Reviews - Week of September 02, 2009

***Book of the Week***

Invincible Iron Man #17
Writer: Matt Fraction / Artist: Salvador Larroca
This book only receives the highly coveted "Book of the Week" award by default. I wasn't all that impressed with it actually. For the first time, the length of the story arc seemed to be getting to Matt Fraction. There was no flow or substance in this issue. Tony continued telling us he's getting dumber and he gets shot out of the air in his Iron Man costume again (is that 3 times in the arc now?). Maria and Widow's part wasn't any better. Maria freaks out in the weirdest of ways and their elaborate plan gets broken up within just a few panels. I did like the cameo of Captain America though. His appearance gets me excited for some action in the next issue and maybe even something substantial will happen story-wise. Speaking of things I like, Salvador Larroca's art was pretty impressive. His characters no longer look like statues and he has a good way of building suspense with his style. This issue may have been pretty disappointing but I'm still confident in the overall arc and looking forward to Captain America getting down to business.
IGN - 8.8/10
Comic Book Resources - 4/5
Comics Bulletin - 3.5/5

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Cable #18
Writer: Duance Swierczynski / Artist: Gabriel Guzman
Terrible! That should suffice as a review for this comic. Nothing was good. The whole point of Cable's exit to space was to get away from Bishop. But no, this is a Swierczynski book and apparently he can only create one conflict. So lo and behold, Bishop makes an appearance on their ship even though he was left on a desolate world with seemingly no way off. Swierczynski also completely forgets a major element he wrote only a few issues ago. The technorganic virus that was killing Cable is totally gone. His face no longer has any semblance of the virus and he even uses his telekinesis despite the fact that doing so is supposed to kill him by weakening his defense against the all important virus. Guzman's art sucks too. It may be his fault that the Cable looks more human than machine and every character and background looks amateurish. I can't say enough bad things about this issue. It really blows.
IGN - 4.7/10