Part Three of this week’s comics (Part 1 | Part 2):
Amazing Spider-Man #678 ($3.99; Dan Slott [W] & Humberto Ramos [A]) – Sometimes, time travel comics hurt my head. In this issue, one of Peter Parker’s co-workers at Horizon Labs, the think tank for genius inventors, creates a doorway that goes one day into the future. When Peter walks through to “tomorrow’s breakroom,” it’s transformed into every future in every comic ever: post-apocalyptic. He comes back, and the rationale is that once he walked through the door, he was gone for a full day, affecting the outcome, thus the disappearing breakroom. Uh, okay. Except he DIDN’T miss an entire day, and came back about 30 seconds after leaving at all. If you can can ignore that – or better yet, figure it out – then this will be an enjoyable issue, as Spider-Man now has to ensure that “today” happens exactly as it should, according to the future newspaper he swiped from “tomorrow.” See? Confusing, right? Whatever. Roll with it, and enjoy Dan Slott’s quippery and Humberto Ramos’ consistently excellent drawing. Both are tailor-made for Spidey. (I know I say this all the time, but every issue, I’m reminded why.)
Catwoman #5 ($2.99; Judd Winnick [W] & Guillem March [A]) – The latest installment of Catwoman just doesn’t really do it for me. It’s not the increasingly manga-ish art, or the oversexed renderings of the Selina Kyle. (Ever since Tim Burton’s Batman Returns, she has been oversexed.) I think this book is losing steam in conjunction with losing credibility. Catwoman #4 ended with our heroine protagonist getting flung into the place where Earth meets outer space. In this issue, she plummets back down, but catches a steel girder with her whip and swings to relative safety, only dislocating a shoulder. I’ve dislocated my shoulder taking an awkward body check into the boards. If I was rocketing back to sea level and swung from anything, I’d rip my arm clean off my body. This is just getting a bit ridiculous, but my love of the Bat-verse is too much for me to give up on this after one faux pas. Plus, I’m into the whole stealing-from-dirty-cops angle, and the messy fallout that’s sure to follow.
Ghostbusters #5 ($3.99; Erik Burnham [W] & Dan Schoening [A]) – Once again, the dynamic duo of Burnham/Schoening reaffirm why I placed this title among my favorites for 2011. From dialogue to visuals, the entirety of the mood of the popular films is represented in twenty pages of comic. The antagonistic relationship between government liaison Walter Peck and the team is exactly what the book needs to keep it grounded, giving the ‘Busters a villain they won’t find in Tobin’s Spirit Guide. A handful of treats for the reader includes Venkman as his snarky self, Egon in a double-take worthy fish-out-of-water moment signing a girl’s breasts, and the highlight of the week across ALL COMICS, a clown vomiting ectoplasmic bats.
Nightwing #5 ($2.99; Kyle Higgins [W] & Eddy Barrows [A]) – I almost gagged when the book opened on a New Orleans witch conjuring a demon. I want to see Nightwing fighting demons like I want to see Wolverine beating Galactus with nothing but bone claws… aka not at all! As I continued, my mood already soured by Catwoman and how preposterous things are getting, Dick Grayson made a comment about not being in the same league/sport/stratosphere as demons, and that this was getting to be a bit ridiculous. It’s almost like writer Kyle Higgins expected my reaction and totally played me. That just served to irk me even more, because he got me! You got me, Higgins! Happy? Because I am. What began as so-so story ended as a decent stand alone, and I’m okay with it. Also, we finally learned that Saiko, the assassin after Grayson/Nightwing, is in cahoots with Dick’s galpal at the circus! Oh, joy! The good guy and bad girl living together under the same continent-spanning big top tent! This is the perfect set-up for a series to have infinite twists and turns, much like a demon popping up out of the blue. I approve.