Finally read everything I think, tier list by
Savage Critic standards(Excellent!, Very Good!, Good!, Okay!, Eh!, Awful!, Crap!)
Excellent!
Miracleman #11 - And now we have finally reached Book 3, the third act of Alan Moore's original deconstruction of the superhero comic. Now, 30 years later when everybody and their mom have deconstructed superhero book until it became the default mode in some schools of thought, the idea of it might not seem so impressive. And while the story is decisively Good-to-Very Good in the first 10 issues, the first few are from an anthology series and have really heavy early-80s Alan Moore prose that isn't that great tbh(THE TIGER EYES!!!), and the middle ones, when the prose dies down a bit, have some frankly not good artwork by Chuck Austen which is a big downgrade from Alan Davis and Gary Leach. Rick Veich came on a couple issues ago and it was good, but now. NOW we have reached the Miracleman of legend. These final few issues by Moore and Totleben are some of the best superhero comics ever, period. This is post-Watchmen/Saga of Swamp Thing Alan Moore and Totleben, working at a level that's incredibly rare in any era. Would be book of the month alongside Copra and Stray Bullets if I voted for that kind of thing.
Very Good!
The Fade Out #2 - Phillips/Breitweiser
Silver Surfer #6 - Why is this so good when ASM is bad
Uber #18
Good!
Thor #1 - Not a lot of new Thor in this one, but good first issue anyway. Had to get everybody up to speed with the Hammer/Asgardia situation, properly places the more exciting underwater scenes as bookends to the exposition. The lost of Ribic's fantasy magazine cover grandeur did not go unnoticed, but the art team of Dauterman/Wilson acquit themselves very handily. Asgardians standing around on the moon is about as interesting as thats ever gonna look, and the required action is delivered with an apolmb of flash that never forgets the storytelling(the long horizontal panel of Thor slashing left to right, cape and magic flowing is a good read, as are the angled panels for sudden jolts of momentum or intrusion into the world).
Uncanny Avengers #25 - And thus ends an overall Very Good! run of dumb fun superhero comics. Here's to hoping AXIS doesn't suck and Acuna can stick around for Astonishing Avengers or whatever they end up calling the sequel.
Captain America #25 - This one was different from Remender's other 25 issue Marvel series, in that it started off Very Good! then went down to OK! suddenly and has bounced around from Eh! to Good! ever since. Looking at it as a whole, including the pretty darn decent spy adventure miniseries The Bitter March, this ended up being a Good! longform Captain America story. One I think is gonna hold up pretty well when you read it as one thing, and I like Falcon-Cap already, especially when Stuart Immonen is drawing him. I'm also sucker for Hydra, dastardly neo-Nazi James Bond supervillians and faceless colored-coded henchmen, all that shit. AND now I can start picking up Al Ewing's Captain America and the Mighty Avengers cuz Luke Ross is there with a decent colorist! Thumbs up everyone
Grayson #3 - Can't get enough Dick
Okay!
Gotham Academy #1 - Perfectly fine pilot type thing, if that's your thing
Bucky Barnes #1 - I like what you're trying to do Marco Rudy but...no. Kot is better at the spy stuff at the beginning then he is with the buddy banter stuff in the second half.
Eh!
Men of Wraith #1 - Feels like Ron Garney came up to Jason Aaron and was like, "ey my nigga, I REALLY need a paycheck right now, you know we go back man why you got to shut me out of Thor man" and Jason was like "fine, let me just grab one of my scrap scripts from the ground that never went past 'ape 70s crime movies' phase and let me talk to Alonso. When creators talk, he listens."
Ghost Thief 2: #4 - And so ends a disappointing sequel to one of my favorite comics last year. At least Greg Smallwood showed up.
Awful!
Edge of Spider-Verse #4 - Yeah, this is a pretty hit or miss series. The first two were legit tho
Crap!
God Hates Astronauts #1-2 - Profanity. lolcats. Forced memes. Bestiality. More profanity. Ha Ha.
T-R-A-S-H. Grade: F. Minus Five Stars.