Reviews for Avengers: the Children's Crusade #6, Batman Inc. #7 and more

Hello faithful readers.  It's a very short week this week.  I was hoping that I was going to get a couple in the mail, but with no mail coming on the 4th, it didn't look promising.  Anyways, it was a good week with only one sub par comic.  Lets get started.

Marvel Comics

Avengers: The Children's Crusade #6:  It's been three months this time?  The waits are getting longer and longer, but this series is amazing and always worth the wait.  #6 keeps that trend going.

The Scarlet Witch remembers who she is.  With the Young Avengers just standing there watching, Beast, Jessica Jones, and Hawkeye appear to help the situation.  Ultrons appear, mimicking the final issue of Avengers when Wanda killed a few team mates.  They realize she is trying to kill herself.  Wiccan talks her down, and she admits that Wiccan and Speed are her children.  Wanda realizes what she has to do:  make more mutants.  She first heads to X-Factor to heal Rictor.  And it works.  But the X-Men find Wanda, and do not look pleased.

The story seems like it could have ended with this issue, leaving a lot of potential stories open.  Wait, we have three more issues?  I'll take that instead.  Heinberg doesn't move the plot along that much, but the character arcs get the most attention.  There are only two scenes in this entire book, and you can't even tell until you reread the book. 

Cheung's art is his usual greatness.  The action looks amazing, the characters are expressive, and his storytelling abilities are some of the best.  Some of his characters looked a little rushed at some points.  For a book that only comes out between 4 or 5 times a year, I would hope this wouldn't be a problem.

Avengers: The Children's Crusade #6 gets 4.5/5

DC Comics

Batman Inc. #7:  This is the only book where each month a new character is introduced and I want an ongoing of that new character.  Grant Morrison is doing something special here.

In South Dakota, poverty is the normal.  But they have their hero, Man of Bats, to protect them.  Man of Bats is a doctor and his son, Raven, is his sidekick.  Unlike Batman, most of this town knows the man behind the mask.  Man of Bats and Raven try their best, but are having trouble keeping the peace.  Leviathan has spread it's tentacles to this small town.  Batman comes to recruit Man of Bats and Raven, but Man of Bats is set up for a trap.  Time for Batman and Raven to save him.

Most of this issue is about Man of Bats and Raven.  Morrison does a great job of quickly establishing who he is, why he does what he does, and how can be Batman on a budget.  It's even a great look at how a character like Batman could seem out of date in this day and age (outside of Gotham anyways).  It's fun to read, and as I said, I would love to see a Man of Bats ongoing or miniseries.  Hey DC, you have a ton of new ongoings, make one for Man of Bats.

Chris Burnham is simply a brilliant artist.  His art is very detailed (look at the Man of Bats cave) and expressive.  His art reminds me a lot of Tony Moore and Frank Quietly.  And the best part is he can do a monthly book.  I can't wait to see him pencil TRON Batman next month.

Batman Inc #7 gets 5/5

Marvel Comics

Incredible Hulks Annual #1:  The final annual of Marvels revival of cross story annuals is over.  And while the first two annuals were really good, Incredible Hulks Annual doesn't match up.

In this dimension, the Hulk was banished to Hell.  It turned into a weird creature while down there.  When Deadpool, Spider-Man, and Bruce Banner stumbled into this dimension, the same thing happened again.  The Hulk was banished to Hell, and Bruce became the Sorcerer Supreme.  The old Hulk and the new Hulk battle it out.  The Amazing Spider comes out of his coma and finds a way to get the group back to their dimension, so they take it.

This issue took a couple of read throughs to completely understand.  It's very confusing and not well explained.  It was a little fun to see the demon Hulk battle the Hulk we know, but it takes up to much of the story.  The whole Deadpool in disguise this just adds to the confusion as well.  The plot has some great ideas that would have been great if fleshed out more.

Al Barrionuevo's art doesn't match up to the art of the past two issues as well.  He seems to be channeling to many pencilers for there to be a consistent style.  There are a few pages where he seems to be looking to Bryan Hitch for reference.  There are some odd panel changes as well.

Incredible Hulks Annual #1 gets 2.5/5

Marvel Comics

Uncanny X-Men #539:  Kieron Gillen has been a master at Uncanny since he took over.  And #539 continues that trend with a one and done.

Hope decides to go shopping with the other Lights, but is kidnapped by Crimson Commando.  Crimson Commando was mutant, and lost his powers on M-Day.  He captured Hope so that she could give him his powers back.  Wolverine suits up and goes to rescue her.  He gets her out, but they are chased by Commando's men.  Hope pulls some good strategy and fights off the Commando.  Hope and Wolverine finally have a conversation about why Wolverine has been so cold to her as of late.

For a one and done, it moves a long a character arc perfectly and adds a good number of threads that should be great to pay off when the new volume starts in October.  Gillen shows his wide arrange of writing abilities by going from writing the stoic Wolverine to a few teenage girls chatting.  It all feels real and organic.  Crimson Commando is painted as a man going for a hail mary pass, and the reader really feels it.

Ibraim Roberson has been doing X-books for a while now, and Marvel should find a permanent home for him on one of those books.  The characters look great, and he draws the perfectly their age (a problem sometimes with teenage superheroes).  His Wolverine looks especially good.  Sometimes Wolvy doesn't look that menacing in his tights, but Roberson makes him look threatening still.

Uncanny X-Men #539 gets 5/5