I swear this will be the last time I write about Spider-Man’s eyes. Until the next time. I thought I had seen every variation of how to draw the black and white eyes of Spidey’s mask. Then Italian illustrator Stefano Caselli rolls in and draws this fresh take on those classic eyes.

First, Caselli is of the school of thought that the black and white eyes can emote. They can squint. They can grow wide in astonishment. They can furrow quizzically. I am never sure if the eyes are supposed to be some type of tinted glass or plastic. I assume that the whites are a type of see-through fabric to allow this type of emoting. (However, if you take a tour of Caselli’s blog you’ll see sketches of Spidey with broken eye ‘lenses’ that allow the eyeball to show through so who knows.)

The second aspect of these eyes that I’m digging is the raised black border around the main white body. It looks like shiny rubber and it really sets off the eyes and allows for great expressions to shine through the mask. Overall, these eyes are stylized and unique without going overboard into McFarlane territory.

If you want more from Stefano Casselli please go and read the first volume of Secret Warriors called Secret Warriors, Vol. 1: Nick Fury, Agent of Nothing. I didn’t read much of The Initiative but many swear that it was the best thing to come out of Tony Stark taking over for Nick Fury back before Dark Reign. Caselli illustrated that as well, the first trade was called Avengers: The Initiative, Vol. 1: Basic Training.

In a week of terrific books X-Force #4 stood out. This new ongoing series by writer Rick Remender is a class on how to write team books. However, the reason it is shining so bright is the unstoppable artwork of Jerome Opeña. He is a rising star for Marvel right now and you should go and get some of the stuff these two have already collaborated on.

They tackled Frank Castle in The Punisher Vol. 1: Dark Reign. They also did a turn on my favorite drunk cowboy spaceman in Fear Agent, Vol. 2: My War. If that’s not enough Opena for you there’s also a very good trade for Moon Knight in Vengeance of Moon Knight, Vol. 1: Shock and Awe. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jerome got some ‘Event’ work. In the mean time I’m more than happy to have him drawing the adventures of this unusual X-team.

I’ll shut up about Jerome for a second and comment on how Rick Remender is quietly writing the best Deadpool on the stands right now. I was wary when I saw the lineup for this latest version of X-Force because I’m suffering from severe Deadpool fatigue. I’m not worried anymore. This is spot on Wade Wilson minus all the over the top bullshit. (BTW in the image below Deadpool is feeding Archangel bits of his own flesh. Archangel had become emaciated after a run in with the Horseman Famine. That’s how you take one for the team, Wade.)

Speaking of the lineup for those that don’t know the team is made up of Fantomex, Wolverine, Psylocke, Deadpool and Archangel.

Nightcrawler Dies – X-Force #26

In what was probably the least well kept secret in X-comics this past year Nightcrawler dies while defending Hope. Not the Obama version of Hope either. Hope, as in the first mutant child since M-Day that no one really cares about except maybe Cyclops. I’m sure he was only pretending to care so that he could finally be a royal prick and have a good excuse. Art by Mike Choi.

Everyone Lives Again – Blackest Night #8

In the final pages of DC’s 2010 mega-event we are once again reminded that dying in modern comics is little more than an inconvenience. In this case it is presumed that these heroes got to come back to life because they really, really wanted to. Art by Ivan Reis.

Daredevil Murders Bullseye – Shadowland #1

What high hopes I had for Shadowland. After the over the top circus that was Siege I was very excited for some street-level Marvel Knights style alley brawls. Spidey, Punisher, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Moon Knight, Daredevil and Hand ninja? Where do I sign? Of course, it didn’t go down that way. Daredevil was ‘possessed’ by evil forces, we saw entirely too much of Ghost Rider, and somehow an ancient Japanese fortress overflowing with ninja in the middle of Manhattan’s west side didn’t generate a great story. At least Matt got around to murdering Bullseye. Of course, now he feels all bad about it and is on some kind of super hero sabbatical. Art by Billy Tan.

