Black Summer # 0, Uncanny X-men # 487, Omega Flight # 3

Black Summer # 0
Warren Ellis-Jose Van Ryp

Well if Civil War wasn't direct enough for you, you now have what could shape into a new Warren Ellis opus in Black Summer. Black Summer begins with one of our main heroes John Horus brutally murdering the entire white house with his bare hands then holding a press conference afterwards to announce new elections.

John Horus who is a part of something called the Guns, which is I guess something akin to maybe the Justice League of America in terms of being like America's super team, has decided that it would be right hypocritical of himself to stand by while the current administration commits grave injustice after grave injustice with complete impunity. And so he takes action. And now we have the setup for what looks to be a completely brilliant book.

This book looks to be a meditation on just how strong the so called American ideals really are. If after being given a chance to remake our government over completely fairly, will we turn it all into a police state, devolve into Civil War, or I don't know...actually elect a government that somewhat upholds the ideas and notions the country was supposedly founded upon.

The book is less political in the terms of Liberal and Conservative, and more ideological in terms of it's about the marketplace of ideas. So I think regardless of your political leanings there is food for thought here. You figure Bush's approval raiting is crawling around in the upper 20's or so, and there really can't be that many people for whom his brutal murder in a work of fiction is that upsetting. But we'll see.

The art by Jose Van Ryp is very good, and highly detailed. I enjoyed the look of the book as much as the ideas presented in it.

This is definitely one of those books where Warren Ellis appears to be writing unchained, so it's a very easy recommendation. As with any great Ellis project my only criticism is more like a concern, I worry about him finishing this before he gets bored. He's notorious for starting fast and furious then letting his books fizzle while he goes onto his next big thing. Focus Warren focus. Please. This could be a huge book. Could be Ellis' Preacher if he lets it be.

Uncanny X-men # 487
Ed Brubaker-Salvador Larocca

Everyone has their dislikes. Things that no matter how well done, how well prepared, you just plain won't like it just because of it's basic premise. For me some of my dislikes are broccoli, Ron Howard movies, and X-men in space stories. So here you have this great team of Brubaker and Larocca, who are just fantastic--Brubaker may be the top story teller AT marvel right now, and Larocca makes very pretty pictures--and they decide they are going to tell a huge year long space opera starring the freaking X-men.

I mean don't get me wrong, I love comic book space operas. I loved Annihilation. But I've always in my head considered the X-men a disorganized earth bound team, that when they get into space, it just gets really silly. So I was really sad that I basically could not enjoy or read Uncanny for the longest time. Until now. Because the Uncanny X-men ARE BACK ON EARTH!!! Wooo! Yeah! Party time! Time to really put the rubber to the road and get going with these stories.

The art is of course amazing and fantastic. Storm makes an appearence and is....amazing and fantastic(which brings up another point, Spider-man in space bad, Fantastic Four in space Great!). The story is kind of a setup for the next big X-event involving the Marauders, which we'll see how that goes.

But yeah. X-men are back on earth. It's the start of a whole new arc. Now is the time to jump aboard this book. So get going!

Omega Flight # 3
Michael Avon Oeming-Scott Kolins

All I will say about this book is HURRY IT UP. Jesus Christ. It's issue 3 of 5, and apparently that's pretty much going to be the whole series--and we are STILL setting up the team. Even my English majoring ass can figure out that means we're over half way through the entire story, and we still don't have the team set up.

I know someone else who made this mistake and screwed up what could have been a good story. His name is Neil Gaiman, and the book was The Eternals. This is a book, that anyone at Marvel who is actually reading it's content needs to extent by another five issues. Because we're still going to have to be doing setup in issue four. At this rate, all I can say is issue 5 better be one heck of a conclusion.

I mean. It's a good book, okay. But there are a TON of superhero team books coming out of Marvel right now, and when you know this one is only going to be here for a short time, and it really hasn't even begun to start--you wonder why you're wasting your time.

Get with it guys! Time is running out. I loved this book. Please don't let it be another Eternals.