Weekly Awards For The Comic Books From September 4, 2008

All right, let’s go ahead and dish out The Revolution’s weekly awards.
The nominees for the Che for the best read of the week:

Detective Comics #848
Nightwing #148

The Winner: Nightwing #148

This week was full of pedestrian reads. Last week we had a crowded field for the Che. Not so this week. Detective Comics #848 was another quality effort by Dini. Both Thom and I enjoyed this issue as evidenced by The Revolution’s review. Dini’s story on Detective Comics is a nice balance to the style of story that Morrison is giving us on Batman. Readers who dislike Morrison’s version of Batman would probably enjoy Dini’s version of Batman.

However, I had to give the Che for the best read of the week to Nightwing #148. I might have liked the story itself a bit more in Detective Comics #848, but the artwork was much better in Nightwing #148 than what we got in Detective Comics #848.

Tomasi continues to do an impressive job on Nightwing. This is a title that was dead and buried during the One Year Later event. Tomasi had a hard task of trying to revive Nightwing and he deserves plenty of credit for making Nightwing a solid read each month.

My favorite aspect of Nightwing #148 was the relationship between Alfred and Dick. Tomasi did a wonderful job showing the fatherly love that Alfred has for Dick as he diligently works to remove the bullets from Dick’s shoulder and then sits quietly by Dick’s side while holding his hand.

The most powerful part of this issue was when Alfred finishes up the surgery and then washes off and returns back to Dick’s side. Tomasi widely chooses to have no dialogue or narration at all during these three pages. Instead, Tomasi lets Morales use his artwork to tell the story to the reader.

Most writers are so in love with their own voices that they rarely shut up and let the artist carry the story for several pages. The reader gets a wonderful sense for the stress that Alfred has been under now that Bruce is gone. The last thing Alfred wants to see is something happen to one of his boys in Dick and Tim.

And now the nominees for the Sequential Methadone Award for the worst read of the week:

Secret Six #1
Titans #4
X-Men: Manifest Destiny #1

The Winner: Titans #4

Secret Six #1 was a real disappointment. I had high hopes for this title. Instead, Simone turned in a passionless and robotic read that had a dull and generic quality to it. The story was predictable. The dialogue was stiff and mechanical. There was very little character work as the characters came across as caricatures rather than three-dimensional people.

The use of the Aryan Nation gang members garnered this issue an automatic 2 point deduction for violating The Revolution’s Nazi Rule. I have done criminal work before and I dealt with all types of gang members, but I never recall ever dealing with a white supremacist gang member. This type of villain seems ever-present in the world of comic books despite the fact that I have never run across one in the real world.

All in all, Secret Six #1 had a generic and unimaginative feel to it. It seemed like Simone just phoned it in with this issue. I think Simone is a talented writer so I will give her another issue or two on Secret Six in order to win me over.

X-Men: Manifest Destiny #1 was another massive disappointment. This “sampler” issue came off as just a poorly conceived money grabbing move by Marvel. The first story was solid, but nothing spectacular. I like Iceman, however, this goofy plotline involving Mystique failed to grab my attention when it was first introduced. The second story starring Boom Boom was unbelievably stupid and pure filler. The third story starring Karma was dull and boring. None of the artwork was anything out of the ordinary.

Still, in the end, I simply had to give the Sequential Methadone Award of the week to Titans #4. This title is flat out hideous. I already dressed down this issue in my review. Suffice it to say that Winick has done less with more on this title. I never thought that I would not enjoy a title starring my all-time favorite version of the Teen Titans. This roster is the ultimate collection of Titans. It does not get any better than the classic Wolfman/Perez line-up.

But, despite the strong roster of characters, Winick has still managed to screw the pooch on this title by giving us a story that is thin and boring and that lacks any character work or well crafted dialogue.

So congrats to Nightwing #148 for winning The Che Award of the week and “congrats” to Titans #4 for winning the Sequential Methadone Award for the week.

2 thoughts on “Weekly Awards For The Comic Books From September 4, 2008

  1. Bad as Titans was, you have to admit it was better than the other titan book out last week. Why introduce wendy and marvin and then have them killed off. It’s like he was trying to take something beloved from my childhood and made a big ol’ poop on it. And my kids have gotten poop on my things, but this hurt worse.

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