Leonardo Da Vinci Flies – S.H.I.E.L.D. #1

Even after five issues of this book I don’t have a grasp on just what the hell is going on here. Like everyone else though, I know it’s something special. I knew after only a few pages of Dustin Weaver’s art that something great was happening but it wasn’t until I got this full page of Leo the action hero that I knew S.H.I.E.L.D. was going to be a mega hit.

Lois Meets Superman – Superman: Secret Origin #3

This recent (and official) retelling of the Superman origin story was according to some, not necessary. Sure, there was a Crisis there that needed some things cleared up but wasn’t Birthright good enough? (We’re not even going to mention Earth One.) I also don’t know why Supes had to look like Reeve but as long as Gary Frank is drawing the pictures I’m buying the books.

Sentry Murders Ares – Siege #2

The exact opposite of this panel is what I wanted to happen. I would have loved nothing more than for Ares to finally take down the Sentry. Instead, we get treated to yellow Superman ripping Ares into bursting guts balloon. There is no justice. In the end the Sentry problem was solved during the final pages of Siege but at what price? Art by Olivier Coipel.

General Ross is Red Hulk – Hulk #22

In what became one of the least satisfying hand-jobs in recent comics history the reveal of the identity of the Red Hulk creeped from months to years. In the end it was General Ross all along, as many had surmised. I’ve heard rumors that the Hulk books are rewarding again but for much of 2010 and even 2009 this was a book that defined unrewarding. Art by Ed McGuiness.

Diana’s New Outfit – Wonder Woman #600

This is the get up. This is what made nationwide news in the comic universe. Black pants and a leather jacket. Wonder Woman drops the star spangled swimsuit for something borderline appropriate for adventuring/fighting and the world poops itself. I really don’t mind it.

Valkyrie is Reborn – New Ultimates #4

The Ultimate universe is not what it used to be. Ultimatum, truly, should have been the coffin nail. Even with some of the writers and artists that have been involved in this line since then it’s all been forgettable. I’m a big fan of Frank Cho, even when he signs individual pages of the books he draws. Even he can’t do much for the New Ultimates. I could not in clean conscience recommend the New Ultimates to anyone. However, when I saw this page with his version of Valkyrie I had to stop and stare. It’s just a stunning character design.

Robin Crowbars the Joker – Batman and Robin #13

Frazer Irving is not for everyone. His art style was off-putting for some readers, being as stylized as it was. I know I said this list was in no particular order but if I had to choose a Panel of the Year it could very well be this one. Certainly it has loads of symbolic value between these two characters but even with all the history of ‘the crowbar’ this is a distinctly Damian moment. I also am very much a fan of having no sound effect for the blow. What I imagine is much worse than anything some overwrought font could express

Well, that’s the list. Disagree? Think I missed one? Let me hear it in the comments. Or take this poll right here. Next week I’ll have my top ten panels of the year: non-super hero edition.

When Marvel decided that one character running around with a healing factor and giant claws wasn’t enough we all should have recognized it as the slippery slope that it was. That was when X-23 was born, the engineered female clone of Wolverine. A few years after that we got Daken, Wolverine’s son. Now, six years after X-23 came about we have the guy pictured above, another of Wolverine’s kids. Well, to be fair, this guy lives in the Ultimate universe but still that makes four Wolverines grumbling around every month.

Marvel, let me assure you, we as readers are going to be OK. We don’t need a character with claws and a healing ability running around in every book. I promise.

Honorable Mentions

Siege #2. There was a pretty typical ‘event’ fight featured in most of this issue. It was between the ridiculously over powered Sentry and Ares, the God of War. Honestly half the book could have been Panel of the Week but I’m waiting. I have every faith that artist Olivier Coipel is going to deliver some bitchin splash pages of someone, probably Cap, taking down Osborn. Although if anyone would like to put an end to the Sentry that will be the POTW no question.

Demo Vol. 2 #1. Not unlike the two recent issues of Pilot Season I think my affinity for this Demo book is that it’s done in one. A single comic telling a single story. It’s refreshing. Not as refreshing as the art of Becky Cloonan though. It’s like shot of black and white Orangina.

