Thursday, December 20, 2012

Comic Book Reviews for 12/19/12 Uncanny X-Force concludes, Saga continues kicking ass, and Death of the Family gets more tie-ins.

Happy holidays, all! With the IGN crew heading on our holiday break next week, this is our last comics review round-up until the New Year. But don't worry, there was a deluge of new books -- particularly from Marvel -- this week to make up for the light schedule of next week, so we're not missing much (don't worry, we'll still be reviewing Amazing Spider-Man #700).

And what a week it is. Uncanny X-Force reached its conclusion, a bunch of Marvel NOW! series continued on their merry way, Death of the Family got more tie-ins, Saga kicked ass, and a Django Unchained comic debuted. Not a bad note to go out on, 2012.

See you next year!

Check out IGN Comics' Best of 2012 Awards

DC COMICS

Batwoman #15

Written by Haden Blackman & J.H. Williams III | Art by J.H. Williams III

"This month, Batwoman helmsmen J. H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman put the focus on Kate Kane’s girlfriend, Detective Maggie Sawyer. Fittingly, the book’s presentation shifts to a crime noir format, with internal monologue dominating the narrative and richly inked panels populating the pages. While these changes are appropriate to the subject matter, they don’t fit well in the context of the larger series, and the new perspective is worth only incremental gains in our understanding of the characters and their situation." -Poet

Click to read the entire review!

Final Score:

6.3

Before Watchmen: Moloch #2

Written by J. Michael Straczynski | Art by Eduardo Risso

"Moloch was a late addition to the Before Watchmen lineup, and the first issue suggested that the series would have been better left on the cutting room floor. Sadly, the second and final issue does little to change that impression. With Moloch's sad origin story out of the way, there's little left for issue #2 to accomplish other than to explore a bunch of behind-the-scenes material that really doesn't need exploring in the first place." -Jesse

Click to read the entire review!

Final Score:

5.1

Django Unchained #1

Written by Quentin Tarantino | Art by R.M. Guera & Jason Latour

"The first thing I’ll say is this: If youreally want to keep the Django Unchained movie experience just that – a movie experience – wait until after you see it to read this book. As Quentin Tarantino explains in his introduction to this comic, this is a straight-up adaptation of his original screenplay, with all the extra meat that he had to cut still intact. So while there will be inevitable differences between the two, this is still pretty much what I’d imagine is the first 20 minutes or so. That being said, this was a pretty entertaining comic book." -Joey

Click to read the entire review!

Final Score:

7.9

Green Lantern #15

Written by Geoff Johns | Art by Doug Mahnke

"After last month’s humorous run-in with the Justice League, Green Lantern Simon Baz is back on his mission to discover why the van he stole had a bomb in it. The political thriller elements of Simon’s story are what make it so compelling, so getting to the bottom of the mystery makes this one of the better entries in the Rise of the Third Army event that continues to drag its feet. While this issue is pretty intense thanks to the confrontation with the van owner, Geoff Johns still manages to earn a huge laugh with what is one of the best surprise cameos of the year." -Joshua

Click to read the entire review!

Final Score:

8.2

Green Lantern: The New Guardians #15

Written by Tony Bedard | Art by Aaron Kuder

"Thank goodness for the return of artist Aaron Kuder. His clean style works excellently for this space adventure featuring a wide variety of alien creatures. His crocodile Arkillo and devil-boar Larfleeze give those characters more personality than they’ve had in many an issue. Unfortunately, while writer Tony Bedard tells a competent story, it falls short due to being wildly rushed." -Joshua

Click to read the entire review!

Final Score:

5.9

JSA Liberty Files: The Whistling Skull #1

Written by B. Clay Moore | Art by Tony Harris

"There's no telling how many in-development comics fell by the wayside when DC canned the Wildstorm imprint and reintegrated the fractured portions of the DC Universe. One book that fell on the wrong side of that shift was B. Clay Moore and Tony Harris' The Further Adventures of the Whistling Skull. But that series has found new life, as the creators rejiggered it to fit within the JSA Liberty Files universe. And so fans of the old-school JSA and classic pulp storytelling have a new outlet in the New 52." -Jesse

Click to read the entire review!

Final Score:

6.8

Nightwing #15

Written by Kyle Higgins | Art by Eddy Barrows

"One of the big problems with line-wide events and crossovers is that they can often derail a book's natural progression. That's the central problem with Nightwing as it dives deeper into the events of Death of the Family. Sure, it makes sense for Joker to target Dick Grayson by destroying his current life's obsession -- rebuilding Haly's Circus. The problem is that it feels way too soon for this particular house of cards to come crashing down around him. For all the problems this series has struggled with since the relaunch, Kyle Higgins had placed Dick in an interesting new position that seems in very real jeopardy of being eliminated." -Jesse

Click to read the entire review!

Final Score:

6.1

Red Hood and the Outlaws #15

Written by Scott Lobdell | Art by Timothy Green

"The good news as far as Death of the Family goes is that the various tie-ins are doing a better job of actually contributing to the event this month. That's as compared to October and November, when books like Catwoman and Red Hood and the Outlaws seemed content to briefly reference Joker's return, maybe insert the Clown Prince of Crime into the background of a few panels, and call it a day. But the theme of December seems to be that Joker is bringing all previous rivalries to a crescendo. Red Hood and the Outlaws #15 sees Jason Todd have a showdown with the villain responsible for his brief death." -Jesse

Click to read the entire review!

Final Score:

6.9

Wonder Woman #15

Written by Brian Azzarello | Art by Cliff Chiang

"This is the one I’ve been waiting for. Ever since issue #12’s last page, I’ve been doing the 'I gotta pee' dance in anticipation of this issue. Thankfully, it doesn’t disappoint. The debut of Orion of the New Gods in Wonder Woman might have seemed like a curious choice at first. But issue #15 makes it abundantly clear how and why the New Gods fit into the tale that Brian Azzarello has been building since the beginning. This is, after all, a story about gods vs. mortals – but what happens when these gods are confronted with something, well, new?" -Joey

Click to read the entire review!

Final Score:

8.7


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