Reviews: Detective Comics #870 and X-Factor #210

Here's a couple more reviews. First up: the last issue of David Hine's “Imposter Wars” arc in Detective Comics (and his last issue on that book, except for next month's annual). Then, even though the newest issue came out last week, a review of last month's X-Factor.

This'll be it until next week, so if you're American, happy Thanksgiving, and if you're not, have a great, non-American-holiday-filled rest-of-the-week-and-weekend. See you Tuesday!

Detective Comics #870

• Written by David Hine
• Art by Scott McDaniel & Andy Owens
• Cover by Peter Nguyen

Well, my wish more-or-less came true: the Imposter Wars storyline finished on a stronger note, if not an outright strong one.

David Hine revisits the idea of the neverending cycle with Batman and his villains that he touched on in the second issue of this arc, but in a different way. There, he looked at how Batman's “no kill” policy (coupled with the amazingly lax security at Arkham) lets murderers come back again and again to destroy more and more lives. Here, he's looking at how Batman and the super-villains can't exist without each other. Batman fights the villains who keep popping up to be the one to best Batman who fights the new villains who keep popping up….

It leads well into Scott Snyder's upcoming run (12 issues starting next month) title The Black Mirror, which will explore a similar idea. That and better writing in this issue somewhat redeem this arc. I'm not too crazy about the art (a little too sloppy overall), though there were some good splash pages in this issue.

This arc would've been much better at half the length. The first and third issues were largely poorly-written filler that could've been condensed into the better-written second and fourth issues. With tighter writing, this could've been a very good story. As it is, it just makes me wish it was done better. There are some good, worthwhile ideas, but they were often lost in a lot of pointless or poor writing. With the next run looking like it'll be a better-quality version of some of the same ideas, it seems like it would've been better to just wait for that.

X-Factor #210

• Written by Peter David
• Pencils by Valentine de Landro
• Inks by Pat Davidson
• Colors by Jeromy Cox
• Cover by David Yardin

• Stepping aside from the team's adventures in Las Vegas, this issue takes a look at Rictor, as he and Wolfsbane work out their relationship and tend to her pregnancy; and Monet, who gets a client of her own.
• Once again, Peter David serves up some excellent writing in this issue.
• I really like the clueless, foot-in-his-mouth cab driver. It gave a humorous balance to the tension building between Rictor and Rahne.
• I also thought Peter David handled well the scene where Rahne asks if she turned Rictor gay. Both characters had very honest, very believable responses.
• On Monet's side, Noelle's dreams of dead children pointing imaginary guns at her definitely give the right level of creepiness. The art works very well here to tell the story effectively.
• Unfortunately, that's the only time the art works for me. Faces are inconsistent or just plain weird-looking, many panels look too sketchy, and Noelle's hair is, randomly, the only thing in the book with a colored (rather than black) outline — this looks very out of place.
• Just a little Easter egg, but it looks like Monet is running a Debian system on her laptop.
• Overall, this is another excellent issue of X-Factor that's brought down only by its art. Peter David consistently brings in solid writing with great characterization and interesting concepts. Unfortunately, he's also consistently paired with a revolving door of subpar artists. The only way I'd enjoy this series more is if they'd bring in a good regular art team.