The Taskmaster is great example of a character that has original powers and style but no one really knows what to do with him. Perpetually cast as a mercenary and a trainer of henchmen he hasn’t found his voice just yet. Of course, that might be because he wears a skull mask for no reason and a white cape and hood.

For those not familiar, Taskmaster has the power of photographic reflexes. Once he sees a person perform an action he can duplicate it flawlessly. Unfortunately Tasky is featured so infrequently in comics that every time we see him his power set has to be explained. As it is in the first three pages of this issue of Avengers the Initiative. He has no other powers. No super strength, no super speed, no super durability. Which leads to the logical question of how he duplicates moves by Cap, Spidey, or Daredevil? All of whom are supers.

In a limited series Taskmaster was featured in a few years ago he amps up his own abilities by watching kung-fu movies in fast forward. I thought this was brilliant. I suppose his lack of super mojo explains why he runs around with a sword and shield. Well, in that limited series the style was distinctly Agent-X manga, pictured below. Overall, a much better aesthetic for a kung-fu/black-ops kinda guy.

Unbelievably I can’t find any pics online of when Deadpool went after Taskmaster’s secret ninja school in Deadpool #2. This will always be my favorite Deadpool series and his fight with Tasky was classic. It was drawn by my boy, Ed McGuinness so both characters looked great (if slightly over muscled). I’ll keep looking and bust out the scanner if I need to. Never mind, I found it!

Honorable Mentions

Hey! It’s Captain America! What you can’t see is someone off panel saying, “Hey Look! It’s Enrico Pallazzo!” That someone is me. Because I don’t care. We’ve known for weeks, if not months, how this series wraps up. Captain America: Reborn #6 (of 5), you are extraneous.

The end of Siege is really only three issues away. I would like to see Dr. Doom be the one to take down Loki at the end. Sure he’s arrogant and yes, Doom is an asshole but he does it with old school style. And he’s been beaten enough, here by the Odinson in Thor #606. Let’s get this green-hooded sonuvabitch a win huh?

In Superman Secret Origin #4 we see an origin story for the popular Superman villain Parasite. This time around the super glutton actually looks like a disgusting fat body. It’s just so obvious I’m surprised we’ve never seen a take on him like this before.

Punisher #13 featured more ridiculous Frankenstein Punisher (Frankencastle) versus monster hunter horseshit. But once again Tony Moore is drawing the pictures and it looks cool. Again. Dammit.

Flipping through Kick-Ass #8 I was struck by just how many spectacularly violent panels there were. In fact, for my next Longbox post I’m going to go through all 8 issues and pluck out the best panels. For now though, here is the Red Mist getting his face smashed into a red mist of blood. Oh. I get it. Sneaky.

Oh, and one more thing. Last POTW I mentioned how I adore fastball specials. Well, just one week later we get another one. This time it’s Frankencastle chucking Man-Thing! From now on I will document all fastballs I find on this site and I will tag them #fastballspecial.

I know, I know, I just did a post about a Hulk fighting the Fantastic Four. But now Fall of the Hulks is really (like, totally) getting into full swing and dammit Ed McGuinness is behind the wheel. I can’t say no to him. I would read a Gossip Girl comic if he drew it.

Well besides Rulk fighting The Thing over, get this, a misunderstanding what else happens this issue? I can tell you one thing that doesn’t happen. We don’t find out who the hell Rulk is or why he’s working with Banner. At this point I never want to know who he is. I want the Red Hulk’s identity to be the Marvel equivalent of Wilson from Home Improvement. Let’s get downright silly with it. Let’s show his real identity in silhouette. Let’s show it in off-panel reaction shots. Let’s show it in surveillance video obscured by static. You wanna screw with us Marvel? Well then REALLY screw with us. Why not let the Red Hulk change color at will? Make Red Hulk Bruce Banner’s twin brother! Make him the Void! Make him Bill Foster! Make him Steve Rogers! C’mon do it! Do it now!

