There’s some really awful art this issue. I’m pretty sure the last panel is the silliest panel so far in the series. It’s like a two dimensional … I don’t know what, but something atrocious.

The issue really ramps up like it’s going to stop being stupid towards the end–though I do appreciate Arcudi not giving Robocop internal dialogue–but then it just craps out, which shouldn’t surprise me.

What’s really stunning about the comic is how poorly paced these issues are getting. Leon wastes panel after panel with his artwork and it’s not like he’s capable of passing time well. The series maybe should have been three issues, with a competent artist, but with Leon, four issues is just disastrous.

Then there’s the big reveal this issue and it’s superbly lame, as it directly depends on the reader remembering a conversation from the first issue between two incidental characters.

Thank goodness, DeMulder’s back.

Grant’s doing another multi-part story here, with Robocop trying to deal with OCP (his bosses) inspired vigilantism. It’s a little strange, just because it’s in a comic book so you’ve got the protagonist fighting the traditional protagonists of the medium. There are some absurd vigilantes and then some more serious ones–it’s never clear where the more serious ones get their wonderful toys.

Robocop’s sergeant shows up in this issue–maybe the first time he does in the Marvel comic series, I can’t remember–but still no Officer Lewis (did Grant forget he implied romantic tension between her and Robocop in the series’s first issue?).

There’s some weak dialogue from Robocop and the gang emphasis reminds a little too much of the previous issue, but it’s fine. I’m a little less impressed than usual, just because the vigilante stuff is so contrived and so silly.

I hate Palmiotti and Gray’s writing. I mock them every time I look through Previews. So damned if I know what I’ll do now one of their comics has made me tear up, has ruined my day, effectively kicked me in the stomach to the point I want to crawl up in the fetal position.

Clearly, the reason this issue of Jonah Hex succeeds is Darwyn Cooke’s artwork. No way anyone else could have made this story so affecting.

I should want to read more of their issues, just in case I’m missing something, but I don’t think anything can really top this issue. In just one issue, they fit in about as much tragedy as occurs in Hamlet.

It’s not particularly thoughtful tragedy, or brilliantly plotted tragedy, but it’s real effective and all because of Cooke. It’s haunting, in fact.

Though the cover doesn’t do the interior content justice.

People actually read this comic? I mean, I couldn’t understand a single word of it. It’s got an insane continuity to follow, but you also have to be able to translate Gillis’s writing into narrative. It’s just a bunch of events, without any connecting scenes, over and over again. All in one comic book. It’s nuts.

In fact, it’s so confounding, I don’t even know how to talk about it. What do they call those issues now? “Jumping on points”? Micronauts–even with the Secret Wars II crossover–clearly did not care about new readers or even casual readers (I thought I had some idea who the Micronauts were–still don’t know if it’s correct, but was that Ambush Bug in the issue?).

But it does have Kelley Jones on–not just mainstream art–but Marvel art. It’s crazy; almost worth looking at for his contribution alone.

I said “almost.”

This issue actually raises some interesting ideas. Well, no, it doesn’t. It made me think of some interesting stuff but it’s not in the issue itself, which is unfortunate.

Namely, if Robocop does go bad, why doesn’t the police department have a way to turn him off? Secondly, why is Robocop’s sergeant in charge of him. It doesn’t make any sense. Wouldn’t the department have some kind of Robocop office. A liaison officer or something?

It didn’t actually occur to me, after reading the first issue, Leon’s artwork might get worse in the second one, but it really does. I can’t stop thinking about how this series played when it came out–aren’t licensed properties supposed to have very generalized artwork, so the reader identifies the illustrated character with the film or television actor? Robocop in this comic looks like he’s got an allergic reaction, his face is so puffy.

Wow, I really miss Kim DeMulder. Keith Williams inks this issue and it really doesn’t work. Robocop’s definition is silly, he looks clunky instead of streamlined. Worse are faces. I was lamenting the lack of Robocop’s partner, Lewis, in my response to the previous issue, but she’s here all the time and it never feels like it. There’s an almost complete lack of personality to the issue, something I’ve got to the point of not expecting with Marvel’s Robocop. Though there was a Roxy Music poster on a wall, which I found interesting (I think it’s the first such reference in the series).

The story’s a solid little episode. OCP, the big company, is trying to lower property values by inciting gang violence; Robocop and Lewis get involved and then have to try to save their CI too. It’s a fine done-in-one.

Grant’s Robocop continues to be readable.

The first time I read this issue, it sort of shocked me. I mean, Carey spends the issue rewriting history; or something close to it, anyway. He spends the issue looking at how the way writing and writers work in The Unwritten has effected other writers, not just the characters in the main story.

It seems like this issue will be the first aside of many and it concerns itself with Rudyard Kipling and his experiences with the malevolent shadow organization of reading enthusiasts.

But the issue doesn’t just showcase Carey’s abilities to write this story–which, in itself, is a fantastic achievement, because Kipling isn’t exactly the most sympathetic character throughout and we don’t get the context of his narration until the last page–but also Gross.

Whereas the regular issues do offer Gross some range, it’s basically in the same visual context. Here, he’s all over–and brilliant.

Power Pack might be one of those ludicrously irresponsible titles–really, the kids skip school to go on vindictive, violent rampages (if Millar had the Power Pack kids kill a bunch of other kids by accident in Civil War, well, that one would be something)–but it’s got Brent Anderson artwork so I’m not sure I really care.

The comic’s idiotic. I mean, these kids talk with a vocabulary a teenager wouldn’t have, so it’s incredibly silly on top of being bad… it takes an artist like Anderson to make the thing tolerable. And there are some beautiful panels here. What’s going on in the panels is dumb, but it’s a well-drawn dumb.

The comic closes with the Power Pack kids getting ready to invite Wolverine to Thanksgiving. Wolverine’s Canadian on top of everything else, why the hell would he want to go to Thanksgiving?

Summing up, it’s stupid.

What a goofy series. Well, I guess it’s too soon to say the series is goofy, but the first issue is certainly goofy.

Maybe it’s John Paul Leon’s artwork. I’ve only seen his more recent work. Prime Suspect looks like Dark Horse hired him to ape Kyle Baker’s most cartoonish style (I’m thinking the Disney Dick Tracy series). Except Leon’s clean, bright style doesn’t fit the story at all. The story’s a little over-cooked anyway, with Arcudi wasting panels with guys at bars having these political conversations using every word off a SAT practice test Arcudi can fit into the word balloons.

The story itself–Robocop is a murder suspect–is lame. What’s worse is how the series follows the Robocop 3 movie and treats the characters from the film series poorly (Robocop’s sergeant is afraid of him? Really?).

Why pay for a licensed property and make this tripe?

So Alan Grant did Westworld with dinosaurs before Michael Crichton? There’s a dinosaur park in this issue, which came out a few months before Crichton’s novel, and, strangely, things go wrong. They go wrong for different reasons, but still… this issue could have been called “Robocop vs. Jurassic Park.”

There’s a lot of action here and a lot of–well, it’s not procedural, but it’s Robocop solving the mystery, but instead of it being an investigation with revelations, it’s an investigation with action sequences. Grant does a fine job with it, adapting the procedural both for the comic medium and Robocop as the protagonist.

Still, I miss seeing Lewis in the comic.

Sullivan’s dinosaur art is nice and the whole thing works well.

I mean, if you don’t dwell on Robocop’s internal dialogue, which is still way too human. The Judge Dredd influences come back too, with Robocop street judging.