A Week in Comics: March 3, 2010

Welcome to the first installment of our “A Week in Comics” column, where we reviews some of this weeks comics. Now, since this writer is buying comics on a college student’s budget – which is practically nothing – most of these comics will be from the big two publishers Marvel and DC, with occasional reviews of comics from alternative publishers like Image or IDW. Now, on to the reviews and spoilers ahoy!

Ultimate Avengers #5

Let me put this out of the way first, this is not the mainstream Marvel Universe. Like the title implies, this takes place in the Ultimate Marvel Universe where the characters are edgier and appeal to the younger crowd – at least according to the Wikipedia page. And in this universe, Captain America really hates the French. I mean he really, really hates the French and that comes back to bite him in the butt in this issue and boy is it a great issue.

Carlos Pacheco’s art just gets better with each passing issue. He does a great job giving the Red Skull the sneering look of a psychopathic maniac and he does a great job drawing the fight scene between the Red Skull and War Machine.

With a character as big and clunky as the Ultimate version of War Machine, Pacheco is able to make the fight scene look fluid, exciting and pretty damn awesome. My only gripe is with his version of Captain America. In each panel, Captain America’s suit alternates between looking like the mainstream’s Captain chainmail-esque suit to looking like spandex. While it’s a minor issue, it was enough to take me out of the story.

And speaking of the story, like Pacheco’s art, Mark Millar’s characterization of Red Skull is balls out insane. He has the Skull point a gun to a baby’s head, have the mother of the baby kill her husband in-order to save the baby, throws the baby out the window and just stands back and take a swig of vodka while his goons rape the mother. Millar’s Skull is evil incarnate, with zero redeeming qualities. And here’s the kicker, it was previously revealed that he’s the Captain’s bastard son.

Millar has taken familiar characters and put a new spin on them, although some plot points may seem clichéd (like the Skull being Captain’s son) the superb storytelling greatly makes up for it. The character interactions are great, and the Captain’s response to Nick Fury’s plea for him to stop is priceless. While the $3.99 price-tag seems a little steep, I’m in this series for the long haul and await the next installment.

Detective Comics #862

That is one creepy ass cover, which just serves as a reminder how much I miss J.H. Williams III artwork on Detective Comics. But that doesn’t mean I hate Jock’s art on “Detective Comics” – in-fact I loved his work on “Green Arrow: Year One” – it’s just that Williams art is on a whole different level. It will have you in awe of his character design and page layouts.

But enough about the past, let’s focus on the present. In the penultimate installment of this storyline, the Cutter is on the loose in Gotham and it’s up to Batwoman to find and capture him. Jock’s angular, sketch-like artwork works well with Greg Rucka’s pulp-style of writing for the story. I especially enjoy the way Rucka splits the story telling between the present where Batwoman’s hot on the heels of the Cutter with the past where Batman is investigating a similar case.

With the villains in both timeframes so similar to each other, I would be surprised if they both ended up to be entirely different characters.

As with recent issues of “Detective Comics,” there’s also a second feature with The Question. Cully Hamner art acts as a nice contrast to Jock’s grimmer look. The cartoony style of Hamner’s art is a nice accompaniment to the more lighthearted tone Rucka takes for the second feature.

We find the Renee Montoya version of The Question and Huntress asking Barbara Gordon for help in tracking down the person who hired a hit-man to kill them. Montoya’s obliviousness to Gordon’s history as a crime fighter is priceless. And with both story’s cliffhanger ending, I don’t think I can wait another month for the next issue to come out.