Ok, I’m done.

Honorable Mentions

I don’t know why I’m buying the Mighty Avengers. It’s like an episode of the Benny Hill show. I feel like every fight scene should be played in fast forward with the accompanying trumpet riff in the background. The Sentry vs a giant sized Absorbing Man? Really?

I will admit I am enjoying Hercules being on the Mighty Avengers team. I will always support a fastball special no matter who is involved.

Joe is a loser and an outcast in his school and his life as a teenager in Joe the Barbarian #1. It’s a crying shame. One day he finds himself in a world populated by life sized versions of his action figures. Basically, the best thing that ever happened to anyone. If this happened to me as child I would have beaten the shit out of Pidge with his own green helmet and taken his spot as the left arm of Voltron. Screw gym class!

Finally, in Hulk #606 Marvel gives us a back up story to justify the $4 price tag. This story is an excuse to have She-Hulk and Red She Hulk (She-Rulk? Re-Hulk?) vogue at each other while just barely containing their perfectly spherical sweater kittens. How are there not more girls reading comics. I don’t get it.

Darrick Robertson, the man behind the ‘The Boys’, took on everyone’s favorite barbarian with this Conan one-shot. Shortly after Conan buries the woman he loves he goes looking for blood. And when Conan loses himself in battle it’s bad the other side.

The Weight of the Crown is a story of how Conan comes to sit on his first throne. After battling as a mercenary Conan inherits a King’s crown on the battlefield. Inherits is the wrong word. He takes it from a weak prince. In typical fable fashion Conan lavishes on his throne at the expense of his lands and new people. But as his subjects die and his crops wither he’s forced to face the facts that presidenting is hard. I won’t spoil the ending but obviously his post does not last long.

One of the conditions of telling an entire story in one issue of a standard comic is cramming a lot of story on to each page. As a result we don’t get many of the delicious splash pages that we love so much here at POTW. Dark Horse saw fit to include some concept sketches at the end of the issue. Here we really get to see some pin-up love from Robertson.

Yeah so Marvel did drop some event called Siege this week but it was underwhelming. I couldn’t help but pick up this tiny little book called Green Monk just minding its own on the second shelf at Midtown. What a surprise that I should pick up an entire book made of friggin splash panels. This is Oxbreaker. He’s antisocial.

Creator Brandon Dayton writes and draws a wonderfully sparse tale. It reads like a fable as it is just the short story of a monk’s meeting with a large and violent ogre. Below are a series of individual pages (not panels on pages but full 3″x5″ pages) that detail some of the action. No sound effects. No narration. Just great line work.

(And yes it looks like this did officially ship last week, 12/30/09, the week of no comics. So this is a bit late.)

Honorable Mentions

Sometimes I’m such a sheep. I keep buying Haunt thinking that it’s going to get better but it doesn’t. In issue #4 we do get some of that delicious violence McFarlane delivers so well. Got your nose!

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man is maybe a little too much teen drama for my liking but Lafuente’s art keeps me coming back for more. In issue #6 we finally learn that The Shroud is actually Kitty Pryde of former X-Men fame.

Oh, and some event called Siege kicked off at Marvel. Seven years in the making is a very long time to get ready for me to poop on. And the floating city of Asgard is in Latveria now. Isn’t it? I guess we’re ignoring that. Or it moved back to Oklahoma. Either way Normy and company are here to bring it down.

[tags]Green Monk, Haunt, Marvel, Image, Siege, Comic Books, Comics[/tags]

I was pleasantly surprised by the kickoff of the upcoming ‘Fall of the Hulks’ event going down in 2010. Although, maybe it was just John Romita Jr’s art. The current state of the Hulk universe is not unlike the Bat universe over in DC. There’s just too damn many of them. For example, the cover of this issue (Fall of the Hulks Gamma) features 8 characters that either share the name Hulk or have Hulk-like powers. In order they are: Hulk, Skaar (son of Hulk), Red Hulk, Red She-Hulk, A-Bomb, She-Hulk, Samson, and finally Lyra (Hulk’s daughter from the fucking future!). No wonder there’s an event called Fall of the Hulks. Maybe we can get their numbers down to what I can count on one hand.

