Matt's Mini Reviews

Green Lantern #46

One of the issues of the year for me, Doug Mahnke and Geoff johns are a total dream team for this series. This is just as good as the Black Hand issue from a few months ago, but this time we switch the focus to Sinestro and get some big ballsy action as he battles Mongul to reclaim leadership of the Sinestro Corps. We see an unlikely alliance between Hal Jordan and Sinestro to battle the greater evil and it works well, none of the characters lose face. The artwork from Mahnke is pure awesome especially the fight scenes. This issue was all killer and no filler. Must pick up!

5 out of 5

Spider-Man Clone Saga #1

I went into this issue not knowing anything really about the infamous Clone Saga, and I finished it not wanting to know any more. The story was bland and the art wasn’t to my taste, the action parts were just ridiculous. The villain of the issue (Kaine) somehow manages to get a car, climb up a water tower and throw it at Parker & Reilly (Pete’s clone) while they argue on top the roof of a Hospital (and they are both really whiney!), I’m pretty sure the water tower was thrown at them too at some point, but I was sort of skim reading book by this point. The dialogue and art were nasty and reminded me why I stopped reading comics in the mid 90’s. It was $3.99 too. Ouch.

1 out of 5

X-Force #19

All the females’ characters still look exactly alike, and all the male characters still look female. Every character has ridiculous butt muscles and…. well you get the point, the art is horrible, but I still like this book, the story just keeps me interested. In this issue we deal with X-23’s escape (last issue she was kidnapped by her creators), and there is some good action and interaction between X-23 and her assistant escapee. It should be noted that the whole time x-23 is battling her captives and trying to escape that she is carrying her dismembered arm that was sawn off and the end of last issue! It’s both totally ridiculous and bad-ass at the same time. I like the story and characters used in this book, it’s just a real shame everyone looks like a wax work she-male.

PS. Check out the ridiculous wings on Angel on the cover above, that's exactly the sort of shit I'm talking about with this art, over the top and ugly. Angel doesn't even make an appearance either.

3 out of 5

X-Force #18 - Review

X-Force #18 - Review

WRITER: Craig Kyle & Christopher Yost

PENCILS: Mike Choi

COLORED BY: Sonia Oback

This may be a little harsh but, I think Mike Choi may be the new Rob Liefeld. Why? Well because the guy draws a human torso with like a million muscles on it. It is really ridiculous. Warpath looks like a Native American girl (all be it a very muscle bound one) as he has the most feminine of facial features and the butt muscles on Rahne Sinclair in her Wolfsbane mode…well, they need to be seen to be believed. And who could of missed the last page arm incident…Ha! But we’ll get to that in a bit, what did I actually think if the story? Well, I liked it actually.

We jump straight into the action following last issue. The premise is that young mutants (in this case Surge & Hellion) are being kidnapped and infected with a strain of the Legacy Virus that will make their powers flair out of control and in effect become walking time bombs. This is a story that started back before the X-Force/ Cable cross over “Messiah War” and in this issue; X-Force, back from the future, get to the two mutants just in time to save them and other innocent by standers from certain death. It’s very handy having Elixir on your team who is a mutant healer as he is then able to use his mutant power to remove all traces of the Legacy Virus from the two young mutants.

Elsewhere, X-23 is captured by supposed S.H.I.E.L.D agents after rescuing Boom Boom (or whatever she is being called now) last issue. Now I don’t know about X-23’s background, but from what I gather it appears to me that she may have ended up as a captive of her original creators who at the climax of the issue proceed to torture her with a chainsaw – chopping off her right arm, as shown in one panel – but which actually appears to be her left arm in another panel, hence supporting my Mike Choi = New Rob Liefeld argument.

Yes this book has a lot of mindless violence, but the team leader is Wolverine so what do you expect? If you want a good action packed X-book with mutant mayhem every month, this is the title for you, if you don’t mind all the male characters looking like Miss Universe contestants that is.

Hex’s score - 3.5 out of 5