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The Forecast for December 1st 2004
Welcome to The Forecast. Every Monday, Ninth Art's core team of comment writers, the Ninth Eight, will be your guides to the best, worst, weirdest and most noteworthy books on the shelves of your local comic shop. BOOK OF THE WEEK: DEADSHOT It looks like another quiet week in the wonderful world of comics. Quiet, that is, if you're a DC fanboy who absolutely loathes anything to do with Marvel, the AVENGERS relaunch or Brian Michael Bendis. One scant hope remains in the shape of this five-issue mini-series featuring a z-list supervillain called Deadbeat? sorry? DEADSHOT, bought to you by Christos N. Gage, Steven Cummings and Jimmy Palmiotti. Floyd Lawton is an extraordinary marksman and hired gun, specialising in trick shots and ricochets. He also happens to be a grade-A psychopath with suicidal tendencies, and he thrives on dangerous situations where chances of survival are as remote as a Turkey in the festive season. Believe it or not, there's a sizable audience for this bargain-basement loser, rooted in a classic Englehart/Rogers BATMAN story from the seventies and the high regard for the writing of John Ostrander and his SUICIDE SQUAD in the late eighties/early nineties. Trouble is, Lawton's character hasn't really evolved in the past thirty years or so, and this mini-series attempts to push the envelope with the discovery of a daughter that he didn't know he had. His assumption of responsibility for her life, and by extension his own, leads him to clean up the run-down neighbourhood where she lives with her mother. But does he call a meeting in the local town hall to discuss the local drugs problem? Hell no, this is comic books we be talkin' about; DEADSHOT's brand of social justice takes the form of hot molten lead. Frankly, the chances of this mini-series being any kind of success are one in a million, and a planned guest appearance by Green Arrow won't do much to help. But in the meantime we can all enjoy the two-fisted cover art by Mick Zeck (who made his name pencilling another gun-crazy psychopath), and the gritty crime thriller pedigree of the creative team is likely score a real bulls-eye with the fans. [Bulent Yusuf] ULTIMATE ULTIMATE ULTIMATES, MAYBE Whilst the Avengers have been grabbing all the attention recently, what with the team disintegrating almost as rapidly as the quality of the book itself, the relaunch of THE ULTIMATES has rather snuck up on us unawares. As the last arc of the Ultimate Universe's premier superteam was a real disappointment that limped to a rather soggy conclusion amid enormous delays, it was probably a good thing to let the principal creative team of Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch take a step back and a bit of a breather in order to amass enough quality material to ensure the title would have enough stuff to put out on something like a recognisable schedule. However, judging by the preview text on Marvel's website, what we're getting is origin stories (Ultimate Thor), guest appearances (The X-Men, Captain Britain, Daredevil and the Defenders) and some wishy-washy-sounding soap opera ("New members, new costumes and 12 months of gossip to catch up on! Who's getting married? Who's divorced? Who's gone nuts since we last saw them?"). Whether this will be as turgid as it sounds, or if there's a decent story being stealthily introduced by Millar underneath the terrible hype, remains to be seen. If Hitch hasn't been too rushed, the chances are it will look very nice as well, and given his Ultimate character designs have been pretty good so far, it will be interesting to see him turning his attention to other aspects of the Ultimate Universe. Oh, and compared to the shudderingly awful premise of NEW AVENGERS #1, this book will hopefully seem like manna from Heaven. I predict that on current form, this is likely to be the one and only time I will ever use this phrase about a Mark Millar book, however. [Lindsay Duff] MRS PEEL, WE'RE NEEDED Following quickly in the wake of Grant Morrison's JLA revamp - Only 7 years later! - Marvel have decided to revamp their lynchpin title with a team of A-Listers rather than the rag-tag bunch of slack-jawed fuckwits who made up the previous team. Bendis' amazing idea, "What if Wolverine was in the Avengers?" - akin to asking "What if the world was round?" - has left critics and particle physicists the world over questioning the very foundations of reality. On a creative roll, the even more ingenious addition of both Spider-Man and African-American Stereotype Man has further sealed this 22 pages of wonderment as the FUTURE (TM & (c) 2004 Marvel Comics)! Joining the revolutionary mind of Bryan Michael Bendis OBE are the pencils of the godlike genius, David Fincher - director of THE GAME, and part-time comic-book artist. After his Eisner Award-winning run on ULTIMATELY POINTLESS X-MEN, he's become the focus of mystical artistic energies channelled into the future eschatonic nexus that this series will become. His shabby pencils in the past will most surely become alight with new wonders when he gets to draw Spider-Woman on a monthly basis. If you missed AVENGERS DECONSTRUCTED over the past several months, then the trade will be out soon. Never before has a super-hero team been ambushed by super-villains and several of their ilk allegedly died in such a new and creative way. Never before has the entire of fandom (And even those weirdos who read black & white comics about not getting laid) joined together in a glorious End-of-RETURN OF THE JEDI-esque celebration of new joy into their lives. Hopes are high for this continuation. Disbelievers to the cause have been swayed by the announcement of 18 additional variant covers which can only be unlocked by completing AVENGERS on the hardest difficulty setting and collecting all the Continuity Coins that Bendis left scattered through every issue. And with our breath suitably bated (And sales of breath mints rising to match), a secret member was glimpsed on future covers... Who is this masked man? His secret identity kept secret even from us in a fourth wall breaching meta-fictional gambit equal to the greats of the milieu. You'll start to see the lines of tents camped outside your local comic store any minute now as everybody wants to have the hottest item in town. You'll want to make sure you witness Bendis writing Spider-Man like none other! Showing us Wolverine as we never imagined! And remembering that he hasn't killed all the previous Avengers members and has to give Captain America and Iron Man something to do ("More tea, bub, and make it snappy!"). Then you'll despair at the fact that he's actually got more negative publicity than Chuck Austen. And you'll all go out and buy it anyway, won't you? I know it and you know it. Fools! [John Fellows] THE SHIPPING LIST FOR DECEMBER 1st 2004: Shipping details come courtesy of Diamond. Visit the Diamond website for the latest information, as the list is subject to change. DARK HORSE OCT040018 SAMURAI HEAVEN & EARTH #1 $2.99
DC COMICS AUG040345D ARKHAM ASYLUM ANNIVERSARY EDITION HC (MR) $29.95
IMAGE SEP041568 DARKNESS VOL 2 #17 $2.99
MARVEL OCT041761 ALPHA FLIGHT #10 $2.99
OTHER PUBLISHERS MAY042980E ANGEL SANCTUARY VOL 3 GN (MR) $9.95
The Ninth Eight are Matthew Craig, John Fellows, Kieron Gillen, Alistair Kennedy, Zack Smith, Andrew Wheeler, Ben Wooller and Bulent Yusuf. Ninth Art endorses the principle of Ideological Freeware. The author permits distribution of this article by private individuals, on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice. Back. |