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huh, musta missed that post. Mike Murdock was invoked anyway, at the end of the first arc, but frankly if you didn't like that I can't help you. I do think Brubaker's going for more of a swashbuckling thing, there's an aspect of the Wally Wood era (at best guess, having never actually read it) about the run, but I don't think it's been as successful as the Oz tribute. God, I loved Oz.
The book's presently in a holding pattern, somewhat aggravatingly; beautifully paced for the trade, and eminently readable in chunks not so much in singles (although this has been the case for some six or seven years now) but - as Finder mentions - the mystery antagonist got played in year one of Brubaker's run, so I'd just like the [+] [-] Spoiler Purple Man to step out from behind the curtain now. And we can run from there onto #100, which I emphatically won't be buying the Michael Cunting Turner variant of. I will actually not buy it if that's the only option. I feel very strongly about this.
Love love loving the sharp, high-contrast pencils & inks, esp. the pic on the new recap page, which is a solid argument in-and-of for b/w reprints, I'd say... it wouldn't be right to say I like the art as much as Mazzuchelli, would it? No. I love it almost as much. I'd actually quite like Lark on covers, as nice as the Bermejo, Tommy Lee Edwards and Djurdjevic pieces have been. The panels are actually very similar to Criminal's in as much as you get really narrow ones; I like the halting temporal effect a lot and it seems a very Bru thing, really.
Speaking of Criminal - 'Lawless', is really strong; I think it deepens the whole series, to the point where suddenly you can see matrices of possibility for the storytelling to go, even around this relatively small group and locale and also benefits from... well, not necessarily a more sympathetic lead, but one without - as I've mentioned - a fucking stupid chinbeard. And a bit more intrigue in his past; the Leo reveal was, I felt, a bit leftfield, bit of a cheat, but this whole thing looks set to play to Bru's best abilities rather moreso than the prior arc. Which was okay, don't get me wrong - it's just I think this is going to be - and is, so far - great, a really crystalline vision of what the writer of various murky mysteries is about.
(Incidentally, in case anyone was really interested - the guy in Uncanny X-Men, whose face seeker185 or whatever it was made you all so aggravatedly familiar with: he fucking was Masque. So I suppose we'll never know what point he was trying to make in that witless manner. Cock. It was a markedly better issue than the Shi'ar stuff, but I'd still be hesitant of recommending it to anyone over 18 or whatever.) |
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