Occasional Personal Discomfort: Powers: Bureau #2 Review

This is a hell of a thing to say, but Brian Michael Bendis’s creator-owned books remind me of having herpes.

Hear me out.

To get herpes, you have to get laid (or really enjoy the taste of toilet seats, but I’m going to assume that if that’s your thing, this isn’t the Web site you’re likely to be visiting, what with the lack of the words, “girl” or “cup” in the URL). And that’s good. But then after a while, there is an itch. And that itch lasts for a good, long while, and while you’re waiting for it to pass, it is maddening. And then one day the itch is satiated, and that is awesome… until the itch comes back. And the itch stays for an indeterminate period of time, until the next respite. Which is great… but the whole time, you’re hesitant to get laid again, because as weird and satisfying as the agony-and-the-ecstacy cycle might be for you, it would be a hell of a thing to pass it on to someone else.

[ED. – Rob – this is STUPID. Bendis’s books have nothing to do with herpes. You just seem to want to write about herpes. Get to the Goddamned point… unless there’s something you want to tell me… Amanda]

Okay, here’s the point: Powers: Bureau #2 is the middle of a story in a book that is known as much for being delayed as it is for it’s general excellence. And this issue delivers the best of Bendis’s dialogue, with delightfully perverse imagery and some well-executed suspense and action, albeit with some leaps in logic and mildly confusing story points along the way. However, this issue was a week late from its last solicitation in November, and while the next issue is currently set for two weeks from now, I’ll believe it when I see it. So even though it’s a good issue, it’s like walking in mid-boink… and not knowing when the itching is likely to stop.

Nearing The End – Review Of Glory #33

Ed. note – Ahead lies a blood soaked tale, rife with blood, sacrifice, and spoilers. You’ve been warned.

Glory #33 is the penultimate issue in Joe Keatinge and Ross Campbell’s sadly abbreviated relaunch. Why only 12 issues? Keatinge had this to say when asked about it by Comics Alliance back in December:

Sometimes, what you start off doing and what you end up doing are two different things. When I first came on, even before I had an artist, I wanted to have a massive story that went on for 70 issues, but the combination of actually working with Ross and, it’s so cliché to say it but it’s so true, the characters kind of take over sometimes. In this situation, it wasn’t really as grandiose a story as I initially thought as much as it was a story about the relationship between these two different people, Riley and Gloriana, and how they each affect these huge and small situations. When we really started re-plotting things out as it went along, after the 12th issue, without saying too much, it would become a totally different book. So maybe we should just leave the party early before our welcome’s worn out and tell this one story that seems to be what it’s about anyway.

Glory was shaping up to be an epic war story with a complex plot line spanning across the reaches of time, gorgeously drawn by Ross Campbell. Having now read issue 33 and seeing where the story is going, I get what he’s saying about the characters taking over. Riley and Glory’s relationship is the thread that ties the tale together, but I do still wonder, perhaps selfishly, if maybe Keatinge and Campbell are leaving the party a little too early.