Into the Longbox: week of crotchetyness
Will Eisner’s The Spirit #17, Aragones, Evanier, Amancio, Austin. These guys continue to get the Spirit himself to ring pretty true, but to make me wonder who the supporting cast is. This issue turns Ellen Dolan into a one-dimensional clingy man-grabber rather than the intelligent, capable woman I prefer to see. It makes me sad to see sub-I Love Lucy characterization of her after Cooke’s more nuanced treatment. To add injury to insult, Ellen’s drawn as anatomically impossible, and not in a good way. Not my favorite issue.
Captain America #38, Brubaker, Epting, Perkins, D’Armata. Man, you know it’s going to be a long week when the best you can say about Captain America is that it was a superior super-hero book. I mean it is and everything, but nothing sparkled too much for me. Though, is it just me or is Dr. Faustus beginning to look like he’s running the show? I’d swear I saw him talk back to the Red Skull and the Skull took it, which is not SOP. Maybe not such a dead issue after all…
Grendel: Behold the Devil #7, Matt Wagner. What in the world happened here? Did Wagner just defuse the whole tension of his narrative to give me a 12-page recap of the 80’s Grendel series? Why would anyone do that??? I’m enough of a completist to come back and see Hunter snuff the two red herrings next issue, but I don’t know why anyone else would. I know Wagner’s usually more interesting than this, but I really don’t see the game here. Bizarre.