To my regular readers, sorry I didn’t post much this week. As I think I’ve mentioned before, life has just gotten really busy for some reason. I dunno. Anyway, some solid comics came out this week so I figured I’d review a bunch of them, like Absolute Flash and Amazing Spider-Man.

Comic Book of the Week goes to Wonder Woman #21 because this series remains an absolute banger.

Meanwhile, I’m still making my way slowly through Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which is quite fun. With no Grand Theft Auto VI later this year, I need to stretch out my gaming so I’m not spending too much money. And I can really take my time with this one. My parents have also given me their old TV (we siblings bought them a big, new one for Christmas!), so now I’m playing games on a big TV instead of my computer monitor, which I’ve been doing for years. We’ll see if I like the change.

Comic Reviews: Absolute Flash #3, Amazing Spider-Man #4, Exceptional X-Men #9 and Wonder Woman #21.

Absolute Flash #3
Writer: Jeff Lemire
Artist: Nick Robles
Colorist: Adriano Lucas
Letterer: Tom Napolitano

Absolute Flash won me over last issue, but it starts to lose me again with this issue.

Wally is still on the run and we see that, when he first fled the lab, his speed trail dragged Barry’s corpse along with him to that cave. The Rogues send Grodd the psychic monkey after Wally and Grodd and Wally instantly bond over shared life experiences. The new duo then take on the Rogues and Wally feels freer…so he strips Barry’s corpse so that he has a neat superhero costume to wear.

Comic Rating: 7/10 – Good.

This issue does a fine job of continuing the narrative that was set up in the previous two issues, but some choices threw me for a loop and I lost a bit of connection with the story. The big one is Absolute Grodd. I’m no purist. If they want to really shake up Gorilla Grodd for the Absolute Universe, that’s fine by me. But a weird, psychic monkey that instantly bonds with Wally and becomes his little animal sidekick? It was a little too weird and a little too abrupt for me. Like, why do they even have that monkey if the first thing it’s going to do is switch sides to the target? Why put it in the field? I’m not opposed to the idea of Wally having an animal sidekick…even if, surely, it would be weird with him running like that? Grodd can just hang on with no adverse effects? Maybe I’m nitpicking too much.

This issue felt a little rushed. Everything wraps up nicely by the end, with the Rogues dealt with and Wally feeling free and clear-headed. Which wouldn’t be too much of a problem, except that the first two issues set up a much deeper crisis for the lad, and now he’s just over it. And he gets over it by stripping Barry’s corpse of that suit and then putting it on himself. What was the thought process there?! It’s not like Wally’s clothes have been torn off from his speed. Did he know he’d need a superhero suit? Did he really think stripping a corpse would be his best option? And then the suit worn by an adult man is skintight on a teenage boy? I wouldn’t be nitpicking this much if the story felt fuller and worked better. But, again, we just sort of speed through the wrap-up of this otherwise building story just so we can have a fully formed Flash by the end. I wouldn’t have minded more time.

Also, they should have named the monkey “Gleek” and save Grodd for an actual gorilla.

TL;DR: The opening story suddenly wraps up a bit too quickly and awkwardly for my tastes, but the writing and artwork remain very strong.

Amazing Spider-Man #4
Writer: Joe Kelly
Artist: Pepe Larraz
Colorist: Marte Gracia
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna

I hate that yet another Amazing Spider-Man series is losing me so quickly. I need to branch out and try other Spidey titles.

Spider-Man battles Hobgoblin, though most of the issue is told in flashback from a time when Peter and his rowdy friends tried beer and got drunk. Young Peter ended up puking in the toilet, and Aunt May was kind and compassionate towards the young lad, as expected. The flashbacks/memories help to sober Peter up while fighting Itsy Bitsy and he’s able to defeat her. Meanwhile, Peter’s pal at the lab has figured out the drugs are in soda and they’ve tipped off the feds, which Hobgoblin finds out about and goes after them. So Peter now has to race to stop Hobbie.

Comic Rating: 5/10 – Alright.

So here’s my problem with this issue, which is largely fine: it’s too soon in this relaunch to expect us to care about these emotional flashbacks. And that’s all they are: flashbacks. They help to explain who Peter’s new friend is, but we’ve barely spent any time with the guy, to the point that I don’t remember his name off the top of my head. And all we’ve seen of the guy in the present day is that he’s pretty cool and got Peter a good job. Granted, there’s plenty of time for the other shoe to drop, but this issue is trying to be a lot more than just set-up, and in my opinion, it falls flat.

