Black Panther #29

One-sentence summary: More Marvel Zombies in this tie-in that I can't help but feel was an effort to boost sales for what was a decent title, though it really isn't too bad.

I've got some qualms with how they're doing this tie-in with Marvel Zombies. For one thing, it's just barely Black Panther anymore; it's Black Panther, and Storm, and half the Fantastic Four, and also Marvel Zombies. As is, I don't think T'Challa gets a full half of the comic anymore, which is a shame because he's a good character if done correctly. I also don't like that it's four-issues. It was sort of fun in the first issue, since it was different, but I was hoping for it to wind down in the second issue, not just-barley get half-through it all.

The other big thing is that it's sort of missing the point of Marvel Zombies. Part of what made the original book such a big hit was that it was dark, and it ended darkly, but it was hilarious too. Now the humor's gone and you're left with some plain-out dark images (Spider-Man taunting a woman and child before devouring them), really bad dialogue from the zombies themselves, and you know it's going to have a, at least somewhat, happy ending. It's like it's taken everything that made Marvel Zombies sell so well and remove as much as possible without actually removing the zombie aspect.

I'm looking forward to them getting back and T'Challa getting back to Wakanda and dealing with problems there. I'd much rather have that then have him wandering through dimensions fighting zombies. I'm sure that's not what the numbers support, though.

Super-Villain Team-up: MODOK's 11 #1 (of 5)

One-sentence summary: The verbose title hides what might shape up to be a fun team-up of B- and C-list villains in a villain's variation of Ocean's 11.

MODOK's 11 contains much of what can be expected by the title; MODOK is gathering fairly forgotten villains (it was weird to see the Spot in two different titles in a week, particularly after what can only be years of inactivity) in order to pull off some sort of heist, more of which will be explained in the next issue. This issue consists mostly of the gathering of the villains, which in it of itself was pretty amusing.

Possibly by borrowing directly from Ocean's 11, this has been pretty well-progressed so far, with a good introduction to most of the characters without spending too much page-space on them. It also contained a flashback sequence in order to illustrate that, yes, MODOK is truly evil, and we shouldn't forget that. All in all, pretty good, and I'll be looking forward to the next installment; I'd recommend this pretty easily.