mate as well as for the reader and I personally found this to be a brilliantly thought out and engaging read with great characters. Plus, Mitch Gerads brings a nice style to the comic, though his art may not be everyones favourite, his layouts and choice of focus and detail are amongst the most awesome I've seen!

Most definitely on my pull list from here till it finishes, gets cancelled or Edmonson leaves at the very least.

SCORE: 4.7/5