Well, this was a pleasant surprise...

[superboyprime]

I thought this was gonna be a stinker, but it turned out to be pretty damn good.

First off, Rick Tyler has an announcement that will ease the worries of many a person here at Scans_Daily:

Comments

[lanternicity]

I agree with you - I hate the art, but once I read the whole issue (not the few pages that were posted already) I actually really liked this. I'm also a sucker for anything with Sand in it, but I do have standards.

[jaybee3]

I know Sturges said he had plans for Sand but I didn't expect it so soon, for that I'm happy. Sandy is one of my favorite characters and considering his powers and backstory as probably still the only still active Golden Age sidekick turned hero he's been woefully underused (and lest we forget the first chairman/founder of the modern JSA - even the brownstone was his).

But the art seriously hurts. Stargirl and PG look like they have the same face. And all the women have larger chests than they should have (just look at Maxine in some of those scans).

[toasty_fresh]

WHY DOES THIS ART BLOW SO HARD

WHYYYY

[tacobob]

It's a kind of art if you go through it quickly, it doesn't look so bad, but when you stop and take a good look at it...:P

[neuhallidae]

Motto. Writing? I can live with. But for the love of hazelnuts, get another artist.

[foxhack]

THE BOOBS THEY ARE SO ROUND D:

[aaron_bourque]

And nothing else is.

[nezchan]

Original Hourman isn't so much round as lumpy. Like a pile of pillows.

[iskander]

circle template...

[neuhallidae]

Am I reading it wrong, or is there some speech balloon fail in the first panel of page three?

[toasty_fresh]

I think so?

[stig]

Nah, nah, King Chimera has a fourth personality the other three don't know about...and it and Maxine are lovers!

[stig]

Rex needs to go back to his surgeon and demand either his money back on the facelift or a merciful dose of euthanasia. He's in massive pain!

[ian_karkull]

I'm just glad Sand's apparently going to be involved, especially considering who the villain is. I love the guy, but he hardly ever gets to do anything.

I kind of don't get the complaints about the art though. Freddie Williams has drawn like this since forever, but I've never heard anyone complain about his stint on, say, Robin.

[neuhallidae]

I can't speak for everyone else, but I never read the Robin solo series, so this is the first time I've seen his stuff.

[toasty_fresh]

I definitely did (those sideburns were PAINFUL), but it might have been less noticeable to other people in Robin, simply because Robin doesn't have breasts and Williams couldn't draw beach balls on his chest and then call them mammaries . . .

[thanekos]

... aaaand now I just remembered that " Tim wears a wig and falsies and the result is kinda fappable " bit

[ian_karkull]

Oh yeah, I remember the sideburn debate. That always seemed to be more concerned with whether Robin should have sideburns in the first place though and not with the art per se.

Complaints about the art in this are much more freuent and general, which I think is a bit weird as it looks exactly the same as it always has.

[toasty_fresh]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I've hated Williams II's art since I first saw it in Blue Beetle, and I haven't exactly been coy about it, either. And like I said, it may just be more noticeable to people in this, for whatever reason.

[kingrockwell]

When did he draw Blue Beetle? H-have I just repressed it so deeply I can't remember?

[toasty_fresh]

#15 . . . and I'm not entirely sure, but I'm somehow under the impression he did some of the last few, too? Honestly, looking back at some of his stuff from a few years ago, it kind of seems like he's gotten progressively worse . . .

[kingrockwell]

Just flipped through my trades, and I guess I had repressed it (whyyyyyy did you make me remember). The lat two were Carlo Barberi, who, while a little stiff and maybe a tad chunky, looked like he was trying to find some medium between Albuquerque's and Baldeon's styles, though that might just be the inking.
I think Mike Norton had some issues before that, and he's the guy doing the back-up now, I think.

[toasty_fresh]

Looks like I was thinking of Barberi (although, looking back at his art, I'm not really sure why I thought it was Williams II's, lol)

[ian_karkull]

Maybe it's more noticeable due to the lack of Robin-related squeeing or it's simply the influx of new members.
Either way, I'm pretty neutral on William's art (we've all seen worse), but I can certainly see why you'd dislike it.

[jaybee3]

Some artists work better on some book. I loathed Scott McDaniel on Superman, where he made everyone look ugly but on Green Arrow and Nightwing he was just the right fit. My problem with Williams here is that the art look like some of his issues of Countdown (yes, I said the dirty word) which was obviously rushed and ugly, ugly, ugly (like most of Countdown art). Some panels seem to have obviously been paid more attention to than others and some faces are better than others. When you're dealing with a team book and not a solo hero title, these things get matter.

[geoffsebesta]

I agree with the others; this guy just can't handle female characters well.

[pyrotwilight]

I hope Rex remembers he's fixing Matthew still...

[deepspaceartist]

Honestly, I don't think we're ever gonna see Rex fix Matthew for one simple reason. Matthew Tyler was an android from 853rd century. I think that's a little bit beyond anything Rex can figure out.

[pyrotwilight]

Well, all he really has to do is accidentally re-activate his brain Matthew can fix the rest of himself.

[deepspaceartist]

True. But I would imagine that the brain is the most complex part, and therefore hardest to fix.

[jlbarnett]

I was less impressed by it than I expected. It feels like they're mixing a training team and a strike force. Which is a horrendously bad idea. And Maxine's "naming" of the team is way to disrespectful of the senior team.

The art was bad. I couldn't tell Wildcat's human form from King Chimera. Why does Stargirl apparently have a training uniform?

[icon_uk]

Why does Stargirl apparently have a training uniform?

Presumably to stop her normal costume getting sweat-stained if it didn't need it, same reason most people wear training gear.

[jlbarnett]

that's a good reason to wear sweats or tights or something. Her training uniform is arguably more superhero-y than her regular costume. I mean what superhero wears shorts?

[shanejayell]

Wasn't the original Hourman caught in a time pocket or some such? *blink*

[pyrotwilight]

Yep, then Matthew Tyler the Hourman Android used his powers to switch places with him and was killed by Entant in Rex's place. Rex is supposedly fixing him...

[shanejayell]

Ooohkay.

And Extant never noticed the switch? *lol*

[deepspaceartist]

Android Hourman altered (hologram, I think) himself to look like original Hourman.

[intertobamf]

That was a while ago. He switched placed with a badly injured Rex. When the came back to fix him up, the time allotted for the dimension ran out, and the android Hourman took the original's place in his death.

[sleepymax]

I'm disappointed with Freddie Williams's art here. I really thought he had some solid work on Robin too.

[toasty_fresh]

I didn't even like his work on Robin, but I think he's definitely gotten worse somehow . . .

[icon_uk]

I like his style if not always the ends he puts it to (was never stuck on the Robin design he had to work within the main title), but I'm not sure what's going on here.

[darkblade]

If this is suppsed to be a training team why are they actually fighting super villians instead of training?

[psychopathicus_rex]

While I can't comment on the book's actual quality - I haven't read much of JSA, so I don't really know the context - I will say that it makes perfect sense to split the team into different groups. The JSA seems to have gotten so immense lately that paring it down a bit would seem to be only prudent.

[celestialchild]

Awkward boobs are awkward. In every panel.

[jarodrussell]

I can't say much bad for any book that involves the kidnapping of Stargirl.