REVIEWS: ‘Superman Secret Origin’, ‘Planetary’, ‘Captain America Reborn’
Time to catch up on a couple of reviews, this is a mix of a couple of books that came out this week, and last week.
Pick of the week: Fantastic Four # 571 by Jonathan Hickman and Dale Eaglesham. I’ve never been a Fantastic Four man, but this issue captured my imagination. From what I understand, Fantastic Four has always been about family and the impossible. I don’t think it can get more imaginative or impossible that Reed Richards creates this machine that sends him to an extra dimensional plane where the Reed Richards of parallel universes meet and help change everything. In this issue our Reed helps kill Galactus, with an army of other Reeds armed with Ultimate Nullifiers. He helps create a planet full of feed that will feed starving planets, and performs surgery on the universe. Its a wild, beautiful look into Reed Richards and what he does to save everyone, including his relationship with Sue. To be honest, I wasn’t a Fantastic Four guy before, but I’m locked in from now on. Rating: 9.0
Superman Secret Origin #1: This is like Geoff Johns doing his take on Smallville. I feel like every once in a while DC allows a writer to present their take on the origin of Superman. Mark Waid did his take with the awesome Leinil Yu with Birthright, John Byrne did his seminal retake and now a couple years later, Johns gets his. Which is cool for people to come in and see Johns do this. Its just not that interesting, and doesn’t need to exist. Though it does give a great explanation for the glasses, and that is kind of adorable. What can I say? I’m a softie. I don’t want to spoiler but that was pretty creative with the glasses handling the heat vision. Rating: 7.0.
Captain America Reborn # 3: Brubaker is a slow burn kind of guy. He starts out 
very slow, but usually by the end, you see that its worth it. His entire run on Captain America and Daredevil has been just like that, and those are easily the best superhero comics out there today. So there is no reason to lose faith on that when coming into this title. However three issues in and we’re still on the same thing. Steve Rogers is Quantum Leaping through his life and Norman Osborn is after Bucky, Falcon, Reed Richards and the rest. That’s been beaten like a dead drum for three issues and the only thing that has moved the story forward is it being revealed to the media that Sharon Carter was the second shooter. We don’t get any repercussions of that and its just the third straight issue of, you guessed it, Steve Rogers is Quantum Leaping and the Thunderbolts are out to kill Bucky and Black Widow. Sorry, you gotta advance the story a little bit more than that for me. Butch Guice is nice to look at though. Rating: 5.0
Planetary #27 preview. This was in the back pages of Ex Machina #45. It has the main characters talking about building a Time Machine, and in typical Planetary fashion, building the time machine that is already laced in popular culture. The one from H.G. Wells book, and also my favorite sci fi novel ever. Time travel, and especially interpretations on Wells’s book, has always tickled my stomach. Both amaze me even to this day. So the fact that one of the best books ever written and drawn tackling something in regards to Wells’ Time Machine is something I can’t wait for. Planetary #27, the final issue hits stands Oct. 2.
With Ex Machina ending and the final issue of Planetary coming out, I can’t help but say those are the last two books from Wildstorm that I still read. So…I’ll be interested to see what Wildstorm does when these two books end.
Complex interviews Joss Whedon.
Friend (and neighbor) Tim Leong interviews Joss Whedon for Complex Magazine this week.
In the lengthy interviews, Leong talks to Whedon about his Astonishing X-Men artist John Cassaday’s turn behind the Director’s Chair this season on Joss’s show, Dollhouse. The multi-platform writer also shares ideas on Buffy Season 9, his movie Cabin in the Woods and well, his dancing.
Whedon said about his X-Men artist Cassaday that he’s going, well, f–k up so much.
Cassaday, I know he can tell a story, I know him as a person, his sensibility, the way he is with other people and I just feel that this step is logical for him, it’s something he’s been pursuing for a while. We’re now in position to take this risk, because we have so many good people he knows he’s in a comfort zone. He’s got Soloman watching set, none of us are directing around the time that he is so that we could be there for his prep. And that’s just very exciting for me because he has a visual sense that goes beyond most of the people that I work with. The only problem we have is he wants to storyboard his episode, and I’m like, “You do know that it’s a script that will be late, right?”
Whedon also mentions that Buffy will continue into Season 9. Whedon notes the Season 8 would last until 40 issues, and then they’ll take a break and go into Season 9. I stopped reading around Jeph Loeb’s arc, but considering the show was my favorite in High School, I’ve been reading up and seeing where it goes. Whedon expects Season 9, to not run as long as Season 8 but be about 30 issues.
Rob Liefeld freaks out over Deadpool movie.
Yeah, I just used “freak out” in a headline, but you had to be there. On Twitter, when he flipped out over the Deadpool movie meetings.
Walking into Deadpool movie meeting!!! Yowza!
Great Deadpool movie meeting! Lauren Schuler Donner and her team are headed in the right direction!
Deadpool movie- YES! Ryan Reynolds is on board!!!
Deadpool movie checklist- DP in costume-check! Breaking 4th wall-check! Loads of killing-double check!
Also excited to discuss possibilities of Cable in future X-films!!!
I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone make such great use of the exclamation mark. Or not. Anyway, Rob, who is truly a man among midgets, shares my enthusiasm, considering my long standing obsession with Deadpool. I’m happy to hear that it will be a reboot and Ryan Reynolds won’t be walking around as the Merc Without a Mouth.
