Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Weekly Rankings For 07/02/08

Here are this week’s comics ranked prior to reading them, based upon past performance and advance information released on each issue:

4. Astonishing X-Men #25
3. Cable #5
2. Batman #678
1. GI Joe America’s Elite #36

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

4. Cable #5
Swiercynski & Olivetti

Cable fights Bishop. Yes, again. The first arc wraps up and while the story provide some good character moments, particularly from Cable’s girl friend, the conclusion is just so sub par. I wont spoil how Cable escapes (you know he escapes otherwise the title would change names to Bishop for issue #6) but I will tell you that he doesn’t fix his time machine to get away. How he didn’t think of this in issue one is beyond me. Is he supposed to a soldier and all that? The artwork is pretty good for this issue. I personally don’t like the prospects for the next arc so I will most likely stop with this issue.

3. Astonishing X-Men #25
Ellis & Bianchi

The X-Men move to San Francisco and are now consultants with the police department. I like the prospects of the X-Men working as detectives on interesting cases. I personally don’t understand the roster composition. Does Wolverine really serve a purpose here other than being the butt of some jokes (other than being a cash cow)? I like the layout of the artwork with the overlapping, layered panels. The coloring, while dark, works well with me. I liked it for the story telling. This issue is riddled with bad jokes and interesting banter which can be great and awful at the same time. The comic has strong possibilities for the X team interactions. I didn’t read the comic’s previous arcs and I don’t seem to be any worse off for that. I liked this, but didn’t love it.

2. Batman #678
Morrison & Daniel

It appears I am better off for not following Batman all this time. I actually was intrigued by this issue. Granted, I couldn’t tell Tim from Dick scene to scene. And for the life of me I couldn’t figure out who was in the asylum or why Tim was constantly eating, but I liked the story. It left me confused enough that I want to read the next one and informed enough that I was entertained with the issue. The concept of Batman on drugs always is a good one. I love when Scarecrow would make him hallucinate and this follows that idea. I cant say this issue was the best thing I’ve read, but I felt it was a decent read. I realize all the other Bat fans probably hated this, but to someone coming in cold, like me, I expect not to know what any of the references mean or the villains. I actually thought it was good.

1. GI Joe America’s Elite #36
Powers, Bear, Shoyket, Quinn & Beaulieu

The end of the line for the comic. I am left wondering what the story was that this crew really wanted to tell because this one clearly got lightened up to leaving everything open for IDW to take over. Knowing that none of the main characters die what would make this comic great? Storm Shadow, Snake Eyes, Zartan and Firefly fighting? Hawk and Cobra Commander fighting? Flint killing his wife’s killer? Colton fighting Cobra Commander? This issue gives you a lot of that and more. However, the art is really bad. Bad in the sense that it is rushed and confusing. There is one scene where it appears Snake Eyes is fighting a woman and then on the next page you realize it’s Firefly. This issue contains some great twists and a couple of fringe characters seem to die. One or two characters re-emerge. The comic is really good. It sucks that this story got sacked with the license change, but hey, at least they tried and mostly told a really great GI Joe story.