Comic Reviews 07.10.2021

 Hey y’all. Welcome to the brand new Saturday Edition of Comic Reviews! It’s an exciting time! There were some pretty good comics this week, including X-Men #1, the star of yesterday’s Featured Review. I also checked out Ordinary Gods, Kyle Higgins and Felipe Watanabe’s new series. It was alright. Interesting enough for me to come back next month but not so interesting I felt compelled to write about it.

Anyway, onto the reviews!

Spoilers for: X-Force #22, Amazing Spider-Man #70

X-Force #22

Writer: Benjamin Percy

Artist: Joshua Cassara and Robert Gill

Colors: GURU-eFX

Designer: Tom Muller

Letters: VC’s Joe Carmagna

Cover: Cassara and Dean White

No fascist manifesto from Beast this time; what a disappointment. We do have another telefloronic strain though! Man-Thing has entered the fray! Or rather, a series of Man-Thing related beings committing murder across the US. It’s a clever expansion of the series’ focus on organic technology to involve Man-Thing.

Adding Man-Thing to the proceedings is just about the only thing that happens in this issue. There is little (arguably no) character work and the focuses on the hunt for everyone's favorite plant man.

Luckily, the art is able to carry the comic. Cassara’s art is perfect for this series and Gill—with whom I am entirely unfamiliar—does an excellent job keeping pace. The art in this issue is constantly dynamic, with smart layout tweaks to keep things interesting, like the slopping panels featured above. GURU-eFX remains a great match for the artists, their coloring bringing a gritty, earthy feel to the events. It’s a formidable team.

Amazing Spider-Man #70

Writer: Nick Spencer

Artist: Federico Vicentini

Colors: Alex Sinclair

Letters: VC’s Joe Carmagna

Cover: Mark Bagley, John Dell, and Brian Reber

Having been recently exposed to an old quote from Tom King about how he does not outline because he only forgets the bad stuff, I have been thinking about long term plotting in comic books. Some creators, like King, it is clear they have an endpoint in mind with little idea how to get there or how exactly various plot threads connect. Others, like Jonathon Hickman, know exactly how everything relates, sometimes in ways it takes multiple readings to understand. I generally prefer the latter as it leads to more coherent stories with clear character arcs and themes.

Spencer has always shown himself to be the latter, from Morning Glories to Captain America. With his time on this series coming to a close, he has been wrapping plot threads for months with this issue bringing the remaining ones to a head as they are set to conclude in the upcoming Sinister War. Even the Isotope Genome Accelerator from ASM #1 three years ago is back and important!

Perhaps most surprising is the number of groups ready to throw down by the final page of this comic. I was under the impression Sinister War would be Doc Ock’s Sinister Six vs Vulture’s with Peter caught in the middle. Instead, Overdrive, Beetle, and Foreigner have assembled crews to participate as well. It seems this last stretch is going to be even more action packed than expected.

There are also hints of a big Kindred reveal. With Carlie Cooper imprisoned with Harry Osborn after having discovered Kindred exhumed Harry’s skeletal remains in Last Remains, it seems we have three Harrys. If my longtime theory is correct, the body is pre-One More Day Harry, Kindred is his soul that came back from Hell, and the jailed Harry is the replacement Mephisto made to make the OMD continuity work. Even if that is wrong, the trio’s existence is a tantalizing piece of the puzzle.

I have no idea why but Vicentini’s art in this issue is better than before. While they have yet to turn in a poor issue, this one has significantly improved. The page layouts and shot compositions are good as always; Vicentini’s draftsmanship just seems to be better than before. Everything is a bit clearer, though not always cleaner as the issue often has rougher, sketchier look to it. It is a really impressive step forward and makes me excited to see what the future holds.