COMICS: Wed. 4/20/05 cont.

Finally read all my comics! Just in time to be completely irrelevant!

Young Avengers: This book has a lot of potential -- it's almost there, but it keeps falling just short of enjoyable. A few too many implausible character choices, a few too many sudden, jarring, unexplained scene changes or fast forwards that detract from coherent storytelling. Nice touch this issue: Ant-Girl's (or whatever they're calling her) clothes stretch to accommodate her new 30-foot-tall size (with a few strategic rips here and there, of course), presumably to protect her modesty and keep the comic kids-friendly, yet her nipples are still prominently and lovingly rendered, straining against the fabric as she lies unconscious. Way to have it both ways, Marvel!

The Walking Dead: Well, that was a misleading cover. I think I'm going to have to keep this issue handy in the future; the character profile pages at the back of the book are invaluable.

Invincible: Too much jibber-jabber getting in the way of the action. Kirkman notes in the letters pages that he intentionally overwrote this issue, trying to make the reading experience as dense as possible. I certainly don't enjoy those too-streamlined comics that take a minute and a half to read, but this is going a little too far in the opposite direction. If you're going to have a dialogue-heavy issue, at least make it interesting dialogue, not panel after panel of the least essential character whining about her love life.

Klarion: Pretty to look at; the colors look like chalk drawings, which I thought was nifty. Still having a hard time caring at all about Klarion, the frickin' Witch Boy, even if it is Grant Morrison writing. Is the "Grundy" term (referring to the zombie laborers) a Morrison invention? Or has Klarion always been connected to Solomon Grundy?

JLA: Classified: Some fun moments, especially between Guy Gardner and Power Girl, but this was mostly a lot of wheel-spinning.

Detonator: Another good issue. I just enjoy seeing Mike Baron on a regular writing gig. Looks like he's got another series in the works, and that's not even counting the Badger revival scheduled for later this year.

Powers: Looks like some excellent stuff is going to happen with Deena next issue, but this issue, this whole storyline, has suffered from not having a reason to care even in the slightest about the people involved in the criminal case.

Hate: The Weekly World News Adventures of Bat-Boy strips collected at the back of the issue were more entertaining than the main Buddy Bradley story. That's a shame.

Ex Machina: Dude. That was messed up. So, why did the alien technology have such a positive effect on Mayor Hundred, but such a negative effect on everyone else who encounters it? Ah, no matter. Good, creepy, grisly stuff. I enjoyed the political and character moments at the end of the issue, too. And the last page, with Hundred answering the reporter's question of whether he was gay by asking if he could come into her apartment, then shutting the door behind him -- I'm sure it will be more clearly spelled out next issue, but for right now, I enjoy the ambiguity of it. It could either be seen as: Yeah, the Mayor's gonna get some! Or as: Maybe the Mayor's going to confess his sexual identity to her, and the door closing in the reader's face is meant to convey it's none of our business, and shouldn't really make a difference as to how we think of him.

Runaways: This book has gone from an enjoyable afterthought to one of my absolute favorites. I've been loving every page of the reboot, and I hope it's catching on with other readers as well. The art is fantastic, the characters are well-crafted and engaging, the stories and dialogue are a blast of fun. I loved how the meeting between the Runaways and the ex-superheroes didn't devolve into the usual dumb punch-em-up -- until Chase, true to character, opened fire without thinking; I loved how Karolina's first instinct was to flirt with the ex-Power Pack girl; I loved Victor's correcting Gert when she called her pet dino a raptor. I love this book. Can you tell?