by Ben Peirce
The Weekly Hit (and Miss) List is a rundown of the best and worst things I read this week regardless of their original publication date. It doesn’t have to be new – just new to me.
Happy New Year everyone and welcome back to the Hit List! Thanks for letting me take some time off to recharge, record a new episode and read some comics. It was much-needed, and now I’m back with a vengeance like Johnny Blaze – let’s get to it!
THE HITS
Invincible #86 | Image | Robert Kirkman (w) Cory Walker (a)
If you had to wipe out all of Germany to prevent the Holocaust, could you do it? That’s the ethical dilema facing the newly-appointed leader of the Coalition of Planets, Allen the Alien in Invincible #86. “What would you do” scenarios like this are the makings of great comicbooks and this issue dishes it up in typical Kirkman fashion – with tons of face-punching and loads of gratuitous bloodshed. Original series artist, Cory Walker is pinch-hitting for Ryan Ottley and looking great doing it while Invincible – which could have taken a backseat to all the Walking Dead hoopla – is kicking ass heading into 2012.
Uncanny X-Force #19 | Marvel | Rick Remender (w) Robbi Rodriguez (a)
I know I’m in the minority here, but I’m one of the few people who didn’t love the ending of the 8-part Dark Angel Saga. I think it was a brilliant concept and had some great moments, but the ending was a little too “crushing-your-head-with-mind-bending-science-fiction” for my tastes. That said, issue #19 was an epilogue of sorts that did a nice job of both grounding the story and giving it some context within the rest of the X-Men universe. And if you’re going to follow up Jerome Opeña on art, you better come correct. Robbie Rodriguez is more than up to the the task, and Dean White’s colors kept a consistent feel despite the change in pencils. If I had any qualms about continuing with Uncanny X-Force, this issue put them aside.
Superior #1-6 | Icon | Mark Millar (w) Leinil Yu (a)
If you didn’t listen to the last episode, shame on you. If you did, let me just say “Josh was right” and leave it at that. Can’t wait to see how this Millarworld mini-series wraps up next month!
THE MISSES
Voltron #1 | Dynamite | Brandon Thomas (w) Ariel Padilla (a)
THE GOOD: within the first 2 pages, we get Voltron throwing down against a giant kaiju monster.
THE BAD: pretty much everything else.
There’s a decent amount of action in this first issue but the corporate/political espionage backstory is a total snooze. Artist, Ariel Padilla has clearly attended the Chris Bachalo school of bizarre and confusing camera angles but his lines lack any of the style and soul of Bachalo’s work. The colors are bland and full of overly rendered airbrush effects. Everything looks shiny for no reason and in a lot of cases the work looks unfinished. Overall, this book did nothing to excite me, leaning too heavily on nostalgia to establish the characters which are otherwise sterile and generic. As a final nitpick, some genius decided to match the uniform colors of the “drivers” (they don’t actually “drive” – Voltron now seems to be a remote controlled drone of some sort … I know, don’t get me started) to the colors of the lions, robbing Voltron of the bizarre black-lion-driver-is-red-red-is-blue-and-blue-is-pink-for-some-reason charm that made it one of the most beloved poorly-translated wacky Japanese imports of our childhood.
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For everyone who’s been enjoying the Weekly Hit (& Miss) List, thank you for reading, commenting and supporting what we’re doing here at nearmintcomicshow.com. As you’ve probably noticed though, my weekly review column has been coming out with far less frequency of late.
The 4th Minty Awards are just around the corner in which we recap the greatest comics, creators and so forth of the past year. We’ll be recording the Minty Awards show in mid-late January and 
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