Comic Book Reviews: 03/26/2014 Guardians of the Galaxy #13 Marvel | Brian Michael Bendis | Sara Pichelli | David Marquez | Justin Ponsor Well that wrapped up as suddenly as it opened. The Guardians crossover, where the X-Men took over their book, concludes with (possibly) big changes to the X-Men and the Guardians in the same spot when this started. This series is burdened with crossovers and guest stars that outshine the main cast. It will be interesting to see if the book is allowed to stand on its own two legs with the coming movie. Groot and Rocket continue to be a great comedic duo, enjoyable in every scene. Bendis writes the rest of the Guardians with the same glib and defiant tone that works, depending on how much you like Bendis’s approach to the team. Pichelli and Marquez nail the artwork at every turn. All of the mutants and aliens look powerful and fluid in combat scenes, some of the best moments have no dialogue and Jean Grey continues to look sweet and innocent, then batshit crazy t the drop of a hat. There are some out of character relationship moments between Angel and Jean, Kitty and Peter then finally Cyclops and his entire team. His decision, which lunches his solo series, comes off abrupt and without thought or consideration for the situation. I believe we will see the fallout in coming issues of All-New X-Men, Cyclops and Uncanny…but that is a lot of required reading. I don’t believe this crossover did either series any favors, maybe increased the sales of Guardians, and am hopeful that next arcs for each are a return to greatness for each monthly installment. Score: 6.5 /10 Hawkeye #18 Marvel | Matt Fraction | Annie Wu | Matt Hollingsworth The tale of two Hawkeye books continues. One month we focus on Clint Barton and the cast established within the first 12 issues, the next we focus on bizarro-Kate Bishop who is nothing like the Kate established before. Instead of being a competent, reliable, too-good-to-be-a-sidekick hero she is now a bumbling idiot who is caught off guard on a moment’s notice. Gone are her posh lifestyle, manners and polished attitude; now she is poor, bumming rides off of strangers and can’t complete the simplest of tasks. It’s as if they took everything that was wrong with Clint and turned it up to a 1,000 for no reason. This is not the Hawkeye you are looking for. The art is sloppy. The characters faces (especially on page 2) look like Clayface when he is melting, the blood and gore beat you over the head that this is a ‘gritty’ story and the action is too muddled to discern. I wish that Marvel would sell two separate Hawkeye series so I could tell my LCS to not put me down for this one. The story, art and direction are all trying to hard which results in a book that is decidedly not Hawkeye. Score: 3.0 /10 Superior Spider-Man #30 Marvel | Dan Slott | Christos Gage | Giuseppe Camuncoli Ghost Peter Parker is the worst thing to happen to the Superior series (outside of Otto killing him, that issue was great). This issue is mostly ghost Peter as he takes back his memories, didn’t really understand why he lost them in the first place, and Otto’s world crumbling around him. Otto-Spidey has a great character moment in the opening scene with 2099 Spider-Ma, but doesn’t act like himself again afterwards. This arc is rushing from set piece to set piece and never takes the time to have the decisions and situation have any true impact. There are panels needlessly wasted to let us know the Avengers on the scene, but can’t really do anything, Spider-Man is the title character after all. Peter’s return is forced, quick and lacks any true character moment. The mystery of the Green Goblin is revealed, maybe, in another out of character, random sequence of events. I don’t know if it is the split in script and writing, an editorial mandate to get Peter back in time for the movie or what but as Otto’s world has crumbled around him so has this book. Score: 4.0 /10 Level Up, Friends!
