Comics Roundup for 7/20/11

The Rocketeer Adventures #3 - Whenever you have an anthology series like this, they tend to start off with the top creators, and then it tends to go downhill from there. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case with this one as well. Ryan Sook's lead-in is pretty good, but everything else is a disappointment. Even the Bruce Timm contribution disappoints because all he does is provide illustrations to a text piece. (And I really couldn't get into the text piece.) As for Tommy Lee Edwards, his style might be more suited to something else, but anybody who draws this character needs to be able to draw an attractive Betty - and he doesn't. Let's all be honest, half of the appeal to Dave Stevens' original creation was the cheesecake, and anybody attempting to fill those shoes needs to be able to handle that.

Daredevil #1 - Unlike a lot of comics fans, I missed out on Brian Michael Bendis's lengthy run on this character, but I did pick up the entire run that Ed Brubaker did. Those are some of my favorite comics, and I also thoroughly enjoyed some of the early issues by Andy Diggle. However, I kind of lost interest during the whole Shadowland story, as it was all getting just too far away from what I liked about the character in the first place. Now, when I heard about the creative team for this one - Mark Waid and Paolo Rivera (who alternates with the even-better Marcos Martin) I knew I had to check it out. This first issue definitely doesn't disappoint. Waid is taking the character a bit further away from how dark the stories were getting, but he doesn't turn DD into Spider-Man either. It's a good mix of everything that Daredevil fan wants.

Avengers #15 - This told what felt like more of a complete story than the last couple of issues have been doing, but I'm still looking forward to the end of these crossover stories. Chris Bachalo does a nice job on the art chores though.

War of the Green Lanterns Aftermath #1 (of 2) - I almost skipped this one, but I'm glad that I didn't. I was worried that it would just be some shelf-filler, but Tony Bedard does a nice job of handling some of the fallout after the last issue of Green Lantern that probably won't get dealt with once the series reboots.

Hellboy: The Fury #2 (of 3) - We're back on track with the main storyline that deals with Hellboy's destiny, and that's a good thing. This issue is another solid installment of a character whose adventures are more compelling than ever.

Walt Disney Treasury: Donald Duck, Volume 2 - I haven't read this one yet, as I'm a bit behind on my trade paperback reading (still need to read the latest Incognito). However, if I like this one as much as I enjoyed the first volume of Duck stories by Don Rosa, then I'm sure I'll be quite happy with my purchase. The one thing that astounds me is that this stuff all came out originally in the early 1990s! Why the hell wasn't I buying it then? I know that I certainly wasn't adverse to buying this kind of thing then, but I guess I was too caught up with superhero stuff - just as I am today. Oh well, it's nice having them in these collected volumes. Also, maybe they were harder to find here? I know that they found most of their audience in Europe.