Comics I Bought: January 18, 2007

Nada, nothing, zilch, zero, the schnide. None of my regular comics were out this week to my great disappointment. Still, I was happy that the clerk at my local shop pulled out for me (from the vast clearance bins) the three issues of StormWatch: Team Achilles that I needed. It's a good shop.

Along with those three issues I went with one of my standbys on slow weeks: The new issue of Back Issue! magazine. It feature an interview with Jerry Ordway and hasn't failed yet to be an interesting read.

I've also been reading a book I got for Christmas (I got a lot of them). It's called "Art Out Of Time: Unknown Comic Visionaries 1900-1969". I'm about halfway through it an I am enjoying it a lot. So far my favorites are: "Herbie" (the only comic I have heard of in this book) a comic from the early 60s, "Slim Jim" a strip from 1914, and "White Boy" a strip from the 30s. I recommend it for people who like the offbeat and unknown.
And now Week Six of my reviews of recent DC Comics.

Firestorm 31-32 - The first issues of Firestorm that I have read in many years. The art is nice, the script is okay but the plot is a bit wonky. Issue 31 is the wrap up of a four part story. I jumped on easily without much confusion which is a sure sign of good storytelling. Unfortunately they also used that old saw bone "villain explains his plan to hero". And once again if the villain had just shut up his plan would have been accomplished. Sigh... Issue 32 was an epilogue to the story and I think a wrap up to the current creative teams run. It's New Years Eve and all the characters are trying to figure out a few things in their lives. Nothing you haven't seen before but solid. There were a few interesting character bits that stand out so check it out if super heroes are your thing.

Birds of Prey 99-100 - I haven't read many issues of this series but it's one of those comics I just don't understand. They're an all woman team. Why? I don't know why they just are. They organize themselves like an authoritarian government agency. Why? I don't know. They go on missions. Why? because Oracle tells them to. Why do they listen to her? I don't know. The whole concept seems so contrived to me and I can't get into the stories. The issues themselves were okay. The art is nice (three different artists on three different stories) the script okay but the plot is not good. Issue 99 is a character development issue and was pretty typical of such. Nothing wrong with it I just didn't care about the characters and this issue didn't make me care. The plot of issue 100 baffled me. Oracle puts together new team and breaks a girl out of a Mexican prison. It seems a perfect opportunity for being sneaky but instead they are really showy and super heroic. Why do you run your all-girl organization as a clandestine spy agency and then have them all dress in colored tights an cause explosions? I say again this book makes no sense to me. Check it out only if you can overlook all the stuff that I can't.