Once upon a time in his youth, Peter made some rough and tumble friends who liked to swear and drink beer and hang out. And Peter paid the price by getting sick. And then Aunt May gave him a comforting lecture about those kinds of kids. And that’s that. This is a brand new wrinkle to Peter’s childhood, so we already know this short friendship with these kids and this one beer he drank meant absolutely nothing to Peter Parker’s life. And we already know Aunt May was a great parent, so no surprise there. But this issue goes through all these motions anyway, despite giving them no time in four issues to actually impact Peter’s present day life. Again, he’s barely spent any time with his new friend, whose name I refuse to Google while writing this review, and he’s barely spent any time at this new job.

In my opinion, this Amazing Spider-Man relaunch is putting the cart before the horse. It’s giving us all this information about this one period of Peter’s childhood, but doing absolutely nothing with it in the present day story for it to matter.

TL;DR: The new issue focuses far too much on flashbacks/memories without giving the reader any reason why these flashbacks/memories matter to the present day storyline.

Exceptional X-Men #9
Writer: Eve L. Ewing
Artist: Carmen Carnero
Colorist: Nolan Woodard
Letterer: VC’s Travis Lanham

This issue gets a little too sloppy for my liking.

The girls return Axo’s clone’s degenerated form to the dojo and Kitty figures out it’s Mister Sinister. The X-Men go after him, and Sinister uses an Iceman clone to bring the girls along after the fact. There’s a big, messy, kinda too hectic fight against Sinister before the good guys win, save Axo and Emma passes out.

Comic Rating: 5/10 – Alright.

The character stuff remains the best part of this series, and why I keep tuning in. But this issue is mostly about a superhero fight, and then it falls apart rather sloppily. So let’s start with the good: love the character work as the girls gather up the melted clone and bring it back to their mentors. There’s a really cute scene where Melee and Bronze discuss their team-up techniques. Loved that bit. And then there’s some nice dialogue and storytelling about the youngsters being X-Men and being ready to fight, versus Kitty’s desires in this series to stay away from all of that. So strong writing where it actually counts. And the artwork does a fine job keeping up with everything.

It’s the superhero fight where everything falls apart. I’ve already talked about how boring I found the twist that Mister Sinister was the bad guy in disguise. And it’s especially bothersome when everything previously set up around his fake identity and company is washed away just so we can engage in fisticuffs with Sinister. It doesn’t help that Sinister’s powers are never explained. Am I supposed to remember what he can do? There have been so many iterations of the man over the past few years. So I have no idea what the X-Men, young and old, are really up against. Sometimes they struggle, and sometimes they one-up him, but then so much else is going on around them that the fight is just really awkward. Especially since the fight is 5-v-1, but they still need to take turns?

And then we suddenly get another Iceman showing up?! The editorial note tells us to check out an issue of the recent Iceman comic, which I’m pretty sure I read, but I definitely don’t remember this point. And it serves no real purpose other than to, I guess, give Sinister some backup? But why go the route of introducing a second Iceman to the hectic battle scene? And why does this second Iceman bring the girls to the fight? Again, this whole thing is a big, sloppy, hectic mess and really brings the issue down. And very little of it involves Axo, who needs to be rescued and protected, so he doesn’t get any big moment of overcoming or defeating Sinister, despite the story being mostly about him.

TL;DR: A frantic, overpopulated and underchoreographed superhero fight just kinda mashes everything up.

Wonder Woman #21
Writer: Tom King
Artist: Guillem March
Letterer: Clayton Cowles

Eventually I’m going to come off like a broken record at how much I enjoy Tom King’s Wonder Woman.

With Batman out of commission due to a lightning bolt attack (hint hint), Wonder Woman continues the investigation herself into Ares’ murder. She interrogates Hephaestus, learns some new details from Aphrodite, and has another encounter with Dionysus before figuring out that Zeus was the killer. Also, Diana and Bruce share some friendly moments as he helps her grieve Steve Trevor.

Comic Rating: 8/10 – Very Good.

I liked the previous issue, and I liked this one too! With Batman out of the way, Wonder Woman gets to be the investigator and it’s fun. Granted, the mystery isn’t particularly clever or mysterious or tricksy or anything along those lines. Pretty straight forward, actually. But the joy of the story is in the characters and the dialogue, in the big moments and the smaller character stuff. And this issue nails all of that. I liked the bonding moments between Bruce and Diana when the story is turned back towards Steve Trevor. I liked Wonder Woman getting one over on the gods. I liked the reveal that Ares was a changed person after so many years as a super-villain. All of it was good.

TL;DR: This two-parter was very neat and this second half wraps everything up nicely with a focus on Wonder Woman being awesome and badass.

The comics I review in my Hench-Sized reviews are just the usual comics I grab from Comixology any given week, along with a few impulse buys I might try on a whim. So if there are any comics or series you’d like me to review each week, let me know in the comments.

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