Nailbiter #23

Writer – Joshua Williamson
Artist – Mike Henderson
Colours – Adam Guzowski
Letters – John J. Hill

Finch and Crane are looking for Alice quite desperately after the slight blunder that Finch made in revealing Alice’s true identity to Edward, the Nailbiter, who is now looking to connect with her. The news that she is his daughter was shocking to him to say the least and while a part of him wishes she had never been born to inherit his curse, he also feels protective of her like a true parent would. On the other hand, things are finally starting to make a little sense to Alice now with the realization that her father is a serial killer. Together, Joshua Williamson and Mike Henderson start to peel back the layers of mystery and secrets surrounding Buckaroo and its players, but when you get to the end of the story, you find that they have not really told you anything at all. Yes, they have shown you things and talked around them, but what did you really learn? On one hand it is completely frustrating and on the other, utterly compelling. How the two of them can keep dancing around everything so deftly without ever tripping up is truly masterful, but there will come a time when they have to give the reader a bone or two and hopefully, it lives up to the expectation. So yes, a little more of the underground cave system is shown and we are led to believe that it is going to come with some sort of answer, but only time will tell if it will actually be so. There is a bit of humour present, unintentional perhaps and a little on the black side, when Finch learns that Farigold is going to be helping them out. It also looks like he and Crane might be receiving some help from elsewhere that may be a little objectionable, but they are going to have to if they are to get anywhere in what they are doing. All of that and a big cliff-hanger as well make this issue of Nailbiter a real page-turner. Thanks to its creators, Nailbiter is definitely not only one of the best horror comics out there, but in all of comicdom period.

4.5 out of 5

Justice League: Rebirth #1

Writer – Bryan Hitch
Artist – Bryan Hitch
Inker – Daniel Henriques, Scott Hanna
Colours – Alex Sinclair
Letters – Richard Starkings & Comicraft

The latest Rebirth one-shot to debut is Justice League from Bryan Hitch and overall, it is not all that bad. The artwork might be some of the strongest seen from the man in years with the story being even better. The book does the usual things like introducing a monster the team can fight, but it also brings the new roster together for their first trial run which includes new members Green Lantern Simon Baz, Green Lantern Jessica Cruz and pre-52/original Superman. The rest of the team is made up of the same core members including Cyborg, Flash, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Batman and they find themselves at something of a crossroads, mourning the old and learning to trust the new. In this Hitch shows he has some depth to his writing and these various character moments provide some of the better scenes in the book. The rest of the story features a great bit of action and excitement with a new Starro-like monster called a Reaper landing on Earth in order to enact a harvest. That of course is not a good thing and the League does what they do best and take care of the matter with Original Superman providing the opening they need to take it down. What little we see of the new team dynamic looks good, almost as if they were all on familiar ground and really, only Simon and Jessica might have a small problem adjusting to everything that is going on. What is plainly evident is that the team as a whole will have to get used to the new/old Superman. They might have cause to distrust him a little at first, but they really want to believe in him and you can be sure that they most likely will before too long. Superman for his part will have to work hard at it, not so much at doing the superheroics, but at not assuming these heroes will be exactly the same as the ones from his Earth. They might have the same names, look similar and boast familiar power sets, but they are different people altogether and if he cannot adjust to that, he might have the bigger problem overall. As it is, this was a good lead-in to the ongoing title and as long as Hitch sticks to the writing end of things, the book should turn out pretty good.

3 out of 5