Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Weekly Rankings For 03/04/09

Here are this week’s comics ranked prior to reading them:

5. Gotham Gazette Batman Dead #1
4. Hulk Broken Worlds #1 of 2
3. Cable #12
2. Ultimate Hulk vs. Wolverine #3 of 6
1. Flash Gordon #4

I passed on Superman World of Krypton. After looking through it I decided I probably couldn’t stick with the concept for the next year. I picked up Gotham Gazette instead.

Here are the rankings after the first read through with a mini-review:

5. Cable #12

Swierczynski, McKelvie, Guru eFX & Olivetti

There were two things that came out of this: Hope figured out how to survive on her own for a while and Cyclops leaves a beckon of hope (not the person) for Cable at a time when he needs a boost. The artwork is shared and it becomes laughable as to how different the ages of Hope appears. She looks to be anywhere from six to eleven. The editors seemed to not be able to count hundreds of years as Cable ends up in the year 2972 and yet he’s jumped “millennia”. Plus everything is destroyed in the future except a PA turnpike road sign and the entire X-Mansion site. Go figure. I found the comic to be too much of a throwaway considered the big crossover hits next month.

4. Hulk Broken Worlds #1 of 2

Van Lente, Henry, Thomas, Trimpe, Benjamin, Latorre, David & Buchemi

Four short stories that pick up after the events of: 2099, House of M, Microverse and Future Imperfect. If you read those stories I suspect this comic would be pretty cool. I only read two and I therefore found half of the comic to be cool. The Future Imperfect piece is brilliant and ties in the events of the very end of that series into a subplot left open during that series. The Microverse piece just kind of enters the minds of the Hulk and Jarella and doesn’t really explore much more than their current state. The 2099 story deals with someone other than Banner as the Hulk and had the coolest art but having not followed the original story I was a little lost. The House of M story crammed an awful lot into the small amount of space and needed more room to breath. You have Betty, mutants, rebellion, it was tough to resolve everything quickly. This is probably for the Hulk completists.

3. Gotham Gazette Batman Dead? #1

Nicieza, Nguyen, March, Chriscross, McKelvie, Konat & McKenna

This comic visits four characters: Stephanie Brown, Vicki Vale, Leslie Thompkins and Harvey Bullock. It really just sets up the C list characters for the events in Battle for the Cowl. We wont know if this thing is even relevant until the end of the event. I liked it but I probably could have done fine without it. One thing this comic did well was establish Vicki Vale immediately as a player in Bruce Wayne’s life. I don’t remember when she left but I think that was a tall order and this story pulled it off well.

2. Ultimate Wolverine vs Hulk #3 of 6

Lindelof, Yu & McCaig

From the category of “Never thought I’d live to see the day” we have part three of this thing. For the most part it’s a one sided fight where Hulk pounds Wolverine. Hulk debates which leg to eat of Wolverine’s and we get walked through how Wolverine pushed Hulk’s buttons into a fight. It’s a decent issue but the first two were much better and I suspect the ending of this series will be as well. This smelled of an issue that’s in the middle of an arc. It’s just setting up the ending. Good but not great. If you don’t buy this issue because of the lateness you wont be missing much.

1. Flash Gordon #4

Deneen & Green

Flash wins over the Lion Men and Ming’s daughter. Dale gets real close with Ming and then starts coming to her senses. We get the intro of the people of Frigia and their leader Fria and we see some Panther Men as well as some of other creatures. The issue has a lot of political landscape being drawn out and a ton of character build up moments. It’s a great issue, though, it does have a little less action than the previous three. Still, this is a great series and this issue falls right in with the rest.