Rusty’s Comic of the Week: Fables #136

Rusty’s Comic of the Week: Fables #136 | January 5, 2014

The first week of 2014 (though I think these comics were actually released on New Year’s Eve… whatever…they kick off 2014 for me).

It was mother small week but I understand that next week will make up for it.

Starting at the weakest.

NEW AVENGERS #13 (Hickman / Bianchi / Dall’alpi) Marvel

Wait, didn’t I cancel this book. Sigh. I messed up and bought another issue.

Nothing in this made me regret the decision to stop buying this title.

(Me, not buying an Avengers book? Has it come to this? PLEASE, get Hickman off the Avengers. He is ruining the franchise.)

(Thankfully Mighty Avengers exists. Despite the Greg Land art.)

ROCKET GIRL #3 (Brandon Montclare / Amy Reeder) Image

While this book is good, it is still disappointing to me. It seems that with every issue, Reeder drifts further away from the amazing artist who did Madame Xanadu and more towards a cliche-manga-style artist. That is a real shame. She was incredibly good.

She is still not bad, but it feels like a step backwards.

DEAD BOY DETECTIVES #1 (Toby Litt / Mark Buckingham / Gary Erskine) Vertigo

I expected this book to top the list, and it easily could have. Charles and Edwin are great as always and the new character, Crystal, seems really engaging. Great characters, great art, great comic? Well, not quite. Litt and Buckingham are making a big mistake in the return to St. Hilarion’s. It isn’t that going back is a bad idea, it is that they are turning it into some sort of pseudo-super-villain front for a horrible criminal plot.

What made the school so horrible is that it was so awful, and so normal. You could SEE this happening. You could BELIEVE it. It was REAL.

Mistake guys. Don’t go there. Seeing the Headmaster sitting in front of the bank of monitors was jarring at best, and comic destroying at worst.

SUPERIOR FOES OF SPIDER-MAN #7 (Spencer / Lieber / Rosenberg) Marvel

After seeing this book appear on so many rave lists, I decided to give it a try… and I am glad I did! Woo! The was great book! This issue was a back-story for the new Beetle and it worked in every way! Feminism in the criminal underworld! Why not? Complete with the ultimate old-school baddy (in attitude), Tombstone!

While this was not AS good, this book felt like the way Hawkeye reads, if you get what I am saying.

FABLES #136 (Willingham / Buckingham / Braun) Vertigo

If the Knights of the Round Table story going on the best arc in Fables history? Well, probably not, but it is certainly the best in the last… two-thirds of its run. Rose Red learned some interesting things this issue and we had some revelations that included the identity of a prospective knight (Sir None?), and a mystery about one of Snow White’s sons. This was just great, great stuff. (Too bad Brandish is in it, as he is a reminder that Fables was not always at these heights.)

Not that Fables has been awful or anything. It hasn’t. But there is a difference between good and great.

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