Marvel, $1.95
Short Review: Bad, Bad, Bad.
I always swore, back when I was enthusiastically reading Hulk and X-Factor, that I'd give Peter David at least three issues leeway, if ever my interest started to flag. Well, I now rescind the offer. This issue, along with its twin last month, have contained 50 percent more rubbish that I believed possible to fit into a comic, and I'm bailing out.
So, this issue, Bruce fights the Abomination, and apparently wins. There's a lot of heavy contrasting of the two, subtle as a sledgehammer, and a lot of generic fight dialogue. There's a Deus Ex Machina wandering 'round in the middle, and more clumsy soul-searching than you can wave a stick at. The worst part of the comic, though, is Liam Sharp's pencils, which drift between the worst bits of Kevin O'Neill and Simon Bisley, stopping off in Babe-land whenever vaguely plausible, and then some more. Drifting musculature, biceps twice the size of the head, god-awful layouts; you name it, it's here.
The next issue will be the first with a new inker (Yay!), Peter David's hundredth issue, and the return of the Punisher, whose last meeting with Bruce I remember warmly. All good reasons to expect a passable book. But I won't ever know, because any book that drops this low, gets dropped.
Andrew These reviews are copyright the authors