Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Wednesday's Loot - 13 December 2006

52 Week 32
The space heroes decide to take a heroic stance and the Titans have a membership drive. While both fun moments they also take the back seat to Ralph Dibny's journey further into himself and the meaning of life and death while interluding to fight a yeti. All in all I liked this issue more than the last few. It had a fun little story and advanced the plots shown in fun little ways.
I rate this comic: A bit of a return to form for 52 after a few duller weeks.

The Spirit #1
I was a bit hesitant to pick this up. I mean the original is just so damned good why would I need a remake? In the end it was the Darwyn Cooke drawing and writing that won me over and made me glad I picked this up. I like my comics to be different from the other media I buy and enjoy and that's where this comic delivers in spades. It is beautiful with fast action and strong characters and story. I like how The Spirit is essentially blurred or out of the picture for his initial sneaking sequences. Cooke knows when and what to show the reader and uses the comic frame to reinforce pretty much anything that's happening. When The Spirit is sneaking, we don't see him. When the chief is all over the place doing a million things at once he's in a panel multiple times. This is really a great update for a modern audience that doesn't ignore or disrespect the original material (from what I can tell). Then again I don't have reams of old Spirit material kicking around. I feel this is the comic book version of The Spirit that the Batman the Animated series was to the Batman franchise. It updated the character by using classic stories and structures to simply entertain rather than overtly homage the originals. These are new stories that are aware of a modern audience although based on classic material. And while fun to read this comic looks stunning.
I rate this comic: One of this year's best.

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