[youtube]https://youtu.be/7I9aYe1eHdE[/youtube]
Reviewed this week, in ascending order of awesome:
Southern Cross #8
Wonder Woman #8
All Star Batman #3
Lazarus #25
New Super-Man #4
Old Man Logan #12
Power Man & Iron Fist #9
Great Lakes Avengers #1
Doom Patrol #2
Kaijumax: Season 2 #5
Howard the Duck #11
Unfollow #12
Kill or be Killed #3
Darth Vader #25
Black Monday Murders #3
-TONE SPOILERS
Unfollow #12 got some back pages love from some of DC’s other comics last month, hyping up the issue as one not to miss because it’s a big one. And it was. It was definitely the most eventful issue yet. But I can only imagine how great reading it would have felt if they hadn’t tapped me on the shoulder before I walked in and said, “Yo, this thing is going to blow you away.” It laid bare that the potential threats of the story were going to make good on their efforts and lessened the drama and the shock value of it all.
I understand building hype as a sales tool, and I can’t pretend I wasn’t pumped before I opened the cover and that’s a valid gain to be had as well. But some of the greatest comics I’ve read while I’ve been doing these reviews get such an emotional reaction from me because I didn’t know going in that those moments were coming. And it’s a shame that so many comics I’ve read don’t get the chance to hit me that hard anymore because the marketing machine has to give it away beforehand.
Some Darth Vader finale spoilers can explain my point a bit further. Dr. Aphra is shot out of an airlock and killed halfway through the issue, and in reading it my heart dropped. I hadn’t expected her to die, but it made sense that she had to. Cut to the epilogue where you learn how she actually survived, and to the next day when they announce a Doctor Aphra series is on its way. If they hadn’t waited to announce it, that moment wouldn’t have had any weight to it (dying in the vacuum of space pun not intended). In giving readers a chance to read the story before you discuss the contents, Marvel let us feel that loss and for that I’m thankful.
