Weekly Awards For The Comic Books From December 24, 2008

All right, let’s go ahead and dish out The Revolution’s weekly awards.

The nominees for the Che for the best read of the week:

Batman #683
Daredevil #114
Nova #20
Thor #12
Ultimate Spider-Man #129
Wolverine: First Class #10

The Winner: Daredevil #114

Batman #683

Writer: Grant Morrison
Pencils: Lee Garbett
Inks: Trevor Scott

Art Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10
Story Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 7.5 Night Girls out of 10

This issue served as a nice bridge between RIP and Final Crisis. Basically, Batman ends up giving all of his memories to the Lump. Batman sardonically asks if the Lump can bear them all at once. Of course, Lump cannot. The Lump is overloaded by Batman’s memories and this causes the clones to claw their eyes out and die. Mokkari and Simyan are stunned and amazed that Batman can handle this degree of stress.

Mokkari and Simyan go ahead and shoot the Lump in order to stop the psycho merge. Mokkari and Simyan wonder what kind of man can turn even his life memories into weapon. As Lump is dying, Batman tells the Lump to help him take out the men who liked Lump and Lump will live on in Batman’s mind. The Lump agrees and destroys the controls to the machine that Batman is hooked into.

Morrison continues his theme of Batman being the ultimate weapon. Body, mind and soul. That every part of Batman’s very being is designed to protect him and to act as a weapon as well. Lee Garbett supplied plenty of quality artwork. This was a well crafted read, but there were too many other incredible titles this week that prevented Batman #683 from winning the Che.

Thor #12

Writer: J. Michael Straczynski
Pencils: Oliver Copiel
Inks: Mark Morales

Art Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10
Story Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 7.5 Night Girls out of 10

JMS cranked out another nice read with Thor #12. It appears that JMS has found the Marvel title that perfectly suits his style of writing. JMS focuses this issue on Loki as we learn that Loki is still as determined as ever to overthrow Thor and make Asgard his own. We get a nice look into Loki’s scarred psyche and learn why he has such a strong anger inside of his soul.

JMS then delivers a surprise on the reader at the end as we learn that Loki’s female body is Sif’s. Things are going to get quite interesting. As always, Copiel serves up plenty of excellent artwork.

Ultimate Spider-Man #129

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Pencils: Stuart Immomen
Inks: Wade Von Grawbadger

Art Rating: Night Girls out of 10
Story Rating: Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: Night Girls out of 10

Luckily, this title has been relatively untouched by Ultimatum. And that is a good thing. While Marvel clearly feels that the only way to fix the Ultimate Universe is to destroy it; Bendis shows us every single month on Ultimate Spider-Man that there is another way to fix the Ultimate Universe. Simply tell quality character driven stories and give the reader entertaining fun reads in the process.

And that is what Bendis does with Ultimate Spider-Man #129. This issue does not have much action. And this issue is thematically and stylistically complete different from the big event in Ultimatum that this issue supposedly ties into. Instead, Bendis focuses in on the personal relationships of the characters in Peter’s world.

We see Johnny Storm on a date with an irritating teen celebrity. I cracked up laughing when Johnny’s date went to the bathroom which allowed Johnny to frantically call Peter and beg him to call Johnny back so that Johnny would have an excuse to cut the date short. Seeing Johnny then pretend that Peter’s phone call was an emergency call from the Baxter Building was great.

Bendis explores Johnny’s desire to find a nice girlfriend like Peter has with MJ. And Johnny finally finds that girl as Spider-Woman makes an appearance in this issue. Long-time readers know that Spider-Woman is Peter’s clone. Johnny falling in love with Spider-Woman should be an entertaining plotline. Especially when Johnny learns that Spider-Woman is a clone of Peter.

Ultimate Spider-Man #129 is Bendis in his element. This issue exemplifies how this title suits Bendis’ talents better than some of the other titles that Marvel has him writing. This was a great issue and is really the only thing from the Ultimate Universe that is worth reading.

Wolverine: First Class #10

Writer: Fred Van Lente
Art: Francis Portella

Art Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Story Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10

Van Lente delivers another solid read. This issue sports the appearance of Werewolf by Night. It is a fun issue that offers up plenty of action. And the ending was pretty cool with Logan turning into a werewolf. As if Logan was not already feral enough as it is.

Van Lente’s dialogue has a nice flow and is natural sounding. Van Lente has a great feel for Wolverine’s original character and for what made the runt so cool back when Claremont first brought Logan onto the X-Men.

I already gave a positive review to Nova #20. Yet, while this was a good issue, it simply was not special enough to win the Che. So, I went ahead and awarded the Che for the best read of the week to Daredevil #114.

Daredevil #114

Writer: Ed Brubaker
Pencils: Michael Clark
Inks: Stefano Guadiano

Art Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10
Story Rating: 9 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10

Daredevil #114 was an excellent read. We learn that Mila’s parents checked Mila out of the psychiatric ward and that one of the legal weapons that they are using are the old divorce papers from way back when Matt offered Mila and out to their marriage due all the insanity in his life. Mila declined the sign the papers and wanted to stay with Matt. And the parents also use pictures of Dakota North as a threat in order to get Matt to sign papers allowing Mila’s parents full custody of her. And to top it all off, the lawyer for Mila’s parents is actually Lady Bullseye!

The use of the divorce papers from quite some time back was an excellent job by Brubaker to take a small plot device from an earlier story arc and implement it in a seamless and logical fashion into the current story arc.

Brubaker cranks out some phenomenal character work. Matt, Foggy, Dakota and the rest of Matt’s allies are well developed. The chemistry between the characters is fantastic. The dialogue is well crafted and makes this issue such a gripping read. Brubaker does not need to deliver lots of action in order to captivate the reader’s attention.

The plotting is excellent as always. Brubaker has such a knack for crafting incredibly detailed and complex plotlines and unfolding them in the most steadily paced yet intriguing manner.

And now the nominees for the Sequential Methadone Award for the worst read of the week:

Hulk #9
Ultimatum #2

The Winner: Ultimatum #2

Hulk #9

Writer: Jeph Loeb
Pencils: Art Adams & Frank Cho
Inks: Walden Wong & Frank Cho

Art Rating: 9 Night Girls out of 10
Story Rating: 3 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10

Hulk #9 was another dumb issue. About the only nice aspect of this issue was the artwork. Adams and Wong did a fine job with the artwork on the main story and Cho rocked it on the back-up story.

However, Loeb’s writing was atrocious. The opening story was unbelievably stupid and read like was written by a six year old. Brother Voodoo appearing out of nowhere to magically get rid of all the Wendigos and then instantly disappearing from the scene was just terrible. Loeb’s take on Moon Knight’s character is awful. The version of Moon Knight that Loeb gives us is nothing like what we see of in Moon Knight’s monthly title.

The back-up story was not much better. All we learned is that the Red Hulk is recruiting a team and that he wants Thundra to be a part of his new team. I aWade Von Grawbadgerm rapidly losing my interest in Rulk. The only thing that was keeping me on this title was my curiosity in Rulk’s secret identity. However, the shallow stories, the lack of character work and slapdash dialogue has killed any interest I had in this title.

However, I had to give the Sequential Methadone Award for the worst read of the week to Ultimatum #2. I already properly skewered this mess of an issue in my review for it earlier this week. Suffice it to say that Ultimatum #2 was just an awful issue in practically every single aspect.

So congrats to Daredevil #114 for winning The Che Award of the week and “congrats” to Ultimatum #2 for winning the Sequential Methadone Award for the week.