Skaar I can look past. He was born of the Planet Hulk story line which, while it had a crappy finale, was a pretty good bit of Hulk history. Ok. Lyra? Who cares. WHO CARES? Samson, A-bomb, She-Hulk, fine, whatever. But let’s talk about Red Hulk and Red She-Hulk for a minute. Could two characters be handled any worse? Marvel just keeps dicking us around about who they are and what they want and blah blah blah. I officially don’t care anymore. Hey, Joey Q, make a deal with Mephisto and make these fucks disappear and we’ll all be fine. Seriously we will. We’ll go back to having normal misunderstood Hulk and everybody is cool.

A bit about our panel of the week here. General Thunderbolt Ross was murdered by the Red Hulk. At his funeral a number of big names in the Marvel U stood up to speak. One of those names was Ben Grimm and he talked about a time when the Four took on the Hulk. And a two page splash panel was born.

Honorable Mentions

Ryan Ottley is becoming one of my all time favorite artists. And when Kirkman writes characters like Universa, debuting in Invincible #69, who has few clothes and even less to say it makes me love Ottley more.

Sad that 100 Bullets has wrapped up? Radical Comics has you covered. The Last Days of American Crime is gritty and deliciously violent. That gentlemen hogtied in the bathtub? He’s about to be doused in gasoline and given a lit cigarette. Desensitize me, comics!

I love what’s been going on with Dr. Doom lately. Over in Thor #605 the good Doctor has been kidnapping Asgardians and stealing their life force to power his Destroyer armor. That’s how to be villain dammit.

Spoiler alert! Enders Game Command School #4 reveals that Mazer Rackham is still alive! Furthermore he’s going to be running the simulator AI from now on. *wink, wink*

Crab cakes and brutality, that’s what Moon Knight does. Well, I’m making an ass out of ‘u’ and ‘me’ with the crab cakes. But Konshu’s unreasonably angry avatar on Earth is gonna turn down a fresh crab cake if he’s crashing a cocktail hour? I say no. The rest of the time? He’s knocking out teeth.

My relationship with Moon Knight is long and torrid. When I was younger my comic universe was limited to what my older brother was picking up. A lot of Punisher, a lot of Silver Surfer, strangely some West Coast Avengers, and a pretty good pile of Moon Knight. Even then I was less drawn to the cosmic stories. I was never particularly interested in the real far fetched fantastic stories. But Moon Knight was a guy who just flew around NYC in a helicopter and beat up bad guys. Tough to not get behind that.

I have stepped on and leaped off the Moon Knight train many times. One of those times I got back on was in 2006 when Moony relaunched with Huston writing and Finch drawing. And the stage they set was just awesome. Marc Spector was coming back to the game and he was more brutal than ever. But then the multiple personalities came back and the inner crazy was moved to center stage and it lost me again. I realized that all along I sort of wanted to see the flip side of the Batman coin. I wanted Moony to be all about vengeance, sure, but I wanted him to be up front about it. As he narrates in that series, “I wear white so they can see me coming”. Yes! But then he has long conversations with a dead villain in his mind. No!

On a whim I picked up Vengeance of the Moon Knight #4 and I was pleasantly surprised by the art. So much so that I tracked down the previous three issues. But the ridiculous crazy is still there with tiny voices that appear like ‘shoulder devils’. It’s making me nervous. Might be time to leap off again.

Honorable Mentions

Who knew that all you had to do to the Ultimate Iron Man armor was change the helmet and you get Master Chief?

Military Organism Designed Only for Killing. M.O.D.O.K. It just never gets old.

I still hate Mike Deodato, don’t get me wrong, but this was a cool look at Loki.

I think officially, yeah, I hate that there are now all different color rings in the DC universe but if you have to keep any of them, keep the red rings. Rage always looks good on heroes.

Max Damage is Incorruptible! Now strike a pose good guy!