Weekly Awards For The Comic Books From March 5, 2008

Let’s go ahead and dish out The Revolution’s weekly awards.

The nominees for the Che for the best read of the week:

Green Lantern #28
Moon Knight #16

The Winner: Green Lantern #28

Unlike last week, this week was a really easy pick. There were plenty of solid and serviceable reads this past week, but not too many that were anything special. Moon Knight #16 was another fine read. Moon Knight is a balanced title that combines hardcore violence along with well crafted dialogue and excellent character work. If you enjoy dark and mentally unstable heroes then I would definitely recommend giving Moon Knight a try.

However, I had to hand the Che to Green Lantern #28. I’ve already posted a review for this issue, so I’m not going to re-hash how much I enjoy what Johns is doing on this title. Suffice it to say that Green Lantern is without a doubt DC’s heavy hitter at the moment and is well worth your hard earned money.

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

Amazing Spider-Man #552
Countdown to Final Crisis #8
The Twelve #3

The Winner: The Twelve #3

Amazing Spider-Man #552 was another disappointing read. I didn’t think that Amazing Spider-Man could get much worse than the plodding, pointless, preachy and dull reads that JMS was giving us during and after Civil War. It looks like I was wrong. This current version of Amazing Spider-Man is quite lacking in depth and complexity. Amazing Spider-Man has rapidly become a much more juvenile title.

Countdown to Final Crisis #8 was a pretty disappointing read. I really thought that Dini had turned the corner on this title and was going to be able to salvage a decent ending out of this wreckage of a title. Unfortunately, Dini coughed up a real clunker of a read with Countdown to Final Crisis #8. I’m sure that Dan Didio will be pleased to see that his beloved Countdown is once again in the running for the Sequential Methadone Award. It has been several weeks since this title has gotten this prestigious nomination.

However, there was only one title that I could give the Sequential Methadone Award to this week. This title practically shouted at me to give it this award. Yup, I’m talking about The Twelve #3. I had my reservations about this issue last week when I mentioned that it appeared that JMS was falling prey to the three “P’s” that frequently plague many of his titles. The three “P’s” being plodding, predictable and preachy. The Twelve was certainly displayed the three “P’s” in full force.

The Twelve #3 was a painfully slow read and we go another issue without anything at all happening. We have gone through three issues and JMS has pretty much failed to advance a single plotline. On the other hand, JMS has managed to hop up on his soapbox and five plenty of random preaching. I’m convinced that JMS views comic books as simply vehicles for him to randomly preach about various societal ills either past or present. Personally, I have always viewed the primary purpose of a super hero comic book as something that is supposed to entertain the reader. You know, escapism. The process of taking me away from the crappy world that I have to live in day after day.

The entire plotline with Mr. E changing his name so it wouldn’t sound Jewish so he could make money and get into the country club in pre-WW II America was a total miss with me. Yeah, back in the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s there were many Italians and Jews who felt that they had to adopt more Anglo sounding last names. Dean Martin’s real name was Dino Crocetti. Tony Bennett’s real name was Anthony Benedetto. It happened. Is it lame that people had to do such things back in the day just to advance their careers? Yeah. But, this isn’t a relevant, current or interesting philosophical debate that would intrigue me.

JMS’ handling of the characters for the most part has been disappointing. And Mr. E and Dynamic Man back up by fear that I had that JMS would simply use these Golden Age characters literary tools to launch his personal attacks on the “Greatest Generation” that fought in World War II. Like many “Baby Boomers”, JMS has his axe to grind with that previous generation. It is a shame that JMS is using The Twelve to tear down and mock these Golden Age characters rather than celebrate what is so enjoyable about the Golden Age of comics.

Of course, I can skip over JMS’ preaching and crying as long as he serves up a tightly paces issue full of interesting plotlines. And this leads me to the main problem with The Twelve. The fact is that The Twelve is a horridly paced and plotted on this title. This is seriously one mind numbingly slow moving title that has practically no interesting plotlines at all. And the precious few plotlines that JMS has bothered to nurture, none of them have had any progression at all over the first three issues. The Twelve is only twelve issues long and we have already wasted three issue doing nothing at all other than suffering through JMS’ rambling, preachy and pontificating monologues. At this point, Krueger’s Project Super Powers is absolutely bitch slapping JMS’s The Twelve.

So congrats to Green Lantern #28 for winning the Che for the week and congrats to The Twelve #3 for winning the Sequential Methadone Award for the week.