Let’s go ALL IN with DC … Week 27! (Plus: an added bonus!)

Only one DC comic this week, but Marvel had a comic out this week that I was interested in, so I check that out as well. It’s a cornucopia!

Fire & Ice: When Hell Freezes Over #1 by Joanne Starer, Stephen Byrne, and Ariana Maher. $3.99, 20 pgs, DC.

I wasn’t terribly impressed with the first mini-series about Bea and Tora’s misadventures in Kansas, but I guess it sold well enough to get a sequel, so here we are. I’m undecided about getting the trade of this, but it is a #1 issue and it’s part of ALL IN, so I picked it up. Byrne’s art is still in the cartoony vein of Natacha Bustos, who drew the first series, but Byrne is a better artist than Bustos, so the characters, for instance, look more like real people while still retaining a slightly cartoony vibe. He does a really good job making the obnoxiously woke douchebro obnoxious just by his facial expressions, which is a nice thing (I mean, the words coming out of his mouth are obnoxious, but Byrne does well to add to it). His expressions overall are quite good, and in an issue like this, which is light on the action but heavy on the set-up, that’s an asset.

Starer continues with the set-up from the first series, as Tora and Bea are in Kansas in the town of “New Kooey,” which is what Kooey Kooey Kooey turned into at the end of the series. They were invited back into the Justice League (“They gave us membership cards,” says Bea), but it wasn’t the wonderful reunion they wanted, plus they switched powers with each other, so they’re back in Kansas trying to live and figure out how to use the others’ powers. Starer makes a good point – it seems easy to switch from fire powers to ice powers, but Bea and Tora are different people, and they use their powers differently, and they can’t use their new powers in the same way. So that’s interesting. The issue is almost all set-up, though, as we get Martha Kent in town working for Kord Industries, which is building stuff in New Kooey; the douchebro “ally” who is obviously a villain (even the characters recognize this); Bea throwing a party for all her lady friends, including Dr. Light (whom I was wondering about recently, so good to see her!); Bea doing something irresponsible to try to get her powers back; and some consequences of that action. As with the last series, Starer relies heavily on the “Bea is an immature doofus” characterization that I do like at all, but this is relatively inoffensive fun. I wouldn’t think it would be so popular that it would give us another mini-series, but I didn’t think that about the first one, either, and here we are.

I really want to like this kind of light comedic comic, especially because it stars one of my favorite characters. It’s just not that inspired, unfortunately. Of course, you might dig it, which will lead you to go ALL IN with Fire & Ice!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel (I apologize for the size; I haven’t figured that out with my workaround):

Amazing Spider-Man #1 by Joe Kelly, Pepe Larraz, Marte Gracia, Joe Caramagna, John Romita Jr., Scott Hanna, and Marcio Menyz. $5.99, 26 pgs, Marvel.

As you might recall, I do like Spider-Man a lot, I just haven’t read his comic in years because Marvel let it metastasize all over the place and I can’t keep up. They do with every title they have, of course, and that’s why I don’t buy a lot of Marvel books, and it kind of bugs me, because I do like Spidey, especially. But there’s a new #1 issue, so I figured I’d give it a look!

Well, it’s fine. It’s just a Spider-Man comic, which is both good and bad. On the one hand, Kelly does a decent job getting new readers up on the status quo, and he introduces a sinister new plot while also allowing Spidey to have a big fight (against the Rhino). The Rhino is a part of the big plot, but it seems like he’s definitely an unwitting and unwilling participant, and Kelly does a good job setting this all up. On the other hand, why is this a #1 issue? It’s not really a super-duper status quo change, as Peter is still hanging out far too much with his aunt, going on dates with women not named Mary Jane, fighting villains he knows very well, and getting targeted by characters from the 1970s (I think he’s from the 1970s, or the 1980s at the latest). I mean, it’s fine. We need a back-up story to justify the higher price tag, so we get Romita drawing a quick story about Nice Guy Norman Osborn trying to hold a redemption press conference and getting attacked by a cyborg with a tenuous grasp of Latin. Norman thinks about beating the shit out of the cyborg (who was, it seems, once an actual human, but the Green Goblin killed his wife and I guess he got enhancements so he could kill Osborn?), but he’s a Nice Guy now, so he stops. It’s just a way to introduce Nice Guy Norman, but I find it hilarious that in the Marvel Universe, reporters can go to a press conference, have a cyborg try to kill Osborn, have Osborn stop him, and nobody bats an eye. “What’d you do at work today, honey?” “Oh, covered the Osborn press conference. Some cyborg tried to kill him.” “That’s nice. Do you have time to watch NCIS tonight?”

Larraz is superb, although because of Marvel’s ridiculous commitment to publishing as many Spider-Man comics as they can, I imagine he will show up for an issue or two, disappear for a while, then show up six months later for another issue or two. Sigh. Spidey’s brief fight with the Rhino is marvelous, and when he goes to the Rhino’s apartment later to investigate, Larraz does a really nice job slowly ratcheting up the tension. The final double-page spread is amazing, although it does come out of nowhere just a bit. Romita is the “back-up” artist, and he does his usual yeomanlike work. Back in the day, Romita seemed to one of those artists whose work did not mesh well with the digital coloring of Frank Martin and Dean White and their unholy minions, but like a lot of older artists, once the digital colorists started to refine their skills, Romita’s art returned to looking good, at least if you like Romita’s art (which I know is not for everyone).

I don’t love the fact that Peter is looking for a job, although I do like that a lot of people know who he is and don’t want to hire him. I’ve never liked the de-maturing of Peter, but such is life. Kelly does a decent job with Peter’s life, even if it’s not the correct life for him. I always like Spider-Man comics that focus a lot on Peter’s life, so this was good to see.

Nick Lowe, apparently without irony, writes in the back that Marvel does not take #1 issues lightly, but he doesn’t really give much of a reason for this new #1 except that Joe Kelly is now the regular writer. The “legacy number” is #965, so I imagine sometime next year we’ll get a “#1000” issue. Won’t that be nice? Anyway, this is a perfectly decent issue of ASM. And … it still won’t get to buy the series. I’m so fickle!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

That’s that for this week. I don’t know how many more of these things DC is planning, but maybe next week I’ll be back? We shall see! Have a great day, everyone!