The Single Issue Adventure Week 3: It’s Month 2, How Do You Like Me Now?

    Stormwatch number two was beyond underwhelming.  Even to the point that I am considering not even checking it out next time.  It mimics a similar story from Authority story “Outer Dark” and through research I found that is actually a remake of a previous Stormwatch story.  As far as pricing goes, $2.99 is pretty low for a comic book, but not when there is nothing interesting, redeemable, or new about it.  It’s a recycled story with somewhat undesirable art.  There was very little Jack in this issue and honestly, I am wondering if the singular purpose that this comic served was to get me to read the rest of The Authority Vol. 1 which I enjoyed greatly.  If that was all I get, I will say that re-igniting my interest was worth $2.99, but this second $2.99 was wasted.  I don’t believe that I will lose another $2.99 over Paul Cornell’s Stormwatch.

    Just for fun, I checked out JLI number two in store and it was just as meaningless as I had imagined it would be.  Guy Gardner is back!  Well, he better be if he is on the covers.  It had a dumb plot with unimaginative dialogue.  They made August General in Iron look like a sucker again and that is unacceptable.  This seems like the most kid-friendly book of the New 52, but I feel it insults non-rookies.  For what it is, it deserves to exist, but I don’t have to like it.

    The surprises were all of the other books that I read that were better.  Animal Man is absolutely fantastic with groundbreaking art and far-reaching storylines.  I love Scott Snyder now.  Swamp Thing was confusing, but also really really good.  The fact that Animal Man and Swamp Thing are headed for a crossover is the icing on the cake and I am beyond excited about it.  Batman?  Batman is AWESOME.  Scott Snyder delivers on that one again.  Aquaman was so good that I wrote a separate post on it.  All of these book’s number ones and subsequently number twos were great buys of captivating stories.  Go to your local comic store and buy them!

    With all of this turnover and unexpected failure and victory, I got to thinking.  The fact that my strategically calculated choices for The Single Issue Adventure ended up being terrible and the random unexpected picks that I found off of Ifanboy.com reccomendations were great, reminds me of why comics are difficult in the first place.  You have to try new things and take risks.  You have to figure out what is hype and what is quality for yourself.  Now that I have these three titles (Batman, Swamp Thing, Aquaman, and Animal Man) in my stable, the other $6-$9, that was kind of “wasted,” is just a casualty of the war for quality.  I’m ok with that.  The Single Issue Adventure will be laid to rest with this as the final post and I will continue to spotlight great comics that I buy through their own features.  The Single Issue Adventure may have been a failed experiment, but good comics prevail.