Long Box: Jan. 21, 2009

Not much in the way of comics for me today, although the day's big release managed to make up for it. I'm also including my review of issue #3 of No Hero, which has been out officially for a few weeks now but is kind of hard to come by since it's published independently. Here's the week in review:

Dark Avengers #1
It would have been easy to pass this one by, had the week not been so devoid of comics that I read. However, Bendis and Deodato manage to deliver a book that does everything it promises to, and is entirely worth the extra dollar it costs. The concept is inherently very cool; a group of villains masquerading as heroes with Norman Osborn as the mastermind. The question on everyone's mind when this series was initially announced was who would populate the lineup, a question that Bendis deftly answers throughout this issue. My only qualm is with how Osborn takes a villain like Venom or Wolverine's son and recasts them as Spiderman and Wolverine respectively. It seems to me that the public would figure out that these impostors weren't the real deal pretty quickly, but maybe there will be explanations of how this works in future issues. The identity of the Iron Patriot will surprise no one, but is nevertheless a very interesting choice. Marvel, you've got my four bucks for the next few months if you keep this up. Definitely worth picking up if you're an Avengers fan or just want to keep abreast of the current Marvel U storyline.

No Hero #3
The fact that this issue kicks off with four two-page spreads depicting the various hallucinations of the main character should give you an idea of just how slow the story is going. As usual, Juan Jose Ryp's art goes above and beyond the level of detail you expect from a comic book, it's beautiful stuff that almost distracts the reader from the story. The problem with this issue is that the transformation to superhero seems to be taking a bit too long. I was under the impression that we'd get to see the main character heading out on his first mission in this issue, but instead we're subjected to alot of face-time with Carrick and yet another superhero killing. By the time we get to see this guy become a hero, there aren't going to be any others left at this rate! For the time being, the growing conspiracy against the Front Line is interesting, but we still haven't seen much action. And with art as good as this, it seems a shame to waste it on drawings of people standing around in buildings. Hopefully things will pick up from here, but the last few panels suggest that next issue might just be more hallucinations...