Comics of September 18, 2017

This post is later than usual because I’m currently on vacation in my nation’s capital, Ottawa. As such, there won’t be full reviews this week. Instead, here’s a slightly more detailed first impressions post than usual. It’s been nice so far, with a great walk in a national park this afternoon, a visit to the National History museum, and a fairly nice two-bedroom hotel room with fantastic croissants for breakfast. But anyway, let’s get to it.

The comics I picked up this week include Captain Phasma 4, Generation X 7, Cable 150, The Mighty Thor 700, Super Sons 9 and Superman 33.

Captain Phasma 4, written by Kelly Thompson, with art by Marco Checchetto and colouring by Andres Mossa is great. It concludes Phasma’s hunt for the officer who knows she disabled the shields. It shows her brutality, her efficiency, and gives us a glimpse into her general worldview.  I’ve said this before in my review of earlier issues, but if this is any indication of what we’ll see from her in The Last Jedi two months from now, we’re in for a treat. The art is breathtaking as well. Those looking forward to the next Star Wars movie will likely enjoy this mini-series.

Generation X 7, written by Christina Strain, art by Eric Koda and colouring by Felipe Sobreiro is fun. It’s the second issue in a 2-part quick story where three of the Generation X kids. Quentin Quire comes up with a pretty good plan with how to steal new nanosentinels, and one that leads to some great humour and some good character development for Benjamin Deeds and new kid Hindsight. There’s also a nice quick moment between Jubilee and Chamber. The only problem with this issue is the art – it’s kind of bad. The colouring is perfectly fine though.

Cable 150 is a fun introduction to a new direction for the series with a new creative team. We’ve got Ed Brisson writing, Jon Malin on art and Jesus Aburtov on colours. It mostly focuses on Cable building up a small team that will most definitely expand in the next few issues, while also investigating the apparent death of an External. There’s some fun humour, a great action scene between Cable’s incomplete squad and Selene, and an intense cliffhanger ending. It looks like this’ll be a fun new take on Cable’s New Mutants group. The art is great too – it’s kind of reminiscent of 90’s style art, but it’s also well-detailed and extremely well shaded with the colouring. Check it out if Cable leading a team of characters from earlier in their lives than they are now interests you.

The Mighty Thor 700 is a collection of different, somewhat interconnecting stories in the Thor mythos. Included is a huge team of artists, each drawing the different stories within. Not sure what else to say about this one. If you’ve been enjoying Jason Aaron’s run on Thor, this is definitely worth picking up.

Super Sons 9, written by Peter J. Tomasi, drawn by Jorge Jimenez and Carmine Di Giandomenico and coloured by Alejandro Sanchez and Ivan Plascencia, is fun. It concludes a quick story where Superboy and Robin were somehow transported into an alternate universe mostly made of clay. In my read during a car ride I found some of the story specifics a bit confusing, so I’ll probably need to re-read the comic after I get home (I’m a terrible multi-tasker). Still, it’s worth checking out if you’ve enjoyed Super Sons so far.

Superman 33 is good. It kicks off a new story arc, with Peter J Tomasi and Patrick Gleason finally returning as the lead writers after several arcs of guest creative teams. Douge Mahnke is on art, with Wil Quintana on colouring. The first half of the comic shows Superman and Lex Luthor being superheroes together, and actually getting along quite well. After Lex Luthor is taken to Apokolypse though, things get out of hand for everyone. I’m kind of excited to see where this story arc is going, and what it could mean for Lex Luthor’s real intentions, his apparent new friendship with Superman (which is focused more on in Action Comics than in this series so far) and how the situation on Apokolypse will affect Superman and his family. Especially since the end of the comic saw them each teleported to different parts of the planet. Fantastic art too. This is an easy recommendation for those enjoying Superman so far, and it’s also a good starting point.