A Week in Comics: Free Comic Book Day

Well, while I could do an "A Week in Comics" for this week's comics. Today is a special day. So instead of the usual, here's a special Free Comic Book Day edition of "A Week in Comics!" Spoilers may or may not be ahead, depends on my mood.

War of the Supermen #0

Writers: James Robinson and Sterling Gates
Art: Eddy Barrows
Inks: J.P. Mayer
Colors: Rod Reis
Price: FREE

Meh, that’s all I could muster up when I read this issue. For the past year (in real time at least) DC Comics had Superman live on New Krypton, in a title aptly called “Superman: World of New Krypton,” while being temporarily replaced in the “Superman” and “Action Comics” title.

Now he’s coming back to his adopted planet as New Krypton and Earth wage war against each other in this month’s “Superman: War of the Supermen” mini-event.

Initially, I tried keeping up with each of the “New Krypton” titles, but after a few issues I gave up. The writing in each of the titles just went downhill, they all required a deep knowledge of what has happened in the Superman comics for the past 1-2 years and I just didn’t want to keeping spending money a comic titled “Superman” without having Superman in it.

So now, with Free Comic Book Day, I make a return to the world of Superman and all I find is a confusing pile of meh.

The writing of this freebie isn’t all that great, James Robinson and Sterling Gates do a decent job of portraying General Zod as a military tactician and an all around dick. By the end of the story, Gates and Robinson’s Zod is reminiscent of Ozymandias from “Watchmen.”

I’m not a big fan of Eddie Barrows’ art in this issue. While his art is serviceable and nothing looks too awkward, his Superman looks angry all the time. Well I get that this issue has no reason to have Superman throw a smile on. I’m just not a fan of all that grimacing.

This issue was also dark, but not in the narrative sense. Whether it was because of Barrows or Rod Reis on colors, everyone was half shrouded in the shadows. Zod was in the shadows, Superman was in the shadows, random Kryptonian scientists were in the shadows. It just seemed like an excuse to not fully draw characters.

While this issue was steeped in continuity, it did include a back-up story by Gates that acted as a recap to all that's been going on in the Superman titles. But it wasn't enough.

To me, this book just further solidifies my conviction of avoiding the Superman titles. Thankfully this one was free.

Iron Man/Thor One-Shot

Writers: Matt Fraction
Art: John Romita Jr.
Inks: Klaus Janson
Colors: Dean White
Price: FREE

This comic on the other hand, is much better than “War of the Supermen.” A team-up between Thor and Iron Man that’s written by Matt Fraction with art by John Romita Jr. – I’d be willing to put down money for it. It’s criminal that Marvel would give this out for free.

The basic gist of the story is that the weather on Earth has gone to hell, Thor can barely do anything about it, moon people are somehow involved and Tony Stark might just be the next Cobra Commander.

Okay, that last one is not entirely true. Stark did create a type of “weather dominator,” two of them actually, but I doubt he wants to rule the world – I’m pretty sure.

Both Thor and Stark find something fishy going on with the moon and they both team-up and investigate.

Tell me a few weeks ago that Iron Man and Thor were going to team-up together and I wouldn’t believe you.

During Marvel’s “Civil War,” Stark had a hand in creating a clone of Thor – who was currently dead at the time – that ended up killing a hero. Thor came back to life, found out, wasn’t too pleased with it and then beat the living shit out of Stark.

However, in the recent “Stark Disassembled” storyline in the “Invincible Iron Man,” Stark erased his mind to prevent people from extracting information and then rebooted it with a back-up he had. The thing is though, the back-up was from before he made the hero killing clone.

But to make a long story short, they team-up, find the bad guys, defeat them and leave on slightly better terms.

Fraction’s work on this one-shot is on par with his excellent work on “Invincible Iron Man.” Stark’s conversation with Pepper Potts about creating a weather machine that kills people is just great and humorous and his Thor has an air of regalness to him.

The interplay between Thor and Stark is also pretty humorous and isn’t deep-seated in any continuity.

While Romita’s Thor looks great, I thought that his interpretation of the newest Iron Man armor design was a bit off at times.

While the new armor is suppose to be more lightweight and streamlined, at times it appears to be a bit clunky – although I’ll just chalk that up to Romita’s style.

Out of all the other comics I picked up during FCBD, this has probably been the best one of the bunch.