Saturday 31 March 2007

The Weekly Shop #4

I really wanted to drop Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate X-Men this month. Obviously I ended up buying both. What a bozo.

Ultimate X-Men is DEFINITELY not going to be on my shopping list next month. I will probably borrow the trades from the library when they come out, but I'm done with paying for a book which has gone off the boil and shows no sign of heating up again.

I don't understand how as brilliant a writer as Robert Kirkman can fail to produce a good X-Men book but he has and, after 15 largely uninspiring issues, I'm getting out. Honestly.

Ultimate Fantastic Four was actually OK. Good enough for me to come back next month in fact. I still don't like it as much as I did when Millar was writing it, but the current arc is a lot snappier than "God War" which seemed to impress everyone who read it except me.

Ultimate Spiderman is in recovery. It hit a rocky patch with the appalling "Silver Sable" and "Deadpool" arcs, but the "Clone saga" and the current "Ultimate Nights" storyline have put the book back on an even keel.

When he's on form, Brian Bendis nails Peter Parker. I don't read all the Spidey books that are out there, but from what I've seen only Jeff Parker in the excellent Marvel Adventures* really gets how to write Spidey as well as Bendis does.

To be fair, anyone writing the character in the mainstream Marvel universe is hampered by the fact that Peter Parker has grown up. Bendis gets to write him as a wisecracking teenager and for me that's always been the best version of Spidey.

Other than the Ultimate titles I bought the second issue in Grant Morrison and Andy Kubert's Batman run. Standard Batman fare really - the first half of the comic works best if you read it while listening to the Ski Chase music from "On her Majesty's Secret Service".

Inspired by 2000 AD Prog Slog I also bought my first issue of 2000 AD for about 10 years. Obviously I haven't a clue what's going on in any of the stories, but I still enjoyed it in a nostalgic sort of way. Nice to see Pat Mills and Carlos Ezquerra are still on board. I might buy it again next week.

* I forgot to mention Marvel Adventures in my last weekly shop, which is a shame as it's one of the comics I look forward to most. It is written for kids, BUT if you like your comics there's plenty for you to enjoy here, including a brilliant take on Spidey and a Hulk who still says this...

You can't go wrong with a bit of "Hulk Smash"


3 comments:

mr wheatley said...

yeah, i got ff, it was a bit gaudy and felt like a filler. Got the last issue of spiderman reign which was a bit confusing, same gritty nonsense as batman year 100. miller has a lot to answer for.
Stronty dog comp was nowhere to be seen as i strode into fplanet and hour or so after you, neither was the alan moore thargs future shocks i was after. Bah. also the classic batman toy car from the tv series dosent seem to exist anywhere.(im looking for it for my obsessed son) A letter to my MP is in order!
ended up buying cinefex..how sad iam

Dom Sutton said...

I thought you were at work when you called on Thursday. You should have said I would've hung around for a drink.

Got that Alan Moore Future Shocks book out of the library. It's on Amazon along with The Strontium Dog trade.

As for the Batman car, I'm sure I've seen classic ones in FP before. Maybe Hamleys has them.

mr wheatley said...

nah, ive checked, its all very dull, corgi has lost the rights to hotwheels, so its in a bit of a mess. Theres a whole batmobiles through the ages thing going on, except thay are all shit. who cares, there is only one batmobile toy, the one with the nasty blade at the front!

yeah i was meant to be working but i kinda bent it into a 'research' trip