Rieber, John Ney
AVERAGE REVIEW SCORE:
3 out of 5
(3 books)
TOP PICK:
The Books Of Magic: Transformations
The Books Of Magic: Transformations
(Art by Peter Gross)
Book 4. Tim Hunter is destined to become Earth's most powerful magician but at the age of fourteen he's more concerned with the fact he has been banned from seeing his girlfriend Molly. However, when he learns that in a possible future he will grow up to abuse Molly, Tim decides he has to prevent himself from every becoming a danger to those he cares about.
I've not read the preceding books of this series yet, but I have read the standalone 'The Books of Magic' by Neil Gaiman which kicked-off Tim's story. I loved Gaiman's book, but as my favourite author that wasn't a surprise, but it meant that I went into this book with a certain amount of trepidation. And as it turned out, some of that worry was justified.
Rieber gives us an engaging look at Tim's developing teenage life, which has lots of dark undertones and moments of magic, but there's something distinctly lacking here too. It's a bit hard to quantify, but Rieber simply seems to lack Gaiman's sense of style and tone, which leaves this book feeling very much like an imitation of the first book but by a much less-talented writer.
This isn't bad by any measure but it does lack a certain je ne sais quoi.
3 out of 5
Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection Volume 31 - The Iron Fist
(Art by Jae Lee)
A crossover between the Transformers and G.I. Joe from the Dreamwave era of the franchises, this book reimagines both properties amid the build-up to the Second World War. Gaining control of the Matrix, Cobra Commander forces the allegiance of the Decepticons and begins conquering Europe. Assembled to counter the threat of Cobra, the Joes inadvertently awake the Autobots and forge an alliance with them against their mutual enemies.
First off I'll say that I really enjoyed the concept of setting this crossover in the 1930s. It means that the Joes and Cobra have a real Allies/Axis feel to them and, more interestingly, the Transformers get new era-appropriate forms. So we get to see Starscream as a Fokker Wulf and Grimlok as a tank, for example.
Oddly, Jae Lee's art is simultaneously the best and the worst thing about this story. It looks absolutely gorgeous and the artist does a fantastic job of establishing a sense of scale between the humans and Transformers, not to mention the sheer menace of the Decepticons. The problem is that the art, whilst visually great, isn't actually that effective at telling the story. I feel like it's one of the big distinctions between good illustrators and good comic book artists is that the pictures in a comic book have to tell as much of the story, if not more, than the actual words. That's not the case here and it means that some scenes are actually quite hard to fathom out as to what's actually happening. Unfortunately, Rieber's writing doesn't step in to fill this shortcoming and we're left with a story that has a great concept and look amazing but which actually isn't that easy or enjoyable to read.
3 out of 5
Wolverine: Killing
(Art by Kent Williams)
Troubling dreams lead Logan to seek out the wilderness of Tibet. There he encounters an isolated community with sinister secrets and is forced to contemplate the balance of surviving versus living, as well as the nature of killing.
This is an enjoyable story of Wolverine taking himself off on a quest to explore the line between his humanity and his animalistic nature, with a weird cult-like Tibetan society thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately it doesn't really break any new ground. Everything that Logan thinks or deals with here has been done numerous times in other stories and, frankly, often done better.
So, not a bad story but also not a particularly original one either.
3 out of 5
Collaborations & Anthologies:
The Books Of Faerie (here)