ALL STAR WESTERN #16: Heh. Just kidding. This title has gone straight to hell. Not only has Hex been stuck in GothamCity instead of the west, he’s been doing battle with fucking Mr. Hyde, of all people. Can we please get DC to stop treating this title like it was a superhero book? It’s okay if Hex isn’t a part of the continuity. He doesn’t need to be. He’s in a completely different fucking era. That said, this panel is pretty cool. I’m thinking about making it the wallpaper for my desktop at work.
DARK SHADOWS #13: Here’s another one where I’m just kidding. (Yikes, maybe I should have done a Shit Shit for this one.) DARK SHADOWS is not sexy, it’s not violent, and it’s not gory. This title was off to a good start, but very quickly, Dynamite turned it from the gothic it was supposed to be to a blood-and-guts horror story. That said, I’m very excited for the return of Nicholas Blair. He is easily my favorite villain in the history of the show. Humbert Allen Astredo played him with such evil glee that one couldn’t help but enjoy the chaos he brought to the lives of beloved characters. It’s too bad he’s trapped in a really stupid story arc.
BEFORE WATCHMEN: OZYMANDIAS #5: All right, this book is, for the most part, lazily written. Len Wein is barely trying. However, I don’t give enough attention to artists in these columns, so I’d like to mention the kick-ass job Jae Lee has been doing on this book. The layouts are unlike anything in comic book history, and despite the mediocre writing, Lee manages to make this book look like a work of art. Okay, one good thing Wein did: he came up with a credible explanation for the existence of Bubastis, Ozymandias’s hybrid lynx pet.
CROSSED: BADLANDS #22: Now that all of that is out of the way, here is the best of this week’s Cool Shit. David Lapham reveals more about this Montana fellow and the rest of Amanda’s captors. It turns out that this weird bunch of people living underground have created their own make-believe land, where they dress up and roleplay to escape from the reality of their Crossed-infested world. Too bad two-thirds of this motley crew want to rape her. The other one wants to win her pussy through acts of kindness. In the meantime, it would seem that the Crossed have found a way into their little paradise . . . .